Life, Marriage, Christianity and Israel – on Good News Friday

Air Date: 11/10/2023

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

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Transcription:

Rick Green: 0:12
Hey friends, welcome to WallBuilders. Today we’re taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective, and we’re glad to have you along with us. It’s, of course, good News Friday. We love these opportunities to just dive into all the good news stories. More than we could possibly cover one day a week. I even ran into somebody recently and said man, why don’t you just do Good News Friday all week long? Well, a lot of times even our interviews are good news themselves, but Friday’s a special day. It’s a chance for us to just rattle off those good news stories as fast as we can. David and Tim put a lot of effort into collecting these stories and bringing them to us and I very much look forward to this day of the week every single week and the opportunity to hear these stories. So I know you want to get to it. I’m Rick Green, America’s Constitution Coach, here with David and Tim Barton. David Barton, America’s Premier Historian and our founder at WallBuilders. Tim Barton, national Speaker and Pastor and President of WallBuilders. Alright, it’s time for some good news and I just want to say, guys, we are fast approaching our 600th Good News Friday, so it’s like number 590. That’s not 590 WallBuilders Live programs. I think we’re. I don’t know what. Would it be like? 2,500 of those or something, but almost 600 that are just good news, just sharing good news. Can you imagine? I’d love to add up. I wish we had a way to add up. Well, we do, but I’m not going to go back and listen to 600 programs to add it up. But wouldn’t it be great to know? I mean, we probably do what I don’t know 6, 7, 8 sometimes per show? So that’s like 4,000, 5,000 good news shows. I mean good news stories over the course of the years. Good stuff, guys. Alright, sorry, I just had to point that out to our listeners. That may be new. Go for it. First piece of good news, David? First piece of good news is already out there. The first piece is that there’s been so much good news over the years. So second piece of good news?

David Barton: 1:50
That’s right. This is really kind of closing the books on something that we thought for 25 to 60 years, depending on how you count this. But you go to embryonic stem cell Research, and that was a really big thing throughout 2000, Right through President Bush, it actually goes back to President Clinton. President Clinton announced that they have the capacity now to solve all human suffering and misery because of Embryonic Stem Cell Research. It used to be called fetal tissue research, but it dealt with taking a fetus or an unborn child an embryo and destroying the life, but keeping the components and keeping the parts, keeping the body parts and devoting them to create solutions, they would think, for whatever was going on. And so there were a lot of Hollywood people that jumped on it. I remember Michael Fox, way back under Bill Clinton, at the early part of George Bush. He said I’m going to be able to get rid of Parkinson’s because of Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Christopher Reeve, who played Superman and was hurt in the horse accident, broke his neck. He said I’m going to be able to recover everything back or have all capabilities back because of Embryonic Stem Cell Research. And so, from a moral standpoint, George W Bush came in and said no, this is the wrong thing to do. You don’t kill unborn children, take their body parts and try to find a solution. This is unethical and it’s interesting the very first speech that George Bush gave, the first televised speech he gave, was Embryonic Stem Cell Research. That was his first speech ever and he addressed that issue.

Rick Green: 3:19
And you mean as president, right, His first speech as president.

David Barton: 3:22
Thank you. That’s right. When he became president, that was his first televised speech. I had opportunity to be invited on multiple occasions to be there as signing a pro-life bills that he did. I think at that point…

Rick Green: 3:34
And that’s tough, David. I mean just so people understand if you go back in time to that moment. That was a hotly contested issue.

David Barton: 3:39
Oh yeah.

Rick Green: 3:39
And if you were against that, that Embryonic Stem Cell Research they acted like you were anti-science, you didn’t care about people that had disease. I mean, they really demonized you. And so for him to pick that. I just want to make sure people understand the context of the fact that he was willing to do that as his first speech as president.

David Barton: 3:56
It was amazing. I think it was either six or seven federal laws he signed that limited abortion. And while we say Trump is the most pro-life president in history, there’s no question that the justices he put on the court is what allowed abortion to end. But there’s also no question that there were more pro-life bills signed by George W Bush than any president before or after him. So he did immense work in that. And way back then we knew fetal tissue research, embryonic stem cell, whatever is not going to work. We talked about it in programs over recent years. How that when California had that referendum and I think it was three billion they voted to go to embryonic stem cell research. It got to where they quit giving grants to embryonic stem cell research cause nothing was working. They went to adult stem cell research in adult, You don’t have to kill a person to have adult stem cells. You can get that literally off the palm of your hand or out of the inside of your mouth or just regular skin cells. And so now here’s the report out that goes through all the failures of embryonic stem cell over the past 25 years and the fact that no one is talking about it anymore. Michael J Fox is out saying, well, it’s not going to be embryonic stem cells, it’s going to be something else. I mean, this is a dead, dead movement. It caused a lot of harm and a lot of death along the way, but people were convinced that this was going to be the new fountain of youth, that with this they could live forever and whatever problem you had it was going to be taken care of. But it’s not, and just kind of the related to a pro-life stuff and it’s not a good news story necessarily, but it just shows…

Rick Green: 5:30
Hang on, bro, before you go to that next one, cause I interrupted you when you were about to tell the story. you were actually at some of the signings.

David Barton: 5:32
I was.

Rick Green: 5:32
For some of that pro-life. You were about to tell that and I jumped in on Dubya and some of the things that he did. So don’t move off of that too quick, because I think again it’s 20 years ago, but a lot of our listeners don’t know about that.

David Barton: 5:45
Yeah, and we were invited to multiple signings that he did. There were kind of smaller groups and we do it in a secure place location, but he signed a number of pro-life bills and people just don’t give him credit for that. And so he did so many things really, really well and it was just a time when you couldn’t get everything done. You wanted to, and there’s no question that Trump gets credit for having put the justices on that dumped this. But there’s also no question that George W Bush stuck his neck out a lot and, by the way, he did it with his faith as well. What he did on 9-11 going forward calling the nation a prayer and times a prayer and issued national prayer proclamations that haven’t been done in literally generations. He was very, very strong and people may not think he’s the most conservative president ever and that’s fine, but he did some great stuff. So, within that framework, it’s interesting to see how the left is just determined to keep knowledge from coming out. This next story relates to Missouri and Missouri, they have a referendum that’s coming up on the ballot initiative, and it is a referendum that will actually allow abortions. Here’s basically what it does it would prevent Missouri from banning abortions before an unborn child reached 24 weeks. So, in other words, we’re going to make sure that you can’t prevent abortions in the first 24 weeks. So all it allows is late-term abortion prevention. All the referendum does is late-term abortion prevention, but you can abort any other time up to 24 weeks. And here’s the language. It enshrines a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom, so the state can’t limit our choice to kill an unborn child. And so, as the secretary of state is talking about this referendum, and as we have in Texas and most other states, when there’s a ballot initiative or referendum, the secretary of state often will put a little blurb out there what this is about, what it’s dealing with, it’s to reduce property taxes, it’s to take care of this farming program or whatever. And so the attorney general of Missouri said this is a bill that deals with abortion. Now, it doesn’t have the word abortion. It deals with weird productive rides and you can terminate a fetus before 24 weeks. But when the secretary of state said that’s abortion, the court struck it down and said no, no, no, you can’t use the word abortion. That’s an inflammatory word. It’s like you don’t want anybody to know what this is about. It’s as crazy as what was happening with embryonic research, stem cell research and fetal tissue research. These guys are so scared that their science might be struck down that they won’t even let you talk about what it represents. We’ve seen the same thing with climate change. So while what’s going on in Missouri, everybody just know when that referendum comes up it is about abortion While the judges say that the secretary of state can’t say that we can say that. So remember that and the election is coming up. But the good news is that another really another idol of the progressive left, and that is embryonic stem cell research, has just crashed and burned, and that’s good for all of America. It’s good for human life everywhere.

Rick Green: 8:45
Very good news. Okay, Tim, did you notice that David slipped in two good news stories there? I just want to make sure for those at home keeping score that David got two pieces of good news there and you haven’t got to do one yet. So you think you can slip two in and even the score here.

Tim Barton: 9:02
I think actually that’s better than par for the course, because usually he’s like oh hey, let me read these four headlines. I have real quick.

Rick Green: 9:11
Yeah, but hey’re all related because they happen this century. They’re related. So therefore, okay, actually hold that thought, because we’re almost to halfway. And so, Tim, when we come back from the break, hey, just take the whole second half. Man, however many stories you know, seriously, we come back, rattle off as many good news as you can before we toss it back to your dad. Hang on, folks, we’ll be right back. You’re listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 9:40
This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders, with another moment from American history. Many today wrongly claim our founding fathers were largely atheists, agnostics and deists. 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 I’ve 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 urged public prayer and dependence on God. For more information about the faith of the founding fathers, go to WallBuilders.com.

Rick Green:
Welcome back to WallBuilders Thanks for staying with us. Good news Friday today, and we gave Tim like the whole second half. So two, okay, what, however many you want to throw in there, and you can relate them, like any way you want, like they happen this continent, they were both done by human beings. I mean, you just figure out a way to make them relate and they’re in.

Tim Barton:
So let’s start with that. The first one on top of my stack is house GOP unveils Israel aid bill that would take back funds from Biden’s massive IRS funding service to pay for it. Now, for those who have been paying attention, president Biden is still promoting that we send billions upon billions of military aid over to Ukraine. And then he said, hey, we’ll include Israel funding in this Ukraine bill. He suggested a hundred billion dollars of aid and there’s going to put everything in it. Right, this is just kind of like their, their omnibus. Everything goes in this. This is the sausage. We’re going to put all the pieces together and it’s all going to come out great. In this funding from Biden’s proposal, it was going to include some portion of funding, maybe for the southern immigration issue, although we’re not really sure how much and where was going to be used and what was going to happen. And so the House Republicans said look, instead of doing this, this deal, where you say the only way we can get funding to Israel is if we continue to fund your buddies in Ukraine, where there’s been no oversight and no Accountability with any of those tens or hundreds of billions of dollars that have gone over there, and we already know that some of that money’s made its way back to America, which not to digress on that, because it’s a good news. The Republicans said that they wanted to put forward a package, and they did. It was a 14.3 billion for military aid only to Israel, and what’s even better about this is they offset the cost and expense by saying they’re going to take a portion of the 80 billion dollars that was dedicated to the IRS With the inflation reduction act and they’re going to take the money from the IRS and use it to help fund Israel. So maybe we won’t have those 80,000 plus IRS agents or however many it was that are going to be added coming our way. Obviously, with this being said, it’s going to still have to make it through the Senate. They do expect. Even though this was bipartisan in the House, you had Democrats and Republicans voting for this, because there’s enough people that are paying attention, saying we actually ought to just do some bills and that are only about what the bill is actually about. Let’s not add everything else into this bill and pretend like we’re just funding Israel when we’re funding all these other pet projects. It’s really encouraging to me that you had a bipartisan support in the House. They do expect once it goes into the Senate side, there’ll be some opposition in the Senate from the Senate Democrats who probably aren’t going to be a supportive, because what they’re going to do, they’re going to leverage and say, well, fund Israel as long as you help us fund all these other things that we want to do. So that’s going to be a battle, but at least right now we have a house that is Is doing something based on principle. This is something that we were much more hopeful over the last many Republican speakers. We would see something like this. We didn’t see this for Boehner, we didn’t see this from Ryan, we didn’t really see this from McCarthy and not that their guys didn’t do something positive along the way. But but this is something that so many of us have been saying for so long let’s not, let’s not put all of our funding in one bill and therefore, if you don’t pass the bill, you don’t get anything. Let’s actually say let’s just do one thing at a time and let’s make sure we know what we are voting on, instead of Whatever we’ve been doing to this point. So, again, this is really good news to me. Now, actually, guys, something that totally relates to this. It’s basically the same thing. It uses different words, the headline slightly different, but it’s basically the same thing. And it was a Catholic farmer who was barred from a market for his beliefs on marriage and he was able to triumph after a six-year lawsuit. So it’s it’s almost the same thing as funding for Israel. So really, it’s really related. So this is basically one good news story, but it’s a second one that I…

Rick Green: 14:51
That’s pretty good. Yeah.

Tim Barton: 14:52
I mean you, right, you, you see the connection right?

Rick Green: 14:55
I see it, man, I see it. They’re definitely in the same universe, like literally in the same universe.

Tim Barton: 14:59
It’s like this is it’s so obvious the connection on this one. So I think there was a guy from East Lansing and there was a judge that that ruled against the city, citing that it violated a Catholic’s Families rights or religious freedom. The family was banned from selling at a Michigan farmers market in 2016 and I remember this. When it happened, we just thought this is the craziest thing ever. They were banned from selling at the farmers market, which I don’t know how many people listening if you’ve ever been to farmers market. I’m from the country. I’m very familiar with the farmers market. You go and it’s better than their grocery store, right? You go and you buy your fruits and your vegetables. It’s awesome. It’s so fun. You can connect people, talk with people and you can look over what’s there. It’s a farmers market and they were told they could not be there because they believe marriage was between one man and one woman. I mean just it’s so crazy. What farmer is at the farmers market who doesn’t know there’s two genders and marriage is a man a moment? I mean this is so ridiculous right. This is crazy. But the good news…

Rick Green: 16:02
Wait, are you saying they have examples like all over the farm that that helped them to understand male and female?

Tim Barton: 16:09
I mean correct, yes, you don’t put a bunch of heifers in a field and start waiting for them to get pregnant and have babies like nope, you got to put the bull in there because you understand how this works. It’s so simple that, nonetheless, Alliance Defending Freedom represented them. They were able To help them get the victory after six years and again, like, It is crazy that it took six years for that to happen, but six years later they do have a victory. To me, it does again illustrate that we have to be willing to fight and persevere, not just show up one time, but persevere until we win. Because not only did they get the win, but now they have helped set a precedent that if there are these issues again now it’s so much easier for attorneys to go, Hey, there’s this case right over here where this was determined very, very plainly, very clearly right, this should not be complicated. So they’re setting a precedent that can impact all of the rest of America. So this, this is really good news and encouraging and really kudos to this family for having the perseverance for six years to go through this process. All of the nonsense and, of course, having Alliance Defending Freedom represent them that, that financial burden was not what it could have been. But this is the Tennes family, I’m probably mispronouncing that is T E N N E S, so Ten-nes, Tennes, I don’t know. Nonetheless, just kudos to them, I, and, if anybody knows them, thank them. Steve is the owner of Country Mills Farms and the one one of the members of the family, so just kudos to them for their courage and bravery on this, or perseverance to see this go through and, really good news, they got the win.

Rick Green: 18:02
And I was very, very unfair to you, Tim. I said that your two stories were in the same universe. They’re actually even in the same galaxy, so it’s even more narrowed down and and actually even in the same solar system and, frankly, the same planet. So well done, sir. Let’s see guys, let’s take a quick break. When we come back, David will have some more good news for us, so stay with us. You’re listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 18:29
Hey guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders, called the American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help Tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today. And, we would say, very providentially, in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not not the statement black lives matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America. Well, is America worth defending? Well, what is a true story of America? We actually have written and told that story, starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln. We tell the story of America not as a story of a perfect nation or a perfect people, but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out. WallBuilders.com, the American story.

Rick Green: 19:32
We’re back on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. It’s good news Friday, more good news at our website, WallBuildersLive.com. Let’s get back into the good news. David’s got the next piece of good news. Alright, David, now that we’ve picked on you for most of the program today, you get to bring us home. What’s our, what’s our final…

Tim Barton:
We did not pick on him for most of the program, because his good news took most of the program to…

David Barton: 19:52
That’s true.

Rick Green: 19:53
That’s right. Only only for a couple of minutes of the program. Yeah.

David Barton: 19:58
I’m just in shock that… you’ve never picked on me before. I’m not sure how to handle this.

Rick Green: 20:03
And we didn’t learn it from you either. No, no, we didn’t learn it from you at all. No, it wasn’t. Alright, brother. What’s up? Where are we headed for…

David Barton: 20:12
We talked about how that in Eastern Europe, after the Soviet Union fell apart, that a lot of those emerging nations have really tried to be very Christian, very biblically oriented. Poland is one, Tim, You and I have been to Poland. We’ve taken congressional trips over to Poland, CODELs and those people are amazing. Now I think it’s 93% or 97% Christian and they are just genuinely nice people. They love conservative policies. They don’t believe their university should teach woke stuff at all. As a matter of fact, we talked to their education minister and he was really upset that the universities were starting to teach things that would not be usable in jobs and universities are about getting jobs and it was just so refreshing. But there in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Romania, there’s several of those young nations that have really emerged to try to be biblical nations out from under the fist of the Soviet Union, and they’ve come back really well and done really good things. And so here’s one. It says the Czech defense minister calls for the withdrawal from the United Nations. So defense minister wants Czechoslovakia out of the UN because of the way the UN is treating Israel. I’ll just read part of the article here. It says the Czech Republic’s top defense official is calling for her country to leave the United Nations after its central policy making body approved a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, but failing to mention killings and kidnappings of civilians committed in Israel by Hamas. The Czech Republic was one of 14 UN members that voted again. You get that? Only 14 members in the UN voted in behalf of Israel. The rest went the other way. This resolution overwhelmingly passed 120 supporting it, 45 abstentions and only 14 against it. So the Canadians put forth an amendment that would have demanded that you condemn Hamas atrocities and command an unconditional release of all hostages, and they couldn’t get but 55 of the nations to say that Hamas should be condemned, the hostages should be released. So you have very few European nations. Austria and Hungary, they also stood alongside, and the United States did, and some of the Pacific Islands, but it’s just. It’s really embarrassing how far off the UN is. It takes so much money out of our budget every year and liberals and Progressives just insist that we have to be part of this global body. And it is a useless global body unless you’re promoting really leftist stuff, and then it’s great for that. But for anyone who has a constitutional perspective, a constitutional viewpoint, or that wants to support something that actually does something good. This is not it, and kudos to Czechoslovakia for being so bold and going out front and making this a national issue. I don’t recall most of our American media talking anything about America voting against this crazy resolution, but we were one of the 14 nations. But for some reason they’re willing to note that Czechoslovakia voted against it, and good for them. At least it’s out there that the UN is not going to condemn Hamas and all the atrocities, that it’s not going to call for the hostages to be released crazy stuff, but good for Czechoslovakia.

Rick Green: 23:18
Alright, guys, we actually have a couple of minutes left. So, hey Tim, why don’t I bring it back to you and you get an extra? This would put you ahead. No, no, this would actually just bring you into a tie. That’s right, yeah, so you at least get to close with it. This is your chance for a three point jumper at the end of the game, for the tie.

Tim Barton: 23:32
Well, okay, we can go to overtime and find out what happens then. So this one is from Delaware and it identifies that abortions decline 20% as more babies are saved from abortion, and this study identifies it’s LifeNews.com. They identify the numbers over the last many years and seeing the percentage decline in Delaware and this is something that was that the numbers in this go through 2021, but this, however long it took them to figure the data and come out with it, they’re identifying the decline and this is before the overturning of Roe, as they’re walking through this, because they identified that the Roe overturned was in June 2022. And the abortion laws in Delaware did not change and yet they have seen a change in abortions, even leading up to this. Now, the only caveat and balance I would say is that, as we see some of these reports, we also get indications that there’s a lot of medical pills that are being utilized sent across state lines, and so it’s some of that industry is changing. Nonetheless, for the available data that we have, it is always good news when we see that babies’ lives are being saved and that fewer abortions are being had.

Rick Green: 24:47
Alright, guys. Well, I’m actually going to close out with not another good, typical good news story, but a good news email that we got from one of our listeners and folks you can send those into [email protected]. This one’s from Maddie. She said hello, my name’s Maddie and I’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live for about a year or two now. Just wanted to thank all of you at WallBuilders for being a positive light in this time of darkness. I recently moved to Alabama after graduating college and when I moved I wanted to really put effort into being involved in my new community. Recently in my area there’s been some controversy over some books at our public library. I’ve attended several city council meetings where the topic has been discussed and I also took a look at some of the books they were talking about to see if there really was an issue. Long story short, there were some books that are not good for children to be reading. After a spiritual battle, I decided to go to the library board meeting today. I wasn’t planning on saying anything. I’m really shy and pretty awkward, but I really felt the Lord moving in my heart to stand up for the innocence of the children in my community. So why am I telling you this? Well, I would not have even considered getting involved in local government and politics if you all were not following the Lord by putting on WallBuilders. I would have never known that I could make a difference. I would have never known that people around the country have succeeded in making a difference. I don’t know if what I said will make any difference at all, but what I do know is that I was completely enveloped in the Holy Spirit in that moment. Again, I just want to say a big thank you for all the work you are doing and for the WallBuilders show. It is so needed and so appreciated. God bless, Maddie. Well, Maddie, God bless you. I’m tearing up thinking about the fact that you had the courage to stand up and speak truth, that you felt the Lord using you in that moment, and we are thankful here. All of us on the WallBuilders team are thankful that we could be a voice of encouragement for you to do that. Thanks so much for listening, today, folks, you’ve been listening to WallBuilders.