Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. Today, what do constitutional conservatives mean when they talk about the 5,000-year leap? If you've never heard of this phrase before, and I hope to impress it upon you here in these next few weeks, if you're wondering of what possible significance the 5,000-year leap could have for you, well, let me explain.

For example, if you accept the figure of 5,000 years for being the rounded approximate period of time for recorded human history, well, then we can establish some very interesting comparisons between America's most recent history and this 5,000-year period in a time and place when the American Constitution and our constitutional system and ways of life, and the entire thrust of American history is coming to a halt, coming to a close, collapsing around us, as many of us presume to be happening as we witness things around us, and we're not just chicken little crying, the sky is falling.

No, our constitutional way of life is coming to an end, and we need to remember, many of us for the future need to remember from once we've come. If you do not remember from once you've come, you will not remember who you are now, and you will not be able to take that into the future and be what you could possibly be. So, we are going to rehearse the 5,000-year leap that America has taken in her past and why God has so blessed her in the past to make her what she was, the greatest nation on the face of the earth, blessing the nations of the earth as well. Well, what does this 5,000-year leap mean? Let me take one tantalizing example for you.

For the better part of the last 5,000 years, the top speed that any human could achieve was as fast as a horse or a team of horses could take him on land, or a sailboat could take him on the water, right? Unless you jump from a high and lofty perch, in which case the benefits of such speed quickly perished. Literally, right? So, when it came to air travel, too, all that a man could do is stare enviously at the birds in the sky and wish, if only I had wings like you. In fact, as recently as 1895, Lord Kelvin, who was a British mathematician and a physicist, said, unequivocally, heavier than air machines are impossible, unquote.

Even Wilbur Wright, brother of Orville Wright and the famed inventor of the first flying machine and the first recorded manned flight in 1901, he speculated, after their own achievement, he said, man will not fly on a routine, consistent basis, he said, for 50 years. Man will not fly for 50 years. And, of course, within 50 years of making that statement, man would be on the threshold of flying a jet-propelled machine faster than the speed of sound.

Well, how can we account for such accelerated, if I can use a pun here, how can we account for such accelerated progress in even this one era, much less the rest of society and culture, details of which I will outline in weeks to come? Well, in the relatively short period of time that constitutes the American pageant of history, so much has been accomplished in the realm of human rights and science and wealth that we can only describe it as a leap over the entire period of recorded human history. And thus, we call that leap the 5,000-year leap.

Let me also take this opportunity to give full credit to the book and the organization that has put together so much of the information that I am delighted to share with you in the future. And that is the National Center for Constitutional Studies. The National Center for Constitutional Studies, located in Utah. The great lion of this organization was Dr. W. Kleon Skousen, a teacher and mentor for so many students of the Constitution over the last few decades. I respect him highly.

Even President Ronald Reagan said of the National Center for Constitutional Studies, he said the NCCS is doing a fine public service in educating Americans about the principles of the Constitution. Unquote. And the books from which I will be drawing much of my information include two volumes that I highly recommend to you for your own reading. In fact, I would say they're must readings. And for use in your homeschool curriculum, too.

And they, those books are The 5,000-Year Leap, and also, secondly, The Making of America by Dr. W. Kleon Skousen. And you may take steps to acquire them and garner further information about the National Center for Constitutional Studies at their website, nccs.net, nccs.net. Now, what is so extraordinary about the last 200 years of American history that we can fairly call it a leap over the preceding 5,000 years of recorded human history? What is that? What is so extraordinary?

Well, it really is astounding when we examine the rate of progress in several areas of human civilization over the last 200-plus years now, when compared to the same rate of achievements over the last 5,000 years. Dr. Skousen points up six revolutions which freedom made possible in his book, The Making of America. Yes, six revolutions. For the sake of brevity, let me summarize them under four headings. And I would encourage you to go to Dr. Skousen's book for all six of them.

What I want to do is expand upon them with you with some of my own research. For the remainder of our time together, observe the following facts. Number one, the liberty created by our constitutional form of government made possible the culture for the industrial revolution. This is a very important historical point to make because we would not be where we are industrially, technologically, if not for the fact that liberty created by our constitutional form of government made possible the culture for the industrial revolution.

From the dawn of recorded history, man has used tools to shape his environment and increase his control over his own destiny during the period of time that has acquired the label the industrial revolution. And that lasted from about 1750 to the 1850s, the mid-19th century. Well, the creation of many new machines increased man's efficiency and productivity of his labor so fast, and to such an extent that historians call it a revolution. That is, when things change suddenly and drastically, sometimes with violent upheavals.

So profound and thoroughgoing were these changes during the industrial revolution, and so swift and compressed in time were they, that is, relative to the stretch of millennia of recorded history, that we can say that the growth of industry was exponential. Exponential. That's a geometric rate of progression, which has the potential of producing a very fast rise in the numbers of a quantity experiencing such growth. That's the idea of exponential.

The miracle of compound interest is a good example, where when interest is added back to the principal sum, and interest charged on that compound figure, you get a pretty explosive growth on your money over time. That is, your money grows exponentially. Now, one of my favorite anecdotes is the ancient Persian fable, which illustrates for us exponential growth. The ancient Persian fable of the clever courtier who presented the king with a beautiful handmade chessboard.

When asked by the king what he would like in return, the courtier asked for one grain of rice on the first square of the chessboard, two grains of rice on the second square, four on the third square, doubling the grains of rice on every subsequent square. What's a grain of rice? The king thought, how much could it be? So he called for all the necessary rice to be provided. What he failed to account was the unique doubling power of exponential growth.

So that by the time he had reached the 21st square, he needed a million grains, and the 41st square demanded a trillion, and there simply was not enough rice in the whole world for the final squares. Exponential growth. This apocryphal story from ancient Persia illustrates vividly the power of exponential growth. Historians call the growth of machines and industry during this period of England and America exponential growth.

And my favorite character from this period, and the prime example of the exponential growth of machines and industry during the Industrial Revolution is the inventor James Watt, who built upon the labors of his predecessors and is credited with inventing the steam engine. He took out a patent on that engine in 1769, and soon his steam engine was being employed to power everything from factories to locomotives to Robert Fulton's paddle wheel riverboats on the Mississippi. What role, you may ask, does constitutional government and Western liberty have to do with these things? Well, perhaps you missed an important step in this process.

James Watt took out a patent on his steam engine in both England, he was English, and then in America too. And the patent is a completely Western idea based upon the Christian biblical principle that a man is entitled to the fruits of his own labor. Or as the Apostle Paul puts it in recalling the law of the Old Testament, the laborer deserves his wages. You won't find this in China. But in fact, all you'll find in China are pirates who steal another man's labor.

There's no incentive to invent in China, because you cannot recoup your labors through a patent. The patent basically gives exclusive rights of an idea or an invention or a process to its creator for a specified period of time. Anyone who uses said idea, invention or process must pay a royalty to the creator so that he might enjoy the fruits of his labor. We would not have the prosperity and abundance of the West without this constitutional idea, the patent, based upon the principle that every man is entitled to his own property.

So all of the labor that went into making the steam engine was thought to be the intellectual property of James Watt. Anyone who used his invention for their own profit, thus owed him a portion of their gain, because without his contribution to their labor, they would not profit to the extent they have. So without the patent, dear listener, consider this one small portion of the Constitution. Without the patent, what motive is there for an inventor to invent? You don't find inventions in India or China or other places where there is no such idea of a patent.

The idea of the patent is a bedrock foundation for the success of our capitalist free market system. And you want to see it go downhill? Adopt socialism. There will be no new inventions. There will be no creativity.

Other men would merely steal his idea and inventions and use them without remuneration. That's what happens around the world. This is the pattern of selfish human behavior throughout history. But when a constitutional state protects the property rights of its people, a true patent system is there to enforce the biblical principle that the laborer deserves his wages.

Whether you are aware of it or not, our founding fathers recognized this principle and included it in the Constitution by empowering Congress, and I quote from the Constitution, to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. And that's from section one. I'm sorry. Yes. From article one, section eight, paragraph eight.

And so this is precisely what I am talking about when I speak of the 5,000-year leap where a constitutional context was created for men like James Watt and Robert Fulton and Eli Whitney and many, many more to create the phenomena of exponential growth in tools and machines during the Industrial Revolution. Number two, the second revolution that we're talking about, the liberty created by our constitutional form of government made possible, the culture for the transportation revolution, our second revolution we're considering.

And it was the liberty created by our constitutional form of government that made this possible, that is, the culture for the transportation revolution. Isn't it amazing how we can fly along I-20, 80 miles an hour right here in Idaho, over the old Oregon Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Highway 15 now traces of the good old cut off and on 20, I-20 if you will. I travel that often in conjunction with church matters and cover in a matter of minutes the same amount of ground it took over our forefathers only a century ago, days to travel.

Yes, we cruise on smooth asphalt surfaces in temperature-controlled vehicles at 60 to 75 miles an hour over otherwise rough and mountainous ground that our pioneer parents coaxed and goaded horses and mules and oxen at mere several miles per hour in either freezing ice and snow or blazing baking summer heat, right? Oh, these latter modes of transportation, wagons and horses and mules and oxen, were all that our race knew for the better part of this 5,000-year stretch of recorded human history. Think of it.

We traveled as far and as fast as we could walk until some brave and impetuous soul thought to jump on the back of a horse and ride him until he became manageable and domesticated, right? And we were thus consigned to the speed and power of one horsepower for millennia as long as we walked the earth. And those upon the sea could sail more swiftly under favorable winds, but speed and distance were still limited to what nature herself could provide in animals and elements. But in the space of two brief centuries, a mere handful of men changed all of that, didn't they? A 5,000-year leap.

George Stevenson built the first steam-powered locomotive engine that moved on tracks. And Henry Ford took the technology of the internal combustion engine and gave us the automobile. The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, gave us manned flight. Our experience of manned flight is just one example of what I mean when I say that progress under our American constitutional system has been exponential. Even the otherwise optimistic Orville Wright was relatively pessimistic when he predicted man will not fly for 50 years.

And yet, less than 50 years after Orville's historic flight, on October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager would not only fly on a routine basis, but break the sound barrier in his Bell X-1. Growth in this single area, manned flight, is considered exponential in that it did not take another millennia, another 1,000 years to reach it, but only 50. Think of it, 5,000-year leap. These are the kinds of things we mean when we talk about the 5,000-year leap.

And we need to remember this in days to come, because indeed, as those who seek to put us down the memory hole and make us forget our history and our past would change all of this and bring us back into another dark age. We need to remember from once we've come. And we need to remember that the last 200 years of constitutional liberty has brought us a 5,000-year leap. Added to this fact that it didn't take another several millennia to reach the moon, but only 22 years. Add to this, and you have the very definition of exponential growth.

Remember this in days to come. As our culture and society and nation comes crashing down around our ears, we need a proud, remembering few to recall our heritage and bring it back to bear in days to come. Ever since the creation of our race, man has gazed upon the moon, hasn't he? Made by God himself for times and seasons, as Genesis says. And that man has dreamed and imagined what it would be like to walk on the moon.

Poets and philosophers speculated and spoke eloquently about its purpose in nature. It even drove some men mad, making of them lunar madmen or lunatics. Luna is Latin for moon. But it was Americans. It was us.

Under the wide-open, freewheeling system of constitutional capitalism, it was us, Americans, who actually marshaled the resources and the manpower and the technical ingenuity to get there and bring back safely the astronauts who flew there. Constitutional capitalism made this possible, dear listener. And our founding fathers had the wisdom and the foresight to provide not only the economic engine of the patent, but also the wisdom to limit its regulations of commerce to certain very specified domains.

This was the intent of the Interstate Commerce Clause, which is from Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 3, to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes. The Interstate Commerce Clause was meant to indeed do this, but to also limit the federal government's interference in private enterprise. The original intent of this provision of the Constitution was to limit the interference and regulative force of the federal government to these three limited circumscribed domains, dear listener, to limit the federal government, not blow out the doors on expanding it.

Originally, the Interstate Commerce Clause was designed to give unrestricted liberty to the states and individuals to create for commercial use and gain everything from Tang, right? The original orange drink famously created for the astronauts to drink in space all the way to the computer, right? Used to help navigate and control the Apollo spacecraft. But unfortunately, the Interstate Commerce Clause has been used as a wedge since the founding of our country to let the federal government control many more aspects of our lives than it was first intended to do.

For example, almost all modes of transportation now are considered under this clause and so liable to regulation by the federal government. Railroads were regulated out of existence, as Dr. Skousen points out, by the unconstitutional extension of this clause. And we see its ill effects even today in the over regulation of the automobile industry. We see it in everything from the CAFE standards, that is the corporate average fuel economy, economy, excuse me. We see it all the way from there to environmental standards, right?

To seatbelts. If the federal government would lift its limitless regulations of it, the big three would not have to come to Congress with hat in hand asking for billions of dollars worth of bailouts. If we were to abide by the original intent of the Commerce Clause, we would see the transportation revolution continue in America, and we would once again be at the forefront of progress in this area instead of falling behind and seeing it collapse around our ears.

Well, the third revolution that we need to speak of as well today is the liberty created by our constitutional form of government made possible the culture for the communications revolution. Oh, 5,000 year leap indeed. Once more, in close connection with the speed of travel, the speed and quality of communication has increased exponentially. Note this, you listeners who can't put down your cell phones for more than 15 minutes of who can't break your addiction to text messaging. Oh, for the bulk of recorded human history, communications amongst people was as fast and as accurate as a written letter or horsepower delivered communique.

Even the romantic, exciting history of the Pony Express, where mail was delivered cross-continent in the saddlebags of men who drove their horses at breakneck speed in a matter of days rather than weeks, right? Ah, was still limited to the Pony Express by the physical capabilities of the fastest horse. Perhaps even our Red Brothers had us beat in this regard, being able to communicate across great distances via smoke signals. Well, the first great step in the communications revolution was the invention and deployment of the telegraph. Samuel F.B.

Morse received a patent for his invention. Remember again, the importance of exclusive rights to an inventor in the patent. He received his patent in 1847. Morse, Samuel Morse, was an ardent Christian and believer in God's manifest destiny in America. And he hoped that his invention would contribute not only America's expansion across the continent, but also to the spread of Christianity.

In fact, the very first message communicated from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. by Morse was, what hath God wrought, right, from the book of numbers in the Bible. Soon, telegraph lines were popping up all across the American continent and Europe too, using the electronic pulse method of long and short taps developed by Samuel Morse and known to us, of course, as the Morse Code. It became the universal language of electronic communication. And now, the speed and volume of communications was limited not only by the speed of electricity moving through copper wire and not the legs of a horse, right?

There's a great historical irony in the fact that just as the Pony Express was getting its legs, if you will, the telegraph was sweeping across the continent. And there are pictures and paintings of Pony Express riders galloping right under teams of men stringing wire across the American wilderness. Oh, what a beautiful irony. What a beautiful picture of and encapsulating the idea of the 5,000-year leap. And soon, telegraph cables would be strung across the Atlantic Ocean to link the American continent with the European continent.

On and on we can go. This is a perfect picture of what we mean by exponential growth. Had this been the only improvement in communications for the next 1,000 years, it would have been considered monumental.

And here, an ardent Christian who believed in America's manifest destiny and the Constitution that had spawned it, he used the free-market capitalist system to invent a device that leaped over 5,000 years of human history to reduce the speed and increase the quantity or to, yeah, to reduce and increase the quantity, though not necessarily the quality of human communication, from the few miles an hour of a swift horse to the miles per second of an electronic pulse. Oh, so make no mistake about this, dear listener.

The necessary ingredient that is left out of the equation when things are recounted in modern history books is the constitutional soil in which these were germinated. We have already noted the importance of the patent for industrious motivation. In regards to communication and its revolution, we would be remiss if we did not point out to you the absolute necessity of the First Amendment for impelling the advances in communication in America, the First Amendment. And of course, in part, that reads, Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, right?

For the understanding of the Founding Fathers, the abridgment of the freedom of speech had to do with political speech, that is, speech having to do with the government and its politics. They had just come out of a world where Crown and Parliament had censored very severely both colonial and the English press for opinions critical of King George III or the House of Lords. They were only following in the footsteps of Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell, both of whom took absolute control of the press as to who could print and what they could print, right?

And so they were keenly aware of Founding Fathers, that a republic, if it were going to remain free, a republic demands a full and open airing of facts and stories and opinions. Oh, what other nation at the time had such a free press and free speech provision in a written constitution, which we are swiftly losing? France, the kings and the nobility ruled France with an iron fist, and the French Revolution would bring on Napoleon, too, no friend to the free press.

And Germany or Russia, they were both ruled by czars, who controlled the press in their own worlds, even as the czars in America are swiftly descending and ruling us as well in our free speech. But at the time, America stood alone, having a free and independent press, and the opportunity to publish and proclaim whatever was in a man's heart. Oh, the notion that pornography, however, or vile and inciting speech was included in this freedom was unheard of to our Founding Fathers. Nevertheless, each new advance in the communications revolution put a great deal of strain on the provisions of the First Amendment.

The invention of the radio has tested the limits of speech right down to our own day in regards to, for example, the fairness doctrine, right? The fairness doctrine. That was an obvious attack on free speech by liberals, even as they are attacking our free speech throughout today. We need to reclaim this liberty so that we can continue to grow and flourish and expand as a constitutional republic. Well, we will take up the fourth revolution, and the next time we're together, as we examine God's blessing America in the 5,000-year leap, as he has indeed given us the constitutional liberties.

We'll track those biblical roots as well as we progress. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a Moment of Truth. And we meet for holy worship, we proclaim liberty, and we speak freely using our First Amendment rights. We speak freely in worship at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on Sundays, 10 a.m. Sunday mornings at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And you can call us for feedback and more information at area code 208-523-0196. Area code 208-523-0196.