Joy Even In The Tough Times – Good News Friday – It is important to have joy even in the midst of the tough times that we are in today. Tune in right now to hear some good news this Friday!

Air Date: 01/29/2021

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.

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live, we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, the culture, all these different things, but we’re looking at it from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. And guess what? When you look at it from a biblical perspective, you got to have some good news involved, you got to have a biblical worldview, which means you got to have joy, which means you got to have joy even in the tough times. And some of your thinking, oh, it’s only tough times out there not true. A lot of good stuff going on as well, even in the midst of tough times.

I’m here with David Barton and Tim Barton, and they are sharing that good news with us today. You can get more of that good news at our website, wallbuilderslive.com, the archive section there has several of those previous Friday programs with some good news as well as the programs throughout the week. So check that out, make a contribution. You can do that contribution on our website at wallbuilderslive.com. And when you do that, it’s an investment in freedom, you’re coming alongside us, you’re amplifying our voice, you’re helping us to speak truth, you’re also helping us to encourage people out there with these good news programs.

And David, Tim, I knows for some folks, you know, they may not even realize there’s a lot of good stuff happening out there. But there is and you guys always fill up our Good News Friday program with that good news. What are we going to start with our good news for today, David?

David:

We’re going to start in Washington DC, and I need to back up a little bit to 911. After 911 is when all the security consciousness went in and we changed the way we did things with screening in planes and everything else. One of the things that changed was the way they did security at the US Capitol.

Prior to 911, I could walk into the US Capitol anytime, day or night, I could wander around through the halls and the rooms and look at everything, all the remarkable artwork, etc. After 911, security conscious, they closed it down. You had to have a specific reason to be in there, all sorts of screenings and magnetometers etc.

And so at that point in time is they said alright, we really need to get the Capitol Visitor Center going so that visitors are not coming into the Capitol, we’ll hold them off to the side in a separate building, still let them see the magnificence of the Capitol, but not within the capital, it’ll just be connected to the Capitol. So the Capitol Visitor Center, they started working on that to build that. And as they’re going through that, the plans were laid out. And here’s the rooms, here’s the theaters, here’s what we’ll do the show the slideshows, and the video shows for people, to show them the capital and here’s the various things that we’ll do.

And as part of that, there were about 270 areas of displays where they will be displaying historical artifacts related to the Capitol, old stuff, new stuff, etc. And at that time, the majority leader of the Senate, and the majority leader of the House, asked me if I would be part of those meetings and kind of watch over the historical content for them, keep them updated, and let them know what was going on and what I was seeing, etc. And so as I was doing that, I was watching and it was really pretty obvious that this thing was going to be totally secular that they were going to keep God issues out of it, despite the fact the US Capitol was used literally as a church building, not only for the church and Congress, but also for several other community churches, it was used that for nearly a century. Despite the fact that all this religious stuff went in there and was part of it, they were keeping all that out. I mean, they weren’t even including simple phrase like “Under God.” They were no longer going to let you go and the chamber of the House of Representatives, so they did a replica of it.

But if you look over the top of the Speaker’s had in the chamber of the House of Representatives, it says “One Nation under God”, well, that was gone and the replica mock up that they did in the Capitol visitors. And what would you take one nation out of God? That’s literally in the House chamber. Why are you taking it out for the replica? So as we were talking about this, and showing this, felt like there needs to be some public attention turn on this effort to really kind of rewrite history and secularize everything in a ridiculous way.

And so we did a video back, I don’t know, 15 years ago, it’s a short 8-10 minute video called “The War on God in America”, and it just says, you know, here’s all the early memorials in Washington DC, whether you look in early 1900-1930s with the Jefferson Memorial, you go back to the Lincoln Memorial, you go to the Washington Memorial, you go to all these places are so much God acknowledgement in those memorials.

And then when you get into more recent stuff, the last two that had been done, the Martin Luther King memorial actually had no mention of God, how do you take a Baptist minister and have no mention of God in anything he said or did when that was central to what he did? That was why he was nonviolent and he acknowledged that. The only possible, plausible religious mention and the MLK memorial of anything related to faith that said something like have faith in man. Well, that wasn’t faith in God. So there’s no mention of God’s stuff anywhere in the MLK memorial.

As you looked at the World War II memorial, there were two speeches there they had engraved in stone and those speeches, just before and one of them was an Eisenhower speech, just before he said God, they cut the speech off, and they didn’t engrave that part. The rest of his statement where he talked about God was missing. And so we made a little video on that showing, hey, here’s the way the Washington DC has been, all the religious stuff. Here’s what’s happening now, the last two, and now the Capitol Visitor Center is going to be without any mention of God despite the Capitol.

And so there was some pressure put on, the House members got involved, Senate members got involved, and so suddenly they engrave and huge 18 inch high letters, the national motto right as you walk in the Capitol’s there now right in the Visitor Center and they got a lot of stuff right. So and having said that, the World War II memorial, it’s a great memorial, should be seen by everyone, but it was disappointing that there was no mention of God despite what happened with things like the D-day invasion, where the announcement to America of the D-day invasion was by President Franklin Roosevelt. And the way he announced it was he led America in a six and a half minute prayer. He prayed for the soldiers as the invasion was going on.

Well, we got news now that the National Park Service is going to add the entire D-day prayer of FDR to the World War II memorial. So that is really, really great that they’re actually going back to a memorial that had been somewhat secular. And particularly, it’s interesting Senator Rob Portman out of Ohio and Congressman Bill Johnson out of Ohio, they really worked on this. They have to get private funding to get it done. The National Park Service said, yeah, this is good, we’ll add it. And so they’ve given them a really neat spot in the World War II memorial to have the entire prayer, the six and a half minute prayer of Franklin Roosevelt that led to the announcement of D-day, it was a highly religious tone in America back then, and so much prayer for what was going on in the war and giving Bibles to all the soldiers and sailors and airmen, etc. So it’s really, really good to see that being included in the World War II memorial, which up to now had been fairly secular, which was not a good reflection of World War II.

Rick:

Yeah, really good news, and want encourage people to visit that memorial. When they go to DC, it’s one of the most beautiful sites to see. And you can actually go visit where your state’s part of that memorial is, really cool. Quick, right, guys, we got some more good news coming up. Stay with us. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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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 for 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 and 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. It’s Good News Friday, the day so we’re bringing as much good news as possible in one program, and Tim Barton’s got the next piece of good news.

Tim:

Alright, guys. Well, something happened last Friday that we should have talked about, and actually was in my stack of good news and apparently, I just didn’t make it far enough down to the sack of good news, which is not unusual. But last Friday, something President Trump left behind was the acknowledgement that last Friday was declared to be National Sanctity of Human Life Day. So it was roughly the week before Trump left office, I think was that Monday, he did this and it was going to be enacted that Friday and Wednesday is when Biden was sworn in.

But he said, we’re going to make sure that we have a day to honor the sanctity of human life. And so he had this proclamation that was released and I’m going to read just a portion of the proclamation very briefly. The proclamation starts off “Every human life is a gift to the world, whether born or unborn, young or old, healthy or sick: every person is made in the holy image of God. The Almighty Creator gives unique talents, beautiful dreams, and a great purpose to every person. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, we celebrate the wonder of human existence and renew our resolve to build a culture of life where every person of every age is protected, valued, and cherished.”

Now, the proclamation goes on and in it, he identifies a lot of things that happened under his administration, to value life, which actually, for the last several years, we’ve had a lot of prolife victories we’ve talked about many on the state level, but some even on the federal level. We’ve identified some of these very prolife Justices that Trump appointed and he just goes through a list of things that his administration did with some of their appointments, some of the practices.

He closes out this proclamation, it says, now, “Therefore, I, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of United States do hereby proclaim January 22nd 2021, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. Today, I call on the Congress to join me in protecting and defending the dignity of human life, including those not yet born. I call on the American people to continue to care for women, and unexpected pregnancies, and to support adoption and foster care in a more meaningful way so every child can have a loving home. And finally, I ask every citizen of this great nation to listen to the sound of silence caused by a generation of lost to us, and then to raise their voices for all affected by abortion, both seen and unseen.”

This is a really, really strong statement that we talked about for several years in the midst of the things that that President Trump has done, that were a little harder to get behind. Certainly, if we talk about over the years, some of the things that he tweeted, some of the things that he said and certainly things where you could see levels of maybe abrasive nature, certainly, we did not agree with everything President Trump did. And with that being said, we also could make the point that we will never agree with anything anybody ever does all the time. We don’t agree with ourselves all the time. So the idea we would agree with somebody else all the time, that’s just silly.

But with that being said, President Trump certainly was one of the most prolife presidents we have had in America, actually the most prolife president we have had in America since Roe vs. Wade was done back in 1973. And even though obviously, America has some new direction, some new battles, it is really cool to look back and see that as President Trump was leaving office, one of the final things he did was to again, recognize the significance, the sanctity of the unborn, recognizing that God is a creator, and all life matters. It’s just a really cool thing to look back. And again, this was last Friday and we I wish I would have looked down a little further in my stack last week, because it would have been great talking about this last week.

But it’s still great that part of the American legacy is not that America is a perfect nation, because we’re not. America is always full of people and people are sinful human beings who need a savior. And this is the reality that people are jacked up and need Jesus. Absolutely. We’re not perfect. But one of the cool things is that God has consistently heard prayers of people, and God has intervened, and God has done things. And one of the things that for decades, people have been praying that God would help bring it into abortion, people have gotten involved in the process, people ran for state office, people ran for federal office to try to be more prolife and help our nation be more prolife, and sometimes God moves in very unexpected ways. And I think, Donald Trump was certainly an unexpected thing for us looking and seeing how good he was and some of those issues, but certainly looking at what he did with declaring a National Sanctity of Life Day and it was last Friday, that’s a cool piece of good news.

Rick:

Yeah, very good news. And, you know, I think people need to also remember that a lot of the things that he did during his four years, we’re going to continue to have good news stories as they have a result in the culture. Sometimes you pass a policy or you pass a law or you do something in government, the consequences of that sometimes aren’t felt for a while. So we’ll probably be having some more Good News Fridays with stories of things that Donald Trump did while in office and we’re just now getting to feel the effects of it or find out about it even on some of the stories that we’ll have in the near future.

Let’s take a quick break, guys, we’ll be right back with more good news for you today on Good News Friday. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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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 they 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 citizens 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 and wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. David Barton’s got good news in this segment. David.

David:

Well, we’re going to Colorado for this segment, one of our friend’s up there. Andrew Wommack with Andrew Wommack Ministries has a large national presence, has a Bible College up there with, I don’t know, 600-700 students in that Bible College. They’ve got a school of government that Tim and I’ve worked with for a lot of years up there.

And so Andrew Wommack, back in the COVID cracked down, the governor up there, Jared polis, one of those many blue governors who thought, ah church’s religious stuff, that’s not the essential stuff. What’s essential is and we’ve gone through this before, you know, they left the marijuana shops open, the liquor shops open, the casinos open, that’s all essential, but churches and religious stuff is not essential.

Well, Andrew Wommack has great relations there in the city of Woodland Park and works to keep good relations with the city and the City Council and does so many things for the city. And so he had gotten with the Sheriff’s and gotten with the police and made sure that they were doing everything and the police and Sheriff were all good with him until the governor basically said crack him down, just shut him down. He’s not going to stay open. And he’s got this big auditorium. I don’t know, Tim, what is it, 3,500 people that sit in that auditorium, something like that?

Tim:

It’s several thousands, whatever it is. Yeah.

David:

And you know, they were running at about 25% of that and had seemed like 900 maybe in there. And so it was way under the limits, but then they just really decided to come after them. And so Andrew had tried his best to be a good neighbor. And so it ends up they get Matt Staver and get into court, and they get into court. And as it goes all the way through the legal system, the Supreme Court got involved with this and said, no, Andrew Wommack’s college is one of the essential services. And it’s not that Andrew Wommack College is not because of him. It’s just that the court said Andrew Wommack represents something that is an essential service and the governor cannot treat that church, cannot treat that ministry, cannot treat that Bible college, cannot treat what’s going on there differently than the way he treats everything else.

So the Supreme Court got involved in that and ends up being a win for that. And it looks like now it’s interested, it’s kind of like somebody is pulled the proverbial finger out of the hole in the dam. And going back to a kid’s fable from generations ago. And they’ve kind of let the water start flowing and is really flowing pretty fast now.

So here’s one that comes out in Nevada. And the court got involved in this case in Nevada, and said Nevada, you as a state cannot treat churches differently than you treat casinos. You’re allowing casinos to meet and to have people in close contact and they have much higher numbers available than churches. And even when churches started going to casinos to meet in casinos, because the governor allowed casinos to have many more people in, so the churches were renting rooms in casinos and moving their church there and the governor cracked down on that and the state cracked down on that, said, no, you’re a church and a casino, you can’t meet. So I mean completely using double standards.

And so what happened as a result was the courts came in and said, no, you can’t do that, you can’t treat churches as second class citizens, they have the same rights everyone else does. And then a third decision that was headed in that direction, comes out of New Jersey, and New Jersey again, the court gets involved. The court literally says what’s good for Costco is good for church. And again, in New Jersey, they had double standards that said, if you’re a big box store, if your Costco or Walmart or whoever you are, you don’t have different standards of protection than what the churches have. So there’s three rulings all in pretty quick succession that protect religious liberty and the rights of Christians to express themselves, that they get the same rights as everyone else does.

And by the way, in the founding era, you will they not only got equal rights, they actually had added protection to the Constitution, because they could have left it just at the right of assembly, you have the right to assemble. But they went further and said and by the way, there is a specific protection for religious rights. So secular rights aren’t singled out for special protection, religious rights are, everybody gets the right to assemble and the right to speech and the right to press everything else, the right to petition, but churches get those rights and they also get special mentioned as being protected.

So the courts have come back with some really good decisions on this and are starting to push back on these blue governors that would just as soon see churches and religious stuff gone and see their state become completely secular. And that’s just not going to be the possibility with the court making the ruling just making right now.

Rick:

I love hearing good news from churches standing up. That’s a good sign for the future as well. And anytime we can have a court victory on these important issues, very good news as well. Quick break, we’ll be right back. We’ve got more good news for you, folks. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live and it’s Good News Friday.

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This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. Many today wrongly claim our Founding Fathers were largely atheists, agnostics, and deist. Certainly, some founders were less religious than others, but even they were not irreligious.

Consider Benjamin Franklin, definitely one of the least religious among them. Yet, when the delegates at the Constitutional Convention hit an impasse in their deliberations, it was Franklin who called them to prayer, invoking numerous scriptures to make his point. As he reminded them, “God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured in the sacred writings that “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this.” So, even the least religious of America’s founders urge public prayer and dependence on God.

For more information about the faith and the founding fathers, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back on WallBuilders Live, final segment of good news for today anyway. We’ll have more for you next week. I’m sure, Tim Barton, what are we going to close out with today on our good news?

Tim:

Guys, we have a couple more related to the prolife movement. A couple of wins, one up in Oregon, there was an abortion business. The Lovejoy Surgery Center, which doesn’t sound nearly as threatening as it was to all of those unborn children. Now, this abortion clinic was there for nearly 50 years and they are closing their doors. Now, there’s a lot of speculation as to what happened because they had many botched abortions over the last couple years. There are many lawsuits and sexual harassment suits.

And even as I was reading through some of this article, and seeing some of the “issues they were having” outside of the fact that they were murdering unborn children, the issues they were dealing with as an organization, it just kind of makes you think, you know, generally people that are doing something like killing babies probably are not the most moral and upstanding people in general, even though there’s this narrative that we’re just trying to help women, we want women to have a choice and this is about women’s health care. The reality is for these doctors doing this, this is not about women’s health care.

There’s a money making business and money making industry they are participating in, and they’ve thrown their morals and ethics out the window to a large degree to participate in this kind of stuff. But the good news is this abortion clinic is closing down there in Oregon. Now, there is talk that there’s a group in Seattle that might come down and try to restart this abortion clinic. And at this point, it would be good to encourage people to say, hey, let’s pray that God closes down that abortion clinic for good, that no clinic can come in or no people come in and start this clinic back up. But at least for now, there is victory that this clinic is being closed down.

And another piece of good news is from Tim Tebow and I have been such a Tebow fan from all the way back in his college days. And then in the NFL, I was cheering and rooting him on so strongly, I wanted him to do so well. And he has just done so much for a lot of things in the Christian community. But certainly when you look at special needs, and the big prom event he does, this night to remember he does, there’s so much that he does to help people and help families and valuing life. Well, he’s written now a children’s book. The book is called “Bronco and Friends”, which I kind of wondered if Bronco, I haven’t seen this book yet and I’m going to get the book. But I’m just curious if Bronco, is that like a throw to the Denver Broncos who he played for? I’m not sure.

But it’s “Bronco and Friends: A Party to Remember”, and it follows the adventures of a dog with poor vision who is trying to find a missing puzzle piece and get to a party on time. On his mission, Bronco meets a bird who cannot fly and go with allergies and a clumsy bunny. And the idea is it’s celebrating kids with special needs. And that’s part of what this dog discovers along the way, things that are really special but that are different.

And in an interview he said “We can and should be faithful to God and live out the purpose that he is designed. I’m grateful that God allows me to be on his team, not because of me, but because of him.” And you can go and read this whole article. It really is great. It just reminds me and encourages me so much of the fact that there are really good people out still in the world that are really trying to love God and love people and serve God and serve people. And Tim Tebow certainly has been a really strong example in a lot of areas for that. Not to say, just like everybody else, we know he’s not perfect, we get it, but certainly God has used him in some special ways.

And I am excited to check out this new book that celebrates, maybe people who are not traditionally as celebrated in life, kids with special needs or individuals with special needs. But recognizing that God is still the author and the giver of life, that they are still precious to God, and that’s what his book really celebrates. So I’m definitely going to get that and check that out. But that is a cool piece of good news when we are still just seeing people promote the value of life, the sanctity of life, the importance of life. And we’re seeing lots of that happening around the nation.

Rick:

And seeing that promoted in all of these different arenas, right, we talk about politics a lot here on the program and the things that are happening in the government realm. But I mean, obviously, this influences the culture in a lot of other areas that really the politics may or may not touch. But we’ve got to remember, God’s word needs to be spoken in these truths need to be spoken in every single area of the culture, including kids’ books. And I’m thrilled to see this. I mean, I think it’s a great example of speaking truth at an early age. Because when you plant those seeds of that early age, it’ll bear fruit later.

So lots of good news there today, guys, thank you all for bringing all those stories to us here on WallBuilders Live. And folks, when you want more good news, tune in to WallBuilders Live. And even on some of the tough issues, you’re going to get a Joshua and Caleb perspective, how can we take those tough issues and turn them around with a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective? Check it out at wallbuilderslive.com today. Thank you so much for joining us. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.