Biblical Citizenship In Modern America Week 8 – How You Make A Difference – Join us for the conclusion of this amazing course. We talk about how you make a difference, what you can do to hold your own class, how to find and follow God’s calling for your life and more!

Air Date: 06/16/2023

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

 

Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. 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 or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. We’re taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. And you have joined us in a kind of a special week. I mean, this is one of the things that I think is what WallBuilders does really, really well is equipping and educating and inspiring people to really understand what it means to be a citizen in America. How does our constitution work? And also to understand what does it mean to be a citizen of heaven in a country like the United States of America.

And that’s why we call the course that we’re sharing today, Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. It’s literally being a biblical citizen. So you got to know how to be a citizen in our Constitution. But you also got to know what God’s Word says about how to effectively be a citizen. So we’re doing that through this course called biblical citizenship. It’s an eight week course. You can get it for free at biblicalcitizens.com. You can take the digital version there. You can sign up as a coach and bring it to your church or your living room and bring friends over and take the course. Again, all free. You can pick up DVDs and workbooks, if you want. All of those are available at wallbuilders.com.

So check it out, folks, this thing is growing like crazy across the country. Hundreds of thousands of people have gone through it. Our goal is 5 million people to go through this course before the next presidential election. You can help make that happen by going to biblicalcitizens.com. For now, let’s dive right back in where we left off yesterday with Biblical Citizenship in Modern America.

BIBLICAL CITIZENSHIP IN MODERN AMERICA

Guest 1:

You need to see them in the community. You need to see how they act. You need to see how they respond when the heat’s on. If they stand for God, if they stand for your kids, if they stand for, as we do, we kept Planned Parenthood out. So we took a stand for the unborn. And you can do that at a school board level. But we need your support and we need your help. Even after we’re elected don’t abandon us. You need to be there to support us. You need to be there to help us out.

Rick:

Amen. That’s good. If you want to prevent the Marxist socialist indoctrination that’s been going on for the last 50 years, we have to take over the school boards. If you want to prevent the defunding of the police, we have to take over the city councils. So we are believing big, we’re believing for 10,000 new candidates for school board and city council all across the country to come out of these biblical citizenship classes.

So we’re asking you, when you start your classes, have that conversation as those classes go on. Who in here would be interested in running for one of these offices? Watch for what’s opening up. I was just at a dinner last month, where a Constitution coach got up and gave a testimonial of having their biblical citizenship class. It was like six or seven people in their living room. And a commissioner seat opened up in their community, and they said, well, you know, somebody’s got to run for commissioner.

And the guy that started the class, he was asking them, we got to get somebody to run. And they said, well, you drafted us into this thing, you run. And so he said, okay, I’ll run. What are you all going to do? And somebody said, well, I’ll be the sign chairman. Another one said, I’ll be the finance chairman. Before you know what, they had a campaign team. They ran, he won. He’s now a commissioner in that county. So I think that’s a great model for us.

And so I want to wrap up our panel by asking you guys, what would you say to people out there that are saying, well, I don’t know where to start or I don’t know if I could do what you guys are doing? How do you get them over that hump to just take action?

Guest 2:

Well, one of the first things is when somebody goes through a class, I build into it that they’re on the hook now. So pretty much…

Rick:

So it’s like the mafia, once you’re in, you can’t get out, is that what you’re saying?

Guest 2:

Yeah.

Rick:

Okay.

Guest 2:

So if you’re enjoying this and you’re benefiting and your jaws dropping, because there’s so much jaw dropping because there’s so much truth of these hidden treasures that have been on earth, thanks to David Barton and Rick Green and these great American patriots and historians that you want to make sure… Well, when people, like I said, their jaws are dropping, I say, okay, every week, you pick one or two things that stood out to you, and you start telling other people. And that’ll just start opening up their eyes and planting those seeds.

And then when we’re done with this class, then I kind of put them on the hook to sign up as a coach, and tell them how doable it is. And you can do it any way. If it’s just one other person, if you do it just in your living room with a few friends or you want to get a room in a church or library or whatever, you could do that.

Rick:

I like what you just said about even before you ask them to host a class just each week saying what are a couple those jaw dropping moments, now share those with your friends or family, put that on your social media or share it with somebody at work. Just even that in and of itself begins to multiply the truth. And remember everything we’re doing here, it’s about seeking truth, speaking truth as you find it, and then fighting for that truth. That’s what’s missing in our culture. So it’s the courage to find this truth and then get it out there. So I love what you just said because that’s an easy first step. Just after every class, find somebody to share one or two of those truths from that night’s class. It’s good. Ken.

Ken:

Yeah. So I guess I would start by asking, do you love this country? If you love this country, then what small thing can you do to help save this country, right? Do you believe that this nation is worth fighting for? Because I can tell you, I had a great conversation earlier tonight, if you’ve never been to another nation, you don’t actually understand the beauty of America. You really don’t. Go somewhere else and you’ll find out there’s no place like America.

And so becoming a coach is very simple. Rick has made it really simple. Just go to patriotacademy.com, right?

Rick:

And free.

Ken:

And free. So just you go on, become a coach, you push a button, you press play, you let it play. And if you’re smart, you won’t do what I do, which is I open it up for people to ask questions and then now I have to come up with an answer. And if you just use percentages, because anyone can make a percentages, well, 60% of all people. But no. So you just push a button, you press play, and then if you really want to draw on a lot of people, have food.

Rick:

There’s a lot of truth to that, coffee and food makes the class always the best…

Ken:

I had a woman that started bringing food every week and now we do it all the time. We split it. We asked other members, hey, one week out of the 10 weeks, you guys split the costs of bringing food. And then the last week, we do a massive potluck and everyone brings their favorite breakfast item. We have so much food and everyone shows up for that one. I’m just saying.

Rick:

Actually, that touches on something that does happen in these classes that I love, is just the fellowship. You’re not just going there and learning. You look around the room and you go I’m not alone. There’s other people that love the Lord, love the country, want to see this restoration happen and that iron sharpening happens. In the questions afterwards, even if every question is, and I have to do this a lot, I don’t know. But I’ll go do some homework and find out. But there’s something about the fellowship and the gathering together. And 2020 taught us that, how valuable fellowship is and how much we need it. But gathering around this topic in this subject is truly powerful. And I think it’s part of why people come back every week and they go home encouraged and they want to get other people involved.

Guest 2:

Well, I just wanted to say he’s way more brave than me, because I would never open it up to questions. I do Q&A, I asked the audience the questions.

Rick:

So you as the questions, they have to come up with the answers. Okay, that’s fair. That’s fair. Alright. Joe, talk to people that might be considering running or helping somebody run, but they just can’t get off dead center?

Joe:

Well, if you consider running, you should have a psychiatric check first. A couple things. First of all, push away from Facebook keyboard please. Get away from there. You can’t win anything. You’re just wasting time. The first thing is to get into prayer about it. A lot of us feel you see one of these things, you go, oh, I’d be great up there. Well, you might not be. And if it’s not called of God, then you are fighting the system. When God calls you to do something, he’ll make a way to make it happen. And that’s really what it boils down to.

And I used to do a class called “So you’ll want to run for office?” And we would talk about all the things that you have to do. Because whether it’s school board, dog catcher or council person or even congressperson, the same basic principles apply. And you have to know what those are. And you have to know how to meet the people. And one of the things in politics they always tell you is look at your crowd, tell them what you think they want to hear. That’s what they told me for the first two years I ran.

My advice to you, if you want to run for office, you be who you are, you be what God made you and you stand on those principles that God gave you. That’s how you win. In my last election, I could not have won unless I had Democrats and independents vote for me. There weren’t enough Republicans. And I was the only guy that won by double digits in big numbers because they knew where I stood.

So if you want to run for office, again, it’s seek God first. Let’s find out that. Make sure you know what it is that you wanted. Where’s your heart? Is it with the education for the kids? Is it with city council? Is it clean water for your neighborhood? Whatever those councils or places are, seek them out and then ask God for guidance. Ask God to bring those people into your life that will help you make that happen.

And you need a team. You really do. No matter how small it is, you need a team, you need people that’ll help you get the message out. You need people that’ll help you raise money and track your dollars. But again, I’m going to go back to, and your family has to be behind you. Let me tell you what. If your wife, if your kids, if your family are not behind you, you are swimming against the tide with a 2,000 pound weight on your back. It’s really tough to do.

And God bless my wife that. She wasn’t all into the political thing. But she said, If God told you to do it, we’re going to do it. And we’re going to do it at 110 miles an hour. And I could have never made it happen without her.

Rick:

Excellent. Alright. And a great way to tie all this together, host a class that will help you build a team. And then out of that class, someone can run and already have that team built. And go to patriotacademy.com We’re creating a campaign coach program there as well to help those 10,000 candidates for school board and 10,000 for City Council. We’ll connect you with guys like Joe that have run and they’ve been there, they can kind of mentor you and help you in that process. We’ve got to take this country back. We have to take this mountain of government back. People of faith have got to go into that arena. So we’re asking you to consider doing that. Thank you, all three of you, for being great patriots, great biblical citizens. Joe, do you have any last comments?

Joe:

One last thing. You know, you had mentioned earlier, and other people will say the same thing. I have a radio show and people always say what are you doing in California? Get out of there. You can’t win that battle. And my favorite saying is well, my God’s not dead, so I’m just going to keep going forward with this.

But when I have those moments recently, the Lord revealed to me this story about David and Goliath. Remember them? Remember that story? But he related to me in my way that I can relate to. And He said, I want you to think about something. The pizza delivery boy showed up, right, he was bringing food for his brothers. He wasn’t there to take on a fight. He saw all these warriors cowering, for all intents and purposes, mighty warriors of Israel cowering in their tents because they didn’t want to go after Goliath.

Remember, he was going to grind the bones up or something like that. Remember that was how story goes? And what happened? He got mad that Goliath was making fun of his God, was taking on his God. And he knew how small he was. But he didn’t care because you knew God was behind him. And he knew he was going to take live down. We need to know that.

If you’re going to stay here in California and you want to fight, you need to be willing to fight, but you need to know that God is your power and God is your sufficiency and God’s what’s going to carry you through this. So when you get in those moments, go read the story of David and go, wow, if the pizza delivery boy can do it, I can do it.

Rick:

Quick break, friends, we’ll be right back. You are listening to WallBuilders Live.

CONSTITUTION ALIVE!

Have you ever wanted to learn more about the United States Constitution, but just felt like man, the classes are boring, or it’s just that old language from 200 years ago, or I don’t know where to start? People want to know, but it gets frustrating because you don’t know where to look for truth about the constitution either.

Well, we’ve got a special program for you available now called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. And it’s actually a teaching done on the Constitution at Independence Hall in the very room where the constitution was framed. We take you both to Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty and Independence Hall and to the WallBuilders’ library, where David Barton brings the history to life to teach the original intent of our Founding Fathers.

We call it the Quickstart Guide to the Constitution, because in just a few hours through these videos, you will learn the citizen’s guide to America’s constitution, you’ll learn what you need to do to help save our constitutional republic. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and it’s going to inspire you to do your part to preserve freedom for future generations. It’s called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. You can find out more information on our website now at wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Thanks for staying with us here on WallBuilders Live. Let’s jump right back in where we left off before the break. You’re listening to Biblical Citizenship in Modern America.

BIBLICAL CITIZENSHIP IN MODERN AMERICA

Rick:

I’m sure some of you in here and I know some that are watching tonight or are going to watch the DVDs, this might be new for you. Maybe you hadn’t been involved in politics before. I’ve been kind of taking my own informal poll asking people why are you involved now? What Why weren’t you involved 2 years ago or 10 years? What changed for you? Why are you involved in your government today?

And you wouldn’t believe, I mean, it’s not like the most answered question just by a few percentage. About 80% of the time, the answer I get is my grandkids. People are literally saying it’s the next, I’m thinking about my grandkids not getting to enjoy the same freedom that I enjoyed. And I want to make sure that I pass the torch of freedom and tact to them.

Reverend Matthias Burnett put it this way. He said, this is in 1801, “To God and posterity, you are accountable for your rights and your rulers. Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you.” I don’t want my children cursing me because they don’t have the same freedom that I enjoyed. Let’s do our part in preserving it.

And don’t take a short term view. Take a long term generational view, realize that you may not get to see the fruits of your labor. Now that’s hard for me to accept sometimes. But I have tried to adopt the philosophy of the son of one of the men that gave us our Declaration of Independence. John Adams was, of course, our second president. His son, John Quincy Adams was our sixth president.

And John Quincy Adams did something that I just can’t even get my head wrapped around. He went from being President of the United States to running for Congress, went from being the man on one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to go on to be one of today, it would be one of 535 in the House and Senate both. And he did it for one reason. He wanted to end slavery. He wanted to get rid of slavery. He wanted to make sure that what they did in this room, what his father was part of, would finally apply to all Americans.

So he goes home, he runs for Congress and, and he gets elected and he gets in Congress. And he’s like a man against the world. Man, he’s trying to end slavery, and it’s a proslavery Congress, and he’s not getting anywhere. He’s literally beating his head against the wall. I mean, he’s coming in week after week, month after month, year after year with no results. Now look, I’m a type A person, I want results. My wife says I’m type AAA. You know, I mean, I go 100 miles an hour and I want when I got result…

When I got in the legislature, it drove me nuts that I couldn’t change the world overnight. I wanted it all done in one legislative session. Took a while for me to figure out it takes years sometimes to get big things done. John Quincy Adams understood this. And so when he kept hitting the wall and not getting anywhere, he didn’t get frustrated. He just kept coming back.

You know that that’s proslavery Congress got so frustrated with John Quincy Adams, they passed the John Quincy Adams gag order. They said, Adam, you can talk about anything you want, but we are sick of hearing you talk about getting rid of slavery. You can’t even do it anymore. He just keeps coming back week after week, month after month, year after year. 13 years with zero results, can you imagine that?

You look at what we’re trying to do in our country right now. Can you imagine fighting for more than a decade with no results and still being able to come back and fight more? I don’t know how he did. 13 years, no results, reporter comes to me says, what is your problem? Why are you doing this? You’re not getting anywhere. You’re wasting your time. You’re wasting my time. You’re wasting the Congress’s time. You’re a waste of time. Why are you doing this?

John Quincy Adams said something I hope you’ll adopt as your philosophy as you try to save our country and save freedom for future generations. He said “Duty is ours, results are God’s. Duty is ours, results are God’s.” He said I’m just doing my duty. I’m going to leave the results to God. These guys understood duty. Remember me saying last night, quote after quote after quote, these guys would use that word duty: duty of nations, duty of individuals, all the time duty because they understood it’s hard work, but I’m willing to do it because freedom is worth it.

John Quincy Adams understood duty is ours, results are God’s. Did he get to see an end to slavery in his lifetime? No. Four years later, after he had that interview, he dies on the floor of Congress, literally in Congress. He actually had the stroke on the floor of Congress. They moved him into the Speaker’s office and he died in the Speaker’s office. But he dies there in the Capitol there in Congress. 17 years of fighting, no results.

But for one, two year term, he served with a kid that he became a mentor to. And he kind of did a brain dump into that kid, taught that kid what he knew. They became very good friends. This freshman member of Congress became very good friends with the president. Good enough friends of that freshman member of Congress was a pallbearer at John Quincy Adams funeral. That kid goes home, don’t get reelected, runs for another office, loses another office, loses another office. Just keep losing, losing, losing, finally, wins another election.

It’s almost 15 years later, and Abraham Lincoln becomes President of the United States and implements the same three step plan that John Quincy Adams had tried for 17 years to accomplish. Duty is ours, results are God’s. We have no idea who we might be planting the seeds for that’s going to come along and water. We have no idea what this generation that is being raised up right now. Remember what John Jay said? “Teach the rising generation to be free.” If we’ll teach them to be free, we have no idea what they may accomplish in bringing America back to those freedoms and preserving them for future generations.

Friends, I cannot thank you enough for being willing to dive into the Founding Fathers and the founding documents. You are patriots. You’re patriots like these guys were patriots. And you are literally, we together are once again standing on that Lexington green. This is just like April 19th, 1775. It’s the morning after Paul Revere’s ride. It’s more than a year before these men would gather and sign the Declaration of Independence. It’s the day that ragtag bunch of 77 lined up on the Lexington green in defense of freedom.

And Pitcairn, he rides up. Major Pitcairn, he’s got six companies of British infantry. That’s 800, 800 of the king’s finest fall into position. They’re only about 150 feet from that little group of 77. And Pitcairn hollers out, he says this. He says “Disperse you rebels, disperse the villains lay down your arms.” Well, our captain Parker, he walks up and down that little line of 77 and he said this, he said “Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have war, let it begin here.” And then that shot heard around the world was fired. That’s where your freedom and my freedom began.

Here to tell you, if that freedom is going to survive another generation, it begins right here in your hearts and mine. If the next generation is going to enjoy what we’ve enjoyed, if my four kids, you got to see Trey and Reagan, Cameron and Rhett, if your kids and your grandkids are going to enjoy freedom, it’s up to us. Let’s go out there and save our country. Let’s keep alive with these men dead. Thank you. And God bless you for being a part of this class. Appreciate you.

Okay, thank you guys. Thank you very much.

Guest 5:

People said what can I do? What can I do? And I have a very strong opinion about this. And even more, so don’t allow lies or injustice to come across your radar screen without you doing something about it. Stand. But it’s even the little things, right? And I’m the type of person that if I see the strong abusing the weak, I get involved. That means if I see someone at a grocery store who’s abusing a kid, I say something, right? If I see someone at the side of the corner doing something incorrectly to an elderly person, I say something.

Now those are actually uncommon because we live in a very decent country. But more commonly, when I say someone say something that’s untrue about my country or about God, I do something about it. And that doesn’t mean you have to pick every single fight. But someone listen to this knows exactly the fight that they’ve been delaying. It’s not a fight in the sense of being confrontational…

Guest 6:

It’s  a fear that’s paralyzed them.

Guest 5:

Right. Or it’s boy, I keep going to that Bible study and they just keep saying things about BLM. But I listened to the show and I know better. And then the problem that doesn’t confront multiplies. The reason you get a Vladimir Lenin is not just because Lenin got exported from Austria and ended World War I and had a sinister Marxist ideology. No. It was all the little mini injustices and many totalitarians that existed. It was the millions of people that then became oppressive to their wife. It was all the mini Lenin’s that then populated the country. It’s like, oh, he could do that, then I could do.

I bet the best. I know the best change comes from the bottom up. And someone’s like, oh, what can I do macro? Like, what if you did something that’s just being a heroic normal person? And someone’s like, oh, I wish I run for Congress. Like that’s probably an overstep for most people honestly.

Guest 6:

Let your light so shine before men, they will glorify your Father in heaven.

Guest 5:

Yeah. But how about like when you’re at dinner with your family, respectfully, compassionately and lovingly, you make sure everyone is very clear about everything we’ve talked about here. And they don’t have to agree with you, but they’re exposed to it, and then the truth will let it just fester. It just will. And so I’m a big believer in that. And I think that we as conservatives kind of allow that to just kind of all these injustices that come across our radar screen so often.

Guest 6:

When you stand in truth, God expands the tent stakes and gives you a greater influence. And you’re perfect example that, Charlie and you too, Bob. I’m honored to be with you good.

Guest 5:

But it’s easy to get dispirited. It’s easy to get disgruntled, like, it’s less about winning at times that little. It’s more about doing the actual act of standing.

Guest 6:

God wins, we just got to stand.

Guest 5:

That’s right.

Rick:

Well, friends, you made it through our entire Biblical Citizenship in Modern America course. The question now is what are you going to do with all this knowledge? We’ve had a great time together. We’ve had great fellowship together. We’ve encouraged each other. We’ve learned the true story of America. We’ve learned about the foundation that was laid 150 years before we even declared our independence. We’ve learned a lot about sacrifice, the price that others have paid so that we can be free.

And now we are literally standing guard at the watchtower of freedom. All these previous generations have passed the torch to us. Now what are we going to do with? I know that history someday is going to write a chapter on us. My prayer is that that chapter does not say that that torch on our watch was only dimly lit, or God forbid, extinguished.

I believe based on what I see in this room, when they write their chapter on our generation, they’re going to say that on our watch, because we lived out biblical citizenship, that freedom in our nation and the torch of freedom burned even brighter than ever before. God bless you guys and thanks for being a part of Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. Thank you, guys. God bless you.

Well, you made it all the way through Constitution Alive. You have learned the freedom formula that the Founding Fathers created right here in this room. But you’re not done. My prayer is that at the end of this class, you are motivated, you’re inspired, you’ve now been educated and equipped and that now you will become a part of the solution. Not just take this knowledge that you’ve learned in Constitution Alive and keep it to yourself, but pay it forward. Start teaching other people the same things that you’ve learned. Become a Constitution coach yourself.

You don’t have to know everything about history and the Constitution. I sure don’t. I’m a citizen, just like you and I’m learning every day more and more about what makes a nation great. Please consider inviting people into your living room, into your church, your classroom, your local library, and teaching the same thing that you learn as you watched Constitution Alive. Become a part of the solution. Become a force multiplier. Become a Constitution coach. And help us save America’s constitutional republic.

Rick:

Alright, friends, out of time for today. That was the conclusion of Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. You can get the entire course at biblicalcitizens.com and you can share it with your friends and family. It’s free, bringing them over to your living room or to your church or wherever you’re going to organize this. It is a great way for you to be the catalyst for a restoration of biblical values and constitutional principles in your community. Check it out today at biblicalcitizens.com. Thanks so much for listening to WallBuilders Live.