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Preparing Children to Live Under God · Passing On The Faith

0:00
SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of homeschoolers who are doing what we do, Kevin, get dejected and they think, well, you know, we're just so so small.
0:05
SPEAKER_02: We're only, you know, 10% of the population in the best states is homeschooling.
0:09
SPEAKER_02: What are we gonna accomplish?
0:10
SPEAKER_02: And uh, I would say several things to you.
0:12
SPEAKER_02: First of all, uh, just go reread the story of Gideon.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh God sent all the cowards home.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: He he only used Gideon, a tiny group, 300 men, to crush the massive Midianite army.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so maybe, maybe homeschoolers are the new uh Gideon army.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: But also, uh, you know, even just taking it outside the spiritual and the theological, when you look at the homeschooling community in the United States, even when you look at the government's own data, they are so far ahead of the victims of government school.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: Even on all the standardized academic tests, all the math, the reading, uh, these are gonna be the future leaders of this country.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: They're gonna be the ones who lead in business.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: They're gonna be the ones who lead in every realm because they're smarter, they're better educated, they can think clearly, they know what bathroom to use, they're not identifying as cats and looking for a litter box.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: So you're listening to Passing on the Faith, a podcast from generations.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Every week, we bring you a powerful moment from one of our sermons, audiobooks, webinars, or conference talks, handpicked to help you build a strong biblical foundation for your family.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: This week's episode is a segment from our April 2026 webinar entitled Preparing Children to Live Under God, why a biblical worldview is the foundation of every subject.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: With Kevin Swanson and Alex Newman.
1:31
SPEAKER_03: Alex, we are grateful to have you here with us today.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm grateful to be here.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much for having me.
1:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:38
SPEAKER_03: So when we look at our culture today, we can see the results of a godless worldview that continues to be perpetuated from generation to generation.
1:47
SPEAKER_03: But things haven't always been this way.
1:49
SPEAKER_03: We were much more of a God-fearing nation at one time.
1:53
SPEAKER_03: So, Kevin, how bring some context here.
1:56
SPEAKER_03: You know, what has replaced the God-centered view of authority in our culture, and what are the implications for our children if we don't make a change?
2:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Brandy, first thing, I mean, 250 years is amazing.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: So let's just say that.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: 250 years, happy birthday to America.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: 250 years of the freest nation on earth, and the most prosperous nation since like the 1880s.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: The most charitable nation by a long shot, most godly nation, most biblical worldview-based nation, nation most rooted in the Reformation, uh the nation that has the most Christian education and Christian homeschooling in all of the earth today.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: But we are losing it.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: We're losing it big time.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: It's really tough.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: It's a tough time in American history.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: That's where we are.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: We're losing it.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: And uh and it's really a sad day for this country.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: And there have been some big shifts.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: We want to hear from Alex on this, because I know he's big on American history and uh just the history of all of this.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: But man has crawled away from God.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: Tried to crawl out from under God.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: I guess that's what I would say, because this is an under God uh seminar, right?
3:00
SPEAKER_01: So man has crawled out from under God.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: And I think evolution was huge about this.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: We started with evolution for a reason.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: And just one data point.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: I just checked this out this morning.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: Evolutionary law was really big in the first part of the 20th century.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: And that's really what set the direction for really bad politics in the 20th and 21st century, evolutionary law.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: That is, uh law was no longer based in truth, no longer based in a constitution that could not be changed, or ultimately biblical truth, biblical law, but now everything could change because everything is evolving here.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: Woodrow Wilson introduced Darwinian evolution into politics and law with a book he wrote, and he appointed Louis Brandeis, who is a radical to the Supreme Court, uh government, this guy says not a machine but a living thing, accountable to Darwin, not Newton.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: Wilson was the first to call for there to be a living political constitution.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: And he said it will be Darwinian in structure and in practice.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: So Woodrow Wilson, I I take Woodrow Wilson as the worst president in American history.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: That's my my view.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: There are some bad ones.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: There are some bad ones, but there's some bad ones.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: Woodrow Wilson is to me, number one worst president in terms of setting the wrong direction for the entire country.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: One world government guy, socialism, big socialist, big into eugenics.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: In 1907, he campaigned Indiana for compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: In 1911, governor of New Jersey, he signed a eugenics bill into law.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh he was big on the on the KKK.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: He showed the first major motion picture on the KKK and revived it, uh, which uh you know focused mainly on more funding for the public schools, limits on immigration, et cetera.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: The Klan was focused on shutting down all private schools back then.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: So this was the kind of agenda that Woodrow Wilson was all about and bringing evolution and evolutionary thinking and socialist thinking, communist thinking into America for really the first time.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: There were a few others that worked at it, but Woodrow Wilson made a lot of progress with this.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: So I just you know, maybe this is a little bit of a venting just for a moment, Alex.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: Um but uh but the the taking God out of the public schools, I think, is the big one.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: This anti-God socialism came to America in the 1800s, 1900s, and now here we are, we got this godless academic institutional system, godless politics.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: And so, Alex, I mean, you've done a lot of history on this.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: Add to some of this.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: So I we want to see what happened with America when uh all of our institutions are trying to crawl out from under God.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you, Kevin.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: It's great to be here, and thanks everybody for being with us.
5:39
SPEAKER_02: And you know, evolution really accelerated a process that started even earlier in the Enlightenment period, but people were just desperate.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: People were looking for any excuse to come out under uh the rules of God.
5:52
SPEAKER_02: If you read Psalm 2, you see the nations raging, trying to uh throw off God's controls.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: And uh Jesus says says it very clearly in uh Luke and in Matthew, he says, You're either with me or against me.
6:03
SPEAKER_02: And so when people abandoned the biblical view of authority, of history, of sovereignty, uh, they took an anti-Christ or an anti-Christian position.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: And in particular, uh in the United States, I think evolution and this kind of new faith of humanism, this man-centered idolatry, uh, is what came in to fill the void that was left as people turned their backs on God and the biblical understanding.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, for centuries, uh, not just America, obviously, but all of Western civilization operated on these biblical truths, that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, that all authority flows from God.
6:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and that ended up being a great blessing for people, even the people who didn't necessarily believe that uh living in a society where that was the norm ended up uh really, really being a blessing.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: But then we had the Enlightenment, we had this acceleration of that process with the explosion of Darwinian evolution, then we had uh the government taking over education from parents, people like John Dewey, Robert Owen, and we'll we'll talk about them, I hope.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: Uh these guys uh wanted to use the education system as a means to an end of de-Christianizing society, turning children against God, turning children against the Bible.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: And what we did was we we replaced the creator with the creature.
7:17
SPEAKER_02: And so uh you had, for example, Hegel's ideas where government actually became deified, government became a sort of God bestriding the earth, uh, the state then uh replaced family, the state replaced church as the primary influence in the lives of children.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: And so we had this idea of humanism where man is kind of the end-all and be-all, the measure of all things.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: And and I think a lot of Christians, even today, don't realize that humanism is, in the truest sense, a religion.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: Of course, it's a false religion, but uh it is a religion nonetheless.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: It has a theological structure associated with it.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: And when you teach multiple generations of children this false religion for you know 30 hours a week for uh you know 40 weeks a year in these government schools, and then you reinforce it with the entertainment and you reinforce it with uh the literature, uh you get uh an entire culture that now abandons God and that bows to this kind of godlike state, these bureaucrats, these experts, these globalist elites, uh, instead of bowing to the King of Kings, uh, where we should bow.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: So uh, you know, Proverbs 14, 34 tells us that righteousness exalts a nation.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: Sin is a reproach to any people.
8:27
SPEAKER_02: And I think we're unfortunately reaping what we've sowed.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: And now we see uh uh another kind of development in this whole process.
8:35
SPEAKER_02: Humanism replaced the biblical worldview.
8:37
SPEAKER_02: Now humanism is slowly moving out and it's being replaced with kind of paganism and occultism and outright Satanism.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: We literally have after-school Satan clubs on public school campuses recruiting children.
8:49
SPEAKER_02: And uh what when we talk about this issue of authority, uh the Christian view is very clear.
8:54
SPEAKER_02: Jesus teaches it explicitly in Matthew chapter 20.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: He calls them and he says, and I'm gonna quote here, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles or the nations or the pagans lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them, yet it shall not be so among you.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant, and whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
9:23
SPEAKER_02: And so that that kind of was foundational to Western civilization, where those in authority are given authority by God, and that authority is to be exercised in a sacrificial manner, in a servant manner, for the benefit of those uh over whom authority is being exercised.
9:39
SPEAKER_02: Now we're going back to the pagan view where uh the rulers are the great ones, and we basically just take instructions from them.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: There are no limits to their power, and we've got essentially this uh Hegelian idea of government as God, and we're we're now watching the fruit grow.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: It's rotten and horrific, and uh it's now evident all around us.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: Terrible, terrible.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: But uh, Alex, there have been some experiments that were attempted in the 20th century in which they have they took God way out, like way out, like atheistic socialism, communism, Soviet Union, China.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so they have experimented with this.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you want to know what it looked like.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: Um America is not quite there yet, not quite to total atheism.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: But if we go there, okay, if we go there where we take God out of everything and we are an expressly atheistic nation, like the Soviet Union, the 1920s, 30s, or China, what happens?
10:34
SPEAKER_01: What do we have to look forward to?
10:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, uh the same things that those nations and those societies experienced.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: When when you expel God, um uh these anti-Christ ideas and principles fill the void, and uh the fruit is very evident in all of those experiments that you just mentioned and plenty of others that you didn't have time to get to.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: Uh mass death, starvation, concentration camps, torture.
10:59
SPEAKER_02: Um it's a terrible thing.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh and and it's kind of a spectrum, right?
11:02
SPEAKER_02: We we see we're on the road to that.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: We're not there yet, obviously.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: Praise the Lord for his mercy on that front, but uh we're moving in that direction.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, exactly.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: And so where are we?
11:13
SPEAKER_01: And where are we?
11:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you think we're we're we're down the pike of ways.
11:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: We're we're at a fork in the road, right?
11:20
SPEAKER_02: I I I don't think it's too late for us to turn around and say, wait a minute, we went way too far down this wrong road.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but we're we're at an inflection point now in the history of our country.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: And I I think there are uh powerful factions on each side advocating for one way or the other.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: Uh unfortunately, I think a lot of Christians just decided to sit on the sidelines for various reasons, different uh theological views, different uh false ideas about the alleged separation of church and state.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: But uh we now have, I think, uh a dedicated community of Christians in America who do publicly advocate for national repentance, uh, a national uh turning around, if you will, a national a national kind of going back to God, going back to his principles, going back to uh a right understanding of the purpose of government.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but we also have very, very powerful forces on the other side advocating pedal to the metal toward uh the same kind of society that we saw in the Soviet Union, that we saw in China, that we saw in Vietnam, that we saw in Laos, that we saw in Cuba, that we saw in uh Cambodia.
12:24
SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I I don't know which way this is going to go yet, but we are certainly a long way away from where we started, from the biblical foundations, the godly foundations, but we're not past the point of no return, in my opinion.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, hey, it's full core press.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: We we have got to engage in that that's why education is the battleground.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is where we fight for the hearts and minds of the next generation.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: Hitler understood this, by the way.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: The communists understand this.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: They understand that you've got to s socialize education because you've got to control the minds and the hearts of the next generation.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: So this is really I think this is Omaha Beach on D-Day in the world of worldviews.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: We we have got to bring education under God and back into the family under the family jurisdiction.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: This is huge.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: This is, to me, the battle of all battles w waged for our civilization.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, am I overstating the case because I happen to be in a homeschool organization here?
13:20
SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell Not at all.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I I came to that exact same conclusion, Kevin.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh the hour is late.
13:26
SPEAKER_02: And uh if we fail on this front, I've I've been telling people this for 15 years, all those other battles that everybody's fighting are important.
13:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, we we've we've got to do some of these things.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: We've got to deal with the border, we've got to deal with the national security, we've got to deal with the abortion and the taxes and the attacks on uh basic freedoms.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: But if we fail on this battle, the battle over the education of the next generation, uh all those other battles are going to be lost over the long term anyway.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: Uh so I tell all the people, you know, the people that are all into gun rights, you know, and I'm a gun guy, I think we should have a right to keep and bear arms.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: But I tell these guys, you know, spend your time on doing that, yes, but recognize if we lose here, you're gonna lose on your issue too.
14:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh we have a situation now where we've had multiple generations of young Americans educated in this false view of history, false view of authority.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: Uh, they've lost their identity, they've lost their inheritance, they've lost their ability to reason, to discern truth from lies.
14:21
SPEAKER_02: And uh if we don't reclaim that, and all you gotta do is look at the statistics.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: If you look at Barna's numbers, uh, we're down to the lower generations, we're down to two to three percent of our young people have a biblical worldview.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh and God can and frequently does use a very small remnant to accomplish great things.
14:39
SPEAKER_02: So we we can't put put it past God to use this little remnant.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: But uh if we don't get a handle on the education and and really, I think, the discipleship of the next generation, everything is lost.
14:51
SPEAKER_02: Um and uh yeah, yes, God can do miracles, but uh more often than not, God works through people, God works through a remnant.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: And so we need the homeschool community, I think, especially.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you guys are the tip of the spear.
15:03
SPEAKER_02: We are the tip of the spear.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm of course a homeschool dad.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh we are the tip of the spear, and it's not enough to just have this great thing and keep it to ourselves and do it in our home and just let the world go to hell in a handbasket.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: We have to be out there and share with other families, especially the families in our church, the Christian families that live in our cities and towns, we have to share with them uh the the wonders of home education, but more importantly, the urgency of Christian discipleship, which of course begins in the home.
15:29
SPEAKER_02: I think is best carried out through homeschooling.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: But even for those who for whatever reason can't, uh, we've got to give them an understanding of the fact that their children are being discipled right now in a rival discipleship program with uh Marxism and DEI and then and all these uh false worldviews.
15:47
SPEAKER_02: Uh and so they've got to at least find a program for education that is based in the Word of God, right?
15:53
SPEAKER_02: At the very least, a decent, vetted, private Christian school that understands that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: Uh and and we have good numbers now.
16:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean, depending on what state you're in, something like 15-20% of children are already out of the government school system.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: If every homeschool family, if every family in a good Christian school would go out and find another family, we would be well on our way to making some serious progress here.
16:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I think this is the key battle.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: And when I hear pastors say, oh, you know, we just do the gospel here.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: No, this is a great commission issue, too.
16:23
SPEAKER_02: You you're you're telling me that you're gonna make disciples of all nations because you sent a missionary to uh Botswana, but you're gonna let 80% of the children in your congregation be discipled by a rival discipleship program.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: That doesn't make any sense.
16:35
SPEAKER_02: We've got to deal with this issue.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: Um and Alex, uh, let's talk about uh Christian view, a right view of history.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: Um that's really great.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: For us, it's it's Jesus is gotta be a center.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: The most important person in history is Jesus.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: That's why taking Europe for Jesus, taking Africa for Jesus, taking Asia for Jesus, uh Jesus is right on the cover of our books, because Jesus is the central figure in all of history.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: We should all be bowing the knee to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: He rules, he's ruling until he makes his enemies under his footstool.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh so Jesus is right in the center, God is sovereign, God's providence, his hand is on history.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: You know, these are important principles for us.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: What is your take on that?
17:13
SPEAKER_01: What are the drop dead most important principles to apply to history?
18:41
SPEAKER_02: Well, we we need to see and we need to teach our children to see history as the unfolding of God's sovereign plan because that's what it is, right?
18:50
SPEAKER_02: Whether we recognize it or not, that's what it is.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: Uh God is the one who raises up nations, he defines the borders and the and the lengths of their dwelling, he brings them low, he bring he raises them up, he puts kings into power.
19:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, and and so that's how I think we need to understand history.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: The the way history is taught today, and I've I've analyzed many government school textbooks.
19:10
SPEAKER_02: In fact, the the most common history textbook used in the United States is three million copies sold, is this piece of trash by a member of the Communist Party USA.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: Howard is it?
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Oh no.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: Oh no.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: It's so bad you you almost can't believe it.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: There are blatant lies throughout the time, and these lies have been exposed, they're they're almost universally acknowledged by credible historians as lies, and yet they are still being taught to children.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: It's a Marxist narrative, it's a Marxist worldview that paints uh the Bible as completely irrelevant at best, uh, paints America's founders as these racist villains, uh uh paints the Constitution as not just a living document, but a flawed, uh uh old, uh, you know, that you frequently hear them say that it was written by dead white guys who own slaves.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: And so we just need to throw it in the trash and start new.
19:57
SPEAKER_02: Uh and and what happens with this false view of history is children grow up looking for a savior in the state.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: They go, they grow up uh looking for a savior in themselves, they grow up looking for a savior in all the wrong places, a government program, a war on poverty, uh a few tweaks to the government school system.
20:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh they end up believing that the biblical principles that underpin a free society are evil, uh, that Christianity is bad.
20:23
SPEAKER_02: And and you see the fruit of that, right?
20:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh you you get a generation that grows up hating its own country, uh, embracing deadly ideas like we discussed, socialism, Marxism, fascism.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: Uh they have no sense of thankfulness.
20:35
SPEAKER_02: And this was for me always one of the most uh stunning things about America.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: I grew up overseas mostly in third world countries, and uh you know, say what say about these third world countries what you will.
20:45
SPEAKER_02: One thing that that always came through to me was these people are at least grateful for what they have.
20:50
SPEAKER_02: You know, if they have uh food to eat that evening, they're thankful that they have food.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: In America, I I would come back and find all these ungrateful people, and it was stunning to me.
21:00
SPEAKER_02: Like you have a food in your stomach, you have all the toys you could ever want, and you're still ungrateful.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I think that's part of the fruit from teaching this uh false view of history.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: It produces wrong thinking, which produces uh wrong living, and ultimately that leads to tyranny and death, and uh you also you lose any sense of purpose when you don't have a proper understanding of God's sovereignty in history.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: Uh, history becomes just this random series of accidents that has no purpose, no, no reason, and it leads to nihilism and despair and hopelessness.
21:31
SPEAKER_02: So, this is a really, really important issue.
21:33
SPEAKER_02: In fact, it's so important that I taught uh history a providential view of history in our local homeschool co-op because it must be done.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, I will say that I thought the providence of God was so important uh for our U.S.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: history, we just go ahead and named all the history curriculum American God's Providence.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: We have that book and it's fantastic.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: My oldest son is using it.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, yeah, the pushing a little bit there, but really ultimately the the principle itself that God's providence is really what we're looking to and we're trusting in.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh at the same time, responsible.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's it's a little bit of the you know, trust God and keep your powder dry, trust God and engage politics, engage government.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to touch on that just for a moment.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh we want our governments under God.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: We want our governments under God.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: I just finished the 500-page book called Under God uh for our biblical civics course uh for generations curriculum, and um and that's really the theme of of this series.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, but what is your take?
22:29
SPEAKER_01: What is a government back under God?
22:32
SPEAKER_01: What would that look like?
22:33
SPEAKER_01: Give us the high points.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, it starts from the basic teaching in Romans 13 that all authority is delegated by God.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: And and God actually explained to us why he ordained civil governments.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: And and you know, this used to be universally understood.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: For me, it's astounding.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: I find so many Christians who have no idea why God instituted civil government.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, to educate my kids, well, to give me free health care.
22:57
SPEAKER_02: No, no, go back and read the scripture.
22:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's in Peter, it's in uh Romans.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: God instituted civil government for the purpose of punishing evil.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: It actually describes civil government and magistrates as ministers of God, servants of God, for the purpose of terrorizing evil and protecting the good.
23:16
SPEAKER_02: Um and Romans 13 makes this very clear.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, humans can decide some things, but we can't redefine evil.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: God has already defined evil for us.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: Very, very clearly.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: We just start with the Ten Commandments.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: God said murder is evil.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: Well, if the purpose of government is to punish evil and God has said murder is evil, government must then punish murder and try to help people protect their God-given right to life.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: If God says theft is evil, well, by extension, that means you have a right to private property, and that means government must punish those who steal, and it must help people protect their private property rights.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: And this applies to rape and to kidnapping and to slavery and to all these other things that God has identified as evil.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: So a godly government starts from the principle that government exists for the purpose of serving the people by punishing evil and protecting the good.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: God already defined evil and good for us, and so it's very simple to understand why we have government.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: And again, this was almost universally understood in America for hundreds of years.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: That's how we ended up with the wonderful system that we have.
24:17
SPEAKER_02: Today we have almost universal ignorance of this, and that's how politicians can propose all kinds of government funding for abortions.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it's it's almost like we flipped it upside down.
24:27
SPEAKER_02: Government today is punishing the good and protecting the evil.
24:31
SPEAKER_02: We've got it totally backwards.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: One other point from Romans 13 is that these uh these rulers are ministers of God, servants of God.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, servants of God are supposed to are supposed to um servants of God are supposed to um serve um um serve um God.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: Does that make any sense?
24:53
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm working it out in my mind right now.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: But they don't.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: You take a Nero, right?
25:02
SPEAKER_01: You take a Biden.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: Trump, we don't know always.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: He's kind of a moving target at some point.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: But uh I don't I'm not sure these guys say I'm a servant of God.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm here to serve God.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure they do.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: What do you say about that?
25:15
SPEAKER_02: I I think it is a direct result of this ignorance that I'm talking about through multiple generations of allowing the government to educate and disciple our children, through uh biblical illiteracy resulting from the silence of our pulpits, I think partly due to some restrictions that the government purported to place on uh our pastors and our churches, uh, we now have almost a total ignorance of the purpose of government.
25:36
SPEAKER_02: And so that's allowed this situation to metastasize.
25:40
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's how we got into this mess.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: But uh, I absolutely believe that uh we have uh completely lost sight of why government exists and uh it's it's deadly.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, government is the most deadly force in the history of humanity.
25:56
SPEAKER_02: If you read, for example, uh the work on democide by uh R.J.
25:59
SPEAKER_02: Rummel of the University of Hawaii, government just in the last hundred years has killed hundreds of millions of people, right?
26:06
SPEAKER_02: Um it's a very dangerous institution when it's not doing what God ordained it to do.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: Uh and I think it loses legitimacy when that happens.
26:15
SPEAKER_02: So I think we're at a point now where uh a lot of governments around the world are losing their legitimacy in the same way that a father would lose his legitimacy if he wasn't exercising the authority that was delegated to him by God for the purposes uh for which God instituted it.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: I think it was George Washington who said uh government's like fire, a dangerous servant and a terrible master.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: Something, you know, like fire.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: If it's in the fireplace, it's kind of works useful, right?
26:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it kind of works if it's in the fireplace, you know.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: We're in trouble.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: So uh so yeah, and I wanted to summarize it a little bit, especially on this 250th anniversary of the nation, I want your kind of feedback on that as well.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: But to be under God in government is to get behind what I believe to be the uh Maha movement, the Make America humble again movement, um, as opposed to the Make America Proud Again movement.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: So I I really think if we want to be under God, and this is for every family listening, to be under God is to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God one more time.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh and humility, I think, will be the key to reviving the nation in any way.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: So I would say, in terms of catalyst, it has to be humility.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: Was that 2 Chronicles, whatever it was, said, you know, people humble themselves, right?
27:31
SPEAKER_01: Humble themselves.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: That to me is very, very key.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: And to be under God in government is to submit to God's moral laws, as communicated in the old and next tens.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: And back to Blackstone's laws for our law.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: Blackstone.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: I like Blackstone.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: He was the guy.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: So back to English common law, which was under God for what, 800 years since Alfred, roughly?
27:51
SPEAKER_01: Long time.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: And back to the principles on which the nation was founded.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: In fact, here's the 1776 Continental Congress statement.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: I want to read it one more time for everybody because I think this is very instructive as to where we were.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: This is not where we are right now, but this is where we were in 1776, 250 years ago.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: Continental Congress issued the statement that says, Therefore, become the indispensable duty of these United Colonies, with true penitence of our hearts and the most reverent devotion publicly to acknowledge the overruling providence of God, to confess and deplore our offenses against Him, and to supplicate His interposition for averting the threatening destruction which our sins have deserved, and for restoring to us the blessings of peace and liberty, and that with united hearts confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and by a sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his righteous displeasure, and through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ obtain his pardon and forgiveness.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: Now remember, this is the Continental Congress, 1776, our country, humbly imploring to him to frustrate the counsels of our enemies, to bless our civil rulers, that he would graciously be pleased to prosper the means of education and spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't that be neat if our Congress would approve something like that in the year 2026?
29:09
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and I I actually have really fun news.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: Uh just today at 6 p.m.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: Eastern time, the President of the United States is going to be participating in the uh America Reads the Bible event, uh, and he is going to be reading at 6 p.m.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: today, according to an announcement from the White House, 2 Chronicles chapter 7, verses 11 through 22, which includes, of course, the passage that you just mentioned.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
29:42
SPEAKER_02: So um praise the Lord for that.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh I wish we had much more of it.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: So these are the principles on which the nation was founded.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: We we are a nation founded under God.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: And I think we can come back under God, but I think it starts with leaders who fear God.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: And that's going to happen if we raise our children.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's the application here.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: Uh draw it up for us here, Alex.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh I absolutely agree.
30:12
SPEAKER_02: And I I think a lot of homeschoolers who are doing what we do, Kevin, get dejected and they think, well, you know, we're just so so small.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: We're only, you know, 10% of the population in the best states is homeschooling.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: What are we going to accomplish?
30:23
SPEAKER_02: And uh I would say several things to you.
30:25
SPEAKER_02: First of all, uh just go reread the story of Gideon.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: Uh God sent all the cowards home.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: He he only used Gideon, a tiny group, 300 men, to crush the massive Midianite army.
30:36
SPEAKER_02: Uh and so maybe maybe homeschoolers are the new uh Gideon army.
30:40
SPEAKER_02: But also, uh, you know, even just taking it outside the spiritual and the theological, when you look at the homeschooling community in the United States, even when you look at the government's own data, they are so far ahead of the victims of government school.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Even on all the standardized academic tests, all the math, the reading, uh, these are gonna be the future leaders of this country.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: They're gonna be the ones who lead in business, they're gonna be the ones who lead in every realm because they're smarter, they're better educated, they can think clearly, they know what bathroom to use, they're not identifying as cats and looking for a litter box.
31:12
SPEAKER_02: So uh the homeschool community right now has all the advantages.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh you look at who wins the spelling bee, the science fair, the it's always the homeschoolers, right?
31:22
SPEAKER_02: So uh we we need to be faithful, and God can work through that faithfulness, through that obedience to accomplish incredible things.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: And the more Christian homeschoolers understand we're not just doing this for the benefit of our children, we're not just doing this for the integrity of our family, and those are important things, and we like those, but ultimately we're doing this for the glory of God.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: God blesses that kind of faithfulness and that kind of obedience, and I remain very confident that God will do mighty things, and he's already doing them through the homeschool community in the United States.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so moms and dads, step out in faith, follow Gideon, follow Moses, get your feet wet in the Red Sea.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're just gonna be obedient.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do what God calls us to do.
32:00
SPEAKER_01: We can't separate the Red Seas.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: We can be obedient to what God has called us to do, and then He takes care of the rest.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: He does the heavy lifting, he separates Red Seas, and He does the rest.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: It's for us to step out in faith on the calling that He has given to each of us.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: Amen and amen.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: Alex Human with us today.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: And uh, Alex, if you can stick around for some QA, we want to continue on with this for a few more minutes.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm gonna pass this on to Brandy and uh let's do some QA, Brandy.
32:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so you guys just real quick, um kind of before we get to the QA, we do want you to be ch dropping those in the chat box.
32:33
SPEAKER_03: Definitely things like the topics we're talking about today from creation, uh civil engagement.
32:38
SPEAKER_03: So any particular questions related to that, you guys drop those in the chat box.
32:42
SPEAKER_03: So um, right before we get to the QA, Kevin, we want to take a few minutes here right now to talk practicals.
32:48
SPEAKER_03: You know, for homeschool parents who may be dealing with the real challenge of just trying to make it through the week without pulling their hair out, you know, what does this worldview discussion actually look like while we're sitting at the table going over a math lesson for the umpteenth time?
33:05
SPEAKER_03: Or how do we incorporate this God-centered approach into everyday life?
33:09
SPEAKER_03: Kevin, how would you answer that?
33:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Brandy, I mean, I think we have to just recognize God, you know, pray to God, acknowledge God, um, trust in God.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: God is relevant, God is here, God is with us, God is good.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: Remember, we uh we had this near accident.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: We were going 80 miles an hour down the Wyoming freeway.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: And it was in the middle of winter.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: My wife was driving, and then suddenly we're going sideways on black ice, and uh, and she's just crying out, help me, Jesus, help me, Jesus.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm crying out, help me, Jesus.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: And uh we landed in that snow, um, just you know, on the in the median of of I-70.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: And um, and uh, we just plowed snow for like 300 yards, and uh we like igloo at the end, but it was like landing on a pillow.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: God's totally saved our lives.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: Totally saved our lives.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: And we just had a real strong sense that God was there, God is present.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: We sang a hymn.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, right there in the in the middle of that snow, I sang, to God be the glory, great things he has done.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: We were crying and stuff.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, but just a strong sense that God's hand was on us and God was with us.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the big thing, Brandy, is that God is with us, God is good, God is great, God is wise, God will help us.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: There's gotta be that trust, that faith, and that sense of presence.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: Every day I like to say we gotta get our bearings.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: First of all, who are we in relationship to God?
36:38
SPEAKER_01: We we're his creatures, we're his children, we are under God, you know.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: That's what we mean by under God.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: We're just God made us, we're under him, he saved us, he redeemed us.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: We're not our own.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: We're bought with a price, we're the servants of Jesus, we're his hands and feet in the world.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: And then, secondly, why are we here?
36:54
SPEAKER_01: What's the purpose?
36:55
SPEAKER_01: So I just think as moms and dads, knowing who we are and what we're doing, um, we're we're the here to glorify God, to enjoy him forever.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: And we're here for worship.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're here for awe and gratitude and reverence and love and praise and to know God and to fear God and to love God and to praise God.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: I honestly think it's that simple as to start with that every day and um and then to just share that with our children and not be afraid to bring this up.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting, I've wondered sometimes why I don't talk about Jesus as much as I should in my home, you know, or I don't bring God in, or I don't talk about how grateful we are to God for this or that as much as I should.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: And I just think it's that simple, you know, practically speaking.
37:39
SPEAKER_03: Sorry, I want to add just a little bit more, Kevin, kind of from like a homeschool mom approach.
37:43
SPEAKER_03: So I've been homeschooling for well over a decade.
37:45
SPEAKER_03: Actually, I'm graduating my oldest this May, which just feels wild.
37:50
SPEAKER_03: And none of us really know what a homeschool graduation looks like when there's only one kid, but we're doing it.
37:56
SPEAKER_03: We're going big or going home on that one.
37:58
SPEAKER_03: Um, but it's been, you know, a great joy of my life.
38:00
SPEAKER_03: And when the Lord first called me in to homeschooling, it was using Deuteronomy 6, 5 through 7 to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
38:10
SPEAKER_03: These commandments I give you today are to be on your heart.
38:13
SPEAKER_03: Impress them on your children.
38:15
SPEAKER_03: And I actually come from a I was a I was a public high school teacher for one incredibly long year of my life.
38:22
SPEAKER_03: It was our first year of marriage.
38:24
SPEAKER_03: Um, and I thought I loved public education.
38:27
SPEAKER_03: And boy, howdy, the kids hate it there.
38:30
SPEAKER_03: So I was like, why am I doing this?
38:32
SPEAKER_03: Um, the Lord kind of kept taking us in different directions.
38:35
SPEAKER_03: We moved back to the family ranch.
38:37
SPEAKER_03: And then I um the Lord called me to homeschool my kids using that verse.
38:42
SPEAKER_03: And to be honest, I was really fairly fearful of the idea.
38:46
SPEAKER_03: I thought this seems crazy.
38:48
SPEAKER_03: My son was going to be a fourth generation Pete's bulldog.
38:52
SPEAKER_03: I mean, talk about like living in small town America.
38:54
SPEAKER_03: That's what we were doing.
38:56
SPEAKER_03: So um, I had just actually finished cancer and chemo, and we did.
38:59
SPEAKER_03: We sent Jake off to uh the public school here.
39:03
SPEAKER_03: Little, you know, small town America, our school's not bad.
39:06
SPEAKER_03: Um and after about six months of it, I thought, oh my gosh, this is not where our child should be.
39:14
SPEAKER_03: What are we doing?
39:15
SPEAKER_03: And I was feeling much better.
39:17
SPEAKER_03: And then the Lord ultimately called us to homeschooling, and now we would never look back.
39:22
SPEAKER_03: And when I think about how the many ways in which it has absolutely revolutionized my life, it is remarkable.
39:29
SPEAKER_03: But one of the things that has given me the greatest opportunity to do is to study God's word even more.
39:35
SPEAKER_03: And that's like the most important everyday application that I would say to moms and dads out there is because we are with our kids, because we are at home, we can do that with them to integrate the Bible into everything we're doing.
39:50
SPEAKER_03: Um, we can draw great curriculum, great resources, whether we're in our home or outside working on the ranch together.
39:57
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, for us, our family, I mean, we are ranchers, so we work all the time.
40:02
SPEAKER_03: We had our college ministry last night, and then we had a prolapse cow, which, you know, there's too much information there.
40:07
SPEAKER_03: But at like 9:30, our family left.
40:10
SPEAKER_03: Um, we didn't get dishes done yet, and we went out and dealt with that.
40:13
SPEAKER_03: But we were trying to live out Ephesians 2.10.
40:15
SPEAKER_03: We are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works for God prepared in advance for us to do.
40:22
SPEAKER_03: So we're praising the Lord for the life of this calf, the life of this cow, while we're doing this really gross thing at 9 30 at night.
40:30
SPEAKER_03: I may have said to the college uh ladies, like, you know, maybe don't marry a rancher.
40:34
SPEAKER_03: That was one of my points at that moment, was like, you know, find yourself a doctor, a lawyer, or someone other than a rancher, because otherwise you're your 930 might be this little party going on right now.
40:47
SPEAKER_03: So uh, but anyhow, we do try to integrate the Bible and great curriculum resources into everything.
40:53
SPEAKER_03: And the last thing, just to kind of answer a lot of the curriculum questions that are going on, um, you guys, particularly mamas, we've got to let go of that mom guilt.
41:02
SPEAKER_03: Integrate God into everything you're doing.
41:04
SPEAKER_03: Feel comfortable taking a step back.
41:07
SPEAKER_03: Your child is not behind.
41:08
SPEAKER_03: For those of you that think that your child is mine, your child is not behind.
41:11
SPEAKER_03: Your child is right where he or she needs to be because you are doing the greatest work of discipling your child through home education.
41:19
SPEAKER_03: So, you guys, uh, I just take heart, don't lose heart.
41:23
SPEAKER_03: And um remember that we're gonna be teaching our kids fun facts, but we're really teaching them about God and his word.
41:31
SPEAKER_03: So we want to live under God, we want to love God, and in doing so, we're loving our our spouses and our children really, really well.
41:38
SPEAKER_03: So uh, Kevin, that was my my two sentence as far as practical application in there.
41:44
SPEAKER_02: That's good.
41:45
SPEAKER_02: Can I add a little bit to that as well?
41:46
SPEAKER_03: Yes, please do.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: So, Brandy, that's funny.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: Last night we were out chasing cow, they they broke out of the pasture, so I had all the kids and the dog.
41:53
SPEAKER_02: We're trying to get them back in this morning again.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: They're in the fruit orchard eating all the fruits that we just planted.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: It uh just terrible, but a lot of fun.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: And so that was our homeschool lesson for the evening and the morning.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: Um and and as we were doing that, I'm just uh you know, grateful for the sovereignty of God, knowing that God ultimately uh is over all.
42:10
SPEAKER_02: And so if he wants us out there chasing cows in the morning and in the evening, that's okay too.
42:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh I was at a worship session uh just a few nights ago, and and I've had a million people tell me, well, you just need to give your kids to God.
42:21
SPEAKER_02: You just need to give your problems to God.
42:22
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah, you know, that's easier said than done.
42:25
SPEAKER_02: Uh and and this guy was leading worship and he put it in a way that I had never heard.
42:29
SPEAKER_02: He's he said, you know, so this is how I talk to God.
42:32
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, God, these are your children.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: And so now I I would appreciate some help as I'm trying to educate your children.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: So just show me what to do.
42:40
SPEAKER_02: And so now suddenly it's God's problem, and you're just there to help God uh with this process that he's called us to, which is providing an education for the children.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: Uh and we and another key thing I think is we need to never lose sight of what we're really doing.
42:53
SPEAKER_02: We're not teaching a math problem.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: We're not just teaching facts here and there.
42:58
SPEAKER_02: Uh, in addition to all the great material from generations of uh my family made for some of our children, we use classical conversations.
43:03
SPEAKER_02: And what they say is the purpose of education is to know God and make him known.
43:07
SPEAKER_02: And so I remind myself of that all the time.
43:09
SPEAKER_02: Like if I'm struggling to explain algebra two to my 15-year-old, you know, the purpose is not for them to be able to do algebra and solve for X.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: The purpose is to know God and make Him known.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: And as long as you always keep that real purpose, that ultimate purpose in mind, uh suddenly the algebra two doesn't seem as daunting.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh and last but not least, is just lean into the Holy Spirit, right?
43:31
SPEAKER_02: The fruit of the spirit is patience.
43:32
SPEAKER_02: Uh obviously, as homeschool parents, we always get frustrated.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: I would be lying if I said I didn't get frustrated several times this morning, but ultimately the fruit of the spirit is patience, among other things.
43:42
SPEAKER_02: And so let's just lean into that and be patient with our children and remember that this is much bigger than a math problem or anything else.
43:48
SPEAKER_02: This is ultimately for the glory of God, and we are so privileged just to play a little small role in this incredible process.
43:55
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
43:55
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
43:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thanks for adding that.
43:58
SPEAKER_03: And who who would have known we were doing the same thing last night, Alex?
44:03
SPEAKER_02: It's not raining here.
44:04
SPEAKER_02: That's why they keep breaking out.
44:05
SPEAKER_02: There's not enough grass.
44:05
SPEAKER_02: They're looking for move more food.
44:07
SPEAKER_03: So Amen with here.
44:09
SPEAKER_03: We're in a severe, severe drought.
44:10
SPEAKER_03: Oh my goodness, so funny.
44:12
SPEAKER_03: So we are just normal people doing amazing things, really, for God's kingdom by discipline our children at home, you guys.
44:18
SPEAKER_03: So keep on keeping on.
44:19
SPEAKER_03: You guys, before we jump to our final QA segment, I'm excited to announce that our third winner of our generation's grade pack giveaway today is Kelly Jarrell.
44:29
SPEAKER_03: So, congratulations, Kelly.
44:32
SPEAKER_03: We will email you after the webcast and coordinate with you about claiming your prize.
44:37
SPEAKER_03: So, we want to take some more time here to answer some more of your questions.
44:40
SPEAKER_03: And if you guys have any questions for any of our speakers, please submit them through the QA window now.
44:47
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so this is a great question that Teresa asks.
44:52
SPEAKER_03: Um, is it biblical to focus or care more about our own country than the whole world at large?
45:01
SPEAKER_03: So I would love to hear both of your responses.
45:03
SPEAKER_03: Kevin, would you mind kicking that off?
45:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, when I was a um a young boy, I was very much idealist, as you can imagine.
45:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, I wanted to run for president at 12 years of age, kind of thing.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: So I would tell my mother, Mom, I'm gonna go out there and clean up the world.
45:18
SPEAKER_01: And she says, That's great, son.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you go upstairs and start on your room?
45:23
SPEAKER_01: And so, I mean, that was always, you know, very, very wise and helpful uh to me.
45:28
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's uh the principle that we all need to start with is we we have to start with our own backyard first.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: And um, and so now I do believe that we should have an interest in discipline nations.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: And so our churches are you know funding missionaries, but even those missionaries that go out, uh they need to prove themselves here.
45:45
SPEAKER_01: That's one thing I haven't seen enough of.
45:47
SPEAKER_01: Missionaries that go out to Timbuktu have got to be really active in their local backyard.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: I think John G.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: Payton, one of the best uh uh missionaries of all time.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: John G.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: Payton started in the inner city of Glasgow, where it's really bad.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: Really bad.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: But he he did some really good work um evangelizing um the inner cities of Glasgow before he became one of the best missionaries the world has ever known.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: Uh and by the way, his autobiography is phenomenal.
46:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh, you know, are we interested in what's going on in the world?
46:18
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we are.
46:18
SPEAKER_01: Are we funding missionaries?
46:20
SPEAKER_01: We ought to.
46:21
SPEAKER_01: Um now I think that we fund way more indigenous missionaries than we used to.
46:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, in other words, um the Americans don't need to be sending out as many missionaries as we used to.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: But um, but yeah, our responsibility is to disciple this nation, where we are, right here, right now.
46:36
SPEAKER_01: And that includes, you know, the discipleship that we do in the generation's ministry.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: We're we're constantly, you know, crisscrossing the nation, uh, trying to bring out these principles and equipping parents to do the discipleship work in their own homes.
46:48
SPEAKER_01: Here's the other thing is that we shouldn't be called into church ministry or any other kind of ministry, unless we can shepherd our own children.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: A man cannot rule in the household of God if he doesn't rule his own household well.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's first and foremost.
47:02
SPEAKER_01: So let's let's do well at our home, on our home base, and uh and then secondarily we'll we'll work in other places around the world.
47:11
SPEAKER_01: I I would say first things first is the way of answering that question.
47:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
47:15
SPEAKER_03: Alex, would you add anything to that?
47:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree 100% uh with Kevin.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: You know, God, God, it was God's design.
47:21
SPEAKER_02: I always have to remind uh American modern day Christians of this, but it was God's design to divide mankind up into nations and into tribes and into tongues.
47:30
SPEAKER_02: That's not a human innovation.
47:31
SPEAKER_02: That was God's idea.
47:32
SPEAKER_02: Genesis 11's got the story.
47:34
SPEAKER_02: Acts.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: 17 confirms it, Deuteronomy 32 confirms it.
47:38
SPEAKER_02: It was God's desire to see humanity divided up into nations.
47:42
SPEAKER_02: If he wanted us all as a you know one world supermass with a big tower, uh he would have allowed us to continue in Genesis chapter 11.
47:49
SPEAKER_02: So if God saw fit to divide us into nations, there must be a reason for that.
47:54
SPEAKER_02: Um and I think, yes, we are called on to love other people and we are called upon to disciple the nations, but really that begins with our own household, our own children, for example, or our first ministry.
48:05
SPEAKER_02: First we disciple our own children, then we can think about the rest of the world.
48:09
SPEAKER_02: And even though we're called to love even our enemies, even those who persecute us, uh there are special kinds of love that are reserved for, you know, for example, for me.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: God calls on me to love my wife like Christ loved the church.
48:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't need to love somebody in Kenya that I've never met before necessarily like Christ loved the church.
48:26
SPEAKER_02: That's something that uh I reserve for my wife.
48:29
SPEAKER_02: And so uh it's really critical, I think, that we focus in the place where God has placed us.
48:34
SPEAKER_02: It was his sovereign choice to place us in this country at this time, in this age, facing these problems.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so let's take advantage of the situation God has put us in and do what we're called to.
48:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh in America, we have a special, unique calling in that uh we were blessed to be born in a nation that ostensibly, at least on paper, is still governed by the sovereign, being we the people under God.
48:57
SPEAKER_02: And so that brings to it an extra serious responsibility where all those verses that we were talking about that applied to rulers, hey, in America, you're the rulers.
49:06
SPEAKER_02: If you can vote, if you are a citizen of this country, you are included among them.
49:10
SPEAKER_02: And and I've seen what happens when people don't focus enough on their own country.
49:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh Sweden, my wife is from Sweden, and so it it may be the most horrifying example, I don't know, but there was a time when Sweden sent more missionaries to the rest of the world per capita than any other country in the world.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and God bless them for that.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: They took the gospel all over the place.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and yet look at Sweden today.
49:32
SPEAKER_02: They forgot to evangelize and disciple their own young people.
49:36
SPEAKER_02: They allowed the government to grow far beyond where it should, and now it is one of the most godless nations in the world.
49:41
SPEAKER_02: So we can't fix the whole world.
49:43
SPEAKER_02: Uh God can can handle that.
49:44
SPEAKER_02: But here in America, our founders thought we could be, and even the the people who came before our founders believe that we could be a shining city on a hill.
49:52
SPEAKER_02: We can do our best to live by biblical principles here, and the rest of the world can then look at that and say, wow, it really works when you follow God's design for government and family and society.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: So uh so that's my view on that.
50:04
unknown: Yeah.
50:04
unknown: Good.
50:05
SPEAKER_03: You know, I think one of the things, almost like what Brian we were talking about earlier, as far as like evolution versus creation, one of the things I feel like we often divide on is like Christians probably shouldn't be in the political realm.
50:17
SPEAKER_03: And I know where both of you guys probably stand on that, but uh from a question perspective, what is your take on encouraging young Christian men in particular to dive into elected offices?
50:29
SPEAKER_03: They may not have the life experience, but they have Christian maturity and the knowledge of the word of God.
50:34
SPEAKER_03: So, what is your encouragement for uh Christians?
50:37
SPEAKER_01: You're talking to a young homeschool kid who did just that.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: I graduated my home school right away, ran for student body president of a major West Coast University and won in my senior year, and uh then on to running for governor of the state of Colorado.
50:50
SPEAKER_01: And uh, after I ran for governor, I ran for the border.
50:53
SPEAKER_01: Um so that's pretty much the way that went.
50:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh but I I got three, four percent of the vote.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: I ran against a couple of pro-abortion candidates, so I was the pro life candidate in 1994, uh, but did not get elected.
51:05
SPEAKER_01: Um Colorado's a tough state when it comes to the life issue.
51:08
SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, I mean I think it ties into a number of things, and I've got an entire chapter on this in my book, Under God.
51:14
SPEAKER_01: Um but it's it's uh it's opportunity, it's calling, it's gifting, it's uh it's all those things.
51:21
SPEAKER_01: All those things line up for you.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, you begin to see that you are called to it because you've got preparation, you've got uh calling, you've got gifting, you've got all these things.
51:31
SPEAKER_01: And so you're looking for that.
51:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh I think we're all given a a measure of salt.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: We're given a measure of ability to influence our society, our community, our city, our business, the business world, the culture, uh, education, or you know, some some aspect of our nation.
51:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh we're called to be salt and to be saltified and and to be pretty strong salt, which means I believe that we ought to really subscribe to the principles of God's word, really understand, be discipled in the principles of God's word ourselves and apply God's word to our own lives.
52:07
SPEAKER_01: Now we're salt.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now go out and saltify the earth, which means preserve and uh and provide a blessing to the rest of the world.
52:15
SPEAKER_01: I believe it does take a small minority.
52:17
SPEAKER_01: I I don't I don't think that it would take much more than three to five percent of the U.S.
52:24
SPEAKER_01: population to make a difference and this to to take the nation in a better direction.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: Three to five percent of those who have been very carefully discipled in everything that Jesus has commanded, and uh he they have been equipped as the men and women of God to every good work by Old Testament principle, that's 2 Timothy 3, 16, and 17.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it would take that much.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: It's just, you know, we're trying to do our curriculum in a way to prepare the young man, the young woman of God, for every good work, including that in civics or government.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: It just would take three to five percent.
52:56
SPEAKER_01: Now, that's still, you know, that's going to be about I'm gonna say three to four million of the U.S.
53:04
SPEAKER_01: population.
53:04
SPEAKER_01: I was thinking about, as as Alex was saying, you know, this communist uh history curriculum has sold three million copies.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh this has sold about 3,000 copies.
53:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
53:15
SPEAKER_01: So we're one thousandth the way uh to where the communists are right now.
53:20
SPEAKER_01: But I I believe if we can make it there, if we can bring biblical principles to about three million of our young children today, which would constitute about 20 percent, 20 to 30 percent of the evangelical population, if if we could if we could bring our curriculum to 20 to 30 percent of the population obviously it's answers in Genesis Correct, there's other good stuff out there as well, but if we could reach, somehow reach three million, and we could equip three to five percent of the U.S.
53:46
SPEAKER_01: population with a distinctively biblical worldview in history, science, politics, civics, whatever, uh then I think we would see a change in direction for the nation itself.
53:54
SPEAKER_01: So again, this is every parent listening.
53:57
SPEAKER_01: Uh this is every parent listening.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: I think we don't need a major you don't put a majority of salt on your potatoes, right?
54:04
SPEAKER_01: It's only about a half a percent, one percent of the constitution of your food is the salt that you place on the food.
54:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, the same thing for Christians.
54:13
SPEAKER_01: I think three to five percent of the population discipled in the Word of God could make an amazing contribution to the future of this nation.
54:22
SPEAKER_01: I need an amen from Alex right now.
54:23
SPEAKER_01: Like an amen.
54:24
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
54:26
SPEAKER_02: I agree with you 100%, Kevin.
54:27
SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, the uh Christians have been involved in politics.
54:31
SPEAKER_02: America would not exist if Christians had not been involved in politics.
54:34
SPEAKER_02: And of course, that looks different for everybody.
54:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm not suggesting that every homeschool child needs to go out and now run for city council or county commission or state legislature.
54:41
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but there's a lot of ways to be involved in politics.
54:43
SPEAKER_02: Uh, pastors can be involved by running for office, yes, and I'm grateful that God has raised up many pastors who are also serving in state legislatures, who are serving on uh county commissions, but a pastor can be involved in politics just by preaching on these critical issues and how God's word applies to the issues that we're facing as a society.
55:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh look at the Black Robe Regiment.
55:01
SPEAKER_02: These were men of God, these were pastors who prepared their congregations with a biblical worldview, a biblical understanding of politics and government, so that when the war broke out, when we had the opportunity as a newly independent nation to create our own institutions, they knew what to do.
55:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh and in America, for me, this is also an issue of stewardship.
55:20
SPEAKER_02: Our forefathers, godly men and women, uh fought and in some cases died.
55:25
SPEAKER_02: They gave their lives so that we could be free today.
55:28
SPEAKER_02: And one of the most effective ways to protect those freedoms today is to be involved in the public realm.
55:33
SPEAKER_02: Uh for me, this is an issue of stewardship.
55:35
SPEAKER_02: It's a great blessing that we were born into a country with these freedoms where those who came before us made these sacrifices.
55:41
SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine trying to explain to our grandchildren how we frittered this all away because somebody told us that Christians shouldn't be involved in politics?
55:48
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's it's just kooky.
55:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you also have the question of do we love others?
55:52
SPEAKER_02: Uh, if we love others, we know that we can help them through involvement in politics.
55:57
SPEAKER_02: We know that the biblical worldview applied to the political realm produces good fruit.
56:01
SPEAKER_02: We know that God says murder is wrong and that government ought to punish murder.
56:05
SPEAKER_02: We know uh how God uh thinks about so many of these different issues.
56:09
SPEAKER_02: We know what happens when families crumble.
56:11
SPEAKER_02: We know what happens when children grow up uh without a dad at home.
56:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh if we love these people who we claim to love, don't we want what's best for them?
56:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh the other alternative is for those who hate God, those who reject God to be involved in politics.
56:25
SPEAKER_02: And then we're gonna get laws that reflect that view, laws that harm our fellow citizens.
56:30
SPEAKER_02: And I'll I'll finally say this because I hear a lot of people say, well, Jesus wasn't involved in politics.
56:34
SPEAKER_02: And I say, uh, you know, which version of the Bible are you reading?
56:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, I I I've got uh my Bible has Jesus talking to the politicians of his day, uh calling them a brood of vipers, right?
56:46
SPEAKER_02: Um and people say, well, they were just religious leaders.
56:48
SPEAKER_02: No, they were the political leaders of Israel as well.
56:51
SPEAKER_02: And uh Jesus was constantly discussing with them, debating with them.
56:56
SPEAKER_02: He called them whitewash tombs.
56:57
SPEAKER_02: Uh, so sometimes I think we just need to be more Christ-like.
57:01
SPEAKER_03: You know, I think there's opportunities to just introduce our kids to it.
57:05
SPEAKER_03: After the COVID lockdowns, um, we had some uh death in our family that was as a direct result of that.
57:11
SPEAKER_03: So um I we took our boys to go testify at the Capitol to move legislation in the right direction for that.
57:17
SPEAKER_03: So part of it, I think, is just introducing our kids to those things.
57:21
SPEAKER_03: I want to tell you guys a funny story the other day.
57:22
SPEAKER_03: So Sunday morning before church, it was actually my third son's ninth birthday.
57:26
SPEAKER_03: So he's dressed up all dapper in his church clothes, but there was an opportunity to meet one of the candidates for the governor's um seat here in Colorado.
57:36
SPEAKER_03: And he's like, Well, to start my birthday before church, I want to go meet the potential candidate for governor.
57:41
SPEAKER_03: And I'm thinking, oh, I have to successfully brainwashed my child to think that this is a cool thing to do on your birthday uh before church.
57:48
SPEAKER_03: So we go there and uh this candidate is we thought it was just a meet and greet.
57:52
SPEAKER_03: He was actually giving a presentation, but really taking questions from the audience.
57:56
SPEAKER_03: So I leaned over and I said, Waitly, honey, do you want to ask him a question?
58:00
SPEAKER_03: And he goes, Yeah.
58:01
SPEAKER_03: He goes, What should I ask him?
58:02
SPEAKER_03: I said, Well, ask him what his stance is on home education.
58:05
SPEAKER_03: Like what is really important to us?
58:08
SPEAKER_03: Uh, does he believe in the freedom to decipher our children at home?
58:11
SPEAKER_03: And so my little nine-year-old raises his bold little hand and he does.
58:15
SPEAKER_03: He asked this candidate, you know, Mr.
58:18
SPEAKER_03: Uh, what is your stance on home education?
58:20
SPEAKER_03: And he gave the right answer.
58:22
SPEAKER_03: So that was really good.
58:23
SPEAKER_03: Um, but I thought, you know, just get them involved.
58:26
SPEAKER_03: You know, if they um get just a little dose of it to practice testifying at the Capitol, you know, go to those things where there's political meet and greets, you know, just get them um some experiences so that they feel less fearful of it, you know, kind of break away from that spirit of fear to say, it is not that hard to get involved.
58:45
SPEAKER_03: Really?
58:46
SPEAKER_03: You just need to show up.
58:48
SPEAKER_03: I showed up to the Pete's caucus, which, you know, there's about 200 people that live in the town of Pete's.
58:53
SPEAKER_03: And all of a sudden I was like, you know, in charge of that caucus.
58:56
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, wait, whoa, I didn't really want to do one more thing, but I just showed up.
58:59
SPEAKER_03: So that would be my other encouragement to this mom is just get your kids to show up for those things.
59:05
SPEAKER_03: And then they have some pretty cool life experiences.
59:08
SPEAKER_03: So um, all right, you guys.
59:10
SPEAKER_03: So I think kind of one of our very last questions for the day is um let's see here.
59:18
SPEAKER_03: So one of the things that um a common question is that we've got actually quite a few people, like international people, here on the webcast today.
59:26
SPEAKER_03: So just briefly, how do we teach them about the history of living in America?
59:31
SPEAKER_03: So, Kevin, if you'll take this, really where do we start with that?
59:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, about half of my new book on Under God actually applies to the rest of the world, um not just in terms of what's what's happening right now, but also what's happened in the in the past.
59:44
SPEAKER_01: So I think understanding the h history of the world in terms of governments and uh understanding where we are today in terms of governments, and uh and then using the United States as a pattern will be extremely helpful for discipling the rest of the world on this issue of of biblical civics.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: I believe biblical civics applies to Christians living in China.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_01: Even though I realize it's oppressive, and maybe they don't have a lot of opportunity right now to do very much, but you know what?
1:00:10
SPEAKER_01: Everybody has an opportunity to do something, whether it be in local politics, uh business politics, it it doesn't matter.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh so I think uh you know taking the American experiment is very important because it was a good experiment.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_01: It was a good experience.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_01: It was one opportunity for Christians to make an impact in the history of the world, because it was Christians who combined uh forces, so to speak, from different denominations and came into the States, many of them from persecuted countries, et cetera, and they came to this country and they established a country under God with liberty and justice for all.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_01: An amazing story.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_01: Um I believe this can be replicated all over the world.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_01: So that's why I wrote Under God.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_01: I didn't mean for this to be an advertisement, but thank you for the softball, Brandy.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_01: Sure, you're welcome.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_01: Um But that's exactly why I wrote the book, because I believe that people in Brazil, people in South Africa, people in Europe.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be tougher in Europe in some respects because there's so much post-Christian stuff going on there.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_01: But there are opportunities all over the world to make a difference right now.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: America, of course, is right now on the edge.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_01: We are the ultimate tug-of-war between the forces of darkness and the forces of light.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: Right now, we are absolutely uh there is a massive tug-of-war going on over whether or not this nation is going communist, anti-God communist, and we'll leave our kids in gulags and prison camps, or uh, this is going to be a country that is still under God, enjoying the blessings that come with freedom and liberty under God.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_01: So we'll see what happens.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: I I have no idea, but I do know that Jesus rules, he's King of Kings and Lord of Lords, bringing enemies under his footstool, and he's making progress all over the world.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_01: There's no question about it.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_01: I've been to 20, 30 countries bringing this message, and uh and Jesus is making progress everywhere.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_01: Let's get on with the business of discipling the nations.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, we can look at history, absolutely.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_01: We can look at the history of the West, we can look at the history of the United States as a a good means by which to uh uh move on and take advantage of opportunities to make a difference in the world in the future until Jesus comes back.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_01: This has been a production of the Generations Media Network.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_01: For more information, go to generations.org slash media.