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, how do the grounds for our founding fathers dissolving the political bands which connected them with another, as the Declaration of Independence says, that is with England, how does that compare with our grounds for doing the same thing with the deep state of America in our own day? Brother and sister, it is time to move from a deep state of America to the United States of America deep, deep in constitutional principles and our relationship with God.

In weeks previous, we've been looking at the 29 particulars of the Declaration of Independence that Thomas Jefferson listed as reasons why the American colonists were perfectly justified in carrying out a revolution against the mother country, England. Now, we have seen how these 29 particulars are eerily parallel to conditions in America today, if not, maybe worse. The so-called Wuhan China virus is only the most recent acceleration of that tyranny as our constitutional liberty to practice our religion, speak freely, peaceably, assemble as a church congregation and petition our government for redress of grievance.

That's a summary of the First Amendment. All of this has been abridged in one fell swoop. The draconian measure to lock down America is urged upon us because of medical necessity. We must do this to protect, to keep safe the American public. It's only temporary, but it's necessary for the moment.

But remember what William Pitt, that great British statesman and parliamentarian, said. He said, necessity is the plea for every infringement of human liberty. It is the plea of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves. You're no safer at the end of this period of lockdown, are you, than you were at the beginning?

For anyone who yet subscribes to the efficacy of the measures being imposed upon us by your state and federal governments, I urge you to begin by screening a video, a news conference by Dr. Erickson, COVID-19 briefing. And you're going to find this then on DuckDuckGo. It was on YouTube, but YouTube has since taken it down because it is so challenging to the establishment and to the present way of doing things. But I urge you, write this down, look up on DuckDuckGo. There they still have it posted as of yesterday anyway.

Dr. Erickson, and his name is spelled E-R-I-C-K-S-O-N. Dr. Erickson, excuse me, COVID-19 briefing. And you'll find that on DuckDuckGo. That should still be up. But I'll not go into all the details here, since this is not my bailiwick, but it is that of Dr. Erickson's. But what is apparent is that we are less free than we were when this scare began.

Step by step, increment by increment, your liberty will be increasingly restricted now that you've proven yourself so compliant in this phase of operations, dear sheep. Do you think things will return to normal? Oh, just about the time that the present lockdown is lifted in three gradual stages, the old virus will return, or a new, deadlier pestilence will appear, or some other crisis of necessity will fall upon us, necessitating another lockdown or severe restrictions of our liberties. You don't need to be a prophet or the son of a prophet to see these things coming.

Again, just when you thought you were safe and things were returning to normal, right? We'll see all of this again. We are no safer, but we are less free. Our experience with the stampede panic created by our government only proves Ben Franklin's dictum. And he said, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

America, at this rate, by our performance in this crisis, we deserve neither liberty nor safety, and we will have neither in the future because of our bovine compliance. King George III would have loved to have the present population of America back in 1776 rather than the one he had. The colonies rebelled against a 3% tax on tea. We blithely put up with over 40% tax on our income, conservatively 40% by the time all the hidden taxes are factored. The colonists rebelled because King George restricted immigration of free Englishmen who cherished liberty.

And we calmly allow untold millions of illegal immigrants to flood our shores who have no interest, no conception of what liberty is. We saw, when we looked at this issue, we saw how the tactics were different, but the goal was the same, to destroy the kernel of free, self-aware citizens who prized principal liberty. Our founding fathers rebelled when the King broke up town hall meetings, established the Church of England in the colonies, and smashed the printing presses of papers who criticized them.

We obediently shut up and do as we're told, when media is banned or censored, when churches and services are closed as non-essential, and our gatherings are broken up despite peaceably assembling. What King George III could have done with a brainwashed herd that is 21st century America. He would have had a circus day, milking us for all he could, ordering us to shut up and shut down, eating and drinking what we tell you, and line up for your vaccines. Liberty would have been left to another generation, if at all in those days, if he had us.

And it might well be, excuse me, that if our generation had existed under King George, we might still be an abject slavish colony yet today. But thank God that was not the case under our founding fathers. As facts submitted to a candid world, as Jefferson put it in the Declaration, the Declaration of Independence laid out 29 particulars as a brief summation of a long train of abuses and usurpations, as he put it. And we take up where we left off now at number 19, which reads, for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses. That was a complaint number 19.

This was a complete captive change of venue. And we see this effectively done when in many federal cases today, a trial is shopped for a friendly judge to the prosecution. Could be all over the country. Once more, this is precisely what happened most recently to Roger Stone. Google his trial and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Then number 20, for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government and enlarging its boundaries. So as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into those colonies. Ah, yes, what King George ministers did very cleverly was to arbitrarily enlarge the jurisdiction of a province in a state friendly to the king, and then enlarge that into the province of another resistant to the king. And they could then impose the tyranny from the former onto the latter. Now, our federal system allows for much the same thing.

When a federal judge rules in one jurisdiction, it applies in every other federal jurisdiction across the country. And the attempt to upend President Trump's building of a wall at the southern border is a very good example. When opponents of President Trump find a federal judge friendly to their case, they file it in whatever venue over which he presides. But it is binding over the rest of the country too, not just in that judge's jurisdiction.

In this manner, the Democrats and progressives have been effective in at least delaying many of the measures the president has enacted, regardless of how frivolous or absurd that filing may be constitutionally. Well, 21 and 22 then, taking these two together. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our government. And then 22, for suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

The American colonies were created as legal entities by means of a charter granted by the British crown to operate under the authority of and benefit to the king. Now, these charters were granted for a specific period of time to be renewed at the expiration of that fixed period. And as these charters expired under the reign of King George, he would substantially change the form of government to which the colony may have operated for generations and suspend the laws under which it had enacted and found to be just and salutary. Otherwise, he threatened the charter would not be renewed.

This was one of the reasons the ninth and tenth amendments were created. Amendment number nine says the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. And then amendment number 10 says 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. Unquote. Those are amendments number nine and 10.

These two amendments, how often have you heard these? Oh, these two amendments have been entirely ignored in our history. Our form of government has been altered, suspended, and abolished as the complaint of Thomas Jefferson puts it. They have been altered, suspended, and abolished in the course of our history, just as it was under King George for the colonies. Our founding fathers knew that the people's rights were innumerable, that is without limit.

And so the articulation of 10 of them was not meant to deny or disparage the myriad of others that were not specifically named. This is one reason why James Madison was so hesitant to list only 10 amendments. He was wary of putting even these in the constitution because Madison knew that when it came to the rights of the people, the sky was the limit. They cannot objectively be numbered at the end of the day.

And if that weren't enough, Madison insisted that this qualifier be added in the 10th Amendment, that is, every power not specifically enumerated in the constitution for the federal government is the prized possession of the states or the sovereign people. We the people, it is the people that are sovereign in the constitution. The federal government is limited to only those things specifically granted to it in the constitution. That's the way it used to work and no others. Enumerated powers, not innumerable powers, which the federal government seems to be exercising these days, right?

It cannot go around. The federal government, at least technically, should not be able to go around sequestering you in your home or saying you can't meet at church or in a restaurant or go for a walk in the park. Oh, that is way past its mandate. The federal government has no inherent power to dictate education policy as in the National Education Administration or environmental policy like the Environmental Protection Agency or gather every factoid of personal data on you as the National Security Agency has done or dictate what you must put into your body like an unknown vaccine cocktail.

Filled with adjuvants, preservatives, stem cells from aborted babies, and God knows only what else. And that is coming, dear listener, a cocktail vaccine, right? It is the goal of the pandemic paranoia that's being created by the government. And let me tell you one thing, dear listener, if you trust Bill Gates to punch one of these in your arm, then you are truly a naive, brainwashed Pollyanna. Now, the federal government has morphed from a strong, noble eagle into a corpulent, cumbersome, vicious dragon.

From an eagle to a dragon that now tyrannizes over us. And we like it just fine, too, don't we? Oh, we are such brainwashed Pollyannas. We just like it so fine. We skip merrily through the daisies, ignoring the warning signs, content to see only the positives.

Your government loves you. As long as we can have our drugs and devices trusting that they only mean our good in the government. Investing a trust in government that should only be reserved for God. Instead, Americans are suspicious of the God of the Bible and implicitly trust the dragon. That is the federal behemoth.

Oh, okay. On we go. On we go from sections 23 through 27, because they're all of a group. These six particulars, 23 through 27. Let me read them for you.

He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. That was 24, 25. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. Number 26.

He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to follow themselves by their hands. Number 27. He has excited domestic insurrections among us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. Complaints number 23 through 27. Now, these six particulars are sides of one huge tumor.

That is, the king had already in reality declared war on his own colonies. By the time of Lexington and Concord, which is generally considered to be the start of the revolution, even by them, the king had long since opened hostilities upon the colonists. He had already burned and plundered cities like Boston. He had sent in paid mercenaries, that is, like the German Hessians. He had provoked the Indian tribes on the frontier to terrorize the colonists, and he had even captured merchant marine sailors on the seas, and he had forced them to serve in the British Navy to fight against their own countrymen.

When governments reach this stage, dear listener, becoming active dragons against the very people it is meant to protect, revolution becomes inevitable. Revolution becomes inevitable, at least for free men it does. Are we at such a stage yet, dear listener? Ha ha ha. Has our dragon turned on us?

Oh, do you feel the heat of that dragon's breath down your neck yet? I sure do. Are we freemen or are we slaves? The dragon is hissing, isn't he? The dragon is hissing, necessity, necessity.

Oh, all this is for your own good, right? All this, it's only temporary. Oh, once again, what did Pitt say? Necessity is the plea for every infringement of liberty. It is the argument of tyrants.

It is the creed of slaves. Which will we prove ourselves to be, dear listener? Will we forfeit all that has been given to us, that we've inherited from our forbearers? Will we be slaves or freemen? Sections 28 and 29.

Then let me read those for you. Sections 28 and 29. Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by the legislature to extend, to extend then. Excuse me, I lost my place here.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and to consanguinity.

We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace. Friends. Oh, yes. The argument for the colonies to declare themselves free states ends, as it should, with a rehearsal of how they patiently and peacefully sought a redress for all of these grievances, dear listener, to king, parliament, and people, but all of it was ignored or contemptuously dismissed. This, of course, is the first avenue of redress.

Peaceful, apply, application for redress of grievances. Proverbs 25, 15 says, with patience, a ruler may be persuaded and a soft tongue will break a bone. That's the power of an argument. A soft voice with a powerful argument will break a bone, right? For decades now, in our own time, patriots have patiently tried to persuade our rulers, and that is what they have become, not servants, but rulers.

We have tried to persuade them patiently for the constitution. Many of you have lived this, haven't you? And you've done what you can. I have shelves of books which articulate the meaning and history and proper place for the constitution, and that is as the supreme law of the land. Articulate spokesmen and spokeswomen have filled our airwaves on television and radio and cyberspace with programs that do much the same.

We have sent liberty-loving patriots to our capitals and state and federal governments to represent us in our legislatures and executive branches who have then in turn appointed constitutional originalists in the court. I have spent personally a good portion of my ministry as a minister patiently establishing the biblical roots of our constitution, a culmination of millennia of development in redemptive history. That has been a glorious history too, and we have patiently articulated all of these things, have we not? But tyranny has had a life and development track of its own, hasn't it?

As it always does, almost seems to be a parallel development, and we are in the deep, dark tunnel of chaos right now. Who is going to be victorious? Who is going to re-establish themselves in America? Will it be patriots and liberty, or will it be tyranny? Tyranny has had a life and development track of its own in American history.

As we look back, we see Abraham Lincoln imposed dictatorial measures. Much of tyranny got into warp drive during Abraham Lincoln's administration, imposed dictatorial measures he did on the country during the war between the states, and he did it all out of necessity too. What is it? Necessity, right? It's the plea of every infringement of liberty, and Abraham Lincoln did that.

It's the argument of tyrants, and you can make an argument that Abraham Lincoln was, in many respects, a tyrant. He's practically deified in America as Saint Abraham, but he was not. It is the creed of slaves too, imposed. He did dictatorial measures all out of necessity. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus.

He jailed journalists who disagreed with him, and he imposed the first forced forced impress of citizens into the army, which, of course, is the draft. And then, tyranny was given a further injection of steroids in World War I under Wilson, and has been metastasizing ever since. Americans have been complacent and consciously ignorant of their liberties, and their ultimate source, that ultimate source of our liberties, of course, is our creator, from whom they are endowed inalienably. Instead, we have been lulled by lies. We, in America, have been lulled by lies.

We believe this lie. First of all, number one, wealth comes from government, doesn't it? Oh, wealth is bestowed on us by government. They print the money, don't they? You didn't make that, as Obama said, right, about your business that you have labored over, sweated over all your life.

You didn't make that. Now it's gone forfeit in this so-called pandemic. Oh, wealth does not come from government, John Locke, Adam Smith, all articulated very clearly for our founding fathers that wealth is created by the individual, by his labor, by the sweat of his brow, and his wealth is his own, not to be taken from him by government or anyone else. Wealth does not come from government. It comes from the labor of the individual.

And we have also been lulled to believe this lie. Your rights come from government, don't they? Your rights come from government. You speak. You have freedom of speech.

Yes, you do. You have freedom of religion. You have freedom to assemble, as long as we say you do. The minute a crisis comes along, though, those rights go forfeit. You have a right to a gun until we recall them, until we call them in, as Dianne Feinstein was fond of saying, turn them all in, Mr. and Mrs. America, just turn them all in, right?

So your rights come from a government. That's the lie. And they can be taken or suspended by government then. No, our rights are endowed by our creator. Then they are inalienable, as the Declaration of Independence says.

And thirdly, then, we have been told this lie, and America largely believes it, too. You are here to serve the state. The state is omniscient, and they are trying to know everything they can about you, aren't they? That's the idea of all-knowing. The state is also omnipresent, and they are trying to be omnipresent.

That is everywhere at once, right? And then, of course, the state is grasping after and trying to be omnipotent, too. That is all-powerful. In other words, they're trying to be God. You are here to serve the state, you little worm.

And if you obey, if you comply, then you will be rewarded accordingly. Oh, we're developing, indeed, a national paycheck for you. All of these things are a lie. You are not here to serve the state. The state is here to serve you, to protect you and your rights.

Not for you to serve the state. And then, of course, there's always the lie. This is not the dragon you're looking for, right? Don't worry. The dragon doesn't bite.

Oh, the dragon is so safe. He's like a little kitty, right? No, that's the Jedi mind trick that's being played on you in most of America. This is not the dragon you're looking for. Whenever it's pointed out that, oh, hey, this is not an eagle anymore.

Look, he's a dragon. No, he's not. Don't worry. He doesn't bite, right? Oh, while we were told that the strong, bold eagle our founding fathers saw, soaring in the sky, was only putting on a few pounds now through the centuries.

In reality, that eagle has been feeding on us and morphing into an ugly, twisted, seeding dragon, who, as Revelation puts it, is making war on the saints. That eagle is no longer taking care of your rights, watching Steningard. No, the dragon is taking care of your rights and your liberties. Now, by destroying them, he's taking care of them, all right. And that eagle is no longer serving you by protecting your rights and your liberties.

No, the dragon is serving you and serving your rights. He's serving them rare, medium, and well done, and he's feasting on them himself. Oh, the Declaration of Independence then concludes, we, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America and General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states. That they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown.

And that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved. And that is free and independent states. They have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things to which independent states may have right to do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. What a beautiful, a beautiful, beautiful conclusion, is it not?

Our founding fathers put it all on the line, dear listener. They appealed to God to judge their conscience as to whether they were acting in accordance with biblical principle, that is, for the rectitude of their intentions. Stop and do the same, dear Christian patriot. And relying on the same God, they were willing to lay it all down. Are we willing to lay it all down, brothers, for our liberties, for our freedom, for God, and for the country that our founding fathers have handed down to us?

Will we squander our heritage, or will we be willing to lay it all down? This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We're meeting on Sundays now at 10 a.m. Come and join us. Check us out. We're meeting for worship, holy worship, at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard.

Call us for more information at area code 208-523-0196. Area code 208-523-0196.