Watchman on the Wall

Southwest Radio Ministries: Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and swrc.com. God is still on the throne and prayer changes things. Today is Presidents Day, and historian Bill Federer is here to discuss how Christian faith impacted many presidents and influenced America from its beginning. Later this week, author Bob McGinnis will discuss the Christian perspective on artificial intelligence. Donald Perkins continues his verse-by-verse study of Revelation, and Josh Davis will report the latest headlines from the end times.

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The faith of America's presidents is often ignored or belittled in today's culture. Today, historian Bill Federer reveals the truth behind many of the presidents' Christian faith.

Josh Davis: Greetings friends, and welcome back to Watchman on the Wall. I'm joined by one of our favorite guests that we have here on the radio program, and that is the wonderful historian and wonderful Christian man, Bill Federer. Bill, welcome back to Watchman on the Wall. And happy Presidents Day to you today as well.

We're here to talk about the history of Presidents Day, but also some of the presidents that we are to remember on this special occasion. Could you fill us in a little bit about Presidents Day in general? Who are we honoring with this very day, and what should this day mean to us as American citizens?

Bill Federer: Well, it's officially George Washington's birthday. George Washington was born in 1732, and he was unanimously chosen to be the general of the Continental Army. He was unanimously chosen to preside over the Constitutional Convention. He was unanimously chosen to be the first president and unanimously re-elected. So he is unique in that.

He twice gave up the power. When you look at King George III, he's having his portrait painted by Benjamin West. And when they're having to stand there for hours while the painter's painting, the King is making conversation. And he says, "Well, what do they say that Washington is going to do now that he has defeated the King's army?" And Benjamin West said, "Well, they say, your highness, that he is going to return to his farm." And the King said, "If he does that, he truly will be the greatest man in the world."

In other words, from the beginning of time, kings killed to get power; kings killed to keep power. Washington had the power, and he gave it up. There was one instance; it's called the Newburgh conspiracy. The soldiers had not been paid for at least a year. The war is winding up, and the soldiers are planning to march into New York where the capital was and take control of the government so they could get paid.

Their meeting was held in secret, but George Washington shows up, and everybody's shocked. He quietly goes to the front. He pulls out a piece of paper, and then he pulls out his spectacles—his glasses. Nobody had ever seen him wear glasses before. And he said, "Excuse me while I put these on. I've grown blind in the service of my country."

All of a sudden, the whole room got quiet, and they realized how much he had sacrificed. And he goes on to explain how if they do what they're planning on doing, all the blood shed by their fellow patriots will have been shed in vain if they're going to simply re-establish a monarchy. And he folds up the paper, flips it in his pocket, and walks out the room. And the Newburgh conspiracy collapsed. But he could have walked in there and said, "Okay guys, I'm going to be the king."

And they would have—I'll promise you money—and he could have marched into New York and he could have been the king of America and we just set up an American monarchy, which is what Mexico did. Mexico was breaking away from the king of Spain, and the general Iturbide switches his allegiance from the king to becoming independent. And all the peasants in Mexico are like, "Yay, we're going to be like America." And then at the last minute, Iturbide decides to make himself emperor of Mexico. And so all the people are like, "Wait a second, you mean we just fought to set up another dictatorship?"

Washington did not do that. And then he is president for two terms. And after that, he decides that's enough and he goes back to his farm. Now the Constitution did not set a limit on the number of terms a president could run. He just thought two terms was enough, and he didn't run for a third term. And that set a precedent that every president honored until Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt got himself elected four times. And it was after that that Congress passed the 22nd Amendment limiting a president to two terms. It's easy to remember what the 22nd Amendment is for because it's 2-2; you're limited to two terms. That's it.

Now, Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, and since his birthday is also in February, and since he was the president during the Civil War freeing the slaves, February got associated with both Washington and Lincoln. And so after that, they just simply started calling it Presidents Day, even though it's still actually on the books George Washington's birthday.

A little trivia with Lincoln: he was born February 12, and it was the exact same year that Charles Darwin was born. Darwin and Lincoln were born on the same day. When you look at their two lives, they were totally opposite. Lincoln is best known for freeing the slaves—Emancipation Proclamation—all men are created equal. Darwin is best known for what? All men are not created equal because some are more evolved than others.

Darwin himself was a racist, and he talks about different races that he considered inferior and that they would eventually be eliminated and he called them human weeds. He said no farmer will breed the lowest animals; he breeds the best ones. And so Darwin was a racist and did not believe everybody was equal. But Lincoln believed everybody was equal.

And then Lincoln's last act in office was to put "In God We Trust" on our coins. Darwinism has been used by socialists and communists to get rid of the belief in God, that your rights come from the state, not from a Creator. Darwin's teachings influenced the communists in Russia that killed, by some estimates with Lenin and Stalin, 60 million people. And then Darwin also influenced the communists in Pol Pot that killed a third of his country in Cambodia. Lots of killing. And Lincoln is best known for freeing the slaves, all men are created equal, and releasing worldwide this idea that everybody's equal. That was a new idea.

It goes back to the Bible, but for all these countries where they have kings, if you're friends with the king, you're more equal. If you're not friends with the king, you're less equal. If you're an enemy of the king, you're dead—it's called treason—or you're a slave. So for all the world, the sultans and maharajas and czars and Mongolian khans and African chieftains, it's this hierarchical system where you're only equal if you're friends with the gang leader king. Where the Bible said everybody's equal because you're made in the image of God. And then of course, it's in our Declaration, and then Lincoln is the one that fought the Civil War to free the slaves, citing the Declaration that all men are created equal.

Josh Davis: Friends, we're visiting with historian Bill Federer and discussing this Presidents Day, the legacy of President George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln. And by the way, we've got a host of wonderful resources—books, DVDs, etc.—written and produced by Bill Federer. They're available at swrc.com. That's swrc.com. Or give us a call, 1-800-652-1144. Again, that's 1-800-652-1144. You know Bill, as you're describing these things, my mind is racing back to the difference that a biblical worldview truly made in early American history, and especially in the lives of these two men. I mean, you talk about the difference between Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, and one with an anti-biblical worldview through and through, and the other one with that biblical worldview. What a difference that truly makes in our world. And today, I know that you are concerned with the direction that our nation is heading. Can you speak some more about the history of these things and tie in where we are in today's world and what we can do to recapture this biblical worldview?

Bill Federer: Yeah. So as long as there is selfishness and sin, you're going to have strong guys that are sinful wanting to use their strength to oppress the weak and the women and children. So you need strong, godly men to defend the women and children.

Sin is at the core. The founders understood that everybody's got this sinful nature, and since we don't have any angels on earth to govern us, what do we do? We take the power of ruling and break it into these three branches and then put them in a three-way tug-of-war against each other. So the selfishness in the executive is always trying to pull power away from the legislative and judicial. The selfishness in the judicial is trying to pull power from the executive and legislative. And then the selfishness in the legislative is trying to pull power from the executive and judicial. So greed checks greed, ambition checks ambition. But it's based on this understanding that we're sinful creatures. We need to be born again, but even in our born-again state, we're all going to be tempted to favor our family and friends over strangers and enemies.

So the idea is let's separate power. There's an interesting story that Jefferson was in France when they wrote the Constitution. He comes back; he's having tea with George Washington. It's scalding hot tea, so Jefferson tipped it into the saucer and let it cool, and then he lifted up the saucer and he poured the tea back into the cup. Jefferson was complaining that there's three branches of government and it's going to take forever to get things done, and "why do you have a House on one side and a Senate on the other side? Can't we just have them all together?"

And Washington says, "You just demonstrated the necessity of a House and a Senate, of separating powers." He said that human passions would want to push something through, and it could be wrong. And so they wanted to slow down. So they designed a government that would be inefficient on purpose—slow to make good decisions, but thank God, slow to make irreversible bad decisions. They realized it could take a lifetime to build a mansion and one irresponsible match to burn the thing down in a day. And so they intentionally wanted to separate these powers so that it would be a slow government, slow to change.

Now, a little things trivia on the presidents: the tallest was Lincoln, the shortest was James Madison, and the heaviest was William Howard Taft, over 300 pounds. You had virtually all of them swore into office with their hand upon a Bible. There's a couple that we're not exactly confident of. There was Lyndon Johnson, and supposedly he was on Air Force One when Jacqueline Kennedy—he was wanting to get the photo op, so he made the new widow stand next to him in an un-airconditioned, hot plane with her bloodstained dress. Anyway, all they found was a Catholic missal in a drawer because John F. Kennedy was the first Catholic president. And supposedly, Lyndon Johnson said that's good enough, and he swore in on a Catholic missal.

But all of them ended with "So help me God." And the idea of an oath is to call a higher power to hold you accountable to perform what you said you're going to perform. So they knew politicians and presidents would have the opportunity to do dirty backroom deals that would benefit themselves, and they wanted to make sure that elected officials believe that God was in the backroom watching them. And it would be a deterrent to do bad things if they had this belief. So the purpose of an oath they didn't consider a religious test. A religious test was well understood; that was belonging to a particular denomination, which is what every country in Europe had, which is in 1535 the King of England Henry VIII passed the religious test where you had to acknowledge the King as the head of the church. "So help me God" was just the oath. It was calling a higher power to hold you accountable to do what you said you're going to do.

Just about every president said "So help me God" after swearing in. You had four presidents assassinated: Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. Four presidents died in office, and their vice president took over. And then two were actually impeached: they tried impeaching Andrew Johnson, they impeached Bill Clinton, and they tried to on Trump. And then one resigned, and that was Nixon simply on the threat of impeachment. They never impeached Nixon. He just—the Republican Speaker of the House came to him and said, "We're not going to back you."

And so—and Nixon, for all practical purposes, was a good president. He was anti-communist, he was for lower taxes, he was over the space program, lots of things. But when they had some people break into the Watergate Hotel that were—some evidence is they were actually FBI-type people posing as Republicans, but they got Nixon to defend them. And then they caught Nixon lying about defending them, and then they basically caught him up in a procedural thing. So Nixon did not do anything wrong; he just covered for these people that broke into the Watergate who he thought were Republicans. That was the trap he fell into.

Josh Davis: Friends, we're visiting with Christian historian Bill Federer, and he's describing for us some of the things that we're celebrating on this Presidents Day as we remember the United States presidents, especially George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We have all kinds of wonderful historical resources available at swrc.com written and produced by Bill Federer. Again, that's swrc.com. Or give us a call, 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. And Bill, we just have a few minutes left that you can continue sharing some of this important history with our audience.

Bill Federer: Well, I would like to share on a faith note. So George Washington referred to God quite often. In one of his quotes, he said, "The fate of unborn millions now depends, under God, on the courage of this army. We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." And then he gives an order on July 9, 1776: "The general hopes and trusts that every officer and man will live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country."

And then you have Valley Forge, May 2, 1778. Washington says, "To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to laud the more distinguished character of Christians." And then when the Delaware Indian Chiefs bring some youth to be trained in American schools, Washington tells them May 12, 1779: "You do well to wish to learn our arts and way of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ."

And so he was a faithful Anglican. He was the godfather of several of his relatives. He was there at the Truro Parish Church, which was an Anglican church. So just a man of faith. He referred to Providence, but Providence was a respectful way of referring to God. Most of the founders would—I mean Washington called his mom and dad "Sir" and "Ma'am." And so it was considered being a little too much liberty in familiarity by coming in and saying, "Hey Joe." It would always be, "Yes, sir" and "Yes, ma'am." And so when they would refer to faith, they would refer to Christ or to the Lord and Giver of life, the Almighty Creator of the universe. They would use these very respectful terms rather than—they thought it was a little bit too familiar to call Jesus "Jesus."

It was really Charles Finney and Billy Sunday and some of these evangelists that began to stop using the "Thees" and "Thous" and began to refer to God on a personal basis, which personally I like, but it's still respectful. So Washington was a man of faith, and on Presidents Day we can remember that.

Josh Davis: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Well, Bill, we thank you so much for joining us and we know that you stay so busy and we are grateful for the time that you've taken to join us today. And may God continue to bless you and your ministry. Do you have any closing thoughts for our audience?

Bill Federer: Yes, that the good Lord decided for Washington to be alive at the time he was alive and Lincoln. We never would have heard of them had it not been for a crisis. It's the crisis with King George that caused Washington to rise to the forefront. It was the crisis of slavery that caused Lincoln to be a household name. And so in times of crisis is when God raises up leaders.

People say, "Well, I pray that God uses me." Well, a lot of times He uses you by having you put in a position where you've got to take a stand, whether it's at work or whether it's with friends. And you take a stand for Jesus and you will catch some heat for it, but then God turns around to promote you, like Riley Gaines. If they had not stolen her award and handed it to her, nobody would have known who she was. But here she is. They gave the trophy to the trans guy when they tied and they only had one trophy. And she decided that she wasn't going to quietly sit down. She stood up and lo and behold, boom! Everybody in the country—she was on Joe Rogan and all these different shows.

And so the crisis is why God raises up little nobodies like Gideon's army. There's 100,000 Midianites and Gideon gets 30,000 Israelites, and God said, "Too many. Tell everyone that's scared to go home." Now it's down to 10,000. "Still too many. Go drink from a creek." It whittles it to 300. In other words, God made the odds look worse on purpose. And then Gideon in faith allows God to do this great victory. So when you're going forward, you're going to have opposition and sometimes it's going to look hopeless. Okay, you're right in God's will. Now He's going to roll up His sleeves and do a miracle on your behalf. So trust Him and you'll see Him move.

Josh Davis: Amen. Amen. What a good word to end on. And I thank you for sharing that and just following the Lord as He prompted that in your heart because so many Christians, I think, are under the false impression that the life in God's will is the easy life. It's sitting back taking it easy. But even reading the New Testament makes that very clear. The Apostle Paul wrote many of his epistles from prison because he was preaching the Word of God. He wasn't sitting on a beach somewhere overlooking the Mediterranean saying, "Rejoice in the Lord and the power of His might." He's writing that from a jail cell to the Philippian believers who knew what it was to suffer. So the life in God's will is often outside of our own comfort zone, but that's when God can use us. So once more Bill, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on Watchman on the Wall today and may the Lord bless you and your ministry.

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