1 00:00:05,169 --> 00:00:10,529 Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with the 2 00:00:10,529 --> 00:00:14,869 Moment of Truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. 3 00:00:15,230 --> 00:00:22,949 Today, what are principles seven and eight in the 5,000-year leap? Scholars have summarized all of 4 00:00:22,949 --> 00:00:29,089 those things that our founding fathers taught and thought, and they've done it in 28 foundational 5 00:00:29,089 --> 00:00:36,609 principles, and they've done it in a book, The 5,000-Year Leap, The 5,000-Year Leap. Now, 6 00:00:36,710 --> 00:00:41,829 those of you who have been tracking with us know that these principles were so revolutionary that 7 00:00:41,829 --> 00:00:48,090 they propelled American ingenuity and creativity so far forward that we can say with supreme 8 00:00:48,090 --> 00:00:54,509 confidence that all of human civilization took a cultural leap of some 5,000 years in a matter of 9 00:00:54,509 --> 00:01:01,850 200-plus years of American history. We can say that liberty on this continent has produced wealth 10 00:01:01,850 --> 00:01:06,890 that has far exceeded anything a collective government could have produced by restricting 11 00:01:06,890 --> 00:01:13,090 the individual or limiting his options. Everything from the electric light bulb to the atomic bomb 12 00:01:13,090 --> 00:01:19,150 was invented in our wide-open, create-what-you-will culture. We went from traveling as fast as a horse 13 00:01:19,150 --> 00:01:25,170 could take us for millennia to faster than the speed of sound in a few hundred years. We went from 14 00:01:25,170 --> 00:01:31,750 dreaming about the moon in poetry and song to actually walking on it and returning those men 15 00:01:31,750 --> 00:01:38,390 back to the good old United States of America with samples from its surface. All of this is now in 16 00:01:38,390 --> 00:01:45,670 danger as we quickly descend into century-old ways of collectivism, statism, and the tyranny of kings 17 00:01:45,670 --> 00:01:51,069 and despots. There's no better way to rob initiative and productivity from the human soul 18 00:01:51,069 --> 00:01:57,390 than to make us all dependent on the government rather than our own resources, talents, and the grace 19 00:01:57,390 --> 00:02:03,569 of God. I can say all of this confidently because of the record we have before us in our history and 20 00:02:03,569 --> 00:02:10,689 most importantly in the transparent record of our constitution. The constitution of the United States 21 00:02:10,689 --> 00:02:18,250 of America is the charter of our liberty that has enabled more human potential to be realized than 22 00:02:18,250 --> 00:02:24,750 any other document ever composed outside of the Bible. When men and women of Christian moral 23 00:02:24,750 --> 00:02:31,849 integrity are liberated to act on their gifts and talents, why, they produce what we have seen in our 24 00:02:31,849 --> 00:02:38,889 history. The transparent record of our constitution is embodied for us in the 28 principles of the 25 00:02:38,889 --> 00:02:45,689 constitution conveniently condensed for us in a fine book, the 5,000-year leap. Much of what I have to 26 00:02:45,689 --> 00:02:51,509 share with you has been taken from it. It is the product of years of labor by the National Center for 27 00:02:51,509 --> 00:02:59,289 Constitutional Studies. Its leader was the venerable Dr. Cleon Skousen, who produced the 5,000-year leap 28 00:02:59,289 --> 00:03:05,550 in conjunction with a number of other scholars. In this work, you will find the 28 principles of the 29 00:03:05,550 --> 00:03:11,789 constitution established by our founding fathers. And I highly commend it to you. You can find information 30 00:03:11,789 --> 00:03:23,229 about it and other materials at nccs.org, nccs.org. Well, what are principles 7 and 8 in our 28 principles 31 00:03:23,229 --> 00:03:31,250 of the American constitution? Principle number 7 is the proper role of government is to protect equal rights, 32 00:03:31,250 --> 00:03:39,330 not provide equal things. Oh, how we need to hear this today. The proper role of government is to protect 33 00:03:39,330 --> 00:03:47,930 equal rights, not provide equal things. Have we gone collectively insane as a nation? Has our culture so 34 00:03:47,930 --> 00:03:54,750 effectively performed historical lobotomy on another generation of its citizens that we ignorantly rush 35 00:03:54,750 --> 00:04:01,530 toward incentive-robbing socialism, forgetting what made us a great people? Our founding fathers rightly 36 00:04:01,530 --> 00:04:08,110 saw a large, centralized federal government as intrusive and dictatorial. Most of our generation 37 00:04:08,110 --> 00:04:14,250 sees the federal government as a kindly nanny who only wants to hand out candy to all of her dependents. 38 00:04:14,810 --> 00:04:20,290 We're owed, we're entitled, and government is there to ensure that we get what is coming to us. 39 00:04:20,290 --> 00:04:29,850 What few people realize is that what the government gives always has strings attached, like a mafioso loan, 40 00:04:30,209 --> 00:04:36,149 and all of the spheres in which that government provide for a citizen, well, they automatically feel 41 00:04:36,149 --> 00:04:43,610 they should control. Any welfare mother in the 1970s knew this to her soul. If the father of an out-of-wedlock 42 00:04:43,610 --> 00:04:49,910 baby were to marry the woman and take the responsibility for his actions, why, the money flowing into the 43 00:04:49,910 --> 00:04:55,670 pockets of the mother from the government would end? Who would want that? Why marry when you could just 44 00:04:55,670 --> 00:05:00,550 have more babies and get more money from the government? Oh, all of the government forms and 45 00:05:00,550 --> 00:05:06,350 questionnaires and interviews by social workers were calculated to minimize and smoke out anyone or 46 00:05:06,350 --> 00:05:11,610 anything that might support a woman and her children and eliminate them if they expected to 47 00:05:11,610 --> 00:05:19,129 continue to receive government checks. Here was a genuine disincentive for responsibility, and we saw 48 00:05:19,129 --> 00:05:25,550 the mushrooming of welfare queens all through the inner cities of America. The more we paid for poverty 49 00:05:25,550 --> 00:05:32,569 and babies, having babies, oh, the more poverty we got. For our federal government, this was a fine 50 00:05:32,569 --> 00:05:37,589 arrangement, though. They had millions of souls under their control and billions of dollars to dispense. 51 00:05:37,589 --> 00:05:45,310 This is the essence of power, souls under control and dollars to dispense. For government off the leash 52 00:05:45,310 --> 00:05:51,529 of the Constitution, and the Constitution is, after all, a leash to the federal government, well, the proper 53 00:05:51,529 --> 00:05:59,110 role of government for them is always more government, not the protection of equal rights. Oh, not so with 54 00:05:59,110 --> 00:06:04,790 our founding fathers. They understood that not only do the people who receive government monies and 55 00:06:04,790 --> 00:06:11,790 services become enslaved to it, but some other slave has to pay for it, namely, you and me, those who work 56 00:06:11,790 --> 00:06:18,610 and pay taxes. The fruits of our labor go to someone else who has done nothing to legitimately earn them. 57 00:06:18,790 --> 00:06:24,949 In any normal setting, this would be called for what it is, and that is theft. One of my favorite 58 00:06:24,949 --> 00:06:31,290 philosophers, Frederick Bastiat, has put it something like this. He says, if a government does what any 59 00:06:31,290 --> 00:06:37,649 ordinary individual would do that would be considered stealing, does the fact that government is doing it 60 00:06:37,649 --> 00:06:44,470 make it any less of a crime? If my neighbor to the left of me is in desperate need of a car, and I see 61 00:06:44,470 --> 00:06:50,269 that the neighbor to the right of me has two cars, what would I be called if I went over there and took 62 00:06:50,269 --> 00:06:55,889 his second car and gave it to the neighbor on my left? I would rightly be called a thief and arrested. 63 00:06:55,889 --> 00:07:00,910 If it is illegal for an individual to take the property of his neighbor and give it to some 64 00:07:00,910 --> 00:07:06,610 other neighbor, no matter how well-intentioned this fellow may be, is it any less of a crime when a 65 00:07:06,610 --> 00:07:11,829 government does the same thing, regardless of how compassionate that government is reputed to be? 66 00:07:12,410 --> 00:07:19,310 Oh, the answer, of course, must be no, no. It makes no difference whether an individual steals from 67 00:07:19,310 --> 00:07:25,769 one to give to another or whether a government does it. In both cases, it's stealing. And this is 68 00:07:25,769 --> 00:07:30,970 precisely what happens when government taxes some of its citizens in order to give the fruits of 69 00:07:30,970 --> 00:07:36,910 their labor to other citizens. Those who adopt this point of view as a philosophy of government 70 00:07:36,910 --> 00:07:44,750 have fallen victim to the Robin Hood romance, the Robin Hood romance. Of course, this grand fable is 71 00:07:44,750 --> 00:07:51,589 not a standard in Western lore. It harkens back to 12th and 13th century England when wicked King John 72 00:07:51,589 --> 00:07:57,709 ruled England in place of his brother, Richard the Lionhearted, who was off fighting in the Crusades. 73 00:07:58,050 --> 00:08:04,910 Now, Robin Hood and his merry band of men took it upon themselves to strike a symbolic blow against 74 00:08:04,910 --> 00:08:11,350 tyranny by fighting a guerrilla-style war against the predatory King John and his henchmen, like the 75 00:08:11,350 --> 00:08:17,310 Sheriff of Nottingham. What was their rallying cry? Steal from the rich and give to the poor. Steal from the 76 00:08:17,310 --> 00:08:22,949 rich and give to the poor, right? And the reason that this legend has such enduring power in our culture 77 00:08:22,949 --> 00:08:30,769 is because it feeds upon several very human emotions. First, the Robin Hood romance preys upon 78 00:08:30,769 --> 00:08:40,149 our sinful lust to covet. Yes, the Robin Hood romance preys on sin, our sinful lust to covet. This sin 79 00:08:40,149 --> 00:08:46,149 consists in our desire to have what someone else has. We see that another man has a bigger car or more 80 00:08:46,149 --> 00:08:51,649 elaborate home or a prettier wife, and we want the same thing. We want what he has, and we see no reason 81 00:08:51,649 --> 00:08:56,750 why we shouldn't have it. It seems unfair at first that they have it, and we do not, right? What is often 82 00:08:56,750 --> 00:09:04,769 missed by these blinded by such sin in the Robin Hood romance are these facts. Number one, the man we envy 83 00:09:04,769 --> 00:09:11,750 might actually have earned what he has. Yes, we miss the fact that the man we envy might actually have 84 00:09:11,750 --> 00:09:17,889 earned what he has. I can't tell you how often I've seen a man unwilling to work who is jealous over 85 00:09:17,889 --> 00:09:24,029 another man who has conscientiously worked for years for what he has. This is the greatest factor 86 00:09:24,029 --> 00:09:31,049 in calculating why we have the private sector so exercised over supposed inequities in wealth. 87 00:09:31,690 --> 00:09:38,029 So many in our culture today covet what others have, but will not go out and work to acquire theirs, 88 00:09:38,029 --> 00:09:43,730 but would rather have Biden and the government seize the other man's things and give it to them. 89 00:09:43,970 --> 00:09:49,809 Is it any wonder? Have most Americans even taken a course in basic economics? Do they understand why 90 00:09:49,809 --> 00:09:56,049 some have more wealth than others? Some men just plain work harder. They have equal talent to you. 91 00:09:56,210 --> 00:10:02,029 They put forth more effort and work harder, though. They have equal talent to you. The harder you worked, 92 00:10:02,149 --> 00:10:07,309 the more prosperous you became. That's how it used to be. The government protected your rights and property 93 00:10:07,309 --> 00:10:12,009 and gave you liberty to create as much wealth as your industry and talents could muster. 94 00:10:12,649 --> 00:10:17,629 No one had a right to deprive you of the fruits of your labor. And that was true, at least, until 95 00:10:17,629 --> 00:10:26,269 recently. Modern socialism preys upon weakness in human character. Ah, the sin of coveting. It goads 96 00:10:26,269 --> 00:10:30,730 me into believing that I'm entitled to what another man has just because he has more of it than me. 97 00:10:31,009 --> 00:10:36,309 If I believe in equality, then I should go all the way and demand that all men have equal things. 98 00:10:36,309 --> 00:10:42,970 But this does not correspond to any sort of reality that God has made because we find that some men 99 00:10:42,970 --> 00:10:50,429 just plain work harder than others and consequently acquire and build more property than us. There's 100 00:10:50,429 --> 00:10:55,990 nothing wrong with this, dear listener. There's also another God-ordained truth that is a close 101 00:10:55,990 --> 00:11:02,309 relative of this truth and why we must protect equal rights and not equal things. And that second point 102 00:11:02,309 --> 00:11:09,129 is. Number two, the man we envy might actually have more gifts and talents than us. Oh, yes. 103 00:11:09,669 --> 00:11:16,070 The man we envy might actually have more gifts and talents than us. If all men were born with the same 104 00:11:16,070 --> 00:11:21,629 IQs and the same characters and identical skills, then we might be able to more credibly maintain that 105 00:11:21,629 --> 00:11:26,789 all men should have equal things. But this is not the case, is it? One man is possessed of excellent 106 00:11:26,789 --> 00:11:32,809 math and engineering skills, another with great business acumen, another with the ability to handle 107 00:11:32,809 --> 00:11:37,889 and deal with people. Another fellow might have limited skills and intelligence and is content with 108 00:11:37,889 --> 00:11:45,090 working an assembly line or sweeping floors. Heaven knows I've seen this all my life. The world is full 109 00:11:45,090 --> 00:11:51,169 of men smarter, more talented and better looking than me. This is part of true human diversity, 110 00:11:51,169 --> 00:11:57,129 a thing to be celebrated, dear listener, and why we all have different parts to play in society. 111 00:11:57,450 --> 00:12:04,110 It is ironic to me that socialists want to flatten and level out this aspect of human nature, 112 00:12:04,309 --> 00:12:09,990 which was meant to be, by the way. And they want to exalt and highlight things like race and culture, 113 00:12:09,990 --> 00:12:17,389 which is a false diversity to which we were meant to be blind in terms of the protection of human 114 00:12:17,389 --> 00:12:22,289 rights. Anyway, the truth is nature has endowed some men with greater gifts than others. And 115 00:12:22,289 --> 00:12:28,230 consequently, there will be an unequal distribution of this world's wealth and property. There will be 116 00:12:28,230 --> 00:12:35,029 rich men and there will be poor men. But this in no way lessens the poor man's worth before God or man, 117 00:12:35,029 --> 00:12:41,970 nor does it diminish his equality before God or his equality before the law or the protection of his 118 00:12:41,970 --> 00:12:47,230 rights. All three of which we saw last week when we observed in principle six, that all 119 00:12:47,230 --> 00:12:52,929 men are created equal. But it does mean that he will most likely not earn and acquire the property 120 00:12:52,929 --> 00:12:59,330 and things that his more gifted, talented, hardworking fellow does. This is good and right 121 00:12:59,330 --> 00:13:06,190 and natural, and no man should be egged on into envying his neighbor. Even Jesus rightly observed, 122 00:13:06,309 --> 00:13:11,730 take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the 123 00:13:11,730 --> 00:13:18,610 abundance of his possessions. Jesus says in the Gospels, life can be lived to the fullest with vast 124 00:13:18,610 --> 00:13:24,289 wealth and property or with modest wealth and property. The fullness and satisfaction of a man's 125 00:13:24,289 --> 00:13:31,450 life is up to the individual, not government. And thirdly, we must also observe that the man we envy 126 00:13:31,450 --> 00:13:39,610 has as much right to what he has as I do to mine. Oh, yes. Here's the great blind spot in the sin of 127 00:13:39,610 --> 00:13:47,029 coveting. What we hoard our own and spit out venom over what the rich guy has, we fail to realize that 128 00:13:47,029 --> 00:13:51,389 if it is right and just for us to covet his stuff, it is equally right and just for someone else to 129 00:13:51,389 --> 00:13:58,409 covet what we have. Our stuff can be taken too. Wherever you go and whomever you meet, you'll always 130 00:13:58,409 --> 00:14:03,269 find that someone has more than you do, and someone else has less than you do. What are you going to do 131 00:14:03,269 --> 00:14:08,629 about it? I heard one idealistic young man say years and years ago, well, no one should have as much 132 00:14:08,629 --> 00:14:14,029 as Bill Gates or T-Bone Pickens. Admittedly, these are two very rich men, billionaires who regularly 133 00:14:14,029 --> 00:14:19,470 top the list of the richest in the world, and millions of sad Americans envy them, and they 134 00:14:19,470 --> 00:14:23,750 covet what they have and the lives that they live. But once again, what are you going to do about it? 135 00:14:23,990 --> 00:14:29,009 Our founding fathers would tell you to go out and make your own billion. The opportunity is available 136 00:14:29,009 --> 00:14:35,029 to you as it was to them. That's the constitutional answer. But lacking our constitutional answer, 137 00:14:35,029 --> 00:14:39,389 how are you going to take their wealth from them without earning it? How are you going to take their 138 00:14:39,389 --> 00:14:44,490 wealth from them that won't be considered stealing? Who's going to decide how much you'll take and what 139 00:14:44,490 --> 00:14:50,870 they deserve and who is rich enough? In the past, this was left to the individual and his savvy in 140 00:14:50,870 --> 00:14:57,850 the marketplace. The sky was the limit. Wealth is created and is not a finite pie that must be carefully 141 00:14:57,850 --> 00:15:05,350 divided equally amongst all. No, our founding fathers realized that so far, excuse me, was wealth 142 00:15:05,350 --> 00:15:12,250 from being one pie to be shared. That man rather created more pies and that the number of those pies 143 00:15:12,250 --> 00:15:18,470 is limited only by his abilities and ingenuity. Government's role was not to cut one pie equally, 144 00:15:18,629 --> 00:15:24,970 but to ensure that every man had equal opportunity to bake his own and as many as he could. That was how 145 00:15:24,970 --> 00:15:31,090 government under our founding fathers saw things, that is until recently once again. Now government 146 00:15:31,090 --> 00:15:36,889 sees their role as being the arbiter of other men's wealth and ensuring that there's a fair 147 00:15:36,889 --> 00:15:44,070 distribution, quote unquote, of it among the people. An envious, covetous population stares at those who 148 00:15:44,070 --> 00:15:51,409 have more and they say, this is change we need. Oh, go, Joe, take it and give me some. Yeah, millions of 149 00:15:51,409 --> 00:15:59,529 have nots among us cheer them on and we vote for them as many so did for Joe Biden. Oh, go get them, 150 00:15:59,570 --> 00:16:04,750 Joe, is the attitude. Go after those rich people and take their money and give me some, right? I remember 151 00:16:04,750 --> 00:16:12,970 hearing one naive young man on a radio call-in program exulting in the impending election of Joe Biden and 152 00:16:12,970 --> 00:16:19,570 his excitement at getting a tax rebate check in the mail for a thousand dollars, right? How cheaply he has 153 00:16:19,570 --> 00:16:26,549 sold his birthright. Instead of limitless wealth in a free market economy, limited only by his own gifts 154 00:16:26,549 --> 00:16:32,409 and talents and energy, this young man was ready to trade that in for a government-dictated economy 155 00:16:32,409 --> 00:16:38,389 in which he might get a thousand dollars and that's all. Huh. Even Esau, who sold his birthright to 156 00:16:38,389 --> 00:16:44,230 Jacob for a pot of stew, would be shocked at how many Americans are ready to sell their birthright 157 00:16:44,230 --> 00:16:51,269 in a free market capitalist economy for government socialism? Make no mistake about this, old 158 00:16:51,269 --> 00:16:56,529 listener. If government can take the wealth of the rich man and distribute it at its whim, 159 00:16:56,769 --> 00:17:02,950 then it can also take the wealth of any other man, whether rich, middle class, or poor, and give that 160 00:17:02,950 --> 00:17:09,069 wealth, distribute it according to their whim. This is the double-edged sword of socialism in the world 161 00:17:09,069 --> 00:17:15,230 of the covetous. While you envy and covet the wealth of the man richer than you, the man poorer than you 162 00:17:15,230 --> 00:17:20,990 covets your wealth and property and is asking government to take your wealth and give it to him. 163 00:17:21,190 --> 00:17:32,109 Oh, if our predatory, confiscatory government can seize the wealth of T-bone Pickens or Barack Obama or 164 00:17:32,109 --> 00:17:37,670 Bill Gates and can seize that money and give some of it to you, then it can also seize your wealth. 165 00:17:37,670 --> 00:17:41,490 And somewhere down the road, give it to some other sucker who has less than you. 166 00:17:41,890 --> 00:17:47,089 Who will stop such a government? Certainly not you, oh covetous one. You have forfeited, 167 00:17:47,230 --> 00:17:52,470 if you are covetous, you have forfeited all right of protection, having denied it to others. 168 00:17:52,910 --> 00:18:00,029 Our founding fathers saw things differently. They saw that by protecting individual liberty and allowing 169 00:18:00,029 --> 00:18:05,569 a free market to determine who succeeds and who fails, leaving government to regulate at a 170 00:18:05,569 --> 00:18:10,730 minimum from the sidelines. Well, that the potential then for the maximum number of people 171 00:18:10,730 --> 00:18:15,130 to succeed to the maximum extent would be vastly increased. 172 00:18:15,710 --> 00:18:17,769 Cleon Skousen puts it this way. He says, 173 00:18:17,769 --> 00:18:24,049 The entire American concept of freedom to prosper was based on the belief that man's instinctive will 174 00:18:24,049 --> 00:18:30,130 to succeed in a climate of liberty would result in the whole people prospering together. It was thought 175 00:18:30,130 --> 00:18:35,769 that even the poor could lift themselves through education and individual effort to become independent 176 00:18:35,769 --> 00:18:37,589 and self-sufficient. Unquote. 177 00:18:37,650 --> 00:18:44,170 Government has a proper role in wealth creation. They must guarantee that all men have equal access to 178 00:18:44,170 --> 00:18:51,410 opportunities to exercise their God-given talents and gifts. The property men do acquire must be protected 179 00:18:51,410 --> 00:18:58,009 by police and fire and the courts. Crimes against persons and property must be rigorously punished 180 00:18:58,009 --> 00:19:04,650 and enforced. Otherwise, government must recognize that not all men will earn the same or accumulate the 181 00:19:04,650 --> 00:19:10,130 same or have equal outcomes. There will be rich, there will be those in the middle, and there will be 182 00:19:10,130 --> 00:19:16,930 poor. Every man is entitled to equal opportunity by our Constitution, but it does not guarantee equal 183 00:19:16,930 --> 00:19:24,869 outcomes for every citizen. Oh, principle number eight. Principle number eight in the 5,000-year leap 184 00:19:24,869 --> 00:19:30,609 is men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Does that sound familiar? 185 00:19:30,990 --> 00:19:36,809 Go out and do your own informal man-on-the-street interview concerning the origin of our rights, 186 00:19:36,809 --> 00:19:42,170 and I guarantee you that you will come out with the results that I have found. Most people will 187 00:19:42,170 --> 00:19:47,589 answer, well, we get our rights from the government, of course. To them, our rights originate in the 188 00:19:47,589 --> 00:19:53,470 government as if the state were God. This is one of the primary reasons that we're headed for tyranny 189 00:19:53,470 --> 00:19:59,190 in the next generation or so, if we're not there already, if things don't change. If the state is God 190 00:19:59,190 --> 00:20:04,910 and the legitimate dispenser of rights, then they can also rearrange them or take them away 191 00:20:04,910 --> 00:20:11,829 altogether, if they so desire. If our rights inhere in the state, they are alienable, as Thomas Jefferson 192 00:20:11,829 --> 00:20:18,130 might put it. They can be taken away by the state whenever it so pleases. Oh, how far we've drifted 193 00:20:18,130 --> 00:20:24,150 from our original constitutional vision. After centuries of development and thought, men like 194 00:20:24,150 --> 00:20:31,250 John Locke concluded, and I quote Locke now, he says, the state of nature has a law of nature to 195 00:20:31,250 --> 00:20:37,529 govern it, which teaches all mankind that no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, 196 00:20:37,529 --> 00:20:43,849 or possessions. They, that is those things, the people, are his, that is God's property. Unquote. 197 00:20:43,970 --> 00:20:49,650 It is God who has invested us with these rights to life, health, liberty, and possessions, as Locke 198 00:20:49,650 --> 00:20:56,470 puts it. No mere man can either add to them or subtract from them. They originate in every individual 199 00:20:56,470 --> 00:21:03,809 man bestowed upon him by God. Each individual owes his first allegiance then to God for them and not 200 00:21:03,809 --> 00:21:10,329 to the state. Each individual also has the right to protect his own life, health, liberty, and possessions 201 00:21:10,329 --> 00:21:17,490 without asking the state's permission or anyone else's to do so. He may do this with lawyers, fists, 202 00:21:17,690 --> 00:21:23,150 guns, or barricades, or anything else necessary to defend those unalienable rights. This is why the 203 00:21:23,150 --> 00:21:28,390 Second Amendment to the Constitution was written. That is the right to bear arms, because our founding 204 00:21:28,390 --> 00:21:34,589 fathers knew that the chief threat to unalienable rights was government. Government was the chief 205 00:21:34,589 --> 00:21:40,089 threat to liberty for our founding fathers, the Parliament and King George III, for example, 206 00:21:40,309 --> 00:21:46,190 and it's the chief threat to us and our unalienable rights. That is Congress, the courts, and the 207 00:21:46,190 --> 00:21:52,069 executive. They all threaten our rights today. They don't protect them. The great irony in America today 208 00:21:52,069 --> 00:21:57,170 is that while our founding fathers created our Constitution to guarantee and protect those 209 00:21:57,170 --> 00:22:03,190 inherent rights, our leaders today have so twisted the Constitution that they now tell us that inherent 210 00:22:03,190 --> 00:22:09,369 right exists in government, and you must look to them for permission to exercise your rights. 211 00:22:10,029 --> 00:22:14,029 Oh, government tells you how you should practice your religion in and out of the public sphere. 212 00:22:14,410 --> 00:22:19,049 Government tells you increasingly how to arm and protect yourself and your family if you do it at all. 213 00:22:19,049 --> 00:22:24,670 Government tells you what and how much you can earn and how and when to dispose of your property and on 214 00:22:24,670 --> 00:22:32,109 and on it goes with the bulk of the populace buying it all like sheep. We've become a nation of pharaoh 215 00:22:32,109 --> 00:22:37,910 worshipers, believing that without them, the pharaohs, the sun would stop shining, the earth would no 216 00:22:37,910 --> 00:22:44,450 longer yield its fruits, and the sea would dry up. This is why the great pharaohs could hoodwink an entire 217 00:22:44,450 --> 00:22:51,089 people into building the pyramids, sphinxes, and palaces. And of course, pharaoh is a long time 218 00:22:51,089 --> 00:22:56,710 gone, but the sun continues to shine the earth, yields her abundance, and the seas continue to roll, 219 00:22:56,829 --> 00:23:03,950 don't they? But what a great ruse it was for several millennia. How the people were fooled. What a great 220 00:23:03,950 --> 00:23:09,450 time we had in the meantime, the pharaohs, right? And aren't those pyramids dandy? Now, we have something 221 00:23:09,450 --> 00:23:16,009 akin to the pharaonic order of things happening in the United States. That great pharaoh of our own 222 00:23:16,009 --> 00:23:21,950 day, Joe Biden, and his high priest in Congress and the courts, have most of our fellow citizens 223 00:23:21,950 --> 00:23:27,509 fooled that without them, the economy would fail, the pope would be spying on you in your bedroom, 224 00:23:27,630 --> 00:23:32,789 the seas would boil and overwhelm our coastlines, the polar bears would go extinct, and our ice caps 225 00:23:32,789 --> 00:23:37,009 would melt because of global warming, and every woman who even thinks about an abortion would be 226 00:23:37,009 --> 00:23:44,430 personally waterboarded, right, by Trump. The initiative, the intuitive default view is that 227 00:23:44,430 --> 00:23:49,490 all power and life and rights originate in the federal government, and aren't we fortunate 228 00:23:49,490 --> 00:23:57,309 that we have such a kingly figure in Washington, D.C. now to dispense them to us? How grateful you 229 00:23:57,309 --> 00:24:03,690 should be, oh comrade of the United Socialist States of America, for you're pharaoh and his high 230 00:24:03,690 --> 00:24:08,210 priests. Without Joe Biden, the sun would go out, the earth would shrivel up, and the seas would dry 231 00:24:08,210 --> 00:24:14,769 up like a puddle in the Adelope Desert. This is not the constitution bestowed upon us by our founding 232 00:24:14,769 --> 00:24:20,730 fathers. That document was designed to do two major things, that is, give a central federal government 233 00:24:20,730 --> 00:24:27,329 enough delegated power to protect the individual and his God-given rights on the one hand, and a 234 00:24:27,329 --> 00:24:33,390 document which severely limited the power of that same government on the other hand, precisely because 235 00:24:33,390 --> 00:24:40,529 our founding fathers had observed in history the tendency of government to amass power to itself 236 00:24:40,529 --> 00:24:46,769 and abuse the rights of its people. Over this constitution and its limited government and several 237 00:24:46,769 --> 00:24:51,930 delegated powers, the people were expected to vigilantly watch, which we haven't been doing, 238 00:24:52,390 --> 00:24:59,910 ensuring by watching that they would always protect their own unalienable rights. Although Thomas 239 00:24:59,910 --> 00:25:06,430 Jefferson, in the Declaration, articulated life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable 240 00:25:06,430 --> 00:25:12,970 rights, those were not all. The little word among is often neglected when we recite this famous line. 241 00:25:13,509 --> 00:25:20,089 All men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among those are life, 242 00:25:20,250 --> 00:25:25,809 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Oh, there are many, many, many more rights, dear listener. 243 00:25:25,809 --> 00:25:32,690 Oh, finally, how do you know, dear listener, when tyranny is present? Oh, when the artful cunning of 244 00:25:32,690 --> 00:25:38,309 political leaders tries to convince you that government precedes your unalienable rights, 245 00:25:38,529 --> 00:25:44,009 and that government decides when to dispense your rights and when they can be withheld. Oh, 246 00:25:44,529 --> 00:25:50,549 when government feels they can intrude upon those rights at will and seize your property and convince 247 00:25:50,549 --> 00:25:55,789 you that you must depend on them rather than the truth while they depend upon you. That's 248 00:25:55,789 --> 00:26:01,930 should be the way it is. At first, our government made laws to protect unalienable rights that come 249 00:26:01,930 --> 00:26:09,009 from God. Now they make laws to dictate retractable rights that come from them. Oh, how have things 250 00:26:09,009 --> 00:26:16,369 gotten so turned around? Life, liberty, and property do not exist, as Bastiat says. Life, liberty, and 251 00:26:16,369 --> 00:26:22,450 property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, 252 00:26:22,450 --> 00:26:28,049 liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws, Frederick Bastiat. 253 00:26:28,710 --> 00:26:34,470 This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We meet for holy 254 00:26:34,470 --> 00:26:40,690 worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard, and you can call us 255 00:26:40,690 --> 00:26:49,730 for more information at area code 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.