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Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a

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moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith.

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And today I'd like to take up part two of My People Perish for a Lack of Knowledge

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and then get into what that means for America. Now, before I go on, let me remind you that

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I am Pastor David Bass and I minister at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Idaho Falls,

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Idaho. We're located at 1014th Street. We're right on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And we have our

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worship services at 10 a.m. on Sunday. And you can get us for more information at area code 208-523-0196.

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Or you can check out our website, newgenevaopc.org. That's all one word,

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newgenevaopc.org. Well, you remember hearing this verse from Hosea, that is,

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My People Perish for a Lack of Knowledge. And it's often used by speakers of various stripes to add

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authority to the kind of knowledge they think Americans should be apprised of.

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If it's a radio talk show host, America perishes because they don't listen to his knowledge.

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Or if it's a politician, America perishes because they don't follow his policies.

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And if it's a radio preacher like me, America perishes because we do not follow my knowledge.

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But we also looked at this verse, that is Hosea 4 and verse 6. In the context, it was first written,

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and lo and behold, the knowledge spoken of there by the prophet Hosea was not a bare apprehension of

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certain pertinent facts. That is, you need X, Y, and Z calories every day to function, or

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the United States is a republic and not a democracy, or ISIS was funded and armed by our own State

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Department. Not these pertinent kinds of facts. America does not perish for a lack of this kind

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of knowledge in the first place, primarily as a matter of the greatest importance. No, the knowledge

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of which Hosea speaks, for the lack of which the people perish, is the knowledge of God.

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The Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, Hosea says. There is no faithfulness

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or steadfast love and no knowledge of God in the land. That was the deficit, the greatest deficit,

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not a financial deficit, but no knowledge of God in the land. Now, even this knowledge is far more

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than we might first suspect knowledge to be. That is, bare facts about God, like He really does

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exist. He created the world. He's closer to us than we know. But when the Hebrew of Hosea's day heard

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this phrase, the knowledge of God, he understood it to be the deep, personal, and intimate knowledge

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of a person, the person, the living God of the Bible. Husbands and wives know each other,

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don't they? Intimately. That's the implication in the Bible. And God knew Israel in the wilderness

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in order to save, protect, feed, and shepherd her. A deep, intimate knowledge. And negatively,

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Jesus says, I never knew you. There will be a day when He says to many, I never knew you. It's more

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important to have God know you than it is for you to know God. There is no one without the other.

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So, the knowledge of God in the Bible is deep, personal, and intimate. To know in the Bible is

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to love, so as to act in deep, personal, and intimate ways. And that knowledge of God does so

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out of covenantal faithfulness and obedience, too. These are not mutually exclusive, but rather

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requisite, that is, obedience and love. This is the kind of knowledge that a miracle lacks,

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dear listener, the knowledge of the Lord. And when I use this verse, my people perish for a lack of

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knowledge, this is what I mean. This is the prior to all knowledge. It is the kind of knowledge that

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politicians, statesmen, preachers, commentators should have in mind when they use these words,

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my people perish for a lack of knowledge. We perish for a lack of knowledge of the Lord.

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It is the kind of knowledge that used to suffuse the hearts and minds of Americans,

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so much so was it that even our founders could characterize us as a Christian nation.

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And I rehearsed this faithfully for you last week. But we also saw that there is a cause for this

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lack of knowledge. Because, the Lord says, and this strikes deep into my very being,

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where Hosea says, the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. Yet let no one contend

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to let no one accuse, for with you is my contention, O priest. Oh, bada boom, bada bing,

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under the spotlight, without being able to get out. It was the priests of Israel, the preachers and

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teachers of the land, who utterly failed to teach, exhort, inculcate, exemplify, to preach the knowledge

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of God. It was the priest slash pastor of Hosea's day, who neglected their teaching,

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knowing function, because they were too busy satisfying their appetites at the expense of the

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people. Hosea said, they feed on the sin of my people. They are greedy for their, that is the

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people's, iniquity. So by this time, the people of Israel had lapsed into idolatry and all the

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corruption and debauchery that that entails. And Hosea says that the priests saw it, and they were

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hungry, greedy for that very same corruption and debauchery. The feasting and football, the fame and

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fortune, the priests pursued as eagerly as the people. What then? Was God's judgment against

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these pastors? Oh, Hosea says, it shall be like people, like priests. I shall punish them for their

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ways, and I will repay them for their deeds. And I also confess to you my own mea culpa, that this is

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on us, pastor in the United States of America. We are the priests today, of whom Hosea spoke yesterday.

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We cannot self-righteously wag our finger at the American people saying, bad dog, and that you

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are to reform, oh people, while we primp and preen in our pulpits. God's contention is with us,

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oh pastor, if there's any pastor listening. We must be preaching the knowledge of God in its fullness

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and exemplifying it ourselves. I don't know about you, but I have a lot of work to do.

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Hmm, hmm. What we must also come to understand is that there will be consequences for not knowing

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God. There is a trait in human nature that ignores what may inconvenience us, and a trait in human

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nature that overlooks that which may demand that we change and deliberately passes by that which

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may cause pain. We become sublime in our ignorance, delighted in our blindness, and content in our

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deafness. It is called willful ignorance. Such is America's

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state of its union to God. But what happens to such people? Well, we must say the Bible is clear.

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God judges an obstinate people by confirming them in their ignorance. Yes, listen, God judges an

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obstinate people by confirming them in their ignorance. And as we speak, the United States of

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America is being confirmed in her ignorance. And no book of the Bible exemplifies this truth better

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than Isaiah. He was called as a preacher to convert. To convert who? To convert the whole nation? Maybe

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half of them. Maybe a small remnant. No. Chapter 6 of Isaiah tells him in his call, God tells him that

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there would be none who would be converted. Isaiah was called to confirm Judah in her ignorance.

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And by the time of Isaiah's ministry, Judah had for centuries been willfully ignorant of her God. For

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generations, God had sent his prophets to call the people to repentance, to the knowledge of God, like

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Hosea. And for generations, he held out his hand to a stubborn and rebellious people, as Isaiah says. But

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alas, they would not listen. They were sublime in their ignorance, delighted in their blindness, and content in

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their deafness. They were willfully ignorant. And therefore, God sent his prophet Isaiah to confirm

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them in that ignorance. At his very commissioning in Chapter 6, God says, Go and say to this people,

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Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this

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people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with

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their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed. Oh, God did not want them to turn and be

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healed at this point. Because by this time, God had decided to judge Judah, and nothing was going to stand in

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his way. This is a fearful thing to comprehend about God, dear listener. It does not fit the God loves you and has a

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wonderful plan for your life of our popular evangelism, does it? People who feel that we're

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all children of God recoil from the God of Isaiah, and people who secretly tell themselves, I can always

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go back to God. His door is always open, and thus continue in their sin. These kinds of people fail to

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see the God of the whole Bible. God does close his door. Not all children are children of God. God does not

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have a wonderful plan for everyone's life. Such people are willfully ignorant, and God confirms such

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ones in their ignorance. And Americans are at this very crossroads. We are being confirmed in our

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ignorance, our ignorance of God. My people perish for a lack of knowledge, the knowledge of God. And no

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one does this better than the false prophets of God, the ones who tell us there's peace, peace when there

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is no peace. Those who tell us America will be delivered when God has decided enslavement instead.

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Those who tell you, you can't do anything to improve the world, will be raptured out of all of this

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pretty soon anyway. These are the kinds of lying spirits God sends to confirm a people in their

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ignorance, in preparation for judgment. When God wanted to judge King Ahab, he asked, who will entice

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Ahab that he may go and fall at Ramoth Gilead? And a spirit comes forward and says, I will go out

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and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. If the prophet is deceived and speaks a

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word, says Ezekiel, I the Lord have deceived the prophet. The Bible is clear that God is of such a

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character that when a people persist in their ignorance long enough, he will send his own

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prophets to make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes, as Isaiah

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says, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and

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turn and be healed, unquote. God will also confirm them in their ignorance by sending a lying spirit

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in the mouths of false prophets who may sincerely believe they speak the word of the Lord when they do

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not. Dear listener, God's patience is not perpetual. God is not a God of perpetual patience. At a time of

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his own choosing, in the counsel of his own will, God will judge a people and nothing will stay his

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hand. When that day comes, there will be no mercy and no cry of repentance will be heard. Jeremiah says

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this regarding Judah from Jeremiah chapter 11. He says, behold, I am bringing disaster upon them that

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they cannot escape. Though they cry to me, I will not listen to them. Therefore, do not pray for this

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people or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time

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of their trouble, unquote. Is America at this juncture? Has God decreed destruction for us? Will no cry for

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mercy be heard by him, even if we were to offer it? Will no petition of repentance be accepted, even if we

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were to submit one? Are we at the point in God's dealing with us that it is no longer salutary to

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pray for the United States of America? The Bible is clear that nations and peoples do come to this

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point. Oh, if God would only admit me to the counsel of his will, then I could tell you to what point the

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fuse of his patience has burned, and whether the powder keg of his wrath is about to explode over

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the United States of America. But alas, God has not consulted me, nor has he shown me the mystery

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of his will. Deuteronomy 29.29 says, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things

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that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

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Dear listener, the measure of God's patience and the day of his wrath are two of those secret

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things. But the things revealed to us we have touched upon, that is, though at present my people

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perish for a lack of knowledge, we do not have to perish. We can know the living God through our Lord

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Jesus Christ. And though God's controversy is with us, pastor and preacher, and unless and until we preach

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the knowledge of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and we do it for our nation and as a nation, and not

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just in the four walls of the church, oh, unless we do this, we will perish for a lack of knowledge,

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the living knowledge, the living God. And right now, our people, that includes us, fellow pastor,

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right now, our people are wandering around in the wilderness of our civil society like sheep without

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a shepherd. This has not always been so. Oh, dear listener, peel back the blinders of history,

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because the history of this nation, yea, of the church through the centuries, is that the church

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has always been a prophetic voice to its ruling magistrates, the government. That is, it has been

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faithful to the civil covenant in seeking justice and only justice. Oh, for example,

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St. John Chrysostom preached against the injustices of Queen Eudoxia, and John Chrysostom was persecuted

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severely for it. Pick up your history of the church. It has always been a voice in the face of the civil

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government when it has to. We have cowardly, spineless preachers who say we do not need to

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speak to government these days to go along and do what it says, rather, and load us right onto the box

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cars, usher us right into the camps. Oh, it's only going to be a quick shower, our pastors tell us.

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Oh, no, we are to preach against the civil government when it is unnecessary.

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John Knox as well. Oh, brave John Knox, the Scots reformer. He preached against the injustices of

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Bloody Mary. Oh, he did it to her face, too. In fact, when he preached to Queen Mary, urging her to

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repent and reform, it so stunned Bloody Mary into silence for a full 15 minutes, she couldn't utter a

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word. She had never been spoken to so frankly before, and John Knox was thrown into prison for

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it. We are indeed to be preachers fully faithful to the Word of God and fully faithful to the civil

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covenant in holding government accountable to the Word of God. As well, preachers in the colonies,

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the American colonies, spoke relentlessly against the injustices of King George and Parliament against

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the American colonies. Oh, and many of these pastors made the hanging list of General Cornwallis.

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Yes, if General Cornwallis had won in the Revolutionary War, he had a list of priorities of

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men to hang, and many preachers were right in the top 10. Well, on and on we could go. The Bible and

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church history are filled with examples of those knowledgeable of and faithful to their covenants.

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Covenant is God's own economy, not dispensationalism, but covenantalism.

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Even the civil covenant they were faithful to. Brother preacher, if we do not shake off these

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false notions of pacifism and compartmentalization of the gospel, that is, we must not soil the garments

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of the gospel with culture, society, and least of all government and politics. You better shed this

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notion, dear preacher, because the world's going to hell in a handbasket and we can't do anything

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about it. Oh, wait for the rapture, is what we're told. Oh, then we find ourselves in a handbasket and

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we wonder where we're going and how we got there. Then, if this is our attitude, then my people will

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continue to perish for lack of knowledge and God's contention will continue to be with us, dear preacher.

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Well, what must we do? What must we do in order to be faithful to our charge, dear preacher?

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Well, we must do several things. Number one, we must fully awaken the people. Are you listening?

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Dear preacher, we must fully awaken the people. We are right to call people to repentance and salvation

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in Christ. Paul says, Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Awake,

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O sleeper. But as we have outlined above, that awakening involves the whole consciousness of

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the Christian life, all who are saved. And entering into discipleship in the Christian life, we must all

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understand that a crucial part of discipleship is how we frame, form, and fashion our surrounding

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culture, our surrounding society, and, oh yay, hear it not, dear preacher, our surrounding government.

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We must indeed frame, form, and fashion our government and politics as well. And right now,

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the church is walking around in a hypnotic stupor, babbling about revelation, red heifers,

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rafters, and antichrists. Meanwhile, the beast is already here. He's not waiting to come. The beast is

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already here, ravaging the world. And all we can do is throw up our hands, figuratively speaking,

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and say, God is in control. God is in control. It only means that the rapture is almost here. Oh,

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I get so sick of hearing this. It's a true example of Christian fatalism. Rather, it is time for us to

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offer our people the red pill and show them the truth. Come out of the cloister, dear preacher,

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and break the hypnosis of dispensational premillennialism. And look to other eschatologies

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that have served the church better in her history. Indeed, truer than contemporary eschatology,

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with its red heifer rapture revelation nonsense. Secondly, dear preacher, the second thing we must do is

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hearken back to biblical principles of government and then teach them. Ah, we must wake up and become

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apprised, educate ourselves. We must hearken back to biblical principles of government and then teach

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them. Many of you do not even know there used to be biblical principles of government. We here in the

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United States of America especially have a rich tradition of a constitutional republic.

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This model, the constitutional republic, as I teach exhaustively in my series on the Christian

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background to the American Constitution, our tradition of a constitutional republic has been labored over

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for millennia. It is founded on clear biblical principles that is justice, mercy, law and order,

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provision for our common defense, and the general welfare of all the people. And our founders also

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understood that we yet live under a civil covenant and that we are obliged to participate in it as

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Christians and teach it as pastors. It is part of our responsibility before God to keep the provisions

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of the civil covenant. It is part of our responsibility before God. We cannot put ourselves on theological

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cruise control and play civil solitaire in the backseat while the vehicle goes God knows where.

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Christians are obliged to pay attention and labor for justice and mercy in the halls of government,

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and we as preachers are obliged to teach our people sow these things or else we persist in perishing for

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a lack of knowledge. Dear preacher, stop preaching escape hatch rapture fatalism. Stop preaching Bible

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bubble believism about government, as if faith can be put in one box and our civil lives together in

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another box and ne'er the twain shall meet. Our people continue to perish for a lack of knowledge

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because we preachers are dying for the right biblical message for our people. Is it perfect? No, it can be

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improved. Instead of whining about its imperfections, waiting only for the perfect rule of the king of kings in

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a future literal thousand-year millennialism. This is Christian fatalism. Rather, preacher, do the hard

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Christian thing of sweating over improving the Christian republic insofar as it can be done. We

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do not expect perfection, but we can do so much better. This is our obligation under the civil covenant.

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Look to it, dear preacher. The civil covenant, we have responsibilities under it to preach and to act.

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The third thing we must do is mitigate the ignorance of our people with true sources.

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Yes, dear preacher, here's some hard work for you. This will get your brain gears rolling. This will

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bring smoke out of your ears for the sweat and the heat of thinking. We must mitigate the ignorance of

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our people with true sources. Indeed, people perish for a lack of knowledge, and that knowledge begins

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with the truth of scripture, but it doesn't end there. The ninth commandment is as much enforced

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today as it was in the day it was promulgated on Mount Sinai. You shall not bear false witness

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against your neighbor. Implied in this negative format of the command is its positive, that is,

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you shall speak the truth to your neighbor. This is a good test of the information we consume.

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Is it the truth being spoken to us, a neighbor to the news source in question, or is it fault witness,

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a lie? And as preachers, we must be trained and attuned to discern truth from lie and then train

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our people to do the same. Without true information, we will not be able to act righteously or truly.

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There's much to address in this realm for the Christian. Terms like spin, a news outlet's narrative

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of a story, phrases like the fact of the matter is. Oh, I hear that so much. I am so sick of that

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phrase. The fact of the matter is. Sounds so authoritative, doesn't it? Other kinds of euphemisms

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for doubtful and distorted information only makes the public cynical about hearing the truth

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about their world. We must be trained, dear pastor. We must be trained and attuned to bonafide sources

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of information for ourselves and for our people. Dear listener, if indeed the United States of America

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perishes for a lack of knowledge, then it is because God's people, the church, have not a knowledge of

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God. This must come afresh to us. It doesn't have to be this way. We can know God. We can have a living

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knowledge of him through a living knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us continue to preach and

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teach these things that we might see the nation united again. This has been Pastor David Bass at

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New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And we have been sharing with you our program, A Moment of Truth,

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where indeed we treat of a contemporary issue of both life and faith in our culture, society,

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and political realm and government and so forth. And we just encourage you to go ahead and contact us

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for some feedback, perhaps, or some more information about us. Our phone number is area code 208-523-0196.

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That's area code 208-523-0196. And New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church is located in Idaho Falls,

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Idaho. And we just encourage you and urge you to come and join us for a worship service.

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And you can find out more about who we are as a people and me as a preacher by coming and visiting

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us on Sunday morning. We worship at 10 a.m. And we're located at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and

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Boulevard. And just love to have you cross our threshold. We're friendly and love to make you feel

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welcome and comfortable. And we also then have this radio program on KID 590 AM and also on KID,

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or I'm sorry, also on KID FM 92.1 and 103.6 FM. And then we have our two websites too,

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our church website, newgenevaopc.org. That's one word, newgenevaopc.org. And then we also have

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another website wherein we have cataloged for you radio messages going like this one, going back

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some three years or so. And that website is omnisprotestas.org. That's O-M-N-I-S dash P-O-T-E-S-T-A-S.

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.org. That's omnisprotestas.org. O-M-N-I-S dash P-O-T-E-S-T-A-S.org. Once again, this has been

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Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And you can call us for

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feedback and more information at area code 208-523-0196.