The Church, Politics and the Power of YOUR Vote
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Summary
Revival doesn t occur nationally, it occurs locally. Revivals break out in local areas and spread across the nation. The same thing occurred with the birth of the nation and the founding of the USA. Revival occurs in local churches and local leaders.
Transcript
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would you stand and put your hands together and welcome david barton this morning
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thanks guys thank you guys wall builders find out about us wallbuilders.com based on the bible book
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of nehemiah the concept of rebuilding things that have been torn down religious moral constitutional
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foundations you can find out about us there i'm going to take you into what i think is happening
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in the country right now and what i think a challenge before us is i'm all over the nation
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right now in the next nine days i'll be in eight states 14 cities pastors conferences meeting the
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christian leaders etc and the thing we're hearing all across the nation is we got to have a revival
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we see stuff going on we know that it's not good so we're praying for revival and i think we've got
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a problem with that national revival doesn't occur nationally we think it does and we keep looking
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for things to happen on the national level and that's not where revivals occur national revivals
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now people say wait a minute you got a great awakening that is a national revival well kind of
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but maybe not george woodfield is the guy that we point to with that national revival george woodfield
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preached 34 years he preached 18 000 sermons and grabbed this in a day back then with no technology
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anywhere close to what we have today 80 of all americans physically heard him preach a sermon
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now you think twitter and those guys wouldn't like to have 80 percent message penetration
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you bet how did you get 80 message penetration when there's no technology it's real easy he was the
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chaplain in the state of georgia he got on his horse in georgia he rode all the way to maine which
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was massachusetts then it didn't become a state till 50 years later he rode to maine and up in maine
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he preached from maine to georgia now every town he went through he stopped and preached in every
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town he went through when he got to maine he turned around rode back to georgia he took a different route
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he stopped in every town he went through coming back when he got to georgia he turned around went back
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to maine took a different route preaching every town he went through he made seven trips from georgia
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to maine to georgia 34 years the reason 80 percent of all americans physically heard him preach a
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sermon was because he was in 80 of the towns of america having revivals in 80 of the towns
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revival would break out in local towns and local minister would keep it going for years longer
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when he was in western virginia the reverend samuel davies kept the revival going another 19 years
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when he was in boston it was samuel cooper that kept it going another 10 years when he was in
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philadelphia it was gilbert tenner who kept it going another 12 years revivals broke out in all these
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local areas we call it national revival because it affected so much of america but it wasn't national
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revival it was local revivals that spread across the nation and when you look at local revivals how
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they spread across the nation the same thing occurs with the birth of the nation when you go back to
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our american revolution our war for independence you take the first four battles in the american war
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for independence uh top right you have lexington top left bridge at concord bottom left is road to
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boston uh bottom right is bunker hill it's interesting those first four battles that began independence
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nobody contacted george said george you're the national commander-in-chief we are really
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outnumbered here we got to have your help in a hurry nobody contacted george because the whole mindset
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was it's our community george we'll take care of it you got important things to do we'll take care
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of our community and that's the way the american war for independence went most folks don't have a clue
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that in the american war for independence there were more than 120 battles can you name 120 battles no
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we can name four or five that's all we learn about see most of the battles you would never even
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recognize you look at the titles on those battles we don't recognize those and say the american war
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for independence was a whole bunch of local battles and we won so many of those local battles that we
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won the national battle but we won the national battle by winning the local battles it's just like
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revival so we're looking for change in the nation we're looking for rival nation we want political
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change in the nation we won't change at the white house we won't change at congress we want all this
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change great you're looking at the wrong place look at a different place look at locally because
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that's where change occurs is locally when you look at this from a political standpoint you look at it
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in the sense of of voting we have an obsession with the national focus you know richard you guys are
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going to be a little more informed but if i ask most group i say who's the president united states i'm
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going to get an answer and most people get it if i say who's the president of your local school board
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maybe one or two percent if i say who name three federal lawmakers give me three federal law you can
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do that if i say name three of your city's lawmakers your city council members we're we're down to
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nearly nothing we're much more informed of what happens nationally and we can do much less to change
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what happens nationally than what we can do to change locally so our obsession with the national focus
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really has to be turned back locally it's because of what we have with media and technology now that we
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think in big grandiose terms it comes back to as the great commission says jerusalem right where you
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live then judea then samaria then the uttermost parts of the earth we keep doing the uttermost parts
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of the earth we got to do the jerusalem part right where we live so when you look at where we are
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politically voting is is really a simple thing but i want to take it to the local level because at the
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local level only about six percent of americans vote at a local level and by the way that's six percent
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of registered voters only sixty five point three percent of american adults are registered voters
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so we have roughly a hundred million american adults who can vote but who don't vote because
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they won't register we've got roughly 40 million evangelicals who can vote but they don't vote
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because they won't register you imagine how different america would be if 40 million evangelicals
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were to actually participate the ones that don't participate right now so what happens is when you look at a
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local six percent of 65.3 or six percent of registered voters usually local turnout has about
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four percent it takes half of that to win which is two percent let me give you examples of how that
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plays out in real life if you take a city like los angeles los angeles is the second largest city in the
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united states los angeles population is so large that the population of los angeles is larger than the
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population of 23 separate individual states so if you're eric garcetti who is the mayor of los angeles
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that's like being a governor in 23 different states eric garcetti who is very hostile to faith he
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closed the churches down left everything else open but we definitely got to get those churches shut
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he he brags that he was elected with 2.9 percent of the vote
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really it's like a governor two point yeah we don't pay attention to local stuff and he has a
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huge impact on what happens there whether it be on the way they handle crime or the way they handle
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anything else let me take you to another city fort worth is is very close to where i live i was
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raised right around fort worth i'm a cowboy from texas and six and a half years ago the fort worth
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independent school district said hey you know we've been looking at it and we've looked at this gender
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thing and we just think that we're not going to do this gender stuff anymore in schools we're not
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we're going to let kids choose whatever restroom they want they can choose whatever
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locker room they want they can choose whatever shower room they want we're just not going to do
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genders in school anymore this fort worth texas cowboy town interestingly at that time president
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obama was in office and his secretary of education arne duncan said that's a great idea why didn't i
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think of that here's the new national policy he said if your school gets federal funds which is more
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than 97 of the schools in america we're not going to do gender stuff in school anymore we're not going
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to have gender identification you just whatever you want and so it changes this point now this is
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really frustrating for people like me because if you know anything about fort worth texas its nickname is
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called cow town usa literally twice a day in fort worth at 11 in the morning at 11 30 in the morning
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at four o'clock in the afternoon we shut down north main street and have a cattle drive up and down main
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street we take these longhorns up and down main street now it's interesting fort worth you know i told you i'm a
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cowboy from texas you may not be a cowboy you may not even like the cowboy life at all it doesn't
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matter i can stick any of you behind that herd of cattle and all of you can tell me the gender of
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every critter in that account it it's really not a difficult thing to do and so for fort worth texas to
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come up with we don't know what genders are and we don't it's craziness so i looked in fort worth and
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fort worth has 918 000 voters that's the 13th largest city in the united states and the president
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of the school board who came up with the silly policy was elected with less than 1200 votes
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1182 votes is what he elected with so i went and looked in the district where he uh where he was
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elected from and i instantly found dozens of evangelical churches in that district matter
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of fact i found one church that by itself had 3 000 registered evangelical voters that one church
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could have prevented that guy from being on the school board which would have saved the entire
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nation from six and a half years of gender nonsense that we've been having over that period of time
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it went back to a local election that didn't get solved local stuff becomes national stuff if you want
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to fix the national you fix the local and fort worth is a good example of that a couple more quick
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examples in bentonville arkansas the hometown of walmart town of 40 000 people christian lady in
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bentonville said you're sure not doing this in my school board because i'm running for school
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school board and she did she ran for school board in that town of 40 000 she was elected
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there was a total of 35 votes cast in the school board election she got the majority of the 35 votes
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any sunday school class in bentonville could have elected her to office just a single sunday school
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class and she said the same thing in riceville iowa riceville's northern part of iowa a farmer there
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in riceville said you're not going to do this in our schools i'm running for school board he did run for
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school board turned out that on election day he got busy on the farm and did not go vote
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and don't think they did lost by one vote because that's not the story the story is not a single
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person voted in the school board election if he had voted for himself he would be sitting on the
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school board simply by voting for himself see this is where change actually occurs at the local level
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that's the local focus that we have to have uh benjamin rush who's a founding father one of the 250
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founding fathers john adams said of all the 250 founding fathers he said benjamin rush is one of
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the three most notable benjamin rush john adams by the way said it was george washer number one ben
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franklin number two benjamin rush number three and benjamin rush amazing he started the first sunday
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school movement in america started the bible society in america started first abolition society in america
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trained the first women for academic education trained the first black physicians started five
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universities signed the declaration ratified the constitution served in three different
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presidents administrations he's called the father of public schools under the just amazing we know
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nothing about him with our education today one of the chief people in american foundation we know
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nothing about him and significantly he's called the father of public schools under the constitution
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because of the piece that he did in 1790 in 1790 he said you know we used to be 13 different nations
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and we were in america back in those early days colonial days we didn't really like each other
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even north and south carolina had border wars with each other they each had their own separate
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currency if you went from north carolina to south carolina you stopped at the border exchange your
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currency i mean we just didn't get along we were 13 nations we were like europe and now that we're
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a nation benjamin rush says what do we need to be teaching in our public schools if we're going to be
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a unified nation rather than 13 independent nations if we're going to be one nation and he said
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real simple he said the number one purpose of public education in america is to teach students to
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love and serve god he said the number two purpose of public education in america is to teach students
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to love and serve their country the number three purpose of public education in america is to teach
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students to love and serve their family now notice notice the order that he has here the order that he
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has here most christians i know today would say no no family should go next because family is so much
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more important he said no you're absolutely wrong country is higher than family now why would that
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be because he pointed out that if you ever lose control of your country it will become the great
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enemy of your family and that's exactly what we're finding now so many of the policies we're finding
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in local school districts etc it's because we haven't been engaged we haven't been involved we don't
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even know who serves because we've been too busy taking care of our family and in the meantime they're
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passing all these policies that are killing our family killing our culture and so as a result of that
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this is where local elections have become really an emphasis in the last 18 to 24 months i've never
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seen in america what i'm seeing in the last 18 to 24 months i'll take you to virginia real quick
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that's one of the five states that has an off-year election they had their governor's election last
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november and what happened was faith wins group that we work very closely with i'm headed out today
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actually for faith wins meetings for the rest of the week and faith wins went in and we were able to
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identify 312 churches in virginia none of them mega churches it's just all community
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churches said guys you got a election coming up for governor and you really got to do something
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different your previous governor said he passed a law that says if a if a child survives an abortion
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it's okay to go ahead and let that child die after it's born we're not going to save it after it's born
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and by the way that led to the movement we now see where the governor of maryland said well that's a good
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idea we're going to have abortions in maryland up to 28 days after birth you can still abort a baby up to
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28 days after they're born california said we can beat that we're going to make it 30 days you can
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abort a baby up to 30 days after they're born it's already passed one of the one of the chambers in
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california so with what was going on virginia need something different 312 churches got involved said
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guys look in your own pews find christians who have biblical values biblical beliefs who have never
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before registered who have never before voted get them registered get them to go vote biblical values
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got those 312 churches came up with 77 000 individuals who had never before voted christians with
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biblical values got them registered got them to vote and yonkin who by the way is a reverse opposite
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of what the previous governor was a matter of fact pastors in virginia on inauguration day last
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last january they were really concerned because they looked at the program there was no inaugural
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prayer in the program and here's a christian governor no inaugural prayer that's because he prayed
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his own inaugural prayer and he prayed in jesus name on the capital steps very boldly very openly very
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very out front so he was elected with a margin of 64 500 votes oh those 312 churches provided 77 000
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right there and that's there's tens of thousands of churches in virginia just that little bit of
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involvement made the difference and by the way they had 1343 poll watchers out of those churches who
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decided to get involved second timothy 2 5 says you can't be crowned if you don't run according to the
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rules what are the rules most of us don't know they learned they identified 5.2 of the vote as
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being fraudulent now if you take 5.2 of the vote off that'll win most elections at that point in time
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they did so many things that made a difference same thing happened in colorado in that same
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election cycle a truth and liberty was able to come up with 1500 churches we got 78 people elected
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school board these are just headlines from that back in that election canada's opposing critical race
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theory christians won school boards in minnesota minnesota is not a christian friendly place churches
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got involved made a difference you see the same thing i love this scenario in new jersey 19 year old
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who saw a senior year disrupted by covet shutdowns unseats the incumbent in a school board race so
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this kid said you cost me my senior year i'm running against you he beat the incumbent by 17 points
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and it is it's really nice to finally have some adults on the school board in new jersey too by
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the way so this one this is denver uh christians got the school board in denver uh same thing with
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wichita three out of four spots there churches got involved in wichita same with boise treasure valley
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most liberal city in idaho by far christians got the school board there and dallas 51 churches got
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together there were 15 open school board seats they won all 15 seats all of them by 60 40 margin
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most of them by 70 30 margin uh you have colorado springs for the school boards districts flipped
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here again christians were able to be engaged in that again truth and liberty involved 1500 churches
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78 different positions picked up so it made a real difference um houston we're able to pick up
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churches in houston we picked up the school board in houston that's a city of 2.3 million people
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and christians now have the school board in houston do you know how many tens of thousands of hundreds
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of thousands of kids that is it's a massive impact that's happening same uh fort worth this happened
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just a few weeks ago there's a church in fort worth that got involved there were 21 school board seats
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in fort worth they won 20 of the 21 school board seats just out of that church so a lot going on this
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is going on all over the nation final thing i'll close with is a statement from charles finney charles
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finney was in the second great awakening it's estimated that in one year alone charles finney
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in 1857 1858 led a hundred thousand people to christ but charles finney was a revivalist he
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wanted america to have revivals and in 1835 he wrote a book on how to have revivals in america
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that book it's a great book to read but he is very different from what we hear today says guys
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you don't need to pray for revival what he did was in that book he went in and took the if then
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verses in the bible if then second chronicle 7 14 if my people which are called by my name will do
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this god says then i will do this he says if you want god to do that you don't have to pray about
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this just do what he said and he will do what he said if you do the if he'll do the then so he said
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if you want to revive and so that's what that book is it's the if then verses and going through those
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if then verses this is what he says in lecture number 15 he said the church must take right ground in
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regard to politics politics are part of a religion in the country is this and christians
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substitute their duty the country is part of their duty to god he says god will bless or curse this
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nation according to the course that christians take in politics now interestingly why is this
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part of a revival book because this is lecture number 15 where he said this is a hindrance to revival
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if you want to stop a revival from occurring in a nation just stay out of politics if you want to
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see a revival you've got to get involved because righteousness exalts a nation we know that out of
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scripture proverbs 14 34 but the only way you get righteousness is proverbs 29 2 when the righteous
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rule the people rejoice it's not going to be wicked leaders that put righteous policies in that god can
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bless we love to sing the song god bless america but my goodness give them something to work with
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the only way you're going to do that is you got to have leaders who will give policies that god can
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bless that's what leads to revival god bless you guys thanks for letting me share