Church History with Robert J. Morgan

[00:00:00] thanks for being here today my name is kevin conover and i’m your host on educate for life radio we’re down here in southern california on k praise 12 10

[00:00:07] a.m and uh if you’ve been following along this show is all about defending a christian world view and really putting

[00:00:13] forth um the truth of the bible right it is it is our our light it’s our lamp it’s what helps us

[00:00:21] to um live day by day uh without stumbling around in the dark and so

[00:00:27] there’s all kinds of um you know questions that people have about how do we know the bible is true who put it together where did it come from how do

[00:00:34] we know it hasn’t been changed over time and these are important questions and as christians if we’re going to be

[00:00:39] effective if we’re going to be able to be a blessing to the people around us and encouragement to them and and kind

[00:00:44] of steer them towards towards god and towards jesus christ then um the more informed we are about

[00:00:50] these issues and the better we understand the bible and the better we’re able to communicate um these

[00:00:55] answers uh the more we’re gonna be a blessing to them so um tonight i have a wonderful program

[00:01:00] planned uh or this evening sorry i’m sorry uh this evening we have a great uh program planned and um i want to just

[00:01:08] start off by telling you a little bit about my guest his name is robert j morgan he’s the teaching pastor of the

[00:01:13] donaldson fellowship in nashville tennessee he’s served there for over 40 years he’s also a best-selling selling

[00:01:20] gold illuminations and gold medallion winning writer with more than 35 books in print and approximately 5 million

[00:01:26] copies in circulation he’s been on numerous television and radio shows and he speaks all over the place i actually

[00:01:32] got a chance to actually hear him recently at my own church down here in southern california shadow mountain

[00:01:38] he filled in for pastor jeremiah and i really was blessed uh dr morgan by your

[00:01:43] by your uh message uh in in a variety of ways but um thank you so much for being here

[00:01:50] you’re welcome kevin i’m very happy to be with you fantastic i’m uh

[00:01:55] um recovering from uh from some of this covered stuff but i feel

[00:02:01] good tonight so it’s a joy to be with you and see your smile and to hear your voice oh fantastic well i’m really

[00:02:08] excited about what we’re going to be talking about because you really um are an expert in church history and

[00:02:14] and you know for a lot of people as soon as they hear church history they’re like oh i’m going to tune out on this because

[00:02:20] people think it’s dry and boring but um from your own perspective why is

[00:02:25] church history such an important topic and why did you choose to you know make so much of your

[00:02:33] spend so much of your time studying church history well it’s fascinating kevin the whole story of humanity is

[00:02:40] fascinating i fell in love in history when i was a freshman in college and had a professor to talk western

[00:02:47] civilization and he taught it as though it were actually happening right in front of us

[00:02:52] and i just came to love history as a result of that and then i discovered that the history

[00:02:58] of what god is doing in this world both in biblical times and in

[00:03:04] post-biblical times is the most exciting part of history

[00:03:09] and then the whole story of how the gospel has gone from bethlehem to nazareth to jerusalem

[00:03:18] and then to rome by the end of the book of acts and now to the ends of the earth is a story of heroes and martyrs and

[00:03:26] bizarre people and blessed people and strange events and miracles and stories

[00:03:33] that really provide the foundation for where we are today and if we don’t know this story

[00:03:40] then we are just lost we’re like people without a foundation we are like people with amnesia and a lot of christians in

[00:03:48] the pews today are like people walking around with amnesia and no knowledge at all of the

[00:03:56] history and the heritage uh that has brought us to where we are and without a

[00:04:01] understanding of that it’s very hard to find our way into the future so i do like to study and think about these

[00:04:07] things and share uh these things when it’s appropriate

[00:04:12] yeah i i i feel like it’s uh so important what you’re saying because

[00:04:18] you know i’m working with 12th grade students they’re about to step off into uh college and so forth and

[00:04:25] um so many people today in our country when we’re specifically dealing with america so many people don’t know

[00:04:31] the history of the country and so it’s so easy to

[00:04:36] think oh this has never happened before or we’ve never been here before or there’s no way to tell what to do in

[00:04:41] this situation whereas if we were to study history like you’re saying there’s clear lessons to be learned that

[00:04:49] uh shed a lot of light on you know what’s happening today for those of you listening

[00:04:55] robertjmorgan.com if you want to learn more about him he he is the author of the red sea rules

[00:05:01] which is a a book that’s over 300 000 copies in print and it’s 10 principles for handling

[00:05:07] difficulty and then recently um robert you published the jordan river

[00:05:13] rules a follow-up to that book ten god-given strategies for moving forward uh which people can get on your website

[00:05:20] right if they’re interested yes they can get it wherever books are sold or they can go to my website at

[00:05:25] robertjmorgan.com and uh all of our resources are there and i have a

[00:05:31] weekly podcast and a weekly blog and all kinds of things that that we enjoy

[00:05:36] generating from here so this evening what we’re going to be talking about is your book 100 bible

[00:05:42] verses that made america yeah that made america biblical america i should have grabbed the copy of it

[00:05:49] there i could have held up but yes we’ll put it up there in the in the uh editing

[00:05:54] phase there okay but but um you know with what’s going on in our country right now a lot of people

[00:06:00] are either trying to erase history they’re trying to revise history or their or

[00:06:06] they’re saying basically you know with the the crt movement which has been all over the place

[00:06:11] is that um america has a foundation that’s poisonous and

[00:06:17] therefore the result is that our country is poisoned this has been the controversy raging

[00:06:24] and you wrote this book 100 um verses that have impacted america’s

[00:06:30] history tell us a little bit about that and what what caused you to decide i’m going to write a book like this

[00:06:36] yeah i don’t have any any patience at all with the revisionist historians

[00:06:42] um you know the uh the 1619 movement uh which is trying to say

[00:06:50] that uh slavery came into the american system at jamestown and so all of america is systemically

[00:06:58] racist in all of our institutions ignores the fact they ignore the fact

[00:07:04] that the jamestown settlement was secular it was not a godly

[00:07:10] enterprise it was secularist coming in to exploit the new world

[00:07:17] and slavery did come in because of the secularist and the jamestown but the

[00:07:23] very next year 1620 the puritan migration began

[00:07:29] and these puritans the cream of the crop of england many of them most of them graduates from

[00:07:36] cambridge university brilliant brilliant scholars and people were driven out of

[00:07:42] england because of their uh they were not anglicans they were

[00:07:47] dissidents they were um dissenters from the aglinking church so they were driven

[00:07:53] out of england they ended up coming on the mayflower to um to new england to uh

[00:08:00] to boston to plymouth to um uh to plymouth rock

[00:08:06] and uh and over the next 20 years there was a a flood of these puritans who came and

[00:08:15] they were staunchly opposed to slavery they were for freedom they were for

[00:08:22] dignity they were and and they established beginning in 1620

[00:08:28] based upon judeo-christian principles they established a beachhead for the abolition of slavery

[00:08:37] and it took over a hundred years it took 200 years to bring that to pass

[00:08:42] but it was the puritan migration and the judeo-christian beliefs that

[00:08:48] came with those puritans the year after jamestown that established the moral

[00:08:53] foundation of our country on biblical grounds that ended up um

[00:08:59] sending a torpedo into slavery so these people that are revising our history and

[00:09:06] trying to uh twist everything and take out the judeo-christian power of what

[00:09:13] god did in american history i’m just i’m sorry but i don’t have much time for those

[00:09:18] people uh uh they’re they are uh revising

[00:09:24] uh history uh in a fictional way yeah and it very much seems like they’re

[00:09:29] really um kind of cherry-picking things that fit their narrative so uh and ignoring overwhelming amounts of history

[00:09:37] that clearly show that there were many people who really loved god who loved what was right who wanted to do what was

[00:09:43] right and who were fighting against things like slavery and oppression and and um you know it’s it’s almost like

[00:09:51] they’re shooting themselves in their own foot uh when you you’ve you’ve got the solution here through the bible and

[00:09:56] christ and yet um they’re they’re shouting down the these um these truths

[00:10:02] and these this histo the history that gives evidence of this um was this the reason that you

[00:10:08] is this part of why you wrote this book originally or was this just something that you were passionate about and you

[00:10:13] you wanted to write about it was not in response to critical race theory or to a current trend

[00:10:20] uh it was because the stories

[00:10:26] of the bible’s influence on american history are interesting they’re fascinating

[00:10:33] they’re wonderful um when you think of the fact that george washington

[00:10:39] uh always understood that his supernatural protection was

[00:10:45] divine providence even going back to the french and indian war when you realize that the only way that

[00:10:52] the american patriots escaped massacre was because of almost a miracle

[00:11:00] that took place when they crossed the east river um and and escaped

[00:11:06] the battle of long island uh when you think that george washington later when he was inaugurated

[00:11:13] the first thing he did after he took his bible his hand off the bible was to bend

[00:11:19] over and kiss the bible these people

[00:11:24] reverenced and respected the bible and the founding fathers quoted more from scripture than they ever did from the

[00:11:31] french enlightenment thinkers um or the the french rationalists

[00:11:37] now it doesn’t mean that all of the founding fathers were believers but even thomas paine who was the arch

[00:11:44] anti-christian founder of the secular church as it was

[00:11:50] in america knew and reverenced and respected the bible he didn’t agree with it but he he understood it he knew it he

[00:11:58] had a reverence for it and for its ethical teachings so

[00:12:03] we need to remember these things the out uh kevin i was uh in grade

[00:12:09] school and i remember when the supreme court of the united states

[00:12:14] said that we could no longer read the bible or pray in the public schools i was a grade

[00:12:20] school child and we prayed and read the bible every day in the public schools and they said what an awful thing that

[00:12:27] is what a tragedy but what an evil thing it is that american school children are being

[00:12:34] exposed to the greatest book in all of humanity and they deliberately

[00:12:39] uh divorced the american educat educational system from everything

[00:12:45] related to the judeo-christian um basis of morality uh and now you know i’m old enough

[00:12:53] to remember when that happened and i’m young enough to see what has come about as the result of it

[00:13:00] so i’m all for for being in a pluralistic society and and

[00:13:05] recognizing that there’s always room for a variety of opinions but that variety

[00:13:12] of opinions includes the judeo-christian belief system which to me is the

[00:13:19] foundation of america’s moral greatness amen you know i

[00:13:24] and i couldn’t agree more when i talk to my students about this i say you know every country has has an

[00:13:30] underlying philosophical system and you have to ask what are the results of that philosophical system

[00:13:36] we can see that in india they have hinduism we can see that in china currently they have atheistic communism

[00:13:43] we can see that in saudi arabia they have you know sharia law and so we just have

[00:13:48] to ask ourselves what what was christianity’s underlying philosophical system that led us to the incredible

[00:13:54] prosperity we have the most powerful economic engine in the world um and yet

[00:14:00] and that’s that’s not the defining litmus test of what what is great but it’s one thing among

[00:14:05] many that we have to reflect on and go how did we get where we are and if we don’t if we don’t know what that is

[00:14:11] we’re gonna we’re gonna lose it and uh so it’s just stunning to me um you know where things have gone but thank god it

[00:14:18] seems like there’s some people waking up and and uh taking note so um so you know in this 100 this list of

[00:14:25] 100 verses that have impacted um scripture you know in your process of

[00:14:31] writing that um what are some of the ones that really stood out to you if somebody were to say you know what are

[00:14:37] some of the the scriptures and the events that you feel were

[00:14:42] it’s probably hard to pick the most significant but you know maybe in the top five of the things that you were like whoa this is just stunning here uh

[00:14:49] do you have any that jump out at you the founding fathers very frequently quoted micah chapter six verse eight

[00:14:56] uh he has shown you old man what is good and what does the lord require of you but to walk justly to love um

[00:15:04] humbly and to walk with your god and that was probably quoted as much as any verse

[00:15:13] among the founding fathers they believe that society should be based upon justice

[00:15:19] and humility and upon the ability of people to walk with god and to act out their their

[00:15:25] christian faith um george washington going back to him uh when he resigned

[00:15:32] from his position as military general and the war was won and there were

[00:15:38] states now he wrote to those leaders of the states and he said

[00:15:43] i can only pray that people will follow the dictates of the great author of our

[00:15:50] religion jesus christ with which without which no one can hope to be a happy

[00:15:55] people i mean those are washington’s own words um the founding fathers also love the

[00:16:02] image in the old testament of every person sitting under his own vine and fig tree

[00:16:09] they believed in the the reverence of private property the right of people to to have their own home their own

[00:16:16] private property without uh being dominated by the state

[00:16:21] and so these are some of the the basic principles

[00:16:26] that jefferson was talking about when he says that god has given us all

[00:16:32] uh these inalienable rights he was referring

[00:16:39] to things that he had found in the scripture and even though jefferson is thought to be a great advocate uh for

[00:16:46] thomas paine and for the abolition of christianity that really isn’t true either

[00:16:52] you know kevin he you’ve read about his the jefferson new testament or the gospels where he

[00:16:59] they say that he cut out uh the portions of scripture that had to do with the supernatural and he just

[00:17:05] left the ethical teachings of christ the fact is that jefferson

[00:17:10] so he did that on two occasions and he so valued the ethical teachings

[00:17:16] of christ that he cut them out of the bible and pasted them into a book so he could study it

[00:17:23] and it wasn’t necessarily that he was rejecting the supernatural it was that he reverenced the ethical

[00:17:30] teachings of jesus and we can see that in his writings and

[00:17:35] i’m not at all sure that he was as ardent and anti-christian as the secular

[00:17:42] historians are making him out to be and then of course as we go into the um

[00:17:47] the first century of the united states of america it was christians

[00:17:54] and people who were advocating for christianity like wilbur forson in england who led

[00:18:02] the fight for the abolition of slavery in the united states

[00:18:07] lincoln himself went from atheism to christianity over the course of his

[00:18:14] lifetime by studying apologetics and um uh and it was his belief in the

[00:18:22] the uh justice of scripture that gave him the strength to follow through with the

[00:18:28] emancipation proclamation frederick douglass you know based his uh

[00:18:33] uh his fight against slavery not only on his own experiences but on what the

[00:18:39] scripture said about the equality of humanity so and all of these ways the bible has

[00:18:44] just been at the core of the good movements that have helped america be a great nation

[00:18:51] yeah and you know it’s it’s uh so important i islam you

[00:18:56] know teaches specifically that slavery is okay uh i mean that’s taught in

[00:19:02] sharia law and so you know sometimes i’m like well the bible is very clearly against slavery um

[00:19:09] and and so if i just feel that people don’t know this you know the kids in the public

[00:19:14] schools like you said they’re not able to learn these things yeah and and so they’re left

[00:19:19] kind of going well we don’t know i don’t know what that i had a student just the other day say well you know how do we

[00:19:25] know islam isn’t right well well if you took the time to study it you would know it’s definitely not

[00:19:30] right it doesn’t it doesn’t take too far of digging before you figure out hey there’s some real problems here and so

[00:19:36] uh i just think people need to spend more time um learning this stuff and uh

[00:19:42] if you’re listening today my guest is robert morgan robertjmorgan.com please check out his stuff it’s it’s

[00:19:48] incredibly valuable it’ll be a huge blessing to you both from an intellectual standpoint but

[00:19:53] also from spiritually and emotionally connecting you to the lord and

[00:19:59] he’s just got numerous books that you can use to just grow your walk with god

[00:20:05] um so uh robert in your experience um you know what

[00:20:10] you know studying church history and stuff do you have a a period of time that is your favorite to study is it is

[00:20:16] it the church history you know during the the time of america or do you have a period in the past that you that you

[00:20:23] really enjoy studying well that’s a very good question kevin

[00:20:29] you know the 1800s was really the golden

[00:20:34] age of so much of what god was doing it was the launch of the modern

[00:20:40] missionary movement it was also the 17th and 1800s were the age of the great classic hymns and the

[00:20:47] developing of humanity and i love classic hymnody i love the new music too

[00:20:54] but um i’ve written a series of books on the hymns called then sings my soul book one book two and book three

[00:21:01] and nothing apart from the bible itself encourages me like the great hymns of the faith i

[00:21:07] was just this morning i walked outside and i was singing to myself rejoice the

[00:21:12] lord is king your king and lord adore rejoice give thanks and sing and triumph

[00:21:18] evermore which was a great hymn by charles wesley so these are all

[00:21:25] interesting things this was also the era um the 17th and 1800s of the uh the

[00:21:31] fight against slavery and the western hemisphere which we were just talking about it really goes back to the 1500s

[00:21:38] with anta antonio de montecinos uh i began my book 100 bible verses that made

[00:21:45] america with his story the conquistadors came and enslaved the people

[00:21:52] they brutalized the people but antonio di montecinas

[00:21:58] stood in his pulpit uh in the dominican republic and chastised

[00:22:04] and flagellated these landowners and these conquistadors for what they were doing and he became

[00:22:11] the first great champion for human rights in the americas and

[00:22:17] uh and our fight for civil rights in the americas really goes back to him and he was doing it he said that i am like the

[00:22:24] voice of john the baptist saying listen to the way of the lord and um

[00:22:30] and so this whole period somehow around the between the 17th and 1800s god did

[00:22:36] something that exploded the gospel in this world and that um

[00:22:42] it’s fascinating to study um when you study uh adenaran judson

[00:22:48] and and um and the missionaries the early missionaries that went from england um

[00:22:54] and from america their stories are thrilling yeah and

[00:23:00] and so i i think it’s interesting i think we need to know those stories you know kevin they used to have a lot of

[00:23:07] missionary story books when i was growing up we read missionary stories there were books that were

[00:23:13] published and when was the last time you walked through a bookstore and or or just

[00:23:19] you know you saw a book about uh what god was doing in the world through missions uh we need to get back to this yeah

[00:23:27] um yeah i’ve noticed history yeah it’s very good and i’ve noticed this in my own kids you

[00:23:32] know when i share with them the stories of um you know the great heroes of faith

[00:23:37] people who um did do incredible things uh you know we watched the the story of um william

[00:23:43] booth the founder of the salvation army and all that he went through and we see these these things that god did and for

[00:23:50] my kids it’s just incredible um the way their eyes light up and go whoa i had no idea and they see these amazing steps of

[00:23:58] faith that these people took under incredibly dire circumstances and uh you

[00:24:04] know it changes their perspective and we’re inundated with social media and pop culture and everything it’s

[00:24:10] everywhere and so as christian parents and families it’s so helpful to paint

[00:24:16] that contrast with these uh people who lived a life that’s so radically different

[00:24:22] than current american pop culture um and so yeah i i totally hear what you’re saying there that’s that’s phenomenal

[00:24:29] um you know when you were you were writing this book and studying and to

[00:24:34] prepare for it and so forth um was there anything that surprised you that you you were kind of caught off

[00:24:40] guard and kind of like whoa i had no idea that this this was happening has this been a learning experience for you

[00:24:47] as well or is this stuff that you generally already knew no i learned so much

[00:24:53] do you know that the first shots of the american revolution

[00:24:59] the shot heard round the world in lexington was fired at a pastor and his

[00:25:05] congregation i don’t know that i don’t know why we didn’t know that

[00:25:10] yeah jonas jonas clark was a pastor in lexington

[00:25:16] he preached liberty he told people that god wanted to give them spiritual liberty and that we

[00:25:23] needed to have liberty and freedom of religion when the boston uh the city of boston

[00:25:29] was occupied by the british then samuel adams

[00:25:35] uh and john hancock fled because they were the two with the price on their heads they fled

[00:25:42] to jonas’s clark his parsonage outside of boston and lexington and they were

[00:25:48] hiding there for safety and one night paul revere came riding by and said the british are

[00:25:54] coming for adams and hancock and um so adams in hancock looked over

[00:26:00] at jonas clark and said will your church stand up against the british

[00:26:06] and clark said i have trained them for this very hour and so uh so adams and

[00:26:12] and hancock went further into the interior to hide and jonas clark uh rang the church bill

[00:26:19] the people of the village and his uh his congregation gathered together with their muskets and when the british

[00:26:26] emerged out of the mist and started firing it was that

[00:26:31] christians and a pastor and his church members who are standing up for liberty

[00:26:37] and when it was over seven of his members lay under the windows of his church dead

[00:26:42] but that was the way the american revolution started that’s amazing

[00:26:48] yeah and and people all you know uh i love that quote by edmund edmund burke um all that’s

[00:26:54] necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing and um you know that’s what the bible does for

[00:27:00] us is it makes heroes out of out of normal people and um

[00:27:05] all throughout history i mean it’s happening now even now as we as we speak and we do it people are being inspired

[00:27:11] and motivated by the holy spirit and god’s word to to do things that you wouldn’t normally do if you were just

[00:27:16] looking out for yourself yeah and you know uh the greatest presidential speech in all of history in

[00:27:24] my opinion was the d-day message that franklin roosevelt gave

[00:27:32] yeah when the americans began invading europe to retake europe

[00:27:38] and he called the people together uh he was on the radio with the fireside

[00:27:44] chat all of america all of the world was listening and he said last night when i spoke to

[00:27:51] you i knew at that moment that american servicemen

[00:27:56] were climbing the cliffs and beginning the process of retaking europe

[00:28:01] now he said what we can do is pray and his entire speech

[00:28:06] is one of the most meaningful prayers i mean that’s all it was he said

[00:28:11] almighty father and he led in prayer for those men

[00:28:18] and for the dads and moms left behind and the husbands and wives and the

[00:28:23] children left behind and for the nation and he prayed earnestly

[00:28:28] it’s probably the greatest moment in the history of the world in which more people were kneeling in prayer at one

[00:28:35] time than at any other known moment and he finished and he said

[00:28:42] dear god thy will be done amen and you can listen to it but you can

[00:28:48] hardly do it without it bringing tears to your eyes to think of the president of the united states

[00:28:54] devoting the most pivotal moment in the history of that nation

[00:28:59] to calling people together around their radios on their knees to prayer

[00:29:04] i don’t know that there’s ever been a greater speech given by a president than that

[00:29:11] yeah that’s just uh you know it sends chills gives you chills um in situations

[00:29:17] like that where literally it seems like civilization is teetering on the edge of

[00:29:22] collapse you know and it feels like you know when when looking at american history it feels like there

[00:29:29] were many moments like that where literally it was somebody kind of standing in the gap you

[00:29:36] know and it reminds me of what the scriptures teach where um

[00:29:41] you know god says whom shall i send and i’ve thought about that a lot you know i’ve thought about you know well everything’s in god’s hands and

[00:29:47] everything’s in god’s control but then he says whom whom will i send and there

[00:29:52] have been times you know if you look back in the old testament there have been times where

[00:29:57] you know things fell apart and uh things didn’t go well and so it’s true that it’s all in god’s hands

[00:30:03] but for whatever reason he’s decided to use people who have stood up and said

[00:30:08] you know what send me and uh you know today’s the day i’m gonna make that that uh life-altering decision and take

[00:30:16] that big chance right that big risk that big step of faith uh is pretty incredible

[00:30:22] yeah and you know one of the um stories that surprised me the most kevin

[00:30:27] had to do with ronald reagan um he

[00:30:33] wrote a letter that was shown to me

[00:30:38] and i was able to get permission from the reagan library to put it

[00:30:43] in my book he wrote it from the white house on white house stationery by hand

[00:30:49] to his father-in-law loyal davis who is a neurosurgeon

[00:30:54] an atheist and who is dying of cancer and doc and ronald reagan said to him

[00:31:00] they’re loyal he said you you may not like reading what i’m about to say

[00:31:06] but he said there is power and prayer and he said

[00:31:11] there was a man who lived 2 000 years ago the prophets testified about him and

[00:31:18] what they said came to pass and he said this man can help you and

[00:31:25] the bible says for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not

[00:31:32] perish but have everlasting life and he quoted john 3 16 and evangelized just

[00:31:39] like billy graham would to his father-in-law now

[00:31:44] we don’t see that side of the presidents and i’m not sure that recent presidents

[00:31:49] would have written a letter like that but american history is filled with stories

[00:31:55] of men and women who truly believed and reverenced

[00:32:00] and were god-fearing in their approach to scripture that’s so inspiring you know when you

[00:32:07] read those sorts of stories and my guest today is robert j morgan and uh you can you can see his material at

[00:32:14] robert j morgan.com all kinds of uh very encouraging stuff stuff that’s going to inspire you and uh you know it’s really

[00:32:20] what’s really great about it is that you’ve interwoven all these stories and stories are what uh you know captivate

[00:32:26] our hearts and uh move us you know it’s one thing to hear a bunch of facts but it’s another thing to hear how that

[00:32:32] all is integrated into the daily life of a historical figure and to see the personal details

[00:32:38] of their lives you know that they were human just like us and they had to deal with a lot of the struggles we deal with and um

[00:32:45] are there any stories in your uh in in the book in particular that are somewhat obscure

[00:32:52] meaning you know there’s a lot of stuff out there about george washington or these really big figures um well-known

[00:32:59] presidents and and so forth um is there any stories that are um more obscure

[00:33:04] people that that um you know weren’t in the limelight but were more in the background and yet what they experienced

[00:33:11] and what they did was still extremely significant in its impact um you know over the long term is there is there

[00:33:17] anything um that comes to mind there yes there are there are a lot of people

[00:33:23] whose names you may not know that they ended up playing a big role in things

[00:33:30] and then there are people like um well

[00:33:35] graham bell you know who invented the telephone now he’s a a well-known person

[00:33:40] but there’s things about him that we don’t know he was an artist he was an oil painter oh wow

[00:33:48] and and he was very gifted he was he was famous he was

[00:33:54] prolific he would go to europe and because most people didn’t go to

[00:34:01] europe he would replicate the paintings and the great museums and bring them back to show people

[00:34:07] and his greatest desire was to paint the great paintings and the rotunda of the united states capital

[00:34:15] and because of politics they

[00:34:20] gave that to somebody else and he was so discouraged by that

[00:34:26] that he gave up painting and he took up a new hobby um

[00:34:32] i said it was graham bell i’m sorry it was uh morse samuel morse okay um he

[00:34:37] took up a new hobby which was uh electricity and uh and the sending of signals over

[00:34:44] electricity yeah and he was a believer he trusted the lord with that change

[00:34:50] and and so he created the telegraph system the forerunner to today’s great communication system and his first

[00:34:57] message was what has god wrought and and his father

[00:35:04] samuel morris’s father is known as the father of geography he was a pastor

[00:35:10] who uh was fascinated by the world and by missions and started

[00:35:16] putting together maps and geography books and he became the father of american

[00:35:21] geography and his son the artist samuel morse became the father of

[00:35:27] telecommunications and they both trace their inspiration to the bible and to

[00:35:33] their love for god and and to their commitment to scripture so and it’s so yeah there’s all of these

[00:35:40] stories here that is that’s so great i i i you know it’s it’s stuff like that too you know i

[00:35:47] it reminds me um you know sometimes i study science and and the bible a lot because

[00:35:53] because it’s a topic that’s common in apologetics and if you look back over history many of the fathers of the

[00:35:59] partic particular scientific fields they were dedicated christians they loved god and

[00:36:05] and it makes me think that you know when god begins to work in your life and

[00:36:10] he begins to refine you a lot of devices that a person might have they drop off and they stop wasting

[00:36:18] time and so what ends up happening is they start spending their time more wisely and they end up like you’re

[00:36:25] saying discovering things like the telegraph and so you have all these jewish and christian um

[00:36:31] of uh people who have ended up uh you know making amazing discoveries

[00:36:37] or making um uh being the founders of a particular scientific field simply because um

[00:36:43] they’re gonna use their time now instead of spending it on a vice they’re gonna actually use it

[00:36:48] um wisely into the glory of god ultimately as a testament to to god so it’s pretty pretty amazing it

[00:36:55] it you can trace it back again and again let me tell you the most significant thing i learned

[00:37:01] about american history as i researched this book the united states of america was created

[00:37:08] between two great revivals of biblical proportion

[00:37:14] so we talked about earlier how the puritan migration occurred in the 1600s between 1620 and

[00:37:20] 1640 thousands tens of thousands of puritans came but a hundred years later

[00:37:27] their zeal had died down and in the early 1700s

[00:37:33] there was a great revival known as the great awakening that swept over the colonies that united the colonies

[00:37:41] that gave them a sense of spiritual and emotional oneness

[00:37:47] and almost everybody i mean every historian even secular historians will say if it were not for the first great

[00:37:54] awakening the united states of america would not have come into being as we know it

[00:38:00] because it was that spiritual movement that paved the way for the political change

[00:38:06] well after the revolutionary war america fell back into lethargy

[00:38:11] spiritual lethargy we got to a point where french rationalism had taken over the universities and the ivy league

[00:38:18] schools americans were too busy now to go to church they were starting a new country

[00:38:23] many of them had moved west where there were no churches and only five percent of americans were going to church

[00:38:31] but then there was a second great awakening that occurred in the early 1700s it

[00:38:36] began with the college uh movements uh along the east coast uh

[00:38:42] it included then the the camp meetings from kentucky and the frontier but but that second great awakening

[00:38:49] laid the foundation for the morality for the new nation that lasted until my

[00:38:56] generation until the middle of the 20th century so america came into being

[00:39:02] between the first and second great awakenings and if it weren’t for these spiritual biblical revivals we would not

[00:39:09] have the nation that we have today and without another great awakening i don’t think the nation can continue to survive

[00:39:17] today as we know it yeah and and uh you know the the amazing

[00:39:23] thing to me is because sometimes you look around and you go wow it’s pretty dark i mean how do we get where we we are where um

[00:39:31] somebody can be fined and potentially um you know put in prison because they use the wrong gender pronoun or something

[00:39:38] like this you know a business owner in new york can be fined 250 000 just for using the wrong pronoun and we

[00:39:44] have just numerous examples of this sort of what we’re like what what in the world

[00:39:49] um and yet a student of history can look back over time and go there were very dark times

[00:39:57] and god moved despite that darkness yeah

[00:40:03] that’s that’s what’s so encouraging about christian history just when it thinks that just when you think

[00:40:08] christianity is is extinguished it it fans back into flame

[00:40:14] um and i don’t know what you’re seeing kevin i suspect you’re seeing what i am there is a young generation of zealous

[00:40:22] christians rising up in this nation young high school and college-age believers

[00:40:29] that aren’t they’re not going to take any prisoners they are all out for christ yeah and uh and i’m seeing that

[00:40:36] i’m seeing that here in nashville i believe that’s happening i i agree completely and uh you know i

[00:40:42] just i feel like when the darkness gets so dark the light becomes so crystal

[00:40:47] clear that the contrast is so incredibly great that it almost gets easier to make your

[00:40:53] case because because you’re like well you’ve got this over here which is wildly off base and

[00:41:00] unhealthy and depression oriented and just full of pain and suffering and then you’ve got this over here and that that

[00:41:07] contrast is so blatantly clear that i think kids are are grabbing hold of that and they’re they’re able to communicate

[00:41:13] that effectively and and uh just passionately um you know share the good news of jesus

[00:41:18] christ and god’s love for people so um i i’m praying that that continues you know

[00:41:24] it’s exciting you know last year or a couple years ago during the blm riots uh there was some talk that

[00:41:32] maybe some of the rioters would come up my street and my son-in-law said let me bring you

[00:41:37] a gun because i don’t have a gun i said i don’t need a gun i’ve got my bible i said if they if they come up

[00:41:44] here i’m going to go out on my porch and i’ve got my bible and have bible will preach and i was all set to preach

[00:41:51] to those i don’t want to say i was disappointed but i was ready for him yeah and you know i don’t mean to have some kind

[00:41:58] of bravado but we have to have that attitude that’s just the attitude we need

[00:42:04] i love it it’s a bracing time in this nation to be a believer yeah it is yeah and god god inspires us

[00:42:12] you know um through his word through the example of uh people in history um we’re inspired

[00:42:19] to go hey it’s my turn i’m gonna stand up and i’m gonna do the right thing and and um like you said i’m gonna hold my

[00:42:24] bible and i’m gonna preach so that’s awesome thanks so so much for everything you do uh robert i really

[00:42:31] appreciate you and your ministry well you’re welcome kevin it’s been a real joy to talk to you fantastic we’ll

[00:42:37] uh maybe we can do it face to face one day i’d love that if you’re if you’re out here filling in for pastor jeremiah

[00:42:43] again i’ll i’ll make sure to touch base with you well thank you we do have a lot of resources at

[00:42:49] robertjmorgan.com i also let me just mention this in closing kevin years ago i wrote a book

[00:42:56] called on this day in christian history that tells 366 events from christian history it

[00:43:03] went out of print and the publisher has given me the permission to give that away free

[00:43:09] so if you go to my website and scroll down to the bottom it will say please

[00:43:15] send me something like this send me the stories from church history and we will send

[00:43:20] those one every day on the day that that story occurred to your inbox absolutely free and it’s a

[00:43:27] good way of learning about some of the great stories of christian history and if you know any

[00:43:34] homeschooling families or christian school teachers uh by any chance kevin

[00:43:39] uh ben sings my soul and um and 100 bible verses that made america

[00:43:45] those are being used as textbooks and and we just want to keep them out there i love it i love it i’m actually going

[00:43:51] to eight home school conventions this year so so i’ll make sure to keep your name handy and uh and pass out your

[00:43:58] stuff and recommend your stuff so um again if you’re listening today robertjmorgan.com please check out us

[00:44:04] also he has a one-minute daily devotional um you’re still doing that right i am yes

[00:44:10] it’s actually 59 seconds on facebook and instagram every single day i teach

[00:44:17] through the book of hebrews right now but i teach through the bible one minute at a time verse by verse so

[00:44:23] yeah you can find me on social media so if you’re a busy person you’ve got no excuses you can do one minute so uh i

[00:44:31] love it i love that idea i love that you do that so thanks again so for uh it’s also for

[00:44:36] families when they took in their kids to have instant devotions with their kids oh that’s fantastic that is fantastic

[00:44:44] okay well robert thanks again um for being here and i’m sure we’ll touch base again and uh it’s been a big blessing

[00:44:50] my website is educate4life.org if you’re listening all kinds of resources there that um

[00:44:56] you’re probably aware of that you can check out and we’ll be back here again next week so it’s been a pleasure being

[00:45:01] with you i hope you have a fantastic week and uh that you keep uh trusting god and and putting one foot in front of

[00:45:07] the other god bless you take care have a good night

[00:45:23] you