1 00:00:04,690 --> 00:00:09,869 Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church 2 00:00:09,869 --> 00:00:14,810 with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and 3 00:00:14,810 --> 00:00:21,910 faith. And today, I want to challenge you by asking, what are the fifth and sixth principles 4 00:00:21,910 --> 00:00:32,049 of our founding fathers when they established our Constitution? Last week, I reviewed the scope 5 00:00:32,049 --> 00:00:41,350 of our website, which catalogs these radio broadcasts, these podcasts, and that website is 6 00:00:41,350 --> 00:00:50,929 americastruths.org, americastruths.org. And I at least had intended to cover principles five and six 7 00:00:50,929 --> 00:00:58,969 of the fantastic book, The 5,000-Year Leap, the subtitle being A Miracle That Changed the World. 8 00:00:58,969 --> 00:01:10,969 The 5,000-Year Leap by the great scholar, Mr. Skousen. And I did not end up getting around to 9 00:01:10,969 --> 00:01:16,329 principles five and six. I apologize for that. But today, we are going to do that. We want to unpack 10 00:01:16,329 --> 00:01:24,810 just the 28 principles of the 5,000-Year Leap that established our Constitution and saw just a 11 00:01:24,810 --> 00:01:32,790 fantastic exponential growth in knowledge, in liberty, in freedom that the deep state is trying 12 00:01:32,790 --> 00:01:40,969 to squash right now, but will not be able to because, indeed, we the people, as the Constitution 13 00:01:40,969 --> 00:01:47,390 begins, have established a constitutional republic. And what it has done is revolutionize and transform 14 00:01:47,390 --> 00:01:54,930 the world. So I want to unpack principles five and six of this constitutional principle that has 15 00:01:54,930 --> 00:02:02,730 revolutionized the world. But just briefly, let me review the first four. Now, you can access those 16 00:02:02,730 --> 00:02:11,110 broadcasts of the first four principles of the 5,000-Year Leap over August and September of 2021. 17 00:02:11,110 --> 00:02:22,909 Go to our website, americastruths.org, and access by year 2021, and look at the months, August and 18 00:02:22,909 --> 00:02:31,250 September of 2021, which cover the first four principles of the 5,000-Year Leap. And let me just 19 00:02:31,250 --> 00:02:39,610 review those just very briefly, first of all. The first principle was the only reliable basis for sound 20 00:02:39,610 --> 00:02:47,270 government and just human relations is natural law. The only reliable basis for sound government and 21 00:02:47,270 --> 00:02:56,610 just human relations is natural law. Oh, such a profound principle to study. And the second principle 22 00:02:56,610 --> 00:03:05,550 that we looked at was a free people cannot survive under a Republican Constitution unless they remain 23 00:03:05,550 --> 00:03:14,250 virtuous and morally strong. Virtue and morality are at the center of a free people and a Republican, 24 00:03:14,449 --> 00:03:23,270 that's a small r, Republican Constitution. And the third principle that we looked at then was the most 25 00:03:23,270 --> 00:03:32,389 promising method of securing a virtuous and morally stable people is to elect virtuous leaders. Boy, 26 00:03:32,389 --> 00:03:38,189 doesn't that make sense. If you're going to have virtue in a republic, you must have virtuous leaders. 27 00:03:38,849 --> 00:03:46,629 And we must begin looking to that as we elect our representatives, our magistrates in a republic. 28 00:03:46,969 --> 00:03:54,229 And the fourth principle that we covered is without religion, the government of a free people cannot be 29 00:03:54,229 --> 00:04:00,009 maintained without religion. And the religion that the Founding Fathers had in mind was indeed 30 00:04:00,009 --> 00:04:06,430 the religion of biblical Christianity. Without religion, the government of a free people cannot be 31 00:04:06,430 --> 00:04:14,550 maintained. So those were the first four principles. You'll see them expanded in August and September broadcast 32 00:04:14,550 --> 00:04:23,889 of 2021. And I urge you to go to those on our podcast website, which is americastruths.org. 33 00:04:23,889 --> 00:04:31,050 But let's look at Principles 5 and 6 now. We've been examining these 28 principles upon which our 34 00:04:31,050 --> 00:04:39,949 founding fathers framed our Constitution. And there is something basic about these 28 principles that 35 00:04:39,949 --> 00:04:46,050 resonates with our past. Many of us who have heard these things in bits and pieces or maybe in classes 36 00:04:46,050 --> 00:04:52,790 so long ago in our childhood, and that's for the gray hairs like me, because government and civics 37 00:04:52,790 --> 00:05:00,910 classes and classes on the Constitution are not taught anymore. But I remember them. Sometimes we miss these 38 00:05:00,910 --> 00:05:08,550 principles when interacting with an increasingly socialist and tyrannical government. We may say to ourselves, 39 00:05:08,689 --> 00:05:14,290 I know something's not right, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Well, what these 28 principles do is 40 00:05:14,290 --> 00:05:21,290 assemble in a very brief compass, the length and breadth of our Founding Fathers worldview and philosophy, 41 00:05:21,290 --> 00:05:26,990 so that we can put our fingers on just what is wrong with things as they are, and more importantly, 42 00:05:27,189 --> 00:05:32,389 so we can put our finger on precisely the way things should be if we are ever again to recapture 43 00:05:32,389 --> 00:05:40,670 our constitutional republic. And all these things and more, we elucidate for you as we uncover the 28 44 00:05:40,670 --> 00:05:46,269 basic principles upon which our Founding Fathers established the Constitution. And let me acknowledge 45 00:05:46,269 --> 00:05:51,769 right up front the book from which so much of this is drawn that is the 5,000-year leap, written by the 46 00:05:51,769 --> 00:05:58,470 late W. Kleon Skousen. Get this book. Okay, returning to our 28 principles, let me articulate 47 00:05:58,470 --> 00:06:05,750 principle number five. That is, all things were created by God, and therefore upon Him all mankind are 48 00:06:05,750 --> 00:06:11,870 equally dependent, and to Him they are equally responsible. Principle number five, upon which our 49 00:06:11,870 --> 00:06:18,649 founders established the Constitution, all things were created by God, and therefore upon Him, the God 50 00:06:18,649 --> 00:06:25,970 of the Bible, all mankind are equally dependent, and to Him they are equally responsible. Now, as foreign 51 00:06:25,970 --> 00:06:31,250 as this may sound to the average man on the street, it was an assumed given at the time of our founding. 52 00:06:31,610 --> 00:06:36,870 The God of the Bible was there, and He was watching the sons of men. There were no absolute 53 00:06:36,870 --> 00:06:43,089 Darwinians disparaging the reality of our Creator, asserting that all things we see around us are 54 00:06:43,089 --> 00:06:49,110 nothing more than matter plus time plus chance. No. Atheists were not commanding our public school 55 00:06:49,110 --> 00:06:56,029 systems and university facilities and scientific research institutes. No. Science and the Christian 56 00:06:56,029 --> 00:07:04,009 religion were seen to be entirely compatible. In fact, the true scientific genius of the 18th century, 57 00:07:04,009 --> 00:07:10,490 who was Isaac Newton, whose theory on gravity held the field until the advent of Albert Einstein, well, 58 00:07:10,990 --> 00:07:18,069 Newton arguably wrote more on the Christian religion than he did even on scientific matters. In addition, 59 00:07:18,430 --> 00:07:23,329 one of the great philosophers of all time became a favorite of the founding fathers, and his name was 60 00:07:23,329 --> 00:07:30,990 John Locke. And he became known as the philosopher of the American Revolution because of the profound 61 00:07:30,990 --> 00:07:38,329 impact which his writings had on men like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. His primary works, which were 62 00:07:38,329 --> 00:07:45,769 Essay on Human Understanding and Essay on Civil Government, became the very textbooks for government for our 63 00:07:45,769 --> 00:07:53,350 founding fathers. And Locke made good use of several of the classic arguments for the existence of God. 64 00:07:53,449 --> 00:07:58,110 For example, three arguments for the existence of God that he used were, number one, 65 00:07:58,110 --> 00:08:05,709 the teleological argument for the existence of God. The teleological argument. This is the classic 66 00:08:05,709 --> 00:08:11,250 watchmaker argument. That is, if one were to find a watch on the side of the road without any previous 67 00:08:11,250 --> 00:08:17,490 experience of a watchmaker, he would nevertheless have to conclude from the existence of such a finely 68 00:08:17,490 --> 00:08:24,790 crafted instrument that a watchmaker actually existed somewhere and made the watch. So for Locke, 69 00:08:24,790 --> 00:08:32,610 the intricacies and sophistication of the human body and the marvelous balance of nature, it was proof 70 00:08:32,610 --> 00:08:41,210 an all-wise, all-powerful watchmaker or creator made them all. The end or purpose for creation is and 71 00:08:41,210 --> 00:08:48,690 always has been in the mind of such a creator. The second argument that he used was the ontological 72 00:08:48,690 --> 00:08:56,289 argument for the existence of God. The ontological argument. That's a big word for existence, right? 73 00:08:56,350 --> 00:09:01,990 The ontological argument. Locke held with other Christian philosophers that there cannot be a 74 00:09:01,990 --> 00:09:09,049 creature or something about which a greater being or creator cannot be predicated. A creature in the 75 00:09:09,049 --> 00:09:16,929 midst of a creation necessarily demanded a perfect creator in whom resided the complete omniscience, 76 00:09:16,929 --> 00:09:25,210 power and good to make such a creation. And the third argument that our founding fathers used 77 00:09:25,210 --> 00:09:32,490 indeed to establish the existence of God was the anthropological argument for the existence of God. 78 00:09:32,649 --> 00:09:39,409 The anthropological argument. That is, man is self-evidently distinguishable from the 79 00:09:39,409 --> 00:09:44,710 inanimate life around him, like rocks and air and sunlight, right? He's also distinguishable 80 00:09:44,710 --> 00:09:51,230 from animal life in being a sentient creature. That is, a thinking, rational, feeling creature. 81 00:09:51,669 --> 00:09:58,070 None of these arise from nature apart from a being greater than that creation. This can only be God. 82 00:09:58,610 --> 00:10:04,669 Man has the faculties of compassion and love, and thus God must also be a God of love and compassion. 83 00:10:05,190 --> 00:10:11,269 Man also has a refined sense of justice in his dealing with his fellow man, reflecting God's own sense 84 00:10:11,269 --> 00:10:17,929 of justice. And man also has a sense of beauty in his surrounding world, delighting in and enjoying 85 00:10:17,929 --> 00:10:23,929 the balance and harmony of nature. And this reflects God's own character and nature and sense of beauty. 86 00:10:24,590 --> 00:10:30,809 These things transcend brute nature and therefore must point to a being transcending nature itself, 87 00:10:30,909 --> 00:10:36,929 that is, the God of the Bible. Therefore, when a man like Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration 88 00:10:36,929 --> 00:10:44,230 of Independence, he noted that all men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, 89 00:10:44,230 --> 00:10:51,110 the creator he had in mind was that outlined by John Locke in his essay on human understanding. 90 00:10:51,870 --> 00:10:58,309 See the connection? No founding father could even conceive of fashioning a constitutional republic 91 00:10:58,309 --> 00:11:05,549 without predicating it upon the prior assumption of a personal sovereign God, to whom we must all 92 00:11:05,549 --> 00:11:12,330 give an account. Furthermore, this God was not some aloof, distant being who made us and then left us 93 00:11:12,330 --> 00:11:18,570 alone to fend for ourselves. No, rather, this God was the personal God of the Bible who gave us his 94 00:11:18,570 --> 00:11:25,769 revealed law by which to live. This was not new to our founding fathers either. It was the basis for law 95 00:11:25,769 --> 00:11:33,070 for Western culture since the days of the Christian Emperor Justinian, for example. Emperor Justinian, 96 00:11:33,070 --> 00:11:40,850 who ruled during the latter fifth and early sixth centuries A.D., and he reduced the principles 97 00:11:40,850 --> 00:11:47,610 for biblical Western law to three, all derived from the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Those three 98 00:11:47,610 --> 00:11:53,970 basic principles for law were, number one, live honestly before God and your fellow man. Number two, 99 00:11:54,350 --> 00:12:01,990 hurt no other of your fellow man. And number three, render all that you owe to God and your fellow man. 100 00:12:01,990 --> 00:12:09,889 All the three principles for biblical Western law derived by Justinian established in the Justinian 101 00:12:09,889 --> 00:12:16,190 code. From these three principles, Justinian extrapolated all of the code of law that has 102 00:12:16,190 --> 00:12:23,190 come down to us as Justinian's code. Without that accountability before God for these, in this life 103 00:12:23,190 --> 00:12:29,649 and the next, what reason does the ruler or the citizen have to be good? They don't have a reason. 104 00:12:29,649 --> 00:12:35,590 All other Christian princes since Justinian have built upon these premises, all the way down to 105 00:12:35,590 --> 00:12:42,429 John Locke and our founding fathers. At the very center of all law was not some human view of general 106 00:12:42,429 --> 00:12:50,409 consensus, but rather absolute, unchanging law given by God himself and revealed in the Bible. So, 107 00:12:50,669 --> 00:12:56,149 what you must have clearly established in your mind, old listener, is the drastic difference between 108 00:12:56,149 --> 00:13:02,370 law with and law without the God of the Bible. Law without the God of the Bible depends upon men 109 00:13:02,370 --> 00:13:09,649 being sovereign over other men, creating and enforcing laws of their own making unequally. Law 110 00:13:09,649 --> 00:13:16,370 with the God of the Bible depends upon God being sovereign over men who then live under those laws 111 00:13:16,370 --> 00:13:25,049 equally. Or, law without God, without the God of the Bible, demands a shifting consensus of principle 112 00:13:25,049 --> 00:13:32,429 depending upon what men in any given time and place decide. But, law with God demands an eternal, 113 00:13:32,429 --> 00:13:41,090 unchanging principle depending upon his revealed word in the Bible. Increasingly, we are seeing the 114 00:13:41,090 --> 00:13:49,649 United States of America morph into a nation of men rather than laws. Ah, when will it be indeed that 115 00:13:49,649 --> 00:13:59,210 men like, um, men like, um, men like, um, Biden, right? Men like Hunter Biden are held to the same 116 00:13:59,210 --> 00:14:04,730 standard as every other man in this country. Unlike our baseless politicians in our own day, 117 00:14:04,730 --> 00:14:11,149 our founding fathers thought and acted like statesmen, reflecting wisely on the role of God 118 00:14:11,149 --> 00:14:15,950 in America's history. As Dr. Skousen puts it in the 5,000-year leap, he says, 119 00:14:15,950 --> 00:14:21,870 our founding fathers considered the whole foundation of a just society to be structured 120 00:14:21,870 --> 00:14:29,389 on the basis of God's revealed law. These laws constituted a moral code, clearly distinguishing 121 00:14:29,389 --> 00:14:35,070 right from wrong, unquote. And one of the sources from English tradition that our founding fathers 122 00:14:35,070 --> 00:14:44,970 consulted was the giant of English law, William Blackstone. From 1723 to 1780, he lived. And Blackstone 123 00:14:44,970 --> 00:14:52,490 established classes for the first law school at Oxford in 1753. And his lectures began to be 124 00:14:52,490 --> 00:14:59,490 published in 1765, just before our own revolution. In his commentaries on the laws of England, 125 00:14:59,850 --> 00:15:04,970 he observed, and I quote Blackstone, when the supreme being organized the universe, 126 00:15:05,370 --> 00:15:11,549 he organized it and impressed certain principles upon that matter from which it can never depart 127 00:15:11,549 --> 00:15:18,230 and without which it would cease to be, unquote. Blackstone would go on to articulate a standing 128 00:15:18,230 --> 00:15:24,590 principle among all jurisprudence developed in the West since the founding of Christianity and the 129 00:15:24,590 --> 00:15:30,590 development of science. And that principle is there were two kinds of law, the laws of human nature and 130 00:15:30,590 --> 00:15:36,049 the laws of the physical universe. The laws of human nature were those revealed in the Bible, 131 00:15:36,049 --> 00:15:40,529 while the laws of the physical universe and nature's God, as Jefferson called him, 132 00:15:40,850 --> 00:15:45,950 were to be sought out through scientific investigation. Blackstone himself concluded 133 00:15:45,950 --> 00:15:52,570 upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation depend all human laws, 134 00:15:52,710 --> 00:15:59,809 unquote. The entire enterprise of the Constitution was crafted with this understanding, that a good God 135 00:15:59,809 --> 00:16:04,850 who had revealed the basic principles whereby men shape the institutions by which they govern 136 00:16:04,850 --> 00:16:11,750 themselves was superintending the Constitution's writing and formation. God oversaw the composition 137 00:16:11,750 --> 00:16:18,009 of our Constitution. Each of the founding fathers was intently aware of the presence of God amongst 138 00:16:18,009 --> 00:16:24,710 them at every stage of our early nation's founding. One biographer of George Washington, for example, 139 00:16:25,129 --> 00:16:31,909 documents 67 different occasions when Washington acknowledges that he would have suffered disaster if 140 00:16:31,909 --> 00:16:37,409 not for the intervention of God in our struggle for independence. In his first inaugural address, 141 00:16:37,529 --> 00:16:45,250 in fact, Washington himself says, and I quote, no people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the 142 00:16:45,250 --> 00:16:52,629 invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step 143 00:16:52,629 --> 00:16:58,529 by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by 144 00:16:58,529 --> 00:17:06,990 some token a providential agency, unquote. Unlike so many of the politicians of our own day, the statesmen 145 00:17:06,990 --> 00:17:12,029 of our founding fathers' generation knew principle number five to their toenails, and that is, 146 00:17:12,470 --> 00:17:19,869 all things were created by God, and therefore upon him all mankind are equally dependent, and to him 147 00:17:19,869 --> 00:17:26,470 they are equally responsible. Dear listener, do not ever, ever again let our mass culture deceive you 148 00:17:26,470 --> 00:17:31,930 or your children into the false notion that our founding generation attempted to establish our 149 00:17:31,930 --> 00:17:38,289 constitution on a secular, irreligious basis. Nothing could be further from the truth. They walk 150 00:17:38,289 --> 00:17:43,430 consciously with God, not only in the church sanctuary, in the marketplace, the workplace, home and hearth, 151 00:17:43,549 --> 00:17:52,390 but also at the courthouse, the White House, and the Congress. May you do so as well, and may you urge 152 00:17:52,390 --> 00:17:59,170 our elected officials to walk unafraid with God in all of those venues, too? Well, principle number six. 153 00:17:59,410 --> 00:18:05,849 Principle number six, establishing our constitution, is one with which mass culture is familiar, 154 00:18:06,289 --> 00:18:11,109 maybe on a superficial level, for we hear it glibly tossed off frequently, and that is, 155 00:18:11,230 --> 00:18:16,329 all men are created equal. Principle number six for the establishment of the constitution, 156 00:18:16,329 --> 00:18:22,910 all men are created equal. Principle six. A thing taken for granted, even abused in our own day, 157 00:18:22,990 --> 00:18:29,549 it was truly revolutionary in the 18th century for millennia. One class of men would oppress another 158 00:18:29,549 --> 00:18:36,630 class of men by asserting some inherent superiority of themselves over their brothers. The Egyptians had 159 00:18:36,630 --> 00:18:43,230 the eternal order of pharaoh, priests, and commoners. Hindus had the eternal caste system, 160 00:18:43,230 --> 00:18:49,569 which divided men into ironclad classes of brahmin, priest, and untouchable. In the West, 161 00:18:49,809 --> 00:18:56,670 the nobility had one set of laws by which they lived, while the common man had another disadvantaged set 162 00:18:56,670 --> 00:19:03,869 of laws by which they were expected to live. The mere existence of the House of Lords, which represented 163 00:19:03,869 --> 00:19:09,809 nobility by birth, and the House of Commons, representation by vote, that is, in England, 164 00:19:09,809 --> 00:19:17,069 is testimony to this inequality by institution. And all of this was justified by birth, rank, 165 00:19:17,150 --> 00:19:22,849 and privilege. Revolutionary thinkers like John Locke changed all that. No, ideas that had been 166 00:19:22,849 --> 00:19:27,849 germinating and taking root for centuries now sprouted, and were about to blossom in our 167 00:19:27,849 --> 00:19:34,509 constitution. Our founding fathers drank deeply from Locke, or a man named Algernon Sidney, 168 00:19:34,509 --> 00:19:41,569 in his Discourses on Government, or the French philosopher Baron Charles de Montesquieu, and his 169 00:19:41,569 --> 00:19:47,349 Spirit of the Laws. Oh, these men and others you may never have heard of before, but they were 170 00:19:47,349 --> 00:19:53,589 important to the thinking of our founding fathers. These men articulated this principle, all men are 171 00:19:53,589 --> 00:19:59,210 created equal. Plus, many others will be unfolding in weeks to come. You'll hear me refer to them often 172 00:19:59,210 --> 00:20:06,069 in the future, and these were no mere academic ponderers in ivory towers, tossing out impractical 173 00:20:06,069 --> 00:20:11,049 ideas from their ivory towers to see who would pick them up and run with them. No, they lived these 174 00:20:11,049 --> 00:20:19,009 ideas in the marketplace of ideas. In fact, King Charles II beheaded Algernon Sidney in 1683 for 175 00:20:19,009 --> 00:20:24,049 asserting this principle that all men are created equal, and that there was no divine right of kings to 176 00:20:24,049 --> 00:20:31,529 rule over other men. Once again, do not let this get out to our ruling class of politicians in 177 00:20:31,529 --> 00:20:37,970 Washington, this D.C., the beheading. These men mouth this principle, all men are created equal, 178 00:20:38,190 --> 00:20:44,849 in order to get elected, but who then go on to rule over us as if they have a divine right to stay there 179 00:20:44,849 --> 00:20:50,150 and soak up the wealth, power, and privilege that's supposed to be resident in the people. God help the 180 00:20:50,150 --> 00:20:55,670 poor citizen who points this out to them, too. A friend of mine told me recently that in speaking 181 00:20:55,670 --> 00:21:02,150 with a state representative concerning a local issue, he referred to him, that public official, as a 182 00:21:02,150 --> 00:21:09,650 public servant. Becoming peeved and agitated, this elected servant of the people sneered, I'm actually a 183 00:21:09,650 --> 00:21:16,150 public official, and he walked away. This kind of two-tiered inequality must stop. You can almost hear 184 00:21:16,150 --> 00:21:23,890 the beheading axis being rattled in the background, right? A functional inequality among men is bred by 185 00:21:23,890 --> 00:21:28,890 the attitude expressed in Animal Farm, where after the revolution, one of the new Ten Commandments 186 00:21:28,890 --> 00:21:34,009 scrawled on the side of the barn declared, all animals are created equal. But slowly, as memory 187 00:21:34,009 --> 00:21:40,150 faded and time went on, and the pigs garnered more and more wealth and privilege, that commandment 188 00:21:40,150 --> 00:21:45,890 morphed into, on the side of the barn, all animals are created equal, but some animals are more 189 00:21:45,890 --> 00:21:52,130 equal than others. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Yes, the pigs began to gobble everything up. The political prophet, 190 00:21:52,289 --> 00:21:58,809 George Orwell, he knew his subject, didn't he? He had in mind not some nobility in unequal privilege 191 00:21:58,809 --> 00:22:04,349 because of birth, or in unequal privilege because of force of arms, but rather a class of men who 192 00:22:04,349 --> 00:22:11,109 grasped after unequal privilege, after being entrusted with it under the very premise of being equal 193 00:22:11,109 --> 00:22:17,210 with those they were supposed to represent. Oh, for Orwell, this was the gall of Stalin, 194 00:22:17,430 --> 00:22:24,470 a contemporary of Orwell. This was the gall of Stalin and his cronies in the Soviet Union in the 20th 195 00:22:24,470 --> 00:22:32,650 century. And for us, this is increasing the gall of our politicians in Washington, D.C. and Boise. 196 00:22:32,650 --> 00:22:38,490 Oh, but in just what are we to be equal? I asked early on when I pondered this principle, 197 00:22:39,049 --> 00:22:45,130 what are we to be equal in? We are all born with different natural talents and abilities into 198 00:22:45,130 --> 00:22:51,450 different and varying life circumstances, and no two persons ever has the same amount of wealth and 199 00:22:51,450 --> 00:22:57,190 resources in this life, and no two persons ever seem to enjoy exactly the same measure of joy and 200 00:22:57,190 --> 00:23:04,589 happiness, pain and suffering, etc. How then can we all be exactly equal? Oh, and the answer comes back, 201 00:23:04,930 --> 00:23:11,910 we can never be exactly equal in all things and in all circumstances. That's the grave error of the 202 00:23:11,910 --> 00:23:19,869 socialist expecting equal outcomes. And we'll be unpacking that error in more detail later. But for 203 00:23:19,869 --> 00:23:25,529 now, let us keep this truth in mind. Our founding fathers and the men from whom they drew these 204 00:23:25,529 --> 00:23:32,109 principles knew that all men are equal in three respects. Number one, all men are equal before 205 00:23:32,109 --> 00:23:39,490 God. All men are equal before God. God judges us all by one perfect law word. While human justice, 206 00:23:39,609 --> 00:23:45,710 even at its best, is imperfect, God's justice is perfect, and he is a just judge. You and I and 207 00:23:45,710 --> 00:23:51,470 every other man or woman alive today stand equally before him, and we will be judged equally by that law 208 00:23:51,470 --> 00:23:59,430 word. This is why Christians urge all men to be found in Jesus Christ, so that our sins might be judged in 209 00:23:59,430 --> 00:24:06,990 him and not in ourselves. Number two, all men are equal before the law. This great revolutionary 210 00:24:06,990 --> 00:24:14,430 principle, all men are equal before the law, is a direct descendant of biblical Christianity. If God so 211 00:24:14,430 --> 00:24:21,089 treats his creature man equally before his law word, ought not we treat one another equally before the law 212 00:24:21,089 --> 00:24:26,049 as well. This means that there's one law for the ditch digger and the developer, the plumber and the 213 00:24:26,049 --> 00:24:33,069 politician, the poor man and the rich man. Oh, ought not Hunter Biden be held to equal standards as the 214 00:24:33,069 --> 00:24:40,509 lowly user of street drugs in Chicago, right? Oh, yes, we say that the law ought to be applied equally to 215 00:24:40,509 --> 00:24:47,650 both Hunter Biden and that lowly street user of drugs. It ought to be applied equally to both 216 00:24:47,650 --> 00:24:54,289 citizens, commensurate with the gravity and extent of their crime. All men are equal before the law. 217 00:24:54,490 --> 00:25:00,910 Thirdly, all men are entitled to equal protection of their rights. Very important. All men are entitled 218 00:25:00,910 --> 00:25:06,349 to equal protection of their rights. As men and women of integrity before God, we have rights, 219 00:25:06,349 --> 00:25:11,309 one amongst the other, which we protect in one another and which the law protects as well. 220 00:25:11,869 --> 00:25:16,849 And among these rights to paraphrase the declaration are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 221 00:25:17,369 --> 00:25:22,130 We might also include the bill of rights to the constitution, as well as all the rights explicit 222 00:25:22,130 --> 00:25:27,910 and implicit in the constitution itself. For example, you have a right to have your property 223 00:25:27,910 --> 00:25:33,710 respected and protected by the state and not seized by it. In these three ways, then, 224 00:25:33,710 --> 00:25:39,609 O fellow citizens, we are all created equal. Our founding fathers never intended for us to have 225 00:25:39,609 --> 00:25:46,910 equal outcomes. Once again, I'll treat more of that in the future. But they did strongly affirm that we 226 00:25:46,910 --> 00:25:52,789 are all equal before God, the law, and in the protection of our rights. And then we see this so 227 00:25:52,789 --> 00:25:58,450 richly and abundantly reflected in the Bible, do we not? It will take a war between the states 228 00:25:58,450 --> 00:26:05,170 and generations of bitter struggle to make freedom for all men, even slaves, true for every American. 229 00:26:05,470 --> 00:26:11,390 But we are making this foundational principle of our founders true in the crucible of history, 230 00:26:11,470 --> 00:26:16,190 are we not? Oh, dear listener, if you would be a truly free man, equal before the throne of your 231 00:26:16,190 --> 00:26:20,890 creator, and more than that, a very son of the living God with all the rights and privileges of a son, 232 00:26:20,890 --> 00:26:26,190 I urge you to come to the Christian faith today through God's only son, Jesus Christ. 233 00:26:26,549 --> 00:26:31,450 This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with the Moment of 234 00:26:31,450 --> 00:26:38,549 Truth. New Geneva meets for holy worship at 10 a.m. at Sunday on 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th 235 00:26:38,549 --> 00:26:45,910 and Boulevard. And I urge you to call us for more information at area code 208-523-0196. 236 00:26:45,910 --> 00:26:49,750 208-523-0196.