Guest Host, Alex McFarland, is joined by Historian and Author, William J. Federer to discuss Thanksgiving and the state of the Culture.

Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper (base.en). Timestamps are approximate. Lightly cleaned for readability; quotations from on-air callers may include filler words. Use the audio player above for the authoritative recording.

1. 0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force.
2. 0:03It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
3. 0:06This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
4. 0:11It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
5. 0:15Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
6. 0:18And the philosophies of this world.
7. 0:20God has called you and me to be his ambassador.
8. 0:24Even in this dark moment.
9. 0:26Let's not miss our moment.
10. 0:28and now the Hamilton Corner.
11. 0:33Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
12. 0:39That's 1 Thessalonians 5, 18.
13. 0:42You know, in both Old and New Testaments throughout the Word of God, believers are enjoined to
14. 0:47be grateful, to rejoice in the Lord, to give thanks in the Old Testament in Psalm 100 verse
15. 0:54for, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.
16. 0:58Give thanks to him and praise his name."
17. 1:02Well, good evening folks.
18. 1:04Alex McFarland, you're so honored.
19. 1:06I'm thankful to be sitting in for attorney, pastor, broadcaster Abe Hamilton III.
20. 1:12This is the Hamilton Corner.
21. 1:14We're going to talk about Thanksgiving.
22. 1:16We're going to talk about the state of the culture.
23. 1:18We've got a lot of things to talk about.
24. 1:20Maybe still even a little bit of election recap.
25. 1:23But with me, and I am very thankful on this Thanksgiving Eve to be having a conversation
26. 1:30with someone I've just admired for years and years, Bill Federer, William J. Federer, you
27. 1:37know him as a renowned historian of America.
28. 1:41He's published so many books, Miracles in American History and the Encyclopedia of God and Country
29. 1:48Quotations.
30. 1:49I've told this so many times, but it bears repeating.
31. 1:53When I was a youth pastor many, many years ago, I would always give my graduating seniors
32. 1:59books by Bill Federer would because my kids were going off to Duke and Chapel Hill and
33. 2:04Wake Forest.
34. 2:05And, you know, I didn't want them to turn into woke, you know, anti-American globalists
35. 2:12and socialists.
36. 2:14So this is, you know, in the 90s.
37. 2:16And I would go to the Christian bookstore in Greensboro, North Carolina, and I would
38. 2:21buy 25 and 30 and 40 copies of Bill Federer's book, America's God and Country Quotation
39. 2:28book.
40. 2:29And I remember I could take you to the very spot, Cornwallis Boulevard, Family Christian
41. 2:35bookstore, Greensboro, North Carolina.
42. 2:37I'm staring down at a box full of books by William J. Federer.
43. 2:42And I prayed in my heart.
44. 2:44I said, Lord, I would really like to meet that guy someday.
45. 2:48Someday could I meet Bill Federer?
46. 2:51And God answered that prayer and not only met him, got to be great friends with him and
47. 2:56we've shared the stage a few times and today we share the microphone.
48. 3:02But Bill, thanks for making time for being with us and we'll get some history.
49. 3:07We'll talk about current events.
50. 3:09But let me say my brother, Happy Thanksgiving.
51. 3:13Amen, amen.
52. 3:15Happy Thanksgiving to you, Alex.
53. 3:17God is good.
54. 3:18Let me ask you this.
55. 3:20What does the Federer family do for Thanksgiving and Christmas?
56. 3:24What are some of your traditions?
57. 3:26Well, I'm one of 11 kids.
58. 3:30So in the past, we had great big family gatherings.
59. 3:34My wife and I moved to Florida about seven years ago.
60. 3:38we have a couple of our kids and grandkids visiting. So it's quite small, but it's still fun. And we
61. 3:44thank God for the free country that we live in. Amen. The study history and you see that most of
62. 3:50the world's history, there's totalitarian dictators and Pharaoh's, Caesar's, Caesar's,
63. 3:55Halton's ours, and it's top down and where there's Christians that persecuted.
64. 3:59And America is unique because we're a bottom up form of government and Christians have freedom.
65. 4:06And if we stay involved, then we can Lord willing keep the freedom, but if not, it's
66. 4:13the blueprint of how the rest of the world treats Christians is pretty somber.
67. 4:19So we have an encouragement to stay involved.
68. 4:25Just curious, do you have a favorite holiday?
69. 4:29Well, Thanksgiving, definitely Easter, obviously, rising from the dead of our Savior.
70. 4:36and Christmas is fun.
71. 4:39In Fortnite, July, I'm usually speaking somewhere, so I haven't been home on the 4th for quite
72. 4:43a while.
73. 4:44I like Thanksgiving, and of course, as you know, our nation has been unique in proclaiming
74. 4:55days of Thanksgiving to God.
75. 4:58Isn't it true, Bill, that even before the last Thursday in November, I mean, we were
76. 5:07We had a number of Thanksgiving days here in America, even prior to the National Holiday
77. 5:13that we now all observe.
78. 5:16Right.
79. 5:17So, in colonial times, they had days of prayer.
80. 5:20When things were real bad, they had days of fasting and prayer, and when things turned
81. 5:24around, they had days of Thanksgiving.
82. 5:26And they would usually have the day of fasting to be good Friday.
83. 5:30And this is what the colonies did.
84. 5:32instances where they had a day of fasting and a ship pulls in the harbor with supplies.
85. 5:39And they said, cancel the fasting where I've been day of Thanksgiving.
86. 5:43And so it was a very much of a relationship with God.
87. 5:48They were not deists.
88. 5:50Deists believed that God made the universe with laws and then went on a walk and everything
89. 5:56is just following these laws.
90. 5:57And so don't bother praying.
91. 5:59None of the founders believed that.
92. 6:00They all believe that if we would pray God would intervene, even Ben Franklin called for
93. 6:05prayer at the Constitutional Convention.
94. 6:08But during the colonial times, every state had days of prayer, days of fasting.
95. 6:13And then I put together a book called Prayers and Presidents.
96. 6:17And I go through how you had during the Revolutionary War, Continental Congress had days of fasting
97. 6:25and prayer.
98. 6:26Matter of fact, two months before the Declaration of Independence, Congress had a day of fasting
99. 6:29in prayer through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ.
100. 6:34And then the first Thanksgiving was after the battle of Saratoga.
101. 6:40And it says again that the knowledge of Christianity will spread throughout the world.
102. 6:45And when Boston Harbor was blockaded, the Virginia governor, Thomas Jefferson, had a day of fasting
103. 6:53and prayer as governor.
104. 6:55Thomas Jefferson.
105. 6:57Now, when I was in college, it was drilled into us that he was a deist or maybe even a
106. 7:03full-going secularist.
107. 7:05But Jefferson, five-time governor of Virginia, had a day of fasting and prayer.
108. 7:11Well, Patrick Henny was the five-time governor, but I'm sorry.
109. 7:16I'm sorry.
110. 7:17For several times.
111. 7:18But Jefferson, his life went through four stages.
112. 7:23the first he was an Anglican.
113. 7:25And you had to take the oath of supremacy,
114. 7:27acknowledging the king as the head of the Anglican church.
115. 7:30And so everybody in politics in colonial Virginia
116. 7:32had to be a faithful Anglican.
117. 7:35And they espoused traditional doctrine, right?
118. 7:38Father, son, the Holy Ghost.
119. 7:39And they would recite the created church services.
120. 7:42And so during this time is when Jefferson called
121. 7:45for a day of fasting and prayer
122. 7:46when the British blockaded Boston, Tarver.
123. 7:49And then Jefferson becomes a friend of the dissenter.
124. 7:55So what's the situation?
125. 7:56We're fighting a war against the king
126. 7:58and the Anglican pastors have the king as their boss.
127. 8:01And so he would leave the church during the pastor
128. 8:04defend the king and you'd pick up guns and fight the king.
129. 8:07And so as the colonies were winning,
130. 8:09people would filter out of the
131. 8:10out of the established church and go to dissenting churches.
132. 8:14And so during this time,
133. 8:15Jefferson helped start a church.
134. 8:17The Calvinistical Reform Church of Albemarle County,
135. 8:20which met in the courthouse,
136. 8:23and he wrote the bylaws for it,
137. 8:25and it was a voluntary church,
138. 8:26where the only ones paying were the ones who attended.
139. 8:30This was a new model,
140. 8:31because in the Anglican model,
141. 8:33everybody in the colony had to pay taxes to the government,
142. 8:36and then the government paid the Anglican pastors.
143. 8:40And, but this was, and Jefferson wrote the bylaws for it,
144. 8:44and he was there for about four years.
145. 8:46And so during this time, he's a friend of the dissenter,
146. 8:49predominantly, you had Baptists saying,
147. 8:52why should we have to pay taxes to support an Anglican church
148. 8:55that we don't go to anymore with the king as the head of it?
149. 8:57Yeah.
150. 8:58When the war revolution ended,
151. 9:01the Anglicans changed it to Episcopal.
152. 9:05So it's the same structure only without a king.
153. 9:08But the Baptists were like,
154. 9:10why do we have to still pay to support this Episcopal?
155. 9:13And you had Patrick Henry and George Washington
156. 9:15wanted to continue the Episcopal model.
157. 9:18It's a structure, it had worked,
158. 9:20and Jefferson was against the establishment
159. 9:25of the Anglican Episcopal Church.
160. 9:28Now, so the ones that were against
161. 9:30disestablishing the Anglican Church
162. 9:31were called anti-disattellishmentarians.
163. 9:34That's for the,
164. 9:35the famous multi-syllabic order
165. 9:38that we all tried to memorize as teenagers.
166. 9:41Yeah, and so Jefferson was their hero.
167. 9:43And so he championed disestablishing the Episcopal Church in Virginia.
168. 9:49And then his wife dies and three of his four kids die
169. 9:54and he drops out of politics.
170. 9:56And Congress keeps trying to get him to snap out of it.
171. 9:59And they kept offering to a point in the things,
172. 10:02he kept turning it down.
173. 10:03His daughter said that she witnessed him burning every letter
174. 10:07that he had with his wife Martha,
175. 10:09it was real sad we don't have those letters.
176. 10:11He would go out on his carriage and weep for hours. He'd lock himself in his room for days and
177. 10:17and so
178. 10:19So Congress asked him to be ambassador to France and he takes him up on it
179. 10:24Well France is going through its deistic period right before its bloody French revolution
180. 10:28And you take a guy whose wife and kids die you put him in a country with a bunch of deans and usher enough after this
181. 10:33Jefferson becomes friend of a deist and he's you know corresponds with you know
182. 10:38Joseph Priestley, the guy discovered oxygen and he would write letters. Well, if there's one
183. 10:43God or 20 gods, what difference does it make? And as long as there's order in society.
184. 10:49And then he comes back to America and he centers out as a liberal Anglican.
185. 10:57Here's the scripture. He says, I've studied all the religions and the religion of Jesus
186. 11:01Christ as far surpasses all of them. He puts together a book of ethics and he actually does this when
187. 11:07when he's sending Lewis and Clark out West,
188. 11:10and for the Indians.
189. 11:12And he says, I've read all the other religions.
190. 11:14He owned a Koran, and he says,
191. 11:17the doctrines of Jesus Christ are far superior to every other.
192. 11:21So he wants to put together book ethics for the Indians.
193. 11:24And he goes through the Gospels,
194. 11:26and he takes out all the verses that talk about,
195. 11:28forgive the enemy, turn the other cheek,
196. 11:31forgive the adulteress woman,
197. 11:32you know, all these things,
198. 11:34he thought if you gave him the entire Bible,
199. 11:36that get stuck with Joshua and Moses wiping out the tribes and the problems.
200. 11:40So let me ask you this because I've heard much skeptics will talk about the Jefferson Bible
201. 11:47and they love to spin it this way that Jefferson was such a materialist or an empiricist.
202. 11:53He cut out the miraculous.
203. 11:57Are you telling me that what he did was not to de-super naturalize the Bible but he was
204. 12:05taking out the, you know, singling out the words of Christ to basically create a cliff
205. 12:11notes and make it as accessible as possible to the Native Americans.
206. 12:17It wasn't to take out the miraculous, but to bring the teachings of Christ kind of to
207. 12:22the forefront.
208. 12:24Is that what you're saying?
209. 12:25Yeah, yeah.
210. 12:26He even says that.
211. 12:27And he writes on the front page of his small little book of ethics.
212. 12:32because for use amongst the Indians,
213. 12:36the source of ethics,
214. 12:40without the doctrinal issues
215. 12:44that are beyond their level of comprehension.
216. 12:47But he says for use amongst the Indians,
217. 12:49and he did two copies of them,
218. 12:51and one is in the Smithsonian.
219. 12:55And so, and so then he centers out as a liberal Anglican,
220. 13:00Langlickin. He does attend church services in the Capitol building and they had church services
221. 13:08in the Capitol. And one lady wrote that she turned to greet him and she accidentally stepped
222. 13:14on his toe and she was so embarrassed she turned and walked out. But there's Jefferson
223. 13:19going to church in the Capitol as president. And then he writes letters to John Adams after
224. 13:26Abigail dies and he said, we will see her again in heaven when God will wipe away every
225. 13:32tear and will be united with our loved ones.
226. 13:34And so we're talking about heaven, right?
227. 13:36And God singular is not talking about Hinduism with multiple gods.
228. 13:40He's talking about the Christian concept of heaven where all the saints will be there
229. 13:44and you'll see your loved ones.
230. 13:47So you can almost have Jefferson say anything you want.
231. 13:50You just pick which time in his life you quote from.
232. 13:54Yeah.
233. 13:55He is a figure that, I mean, you can't just monolithically take one statement.
234. 14:03You have to understand the various seasons and contexts of his life, don't you?
235. 14:09Yeah, all of us go through spiritual journeys and his is just talking with a lot of letters.
236. 14:15But two things, consistent, he always believed in a creator that gave rights to individuals
237. 14:22and that it was wrong.
238. 14:25He did not believe in the creator of pointing kings
239. 14:29to be Lord over the people.
240. 14:31Bill, forgive me.
241. 14:33We've got to take a break.
242. 14:34Alex McFarland here along with Bill Federer.
243. 14:37Thanksgiving Eve.
244. 14:38Stay tuned.
245. 14:39The American Family Radio Network in the Hamilton Corner
246. 14:42is back with more American history and Thanksgiving
247. 14:46to our Savior, the Lord Jesus.
248. 14:48Don't go away.
249. 14:49We're back after this brief break.
250. 15:00So let's just stop here and say the most important thing that you can do to protect your child
251. 15:07online.
252. 15:08The first thing that you should do is to pray for them.
253. 15:12Pray for them every day, multiple times a day, and pray that God would protect them.
254. 15:19The Dr. Nurse Mama Show.
255. 15:21For more from Dr. Jessica Peck, tune in at 2 p.m. Central on American Family Radio or
256. 15:26on the podcast page at aFR.net.
257. 15:35shining light into the darkness.
258. 15:37This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
259. 15:42Welcome back to the program, Alex McFarland here.
260. 15:44I hope that your family is all set for something very special.
261. 15:49I hope you've got some loved ones you can be with.
262. 15:51And most of all, our prayer for you is that you will reflect
263. 15:56on all the blessings God has put into your life.
264. 15:58We really do have so much to be thankful for.
265. 16:01You know, as I came to record,
266. 16:04I just, I did a funeral a couple of days ago,
267. 16:08and then I went this morning to,
268. 16:10my wife and I to call on a bereaved family
269. 16:13that I'll be doing a funeral.
270. 16:15And then a lady that just found out
271. 16:18that she's got a terminal illness.
272. 16:21And I mean literally moments before getting here
273. 16:24to the microphone, we went to pray
274. 16:26with this dear Christian lady.
275. 16:28But you know what she said?
276. 16:30She and her husband and the daughters were there,
277. 16:33And she said, you know, we have so much to be thankful for.
278. 16:37There's Jesus and salvation,
279. 16:40and the Lord is ministering to us.
280. 16:43And you know, even in the hardest seasons of life,
281. 16:46we do have a lot for which to be grateful.
282. 16:49Life, salvation, the promises of God's Word.
283. 16:53I think also to be an American.
284. 16:56So let me just challenge you,
285. 16:57and I wanna hold myself to this as well.
286. 17:00Let's be very intentional about praying and thanking God.
287. 17:05And do you know that there's just something about,
288. 17:07I've found this to be the case.
289. 17:10I like to take notes and I journal a lot.
290. 17:14I write down the blessings and I had this legal pad
291. 17:18and I was trying to write down things I was grateful for
292. 17:21and I ran out of paper and it does lift your spirits.
293. 17:25And I would say this and we'll get to this topic
294. 17:28with my guest Bill Federer in just a moment.
295. 17:31I'm grateful that Donald Trump
296. 17:33is going to be our next president
297. 17:34and we need to pray for his safety.
298. 17:37It was July 17 back in the summer
299. 17:40that I was at the Republican convention in Milwaukee
300. 17:43and just had about a 30 minute private meeting
301. 17:47with Eric Trump and we prayed together.
302. 17:49And he very emotionally was expressing gratitude to Jesus
303. 17:54for how Donald Trump was not assassinated on July 13.
304. 18:00And I think we all know a few millimeters of difference
305. 18:04and it would have been very, very tragic.
306. 18:07So we've got a lot to be grateful for.
307. 18:09As Americans, as Christians, as individuals
308. 18:12and I hope you're able to truly lift your heart to God
309. 18:17in praise this Thanksgiving season.
310. 18:21Bill Federer is our guest and it's always a joy
311. 18:24and always very instructive and educational to talk with Bill Federer.
312. 18:29And Bill, before the break, we were talking about the spiritual trajectory of Thomas Jefferson.
313. 18:34I want to resume that, but I want you to give your website because your books, your emails,
314. 18:42very, very helpful, I learned so much and I've preached from your notes very often.
315. 18:49But Bill, give your website and tell people about your ministry, if you would.
316. 18:53Sure, my website's americanminute.com, AmericanMinute.com, and several books, one is called
317. 19:01Prayers and Presidents.
318. 19:03It's all the past presidents, our proclamations of prayer, thanksgiving, and fasting, and then
319. 19:10books I put together with my wife called Miracles in American History, where after they
320. 19:15Great, thanks, turn around.
321. 19:16And from, as a matter of fact,
322. 19:21one of the ones was the whiskey rebellion, right?
323. 19:26So we had a brand new country,
324. 19:27and there is an actual insurrection.
325. 19:32Alexander Hamilton was coming up with a way
326. 19:34for the federal government to raise taxes,
327. 19:37and he came up with the idea of an excise tax on alcohol.
328. 19:41the problem was the farmers that lived far away from the coast, had to pay the cost of
329. 19:47transporting it and ate up all their profit by the time it got there. And so you had this
330. 19:52whiskey rebellion. And for several years, they organized and they were booking a vote
331. 19:58to disunite from the country. And anyway, Washington rides out there with the army and
332. 20:04it falls apart. And what does Washington do to those who took part of the insurrection?
333. 20:10He pardoned them and this set a precedent for the whole world because most of the world,
334. 20:16when there's an insurrection, a dictator will arrest and imprison those that took part in
335. 20:21it. That's what dictators do, but Washington pardoned them and they all went back home
336. 20:25and the country continued in peace. Isn't that amazing? So Washington proclohed the day of
337. 20:30prayer, January 1st, 1796, when it ended. And he prayed that God would restore our country
338. 20:40peace which it happened. And then during a quasi-war with France,
339. 20:45quasi-war means we almost got into a war with the second biggest power in the
340. 20:51world. France, they had a revolution. They did not have God in their revolution.
341. 20:58They just chopped off 30,000 heads in Paris and killed 300,000 in the Vandy.
342. 21:03their idea was that once they seized power,
343. 21:09they declared anybody in France
344. 21:12that wanted to maintain the old structure as a threat.
345. 21:18And so they weaponized the military to go out and kill
346. 21:22anybody that didn't go along with their new socialist
347. 21:27form of government.
348. 21:29And anyway, so they have a French foreign minister
349. 21:32in Tali Rand and we send ambassadors to him and he says, if you brought me a million dollars
350. 21:38under the table, I'll stop having the French attack American ships. And the cry went across
351. 21:44America millions for defense and not one cent for tribute. The president is the president
352. 21:50is John Adams. And so he declares a day of fasting and prayer in 1798. And he says, I
353. 21:55hereby recommend a day of solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer. Citizens called to mind
354. 22:00are numerous offenses against the most high God confess them before him was Cesaris penitence,
355. 22:04implore his pardoning mercy through the great mediator and redeemer and through the grace of his holy
356. 22:09spirit yield a more suitable obedience to his righteous requisitions, righteousness exalted
357. 22:14the nation but sin is or approach any people. And so war was averted and we had what's called a
358. 22:19second great awakening revival sweeping the country. And then you have the war of 1812 and James Madison
359. 22:27is faced with the British invading our capital, burning the White House and August 25th of 1814.
360. 22:36Dark clouds roll in, tornado touches down, knocking off debris on British troops, and
361. 22:41horse and rider thrown to the ground, British cannons throwing yards away.
362. 22:45A British historian said more British soldiers were killed by the stroke of nature than
363. 22:49by all the firearms the Americans had mustered. Anyway, Madison declared several days of prayer
364. 22:55and a day of fasting and prayer, and the war was averted. And then you had a cholera epidemic.
365. 23:05And so the India had people whose practice was to bathe in the sewage-filled Canges River,
366. 23:15so they were really ritual, and they would get cholera because all their sewage went into the
367. 23:20River and it was localized until the British took over India and then people with cholera
368. 23:27could travel back to Europe and it spread and millions died across Europe and they began
369. 23:32to come to America. 150,000 Americans died and Zachary Taylor declared a day of fasting
370. 23:39in prayer July 3, 1849.
371. 23:42Hey Bill, forgive me for interject.
372. 23:45But you know, in talking about India and bathing in the River Ganges and did you ever
373. 23:49happen to see a book called the Politically Incorrect Guide to British colonialism.
374. 23:56No, but I have read a whole lot on that.
375. 24:02Yeah.
376. 24:03You know, Dinesh D'Souza, our mutual friend who has done so many wonderful documentaries,
377. 24:09he wrote The Forward for This.
378. 24:10And by the way, my point in interjecting this is that, you know, wherever Christianity is
379. 24:16gone, there is the betterment of the human condition.
380. 24:20And somebody asked Dinesh D'Souza, what has Britain ever done for India?
381. 24:26Because Dinesh is from India originally.
382. 24:30And Dinesh responded, he said, what has Britain ever done for India?
383. 24:35Well besides hygiene, medicine, literacy, infrastructure, fresh water, civil government, stability, prosperity,
384. 24:45I guess nothing.
385. 24:48Yeah, meaning that Christian, you know, Britain, Christendom, which is what it would have been
386. 24:55called, you know, 200 years ago, had done quite a bit for India, not the least of which
387. 25:02were some principles of hygiene.
388. 25:05But the biblical worldview, where it's implemented and lived, always results in the betterment
389. 25:12of the human condition, doesn't it?
390. 25:14Yeah, it does.
391. 25:16the British also spread the calendar around the world and that's why all the British settlements
392. 25:24would use the calendar of ADBC and it finally got adopted. So the whole world uses the calendar that
393. 25:31goes back to the date of Jesus' birth, right? That was the when it was first instituted there.
394. 25:39Let me ask you this.
395. 25:43BCE, common era and before the common era.
396. 25:50It's rare.
397. 25:51It is rare.
398. 25:52I just bought a two-volume history book, a secular history work about a year ago and much
399. 25:58to my pleasant surprise it used BC and AD.
400. 26:04This BCE and CE.
401. 26:07When did that come into popular usage?
402. 26:11Yeah, so that was what they called higher criticism and it was the different German archaeologists
403. 26:21in the late 1800s and then it was sort of wanting to acknowledge Christ because BC means
404. 26:31before Christ and AD stands for Anodomani in the year of our Lord's reign.
405. 26:38So you had dating based on kings and their reigns.
406. 26:44And so in the Bible it would say, you know, in the 14th year of Tiberius or in the 12th
407. 26:52year of King Hezekiah.
408. 26:54And so they were dating stuff all the way through the 4th century by Diocletian.
409. 27:04And it was Anno Diocletianni, and you had a monk who was translating this, and then the
410. 27:14Muslims invaded Europe, and they would destroy things anyway.
411. 27:22The monks were the ones who wrote and copied documents.
412. 27:28They had this one monk and he decided that he didn't like writing down Anno Diocletiani.
413. 27:39And so his name was Dionysus Exegis.
414. 27:44And here was 526 AD during the reign of Emperor Justinian.
415. 27:49And he decided in the real tiny in the margin, he would write Anno Domini, which means in
416. 27:57the year of our Lord's reign. And if the other monks decided to ride it in their margin of
417. 28:02their own, and then finally, since the monks were the only ones who were literate, or several
418. 28:06centuries, that became the standard. And then when you had the age of scholasticism and then
419. 28:16the Renaissance, then it just sort of became
420. 28:22the new standard way of putting dates.
421. 28:27But it's interesting Clarence Mannion,
422. 28:29who was the Dean of Notre Dame Law School.
423. 28:32He said, BC before Christ,
424. 28:3480, I don't know when he in the year of our Lord,
425. 28:36Mark, each one of the only reliable milestones
426. 28:41along the path of world history,
427. 28:43the end of the first time chain at the beginning of the second. And then he says, the first Christmas
428. 28:49thus stands as the great divide for the timing and recording of all people's things and events
429. 28:57that have lived or taken place upon this earth. It is the one place on the long, long trail of time
430. 29:02where the magnetic needle of history stands vertical and points up.
431. 29:07I am.
432. 29:08That's interesting.
433. 29:09Everything, boy, that is a great quote.
434. 29:12That is a great quote.
435. 29:15Let me ask you this.
436. 29:16When the pilgrims came and Bradford and Winslow and the pilgrims came, they absolutely brought
437. 29:29Christianity with them, didn't they?
438. 29:32I mean, weren't they overtly explicitly biblical Christians?
439. 29:37Right, so the situation was Reformation starts 1517,
440. 29:42with Martin Luther, and then Martin Luther translates
441. 29:46the Bible into German, and that helps these German
442. 29:49princes, Frederickus, Axia, and others to break from Rome,
443. 29:53and they did it for a spiritual reason,
444. 29:57but Henry VIII of England did it for a wife reason.
445. 30:01He wanted the divorce's wife and the pope wouldn't recognize the divorce.
446. 30:05So he decides to make himself his own pope.
447. 30:07He starts the Church of England, puts himself on his head, goes on to have six wives.
448. 30:12Their fates were divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.
449. 30:15So Henry was not a really nice guy to be married to.
450. 30:18His advisors told him that they're serious about breaking from Rome.
451. 30:21You need to do what the Germans did, get yourself an English Bible.
452. 30:25They got a German Bible, help them to break the Union English Bible.
453. 30:27It just so happens that Henry had William Tyndall burnt up the stake a few years earlier for
454. 30:33doing what, for translating the Bible in English.
455. 30:36But now Henry wants an English Bible.
456. 30:37So they take Tyndall's work and about 90% of it, of all English Bibles have some of William
457. 30:43Tyndall's translation.
458. 30:45And they polished it up, called the Great Bible.
459. 30:47And Henry the eighth likes it and orders a copy put in every church in England, dust his
460. 30:51hands and goes, that's it.
461. 30:52We broke him from Rome.
462. 30:53We got our own English Bible.
463. 30:55We're set.
464. 30:56He didn't realize that people would actually read it.
465. 30:59And some decided that they wanted to purify
466. 31:03the Church of England and they were nicknamed Puritans.
467. 31:06Another group said it's beyond hope of purifying,
468. 31:08we're gonna separate ourselves.
469. 31:09And they call themselves Separatists or Baptists.
470. 31:12And one, the founder of the Baptist Church in England,
471. 31:16three guys, Tom is Hell-wise, John Merton and John Smith,
472. 31:22not the Pocahontas, John Smith, right, another one.
473. 31:25And they were arrested and they were put in the new gate prison
474. 31:31where they would be starved to death
475. 31:34and they had the star chamber.
476. 31:39So that's a room with stars on the ceiling.
477. 31:41And if you're caught being a dissenter,
478. 31:45you were drug in there and they'd twist your arm
479. 31:47and cut off your ear and brand you on the face as a heretic.
480. 31:51And then they had the book of common prayer.
481. 31:53Now, they're really good prayers,
482. 31:55but they made the decision that you could only pray
483. 31:59out of the Book of Common Prayer.
484. 32:01And so if you were caught with a small group of people
485. 32:04making up your own prayers, the FBI would kick in the door
486. 32:08and arrest you and drag you to the Star Chamber
487. 32:10and they brand you on the faces of the heretic.
488. 32:12Oh, my word Bill, hold that.
489. 32:13I thought we've got to take a brief break.
490. 32:14It's Thanksgiving Eve, everyone.
491. 32:16You're listening to the American Family Radio Network,
492. 32:19Alex MacFarlane, William J. Bill Federer.
493. 32:23Talk about our history.
494. 32:24Grateful for our present.
495. 32:26Stay tuned, we're back after this.
496. 32:31We're gonna dig a little deeper into the verse
497. 32:33we started with Matthew 624 and a few others.
498. 32:36We cannot serve God and money.
499. 32:39That generosity is a key piece of this as well.
500. 32:43I think about what Ron blew the author says often.
501. 32:46That is that giving actually loosens the grip
502. 32:50that money can have over our lives.
503. 32:53Faith and Finance with Rob West, weekdays at 9 a.m. Central, or on the AFR app.
504. 32:59Hamilton Quarter Podcast and One-Bitted Common Terrets are available at AFR.net.
505. 33:10Back to the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio.
506. 33:15Welcome back to the program, folks.
507. 33:17We have a lot to be grateful for, and I want to say as one of the broadcasters on the American
508. 33:22Family Radio Network, dear listeners, we are thankful for you.
509. 33:27We pray that God blesses you in so many ways.
510. 33:30Everywhere I travel, people come up to me and they express what AFR means to them and
511. 33:37we give God the glory.
512. 33:39I want to say how much I appreciate that it's been an amazing year in my own travels and
513. 33:44ministries.
514. 33:45I had a major citywide crusade there outside of Lubbock, Texas in Plainview.
515. 33:51And if you go to my website, which is alexmcfarlane.com, a lot of articles that I've written for townhall.com,
516. 34:02the Daily Caller, all of my articles are there.
517. 34:05My schedule for 2025.
518. 34:07We have two multi-church citywide crusades, one in Berry, Alabama, one in Carthage, Mississippi.
519. 34:14We'll have seven Christian worldview youth camps next summer.
520. 34:19of 25. We'll have more than 1200 teenagers in our seven youth camps. And then twice I'll
521. 34:26be at the Cove, the Billy Graham Training Center in Western North Carolina. I'll be there teaching
522. 34:31the book of Job. And then also there with J. Warner Wallace doing a week of apologetics,
523. 34:38which if you so choose, you can get college credit for. But the website for the Cove is
524. 34:44just thecove.org, T-H-E-C-O-V-E, thecove.org.
525. 34:50And finally, in June of next year, the activate Biblical World View Summit that the American
526. 34:58Family Association is putting on.
527. 35:00I'll be one of the speakers at that, along with great people like Frank Turic and Abe
528. 35:05Hamilton III and many others.
529. 35:08So hey, I would love to see you next year when I'm on the road, you know, coming soon to
530. 35:13to a city near you.
531. 35:15But keep us in prayer, and we give God the glory.
532. 35:18People are getting saved.
533. 35:19Young people are giving their lives to Christ.
534. 35:23And my guest Bill Federer, I know Bill would concur.
535. 35:29As you travel and speak, Bill,
536. 35:31don't you find that people of all ages,
537. 35:34but especially young people, they respond to truth,
538. 35:38so enthusiastically.
539. 35:40You know, I have people ask me a lot of times as I teach biblical worldview, apologetics,
540. 35:47people say, do young people care about truth and biblical, you know, scriptural truth?
541. 35:54And I say, listen, in our experience, middle schoolers, high schoolers, college kids, they
542. 36:01embrace what we teach, like a thirsty person would receive cool water on a hot summer day.
543. 36:08Bill, don't you think there's a real hunger and thirst for truth and people respond very
544. 36:15enthusiastically when they're taught truth? Don't you see that too?
545. 36:20Yes, yes, and also courage. I think they want to be challenged. I think the era of watering
546. 36:27down the gospel to try to get everybody in and then relaxing. You have to keep it watered
547. 36:33down to keep them in. And then it ends up becoming a weak church. I think that younger
548. 36:42generation wants to be challenged. Yeah. And courage inspires courage. And when you
549. 36:51right, you see sports and there's a courageous athlete, right? But same thing with the gospel.
550. 36:57if you have people that are willing to stand up for truth and you know recently there was been this
551. 37:06gender confusion push that was just invented just a couple years ago by leftists and because
552. 37:14there are psyops right there are ability to control media and entertainment to push
553. 37:20that you can be any type of sex you want.
554. 37:23And it makes no sense that you can have guys
555. 37:28that are foot taller than girls competing in the same race
556. 37:32and the same sports and knocking out their teeth
557. 37:36and injuring them.
558. 37:37And people are like, this is crazy.
559. 37:42And one doctor explained to me that every cell in your body
560. 37:44has either an XX or if you're a woman or an XY
561. 37:47of your man and that you get new cells all the time.
562. 37:51And so even if you think that you've changed,
563. 37:55your body keeps reproducing cells
564. 37:57with the original XX or XY.
565. 38:00So you have to continually take hormone suppressants
566. 38:04to suppress the expression of the gene and all this.
567. 38:09But your body's like crying out continually.
568. 38:12I wanna go back to normal.
569. 38:13And people are saying, you know,
570. 38:15enough of this craziness, stop experimenting on kids
571. 38:20and they're minors.
572. 38:22You can't drive a car until you're 16.
573. 38:28You can't, you know, vote.
574. 38:29You can't drink alcohol.
575. 38:31And yet you're wanting to say that these kids
576. 38:33can do life altering surgeries.
577. 38:35And anyway, I think the younger generation
578. 38:38is seeing through a lot of this nonsense.
579. 38:40Yeah.
580. 38:41And they're saying, we want truth.
581. 38:42We want people that can speak the truth,
582. 38:44stand up for the truth,
583. 38:45and we don't want this message that,
584. 38:48oh, God loves you no matter what,
585. 38:50he does love you, and he calls you to repent,
586. 38:52and he's made a way that you as a sinner
587. 38:56can come to him and not be judged,
588. 38:57is called his son, that Jesus took the judge in your place,
589. 39:01so you don't get judged.
590. 39:02But he didn't say there's no sin,
591. 39:04he just said that Jesus paid for your sin.
592. 39:07And so, we'll think that, again, to your knowledge,
593. 39:11what you were saying is that people want truth
594. 39:14and you want some of enough courage to speak it.
595. 39:17You know, before the break you were talking about
596. 39:19the Bible being put into English and it excites me.
597. 39:23And by the way, one of the things that we should
598. 39:26thank God for as we sit around our Thanksgiving table
599. 39:30and bow our heads and we give gratitude and glory to God,
600. 39:34let's be thankful for the Bible that we have the word
601. 39:37of God in English which we can read
602. 39:40Because wherever the Bible goes, great works of God follow and great awakenings, movements
603. 39:49of the Holy Spirit, Bill, you were talking about how Henry VIII, I do think it's poignant
604. 39:56and ironic that, because I love William Tyndale.
605. 39:59I'm a huge fan of William Tyndale.
606. 40:02And yet Tyndale was burned at the stake for putting the New Testament into English and yet
607. 40:10Henry VIII for expedient reasons, wanted an English Bible and then used much of Tyndale's
608. 40:17work.
609. 40:18It's kind of ironic there.
610. 40:20But finished that thought about how it really did change the path of world history when the
611. 40:28Bible was fully put into English and, well, the King James Bible, which was a best-seller
612. 40:34for four centuries plus.
613. 40:37But talk about that if you would.
614. 40:39Yeah, Wendell went William Tyndall's last words before he died was Lord open the King of England's eyes
615. 40:45And so that's after that that the king said hey, I want an English Bible to separate from Roman
616. 40:50And then in 1664 the English passed the conventional act comes from the word covenant where two or three are gathered in my name
617. 40:57I'm in the midst and these were considered illegal house church meetings and they would bust in and arrest you
618. 41:03if you weren't licensed to have a church meeting.
619. 41:08And they later changed the name of it to the Riot Act.
620. 41:12And so the police would bust in,
621. 41:13pull out a piece of paper and read the Riot Act
622. 41:16because they thought you could be organizing a Riot.
623. 41:18And it says immediately disperse,
624. 41:20or we're gonna put you into that star chamber
625. 41:22and they'll cut off your ear
626. 41:25and it went into our vernacular read them the Riot Act.
627. 41:28It's so severe.
628. 41:30Somebody that was caught during this was John Bunyan.
629. 41:33and he was drug away for having a Bible study,
630. 41:35and he said better to be persecuted than the persecute tour,
631. 41:39and he spent 12 years jail,
632. 41:41and that's when he wrote Pilgrim's Progress.
633. 41:43And then there's Jenny Gettis.
634. 41:45So the very first time that the English book
635. 41:50of Common Prayer was used in Scotland,
636. 41:53the Scottish people didn't want that.
637. 41:56And so at St. Giles Cathedral,
638. 41:58Jenny Gettis, a market woman, throws her three-legged stool and it waxed into the minister as he's
639. 42:08reading from the Book of Common Prayer and knocks it out of his hand. And then everybody starts throwing
640. 42:13stuff and then it turns into a riot and then the king sends up his army to squelch it. It's called
641. 42:18the Bishop's War and then they demand that every church use the Book of Common Prayer. Well, the
642. 42:23church members are like, hey, let's just meet in a field. Well, guess what? The king sends his army
643. 42:27into the fields and chases them down and arrests them and kills them. It's called the killing time.
644. 42:33Could you imagine the government doing this? And even you can, this was what the Scottish Parliament
645. 42:41wrote. It says that there are still those that in their houses and fields,
646. 42:48conventions, their nurseries of rendezvous, of rebellion, and his magices that also
647. 42:55person who shall hereafter preach at such house or field
648. 42:58conventions, or who shall be present as hearers shall be punished by death and confiscation of their
649. 43:06goods. All you got to do is be a hearer of somebody preaching in a field." And anyway, so it was this
650. 43:12attitude that the king was arresting his Baptist leaders and putting them in jail. They didn't give
651. 43:18meaning they're right with, and of course they didn't feed you in an English prison. And so John
652. 43:22Merton was in the Newgate prison and a friend brought him some food and a bottle of milk,
653. 43:27but instead of a cork, it had a wad of paper. And when the guard wasn't around, he unfolds the paper,
654. 43:33takes a splinter, dips it in the milk and writes out his pamphlets. The milk dries, it's clear,
655. 43:38and then he folds it up and puts it in the empty bottle. And the guard takes it and his friend takes
656. 43:42it home and unfolds it and holds it above a candle. And the heat of the candle turned the milk brown,
657. 43:47and they could see what he wrote and they typeset it and they're printing these pamphlets. And they're
658. 43:50and they're like, how's he getting it out of the jail?
659. 43:52And he would say things like,
660. 43:53no man, how do we persecute it for his religion?
661. 43:55And the practices of Christ and his disciples,
662. 43:57so no such thing as persecuting people.
663. 44:00Anyway, so you have these people being persecuted,
664. 44:06even William Penn spent eight months in the Tower of London.
665. 44:11And he said, force makes hypocrites to his persuasion
666. 44:13only that makes converts.
667. 44:15And so the pilgrims, a group of them sell their property
668. 44:18and decide they're gonna go to the Netherlands.
669. 44:21Seven provinces that are in an 80-year war
670. 44:24of independence from Spain.
671. 44:26And right before the ship takes off,
672. 44:28the captain robs them and turns them over
673. 44:30to the police, they're put in jail as heretics.
674. 44:33Another group of these pilgrim separatists,
675. 44:36they were like Baptists,
676. 44:37they arranged for a Dutch ship to come along the coast
677. 44:41and they would be in rowboats and they would row out.
678. 44:44Well, the pilgrim show up a day early
679. 44:47and the waves are rough and the women take it.
680. 44:50We just wait on shore with our kids
681. 44:52and the men say okay.
682. 44:54And then finally the Dutch ship shows up,
683. 44:56the men row out there and they're stowing everything.
684. 44:58But before they can come back for the women and children,
685. 45:01somebody snitched, the British came over the hill
686. 45:04and arrested the women and children.
687. 45:05And the Dutch cat, like I don't have an army with me,
688. 45:08and he pulls anchor and sails away with the men.
689. 45:11And you can just picture these wives
690. 45:13looking at that little ship getting smaller
691. 45:15smaller and disappearing over the horizon. And for two years, they pass those women and
692. 45:19children from one court in England to another, one jail to another. Finally, a judge said,
693. 45:24you didn't do anything wrong. Go home. They go, duh, we sold our homes. And just to get them out
694. 45:28of their hair, they put them out of ships, sent them to Holland, and they somehow find their husbands.
695. 45:32Twelve years in Holland, Spain threatened to attack the pilgrims to side to flee again.
696. 45:37This time, they thought of going to Guyana in South America, but they heard of the Spanish
697. 45:42having wiped out the French Protestant settlement at Jacksonville, Florida called Fort Caroline.
698. 45:49They butchered hundreds of the men. The Pilgrims said, we don't want to go near the Spanish main,
699. 45:56so they decided to go to Jamestown, which started 14 years earlier. The Pilgrims get blown off course,
700. 46:05they landed in Massachusetts, tri-sailing south almost sink in a storm. The captain goes back to
701. 46:10to Plymouth Rock says off the boat, they said, we have a question, who's going to be in charge?
702. 46:14There's 102 of us in our boat, nobody's been picked by the king. We were going to go to
703. 46:18Virginia and submit to the king's government. They do something unique that we remember
704. 46:22them for called the Mayflower Compact. And it's we and the president of God covenant ourselves
705. 46:28together into a civil body politic. They take their covenant church form of government and
706. 46:32they turn it into their civil government. And they said, having undertaken for the glory
707. 46:36God and the advancement of the Christian faith. And so the pilgrims land, half of them died the first
708. 46:41winner and in the next spring out of the woods comes an Indian speaking to them in broken English and
709. 46:48tells them about another Indian named Squanto who shows up. He speaks to them in perfect English and
710. 46:53this is where it gets fascinating. So the pilgrims were religious but guess what others weren't.
711. 47:00And so you had Spanish winning gold, but some of the previous English ships lured Indians
712. 47:08on their boat, took them to Spain and sold them into slavery to make a quick buck.
713. 47:13And Squanto was one of those taken captive.
714. 47:16He's purchased by some monks who introduced him to Christianity and let him go free and
715. 47:21he hitchhikes his way across Europe, makes his way to England, learns the language after
716. 47:26like a dozen years, he finds a fishing company that drops him off in Newfoundland and then he goes back
717. 47:32to where his family was from and finds they're all dead from an illness. A French ship had shipwrecked
718. 47:39right at Cape Cod three years earlier and the sailors got ashore but the Indians never left
719. 47:44dogging them until they killed them all but evidently one had an illness and white dog.
720. 47:49Now forgive me though the first Thanksgiving as we think of it would have been what about 1621?
721. 47:56Right. Yeah. We are almost out of time. Do you have a book that one of your books, and we've
722. 48:03only got a few seconds, but one of your books that would kind of recap this. It's called
723. 48:08the Treacherous World of the 16th century and how the pilgrims escaped it. So it goes through
724. 48:14the whole politics of the world, the Ottoman Empire, the Persian shaw, the king of Spain,
725. 48:20France, Austria, and... Almost out of time, brother. I want to say thank you, Bill Federer of the
726. 48:25American Minute. Happy Thanksgiving and folks, Alex McFarland here saying,
727. 48:29may God bless you and may God give us grateful hearts and fruitful lives. Thanks
728. 48:35for listening. Stay tuned. The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may
729. 48:42not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American
730. 48:47Family Radio.