Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with the Moment of Truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. Today, what are principles seven and eight in the 5,000-year leap? Scholars have summarized all of those things that our founding fathers taught and thought, and they've done it in 28 foundational principles, and they've done it in a book, The 5,000-Year Leap, The 5,000-Year Leap.

Now, those of you who have been tracking with us know that these principles were so revolutionary that they propelled American ingenuity and creativity so far forward that we can say with supreme confidence that all of human civilization took a cultural leap of some 5,000 years in a matter of 200-plus years of American history. We can say that liberty on this continent has produced wealth that has far exceeded anything a collective government could have produced by restricting the individual or limiting his options. Everything from the electric light bulb to the atomic bomb was invented in our wide-open, create-what-you-will culture.

We went from traveling as fast as a horse could take us for millennia to faster than the speed of sound in a few hundred years. We went from dreaming about the moon in poetry and song to actually walking on it and returning those men back to the good old United States of America with samples from its surface. All of this is now in danger as we quickly descend into century-old ways of collectivism, statism, and the tyranny of kings and despots. There's no better way to rob initiative and productivity from the human soul than to make us all dependent on the government rather than our own resources, talents, and the grace of God.

I can say all of this confidently because of the record we have before us in our history and most importantly in the transparent record of our constitution. The constitution of the United States of America is the charter of our liberty that has enabled more human potential to be realized than any other document ever composed outside of the Bible. When men and women of Christian moral integrity are liberated to act on their gifts and talents, why, they produce what we have seen in our history.

The transparent record of our constitution is embodied for us in the 28 principles of the constitution conveniently condensed for us in a fine book, the 5,000-year leap. Much of what I have to share with you has been taken from it. It is the product of years of labor by the National Center for Constitutional Studies. Its leader was the venerable Dr. Cleon Skousen, who produced the 5,000-year leap in conjunction with a number of other scholars. In this work, you will find the 28 principles of the constitution established by our founding fathers.

And I highly commend it to you. You can find information about it and other materials at nccs.org, nccs.org. Well, what are principles 7 and 8 in our 28 principles of the American constitution? Principle number 7 is the proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things. Oh, how we need to hear this today.

The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things. Have we gone collectively insane as a nation? Has our culture so effectively performed historical lobotomy on another generation of its citizens that we ignorantly rush toward incentive-robbing socialism, forgetting what made us a great people? Our founding fathers rightly saw a large, centralized federal government as intrusive and dictatorial. Most of our generation sees the federal government as a kindly nanny who only wants to hand out candy to all of her dependents.

We're owed, we're entitled, and government is there to ensure that we get what is coming to us. What few people realize is that what the government gives always has strings attached, like a mafioso loan, and all of the spheres in which that government provide for a citizen, well, they automatically feel they should control. Any welfare mother in the 1970s knew this to her soul. If the father of an out-of-wedlock baby were to marry the woman and take the responsibility for his actions, why, the money flowing into the pockets of the mother from the government would end? Who would want that?

Why marry when you could just have more babies and get more money from the government? Oh, all of the government forms and questionnaires and interviews by social workers were calculated to minimize and smoke out anyone or anything that might support a woman and her children and eliminate them if they expected to continue to receive government checks. Here was a genuine disincentive for responsibility, and we saw the mushrooming of welfare queens all through the inner cities of America. The more we paid for poverty and babies, having babies, oh, the more poverty we got. For our federal government, this was a fine arrangement, though.

They had millions of souls under their control and billions of dollars to dispense. This is the essence of power, souls under control and dollars to dispense. For government off the leash of the Constitution, and the Constitution is, after all, a leash to the federal government, well, the proper role of government for them is always more government, not the protection of equal rights. Oh, not so with our founding fathers. They understood that not only do the people who receive government monies and services become enslaved to it, but some other slave has to pay for it, namely, you and me, those who work and pay taxes.

The fruits of our labor go to someone else who has done nothing to legitimately earn them. In any normal setting, this would be called for what it is, and that is theft. One of my favorite philosophers, Frederick Bastiat, has put it something like this. He says, if a government does what any ordinary individual would do that would be considered stealing, does the fact that government is doing it 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 that the neighbor to the right of me has two cars, what would I be called if I went over there and took his second car and gave it to the neighbor on my left? I would rightly be called a thief and arrested. If it is illegal for an individual to take the property of his neighbor and give it to some other neighbor, no matter how well-intentioned this fellow may be, is it any less of a crime when a government does the same thing, regardless of how compassionate that government is reputed to be? Oh, the answer, of course, must be no, no.

It makes no difference whether an individual steals from one to give to another or whether a government does it. In both cases, it's stealing. And this is precisely what happens when government taxes some of its citizens in order to give the fruits of their labor to other citizens. Those who adopt this point of view as a philosophy of government have fallen victim to the Robin Hood romance, the Robin Hood romance. Of course, this grand fable is not a standard in Western lore.

It harkens back to 12th and 13th century England when wicked King John ruled England in place of his brother, Richard the Lionhearted, who was off fighting in the Crusades. Now, Robin Hood and his merry band of men took it upon themselves to strike a symbolic blow against tyranny by fighting a guerrilla-style war against the predatory King John and his henchmen, like the Sheriff of Nottingham. What was their rallying cry? Steal from the rich and give to the poor. Steal from the rich and give to the poor, right?

And the reason that this legend has such enduring power in our culture is because it feeds upon several very human emotions. First, the Robin Hood romance preys upon our sinful lust to covet. Yes, the Robin Hood romance preys on sin, our sinful lust to covet. This sin consists in our desire to have what someone else has. We see that another man has a bigger car or more elaborate home or a prettier wife, and we want the same thing.

We want what he has, and we see no reason why we shouldn't have it. It seems unfair at first that they have it, and we do not, right? What is often missed by these blinded by such sin in the Robin Hood romance are these facts. Number one, the man we envy might actually have earned what he has. Yes, we miss the fact that the man we envy might actually have earned what he has.

I can't tell you how often I've seen a man unwilling to work who is jealous over another man who has conscientiously worked for years for what he has. This is the greatest factor in calculating why we have the private sector so exercised over supposed inequities in wealth. So many in our culture today covet what others have, but will not go out and work to acquire theirs, but would rather have Biden and the government seize the other man's things and give it to them. Is it any wonder? Have most Americans even taken a course in basic economics?

Do they understand why some have more wealth than others? Some men just plain work harder. They have equal talent to you. They put forth more effort and work harder, though. They have equal talent to you.

The harder you worked, the more prosperous you became. That's how it used to be. The government protected your rights and property and gave you liberty to create as much wealth as your industry and talents could muster. No one had a right to deprive you of the fruits of your labor. And that was true, at least, until recently.

Modern socialism preys upon weakness in human character. Ah, the sin of coveting. It goads me into believing that I'm entitled to what another man has just because he has more of it than me. If I believe in equality, then I should go all the way and demand that all men have equal things. But this does not correspond to any sort of reality that God has made because we find that some men just plain work harder than others and consequently acquire and build more property than us.

There's nothing wrong with this, dear listener. There's also another God-ordained truth that is a close relative of this truth and why we must protect equal rights and not equal things. And that second point is. Number two, the man we envy might actually have more gifts and talents than us. Oh, yes.

The man we envy might actually have more gifts and talents than us. If all men were born with the same IQs and the same characters and identical skills, then we might be able to more credibly maintain that all men should have equal things. But this is not the case, is it? One man is possessed of excellent math and engineering skills, another with great business acumen, another with the ability to handle and deal with people. Another fellow might have limited skills and intelligence and is content with working an assembly line or sweeping floors.

Heaven knows I've seen this all my life. The world is full of men smarter, more talented and better looking than me. This is part of true human diversity, a thing to be celebrated, dear listener, and why we all have different parts to play in society. It is ironic to me that socialists want to flatten and level out this aspect of human nature, which was meant to be, by the way. And they want to exalt and highlight things like race and culture, which is a false diversity to which we were meant to be blind in terms of the protection of human rights.

Anyway, the truth is nature has endowed some men with greater gifts than others. And consequently, there will be an unequal distribution of this world's wealth and property. There will be rich men and there will be poor men. But this in no way lessens the poor man's worth before God or man, nor does it diminish his equality before God or his equality before the law or the protection of his rights. All three of which we saw last week when we observed in principle six, that all men are created equal.

But it does mean that he will most likely not earn and acquire the property and things that his more gifted, talented, hardworking fellow does. This is good and right and natural, and no man should be egged on into envying his neighbor. Even Jesus rightly observed, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. Jesus says in the Gospels, life can be lived to the fullest with vast wealth and property or with modest wealth and property. The fullness and satisfaction of a man's life is up to the individual, not government.

And thirdly, we must also observe that the man we envy 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 coveting. What we hoard our own and spit out venom over what the rich guy has, we fail to realize that if it is right and just for us to covet his stuff, it is equally right and just for someone else to covet what we have. Our stuff can be taken too.

Wherever you go and whomever you meet, you'll always find that someone has more than you do, and someone else has less than you do. What are you going to do about it? I heard one idealistic young man say years and years ago, well, no one should have as much as Bill Gates or T-Bone Pickens. Admittedly, these are two very rich men, billionaires who regularly top the list of the richest in the world, and millions of sad Americans envy them, and they covet what they have and the lives that they live. But once again, what are you going to do about it?

Our founding fathers would tell you to go out and make your own billion. The opportunity is available to you as it was to them. That's the constitutional answer. But lacking our constitutional answer, how are you going to take their wealth from them without earning it? How are you going to take their wealth from them that won't be considered stealing?

Who's going to decide how much you'll take and what they deserve and who is rich enough? In the past, this was left to the individual and his savvy in the marketplace. The sky was the limit. Wealth is created and is not a finite pie that must be carefully divided equally amongst all. No, our founding fathers realized that so far, excuse me, was wealth from being one pie to be shared.

That man rather created more pies and that the number of those pies is limited only by his abilities and ingenuity. Government's role was not to cut one pie equally, but to ensure that every man had equal opportunity to bake his own and as many as he could. That was how government under our founding fathers saw things, that is until recently once again. Now government sees their role as being the arbiter of other men's wealth and ensuring that there's a fair distribution, quote unquote, of it among the people. An envious, covetous population stares at those who have more and they say, this is change we need.

Oh, go, Joe, take it and give me some. Yeah, millions of have nots among us cheer them on and we vote for them as many so did for Joe Biden. Oh, go get them, Joe, is the attitude. Go after those rich people and take their money and give me some, right? I remember hearing one naive young man on a radio call-in program exulting in the impending election of Joe Biden and his excitement at getting a tax rebate check in the mail for a thousand dollars, right?

How cheaply he has sold his birthright. Instead of limitless wealth in a free market economy, limited only by his own gifts and talents and energy, this young man was ready to trade that in for a government-dictated economy in which he might get a thousand dollars and that's all. Huh. Even Esau, who sold his birthright to Jacob for a pot of stew, would be shocked at how many Americans are ready to sell their birthright in a free market capitalist economy for government socialism? Make no mistake about this, old listener.

If government can take the wealth of the rich man and distribute it at its whim, then it can also take the wealth of any other man, whether rich, middle class, or poor, and give that wealth, distribute it according to their whim. This is the double-edged sword of socialism in the world of the covetous. While you envy and covet the wealth of the man richer than you, the man poorer than you covets your wealth and property and is asking government to take your wealth and give it to him.

Oh, if our predatory, confiscatory government can seize the wealth of T-bone Pickens or Barack Obama or Bill Gates and can seize that money and give some of it to you, then it can also seize your wealth. And somewhere down the road, give it to some other sucker who has less than you. Who will stop such a government? Certainly not you, oh covetous one. You have forfeited, if you are covetous, you have forfeited all right of protection, having denied it to others.

Our founding fathers saw things differently. They saw that by protecting individual liberty and allowing a free market to determine who succeeds and who fails, leaving government to regulate at a minimum from the sidelines. Well, that the potential then for the maximum number of people to succeed to the maximum extent would be vastly increased. Cleon Skousen puts it this way. He says, The entire American concept of freedom to prosper was based on the belief that man's instinctive will to succeed in a climate of liberty would result in the whole people prospering together.

It was thought that even the poor could lift themselves through education and individual effort to become independent and self-sufficient. Unquote. Government has a proper role in wealth creation. They must guarantee that all men have equal access to opportunities to exercise their God-given talents and gifts. The property men do acquire must be protected by police and fire and the courts.

Crimes against persons and property must be rigorously punished and enforced. Otherwise, government must recognize that not all men will earn the same or accumulate the same or have equal outcomes. There will be rich, there will be those in the middle, and there will be poor. Every man is entitled to equal opportunity by our Constitution, but it does not guarantee equal outcomes for every citizen. Oh, principle number eight.

Principle number eight in the 5,000-year leap is men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Does that sound familiar? Go out and do your own informal man-on-the-street interview concerning the origin of our rights, and I guarantee you that you will come out with the results that I have found. Most people will answer, well, we get our rights from the government, of course. To them, our rights originate in the government as if the state were God.

This is one of the primary reasons that we're headed for tyranny in the next generation or so, if we're not there already, if things don't change. If the state is God and the legitimate dispenser of rights, then they can also rearrange them or take them away altogether, if they so desire. If our rights inhere in the state, they are alienable, as Thomas Jefferson might put it. They can be taken away by the state whenever it so pleases. Oh, how far we've drifted from our original constitutional vision.

After centuries of development and thought, men like John Locke concluded, and I quote Locke now, he says, the state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which teaches all mankind that no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. They, that is those things, the people, are his, that is God's property. Unquote. It is God who has invested us with these rights to life, health, liberty, and possessions, as Locke puts it. No mere man can either add to them or subtract from them.

They originate in every individual man bestowed upon him by God. Each individual owes his first allegiance then to God for them and not to the state. Each individual also has the right to protect his own life, health, liberty, and possessions without asking the state's permission or anyone else's to do so. He may do this with lawyers, fists, guns, or barricades, or anything else necessary to defend those unalienable rights. This is why the Second Amendment to the Constitution was written.

That is the right to bear arms, because our founding fathers knew that the chief threat to unalienable rights was government. Government was the chief threat to liberty for our founding fathers, the Parliament and King George III, for example, and it's the chief threat to us and our unalienable rights. That is Congress, the courts, and the executive. They all threaten our rights today. They don't protect them.

The great irony in America today is that while our founding fathers created our Constitution to guarantee and protect those inherent rights, our leaders today have so twisted the Constitution that they now tell us that inherent right exists in government, and you must look to them for permission to exercise your rights. Oh, government tells you how you should practice your religion in and out of the public sphere. Government tells you increasingly how to arm and protect yourself and your family if you do it at all.

Government tells you what and how much you can earn and how and when to dispose of your property and on and on it goes with the bulk of the populace buying it all like sheep. We've become a nation of pharaoh worshipers, believing that without them, the pharaohs, the sun would stop shining, the earth would no longer yield its fruits, and the sea would dry up. This is why the great pharaohs could hoodwink an entire people into building the pyramids, sphinxes, and palaces. And of course, pharaoh is a long time gone, but the sun continues to shine the earth, yields her abundance, and the seas continue to roll, don't they?

But what a great ruse it was for several millennia. How the people were fooled. What a great time we had in the meantime, the pharaohs, right? And aren't those pyramids dandy? Now, we have something akin to the pharaonic order of things happening in the United States.

That great pharaoh of our own day, Joe Biden, and his high priest in Congress and the courts, have most of our fellow citizens fooled that without them, the economy would fail, the pope would be spying on you in your bedroom, the seas would boil and overwhelm our coastlines, the polar bears would go extinct, and our ice caps would melt because of global warming, and every woman who even thinks about an abortion would be personally waterboarded, right, by Trump.

The initiative, the intuitive default view is that all power and life and rights originate in the federal government, and aren't we fortunate that we have such a kingly figure in Washington, D.C. now to dispense them to us? How grateful you should be, oh comrade of the United Socialist States of America, for you're pharaoh and his high priests. Without Joe Biden, the sun would go out, the earth would shrivel up, and the seas would dry up like a puddle in the Adelope Desert. This is not the constitution bestowed upon us by our founding fathers.

That document was designed to do two major things, that is, give a central federal government enough delegated power to protect the individual and his God-given rights on the one hand, and a document which severely limited the power of that same government on the other hand, precisely because our founding fathers had observed in history the tendency of government to amass power to itself and abuse the rights of its people.

Over this constitution and its limited government and several delegated powers, the people were expected to vigilantly watch, which we haven't been doing, ensuring by watching that they would always protect their own unalienable rights. Although Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration, articulated life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights, those were not all. The little word among is often neglected when we recite this famous line. All men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Oh, there are many, many, many more rights, dear listener. Oh, finally, how do you know, dear listener, when tyranny is present? Oh, when the artful cunning of political leaders tries to convince you that government precedes your unalienable rights, and that government decides when to dispense your rights and when they can be withheld. Oh, when government feels they can intrude upon those rights at will and seize your property and convince you that you must depend on them rather than the truth while they depend upon you. That's should be the way it is.

At first, our government made laws to protect unalienable rights that come from God. Now they make laws to dictate retractable rights that come from them. Oh, how have things gotten so turned around? Life, liberty, and property do not exist, as Bastiat says. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws.

On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws, Frederick Bastiat. This has been Pastor David Bass at 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. 208-523-0196.