This Precarious Moment Will Determine America’s Future: In today”€™s episode, we discuss with Jim Garlow, co-author of This Precarious Moment, what the significance of this book is for our culture right now. America is on the brink of disaster and its future depends on you. Discussed in today”€™s episode and in the book are 6 ways we can impact culture and this nation in a practical way. Tune in now to learn more!

Air Date: 09/12/2018

Guest: Jim Garlow

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 the culture.  This is WallBuilders Live! Where we”€™re talking about today”€™s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, always from a Biblical, historical, and Constitutional perspective.

We’re here with David Barton, America’s premier historian our founder here at WallBuilders. Tim Barton is with us, he”€™s a national speaker, pastor, and president of WallBuilders. And my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator.

Check us out at WallBuildersLive.com, that’s our radio site. Then WallBuilders.com is our main site. So the radio site you can get a list of stations and archives of the programs. Then at WallBuilders.com there are a wealth of tools there for you to help equip and inspire you to help restore America’s constitutional republic.

Later in the program Pastor Jim Garlow is going to be with us to talk about his new book that he teamed up with David Barton on called This Precarious Moment. David, Tim, excited about this new book. I didn’t even know about it. Then what was it? Good News Friday we were talking about it or something? You guys mentioned it and I”€™m like, “€œThis is a great book for exactly where we are in our culture right now today.

Six Most Relevant Topics In The Culture Today

David:

You did that intro set up by saying, “€œWe deal with the hottest topics in the culture”€ and we’ve got six of them in this book. We took six-maybe they’re not hot topics, nobody really cares about emigration, nobody cares about race relations, those aren’t in the news at all. Nobody is talking about them. Millennials certainly, they don’t take much in the news. I guess maybe these six topics really aren’t that relevant. Yeah, right.

There are six topics that are in the middle of the news. We look at those six topics and we look at the problems associated with them and also solutions that go with them. We do it from a historical and biblical viewpoint as well as just common sense, quite frankly. It’s a really fun book, it’s a really timely book. We did this thing several months ago and since then each of these issues has really blown up more into the news. I think it’s a really relevant book right now.

Rick:

It’s called This Precarious Moment, six urgent steps that will save you, your family, and our country. It’s Pastor Jim Garlow and David Barton. Pastor Garlow be with us when we come back from the break. Stay with us folks, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live!

Join Us In Israel!

Hey guys what are you doing January 28th through February 7th? If you said you don’t know, let me give you an idea. We are going to Israel. Rick Green, my dad, David Barton, Tim Barton, our families are going and we would love for you to go with us. We are going to the Holy Land if you’ve ever been to Israel this is something as a Christian that will make you forever read your bible differently.

To see where Jesus walked, where He lived, where He did miracles, where so much of the Bible took place. If you’ve ever read through the Bible and you’ve given it a mental picture, the mental picture will not do justice of what happens when you’re actually on the ground. If you’ve ever thought about the story of David and Goliath and you”€™ve envisioned what it looks like, we’re going to go to the actual field where it took place.

There are so many things that you will see that literally makes the Bible come to life. In fact, that’s the name of the tour group we”€™re going with is The Bible Comes to Life. Go to CMJacksboro.com. You can click on the link, it has an Israel itinerary, all kinds of details. Hope to see you on this trip this coming year.

New And Timely Information Coming Out

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live! Pastor Jim Garlow has joined us here and we’re talking about the new book that’s coming out, This Precarious Moment. Pastor Jim, we were talking about the reasons for the book. What do you want people to know about this book and the reason you and David put it together?

Pastor Jim:

These are critical topics. The subtitle is not by accident when it says, “€œSix things that could save you, your family, and our country.”€ These are very critical issues like racial healing. Dealing with immigration, we believe, the biblical way. Understanding how to deal with the situation we face as a relationship with Israel. Millennials. Then reestablish an understanding of the Judeo Christian structure and foundation of our nation. And and finally, let the church act like the church. Pretty important topics.

rick:

David, obviously like you said, these are hot topics in the culture. We talk about them here on WallBuilders a lot. How important is it for people to take that biblical, constitutional, and historical perspective on these six issues? Is that what you guys infused into the book.

David:

We did infuse that into the book. Let me tell you just from a perspective of what I think the response is. Just a couple of days ago I was in Washington D.C. speaking to a group of congressmen. They were a few dozen congressmen there. I covered two of these topics with them. I put together some slides on it and covered immigration and millennials.

This is a group that meets periodically maybe once a month or so. What I went through on immigration was totally new to these guys and these guys are in the middle of doing immigration bills.  

Going through the history of immigration, history of immigration laws, the history of immigration in America, this goes all the way back to the Founding Fathers. In the Declaration of Independence they talked about immigration, what King George the Third was doing with immigration, how that was a problem. At the Constitutional Convention there was a big issue for them, seven of 39 signers of the Constitution were themselves immigrants. This was a big issue covered there.

This was new to the congressman. They’re in the middle of making policy on this stuff and this was new information. But when I got into the millennials, and went through the millennial stuff, they got really engaged. The staff there said this is the most active they have ever had the congressman in any meeting. Question, after question, after question on millennials. “€œWhat do we do with this area? How do we help this area?”€

I will say, just looking at the reaction of Congressman, these are the guys making the policy, this is like brand new stuff for them. So I think it really is timely. It is very helpful and very useful. And that’s just two of the areas and there are six areas that are just that hot, just as hot as those two on immigration and millennials.

Time Is Running Out

Pastor Jim:

Rick, if I can just add the spiritual underpinnings to this. It was the end of 2016 after a very contentious election and  early 2017 that I really felt pressed on my heart by the Lord. But particularly the first four of the issues we cover that we have a short time frame. Not just that the new administration at that time, the Trump administration, but the church.

The Church of Jesus Christ in America has a short window of time to really address these first four issues in particular, all of which are important. Those four were really pressed on my heart that we have a short window of time to see racial healing in this land establish.

To really resolve the immigration issue from a spiritual standpoint. To see a renewal of Biblical thinking in the minds of millennials. And then finally, the re-establishment of a proper relationship with the United States and Israel. On that latter one, the president has taken us a long way down that road, we’ve seen progress. In the other three areas we have not seen progress at all since that came on my heart the end of 2016.

Rick:

Pastor Garlow, when you say that it’s gotten better with Israel, what do you attribute that to?

Pastor Jim:

The current administration, the president, moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That was a major. The decision after decision he has made has really honored scriptural truth on the issue of the appropriate treatment of Israel. That one we’re seeing tremendous strides at the present time.

I wish we could say that about the other three areas of those original four. I just want to say, this book is written in a way, not just to address these macro problems but to give really practical help so that people can do-People tend to throw up their hands and say, “€œThere’s nothing I could do about the racial divide in this country. Nothing I can do about the immigration problem.”€ Well, we try to get practical guidelines for each person, things that they can’t actually do to effect change in these various areas.

Understanding Millennials”€™ Paradigms  

Rick:

Let’s hit the millennial topic. You guys devoted basically a sixth of the book to that. Tim, how important is it that this topic get addressed not just to millennials but some of us older folks on how to address millennials?

David:

Before Tim does that, let me throw away in that Tim was a huge contributor to the millennial section of the book. His name is upfront and the title page is one of the contributing authors. I will say that those who have read the millennial section, the millennials who have read the millennial section said that this is the best overview they have seen of millennials and they themselves are millennials. It really is a very good chapter. For those who are not millennials, it really helps you understand the thinking and what needs to be done there. Tim, go ahead.

Tim:

I would say that one of the things that culture has done pretty poorly at is helping older generations understand the younger generation. One of the major disconnects is that we often look at life through the lens that we understand. Sometimes we don’t understand how other people are seeing things. There’s been a major disconnect with millennials- millennials because of that have been a very maligned Generation.

I think we mentioned in the book that they’re probably the most maligned Generation possibly in American history. On some levels it’s justifiable because we see the academic performance, and favoritism of socialism, and things that were going, “€œThis is just ridiculous what they think, what they believe, and what they don’t know.”€

If we’re going to be fair, we have to actually say, “€œWho are the one that raised millennials?”€ Because they didn’t teach themselves all of these things. But what we talk about is that millennials are so incredibly relational that there are a lot of very practical beneficial things you can do to engage and reach millennials.

Millennials by and large are very open to relationship and they want to connect and they want to feel valued and have people pouring into their life. It really does allow an opportunity-Jesus talked about the idea of discipleship, there really is an opportunity for discipling millennials. But we have to learn to speak their language. We have to learn to see things the way they’re seeing them understand things the way they’re understanding them so that we actually are speaking in a language that they can comprehend and appreciate what we’re saying.

It really is a vital chapter for anybody over 40 to understand people generally mid 30s and down. It will give them a lot of perspective and insight and hopefully give them a hope for the future because there is so many positive components and elements that God has placed inside the hearts and minds of millennials. But we need the older generation to understand how to draw that out and how to really shape, mold, and disciple that with a biblical perspective.

Taking Action In Our Communities

Rick:

Is this really- in many ways, even on the millennial issue but specifically on the other kind of policy issues that you guys cover, would you call this a call to action to not sit on the sidelines and learn about these six issues and to step out as you were saying Jim, with practical things?
Because even on the millennial issue, building those relationships and speaking to that generation and educating and equipping that generation as well. But on these other issues reaching out to our elected officials and our pastors to speak on these things, are you wanting people to actually take this as a guidebook to actually take action in their communities?

Pastor Jim:

Absolutely. The subtitle again is, six urgent steps that could save you, your family, and our country. We are in a crisis moment in America. I saw one of the graphics that was prepared by our publisher. It said something like this, “€œAmerica is in crisis and you can make a difference.”€

I hesitated to post that for moment on Facebook thinking, “€œIs that really too much melodrama for some people? Is that going to be hyperbole or looked like spam?”€  I realized, no, it’s not. Our nation hangs in the balance and those who are spiritually discerning and governmentally aware knowing exactly where we are at this point.

The good news is there are answers. God has the answers. The good news is there are responses we can take. So it is, like you described, very much a handbook. Towards the end of each section we get specific steps that people could take to make a difference in each of these critical areas.

David:

Let me add something in here Rick, because Jim was talking about that thing that America does hang in the balance. “€œYeah, yeah that’s hyperbole.”€ Well, let’s let’s look at it this way, from a historical standpoint, can you name a socialist nation that has endured long periods of time, that has preserve freedom, and has provided prosperity? The answer is no you cannot.

Let’s look at, Tim mentioned millennials, not millennials but the kind of young millennials and Gen-Z folks, those that are in college right now 75% of students in college right now want America to be socialist. They want socialism. They think that’s a really good way.

If that happens, America will not exist as we’ve known it. That’s just a historical reality. To say it hangs in the balance, you bet it does. That’s not hyperbole. But as Tim pointed out, it is really easy to to change that generation relationally. You’re not going to do this through mass media. You’re not going to do it through a huge broadcast. You do it one on one. Every single individual America knows millennials and know some that are in college.

If you”€™ll take some time and spend some relationships and talk them through, “€œHey, you”€™ve been taught in college socialism is really good? Here’s a couple of things to think about. And by the way, can you name any nation in history where socialism has created what you want? Which is prosperity, equality, and fairness? No, it never does.”€

That’s one indication. And Jim mentioned earlier, that part of the problem we have is we get overwhelmed with national sized problems. Quite frankly, this is a product of our national media right now. I don’t care whether you listen to Fox, or CNN, MSNBC, or whatever. They don’t cover local issues, they cover national issues.

We look around and say, “€œI can’t get the president to do anything, I can’t get Congress to do anything on immigration. I can’t get the Supreme Court to rule the right way on family and marriage. I can’t do anything.”€ There’s a lot you can do and that’s what we’ve provid in the book is individual steps that individual citizens can do to make a difference in each of these major national areas.

What Does The Bible Say On Government

Rick:

A lot of that ends up being on the local level. Certainly, even sometimes when we talk on the program about the local level we often talk about school boards and city councils and whatnot but you guys talk about the local level as well as even in the church letting the church be the church.

Address that for a minute because I don’t want people to think this is only for millennials. This is for people of every age and specifically the church regaining its role in influencing the culture.

Pastor Jim:

Let me say it this way. We have the largest churches that we’ve ever had. We have churches in America across 70,000 in attendance. We have the largest Christian colleges we’ve ever had. One Christian college has over 100,000 students including online. We have the largest Christian publisher we’ve ever had. The largest Christian radio TV networks we’ve ever had. Never had anything like this. Yet, the nation is going to hell.

Our capacity to engender the values of scriptural truths into the broader culture is just almost nil. Someone has to ask, “€œHow is that possible? What has gone wrong?”€ The answer I think is the lack of biblical applicationalizm, that”€™s a long word. The lack of ability to apply Scripture to all of life.

If you tell somebody, “€œThe Bible has the answer for you personally.”€ They go, “€œYeah.”€ “€œ “€œThey”€™ve got the answer for your family. The Bible has the guidelines for your church.”€ “€œYeah.”€ “€œThe Bible has the guidelines for government.”€ “€œOh, it does?”€ It’s like golly gee, did God forget about the government thing?

No. The key answer, to how governments are supposed to function our found in the scripture and if we follow what the scripture says about how the Bible says the government is to function, we can reduce human suffering and human poverty and the pains that are being inflicted on humanity.

Classic example, Detroit in 1960 was one of the world’s greatest cities. Forty years later it lay in ruins as if had been bombed. Why? Principles or policies that were followed there. The source of those principles has to be the pulpit from the word of God, of the person of God, standing at the pulpit educating and decipeling the people what the scripture says to every arena of life including governmental aspects.

David:

Part of what we’ve got going on Rick, and Jim just hit it, is that biblical Applicationalism. Because 72 percent of America professes to be Christian and yet only 10 percent of America has a biblical worldview. So we have a lot with the title but not a lot that know what the book says about that title.  

That lack of knowledge of how to apply the Bible to the simple things. How do you apply Bible to your personal economics? How do you play the Bible to what goes on at the workplace for you? How do you apply the Bible to fluid genders? Things like that. That’s something that we really are not aware of how to do today.

Part of that is, Christians have to take their own individual responsibility know the word of God. But the church has become silent on that. The church is not even into that aspect of evangelism like it used to be. I don’t think the church really is the place for evangelism, that should be happening with individual Christians.

In the last 15 years the number of born again Christians in America has dropped from 47 percent to 31 percent. Born again Christianity is dying and America. And whose fault is that? It’s not the government’s fault, it’s not the school’s fault, that’s the Christians fault. Particularly, the church’s fault because we focused on things that the Bible doesn’t focus on and that term Jim used, biblical applicationism,  is what we have to get back to.

Pastor Jim:

Remember this, Barna”€™s research, 90 percent of pastors agree the bible speaks to the political and issues of the day. But when asked in that same survey several years ago, 90 percent of the pastors said they would not speak to those issues.

There’s probably over 350,000 churches in America. There”€™s about a hundred thousand churches in America that say they follow the scriptures. But of those, when I asked George Barna based on his research, of those 100,000 who have called themselves biblical, how many of those have a distinctly Biblical worldview, that is the capacity to apply the scriptures to every aspect of human life? He said somewhere perhaps between 6,000 maybe 100,00- 15,000 at best.

David:

This is out of 384,000 churches. So you’re looking in the vicinity range of three to four percent of the church in America actually addresses what the Bible addresses. And that’s a problem for America.

The Sermons People Are Desiring

Rick:

It actually explains how we got in the mess that we’re in and what you’re laying out in section 6, let the church be the church, is how to how to turn that around. Before we let you go Dr. Garlow, just tell me if I got this right, that whole section on the church when I first looked at the outline and I haven’t had a chance to read every page of the book yet but I thought maybe that was just for pastors. It looks to me like that’s a clarion call to pastors but also to parishioners to say to their pastors This is what we need in our church. We want to be a Biblically applicable church.

Pastor Jim:

Again, if I can quote George Barna, he shows that people sitting in the pews of evangelical churches want their pastors in very strong numbers, want their pastors to teach them and to educate them on what the Bible says to these various issues.

In fact, in one survey people spoke and said we will not speak out on this issue. I thought what George Barna was going to say next in the survey was because they were afraid of being labeled, called certain names. But it said it said that’s not the cause. The reason we’re not going to speak out on the issues is we do not know what to say.

That’s why it’s so critical that the pastor of a local church preach on the wide array of topics. You ought follow with the national news is saying that night or the local news that night and think, “€œHere’s what the scripture says about those respective issues.”€ And educate people on the issues, how they can articulate them.

Number two, they take that biblical awareness into the voting booth. Number three, that causes them to elect people who have a biblical awareness. So we can have biblical applicationalism, wisdom in our government, and the result is a huge drop in human suffering, human pain, and in poverty.

Rick:

I like the way you say it better, mine sounds simple. Biblical application. Yours is what? Biblical applicationalism?

Pastor Jim:

Applicationalism.

This Precarious Moment Classes

Rick:

As long as I don”€™t have to spell it. But we’re going to learn how to do it in this book. It’s called This Precarious Moment, six urgent steps. Guys, best. This is again not just for pastors to read but please, listeners, get this book and give it to your pastor and challenge them. Get them to realize we are at a precarious moment in our country. This precarious moment, six urgent steps that will save you, your family, and our country by Jim Garlow and David Barton. Which website do you want folks to go to the book and for more information?

Pastor Jim:

They can they can buy the book online.  My website is JimGarlow.com. Of course David give his.

David:

That website is WallBuilders.com.

Pastor Jim:

But, if they want to have Bible studies or essential classes built around a book they can go to a special website called ThisPrecariousMoment.com. There will be study questions there for their small group or others. It’s broken down into 12 videos that I’m on with David Barton and Tim Barton joins us for one of those and those. Those videos are available for their small group at ThisPrecariousMoment.com. It”€™s available by audio book as well.

David:

Pulled up the website as you were saying it, looking at the video clips right now. This is much more than just a book and a quick read. It’s really a study guide and you can use the videos, I guess and it’s ok for folks who take these home and play them in Sunday school classes and do them in groups as well.

ThisPrecariousMoment.com for the more detailed information and the videos. David Barton and Jim Garlow folks you got to get this book and read it. Pastor Garlow, always good to have you sir. Thank you for your work on this book and on our culture. Thank you for being a pastor that leads. You’re literally a Black Robe Regiment type pastor from the founding era and we’re so thankful for you.

Jim Garlow:

Joy to be with you my friend.

Jim Garlow:

Thank you Pastor Garlow. Stay with us folks we’ll be right back. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

This Precarious Moment Book

David:

This is David Barton. I want to let about a brand new book we have called This Precarious Moment, Six Urgent Steps That Will Save You, Your family, and Our Country. Jim Garlow and I have co-authored this book and we take six issues that are hot in the culture right now.

Issues that we’re dealing with, issues such as immigration, race relations, our relationship with Israel, the rising generation Millennials, and the absence of the church in the culture wars, and where American heritage is, our godly heritage. We look at all six of those issues right now that are under attack and we give you both Biblical and historical perspective on those issues that provide solutions on what each of us can do right now to make a difference.

These are all problems that are solvable if we’ll get involved. So you can grab the book This Precarious Moment and find out what you can do to make a difference. This Precarious Moment is available at WallBuilders.com.

Why We Started WallBuilders

Rick:

Welcome back, thanks for staying with us here on WallBuildersLive. Thanks to Pastor Jim Garlow for joining us today as well. Let me give you that website again, This PrecariousMoment.com. That’s for not only the book but the videos and the study guides to go with it.

David, sometimes people hear this program, it’s like you said at the beginning of the program, is this just hyperbole? Are we exaggerating? I don’t know how to really get across- we could spend the rest of our programs for the rest of the year talking about the things that have gone wrong in the country and the challenges that we’re facing. But people have to realize the cultural trends.

As a historian, when you step back and look at history you realize how bad these things are that are really undermining and tearing apart the foundation of our country, the whole reason you started WallBuilders.

Daivd:

It is Rick, but we also started wall builders because we love the model that we get in the book of Nehemiah. For those that don’t know, WallBuilders comes from Nehemiah. Chapter 2 Verse 17 were Nehemiah called the people to rebuild.

What they all thought was impossible to do. They looked at their nation, it was in ruins, it had been in ruins for decades. They said, “€œThere’s no way to do this.”€ And Nehemiah said, “€œIf all of you will do something we can get this done.”€

What happens is, they get the entire city of Jerusalem rebuilt, the walls rebuilt in 52 days, and no one thought that was possible. That’s really why we started WallBuilders. Yeah, there’s issues out there, there’s problems out there, but if everybody will do something at their level we’re not looking for national leaders, we”€™d like them, but we’re looking for just citizens to do something in rebuilding right where they live. Then you get the whole nation rebuilt.

That really is the theme of this book and that’s what we boiled down to. Simple things that people can do at their level. If people will do this we can get this nation rebuilt a lot faster than we think we can and it will have a very successful foundation back under it again. Right now the foundations are under attack. We can get that reversed.

David:

That’s why I love working with you bro, that optimistic outlook. A realistic but optimistic. Saying, “€œHey, here’s the challenges, we’re not going to perfume it up. It’s the Good the Bad the Ugly. Here’s the things that are going wrong but we have biblical solutions to this. We have examples in history of where people have applied these principles and got the positive results.”€

That’s what we’re talking about applying through these basic principles. It’s all right there in the book. This Precarious Moment, the website Thisprecariousmoment.com or you can go today to WallBuilders.com to find out more. Thanks so much for listening today to WallBuilders Live.