Rick Green
Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's The WallBuilders Show, where we take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And happy Independence Day. It's the birthday of our nation. Today, July 4th, the 248th birthday of America- something to celebrate, and declaration principles are definitely worth celebrating. That's the foundation, folks right there in the Declaration of Independence. That's the foundation, the philosophy of what made America great. It's not just the 27 grievances and the things that they were complaining against the king for and literally revolting for. It's the foundation, what John Quincy Adams called the slab that the home of the Constitution gets built on later. It is the foundation, what John Quincy Adams called the slab that the home of the Constitution gets built on later. It is the foundation of America.
So we should celebrate today and also take stock. This is a good time to measure where we are as a nation, to be eyes wide open about the challenges that we face and to recognize that we are two years from right now, today, two years from that 250th birthday, the one where most nations fall apart, where great civilizations crumble. It's just the nature of man, because those tough times make tough men, tough men make good times, then you enjoy those good times so much you stop doing the hard work to make sure that your nation still has good times and those good times make soft men and then that leads to the tough times. We're in that part of the cycle, folks. We've had it so good in America for so long, the culture's crumbling around us, but we have an opportunity, found right there in the Declaration of Independence, the tools that we need. We have an opportunity to restore this nation, to make sure that we spend the next two years restoring the foundation, doing the hard work allowing these you know, somewhat tough times. We're just entering the tough times. It could get a whole lot worse if we don't pay attention and do the things necessary. But as we enter these tough times that we let the pain that Americans are feeling right now wake them up, shake them from their slumber and start doing the hard work, becoming the tough men that are necessary to preserve freedom and pass it to the next generation. We have what it takes over the next two years to revive the principles of liberty.
If we will pay attention today, on the 248th birthday, to what it takes to revive this nation, well, we're going to be listening to Tim Barton give a presentation on exactly that. What are the principles of the Declaration of Independence? What is the birthday of America all about? What are we celebrating today? Tim Barton, of course, is a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders.
David Barton, America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, shared with us over the last two days about these very things.
I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach and founder of Patriot Academy, and we're actually going to be together, the Bartons and I, tonight doing fireworks and we're going to be going through a handgun defense class at the Patriot Academy campus in Fredericksburg, Texas, having a great time, and we're going to be talking about the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
But today and tomorrow, what we want to do is we want to go to a presentation that Tim Barton did about these very principles and about this birthday, and I hope that you're just beginning to think about what can I do over the next two years to preserve freedom? What's my job as a biblical citizen, as a good steward of this talent of freedom? What is my job to make sure that my children and grandchildren can enjoy freedom the way that I've been able to do that. How can I help to restore the good times and get through these tough times quickly? That's what I'm hoping your brain is processing as you listen to these presentations this week about the principles of the Declaration. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back we'll jump right in with Tim Barton on the celebration of our nation's birthday.
Break
Rick Green
Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. Let's jump right in to Tim Barton talking about the birthday of the nation and what we can do to restore these declaration principles uh, thank you guys so much.
Tim Barton
It's such an honor and a pleasure a privilege for me to be in this house and I'm excited to be with you on fourth of July weekend. As an American, I love celebrating fourth of July. Hopefully, as we get into this, there'll be some stories you learn along the way that will help you enjoy celebrating the 4th even better. And let me just start with the fact that most Americans sadly don't even know why we even celebrate the 4th of July, and I say that without pun. Literally, people don't even know about the American Revolution. We don't know what the 4th of July is, or even back up to 1776, what's going on. And what's interesting is, even if we talk about the Revolution, a lot of the knowledge we have today is not always the most historically accurate based on what actually happened. For example, John Adams, when he was asked when did the Revolution actually begin? We might think of the shot heard around the world the Lexington Green. There was a Battle of Concord. There was a Battle of Bunker Hill. There's a Battle of Concord. There was a Battle of Bunker Hill. There's a lot of things that happened in the beginning. John Adams says no, actually the beginning was in 1770. The first blood that was shed in the American Revolution actually, he says, was the Boston Massacre, because that's when the British first fired into these American patriots. What's interesting even about this thought is, if you back up, if we understood that this is the first blood that was shed in the cause for liberty. Well, if you look back and say, well, who is the first person believed to have been killed in this cause for American liberty? It was actually a black patriot by the name of Crispus Attucks. Now let me just pause for a second and just throw a monkey wrench in a lot of the narrative happening today. Did you know the American Revolution began with the death of a black patriot? Let me go even further If you go to the last major battle of the American Revolution in 1781,.
One of the major players in that battle was the Marquis de Lafayette. He was a Frenchman, became a major general during the American Revolution and George Washington charged Lafayette to track the movement of the British officers, see where they were going, see what they were doing, and Lafayette had been a major anti-slavery guy. When he gets to America, he continues this on and Lafayette said you know the best way for us to track the movement of these British officers is we need to get a regiment of black patriots who can pretend to be spies go into the British camp. They'll spy in the British camp. They'll come back and report to me. Because, he understood right, if these black patriots pretend to be escaped slaves, the British would welcome them in. So he gets these black spies to go into these British camps. But one of the guys working for him was a man named James Armistead. James Armistead actually goes and serves in the camp of the commander of all the British forces, Lord Cornwallis. And as James Armistead is serving in the camp, James Armistead is the guy who found out Lord Cornwallis was moving with several thousand of his men to Yorktown and as this is happening, he gets information to Lafayette.
Lafayette tells Washington and Washington says, hey, maybe this is the moment we've been waiting for. We can surround Cornwallis, we can capture him. This might end the revolution. There's a very famous painting that is depicting the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. This is when Washington gets the victory. This is what is recognized as ending the American Revolution.
And I would point out, the only reason Washington even knew where to go was because there was a black spy who got the intelligence and I want to unfold this for you. Right, we're in the middle of a conversation about what kind of nation is America, and is America good and bad? We don't even know the history of the nation, so let me just throw you a little bit. The American Revolution began with the death of a black patriot, and the American Revolution was won because of the work of a black patriot. You can't even tell the story of America, you cannot even fully tell the story of the American Revolution without including the work of these black patriots. And yet today we know so little. So yet today we know so little. So, understanding that we know so little, let me give you a crash course. Okay, if we back up July 4th 1776, this is when the founding fathers, they declare independence from Great Britain and ultimately were separating from King George.
And in the midst of this, as you look at the Declaration, we probably ought to think about the Declaration a little bit differently than a lot of us think about it today. The declaration really was a breakup letter, and I would argue this was the greatest breakup letter ever written, because in this letter we said it's not us, it's all you. And then we listed 27 reasons why he was the problem. Okay, like really brilliant breakup letter. Okay, in the midst of this, if you look back at the declaration, I remember when we learned that Thomas Jefferson right as a guy who drafts a declaration, okay, that's fine. Whatever, he was 33 years old when he did this.
When I was a teenager growing up, I used to think that 33 was really old and that you have to be obviously really smart as a 33-year-old. I'm a little past 33. I realize, first of all, it's not that old Prospective teenagers. Okay, it's not that old. And you're not inherently really smart as a 33-year-old, which makes it even more profound what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration as a 33-year-old man, encapsulating so many brilliant thoughts, and I want to read a couple we'll probably recognize we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. This is really a brilliant synopsis of the American philosophy.
But let me unfold a few things, and I want to start with what he starts in this phrase we hold these truths to be self-evident. See, we live in a culture today that isn't sure truth even exists anymore. Now let me tell you, as a Christian, if you don't understand the foundation of truth being God and founding God's word, then we have a different problem. Right, truth exists. It's found in the person of Jesus, john 14, 6,. He said I am the way, the truth and the life. Truth does exist. We find in God's word. With all that being said, the founding father said there is truth that we are basing our actions, our behavior, our decisions on, and this is what Jefferson said, they believe to be true. He said that all men are created equal, that we've been given rights by God and that government exists to protect those God-given rights. I would also point out that a lot of people today, when we read the Declaration we hear well, jefferson might have written that all men are created equal, but he really only cared about equality for white people.
I would challenge you go back and read Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration, because the Declaration that we know today was the final version approved by Congress. John Hancock said they could only include in the declaration what everybody agreed to, which is why the final declaration says the unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America. Everybody had to agree to it when Jefferson originally drafted the declaration and he had a listing of all the grievances, the problems that we had with the king. The longest grievance in the entire declaration was a grievance against slavery. He said we've had several colonies try to end slavery and the king actually detold the laws. And we've had several colonies try to stop the importation of slaves.
And here's where it gets interesting. He said the king has enslaved these men, bringing them from their continent across the sea to this continent to put them in perpetual slavery. But he said the king has enslaved these men. And if you go back and read that grievance and look for it, then you can find Google images. Look at his handwritten document. When he says men, he puts it in full caps locks Capital, m-e-n.
He says the king has enslaved these men. Why does that matter? Because when Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, he was recognizing something much deeper than what most of us understand the declaration to mean today that everybody in all of the universe made in God's image. There is equality in that. Now I don't have time to go a lot deeper than that, but let me just back up. He says that these are truths we see from God. But notice he also said that we owe these truths to be self-evident.
Rick Green
All right, folks, another quick break. Stay with us. You're listening to The WallBuilders
Break
Rick Green
Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Let's jump right back in with Tim Barton talking about the birthday of our nation.
Tim Barton
Self-evident means it's obvious. I want you to think about this for a second. Is it obvious in the world that everybody's equal, or that we all have rights from God, or the government exists to protect those rights? Because it's not obvious in China, it's not obvious in Russia, it's not obvious in most of the Middle East, it's not obvious in most of Europe, it's not obvious in most of Africa or Central and South America. So why would they say these were obvious? Because, also it's worth noting, these were not obvious in the king's eyes, right Like the king didn't agree with any of this.
Who were these truths obvious to? These truths are only obvious to people who know what the Bible says. Because if you know what the Bible says, it's from the Bible that we learn that God made them in his image, male and female. He created them in his image. This notion of equality comes because we recognize that we have a creator, god. And I think it's also super interesting that if you look at the story of creation in Adam and Eve, the Bible does not tell us what shape, size or color Adam and Eve were. You want to know why? Because that doesn't matter. We live in a world that pretends like your shape, size and color determine part of your value. That is not biblical at all. But see, if you know the Bible, you recognize that God made us male and female in his image and our value comes because we were made in the image of God. If you go further and talk about this notion well, the idea that we have rights from God, yeah, go to the Garden of Eden, where God gave Adam and Eve right, the freedom of speech and choice and worship. God gave rights and this was way before government ever existed. But God gave rights to men. And if you look at Genesis 9, when Noah is on the ark, it lands on Mount Ararat and he gets off. And part of the Noahic covenant, God gives the very first civil ordinance to man and he says if man sheds blood by man, his blood will be shed. Where God said we're not going to allow this murder and drunkenness and debauchery and all this evil that was happening, God says from now on, we're going to make sure that we are protecting people from these murderers or whatever the case might be. This is where and, by the way, we can go through lots of other passages that would outline this as well, but I just stayed with Genesis because it's super easy Like this is the very beginning explaining these thoughts and ideas. These are obvious if you know what the Bible says. But one of the things today is people say, wait a second.
But the founding fathers, by and large we've heard they weren't really religious people. Right, this is what we hear that they weren't good people, that they were atheists or agnostics or deists. We hear all these negative things against them and I would point out that if you back up just a couple of decades, we used to know something very different than what we are learning in more of our modern era. If you go back, for example, in the mid-1900s, clinton Rossiter was a professor at Cornell University. He wrote a book called the Seed Time of the Republic and in this book he identified there were six major people from kind of the formation period of America that led to America separating from Great Britain. All the main ideas we used in the founding fathers era came from six main guys Now you can see on the screen is Benjamin Franklin, richard Bland, the Reverend Thomas Hooker, the Reverend Roger Williams, the Reverend John Wise and the Reverend Jonathan Mayhew. Four of these six people that he identified as the most influential, the most significant to what we did, were pastors.
Today a lot of people don't have any idea the role the pastors played. But let me just give you one easy example. If we look at the Reverend John Wise, he was a pastor in Ipswich, Massachusetts, in the late 1600s and early 1700s. In 1717, there was a book of sermons published and in his book of sermons he had actually taught a sermon where he said that God's preferred form of government—excuse me, the first one was taxation of representation is tyranny—he said God's preferred form of government is the consent of the governed. And he preached another sermon where he said that all men are created equal and we have all been given certain rights by God. If you're familiar with the Declaration, you know those are verbatim lines out of the Declaration. How did this pastor's sermons from 1717 make it to the Declaration?
Because they were reprinted in 1772 by the Sons of Liberty in Massachusetts, because they said we need every American, every patriot needs to read this and understand the role of government, the role of Christians in government, the role of the church. And these sermons were reprinted, they went to all the colonies. All the founding fathers had read the sermons of John Wise. So in 1776, when they come together to do the declaration. This was something that everybody had read. They were familiar with these ideas. Historians have thoroughly documented how the founding fathers knew and studied and read John Wise and he's just one of many pastors we could point to.
But let me back you up. So one of the guys who was a son of liberty he was actually one of the leaders of the Sons of Liberty was Samuel Adams. Samuel Adams was also known as the father of the American Revolution. He was a guy trying to stir up Americans to action and as he is involved leading the Sons of Liberty, the Sons of Liberty begin to ask me how can we stir up other patriots to action? How can we encourage other Christians to stand up? And so one of the things they determined was they were gonna start what was called the Committees of Correspondence, and this is before there was group. Me right, it's before you have group texting, it's before there's email. So they said we just need to write something down and we'll just send it with different people on horseback. We'll send these to the colonies so everybody can read it, so we can all be on the same page. What's super interesting about this thought of them all being on the same page is the very first ever committee of correspondence was written by Sam Adams, and there were three sections in it.
One of the sections that Sam Adams identified was the rights of the colonists as Christians. He was saying Christians, you need to understand what's going on in our nation and why we should stand up. And what he said is if you want to understand what our rights are as Christians, here's what he started off this section with. These may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great lawgiver and the head of the Christian church, which will be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament. Now, this is what they're telling all the colonies. If you want to understand where you should stand as a Christian, you should study the life of Jesus. Right, because that is certainly the great lawgiver in the head of the Christian church is. It's Jesus. You should study the life of Jesus and make sure you're reading your New Testament
Rick Green
All right folks, sorry to interrupt Tim again, but we got to take one more break today.
Stay with us. You're listening to the Wall Builder Show.
Break
Rick Green
Welcome back to the WallBuilder Show. Let's get the conclusion for today of Tim Barton talking about the birthday of the nation, and then tomorrow we'll get the second half of his presentation. But for now let's pick up right where we left off before the break.
Tim Barton
This is the very first committee of correspondence that goes to all the colonies and they're saying, guys, to make sure we're all on the same page, let's read our Bible more. Okay, that's a pretty good suggestion. This is not what most people think of, that the founding fathers, or guys, said, hey, we should read our Bible more, but it's an indication again of the fact we don't know that much of American history or we would think differently about some of the modern narrative being said today. And let me just give you one super easy example. A famous name, john Adams, is somebody that hopefully we recognize that name. He was a signer of the Declaration. He helped end the American Revolution with the Peace Treaty of Paris. He was the first vice president, the second president. He was a very significant guy.
In the midst of this, he wrote often about the Bible and one of the things he said that impressed him so much about the Bible. Let me just read part of this I've examined all religions and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world. I think it's really impressive, first of all, that he said I've examined all religions, because one of the things that we don't do a really good job of in Christianity today is apologetics, that we really don't do enough time studying to know what we believe and why we should believe that as a Christian. He goes even further and says I haven't just studied the Bible, I've studied all religions and nothing compares to the Bible. Well, in this letter he goes even further. He says suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited Meaning. Imagine if there was a place right this island, this state, a county, a city, if there was a place where the only thing they did was live according to the Bible. Right Now process, what would that look like? His conclusion was what a utopia, what a paradise would this region be If we could just get people living according to the Bible. I feel like that would solve a lot of problems, like in Chicago right, there's a few places I can think of, right, that would have really helped. This is literally what John Adams says. Well, john Adams' son, john Quincy Adams, is growing up in this environment, not only in the Adams home, but in early America.
He says something about the way he viewed America that I think is so profound, he says with regard to the history contained in the Bible, it is not so much praiseworthy to be acquainted with it as it is shameful to be ignorant of it. I want you to think about this for a second because on surface level, I would actually disagree a little bit. He said it's not impressive to know the bible. It's embarrassing not to know the bible. I would disagree a little bit. I think it's super impressive to know the bible, right like no. That's a very good thing. That's one of the reasons we love so many of the pastors here at gateway. They know the bible so well, they teach it so well. So why would he say it's not really impressive to know the Bible? Because if I ask this room full of largely adults what is two plus two, it's not impressive that you should know the obvious answer for, but it would be embarrassing for you not to know what should be obvious. This is where he's coming from. He said it's not impressive for someone to know what should be obvious, but it would be shameful for them not to know what should be obvious. But it would be shameful for them not to know what should be obvious. This is literally his thought of the Bible. But where did he get this?
Let's back up again to his parents, John and Abigail Adams, known as kind of one of the ideal couples in early America. Well, during the revolution, as John Quincy Adams was growing up actually when he was just a kid he watched the Battle of Bunker Hill from a side hill. He watched some of their family friends be killed. He watched their pastor die. He went through a lot growing up, but they saw this happening in front of them. John Adams is the American diplomat. He's over in France, he's over in Europe as a lot of this unfolding, and so Abigail is the one at home raising the family. Okay, so she's rocking the single mom life, she's raising kids, she's taking care, and she was amazing, by the way, so impressive, all the things she did In the midst of this.
One of the really cool things that was very well documented and known about the John Adams family was in Massachusetts, where they went to church. Their church is still in existence today and where they went to church there actually was a statue erected that was depicting Abigail with John Quincy Adams, because they went to church every single Sunday. Even when John was out of town, they would always go to church. So this is the life they grew up in. They were faithful in church. They were faithful Christians. As the story goes forward with John Quincy Adams first of all, when he's eight years old, the Massachusetts Minutemen used to do their musket drills in front of John Adams' home. When he was eight years old, john Quincy Adams, eight years old his dad took down a musket and gave it to his eight-year-old son and said I want you to go train with the Massachusetts Minutemen because I want you to know how to do this.
Rick Green
All right, everybody out of time for today. Hope you have a great time tonight, July 4th, 248th birthday of the nation and that today's presentation from Tim Barton gets you thinking about what you can do to be a catalyst for the restoration of biblical values and constitutional principles right there in your home, in your community, in your state and in our nation. Tomorrow we'll get the conclusion of his presentation. Thank you.
