1 00:00:04,690 --> 00:00:09,230 Greetings, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church 2 00:00:09,230 --> 00:00:13,650 with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of 3 00:00:13,650 --> 00:00:21,829 life and faith. Today, why all the hype? We have entered yet another presidential election cycle 4 00:00:21,829 --> 00:00:28,969 and our media is hysterical with hype, snipe, and tripe. Our constitution stipulates that we are to 5 00:00:28,969 --> 00:00:35,429 elect a president every four years. At least a full year prior to that time, the hysteria begins to 6 00:00:35,429 --> 00:00:41,810 build. The media, especially cable television and the talk show circuit, breathlessly interview and 7 00:00:41,810 --> 00:00:46,469 analyze every potential candidate who might throw his hat into the ring, whether it be your local 8 00:00:46,469 --> 00:00:51,530 notary public or someone from our American aristocracy, like a Kennedy, a Bush, or those 9 00:00:51,530 --> 00:00:58,810 demonic pests, the Clintons. And from there on in, it's 24-7 news coverage that is surreal. 10 00:00:59,729 --> 00:01:06,609 Sensationalized and Media Circus. Some wag quip that politics is Hollywood for ugly people 11 00:01:06,609 --> 00:01:11,349 and the presidential confest is handled as if it were a Miss America pageant. 12 00:01:12,370 --> 00:01:16,609 Wait a minute. One of the guys in it this year owns the Miss America pageant, doesn't he? 13 00:01:16,849 --> 00:01:23,390 And he's conducting himself as if he were Miss New York. Oh, never mind. Truth seems stranger than 14 00:01:23,390 --> 00:01:29,170 fiction in this case. But if you know how the United States operates in reality and not just 15 00:01:29,170 --> 00:01:34,709 on paper, you know that our elections are no more significant today than your old high school 16 00:01:34,709 --> 00:01:41,349 elections for class president were. This president may get you or you may get to choose the class 17 00:01:41,349 --> 00:01:46,730 colors. He may get to choose the class colors and be prom king, but it's the administration really in 18 00:01:46,730 --> 00:01:52,650 high school behind the scenes that runs the school. Your vote for president does no more than if you 19 00:01:52,650 --> 00:01:57,510 were to elect your captain on your next flight or cruise. While it is important to have a competent 20 00:01:57,510 --> 00:02:03,590 captain in control of the craft, someone else, I submit to you, has already determined its destination 21 00:02:03,590 --> 00:02:10,650 and course. In fact, I would say, if I can extend the analogy, enemies have hijacked this craft, this 22 00:02:10,650 --> 00:02:16,009 ship of state, and you're not even headed towards the destination you signed on for, dear listener. 23 00:02:16,650 --> 00:02:22,689 So despite all of the hyperbolic rhetoric of doom and gloom, this is the most important election in 24 00:02:22,689 --> 00:02:29,530 our lifetime. It will determine the fate of our republic. I submit not much will change. You could go 25 00:02:29,530 --> 00:02:33,870 away for four more years and live in a cave in the Middle East in return, and the United States will 26 00:02:33,870 --> 00:02:39,270 be more Marxist and socialist than it is today. If a democrat is elected, it will be a good deal more 27 00:02:39,270 --> 00:02:44,189 so. If a republican, perhaps a little less so, but still more Marxist and socialist than today. 28 00:02:44,849 --> 00:02:50,590 And there is a reason for this. You no longer have a constitutional republic, but an institutional 29 00:02:50,590 --> 00:02:58,310 repugnant. Our country and its people and its form of government have changed over time. And this is 30 00:02:58,310 --> 00:03:04,569 true in particular of the office of president. But the presidency is emblematic of this change in so 31 00:03:04,569 --> 00:03:10,569 many ways, and thus it is worth studying to find out what has happened. I would like to pose these 32 00:03:10,569 --> 00:03:17,409 questions to you. What is the constitutional office of president precisely? Secondly, what has it become? 33 00:03:17,409 --> 00:03:24,389 And then thirdly, why are Americans obsessed as they are with the presidency? Well, first, number one, 34 00:03:24,389 --> 00:03:32,810 what is the constitutional office of president? Well, the founders, number one, crafted the presidency 35 00:03:32,810 --> 00:03:39,090 to execute the laws of the land, not preside as king of the land. The constitution succinctly gives 36 00:03:39,090 --> 00:03:44,250 the role of the president, and it says in article two, section one, the executive power shall be vested 37 00:03:44,250 --> 00:03:51,610 in a president of the United States of America. Now, his prime directive is the execution that is putting 38 00:03:51,610 --> 00:03:57,550 into effect the intent of Congress, the execution of the laws of the land legislated by Congress, not 39 00:03:57,550 --> 00:04:03,810 him. This severely prescribed role was intended to be his sole function under the second article 40 00:04:03,810 --> 00:04:09,310 of the constitution. The president was never meant to be the tyrannical demigod that he is today, 41 00:04:09,650 --> 00:04:14,330 unchecked by a Congress that cowers in fear that if they contradict the president, they'll get blamed for 42 00:04:14,330 --> 00:04:18,850 shutting down the government, and they'll lose their precious perks and privileges when they get voted 43 00:04:18,850 --> 00:04:24,170 out of office next election cycle by an ignorant and brainwashed electorate that cannot distinguish 44 00:04:24,170 --> 00:04:30,389 lies from local weed. Our present Congress, rather than being the chief prince of government as was 45 00:04:30,389 --> 00:04:36,410 intended, our present Congress has been cowed and browbeaten into submission like a battered wife, 46 00:04:36,410 --> 00:04:42,689 and in this they are not unlike other legislative bodies who have succumbed to tyrants in history 47 00:04:42,689 --> 00:04:50,529 like the Roman Senate before Julius Caesar, prime example, or the French Estates General before Louis 48 00:04:50,529 --> 00:04:57,589 the 14th or the German Bundestag before Adolf Hitler. All of them were weak and cowering institutions by the 49 00:04:57,589 --> 00:05:06,449 time the tyrant arose. The founders rather intended the presidency to come second to the Congress. Many 50 00:05:06,449 --> 00:05:11,589 examples of this, many shining emblems of this. For example, the preamble declares the supreme 51 00:05:11,589 --> 00:05:18,569 representatives of God's covenant are, we the people of the United States of America, ordain and 52 00:05:18,569 --> 00:05:24,689 establish this Constitution, and of course the people is embodied in the Congress. Also, the first 53 00:05:24,689 --> 00:05:30,350 article of the Constitution in priority is that which establishes the legislative body, that is the 54 00:05:30,350 --> 00:05:36,310 Congress. It is the lengthiest article and bestows the widest and most comprehensive powers of the federal 55 00:05:36,310 --> 00:05:43,889 system. Even the architecture of Washington, D.C. is given prominence. That is, Congress, the people's branch, 56 00:05:43,889 --> 00:05:49,769 sits on the highest point in Washington, D.C., and is the most elaborate and extensive of any of our 57 00:05:49,769 --> 00:05:57,230 federal buildings. The president was meant to be exactly as Article 2, Section 1 made him, an executive. 58 00:05:58,089 --> 00:06:04,930 While these men are important to any corporation and any organization, executives execute policy made in 59 00:06:04,930 --> 00:06:11,089 consultation with others, not determined unilaterally, as all of our dictators have done in recent history 60 00:06:11,089 --> 00:06:17,050 in any other age but our own, Obama would have been impeached and convicted and thrown in prison for his 61 00:06:17,050 --> 00:06:22,810 crimes against our Constitution and its laws. Obama has violated his oath of office with impunity 62 00:06:22,810 --> 00:06:28,709 and holds its principles in contempt. No branch of government will hold him accountable, and the people 63 00:06:28,709 --> 00:06:34,730 refuse to demand accountability from the gutless geldings in Congress. The president was 64 00:06:34,730 --> 00:06:40,009 supposed to execute the will of Congress through enforcement of laws passed, not executive orders 65 00:06:40,009 --> 00:06:44,930 that have the force of law, and he was to serve as commander-in-chief of the armed forces in wars 66 00:06:44,930 --> 00:06:51,170 declared by Congress, not by him. Historians have documented, too, further, the gradual accumulation of 67 00:06:51,170 --> 00:06:58,389 power by the president over what he now considers his rivals, that is, Congress, the courts, and the people. 68 00:06:58,389 --> 00:07:06,389 Well, secondly, that's what the presidency was supposed to be. What has it become? What has the presidency 69 00:07:06,389 --> 00:07:13,189 actually become? Number two, the presidency has become, in reality, the ancient office of priest-king 70 00:07:13,189 --> 00:07:19,250 of tribal paganism. Yes, I submit to you, and I will demonstrate that the presidency has become, 71 00:07:19,410 --> 00:07:26,310 in reality, the ancient office of priest-king of tribal paganism. In his campaign for the presidency, 72 00:07:26,310 --> 00:07:31,470 Obama made these messianic promises. He said, I will revive the American economy single-handedly 73 00:07:31,470 --> 00:07:37,029 by cutting the deficit in half in four years, but instead it was five times what was projected, 74 00:07:37,569 --> 00:07:43,189 that he would bring five percent economic growth by 2012, but actually it was only 1.6, 75 00:07:43,529 --> 00:07:48,490 that he would cause the unemployment rate to drop to six percent or lower when it actually went up 76 00:07:48,490 --> 00:07:54,310 over eight percent. He also said this upon his nomination. Listen to this hubris. He says, 77 00:07:54,310 --> 00:07:59,889 this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. 78 00:08:00,490 --> 00:08:05,649 And then he went on to say, this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation. 79 00:08:06,470 --> 00:08:12,790 Barack Obama's sweeping, unrealistic promises sound eerily like those of ancient pagan priest-kings 80 00:08:12,790 --> 00:08:19,730 of tribal societies. I urge you to look at this book, a book by James George Frazier, 81 00:08:19,730 --> 00:08:26,910 that is, The Golden Bough, A Study in Magic and Religion, a classic. And this book, The Golden 82 00:08:26,910 --> 00:08:32,210 Bough, documents how men in ancient pagan cultures used to worship shaman and priests who could 83 00:08:32,210 --> 00:08:37,149 manipulate the environment or the weather to make the tribe prosperous. The first tribal kings, 84 00:08:37,309 --> 00:08:42,090 for example, according to Frazier, were rainmakers who could ostensibly make rain to fall on their 85 00:08:42,090 --> 00:08:47,909 crops and ensure fruitfulness and prosperity for the whole tribe. For example, the fruitfulness and 86 00:08:47,909 --> 00:08:54,389 fecundity of the tribe, they could prosper via productive soil, sky, and womb. It is what today 87 00:08:54,389 --> 00:09:02,389 we call the economy or peace and prosperity. The shamans also used to promise an orderly progression 88 00:09:02,389 --> 00:09:08,429 of the seasons and the weather and the environment or climate change, as we call it today. The shamans 89 00:09:08,429 --> 00:09:12,830 also used to claim that they could heal the sick, make the blind to see and the deaf to hear, 90 00:09:12,830 --> 00:09:20,230 or provide universal health care, or Obamacare, as we know it today. It was not considered too much 91 00:09:20,230 --> 00:09:25,450 for these magicians to do all of these things in those days. It was believed that they were in touch 92 00:09:25,450 --> 00:09:31,269 with the forces and the energy of nature, or the money, as it is known, resident within the rocks, 93 00:09:31,370 --> 00:09:37,009 the trees, the sky, and the animals. And by their sacrifices, rituals, incantations, prayers, visions, 94 00:09:37,210 --> 00:09:42,190 feats of wonder, these shaman and magicians could manipulate these forces and energies to the 95 00:09:42,190 --> 00:09:47,710 advantage of the tribe. The priest kings of the Bantu in Africa, for example, could ameliorate the 96 00:09:47,710 --> 00:09:51,909 harsh effects of the rainy season, and they could also find sources of water in the dry season. 97 00:09:52,250 --> 00:09:57,470 The Teutonic kings of the Visigoths, the Astragoths, and the Vandals could direct the migration of 98 00:09:57,470 --> 00:10:02,429 herds, they could ensure the fecundity of animals and humans, and they could invoke the spirits of 99 00:10:02,429 --> 00:10:10,129 long-dead warrior kings in battle. They combined the roles of magician and king. In fact, Roman 100 00:10:10,129 --> 00:10:16,009 emperor worship was of this variety. We discovered this very precisely in the Beast of Revelation, 101 00:10:16,210 --> 00:10:21,649 and especially the great whore of Babylon. The Roman emperors predicated their supremacy on the 102 00:10:21,649 --> 00:10:27,049 very same principles, that is, that the Roman emperor was to be worshipped because he had triumphed and 103 00:10:27,049 --> 00:10:32,350 brought the Pax Romana to the known world. He was the supreme priest-king who had manipulated the 104 00:10:32,350 --> 00:10:38,610 forces and energies of nature to its greatest effect. Behold, he was Roman emperor, wasn't he? 105 00:10:38,610 --> 00:10:44,529 He, therefore, deserved to be worshipped. Well, this president, I submit to you, is one who seems 106 00:10:44,529 --> 00:10:51,629 to have a fully developed messiah-king complex, where he sees himself as some sort of priest-king. 107 00:10:52,169 --> 00:10:58,330 He basked in the glow of worship after his nomination when women fainted at his rallies, 108 00:10:58,549 --> 00:11:04,049 and the media treated him as some sort of savior. In fact, the actor Jamie Foxx called Obama 109 00:11:04,049 --> 00:11:10,029 our lord and savior, Barack Obama. Now, Foxx was only being explicit about what so many others felt. 110 00:11:10,850 --> 00:11:17,049 And a CNN political commentator, I remember this distinctly, spoke of Obama in 2009 as, 111 00:11:17,169 --> 00:11:23,730 quote, sitting above the rest of us as some sort of god. And this was in reference to his speaking 112 00:11:23,730 --> 00:11:28,850 in his cool demeanor and the so-called reasoned response to various issues. Well, 113 00:11:28,850 --> 00:11:35,690 Obama takes it all in as the expected response to his divinity. Obama is also fully persuaded that 114 00:11:35,690 --> 00:11:41,250 he has begun to heal our planet through his global climate change initiatives. He's in touch with the 115 00:11:41,250 --> 00:11:46,870 forces of nature, and then other minor priests, that is, the so-called climate scientists, help him 116 00:11:46,870 --> 00:11:52,710 to perform magic through carbon reduction. And although it is called science, it has been proven 117 00:11:52,710 --> 00:11:58,409 again and again that it is not. It is pseudoscience. It is the height of hubris to think that we can 118 00:11:58,409 --> 00:12:04,269 significantly alter our planet's weather, whether for good or for ill. And those who think they do or 119 00:12:04,269 --> 00:12:10,509 can are but self-appointed priests of hocus-pocus magic. And Obama is their political enabler, 120 00:12:10,509 --> 00:12:17,750 the president king. Obama also regularly expresses his contempt for the constitution, his preference 121 00:12:17,750 --> 00:12:22,970 for kingly powers. When he was a so-called constitutional professor at an Illinois college, 122 00:12:23,309 --> 00:12:28,850 he disparaged the constitution as a document of negative rights. Oh, sounds so bad. That 123 00:12:28,850 --> 00:12:33,470 restricted government from interfering with the people rather than the constitution being what he 124 00:12:33,470 --> 00:12:38,509 preferred, a document of positive rights that liberated government to provide goods and services 125 00:12:38,509 --> 00:12:46,710 to the people. But this is pagan in nature, rank paganism. The tribal priest king was reputed to supply 126 00:12:46,710 --> 00:12:51,929 positive rights to his fellow tribesmen in the form of supplying all their needs, albeit at the price 127 00:12:51,929 --> 00:12:56,470 of their liberty. And of course, as our founding fathers understood to their core, what the government 128 00:12:56,470 --> 00:13:01,470 provides, it can also take away what it provides to the people. Things like free food and free housing, 129 00:13:01,470 --> 00:13:07,370 free health care, jobs, free college education, all these things, they must be paid for by the people 130 00:13:07,370 --> 00:13:14,009 eventually through taxes, inflation, and borrowing by that same government, which is a far steeper price 131 00:13:14,009 --> 00:13:21,090 in the end than if they had earned it themselves. So while positive rights sound so much more appealing 132 00:13:21,090 --> 00:13:27,169 than negative rights, the regular practice of positive rights by any government leads to tyranny and 133 00:13:27,169 --> 00:13:35,610 oppression and tribal culture. This was the consistent state of being for pagan tribes under the benevolent 134 00:13:35,610 --> 00:13:43,730 care of their priest kings of our ancestors. Well, thirdly then, why is this so? And why have Americans 135 00:13:43,730 --> 00:13:51,289 become this? Well, number three, Americans have moved from becoming informed, educated, self-reliant 136 00:13:51,289 --> 00:13:58,850 citizens to ignorant, superstitious, and dependent slaves of the state. Washington's observation on 137 00:13:58,850 --> 00:14:05,509 the value of an informed citizenry is still applicable today. In reflecting upon how liberty is to be 138 00:14:05,509 --> 00:14:11,429 preserved in a constitutional republic, Washington said, and I quote him, a primary object should be the 139 00:14:11,429 --> 00:14:18,169 education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be 140 00:14:18,169 --> 00:14:25,389 equally important? Washington asked. And he went on to say, and what duty more pressing than communicating 141 00:14:25,389 --> 00:14:30,389 it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country? Unquote. Education. 142 00:14:31,389 --> 00:14:38,789 Alexis de Tocqueville, the French philosopher who traveled in early 19th century America, noted in his 143 00:14:38,789 --> 00:14:46,730 1835 diary, Democracy in America, he noted that every American could converse in an informed manner on all 144 00:14:46,730 --> 00:14:52,470 issues pertaining to government and politics. In fact, de Tocqueville said that the average American was 145 00:14:52,470 --> 00:14:58,250 eager and willing to do so. It was the principal topic of conversation in every village and hamlet of the 146 00:14:58,250 --> 00:15:06,710 country. Oh, how this has changed for the great mass of un- and ill-educated Americans. It is a well-established 147 00:15:06,710 --> 00:15:13,029 maxim that our public school system no longer educates, but rather indoctrinates. Johnny may 148 00:15:13,029 --> 00:15:17,409 no longer be able to read his diploma and be competitive, but he will always think and vote 149 00:15:17,409 --> 00:15:22,610 progressive. This is by design, dear listener. Critical thinking, government and civics, U.S. 150 00:15:22,649 --> 00:15:27,970 history, they've all been deliberately dropped from course requirements in our schools and revised and 151 00:15:27,970 --> 00:15:32,669 distorted when they're offered. The average American has been deliberately dumbed down such that 152 00:15:32,669 --> 00:15:38,730 we have regressed to the primitive tribal state that Sir James Fraser so aptly describes. What a tragic 153 00:15:38,730 --> 00:15:44,789 irony. The 12 to 16 year period spent in government institutions that was supposed to educate and prepare 154 00:15:44,789 --> 00:15:49,450 the citizen to think freely and independently has been used rather to make him a dependent and 155 00:15:49,450 --> 00:15:56,769 politically correct one in his thought and feeling. As a consequence, we are entirely open and suggestive to look 156 00:15:56,769 --> 00:16:03,750 upon the president, not as an executive of a severely limited and prescribed branch of a federal system, 157 00:16:03,750 --> 00:16:11,470 but rather as a kind of god-man whose supernatural powers entitle him to act as a king. This is true 158 00:16:11,470 --> 00:16:18,429 not only of Obama, but is becoming increasingly true of the office in general. One has only to look at 159 00:16:18,429 --> 00:16:24,830 Donald Trump, the Donald Trump phenomenon, seen as some sort of messiah able to deliver us in the most 160 00:16:24,830 --> 00:16:29,769 important election of our lifetime, yada, yada. This is enough to confirm my thesis. 161 00:16:30,289 --> 00:16:37,429 Fraser notes three characteristics of the primitive magical thinking characteristic of the people of our age. 162 00:16:37,529 --> 00:16:45,149 Number one characteristic of that magical thinking, the primitive man sees the forces of nature as subject to 163 00:16:45,149 --> 00:16:54,090 conscious will and personal agency, manipulated by conscious will and personal agency. The money of which we spoke, 164 00:16:54,090 --> 00:16:59,649 that spiritual energy or life force or invisible entity that inhabits all of nature, this is all 165 00:16:59,649 --> 00:17:07,049 susceptible to conscious will, Fraser asserts, conscious will. And so you have the Luciferian maxim, 166 00:17:07,390 --> 00:17:13,470 do what thou will. The stronger the will, the stronger the magic. And this is why Obama is so adamant and 167 00:17:13,470 --> 00:17:19,329 unrelenting in his agenda. He will not compromise, bend or flex, because he sees himself as having a 168 00:17:19,329 --> 00:17:29,109 strong magical will and wills to get things done. Well, conscious will and also personal agency that 169 00:17:29,109 --> 00:17:34,950 is the more or less developed and practiced human actor in magic. The primitive man sees the forces 170 00:17:34,950 --> 00:17:41,869 of nature as subject to such a one, or ergo a president. The modern American is surprisingly swift 171 00:17:41,869 --> 00:17:47,490 in his declension from reason and the Christian faith. Someone once said that superstition and tyranny 172 00:17:47,490 --> 00:17:53,329 are only a generation away, especially if we neglect the teaching of that next generation, which we 173 00:17:53,329 --> 00:17:58,609 have. And there are two very important current issues that illustrate this for us. First of all, 174 00:17:58,890 --> 00:18:05,670 no president can create jobs. Get this through your head. No president can create jobs. This is magical 175 00:18:05,670 --> 00:18:11,130 thinking, pure and simple. Presidents and governors incessantly point to their records as having been 176 00:18:11,130 --> 00:18:17,230 creators of X number of jobs, when in reality, presidents do not create jobs. Only the private 177 00:18:17,230 --> 00:18:21,869 sector can do that. Even when a president expands the government with more bureaucrats, he does so at 178 00:18:21,869 --> 00:18:28,430 the expense of the private sector, since it is the private entrepreneur and individual taxpayer whose 179 00:18:28,430 --> 00:18:34,750 taxes must pay for those government jobs. Government has never in its history created one nickel's worth 180 00:18:34,750 --> 00:18:40,089 of wealth. It can only feed off of the private sector. The best a president can do is ensure that 181 00:18:40,089 --> 00:18:45,890 government gets out of the way of the private sector. The president can reduce tax burdens. He can 182 00:18:45,890 --> 00:18:52,190 increase incentives for businesses to thrive. Perhaps he can create a favorable climate for the private 183 00:18:52,190 --> 00:18:58,650 sector to create jobs. But that the public thinks that a president can create jobs is a nice bit of 184 00:18:58,650 --> 00:19:06,589 magic performed on them by politicians. Secondly, no president can heal the planet. Oh, here is where 185 00:19:06,589 --> 00:19:13,589 propaganda and pseudoscience intersect to foster magical thinking. That Americans seriously think that 186 00:19:13,589 --> 00:19:19,329 President Obama has helped to ease global climate change and heal the planet through his various 187 00:19:19,329 --> 00:19:26,589 initiatives is egregious magical thinking. Primitive magic at its best or worst, depending on how you look 188 00:19:26,589 --> 00:19:32,309 at it. Scientists and politicians with a vested interest in seeing a crisis with global warming have 189 00:19:32,309 --> 00:19:38,750 created a pseudo-crisis with pseudoscience so that they can foist an expensive population-controlling 190 00:19:38,750 --> 00:19:44,890 pseudo-solution upon us all that will eventually drain our wealth and restrict our lifestyles. But in the 191 00:19:44,890 --> 00:19:50,950 end, this solution will solve nothing for a problem that's not there and will be declared a success, too, 192 00:19:51,029 --> 00:19:57,630 I predict, by a priest-king who has no power over it in the first place. Well, secondly, we must also see 193 00:19:57,630 --> 00:20:04,549 that the supernatural forces of nature can be frightened and manipulated and coerced into doing the 194 00:20:04,549 --> 00:20:12,750 will of the magician. This is a second principle of magic. While primitive magic is democratic in that 195 00:20:12,750 --> 00:20:18,849 its powers are generally available to all, and we can see that in the ubiquity of astrology, for instance, 196 00:20:18,930 --> 00:20:24,569 which is magical thinking for the common man, while the skill and ability, nevertheless, of some is 197 00:20:24,569 --> 00:20:29,750 greater than others, especially in the one who develops and practices the secret science of magic to 198 00:20:29,750 --> 00:20:35,190 perfect his control over nature and his fellow creatures, for that matter. The priests and magicians 199 00:20:35,190 --> 00:20:41,029 of tribal societies used the phenomena of nature to, as Fraser puts it, frighten, manipulate, and 200 00:20:41,029 --> 00:20:47,150 coerce his fellow man. Knowledge of the precise occurrence of solar and lunar eclipses, for example, 201 00:20:47,210 --> 00:20:52,750 could be used to frighten and enthrall the people into submission and make it seem that the magician 202 00:20:52,750 --> 00:20:57,450 had brought them on. The same would be true of the annual rains in the Middle East or the floods of 203 00:20:57,450 --> 00:21:04,430 the Nile. The pharaohs did this for millennia. Indeed, the tribe saw the priest king as manipulating 204 00:21:04,430 --> 00:21:10,250 these forces of nature for the benefit of the tribe, and thus then the tribe rewarded him with their 205 00:21:10,250 --> 00:21:20,009 worship and riches. Governments have been perfecting this aspect of magic or propaganda or the ministry of 206 00:21:20,009 --> 00:21:25,609 information or the press secretary, and they've been doing this for centuries. Artificial or exaggerated 207 00:21:25,609 --> 00:21:31,430 threats are thrust before the people who then rely upon the magician king to dispel them. Our federal 208 00:21:31,430 --> 00:21:38,589 government, for example, creates arms and protects the very groups that then become ISIS and then sends 209 00:21:38,589 --> 00:21:45,069 out the alarm when ISIS turns and threatens us. Obama steps in as the savior from this danger, or an 210 00:21:45,069 --> 00:21:50,190 artificial danger from climate change is manufactured from pseudoscience, and then the magician king offers 211 00:21:50,190 --> 00:21:56,009 himself as a solution to it. Or an artificial crisis crisis from the nation's health and well-being is 212 00:21:56,009 --> 00:22:02,069 created and alarmed, and then the magician king steps in to relieve it with Obamacare. In all of these 213 00:22:02,069 --> 00:22:08,369 instances and many, many more, the magician creates the illusion of a threat, or perhaps a real one, such as 214 00:22:08,369 --> 00:22:14,269 ISIS, and then offers a solution. That is a solution which invariably increases the wealth and power of the 215 00:22:14,269 --> 00:22:22,009 magician at the expense of the tribe. And Frazier is so good at documenting this in history. I urge you to pick 216 00:22:22,009 --> 00:22:28,329 up his book, The Golden Bough. He does this very well. Well, thirdly, the tribe ineluctably elevates the 217 00:22:28,329 --> 00:22:35,970 skilled magician to the status of a god king. Yes, in tribal societies, in magic, the tribe ineluctably 218 00:22:35,970 --> 00:22:42,809 elevates the skilled magician to the status of god king. Frazier notes the state of things in virtually every 219 00:22:42,809 --> 00:22:48,490 primitive tribe. We're wired in our souls for this. I quote Frazier now. He says, 220 00:22:48,490 --> 00:22:52,730 As the gods are commonly believed to exhibit themselves in the likeness of men to their 221 00:22:52,730 --> 00:22:58,430 worshipers, it is easy for the magician, with his supposed miraculous powers, to acquire the 222 00:22:58,430 --> 00:23:04,569 reputation of being an incarnate deity, thus beginning as little more than a simple conjurer, 223 00:23:04,930 --> 00:23:12,450 the medicine man or magician tends to blossom out into a full-blown god and king in one. Unquote. 224 00:23:12,809 --> 00:23:19,069 From Frazier and his book, The Golden Bough. An excellent read. Well, this describes the change 225 00:23:19,069 --> 00:23:24,349 in the American presidency exactly over the intervening centuries of our nation. The greater 226 00:23:24,349 --> 00:23:29,809 our ignorance and superstition which has been cultivated by our institutions, oh, the more 227 00:23:29,809 --> 00:23:36,109 susceptible we are to the conjurer. The more ready we are to ascribe a godlike status to the president 228 00:23:36,109 --> 00:23:41,369 and concede and grant him kingly powers over us. This is happening before our eyes. We have 229 00:23:41,369 --> 00:23:47,210 degenerated from the informed, impassioned citizen who is skeptical of his civil servants. We have 230 00:23:47,210 --> 00:23:53,730 degenerated to the state of ignorant, passive servants ourselves, superstitious towards and in 231 00:23:53,730 --> 00:24:00,009 awe of our god king, the president. We showed him worship after his nomination, didn't we, when women 232 00:24:00,009 --> 00:24:05,690 fainted at his rallies and the media treated him as some sort of savior. Jamie Foxx, our lord and savior, 233 00:24:05,690 --> 00:24:12,190 dear Barack Obama, and that CNN political commentator who spoke of Obama in 2009 as sitting above the 234 00:24:12,190 --> 00:24:20,630 rest of us as some sort of god. Oh, it really is time to return to a realistic perspective on the 235 00:24:20,630 --> 00:24:28,109 office of the president, dear listener. He is a mortal executive and he is susceptible to the same 236 00:24:28,109 --> 00:24:35,509 faults, foibles, and failings as all of us. The president is not a god king. We are not electing a 237 00:24:35,509 --> 00:24:43,089 god king this November, and he should not be exalted as one, but he is virtually so, is he not? This will 238 00:24:43,089 --> 00:24:50,230 not happen, however. This will not change until we as a people first return to the true god of the 239 00:24:50,230 --> 00:24:56,410 founding of America, the true god of the Bible, and then and only then in the light of his worship by us 240 00:24:56,410 --> 00:25:02,970 and our own understanding of our own nature then in the light of his book, the Bible, only then will we 241 00:25:02,970 --> 00:25:10,670 be able to see what a president should be again in the light of the Constitution. He should be a simple 242 00:25:10,670 --> 00:25:18,829 executive like Calvin Coolidge, not a demigod like Barack Obama. Temper the hype. I urge you then, 243 00:25:18,910 --> 00:25:26,009 dear listener, temper the hype and hysteria of this presidential season with this knowledge and pray for the 244 00:25:26,009 --> 00:25:32,670 spiritual reformation of America. Only then, then and only then will we return not only to the god of 245 00:25:32,670 --> 00:25:38,430 our fathers, but also to the understanding of the Constitution and the proper role of president, 246 00:25:38,650 --> 00:25:46,230 Congress, and the courts in their proper perspective with the president as an executive and not as a king 247 00:25:46,230 --> 00:25:51,549 priest. Only then will we begin to understand these things and return to our founding roots. Dear 248 00:25:51,549 --> 00:25:59,529 listener, this has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and I just urge 249 00:25:59,529 --> 00:26:04,450 you to go ahead and contact us. Come out and visit us too. Perhaps you've been sitting in the shadows for 250 00:26:04,450 --> 00:26:10,069 a while wondering what New Geneva is like. I urge you to come and visit us and see what we are, what we 251 00:26:10,069 --> 00:26:15,690 preach and teach, not only the things we have here on the radio, but other things from the Bible. So I would 252 00:26:15,690 --> 00:26:19,990 just encourage you to cross our threshold here in the near future. Come visit us, see who we are. 253 00:26:19,990 --> 00:26:25,170 You'll have a warm welcome and you'll also be edified and built up in your Christian faith. And I hope 254 00:26:25,170 --> 00:26:30,890 that this message has done that for you. We meet for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th 255 00:26:30,890 --> 00:26:39,210 Street on the corner of 1st and Boulevard. Call us at 523-0196. 523-0196.