Roger Marsh: I'm Roger Marsh and you're listening to Family Talk. Today is Memorial Day, and in honor of those who have fallen in defense of our nation, I'd like to read a quote from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It reads, "Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy, forget in time that men have died to win them." On this Memorial Day, we hear at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute pay tribute to the men and women in the US military who have died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. We also honor those who have laid down their lives in law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, and our brave medical workers as well. And finally, we acknowledge and thank the families and friends of our fallen heroes today and every day, let us remember that freedom is never free.
Dr. James Dobson: Hello everyone. This is Dr. James Dobson, and you're listening to Family Talk. The great five-star General and later President of the United States, Dwight David Eisenhower, once said, "When you're in any contest, you should work as if there were to the very last minute, a chance of losing it." This is the mentality that we should have in our fight for righteousness. The second we stop pushing back against the evils of the culture, that's when we are going to start losing our religious liberties.
One man who understands the mindset is Lieutenant General, Jerry Boykin. He has had an illustrious and decorated career in our nation's military. For 36 years, he was instrumental in commanding some of the most elite combat missions with the Delta Force and Green Berets. When it comes to the military, this man has been there. More recently, he served as the Deputy under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence under President George W. Bush and now General Boykin is the Executive Vice President of the Family Research Council. In a moment, we are going to let you hear how we can be spiritual warriors by understanding five revered military mottos. I know you're going to enjoy what he has to say. Here now, is the recording of that speech on this edition of Family Talk.
Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin: How many veterans do we have, military veterans? Let me see your hands. Thanks for your service. Dob talked about my autobiography, Never Surrender. And I have to tell this story, doc and I know you won't mind, but if you've read it, you know this story. But in 2003, the media was just hammering me. I was under investigation. The media was hammering me, asking George W. Bush to fire me as the Deputy under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. They were going, and it was brutal, it was the worst thing that I had experienced up to that point, to include losing soldiers in combat. It was the worst thing because it was relentless and I wasn't prepared for it.
And my wife got on the phone with Dr. Dobson. My wife just picked up the phone and started calling. And he got on the phone with her and she said, "What are you going to do to help my husband?" He said, "I'll help him." And two days later he aired his entire one hour program, was all about me. All about me. And then at the end of it, he said, "And if you want to help General Boykin, I want you to call these two numbers. Here's one, that's at the White House. Here's one, that's at the Pentagon. Call him and tell him you support the General."
The problem was the number that he gave him for the Pentagon, was Donald Rumsfeld's private number. This is not a joke. They locked up the Pentagon switch. They came to me, his aide came to me and said, "Call them off." I said, "What do you mean? It's like throwing feathers in the wind. I can't call this off." And they said, "Do you realize that the whole switchboard of the Pentagon is locked up now because of this?" And I felt like saying, "Nanny nanny, boo, boo." But I didn't.
Congress shall make no laws, respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or bridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, to petition their government for the redress of grievances. When our founding fathers reassembled in Philadelphia to write the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, they dealt with the freedom of religion, first.
Today, we are being asked by a more and more secular American society, to accept freedom of worship. Our founding fathers not only gave us freedom of worship, but they gave us freedom of religion, which means I can believe what I want to believe, but I can also write about it. I can speak about it. I can take it into the public square. But what you see happening today in this society with the exception of people like James Dobson and Franklin Graham and Tony Perkins and a few others.
You see churches and people of faith all over this country accepting freedom of worship. You see that's what Hitler did to the church. Hitler went to the church and he said, "You can worship, but you better keep it inside the church or inside your home, because if you come out, I'll crush you." Talk to Eric Metaxas sometime, I have. When he wrote the book, Bonhoeffer, he studied for five years of what happened there.
And the church went silent with the exception of Bonhoeffer. It cost him his life, but I suspect he's rejoicing with the Lord today, don't you? But today we are accepting freedom of worship versus freedom world. How did we get here? What is this all about? I will tell you this. I don't have time to do this whole presentation that I was going to give you, but here's what you need to understand. Karl Marx said, "My objective is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism." And he said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." He was a hardcore theist as well as a Marxist.
And if you look today, I've said for several years now, that we're removing to becoming a Marxist society, if we didn't wake up and stop it. And then you have these various people popping up now as socialists. Look, you need to understand that socialism is only the economic aspect of Marxism. And the whole objective here is to dethrone God, as well as to destroy capitalism. You see, you can't be a Marxist society if you believe that your rights are unalienable, that your rights come from God.
You have to depend on government. You have to depend on man, not on unalienable rights, and that was what was so wonderful about our Constitution. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among these is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That concept was unheard of because rights came from the king, the Pharaoh, the Calyth.
But today, because of this Marxist influence in America, we are seeing an all-out assault on our first amendment freedoms. And by the way, if you stop and break it down and look at it, really all five of those freedoms that are articulated in the first amendment, support the single most important, and it's the first one in there, and it's the freedom of religion.
So, what do we do? I want to give you five phrases and I want to say to you, if you'll contemplate what I'm about to say, you just kind of commit these phrases to memory. They could be a real guide for what we as Christians, we as the church, should be doing. Here they are, Sue sponte. See four of these are Latin, and one is Greek, De oppresso liber, Ut Prosim, Semper fidelis, and Molon Labe.
So, what do they mean? Let's go through them one at a time. First of all, Sue sponte, this I freely give. Where did that phrase come from? In 1941 when the Japanese decided they were going to invade China from the south, they went into the jungles of Burma and they started towards the Chinese border, and Chiang Kai-shek with his nationalist army, ran to the border and they set up a defensive line there. And they were in a standoff with the Japanese.
Chiang Kai-shek was preventing the Japanese from invading China, but he couldn't hold out for long, he needed relief. And the British were like everybody else at that time, they didn't think you could go through the jungle. You couldn't penetrate the jungles. You couldn't go for long distances with any kind of fighting force. You either had to land on a beach somewhere. You had to come in by air and land on an airfield, but a British Brigadier named Orde Wingate said, "No, I can penetrate the jungle." He put together an organization called The Chindits. Half of them were Indians and half of them were British soldiers. And they penetrated that jungle.
And for six months they went into the jungle and they fought in the rear areas of the Japanese army. When they came out, they were decimated, literally decimated with about a 10th of their people standing. A toll was taken, but they proved the concept that you could penetrate and fight in the jungle. When America entered the war, they decided that they wanted to duplicate what Orde Wingate had done and create a unit that would be able to go through the jungles of Burma. And most people today don't remember that there was a theater called the China Burma India Theater.
You see most of the young people today. When I say China Burma India Theater, they don't know though about the European theater and the Pacific theater, but the China Burma India Theater was a critical theater. So the US under the leadership of a general name Stilwell put together an organization called Merrill's marauders. One of the people that was in that organization, in fact, one of the key people in there was my mentor for over 35 years, but he used to sit at his feet and I used to listen to him talk about his experiences in the China Burma India Theater.
Lieutenant General, Sam Wilson was his name, a godly man, but their motto was Sue sponte. You see, they went into the jungles in 1942, with 3000 men. And 10 months later, they came out of that jungle with 300. 3000, 10 months later, they came out with 300, but their motto was Sue sponte. And you see every man in that organization was a volunteer. No one was forced to be there. Every single one of them, and they could have left before they went into the jungle, they had the opportunity, they were given the chance to quit, but their motto was Sue sponte, this I give freely.
You know what, I grew up in a church. I grew up with a works based theology until somebody finally set me down one day and said, "You need to understand Jesus gave his life freely. He gave his life freely. You can't earn it. You want to reverse what's happening here. We've got to spread that message." Sue sponte, is not about earning it. I got to tell you, we need to take Sue sponte to this community, to this state, to this country that we live in. We need to take that message and tell people, you don't have to earn it. You can't earn it. You just need to accept Him as the Lord of your life.
The second one is De oppresso liber, to free the oppressed in world war II. Winston Churchill formed an organization called the special operations executive. They were three man, little three man teams that would go in behind the German lines and occupied France and occupied Italy. And they would organize the resistance, and then they would fight against the Germans to free the Italian people, to free the French people, to free the oppressed. And then when America entered the war, they changed the name of it to the office of strategic services, is the predecessor to the CIA.
But after the war, the United States army said, "We need that kind of capability." And they formed the US army's Green Berets and their motto is De oppresso liber, to free the oppressed. And today, the Green Berets probably have one of the most distinguished combat records in any organization in the US military. Because their lives and their mission is really revolves around freeing the oppressed. Going into those places where people need to be rescued, where people need assistance to break out of a bad situation.
There were so many oppressed people in Chicago. I was in Chicago, and I was doing a men's conference, and somebody paid for a group of young boys out of the hood. Somebody paid for them to come to this conference and they asked me if I'd sit and talk with them. For an hour and a half, I sat in a room, just me and them and we talked. And there's one little boy in there that the Lord just drew me to him. So when it was over, he walked out. I said, "Son, come here." I said, "You're not going to understand what I'm about to tell you, but I want you to know that God has an anointing on you and you need to seek him out and determine what his will is in your life."
And he just looked at me and he walked out. I was signing books a little later. He came up to my table and he said, "Can I talk to you? And he said, sir, he said, "I'm about to commit suicide." I said, "How old are you?" He said, "I'll be 13 next week. My name is Deandra. I don't know who my father is. And I only see my mother four times a year because she is in prison." And he said, "each gang wants me to join them. And the other one beat me up, if I don't join." And he said, "I just can't take it anymore." And I said, "Son, you come back in here for this next session."
He did. And at the end of the next session, I had the fathers come up and bring their sons forward and lay their hands on their sons and bless him. I brought him up and I blessed him and I affirmed him. So I stood there, blessing him. He began to weep, and I began to weep. And then I said, "I need a man in here that'll mentor him." We got him connected for him on the pledge that he would go into the hood, and he would mentor Deandra or because he's going to free the oppressed.
Ut Prosim, that I may serve. Where did this come from? I'm a graduate of one of the finest institutions in America. I'm a Virginia Tech graduate. And Virginia Tech has a core cadets, much like the military academies. I was part of that core cadets, but every time we hit the drill field, they would make us repeat Ut Prosim. Ut Prosim, that I might serve. I stood in this formation and heard over and over. It is not about you anymore. When you leave here, it is about your service to this country. It's not about you.
One of the fallacies, one of the big lies in Christianity is that God saved you just so you could go to heaven. God saved you so you could be a worker, a warrior in His kingdom and be part of His army. At the end of my every tour, I used to get a little award. And the only two awards I ever really earned were two purple hearts, because I got the scars to show those. But all the rest of them, they gave it to me because I was there. Well, your reward, your award at the end of your tour here on earth is heaven. You're going to heaven. If you've been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, not because you're a good person, but if you've been redeemed by that blood, you're going to heaven, but is not why you're here.
It's not why He redeemed you. He redeemed you. So you could be a warrior in His kingdom and we need to start making sure that Christians understand that you can't just sit on the pews of the church, happy with the fact that you're going to heaven and not do anything. Don't let Him come and catch you napping, or catch you standing there. One day we're going to stand before the Lord, and I think there are just way too many Christians that don't understand Ut Prosim, that I might serve. That's why we were redeemed. Semper fidelis, are there any of you in here that don't know where that came from? Always faithful, always faithful as Christians we need to be enduring.
We need to be enduring. And when we fall, we need to get up. We need to get up, but do not get discouraged, but be faithful to what we know as our mission in life. I love the Marine Corps and I grew up in the Marine Corps, whether you know it or not, I grew up around Cherry Point Marine Air Station. My dad was there for 32 years. I love the Marine Corps. And one of my dear friends is all over north. I'm on his board and we've been friends for 35 years, but he signs all his emails by Semper fidelis, is not just a phrase, it's a way of life. And that's true. Semper fidelis, always faithful. We've got to endure and not get weary, and stay true to the mission that God has given us.
Molon Labe, it's Greek. It's the only of the Greek phrases here. Molon Labe, come and take. For ABC before Greece was actually a nation, it was a group of independent states, city states. You had the Athenians, you had the Spartans, you had the thieves, you had others. But when they were threatened, they would come together. Even though they were a warrior culture, they would come together to fight a common enemy, and the common enemy was Xerxes and the Persians.
Xerxes decided he was going to invade these city states and he was going to take over, and he was going to take the shortest route and he was going to come through a very narrow pass that was called Thermopylae. But the Spartan king Leonatus and the Spartans were the fierceness of the warrior cultures. The king of Sparta actually led 300 Spartans to the battle. The Athenians gave him 7,000 Athenians.
And here's what he said to them, he said, "Here's what we're going to do. We can't overcome 250,000 men of Xerxes army, but we can atride them and we can hold them off". And he said, "You 7,000, you're going to stand in that gap to begin with, until it becomes obvious that we're going to lose, they're going to overtake us. And then you go back and evacuate the cities and get our families out. And I'll take my 300 Spartans and we'll stay here and fight to the death."
After the third day of the battle, Xerxes stopped the fighting and sent a runner to Leonatus and he said, "Lay down your weapons and I'll let you go free." Leonatus sent a message back to him. Molon Labe, come and take them. You want my weapons come and take them. You know what, you want my faith, come on. We are losing our faith today because we got so many Christians that won't stand up and fight for it.
It is time for Christians to stand and be counted. It is time for Christians to get in the fight because they are trying to take our faith. Molon Labe has to be our motto. We got to be faithful and take the message, to free the oppressed, and fight hard not to let them take our faith. Doctor is such a privilege to be here with you tonight. And with all these people, God bless you, sir.
Dr. James Dobson: My goodness, wasn't that a powerful speech by General Boykin. I mean, I could listen to that six or eight or 10 times. And the reason is because he talks about five revered military phrases, that explained the policies and principles that the military operates on. And I'll bet some of you, when you were listening to that were thinking, "I wish I had them written down." Because all five of them are in either Latin, or Greek, or Italian, or who knows what? And if you would like to have copies of them, you can get that. By going to our broadcast page of our website at drjamesdobson.org
You can also find a lot of tools to help support your family there. Check out our resources page at that same address, drjamesdobson.org. You'll find so many books, including DVDs and radio broadcasts, and much more. Our resources cover topics such as building confidence in your kids, passing on a godly legacy or heritage, and battling for your marriage. Every family experiences tough times, it's just the way it is. And you should know that we care about you and we want to help. So go now to drjamesdobson.org and take advantage of our resources page. Thank you all so much for listening today. Please be with us tomorrow. We're bringing some great stuff for you every day and don't miss a single program. We'll talk to you next time.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
Roger Marsh: It's that time of year again, time to register your kids for the national Bible Bee summer study. You've probably heard Dr. Dobson mention the Bible Bee before. Well, the mission of the national Bible Bee is to engage young people in the memorization and study of God's word in the Bible Bee summer study, your kids will spend eight weeks learning to memorize and study God's. Holy scripture, the program is available for kids ages five to 18, for as little as $35 per students.
And you can get 15% off total registration cost, when you use the promo code, JDFI22, your child might also get a chance to attend and compete in the in-person competition for the top 120 kids in each age range at the National Bible Bee this fall. To register your child for a summer of fun and learning scripture, go to biblebee.org. That's B-I-B-L-E-B-E-E-.-O-R-G. And use the promo code J-D-F-I-2-2, to get 15% off your total registration fee, but hurry registration for the Bible Bee summer study ends tomorrow, May 31st. So don't wait, go to biblebee.org now to learn more.