The Role of Government – From Building On The American Heritage Series: Today, we are sharing a segment from the television show we did call, “Building on the American Heritage.” What influence did pastors have on the American revolution? What kind of influence should preachers have today? Tune in to understand God’s principles for government, as well as the amazing influence pastors have had in American history!

Air Date: 08/09/2022

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 the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and politics, WallBuilders Live with David Barton and Rick Green. Today, a special episode we’re actually going to share with you the audio of the television program building on the American Heritage Series. It’s the sequel.

Many of you have the DVD set of the American Heritage Series from a few years back. This is the sequel and today’s episode is called “The Role of Government”. You’re going to enjoy it. Here we go to the set with David Barton.

Rick:

Well, David, our topic today is pastors, the influence they had on the Revolution and whether or not they should be having influence today in the culture. What about the Revolution?

David:

Well, when you go back to the Revolution, look at people who were actually there, who participated, like John Adams from start to finish, signed the Declaration, signed the peace treaty ended. John Adams, 1816, when giving a list of who is most responsible for independence in America went through and said:

Well, you’ve got the Reverend Dr. Samuel Cooper, you got the Reverend Jonathan Mayhew, there’s George Woodfield, there’s Reverend Charles Chauncy, preachers. Not only did Adams point what the British did as well, the British were the ones who named the American preachers the Black Robe Regiment. And the British said if it hadn’t been for the preachers, America would still be a happy British colony.

The Black Robe Regiment

Rick:

So they gave them a military name?

David:

Oh, they gave them a military name and they also went after them in a military manner. When they came to America and were going through the various states, the British burned church after church after church. They went to New York City, 19 churches burned, 10 to the ground, then went across New Jersey burning churches, went across Virginia burning churches.

We lost 4,300 soldiers to British bullets. We lost 11,400 soldiers to prisoner of war camps. But when a preacher got put in a prisoner of war camp, you can just count that off…

Rick:

Because they blame them for the Revolution?

David:

They specifically blame them for the Revolution. You go, what the preachers have do with the Revolution? Why would John Adams points to Preachers?

And historians have documented that every single rite set forth in the Declaration of Independence had been preached from the American pulpit prior to 1763. That means the Declaration of Independence is nothing more than listening to the sermons, we’ve been in church leading up the Revolution.

The Chaplains and Clergy of the American Revolution

Now, we used to study that. Here’s some old books. This is one called The Chaplains and Clergy of the American Revolution. It’s an old book, 1860s. It’s online.

People can read it at Google Books, but it talks about all these preachers who built America. You have one here The Pulpit of the American Revolution, also from the 1860s. And these are the famous sermons that were preached that shaped America. And sermons and preachers, I mean this is a great example.

This guy named the Reverend John Wise, he preached America in the 1680s. He did two books in 1710, 1717, talking about rights. But back in the 1680s, he has already preached that all men are created equal, that they’re endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

He’s already preached that according to the Bible, when you look at taxes, taxation without representation is tyranny. He’s already preached that when you look at forms of government in the Bible, that the consent of the government is what God prefers. And we go, wait, those were lives in the Declaration.

Rick:

Those are some of the most famous lives of the Declaration? This is 100 years before the Declaration?

David:

It’s in this. In 1772, the Founding Fathers took his sermons and printed in this book. This is from 1772, they spread this all over America.

Oliver Wolcott’s Sermon

Rick:

So they wanted to republish it and get it back out?

David:

They wanted Americans thinking right, and so they republished the sermons. Two years later, they had to reprint it because it was so popular. Two years later, they write the Declaration. And guess what? Lines right out of here show up in the Declaration.

So when you look at the role of pastors, they had a huge impact. Here’s, for example, a sermon preached by Reverend Foster, but it’s in front of John Hancock. What are they doing preached in front of? Because there’s preachers who help government officials think right about government.

Here’s a sermon preached in front of Oliver Wolcott. He’s a signer of the Declaration. Yeah, but he’s the governor of Connecticut and is preached in front of the entire government of Connecticut.

Here’s a sermon preached in front of John Taylor Gilman. He’s a signer of the Constitution. Yeah, but he’s the governor of New Hampshire. This is a preacher preaching to the government, saying, hey, guys, here’s what God says about government.

So, I mean, you look at all these preachers, you look at what we had in the beginning, America would not be the nation it is with the rights we have if it hadn’t been for preachers. And that’s why John Adams list all these preachers as being responsible for what we enjoy in America today.

Pastors Involved in the Revolution

Rick:

Alright, David, how about some questions from the audience on pastors?

David:

Sounds good.

Guest 1:

I understand priests were involved in the Revolution, but that was before the First Amendment of the Constitution. So aren’t they now supposed to stay out of politics?

Rick:

Well, I have to admit at my age, my first picture of pastors in the Revolution is from the movie The Patriot, and remember the pastor going in to fight. So that was a depiction of some of the pastors being involved. But that was before the Constitution.

David:

Yeah, well, you have pastors involved in the Revolution as military guys, as chaplains, as legislators, as guys writing state constitutions. Then you move into the period of the constitution. We mentioned a number of those guys constitution who are ministers, 29 of 56 signers of Declaration held seminary degrees. So you got all these ministers involved in every area, every category of life.

The First Amendment

As a matter of fact, when you look at the First Amendment, it is signed at the bottom by a minister, the Reverend Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg. That minister had been back at a pastor at the church in New York City in 1777. That minister in New York City, when the British came into New York City in 1777, there were 19 churches down, they burned 10 of them to the ground.

He stood outside his church watching as it gets desecrated. He said, I’ve got to be involved. And he got involved.

He helped write the original Constitution for the state; turns around and gets elected to the Continental Congress, then is elected to the federal Congress. He’s elected speaker of the House in Congress, then does the First Amendment…

Rick:

Wait, you got to stop for a second. This is a pastor serving in Congress, not only a member of Congress, Speaker of the House?

David:

Speaker of the House, and so now he’s over the writing of the First Amendment. And we’re going to think that a pastor over the writing of the First Amendment is going to write an amendment that says I can’t be involved. I don’t think so. He got involved, and he wrote the First Amendment, or helped write it. He helped oversee the writing of it as a Speaker of the House so that pastors would be protected.

The First Amendment Is Not to Secularize Government

And that’s where our problem today is: we misunderstand the First Amendment. The First Amendment is not to secularize government in any way, shape, fashion, or form; it’s to limit government from secularized in society. The First Amendment says, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercises are up.

Only limitation of the First Amendment is what Congress can’t do. It’s not what pastors can’t do, not what churches can do, not what religious individuals can’t do.

It only says Congress, you can’t set up a national religion in Congress. You can’t stop anybody from expressing their faith. That’s all the First Amendment is about. That’s no limitation on a pastor. I mean, it is wide open. That let pastors still serve in Congress. That let pastors still be legislators.

And by the way, you actually had several pastors who helped frame the First Amendment. Hugh Williamson is a signer of the Constitution. He’s also a minister. He’s a framer of the First Amendment.

Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, the Speaker of the House, a pastor, his brother was serving in Congress with him. John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, he’s a pastor as well. So you’ve got all these pastors serving in Congress and were to think that they wrote an amendment that would limit themselves from doing anything.  

Rick:

So they didn’t stop with the fighting for the Revolution? Even before that, they were planting the seeds of liberty from the pulpit, they were in the state legislatures after that, and they were in Congress, giving us the First Amendment?

Nothing to Limit

 David:

All they did was limit the government from stopping those expressions from occurring. They did nothing to limit the expressions themselves, nothing to limit pastors, nothing to limit churches. The only thing the First Amendment limits is, congress shall make no law.

Now, prior to the First Amendment, there was actually a couple of states that tried to limit the role of passers. You had, for example, down in Georgia that said no minister conserving the legislature. Virginia had that.

It’s interesting that Thomas Jefferson is the one who went back in Virginia, said, hey, ministers shouldn’t be incapacitated from serving; they have the same rights of every other citizen. They don’t lose rights.

And when Georgia did that in 1777, John Witherspoon, who’s a signer of the Declaration, who was in Congress throughout the Revolution, he wrote a letter down to the legislature in Georgia saying, why would you say a minister can’t serve? Is he less of a citizen than anyone else? After having done so much in the Revolution, does he now lose the rights to participate that he fought for?

Do Preachers Lose Their Rights?

Rick:

He was a minister serving in Congress?

David:

He was a serving in Congress. Now they’re saying, hey, ministers can’t serve in Georgia. And, the reason they gave was, the gospel is so important, you shouldn’t be distracted from the ministry of the gospel by being in the civil arena.

It’s kind of interesting Witherspoon actually got humorous. He said, so I guess if I was properly getting the moral, I could serve in the legislature, but being a minister of the gospel and having a moral in religious position, I can’t serve, so are you saying that I can only be in the legislature if I set aside my religion and my faith and my morality?

So what you find is by 1791, so many of those states had dropped that provision. There had been an early attempt, and it’s an understandable attempt, because even Thomas Jefferson supported the early prohibition of ministers because so many of the ministers were Anglican, they had been part of the state established church by Great Britain. And so when Baptist or Methodist or Quakers, whoever tried to preach, the Anglican ministers would whack them, they would find them, they would throw them in jail, they would even kill them.

And so what happened was after we separated from Great Britain, Jefferson puts in a prohibition, we don’t want minister serving because he’s seen these guys trying to whack the other ministers. But just a couple of years then he said, hey, it’s really clear that this is not the position of the Anglican minister. As a matter of fact, Jefferson said, of all the Anglican ministers in Virginia, I think there were about 120 Anglican ministers, only 20 supported the state-established church.

Lift the Prohibition on Ministers

So it was really clear the majority didn’t. He said let’s lift the prohibition on ministers. These guys aren’t trying to create a theocracy. They aren’t trying to create an established denomination.

And that’s why the First Amendment says congress can’t create that established denomination, and it takes away any ability of whatever minister to get together and say, we’re going to all be Anglicans or Baptists or Presbyterians or whatever.

So while there were a couple of states that tried to limit ministers, the Founding Fathers quickly put that to rest. So it’s really clear than the First Amendment they weren’t trying to limit ministers, because when that popped up in other states, they went and whacked it in other states, whether it be Jefferson or John Williamson, they slapped it out.

Rick:

I remember you saying on one of our programs we talked about separation of church and state, and so here you’re saying these were actually pastors able to move within both arenas; they were able to do state and church because they weren’t trying to take over one of the other, they were just serving as citizens and both?

David:

Which as pastors simply reading the Bible, because Jesus tells us in Matthew 22:21, you render to Caesars what’s Caesar’s and you render to God what’s God’s. You got spiritual duties. You got simple duties. They were supposed to be doing both and they were doing both.

Never Separated Their Faith from Secular

They were rendering to Caesar and they were rendering to God. And they never separated their faith from either arena. There was nothing in the First Amendment separate faith, it only separates institutions.

We’re not going to let the Anglican Church take over the Congress. We’re not going to let the Presbyterian anything else…

Rick:

Or the Congress take over the church.

David:

Or the Congress take over the church. So what it says is, Congress, you can’t establish a national denomination and Congress, you can’t stop anybody’s free exercise of religion, no limit there to secularize any aspect of society.

Rick:

Okay, David, back to the audience for a question about pastors and government.

Guest 2:

Shouldn’t pastors keep their focus on the church and not on politics?

Romans 13

Rick:

Well, that’s a little bit of what you were referring to earlier. Some of these states have said we don’t want pastors doing both. Should they just be focused on the Gospel?

David:

Well, outside of American history, you do have a biblical precedent for what’s happening. And what’s happening today is we have really a false paradigm that’s created of what a minister is: a minister of the Gospel, as a preacher, you stay in the pulpit. Well, actually, if you believe the word of God is inspired, is inherent and infallible which I do, that’s a tenant of Christianity for 2000 years.

You go over Romans 13, in Romans 13, the inspired and infallible Word of God, twice in verse 3 and once in verse 6, it says that those that are in civil government are “ministers of God”. Really? God uses the same word for those guys in government that he does for ministers in the pulpit?

He doesn’t see a distinction between them, they’re both ministers? Same word. And then as you get into Hebrews 11, which lists all the heroes of our faith, as you look from verses 22 to 34, everybody listed as a hero of our faith was involved in civil government. Now, why would God hold that up to us if he thought it was wrong to be involved in the civil arena?

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:

Not just the American history and the revolutionary period did you have pastors involved biblically, you have ministers in government?

Consider the Kings of Israel

David:

Well, consider how many, just go through the kings of Israel, just read the book of Chronicles, read the book of Kings, read the book of 1, 2 Samuel, the six books deal with the kings. Look at the role of ministers and all those kings. Did Samuel keep his mouth shut when he got around Saul? He’s always giving Saul, Saul, you shouldn’t have done that. I told you to do this.

You got a minister speaking in the civil arena. You turn around with David, was the minister speaking? Yeah. Nathan, again, jumped up to David, immorality, got to go, you can’t do it, you murder Uriah, you’re in trouble. Oh, by the way, David, you want to build a temple? Here’s what God says about the building. They weren’t the advisors.

You even Ahab and Jezebel wouldn’t go out to war until they got a minister in, got a prophet and said, hey, what’s going to happen. Jehoshaphat, the same thing. The role of the prophet was to speak to the king, and that’s God’s minister. You take any prophet in the Old Testament, God had them speaking into the civil arena.

Rick:

You just gave me, I had a picture of pastors now today being those prophets, being the pastors, we the people are the king, if you will; we’re sitting in the congregation, the pastor should be speaking to us on those issues, almost everything.

American History Lines Up with the Bible

David:

And those that we, the people elect in the government position, the pastors should be speaking into that arena as well. That is the biblical precedent. So, even though it is also American president, who cares if American history says it if it’s against the Bible.

But in this case, American history lines up with the Bible. And you really do have ministers involved in the civil arena from the Bible and from American history.

Rick:

Okay, they have another question on pastors and government.

Guest 3:

Jesus didn’t seem to spend much time talking about government or politics in his time. So what about my pastor?

Rick:

Well, did Jesus talk about politics? In fact, I think he talked to politics, maybe even called some politicians some names.

Did Jesus Discuss Politics?

David:

He called some folks out: Herod, civil leaders. He addressed them specifically on several of their policies.

And in addition to that, I guess the answer to this question is what constitutes politics? Does policy constitute politics because Jesus sure talks about policy? And by the way, who defines what politics is?

Now we talk about marriage, is that a political issue or is that a biblical issue? Well, it’s become a political issue. 20 years ago, it was only a biblical issue. It was not a political issue.

Rick:

And if it becomes a political issue, is it no longer, is it taken away from them?

David:

Abortion, the acknowledgment of God, all these things that have become political issues, they were biblical issues long before. So are we saying that every time the government says, oh, that’s our issue, we suddenly can’t talk about it if the Bible talks about it?

Controversial Issues

Rick:

Yeah, just because it’s controversial, does that now take it off that no longer can it be addressed?

David:

What we have to do is say, okay, if it’s in here, I’m going to talk about it. Oh, by the way, in Matthew 20, Jesus dealing with the inviability of contracts between employers and employees. Wait, that’s labor relations stuff. Now, that’s politics. We don’t talk about that. Jesus talked about it, why shouldn’t we talk about it?

You have in Luke 19, Jesus talking about no fault divorce. He says, look, Moses allowed divorce for the hardness of your heart. No fault divorce, you could put away your wife for any cause. He says from the beginning it was not so;

He made the man and woman and said, don’t divide them. So no fault divorce, that’s a big political issue. We got probably two dozen stations today trying to do something to reform divorce, make the waiting period longer, get away from no fault divorce because it caused divorce, whatever it is, have covenant marriage, that’s political stuff.

Rick:

Well, let me ask you a different way then. If Jesus spoke to it and pastors should speak to it, I know our topic today’s pastors, but for me as a voter then, should I not be voting based on that biblical view of each of those issues, not just abortion and marriage, but also taxes? I mean, there’s a biblical view on all of these issues.

God’s Priorities

David:

Now, God does create a prioritization of issues. He gives us His top ten in the Ten Commandments. He says, this is the ten of my teaching. So we do have to look the four things that appear in the Ten Commandments: you have the public acknowledgement of God, you have the protection of innocent life, abortion, you have the protection of the preservation of marriage as He created…

Rick:

When it’s obvious biblical through the biblical [crosstalk 16:45].

David:

Biblical position of marriage, you have the protection of private property, the 8th and the 10th Commandments. Beyond that, there’s all sorts of guidance on taxes, there’s all sorts of guidance on labor relations, employees, there’s all sorts of guidance on divorce would relate to the marriage thing.

Rick:

Well, not to take away my personal responsibility to read and study and do those things, but if my pastor is not speaking to those things, most citizens are not going to know whether…

We Need the Practical to be Preached

David:

The pastor should be expounding the application of the word of God on every aspect of life. And this is one of the problems we have in America today, is on any given Sunday, about 60% of the nation is in church. 67% of the nation thinks the church is irrelevant today. Now, that means the people who are going to church think it’s irrelevant. And quite frankly, I agree with them in many areas.

I am a Christian. If I hear a salvation message 52 weeks out of every year, what do I get from Monday morning? I’m already a believer. I mean, I need something I go out on Monday morning and apply when I go to work, when I go to school, when I go to my family, what do I take and apply? I need something practical.

Rick:

Some discipleship, some application to the things that are happening…

David:

We have made the word of God irrelevant by talking about one or two or three things and nothing else. And if you go back and look at what Jesus talked, you bet he talked about eternal life and he talked about repentance, but he also talked about a ton of what we would call public policies. And we need to say, hey, I’m going to follow the model of Jesus. I’m going to talk about all these things.

The Impact of the Pulpit on the Nation

Jesus told Peter, feed my sheep. Well, the sheep, not the ones who are outside the fold, feed the sheep. And that’s what pastors need to take a responsibility to do. And by the way, the Great Commission is not about evangelism. Jesus in the Great Commission says authorities is give to me in heaven and earth, so go and teach… And he says, teach them everything I have taught you. Now, that includes evangelism, but it’s everything I have taught you.

Rick:

Yeah, you just listed off on a lot of things… What a difference the pulpit with the impact of the pulpit on our nation, if we were teaching those things?

David:

That’s exactly right. And we need to change our paradigm as the church, as pastors, as people who sit in the pews and say, wait a minute, we can’t let the government take these things off the table just because it wants them. If they are in the Bible, I’m going to talk about them. They’re not political.

If they’re in the Bible, even though they’re policy issues, they’re not political, they’re biblical. And that’s a big difference. We need to talk about what’s biblical and not let the government tell us what we can’t talk about, which, by the way, leads to another thing.

Speak Up

There’s a great website to Speak Up Movement, and what you find is the government and secularists have really intimidated the church in the thinking of certain things they can’t talk about. That is not true. Even though they say, oh, you lose your IRS tax exemption.

Go to Speak Up Movement, look at the website. Government can’t take your exemption away. That exemption came from the Constitution, not from the government. All the government does is give you a letter recognizing that you’re tax exempt. You lose the letter, you don’t lose your tax exempt…

Rick:

You’re getting on a big issue right here, David, because I think a lot of pastors, if they were listening to the things we just talked about, might say, well, I’m afraid to talk about that because I might lose that tax exemption. Say the website again?

David:

Speak Up Movement.

Rick:

So speakupmovement.org… Okay, they can go there and learn about what they supposedly is not supposed to say, but what the law says…

501(c)3

David:

And by the way, we’ve been pushing the IRS on this to prove, because see the IRS, this policy is about 50 years old. 350 years, there was no limit on what the pool pit said. In about 1954, Linda Baines Johnson passed an amendment says, oh, we can’t do this, 501(c)3 should keep your mouth shut on certain issues. That has never been challenged in court. It was not even a policy debated in Congress. They added it as an amendment rider to a bill, and it went through without debate.

Rick:

It’s like sneaking it in the dead of the night, nobody paying attention.

David:

Exactly. And so it’s not become a national policy. We’ve never had a debate on it and we’ve never litigated it. Now if you take this and go into court, you’re saying the wait a minute.

You’re saying that pastor loses his right to free speech, you’re saying that pastor loses his right to association to choose who he wants to associate with and talk about that association, whether it be political entities or anything else, you’re saying that he loses his free exercise of religion? He believes with all of his conscience that abortion is wrong, but he can’t talk about because…

Crossing the Line

Rick:

They’ve empowered Congress to censor what a pastor can say.

David:

That’s right. What happens there’s really four constitutional grounds that protect the pastor on whatever he says in the pulpit. This group, Alliance Defense Fund has developed lawsuits that they’re willing to take at the IRS, but they can only take them to the IRS if they get the IRS to come after a church. So, what they’ve been doing for the last several years is getting pastors to clearly cross the IRS line and talk about political issues in the pulpit, which are biblical issues but they’re political…

And by the way, they even call candidate’s names and political names from the pulpit because if I say, you know, I look at the President, he’s the most pro-abortion president we’ve ever had in history, he’s enacted over 41 pro-abortion policies. Is that politics or is that just reporting the truth?

All these guys have been going, and they even said, look, you cannot vote for certain candidates because they are pro-abortion. You as a Christian cannot support the shedding of innocent blood and if you vote for that candidate, you’re wrong. They’re calling candidates by name.

The IRS

We take those and we turn them into the IRS say, oh, IRS, you got to come after this preacher, he crossed the line. And we know they cross the line. We’re encouraging them to cross the line because we want the IRS to come in.

Years now IRS refuses to go after any of those guys. Now why would they do that? Because there’s 370,000 churches in America; if they come after those guys, we hit them with that lawsuit and we win the lawsuit, then 3,700 churches know that there’s no limitation on what you say. So they would rather let 200 churches cross the line and not get in trouble than lose control of 370,000 churches.

Rick:

So this is huge, David? So these pastors spoke from the pulpit on an issue as controversial as abortion…?

David:

For marriage or all sorts of other issues that are in the box…

Rick:

And they name candidates and their positions on these issues?

David:

And let me say also there’s pastor speaking on pulpit on things I disagree with. But that doesn’t matter.

Rick:

But they have the freedom to do that.

Free Speech

David:

They have the freedom. There’s some guys coming out all sorts of… The Bible is against any war anywhere at any point in time, I’m against the war on terror, I’m against President Bush when he did the war on terror. I’m against President… They’ve got the right to do that from the pulpit.

The government has no right to go into the pulpit and tell you what you can or can’t because you’ve got the right of free speech. They don’t limit anybody – even unions from saying what they want. They don’t limit teachers, political parties from saying… Why would preachers be the only one they would limit?

Rick:

Well, it sounds like they’re not then. If these pastors have been able to send those sermons to IRS, IRS hasn’t gone out, they send that to the world saying but you can’t say these things…

David:

These pastors have gone through legal training and they have deliberately crossed the line saying, please come after me because I need to file a lawsuit.

Rick:

The IRS line, not the constitutional line, the IRS line?

Alliance Defense Fund

David:

That’s right. Or the biblical line. Having crossed the biblical line or the constitutional line, they’ve crossed the IRS line.

Rick:

Which is really a paper tiger, it sounds like.

David:

That’s our points, paper tiger. And that’s why I recommend going to Speak Up Movement, speakupmovement.org. Alliance Defense Fund, one of the premier constitutional groups in the United States. They defend pastors for free. We’re finding out that, you know what, there is no limitation.

Rick:

David, that’s a wealth of information, not just for passengers, but for those of us in the pews as well. Let’s get another question from the audience.

Guest 5:

My church is full of different political views, but we’re all united by faith in Christ. Should I be concerned that introducing politics into the pulpit will breed disunity in the church?

Rick:

Well, here we go. Small or large church, they’re all going to be a diverse population there in that church.

Biblical Foundations Are Vital

David:

The bigger question is who cares about unity? What you want is biblical foundations. Because Jesus said, you know, when I come I’m going to be bringing sword, I’m going to divide a family.

That’s going to be two against one and one against two. Because when you start holding up a standard of truth, there’s people who don’t want to embrace the truth. So your objective should not be church unity. Your objective should be declared the word of God. That will wean things out.

You may recall the disciples came to Jesus in Matthew 14 and said, oh, Jesus, the stuff you just taught, don’t you realize the Pharisees were offended over that? He said, look, it’s the truth. They’re either going to get it now or they’re going to have to get it at the judgment. But I’m not going to stop speaking the truth.

So when you go from that standpoint and you go, for example, to 1 Timothy 1 versus 8-10, where it says the purpose of law is to, and I mean, Paul makes it really clear, he says the law is good if the use as it should be used, knowing this law is not made for righteous person–

But for the lawless and wicked for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, the law is made to regulate murderers and manslaughters who murders the mothers, murder the fathers, fornicators, homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and all this other stuff.

So if I come out in a position that says, wait a minute, the Bible says the law is made to regulate sexually immoral, whether it’s homosexual or whatever and so we need to have laws that say this, which we had up until just a few years ago when the Supreme Court said, oh, all those laws have to go away because we disagree with them. I don’t care what the Supreme Court says. God’s made it really clear what is right and wrong in the scriptures.

Unity Over Truth or Truth Around Unity?

Rick:

So even if your congregation is split on that issue, there’s still a duty to preach what the truth is?

David:

This is where Jeremiah called the pastors back in a bunch of dumb dogs. And that is dumb, meaning they keep their mouth shut, they don’t bark. They should bark. They should bark when they see danger approaching. But they were dumb dogs, they wouldn’t bark at the danger.

Which goes over Revelation 21:8 and 22:15, you find that there’s another list of things that God says. This is not to be tolerated in society. That’s what formed the basis of common law, which is the 7th Amendment of the Constitution. This is still common law today, but suddenly, we think we shouldn’t talk about it because it’s divisive.

It’s more important to get people to think biblically than it is to get them to have unity on a false basis. You need to have unity based around the continuity of what God says in God’s word. And if people can’t handle that, you don’t compromise your message just because they don’t like what God says…

Rick:

And not only think biblically, but act biblically, like you said earlier in the program, we need that application on Sunday to be able to go out on Monday and apply what God’s word says.

The Role of Government – From Building On The American Heritage Series

David:

We need to get back to using this as the basis of building our lives, our churches and our culture. Everywhere we go, everything we do, if it’s in this, it’s not off limits to talk about in the pulpit. If it’s in this, it’s not off limits for living in society. If it’s in this, this is what has made America successful. You don’t limit it just because the government says, oh, that’s political stuff in there, you can’t talk about that. No. No.

What we want to do is Romans 12:1-2 and the King James says, be not conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewing of mind. I love the Philips Translation, it says, don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold. We’ve got to stop letting the government or secular people or critics within the church squeeze us into their mold.

We need to go back and say, hey, this is the guidebook, this is the mold, this is the plan I’m going to follow. It was pastors who made America, it’s pastors who kept America great, and it’s only pastors who are going to keep America going in the right direction.

Rick:

Thanks for listening today, folks. Many of you have the DVD set up the American Heritage Series.  You can get the sequel, which is Building on the American Heritage Series. A lot of new materials, some fantastic programs you want to have in your library, you can get it at our website today at wallbuilders.com.