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Caption transcript for Faith of our Fathers: “The Actions of the Faithful” (7/8)

• 00:01 ♪♪♪ David Hart: Welcome to "Our Jewish Roots." CC by Aberdeen Captioning
• 00:09 1-800-688-6621 abercap.com David: The Word of God has given us examples of faith
• 00:12 that have shaped virtually every aspect
• 00:15 of the believer's life today.
• 00:17 Where would we be without the examples of Noah,
• 00:21 Abraham and Isaac, David,
• 00:24 and, ultimately, that of Yeshua, Jesus?
• 00:28 Faith is woven into the fabric of America as well.
• 00:32 From the pilgrims to John Adams, to Patrick Henry
• 00:36 and George Washington, God's providential hand remained
• 00:40 highly esteemed and honored above all.
• 00:44 Faith unshakable, faith unstoppable,
• 00:48 "Faith of Our Fathers."
• 00:53 David: We're so glad you've joined us today.
• 00:54 I'm David Hart.
• 00:56 Kirsten Hart: I'm Kirsten Hart.
• 00:57 Jeffrey Seif: Jeffrey Seif.
• 00:58 And yes, thank you for tuning in.
• 01:00 You're gonna be glad you did.
• 01:01 Good stuff on the menu.
• 01:03 Kirsten: I think you're gonna be speaking about
• 01:05 how our actions speak louder than our words.
• 01:08 Is that right?
• 01:09 That's a very grandparenty kind of thing to say, isn't it?
• 01:12 Jeffrey: Well, I was thinking,
• 01:14 when you said it, "My mother said that to me."
• 01:16 Kirsten: Totally, but it's true, isn't it?
• 01:18 Jeffrey: It is.
• 01:20 David: Let's look now how faith prompts activity.
• 01:22 Let's go to Dr. Seif's teaching right now.
• 01:25 ♪♪♪
• 01:28 Jeffrey: I'd like to put a rhetorical question to you.
• 01:32 Rhetorical question is said for effect.
• 01:34 Of course, you can't really answer me,
• 01:36 but you can answer it for yourself if you can,
• 01:38 and the question is, How can you,
• 01:41 how can I, how can we claim to know anything about the faith
• 01:46 of our fathers?
• 01:48 By that, I mean, it's sufficient for us to know what resides in
• 01:52 our own hearts and minds.
• 01:54 Never mind lay siege to the claim to know somebody else's.
• 01:58 Never mind individuals that are centuries removed in the sense
• 02:03 of our fathers of our culture or millennia removed in the case of
• 02:08 biblical personalities.
• 02:10 Do you know how come we can know it?
• 02:12 Because they wrote.
• 02:15 They wrote on scrolls.
• 02:17 Now, I don't wanna carry 66 of these around.
• 02:21 I'm glad I have this.
• 02:23 And this gives you a window into the hearts and minds
• 02:27 of the authors.
• 02:29 As it says, "The long arm of the pen reaches beyond the grave."
• 02:33 Because they write, we can get a window into their world,
• 02:38 speaking of which, it's an action-packed world, to be sure,
• 02:42 walking by faith.
• 02:44 This wasn't a group of philosophers.
• 02:45 These were people on the move.
• 02:47 They were doing. They were active.
• 02:50 Faith prompts activity and movement.
• 02:52 It prompts dare.
• 02:54 And I mention that I'm looking here in the Matthean gospel,
• 02:57 there's a story.
• 02:59 You know, Jesus walked on water. Well, that's Jesus.
• 03:01 There was, once upon a time, a story when Peter got out there
• 03:04 and took a shot at it, and it didn't work out so well.
• 03:07 Well, it did at first, but he braved the hazards of it.
• 03:12 I'm looking in Matthew chapter 14.
• 03:15 We're told in verse 28, now, Peter is there in the boat
• 03:19 with the fellows-- that is, the fellowship--
• 03:22 he's there, and he sees the Lord walking,
• 03:24 and Peter says in verse 28, "Master," or Rabbi,
• 03:30 "'if it's you, command me to come to you on the water.'
• 03:33 He says, 'All right, come on.'"
• 03:35 And you know, faith prompts us to walk in dangerous places.
• 03:38 I don't care whether it's John the Baptist,
• 03:41 who just puts it out there in the midst of a cantankerous
• 03:45 crowd: "You brood of vipers," you know,
• 03:48 faith prompts us to challenge.
• 03:51 John the Baptist does it.
• 03:52 I can think of our first martyr, Stephen,
• 03:55 in the book that we call Acts, where he just was emboldened in
• 03:59 the Holy Spirit, and he just, you know,
• 04:02 spoke truth as a kind of divine activity there in the words as
• 04:06 he recounts the activity of God working with the Hebrew people.
• 04:10 Well, there's movement in the literature,
• 04:12 and Peter says, "Hey, come on, let me get out there with you."
• 04:15 And the Lord says, "Come."
• 04:19 And we're told in 29, then, that he got out of the boat
• 04:23 and walked on the water.
• 04:24 So far, so good.
• 04:26 But then he started to assess the moment,
• 04:30 and I get that.
• 04:31 We're told he sees the wind, and then he becomes terrified.
• 04:37 You know, it's easy to be terrified.
• 04:40 It's easy to be scared, because faith will prompt us.
• 04:44 And I said this earlier, faith prompts us to take on that which
• 04:48 is bigger and stronger than us.
• 04:51 Uncertainties, whether it's raging waters or whether it's
• 04:54 raging people, you know, oftentimes,
• 04:57 there are tyrants, and so it is, the Lord says,
• 05:01 we're like a sheep amongst wolves, and,
• 05:04 you know, wolves howl, and I can think of the saliva
• 05:09 dripping from jaws, and I can think of fiery eyes that wanna
• 05:13 get a piece of flesh.
• 05:15 You know, it's scary stuff when you think about it,
• 05:18 and to be sure, here's a story here,
• 05:21 we're taking on raging waters, not raging wolves,
• 05:25 but the point is, is the rage gets out of the cage,
• 05:27 and we go after it.
• 05:29 And the good news is that God gives us a victory.
• 05:32 Now, we know the story here. Peter had a victory.
• 05:35 It got away from him.
• 05:37 When I think of the faith of our fathers,
• 05:40 certainly, when I look--
• 05:42 and you know in this series we have an expert better than me.
• 05:45 I love--those of you that support us,
• 05:47 you not only bring us to Bible lands,
• 05:49 but you enable us to bring people to offer a telling
• 05:51 of things, people a lot smarter than me,
• 05:54 and David Barton is just the best of the best when it comes
• 05:56 to understanding the faith of our Founding Fathers,
• 05:59 and they light upon the stories in this book.
• 06:03 As I've said, I'm so glad people wrote it out in scrolls.
• 06:07 I'm glad for the innovations that got it into a book so
• 06:09 that we can have a look.
• 06:11 At the end of the day, we wanna be able to get into biblical
• 06:14 literature to learn about biblical fathers,
• 06:17 our nation's founders, and you know what?
• 06:19 We can learn a few things about how we can take on the struggles
• 06:23 of the day because the truth of the matter is we all have
• 06:26 to tackle the giants.
• 06:30 I think of the tyrants that were raising their horry heads when
• 06:34 our founders declared their independence.
• 06:37 They drew a line in the sand and said,
• 06:39 "Enough already," and they were the better for it because they
• 06:44 did it.
• 06:46 It wasn't easy, and we know it wasn't easy.
• 06:48 We read their writings, and we read the prayers.
• 06:53 We read how hearts and minds were taken to the Bible, stories
• 06:58 like the ones that I've mentioned in
• 07:00 this particular segment.
• 07:02 Peter got scared.
• 07:03 He learned a lesson there about faith.
• 07:06 We see examples.
• 07:08 John the Baptist, he had to stare 'em down, you know?
• 07:11 And he just had to look beyond the faces of the people that
• 07:13 were angry at him.
• 07:15 And Stephen did much the same.
• 07:16 We're told as much in the book of Acts that he looked up to
• 07:20 heaven and got a vision of glory.
• 07:22 He saw the Lord.
• 07:24 And you know, that's what it takes.
• 07:25 "The Lord," we're told in the Bible,
• 07:27 "is the lifter of our heads."
• 07:30 Well, I love the story here. Peter was sinking.
• 07:33 It's an old story, and you know it.
• 07:35 He sees the wind, in verse 30.
• 07:38 He becomes terrified, and he begins to sink,
• 07:42 subsequent to which he cries out,
• 07:43 "Lord, help," and the Lord said,
• 07:45 "Hey, man, I can't believe you did me like that, man--"
• 07:49 he didn't get all over him because he dropped the ball.
• 07:52 Lord-- "Could've done it.
• 07:53 You know, hey, man, haven't I taught you anything?
• 07:55 Look, you know, I mean, it's--" but he wasn't like that.
• 07:57 He was gracious.
• 07:59 The same one who said, "Come to me," gave him a hand when
• 08:04 he started to falter.
• 08:05 And you know, that is so good. I love the good news.
• 08:08 The Gospel, by the way is a Word, good news.
• 08:10 And there's so much grace in all of that.
• 08:13 And I love it here where Peter cries out,
• 08:15 "Lord," or Master, "save me," or "Rabbi, save me.
• 08:21 Immediately," were told, "Yeshua reached out his hand and grabbed
• 08:25 him and said, 'O you of little faith, why do you doubt?'"
• 08:30 Now, it's a rebuke.
• 08:31 Yeah, it's a slap on the wrist, and people go,
• 08:34 "Oh, Peter really dropped the ball.
• 08:35 I can't believe he took his eyes off of Jesus."
• 08:37 Well, I don't see anybody else trying to get out of the boat.
• 08:40 You know what I mean?
• 08:41 And so, as I said in this program,
• 08:43 you know, faith prompts activity,
• 08:45 and God blessed him, "At least he's trying, you know?"
• 08:48 And the Lord gives him a grace, and it's the proverbial--
• 08:51 the Lord extends him a hand-- what do you think?--
• 08:54 and helps Peter go on to be the great that he indeed
• 08:56 turned out to be.
• 08:58 Would it be that all of us are rebound?
• 09:00 You know, the Bible says, "The righteous falls seven times and
• 09:02 get up again."
• 09:04 Would it be that we all rebound from defeats?
• 09:06 Truth be known, Peter didn't always get it right.
• 09:08 He lost a few battles.
• 09:10 Truth be known, the founders in our culture lost a few battles
• 09:13 when they were taking on the British, but you know what?
• 09:15 We get back up.
• 09:17 We live and we learn, and we get back into the game because faith
• 09:20 prompts activity.
• 09:22 It's a noble cause. It's a noble vision.
• 09:25 They wanted a godly country.
• 09:26 Our founders fought for it, and isn't it good that we can look
• 09:29 at the Bible just as they did and learn about the faith of
• 09:33 our fathers?
• 09:37 David: Our resource this week: the series
• 09:39 "Faith of Our Fathers," on DVD.
• 09:41 These eight programs reveal how the creation of Israel in the
• 09:44 Old Testament inspired a future generation to carve
• 09:47 out a modern, yet godly nation in the New World.
• 09:51 This series features Bible teaching by Dr. Jeffrey Seif,
• 09:55 interviews with Christian historian David Barton,
• 09:57 plus dramatic reenactments of colonial times.
• 10:01 Contact us for your own copy of "Faith of Our Fathers."
• 10:04 ♪♪♪
• 10:07 David: Join us right now for additional content that is only
• 10:10 available on our social media sites:
• 10:12 Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
• 10:15 David: Visit our website, levitt.com,
• 10:17 for the current and past programs,
• 10:19 the television schedule, tour information, and our
• 10:22 free monthly newsletter, which is full of insightful
• 10:25 articles and news commentary.
• 10:27 View it online, or we can ship it directly to your
• 10:29 mailbox every month.
• 10:31 Also on our website is the online store.
• 10:35 There, you can order this week's resource,
• 10:37 or you can always give us a call at 1-800-WONDERS.
• 10:41 Your donations to Our Jewish Roots
• 10:44 help us to support these organizations
• 10:46 as they bless Israel.
• 10:48 David: Please remember, we depend on tax-deductible
• 10:50 donations from viewers like you.
• 10:53 David: For many, a trip to the Holy Land is the dream
• 10:56 of a lifetime.
• 10:58 ♪♪♪
• 11:00 David: The Bible truly comes alive as you see the sights
• 11:03 where so many biblical events happened.
• 11:06 Come on a Zola Tour to see Israel and Petra.
• 11:12 See the land of the Bible for yourself.
• 11:16 Contact us to reserve your dream of a lifetime.
• 11:19 ♪♪♪
• 11:24 David: Many of you have heard the question that's been asked
• 11:27 to us many times on an Israel tour,
• 11:29 "What's your favorite part of your Israel tour?"
• 11:32 And it's really hard to pinpoint,
• 11:35 but I would say that many folks that go on our tour
• 11:38 love the Sea of Galilee, Tiberias.
• 11:41 Kirsten: It is--Jeff was teaching about Peter's faith,
• 11:44 the faith of our founding fathers,
• 11:45 the faith to walk out on that water,
• 11:48 and the greatest thing is you get to be on that same
• 11:51 body of water.
• 11:53 It's one of our favorite places to go, ever.
• 11:55 Test your faith on the Sea of Galilee.
• 11:57 Go with us. We go two times a year.
• 11:59 David: Yes.
• 12:01 Jeffrey: You know, and if you can't go with us, watch us.
• 12:02 We bring it to you, and we bring it to you because individuals
• 12:06 help us to do that.
• 12:08 Someone said the other day, they said,
• 12:10 "Jeff, I really enjoy your teaching on television."
• 12:13 I appreciate that.
• 12:14 When I went to Bible school to learn all this,
• 12:17 I didn't have two nickels to rub together.
• 12:19 Someone donated, someone set up a fund to help someone to get to
• 12:23 Bible school, and I was trained because someone cared to share.
• 12:28 Thank you in advance for caring and sharing and helping us to--
• 12:32 by virtue of your loving us in not just word and speech but in
• 12:37 deed and in truth and making a donation to this ministry.
• 12:40 Thank you.
• 12:42 Kirsten: We do thank all of you,
• 12:43 and we thank you for watching this series,
• 12:45 and in particular, our retelling of a part of America's history.
• 12:50 We've watched how Betsy Ross has literally put together our very
• 12:54 first flag, and we've also heard some incredible
• 12:57 nuggets of godly wisdom.
• 12:59 Let's go back in time again.
• 13:01 Here we are in 1776.
• 13:03 ♪♪♪
• 13:06 David: In the formative days of our nation,
• 13:08 there were some who thought it important to remain loyal
• 13:10 to the British King.
• 13:12 Others rejected the monarchy, favoring liberty.
• 13:16 Meanwhile, there were still others in Philadelphia,
• 13:19 unknown figures in history, who considered the godly direction
• 13:23 of the Founding Fathers vitally important.
• 13:26 ♪♪♪
• 13:29 male: So clear and yet profound.
• 13:34 Unless this house is built on solid ground,
• 13:37 it will surely fail.
• 13:40 But will we recall these precepts?
• 13:45 We must.
• 13:46 ♪♪♪
• 13:52 male: Lord, please, please continue to guide my hand
• 13:57 that I might clearly transcribe these extraordinary words of
• 14:01 wisdom and virtue, and guide my steps this day to those who need
• 14:06 to hear them.
• 14:08 ♪♪♪
• 14:18 ♪♪♪
• 14:19 Betsy Ross: Good day, sir. Welcome.
• 14:21 male: Good day, Betsy.
• 14:24 Betsy, your flag is coming along nicely.
• 14:26 Shall I assume the stars are about to unfold?
• 14:28 Betsy: Yes, sir.
• 14:29 Mr. Washington suggested stars that were six-pointed,
• 14:33 but I suggested it would be easier and more expedient to
• 14:36 make five-pointed stars.
• 14:38 male: Oh? And how's that?
• 14:41 Betsy: I'll make a larger staff just so you can see
• 14:43 how it's done.
• 14:44 I've already pre-folded this piece of fabric.
• 14:47 Now I just make a cut with the scissors...
• 14:55 and--
• 15:00 male: I've never seen such. It's extraordinary.
• 15:04 It seems appropriate because I've brought with me today some
• 15:08 thoughts from an extraordinary scientist you know well:
• 15:11 Mr. Benjamin Franklin.
• 15:13 Betsy: I so admire him, a statesman and a wonderful
• 15:16 author as well.
• 15:18 male: He, like many others who've just signed our
• 15:21 Declaration of Independence, has placed great importance
• 15:25 on Almighty God.
• 15:27 He was selected to be part of the committee to draft
• 15:30 an official seal for our nation, and Mr. Franklin proposed,
• 15:35 "Moses lifting up his wand, and dividing the Red Sea,
• 15:39 and Pharaoh in his chariot overwhelmed with the waters,
• 15:42 accompanied by the motto, 'Rebellion to tyrants is
• 15:46 obedience to God.'"
• 15:49 Betsy: Sir, I've heard tell that Mr. Franklin believes
• 15:53 that God did, in fact, create the universe,
• 15:55 but then he withdrew, having nothing to do with us since
• 15:59 that Creation.
• 16:00 male: No, no, no, quite the contrary, Betsy.
• 16:04 Yes, here.
• 16:05 Here, Mr. Franklin, speaking of God,
• 16:08 "I say there can be no reason to imagine he would make so
• 16:12 glorious a universe merely to abandon it."
• 16:17 Betsy: Seems affirmative.
• 16:20 male: Furthermore, he summarizes the Lord's Prayer:
• 16:23 "Heavenly Father, may all revere thee and become thy dutiful
• 16:27 children and faithful subjects.
• 16:30 May thy laws be obeyed on earth as perfectly
• 16:32 as they are in heaven.
• 16:34 Provide for us this day as thou hast hitherto daily done.
• 16:38 Forgive us our trespasses and enable us likewise to forgive
• 16:41 those that offend us.
• 16:43 Keep us out of temptation and deliver us from evil."
• 16:48 Betsy: Amen.
• 16:49 ♪♪♪
• 16:57 Jeffrey: Benjamin Franklin spoke of God Almighty,
• 17:02 referencing the Lord's Prayer.
• 17:03 Around here, we call him El Shaddai because we like the
• 17:08 Jewish roots.
• 17:10 We go back to our heritage.
• 17:13 Benjamin Franklin, or Ben Yeoman, actually
• 17:16 his Hebrew name, is part of our heritage, is he not?
• 17:20 Let's learn about him now as we consider the faith of our
• 17:24 Founding Fathers.
• 17:26 ♪♪♪
• 17:29 Jeffrey: So many of our Founding Fathers are unknown.
• 17:31 Benjamin Franklin is better known.
• 17:33 He had faith in God, did he not?
• 17:35 David Barton: He had faith in God.
• 17:37 It's interesting that, today, he's often called a deist.
• 17:40 And in his autobiography, which he writes his own autobiography,
• 17:44 and he talked about how that, young in life,
• 17:47 he was really enthralled with deism,
• 17:51 and within a page, he says, "But I quickly rejected it,
• 17:54 finding it not being useful," and he really
• 17:57 kind of talks about how crazy it is.
• 18:00 So what people do is they take that quote where he was a deist
• 18:03 early in life and ignore the next page where it says,
• 18:06 "But I quickly rejected that."
• 18:07 And so, when you look at Franklin,
• 18:09 I think it's safe to say he's one of the
• 18:11 least religious Founding Fathers, but "least"
• 18:14 is a comparative term.
• 18:15 I mean, we're talking of--
• 18:16 Jeffrey: I mean, some of them were ministers.
• 18:18 David: That's right.
• 18:19 I mean, if you have a hundred preachers in a room,
• 18:20 one's gonna be the least religious.
• 18:22 Jeffrey: That's true.
• 18:23 David: And so--
• 18:25 Jeffrey: It's hard to compete with all these Bible scholars.
• 18:26 David: And that's exactly it.
• 18:27 And Franklin, interestingly enough, I mean, he is a
• 18:29 strong, strong defender of religion.
• 18:32 One of the greatest examples is a guy that he helped bring here,
• 18:36 back in 1772, was a guy named Thomas Paine.
• 18:40 Thomas Paine had been persecuted in England.
• 18:42 Franklin helped him to get here.
• 18:43 He got him set up in the printing business with
• 18:45 Robert Aitken in Philadelphia, and then Thomas Paine starts
• 18:48 churning out products like "Common Sense," which George
• 18:51 Washington says it's a real spark plug
• 18:53 for the American Revolution.
• 18:54 And he starts writing all these works.
• 18:56 Well, he's really popular now, really well known,
• 18:59 and what happens is, in 1790, just before Franklin dies,
• 19:04 he starts writing the manuscript for this book.
• 19:06 This called "The Age of Reason."
• 19:08 "The Age of Reason" is a big-time attack
• 19:10 on Christians and Jews.
• 19:13 Doesn't like the Old Testament, doesn't like the New Testament,
• 19:15 but he's pro-God, but what happens is,
• 19:19 before he printed this-- and, at this point,
• 19:22 Thomas Paine is just super popular to everybody.
• 19:25 He sends manuscript copy of this to his friend Ben Franklin and
• 19:29 said, "Ben, before I print this,
• 19:31 would you read it and look over it?"
• 19:32 And Franklin read it.
• 19:33 He wrote back to him and says, "You shouldn't print this."
• 19:36 He said, "You're attacking religion," and he said,
• 19:38 "Think how many people need religion to restrain them
• 19:42 from bias, to support their virtue.
• 19:43 Think how many young people need--"
• 19:45 and he said, "You're unchaining the tiger."
• 19:47 He said, "I advise you to burn this piece before it is read by
• 19:51 any other person."
• 19:53 Paine ignored him. Came out with it.
• 19:55 This is where the entire Founding Father community
• 19:58 turned against Paine.
• 19:59 Washington never talked to him again for the rest of his life.
• 20:02 Patrick Henry wrote an entire book refuting this.
• 20:06 Elias Boudinot, the president of Congress,
• 20:08 wrote an entire book refuting this.
• 20:10 He came under such attack that, when he died in America,
• 20:13 there was no cemetery that would allow Paine to buried
• 20:16 in the cemeteries.
• 20:17 He was buried in a cow pasture.
• 20:19 So turning anti-religious back then--
• 20:21 and Franklin tried to warn him.
• 20:22 He said, "This is really a bad deal.
• 20:23 We need religion in America.
• 20:25 This is so helpful."
• 20:26 And when Franklin became the governor of Pennsylvania,
• 20:29 1785, it's interesting:
• 20:32 Franklin came up with a plan to raise church attendance
• 20:35 in the state.
• 20:36 He actually promoted raising church attendance.
• 20:38 Jeffrey: And there were so many different kinds
• 20:39 of churches in that state too.
• 20:41 Pennsylvania was one of the more liberal ones
• 20:43 in the best of senses.
• 20:45 David: In the sense of being really inclusive, 'cause some
• 20:47 of the colonies were "I'm congregationalist"
• 20:49 or "I'm Anglican," or whatever.
• 20:51 And in Pennsylvania, you had Quakers,
• 20:53 you had "high church," "low church," you had Baptist,
• 20:56 you had Presbyterian.
• 20:57 Jeffrey: America at its best, yes.
• 20:58 David: And Franklin talks about it.
• 21:00 He said, "I've been a friend to every denomination, and
• 21:02 I hope to go out of this world at peace with them all.
• 21:04 I promoted--"
• 21:05 and it's interesting: Part of Franklin's change really came
• 21:08 when he and George Whitefield became such close friends,
• 21:12 the Great Revivalist, and Franklin began printing
• 21:15 Whitefield's sermons, and his printing business tripled just
• 21:18 by printing Whitefield's sermons.
• 21:20 Then they became good friends, and it's interesting that,
• 21:24 as you look at Franklin, late in life, as he's
• 21:28 approaching what became his death,
• 21:31 he gets a letter from one of his close friends,
• 21:34 Ezra Stiles, who's the president of Yale University,
• 21:38 and Ezra, a reverend, he writes Ben.
• 21:40 He says, "Man, we've been friends for a long time,"
• 21:43 and he said, "I'm doing this room at Yale to honor Founding
• 21:45 Fathers, and I wanna put a picture of you in there,
• 21:48 and can I have a picture?"
• 21:50 And Franklin writes back, and he says,
• 21:52 "Well, I don't like any picture I have,
• 21:54 but I'm sitting for a portrait, and if I like that,
• 21:56 you can have it, and I'm really honored Yale wants
• 21:58 to honor me."
• 21:59 And so Stiles wrote back and says,
• 22:01 "We'll take any picture you send."
• 22:02 By the way, he said, "I've asked you before."
• 22:05 He says, "The most important thing in my life is my
• 22:08 relationship with Christ."
• 22:10 He said, "I wish everybody had that relationship except for
• 22:12 any personal flaws I might have.
• 22:14 I've never asked you.
• 22:15 What's your relationship with Christ?"
• 22:17 And Franklin writes back, and he says,
• 22:21 "That's a interesting question.
• 22:22 Nobody's ever asked me that before."
• 22:24 Imagine that:
• 22:25 living in America and finding nobody asked him that.
• 22:27 And he said--
• 22:29 Jeffrey: Imagine someone from Yale caring about that.
• 22:30 David: That's right too.
• 22:32 And so Franklin says, "I don't know."
• 22:35 He says, "I've never really looked into Jesus as to whether
• 22:39 he's divine or not."
• 22:40 He said, "He might be," he said, "but at my age,
• 22:44 I'll know soon, one way or the other."
• 22:46 And he was dead four months later,
• 22:47 so who knows what happened?
• 22:49 But all the way through life, he considered himself to be a
• 22:52 Christian and friends of Christians,
• 22:54 et cetera, and nobody had ever asked him the question.
• 22:56 So even when you look at him as the least religious Founding
• 22:58 Father, I mean, what he did behaviorally was so significant,
• 23:03 and maybe one of strongest things I'd point to where
• 23:06 he had such a dramatic impact on America was in the middle of the
• 23:10 Constitutional Convention, he started calling for the
• 23:12 Constitutional Convention way back in the 1740s and '50s,
• 23:17 so 30 years before it happened.
• 23:19 And when it does happen, this is what he's been dreaming of.
• 23:22 He's the first guy to call for the United States of America--
• 23:24 is Ben Franklin.
• 23:25 So, when it happens, for the first five weeks,
• 23:28 it's nothing by fighting and bickering 'cause every state
• 23:31 came with their own agenda.
• 23:32 He had the New York plan, the Connecticut plan,
• 23:34 and the Virginia plan, and after five weeks,
• 23:37 they're leaving and going home in disgust.
• 23:39 Alexander Hamilton's going out of there.
• 23:41 George Mason's leaving. They're tired of it.
• 23:44 That's when Franklin calls them to prayer,
• 23:47 reminds them that "God is the one who helped us win
• 23:49 the Revolution.
• 23:51 We've gone through the Constitutional Convention
• 23:52 without praying.
• 23:53 We need to get to prayer."
• 23:55 James Madison records it in Madison's own writings,
• 23:58 and in that call to prayer, in about 14 sentences,
• 24:02 Ben Franklin quotes 14 different Bible verses to call these guys
• 24:06 to prayer.
• 24:07 The result is they take three days off the convention.
• 24:10 This is a newspaper from the three days that the convention
• 24:13 was off, and right here across the left side,
• 24:16 you see that the Constitutional Convention went to church
• 24:19 together, and while they were there,
• 24:21 the Reverend William Rogers prayed over
• 24:23 the Constitutional Convention.
• 24:25 His prayer was so significant it made the front page of the
• 24:27 newspapers back in the day.
• 24:29 When they reassembled after this time of prayer,
• 24:32 Franklin and others talk about how the tone changed.
• 24:35 They were suddenly cooperating.
• 24:37 They suddenly started getting along.
• 24:39 They came up with ideas they liked,
• 24:41 and ten weeks later, we come out with a Constitution that is the
• 24:44 most successful in the history of the world,
• 24:46 but it almost didn't happen, and I think it probably would not
• 24:48 have happened had not Franklin called them to remember God and
• 24:51 get God back in it.
• 24:53 Jeffrey: Yeah, and it reminds me of the faith of our fathers,
• 24:55 that is to say, that we're drawn from a biblical worldview where
• 25:00 we're beseeching the Creator, and we're coming up with a
• 25:04 document that so much reflects the kind of values and virtues
• 25:08 that are embedded in the biblical text.
• 25:10 David: It is, and it's interesting to even see
• 25:12 how many Bible phrases made it into the actual language
• 25:15 of the Constitution.
• 25:16 John Adams specifically talks--
• 25:19 he references Jeremiah 17:9, has three letters about how
• 25:22 that created separation of powers.
• 25:24 So, so much of the Bible actually made it into the
• 25:26 language of the Constitution.
• 25:27 Jeffrey: Yeah, I'm no David Barton,
• 25:28 but I've seen drafts with Bible references in the margins as
• 25:32 well as they're looking to paper some of this stuff up.
• 25:35 Again, I'm no David Barton.
• 25:37 David: It was part of their thinking, for sure.
• 25:39 Jeffrey: Yes, and I'm glad to have you as part of our thinking
• 25:42 as we're taking a look at the "Faith of Our Fathers."
• 25:44 Thank you, David.
• 25:46 David: Good to be with you, bro.
• 25:47 ♪♪♪
• 25:49 Kirsten: We hope you're learning as much as we
• 25:50 are about the faith of our Founding Fathers,
• 25:53 and I think something that we talked about,
• 25:56 watching this last segment, was that the Foundational Fathers of
• 26:01 the United States of America wrote into our Constitution
• 26:06 nuggets of Bible quotes: New Testament and Old Testament.
• 26:12 Jeffrey: Well, speaking of nuggets,
• 26:15 in 1849, they said "There's gold in them there hills,"
• 26:20 and everyone went west for golden nuggets.
• 26:25 There was one Jewish man who went with canvas.
• 26:29 He got there, and he realized they're digging up these buried
• 26:33 treasures, and they're tearing up their pants.
• 26:35 In as much as Betsy Ross sewed a flag together,
• 26:39 and you mentioned her earlier, Levi Strauss started making
• 26:43 jeans out of canvas, pants out of canvas--
• 26:47 came up with denim as well, and the rest is history.
• 26:49 Yes, Jews that made a difference in the New World.
• 26:53 Levi Strauss, he's from my tribe.
• 26:57 Kirsten: Hey, we wanna claim him too,
• 26:58 and the little digits-- there's a name for 'em.
• 27:02 I looked it up--
• 27:03 that go into the jeans and hold them together.
• 27:05 Jeffrey: There's rivets because they were putting
• 27:07 ore in their pockets and tearing up the seams,
• 27:10 and the rivet was patented, and it remains to this day--
• 27:14 my tribe.
• 27:15 Kirsten: Who knew it was a Jew--right?
• 27:17 It's good stuff, and it's part of our history, as are
• 27:21 the Founding Fathers of our faith.
• 27:23 David: That's right.
• 27:24 We leave our program today with a song from our founder,
• 27:26 Zola Levitt.
• 27:28 Jeffrey: And a word from Scripture,
• 27:30 Sha'alu shalom yerushalayim.
• 27:32 Kirsten: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
• 27:35 ♪♪♪
• 27:38 ♪ Brothers, we are needing your mighty arms. ♪
• 27:43 ♪ Sisters, we are needing your love. ♪
• 27:50 ♪ Israel, by divine right, ♪
• 27:59 ♪ God is calling us home. ♪
• 28:09 ♪ Israel, by divine right, ♪
• 28:15 ♪ our God is calling us home. ♪