Watchman on the Wall

Announcer: Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and swrc.com.

Narrator: God is still on the throne and prayer changes things. Today, discover the remarkable stories of God's providence during the Barbary Pirate conflicts and the War of 1812.

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You'll receive resources that inform, encourage and strengthen your faith while helping us reach others with the gospel. Order today at swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144. Thank you for partnering with Southwest Radio Ministries. Did God's providential hand help guide America through the Barbary Pirate conflicts and the War of 1812? Let's find out.

Liz Kutschow: Greetings and welcome once again to a Watchman on the Wall broadcast. I am Liz Kutschow, the communications director for Southwest Radio Ministries and Prophecy in the News. We are so excited this July, first week of July, to be obviously celebrating the 250th anniversary of our country and its freedom and also to have historian and Christian apologist and media personality, William Bill Federer. Thanks for joining us once again today, Bill.

Bill Federer: It's great to be with you.

Liz Kutschow: We are reflecting on, among other things, Bill and Suzie Federer's books, *Miracles in American History*. It's two volumes and Southwest Radio Ministries carries, of course, those volumes and has as long as they've been available, as well as many other books by Bill Federer, such as *Prayers and Presidents* and Booker T. Washington and everything from Saint Nick to income tax from Bill Federer, who knows the history of everything that I can think of.

Today, we are picking up sort of where we left yesterday on Watchman on the Wall. We were talking about independence and the Continental Congress and about our battles for freedom. One of those battles that many people know very little about, and that includes me, is the Barbary Pirates and our battles with the Barbary Pirates. You understand this rather long-term conflict better than anyone I know, Bill. Can you explain to us the miracles and the events that occurred with the Barbary Pirates?

Bill Federer: Sure. Muhammad was born in 570 AD, dies in 632 AD. He went from being a religious leader to a political leader to a military leader. Muhammad himself fought in 66 battles, killing 3,000 people. He robbed caravans and he got a verse from his Allah (Surah 33:50), "Allah has given you the slave girls as your booty." So they go from robbing caravans to robbing on the Mediterranean Sea with ships.

They raided the coast of Italy in 849 AD. 11,000 Muslims went up the Tiber River and sacked Rome. They trashed the Basilica of St. Peter's and they trashed the bones of St. Peter and St. Paul. That's when Pope Leo built the 39-foot wall around the Vatican. As their piracy went on, European powers would pay the Muslim pirates tribute, extortion money. If we pay you money, you won't attack our ships. Every year, France, Spain, Sweden would pay the Muslim pirates lots of money.

When America was part of Britain, the British paid tribute to the Muslim pirates and we were covered by it in America. But once we became independent of Britain, we were no longer covered by the British tribute payment and so that's when the Muslims began to capture American ships.

In 1793, they began to catch ships. They captured the Betsy, the Dolphin, the Dispatch, the Hope, the Jane, the Jay, the Maria, Mary of Minerva, Olive Branch—all these ships.

Liz Kutschow: Oh my goodness.

Bill Federer: About 37 of them. They imprisoned about 700 Americans in the dungeons of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Morocco. These are American ships that are going through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean to trade with France and Italy and these different countries and they would get attacked by the Muslim pirates.

When the American ship Polly was captured in 1793, the Barbary captain imprisoned the crew, saying, "For your history and superstition and believing in a man who was crucified by the Jews, disregarding the true doctrines of God's last and greatest prophet, Muhammad." So they viewed it as religion. In Islam, they're forbidden to make treaties with infidel powers. That's why it's so difficult making a treaty with Iran today. Because fundamental Muslims are forbidden from making a treaty with infidels unless it's a hudna, which is a lying where you basically buy time so that you can restock your missiles.

When you don't know that, we negotiate thinking in good faith, "Oh, they're going to keep their word." There's no concept of that in Islam. Their goal is world Islam. America had broken from Britain and we were paying 20% of our federal budget to these Muslim pirates during the term of George Washington and John Adams. Thomas Jefferson becomes the third president. The day after his inauguration, he gets a demand from the Pasha of Tripoli for a quarter of a million dollars' extortion tribute payment.

Jefferson said enough. He said, "I did the only reasonable thing. I sent in a squadron of our ships to escort our commerce through the Mediterranean." This turns into the Barbary Pirate War. Jefferson sends over Stephen Decatur and Presley O'Bannon. They win and force the Muslims to a treaty. The Muslim Pasha said, "Draw up your treaty as you will and I'll sign it, but as soon as you leave the harbor, it's wastepaper." In 1815, we have a second Barbary Pirate War.

It's interesting that when we win the first Barbary Pirate War, Francis Scott Key writes a song to celebrate and he writes it to the same tune that nine years later, he writes during the War of 1812 that we call the Star Spangled Banner. But the original version is titled *When the Warrior Returns from Battle Afar*. Francis Scott Key, 1805: "And pale beamed the crescent, its splendor obscured by the light of the star-spangled flag of our nation; And the turbaned head bowed to the terrible glare, then mixed with the olive the laurel shall wave and form a bright wreath for the brow of the brave." I think maybe we should sing that at ballgames. That would be pretty interesting.

Liz Kutschow: People would get a little confused. But that's okay to remember history rightly. Rightly is important.

Bill Federer: The first Barbary War is from 1801 to 1805. What happened then in 1806? You had some students at Williams College, Massachusetts, walking back across a field to class and it starts a thunderstorm. So they dive under a haystack and they pray for world missions and they commit their lives to world missions. The rain stops. They go back to class and they tell their classmates, "We just committed our lives to world missions." Their classmates start committing their lives to world missions.

It starts a missionary movement where we send 5,000 of these young people to Burma, to Hawaii, and it's spreading this revival. In Hawaii, 50,000 Hawaiians get saved in the 1830s and 1840s. The high chieftainess, Kapiʻolani, climbs into the crater of the volcano and throws these forbidden taboo berries in there and she comes out alive and nobody's afraid of the volcano god anymore. So this revival spreads across Hawaii. After that, you have the War of 1812.

The situation was that the British were fighting Napoleon. When Napoleon invaded Spain, that's when Mexico breaks away. Mexico used to be part of New Spain, but once Napoleon invades Spain, puts his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Spain, Mexico said, "Why should we be loyal to a Spanish throne with a French guy on it? Besides, Napoleon was excommunicated by the Pope." Mexico was Catholic and so they're like, "Okay." Napoleon combines the Spanish navy and the French navy to invade England and they're defeated at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Once this happens, Britain has the most powerful navy in the world and they send some ships to America. It's called the Battle of Lake Erie. President James Madison has a day of humiliation and prayer. On Lake Erie, we don't even have a port. So we build the ships on land, drag them across a sandbar even to get them in the water. 28-year-old Oliver Hazard Perry is in charge and he confronts the British squadron that just got done defeating Napoleon. The British have long-range cannons and so they're splintering Oliver Hazard Perry's flagship to pieces.

Madison had a day of prayer to be observed September 9th, 1813. Well, this battle takes place September 10th of 1813. Not by accident, right? So suddenly the wind changes directions. The British ships have to turn around and they bump into each other. The HMS Detroit and the HMS Queen Charlotte. Their ropes, their sails, they're all entangled and for 15 minutes, Oliver Hazard Perry shoots every cannon he can and he's hitting every British ship.

He disables all the British ships, the whole squadron of them. The wind blows the smoke away and the ships of the British are just disabled in the water. Oliver Hazard Perry tells the men on deck, "The prayers of my wife are answered." Then he writes to the Secretary of Navy, "It is pleased the Almighty to give the arms of the United States a signal victory over their enemies on this lake. The British squadron consisting of two ships, two brigs, one schooner, one sloop have this moment surrendered to the force of my command after a sharp conflict."

Then James Madison has a day. He says, "It has pleased the Almighty to bless our arms on Lake Erie. The squadron under the command of Captain Perry having met the British squadron of superior force, a sanguinary conflict ended in the capture of the whole." This was a miracle in American history. Then Madison has a day of fasting.

This victory allows the Americans to capture Fort Detroit and we get land out of which comes six states. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota. All that land came out of this victory because the British could no longer control Lake Erie. And all of this is predicated in prayer. That's the amazing thing is that with all these people and the whole country praying, victory comes. God gives us victory, just like so many people in the Bible.

Liz Kutschow: Today, we are learning all this amazing miracles in American history with Bill Federer, historian and Christian apologist, and talking about his *Miracles in American History* two volumes that were compiled by his wonderful wife, Suzie Federer.

Those are available at our website at swrc.com or by calling us at 1-800-652-1144. I know that everyone is going to want to get at least one of each of those. After you've purchased those, I have a feeling you'll be getting others for your friends because they are indeed, as it says, amazing stories of answered prayer about America. Bill, we were talking about the War of 1812 and our victories. What happens next?

Bill Federer: One of the main stories is the British invaded Washington, DC. This time, the Americans run away. The British go into the Capitol and Dolley Madison is in the White House and she sees the panic in the street. So she has them take the painting of George Washington down, the only one that he stood for while they painted. She's riding out of town with it in a carriage while the British Admiral George Cockburn rides into town, rides up to the White House, goes inside, sees the table set with food. He sits down, eats the food, and then sets the White House on fire.

Then he goes to the Capitol and he has his soldiers sit in the chairs where our congressmen all ran away. He goes to the podium. He says, "Who votes to burn the American Capitol?" And they burn our Capitol. Then they attack the navy yard and the Library of Congress and the Treasury and our Capitol is going up in flames. The Americans had been praying. Suddenly, dark clouds come in and wind and thunder grow to a frightening roar. Lightning begins striking. Tornadoes pick up British cannons and throw them yards away, knocks off roofs and chimneys, slaps horse and rider to the ground.

The book *Washington Weather* recorded British Admiral George Cockburn exclaiming to a lady, "Great God, Madam, is this the kind of storm to which you are accustomed in this infernal country?" To which the lady replied, "No, sir. This is a special interposition of Providence to drive our enemies from our city." Just for them. And the British were driven out. Rains come, extinguish the fires. British go back to their ships to find their sails have been damaged and two ships were blown ashore.

A British historian wrote that more British soldiers were killed by this stroke of nature than from all the firearms the American troops had mustered in the feeble defense of their city. So this was a miracle in American history. Madison is president. He says, "The enemy by a sudden incursion has succeeded in invading the capital of the nation. During their possession, though for a single day only, they wantonly destroyed public edifices. Independence is not to be maintained with the strength and resources which heaven has blessed."

Then a day of fasting. Madison said the two houses of the National Legislature expressed that in the present time of public calamity and war, a day may be recommended to be observed as a day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer to Almighty God, His blessings on their arms of confessing their sins and transgressions, that they would graciously be pleased to pardon all our offenses. I've deemed it proper to recommend the day of humble adoration of the great Sovereign of the universe. So here we are.

Liz Kutschow: The day of fasting would not be bad nowadays, would it? And humiliation.

Bill Federer: They had the idea. I liken it to magnets. If you ever play with magnets and you stick them together and you turn one and they repel. Let's say there's two magnets, one's God, the other's you. The God magnet has two sides. One side says blessings and the other side says judgment. Deuteronomy 28, blessings, cursings. The "you" magnet has two sides. One side says repent and believe and the other side says doubt and sin. If you have your repent and believe side facing God's "I want to bless you" side, the magnets stick together.

But if you flip and have doubt and sin, God still wants to bless you but He can't bless doubt. Remember Jesus went to His hometown of Nazareth and could do few miracles there because of their unbelief. And then with sin, if God blesses you while you're in sin, He's effectively giving consent to the sin. If He gives consent to sin, He's denying His just nature and He cannot deny Himself. So His very nature is He has to judge and if we insist on sin, God's magnet flips around to judgment. He is a just God after all.

So our Founders understood this. They said that's why we have to repent of our sins through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ and then we can have faith that God will bless us. During this time in America, you have what's called the Second Great Awakening revival. It always seemed to team up. It's in times of crises that people turn to Christ. When there's all kinds of crises, that's usually when you have a revival. People turn to the Lord.

Liz Kutschow: When He brings us to our knees, that's when we look up.

Bill Federer: Yeah. During this time, Second Great Awakening, you have a 29-year-old attorney in New York named Charles Finney. He hears about these revivals and one night he's deathly in fear going to sleep. The fear just grips him and he's just distraught. He promises the next day he'll give his life to the Lord. Then he falls asleep. The next day, he's walking to work and he said it was almost like a voice on the inside of him said, "I thought you were going to give your life to me today."

He turns and he goes off into the woods and he's kneeling and he prays for hours and he comes back to his office. After the day, he says goodbye to his law partner, closes the door, he turns and he says he met Jesus. Later he says mentally, but he felt the presence of the Lord so strong. He kneels down. He's weeping. He describes it as waves of liquid love. He says, "I can't describe it any other way." Next thing he knows, the law office door opens. He had prayed all night.

In comes a church deacon suing another church deacon. And he says, "How's my case coming along?" Without hesitating, Charles Finney said, "I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus to plead His case and I cannot plead yours." The deacon was so struck, he walks out and stands in the middle of the street for a few minutes and they finally drop his case. Finney then becomes a preacher. He preaches like a lawyer presenting evidence to a jury.

Then he demands a verdict. He invents altar calls. He said, "You serve the devil openly. I'm going to call for you to stand up right where you're at and declare you're going to serve Jesus openly." His sermons get written down. One person that hears his sermons is John Jay Shipherd and he starts Oberlin University, which becomes the hotbed for abolitionism. This is the 1830s and '40s and so this is what becomes the abolitionist movement that says free the slaves now because there was a Quaker movement to gradually free the slaves. But this is like the now.

So that came out of this Second Great Awakening. Then his sermons were read over in England. They inspired William and Catherine Booth to start the Salvation Army. But they also inspired George Williams to start the YMCA. England had the industrial revolution, factories, all these young men, prostitutes and beggars and bums and 22-year-old George Williams said, "There needs to be a place where young men can escape the temptations of the street and pray and read their Bible."

So that turns into the Young Men's Christian Association or YMCA. I bet a lot of people don't know what YMCA stands for. Then it spreads and the YMCA in Geneva, Switzerland is led by Henri Dunant and he starts the International Red Cross. Came out of the YMCA. And then you have the young men, so then they have the boys. They called it the boys work department and they have the first campgrounds.

They have a book they're using to teach the boys survival skills and it was written by a British soldier named Baden-Powell. He comes back from the Boer War and they have him do a book tour with the YMCA and him talking about his survival manual. He helps the Boy Scouts. He actually writes a book called *Scouting for Boys*, published in 1908, turns into the Boy Scouts. Then you have World War I. A French guy, de Coubertin, sees the soldiers during their R&R time doing sports.

He recruits Elwood Brown, the head of the YMCA in the Philippines, to organize the YMCAs around the world to send athletes and he brings back the Olympics. So the Olympics came out of the YMCA. Even one of the YMCA instructors named James Naismith—it's cold winter and they're doing jumping jacks—he comes up with something a little more interesting, tacking a peach basket on each wall. They would throw a soccer ball in there and finally the bottom fell out and turned into the game of basketball.

Then the YMCA invented volleyball. All this stuff. The Gideons International comes out of the YMCA. Toastmasters, Dale Carnegie taught classes at the YMCA. The first indoor gyms in America—how many indoor gyms are there?—the first ones were the YMCA. And then the hotels and motels. Before that, they had inns which were a big house and a young man didn't have much money and so he would have to rent a room in a dumpy neighborhood and often they had a lot of crime and immorality.

So the YMCAs were the first place where you could rent a room for five bucks and share the bathroom down the hall and so this was the first place that young guys could go to in a big city and not have to have all the temptations and they had prayer meetings going on all the time. Just fascinating stuff that came out of this Second Great Awakening revival. Dwight L. Moody in Chicago. 23-year-old shoe salesman. Can barely read, he had to drop out of school.

He works for the YMCA as a city missionary. They don't pay him, but he finds an abandoned saloon and he uses it to teach inner city kids the gospel. Somebody visits and says that he was holding a negro boy and trying to read the prodigal son story and couldn't even pronounce the words. He says, "If God can use that guy, He can use anybody." Well, he's good at recruiting. Within a year he has 60 volunteers teaching 600 kids. Next year, 1,500 kids and it's 1860. Lincoln gets elected.

Lincoln goes from Springfield, Illinois to Chicago on his way to DC. He goes to Dwight L. Moody's Sunday school class. After the class, Moody says, "Mr. President, anything you want to tell the students?" Lincoln said, "I started off as poor as anyone of you in this room and if you do what that man tells you, someday even you might be president." Then during the war, Lincoln asked the YMCA to provide chaplains and R&R and coffee wagons and stuff.

After the war, Dwight L. Moody becomes an international evangelist. Thousands and thousands hear him preach. And of course, the Moody Bible Institute sprung from that. Yes. During the Civil War, by the way, Lincoln had a day of fasting and prayer to be observed April 30th, 1863. What happened two days later? The South has Stonewall Jackson and he is a brilliant general and he's winning at the Battle of Chancellorsville outnumbered two to one.

He comes back at twilight and his own men say, "Stop, who goes there?" and before he can answer, they let off a volley of shots and shoot him twice in the arm, once in the hand, kill a bunch of men around him. They mangle his arm in the dark, he has to get it amputated, a couple weeks later he dies. Just about every Civil War historian said he was such a great general, if he had been at Gettysburg two months later, the South very well may have won.

It's hard to reconcile because he was a godly man, but it wasn't God's will for the country to be divided and for slavery to continue. But you can't help but say this is two days after a national day of fasting that this freak accident happens that changed the course of the war. Lincoln himself was such a man of God. You can trace him through the presidential term of him growing in his faith, growing in his faith. Finney's Gurley was the pastor there at the New York Presbyterian church that Lincoln would go to and sit in the back pew and so forth.

And even the Lincoln Memorial has his second inaugural. And it says, "Both sides read the same Bible and pray to the same God. The prayers of both could not be answered in full. Indeed, the prayers of neither have been answered in full." And he says, "If every drop of blood drawn by the bondsman's whip shall be repaid by a drop of blood drawn by the sword, let it be said the judgments of the Lord are altogether true and righteous." All these biblical references that Lincoln put into his speech.

Liz Kutschow: And that's a beautiful place for us to stop for today. And guess what? We have got Bill Federer back on next week and maybe we can start, Bill, with the Civil War and with Abraham Lincoln. Thank you so much for joining us today, Bill. I want to be sure and remind everyone about your books, *Miracles in American History*. Amazing stories. There are two volumes of these and I know that everyone's going to want to get both of those for themselves and for others.

They can be obtained at swrc.com and by calling us at 1-800-652-1144. And that's swrc.com. And this is another Watchman on the Wall program with Bill Federer, who I call America's historian. Thank you, Bill. God bless you. And we will talk to you again next week on the second week of July. We'll still be celebrating.

Bill Federer: God bless you.

Narrator: Has God intervened in the history of the United States? Discover the answer with the Miracles in American History collection from Southwest Radio Ministries. This inspiring collection includes four DVDs and two books that explore remarkable moments where God's providential hand can be seen throughout our nation's story. Volume one of the DVDs examines the Revolutionary War era and the extraordinary events that helped secure America's freedom.

Volume two explores Independence, the Barbary Pirate conflicts, and the War of 1812. Volume three covers the Battle of New Orleans, the Bank War, cholera outbreaks, the Civil War, the founding of the Red Cross, George Washington Carver, World War I, and the Great Depression. Volume four continues with World War II, the Korean War, the Apollo space program, and other incredible stories of God's providence in modern history.

You'll also receive *Miracles in American History* volumes one and two. Two fascinating books filled with inspiring accounts of faith, courage, prayer, and divine intervention that helped shape the American story. Get all four DVDs and two books for a gift of just $110 with shipping included. Order today at swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144 or swrc.com.

Announcer: Tomorrow on Watchman on the Wall, we'll revisit John Wayne's timeless tribute to our nation, *America, Why I Love Her*, and explore the faith, freedom and values that have made America worth loving. Join us for this special patriotic program. Watchman on the Wall is a production of Southwest Radio Ministries and is supported by you. To learn more, visit swrc.com.