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 I'd like to take up part two of My People Perish for a Lack of Knowledge and then get into what that means for America. Now, before I go on, let me remind you that I am Pastor David Bass and I minister at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Idaho Falls, Idaho. We're located at 1014th Street.

We're right on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And we have our worship services at 10 a.m. on Sunday. And you can get us for more information at area code 208-523-0196. Or you can check out our website, newgenevaopc.org. That's all one word, newgenevaopc.org.

Well, you remember hearing this verse from Hosea, that is, My People Perish for a Lack of Knowledge. And it's often used by speakers of various stripes to add authority to the kind of knowledge they think Americans should be apprised of. If it's a radio talk show host, America perishes because they don't listen to his knowledge. Or if it's a politician, America perishes because they don't follow his policies. And if it's a radio preacher like me, America perishes because we do not follow my knowledge.

But we also looked at this verse, that is Hosea 4 and verse 6. In the context, it was first written, and lo and behold, the knowledge spoken of there by the prophet Hosea was not a bare apprehension of certain pertinent facts. That is, you need X, Y, and Z calories every day to function, or the United States is a republic and not a democracy, or ISIS was funded and armed by our own State Department. Not these pertinent kinds of facts. America does not perish for a lack of this kind of knowledge in the first place, primarily as a matter of the greatest importance.

No, the knowledge of which Hosea speaks, for the lack of which the people perish, is the knowledge of God. The Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, Hosea says. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love and no knowledge of God in the land. That was the deficit, the greatest deficit, not a financial deficit, but no knowledge of God in the land. Now, even this knowledge is far more than we might first suspect knowledge to be.

That is, bare facts about God, like He really does exist. He created the world. He's closer to us than we know. But when the Hebrew of Hosea's day heard this phrase, the knowledge of God, he understood it to be the deep, personal, and intimate knowledge of a person, the person, the living God of the Bible. Husbands and wives know each other, don't they?

Intimately. That's the implication in the Bible. And God knew Israel in the wilderness in order to save, protect, feed, and shepherd her. A deep, intimate knowledge. And negatively, Jesus says, I never knew you.

There will be a day when He says to many, I never knew you. It's more important to have God know you than it is for you to know God. There is no one without the other. So, the knowledge of God in the Bible is deep, personal, and intimate. To know in the Bible is to love, so as to act in deep, personal, and intimate ways.

And that knowledge of God does so out of covenantal faithfulness and obedience, too. These are not mutually exclusive, but rather requisite, that is, obedience and love. This is the kind of knowledge that a miracle lacks, dear listener, the knowledge of the Lord. And when I use this verse, my people perish for a lack of knowledge, this is what I mean. This is the prior to all knowledge.

It is the kind of knowledge that politicians, statesmen, preachers, commentators should have in mind when they use these words, my people perish for a lack of knowledge. We perish for a lack of knowledge of the Lord. It is the kind of knowledge that used to suffuse the hearts and minds of Americans, so much so was it that even our founders could characterize us as a Christian nation. And I rehearsed this faithfully for you last week. But we also saw that there is a cause for this lack of knowledge.

Because, the Lord says, and this strikes deep into my very being, where Hosea says, the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. Yet let no one contend to let no one accuse, for with you is my contention, O priest. Oh, bada boom, bada bing, under the spotlight, without being able to get out. It was the priests of Israel, the preachers and teachers of the land, who utterly failed to teach, exhort, inculcate, exemplify, to preach the knowledge of God. It was the priest slash pastor of Hosea's day, who neglected their teaching, knowing function, because they were too busy satisfying their appetites at the expense of the people.

Hosea said, they feed on the sin of my people. They are greedy for their, that is the people's, iniquity. So by this time, the people of Israel had lapsed into idolatry and all the corruption and debauchery that that entails. And Hosea says that the priests saw it, and they were hungry, greedy for that very same corruption and debauchery. The feasting and football, the fame and fortune, the priests pursued as eagerly as the people.

What then? Was God's judgment against these pastors? Oh, Hosea says, it shall be like people, like priests. I shall punish them for their ways, and I will repay them for their deeds. And I also confess to you my own mea culpa, that this is on us, pastor in the United States of America.

We are the priests today, of whom Hosea spoke yesterday. We cannot self-righteously wag our finger at the American people saying, bad dog, and that you are to reform, oh people, while we primp and preen in our pulpits. God's contention is with us, oh pastor, if there's any pastor listening. We must be preaching the knowledge of God in its fullness and exemplifying it ourselves. I don't know about you, but I have a lot of work to do.

Hmm, hmm. What we must also come to understand is that there will be consequences for not knowing God. There is a trait in human nature that ignores what may inconvenience us, and a trait in human nature that overlooks that which may demand that we change and deliberately passes by that which may cause pain. We become sublime in our ignorance, delighted in our blindness, and content in our deafness. It is called willful ignorance.

Such is America's state of its union to God. But what happens to such people? Well, we must say the Bible is clear. God judges an obstinate people by confirming them in their ignorance. Yes, listen, God judges an obstinate people by confirming them in their ignorance.

And as we speak, the United States of America is being confirmed in her ignorance. And no book of the Bible exemplifies this truth better than Isaiah. He was called as a preacher to convert. To convert who? To convert the whole nation?

Maybe half of them. Maybe a small remnant. No. Chapter 6 of Isaiah tells him in his call, God tells him that there would be none who would be converted. Isaiah was called to confirm Judah in her ignorance.

And by the time of Isaiah's ministry, Judah had for centuries been willfully ignorant of her God. For generations, God had sent his prophets to call the people to repentance, to the knowledge of God, like Hosea. And for generations, he held out his hand to a stubborn and rebellious people, as Isaiah says. But alas, they would not listen. They were sublime in their ignorance, delighted in their blindness, and content in their deafness.

They were willfully ignorant. And therefore, God sent his prophet Isaiah to confirm them in that ignorance. At his very commissioning in Chapter 6, God says, Go and say to this people, Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.

Oh, God did not want them to turn and be healed at this point. Because by this time, God had decided to judge Judah, and nothing was going to stand in his way. This is a fearful thing to comprehend about God, dear listener. It does not fit the God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life of our popular evangelism, does it? People who feel that we're all children of God recoil from the God of Isaiah, and people who secretly tell themselves, I can always go back to God.

His door is always open, and thus continue in their sin. These kinds of people fail to see the God of the whole Bible. God does close his door. Not all children are children of God. God does not have a wonderful plan for everyone's life.

Such people are willfully ignorant, and God confirms such ones in their ignorance. And Americans are at this very crossroads. We are being confirmed in our ignorance, our ignorance of God. My people perish for a lack of knowledge, the knowledge of God. And no one does this better than the false prophets of God, the ones who tell us there's peace, peace when there is no peace.

Those who tell us America will be delivered when God has decided enslavement instead. Those who tell you, you can't do anything to improve the world, will be raptured out of all of this pretty soon anyway. These are the kinds of lying spirits God sends to confirm a people in their ignorance, in preparation for judgment. When God wanted to judge King Ahab, he asked, who will entice Ahab that he may go and fall at Ramoth Gilead? And a spirit comes forward and says, I will go out and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.

If the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, says Ezekiel, I the Lord have deceived the prophet. The Bible is clear that God is of such a character that when a people persist in their ignorance long enough, he will send his own prophets to make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes, as Isaiah says, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed, unquote. God will also confirm them in their ignorance by sending a lying spirit in the mouths of false prophets who may sincerely believe they speak the word of the Lord when they do not.

Dear listener, God's patience is not perpetual. God is not a God of perpetual patience. At a time of his own choosing, in the counsel of his own will, God will judge a people and nothing will stay his hand. When that day comes, there will be no mercy and no cry of repentance will be heard. Jeremiah says this regarding Judah from Jeremiah chapter 11.

He says, behold, I am bringing disaster upon them that they cannot escape. Though they cry to me, I will not listen to them. Therefore, do not pray for this people or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their trouble, unquote. Is America at this juncture? Has God decreed destruction for us?

Will no cry for mercy be heard by him, even if we were to offer it? Will no petition of repentance be accepted, even if we were to submit one? Are we at the point in God's dealing with us that it is no longer salutary to pray for the United States of America? The Bible is clear that nations and peoples do come to this point. Oh, if God would only admit me to the counsel of his will, then I could tell you to what point the fuse of his patience has burned, and whether the powder keg of his wrath is about to explode over the United States of America.

But alas, God has not consulted me, nor has he shown me the mystery of his will. Deuteronomy 29.29 says, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. Dear listener, the measure of God's patience and the day of his wrath are two of those secret things. But the things revealed to us we have touched upon, that is, though at present my people perish for a lack of knowledge, we do not have to perish. We can know the living God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And though God's controversy is with us, pastor and preacher, and unless and until we preach the knowledge of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and we do it for our nation and as a nation, and not just in the four walls of the church, oh, unless we do this, we will perish for a lack of knowledge, the living knowledge, the living God. And right now, our people, that includes us, fellow pastor, right now, our people are wandering around in the wilderness of our civil society like sheep without a shepherd. This has not always been so.

Oh, dear listener, peel back the blinders of history, because the history of this nation, yea, of the church through the centuries, is that the church has always been a prophetic voice to its ruling magistrates, the government. That is, it has been faithful to the civil covenant in seeking justice and only justice. Oh, for example, St. John Chrysostom preached against the injustices of Queen Eudoxia, and John Chrysostom was persecuted severely for it. Pick up your history of the church. It has always been a voice in the face of the civil government when it has to.

We have cowardly, spineless preachers who say we do not need to speak to government these days to go along and do what it says, rather, and load us right onto the box cars, usher us right into the camps. Oh, it's only going to be a quick shower, our pastors tell us. Oh, no, we are to preach against the civil government when it is unnecessary. John Knox as well. Oh, brave John Knox, the Scots reformer.

He preached against the injustices of Bloody Mary. Oh, he did it to her face, too. In fact, when he preached to Queen Mary, urging her to repent and reform, it so stunned Bloody Mary into silence for a full 15 minutes, she couldn't utter a word. She had never been spoken to so frankly before, and John Knox was thrown into prison for it. We are indeed to be preachers fully faithful to the Word of God and fully faithful to the civil covenant in holding government accountable to the Word of God.

As well, preachers in the colonies, the American colonies, spoke relentlessly against the injustices of King George and Parliament against the American colonies. Oh, and many of these pastors made the hanging list of General Cornwallis. Yes, if General Cornwallis had won in the Revolutionary War, he had a list of priorities of men to hang, and many preachers were right in the top 10. Well, on and on we could go. The Bible and church history are filled with examples of those knowledgeable of and faithful to their covenants.

Covenant is God's own economy, not dispensationalism, but covenantalism. Even the civil covenant they were faithful to. Brother preacher, if we do not shake off these false notions of pacifism and compartmentalization of the gospel, that is, we must not soil the garments of the gospel with culture, society, and least of all government and politics. You better shed this notion, dear preacher, because the world's going to hell in a handbasket and we can't do anything about it. Oh, wait for the rapture, is what we're told.

Oh, then we find ourselves in a handbasket and we wonder where we're going and how we got there. Then, if this is our attitude, then my people will continue to perish for lack of knowledge and God's contention will continue to be with us, dear preacher. Well, what must we do? What must we do in order to be faithful to our charge, dear preacher? Well, we must do several things.

Number one, we must fully awaken the people. Are you listening? Dear preacher, we must fully awaken the people. We are right to call people to repentance and salvation in Christ. Paul says, Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Awake, O sleeper. But as we have outlined above, that awakening involves the whole consciousness of the Christian life, all who are saved. And entering into discipleship in the Christian life, we must all understand that a crucial part of discipleship is how we frame, form, and fashion our surrounding culture, our surrounding society, and, oh yay, hear it not, dear preacher, our surrounding government. We must indeed frame, form, and fashion our government and politics as well. And right now, the church is walking around in a hypnotic stupor, babbling about revelation, red heifers, rafters, and antichrists.

Meanwhile, the beast is already here. He's not waiting to come. The beast is already here, ravaging the world. And all we can do is throw up our hands, figuratively speaking, and say, God is in control. God is in control.

It only means that the rapture is almost here. Oh, I get so sick of hearing this. It's a true example of Christian fatalism. Rather, it is time for us to offer our people the red pill and show them the truth. Come out of the cloister, dear preacher, and break the hypnosis of dispensational premillennialism.

And look to other eschatologies that have served the church better in her history. Indeed, truer than contemporary eschatology, with its red heifer rapture revelation nonsense. Secondly, dear preacher, the second thing we must do is hearken back to biblical principles of government and then teach them. Ah, we must wake up and become apprised, educate ourselves. We must hearken back to biblical principles of government and then teach them.

Many of you do not even know there used to be biblical principles of government. We here in the United States of America especially have a rich tradition of a constitutional republic. This model, the constitutional republic, as I teach exhaustively in my series on the Christian background to the American Constitution, our tradition of a constitutional republic has been labored over for millennia. It is founded on clear biblical principles that is justice, mercy, law and order, provision for our common defense, and the general welfare of all the people.

And our founders also understood that we yet live under a civil covenant and that we are obliged to participate in it as Christians and teach it as pastors. It is part of our responsibility before God to keep the provisions of the civil covenant. It is part of our responsibility before God. We cannot put ourselves on theological cruise control and play civil solitaire in the backseat while the vehicle goes God knows where.

Christians are obliged to pay attention and labor for justice and mercy in the halls of government, and we as preachers are obliged to teach our people sow these things or else we persist in perishing for a lack of knowledge. Dear preacher, stop preaching escape hatch rapture fatalism. Stop preaching Bible bubble believism about government, as if faith can be put in one box and our civil lives together in another box and ne'er the twain shall meet. Our people continue to perish for a lack of knowledge because we preachers are dying for the right biblical message for our people. Is it perfect?

No, it can be improved. Instead of whining about its imperfections, waiting only for the perfect rule of the king of kings in a future literal thousand-year millennialism. This is Christian fatalism. Rather, preacher, do the hard Christian thing of sweating over improving the Christian republic insofar as it can be done. We do not expect perfection, but we can do so much better.

This is our obligation under the civil covenant. Look to it, dear preacher. The civil covenant, we have responsibilities under it to preach and to act. The third thing we must do is mitigate the ignorance of our people with true sources. Yes, dear preacher, here's some hard work for you.

This will get your brain gears rolling. This will bring smoke out of your ears for the sweat and the heat of thinking. We must mitigate the ignorance of our people with true sources. Indeed, people perish for a lack of knowledge, and that knowledge begins with the truth of scripture, but it doesn't end there. The ninth commandment is as much enforced today as it was in the day it was promulgated on Mount Sinai.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Implied in this negative format of the command is its positive, that is, you shall speak the truth to your neighbor. This is a good test of the information we consume. Is it the truth being spoken to us, a neighbor to the news source in question, or is it fault witness, a lie? And as preachers, we must be trained and attuned to discern truth from lie and then train our people to do the same.

Without true information, we will not be able to act righteously or truly. There's much to address in this realm for the Christian. Terms like spin, a news outlet's narrative of a story, phrases like the fact of the matter is. Oh, I hear that so much. I am so sick of that phrase.

The fact of the matter is. Sounds so authoritative, doesn't it? Other kinds of euphemisms for doubtful and distorted information only makes the public cynical about hearing the truth about their world. We must be trained, dear pastor. We must be trained and attuned to bonafide sources of information for ourselves and for our people.

Dear listener, if indeed the United States of America perishes for a lack of knowledge, then it is because God's people, the church, have not a knowledge of God. This must come afresh to us. It doesn't have to be this way. We can know God. We can have a living knowledge of him through a living knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us continue to preach and teach these things that we might see the nation united again. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And we have been sharing with you our program, A Moment of Truth, where indeed we treat of a contemporary issue of both life and faith in our culture, society, and political realm and government and so forth. And we just encourage you to go ahead and contact us for some feedback, perhaps, or some more information about us. Our phone number is area code 208-523-0196.

That's area code 208-523-0196. And New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church is located in Idaho Falls, Idaho. And we just encourage you and urge you to come and join us for a worship service. And you can find out more about who we are as a people and me as a preacher by coming and visiting us on Sunday morning. We worship at 10 a.m. And we're located at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard.

And just love to have you cross our threshold. We're friendly and love to make you feel welcome and comfortable. And we also then have this radio program on KID 590 AM and also on KID, or I'm sorry, also on KID FM 92.1 and 103.6 FM. And then we have our two websites too, our church website, newgenevaopc.org. That's one word, newgenevaopc.org.

And then we also have another website wherein we have cataloged for you radio messages going like this one, going back 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. .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 Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And you can call us for feedback and more information at area code 208-523-0196.