Building on the American Heritage Series - Revival and Reformation

Revival is one of those words that can feel inspiring and vague at the same time, so we decided to get concrete. We talk about what revival actually looks like when you compare Scripture with American history and we challenge the popular idea that renewal is a quick spiritual adrenaline rush that fixes everything overnight. The Great Awakenings didn’t last a weekend. They lasted decades, and they changed the way everyday people thought, lived, and participated in public life.

We dig into the First Great Awakening and why many historians argue it helped lay the groundwork for the United States itself. Then we zoom in on George Whitefield, whose relentless missionary travels and staggering preaching schedule show the real cost behind spiritual movements. We also look at a surprising pattern: opposition to revival often comes from “spiritual” circles that feel threatened by new methods, new unity, or new priorities. If you’ve ever wondered why good change can create conflict, history has receipts.

From there we get practical. Prayer matters, but prayer that never turns into action stalls out. We discuss why Scripture puts special emphasis on praying for leaders, how praying for officials can reshape our own hearts, and how to think about advisors and staff who influence policy. Finally, we tackle the big question: how do you measure revival? The strongest markers aren’t just church metrics, but cultural fruit like integrity, accountability, and a refusal to tolerate what once felt “normal.”

Subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of faith and politics, share this with a friend, and leave a review if it sharpened the way you think about revival. What’s one cultural change you’d expect to see if renewal were real?

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] You've found your way to the intersection of faith and politics. WallBuilders Live also found online at wallbuilderslive.com and wallbuildes.com. And also on Facebook. You can follow us there as well. And we also encourage you to let your local station know. If you'd like to hear us locally, we're not on a station there close to you. If you're not familiar with which station we're on close to, then go check it out at wallbuilderslive.com. Here we go to Building on the American Heritage Series with David Barton. 

Rick Green [00:00:30] David, revival is something that pastors talk about we as Christians all say we want it what exactly is it? How do you know when you're in one? And what should we be praying for?

David Barton [00:00:39]  Well, I'll tell you that that is a big focus in America right now is revival. I've never seen the type of prayer I'm seeing now. We have the National Day of Prayer. We've had that for decades. Days of prayer go back hundreds of years, but in the past several National Days of Prayer, there have been over 50,000 prayer groups on each National Day prayer. 

Rick Green [00:00:56] Not 50,000 people. You're talking about 50,000 different groups. 

David Barton [00:00:59] Groups in civic arenas. I mean, they're meeting at courthouses. They're meeting at police stations, at fire stations. They are meeting at school. Fifty-thousand groups praying and at big emphasis has been praying for revival. 

Rick Green [00:01:08] Yeah. 

David Barton [00:01:09] We're praying for revival, what's it look like? And the best answer to that is, well, let's go back and look at some previous ones and see what's common to them. The first thing that's common in all revivals, and you have several biblical revivals. You have several American historical revivals and you the First Great Awakening, the Second and Third Great Awakening kind of run into each other. You have the turn of the century revivals you know these revivals in American history. What's characteristic is they always last for decades. 

Rick Green [00:01:32] So it's not that, now I thought revival was something that happened quickly, you had a move of the spirit, the nation was in revival, and that's it. 

David Barton [00:01:38] People think if God answers our prayers for revival, he's going to swoop in and fix every problem in the nation. 

Rick Green [00:01:41] Well, I grew up going to weekend revivals, is this not what you're talking about? 

David Barton [00:01:44] No such thing. Not in a historical sense. That's not a revival. The First Great Awakening went from 1730 to 1770, that's 40 years. The Second Great Awakened, and it bops up against the Third Great Awakening, but that goes from 1801 to 1878, that is 77 years. You could have been born in 1802, you could have lived a full 75 year happy life, died in 1877, and never knew you were in a revival because your whole life was spent through it all. 

Rick Green [00:02:10] Yes, your whole life was part of that revival 

David Barton [00:02:10] Yeah, let's go back to the First Great Awakening, because historians agree without that there is no United States of America. It took that revival to lay the political landscape, to lay that spiritual landscape that allowed America to become an independent nation, create a form of government, create a Bill of Rights, etc. So help me get this in the timeline then, so the First Great Awakening is before the revolution. 1730 to 1770 is the Great Awakening. First Great Awakenings. 1776 is the Declaration of Independence, 1787 the Constitution is written, 1789 the Bill of Rights is written and that's where we started the first government

Rick Green [00:02:40] This revival you're talking about, this is where all the seeds were planted. 

David Barton [00:02:42] This is where all, for 40 years, all this thinking was changed, and then it manifested itself politically in the next several years after that, because all this stuff that's been talked about over here, it's like, wow, now we've got a chance to do this in policy. We've never been able to do this before. We've always been under the British monarch. We can do it ourselves. Whole different approach. 

Rick Green [00:02:59] So if there was such a good result, meaning our nation being born and all the great things that happened with our document, how did we get the revival itself then? That's what people want now. We want to have a revival like that. 

David Barton [00:03:10] Well you go back to someone like George Whitefield. There's a lot of preachers in the First Great Awakening. Gilbert Tennant, Gilbert and William Tennant were big preachers. Jonathan Edwards, that famous sermon on Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. You got Samuel Davies, you got Samuel Cooper, you got Jonathan Mayhew, you get all these famous preachers, but probably the best known is George Whitefield. And by the way, here's some of Whitfield's original writings from the First Great Awakening and here's from some sermons from Mayhew who was also part of the First Great Awakening, here's Wesley's sermons, all these different sermons. Here's Davies', a bunch of sermons by Samuel Davies. All these guys in the Great Awakening. What's significant is George Whitefield was 34 years of the 40 in the great awakening. He made seven missionary journeys to America. He traveled from Maine to Georgia and back preaching as he went. Now, in that 34 year period, he preached 18,000 sermons. 

Rick Green [00:03:59] Wait, wait, wait. That's a thousand...Almost a thousand a year. 

David Barton [00:04:01] Quick math, that's three a day. That's not an easy thing to do. 

Rick Green [00:04:04] Well, I get worn out if I speak a couple of times a day, he does that every day.  

David Barton [00:04:09] He does that every... He averages three sermons a day for 34 years. 

Rick Green [00:04:12] And I'm guessing he's not doing this flying American Airlines. 

David Barton [00:04:14] Oh no. No, he's on horseback. As a matter of fact, one of the neat things is he had a portable pulpit he carried with him. They still have that pulpit, but he would stick that pulpit on the back of his carriage and he would go to the next place, unfold that pulpit, crawl up in it, preach a sermon, fold it up, head to the place. 

Rick Green [00:04:28] How did he physically do that? 

[00:04:30] Whitefield did this on horseback, seven times, Maine, Georgia, Maine. What do you do when the weather's tough? What do you do when you come to a tornado or a hail storm? This is not inspirational work he's doing here. This is hard, hard, hard work. 

Rick Green [00:04:41] What level of commitment does that take on his part for him to be? 

David Barton [00:04:45] I'll tell you, revival killed him. He didn't think revival was all that fun. The last two years of his preaching, he would get up in that pulpit and preach. He'd get out of that pulpit, go over, spit up his guts, and cough up a bunch of blood. Get on his horse ride to the next place, sit up that pulpit and go preach. Get out of the pulpit, go over and cough a bunch of blood. It was not easy work. But if he hadn't done that, we don't have a revival. We don't a country. 

Rick Green [00:05:05] Yeah, it was his sacrifice, his investment. 

David Barton [00:05:08] You bet you bet. 

Rick Green [00:05:08] That was an investment of his life. 

David Barton [00:05:09] You bet. 

Rick Green [00:05:10] Not just his time. His life.

David Barton [00:05:10] And do you know how effective he was in that revival? 80% of everyone that lived in America heard him physically preach a sermon. 

Rick Green [00:05:18] Wow. 

David Barton [00:05:19] No broadcasts back then. That means you gotta be on the spot. You know how many communities he had to go into? For 80% percent of Americans? Anybody that thinks it's a great spiritual inspiration, God's gonna sweep in and fix all the stuff, look at Whitefield. This is the other fun thing about revivals, fun thing. Revivals are always characterized by lots of opposition. But not from the secular folks, from the spiritual folks.  

Rick Green [00:05:43] So shouldn't we be, you'd think it'd be the spiritual folks saying, hey, isn't this guy great? We're so glad you're doing this. 

David Barton [00:05:46] It was the preachers that attacked and said, Whoa!

Rick Green [00:05:46] It was the opposite. 

David Barton [00:05:47] And see revivals nearly always involve old wineskins new wineskins. Jesus told that that story you don't pour new wine old wineskin it'll bust and you'll lose all of it but they said, Whitefield we've never done it this way before. No we're used to doing it this we over here. And so Whitefield comes in with a whole new way, open air meetings, not just in one denomination, he was messing with all denominations, he had what was called his Father Abraham Sermon which brought people together rather than divided them. And they said Whitefield is wicked, he's evil, what he-. 

Rick Green [00:06:12] Cause he's messing with their old mind-set. 

David Barton [00:06:13] He's messing their tradition. And that's always the characteristic revival. Charles Finney comes along in the Second Great Awakening. Now, what do you mean an altar call? We don't do altar calls. We don't have open air brush arbor meetings. We do inside of churches. Oh, he's out in the middle of the community doing stuff. And they said, whoa, Finney is wicked. Look at him, he changed. And it's always a transition of doing something new. God works in a different way. And a lot of people can't get on board with that. Now, what happens today is we remember Whitefield. We don't remember his critics. Back then they were alive and they ate his lunch. They chewed him up. The other thing about a revival is it's not just a spiritual thing. You know, Whitefield is really the father of the American military. He's the guy who designed the first American military flag, came up with a military motto, military banner. Now Whitefield died in 1770 up in Newburyport, Massachusetts. They buried him below the church there down in the basement, sarcophagus. The first Massachusetts regiment that went out to fight in the American Revolution, all stopped by that church, had a sermon about what was happening as soldiers going out into war. They all went downstairs, opened the sarcophagus, cut off a little piece of his robe to take with them because he was the inspirational father of the military. 

Rick Green [00:07:17] So you wouldn't think of the preacher, a Great Awakening Preacher, being the one that did that. 

David Barton [00:07:21] Oh, it's not just that. 1765, when we had the Stamp Act in America, now that's an economic thing. America sent two people to Great Britain to argue against the Stamp Act. One is Ben Franklin; one is George Whitefield. 

Rick Green [00:07:31] No kidding. 

David Barton [00:07:32] What's he doing in parliament? What's you doing in politics? What's your doing with taxation issues? Because revival covers all aspects of life. It's not just spiritual stuff. It affects the way you live, the way you think, the way act. That's characteristics an so. 

Rick Green [00:07:43] So everybody's praying for revival. Now you're talking hard work. 

David Barton [00:07:46] Hard work. 

Rick Green [00:07:47] You're talking it's gonna take a long time. 

David Barton [00:07:48] A lot of opposition. 

Rick Green [00:07:49] A lot opposition. 

David Barton [00:07:49] It'll last decades. It's not fast. And the other thing that's really significant is it's always transgenerational. There's a revival recorded back in Judges 13 where God's people were under the oppression of the Philistines and then they prayed and prayed God delivers from the Philistine. We need a revival. God answered the revival. In verse 5 of chapter 13, God so answered the revival, He sent an angel to earth tell people, I've heard your prayers, I've answered, you're gonna have a revival. The way He did it was the angel went to Manoah and said, Manoah, God's heard the prayers of His people. He's gonna deliver you. You're gonna be free people, you're going to have a revival. Here's how it works. Your wife's gonna get pregnant. And when that kid grows up, he's gonna be the national deliverer. Time out. It's gonna take 20 years for that kid to grow up. I thought you said you answered our prayers. God often answers the prayers for revival by sending a new generation that does it differently. A great example, back here, Samuel Davies, he's considered the greatest pulpit preacher in the Great Awakening. He had a little kid running around with him when he was doing all this preaching. And as a matter of fact, Sam McCooper, another great preacher in the Great Awakening, had a kid running round with him all the time. And Gilbert Tennant, another preacher of the Great, had a kid running around him. And it's interesting, you know who the kid was running around Samuel Davy's? Little guy named Patrick Henry. 

Rick Green [00:08:58] No kidding. 

David Barton [00:08:58] I wonder where he learned to be such a good speaker. He heard the greatest pulpit orator in American history preach and preach and preach. 

Rick Green [00:09:04] And he became the greatest political orator. Oh wow! 

David Barton [00:09:06] And he became the greatest orator. And you have a little kid running around with Sam Oh, it's John Quincy Adams. That's who it is. 

Rick Green [00:09:11] Wow. 

David Barton [00:09:12] And this guy named Elias Budinot, the president of Congress who signed the peace treaty in the Revolution. Oh, you mean he was baptized by George Whitefield in the Great Awakening? 

Rick Green [00:09:19] Wow. 

David Barton [00:09:20] And Benjamin Rush considered one of the three most notable Founding Fathers. He ran around with this preacher named Gilbert Tennant and William Tennant See, what happens is you have a new generation. I think we're there now. And for example, in America, America's finally become 51% pro-life. It's taken us decades. We're now a majority pro-live nation. Isn't that really cool? When you look at the stats for our teenagers, teenagers are 72% pro-life. 

Rick Green [00:09:42] Twenty points more. 

David Barton [00:09:43] Only 19% of teenagers believe that abortion on demand should remain. Now, how did our teenagers get 20 points more pro- life than anybody that teaches them? 

Rick Green [00:09:51] Has to be revival. 

David Barton [00:09:51] How'd they get more pro life than the culture? How'd to get more Pro-life than the teachers, their parents? Because God says I've been hearing your prayers. Let me send you a new generation that will do some things differently. 

Rick Green [00:10:00] You know, in the examples we use, I mean, in Bible days or even the Founding era, they seem to be a little more patient than we are. We're a real immediate gratification. 

David Barton [00:10:06] We're microwave generation. 

Rick Green [00:10:07] Yeah, we're microwave. 

David Barton [00:10:08] I mean, we watch the news all the time. We got a crisis going in some nation, and in 30 minutes they'll get the experts on and tell us how to fix it. 

Rick Green [00:10:13] Right, right, right. 

David Barton [00:10:14] You know, we've had these two nations fighting for 400 years, but we got a 30 minute program and told us how fix the problem. 

Rick Green [00:10:18] Yeah, so how much harder is it for us to say it's generational? 

David Barton [00:10:21] It's generational. And see, this is the question, is we pray for revival. How serious are we about revival? Are we willing to expend the work and the time and the effort and the discipleship and the mentorship of the next generation that it's gonna take to do this? Because that's what a real revival looks like. 

Rick Green [00:10:37] Okay, David, how about some questions from the audience about Revival? 

David Barton [00:10:40] Sounds good. 

Questioner 1 [00:10:41] What is it going to take to get revival in America? 

Rick Green [00:10:43] Well, we're praying for it, we are asking for it. How do you get there? 

David Barton [00:10:45] That's the starting place. You have to ask for it. You have not because you ask not, and you have to start by asking, which means prayer. I love what Founding Father John Hancock said about this. He said, I urge you by all that's honorable, by all this dear, by all that is holy, not only that you pray, but also that you act. 

Rick Green [00:11:04] So it takes both. 

David Barton [00:11:05] Faith without works is dead. It's an interesting thing that if we start praying, and the Lord tells us a number of prayers to pray in the scripture, you pray for laborers to go out in the harvest. If you get really dead serious about praying for God to send out workers in the harvest, your heart gets turned that direction all of a sudden, I'll go do it. And so what happens is the more you pray for something, the more your heart gets into it, the you're likely to start taking action on it. That's why I think it's significant that we're told in 1 Timothy to pray first of all. And by the way, there's nothing else in the Bible where we're taught to pray first of all, but we are told to pray, first of ALL, leaders, those in authority. 

Rick Green [00:11:41] That's regardless of which leaders and who it is that's elected. You pray for the ones you agree with, the ones that you don't, you pray for all of them. 

David Barton [00:11:47] Pray for leaders and those in authority before you pray for yourself or your church or your job or your kids. That's only first of all in the Bible related to prayer. Pray for leaders in those in authority. If you start praying diligently for leaders, you're gonna start saying, man look what's happening in the country. We got to change this. Your heart will start taking you in that direction. 

Rick Green [00:12:05] How do you pray for your leaders if you don't even know who they are? I mean, I guess you could pray in general to the leaders of the country, but you almost have to start doing some homework and find out. 

David Barton [00:12:13] Well, if you start praying for your leaders, you'll have a desire to know who are my leaders. I don't know who my leaders are. And there are a number of prayer networks out there that now provide guides. There's a great prayer calendar, for example, with Heritage Alliance. 

Rick Green [00:12:24] Yeah, but in Texas, you get a daily, they'll give you two leaders to pray for. 

David Barton [00:12:27] Well, they have a national calendar too. You get to pray on this day for your senator, on this day for your state rep, on this day for your U.S. Congressman, this day your governor, on the day for the secretary of the state, on this day for the Supreme Court

Rick Green [00:12:37] It gives you a little summary so you know something about them. Pray for their family.

David Barton [00:12:40] That’s right. And every day it gives you a leader and someone authority to pray for. So Heritage Alliance is a good place, but there's a lot of prayer groups that do that. 

Rick Green [00:12:48] Is it okay for me to pray, you know, not only pray for that person, but pray that God send advisors to them if they're not reading from a Biblical point of view, that He'll send advisors that will influence them, that he'll change their heart? I mean, to actually pray for the leader and the policy they're implementing. 

David Barton [00:13:01] Pray for the staff as well. Because even if you have a rotten scoundrel like Ahab, Ahab had a righteous guy named Obadiah working for him. And Obadiah, despite Ahab and Jezebel trying to kill all of God's prophets, Obadiah over here is able to get a hundred prophets of God and save them, put them in a cave and take care of them. So you can even have really good people and a really wicked administration, and you want to pray not only for their counselors, because they need counselors, they need people giving righteous input. 

Rick Green [00:13:25] That sounds like too though that that when you're praying for that kind of those kind of things with your leaders you recognize that revival does come through the hands and the feet of the people. I mean God does do it through these people in these positions. 

David Barton [00:13:36] You can pray for revival all you want but if you're not willing to do something with your prayers it's not going to happen. 

Rick Green [00:13:41] Staying with this subject of revival let's get another question from the audience. 

Questioner 2 [00:13:44] How do we measure revival? 

Rick Green [00:13:46] Well I have to admit I have no idea how do you measure? I mean we're praying, we want it to happen, but how do you know if you are in it or if it's happened and whether it's a good one?  

David Barton [00:13:55] Well revival is a little different when you pray. I mean, if we pray for rain, we know when that prayer is answered, you know. If somebody's sick and you pray, God, heal them, you'll know when the prayer is answered. It's a little different with the revival, but the Bible does give us a lot of indicators and so does history. And one of the things that you'll find that happens with the revivals is you have changes in individuals; you have changes in culture as well. You look in the Second Great Awakening, part of the reason we knew it was a revival was because all of a sudden, you can get hundreds, thousands to show up to pray. Ten years before, who wants to pray? It's a waste of time. Or I'm too busy, but suddenly there's an interest in spiritual activities, there's interest in doing something spiritual. Now, it doesn't stop there. I mean, you can't say we have a revival because we got so many baptizers, so many joined the church, that's not it. Because it's not just what you say spiritually, it's how that works out through your life. If you have a real conversion experience with the Lord, your lifestyle is gonna change. And if your lifestyle changes, what you will tolerate around you and what you demand to be around you will also change. 

Rick Green [00:14:54] So it's not just your spirits, not just you heart,. 

David Barton [00:14:56] Not your heart, 

Rick Green [00:14:56] It's how you act after that and what you're willing to put up with around you in the culture. 

David Barton [00:15:00] It's and that's a great way of saying what you're willing to put up with. Because if God's really hit you, man you think lying's an abomination and you're not gonna let all these people that used to be your employees They're liars. So you said guys you got to cut that out. Are you gonna say no, wait a minute I can't have liars in office either. These guys made all these promises. We got to get these guys out We have somebody with character and integrity you start wanting and demanding different things around you. They'll demand more from the places where you go and what you patronize the way of dining establishments. You know, there's certain things you won't tolerate and you start working that up to the culture, and you can always measure revival by what it does to change the culture. 

David Barton [00:17:39] The Wesleys had a revival in England back in the early 1700s, and it was measurable because suddenly, nobody wanted to go to the bars anymore. They'd rather go to church than go to bars, or they'd rather be with their family than go to bars. I love what happened in New York in the Second Great Awakening. One of the Founding Fathers, James Kent, talks about it, and they were appalled that in the entire state of New York, over a 16-year period, they had eight murders in New York. 

Rick Green [00:18:06] Sixteen years, only eight? 

David Barton [00:18:07] That's a murder every six months. 

Rick Green [00:18:08] In New York? 

David Barton [00:18:09] In New York. Chicago's got a murder every eight hours. See, you can measure statistical results. Say, wait a minute, God's changed people's hearts. They're not wanting to kill each other anymore. 

Rick Green [00:18:16] And they act different. 

David Barton [00:18:17] They act different, so any time you have a revival, it's not just spiritual measurements, it will affect the culture. If it doesn't affect the cultural, it's no a revival. There have been revivals gone on all over America. People say, oh, come see this great revival at this church, it is not a revival unless it gets outside the church and affects the culture. 

Rick Green [00:18:33] How about another question from the audience? 

Questioner 3 [00:18:35] Would a national revival really make a difference in our government? 

Rick Green [00:18:38] Well we're back to this question I mean, if it's a revival spiritually there's a change, but then how does it work its way up to where we see that reflection in government?

David Barton [00:18:46] Let's take this issue of policy for a minute, because as you look in the Bible, there are several revivals that occur in the bible. You have a revival of the nation under Jehoshaphat, you have a revival of the nation under Josiah, you have the revival of a nation under Asa. Now those, that's just three revivals, but let's take those. They've been away from God, they came back to God. You take those three revivals, they are recorded in two parallel books. They're recorded in the Kings, and they're recorded the Chronicles. Now, there's a difference in these two books. The Kings, that's compiled by Jeremiah. The Chronicles are compiled by Ezra. Now, Jeremiah's a prophet, and in Bible times, a prophet was part of the King's staff. You remember, even Ahab said, hey, we can't go out to war unless we get a prophet in here. Let's get a Prophet. They bring a prophet and he said, I hate this prophet, he always tells me bad things. But he's still got a prophet. The prophet spoke directly into policy, directly into the King. So you got Jeremiah, he's got a very political view. And if you read the book of Jeremiah, you see that he's interfacing with the kings all the time. They throw him down in that miry pit. He sends word to the king and the king says, I want to meet with you in private. Don't let anybody know we met. There's always this stuff where the prophets are working with the civil leaders. 

Rick Green [00:19:52] They had no hesitation in speaking out. 

David Barton [00:19:54] That's right. 

Rick Green [00:19:55] When it's something the civil leaders had wrong. 

David Barton [00:19:56] Spoke very clearly and its precedent of God's ministers speaking in the civil arena. Now, on the other hand, you have Ezra, who is the scribe, the priest. He's the guy who was back at the temple doing all those hours of prayer and fasting. And it's interesting that when you read the same incident in the Kings that you have in the Chronicles. In the Kings, you get a political viewpoint of it. In the Chronicle, you got a spiritual viewpoint. Here's an example. In the Kings, it'll say that the King so-and-so died and was buried with his fathers. In Chronicles, it will say, King so and so sinned against God, God struck him down and he died and was buried with his father's. Well, you've got spiritual perspective over here you didn't get in the political. So when you look at a revival, you can read the Chronicles and get the spiritual perspective. What's really cool is read the Kings and get that the political perspective. Every time there was a revival, this is the striking stuff, every time there was a revival in the Bible, you know what changed with every revival? Their attitude toward homosexuality. 

Rick Green [00:20:50] Really? In the Old Testament? 

David Barton [00:20:51] In the Old Testament. They had been tolerating it, they allowed it, and it said that when the revival came that they chased the sodomites out of the temple. 

Rick Green [00:20:59] So revival brought moral clarity and they acted upon it. 

David Barton [00:21:01] And it brought policy. Suddenly the church is not tolerating homosexuals in the temple, And with a revival, it's that's a political position, but it's a result of a spiritual change. So as you go through and read revivals in the Bible, yes, there is a spiritual component to them. There's always a political component that goes with it as well. 

Rick Green [00:21:29] Soi if we have a revival in America, we should see changes not only in our attitudes but in the policy on issues like abortion and marriage

Rick Green [00:21:29] That's right. These are what were called common law offenses, because this was common to nations. This was common throughout history that this behavior is not acceptable. And that's why in common law offenses, it listed everything from burglary, from arson, from murder to kidnapping, to theft, to rape, to homosexuality, to prostitution. And that was why it was always in the common law offenses, and that was incorporated in the Constitution through Amendment 7 of the Constitution. But I say that because common law goes back hundreds of years before the Constitution, they just took that body and put it into the Constitution, and that's why it was part of the statutory laws for all the states. 

Rick Green [00:22:01] All right, time for one more question on revival. 

Questioner 4 [00:22:04] America is so far gone, it seems we have only a few years left. How can we get revival in such a short time? 

Rick Green [00:22:10] Well, you do hear this quite a bit. I mean, some people are out there saying, it's all over. Grab your guns, can food, go hide out at the ranch. I mean they want to give up on America, and they don't believe a revival would work. 

David Barton [00:22:19] Well, what happens is those people are not very familiar with history, because there is nothing new under the sun, but this also gets somewhat into eschatology. And as we get into eschatology, we see the end times. And I believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. Because I believe that, Peter said he was living in the last days. Paul told Timothy, this is the last days. John said twice, I'm in the last days! What does that mean? That means the last days must last at least 2,000 years because we're still there. See, every single generation since Christ was here thought that Christ would return in their generation. Now, eschatology is divided in a lot of ways in the church. You have the pre-trib, the post-trib, the mid-trib, the a-trib, the pan-trib, the pre-millennial, post-millennial. You've got all these positions. The simple way to look at this is exactly what Jesus told his disciples when they were thinking about this "when's the Master coming back?" Kind of stuff. Luke 19:13 He said, occupy till I come. If we think it's time to pick up and get out of here because it's just too hard, just too rough, we don't have Christian character yet. That's when you dig in your heels and say, I'm gonna be the last one standing. I love, in the Old Testament, as it talked about the three chief warriors for David. And you look at what those chief warriors did. You crawl down in the snowy pit with a lion now on a snowy day. But the guy I really enjoy is the guy who went out there and defended a bean patch. And he stayed there and kept the enemy out of the bean patch so long they had to pry his fingers off it. Who cares about a bean patch? Give it up. No, no. I was told to stay here and defend this bean patch. 

Rick Green [00:23:54] This is my place on the wall. 

David Barton [00:23:55] And I'm not moving. My commander put me here to do this bean patch and you ain't getting me out of here. And so he stayed defending that silly bean patch or little field. He defended that bean patch till they had to pry his fingers. He was one of David's mighty men. See, and that's the kind of people God wants. And I will tell you historically, as you look back into the diary of Christopher Columbus, Christopher Columbus says, I've talked to every major theologian across Europe. They all agree every prophecy necessary for Christ to return has been fulfilled. They all thank Christ to be here in the next 70 years. 

Rick Green [00:24:26] And that's in the 1400s. 

David Barton [00:24:27] That's in the 1400's and that's why he wrote in his diary he says that's, why I'm compelled. God has shown me out of Isaiah that there are Isles of the sea that haven't heard the gospel. I've got to get the gospel there because there's only 70 years left. Five hundred years later, 

Rick Green [00:24:41] Little bit 500 years off there. 

David Barton [00:24:43] As you move into the Founding Era, Founding Fathers like Sam Adams, Sam Adams said, we've talked to all the theologians, they all agree there's not a prophecy left to be fulfilled before Christ returns. They think he'll be here by 1800. And Sam Adams says, maybe, but I've still got stuff to do even, but they were believing by 1800, we've had across every single generation, every prophecy has been fulfilled since a long time ago. Every single one, there's nothing left for Him to return except the Father to say, okay, return. That's all we're waiting on. Who knows how long that's going to be? That's not our business. It doesn't matter when He returns. We've got to be occupied until He comes. 

Rick Green [00:25:16] Yeah, because isn't it much easier to give up on the culture if you are saying, look, God's going to be back in two weeks, two years, whatever, why should I worry about if I turn the culture around? 

David Barton [00:25:24] And the other thing is it creates a pessimism, you know, it's all this the last days There's nothing we can do to turn it around. 

Rick Green [00:25:29] Yeah,. 

David Barton [00:25:29] What makes you think so? I love Isaiah 59 where God says you think my arms too short to say? You and even with Moses, He told Moses and get out of the way Moses. I'm gonna destroy this people now when God says he can destroy people He's gonna do it and Moses went and prayed and God said, okay, I won't destroy them. How do you know what can be changed through prayer? You think this is the last time you think it's all written? God responds to prayer. He's changed so many times what He intended to do because somebody got involved in prayer and we can't check out on this. We absolutely cannot check out of this. And you look in the Bible, how many times did Israel sink to the bottom of the barrel and God still brought them back? You know, still, I've got great hope for the country 

Rick Green [00:26:07] Well, I was going to ask about America. I mean we've had our down times. 

David Barton [00:26:09] We have had our down times and come backs, so why couldn't it happen again?

David Barton [00:26:13]  And this is why believers need to know something about history, both the Bible and both American history, because this is not brand new water we're treading in. We've been here before. God's quite capable of handling this. He just needs some people willing to do some stuff. And that's what the key to revival is, is we've got to be willing to get involved. 

Rick Green [00:26:30] Thanks for listening today, folks. Many of you have the DVD set of the American Heritage Series. You could get the sequel, which is Building on the American Heritage Series, a lot of new material, some fantastic programs you