One Nation Under God with Mike Riddle

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from there. So is everybody else ready? So this is our disclaimer.
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We are recording this. We ask that you keep your microphones off during Mike's presentation.
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We absolutely recommend that you keep your cameras off as well. In the format that we record, we usually are able to only show the speaker who's speaking actively, but sometimes other people's videos pop up.
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So now would be a good time to turn off your camera so that your image is not saved forever in the
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Internet land. And if for some reason you did turn on your camera, especially if it's during our live
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Q &A at the end, please just refrain from doing anything distracting like spinning around in your chair, turning your lights on and off, or, of course, standing up with no pants on.
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So with that, we're going to go ahead and go live to Facebook. And by the way, if you do have questions during the presentation, you can be sure to put them in, feel free to put them in the chat here on Zoom, and then we'll manage our
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Q &A depending on our time remaining and the questions that we have coming in during. So with that, let's go ahead and open in prayer.
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Michael, would you go ahead and open us in prayer? I know that we can talk to you, talk to the creator of the universe,
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Lord, to talk to the leader of our country, Lord, the true leader, the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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We know that you are the just and the true and the almighty. And we ask you tonight, Lord, that you would just have mercy on us, have mercy on our country,
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Lord, of the United States, God, and Canada as well. Lord, we ask you for mercy as this goes forward tonight.
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And as we look to you tonight, God, that you would just reach some soul, Lord. Most of all, we want to know that we are ready to meet you, to meet our maker,
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God. And I pray that you would just give a comfort to those in the United States this week, Lord, as decisions are made next week,
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Lord, on the presidential candidates, God, I pray that the person that needs to be in power will be in power.
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And Lord, we look to you for that. And we're so thankful that we can trust you for it. We know that you're a good
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God, and we know that you're able to do mighty and wondrous things. We ask you to bless our time together,
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Lord. We ask you to be with us, that your comfort will be among us. In Jesus' name, amen.
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Amen. Okay. Well, I'm Terri Camerizo, and I'm here on behalf of Creation Fellowship Santee, and we're excited to have another
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Thursday night virtually there fellowship. And we're really excited to welcome back our friend,
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Mike Riddle. He spoke with us earlier this summer, and we're glad that he's back with us again with a different topic.
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Mike is the founder and president of Creation Training Initiative. He's an international speaker and teacher on biblical creation, apologetics, and Christian education.
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And his topic tonight is a special one because it's a little bit—it veers a little bit from our normal creation science topics.
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But we're happy to have him for this timely topic because he's going to be reminding us about America's Christian heritage and all of the sacrifices that have been made for our freedoms.
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And he's got a special challenge for us as well. So, Mike, we're happy to have you go ahead and start.
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Thank you, Terri. This is actually one of my favorite talks to do. I've done it actually in church sermons.
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I've done it on special occasions like July 4th and Labor Day and Armed Forces Day.
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It's a talk that doesn't have a lot of humor in it, but it is a talk that helps you understand our nation and our history.
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So, I'd like to take us on a journey today, a walk through the history of America, where we came from, how we got here, and where we're going.
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I want to talk about the very principles America's built upon and what kind of a nation have we really been.
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See, our nation, we look at several hundred years. We have a long and proud history.
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Sometimes we've been a nation in turmoil. We've kind of lost direction sometimes. But we've always been a nation about freedom.
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We value freedom. Our flag is a symbol of the freedom our forefathers fought and died to preserve.
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One of the things that has made America great is America has always been able to rise up unforgettable men and women in unforgettable times.
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These are men and women who demonstrated courage, honor, and commitment. Men and women who left a legacy for our next generation, a legacy of freedom.
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Many who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we could live today in the greatest nation,
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America, the land of the free, the home of the brave. America yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
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Let's start with the foundation of America. The British in the 1700s and 1770s imposed a series of taxes followed by other laws that proved to be very unpopular with our colonists then.
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Because the colonies lacked representation in the British Parliament, many of the colonists considered the laws to be a violation of their rights.
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In December 1773, the American colonists frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing taxation without representation, dumped 342 chests of tea overboard.
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In April 1775, the British, facing the threat of rebellion from the colonies, sent troops into the small town of Lexington.
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The next morning, waiting to greet them was a small company of militia. And on April 19th, 1775, we have the shot heard around the world.
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It was the beginning of the American Revolution, which changed the world. It was our battle for independence from British rule.
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There were many battles in our desire to have this freedom. The Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17th, 1775, in Boston, Massachusetts, estimated 450
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Americans dead or wounded in that one of the first battles. And then there were many other battles in our battle for independence.
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We had the Battle of Saratoga, where over 300 Americans were dead or wounded.
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We had the Battle of Long Island, which was the largest battle in our battle for independence there.
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40 ,000 soldiers, both sides combined, fought in that battle. The Americans lost 2 ,200 soldiers.
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Then there was the Battle of Brandywine, where 30 ,000 soldiers participated. And on the
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American side, we had 1 ,500 casualties. There's the Battle of the Siege of Savannah, 828 casualties on the
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American side. Then there was the Battle of Yorktown. After three weeks of nonstop bombardment,
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I'll get my voice there, the British commander, Cornwallis, surrendered to Washington, which effectively ended the war for independence.
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But the casualty rate for our independence was great. Over 23 ,000
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American deaths accounted for during that war for independence, 23 ,000 that would never return home to see their families.
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They paid the ultimate price so we could have this country called America today.
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Without them, we would not be America today. Then on July 4th, 1776, in Philadelphia, the
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Continental Congress renounced all allegiance to the British crown and any political connection with Britain.
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The Declaration of Independence was adopted. And we read these great words from our first document, our
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American heritage. We hold these truths to be self -evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.
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In those words, our founding fathers had four very important truths.
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Number one, they did believe in a greater God. Second, they believe all men are created equal.
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They believe our rights come from God. These are what are called unalienable rights, means they are not transferable or capable of being taken away or denied.
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Those are our rights that come from God. And they believe the government's purpose is to preserve and protect these
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God -made rights of God -made man. So we have our heritage.
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See, our founding fathers realized that a nation could only survive if our rights were established from God and not the state.
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Then, September 17, 1787, we have the American Constitution, our second great document, which will govern the laws of this country.
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And we read these words, we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
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Constitution for the United States of America. And again, we have our first two great documents for how we will live and the laws we will live by.
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But the price for that freedom was high. Of the 56 signers of the
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Declaration of Independence, five were arrested by the British as traitors, 12 had their homes looted and burned by the enemy, 17 lost their fortunes, two lost sons in the
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Continental Army, and nine fought and died during the Revolutionary War.
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So the price for the freedoms we have today, somebody paid for that. We didn't.
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We get to enjoy what they went through. And they went through an awful lot, and many paid the ultimate sacrifice.
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And then on April 30, 1789, General George Washington, our first president, during his first inaugural address, makes this statement.
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It would be peculiarly improper to admit in this first official act, my fervent supplication to that almighty being who rules over the universe.
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And we begin to see and continue to see our biblical heritage throughout our history.
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Then we're going to turn to the 1800s, a new century, another century of continued growth, but also a century we're going to see great turmoil and wars.
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As America begins to grow mature as a nation, it has many difficulties.
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We have the War of 1812, where over 2200
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Americans lost their lives. But during that war, in 1814, Francis Scott Key, an
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American lawyer and amateur poet, was being held prisoner aboard a British ship along with two other Americans.
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At 7 a .m. on the morning of September 13, 1814, the British bombardment began on Fort McHenry.
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That bombardment lasted for 25 hours, and the
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British fired over 1500 bombshells onto the fort. Francis Scott Key knew that as long as the shelling continued,
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Fort McHenry had not surrendered. But before daylight, there came a sudden and mysterious silence, from no more shells were being fired.
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As Key waited for the pre -dawn darkness, he waited and waited for the sight that would end his anxiety.
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When the daylight finally came, he saw that our flag was still standing.
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After seeing that flag was still standing, he wrote the lyrics to a poem. The words of this poem were first recognized for official use by the
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Navy in 1889, and the president in 1916. And it was made our national anthem by congressional resolution in March 1931.
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It is called the Star Spangled Banner. We have a wonderful history in America.
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But there were other wars in the 1800s. Starting in 1846, we had the
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Mexican -American War, where over 13 ,000 Americans lost their lives.
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And we had the Spanish -American War. America intervened in Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain.
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And after the destruction of the USS Maine, America entered that war against Spain.
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And America lost over 2 ,900 lives in helping Cuba maintain independence.
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And then in 1861, we became a nation split apart.
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The United States of America goes to war against the Confederate States, the blue against the gray.
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The North wanted to preserve the Union. The South wanted to preserve state rights. There were also economic interests on both sides.
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And also, there was the issue of slavery. It was a war of brother against brother.
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And there are many great battles in this Civil War. The first major land battle of the
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American Civil War was the Battle of Bull Run, also known as the First Battle of Manassas, where over 58 ,000 soldiers fought in that battle.
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Then there are other battles. The Battle of Shiloh fought in April 1862.
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In that war, in that battle, there were 23 ,000 casualties. That's both sides combined.
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The Battle of Gettysburg fought in July, 51 ,000 casualties.
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The Second Battle of Manassas fought in August 1862, 25 ,000 casualties.
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The Battle of Fredericksburg fought in December 1862, where there were 19 ,000 casualties.
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Are you starting to see the buildup of the number of lives lost in this Civil War we had?
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And then there was the Battle of Antietam, often called the bloodiest single day in American history.
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23 ,000 soldiers were killed or wounded or missing after just 12 hours of combat in September 17, 1862.
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This was a vicious war of brother against brother.
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In 1861, an elderly woman by the name of Julia Howe was visiting a
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Union Army camp on the Potomac River just outside Washington, D .C.
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As she sat there that day, she heard the soldiers go marching by. She was so taken by the beat of the music that she awoke the next morning and wrote the words to this very special poem.
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And it goes, mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
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He has loosed the faithful lightning of his terrible Swiss sword. His truth is marching on.
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Glory, glory, hallelujah. His truth is marching on.
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The hymn First Appeal appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862. It was sung at the funerals of British statesman
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Sir Winston Churchill and the death of Senator Robert Kennedy.
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But the Civil War today is pretty much just a memory. We read it in textbooks. We see it on television occasionally.
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It's just in our memory marked off by the many graves and memorials to those fallen soldiers.
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More lives were lost in our Civil War than any other war we've had in history.
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It is estimated that over 700 ,000 lost their lives in our
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American Civil War. Then we turn to another century, the 1900s.
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Again, another century of continued growth and prosperity and great new inventions, things we've never seen before.
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But also we're going to see it was a time of great turmoil and greatness.
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We see these new achievements from the small things all the way to the great achievements, a century of achievements.
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In 1902, air conditioning was invented. In 1903, powered flight.
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1925, the television. 1928, penicillin, antibiotics. And here's one many people don't know, 1925, the first programmable computer.
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1947, the microwave oven. 1951, the first nuclear power plant. 1969, we have the internet started.
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1969 also, man walks on the moon. 1974, started the personal computer industry.
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1974, medical technology such as the MRI. And it continued to develop all the way into tremendous genetic fields.
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Even modern aviation, from the Wright Brothers' first powered flight in 1903 to supersonic jets like the
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SR -71 Blackbird, which can fly up to 2200 miles an hour and it still holds the coast to coast land speed record.
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It flew from one coast to the other in 64 minutes. All the way to our modern super passenger jets like the 747, which can hold over 500 passengers.
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Great achievements in this century. Including rockets.
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From the V -2 rocket that was used by Germany in World War II to the
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American Atlas missile, the first intercontinental ballistic missile to the space shuttle, all the way to the giant
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Saturn V rocket, which stands 363 feet high.
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That is longer than a football field. It is equivalent to a 36 story building and it is 60 feet taller than the
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Statue of Liberty. When it is fully fueled up, that rocket weighs 6 .2
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million pounds and had speeds up to 23 ,000 miles an hour and it's capable of sending someone to the moon.
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And in 1969, July 20th at 1056 eastern daylight time, man first walks on the moon.
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And as Neil Armstrong steps out, makes that first step, he makes this statement. That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
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Great achievements in the 1900s, but there's great turmoil also in that century.
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We have the assassination of the American President John F. Kennedy. We also have the assassination of American Senator Robert Kennedy and the assassination of one of our great civil rights leaders,
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Martin Luther King. So America, not only we have great inventions, we found ourselves in turmoil.
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And also there are great wars in the 1900s. World War I fought between 1914,
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June 1914, all the way to November 1918. Never before had the world experienced or been engulfed in such a large war.
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Never before had so many people been involved in wars. It's estimated over 60 million people fought in this war and over 30 nations were involved.
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There were a total of 41 million casualties in World War I and of that there were 20 million deaths.
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This was a tragic war. And America tried to stay out of this war. They tried to avoid and become neutral in this war, but they no longer could when the
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German submarines started attacking our commercial shipping. The U .S. had to enter the war and the
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U .S. enters the war on April 6th, 1917. Mike, you somehow have accidentally turned off your, you're muted.
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Are we unmuted now? You are unmuted now. Good job. The power of the mouse.
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Not the road, but the computer. So in a year and a half,
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America was in that war. We lost over 116 ,000 men. There was 116 ,000 men would never come home again to see their families.
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That's the tragedy of war. But then we have peace.
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We finally have peace, but you know what? That peace does not last for very long. Now I've lost access to, let me see if we can control this another way.
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My slides here. Well, we're still seeing them.
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I can't advance them. There we go. There we go. Good job. The power of using the left hand versus the right hand.
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Maybe there's a difference. See, it must've been my left -handed amino acid did it. It must've been. Yes.
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We have World War II. So peace doesn't really last for that long. World War II starts.
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And once again, America's involved in another war. World War II starts in December, 1941 and lasts through August, 1945.
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And what happens is America is attacked by the Japanese. And we hear this famous speech from President Roosevelt when he makes this statement.
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Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.
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The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by a naval and air forces of the empire of Japan.
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And America is engulfed in another war. And once again, America must rise up unforgettable men and women in those unforgettable times.
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In that one attack on Pearl Harbor, over 2 ,300
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Americans lost their lives. It was a tragic day in American history.
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Now during all that time, for the first six months of that war, Americans losing battle after battle.
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But on May 1942, American intelligence intercepts a message from the
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Japanese. And the message is decoded. And what they find out is the Japanese are planning an ambush in the
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American fleet that would cripple the American fleet. The entire naval force of America would be no longer useful for a long time.
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But fortunately, we intercepted that message. We found out about their plans. And on June 4th, the
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American American naval forces surprised the Japanese and sink four of their aircraft carriers, down 322 of their planes and kill over 5 ,000 of the
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Japanese Navy. It was a major victory, the first major victory for America in World War II.
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And it turned the tide of the war. For the first time, America was on the offensive.
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The Battle of Midway, one of the most important battles of World War II. Then we have
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Guadalcanal. Fought from August 7th, 1942 to February 7th, 1943.
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About six months that battle lasted. Guadalcanal is a tiny island in the
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South Pacific, just northeast of Australia. It's about 90 miles long, and about 25 miles wide.
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The Battle of Guadalcanal was essentially a battle for an airfield.
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And on August 7th, the 1st Marine Division landed to seize that airfield.
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See, as long as the Americans could hold that field, they were sure to have a base of support. If we were to lose that battle, then
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Japan would not only have control of the sea, but they'd also have control of the air.
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And after six months of intense fighting at Guadalcanal, the Japanese finally retreated.
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But the cost was high. During that land battle, over 1 ,500
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Americans lost their lives. But that was not the only battle at Guadalcanal.
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During that land battle, there was a sea campaign that featured over two major battles between aircraft carriers.
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In the naval battles, U .S. lost more men than they did on the land. During that campaign, the total
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Allied losses during the entire Guadalcanal, both land and sea, during those six months was 7 ,100 lives.
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We lost 29 ships and over 615 aircraft. In all total, the
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Japanese lost about 31 ,000 of their soldiers. And on February 8th, again, 1943, after six months of terrible fighting, the
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Japanese retreat, and we have a base of support and an airfield. Then we have the
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Battle of Iwo Jima. This was the first attack on the
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Japanese home islands. The battle was very unique in its setting. 100 ,000 men fighting on a tiny island, one third the size of Manhattan.
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For 36 days, that's how long this battle lasted, Iwo Jima was one of the populated seven and a half miles on earth.
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More U .S. Marines earned the Medal of Honor in the Battle of Iwo Jima than any other battle we've had in history.
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During those 36 days of fighting, there were 25 ,000 American casualties, with over 6 ,800 soldiers that would never again return home to see their families.
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This is the tragedy of war. Captain Dave Severance, Easy Company Commander, which is the flag raising company, made this statement.
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Easy Company started with 310 men. We suffered 75 % casualties. Only 50 men boarded the ship after the battle.
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Seven officers went into battle with me. Only one, me, walked off Iwo. There's a statement that is made about the
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Battle of Iwo Jima, and it goes like this. Uncommon valor was a common virtue.
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Unforgettable men in unforgettable times, rising to the occasion to protect our freedoms.
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Then there was the Battle of Okinawa. This was a critical piece of geography as America prepared to invade the nation of Japan.
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It is strategically located about 400 miles south of Japan. Okinawa was the largest amphibious invasion of the
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Pacific Campaign and the largest and the last major campaign of the Pacific War. The battle lasted for just 82 days and proved to be the bloodiest battle of the
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Pacific Campaign. More people died in the Battle of Okinawa than they did in the first atomic bomb.
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In those 82 days of fighting, 12 ,500 Americans lost their lives, with a total of 62 ,000
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American casualties. A memorial was erected to honor those who fought in this battle.
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It's called a peace memorial for the total of 200 ,000 people who lost their lives in just 82 days of savage fighting.
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Then we go to the European campaign. D -Day, June 6, 1944.
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The Allied invasion of Western Europe was launched. It was a simultaneous landing of the
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United States, British, and Canadian forces on five different beachheads in Normandy, France.
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This operation was the largest single -day invasion in all known history.
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D -Day logistics. There were 150 ,000 Allied troops that landed on just the first day.
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Over 11 ,000 aircraft were available for support. Over 5 ,000 naval vessels were involved.
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By June 11, D -Day plus five, over 326 ,000
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Allied troops, 54 ,000 vehicles, and 104 ,000 tons of supplies had landed on the beaches.
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The cost was high. Total Allied casualties on D -Day are estimated to be at 10 ,000.
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That's the first day, including 2 ,500 dead. Naval losses included 24 warships and 120 other vessels that were damaged.
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Over 425 ,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded, or missing during the
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Battle of Normandy. Again, unforgettable men and women who paid the price for our freedoms today.
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But then on May 8, 1945, we have
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V -E Day, victory in Europe. Nazi Germany surrenders and the war in Europe is over.
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But the war in the Pacific against Japan continues on for another three months.
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And on August 6, 1945, America drops the first atomic bomb.
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For three days, the Japanese refused to respond. And on August 9,
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America drops the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Those two atomic bombs are said to have killed over 300 ,000 lives.
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But putting that in perspective, that is less than 1 % of the total that were killed in World War II.
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It is estimated, as a result of World War II, over 55 million people lost their lives.
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But then, August 15, 1945, we have V -J Day. Japan surrenders and World War II comes to an end.
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But not without a high cost. It is estimated about 416 ,000
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Americans were killed in World War II. There's been a war memorial to all the fallen soldiers of World War II, and it states, when you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today.
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And we need to think about that. All those who have gone before us, who paid the price that we can live in freedom in this country, paid the price that we can protest for things we don't like.
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Those people were willing to suffer for what we have this day. But we have peace again.
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Once again, we have peace. But again, that peace does not last for very long.
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In 1945, the end of World War II, Korea is freed from Japanese rule. However, the country was split in half along the 38th parallel.
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The two countries, the two sides, North and South, dislike each other. North Korea is run by the communist dictator and the
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South under capitalism. At that time, the Russian ruler Stalin did not think
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America would get involved in any of the conflict. So he convinced the North Koreans to invade
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South Korea. On June 25, at approximately 40am in the morning, on a rainy
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Sunday morning, the North Koreans invaded South Korea. And once again, America is involved in another conflict.
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Korea is often called the Forgotten War. They call it a conflict, but it was a war. How can you forget the fact that over 36 ,000
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Americans lost their lives in the Korean War, with over 92 ,000 being wounded? The total killed in World War II on both sides is estimated to be over 2 million.
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That is not something we can forget. And then in 1965, we enter another conflict called
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Vietnam War, fought between 1965 and 1973. Up to that time, it was the longest war we had ever been in.
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It was a time of turmoil and protest at home, but again, a time of great sacrifice by our soldiers.
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We learn new words in the Vietnam War, words such as hamburger hill, which rise up about 3 ,000 feet, are covered in dense thickets of bamboo, waist high elephant grass.
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Khe Sanh, where 6 ,000 Marines were held under siege for 77 days. The Tet Offensive that lasted for about eight months, when the
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Viet Cong sent 80 ,000 troops trying to end the war, to words such as POW and MIA, prisoner of war and missing in action.
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In 1973, at the end of Vietnam War, there were still 2 ,000 Americans missing in action.
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All total in Vietnam, Americans, 58 ,000 lost their lives.
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58 ,000 that would never again return home to see their families. The average age of the soldier lost in Vietnam was 23 years old.
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Then following World War II, we had another kind of war that had started called the Cold War. The United States and Russia are in a great arms buildup.
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Two competing powers, each developing more and more nuclear power, enough power on each side to destroy the world.
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And we see during that crisis, there were 13 days, 13 unforgettable days in October 1962, called the
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Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviet Union had placed missiles in Cuba just 90 miles from the
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United States shore. The Soviet government insisted they were strictly for defensive use in nature.
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But on October 22nd, our President then, John F. Kennedy, appeared on television and announced the findings to the public.
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These were not defensive missiles. They were indeed medium range ballistic missiles capable of striking the
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United States. President Kennedy called for the withdrawal or elimination. And we were prepared, he said, to go to battle.
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He then implemented a naval blockade around Cuba to make sure no more missiles would come from the
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Soviet Union. At that time, and I remember living through this, many people feared the world was on the brink of a nuclear war.
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The barricade of the U .S. naval vessels waited as the Soviet vessels approached.
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As the ships approached the blockade, America went to their knees. America began to pray, because we were on the verge of a nuclear holocaust.
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The answer came the next day when the Soviet ships stopped short of the blockade. However, on October 27, unknown to many around the world, the
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Soviet had sent four submarines. The Americans discovered the submarines around the blockade.
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We forced three of them to surface, but the fourth had lost contact with the
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Soviet headquarters and did not service. The U .S. ships began dropping depth charges, and the submarine commander thought they were under attack and issued the order to fire the nuclear missile.
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However, it takes the top three commanders on that submarine to all agree to shoot that missile on.
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The first two say, yes, fire the missile. The third says, no.
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By one vote, we avoided a nuclear holocaust. Then, in 1961, it's called the
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Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall. It's both a physical and symbolic wall. It divided
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Europe in half, Eastern Germany and Western Germany. Eastern under communist rule,
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Western under freedom. In 1987, our president, Ronald Reagan, issues this statement,
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Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
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Two years later, in 1989, the Berlin Wall, the Iron Curtain, comes tumbling down.
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Then we enter the 2000s, another century, another century of great progress, but also a century of conflict.
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America finds themselves in a new kind of war called the War on Islamic Totalitarianism, a war like no other war we've been in.
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America is attacked on their own home soil for the first time. Once again, we need to rise up, unforgettable men and women, in these unforgettable times.
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In that one day, the attack on American soil, over 2 ,000 Americans lose their lives, and we're in another battle, a battle that would determine in this country to be the greatest battle in American history.
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It is not a battle being fought with guns and bombs. It'll be a battle that will determine whether this country can maintain its independence as a nation, whether we can maintain that we have rights that come from our creator
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God. We must, as a nation, understand the tactics and strategy, the ideas and values and worldviews that we're competing against.
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Again, we've come through many battles, from our founding battle for our independence, to our
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Civil War, to World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, this battle on Islamic Totalitarianism.
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We survived all those wars, not without damage, but we survived. But now, America is in the greatest battle it has ever been in.
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It is called the War Within America. You see,
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America was founded upon biblical principles. All we have to do is turn to our founding documents and our statues and our great monuments.
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The original public school system America, when first introduced by Daniel and Noah Webster, provided students with a firm biblical foundation.
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The first textbook printed in America was used to teach reading and Bible lessons. The McGuffey Readers, the children modeled in those books, were prompt, good, kind, honest, and truthful.
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They taught students morals based on the Bible, a far cry from what we have being taught in our public schools today.
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We have our Declaration of Independence, all men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
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John Marshall, one of the first chief justices, Supreme Court, fought under George Washington, makes this statement.
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The American population is entirely Christian. This is one of our chief justices, and with us,
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Christianity and religion are identified. It would be strange indeed if such a people, our institutions, did not presuppose
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Christianity and did not often refer to it. James Madison, primary author of the
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Constitution of the United States, we have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government, far from it.
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We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the
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Ten Commandments. The laws and statute of Harvard College in 1643 stated, let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider, well, the main end of his life and studies is to know
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God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. Harvard University no longer agrees with that. They no longer teach that.
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In 1691, the College of William and Mary Charter state that the Church of Virginia may be furnished with a seminary of ministers of the gospel.
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They no longer teach that there. In 1701, Yale College was founded to train ministers.
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Now they train ministers, but not ministers of the Bible. The first president of Princeton stated, curse be all that learning that is not contrary to the cross of Christ.
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They no longer teach that. In 1865, Congress approved the motto, in God we trust on our coins.
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The words, in God we trust, are inscribed on the House and Senate chambers, and then they go ignoring those very words.
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On the walls of the Capitol Dome appear the words, the New Testament according to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
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The Liberty Bell is inscribed, Leviticus chapter 25, verse 10, proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.
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On the metal cap of the Washington Monument are the words, praise be to God. In the Lincoln Memorial are the words,
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God, Bible, the Almighty, and divine attributes. The Jefferson Memorial includes the words,
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God who gave us life gave us liberty. All 50 states have acknowledgement to God, even the state of California, where it states, we the people of the state of California grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, and they go about ignoring their own constitution.
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The fact is this, Bible and no other religion book was foundational in the formation of America and the education system.
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But now, how do you destroy great nations? Well, the fast method is you build up great armies, militaries, rockets, missiles, tanks.
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That's the fast way. But there's a new way to destroy great nations. It's called the attack from within.
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It is the slow decay method. You attack the history, our heritage. You attack our morality, and you attack our theology.
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You change our history. You change our morality. You change our theology. And soon, the nation will die by suicide.
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It's called the war within America. It's called also a great new civil war.
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We're engaged in this new civil war. It's not between the blue and the gray anymore, but it is also brother against brother.
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This is the most crucial war in our nation's history. It is not being fought with guns and bombs.
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It is a war of values. It's a war of ideas. It's a war of worldviews. It is a war for the very heart and soul of this nation and the freedoms that have been preserved at a very high price.
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In the beginning, God created, we have on one side, is being replaced with no creator called evolutionism.
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The 10 commandments are now being banned from public view. The constitution is gradually being replaced with the
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United Nations charters. America is indeed a nation in change.
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Again, we have survived all these physical wars, but things are changing now.
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Our biblical heritage in our history, our morality and theology is being changed to a new history, new morality, and new theology.
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We look at our history. American history is under attack. We hold these truths to be self -evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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They want to change those words and rid those words called endowed by their creator. Don't even mention them.
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They're reinterpreting the constitution and changing our laws. We're saying that's not what the constitution really means, but when we read the constitution, it says this.
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
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They're rewriting our history textbooks. Many factual errors.
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A senate testimony in 2003 said problem number one, they're dumbing down the content. Problem two, they're increasing the content bias and changing
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American history. History. They're retelling American history as American forefathers were selfish people and they were very cruel.
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They betrayed World War II. America was the evil nation. In 2019, the national education assessment, education progress reported that only 18 percent of our eighth graders were proficient in American history.
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Also stated that 75 percent of our students did not know the three branches of government.
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Further, few colleges even have courses in American history anymore. They're more engaged in other things in the classroom.
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And we're being told America is an evil nation. Then they're changing our morality.
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Marriage is under attack. One man and one woman. The value of human life is under assault. Our children are under assault.
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Absolute morals are being replaced with moral relativism. There is no such thing as right and wrong.
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That's what our students are being taught today. We're being taught that our rights no longer come from God.
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And if our rights no longer come from God, then the new mandate is the state will grant the rights.
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If the state can grant rights, then the state can also take them away. The war within America.
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1947, the Supreme Court declared separation between church and state, even though our documents don't say that.
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In 1962, the Supreme Court removed prayer from the public schools. In 1963, the
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Supreme Court banned reading of the Bible in public schools. In 1973, the Supreme Court allows abortion.
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In 1976, the American Civil Liberties Union prohibits Christmas pageant in public schools. In 1980, the
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ACL removed the Ten Commandments from schools. In 2007, California eliminates the use of the words mom and dad from schools.
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In 2008, California made an attempt to rule against homeschooling. Fortunately, they lost that one.
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In 2010, we have the takeover by the government of American education system.
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It is called Common Core. In 2015, the U .S. Supreme Court legitimizes same -sex marriage nationwide.
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In 2020, America is invaded. Some of our major cities come under attack by anarchists.
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And then our theology is being changed. America has abounded upon the belief in a greater
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God that that is no longer allowed to be taught in our public education system. At our state schools, they disallow the singing of Christmas carols, disallow prayer, disallow posting of Ten Commandments, disallow the name of Jesus at athletic events or school assemblies, and disallow the teaching of a greater
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God. America's new education is this, academic freedoms become state -mandate training called indoctrination.
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Freedom to live has become freedom to choose who dies called abortion. Absolute morality has become moral relativism.
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What to think and not how to think is what is going on in our public schools.
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The U .N. agenda replaces the American Constitution, and biblical principles have been deemed intolerant.
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The changing the Bible's history where we read for six days the Lord made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that's in them.
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We're being told even from within our churches and Christian seminaries, that's not true. Changing God's word to agree with modern society and current beliefs.
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It is no longer God is the creator. God used evolution. Genesis is not real history. Let's add billions of years.
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False gospels and soft preaching become the norm in many of our churches. And we see today in Christian Education 2004, in a survey of Protestant pastors conducted by the
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Barman Research Group, only half passed the test from where they possess a biblical worldview.
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That's our evangelical pastors. Less than almost half have a biblical worldview and the other half no.
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The pastors least likely to have a biblical worldview were our seminary graduates. We have a problem with our seminaries.
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And then the full context of the gospel. The full gospel is very seldom ever taught in our churches anymore.
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It is seldom taught. I would like to go through that to make sure that we start teaching the full gospel, because it's not happening in our churches, because many of our pastors don't believe it.
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And we'll start with John 3 .16, where it states this, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
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That's John 3 .16. But what about John 3 .17? Equally important.
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For God set not his Son in the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
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Here's the question. What do we need to be saved from and why do we need to be saved?
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The answer to those questions comes from the book of Genesis, where many of our pastors don't even believe it anymore.
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So let's start in Genesis 1 .1, part of the gospel here. In the beginning God created. Why is that so important?
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Because God is the creator of all things. He's the creator of all things. That means he owns everything and he can set the rules for how we are to live, because he is the ultimate authority.
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And during, once he finished his creation, he pronounced his creation very good. That means there was no death and suffering going on before then, as so many of our church leaders want to put in there.
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They want to add these billions of years of death, decay, and disease. That is not what the Bible teaches. Then in Genesis 2 .16
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and 17, God gives Adam and Eve one warning. Just one warning. Just one warning.
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Don't eat of the fruit of this tree. And he says, if you disobey me, there will be a penalty and that penalty will be death.
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Now, these are the parts that we don't teach in the church very often. It's called the bad news.
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In order to understand and appreciate the good news, you must understand the bad news of the gospel. Genesis 3 .6,
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what do Adam and Eve do? They disobeyed God's one warning and we have rebellion. It is called sin.
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And what does God do? He keeps his promise and death enters into his creation. Then we see the correspondence between the
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Old Testament and the New Testament. Romans 6 .23 says the wages of sin is death, just exactly as we read in Genesis chapter 3.
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Then in Matthew 5 .48, God demands perfection. That is his standard. Why can he set that standard?
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Because he is the creator of all things. And his command is we must be perfect.
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But guess what? Romans 3 .23 says no one is perfect. If no one's perfect, then we're all separated from a perfect and holy
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God. At this point in the gospel message, we are without hope. We are all condemned at this point of the gospel.
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That's why the good news is going to be so important. But I want to point out what it means to be condemned. And also
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I want to point out that this is the part that many churches and Christian universities want to change.
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They want to change the entire foundation of the gospel right there in the book of Genesis. This is a sad commentary on our churches today.
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It's a sad commentary on what's being taught in our Christian universities. They refuse to believe the word of God.
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They'll do anything to please the world and add millions of years into the Bible. So the good news.
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Genesis 3 .15. Notice where the good news starts? It does not start in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
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The good news starts in Genesis 3 .15. There we have the first promise of a Savior and victory.
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This is the first proto -gospel right there. First promise of a Savior. Then in John 3 .16,
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that promise is fulfilled when God sent his only begotten son. And we see how this all comes around.
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The Old and New Testament are critical for understanding the gospel. Then we have 1 Corinthians 15 .3
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and 4 where we have the core of the gospel. That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
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What scriptures? The New Testament was not really written yet. So Christ died for our sins according to scripture.
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And that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. Again, what scriptures?
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We have to go back to the Old Testament to understand the gospel. Then 2
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Corinthians 7 .10. The heart of the gospel. Repent. Over and over Jesus says repent.
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Repent. It's not that repentance is salvation, but it leads us to that direction of salvation.
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In Romans 6 .23, this is where the gospel gets exciting. Our God says this whole salvation is a free gift.
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You don't work for it. It's free. I'm going to give it to you. And these next verses are the two verses that separate
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Christianity from every other religion in the world. Ephesians 2 .8
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and 9. It says our works are not good enough to get us to heaven. Works will not get you there.
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Every other religion in the world says you have to do something. The Bible says no, it's already been done for you.
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The difference is do and done. Then we have 2 Corinthians 12 .9.
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I have people have come to me, especially military people come and they'd say, Mike, God could never forgive me for what
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I've done. And my response to them goes like this. You do not understand who our
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God is. He tells us in 2 Corinthians, his grace is big enough to cover anything we have done.
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In Ephesians 2, it says his mercy is big enough to cover us. Our God is bigger than we can even comprehend.
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And Romans 5 .8 tells us who our God was. He says, he didn't wait for us to come to him.
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He came to us while we were still dead in our sins. That's who our God is. He didn't wait for us to become clean.
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He came to us while we're still sinful creatures. And then he says this, very important.
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There's only one way to do this, folks. Only one way to get to heaven. And that one way is through Jesus Christ, our savior.
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Romans 1 .19 .12 says, there are no excuses. There are no excuses.
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No such thing as an innocent person on this planet. Everyone, everyone that has ever lived and everyone who's living today knows that there's a greater
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God because God said that to us. And then finally in Romans 10 .9, he tells us that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is
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Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the full context of the gospel.
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And this is what we need to be teaching in our churches. That Genesis is critical for understanding the gospel.
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That's why it's under such great attack. Because without that first, those first three chapters of Genesis, we do not have a foundation for the gospel.
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Those first three chapters give us the foundation for many of our Christian doctrines. Dare we go change these three chapters by adding millions of years of God used evolution?
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Who gave us the right to tell God he can't communicate to us correctly? And where's all the battle taking place today?
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As you've seen, a lot of it's taking place in the education system. The building of America, our rights and laws, education and textbooks, our theology and morality, all stem from a belief in a greater
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God. And that's what's under attack today, even in our Christian churches. You see,
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America is a nation in change. Our nation is in the midst of a great storm.
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The results are going to have a great impact on our future. If Americans survive, we must hold on to the fact that we have certain unable rights that do come from our creator, and that indeed, all men are created equal.
01:00:15
If Americans survive, the church will have to recover their belief in the authority of God's word.
01:00:21
And if Americans survive, we must train up this next generation to stand firm and defend their faith.
01:00:28
Until that day comes, our freedoms and rights will continue to erode away to the state.
01:00:36
See, the war is within America. We must as a nation preserve our foundation for what has made
01:00:42
America great. And what has made America great? Number one, because of our biblical heritage.
01:00:48
And number two, because we've always been able to rise up, unforgettable men and women, to the challenge, to the challenge in those unforgettable times.
01:00:59
And today, more than ever, we need unforgettable men and women in the church to rise up, return to church, to believing
01:01:09
God's word. We read, and I showed you that memorial for all those fallen soldiers.
01:01:15
Tell them us and say, for their tomorrow, we gave her today. But there's an even greater memorial, a long -lasting internal memorial.
01:01:22
It goes like this. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
01:01:32
That's God's memorial to man. America, one nation under God, freedom, we need to understand, is not free.
01:01:43
You've seen the tremendous sacrifice by so many, so that we can sit here this day and talk about our creator without fear of death.
01:01:54
What I'd like to do now is come to a conclusion here. We're going to go through a little bit of sound here.
01:02:00
I want to show you the faces of war. Nothing harmful, but these are people that fought for our freedoms.
01:02:28
That music's not playing. The music's not playing? No. Right. I cry when
01:02:43
I see that picture every time. Is the music playing yet?
01:03:22
Nope. No, no music. We'll go through a little bit quicker then. Yes, that's my father at Guadalcanal.
01:04:30
And for us to remember here, our freedoms today came with a very high price.
01:04:38
Our country America has faced many challenges. We have faced many Goliaths throughout our history of this country.
01:04:45
Our rights and freedoms have today come under great attack. Many have fought to preserve those rights.
01:04:54
Many have fallen for our freedoms. Abraham Lincoln made a statement that America would not die from a foreign power, that we would die by suicide.
01:05:10
We need to never forget what's going on as part of our history. Today, more than ever, we need unforgettable men and women in the church rise in occasion to stand up for God's word and not tower under the pressure from the world to stop believing in a greater
01:05:29
God, to stop believing that there's only one way to heaven. There is no compromise with God's word.
01:05:37
Our fathers, forefathers fought for this. Are we willing to go to battle also and fight for God's word?
01:05:47
Thank you. Well, that was very good.
01:05:54
That was very good. And we have a lot of comments.
01:06:01
People have really been appreciating your presentation, Mike. Thank you for that. And we have a couple of questions.
01:06:08
One of them, Rachel wants to know if your testimony is available somewhere on the internet for her to look at or if you want to share it briefly with us.
01:06:19
I can share it now. Okay. I grew up a non -believer.
01:06:24
I come from a military family. My father was in the Navy in World War II. I'll just give a little background.
01:06:31
He was at Guadalcanal. The ship next to him got sunk. And he got medals.
01:06:37
The Japanese were boarding his ship and he shot them. They had hand grenades. They were ready to blow his ship up.
01:06:44
Days after the war, he spent 30 years in the Air Force. I have two brothers, both military.
01:06:51
We have a son in the Army also. And I spent my six years as a captain in the
01:06:56
United States Marine Corps. But I grew up a non -believer. I was also an athlete.
01:07:02
I used to be an athlete. Let me put it that way. I used to be an athlete. I'm a perfect example of the second law of thermodynamics.
01:07:09
What you get. One day, I was in the gymnasium lifting weights.
01:07:14
You have to lift weights if you want to run around circles faster, throw things further, and jump higher. I used to beat track and field worldwide.
01:07:22
And that day, I was sitting in the gym lifting weights. A man came up and sat down beside me. And for the first time in my life, somebody presented the gospel to me.
01:07:32
Then he asked me some questions. I answered every one of his questions wrong because I had no room for God in my life then.
01:07:39
I walked away from him. Seven years after that, I was on a business trip.
01:07:45
I was computers at the time. Went to Indianapolis. Got done work late one evening. Got back to the hotel room.
01:07:51
Got in bed. As I lay there in bed that night, I finally understood the message that man gave me seven years earlier.
01:07:58
That is the night I got on my knees and professed Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
01:08:05
After a while, I got back in bed, and I still could not go to sleep. I had a strong desire to teach the book of Genesis, which
01:08:12
I had never read before. So I reached into the drawer in that hotel room, pulled out the Bible, and began reading
01:08:17
Genesis. Now, as I was going through the first chapter, I thought to myself, if I can't trust what these chapters state, then there's no reason to read the rest of this book.
01:08:30
So I continued reading, and I became not only a Christian, but I became a
01:08:36
Six Day Creationist because I believe God's word. I took it for what it said. Now, many, many years later,
01:08:46
Leslie and I, the wife, and I were on a business trip.
01:08:57
We were in Florida, Jacksonville, Florida. We stopped. That night, we were staying with a pastor.
01:09:05
After we got to his house, we sat around the table and began talking. We talked about what we had done in the past, some of the military things
01:09:12
I've done, and some of the athletics I've done. We found out we had both been stationed.
01:09:18
He was in the Marines also. We found out we'd both been stationed at Quantico, Virginia, a large
01:09:23
Marine Corps training base. So we reminisced about that. Then we found out we'd both been stationed at Yuma, Arizona, a small
01:09:30
Marine Corps air and missile base. So we began to reminisce, and we kept talking and talking, and all of a sudden, he stopped talking.
01:09:39
He sat back in his chair and looked right at me, and he said this, I remember you.
01:09:47
You remember me. 27 years ago in a gymnasium, I gave you the gospel presentation.
01:09:55
God brought us back together again. See, that man did what he was supposed to do.
01:10:01
He was not afraid. I was much bigger and taller than him. He was not afraid. He gave me the gospel.
01:10:08
It took me seven years to understand it. Let's call it a lot of bone up here sometimes. It took me seven years to understand it.
01:10:15
But because of that one man, because nobody else was witnessing to me, because of what he did that day,
01:10:21
I am here today standing firmly as a born -again believer in Jesus Christ and able to be a servant of our
01:10:29
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and teach his word wherever I can go. That's the difference one person can make.
01:10:37
He was one of those unforgettable men in my life, and there I was preaching in his church the next day because of what he did 27 years earlier.
01:10:47
That's my testimony. Praise the
01:10:53
Lord. Praise the Lord. Thank you for sharing that with us, Mike. And we do have a couple other questions.
01:11:00
One of them, I believe it was Doug, who asked, are you aware of any court cases coming through the pipeline for the
01:11:07
Supreme Court that can help us get back, start making some progress back to godliness in our nation?
01:11:15
I'm not aware of any court cases right now, but I've also been trained in tactics, strategy, and covert operations.
01:11:24
And we need to understand the strategies and tactics of the battle we're in. And that's what we need to do.
01:11:30
See, we have about 90 percent of our Christian students attending public schools. What are they getting fed?
01:11:38
Anti -biblical agendas. Even the 10 percent that are attending private and Christian schools are not getting much on creation either, or apologetics.
01:11:50
So if we get any loss, is it going to make any difference? Probably not. The public schools are not going to change.
01:11:57
So what we need to do is start training the youth. I'll let you know, hearing lectures and reading books is not going to equip them efficiently.
01:12:06
We need to thoroughly equip them. And what we're trying to do on this—and
01:12:12
I don't want to advertise what we're doing here, but this is what needs to be done, and what we're trying to do. We need to train our
01:12:19
Christian school teachers. We need to help them on this issue, because they're not getting it in the Christian colleges.
01:12:25
And there are no textbooks out there. So a strategy is, let's get the teachers trained, because they're already out there.
01:12:32
We already have the teachers. Let's get them equipped so they can teach the students, and then those students will be well equipped.
01:12:40
Let's get our youth pastors trained on this, and our homeschool educators.
01:12:47
Get the teachers trained, and that way we can replicate ourselves hundredfold, rather than one ministry trying to do it all, is get the teachers trained.
01:12:56
So we need to evaluate, how do we get the most youth equipped? Not just hearing the message, we need to train to be doers of the word.
01:13:04
I don't think a court case is going to make a difference on here. What's going to make a difference? If the church decides to make a difference.
01:13:10
And right now, they're not deciding to make a difference. So no court case is going to help that. It comes down to, what is the church going to do?
01:13:19
What are our Christian universities and schools going to do? If they're not going to do anything, then we'll just have to do it ourselves.
01:13:27
So I take a pretty strong attitude on this one. We can have all the court cases out there, but it's not going to change until the church has changed.
01:13:35
That's for sure, and maybe this whole pandemic is really getting, we've seen a lot of pastors get energized and re -energized, and hopefully it's going to bring some good positive results out of the chaos, that we're going to be able to see something like that happen.
01:13:54
I hope so. Even our Sunday schools need to change, because we're too much. We come in, somebody lectures, and we go home.
01:14:01
No. The question is, before you start that first lesson in Sunday school is, ask and answer this question.
01:14:07
At the end of the 12 -week or 16 -week, however long this Bible study is, what will your students be able to do or perform when they're all done?
01:14:14
If they can't do anything, you haven't taught. So we've got to go from just hearing to making doers of the word, and that's the different kind of education that's not being done right now.
01:14:28
So our churches need to change there also. You get me on education, that's a hot button for me.
01:14:34
Well, one of the other questions is, especially given that so many of our kids are still in public schools, which even you say that Christian schools aren't necessarily that much better, a lot of them, how many generations do you think it would take for us to reclaim
01:14:50
America as a godly nation? Well, it takes one to lose it. If we really want to do it, it can take one to get it back, if we're willing to do it.
01:15:02
I'm not sure the church is willing to do it. We need to come together. We're not doing that. And I know there's a lot of churches out there that have all these other doctrines, but there's enough churches that hold to the authority of scripture.
01:15:15
There's enough people out there, like we have the Institute for Creation Research, Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries International, and many, many local groups all over the country.
01:15:24
We need to come together and work this strategy. See, no one group's going to be able to do it.
01:15:31
It's too mammoth a project. But it can happen if we decide we want to do it.
01:15:36
That's the whole thing. But you know another thing, unfortunately, it takes money. It takes money to do all this.
01:15:43
So we need people. See, we need prayer warriors. We need people to be on the front of the battlefield, and we need people who can help finance this thing.
01:15:51
So it's no one group can do it. It's too big. Yeah. Another question, what is your understanding of the
01:15:59
Convention of the States? Convention of the States? Yeah. I can't speak on that right now.
01:16:06
Okay. I've heard enough about it. I'm a little worried and scared about it. Okay.