Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today, God has declared the American church absent without leave in the war for the gospel when it comes to the culture, society, and politics of this nation. The American church absent without leave in this war for the gospel. Where is the church to be found regarding the issues of life and death, those that matter to the gospel and her Lord, those which formed and shaped the American Republic at her founding?

All around us, America is descending into chaos, decay, and tyranny. Her churches are silent. Our hard-won liberties are disappearing. Our heritage of personal freedom is being stolen. And the opportunities for rugged individualism are undermined by federal dependence.

And the church is deaf and dumb. Those who rule over us disregard the constitution. They govern lawlessly. Those who govern us have one standard of law for themselves and another for us. And the churches are silent.

International banks and the federal government steal from us, egregiously violating the eighth commandment and things like the heavy tax burden we have, the borrowing against the future, and the inflation of our currency. Make no mistake about this, dear listener. They are an egregious violation of the eighth commandment, thou shalt not steal. And yet the church says nothing. The American flag is figuratively blood-soaked from her wars, her abortions, and her cynical grasping after power and bloody plot after bloody false flag incident.

And the church is absent without leave, intervening to stop it. Well, we can cite example after example to show that the American church indeed is absent without leave when it counts the most when it comes to culture, society, and politics. And this is our sphere under the civil covenant, dear listener. Christians are to be the opposite of what they are today in their culture. We are to be salt and light in our world.

For example, oh, famously in his sermon on the mount, Jesus exhorts us to have a profound impact on our world around us on behalf of the gospel. You are the salt of the earth, Jesus said. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world, Jesus also said.

A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Famous words all through America's history. Jesus goes on to say, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. This witness, dear listener, this witness of salt and light.

Salt is a preservative against corruption, and light is the illuminator of the right way. This witness of salt and light is not constricted to the confines of church and family, but rather to the whole world. That's what was intended, including culture, society, and politics. If it is not, please show me where from the Bible. In fact, our founders were fond of using this metaphor to describe America just exactly.

John Woodthrope, for example, leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, declared in a sermon, we shall be as a city set upon a hill, the eyes of all people upon us, unquote. That metaphor has rung throughout our history, characterized us ever since until recently. And then secondly, also, we are not only to be salt and light in our culture, our society, and politics, but also we are to submit to authorities as they exercise justice amongst us, distinguishing between right and wrong. We are to submit to authorities as they exercise justice amongst us, distinguishing between right and wrong.

The Apostle Paul is very clear as to what our attitude towards human government should be. He says in Romans chapter 13, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?

Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer, unquote, from Romans chapter 13. And all through this passage, dear listener, there is an implicit understanding that magistrates distinguish between good and bad conduct, and between justice and injustice. What is the Christian to do then when the magistrate demands bad conduct and unjust behavior of his subjects?

Further, what do you suppose Paul had in mind as a standard for good and bad, for the just and the unjust? And I suggest to you, it is precisely this, the Bible. By what other standard do we measure what is good and bad, what is just and unjust? In subsequent lessons, we'll expand our interpretation of this passage, which has been so much abused and misinterpreted by the contemporary American church. But for now, know that it has been employed by pastors and churches to counsel a passive non-involvement or an uncritical submission to government that the Bible never intended.

In fact, this is one of the prime reasons. I have seven reasons for the loss of America as we have known her at the hands of the church. Number one, the American church has counseled a passive non-involvement or an uncritical submission to government. Yes, it has. Look around you.

Perhaps your own church has counseled a passive non-involvement in politics, society, and culture, or perhaps an uncritical submission to government. Owing to a misinterpretation of Romans 13, and it's being made the one and only absolute text that deals with the Christian and his relationship to government, American Christians in particular have adopted a kind of, oh, well, what can we do about it? Attitude in the face of tyranny and injustice in America. We are to be content, according to them, to preach the gospel without knowing precisely what preaching the gospel entails.

And we are exhorted to not soil the garments of the gospel with politics and society. And we are counseled to wait for the deliverance brought by the pre-tribulational rapture of the church, a gross error in eschatology that has retarded the effectiveness of the church. But this was not the intent of Paul in this scripture, Romans chapter 13. Nowhere was there an unconditional submission to authority required to government any more than there was an unconditional submission to other authorities, like masters of slaves or parents over children or husbands over wives.

In subsequent verses, there is a principle in the Bible, and this principle is whenever those in authority require those under authority to do evil, it is the responsibility of those under authority to resist that authority. This, dear friends, is a biblical principle missing from the interpretation of Romans chapter 13. Whenever those in authority require those under authority to do evil, it is the responsibility of those under authority to resist that authority.

Joseph resisted Potiphar's wife, Nathan resisted David in the matter of Bathsheba, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego resisted Nebuchadnezzar in his demands for idolatry, Daniel resisted Darius in his worship, Peter resisted the ruling body of the Sanhedrin with the words, we must obey God rather than men, time and again. This is the case, and the American church has effectively turned off its conscience in this area. However, those under authority are to be obedient to God first in their marriages, families, and churches, but supposedly, in our scheme in America, not under government.

When it comes to civil government, God has ceded his authority wholesale to human government in the eyes of these Christians. We obey authority in the home and the church conditionally, don't we? As long as it does not violate the will and the law of God, that is. When it does, we resist that authority. For example, wives, if you're commanded by your husband to have an abortion of your child, you resist.

Daughters, if you are commanded by your father to have an abortion, you are commanded to resist. Conditional obedience, as long as it does not violate the law of God in these spheres of authority, but the modern church tells us we are expected to obey civil authority unconditionally, even when they're evil. We are expected to passively turn a blind eye to tyranny and bloodshed and corruption. When asked why, the American Christian mouths unthinkingly, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, right? This is probably what is preached at your church.

Dear Christian, it has not always been so, however. For example, the English pastor Samuel Rutherford, from whom the founders drank deeply, he noted in his mackisterial book, Lex Rex, the law and the prince, the law and the king. Samuel Rutherford noted, and I quote Rutherford here extensively, God has given no absolute and unlimited power to a king above the law. When a magistrate does anything by violence and outside of law, insofar doing against his office, he is not a magistrate. Rutherford goes on to say, then that power by which he does these things is not of God.

None do resist the ordinance of God who resist the king in tyrannous acts. Therefore, an unjust king as unjust is not that genuine ordinance of God. So may we resist the injustice, the king, and not resist the king. That is the office of king. If any cast off the nature of a king and become habitually a tyrant, he is not from God, Rutherford says.

If the office of a tyrant be contrary to a king's office, it is not from God, and so neither is the power from God, unquote. This was the understanding of King George III by our founders, who was such a king. Without this understanding and the understanding to resist such a king, the modern evangelical church would have none of the liberties they now have to worship, evangelize, and even express their non-biblical views.

With the modern understanding of Romans 13 now extant in the evangelical church, why Thomas Jefferson, in his composition of the Declaration of Independence, will have had to conclude with, and there's nothing we can do about the tyranny of parliament and King George. As the apostle Paul says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities. Boom. Period. And that would have been it.

No American revolution, no constitution, no America as we know it. Therefore, to me, this is the chief reason that the American church is absent without leave in the current disintegration of our republic, dear listener. But there are other reasons too. Six other reasons I'd like to put before you. Number two, O church in America, you are the church of silence.

This is a corollary of number one. Church in America, you are the church of silence. The wisest of all men, King Solomon says eloquently in Ecclesiastes chapter three, for everything, there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to keep silence. A time to speak.

A time to speak. Church of America, you who speaks with the voice and authority of the gospel and your master, Jesus Christ, it is time to shout from the rooftops. It is time to speak. It is time to speak in every street and alley, from every pulpit and media microphone. Stop serving the beast, the antichrist of the federal leviathan.

Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. We will have no king but Christ. It is time to shout, awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. If, as Edmund Burke observed, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, then it's no wonder evil is triumphing in America because her churches do nothing. They are silent against the aggressive encroachments of evil in our day.

The church's eschatology, for example, deceives and distracts and hypnotizes that church. That is, the beast and the antichrist won't appear until after the rapture, right? That's our eschatology. The beast and the antichrist are here, contrary to the contemporary church, who says the beast and antichrist won't appear until after the rapture. Our government is good, they say, ordained by God.

I must be subject to it, right? I call them revelation red heifer rapture to Christians, and they're wrong. The American church's Anabaptist pacifist theology also effectively neutralizes her. That is, the American church's Anabaptist pacifist theology says we're not to soil the garments of the gospel with culture and politics and society. No, we're to stay out of this.

Just preach the gospel and wait for the rapture, is their counsel. And the American church's inability and incompetence and cowardice also in applying the law, the ethic, and the morality of the Bible to culture, politics, and society has also rendered her impotent and blind in the continuous rise of evil in America. All of these have contributed to silencing the prophetic voice of the American church. Thirdly, as well, oh, church of America, you are the church of blood. Yes, the church of America, you are the church of blood.

One of the first reasons that God brings judgment upon a nation is for the taking of innocent life and the concomitant sin of sparing the guilty. The Old Testament metaphor for this situation is the shedding of innocent blood, as it's called the shedding of innocent blood. Judgment came upon Israel, as it will come upon America, because she would, as Isaiah said, acquit the guilty for a bribe and deprive the innocent of his right. It was in Israel, as it will be in America, when justice is required, justice is required in both, in all states for that matter.

Ecclesiastes 8 says, because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Even as our federal Leviathan, our government today is fully set to do evil because the sentence of justice and the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily. Make no mistake, dear American Christian, God hates and judges nations that have blood on their hands. Jeremiah 22, 17 says, but you have eyes and heart only for your dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood and for practicing oppression and violence. That is indeed the heart of our federal Leviathan this day.

And as well, judgment came upon Israel because of her shedding of blood. In fact, 2 Kings puts it this way, surely this came upon Judah, that is her exile and destruction. Surely this came upon Judah, even as it will come upon America, at the command of the Lord to remove them out of his sight for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood that he had shed. For he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord would not pardon, unquote. The Lord will not pardon America either.

Church of America, you have been complicit in the shedding of innocent blood with your lukewarm response to abortion, your lukewarm response to the needless wars of conquest, and your lukewarm response, excuse me, your lukewarm response and inability to hold murdering magistrates accountable in the halls of justice. Oh, Church of America, if there were a true church here, abortion would be a bloody blot upon our collective memory, full of shame and regret, but not an ever-present reality yet today.

How many more millions of rivers of innocent blood must be shed like the child's sacrifices of Israel before we, the church in America, say, enough? Or else, God then finally requites every drop of blood shed by us in judgment. Church of America, how many more wars of conquest with no national interest at stake must we engage in before the church says, enough? There is a time for war, as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, but there is also a time for peace. Wisdom determines, indeed, when there is a time for war and a time for peace.

Oh, Church of America, if there were a true church here, when will we demand the exacting of justice upon our murdering magistrates, our murdering magistrates who shed innocent blood? When will the Clintons be held accountable for their murders? When will the federal government be held accountable for the deaths of our veterans at the Veterans Administration, for example, or the deliberate, cynical, death panel debacle of Obamacare? And when will the federal government be held accountable for the CDC's cynical experimentation upon the American people?

And when will the alphabet agencies of the federal government be held accountable for the poisoning of our food, air, and water, leading to the shedding of innocent blood, dear listener? With a clear understanding of biblical law and morality and ethics, the church should be shouting from the rooftops with the prophets, as indeed Moses exclaimed, purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel and America, purge the guilt of innocent blood from you, so that it may be well with you, unquote. Fourthly then, oh Church of America, you are the church of pluralism as well. This is another reason for the collapse and fall of America.

Church of America, you are the church of pluralism. America was not founded as a pluralistic nation, in which all religions were held to be equally good and equally beneficial to the republic. Was it? America was founded as no such thing. As Jefferson puts it, we owe our liberty not to the Constitution, but to the commandments of the Bible upon which it is based.

Many other citations could be mustered to demonstrate, indeed, that our founding fathers, at least, understood that, as Adams puts it, our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is entirely unsuited to any other, right? And of course, that moral and religion was understood to be a Christian one. We were founded, indeed, at least our institutions and our Constitution was founded on biblical principles.

Other religions were to be tolerated and practiced, certainly within the confines of America, as long as these religions were consistent with the principles of liberty given in the Bible, ensconced in the Constitution, expressed expressly, of course, in the Bill of Rights.

This encompassed the wide spectrum of Christian denominations, especially that were then extant in America, and not the virulent evil atheism of today, or the wicked secularism that wars against Christianity, or the utterly incompatible jihadist Islam, that is quickly supplanting Christianity as the religion that dictates culture, society, and politics, and does so under Sharia law. Do you realize how quickly Sharia law is supplanting the Christian basis for our culture, society, and politics, and law, for that matter? Tolerance and pluralism were once understood under Christian rubrics.

Tolerance and pluralism have been severed from their Christian roots, however, and twisted now to elevate anything that destroys Christianity, but then which simultaneously gags and silences the Christian. No crushes, no Ten Commandments, right? No prayer in schools. Oh, Church of America, when will you find your right mind again and your clear voice to re-articulate biblical law, biblical morality, and biblical ethic on behalf of the United States of America?

If we continue to move our national culture, society, and politics away from its Christian mooring, then we will make of America what we are seeing today, that is a politically correct, brainwashed nation in which true tolerance and pluralism is transformed into the Maoist, Stalinist groupthink that we see materializing before us. Oh, number five, then. Oh, Church of America, one of the reasons, the fifth reason that we are losing in America, losing America, and losing our republic. Oh, Church of America, you are the Church of Sloth. You are the Church of Sloth.

Oh, Church of America. That America has become a welfare nation is a truism that's recognized by practically all except the church. Things like Social Security and food stamps, welfare, Obamacare, the thousand and one programs of the federal government, and I would include the minimum wage laws, too, in America today. All of these have contributed not to the general welfare as stated in the Constitution, but the general illfare of the country. Gradually, over the decades, we have seen all of these programs that they have eaten away at the independent, self-reliant spirit that used to characterize America, but not all Americans.

Let me put that before you two, and let me qualify that. There are still many, many fine areas of America where that self-reliant spirit, that independent spirit, that can-do spirit, the entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well in America, and I'm glad to say it's alive and well in Southeast Idaho, so I rejoice in that. But gradually, over the decades, we have seen that in the main, especially in our larger cities, these programs have eaten away at the independent, self-reliant spirit of America. We will not work. We say, let the illegal immigrant do all the real work of America these days.

The Bible lays out exactly opposite principles, do they not? The Apostle Paul says, for example, a workman is worthy of his labor. Indeed, he's expected to labor. Paul lays out the principle, if a man will not work, he will not eat. These used to form the foundation for American can-do spirit, the entrepreneurial spirit, the working man's spirit.

The working man used to be respected for his labors, and now that respect is being eaten away by the sloth of the American church, the silence addressing these things. Number six, then, as well, as we articulate seven of the reasons we are losing in America, and the church is primarily responsible for it. The church, I submit to you, as goes the church, so goes the nation. And number six, oh, church of America, you are the church of greed. Yes, you are the church of greed.

Wall Street is not the only and exclusive domain of greed in America. As Gordon Gekko said, greed is good, right? And so many practice that in America these days, and how we Americans have loved our wealth and our prosperity, haven't we? And oftentimes, to our own decadence and complacency. There are many Christians that know how to handle wealth and do so responsibly, and they do so compassionately.

But as James characterized the rich of his day, so we can characterize so many of the rich in America today. Come now, you rich, reap and howl, James says, for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days.

Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you, James says in James 5, verses 1 through 6.

This characterizes so many of the rich, especially the super-rich in our day and age, indeed, who rule and who manipulate quietly behind the scenes with their riches and their wealth. The church has been complicit in this, and sometimes indistinguishable from it in the world, have they not? Indeed, Joel Osteen, a prime example here, and the name-it-and-claim-it wealth-and-health gospelers that we see all around us, especially on the cable channels. Dear listener, the Church of America, you are the church of greed. And then seventhly, too, O Church of America, you are also the church of covetousness.

Church of America, you are also the church of covetousness. And rather than biblical morality, biblical ethics, and biblical law, the church oftentimes seems to be culturing and encouraging covetousness. If greed is the sin of the rich, and it is. If greed is the sin of the rich, then covetousness is the sin of the poor. And our politicians cynically encourage this in order to whip up opposition, in order to divide us by fostering covetousness as the sin of the poor.

In fact, that is one of the techniques of the community organizer, is to polarize and to distinguish classes one from another. And this is precisely what Obama, as a community organizer, has been doing as President of the United States, too. Fostering and encouraging covetousness in the lower classes. For example, reparations. What is reparations?

The demand, indeed, for payment for past sins of our slave ancestors, demanding reparations for past sins. Covetousness. Nothing more than covetousness. Or state welfare as well. The rich owe you.

State welfare. And once again, Christians are complicit in this. And those that state that the state should be taking care of the poor, rather than the church. This is the province of the church, dear listeners. But those like Ron Sider, in his book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, is fostering these very things.

So, dear listener, we could articulate and fill these all out further. But know, indeed, that because of the inaction, because of the passivity, because of the silence of the church, we are losing our republic. As goes the church, so goes the nation. You have heard these things. Now, they have been laid before you.

It is time to act, dear listener. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We meet for holy worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And you can call us for response or for feedback. It's time to come out of the shadows.

523-0196. Join us for worship at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 10 a.m. on Sunday at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard.