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

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

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I want to continue to challenge you with what we began to look at last week, and that is,

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what is the 5,000-year leap? The 5,000-year leap. Some years ago, Dr. Cleon Skousen wrote a book

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called The 5,000-Year Leap. And in that book, he maintained that in the last few hundred years

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of the American Republic, we have made such great advances that we can call it a leap over the last

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5,000 years of recorded history. And we have given you four reasons, four reasons why we can call this

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leap. We were on number three when we closed last week. And just for brevity, we will skim over the

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first three, which I gave you in detail last week. And I just encourage you to check back with last

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week's broadcast to see the first three of the revolutions that have occurred within the last

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250 or so years of American history, by which we can say we have made a leap in terms of progress

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over the last 5,000 years. And it's due, in large part, to the context of the American Republic,

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the American Constitutional Republic, which has given liberty to the people. And those revolutions,

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number one, was the liberty created by our constitutional form of government made possible

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the culture for the Industrial Revolution. You may remember we covered that last week. And then

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the second revolution, the liberty created by our constitutional form of government made possible

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the culture for the Transportation Revolution. Oh, previously, the fastest a man could go on land

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was as fast as a horse or a team of horses could take him. But now we can break the sound barrier on

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land with machines, right? The third revolution then, of course, was the liberty created by our

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constitutional form of government. And we saw Alexander Graham Bell, of course, with his telephone

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or Samuel Morse with the telegraph. Oh, we can finally communicate with each other across continents

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because of the liberty created by our constitutional form of government. And number four, then, we look at

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the fourth revolution. The liberty created by our constitutional form of government made possible

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the culture for the computer revolution. So much of what we've been reflecting on, that is the business

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climate of a free market, the capitalist system or the free modes of expression, and the principle

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of exponential growth and development, too. That's all wrapped up warp and woof with a 5,000-year

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leap. All of these converge in this one revolution. That is the revolution of the computer. The lords of computer

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history, for example, Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak of Apple and Bill Gates of Microsoft, who is now

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dictating to us about vaccines, of all things. Literally, they began their ventures in their garages.

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They epitomized the American dream, though, too. And then within a decade, men like Steve Jobs would become

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one of the richest men in the world, and their products would revolutionize every facet of life,

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wouldn't they? The huge, unwieldy mechanical computers that once filled a room were increasingly

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shrunk through the genius of storing information digitally in electronic chips rather than mechanically

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and retrieved by tapes or cards, right? And soon, through the process of exponential reducing

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rather than exponential growth. Isn't that the irony? Many multiples of storage capacity were shrunk to

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where they could fit in a computer on a desktop, right? And soon, it was not only IBM and the Pentagon

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who owned computers, but now possible for every American to have a personal computer of his own

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at home on his desktop, and now, lo and behold, in a cell phone. And with the invention and development

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of the internet, thanks to you, Al Gore, right, who takes credit for it, it was not only the New York

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Times and the Washington Post who could determine all the news that's fit to print, which was the

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motto of the New York Times, and now they're no longer fit to print anything. But now, with the advent

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of the internet, any old geek sitting around in his pajamas in his mother's basement could create his own

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blog or web page and determine for his or herself what was news and what was not, the invention of the

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PC and then the internet has single-handedly revolutionized how we acquire, disseminate, and

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digest information. And that's largely been accomplished in one place and in one environment, and that is

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the free market, the capitalist system of free America, whose culture and way of life have been made

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possible by our written Constitution. Of course, it would be arrogant and presumptuous if we were to

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take credit for all of this ourselves, as if it were we who made us ourselves and not the God of the

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Bible. Our Constitution is only the outward covenant document that serves as a framework for a godly

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people. A godly people must beat out their lives and exercise their faculties as free men, and the

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Constitution provides that opportunity. No system in and of itself will guarantee prosperity and

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fulfillment if the people who live in it are corrupt and immoral. In fact, as we will explore in great

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detail in subsequent lessons as well, the kind of liberty and freedom provided under our Constitution

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is destructive to a people who do not have the first requisite of government, and that is

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self-government. Self-government is the first requisite of a governing people. It is God alone who can bring

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a sinful, spiritually dead human being to life in himself and give that person the power to live

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what the Bible calls a sanctified life. That is a life that willingly pursues holiness and a purpose

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and direction for God. Such a person does not destroy himself with lies and deceit about the world,

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and he does not destroy others by lying and stealing and coveting and robbing others through, for example,

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sexual debauchery. Sexual debauchery not only destroys yourself, but it robs others as well. This is the kind

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of person for whom our Constitution was created. Such freemen who could be trusted with a limited, borrowed

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power in the government of a republic because they could first be trusted to govern themselves. What we see

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before us today is a swath of men and women in government who cannot control themselves. Greed and

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lust possess them, and we see this constantly around us, the Bidens being exhibit A of this. When a limited

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government with a great deal of freedom is peopled by the godless and the immoral, then destruction and

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death and tyranny are the inevitable outcome. We see this transpiring before us today, do we not?

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Benjamin Franklin puts it this way. He says, only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become

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corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters, unquote, Benjamin Franklin. Oh, we have need of masters

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because we are corrupt people this day. It's increasingly the case in our own country. The more bestial our people

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become, that is, crime-ridden and lazy, wanting the government to bail them out of problems, or sexually

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promiscuous and perverse and corrupt, right? The more need these people will have for a beastmaster, that is,

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someone to crack the whip and save them from themselves before they utterly destroy both us

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and them. And in this case, it is no wonder that our culture and society is moving so swiftly from a

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limited free constitution to a dictatorial socialism. Only when we recognize this state of affairs and

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appeal to the God of heaven will we be ready once again to live under and restore constitutional

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liberty. Only when we recognize that it is the sovereign God of the Bible who can work within us

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to call us to repentance and reform, only then will we call upon him to forgive us for abandoning him

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and call upon this God to renew and restore us. And this begins, first and foremost, at the level of

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the individual, dear listener, and it begins with repentance and reform in your heart and in my heart,

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and then and only then in the hearts of those around us. Jesus, in fact, said,

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no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. No one comes to Christ unless the Father

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draws that person. So, dear listener, look to your own heart first before you seek to change the world.

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First, take the log out of your own eye, Jesus says, and then you will see clearly to take the speck

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out of your brother's eye. This is as true for preachers like me, too, as it is for everyone

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listening today. Repentance and reform begin at home in our own hearts. Life in Christ begins with

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a new birth within the individual soul, and the consistent Christian walk begins by first guarding

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our own steps so that we do not stumble and fall before we presume to direct the steps of others.

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Then and only then will we be a virtuous people, as Adams exhorts us to be, prepared for freedom

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and not needful of masters, as Franklin puts it. May this be the case with every one of you out

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there this day, and soon for every American who lives yet under the gracious shade of the tree of

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liberty provided by our Constitution. Oh, all of this 5,000-year leap that we've been talking about

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and more can be traced to the environment created by our founding fathers when they made our

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Constitution, didn't they? It is as if the pent-up creative power of the human race for 5,000 years

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was finally unleashed as Americans found liberty to strive for and achieve what they could only dream

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of doing before those profound words were penned, we the people of the United States of America.

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When you ponder the history of nations, I'm a student of history. I'm a history major. When you ponder the

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history of nations, you quickly realize that great men define the nations of the world and not great

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people, with the exception of the United States of America. Our Constitution begins, we the people

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of the United States do establish and ordain this Constitution, right? Whereas the other nations of

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the world throughout history, if they had a written Constitution, would begin something like, well,

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I, Pharaoh Necho of Egypt, do establish and ordain, or I, Julius Caesar of Rome, do establish and ordain,

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or maybe I, King Louis XIV of France, do establish and ordain, right? The history of nations is so often

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the history of great men. The people in all of these other nations that we're talking about were merely

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the fodder and the fuel for tyrants, upon whose backs these people, upon whose backs and blood these great

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men built their empires. In the United States of America, however, finally, the people had opportunity

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to govern themselves and overthrow tyranny, and that was emblemized for us in King George III of England,

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tyranny. Will we, the people, be able to keep this precious heritage, dear listener, or will we lose it

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to the constant human tendency to give it over to tyrants again? The moment we feel threatened by a

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pandemic, maybe, or economic, or military, or cultural downturns. Oh, right now we are giving

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up our liberty and our freedom to tyrants because they have driven us like cattle to fear an invisible

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virus. Oh, this fellow American is the challenge of the hour for this generation. So it is, I continue

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to outline the 28 principles of our founding fathers encapsulated in our founding document,

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that is, the Constitution. Once more, let me also take this opportunity to give full credit to the

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book and the organization that has put together so much of the information that I'll be sharing with

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you, and that is the National Center for Constitutional Studies, located in Utah. And the

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great lion of this organization was Dr. W. Cleon Skousen, who was a teacher and mentor for so many

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students of the Constitution today, over the last few decades for that matter, even President Ronald

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Reagan, as I mentioned last week, said of the NCCS, the National Center for Constitutional Studies is

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doing a fine public service in educating Americans about the principles of the Constitution, unquote.

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And the books from which I will be drawing my information, two volumes, The 5,000-Year Leap,

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and then also The Making of America, both by Dr. W. Cleon Skousen. Get these books. Go to the

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NCCS's website at nccs.net. But before we unpack those principles one by one, we should do for you

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a very valuable service. And that is, shatter the illusion under which you labor now as to the nature

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of political power, and perhaps give you the understanding of true political power that

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were shared by our founding fathers, they knew of this, without which they never would have been able

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to gain the insight needed to establish the lasting document of our Constitution. What do I mean by

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shattering the illusion and giving the true model of political power in its place? Well, let me give

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you an example that we face today. When we speak of political differences in our own system, we speak

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of the left and the right, as if either end of this political spectrum defined and encompassed all that

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there is to political opinion. Are you on the left or are you on the right? We often inquire

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of people. And the left represents liberalism and socialism, and at its worst, Marxist-Communist

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tyranny and oppression. While on the right, the right represents conservatism and capitalism,

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and at its worst, fascist tyranny and oppression. Right? But this division is, I would submit to you,

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a fallacy and illusion. First of all, note with me that the designations left or right derive from

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how political parties are seated in many European houses of parliament. The communists and socialists

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are seated on the far left of parliament, while the fascists are seated on the far right of parliament,

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and other moderate political parties are seated in the center. So, the illusion under which we labor

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resides in this very important distinction. Political parties of the right and the left define

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themselves in terms of their party policies, while the founding fathers, on the other hand,

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defined governments in terms of political power and how it is applied. A vital and crucial distinction

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to make. When you look closely at how two supposed opposites behaved in World War II, for example,

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all of this comes into bold relief. We see Hitler's Germany, for example, as one extreme,

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a right-wing tyrannical dictatorship of the fascist mold. And we also see his chief opponent,

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Stalin, as a left-wing tyrannical dictator of the communist mold. Indeed, they were mortal enemies who

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saw their respective systems as polar opposites to one another in terms of their politics. But our

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founding fathers would have seen them as little more than carbon copies of the other, with only a slight

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difference of shading in the carbon to distinguish them. And why would that be? Why would a man like

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George Washington or Thomas Jefferson have seen Hitler and Stalin as merely a difference between

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frick and frack? A distinction between Tweedledee and Tweedledum? Well, our founding fathers would see

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Hitler and Hitler and Stalin as identical twins, because the nature of the power they exercised was

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essentially the same. Total! They both embodied the model of the tyranny of ruler's law, as historians call

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it. The tyranny of ruler's law. That's right. The founding fathers, and all ancient thinkers, for that matter,

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saw all political power being distributed along a spectrum of tyrannical ruler's law at one end of the

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spectrum, where, when you examine the methods and techniques of both Stalin and Hitler, they were

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both residing there at the extreme end of ruler's law. And at the other end of the spectrum is anarchistic

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no-law. There's ruler's law, and then at the other end, no-law. Anarchy at the other end. And the best model

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for government, that is people's law, falls in the middle, and it's where and what the fathers aimed at.

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This is the true model of political power, people's law, under which human government should

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operate, not right and left. And the truth of this model that we have just laid out for you,

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ruler's law, or no-law, or people's law, the truth of this model is borne out time and time again when

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we examine history. When you consider it, the tyrants of history all shared the model of ruler's law,

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where a number of features are shared in common, no matter what the name of the ruler or the name of the

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system. Whether the title was fascism or communism, Hitler or Stalin, these features were shared in

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common. That is, power is concentrated in one or a few men. Rights are bestowed by government

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and not inherently intrinsically given by God. And under ruler's law, power flows from the top to the

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bottom, from the ruler, and then maybe a little bit to the people. And such nations are ruled by men,

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not by law. Dictators, that is what the man says. So that the ruler makes the laws and is above them

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too. You notice that happening in our own country. Who is above all the COVID restrictions? Why, our

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rulers, the politicians who make those very rules. And as well, under ruler's law, the land is his

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property and taxes can be levered at will with no representation by the people. These are some of the

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chief features of ruler's law, under which both fascist Germany and communist Russia labored. They were

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virtually identical in this regard. And then at the other end of the spectrum is anarchy or no law. And this

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situation is unbearable for a people too. And they will quickly give up their rights, their privileges, and their

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property to a strong man if only he will restore law and order for them. Wherever anarchy ascends, and we've seen

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this throughout history too. In the Bible, Israel in the time of the judges saw the chaos and injustice of Samuel and his

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wicked sons, for example, where every man did what was right in his own eyes, as the Bible says. And that's

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truly the bottom of what chaos represents. Everybody doing what they saw right in their own eyes. And so Israel

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demanded a king to rule over them, like the rest of the nations of the earth. Or we see this anarchy as

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well in Europe, in the time of the Dark Ages, after the Roman Empire collapsed and all order went away.

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The barbarian hordes roamed the countryside, killing, raping, pillaging the churches and the towns and

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the people. Anarchy of a vicious and brutal kind swept across the continent and paved the way for the

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tyrannical system of feudalism in Europe, which feudalism endured for a thousand years. And that was after

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the people cried out for law and order after anarchy. And then as well, finally, during the days of the

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French Revolution, anarchy ruled for a brief period, where the revolutionary committees lost control of

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governance, and the guillotine became the macabre and bloody symbol of anarchy in France. The ironclad

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rule of politics obtained here too, that is when chaos makes the people cry out, as it did in the Bible,

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those people will cry out for a king to make order. And so the so-called freedom of the French

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Revolution led inevitably to the tyrant of Napoleon. Oh, dear listener, therefore, there really is no

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substantial difference between left and right in our system. Policies change from generation to

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generation, but the mode of governance remains consistent. Margaret Sanger, the inspiration for

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Planned Parenthood, hated abortion. She did. Her children in the movement these days hold it as a

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sacrament. On the surface, there seems to be a contradiction in the politics of those two

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bedfellows. But when both Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood, what they do share in common is an

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approach to imposing their views by means of absolute government power. That is ruler's law or

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tyranny. And for this reason, one is the breastfed political child of the other. Oh, I think of one

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example from my own life of frick and frack or Tweedledee and Tweedledum, one being not much different than the

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other. Ah, the truth of this came home to me recently in a trip to Hawaii. My wife and I spent

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Christmas with our kids in Hawaii, where my daughter and son-in-law are stationed as they serve in the

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army. And we spent one delightful evening having a picnic dinner on the beach as the sun set in the

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sea in the west and how beautiful it was. But my son-in-law had parked our car on the beach sand just off

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the highway and it sunk to its axle in soft beach sand and we were irretrievably stuck. We had to be

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pulled by rope from the sand by a good Samaritan who happened by. It was reminiscent to me of several

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times I have been irretrievably stuck in the snow in winter in the Midwest where I grew up.

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I've had friends park in snow, or I've done it too, where they have gotten stuck in snow up to their

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axles and have had to have a good Samaritan or pay for it with a tow truck to pull them out.

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But in one instance, we were stuck in sand. In another, we were stuck in snow. But the net effect

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was identical. We were buried to our axles and unable to move. So it is the difference between

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communism or fascism, right? Between the right and the left. It's that way with government. One tyrant

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may call himself a communist. Another may call himself a fascist. But their philosophy of government

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is essentially the same. Ruler's law. So don't be fooled, listener. So much of the rhetoric that we

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hear from the left and the right today is shades of the same thought. You may be stuck in the political

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sand of the left or the political snow of the right. But sand or snow, the net effect is identical. You are

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spinning your wheels. You are buried to your axle and irretrievably stuck. Nevertheless, what is

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essential is that we strive for the power model of people's law, which has a number of salient features

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that we should note with you. And we will continue those notes then beginning next week to show the

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benefits and the features of people's law and contradistinction to ruler's law or to anarchy.

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Either of those polls are negative and will bring us to tyranny in the long run. This has been Pastor

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David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And we are a church who treasures their

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liberty and their freedom. And we understand and we hold forth the liberty that we have. We practice

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the liberty that we yet have under our constitutional system. And we preach from the scriptures and we

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preach the liberty that follows from it. We also preach the responsibility that we have towards

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government to maintain ourselves under the covenant of the civil covenant. We have a responsibility to do

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that as well as the covenant of the church or the covenant of the family. And we hold these things

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forth. We preach them. We teach them. And we also assemble then for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m.

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at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And I exhort you to go ahead and visit us then on

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Sunday morning. Perhaps you've been thinking about crossing our threshold. Please do so. Also check out our

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websites. We have our church website, newgenevaopc.org. And then we also have our website where we have

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these radio programs cataloged for years and years back. And you can access those, excuse me,

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at omnispotestas.org. That's O-M-N-I-S dash P-O-T-E-S-T-A-S dot org. Omnispotestas.org to access these radio

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programs. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And you can call

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us for more information and give us some feedback at area code 208-523-0196. That's area code 208-523-0196.