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. Today, let me ask you, what do we call a dead body, reanimated with energy but no soul? We have this popular cultural meme. It's called a zombie, right?

Well, in analogy, what do we call a dead charter of government, reanimated with energy but no soul? Oh, I call it a zombie constitution. Dear brothers and sisters, I feel today as if we in the United States of America are living with a zombie constitution and a reanimated republic. Funk and Wagnall's Dictionary defines a zombie as a corpse reactivated by sorcery but still dead. That's kind of how I feel about our constitutional republic today.

It goes on to say, a zombie, the supernatural power by which a dead body is believed to be reanimated, unquote. How this describes the federal government in its current state as I look to it day by day as news comes pouring across my desk. For many conservatives, the election of Donald Trump reanimated, if you will, the federal government with some conservative policies but with no real change in the body politic of Washington, D.C. No, that still grinds on the same.

Our body politic is still the same old reactivated corpse of a constitution that it was when he got there and ever will be unless life that is a living, breathing, constitutional soul is given to it. But without a true constitutional soul, all efforts will be but a corpse reactivated by sorcery, if we can call our constitutional republic as it is presently made, a zombie constitution, a reanimated corpse of a republic. What is the constitutional soul of our republic, dear listener? I tell you, and I assert this with the greatest confidence and the greatest force, that is, the soul of the constitution is biblical Christianity.

Keep this in mind because nothing will change until we understand this and until our constitutional republic is filled once again with a living soul of biblical Christianity. Our founders knew that Christianity must animate the soul of the American constitution. In reflecting upon those men and their thoughts, Noah Webster said this. He said, no truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people, unquote.

This, of course, is precisely because Webster and all of his generation knew that the constitutional republic was a product of millennia of sacrifice and development. It had its roots in biblical law, custom, and practice. You remember the roots of western republics in the tribal republic of Israel. You remember how the kings and emperors of the west, I cover this in my series on the Christian roots of the American constitution.

And you may remember how the kings and emperors of the west, once they experienced a conversion to Christ and his gospel as it began to spread, they sought to ground their rule subsequently in the law and justice of the Bible. Even as did the most notable example, that would be Justinian II and his revision of the Roman law code in accord with biblical principles. It's come down to us as the Justinian code. And you also recall our own direct roots of liberty, in the English Bill of Rights, for example, or the Magna Carta of 1215. And then, of course, Blackstone's commentaries on English law.

All of these and much, much more were profoundly influenced by the Bible and Christian principle derived from the Bible. Our own constitution was steeped not only in this tradition, but also in the fresh tradition of the colonial charters of New England, which were almost exclusively tailored to be constitutional republics with a strong affinity for the Christian religion. Now, Daniel Webster says this about that period. He says, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. And here he was thinking about the colonial charters.

He goes on to say, our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary, unquote. Daniel Webster. He understood, as did our founding fathers, that the soul of the Constitution is biblical Christianity.

The soul of the Constitution is biblical Christianity. Note with me as well, secondly, that as the body without the soul is lifeless, so the Constitution without Christianity is lifeless, isn't it? Take away the heart and soul from a constitutional republic, and what is left is a lifeless political corpse. You may have the dead forms of that corpse, as the United States does today still. They have a shadow of a Congress.

They have a bloated, overreaching executive and a pretentious rogue judiciary. But these shadows, these dead forms have no life in them. What they do have is a soulless, reanimated corpse of a body, even as a zombie, as a dead man enabled by the powers of a sorcerer. We have a zombie constitution. We have a reanimated republic moving about and acting evilly before us.

Do we not evacuate the soul of a man and something will rush in to fill the void? Evacuate the soul of a constitutional republic and something will rush in to fill that void? Voodoo priests know this, and they are prepared with an answer, too. Now, we can carry this zombie analogy a little bit further. In voodoo, it is said that the priest or the priestess, which is a hungan in Haiti, a hungan, they can reanimate a human corpse by calling upon spirit forces of the underworld, and these are called tibonage, to invade that body and then be at the service of the priest to do his bidding.

Revenge, murder, theft, control of others through sheer terror are some of the uses to which the zombie is put by the voodoo hungan in places like Haiti and in tribes in the Congo of Africa, the Congo of Africa, the place where voodoo has its origins. And one can imagine the superstitious terror that lives in such places when an otherwise rotting corpse suddenly appears at one's doorstep, possessed of a spirit, the tibonage, in control of another, the hungan, to kill, maim, steal, and destroy.

Behold your so-called constitutional republic, dear listener, once living, truly possessed of the soul of one, that is, the Christian religion, but now a zombie constitution, a mere reanimated republic. America has all the features of a constitutional republic. We still see, as I mentioned, a congress, a president, a judiciary, like a zombie has the features of a human body, but those features are lifeless and they do not function as a human body normally does. The body parts act as if they have life, but they achieve only the ends of death. So it is with our zombie constitution, our reanimated but otherwise dead republic.

These parts act and move so as to mimic the behaviors of a constitutional republic, but actually achieve the ends of a status tyranny. Oh, that once our living, breathing, soulful constitutional republic, activated by the soul of Christianity, is now a mere lifeless, zombified corpse. This is evident to us from what it achieves and how it operates. We can tell by its fruits. For example, our constitutional republic, our zombie constitution and reanimated republic, no longer labors for the things of life for which it was designed.

That is the preamble or the mission statement of the constitution. You may remember the mission statement of the constitution. That is, we, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, excuse me, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America, unquote. That's the preamble. That is the mission statement of the constitution, the purpose of government, and it was sixfold.

But note these things with me, seven things in this sixfold purpose. Number one, we, the people, we, the people, is now they, the elite, in the zombified constitution. We, the people, is now they, the elite. It's a truism that Washington, D.C. is now captive to special interests. Anyone who thinks that Washington, D.C. labors on behalf of we, the people, has turned off the critical faculty part of their brain, and they've chosen to live in a fantasy world.

Just pick up a copy of Peter Schweitzer's books, Extortion, maybe, or Clinton Cash, and catch a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg of this situation. But it runs much deeper than that. Washington, D.C. is not just captive to special interests, but it is also becoming increasingly evident that there's a trend to integrate the United States into a larger world economy, a larger world judicial system, where she is accountable to world courts, not just our own, and a larger world governing body, too, under whose legislation the United States would be accountable.

And one has only to look for proof to things like the treaties, Trans-Pacific Partnership, for example, or TPP, which Trump has canceled, thankfully, or to the North American Free Trade Agreement, with us now for years, NAFTA, which Trump hopes to renegotiate, thank God, as well. You have to look only to these to see only the most egregious examples of attempts to economically hobble and disadvantage the United States at best, and to redistribute our wealth to foreign nations and peoples at worst. Additionally, those who stand to gain from this trend of world integration, that's what you have to do.

You have to look to see who is going to profit by this. They intend to push us towards international agreements whose terms will be decided not by legislative and judicial bodies here in the United States, but rather in foreign bodies, like the World Court in The Haag, or unelected bureaucrats in the United Nations or in NATO. This has become evident as men like Al Gore, talk about a man who profits from disaster, right? Al Gore becomes wealthy as climate change treaties are made and signed to our disadvantage, or George Soros as he profits from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

And of course, international bankers play dangerous games with our economy to their own profit, not for the good of the people. Well, on we could go. All of this is to say that if we were honest about the true authority of the Constitution, we would have to change the opening words of the preamble from we the people to they, the elite.

The living, vibrant constitutional republic of our founders has become a zombie corpse of a constitution, a virtual reanimated republic where the people are dead to their authority and a foreign spirit, a sorcerer, if you will, a sorcerer elite now energized the soul of the zombie republic that was the United States of America. Secondly, note with me, the formation of a more perfect union is now cynically steered towards a perfect statist tyranny. Yes, the formation of a more perfect union, as our Constitution puts it, is now cynically steered towards a perfect statist tyranny in the zombie republic of America.

The founders crafted the Constitution as an improvement upon the Articles of Confederation, which almost all at the time agreed stood as a charter too weak to accomplish the united purposes of the several states. Therefore, the founders created a federal system that would negotiate treaties on behalf of all the states, for example. It would raise an army and navy for the defense of all the states. And this new constitution would do things like regulate interstate commerce and coin money and standardize weights and measures on behalf of all the states.

These and other glaring problems under the Articles of Confederation were addressed in order to form a more perfect union, as the Constitution says, to benefit the several states. But all of that has changed over the time of the Constitution's composition, dear listener. That union in bonds of peace and trust and unity has withered and died. And in its stead are zombie chains instead of bonds, zombie turmoil instead of peace, zombie suspicion where there was once trust, and zombie tyranny instead of mere union.

The Constitution was written on behalf of and for the mutual benefit of the states, not for a self-serving federal government in Washington, D.C., as it is now constituted under the zombie Constitution, the reanimated republic, if you will. And, for example, amendments 9 and 10 of the Constitution were added in particular to hem and hedge the federal government from future encroachment upon the relative independence of the states. I refresh your memory of amendment number 9, for example, which reads, the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

That is, rights were limitless in the Constitution for the people. And amendment number 10 reads, the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. This means that power belongs to the people in the states. Only those powers that were specific to the United States or prohibited to the states, these are the only ones limited by the states. The powers otherwise are limitless to the people and to the states as well as their rights.

Now, over the decades and centuries, however, sometimes imperceptibly like a court case here or an executive order there, and sometimes in big chunks like in the Civil War or with authoritarian presidents like Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Barack Obama, over time, the certain rights and powers reserved to the states or the people have been usurped by the federal government in Washington, D.C. And as I point out tirelessly, this is the fault of the states and the people. It is us. It can be the responsibility and the fault of no other.

The virtual death of this more perfect union has contributed to the zombie constitution, the one dead to union, but exercising the reanimated motions of status tyranny in its place. Thirdly, note with me too, when we discuss the zombie constitution, the reanimated republic, we see that the goal to establish justice, which is one of the purposes of government, the goal to establish justice has given way to a two-tiered system of justice, hasn't it? This is one of the prime directives of government. The Bible gives this to us too.

Our own sense of justice is taken from the Bible where Moses says, justice and only justice shall you do in the land the Lord your God is giving you. He commands the judges of Israel, justice and only justice shall you do. And the founders understood this prime directive, whether they read the Bible or Blackstone's commentary on the English law, it was itself a system of law based upon the Bible itself. Without true justice in the land, dear listener, evil can only flourish as it does today.

Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. How much worse is it when there is no sentence at all against an evil deed, much less one handed down, but executed tardily, right? And I give it as an example, the decades it takes for capital cases to win their way through the courts, right? Talk about delayed justice. And there are presently two tiers of justice in America, one for the rich and powerful and another for the rest of us.

We see this played out for us on a daily basis, don't we? Whether it is Eric Holder running in the Fast and Furious scandal, Hillary Clinton and the millions scammed in the Clinton Foundation, or Barack Obama and his abuse of power during his administration. The death of justice in the halls of power, the death of justice in the halls of power, seen in the contempt for the little people, as Hillary Clinton calls us. This will inevitably lead to lawlessness and contempt for law and order in the land as well. This is amply illustrated for us throughout history and the Bible.

But the death of justice in the Constitution does not mean that there is not a kind of reanimation of something that looks a pale shade like justice, even as a zombie resembles what it once was. That is a living, breathing soul. And I give you as an example, the kangaroo court being convened for Donald Trump in his so-called collusion with Russia during the election. Oh, what a laughable situation. The hysterical hissy fits of the progressive left hide behind the mantle of justice while practicing injustice for the sake of politics.

And this too is zombie constitutionalism, a mere reanimated corpse of justice. Instead, there will be no living constitution again unless we practice justice as recommended by the prophet Micah. And he tells us, he has told you, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God? Fourthly, note with me, from the Constitution, we have a reanimated corpse of a Constitution doing on notice number four with me, the duty to ensure domestic tranquility, government now transgresses by fostering domestic violence and unrest.

Oh, and what could be a better example of a zombie constitutional republic than our last president, a community organizer whose whole job description is to create conflict? Do you know this about community organizers, dear listener? Barack Obama's mentor, Saul Alinsky, taught that out of conflict between two opposing sides comes resolution favorable to the side of the oppressed if the community organizer is smart about it. The job of the community organizer is to go into disadvantaged communities and organize them to find a point of conflict with the perceived oppressor and then agitate that conflict.

Who did this better than President Barack Obama, who never stopped being a community organizer even once he got into office? You may remember the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, which he exacerbated. And surveys time after time list that indeed race relations were at their nadir, worse than they were since the civil riots back in the 60s by the time President Obama left office. Well, note with me number five as well. Instead of providing for the common defense, our zombie constitution, our reanimated republic, leaves us defenseless.

Our open borders are exhibit A in this regard. We know that the drug gangs, for example, now control the southern border instead of our border patrol. And we have also known that countless OTMs as they're called, that is other than Mexican, have been flooding into the United States over the decades. We know that crime and terror and threats to our national security will increase because of our poorest borders. Our zombie constitution leaves us defenseless because our politicians are spineless in stopping the poorest borders.

They want cheap labor. They want Democrat voters. And so the borders continue to be open, leaving us defenseless. Instead of the common defense, we have a zombie constitution. We have a reanimated republic where indeed evil is done rather than good.

Additionally, the influx of refugees and immigrants from Syria and the Middle East, they as well are designed to deliberately destabilize us. No longer does the constitution provide for the common defense, but our zombie constitution leaves us defenseless. Number six, note with me as well, instead of promoting the general welfare, our zombie constitution promotes special welfare.

The founding fathers meant by this provision, promoting the general welfare, that the federal government would restrict itself to those actions which would benefit all of the people or all of the states as a whole and not a single class or segment of the people or only a few states. Rather, the constitution would promote the general welfare of all the people and all the states. But our zombie constitution, our reanimated republic, in contradiction to this directive, of course, in contradiction then to this directive, is providing a whole segment of voters through direct handouts from the federal treasury, isn't it?

Including social security, welfare, food stamps, Medicare, unemployment, a host of other programs we could give in litany that buy off narrow segments of the general public for whom general welfare was to be provided the whole of the people according to the constitution. Well, lastly, then number seven, rather than securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, our zombie constitution puts them in jeopardy. Yes, rather than securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, which under the living constitution, the constitution with a soul, our zombie constitution puts those in jeopardy.

With every new nibble that the zombie takes upon our liberties, we come closer and closer to dying ourselves as a free people. And not only will we pay the price, but so will our children if we do not once again bring that constitution to life. The soul of the constitution is biblical Christianity. That is what needs to happen. There needs to be complete and utter reformation of the American way of life for this to happen.

That can only be done, too, by the sovereign hand of God. We must pray about these things, dear listener. Pray to the sovereign hand of God that he might change the hearts and minds of Americans, that we might once again have a vibrant and living heart and soul to the constitution. That is the biblical faith, the Christian religion, Christ himself. There will be no resurgence of a proper constitutional republic until there is a rebirth of the soul of one.

You're going to continue to see the country unfold as it has been in bitterness and conflict and alienation. That can only happen, that change can only happen in the people themselves. And until then, you will continue to see the floundering, arm flapping, leg stumbling, glassy-eyed stare of a zombie in our national life together as godless men try to bring to life that which only God can vivify. Only God can bring to life the soul of the constitution. That is the biblical faith, the Christian religion, Christ himself in the lives, hearts, and minds of the people.

Without Christ in the people, there will be no living constitutional republic for the people. We, the people, will continue to be governed by the zombie on behalf of they, the elite, dear listener. Remember with me, the soul of the constitution is biblical Christianity, and our founders knew that. Christianity must animate the soul of American constitutionalism or else it will be a zombie constitutionalism. It will achieve the ends of death and not the ends of life.

It will achieve the ends of demonic and devilish government and tyranny, statism, and not the ends of government as reflected in the preamble of our constitution. So, our own constitution was steeped not only in this tradition, was it not? The tradition of having the soul of the biblical religion, but also the fresh tradition of the colonial charters too that reflect these things. The soul of the constitution is biblical Christianity.

Pray for a revitalization, a reformation of the soul, the heart of the American people, that we might again see a biblical constitutional republic and not a zombie constitution, a mere sorcerer reanimated republic as we are experiencing. Now, deliver us, O Lord, from this. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. New Geneva meets for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. I invite you to join us.

I invite you to come and visit us in one of our worship services. Come out of the shadows. Join us. Perhaps you've been meaning to for some time now, and we just invite you to come and join us. We need you.

You need us. We have much to offer as a church, and we know that you have much to offer us too as an individual Christian. Please come and visit us. New Geneva meets for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard, and you can call us for more information at 523-0196. That's 523-0196.