Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and SWRC.com. Another week of listener favorites is underway. All this month we're revisiting the programs and topics from the past year that you've said are your favorites. Today, historian and author Bill Federer will show that you are the key to turning things around. And later this week, Billy Crone will reveal the rise of the Nephilim. Thanks to your prayers and financial support, Watchman on the Wall is heard daily on over 500 radio signals proclaiming the good news that God is still on the throne and prayer changes things. For all of our brand new listeners, we want to say hello and we have an outstanding resource for you. It's our New Listener Pack. Inside the New Listener Pack is a collection of resources designed to welcome you to Watchmen on the Wall. Every New Listener Pack includes our Prophetic Observer newsletter and a free gift. So make sure and request your free New Listener Pack when you call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Should Christians be involved in government? Bill Federer comes to answer this question and to show how you can make the difference that is needed right now. What should the church's response be to the evils that we observe in the world today? Should the church just sit back and remain silent in the face of all the rampant wickedness we see in our world? Should we sit in silence as Marxism and globalism grow and march forward? Should we just sit back while our freedoms are trampled? Here to discuss these kinds of important questions with a brand new book, It is a familiar voice that we've had on Watchman on the Wall many times. It's author and historian William J. Federer. Bill Federer is back. His brand new book is called Silence Equals Consent, The Sin of Omission. The subtitle is Speak Now or Forever Lose Your Freedom. This book is both urgent and important. It's filled with lots of history, but also a call to action. And Bill, we welcome you back to Watchman on the Wall. Josh, good to be with you. I know that this has been a burden of your heart, a burning within you, if we can call it that, that this message go out. It is so timely, and it's something we need to really latch on to. What was the burden behind this book? Well, I see so many churches saying they're not going to get involved in politics, that they're so spiritual that they don't care what kind of country that we're leaving our kids. I did a TV program with George Barnum, and he said the areas that have the highest percentage of Christians have the lowest voter turnout. And so they're pushing all of this terrible stuff while Christians think they're being spiritual. It's like, how did we get to this place? And so I begin unpacking it in the book, and I go through how the most common form of government in world history is kings, Nimrod, Pharaoh, Caesar, Kaiser, Sultan, Tsar. The kingdoms keep getting bigger because with military advancements, the kings could kill more people. So instead of Cain killing Abel with a rock, they can kill with a bronze weapon, or an iron weapon, or phalanx, spears, scimitars, sword, gunpowder. The weapon keeps improving, and the kings can kill more people. Anybody that can plot on a graph sees that at some point it's going to max out on a global level. And Jesus said wheat and cherries grow together till the harvest. But at the time of the country's founding, the king of England was the most powerful king on the planet. He was a globalist. He was a one-world government guy with him at the top. Wherever there's a king, you have to believe the way the king does, or it's considered treason. Remember Nebuchadnezzar, when I blow my trumpet tube out of my statue, and even King Henry VIII, right? He burnt William Tyndale to the stake, and he chopped off Sir Thomas More's head because they didn't believe the way the king did. What the king believes, the kingdom had to believe. there was a change, and it was called the Reformation. And you had Protestants coming up with a different style of government. It's called a covenant form of government, and it goes back to ancient Israel, the first 400 years out of Egypt before King Saul. This period is called the Hebrew Republic. And you have millions of Israelites around 1400 BC come out of Egypt and they go into the promised land. And for 400 years, there's no king. What an anomaly. This is like totally unique in world history. And the system works because everybody is taught the law and they're each individually accountable to God to follow the law. So you're about to steal. Nobody's around, you know, you can get away with it. And then you think, God is watching me. He wants me to be fair. He is going to hold me accountable in the future. Maybe I should hesitate stealing. Create something in your head called the conscience. And so this 400-year period with no king is called the Hebrew Republic. And it was studied by these Calvinists and Puritans and Baptists and Congregationalists and Presbyterians so much that they were nicknamed Christian Hebraists. So they were Christians, but they were studying this Hebrew Republic so much. And it gave birth to congregational church government that later turned into a congregational city government. So the church government, the King of England had a hierarchical form of church government where the king was at the top, followed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York and the deaneries and vicars and curates and directors and priests. And your relationship with God is through this hierarchical structure. And it's a clergy-laity model. The clergy does the ministry, and the laity is lazy and watches them. It's a spectator religion. When the Reformation happens, you have kings that are killing people. The king of Spain, Philip II, sends the Iron Duke of Alba into Antwerp, Holland, and he kills 10,000 Dutch Reformed in 1572. It's called the Spanish Fury. And the Queen of France, Catherine de' Medici, she kills 10,000 Huguenots, right? She arranges a wedding of her daughter Margaret in Paris with the main Huguenot Protestant leader, Henri of Navarre. And a couple of days after the wedding, she has her soldiers pull chains across the street so the carriages cannot ride out of town. And then she sends her men house to house, and they killed 30,000 of these Huguenots, throw their bodies in the Seine River. And over in Switzerland, you got a guy named John Calvin, and he's wrestling with what to do with Roman 13. Let everyone be subject to the governing authority, for there's no authority except that which God has established. The authority that exists has been established by God. It's like, yeah, what if the authority that exists wants to kill your wife and kids? Are you supposed to submit to that? Here they are, kill them. And so John Calvin writes, we are subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against him, let us not pay the least regard to it. It's sort of like Ephesians 6, children, obey your parents. But what if there's a bad parent who tells the kid to sell themselves into prostitution? Is the child supposed to obey that parent? No. The child obeys the parent as long as the parent's telling them to do something that lines up with God's Word. You obey the government as long as the government's telling you to do something that lines up with God's Word. Why would God tell you to do something in His Word and then tell you to submit to a government that tells you not to do what He just got done telling you to do? It's what Martin Luther King Jr. put in his letter from the Birmingham Jail, 1963. One may well ask, how can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others? The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws, just and unjust. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. So you obey the government as long as the government's telling you to do something lined up with God's Word. And so these Calvinist Puritans developed this covenant congregational form of church government The word is ekklesia. E-K means out of, and klesia means a calling. And in the Greek city of Athens, there were 6,000 citizens. They would be called out of their homes to the marketplace, and they'd all get involved in fixing the walls, and fixing the navy, and taking care of the kids. And Jesus chose that word to say, upon this rock, I'll build my ekklesia. It's in the Word. Everybody's got to be a part. An eye, an ear, a foot. It's the body of Christ. Everybody participates. And so in the congregational model, the pastor helps every person to have their own direct relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ that died on the cross to pay for their sins. And then the pastor coaches each individual to become a mature Christian, right? You get in the habit of reading through the Bible yourself, right? The printing press was just invented, 1454 at Gutenberg. And so everybody can have their own copy of the Bible. And so now you've got this reformation, and they're teaching people to read the Bible for themselves. And then the pastor helps them to plug into the body and do something, right? Because everything that's alive takes in and gives out. Nursery, children's nursery, junior high outreach, something. Every muscle to grow has to be exercised. You don't just hear a good sermon. You hear a good sermon and then fill with the Holy Spirit and fulfill the Word of God. You put yourself in a position where there's a need and the Holy Spirit will use you to meet the need. And he's faithful in the very little, gets entrusted with much, and you grow in your Christian walk. Ephesians 4, it says that God gives the pastors to train the saints to do the work of the ministry. So instead of you watching somebody else do the ministry, the pastor trains you to do the work of the ministry. So this congregational model, it was embraced by Calvinists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, a lot of these different separatist groups. And guess what? The king didn't like that. And the king of England said, I will make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of the land. And so these pilgrims flee from England to Holland, and after 12 years in Holland, when Spain threatens to attack again, they flee to the New World, and they were going to go to Virginia and submit to the king's government. But they get blown off course, and they land in Massachusetts. Try sailing south, it's stormy, almost sink. And then the captain says, off the boat, too dangerous to sail. And the pilgrims say, well, yeah, we have a question. Who's going to be in charge? There's no king appointed person in our boat. We were going to go to Virginians, but to the king's government down there. And there's 102 of us on the boat, and nobody is picked by the king to be in charge. They do something unique called the Mayflower Compact. It says, we, in ye presence of God, covenant ourselves together into a civil body politic. They take their covenant church form of government, and in America, they make it their civil body politic. This is the polarity change in the flow of power on planet Earth. Instead of top-down rule by Nimrods and Pharaohs and Caesars and Kaisers and Sultans and Czars, it's real bottom-up by we, just 102 of us. We're going to decide and we're going to submit to these laws. This becomes the model for New England. In the ensuing decades, the King of England turns up the heat, and there's the Great Puritan Migration, 1630-40, 20,000 Puritans, and you have pastors and their little covenant churches founding cities. A pastor John Lotherp and his church founded Barnstable, Massachusetts. A pastor Roger Williams and his church founded Providence, Rhode Island, and the first Baptist church in America. Pastor Thomas Hooker and his church founded Hartford, Connecticut, and the first Congregationalist church in America. And they would have one building in town called the Meeting House. This is where the pastor would teach the Bible, and this is where they would gather together and do their city business. I mean, why build a separate building just to talk about a different topic? And so everybody was involved in both. You can do two things. You can be a spouse and you can be a parent. You can do two things. You can be involved in church stuff and you can be involved in civil stuff. I mean, why build a separate building just to talk about a different topic? The word synagogue means meeting house. That's where the rabbi would teach the law, and that's where they would do their city business. So when the Revolutionary War starts, the British send over a military governor, Thomas Gage, to Massachusetts, and he outlaws meeting houses. We don't need the people meeting and giving their consent to stuff. You just obey government mandates. And we're like, no, nothing happens in America unless we give our consent. And he's like, no, you obey government mandates. And we're like, no, nothing happens unless we give our consent. He's like, no, you're a robot. You're a zombie. When the government blows its trumpets, you bow to the statue. You're a bunch of mush. Just do what you're told. And we're like, no, nothing happens in America unless we give our consent. Turns into a revolutionary war and we win. And we set up a government, whereas we, the people, ruling, governing from the consent of the governed. This is a fantastic mod—in the first time in all of the thousands of years of recorded human history, we break away from a king, and you can have millions of people ruling themselves without a king. The word federal is Latin for covenant. We have a covenant form of government. It's a great plan. After a century, it got a little dry. It got a little academic. To some, it became only a plan. And these Puritans would teach, okay, God has a plan for your life, your marriage, your family, your church, your government. Find out what the plan is, put it into place. Some took it the next step and said, God, in His infinite love, wisdom, already knows who's going to wind up in heaven, so don't even bother preaching the gospel, until they stop preaching the gospel. David Brainerd got expelled from Yale because he said his professor was as spiritual as a chair. The Yale students were reprimanded because they went into the nearby town of New Haven They were presenting the gospel to strangers on the streets and in pubs, and that was considered disrespectful. You're only supposed to preach the gospel if you have a license to preach, and you do it wearing a black robe in the formal setting of a church. You don't just talk about it on the street. In the 1700s, you had the New Lights, and these are pietists that originally came from Germany, and they said it's more than a plan. It's a personal experience with Jesus. And when you have this personal experience, your life will change and you won't do worldly things anymore, like bars and brothels and government. It's like, wait, what was that last thing? Yeah, government is worldly. If you're really a Christian, you're not going to be involved in government. This idea came from Germany. Friends, we are visiting with author William J. Federer. He is discussing some of the content carried in his brand new book, Silence Equals Consent, The Sin of Omission. Speak now or forever lose your freedom. We're discussing the history behind the move to absolve Christians from government and saying, no, just stay on the sidelines. Don't be involved in government. What is the biblical role? What is this all about? This book is over 300 pages in length and you can order your copy by calling us at 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Or you can visit us online at swrc.com. Again, that's swrc.com. The name of the book is Silence Equals Consent. the sin of omission. And we're visiting with author and speaker William J. Federer. Why don't you continue explaining these things to us? Martin Luther started the Reformation in 1517 because he had a personal experience that just shuttled him by faith. It was so personal, he was willing to stand up to the most powerful guy in the world, the King of Spain, and say, unless you can prove me wrong from Scripture, here I stand, so help me God. Very personal to Martin Luther. But some German princes want a break from Rome, and they say, this is my chance, kingdom of mine. I just decided you are all now Lutherans. And the people say, great king, we're Lutheran. What do we believe? And so for the people in the kingdom, it's not necessarily the same personal experience Martin Luther had. It's just a new doctrine. And so these pietists say, look, being a Christian is more than doctrine, even if it's good doctrine. You have to have an experience with Jesus, and when you do, your life will change, and you won't do worldly things anymore, like go to bars and brothels and boot theater and get involved in government. And there, pietists don't get involved. The revolution starts. John Peter Muhlenberg, He's inspired. He goes to George Washington, who was there, says, I want to help. And Washington said, I'm going to make you a colonel. Go get your men. So he goes back to church and he preaches a sermon out of Ecclesiastes, a time for all things, a time to gather stones, a time to scatter stones, a time to embrace, a time to refrain from embracing, a time to preach, and a time to fight. And he takes off his black clerical robe, and underneath he has a uniform of a continental officer. And he has an altar call and 300 men of his church and surrounding churches kiss their wives goodbye and ride off to become the 8th Virginia Regiment. He fights in all these battles. At Yorktown, he's promoted to general. After the war, he's elected to Congress. He's in that first session of Congress where they pass the First Amendment. Now, while this is going on, his brother, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, is writing letters to John Peter saying, you have become too involved in matters which, as a preacher, you have nothing whatsoever to do. John Peter writes back, accusing Frederick of being a Tory British sympathizer. Frederick writes back, says he cannot serve two masters, right? The two kingdom concepts in Germany, the kingdom of the government, the kingdom of the church, the two can't touch it. I can't serve both two masters because I've got to pick one in the church. And then the British invade New York and burn Frederick's church to the ground. And while he's watching his church smoldering, he says, you know what, maybe I should get involved. And then he's elected to Congress, and he's elected the first Speaker of the House. The first Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is Lutheran pastor Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, who went from pietist, not being involved, to being involved. What did they pass in that first session of Congress? The First Amendment, the Bill of Rights. Can anybody honestly think that these two pastors would vote to outlaw themselves? Would they say pastors aren't supposed to be involved in politics, even though we are pastors and we are involved? No, the First Amendment, as well as the first 10 amendments, were handcuffs on the federal government to prevent it from ruling through mandates. They wanted to preserve the freedom. It's important for us to understand this history, that the idea of, oh, we're not supposed to be involved, that was a pietist idea. That was not the Calvinist Puritans that founded the colony. Their idea was you can do two things. You can be involved in government, you can be involved in church stuff, and you can be a king and a priest, right? Because the Lord has made us kings and priests. You can be involved in government and church. And the pietist idea is, oh, if you're holy and spiritual, you cannot be involved. Well, if you're not involved, who's left to be involved but the unholy and the unspiritual? And they're going to turn into tyrants. And they're not going to be content with ruling the government. They're going to want to rule the church. They're going to want to shut down the churches. And look, in Islamist countries and in communist countries, they shut down the churches. We had a taste of that with the COVID response, right? Them wanting to shut down the churches. And believe me, if they could have had their way, they'd have had those churches shut even to this day. It's important for us to understand that if we really want to follow the Gospels, let's follow the first 400 years before King Saul. Romans 13 is understood differently in a monarchy versus a republic. In a monarchy, subjects submit to the king. In a republic, the citizens are the king. The word citizen means co-king, co-ruler, co-sovereign. The politicians are your servants. They're public servants. You hire them, you fire them. They're supposed to do what you tell them to do. And so the people that say, oh, gotta submit to the government, it's like, you need to pick up and go live under a dictatorship. Go to China and submit to Kim Xi Jinping, or go to North Korea and submit to Kim Jong-un. And when they blow their trumpets, you bow to their statue. But in America, our founders set it up with the blessing of God so that we, the people, are in charge. It's a republic. The citizens are the king. You tell the government officials what needs to happen. And friends, this is such an empowering message that we're hearing from author William J. Federer. The book is called Silence Equals Consent, The Sin of Omission. Speak now or forever lose your freedom. It's an urgent appeal. built upon a historical account, and we need to heed that. And we just have a few more minutes remaining, but before we go back to hear a few more words from author Bill Federer, I want to remind you, you can pick up a copy of this book on SWRC.com. That's SWRC.com. Again, it's called Silence Equals Consent. You can also order it over the phone by giving us a call at 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Brother Bill, we just have a few more minutes remaining. Why don't you continue explaining these important truths? So we hear a term recently called Christian nationalism, and it needs some explaining. Nationalism is the opposite of globalism. There are people who are globalists, like Brock Chisholm, who was the first director of the World Health Organization. Many people may have heard of the World Health Organization. The first director of the World Health Organization, Brock Chisholm, said, to achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their national patriotism. So globalists hate people that want to preserve their nations. Secondly, nationalism depends on the nation. And so in socialist nations like the USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, nationalism is bad because there's no individual rights. Nazi stands for National Socialist Workers Party. There's no individual rights, ask the Jews. America, we believe in individual rights from a creator. The freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom of right to trial by all your peers, freedom of assembly, freedom of right to possess and bear arms to defend yourself. freedom to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. The January 6th people would sure want some of that. And so in America, we are a nation that has freedom and rights from God, and to top it all off, it's government from the consent of the governed. You're in charge. Wanting to preserve our nation is good. So nationalism is the opposite of globalism. Nationalism depends on the nation. And finally, Christian nationalism used to be called Christian patriotism, and every president was in favor of it. I mean, Franklin Roosevelt gave out Gideon's New Testaments and Book of Psalms during World War II. He was preserving our nation. He said, as commander-in-chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces. Lincoln's inaugural address, March 4th, 1861, he said, intelligence, patriotism, Christianity are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty. He mentions patriotism and Christianity right next to each other in his inaugural. Why does the mainstream media call pro-life people anti-abortion? There's no pro-life group that has on its sign an anti-abortion group. No, they put pro-life. Why does the mainstream media call them anti-abortion? Negative word association. Why do they call Christian patriots Christian nationalists? Negative word association. The same Rockefeller groups that are bankrolling these after-party Bible studies to guilt trip Christians into not being involved by labeling them, smearing them with Christian nationalist label. The same groups are given money to promote LGBTQ leadership and activists and given money to Gaza protesters and all that stuff. So what a great strategy. You guilt trip your opposition into silence and you give money to your activists. It's important that we wake up, and that's why this book, Silas Equals Consent, The Sin of Omission, is so timely. It is. It is extremely timely, and I think that that's the enemy's tactic, is to always use guilt and fear, guilt and fear, guilt and fear, over and over and over again. And we see that on display, and I think that that originates from Satan himself fueling that. And we see that all throughout Scripture, as well as all throughout history. And so, friends, we're just going to have to put a bookmark in right here, and we'll pick up the conversation tomorrow. It's extremely important. We encourage you to join us again tomorrow as we continue this important discussion with author William J. Federer. Again, the book is called Silence Equals Consent. You can pick up a copy at SWRC.com. Again, that's SWRC.com. Or you can order a copy over the phone by calling us at 1-800-652-1144. 1-800-652-1144. The book is over 300 pages in length and is so very rich with lots of information, historical information, but also a strong challenge. not to stay on the sidelines, but to get in the game and to be a part of what God wants to do in this world today. Join us again tomorrow as we pick up on this important conversation. Silence Equals Consent, Bill Federer's brand new book, is here. Silence Equals Consent lays out the case that the time is now to speak up or lose your freedom. You look at the chaos all around and you ask yourself, what will happen next? How have godly people been persuaded to let ungodliness reign? In Silence Equals Consent, Bill Federer shows how America's founders were inspired by ancient Israel's covenant government and how this resulted in the U.S. Constitution. In Silence Equals Consent, you'll learn about the rule of tacit admission. Is it scriptural to not care about what kind of country we're leaving to our posterity? In Bill Federer's brand new book, Silence Equals Consent, you will discover if we're being given one last chance to show what we really believe in our hearts through our words and actions. Silence Equals Consent by Bill Federer. Order your copy today when you call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Or you can order on our website, swrc.com. The fate of the world hangs in the balance. Now you are the key to turning things around. The future depends on you. Silence equals consent by Bill Federer. 1-800-652-1144. Watchman on the Wall is a production of Southwest Radio Ministries and is supported by faithful listeners like you. Visit SWRC.com.