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, what are the third and fourth principles of our founding fathers when they established our Constitution? We have been examining the 28 principles upon which our founding fathers framed our Constitution. And last time we looked at principles one and two, and today we'd like to examine principles three and four so that you might better understand the true basis upon which our republic was founded.

And those 28 principles have been distilled from the vast array of works and labors of our founding fathers, encompassing everything from readily available documents like the Federalist Papers to some perhaps less well-known items like the letters of Benjamin Franklin. But make no mistake about this, dear listener, the Constitution you have held out before you today by our present administration and progressives when they bother to consult it, and even many unknowing conservatives. That Constitution is not the Constitution crafted so assiduously and brilliantly by our founding fathers.

Progressives like to call the Constitution a living, breathing document liable to change and alteration depending upon the needs and whims of the times. Oh, but if our Constitution was a living, breathing document, it's more like a slimy monster crawling out from the pit of hell. When have you ever seen, indeed, a piece of parchment living and breathing? It isn't. It hasn't.

Because the Constitution is indeed a written document, a dead letter until we make it come alive according to its principles. Our founding fathers saw the Constitution as a simple, unchanging charter with a stable meaning. Now, progressives try and convince you that the Constitution is a mysterious document shrouded in lofty verbiage that only the exalted seers on the Supreme Court can interpret. While in contrast, really, when you think about it, our founding fathers actually wrote the Constitution in clear, simple English, meant to be understood and interpreted by the common man. That is, you and me.

And progressives try and convince you that the Constitution gives priority of place to the federal government, the Leviathan, as the source of power and rights. While the founding fathers persuasively argued that God was the source of our rights and that power resided first in the people, not the federal government. Oh, all of these things, dear listener, and much, much more, we intend to elucidate for you in the weeks that follow as we uncover the 28 basic principles upon which our founding fathers established the Constitution.

And let me acknowledge once again the book from which much of this was drawn, and that was the 5,000-year leap written by the late W. Cleon Skousen of the National Center for Constitutional Studies, done in cooperation with a number of associate scholars also at the National Center for Constitutional Studies. If and when America ever experiences a renaissance of the American Constitution, returning to its basic principles, and make God so grant this, well then, much of the credit will have to go to men like W. Cleon Skousen, and its National Center for Constitutional Studies.

These people have done Yeoman's work in faithfully preserving the original intent of our founding fathers in regards to the Constitution. Now, I urge you to purchase this book and other publications like The Making of America, The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution. I used this in our homeschool, The Making of America, The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution, another valuable resource, all of which you can find at their website, nccs.org, nccs.org. Buy these books! And then also make a generous contribution, perhaps, to this group.

They are modestly and humbly doing much to restore America to its previous status as a constitutional republic. Well, returning to our 28 principles, let me articulate principle number three, and that is the most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally stable people is to elect virtuous leaders. That makes sense, doesn't it? The most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally stable people is to elect virtuous leaders. Seems pretty obvious on its face, but is more complicated than it first appears, especially centuries down the road.

For example, from whence will we draw a Congress, an executive of virtuous leaders? Where are we going to find them? Will we call them from space aliens who visit us in crafts from beyond our galaxy? Oh, when we observe men like Joe Biden or women like Nancy Pelosi, who has so much plastic surgery on her face that she looks like a space alien anyway, well, then we must conclude that that is a distinct possibility. Maybe we can call upon angels from heaven to rule over us.

Might that be the source? In fact, even James Madison said, if men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary, unquote. That's from the Federalist Papers, and that was from paper number 51 by James Madison. But the truth is, men are not angels, and angels do not rule over us, do they?

God has so ordained that we should derive our leaders from among our own race of fallen creatures, that is, our fellow men. And so it is necessary that we elect virtuous leaders, not scoundrels. But since we are not angels, and angels do not rule over us, the obvious possibility also obtains. That is, it is perfectly possible that scoundrels and not virtuous men can rule over us. The choice is up to us.

We must be discerning. Elect the virtuous or the scoundrel. Ah, dear listener, gaze upon the field of men and women who presently rule over us. And tell me we are ruled by the virtuous or the scoundrel. Virtue is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.

Virtue is defined as moral excellence or goodness. Moral excellence or goodness. Oh, dear listeners, Joe Biden, who has sold his soul then to China. Or Mitch McConnell, too, who has married into the high-ranking families of China and sold his soul as well. Or Ilhan Omar, who has betrayed America, even though she is a refugee from the Middle East.

Oh, dear listener, are any of these virtuous men or women? It has recently come to light indeed that these are all corrupt people. They have been paid off by China. There are two main strategies that they have used. I own Shoryu is the Chinese for financial payoffs, financial corruption.

Indeed, enlist and undermine American leaders by putting them on the Chinese payroll in one way, shape, or form. Or the honeypot, that is sexual compromise. The Chinese have used these two strategies very effectively to undermine people like Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, or Mitch McConnell, right, married into the families, the rich families of China. Or indeed, Nancy Pelosi, whose husband has benefited from Chinese business deals now for decades and decades. So all of these have been compromised.

And I have detailed this in greater detail in previous broadcasts. And you'll find these broadcasts then cataloged on our website where our other radio programs are cataloged as well. And you'll find those radio programs at omnispotestas.org. That's O-M-N-I-S-P-O-T-E-S-T-A-S.org. All of these previous broadcasts going back five, six years can be accessed at our website, omnispotestas.org.

O-M-N-I-S-P-O-T-E-S-T-A-S.org. That's Latin for all authority. Omnis protestas. All authority indeed has been granted to Jesus Christ. And he indeed has made of us a constitutional republic.

Are we going to return to our roots? Huh? Oh. Can we call a man or a woman virtuous who has used his or her office of power for their own financial advantage or their own pleasure and sexual advantage? I would submit to you, no.

Not a one of these persons I have demonstrated for you has moral excellence or goodness. Rather, all of them and many, many more have behaved like scoundrels, not virtuous men and women. And they should all be in jail, not remaining in power, ostensibly there to get us out of the very financial and moral and constitution and power and military predicaments that they are responsible for getting us in. Our founding fathers understood intuitively that if a man was going to be a servant of public virtue, then he had to be a man of private virtue.

That is, if he were to be a man who would behave in a moral fashion with a public trust, he must be a man who would behave in a moral fashion in his own private sphere. If a man would deal honestly with his neighbor in a transaction of business, then he would be more likely to deal honestly in a transaction in government with a public trust. Private virtue comes before public virtue. Oh, our politicians these days are sad examples of an eternal truth. That is, the first qualification is character.

The first qualification for public service is character. We rarely look at this, do we? When we vote for an official, whatever other skills and gifts a man or woman may possess for office, the first and prior qualification is character. So what if they're gifted speakers and persuaders? Or if they are master politicians skilled at shepherding important legislation through Congress like Nancy Pelosi?

Or whether they're experienced jurists who know the history of case law, if they are corrupt in their character? Like, indeed, so many of our Supreme Court justices are. Oh, it has recently been revealed that substandard rivets used to fasten the steel plates of the Titanic. I'm drawing an analogy here. Substandard rivets were used to fasten the steel plates of the Titanic.

It may have been one of the reasons that the Titanic sank so swiftly with great loss of life. Unscrupulous designers, wanting to cut corners and costs, deliberately ordered low-grade iron rivets to fasten the outer plates of the skin of the Titanic. And consequently, when she encountered the stress of a collision with a North Atlantic iceberg, well, those rivets failed on a massive scale that would have not occurred had she been fitted with proper rivets.

Seawater rushed in at a rate that would have been dramatically slowed had stronger rivets been employed, giving those passengers more time to evacuate and rescue vessels to arrive to save them. Oh, such a simple thing. Had the designers been men of character, hundreds of lives would have been saved on the Titanic. Well, that's exactly what happens in our politics today. Unscrupulous politicians have riveted our economy and our military and our destiny, together with substandard fasteners as well, if you will.

How different might be our nation's destiny if we have the men and women of character in office? Our founding fathers had a completely different view of politics in their own day. Our generation has had such a cynical view of politics and politicians that it's difficult to capture the dignity and the exalted place given to politics by our founders. Both John and Sam Adams considered politics to be a divine science, quote-unquote, worthy of pursuit by the best of men, not the worst of men. As John Adams puts it, he says, politics are the divine science after all.

How is it possible that any man should ever think of making it subservient to his own little passions and mean private interests? Ye base-born sons of fallen Adam is the end of politics a fortune, a family, a gilded couch, a train of horses, and a troop of livery servants, balls at courts, splendid dinners and suppers, unquote. That indeed was John Adams' challenge to his own generation. But it does seem to be, indeed, the pursuit of so many in politics today. A fortune, a family, a gilded couch, a train, if you will, of limousines rather than horses, or a troop of servants, or dances at courts, splendid dinners and suppers.

That is indeed to be the object of so many in politics today. Are you listening? Politicians of our present day. Politics, the word politics derives from the Greek word for city, polis. You can hear the derivative there.

Polis was the Greek word for city, and politics derives from it. It originally meant, in the ancient Greek city-states, it originally meant men who assembled without pay in order to set coherent policy, right, for the direction of the greater good of the whole people. Politics, policy, polis, all of this bound together. And these disinterested people did this sacrificially, oftentimes at the cost of their own time and fortune, not its increase. And our founding fathers envisioned politics in this vein, rather than the current one, where every politician seems to be bent upon his own aggrandizement rather than the good of his country.

Salaries of politicians were set deliberately low, so that the temptation would not be to seek office for profits. And conflicts of interest were scrupulously avoided, so that no elected official could be seen to be acting so as to benefit himself or his family and friends back home. Oh, John Adams puts it this way. He says, I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice, or ambition, or even the desire of fame. If any of these had been my motive, my conduct would have been very different.

In every considerable transaction of my public life, I've invariably acted according to my best judgment, and I can look up to God for the sincerity of my intentions. Unquote. Oh, this should be the oath of office for politicians entering into public service today. Is it too much to ask for the modern 21st American politicians to return to this original vision? The sense of entitlement has infected not only the people who feel they're entitled to government money and programs, but that sense of entitlement has also infected our politicians who feel that to the victory go the spoils, right?

And because they won, they deserve their turn at the trough, the pigs of public progress. That is precisely why the Democrats who have taken over in Washington, D.C. have passed so many stimulus bills, right? And trillions and trillions of dollars now in aid, right? It's really less a measure to genuinely stimulate a recalcitrant economy as it is a payback to those who got Joe Biden elected. Everyone from the corrupt voter fraud groups to the mayors of pet Democrat cities.

Make no mistake about this fellow citizen, Joe Biden is no more and no less than a run-of-the-mill politician in the mold of others like Bush or Clinton or Carter. Well, we must always remember then the most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally stable people is to elect virtuous leaders. Let us look to our task, dear listener, dear voter, and let us indeed check those we vote for according to this standard. Well, the fourth principle then of our Constitution is this. The fourth principle, without religion, the governments of a free people cannot be maintained.

Without religion, without religion, and the religion in the minds of our founding fathers was Christianity. Without religion, the government of a free people cannot be maintained. Oh, gee. Oh, hold on a minute. I can almost hear the ACLU rustling their lawsuit forms, getting ready to sue me for even thinking this thought.

But nevertheless, an American truth, it remains, right? Without religion, the government of a free people cannot be maintained. And that religion in the minds and hearts of our founding fathers was Christianity. Our founding fathers understood to their toenails that genuine human morality cannot exist apart from spiritual supernatural religion. Unless a man is convinced that he will have to stand before the almighty God of the Bible and give an account for his actions in the afterlife, what motivation will he have for behaving in a moral fashion now?

Benjamin Franklin put it this way. He said, The soul of man is immortal and will be treated with justice in another life, respecting his conduct in this. That's so concisely and aptly put by Benjamin Franklin. The soul of man is immortal and will be treated with justice in another life, respecting his conduct in this. Unquote.

Now, biblical Christianity has as its heart the additional truth that our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, has lived a perfectly righteous life in our stead and has died for our sins such that all those who put their faith in him will be endowed with Christ's very own righteousness. And so, when such a man stands before God Almighty upon that day, he will not have to stand in his own imperfect righteousness, full faults and shortcomings, condemned to hell by them. No, rather, he will be endowed with a righteousness not his own, but that righteousness which is native to and glistening with Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul puts it this way.

We are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received. This is part of the good news of the gospel of Christianity. When a person receives Christ's righteousness by faith, he stands justified before God. Paul also says, we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law, even as Abraham believed God and it was counted, that is, imputed to him as righteousness. Even then, the Christian will be held accountable before God for his conduct in this life, though.

He's saved by grace through faith, but is fully expected to respond to that salvation and gratitude by living a life of righteousness. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them, unquote. And so, biblical Christianity has at its core the truth that though we are not saved by our good life, we are saved unto a good life.

And additionally, the rest of mankind will one day stand before God who is seated on a great white throne, as Revelation puts it. And I saw the dead, as John says in Revelation, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. And I saw another book open, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. So, dear listener, there's a day coming when all of us will stand accountable before the great God who made us.

And those not written in the book of life will be thrown into the lake of fire, that is, into hell. That is why, as a preacher, I must appeal to you, while there is still time, to respond to the offer of the gospel and receive by faith the salvation offered to you in Jesus Christ. For as the Bible says, as Paul says, there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved. This is the backdrop against which our founding fathers saw the necessity of religion in America.

With this vital religious faith at work in the lives of citizens, those citizens would act in the main, at least with integrity, with actions and behavior shaped by a moral code based upon the Bible. With such self-regulated citizens behaving well because they feared God and not the state. Oh, true is that of so many of us here in America. So many in America these days fear the state rather than God, and they will pay the price at the end. But if we had self-regulated citizens regulated according to the scriptures and biblical principle, we would behave well because we feared God and not the state.

And if that is indeed the case, if that characterizes a people, then, and only then, is the widest possible freedom to be granted. A true republic can be entrusted to no other people than such a people that is a moral and ethical people. That's what I mean when I say the first government is self-government. The very first government is self-government. Without it, no other government matters.

The biblical Christian has within his inner core then and only then a moral compass that directs his actions and his thoughts guided outwardly by the Bible and then inwardly by God's Holy Spirit. Oh, dear listener, we need to return to this morality and this religion so that we might have as the first government self-government and then we indeed are fit to govern our families and then perhaps to govern our own villages and cities and then perhaps our states and only then can we aspire to govern nationally when we indeed have self-government that is guided by the Bible and biblical principle.

Well, I urge you to this and I urge you to ponder these things.

We'll continue with this fourth principle and finish it off and move on to others then beginning next week but let me just remind you that this has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church and we love the Constitution and we urge that return to it and we also then preach the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who indeed has given us true moral principle by which we may live and we urge you then to join us for holy worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard and we have a warm and friendly welcome for you and we just urge you to join us and perhaps you've been thinking of crossing our threshold and discovering who we are and we indeed are New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church we meet for holy worship 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 area code 208-523-0196. Give me some feedback perhaps as well area code 208-523-0196.