well hello everyone i'm james dobson and you're listening to family talk a listener supported ministry in fact thank you so much for being part of that support for james dobson family institute president ronald reagan once referred to the united states as a shining city on a hill because this country is more than just a piece of land discovered some 500 years ago it's more than the people who have traveled here in search of a better life america is a concept the ideas of faith freedom liberty and inalienable rights are why this nation has flourished for centuries today on family talk we'll look back at our history and the impact christianity has had on that history hello everyone i'm roger marsh and this broadcast is produced by the james dobson family institute joining me in the studio now is dr james dobson who will tell us more about today's presentation doctor well thank you roger we live every day under the protection of the constitution which gave us rights and liberties and freedom that frankly had never been given to any other nation on the face of the earth or in the history of humankind we have a wonderful guest most of our listeners will know of him or have heard him he's david barton and he is the founder and president of wall builders which is passionately dedicated to educating the public on america's forgotten history and heroes we all need heroes and there are many of them that we need to know about especially when it comes to our moral and spiritual heritage david has written many best-selling books on this topic and he was named by time magazine as one of america's 25 most influential evangelicals david is my friend and he has given us permission to error recording of a message that he gave some time ago it is timeless and people are going to enjoy what he has to say well i know i am dr dobson i love history and i'm very much looking forward to hearing this presentation now we're actually going to hear three different segments from david barton which we have pieced together into one program he'll begin by walking through the momentous days and events that led up to the american revolution he'll then explain how our founding fathers faith and biblical knowledge fuel their desires for independence from england here now is david barton's presentation titled america's birthday the real story on this patriotic edition of dr james dobson's family talk we approach another birthday in america and each year is again another record-setting year we are the longest ongoing constitutional republic in the history of the world and as we roll around at the 4th of july every year we do like to celebrate it and we do have the fireworks and the other festivities that go with that day but it's become today where that so many people don't understand the roots of american history the roots of the american revolution if you ask them what the revolution is about they say well it was taxation without representation and that answer really goes back to something that happened in the 1920s in the 1920s some revisionist historians called charles and mary beard came up with what they called the economic view of the american revolution and today that's what we teach we don't teach the spiritual side we don't teach the constitutional side all the other issues that were there even the biblical side we used to in previous generations to understand the american revolution to understand what we celebrate on the 4th of july you really have to go back 150 years before the american revolution you have to go back to the time of the pilgrims and the puritans and those settlers that arrived in america now if you ever get to go to washington dc you'll see there in the capitol a picture of the embarkation of the pilgrims it shows them gathered around a geneva bible it was a popular bible with the group called the dissenters those were the peoples who didn't really think that everything centered around one person at the top of every organization whether it was church or state they really were quite anti-autocratic and the people that had started that group go back to people like luther and the calvin and zwingli and knox and the reformers and so the significant thing about the geneva bible was its marginal commentaries those commentaries were written by the reformers and they point out that god had so many different ways of governing divine right of king says oh monarchy is the only way we do this god has a single leader at the top of the state a single leader at the top of the church but here came these reformers saying no there's the priesthood of the believers each of us can go to god on our own through what jesus christ has done each of us can self-govern ourselves as citizens they were persecuted for having those views those anti-autocratic views so and finally the pilgrims said we're out of here we're going to america where we can read and study the word of god for ourselves without being persecuted for it and so they arrived here in america now when they arrived here the bible is a very significant book to them there are so many aspects of american culture today that came from the puritans and the pilgrims and they came specifically from the geneva bible what we call the the free enterprise system that came out of first timothy 5 8 according to the pilgrims that's a system they found you'll you'll find that they were in the habit of finding things in the scriptures and trying to literally apply them into civil government into education into life and the family and the church as a matter of fact that's where the first education laws came we're out of new england in 1642 they passed that law in massachusetts that was if you will a public school law of that day that the purpose of public education was to teach kids to know the scriptures so that they can judge both the church and the state by what god has said in the scriptures well five years later connecticut passed that same law it says because if you can't read you can't read the word of god and you therefore can't judge the laws of the state against the word of god which means that we in the general assembly might pass a bad law and you folks wouldn't stop us because you can't read the bible let me go through those some of those sermons and show you the type of things that we preached about because this does give you a good indication of how that no matter what went on we went to the bible to see what the word of god had to say about it this is a sermon preached 1804 this is a sermon on a solar eclipse which had just happened in connecticut uh here's a sermon from 1799 now this happened in massachusetts and it was a hailstorm and a tornado it happened on the 2nd of august it says here on the sermon and so the next sunday the pulpits were filled with sermons on hail storms and tornadoes and here's what's called an execution sermon now this sermon is from 1796 it was preached at salem january 14 1796 it's occasioned by the execution of henry blackburn on that day for the murder of george wilkinson now here's someone being put to death by civil government and there's a sermon on that execution absolutely you see we went back and said what do the scriptures say about this is this something civil government can really do what does romans 13 mean when it says that the government doesn't bear the sword in vain why does the government even have the sword why does it use the sword is this a justified use of the sword by the government and we just went back and looked at the scriptures no matter what went on we went to the scriptures here's a sermon this is from 1803 it's called an artillery sermon what happened was once a year they gathered the military together and brought ministers in to preach these artillery sermons that is sermons on what the word of god says about the military you see nothing went on that we couldn't find a biblical precept with so for 150 years before the american revolution we had been trained in our culture to look at every single thing from the word of god and that is literally how we approached it now it was because of that training that we were able to recognize when king george iii came along that he was transgressing those laws not only was he transgressing biblical laws he was transgressing the british constitution at that time he was going through all these things and the founding fathers are saying whoa time out here these are things that have been in great britain for four to five hundred years they've been worked out they've been sit down in law constitutions work this way rights work this way these are sovereign inalienable rights that god has given man and king george iii you're violating that you can't do this and so it's striking that as you look at the first reactions of the americans against the policies that king george iii was imposing on america you will find that it takes a very strong biblical tone probably the first person to write about these violation of rights was james otis and james otis is really the man who mentored samuel adams the father the american revolution james otis is the philosophical underpinnings and in a book that he has right here from 1766 is called the rights of the colonists and now this came out because of the stamp acts of 1765. now the stamp acts were taxes and of course the the americans objected these taxes in the way that they were being imposed on the americans and for the purpose that they were being imposed and the americans had no voice in determining their own policies and and so it was taxation without representation but notice how they go back to the bible and i say the king's saying look i'm the king i'm the authority i am the top here this is the divine right of kings when i speak it's the same as if god speaks to you and james otis says no no he says time out let's back off here and so in this writing which is really the first objection raised in what became the american revolution james otis says this he said the power of god almighty is the only power that can properly and strictly be called supreme and absolute he said you're not infallible he said only god is infallible and we don't obey you as if you're god which is the same thing that you'll find with the apostles in acts 4 and 5 when the civil authorities told them don't do this and the apostle says now wait a minute time out god jesus told us to do this now do we obey god or do we obey you and of course the apostles chose to obey god and that put them in direct conflict with civil authority and this this aspect of if you will civil disobedience if you even look through hebrews 11 and what we call the faith hall of fame and look at all of those individuals who are in there it's striking how many are there simply because of civil disobedience the hebrew midwives now why did they make it into that chapter because they disobeyed the order of pharaoh to let them know when a young child was born so that young child could be killed they protected moses shadrach meshach and abednego there are heroes there in that chapter why because they disobeyed a civil authority they would not bow to man they were going to stand firm for god daniel he works his way into that chapter why because he said i'm not going to obey a civil law that causes me to violate god's laws another person who spoke out about this very strongly is a man named john dickinson now john dickinson was a sign of the constitution after the revolution and he declared a similar sentiment this is from his writings on the rights of the americans he says kings or parliaments cannot give us the rights essential to happiness he says we claim our rights from a higher source we claim them from the king of kings and the lord of all the earth but at this point people say now wait a minute this is called the american revolution romans 13 says you're to submit to authority how can you say that god blessed this nation if it was birthed in revolution that is rebellion against god god can't bless the nation that does that well you have to understand first off that the founding fathers did not call it the american revolution it was called that in later years at that point in time it was called a civil war and as they point out they didn't start it matter of fact we took great pride in the fact that we never fired the first shot we never sent troops to attack great britain the americans they did not have an army they did not have a navy but they did have the biblical right to defend themselves and that was one of the inalienable rights by the way that the founding fathers put in the second amendment the right to keep and bear arms they pointed that in the scriptures and you can see that throughout nehemiah nehemiah what did you do when he was rebuilding the city of jerusalem he stationed them with a sword in one hand and a trial in the other you have the right to defend yourself if you're attacked for 11 years we've been negotiating over these principles and finally king george iii says i don't negotiate you are going to bow your knee and he sent these troops so it was not a revolution in that sense as a matter of fact there's some great statements here here's one by sam adams uh sam adams wrote this to the british government and sam adams signed the declaration a member of congress he wrote this to the british officials he said you know that the cause of america is just he said the blood of the innocent is upon your hands we again make our solemn appeal to the god of heaven to decide between you and us and we pray that in the doubtful scale of battle we may be successful as we have justice on our side and that the merciful savior of the world may forgive our oppressors and that's not anarchy that's not rebellion i mean they are sincerely submitting to god and saying we've got to stand for what's right we just we ask god to judge between us [Music] you're listening to dr james dobson's family talk and a special patriotic program featuring guest speaker and best-selling author david barton i'm roger marsh david just gave a few examples of the impact that christianity has had on the founding of our nation let's listen now as he introduces a few godly americans who were influential to our nation's success during the revolutionary war ethan allen his green mountain boys he was approached by citizens and the legislature of connecticut connecticut was really scared they said british troops have gone into williamsburg and virginia british troops are going through lexington concord charleston boston bunker hill we're scared to death they're going to come into connecticut next and we don't know what we're going to do ethan would you take your green mountain boys and go over here to new york way inland go to ticonderoga and capture fort ticonderoga so ethan took green mountain boys they surrounded that fort in may of 1775 it was late at night poor british didn't know anything was coming and so they knocked out the guards there were two guards they knocked them out they tied them up this was late at night coming up toward midnight and they got the rest of the barracks and then ethan allen after having secured the whole fort went and banged on the door of the commandant captain de la place so he came storming to the door and he says who is this what do you demand and ethan allen says i order you to surrender your fort and captain de la place became indignant and he says by whose authority do you order me to give up my fort ethan allen in his own autobiography he took a step back he raised his sword in the air and ethan allen said in the name of the great jehovah and the continental congress and it was that declaration the great jehovah and the continental congress got the attention of the british commander he promptly gave him the fort on the spot not a single shot fire that captured the fort without any loss of life see nobody hears that about ethan allen anymore but that was the declaration made then 1776 one of the members of the virginia legislature now remember virginia's been under attack one of the members of the virginia legislature was a minister he was the reverend john peter gabriel muhlenberg in january of that year he had just heard the report of patrick henry and how that he had to rally 5 000 virginia troops to push back the british and so as pastor muellenberg heads home he gets to this remote secluded part of the state where his churches are the long way across the state and he preached on january the 21st that sunday what became his farewell sermon and he stood there in his clerical robes that morning he preached out of ecclesiastes 3 verses 1 through 8 which is the passage about oh there's a time and a season purpose to everything time to be born time to die well he went through all this and he got down to verse 8 and verse 8 says there's a time of peace and a time of war and he closed his bible and he put his finger out and he said brethren he said this is not the time of peace he said this is the time of war he stood right in front of the congregation started this roman in front of the congregation underneath those robes he was wearing the full uniform of an officer in the continental army sword and everything he started marching down the aisle of that church there was one aisle down the middle of the church he marched down that aisle and he preached as he went he said brethren he said we came here to practice our religious and our civil liberties and if we don't get involved we're going to lose those liberties he said now who's going with me to defend those liberties well 300 men got up and met him at the back door of that church those 300 men became known as the 8th virginia brigade now his brother was pastoring in in new york city and his brother wrote him a scathing letter and i mean he just absolutely chewed him up and his brother was frederick augustus muhlenberg and frederick tells his brother he said you would have asked for the best if you'd kept out of this business from the beginning he said i now give you my thoughts in brief i think you're wrong that's just about as brief as it gets he said brother you shouldn't have done this you're supposed to stay in the pulpit you shouldn't be getting involved in this kind of stuff well brother peter wrote back a letter he said wow he said that was a pretty scathing letter you wrote pretty pretty serious stuff and he said you've accused me of getting involved and that i shouldn't because i'm a clergyman this is what he said he said i am a clergyman it is true but i am a member of society as well as the poorest layman and my liberty is as dear to me as it is to any man he said shall i then sit still he said heaven forbid it he said i'm convinced it's my duty so to do and duty i owe to god and my country and then he started meddling with his brother he said oh by the way he said frederick he said do you realize you couldn't stand in your pulpits and do what you're doing you couldn't stand there and preach the gospel if it wasn't for people like me going out to defend your right to preach the gospel and verdict yeah yeah right i just kind of blew it off well interesting thing happened in 1777 the next year the british invaded new york city they came into new york city they seized his brother's church they desecrated his church they chased him out of the pulpit and suddenly this minister of the gospel frederick who said you shouldn't be involved has lost his church lost his ministry it's been taken over he says you know maybe i'll get involved after all so he does get involved do you know who frederick augustus muellenberg is frederick augustus muhlenberg was the original speaker of the u.s house of representatives as a matter of fact there's only two signatures on the bill of rights he's he and john adams are the only two to sign the bill of rights and this minister of the gospel signed it not because it guaranteed separation church and state you see he got involved to make sure that government couldn't come in and stop those public religious activities like they had done to his very church not because of separation church and state [Music] 1778 you may recall that year because that's the famous valley forge year remember washington crossed the delaware and after crossing the delaware they went into the battles of princeton and trenton and finally settled down in valley forge which was that tough winter and so every day washington would go out and walk among the troops and try to encourage them and and keep their confidence up and put a good face on himself and try to look like the good commander but what he wrote in his diary was a whole different story it just literally tore his heart out to see what those soldiers were going through every day between 12 and 20 soldiers fell over and died in that camp every day at valley forge they died of malnutrition of sickness of starvation they died of exposure not having clothes being exposed to cold weather washington said i've never seen sacrifice like i've never even read of it never heard of this this is the greatest degree of patriotism he had ever seen well it's interesting that when the intelligence came to him in may the british are breaking camp in philadelphia they're about to march out so that night he writes out his final order and he writes out his final order which was given on may the 2nd 1778 in valley forge he said guys he said i've seen what you've done i've seen your sacrifices i can't tell you how much i appreciate what you've sacrificed his words can't express it and then he closed with this statement this is right out of his orders he says but while we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers with all this sacrifice he says we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion he said to the distinguished character of patriot it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of christian that's washington in the middle of valley forge from the most sacrificial times in american history saying guys i love you patriotism i just got to remind you it's more important to be a christian than it is to be a patriot see that's the aspect of the american revolution we don't hear anymore and it's a strong spiritual aspect well we finally get into 1781 which is the final battle of the american revolution the battle there yorktown and so at the battle of yorktown we we were able to convince cornwallis to surrender and he does military action's over but it would be two years before great britain was willing to admit that it had been beat finally in 1783 the peace treaty was negotiated and signed what was the very first line of this treaty this political treaty it said in the name of the most holy an undivided trinity amen that's the opening line in the name of the father son the holy ghost now we've acknowledged god we have said god's at the top of this now let's talk about the terms of surrender here and who's going to get what and how we're going to divide america see that was the opening line even the final peace treaty from start to finish this was remarkable in its open declarations of god now when washington finally got the word that they have signed the treaty it is now officially over he turned in his resignation and then he had 13 copies of that that made and sent to the governors he says i now make it my earnest prayer that god would have you and the state over which you preside in his holy protection that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice to love mercy and to demean ourselves with that charity humility and peaceful temper of mind which were the characteristics of the divine author of our blessed religion and without a humble imitation of his example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation there's washington yeah guys we won but remember if we don't imitate jesus we're not going to be a happy nation now that's not the economic view of the american revolution we here today and so what's the best way to celebrate the 4th of july well maybe the best way to celebrate it is the way that john adams said it should be celebrated now if you want a good read go to the public library get the letters of john adams to his wife abigail this is like a blow by blow account of what was going on the american revolution and this is what he predicted to abigail on that day over 200 years ago he says i believe that this day will be the most memorable epic in the history of america and then he wondered whether we should really celebrate what they had done that day is that something that should be celebrated and he finally decided that it was if we celebrated the right way what's the right way to celebrate according to john adams he said this day ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to god almighty you see in america for generations the fourth of july was a religious holiday [Music] wow what an adventure this has been as our guest historian david barton has walked us through the american revolution on this special edition of family talk with dr james dobson well david can really pick him up and lay him down can he she talks fast but there's so much content there i really wonder how many listeners today have been thinking i wish i'd had a history teacher or a college professor who made history so interesting the way david barton does i mean he did make it come alive and one of the things that he said that really interested me had to do with civil disobedience you know he pointed to hebrews chapter 11 which recounts the stories of biblical heroes it's called the heroes hall of fame and he said that if it comes to a decision between obeying god and obeying the king or pharaoh or the congress or the president we will choose to obey the king of kings and the lord of lords but i've enjoyed this program and i hope other people have too and i know doctor there is a parent listening who is already thinking about how they might gather their family around and do just what you suggested those parents need to come to our website at doctorjamesdobson.org where we have a link for wall builders and that's where you'll find articles dvds audio and other resources to help you teach your children the truth about our country's history and we will also make this program available on cd if you'd like a copy as well for more information on how to get your copy go to drjamesdobson.org or call us at 877 732 again that number is 877-732-6825 be sure to contact us today to find out how you can get your copy and roger i want to say at the end of this program that i would like to ask those who can not others but those who can to give us a little boost at this time of the year doctor listeners can contact our offices here in colorado springs at 877-732-6825 again that's a toll-free call they can also visit drjamesdobson.org and click onto the donate button thanks so much for tuning in today and be sure to join us again next time right here on family talk for dr dobson and the rest of the team i'm roger marsh have a blessed day this has been a presentation of the dr james dobson family institute