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>> Walker Wildmon: We inform religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions no matter where they are.

>> Rick Green: We equip sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech.

>> Don Wildmon: We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and territory. This is at the Core on American Family Radio.

Rick Green is America's Constitution coach and author of the Biblical Citizenship course

>> Rick Green: Welcome to At the Core with Walker Wildmon and Rick Green I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution coach. Thanks so much for joining me today. I'm actually going to pick up where I left off almost two weeks ago. Hadn't been quite that long, but it was, it was a chance to share what Charlie Kirk had been doing with us on biblical citizenship in modern America. And the response has been so good. A lot of people have really enjoyed that and so I thought we should just continue it. We had, we created this program by the way, if you're not familiar with biblical citizenship and modern America, America, it's our best, most attended, most effective constitution class I frankly think that that's ever been used. Of course I'm biased because, you know, we created, I shouldn't say we created it really just the Lord brought it together. There were so many things that happened in the creating of this course that I just. There's no way I could have planned it. The people that became a part of it, the, the content that got recorded, I mean there were even Times when we went in to record a session, for instance, with David Barton and we would talk about what we were going to do ahead of time. And I pointed out a few things that he had covered in the previous months that I thought would be really good in the, in the course. And then he ends up covering all these topics that we didn't even talk about. And, and then a year later they end up being exactly what needed to be covered. Things like, you know, the raid on, on Mar a Lago and, and what, what are, what are called writs of assistance. And he, he talked about that this was before the raid and before the FBI had been so weaponized. And, and and, and when he, after we filmed it and I went back and we edited it and I watched it and I was like, I called David and I was like, hey David, you know, that was not anywhere near cover, we're gonna have to record again to cover the truth and courage stuff. And and, and, and I thought, well, we'll throw it in, you know, we'll put it in the course just because it was good stuff, but I didn't think anybody would be interested in it. And then a year later it becomes the hottest topic and we had already been teaching on it for a year. And so the foundation of why these, these warrantless, what amounted to warrantless and non specific searches, how evil that was and how it ended up being used so much by the FBI under the Biden administration. And yet that was exactly what John Adams said was the birth of the revolution, that it was literally born with James otis's speech in 1761 against writs of assistance. Anyway, my whole point on all that is that, that David putting that in there was not something I thought would, be, you know, what people would enjoy learning at all or was even necessary in my little, you know, pee brain. And then a year later it becomes one of the most important things we could have been teaching. And after, after all that stuff happened, I called David back up and I said, this is probably two years after we had filmed that, that session of biblical citizenship. And I said, man, how did you know, how did you know that that was going to become such an important topic and that you needed to teach on that in biblical citizenship. And you know what David said to me? He said, I taught on writs of assistance. I'm not kidding you. So my point is the Holy Spirit led that whole thing, all of the teaching from, from what we learned, you know, a week or two ago with, with that first episode With Charlie and. And with not only Charlie, Kirk, but Kirk Cameron and the monument, but also these due process issues like writs of assistance and our protections in the Bill of Rights. You're going to learn some of that today because I'm going to bring you the second week of biblical citizenship, as much of it as we can get in today. So I'm going to stop talking. Let's jump right in.

This is week two of biblical citizenship in modern America

This is week two of biblical citizenship in modern America. Welcome back for week two of biblical citizenship in modern America. You're back. First week must have been good. Yes. All right. Man, we learned so much, much last week right here in this classroom, about what the Great Commission actually says. We learned about what an ecclesia actually is. We, ah, got to learn about the monument to the forefathers. There was so much that happened last week. It was a wonderful time of learning. Before we dive into week two and we really talk about is America worth saving and what are the seeds of liberty that make America worth saving?

We're heading into week two of Biblical citizenship in modern America

Once we answer that first question, I'm wondering what you guys most remember from our first week when we talked about the monument, when we talked about the beginning of those seeds of liberty being planted here. Anybody remember anything from that first week that you want to just kind of help? Remember, repetition is the mother of all learning. And remember what we said about fundamental principles. We need a frequent recurrence to it. We're going to have a frequent recurrence to even what we learned the first week. Yeah, go ahead.

>> Bob McEwen: What Robert said is while we were doing church, the rest of the world was in the ecclesia and we had retreated from it. And I've often wondered, why is that? Why did we just go away? And I think when we escape to our countercultural ghettos on the sidelines of the culture, the world suffers. Just like Jonah went and retreated on, on the belly of the ship. And they said, hey, throw us over, throw me over because of the great storm. And I think this is the same situation that we're in. And I really just to say this, I think Christian escapism is the stuff that fallen cultures are made out of. M and we must rise up to the challenge. And now is the time to do it.

>> Rick Green: I want you to say that again. Christian escapism.

>> Bob McEwen: Christian escapism is the stuff that fallen cultures are made out of.

>> Rick Green: It's actually a great way to lead into this week because I think sometimes, I mean, we all need encouragement, but often, it's conviction of what we need to change and how we need to act different. That's actually going to make, the difference. And we have this lack of courage in the culture. And so part of what we're going to cover, on this week's class is not only answer this question of is America worth saving? And what's some of that true history of where we came from, but how do we as a church have the courage to stand for truth and go out into a culture that sometimes we think does not want to hear truth? I personally think they're hungry for truth. I think they're starving for truth and that they want it. but sometimes we lack the courage that even ah, as Rob talked about last week, that previous generations of Americans had. It's a missing trait in our culture. And I'm praying for God to infuse that and for us to take on Joshua 1 and 9. Have not I commanded you be strong and of a good courage. So these truths that we're teaching, I think as they convict us, they will give us that courage as well to go out and do the right thing. But we're going to answer that question. We're actually headed into the Wall Builders Libra, and we're going to answer that question, is America worth saving? And I often say I'm just a country boy from Dripping Springs, Texas. My country boy answer to that is very simple. If you want to know whether or not a nation is worth saving, it's real simple. Are people trying to get in? Are they trying to get out?

>> David Barton: Right.

>> Rick Green: A lot of people still trying to get in to America.

>> David Barton: Right.

>> Rick Green: So we're going to be headed into the amazing Wall Builders Museum and Library for week two of Biblical citizenship in modern America.

>> Pastor Jack Hibbs: I think biblical citizenship as a Christian would be stewardship that God has given us this republic to be stewards over.

>> David Barton: And you begin to love what God.

>> Rick Green: Loves and hate what he hates in.

>> David Barton: The scriptures because your heart is lining.

>> Pastor Jack Hibbs: Up with the heart of God because of the gospel.

>> David Barton: Well, and so many Christians are confused because they're being told things from different people, such as, oh, Christians shouldn't do anything in government. Stay out of that. Not what the Bible says. In fact, we're called to be biblical citizens.

>> Mat Staver: If you're a Christian, a person of faith, you must care about what's happening in our culture. You must get involved in voting.

>> David Barton: Biblical principles are what produce freedom in society. But you won't have biblical principles in society in which you don't have citizens with a biblical worldview.

>> Stephen McDowell: The further we move away from biblical principles, the further we move away from liberty and freedom.

>> Rick Green: As people are experiencing tyranny, they're asking why? What has happened? And there's just this feeling of being lost right now and not knowing where to turn. And you just gave us the foundation. This is truth.

>> David Barton: Biblical citizenship. That's a phrase that brings two reactions. On the one hand are those that say, of course, naturally, that's what we're supposed to do as Christians. But there's also a side that's been out there for decades and even centuries that says, you know, Christians should not get involved in government, shouldn't get involved in those kind of affairs, should be only in spiritual affairs. So really, what is the right perspective and what can we look at that will help us understand our responsibility as Christians today with civil government? Best thing to see is what's the biblical foundation for the concept? So let's go back to the very beginning. If you go back to the beginning, look at the beginning.

Every major Christian teaching goes back to the book of Genesis

A great place to start is the book of Genesis. Genesis is often known as the seed plot of the Bible, because every single major teaching that we believe as people of faith, as Christians, goes back to the book of Genesis. So when you go back and look at the beginning of Genesis, and it does say in the beginning, let's see how things began. You have in the beginning God, and you start with God. And we see that God made creation and he made man. Now once he makes man, you start seeing the beginnings of government. First form of government is self government. We're supposed to govern ourselves. But we also see that in the first three chapters of Genesis, God takes man and puts him, with woman. And they have children. And so you have family. This is the concept of family government. This is the first thing that we see in the Bible in the area of corporate government beyond civil government. The next thing we find is in Genesis 9, we have the beginning of civil government. This is where God steps in and says, okay, here's what you're going to do with murderers. Here's what you do with thieves. He starts laying down laws for civil government that came from God. That's in Genesis. That's the second form of government. Third type of government, because self government, family government and civil government. The last you see is what we would call church government. This is where God gets them m together and say, okay, let's have a congregation. Here's how you're going to worship me. Here's your relationships. We can call that church, but it comes after civil and it comes after family government. It's the third institution. So when you look at, Genesis, you say that, yeah, God is into civil government. He actually gave us civil government before he gave us church government. So there is a biblical foundation for saying that God's people should, should be involved in that. Now when you look at it, what you have is these three separate forms of government, types of government, and they all are very separate and very distinct. There's areas that only they are to do. For example, if you look at the area family, we're told in Ephesians 5, 6 that it is a family who is to raise up children. It's not the government's responsibility to raise children. It's not the church's responsibility to raise children they can help, cooperate and support. But God says, parents, it's your responsibility to raise your kids. So that's something that's given only to that area. He did not give that responsibility. The other two areas, in the same way with civil government, we see that God gives them the sword of civil justice. They're to punish the wicked doers and to reward the righteous. But only government gets that sword. Now there's swords of self defense, and we can have self defense in family or church or whatever. But when the church picks up the sword of civil government and starts punishing wrongdoers, that's where you get into the atrocities we see back in the Middle Ages with the Inquisition and the Crusades, etc. So the sword of civil government is given only to civil government. That's all it belongs to. He doesn't give it to anybody else. Same way with the church. We're told in Ephesians 4, the church is to raise up saints and train them for work of ministry. It's not parents who are supposed to train the saints for work of ministry. It's not the government who trains saints for the work of ministry. That's something that goes strictly to that area. So when you look at the Bible, you have these three institutions and God says, okay, here's what you guys do, here's what you guys do, here's what you guys do. So there are distinct areas that they're supposed to do, but because man's involved in it, you can't have them completely isolated, completely separated. If I'm involved in civil government, I'm going to be involved in my family, I'm going to be involved in my church. M. You really can't isolate them all and say, wait a minute, I've got to put on a different hat and move over here. I'm going to flow between the three and so, because I do that, you have to understand that they're not completely isolated, even though they're separate spheres. And there's ways that they can cooperate together. For example, if you take the area of family, and I'm involved in family, and if I loop that with civil government, there's areas that government's supposed to do, areas that family supposed to do, but there's areas where they can cooperate. Now what is it that family and government can cooperate? What would help both of them if they both worked on this area? One answer is strong families. If government works to build strong families and family works to build strong families, they both benefit from that without violating their jurisdictional separation. Now this is not saying that governments create strong families, because they don't. But they can create an environment that helps families be strong, which is going to help government as a benefit. So it's not government's responsibility create strong families. It's their responsibility not to damage what the family is supposed to do with its own family. And that means creating an atmosphere for good policies. If you look at the area of family and church, what benefits both of them? Well, quite frankly, having strong Christians benefits both. If the family works on having strong Christians, that helps the church, and if the church works on having strong Christians, that helps the family. And neither one has violated the jurisdiction of the other in the same way.

One area where church and government can cooperate is in building strong citizens

If you take church and government, now we often hear this as church and state. I thought they're supposed to be separate. Well, they are, they are separate institutions. But there are things they can do to cooperate. What would benefit both of them? What could you get church and government both working on that would help both of them? And the answer is building strong citizens. Now this is why we teach civics and government and math and science and so many other things. You want educated citizens, you want strong citizens, you want citizens who know how the process works. And interestingly, when you look at strong citizens, best ways to have strong citizens was actually given by the founding fathers years ago. And there are so many founders we could choose from. But I'm going to choose Daniel Webster as the example. This is what Daniel Webster said, great defender of the Constitution. He said, whatever makes men good Christians makes them good citizens. And that's true. It's not the good Christians that the police have to arrest for drive by shootings or violence or all sorts of abuse. Good Christians make good citizens. But those two things do go together. And that's something where actually church and state can cooperate is in building strong citizens. And again, it's government that provides the atmosphere for that to occur. Government doesn't do it. They just provide the atmosphere. So you have all these institutions and they do have cooperative functions. They do have things they can do together. Now, going back to Genesis as a seed plot, let's take another step.

>> Rick Green: Alright?

>> David Barton: We've seen kind of how that there's institutions and God created all of them and he gave jurisdictions to all of them. He gave responsibilities to all of them. They can cooperate, which means we as individual citizens involved in that. But let's go back to the beginning at the creation. When you look at the Creation, it's told in two places. You have the creation told in Genesis 1 and in Genesis 2. And as you see all the creation, how it develops, he separates the waters above from the waters below.

>> Rick Green: Our quick interruption here. You're listening to Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. It's week two. We call it Tending the Garden. Now, you're hearing a lot of voices in here because you're not watching the video necessarily. You may not recognize this. David Paris Barton, Tim Barton, Jack Hibbs, Rob McCoy, Charlie Kirk, Kirk Cameron, Bob McEwen, a lot of those voices, you know, from other trainings and teachings that we've done. I know you're enjoying this, so hang in there. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to at the Core.

>> David Barton: At the Core. Podcasts are [email protected] now back to at the Core on American Family Radio.

We are listening to Biblical citizenship course called Tending the Garden

>> Rick Green: Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us on at the Core with Walker Watman and Rick Greener, Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach and we are listening to some of the Biblical citizenship course. This is week two called Tending the Garden. And so so far today you've heard David Barton and he's talking through some of that tend in the garden, material and writs, of assistance and some of those things. And we'll see if we have time today to get to the second half of this, at least get started on it. But Tim Barton teaches on. I mean, you've got to hold on for this. I'm telling you right now. In fact, I'm just going to leave it right there. I may comment on that a little bit more after we get into it.

David Barton asks why God created man and what does the Bible say

Let's pick back up where we left off before the break with David Barton talking about tending the garden in Biblical.

>> David Barton: Citizenship separates the firmaments and puts a greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night. He creates the oceans and all that are in it. And then the land and the plants and the animals. He goes through all of it. We finally get to man. And a good question to ask is, why did God create man? Because we know that God created man. He tells us that the question is, why did he create man? And this is a good time to say, okay, what does the Bible say about that? And an, answer we've heard since 1646, this is when the Scottish Shorter Catechism came out, which really affected theology in the Protestant church realm. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. And that's a really good purpose. I mean, that's sound big question to ask is, okay, what does the Bible say? Can you show me a Bible verse that says, that is why God created man? Well, that is something man should be doing, no question. But when you look, that's not what the book of Genesis tells us about why God created man. When you look in Genesis to see why, you go back to those two chapters. And when you look at the two chapters after God's gone through everything in the six days and he's got it all created, we're told In Genesis chapter 2, verses 5 and 15, starting first with verse 5, it said, God looked at all he had created, and it was very good. And then he saw that he had no one to tend his garden, so he made man. It's interesting. Man's purpose was to take care of God's stuff. God had created all this stuff. He didn't have anybody to take care of it for him. And so we're told in Genesis verse 15 that once God put man in the garden, man tended the garden. What we see in Genesis is very similar to what Jesus told us in Luke 19:13 about tending the garden. Because you remember there in Luke 19:13, Jesus says, you need to do business. You need to be about doing things till I get back. So taking care of the garden, tending the business. Old Testament, New Testament, we get it. And it's interesting that when you look today, this is kind of in what's described as a seven mountains kind of thing. Because what is the Lord's. What is his garden? What we're told in the scriptures, the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof, everything in it. Today we say, well, that includes entertainment and education and media and religion and family and government and business. We're supposed to be taking care of his stuff in all of these areas. I say, we've gotten out of so many of them. I mean, even entertainment. Did you know that until 1968, Hollywood couldn't come out with a movie unless church leaders signed off on it. And the church said, oh, we shouldn't be doing that secular stuff. Let's get out of entertainment. How has that worked out over the years? I mean, what. We recently came across an archive of 17 letters back when they did the Academy Award winning movie, m. Gone with the wind. 17 letters going back and forth over whether they should use the one word damn in the movie Rhett Butler as he leaves. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a. They had a massive outcry. You can't use a curse word in a movie. Oh, my goodness, look how far we've come. But say we used to be involved in all these education, all of these areas, and so we've gotten out of them and how's that working out for us? We've gotten out of government. Hey, that's one of the parts of his garden we're supposed to be taken care of. So there is a biblical mandate, a biblical responsibility to do this. So civil government is one of those areas to operate in. And one of the easiest ways to do that is at least by voting. Now voting is very significant, but it's something that a lot of people don't tend the garden through voting. As a matter of fact, as you look at something like Los Angeles, and you take Los Angeles, one of the largest cities in the nation, and the mayor of Los Angeles announced that he had been elected with 2.9% of the adult vote in the city. Oh my goodness, 2.9%. There's a lot more people that could have taken care of the garden of Los Angeles and you consider the policies they have. And so much that's out there, even in Texas, the city of Houston, the mayor of Houston is. The population of Houston is such that if you're the mayor of Houston, there are 26 states, individual states in the United States who have less population than the population of Houston. So being the mayor of Houston is like being a governor in 26 states. And the mayor of Houston is elected with 6% of adults voting. So one of the easy things we can do to tend the garden in the area of government is to be involved in elections. And that's local elections and, ah, county elections and state elections and federal elections. But there's more to it than that. There's more that we can learn about the process and there's more that we can do in the process. And this is where a knowledge of constitutional process is important. A knowledge of American history is important. The more educated and informed you are, the more effective you are and the more you can make a difference in the system. So let's go to the American founding. When you look at the American founding and you look at what these guys did in creating their Constitution, by the way, there's 5,600 years of recorded human history. And when you look at that, a question to ask is, okay, they created a government, but what's the average length of a Constitution in the history of the world? And history tells us 17 years. The Constitution we got from these guys is now over 200 years old. It is the longest on Constitution in the history of the world. Every year on Constitution Day, we set another world's record. We've set so many world's records on stability, we don't even think about it anymore. It's natural normal to us. But the question is, okay, everybody had access to the same set of ideas they had in their day because they were political writers. You have millions of books, you have thousands of years of history, you have a lot of political writers. Where did they get the ideas that created our government to be so different? And that question was asked by political science professors at the University of Houston who said, why don't we go back to and collect writings from the founding era and see who they quoted, because if we can find out who they quoted, we'll know who's important to them. So they did that. The results were released in this study called the Origins of American Constitutionalism. They went back and found those 15,000 writings they thought were representative. And as they went through them, they found 3,154 direct quotes out of those writings. They said, now let's find out where that quote originated. And so it took them 10 years, but they tracked every single quote back to its original source. And at the end of 10 years they released the report. And they said what we now know is the number one most cited individual in the American founding was a French philosopher by the name of Baron Charles Montesquieu. In 1750 he wrote a two volume set called the Spirit of Laws that was used heavily by the founding fathers. They quoted from him frequently. The number two most cited individual in the American founding era was Justice William Blackstone, English judge who wrote the commentaries on the Constitution four volume sit. It's a great book. They cited it regularly.

34% of all the quotes from the founding era came from the Bible

Thomas Jefferson said that American attorneys, Blackstones, like Muslims, read the Koran. So that was a big book to them. The number three most cited individual was John Locke. In 1690, he did a book called the Two Treatises of Civil Government. In those two treatises, by the way, it's a little book, less than an inch thick, 400 pages long. He references the Bible more than 1500 times to show the preparation of civil government. So if you think the Bible doesn't say much about government or doesn't refer to, read that book from 1690. That's got a lot in it. So these are the three most cited individuals. But what surprised them was the number one most cited source out of all sources was the Bible. 34% of all the quotes they looked at from the founding era came out of the Bible. That goes to the concept of biblical citizenship. They used the Bible to help create a form of government that's now the most stable government in the world. And it was built on these concepts and ideas from the Bible. So there is grounds for us knowing and being involved biblically. Now when you look at the document that they did, this document, the Declaration of Independence, starts out with 161 words that gives forth six principles of government. After those six principles of government, they then give you 27 grievances showing how those principles have been violated. And then at the end they have a resolve. They say that we here, we mutually pledge each other our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor. And they were doing this with a reliance divine providence. So that's the closing part. But let's go Back to the 161 words. Four of those six principles of government are pretty simple. They start by saying there is a divine Creator. Then they say, you know, the divine Creator has given us a fixed moral law. Then they say he gives us inalienable rights, or what we would call natural rights sometimes, but inalienable rights. And the purpose of government is to protect the rights that God has given us. Now if you take this, let me just take the second one for a minute. That he's established a fixed moral law in the Declaration. They called it the laws of nature, Nature's God. Let me just take one example of how that this dual phrase. In other words, there's the laws of nature, what we see in what God created, and there's the laws of nature's God, which is written down in m the scriptures. Let me just take the area of self defense for just a minute. If you take the area of self defense, it's interesting to see how the founding fathers framed this as an inalienable right that came from God that reflected the laws of nature and nature's God. If you take John Adams, John Adams said resistance to sudden violence for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs and my life, but of my property is an indisputable right of nature. There's nature, there's the laws of nature, he said, which I never surrendered to the public by the compact of society. In which perhaps I could not surrender if I would. This is a God given right, I can't give it up. he said the maxims of the law and the precepts of Christianity are precisely coincident in relation to this subject. Now he says the law and Christianity. So that's the laws of nature and the laws of the God who created nature which we find in the Bible. So he finds self defense being part of both. And yeah, if we look in the Bible we can point to Exodus 22:2 as a verse on self defense. We can point to two passages in the book of Nehemiah, we can point to passages in the Gospel of Luke. So there's lots there on self defense. Now James Wilson, who is a founding father who signed the declaration and the Constitution, was on the original Supreme Court and started the first law school in America and actually wrote the first law books, his lectures, he said the same thing. Notice how he said it. He says the great natural law of self preservation cannot be repealed or superseded or suspended by any human institution. This came from God and nobody can take it away from us because it came from God. He says the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves shall not be questioned. You can't even get close to challenging that because that's a God given right. He says every man house is deemed by the law to be his castle. And the law invests him with the power and places on him the duty of the commanding officer of his house. Alright now grab this. He said your house is your castle. And if it's your castle, you're the commanding officer of your house. You have a duty to defend your castle. And that's why he said every man's house is his castle and if anyone be robbed in it, it shall be esteemed his own default and negligence. In other words, my house is my castle. If I get robbed in my castle, it's not the police fault for not being there, it's my fault for not defending it. God put it in my hands. So this is the phrase that we sometimes hear called the castle doctrine. I have no duty to retreat in my home. That's a God given right. Comes out of the scriptures, comes out of the law of nature. You find it in nature. If you attack the home of any creature in nature, they're going to defend that home. They're going to defend their young and their property and their life. That's a law of nature and it's the law of nature. It's got but the Castle doctrine we hear associated with this. We need to go back and understand where that Castle doctrine came from. It is a biblical concept, but it's not limited just to the second Amendment.

James Otis was a founding father to the founding fathers

I want to take you back to a guy named James Otis. James Otis was a founding father to the founding fathers. A number of the big name founding fathers, John Adams and Sam Adams and John Hancock, they were mentored by this man right here. He was a great attorney. He was in the years leading up to the American Revolution. And one of the men most notable things he did was an argument in front of the British courts in 1761 here in America. 1761 here in America. It dealt with what were called writs of assistance. Now, we don't really know what that is today because we don't study it much. This is super, super important because the writ of assistance was very much like a search warrant, except it was blank. There was nothing filled in on it. So what happens is, if I'm a British official and I say, I want a writ of assistance, I'm going to your house, I walk into your house with a blank search warrant and I start going through all the closets and cupboards and I pull out all the drawers and I look under all the mattresses and I keep looking until I find something that I think is illegal. And once I find it, then I will fill out that search warrant and say, this is what I was looking for. I was looking for whatever you had over here in the third drawer down in the chest of drawers. And then I fill it out and I go give it to a judge and say I found something illegal in his home. And the judge says, well, go arrest him here. It's something illegal. That writ of assistance allowed anybody to come into your home at any point in time, look for anything that they might consider to be illegal, whether they actually knew something was there or not. So what happened was he argued against this in the courts. This is what he told the judges. He said, I, will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me all such instruments as slavery and villainy as the writ of assistance is to him. There was nothing more low than those writs of assistance. So he's arguing against it to the British courts. And he's a British attorney. He said it is the worst instrument of arbitrary power and is destructive of liberty and the fundamental principles of law. One of the most essential rights is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle. These writs totally annihilate these rights. Now notice this phrase, a man's house is his castle. This is where it gets used in American history. This is where it pops up. A lot of the other founding fathers quoted it later, but it goes back to this argument right here. A man towces his castle. He said it's a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer. In other words, any government bureaucrat can now come in and take my liberty away. My house is no longer my castle. Who may reign secure in his petty tyranny and spread terror and desolation around him. Both reason and the Constitution are against such writs. Now I mentioned that he had a huge impact on a number of founding fathers. And one was a young John Adams who saw all the arguments that went with this because this was British policy at the time, it was being done by the British. But John Adams heard this. A man's house is his castle. And he thought about that for the next 15 years leading up to the American Revolution. And as we got close to the revolution, this is what John Adams recalled. Looking back, he said that regarding that 1761 said American independence was then and there born. Where in that courtroom when he argued that a manse house is his castle. Every man in the crowded audience went away as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance. This kind of tyranny we won't tolerate. There and then was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there with the child independence was born in 15 years, namely in 1776. He grew up to manhood and declared himself free. So he's saying everything we did in American independence movement goes back to the writs of assistance in 1761 which was based on the doctrine that every man's home is his castle. Now let's take that concept for a bit that a man's home is his castle. And it's interesting that when you look at several amendments in the Constitution. Remember, amendments in the Constitution are gifts to protect God given rights. This is the Constitution government. You can't touch these rights. They come from God to us. And so when you look at the second Amendment, we talked about that, that's the castle doctrine. You have the right to defend your home and your property. You have your right to defend life. We don't have to back away from that. That's a God given right that God gives us in the laws of nature and nature's God. So that's a man's house, is a castle. But let's go to the Third Amendment for a minute because the third amendment seems unusual. It deals with the quartering of British troops in private homes. When the British were over here, we'd never needed the British military before. We did all of our own fighting and suddenly we find ourselves in the American Revolution with 25,000 soldiers at a time coming to America. They don't have a place to stay because there's not British forts here. So they start putting British soldiers in the homes of private citizens and they say, ma', am, we're, here in Boston. You take four of these soldiers, mister, you take these eight, ma', am, you take these six and suddenly we're quartering troops in our home.

>> Rick Green: And I, bet you know what that leads to. Okay, quick interruption, gotta take a break. We'll be right back here listening to at the Core.

>> Jeff Chamblee\: At the Core. Podcasts are [email protected] now back to at the Core on American Family Radio.

Walker Wildmon and Rick Green discuss Biblical Citizenship in Modern America

>> Rick Green: Welcome back to At the Core with Walker Wildmon and Rick Green Army Green Americans Constitution Coach, thanks for staying with me today doing business. Biblical Citizenship in Modern America, Week two. Tending the garden is our topic today and we're not going to get it all in. We're head through this again next Tuesday to finish out because there's so many good things that Tim Barton is going to teach on. You'll get a little, little taste of that today, but we'll get the meat of that next week. The meat this week is actually this teaching by David Barton. I mean this is just phenomenal. So, you know, as we were going to break, he was talking about the quartering of soldiers. That sounds familiar. Yes, there's going to be an amendment in the Bill of Rights to prevent it from ever happening again. Okay, let's jump back in with David Barton in Biblical Citizenship.

>> David Barton: We're, here in Boston. You take four of these soldiers, mister, you take these eight. ma', am, you take these seven. And suddenly we're quartering troops in our homes. Now this is a real problem from the standpoint of man's home as his castle, which is why we have the third amendment of the Constitution that says you can't quarter military troops in private homes. But it's not just military Troops, remember the concept that's underlying all this. What's underlying this is a man's home is his castle. We don't let government come into our castle and start doing what they want. And that doesn't matter whether it's with the fence or with our own property, stepping into our homes, making it like the government's home. You'll find in the Bible, in Deuteronomy 24, there is this passage, very interesting. This goes back to the castle doctrine. It says, when you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor. So I'm making a loan to my neighbor. I'm going to get collateral from him. Do not go into that man's house to get what was offered to you as a pledge. In other words, don't go collecting the collateral by going into his house. Stay outside his house and let the neighbor to whom you are making the loan bring the pledge out to you. I don't even get to go into my neighbor's house to pick up collateral that he's putting down on a loan. I stay outside his house and he brings it to me. Why is that? Because a man's house is his castle. This is a biblical teaching. That's why over the castle, the parents are in charge of the children, not the government's in charge of children. The parents are. Because it's our castle. So this is part of the Third Amendment. Even if you look at the fourth Amendment. Fourth Amendment, very interesting. Fourth Amendment says, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated. And no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the. The persons or things to be seized. This is all about writs of assistance. Now, notice what it says here. If you read that. If I just read that and don't think about the modern era, if I just read it for what it says, I'm going to say, you know what? IRS audits and bureaucratic agency searches of my receipts or papers. You can't do that. IRS can't demand to audit me. Here's why. Because what does it say? It says, you cannot search my papers. That would be my check stubs. That be my business receipts. You can't search my papers unless you have a warrant issued by a judge on probable cause. Somebody has to swear to a judge that, yep, I saw him. And he's got all sorts of corrupt stuff in his books. Somebody has to swear to a judge probable cause Then they have to do an oath or affirmation. They're swearing under the law of perjury. If they're telling a lie, then they're in trouble. And it has to particularly describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. In other words, if the IRS wants to do an automated, they have to say, we have a, ah, warrant from a judge. These are the witnesses that saw you do illegal things with your books. And we want to see check stub number 478 through 941. That's what they got to do. They can't just come in and search my papers because my house is my castle. That's a biblical doctrine. And that's why when you look at the Bill of Rights and the scope and reach of government, because you remember back at the beginning, God gives certain jurisdictions to each form of government. There's only certain things they can do. But you know what? If we as Christians don't understand that, we'll let those lines get all melted and government will get into doing stuff the family should do or that the church should do. Everything gets mixed up. So biblical citizenship starts with understanding biblical lines of jurisdiction and even our own history. So a man's house is his castle. That's where we get the due process and the right we have in the Constitution. All the stuff is in there. And it comes out of the castle doctrine, which is a biblical doctrine. It's part of the laws of nature, nature's God, which is what the Declaration guarantees to each of us. So there is indeed a biblical responsibility and even a biblical mandate for us to be active and informed and aware citizens in all that goes on around us with civil government.

>> Kelly Shackelford: It is astounding to me how many people in America have been indoctrinated into a condition of complete ignorance, completely unaware of the extent to which the Bible and ancient Jewish wisdom shaped the founders. You know, again, as David Bart has pointed out so brilliantly, it's not an accident that the, crests of these old schools like Yale and Harvard, contain heat Hebrew words. because to these people who came here and set things up, the people we think of as the founders, Hebrew was, something they knew. The second governor of the Plymouth Colony was Sir William Bradford. The first 19 pages of his manuscript, his history book, the History of the Plymouth Plantation, is actually in his own handwriting in his Hebrew. So it's really rather remarkable. But yes, I don't doubt for a moment that, if any of the founders came back to Life. They would be much more comfortable sitting down over lunch with you and me than they would sitting down over lunch at any, government university campus in the country.

>> Mat Staver: You know, if you really contrast how citizens in other countries that don't have, the freedom that we have live out their religion, you begin to realize how much we have and we take for granted. For example, Harry Mehet, who is one of our legal counsel at Liberty Counsel, our chief litigation counsel, he was raised in communist Romania. And in communist Romania, his dad was arrested. Other pastors were arrested for bringing Bibles into then communist Romania. He has a situation, one where the secret police came in with the German shepherds sniffing dogs. They were trying to find contraband. The contraband were Bibles that the missionaries smuggled in. Fortunately, they never found them in those kinds of countries. When you see the lack of religious freedom, the lack of freedom of expression, and then you see it here, we take it for granted.

Rick Green says Christians need to focus on making their ministry relevant today

And so we have to realize how precious the freedom is that we have. And it is the ability, the freedom, frankly, the duty, the opportunity to be able to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with our friends, with our families, in our churches, in our homes, and in the public square. And so that's really how you exercise it. That's how you preserve your freedom as you exercise your freedom. Yeah. A few years ago, David Barton and I had written a book called U Turn. And one of the things that we did was we looked at the values of people in colonial days, and then m moved through history and compared it with the values that people have today. Values are just one indication of the worldview that people possess, because your values come out of that worldview. And one of the things that we discovered is that back in the, late 1700s to early 1800s, the values of Americans, were very distinct. But when we compared that distinct list of primary values, and there were about nine of them, to the primary values that people hold today, there isn't one value that overlaps from colonial America to today. And that's just one of a number of indications we have that our worldview has radically shifted. What we believed back during the founding years of the country and the years and decades of immediately after that, bears no resemblance to the values and the morals and the mores, the traditions, the lifestyles that people choose today. And it all comes back to this issue of worldview.

>> Pastor Jack Hibbs: I think a lot of people today, want to talk about authenticity and us being relatable, and yet we're missing it. Our nation was founded upon the pulpits that were ablaze. Alexis de Tocqueville talked about that. Where pastors spoke to the issues of the day, and that caught the attention of the people. Instead of us trying to make our ministry relevant today, all we need to do is rely upon the word of God and speak the word of God into the issues of life. That makes us relevant. The Holy Spirit, the Bible is relevant. And I think we've lost that in the last 60 to 80 years in America. If we get back to doing that, I think we'll see our nation recover both in our cultural, awareness and certainly our biblical relatability where Christians are speaking into the culture. Truth. People resonate to truth. If they're hungry for it, they need to see it.

>> Rick Green: Rick Green coming to you live from the Lone Star State of Texas.

The anniversary of the shot heard around the world marks Lexington and Concord

I'm really excited today because our family just got back from one of the coolest celebrations, in the country. Paul Revere's ride. The battles of Lexington and Concord on the anniversary of the shot heard around the world. And that begs the question, who fired that first shot?

>> David Barton: There's a lot of mystery around the question of who shot first. I have a feeling that dad has some evidence.

>> Pastor Jack Hibbs: Somebody's got to know.

>> David Barton: It's an opportunity to relive that special day. Black powder fire, explosions, and feels like.

>> Rick Green: We, we have stepped back in time. Two of the greatest men our nation.

>> Stephen McDowell: Has ever known right here.

>> Rick Green: Watching a reenactment is really cool, but.

>> David Barton: Being a part of it is even that much cooler. That's why Paul Revere was coming to this house. The British had a price on their head.

>> Stephen McDowell: All the while, you could hear the.

>> David Barton: Drums of the British.

>> Rick Green: A fight is coming.

>> David Barton: We still had one looming, unanswered question. Who fired the first shot?

>> Bob McEwen: During this critical time, when people are questioning about what America is or where it's headed, I think it's appropriate just to stop and ask, why is America different from someplace else? 4% of the population of the world call themselves Americans. And yet every year they write more books, more plays, more symphonies, more copyrights, inventions. For thousands of years, people hope to someday fly. It was the Americans that invented the airplane and the light bulb and the telegraph, the telephone, the global positioning system put men on the moon. Right now, there's a ship parking in the Hong Kong harbor or in Singapore using a global positioning system conceived, invented and maintained by Americans. A Mercedes dealer in Buenos Aires is ordering a part in Stuttgart using an Internet. Conceived, invented and maintained. No nation in the world has ever blessed the nation. Blessed the world like America does 4%. And yet it is that which secures.

>> Rick Green: The rest of the world.

>> Bob McEwen: You know, for hundreds of years, the Britannia ruled the waves when a British ship was overrun in the Persian Gulf. It's happened over 300 times last year. Where can a ship or a person turn on the high seas? Only to the 327,000Americans that wear the uniform of the United States Navy. The United States. The United States is a standard for righteousness and stability in the world.

>> Rick Green: I got you.

>> Bob McEwen: And it's been entrusted to us. And if we dare, let somebody else take it, those that hate freedom, those that hate abundance, want to destroy our country. And now you and I have to make sure that that doesn't happen.

Tim Boston: There's been a major attack on American history

>> Rick Green: All right, we are in the Wall Builders collection, this amazing place of Founding Fathers documents and American history. Tim Boston, David Barton. Thanks for having us in. Man. This place is incredible.

>> David Barton: Great to have you here. And it's really cool because this is history that really belongs to all of us, whether we know it or not. I mean, this is our heritage, our history. There's so much good stuff here to be uncovered and revealed.

>> Rick Green: Well, you say good stuff, but then there's been a major attack on American history. So is our history good or bad or ugly or all of the above? We've really got to defend the American story. If we're going to talk about defending freedom, we're going to talk about we want to revive freedom. Well, is it even worth reviving? Is the American story actually good or bad? Tim, you've been digging into this over the last year or so specifically to respond to this accusation that America is just evil at its core and not even worth preserving. So take us down that road of history.

>> Stephen McDowell: Yeah, so it's a crazy assumption, crazy statements. And obviously we know from Scripture that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Therefore, we know America is not perfect, and nobody that's ever lived in America has been perfect. With that being said, the fact that now most students can say more bad things about America than good things about America is a reflection that we've done a very bad job. And this is where you can know that there's been a lot of bad history being taught. One of the places where a lot of this has been Learned was the 1619 Project. And this was done by Nicole Hannah Jones. At least she was the chief editor of this. And the New York Times wanted people to learn about how bad America was. And actually, the premise was that America was not founded in 1776 as the Declaration of Independence was done and we separated from Great Britain and America actually became her own nation. No, that's not when America was founded. America was founded. The argument is in 1619, when the first shipload of slaves arrived in America in Jamestown. Now, with that being said, if you look at the original statement, the mission statement, the statement of purpose from the 1619 Project, here's the reason they said they existed. The 1619 Project is a major initiative from the New York Times observing the anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country's history, understanding 1619 as our true founding and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are. So the idea that we want to retell the American story and make sure that we highlight slavery and 1619 as the origins of the story, well, throughout the New York Times Project, throughout the New York times articles in 1619, actually on their website, you can go and see these articles, there's an article that, and this is the title of the article. Our democracy's founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true. Now it absolutely is accurate that black Americans have fought throughout American history as patriots, promoting American ideals and vision. But the notion that our founding ideals were false. Well, the founding ideals were from the Declaration. We hold these truths to be self evident that all men were created equal, they're endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. Those were the founding ideals. And actually the notion that there is a God and he gave rights to man and government's main job is to protect our God given rights. Those ideals are true now and they were true then. But this notion that black Americans are the ones that fought to make them true, well, that would discount all of the abolitionists who were not black. That would discount all of the heroes throughout American history. Not only that, weren't black, many who weren't even white men and women. But we don't know those stories. But this is the accusation. Another article says American holds an undemocratic assumption from its founding that some people deserve more power than others. Now America's founding, I would argue was 1776, when America actually separated from Great Britain to become a nation. The premise of separating from the king was the king thought he had all the power and the people didn't have power and there wasn't equality.

>> Rick Green: Oh man. We are. We are barely scratching the surface, folks. It's. It gets so good, you don't want to miss the rest of tending the garden. Week two of Bill Citizenship in Modern America. Which means you have to listen next Tuesday. Alright, so we're going to pick up where we left off today, next Tuesday when I'm back with you on here at the Core. of course, Walker will have you tomorrow on Friday and again on Monday. And I'll be back with you on Tuesday and we'll pick up with Biblical Citizenship. Thanks so much for listening to at the core.

>> Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.

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