Don’t Despair; Do This Instead, Part 2 – With Rabbi Daniel Lapin: What is the solution to problems we’ve forgotten? Is there ANY other civilization apart from a Bible-based one? What happens when a society abandons God-ordained tradition? What do we find when we study America’s 40-year cycles? What can we learn from ancient Jewish wisdom? Tune in to hear this enlightening session with Rabbi Daniel Lapin from the ProFamily Legislators Conference!

Air Date: 12/22/2021

Guest: Rabbi Lapin

On-air Personalities: 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. 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.

Faith and at the Culture

Rick:

Preserving and passing the torch of freedom, that’s what we’re doing right here at WallBuilders Live. Thanks for joining us today at the intersection of faith and the culture. We’re always taking on the hot topics of the day. And we’re looking at those topics from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

At this time in our nation’s history, at this time where we’re facing so many challenges, facing what seemed like unprecedented things, but there’s nothing new under the sun, we know that, but some of it is unprecedented for us as a people for the American people. So some people are getting discouraged. Well, we don’t around here. Why? We have that biblical worldview. We see things and we recognize that God is still in charge.

And so we’re taking the advice of Rabbi Daniel Lapin “Don’t Tremble, Don’t Despair, Don’t Rage, Do this Instead.” Let’s find out more about what to do. We’re going to pick up right where we left off yesterday. Rabbi Lapin was speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference, our once-a-year gathering of state reps and state senators from across the nation that come together with a biblical worldview. 

They hear from amazing speakers who we are bringing to you here on WallBuilders Live as well. So they’re at the legislator’s conference speaking, but you get to listen in as we bring the programs to you here on WallBuilders Live.

Alright, let’s pick up where we left off yesterday. Here’s Rabbi Daniel Lapin at the ProFamily Legislators Conference.

ProFamily Legislators Conference

Rabbi:

All you got to do is get rid of God and tradition and the problems come roaring back. Because tradition is the solution to problems we’ve forgotten. And when you forget tradition, the problems come back and punish us. And so it didn’t take long. 1962, the Supreme Court rules that a few moments of prayer at the start of the day in American schools is illegal. 

How does that come about? Were we asleep in a way we were because we all saw America as formidable and indestructible? We’d won World War II and we didn’t realize how frighteningly fragile and flimsy is our Bible-based civilization. And there is no other kind of civilization.

It’s a mistake for people to say, oh, the world has 5,000 different civilizations. Actually, it has one. And the proof of it is people drown trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to get from countries that never knew the Bible into countries that were originally founded on the Bible. How many people drowned trying to go in the other direction? Zero. People want to live in a Bible-based civilization, even if they don’t like the ingredients that got it there.

If you forget tradition, the problems will bounce back to punish us. There are traditional ways to make perfume. Now, if you decided, you know, there’s a lot of good money to be made in perfume? Just look how much a tiny little bottle of the stuff costs. It just can’t be that hard. And so you go to Grenoble in France, and you visit some of the perfume places and you discover that one of the expensive ingredients in perfume is called ambergris.

And ambergris is a rather putrid extrusion from an unmentionable gland in a sperm whale. And it smells appallingly. If you go boating and sailing as I do, you’ll sometimes see it floating on the ocean. And you pick it up and you wish you hadn’t. 

For various reasons, chemically, this is a vital ingredient in the most expensive perfumes. But you have abandoned tradition, and you want to make a perfume, but you’re not going to have that foul-smelling substance in your perfume. So you leave it out. And you never understand why it is your perfume never sells, doesn’t work.

It’s dangerous to tamper with the ingredients of a successful civilization and the ingredients of a successful civilization are all Bible-based. And so 62 get rid of prayers in public school. Same year, the birth control pill comes on the market. People oh, how marvelous that is!

Rick:

Alright, friends, hang on one second. We got to do one more break today and then we’ll finish out with Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Stay with us, we’re going to take a quick break here on WallBuilders Live.

AMERICA’S HISTORY

This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. Christians have always believed that the greatest life-changing experience available to any individual is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And the testimonies of numerous converts confirmed the dramatic changes which often accompanies salvation.

One such testimony of change comes from founding father Noah Webster, who explained, “I was led by a spontaneous impulse to repentance, prayer, and entire submission and surrender of myself to my Maker and Redeemer. I now begin to understand and relish many parts of the scriptures, which before appeared mysterious and unintelligible. In short, my view of the scriptures of religion, of the whole Christian scheme of salvation, and of God’s moral government are very much changed.” The power of God to change a life yielded to him was just as evident at the time of the founding fathers as it still is today.

For more information on God’s hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1808REBUILD

Rick:

We’re back how was live let’s go back to the ProFamily Legislators Conference all through this program today and tomorrow and the next day we’re hearing Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Let’s pick up where we left off before the break.

ProFamily Legislators Conference

Rabbi:

There always unintended consequences. And one of the consequences of the pill was it created a remarkable phenomenon which had never been seen before in America. And that was the 40-year-old male adolescent. That’s what the pill gave. All of a sudden, generations of traditional notions of honor fell away overnight. And honor was replaced by the slogan “Did you remember the pill, Honey?” That’s all. A new type of mail came into existence.

No surprise only a few years later in 1973, and we get the Roe v Wade decision and America’s now well on its way. You know, the Bible seems to treat examinations of historic periods in 40 years slices, right? How long will the Israelites transitioning from slavery to freedom? 40 years. The majority of the kings of Israel and Judah ruled 40 years. That number just keeps on showing up. And so I thought it might be interesting for us to take a look at two slices of 40 year periods.

Let’s look at 1903-1943. What happened in 1903? Why do I like that year to start? I mean, I could go 1900-1940, but I like 1903-1943. What happened in 1903? Anybody know? How did you people who came here from Atlanta, how did you get here? On an airplane. Now does 1903 suggest anything? Orville Wright, over there in North Carolina, Orville Wright in December 1903 flew the first powered airplane. How far was that first journey? 121 feet.

Only 40 years later, by 1943, America was fighting World War II with a bomber called the B-29. And how about the wingspan of the B-29? About 20 feet longer than the first flight. Only 40 years earlier, Orville Wright’s flight didn’t even cover the wingspan of a B-29. And in less than 40 years, we have a pressurized, high-altitude, four-engine bomber that was still fighting in Korea during that war. That’s how well built that machine was.

We go from 1903 overwrite to the B-29 bomber in only 40 years. And how many of those bombers, how are they being produced? They were being produced at that point, 40 years later, they’re being built at the rate of four a day. Can you imagine what it takes to turn out for be training nines every day? Creativity, genius, dedication, zeal, commitment, and above all, unification: thousands, and thousands of people and thousands of separate contractors all working together. It’s extraordinary.

Remember, if you will, that in the entire World War II, Nazi Germany never succeeded in building a four engine bomber, they never had one. It’s not that simple. And we’re churning them out at four day in only 40 years. I mean it’s better than that. Orville Wright flies in 1903 121 feet. 10 years later, we’re using airplanes as fighter airplanes in World War I.

Now, a fighter airplane has to be able to shoot. And so they mounted a machine gun on a World War I fighter plane. Now, if you fire out to the side, you never hit your target. Right? Because if you think about it, if you’re travelling in a train, and you throw a ball up into the air, and the train’s going at 60 miles an hour, how come you catch the ball? 

The ball should be behind you or it should be way back. And the answer is that when you throw it, you throw it with a component of the train’s forward speed, so that you see the ball just going up and down to your hand. But somebody outside the train on the field outside, if he could see inside, he’d see the ball moving in an ark.

And so if you fire a machine gun out the side of the plane, it’s very hard to hit anything because the bullets are not only flying forward, but they’re also moving forward with the speed of the plane. It’s a mess. The only option is to fire the machine gun forward. 

What’s the problem? The propeller, because propellers are still made of wood and 50 caliber machine guns rounds would shred the propeller. And so I don’t know if you do any damage to the enemy’s plane, but you’re going down for sure.

And so I’m just trying to show you what was achieved in that 40 year period. Would you believe by 1913 they had machine-gun synchronizers that could make the machine gun fire bullets between the blades of the rotating prop? 

Think of what a problem that is. And that was solved 10 years after Orville Wright’s flight 1903-1943. That was when they built the Grand Coulee Dam in the state of Washington. Anybody here from the state of Washington? Thank you.

We lived in the state of Washington for many, many years. We loved the state. Today, of course, it’s unrecognizable. But we visited Grand Coulee Dam, that was built during that period. How about the Hoover Dam? That’s what made the population of that pot in Nevada possible. Many people will say what a mistake. 

But the Hoover Dam is built in that time. How about the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fran? Yeah, right, built-in that time also. And the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan to New Jersey across the great Hudson River? Yeah, also built during the… I think you get the idea. It’s an extraordinary 40 year period.

Rick:

Alright, friends, last interruption of the day, we got a quick break here, then we’ll be right back with Rabbi Daniel Lapin at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN HISTORY

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

And if you remember back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith Hall of Fame where they outline 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 in our faith as well.

I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called The 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. And there’s a second collection called Heroes of History. 

In this collection, you’ll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or 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 www.wallbuilders.com. That’s www.wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. Today we’re going right back out to the ProFamily Legislators Conference. Here’s Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Rabbi:

And America is extraordinary. So theoretically, if there is not a rise and a decline in the fate of nations, then any 40 year period of American history should be equally amazing. So let’s look at the period from 1980-2020. Great bridges, now great dams. California is like a third-world country with water shortages because nobody is willing to build a dam to catch some of the snow that melts off the western slopes of the Sierra every summer, every spring. So the water runs away because of a little fish that lives in the San Francisco delta.

Now, nothing has been built. In this 40 year period 1980-2020, it’s a weird time, a weird time. How about the rights of unwed motherhood? In 1903, do you want to know what percentage of children in America were born to unwed mothers in 1903? Anyone want to guess? The figures says 0% because the figure is too small to measure. And when it did happen, the couple use to get married soon after.

By 1943, 40 years go by, and it’s risen from 0% to just under 4%. So it’s certainly an increase, but a country can still manage it 4% of its children don’t have father. 1980, the number is now nearly 20%. That’s where it’s at in 1980. And by 2020, it’s over 40%. That’s what’s happening. 

Over 40% of children in America are now born without knowing their fathers. When you throw out tradition, the problems come back to punish you because tradition is there to protect us from problems. During that period from 1903-1943, even with World War II, and even with the depression, the ratio of our national debt to gross domestic product was low. It was in the tens and the teens and never went past about 20%, 20%.

Only 20% of our gross domestic product was made up of the national debt. Well, today, it’s 112%. That means our national debt exceeds our gross domestic product. Not a fraction of it, it exceeds it.

How do we manage? And so what is the main difference between 1903-1943, that first 40 years slice and the second 40 years slice from 1980-2020? Well, the main difference is that we’re not a unified people anymore. We were back then. In 1945, when the American bomb ended the Pacific War, the whole world looked at us with amazement and admiration, with the sole exception of an eccentric British philosopher called Bertrand Russell. But otherwise, everybody else knew what we had accomplished.

Do you know what the Manhattan Project was? Incredible unity again. It’s like a B-29 project. How many people had to work in unison and with dedication? That’s what happens in that first 40 year period. 

Now we come to the second 40 year period, and of course, the bomb was a shameful mistake. And everything about us, including our founding is a shameful mistake. Some say yes, some say no, the country is divided. A huge problem, obviously.

You know, it’s not an accident that the word good appears seven times during the seven days of creation. And in ancient Jewish wisdom, when I teach the Bible, regardless of whether people understand Hebrew or not, most of the people to whom I teach Bible do not understand Hebrew. But the amazing thing about Hebrew is that it’s like mathematics and mathematics is an international language. You can study mathematics in Chinese, which believe me, they do, or you can study it in Albanian.

The Lord’s language is a lot like that. You don’t necessarily have to be able to read it or understand it, to be able to recognize the symbols, the symbols that make up abstract meaning within the Hebrew text. 

Because so much of ancient Jewish wisdom is not the story as translated on the left side of the page, but it is the reality about the world that He created, and whose blueprint He presents within the abstract meaning of the letters and words on the right-hand side of the page.

Rick:

Okay, friends, quick break. We got to do just a couple of breaks once in a while. Alright, quick break here, we’ll be right back and you’ll get to jump right back in with Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Stay with us here on WallBuilders Live.

AMERICA’S HISTORY

This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. The key to a self-governing nation is self-governing people, and the key to personal self-government is to live by the standards in God’s word. If someone cannot control himself by those standards, then our Constitution certainly will be unable to restrain him. Understanding this, John Adams declared, “We have no government armed with power capable of continuing with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Greed, ambition, revenge, or seduction would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

John Adams believed that successful government rested not upon our great Constitution, but rather upon moral and religious people. For more information on God’s hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1808REBUILD.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. We’ve been listening to Rabbi Daniel Lapin today and yesterday, and frankly, tomorrow as well. This is a presentation he gave to the legislators at the ProFamily Legislators Conference called “Don’t Tremble, Don’t Despair, Don’t Rage, Do this Instead.” Let’s pick up with Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

ProFamily Legislators Conference

Rabbi:

We look very carefully at words and the word good, shows up, right. And God saw the light in the first day of creation and it was good. And God divided between the light and the darkness and the cold day and cold at night. That was the end of the first day. Then we go to the second day. And it’s all about certain things, certain structures separating between this body of water and that body of water. And then it comes in and it was evening and it was morning, second day. It doesn’t have the word ‘good’.

Don’t Despair; Do This Instead, Part 2 – With Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Did you know that at all that the second day of creation doesn’t contain the word ‘good’? But you’ll find it in the third day and then the fourth day in the fifth day and so on and so forth. In fact, to make the point even clearer, the second day has no word ‘good’, third day has twice. Why does the second day not have it? Ancient Jews says because God doesn’t like division and separation. He wants us to be unified with one another in business with our families, within our nation, we call it patriotism, that’s part of what God wants.

And in day number two, it says and God divided between the waters that were there from the waters that were there, and God divided. Division can’t be good. You only have to see the story of America’s first 40 years segment that I examined and the current 40-year segment to see that division is not good. 

But wait a moment, remember just two minutes ago I told you that the word ‘divide’ appears in day one also, and God divided between the light and the darkness, how come that can be good? So when it says God divided between the water here and the water there in the second day, that’s so bad we can’t have the word good appear.

But wait a sec. God does dividing and day one as well. So why is good okay there? And the difference, I’ve given you the clue. In the first day, it’s a division between light and darkness, two different things. It’s like lions and tigers. They’re supposed to be different. Division between difference, that makes sense. But when we have a division among people who are supposed to be united, now that’s a problem.

Rick:

Alright, friends, we are out of time for today. We will pick up with the conclusion of Rabbi Daniel Lapin speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. We’ll do that tomorrow here on WallBuilders Live. So it’s a three part series. If you’re just tuning in with us today, we started this yesterday with Rabbi Lapin. We’ll conclude it tomorrow, all of it available today at wallbuilderslive.com. Thanks so much for listening to WallBuilders Live!