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, during this election season, I would like to ask you, is it impossible for the United States of America to collapse and come to an end as a constitutional republic? Is that possible? Is God so committed to us that he would never destroy us no matter how evil we have become?

Now, I must frankly admit to you, as a patriot who believes that there has never been a nation so blessed by God than us, I find it hard to believe that God is finished with us and that he would bring this grand biblical experiment in liberty to an end. After all, I've traced for you in days past the Christian roots of the Constitution in American history. Generations of faithful men and women have studied, thought, and fought for a form of government that would give free, moral, and soundly converted men and women the opportunity to govern themselves as God had intended.

And when the biblical form of government, that is a constitutional republic, meets a free, moral, and soundly converted people, that is a largely Christian populace, you get what we have gotten for the last 250 years or so, that is the United States of America. But if we're going to be biblical about this, then we must not shy away from what happens when those same people break faith with God who gave them their liberty to begin with. What happens when those same people become godless, corrupt, and degenerate? Can we expect God to preserve, protect, and prosper them?

We have a model for this in the nation of Israel and Judah that became the prototype for all others to follow. Nations of the earth, take heed. The United States of America, behold, behold the fate of Judah and tremble. In our last days, Judah took great comfort in these words. Despite all the troubles besetting her as a warning from God, Jeremiah said, this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.

Now for Judah, these were ritualistic superstitious words pronounced by the false prophets who thought that God would never abandon Jerusalem and her temple because he had chosen it for his dwelling place forever, regardless of what her people did. That's what they thought. After all, didn't God promise this at the very temple's dedication under King Solomon who constructed it? There we find the Lord said to him, that is to Solomon, I have heard your prayer and your plea which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built by putting my name there forever.

My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. Oh, how Judah embraced these words and took them to heart. God loves us and he'll never forsake us. His temple is here, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. We may be a bit scampish and naughty from time to time, but he'll forgive us and keep us.

After all, I have consecrated this house that you have built by putting my name there forever. Oh, that is why generations later, leaders of Judah in Jeremiah's day could repeat as a mantra, right? They could repeat as a mantra, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Yet what Judah forgot is what God also told Solomon in that very same speech. He said, but if you turn aside from following me, you or your children and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them.

Oh, oops. I guess we kind of forgot about that minor condition of obedience and faithfulness to the covenant that we signed onto. If we break faith of God, then we must not expect him to keep faith with us. Rather, we must expect him to judge us according to our breach of faith. This is exactly what happened to Judah when she forsake God.

This is precisely the state into which America has sunk. In recent days, I submit to you, we take false comfort in these words, the constitution of the Lord, the constitution of the Lord, the constitution of the Lord. How could God abandon us? After all, we are the United States of America. Didn't he inspire our constitution?

Didn't he providentially settle and establish our colonies? Wasn't he in our founding during the revolution and the leadership under George Washington? On and on we could go, listing the many kind providences of our God, as Washington would put it, the many kind providences of our God towards the United States in the past. Yet there are those nagging words of qualification. If you turn aside from following me, oh, I will cut you off from the land that I have given you.

So, dear listener, we have served other gods. We have worshiped other gods. We have displeased God in other ways that caused him to judge nations. And Jeremiah told Judah about those things that caused him to judge nations when he said, do not trust in these deceptive words. This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.

For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice with one another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever, unquote. Consistently, dear listener, consistently, these are the sins that drive nations from the land and causes God to destroy those nations. Behold the empire of Britain, for example. The record of history bears this out. But America today is oblivious to the near approach of judgment.

It is on our doorstep. Our economy totters on the edge of a major depression, dear listener. As one bank president put it, the Federal Reserve has used up all of the tricks in its bag, and the dollar is all but worthless. And we see around us too, around the world. For example, the collapse of Deutsche Bank in Germany is but the first domino of many more to fall.

We also stand toe-to-toe with Russia in war over her support of Assad in Syria, who are trying to overthrow us, I'm sorry, over who we are trying to overthrow, that is Assad, by using as our surrogates radical Islamicists, that is ISIS. We're also toe-to-toe with Russia in the escalation of rhetoric in the Ukraine. How many news channels have covered this, dear listener? And of course, the supposed cyber hacking of our election process by Russia. This is going to be used by the administration then to shut down the election, perhaps.

Worst of all is the complete subversion of our constitution by those quietly working to bring us under the influence of extra-constitutional powers like the World Court, the United Nations, and international banking interests. So as these progress, you will see, O Church of Christ, the increased restriction of your freedom of speech, your liberty to practice your religion, the confiscation of your guns, and the general erosion of all your rights under the Bill of Rights, as well as the circumvention of the checks and balances and separation of powers found in our constitution. In other words, a looming tyranny.

And there are no excuses for any of us, dear listener. We are all guilty. If you understand fully what I'm saying and you've done nothing, then you are an irresponsible coward. If you hear what I'm saying and think it is wild conspiracy talk, then you are an ignorant dupe that needs to wake up. All of this is here.

And if you do not yet see it, then open your eyes and begin to take action. Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. All of the signs and portents are here for soon judgment. But what has lulled the American people to sleep and what will wake them up consequently, obversely, right? Well, let me first underline for you what has happened to us, the same thing that happened to Israel.

That is presumptuous covenant protection. Presumptuous covenant protection, just as Israel thought that she was covenantally protected, presumed she was so because God's temple was in Jerusalem. So many American patriots and constitutionalists think that we have presumptuous covenant protection because our constitution is here. We assume that Christ is Lord of this land and that because so many of our founding fathers were Christian and that Christ would never forsake us. Oh, but this is the same fallacy to which Israel fell prey, presumptuous covenant protection.

Just because God chose to enter into a civil covenant with us, he will never abandon or judge us, no matter how outrageous our disobedience becomes. Oh, this is so false. This was the essential fallacy of Judah's mantra. This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. It is the essential fallacy of the Patriots' mantra.

This is the constitution of the Lord, the constitution of the Lord. Our disobedience stinks to high heaven and God knows it and sees it. Do you? Jeremiah tells us what we must do to remain in the land, the sins that drive God to drive nations out of the land in which they dwell. Number one, if you truly execute justice in the land, you will remain in the land.

I have an entire sermon on this topic. It is desperately lacking in the United States of America, the execution of true justice in the land. I urge you to look for this on our dedicated website. That is omnipotestas.org. O-M-N-I dash P-O-T-E-S-T-A-S dot org.

Omnipotestas.org. The Bible is very clear on the necessity of justice being administered by government magistrates. Oh, Moses says in Deuteronomy, justice and only justice you shall follow that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you, unquote. Oh, for example, both Barack Obama and his administration, including former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Secretary Hillary Clinton, they must be held to account for their crimes, a thing for which neither our Congress, including the entire Idaho delegation and the courts, a thing for which they have no stomach.

Cowards, spineless, the vested interest of both parties, Republican and Democrat, only hurt themselves when they help the people by exacting what God requires, and that is justice and only justice. To show partiality in judging is not good, the Bible says, and this is what has been happening. Partiality in judging, partiality in justice, excuse me, to show partiality in judging is not good. Whoever says to the guilty, the Bible says, you are innocent, Hillary Clinton, are you listening? Peoples will curse him, but it will go well with those who convict the guilty and rich blessings will come upon them, unquote, from Proverbs 24.

We must also stop not only, we must, excuse me, we must also not only exact justice, we must also stop oppressing the weak and vulnerable among us. This is what Jeremiah meant when he says, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, you will remain in the land. Now, the sojourner, fatherless, or the orphan, that is, and the widow were representative of the most vulnerable in ancient society.

These had difficulty in helping themselves or standing up for themselves, and in unjust Israel, their property was taken, their wages were held back, and their lives were shortened and taken away when it served the purposes of the rich and the powerful. Such is it, such as it ever been. The sojourner was the legal immigrant who came to Israel to worship Yahweh, the God of Israel, and live among the blessed people and become a Jew. But the foreign customs and language made it easy to take advantage of them, consequently. And so it is with the illegal alien in our midst today.

Both Republicans and Democrats have a vested interest in the illegal alien, one for votes and the other for cheap labor for their agricultural and industrial constituents. But make no mistake about this, dear listener. In the end, there is no interest by these groups in seeing the benefit of the illegal alien in the long run. They are only being used. They are vulnerable.

In addition, our welfare system has created an entire urban ghetto of the fatherless, that is, the orphan and the widow. A cynical political party has manipulated both the urban poor, whites, blacks, and Hispanics by doling out government cheese, government housing, and government health care in exchange for their vote. Oh, what do they get in exchange, huh? But, oh, listener, look out over the vast landscape of urban America and tell me this is not oppression. Further, it is the deliberate design of the Democrats and Republican establishment and the elites behind them to make you poor as well.

Witness the vanishing middle class over the last few decades and the increase of the rich, the ultra-rich, and the increase of the ultra-poor and the vanishing of the middle class. The rich and powerful know that when a man spends all of his time and energy looking for his next meal, he has no time or energy to look to change things. The Greek aristocrats knew and practiced this. The Roman emperors knew and practiced this. The French nobility knew and practiced this.

Communist dictators like Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot knew and practiced this. And the well-protected elites of both parties and the interests that backed them, they know this today in the United States of America as well. When the economy crashes, when war ensues, and regular law and order breaks down in the United States of America, you too will spend all of your time and energy looking for your next meal, and you will have no more time and energy to change things.

So take no comfort in the words, this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, or as it is in America, the constitution of the Lord, the constitution of the Lord, the constitution of the Lord. God is not beyond judging America for her crimes and sins. He will take away our place and our constitution, and you too will be one of the oppressed of whom Jeremiah prophesied. We must also then, thirdly, stop the shedding of innocent blood in the land. This is one of the things that causes God to expel nations from the land.

Stop shedding the innocent blood of the land. Now, you must understand that there are three ways in which government attempts to obtain the compliance of its people, such it is, such it will ever be. Three ways in which government attempts to obtain the compliance of its people. A, by arguing the reasonableness and efficacy of that government's policies and thereby persuading the populace. B, by lying, deceiving, and manipulating the people into compliance.

And then C, finally, if the other two don't work, by eliminating the people, quite frankly, by eliminating the people or a portion thereof, such that the rest are intimidated into compliance. So, know your American history, and you will know that all three of these options have and are being applied, with increasing reliance upon the third option as people wake up. Witness the Clinton body count now at 87 of those who have crossed the Clintons. Well, the shedding of innocent blood we see today across the land with increasing frequency, the millions of abortions in the United States of America.

For example, there is still a price we must pay for the millions of abortions committed in the United States of America. There is also the thousands of shootings and murders in our inner cities. Just this past weekend, 33 were killed in Chicago alone over the weekend. There is also the cynical manipulation into war and conflict across the globe that the United States of America is involved in, that kills not only Americans, but thousands of innocents in Iraq and Syria and Libya, in all of which places our corrupt administrations have plunged us into needless conflicts.

The history of the world is the history of government shedding innocent blood by fighting wars of conquest and diversion and distraction. Behold, O American, war is materializing. The shedding of innocent blood is materializing before our eyes in the drumbeat for war with Russia by the very man who was a war to the now discredited scrap of kindling paper, the Nobel Prize for Peace, and that is, of course, Barack Obama. Do not let this man, do not let this administration do this. Bring us into war with Russia.

Our Idaho delegation to Washington, D.C. should be hysterical, doing everything in its power to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. It will bring judgment on America. Do not be fooled by the false pretenses being laid out before you for this looming conflict, the shedding of innocent blood. We stand toe-to-toe with Russia in war over her support of Assad in Syria. We should be fighting with Russia, destroying radical Islamicist ISIS, but instead we're trying to overthrow Assad using radical Islamist Islamist.

That is ISIS. Clinton and Obama have been instrumental in creating this. We also stand toe-to-toe with them over the escalation of rhetoric in the Ukraine. We have no fight with Russia over Ukraine and, of course, the supposed cyber hacking of our election process by Russia, which is a crock. We have no vital national interests in a war with Russia.

It would be the shedding of innocent blood. It is a war of special interests rather than vital interests that is symbolized by George Soros, the world's megabanks who have always profited by war, and, of course, the broader regional powers that seek to increase the power and influence of Islam and Islamicists like Saudi Arabia. Any war with Russia, would be a shedding of innocent blood, which God hates, and for which he will judge America. Oh, dear listener, do not take comfort in the mantra, this is the temple of the Lord, or, in our case, the constitution of the Lord, the constitution of the Lord.

God will judge America for her shedding of innocent blood. He will take away our constitution and place. God will destroy you and me for our complicity in it. God judges the nations. We must also then stop chasing after other gods and return to the God of the Bible.

Yes, dear listener, we must stop chasing after other gods and return to the God of the Bible. Jeremiah warned Israel of this, a thing for which he is still passionate. If you do not go after other gods to your own harm, you will remain in the land. Well, and the evidence for our abandonment of the God of our founding is abundant, too. For example, those who self-identify as atheists have increased.

They have. They have increased from some 6% in 2010 to 10% in 2015, according to Pew Research polls. Now, this is reflected, of course, in the vitriol against Christianity displayed by those same militant atheists at every expression of our faith in every venue of our faith. Our communities are also being deliberately seeded with radical Islamists from around the world, but especially by defeated jihadists from Syria, so-called refugees.

And as a consequence, we will see the continued radicalization of Islam here in the United States and the growth of conflict with Christianity and our way of life here in the United States, which, of course, Islam sees as a culture of infidels. Islam has become an increasingly protected religion, while Christianity is an increasingly profaned religion by the larger culture. And the church has increasingly been cowed, beaten, and intimidated into silence by a false construct of the separation of church and state, which separation doesn't seem to apply curiously to Islam.

We, the church, we Christians, are also burdened by several false interpretations of Scripture, like those of the Sermon on the Mount and or Romans chapter 13. For example, we extrapolate that because Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that we're blessed when we're persecuted for righteousness' sake, and we should rejoice when persecuted for His name's sake, and we are to turn the other cheek in the face of persecution, we extrapolate that ipso facto we are to remain passive in the wake of government intrusion, invasion, and trampling of our rights. But this, dear listener, is patent nonsense.

Once more, if the church returned to the understanding of covenant, and covenant is God's economy, not dispensations, dear listener, if the church returned to the understanding of covenant, she would realize that Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, was articulating behavior required in response to the demands of the covenant of grace, also sometimes called the covenant of redemption, under which we're saved, under which God covenanted with Christ to save a people. This is the covenant of grace and our behavior under it, not that of the civil covenant.

The demands of the civil covenant, which has been in full force and effect since the pages of Genesis, the demands of the civil covenant require submission to just authority and resistance to unjust authority. This is especially true when the civil covenant cut with the United States of America, that is, our Constitution, demands the consciences and the participation of we the people. Our rights are to free speech and the free exercise of our religion in both the private and public arena. Do not be cowed, be heard, be felt, O Christian.

And then we, the church, we Christians tend to make the interpretation of Romans chapter 13 absolute when it comes to our response to government authority. Paul tells us to submit to the governing authorities because they have been ordained by God. And this is true, but not without qualification. Implicit in this chapter and throughout the Bible is that justice must be served, as we mentioned earlier. And that standard of justice is God's standard, not that of evil tyranny.

The punishment of wrongdoers and the reward of well-doers is implicitly that of the right and wrong as God understands it, not Karl Marx or Mohammed or Barack Obama. Now, I explain and expand upon this in several other places. And you need to check out, once again, our website, omnisprotestas.org, O-M-N-I-S dash P-O-T-E-S-T-A-S dot org, omnisprotestas.org. But suffice it to say for now that in the whole counsel of Scripture, which the contemporary church is ignoring to its own peril, the whole counsel of Scripture, there is time and opportunity for resistance to evil by the Christian.

And this is doubly true for us in the United States, seeing that our very charter, the Constitution, demands our conscientious participation and resistance where necessary. Dear Christian, the times demand your participation and your prayers. Evil is afoot, as C.S. Lewis put it. There are times of peril when the economy is about to implode, wars impending, and dark tyranny about to descend upon our land.

Do not take comfort in the mantra, this is the temple of the Lord, as Jeremiah puts it, or as we might put it, this is the constitution of the Lord, the constitution of the Lord, the superstitious mantra, because God will judge America for her worshiping other gods to her own peril. God will take away our constitution and place. He will destroy you and me for our complicity in it. Finally, then, Jeremiah begins his entire exhortation with this, for if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, you will remain in the land. If you truly amend your ways and your deeds.

Here's the sine qua non for the redemption of America, dear listener. This can only come from a movement of the Spirit of God in America. Pray for this, O Christian. None of the other reformations of the American character can come until there is first a spirit of humility and repentance among her people. Those of you in churches, pray and exhort, speak out, speak out to your pastors, speak out to your people.

And those of you who say you are Christians, but you refuse to commit to a church. Oh, dear listener, come to New Geneva, OPC, or another faithful Bible-believing congregation that knows these things and speaks out on them, but get to one. We need your support. Stop lingering in the shadows, agreeing, but doing nothing. Such Christians are no better than the Israelites at Mount Carmel, who, when Elijah said to them, choose between Baal and God today.

How long will you go limping between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal is God, then follow him. And the people did not answer him a word. Oh, you will not answer a word to this, John.

Speak up. Do not be silent. New Geneva meets for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Come and join us. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

We meet for holy worship at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard every Sunday. You can call us for feedback and more information at 523-0196. That's 523-0196. Or check out our website. That is omnispotestas.org. O-M-N-I-S dash P-O-T-E-S-T-A-S dot org.