Immigration: The Biblical approach to immigration, our government’s true jurisdictions. Find out what the government’s role is and what biblically we should be doing.

Air Date: 02/20/2017

Guests: Sam Rohrer, David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast.  However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers.  Additionally, names may be misspelled because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Welcome

Rick:

You found your way to the intersection of faith and the culture, this is WallBuilders Live! Where we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, and culture all from a Biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. It’s not just opinions, we’re actually saying, “€œWhat does the Bible say about this? What does history teach us? And how do we apply the Constitution in its original intent to these particular issues of the day?”€

We’re doing that with David Barton.  He’s America’s premiere historian and our founder and president here at WallBuilders. Also Tim Barton with us today, national speaker and pastor.  And my name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas state rep.

You can find out more about us at WallBuilders.com.  Find out more about the ministry and more about the different programs that we do. A lot of different things to check out there in terms of pastors’ briefings, and legislators’ conferences, and all kinds of great articles as well.

WallBuildersLive.com is our other website.  And that has a list of all of our stations, has a recap and a transcript of each of our radio programs over the last few weeks, go back and listen or read. Just a lot of great links and information there as well.

Trump”€™s Ban On Nations

We’re here with David Tim.  Guys, we’ve got a topic that we’ve actually talked about this several times over the last few months. It”€™s one of the major burning issues, immigration. We”€™ve been looking at that from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Still very much in the news today.

David:

It is.  And now there’s a new angle on it. Trump initially did exactly what he said he would in the campaign. In that, we’ve we’ve got seven Islamic nations that are known and very deep with terrorists, more so than other nations.  Terroristic problems keep coming out of those nations. We see it in the attacks in Europe and elsewhere.

So he said, “€œWe’re going to put a ban on those nations till we get higher vetting. We don’t want terrorists coming in America so we’re going to higher vetting on that.”€ And so that’s what he put, a ban on those seven nations till we get better.

Tim:

That’s a little narrow-minded to say that you don’t want terrorists to come in here and kill you, and murder, and rape, and pillage. I mean that’s pretty bigoted of you right there.

Rick:

That”€™s just not being nice.  Kind of being selfish. It’s like, we don’t want people to destroy our homes and our communities. I don’t get that.

Tim:

That’s not very tolerant and loving. We should be more liberal on this.

Rick:

Yes, yes.

A Shocking Statistic On Terrorists

David:

Talking about that, I just got a meme from a good friend of ours, Frank Gaffney.  He sent it out and this is his response to that bigoted thing of “We shouldn’t want terrorists in the nation.”€

He said, “€œIt takes a special kind of lunatic to think that importing welfare recipients who want to kill us is a good idea.”€ Yeah, exactly right.

The other one he said is, “€œSo only 1% of Muslims are terrorists? Islam has 1.57 billion adherents making up 23% of the world population. Only 1% of 1.57 billion is 15.7 million terrorists.”€ So I would think that that’s a pretty high number and you would want to kind of make sure that you’re not letting people into the country that want to kill you. You guys are right, that is radical.

Tim:

That number I think is more than the population of some states in the U.S.

David:

Oh yeah, that number is a lot more.

Rick:

And we’ve had instances in the US of refugees that have come over and either committed heinous crimes or been a part of a terrorist plot. We’re not making this up. This is a legitimate concern that of the thousands of people that Obama was wanting to flood the nation with that we should at least screen them and know whether or not they’re terrorists.

David:

Yeah, and that makes sense, but then sense doesn’t always go with modern thinking and policy. Common sense used to be there.  Common sense is now the exception rather than a rule in too many areas. If you’ve been through academia very long you don’t have much common sense.  You have a lot of indoctrination.

Financial Interest For Allowing Refugees  

So the new aspect of this policy is that you have World Relief who has gathered 500 ministers together with them to talk about how “€œuncompassionate”€ it is that we would try to shut these terrorists out or have higher screening for them.

Now, here’s the new face on it.  Alright, now you have ministers that are saying, “€œThis is the wrong policy.”€ So they have made this into now a religious argument. And so this religious stand that’s out there.  And we’ve got Sam Rohrer, on today and he’s got some really, really, really great information on this because again, most people approach this way too shallow. And he’s got some good information that will change it.

But here’s a couple of things I’ll just throw up before you even talk to Sam. So, World Relief has 500 ministers and they’re saying, “€œYou need to stand with us against this uncompassionate immigration order.”€

There’s two problems with this. One, why would World Relief be heading this effort? Well, it could be because in just the last few years they have taken 276 million dollars from the federal government to resettle refugees in the United States.

Rick:

Whoa.

Tim:

That’s just a coincidence.

Rick:

You’re not suggesting they have a financial interest in making sure there’s more refugees allowed?

The Biblical Jurisdictions

David:

Well, I’m just raising the question. It does seem just like there might be something. And the fact they got 500 ministers– I’m sorry, there’s 3,440 senior pastors in America. Now, here’s the deal, we know from Paul and George Barna who has been working on this for a good while.

He calls 500-600 churches a day and ask them questions. We know right now that only 28% of American churches or pastors believe the Bible. So, you get 72% who reject the basic Bible teachings. So, that means it would be pretty easy to get 500 ministers. And just because they’re ministers doesn’t mean that they reflect what the Bible says about this issue. And just because they say, “€œwe’re not being compassionate”€ doesn’t mean that that’s exactly what the Bible says. Not by a long shot.

Rick:

It’s possible, David, that many of those ministers are like many Christians that get kind of a tug at the heartstrings and they don’t really investigate what they’re talking about here in terms of both public policy and what the Bible actually says about this.

David:

Yeah, jurisdictions. We talked on this program before about how that over 200 verses in the Bible address the poor and helping the poor. But none of them tell the government to help the poor. They all tell the individual, the Church, or the family to help the poor. Those are jurisdictional lines. Just because I should do it doesn’t mean the government should do it.  So that’s part of what’s at play here.

This Doesn”€™t Mean It”€™s Biblical

Sam Rohrer has got some great pieces out on this. I was talking with Sam recently, he’s got some great letters going out and we’re talking about this issue with these five hundred ministers who signed with World Relief.

So, just because they put a new religious face on it, just because the media likes talking about how religious ministers have come together to oppose Trump, doesn’t mean they’re Biblical, or they’re right, or that they represent even the majority of ministers, or that World Relief doesn’t have its own vested purpose in trying to make this happen.

Sam Rohrer, a former state legislator, a great guy, he’s a pastor, has a pastors network, got a great insight on this on how to respond to this news story.

Rick:

He’s a guy that’s been in both. He’s been in government, served as a state representative there in Pennsylvania, very well respected. Known as the conscience of the legislature there, and then also in the pulpit. Just a wealth of information and a lot of wisdom from Sam. Looking forward to interviewing him today. Stay with us he’ll be with us right when we return on WallBuilders Live!

Moment From American History

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. American patriot Paul Revere road to alert Americans of the impending arrival of the British. But he also sought patriot leader Samuel Adams and John Hancock to warn them that the British were seeking their execution.

Adams and Hancock were staying with the Reverend Jonas Clark in Lexington. When they asked Pastor Clark if his church was ready for the approaching British he replied, “€œI’ve trained them for this very hour. They will fight and, if need be, die under the shadow of the house of God.”€

Later that morning 70 men from his church, a several hundred British in the first battle of the war for independence. As Pastor Clark affirmed, “€œThe militia that morning were the same who filled the pews of the church meeting house on the Sunday morning before.”€

The American church was regularly at the forefront of the fight for liberty. For more information on this pastor and other colonial Patriots go to WallBuilders.com.

The Splitting Of Evangelicals

Rick:

Welcome back! Thank”€™s for staying with us here on WallBuilders Live! Interesting topic today, a lot of groups are coming together trying to get evangelicals to speak out against Donald Trump’s ban on- not ban on the countries themselves, but at least requiring greater scrutiny before we allow folks in.

We wanted to get some thoughts from Pastor Sam Rohrer who is actually a former legislator from Pennsylvania. He”€™s been involved in government and the pulpit both for many many years, a great leader in our country. Sam, always good to have you brother. Thanks for coming on!

Sam:

Great to be with you today.

Rick:

Hey, this is an attempt it seems to me, to kind of split evangelicals and make it look like that if you’re an evangelical, if you’re following the Lord then you have to just let anybody into the country at any time.  That’s the only way to play nice. So how do we respond to the evangelicals that are responding to what the president is doing?

The Two Types Of Immigrants

Sam:

Well, in reality, Rick, I think what we have going on is we have a basic misunderstanding of what the scripture actually says about duties to what we would call refugees or strangers Biblically, number one.

The assumption being made by many who are trying to oppose the president’s policies to limit immigration, to some who come from terrorist countries, or for which there is a large reason to suspect that there are going to be problems.

Put it that way, it’s not it’s not being done for those for which there is no perceived problem.  These are being done for those individuals where there is a high likelihood that crime will be committed or terrorist acts will be committed on our soil.

Rick:

And because we’ve seen it already happened. This is just conjecture, we’ve seen it happen, so we’re trying to prevent it from happening in future or being worse.

Sam:

Well, Rick, you’re right.  You’re totally correct.  But there’s two things that I think are at stake. One is that there is that the stranger, the Biblical definition of stranger or immigrant, it”€™s not been used in Scripture that way, but a stranger, alien, foreigner, type thing have two categories. Ther”€™s one who come to do harm, Isaiah 1:7, actually talks about the stranger who comes to do harm.

And then other passages will talk about strangers who come to do well. And in our country, our own history and law recognizes that they”€™re in two categories. Some who want to become a part of Americans, assimilate. We’ve always invited those in. But there have always been those who have wanted to come who would rather subvert, not assimilate, not become a part of our nation.

The Purpose Of Government And The Purpose Of The People

Those individuals historically, by law, even the 1952 immigration that made it very, very clear that individuals have all many side types and sorts, if they were not going to fit, and they would not assimilate, they were not to be allowed in.

The other thing, Rick, that’s being misunderstood by many who call themselves immigrants or call themselves evangelicals, is that there are two specific distinct roles for the purpose of government, those in government, the president and those who are the executive branch to enforce the law, and those who are maybe within the church and individuals.

There are jurisdictional differences laid out by Scripture itself that is absolutely not being understood and is being confused, I think, by many people out there who say, “€œWe must be driven by compassion because didn’t the Lord say to the good Samaritan, “€˜Go and bind up their wounds and make them a whole.”€™ and that kind of thing? That responsibility as an individual, and our neighbor, or the church and its role is the same as government.”€

It is not. The purpose of government is to enact justice.  Romans 13, praise those who do well, punish those who break the law, and with that means to protect the law abiding citizen from those who would break the law or seek to undermine the law and the freedom that is there.

The People Must Help The Poor

The president is doing exactly what he is obligated to do. Before God, God-given duty, Romans 13 and according to his oath to defend Americans against the actions both domestic and foreign. So Rick, evangelical leaders who are holding themselves up and saying that compassion ought to overrule the primary function of government is to say that they don’t understand what the Word of God says, nor what the law says, nor that the president has an obligation and duty under his oath to do exactly what he’s doing. This is an amazing time in which we’re living.

Rick:

What an important jurisdictional distinction that you’ve made.  Of course, we’ve really gotten away from thinking, in terms of jurisdictions or authority and, “€œDo I have the authority to do this? Is this part my responsibility?”€

We’ve gotten away from that.  That’s why everybody runs to whatever level of government and wants every problem solved.  And instead of officials saying, “€œWell wait a minute, first question is, “Do I have authority to even consider trying to solve this? Let alone what the solution is.”

But you’ve drawn that distinction even better from not just which level of government has that authority.  But does government have that authority and that responsibility, that jurisdiction at all?  Or is this an individual mandate and responsibility?  As you’ve laid out so well for us, as Christians and individuals are to help and to serve.

Their Plans Are No Secret

It’s no different I guess than even helping the poor.  It”€™s the same thing, I have people tell me all the time, “€œAs a Christian, we’re supposed to use government to serve the poor.”€ And I’m going, “€œWait a minute, that’s not the Biblical mandate.  A Biblical mandate is for you and me to go do it. For our church to do it. Not for the government to do it.”€

So you’re saying the same thing applies when it comes to taking care of those that are in need as in other countries that want to come here and be helped or else go to them and help them.

Sam:

Well, absolutely, that is correct. And to take that even one step further, if  President Trump, now, President Obama clearly defied his own oath to the Constitution. He disregarded and cared nothing about his obligation to God.

Now, President Donald Trump and those around him are saying, “€œWe have an obligation to protect our citizens.”€ They do.  That’s what the constitutional oath is all about. But there’s also this God-given duty.

Now, in reality, many of these religious leaders who are holding themselves up and saying, “€œWe are the most pious in the group. We are the most Christian like in our actions because we are being most compassionate to these immigrants.”€

And calling on the president saying, “€œYou are not being compassionate and you are in essence violating your duty and responsibility to God.”€ Which is in fact, the exact opposite.  In reality, if the president, if those in positions of authority, in this case, do not do what they can under the law, to protect our nation and citizens from those who by their own words and mouth wish to destroy our nation.

You Would Lose The Right To What You”€™re Fighting For

Islamic Jihadist, that is the primary group that’s under consideration, because they’re the ones who are most actively about trying to do this harm. They did they say this by their teaching. If he did not do what was necessary to do then harm and death and destruction would come on Americans and American cities across the country and ultimately,  Rick, what would take place is that those who stand now and saying, “€œWe are compassionate, we want to help the poor around the world, we want to help the poor here.”€

Rick, they will lose the ability to do so. That is the key thing. If we if we lose our freedom, and it’s the reason we are commanded in 1 Timothy Chapter 2:1 and 2 to pray for those in authority.  Why? So that we can “live a quiet and peaceable life.” Now, Rick, really I just ask folks out there, “€œThink with me, why don’t would we not have a quiet life?”€ Well, I can tell you why we don’t have a quiet peaceable life.

Now, Rick, really I just ask folks out there. “€œThink with me.  Why would we not have a quiet life?”€ Well, I can tell you why we wouldn’t have a quiet peaceable life.

If you had marauders on the street, no law enforcement stopping them, if you had killers walking around at bay, if you had individuals who felt the liberty under the law because they weren’t going to be prosecuted to kill, cut off the heads, destroy churches or any of that type of thing, if that were to happen, Rick, we would not have it quiet and peaceable life.

Rick:

That”€™s right.

God’s True Plan

Sam:

Ask people, “€œPut together the functions of what scripture says.”€ We pray for those in authority, that they execute the sword of justice, Romans 13, carefully against those who would do evil, protecting those who would do well. Why? So that we can live a quiet and peaceable life.

So that we can actually exercise compassion and raise our families and make a living and being able to give money away and to help the poor and the needy. That’s God’s plan. That’s God’s plan.

Rick:

Man, that is such wisdom there, Pastor, to step back and see the big picture. To not just be, sometimes we get so focused on a specific individual or problem in front of us and don’t realize you have to keep the system itself healthy as well and have good principles and policies in place.

Which is what it sounds like the president is trying to do here, to keep the nation safe, as you’re saying, so that individuals and churches can go about making a living, protecting their families, and then having the money to be able to give or the time to be able to go and serve. Just keeping that eye on the prize, on the big picture of protecting the country in general and allowing the system to specifically work.

I mean, that’s that’s what it seems like we’re missing in the debate. So thank you for bringing that wisdom in. I would ask you, what are some good resources that we can tell our listeners about to go study more?

Study Resources

I know a lot of friends that genuinely struggle with this issue because they are looking at that one person at our individual and going, “€œBut I want us to help them.”€ And they’re not realizing that if you if you aren’t careful you can you can bring down the whole system. So, what’s a good resource to send them to?

Sam:

Tell you what, on the matter of jurisdiction there are precious few. You’ve got to go back in history almost. I know that WallBuilders, where you are a part of, has information. So that’s one, you can talk to people about that.

On our website, AmericanPastorsNetwork.net, we have articles there, just search “€œimmigration.”€ There are a number of articles there and things that we’ve put together that speak to this. We’re actually going to be putting on a very in-depth white paper, just very shortly here, that will have all of these things broken out, researched, indexed, and bring together these various pieces of information, I think in probably the best fashion that we’ve seen.We know there’s a dearth of information.

Go and read the Bible, and read it completely. Because really at the end of the day, the scripture is what holds the key, not lifting out certain passages, but looking at it in its full context. That’s what actually gives the best source of information.

A Wealth Of Information

Rick:

That’s great.  Excellent, we’ll do links today folks. If you go to WallBuildersLive.com you can jump right there. We’ll have a link for AmericanPastorsNetwork.net, a wealth of information on there. Get on their email list as well.

Pray for them.  Contribute to them.  Help them continue the good work that they’re doing. Pastor, I really appreciate you, man! Thank you for your time today. Thanks for the good work you continue to do out there!

Rick:

Great to be with you. Thank you, Rick.

Rick:

Stay with us, folks.  We’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Biographical Sketches

Hi, friends! This is Tim Barton of WallBuilders.  This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heros of the faith. I know, oftentimes for parents, were trying to find good content for our kids to read.

If you remember back in the Bible, the Book of Hebrews, it has the Faith Hall of Fame, where they outlined the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity and our faith as well.

I wonder what you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called, “€œThe Courageous Leaders Collection”€ and this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers.

There’s a second collection called, “€œHeroes of History”€ in this collection you read about people like Benjamin Franklin, Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman.  Friends, the list goes on and on.

This is a great collection for your young person to have and read. And it’s a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at WallBuilders.com.

Compassion For The Victims

Rick:

We’re back.  Thanks for staying with us here on WallBuilders Live. Well, thanks to Pastor Sam Rohrer for being with us. We’ll have links to his website at our website today at WallBuildersLive.com. Back with Tim and David.  Guys, he nailed it. A wealth of information on this subject both from a biblical perspective and from a policy perspective.

David:

Well, Trump has also done some things that I think is going to help this. Because what he has ordered the administration to do is now is he wants to start posting how many crimes have been committed by illegals and by those who are here without the screening, etc.

And I think people will be shocked at the number of violent crimes and other type crimes that are committed by these people because they are not screened.  We”€™ve not done a screening. So, all this idea of showing compassion, we have to have compassion.  We have to let people in from high terrorist nations without checking to see whether they themselves are terrorists. That’s going to go, by the way. The numbers are really key here.

Rick:

How about some compassion for the victim?

David:

That’s exactly right. Well, let me take you back to the Bush administration and the Obama administration. For 15 years we fought what was called, “€œOperation Enduring Freedom.”€ That was the war in Afghanistan. It started in 2001 under Bush and it went all the way to 2014, so 15 years inclusive counting that period of time.

What CNN did throughout the eight years of Bush was they kept a scroll running on the bottom of the screen showing how many lives have been lost how many lives have been lost. Another one lost today, and another one, and they kept it running.

A New Light On Operation Enduring Freedom

That’s part of what when Obama got there he said, “€œHey, we’re going to end this war.  We’re going to take care of this.”€ And so they stopped running the scroll. Now, here’s the deal.  Under Operation Enduring Freedom, the war in Afghanistan 730 lives were lost under Bush.

Seventeen hundred and three were lost under Obama. Six years of Obama and seven years of Bush, Obama has three times as much and “€œhe’s the guy that brought the war to an end.”€

And that’s what he ran on and campaigned on. As long as you don’t provide numbers and thus create some type of accountability, people go along with that. I will guarantee you that 99 out of 100 folks today will think that more people died under Bush in Operation Enduring Freedom than under Obama.

Immigration Numbers

Rick:

It was three times as many under Obama?

David:

Three times as many under Obama, “€œBut he ended it. He promised. He ran on it. He said he was going to end it.”€ So, I think that by the Trump administration starting to put out the numbers and the cost of what violent crime is from illegal immigrants or against immigrants who have not been screened, it will help change the national debate because information does that.

Media has been very poor at reporting information. They report propaganda and they report their own viewpoint. So we’ll see how this turns out. But you know Sam was right on this in so many ways.

If We Aren”€™t Careful We Could Kill Our Own Nation

I love the point he made that as a result of our compassion if we follow the silly policy that world relief and that these 500 ministers are putting out if you follow that, you actually killed the nation that has the most compassion.

What we’re doing is we’re planting the seeds of our own suicide.  In the name of compassion we let people in who will destroy the nation and prevent us from ever having compassion again. Because they won’t let the Christian faith be part of what we do in policy.

It’s certainly not the Islamic faith that creates compassion across the world and helps others. It’s a Christian faith. So, it’s a great point, that in the name of compassion because we don’t understand jurisdictions and because we have a tug at our heart we’re going to do things that will ultimately destroy us if we’re not careful.

Rick:

Yeah, I was really impressed with the way he laid that out. I hadn”€™t been thinking about even that big of a picture, right? I was thinking about, “€œOk, what happens if you have a bad policy towards these immigrants that come in and what not.”€

I never thought about that if we really want to help people, not just here in America, but around the world, you’ve got to preserve the system. It’s like the golden goose story, right? I mean, you’ve got to preserve what’s producing that and producing the finances that are helping people around the world allowing for ministry. What is it? It’s like 80 percent of mission work around the world is paid for through Americans.

We Need To Stay True To Our Roots

David:

Eighty-five percent. Of all resources spent in the world to propagate the gospel of Christ comes out of America.

Rick:

Wow. So if they can take America down, guess what happens to the propagation of Christianity across the world? And God will still find another way to do it. If he has to raise up stones to talk he’ll do that, as Jesus tells us. But why would we, as you said, the golden goose, why would we cut that off?

Tim:

It”€™s significant too, that other nations are identifying the significance of America being undergirded and strengthened in faith. So now, other nations are sending missionaries to America understanding, “€œYou guys, come on, you’ve got to figure this out. Have you lost the gospel message?”€

And really, it”€™s true.  If we lose to the core values of what makes America special, what makes us different, then it leaves a giant gap in the world. As you mentioned, God’s going to fill it. Somebody else is going to come.

God is going to accomplish his purposes. It’s just that we’ve been honored to be a part, a significant part, of helping expand the Gospel or the Kingdom of God with the gospel message. And now we’re coming to a place that we don’t know what the Bible says, evangelicals are lining up on the wrong side of issues because they don’t know what the Bible says.

And we really aren’t doing what we need to do by knowing the Bible, knowing jurisdictions, knowing the role of government, knowing the role of Christians and individuals in the church. And this is where we’ve got to get back to knowing what the Bible says.

David:

One of the things we ought to know is that that great command where Jesus says, “€œLove God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your body, and with all your mind.”€ What we’ve got is a bunch of folks here saying, “€œOh my heart says we ought to have compassion.”€ We’ll use your mind too, that’s part of loving God.

The Christian faith does not exclude using your mind. That’s part of knowing and studying the Bible is having the mind side of it not just the heart side of it.

Rick:

No doubt, it actually begins with us. How many times do we come back to that in our program? It begins with our own education like you”€™re saying, Tim, about what the word of God actually says so that then when a hot topic like this comes up we’re not just going with our emotions.

We’re actually using reason.  We’re studying, we know what the Bible says about it, know what history taught us about it, and we know what our Constitution here in this country says about it, and what those proper jurisdictions are.

What level of government or even if it’s supposed to be governed. It might need to be the church might need be the individual that should be engaging in helping at that level. So, let’s get educated folks. That”€™s why you listen to WallBuilders Live. We’re glad you did today. Thanks for listening to WallBuilders Live.