1
00:00:04,780 --> 00:00:10,060
Greetings, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church

2
00:00:10,060 --> 00:00:14,779
with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and

3
00:00:14,779 --> 00:00:21,500
faith. And today, what are Principles 9 and 10 of the 28 Principles of the Constitution?

4
00:00:22,239 --> 00:00:27,620
Now, we've been methodically working our way through these 28 Principles as they are found

5
00:00:27,620 --> 00:00:36,280
in the landmark book, The 5,000-Year Leap. Our Founding Fathers had a core base of principles

6
00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:43,179
upon which they shaped and crafted the specific provisions of our Constitution. It's not a document

7
00:00:43,179 --> 00:00:50,399
that came floating down from heaven in the hands of an angel, nor was it transmitted telepathically by

8
00:00:50,399 --> 00:00:57,340
space aliens to Thomas Jefferson's pen. No, rather the United States Constitution was the product

9
00:00:57,340 --> 00:01:05,140
of some 5,000 years of thought and wisdom and experience, cold from decades of reflection by

10
00:01:05,140 --> 00:01:12,560
philosophers and common men, too, who crafted the Constitution. And they all saw themselves as

11
00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:18,739
statesmen who had an opportunity to give the world a system of government that was the best the

12
00:01:18,739 --> 00:01:24,780
millennia of human experience could offer, tempered by what the Bible revealed and philosophers thought.

13
00:01:24,780 --> 00:01:31,439
What the book, The 5,000-Year Leap, has done is summarize all of what men like George Washington,

14
00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:37,840
Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton poured into the formation of the Constitution.

15
00:01:38,519 --> 00:01:44,620
Written under the supervision of Dr. W. Kleon-Skousen, in conjunction with several other fine

16
00:01:44,620 --> 00:01:52,040
scholars, is perhaps the best primer on the Constitution that is available. And so, if you like what you hear

17
00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:58,980
on this program, and I've drawn much of what is heard here from those resources, well, I urge you to buy

18
00:01:58,980 --> 00:02:06,040
this book. In addition, maybe another book from the National Center for Constitutional Studies, The Making

19
00:02:06,040 --> 00:02:17,060
of America. You can buy these books and others on their website, nccs.org, nccs.org, the National Center for

20
00:02:17,060 --> 00:02:23,199
Constitutional Studies. Well, the ninth principle articulated in the 5,000-Year Leap is this.

21
00:02:23,879 --> 00:02:31,800
To protect man's rights, God has revealed certain principles of divine law. Yes, to protect man's rights,

22
00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:37,780
God has revealed certain principles of divine law. Well, as we saw last week, God has endowed man

23
00:02:37,780 --> 00:02:43,900
with certain unalienable rights, and these rights are God-given. They're original, and they cannot be altered

24
00:02:43,900 --> 00:02:49,879
or broken by man. Every man has the duty to protect these rights in himself and his fellow man.

25
00:02:50,280 --> 00:02:56,479
Crucially, however, in order to do this, these rights must be guarded in the practical sphere

26
00:02:56,479 --> 00:03:03,780
by a surrounding fence, if you will, of law. Yes, the unalienable right to life, liberty,

27
00:03:03,780 --> 00:03:11,120
and the pursuit of happiness is fine in the abstract world of ideas. But if it is to mean anything in the

28
00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:16,400
real world of everyday experience, they must be guarded and protected by practical laws, knowable

29
00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:22,719
to all men. This is what we mean by the principles of divine law that protect man's rights. What are the

30
00:03:22,719 --> 00:03:27,860
laws that protect man's rights? Well, first of all, we must recognize the most fundamental,

31
00:03:28,580 --> 00:03:34,360
the most fundamental, excuse me, set of laws ever revealed by the Creator, the God of the Bible,

32
00:03:34,360 --> 00:03:41,439
and those are the Ten Commandments. And when those are adhered to, those commandments not only express

33
00:03:41,439 --> 00:03:47,439
that which God always at all times expects from man as religious behavior, but it also expresses

34
00:03:47,439 --> 00:03:54,139
that which protects our rights as we live amongst one another. The first table of the law, according

35
00:03:54,139 --> 00:03:59,719
to Jesus, is love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

36
00:03:59,719 --> 00:04:05,719
But the second table of law is equally important. And our Lord goes on to say, you shall love your

37
00:04:05,719 --> 00:04:12,620
neighbor as yourself. Indeed, if we love our neighbor as ourselves, then we will labor to protect

38
00:04:12,620 --> 00:04:18,980
his rights as well as ours. Ever since they were first promulgated from the top of Mount Sinai to the

39
00:04:18,980 --> 00:04:27,480
people of Israel, the Ten Commandments have had a profound and lasting impact upon the cultures and law

40
00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:34,560
codes of every civilized society in the world. In fact, our Constitution is what is in large part

41
00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:42,079
because of them. Yes, the 19th century Supreme Court Justice David Brewer, he notes for us in his

42
00:04:42,079 --> 00:04:48,600
notes, our laws and customs are based upon the laws of Moses, that is the Ten Commandments, and the

43
00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:54,959
teachings of Christ, unquote. This particular point is important to me personally, because I, in the past,

44
00:04:54,959 --> 00:05:02,360
have preached through the Ten Commandments in our church pulpit for the last years. Well, no matter

45
00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:10,720
how minute, then, every fine point in the book, in the Bible, can be related to the Ten Commandments in

46
00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:15,759
some way, shape, or form. Another way of looking at it is that the Pentateuch, for example, is an

47
00:05:15,759 --> 00:05:22,339
expansion of the Ten Commandments. A good example is in the area of criminal justice. Right now, our system

48
00:05:22,339 --> 00:05:28,639
of criminal justice is based on the punitive system, where a criminal ostensibly pays his debt to society

49
00:05:28,639 --> 00:05:35,519
for breaking the commandment, thou shalt not steal, by going to jail for a specified period of time. And behind

50
00:05:35,519 --> 00:05:43,620
bars, he's supposed to be rehabilitated while serving, quote-unquote, time for his crimes. But in reality, that

51
00:05:43,620 --> 00:05:50,439
criminal is far from rehabilitated. So far, that prison becomes a school for crime, where he is

52
00:05:50,439 --> 00:05:56,819
warehoused with hardened criminals who teach him the finer arts of his trade. Also, he's introduced to

53
00:05:56,819 --> 00:06:02,220
the weight room, for example, where he beefs up to some fearful proportions, able to overcome his guards.

54
00:06:02,519 --> 00:06:08,920
Ah, some states are pondering doing away with the weight room, because it presents such a threat to

55
00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:14,420
those who guard them. Well, in short, the average first-time offender goes into prison, a frightened,

56
00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:19,540
scrawny, pencil-neck geek who's repentant, maybe, and amenable to change. But he comes out a few years

57
00:06:19,540 --> 00:06:25,120
later as a hard-hearted criminal, wisened to the ways of his newfound peers, looking like Arnold

58
00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:31,839
Schwarzenegger, and his body covered with newly acquired muscles and tattoos. He is thus ready for

59
00:06:31,839 --> 00:06:39,240
a newer, higher level of crime, just the 180-degree opposite of why he was sent there in the first

60
00:06:39,240 --> 00:06:46,740
place. Our modern 21st-century socialist system of criminal justice is producing more criminals,

61
00:06:46,860 --> 00:06:53,060
not fewer, than why we sent him there in the first place. Well, the biblical model of criminal justice

62
00:06:53,060 --> 00:06:59,100
labors in an opposite direction. Instead of punitive justice, the model is that of restitution

63
00:06:59,100 --> 00:07:05,759
or restorative justice. Instead of being separated from society and set apart to a culture of fellow

64
00:07:05,759 --> 00:07:12,720
criminals in a prison society, the lawbreaker is immersed in his own kind in civil society,

65
00:07:12,720 --> 00:07:18,680
where he is expected to make restitution to the victim of his crime and thus learn obedience so that

66
00:07:18,680 --> 00:07:23,959
he might be restored to the community as a law keeper. He is not lost to his friends, family,

67
00:07:23,959 --> 00:07:29,860
neighbors, but rather kept among them during this period of restitution. The values and principles

68
00:07:29,860 --> 00:07:36,480
of his community are reinforced, not undermined in this fashion. And the Bible outlines in a number

69
00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:42,939
of places where the thief, instead of being sent to prison, is sent back into society to work to pay

70
00:07:42,939 --> 00:07:49,000
back his victim such that not only the original value of the thing stolen is paid back, but also

71
00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:55,160
everything the victim may have lost by putting that thing of value to work that might have brought

72
00:07:55,160 --> 00:08:00,420
him, right? So, in other words, if your little neighbor Johnny steals your car one night in a fit of

73
00:08:00,420 --> 00:08:05,160
rebellion, he's not sent to prison to learn the ways and wanderings of other hardened criminals and become

74
00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:11,639
a permanent criminal himself. No, rather he is sent back into the working world of your community to pay

75
00:08:11,639 --> 00:08:17,379
you back for the car, plus everything you might have lost in the meantime by not having that car at your

76
00:08:17,379 --> 00:08:24,139
disposal. And so, little Johnny is kept in the matrix of those people who are good and strong. He'll have

77
00:08:24,139 --> 00:08:31,180
a positive morality reinforced to him. Well, if the thief is so incorrigible as to be unreliable to do

78
00:08:31,180 --> 00:08:37,360
this very simple thing well, then he's useless to both God and man and is put to death as an incorrigible

79
00:08:37,360 --> 00:08:44,659
criminal. And by these means, not only is the victim satisfactorily compensated, which is a thing so very

80
00:08:44,659 --> 00:08:51,139
unsatisfied in today's criminal justice system, but also the perpetrator is either restored to his community

81
00:08:51,139 --> 00:08:58,139
as a productive member or he's eliminated as a hardened criminal who would otherwise victimize others over

82
00:08:58,139 --> 00:09:04,480
and over again. How often has that been replicated in our culture, right? Well, right now, our society

83
00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:10,879
tolerates and rewards hardened criminals, don't they? Allowing them to live and prosper to victimize the innocent

84
00:09:10,879 --> 00:09:16,940
again and again as they are allowed to live and go on committing crime after crime. The victim is often

85
00:09:16,940 --> 00:09:22,899
victimized again and again in the criminal justice system. On top of that, the biblical model refuses to

86
00:09:22,899 --> 00:09:29,840
allow this. The biblical model insists on restitution for the victim and rehabilitation for the perpetrator

87
00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:39,659
or else. Well, we see also how revealed law protects man's rights in that it emphasizes unalienable

88
00:09:39,659 --> 00:09:46,360
duties as well as rights. Oh, horror of horrors, duties. How can you speak such an unspeakable word

89
00:09:46,360 --> 00:09:54,740
as duty? Yet this is a word which must be spoken in today's world. As unsavory as duty may sound to the

90
00:09:54,740 --> 00:10:00,580
average American ear. We owe the protection of another man's rights in the courts and streets of America

91
00:10:00,580 --> 00:10:07,200
as much as we own the personal protection of our own rights. And if we refuse to protect another man's

92
00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:13,799
right to speak publicly or assemble freely or own a handgun or practice his religion freely, then we

93
00:10:13,799 --> 00:10:19,820
should not be surprised to discover that we fall short of the freedom to speak or assemble or shoot

94
00:10:19,820 --> 00:10:25,440
or say amen in the congregation. Jefferson himself observed, and I quote him,

95
00:10:25,799 --> 00:10:31,860
man has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. Oh, that's a good observation.

96
00:10:32,399 --> 00:10:39,039
Man has no natural right that's in opposition to his social duties. It's a biblical principle,

97
00:10:39,259 --> 00:10:45,440
dear listener, ingrained into the Western mindset over millennia of experience. God has always matched

98
00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:53,080
individual rights with individual duties. As the law says, once again, the law, you shall not see your

99
00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:59,220
brother's donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help him to lift them up

100
00:10:59,220 --> 00:11:05,799
again, unquote. That's an example of how we should behave towards our neighbor. Those of you that remember

101
00:11:05,799 --> 00:11:10,759
your Bible history, you know the story, for example, of the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of

102
00:11:10,759 --> 00:11:15,960
Manasseh, for example, who found promising land and settlement on the eastern shore of the Jordan

103
00:11:15,960 --> 00:11:20,940
opposite to what God had promised Israel. Nevertheless, God gave them this land on the

104
00:11:20,940 --> 00:11:27,259
condition, and I quote from Joshua, all the men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your

105
00:11:27,259 --> 00:11:32,740
brothers and shall help them until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, unquote.

106
00:11:32,740 --> 00:11:38,080
In other words, those tribes had a duty to help their fellow citizens secure their rights to land

107
00:11:38,080 --> 00:11:44,919
and inheritance. Their own happiness and security had to be postponed until their brother's happiness

108
00:11:44,919 --> 00:11:50,580
and security was obtained. Time and time again, throughout the Bible, we see this principle

109
00:11:50,580 --> 00:11:58,419
reinforced. Divine law insists that we perform our duty to our fellow citizens. Just a few examples of

110
00:11:58,419 --> 00:12:04,480
these commonly held duties expected of every citizen include, for example, the duty to support law and

111
00:12:04,480 --> 00:12:11,259
order and to keep the peace. The duty to become self-sufficient so that one is not dependent on the

112
00:12:11,259 --> 00:12:17,080
resources of his fellow man, becoming a burden instead of a boon. We have the duty to maintain

113
00:12:17,080 --> 00:12:23,940
the integrity of the family structure, one husband, one wife, in the context of many children. We have the

114
00:12:23,940 --> 00:12:29,720
duty to perpetrate the race that is to have children and pass on a heritage to the next generation.

115
00:12:29,720 --> 00:12:36,740
Oh, we have the duty to support personal and public standards of common decency. That is, to make sure

116
00:12:36,740 --> 00:12:43,100
that behaviors like pornography and prostitution and drunkenness and homosexuality and gambling do not

117
00:12:43,100 --> 00:12:53,019
become commonplace. All of these and more were expected of every citizen as a simple duty. As Colin Ray's

118
00:12:53,019 --> 00:12:57,000
Lovell puts it in English Constitutional and Legal History, he says,

119
00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:04,100
To most Anglo-Saxons, the law was either divinely inspired or the work of their ancestors being of

120
00:13:04,100 --> 00:13:11,019
such antiquity that it was unthinkable that it could be changed, unquote. Oh, the law was the law was the

121
00:13:11,019 --> 00:13:16,360
law. There was no negotiation as to whether one could compromise and say, well, maybe we can say gay

122
00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:22,919
marriage can be legalized. No, eternal standards of decency demand that any other than monogamous

123
00:13:22,919 --> 00:13:29,080
husband and wife marriage be condemned. This was God's eternal will, and such laws were eternal

124
00:13:29,080 --> 00:13:35,639
and immutable, even as you shall do no murder or you shall not steal were eternal and immutable.

125
00:13:36,059 --> 00:13:42,100
That's the sense of the ninth principle. To protect man's rights, God has revealed certain principles

126
00:13:42,100 --> 00:13:48,299
of divine law. To protect man's rights, God has revealed certain principles of divine law.

127
00:13:48,299 --> 00:13:54,779
The tenth principle outlined in the 5,000-year leap is one ensconced in the preamble to the

128
00:13:54,779 --> 00:14:00,620
Constitution, and that is, the God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the

129
00:14:00,620 --> 00:14:08,179
whole people. Yes, the whole people. The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority

130
00:14:08,179 --> 00:14:13,779
of the whole people. The preamble to the Constitution, of course, begins with those famous lines,

131
00:14:13,779 --> 00:14:20,899
we the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union, and then goes

132
00:14:20,899 --> 00:14:28,759
on to say, do establish and ordain this Constitution. We the people. Oh, how are our neighbors? And we

133
00:14:28,759 --> 00:14:35,120
need to relearn this principle down to our toenails again, dear listener. If we understood the history

134
00:14:35,120 --> 00:14:42,000
of mankind, we'd understand exactly how brief is the window that has opened for liberty by this insight

135
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:47,879
into political philosophy. For the vast stretch of recorded history, some five millennia, the model

136
00:14:47,879 --> 00:14:53,740
of human government is that of a pyramid where God is reputed to channel power from himself to one man

137
00:14:53,740 --> 00:14:59,980
that is a king or a lord, or perhaps a small class of men at most, and this power would then flow

138
00:14:59,980 --> 00:15:05,899
downward to an increasing number of men in other classes like priests or nobles or princes, until

139
00:15:05,899 --> 00:15:10,840
finally it trickled down to the common peasant. But by then, of course, about the only power left to

140
00:15:10,840 --> 00:15:18,019
the peasant was to choose between gruel and oatmeal, gray wool or brown wool, and maybe sleep on his

141
00:15:18,019 --> 00:15:23,720
right side or his left side. Such was the pyramid model of power in the ancient world. Well, this

142
00:15:23,720 --> 00:15:29,840
model was known as the divine right of kings. That is, the king has the God-given right to rule the rest

143
00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:36,840
of us. Power to do so is vested in him by God. Only in a few isolated, liberty-loving places was the

144
00:15:36,840 --> 00:15:42,240
true biblical model practiced. And our founding fathers identified these brief shining moments

145
00:15:42,240 --> 00:15:48,179
of history, and they seized on them to model our own constitution. For example, early in Israel's

146
00:15:48,179 --> 00:15:54,639
history, God was lord over his people, and power resided directly with the people. They would choose,

147
00:15:54,799 --> 00:16:00,820
in the spirit of a true republic, representatives for 10 citizens, another to represent 50 of them,

148
00:16:00,820 --> 00:16:07,679
another to represent 100 citizens, and another to represent 1,000 of them. This is called the early

149
00:16:07,679 --> 00:16:16,659
tribal republic of Israel. The early tribal republic of Israel. Well, on and on, this pattern would be

150
00:16:16,659 --> 00:16:22,159
replicated throughout the 12 tribes of Israel. And from time to time, God would raise up a judge who

151
00:16:22,159 --> 00:16:27,279
would lead them into battle or mediate in disputes between tribes. But it was always understood that there

152
00:16:27,279 --> 00:16:32,899
was only one king in Israel, and only one lord and prince, and that was God himself. He was in their

153
00:16:32,899 --> 00:16:38,980
midst, and the origins of political power, that is, the ability and authority to form policy for the

154
00:16:38,980 --> 00:16:45,539
welfare of all, that power was vested in the whole of the people, not in one man. And our founding

155
00:16:45,539 --> 00:16:51,480
fathers understood this ancient biblical principle, and it was colony-wide at the time of the revolution.

156
00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:58,799
No one had to shake a dependent, slavish, socialist populace awake, like we have to do today,

157
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:03,720
and tell them that power was vested in the whole people, that God was the only king given among men.

158
00:17:03,840 --> 00:17:10,460
No. The hardy colonists on the frontiers of the 13 colonies and in the growing cities,

159
00:17:10,660 --> 00:17:16,000
they knew this because generations of Christian men and women had been living it. In fact,

160
00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:22,480
one exasperated governor of a colony, frustrated because he was loyal to King George III and

161
00:17:22,480 --> 00:17:27,500
believed in the divine right of kings, he noted in a letter back to England, he said, and I quote,

162
00:17:27,740 --> 00:17:33,440
if you ask an American who is his master, he will tell you he has none, and no governor but Jesus

163
00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:41,740
Christ, unquote. Isn't that telling? Isn't that a damning commentary on our own day? Most Americans,

164
00:17:41,740 --> 00:17:45,160
even if they say on the surface they're Christians, are afraid to confess Jesus

165
00:17:45,160 --> 00:17:49,819
as anything but a good friend and maybe their savior, but to confess him as their only king?

166
00:17:50,039 --> 00:17:55,119
Well, that's a bit embarrassing. Certainly not politically correct. We are willing to confess

167
00:17:55,119 --> 00:18:02,220
President Biden as our king, maybe, with star-crossed eyes, but not Jesus Christ. How the heart and mind

168
00:18:02,220 --> 00:18:07,559
of the average American has turned. In fact, the rallying cry of the revolution was,

169
00:18:07,559 --> 00:18:15,079
no king but King Jesus. No king but King Jesus. The direct assertion in this cry was that King George,

170
00:18:15,160 --> 00:18:19,839
the third, had no divine right to rule, that the only true king of any man was in heaven,

171
00:18:20,039 --> 00:18:25,579
and his name was Jesus Christ, and that true political power on this earth was vested in

172
00:18:25,579 --> 00:18:32,920
the whole people. The whole people. And so, every colonial individual understood intuitively when he

173
00:18:32,920 --> 00:18:38,380
reached for his musket to march with the militia against the redcoats. He knew this to his toenails.

174
00:18:38,380 --> 00:18:45,019
Point this out to the average man on the street today, and all you get is a blank, empty-eyed look

175
00:18:45,019 --> 00:18:49,640
staring back at you, as if you are from another planet, and instead of hearing,

176
00:18:49,859 --> 00:18:56,180
no king but King Jesus, you get parroted back at you, oh, change we can believe in, or some other

177
00:18:56,180 --> 00:19:02,880
nonsense, as if this socialist mantra repeated ad nauseum by cultural zombies actually means anything.

178
00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:08,079
No, the worm has turned in the hearts and minds of several generations of, I'm afraid,

179
00:19:08,420 --> 00:19:13,680
and our fellow citizens have, for the most part, reverted to the default setting of the human heart,

180
00:19:13,819 --> 00:19:19,920
which longs for a human king in the flesh. We're slaves. True liberty, which embraces the truth

181
00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:24,660
that God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people,

182
00:19:24,940 --> 00:19:30,079
is swiftly disappearing from the very shores where it was birthed in its fullest flower.

183
00:19:30,079 --> 00:19:36,220
The frailty of this principle, the brevity of this open window in which the fresh breezes of freedom

184
00:19:36,220 --> 00:19:41,779
flowed, is demonstrated by what happened in Israel. Eventually, Israel looked around her at the other

185
00:19:41,779 --> 00:19:47,799
nations like a child looks out its window, and he sees kids in the neighborhood sandbox, and suddenly

186
00:19:47,799 --> 00:19:54,519
that child feels lonely, and he longs to be like them. Israel looked around herself at the neighboring

187
00:19:54,519 --> 00:19:59,880
nations, and behold, they had great and glorious kings in the flesh who sat in regal

188
00:19:59,880 --> 00:20:05,319
splendor on thrones of gold, wearing crowns of jewel-encrusted gold. They had great ceremonies

189
00:20:05,319 --> 00:20:11,259
of pomp and circumstance with large retinues of servants and princes and princesses. They wore silks

190
00:20:11,259 --> 00:20:17,059
and linens of beauty and finery, and the king looked so glorious in his chariot, his brass armor glinting

191
00:20:17,059 --> 00:20:23,640
in the sun as he led his troops into battle. All Israel had war. All they had in Israel were frumpy

192
00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:28,240
old judges who raised a staff in the air and called out something like, behold, the Lord your God mighty

193
00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:34,339
in battle. At one point, the Bible tells us, all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to

194
00:20:34,339 --> 00:20:40,759
Samuel, Samuel, excuse me, and said to him, behold, appoint for us a king to judge us like all the other

195
00:20:40,759 --> 00:20:47,539
nations. Oh, like America. Oh, the tragedy of this request. Oh, the absolute squandering of centuries

196
00:20:47,539 --> 00:20:54,920
of liberty in this childish demand. Israel soon paid dearly for it, too. And be careful what you wish

197
00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:59,960
for, dear American, because they got a whole series of tyrants who eventually sold them into captivity.

198
00:21:00,519 --> 00:21:06,720
The human heart and mind is so utterly fallen and slavish since the Garden of Eden and will quickly

199
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:12,740
trade its God-given liberty to rule himself for a tyranny of a king, even as Esau traded his birthright

200
00:21:12,740 --> 00:21:18,740
for a pot of stew. Oh, American, you see all around you today fellow citizens who are operating

201
00:21:18,740 --> 00:21:24,779
on this age-old principle of the divine right of kings, selling their birthright for a pot of stew.

202
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:30,000
Though they may not be able to articulate it as that, but that's what it is. It is deeply rooted

203
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:36,099
in the human heart and mind and not easily dislodged. The modern socialist progressive in America

204
00:21:36,099 --> 00:21:42,960
looks out at tyrants like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Kim Jong-il of North Korea,

205
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:46,599
and they look enviously around them like kids in the sandbox, and they cry,

206
00:21:46,920 --> 00:21:53,059
Behold, appoint for us a king to judge us like the other nations. The average American on the street,

207
00:21:53,299 --> 00:21:59,720
schooled for generations in public schools without a single course in civics or government, gazes upon

208
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:05,940
a man who offers him free health care, guarantees him a college education and a house and a job,

209
00:22:06,099 --> 00:22:11,380
and he looks around him enviously like a kid in the sandbox, and he cries, Behold, appoint for us a

210
00:22:11,380 --> 00:22:17,220
king to judge us like all the other nations. Ah, know this, O fellow American, it has not always

211
00:22:17,220 --> 00:22:24,339
been thus. It is time to reclaim a quickly fading heritage. Our founding fathers drew upon the rich

212
00:22:24,339 --> 00:22:31,799
traditions of Israel and other peoples, including the Anglo-Saxon tribes of the British Isles. And

213
00:22:31,799 --> 00:22:36,039
although these tribes had a king, our word is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word for king,

214
00:22:36,579 --> 00:22:44,420
singning, excuse me, sinning, or kinning, he was the only one among equals in the elected councils of

215
00:22:44,420 --> 00:22:50,640
the tribe. However, the power to govern was always seen to reside in the whole body of the people and

216
00:22:50,640 --> 00:22:55,160
not in a king. One of my favorite philosophers of the revolution who understood this principle,

217
00:22:55,160 --> 00:23:02,220
one who in fact articulated it, as no other, was a little known man named Algernon Sidney. And he was

218
00:23:02,220 --> 00:23:07,859
well known, thoroughly studied by the founders. In his work, Discourses on Government, Sidney asserted,

219
00:23:08,380 --> 00:23:14,799
I say that those who place the power to govern in a multitude, that is the people, understand a

220
00:23:14,799 --> 00:23:19,980
multitude of free men who think it for their convenience to join together and to establish

221
00:23:19,980 --> 00:23:25,680
such laws and rules as they obliged themselves to observe, unquote. Now we take this principle

222
00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:31,880
so for granted today that the power to govern oneself is resident in the multitude of freedmen,

223
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:38,200
that is, that we fail to realize how radical that idea was in former days. In fact, so radical was it

224
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:43,200
to the entrenched idea of the divine right of kings that the kings of that day found it dangerous to

225
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:51,099
their thrones if it caught on. And so they made it a dangerous idea for anyone to hold. And Charles II

226
00:23:51,099 --> 00:23:59,099
found it so dangerous he beheaded Algernon Sidney. Oh, this is the seriousness, dear listener, for this

227
00:23:59,099 --> 00:24:05,980
principle. The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people. Our

228
00:24:05,980 --> 00:24:11,799
founders found it to be a dangerous idea too. That's why they had to take up not only their pins

229
00:24:11,799 --> 00:24:18,720
to right of liberty, but also their muskets to defend their lives, property, and families. Studying very

230
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:26,339
closely Israel or the Anglo-Saxons and thinkers like Sidney and John Locke, our founders crafted our

231
00:24:26,339 --> 00:24:34,500
constitution. Alexander Hamilton puts it this way in the Federalist Papers, the fabric of the American

232
00:24:34,500 --> 00:24:40,599
empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The streams of national power

233
00:24:40,599 --> 00:24:47,619
ought to flow immediately from that pure original fountain of all legitimate authority. Unquote.

234
00:24:48,140 --> 00:24:52,880
Dear listeners, it's time to wake up the sluggish hearts of our fellow citizens. Just because you

235
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:58,440
can vote for a president every four years does not mean you're free. They do this in Iran and North

236
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:05,700
Korea and Venezuela too. As one pundit articulated recently, he said, Americans are free one day every

237
00:25:05,700 --> 00:25:10,519
four years when they vote for a president. Then they go right back to being socialist slaves to that

238
00:25:10,519 --> 00:25:16,779
government. Unquote. Only when we know to the depths of our being that God has turned that power pyramid

239
00:25:16,779 --> 00:25:22,900
upside down and that power no longer flows from a human king downward to the people, but that God has

240
00:25:22,900 --> 00:25:29,039
ordained that power should flow from the people to elected representatives who hold that power for only

241
00:25:29,039 --> 00:25:35,339
brief periods and only in severely limited spheres of power, only then will we begin to act as free men

242
00:25:35,339 --> 00:25:41,259
again. Instead of mouthing empty-headed socialist slogans like change we can believe in, we must take

243
00:25:41,259 --> 00:25:48,779
back the power that is rightfully ours. The Massachusetts Proclamation of 1776 puts it this way,

244
00:25:49,059 --> 00:25:54,220
it is a maxim that in every government there must exist somewhere a supreme sovereign, absolute,

245
00:25:54,220 --> 00:26:00,779
and uncontrollable power, but this power resides always in the body of the people, and it never

246
00:26:00,779 --> 00:26:07,000
was or can be delegated to one man or a few. The great creator has never given to men a right to vest

247
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:12,920
others with authority over them, unlimited, either in duration or degree. Unquote. We must rediscover

248
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:19,359
this again, dear listener. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church

249
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:25,980
with the Moment of Truth. New Geneva meets for Holy Worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the

250
00:26:25,980 --> 00:26:31,980
corner of 4th and Boulevard. Come, cross our threshold, find out who we are, and listen to the gospel as it is

251
00:26:31,980 --> 00:26:38,819
preached from the scriptures. New Geneva meets for Holy Worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the

252
00:26:38,819 --> 00:26:50,680
corner of 4th and Boulevard. Call us for more information and feedback at 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.