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 want to continue with this very important theme for the United States of America today. That is, how do the grounds for the founding fathers dissolving the political bands which connected them with another, that is, with England, our founding fathers, that is, of course, is from the Declaration of Independence. How does that compare with our grounds for doing the same thing with the deep state of America in our own day?

We must think along these lines, dear listener, because our liberties are quickly being frittered away. In weeks previous, we have been looking at the 29 particulars of the Declaration of Independence that Thomas Jefferson listed as reasons. And these were only the most important, the top of the reasons. There could have been many more. But Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, listed 29 reasons why the American colonists were perfectly justified in carrying out a revolution against its mother country, that is, England.

We have seen how these 29 particulars are eerily parallel to conditions in America today. If not worse, the founding fathers would be goading us, exhorting us to throw off the bands of tyranny that are presently around us because they're stronger and tighter than they were even in the days of the founders. We are not equal to those founding fathers in these things.

And, for example, the so-called Wuhan China virus is only the most recent acceleration of that tyranny as our constitutional liberty to practice our religion, to speak freely, to peaceably assemble as a church congregation, and to petition our government for redress of grievance has been abridged. These liberties are abridged in one fell swoop. The draconian measure to lock down America is urged upon us because of medical necessity. Necessity. We must do this to protect, to keep safe the American public.

It's only temporary, but necessary, necessary for the moment. Ah, William Pitt, that great British statesman and parliamentarian, said about necessity, right? He says, necessity is the plea for every infringement of human liberty. It is the plea of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.

Oh, America, you are becoming a nation of necessary slaves. Slaves to necessity. Slaves consequently to tyranny. And when we look back, we see we are no safer at the end of this period of so-called lockdown than we were at the beginning. For anyone who yet subscribes to the efficacy of the measures that were imposed on us by our state and federal governments.

Oh, I urge you to begin by screening Dr. Erickson and his COVID-19 briefing on YouTube or the frontline doctors, the over 150 frontline doctors who indeed give us an update that runs counter to the, to the mainline understanding. Now I won't go into all the details here with Dr. Erickson's COVID-19 briefing, but it is, it is that of Dr. Erickson indeed that reveals the contrast, the contradictions. What is apparent is that we are less free now than we were when this scare, this, this plandemic occurred.

Step-by-step, by increments, your liberty will be increasingly restricted now that you have proven yourself so compliant in this phase of operations. Oh, dear listener, do you really think that things will return to normal? Just about the time that the present lockdown is lifted, the old virus will return or a new deadly or pestilence will appear or some other crisis of necessity. As Pitt puts it, this will fall upon us again, necessitating another lockdown or severe restriction of our liberties. Just when you thought you were safe and things were returning to normal, here it comes again, right?

We are no safer, really, 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 of them in the future if we proceed at this pace. Because of our bovine compliance, oh, the colonists did not show bovine compliance.

King George III would have loved to have the present population of America back in 1776 rather than the one he had. Oh, the colonists rebelled against a 3% tax on tea, but we blithely put up with over 40% tax on our income. Conservatively, by the time all the hidden taxes are factored, the colonists rebelled because King George restricted immigration of free Englishmen who cherished liberty. We calmly allow untold millions of illegal immigrants to flood our shores who have no interest nor conception of what liberty is.

We saw how the tactics were different, but the goal was the same, and that was to destroy the kernel of free, self-aware citizens who prized principled liberty. Oh, that's the goal of both King George III and the progressive elements in our own society. 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 him. But we obediently shut up, and we do as we're told when media is banned or censored, or churches and church services are closed as non-essential, and our gatherings are broken up despite peaceably assembling.

Oh, dear listener, what if King George could have had us there instead of his people? What King George III could have done with the brainwashed herd that is 21st century America? King George would have had a circus day milking us for all he could, ordering us to shut up and shut down, to eat and drink what we tell you, and line up for your vaccines. Liberty would have been left to another generation, if at all. And it might well be that if our generation had existed under King George, we might still be an abject slavish colony yet today.

Oh, but thank God that was not the case under our founding fathers. What's wrong with us? As facts submitted to a candid world, as Jefferson counseled the colonists to do to present and to submit facts to a candid world, the declaration laid out 29 particulars as a brief summation of a long train of abuses and usurpations. Now we take up with where we left off last week, we left off with complaint number 20. And so we'll take up today then complaint number 21 and 22.

I want to take them together both 21 and 22. They have the same theme as to why then the colonists freed themselves from England. 21, he complains 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. Complaints 21 and 22, as we're coming closer to 29 of them, right?

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. These charters were granted for a specific period of time to be renewed at the expiration of that fixed period. Now, 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 under laws which it had enacted and found to be just and salutary. Otherwise, the charter would not be renewed. King George would threaten them.

This was one of the reasons that the 9th and 10th amendments were created in our own constitution. Number 9, amendment number 9 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, the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively. These two amendments, dear listener, had these kinds of things in mind to act against them. These two amendments have been entirely ignored.

However, in our history, our form of government has been altered or suspended, abolished in the course of our history, just as it was under King George for the colonies. Now, our founding fathers knew that the people's rights were innumerable, that is without limit. So, the articulation of 10 of them was not meant to deny or disparage, as the 9th amendment says. Just the mere articulation of 10 amendments 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, because he knew that when it came to the rights of the people, the sky was the limit. Those rights cannot objectively be numbered at the end of the day. Now, 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 to be the prized possession of the states or to the sovereign people. The federal government, in our constitution anyway, at least on paper, is limited.

The federal government is limited only to those things specifically granted to it in the constitution and no others. That is enumerated powers, not enumerable powers. It cannot go around. The federal government cannot 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. That is way past the mandate of government.

It has. The federal government has no inherent power. The state government, for that matter, doesn't either to dictate education policy as it does in the National Education Administration or environmental policy as the Environmental Protection Agency does or the federal government has no right to gather every factoid of personal data on you as the National Security Administration does. Or it doesn't have any right to dictate what you must put into your body, like an unknown vaccine cocktail filled with adjuvants, preservatives, stem cells from aborted babies, and God only knows what else. But that is coming, dear listener.

Oh, the tyranny of vaccines is coming. It is the goal of the pandemic paranoia being created now amongst us. And if you trust Bill Gates to punch one of these vaccines in your arm, then you are truly a naive, brainwashed. Pollyanna, the federal government has morphed from a strong, noble eagle into a corpulent, cumbersome, vicious dragon that now tyrannizes over us. The old American eagle, if you look closely, has morphed into a vicious dragon.

And we like it just fine. We skip merrily along through the daisies, ignoring the warning signs, content to see only the positives, as long as we can have our drugs and devices, trusting that they only mean the government only means our good. Yes, they want to take care of you. Investing a trust, we do. We invest a trust in government that should only be reserved for God.

But instead, Americans are suspicious of the God of the Bible, and they implicitly trust the dragon that is the federal behemoth. Oh, God, the complaints then of the founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence go on, too, do they not? Into 23 through 27. Let me cover complaints 23 through 27 so we can indeed see what the founders were complaining of and why we have similar complaints. Complaint number 23 was, he, that is King George III, has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

24. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our peoples. He is at this time transporting large armies. 25, complaint 25. He is 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.

And then complaint 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 fall themselves by their hands. And then complaint number 27 was, he has excited domestic insurrections amongst 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. Unquote. Oh, complaints number 23 through 27.

They all have a particular theme. These are six particulars of sides of one huge tumor. The king had already in reality declared war on his own colonies. By the time the Lexington Concord battle broke out, that's generally considered to be the start of the revolution. Even by that time, 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 like German Hessians. And he had already provoked the Indian tribes on the frontier to terrorize the colonists. And he even went so far as to capture merchant marine soldiers, not even military combatants, but merchant marine soldiers he impressed on the seas and forced them to serve in the British Navy to fight against their own countrymen. Injury to insult, or insult to injury, excuse me.

So, when governments reach this stage, dear listener, becoming active dragons against the very people it is meant to protect. Oh, revolution becomes inevitable then. At least for free men. Oh, are we at such a stage, dear listener? Are we even free men?

Has our dragon turned on us? The deep state, the government. Do you feel the heat of his breath down your neck yet? The dragon of the deep state. Are we free men or are we slaves?

We have to look in the mirror or the collective mirror and ask ourselves, are we free men or are we slaves? Do we espouse the creed of slaves? As Pitt put it, the creed of slave slaves, which is necessity, necessity. We have to do this for now. Oh, we're all going to die.

No, that is manifestly not what is happening. No, people are so vested in their past behavior, however, that they will not relinquish their masks. They will not embrace friends when they see them and said, maintain that six foot space or not even coming out of your house. I know people who are still not coming out of their houses, gripped by, ruled by fear and necessity. And they are truly slaves and espousing the creed of slaves.

The dragon is hissing. Dear listener, the dragon is hissing. Necessity. Necessity. Stay locked down.

Wear your masks. Be obedient. All this is for your own good. It's only temporary. Oh, remember when it was a 15-day effort to slow the curve, right?

To level the curve. What's happened since then, huh? Necessity is the plea, as Pitt puts it, for every infringement of liberty. And necessity has infringed our liberties. Our government has used necessity to infringe our liberties, right and left.

Pitt says that it is the argument of tyrants. Our government, a gaggle of tyrants, is using this argument of necessity, but it is also the creed of slaves. And we are slaves because we're embracing it. We're being compliant. You are slaves if you indeed obey this.

Which will we prove ourselves to be? Ultimately, dear listener, who and what will we be? Ultimately, well, let's close these complaints of the Declaration of Independence and compare them and see where we are. All right. Complaint number 28.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. And then complaint number 29. 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 immigration 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 connections and correspondence. 28 and 29 complaints.

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 to king, parliament, and people. But all of it was ignored or contemptuously dismissed. This, of course, is the first avenue of redress, peaceably. A proverb in the Bible, Proverbs 25 and verse 15 says, With patience, a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone. Oh, for decades now, patriots, we have patiently tried to persuade our rulers of the case for the Constitution.

I know that many of you have lived this and done what you can. I have shelves of books which articulate the meaning in history and the proper place for the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. Articulate spokesmen and spokeswomen have filled our airwaves on TV and radio and cyberspace with programs which do the same. We have sent liberty-loving patriots to our capitals to represent us in our legislatures and our executive branches, who have in turn appointed constitutional originalists to the courts, for example.

I have spent a good portion of my ministry, too, my career patiently establishing the biblical roots of our Constitution and the culmination of millennia of development in redemptive history. But, oh, this frustrates me to no end, dear listener, but tyranny has had a life and a development track of its own, too. Abraham Lincoln imposed dictatorial measures, for example, on the country during the war between the states. And he did it, once again, all out of necessity. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus.

He jailed journalists who disagreed with him. And he imposed the first forced impress of citizens into the army. That is a draft. Tyranny was given a further injection of steroids in World War I under President Wilson. And it has been metastasizing ever since.

Americans have been complacent and consciously ignorant of their liberties and those liberties ultimate source. That is our creator, from whom they are endowed inalienably, our rights endowed inalienably by our creator. Instead, we Americans have been lulled by lies. Wealth comes from government is one of those lies, right? Wealth comes from government.

You didn't make that, as Obama said, right? Or John Locke. Adam Smith all said that a man's labor is his own and that wealth comes from man's labor, not from government. Or the lie that our rights come from government. And indeed, if our rights do come from government and not endowed by our creator, well then, if rights come from government, they can be taken away or they can be suspended, even as we see they're doing now, because we believe that our rights come from government inherently, right?

Or the lie that you are here to serve the state. The state is omniscient, right? That is, they know everything. They're trying to know everything about us, aren't they? Or they're on the present.

That is, they're everywhere at once. And indeed, they are trying to be on the present, are they not? Or they're omnipotent. That is, they are all powerful. And indeed, government is trying to be all powerful in our lives, isn't it?

It will never give up. It will never stop taking until you're dead. Oh, dear listener, these are the stakes in this battle. Or they tell us, oh, don't listen to those conspiracy theorists. No, this isn't the dragon you're looking for, right?

The old Jedi mind trick. Yeah, the deep state, that's not the dragon you're looking for. You know, don't worry. He doesn't bite. That dragon doesn't bite.

No, another lie from the deep state. While we are told that the strong, bold eagle of our founding fathers that we saw soaring in the sky was only putting on a few pounds now through the centuries, in reality, that soaring, majestic eagle has been feeding upon us and morphing into an ugly, twisted, seething dragon who, as Revelation puts it, is making war on the saints. Oh, that metaphor, dear listener, the eagle. The eagle is no longer taking care of your rights. The dragon is feeding on them, is taking care of your rights and liberty, all right, by consuming them.

The eagle is no longer serving you by protecting your rights and your liberties. No, the dragon is serving you now. He is certainly serving you, rare, medium, and well done. And he's feasting on you. Well, the declaration then concludes, and I read you the last several paragraphs.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in 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 great state of Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved, and that as 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 which independent states may of right 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. 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. Oh, dear listeners, stop and do the same, even now. Oh, Christian patriot, it is time that we put these things on the line, relying on that same God.

They were ready to lay it all down, were they not? Oh, yes. Their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Are we ready to do the same? Are you ready to do the same?

Because the times call for us to do this very thing, dear listener. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Now, New Geneva Meets for Holy Worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. I urge you to go ahead and join us on Sunday mornings. Maybe you've been anticipating doing this.

I urge you to do so. Now is the time. Cross our threshold 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 208-523-0196 or get a catalog then of our sermons. We go back four or five years with a record of all of these messages.

And you can access that at omnisprotestas.org. O-M-N-I-S dash P-O-T-E-S-T-A-S dot org. Omnisprotestas.org. Or give us a call at area code 208-523-0196.