1 00:00:05,169 --> 00:00:10,169 Greetings, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church 2 00:00:10,169 --> 00:00:15,009 with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and 3 00:00:15,009 --> 00:00:22,870 faith. Today, what are principles 20 and 21 of the 5,000-year leap? Now, if you've been following our 4 00:00:22,870 --> 00:00:28,489 study of principles of our Constitution that our founding fathers espoused, then you know what 5 00:00:28,489 --> 00:00:35,049 these terms mean. The 5,000-year leap, the title of an important book for our time, published 6 00:00:35,049 --> 00:00:42,609 by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, and you can access their website at ncca.org, 7 00:00:42,909 --> 00:00:50,369 ncca.org. It represents the phenomenal progress made by mankind during the relatively short period 8 00:00:50,369 --> 00:00:56,850 of time the United States has existed on the earth. And the great service rendered to us by this 9 00:00:56,850 --> 00:01:03,710 book is that it has succinctly summarized the vast web of thought and biblical principle that went 10 00:01:03,710 --> 00:01:10,689 into the making of our Constitution. The Constitution was not pulled out of hats, but from heads. And no 11 00:01:10,689 --> 00:01:17,290 other single volume has given us the essence of the thought of men like Jefferson and Hamilton and Adams 12 00:01:17,290 --> 00:01:23,909 than has the 5,000-year leap. Cleon Skousen composed it in conjunction with a team of scholars 13 00:01:23,909 --> 00:01:32,290 and managed to boil down the vast sea of material available to us into 28 discrete principles. 14 00:01:32,810 --> 00:01:38,650 And we've worked our way through 19 of them, and today we'll discuss principles 20 and 21. First of all, 15 00:01:39,030 --> 00:01:45,930 principle 20, efficiency and dispatch require government to operate according to the will of 16 00:01:45,930 --> 00:01:59,150 the majority. Now, this is a rather long and extended principle, so let me read this again. Principle 20, 17 00:01:59,590 --> 00:02:07,329 efficiency and dispatch require government to operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional 18 00:02:07,329 --> 00:02:14,090 provisions must be made to protect the rights of the minority. Here in principle 20, our founding fathers 19 00:02:14,090 --> 00:02:19,590 wrestled with one of the naughtiest questions in all of political thought. Can we accomplish the will of 20 00:02:19,590 --> 00:02:25,729 the majority of citizens regarding a particular issue without running rush out over the rights and will 21 00:02:25,729 --> 00:02:33,349 of the minority on the issue? History provides us with many examples of a loud, no, this cannot be done. 22 00:02:33,590 --> 00:02:38,229 In the first place, the will of the majority wants its way and will do what it takes to achieve it. 23 00:02:38,229 --> 00:02:44,629 The classic example is the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate, where, as Matthew tells us, 24 00:02:44,669 --> 00:02:50,650 the chief priests and elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus, unquote. 25 00:02:51,069 --> 00:02:56,909 Now, Pilate as governor was responsible for administering justice in this province, and he 26 00:02:56,909 --> 00:03:03,009 could find no guilt in him, but he declared him innocent. He was in the minority, and the majority 27 00:03:03,009 --> 00:03:09,490 against both God and man's justice cried out, crucify him. And who do you think got their way? Of course, 28 00:03:09,550 --> 00:03:16,110 we know the majority, since Pilate saw that the people would riot if he didn't turn Jesus over them 29 00:03:16,110 --> 00:03:22,729 to be crucified. Well, so it has been throughout history. Minorities often suffer at the hands and 30 00:03:22,729 --> 00:03:29,310 by the policies of the majority. Our own founding fathers observed Protestant minorities suffering in 31 00:03:29,310 --> 00:03:36,550 Roman Catholic majority lands like Spain, and Roman Catholic minorities suffering in Protestant lands 32 00:03:36,550 --> 00:03:44,150 like their own native England, with Jews suffering in all of them. Now, majorities lord it over 33 00:03:44,150 --> 00:03:50,990 minorities, whether it be an issue of war and peace, as it was amongst the Roman people during the Punic 34 00:03:50,990 --> 00:03:57,050 Wars, or whether trade would go forward with the West, as with the Chinese during the Boxer Rebellion, 35 00:03:57,050 --> 00:04:03,490 or whether the American colonies would suffer punitive taxation by British overlords. The 36 00:04:03,490 --> 00:04:09,669 majority has always asserted their will at the expense of and will with total disregard for 37 00:04:09,669 --> 00:04:15,509 the minorities amongst them. Now, in all of these issues, and others like them, passions tend to run 38 00:04:15,509 --> 00:04:22,529 high, and opinions and egos inflate such that the minority is not only defeated at the issue, but 39 00:04:22,529 --> 00:04:28,529 is often crushed and destroyed altogether. Majorities impose their wills, and violent 40 00:04:28,529 --> 00:04:35,029 revolutions by disillusioned minorities dot the landscape of history, don't they? How can a nation 41 00:04:35,029 --> 00:04:40,949 accomplish the will of the majority while respecting the will and the rights of the minority at the same 42 00:04:40,949 --> 00:04:48,189 time? On the other hand, an over-regard for the minority opinion has created numerous bottlenecks 43 00:04:48,189 --> 00:04:54,350 throughout history, too. What can the vast majority of people do when a small number among them disagree 44 00:04:54,350 --> 00:05:02,329 with them and have a dissenting, action-blocking vote? A dissenting, action-blocking vote. Now, this was 45 00:05:02,329 --> 00:05:08,350 brought home to me in a very personal and vivid fashion in the very first church that I served as a 46 00:05:08,350 --> 00:05:15,870 pastor back in Lake Forest, Illinois. My boss, the senior pastor, was fond bragging that the ruling body of our 47 00:05:15,870 --> 00:05:21,750 church, the board of elders, always made decisions with a unanimous vote. If the vote was not unanimous, 48 00:05:21,990 --> 00:05:27,209 then no action was taken. He would talk of how the Holy Spirit would lead the men to a decision, 49 00:05:27,490 --> 00:05:32,730 and the power of God was made clear in their deliberations, and that if unanimity could not be 50 00:05:32,730 --> 00:05:37,730 achieved, then how could that decision be of God? Oh, well, dear listener, guess what happened? 51 00:05:37,730 --> 00:05:45,350 One of the seven men on that board of elders, there was one cantankerous fellow in the minority 52 00:05:45,350 --> 00:05:50,649 who obviously was not as filled with the Holy Spirit as the rest of us, and he thought, though, 53 00:05:50,670 --> 00:05:54,069 that he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and the rest of us were filled with something else. 54 00:05:55,170 --> 00:06:01,990 Well, his constant no votes on almost every issue brought our church to a grinding standstill. 55 00:06:02,350 --> 00:06:07,569 Nothing got done. Should we build a building, new building? No, because of a six-to-one vote. 56 00:06:07,569 --> 00:06:13,769 Should we admit so-and-so into membership in the church? No, because of a six-to-one vote. 57 00:06:14,389 --> 00:06:19,629 One of that minority dissenter preventing, right? Should we change the color of the bathrooms from 58 00:06:19,629 --> 00:06:26,490 beige to mint green? No, because of a six-to-one vote. Our one minority dissenter preventing. 59 00:06:27,189 --> 00:06:33,370 Note well, dear listener, issues large and small. Nothing was getting done, and the one man 60 00:06:33,370 --> 00:06:39,189 in the center of all this conflict was the fellow who voted no on almost everything. He loved being 61 00:06:39,189 --> 00:06:44,829 the center of attention and felt that he was a righteous and noble person and the sole stander for 62 00:06:44,829 --> 00:06:50,470 truth. But in reality, he was little more than a self-centered attention-getter and troublemaker. 63 00:06:50,470 --> 00:06:57,589 It didn't take too long before our policy changed, too, from one requiring unanimity to a simple 64 00:06:57,589 --> 00:07:04,050 majority. So, my personal experience can be replicated throughout history, wherever a minority 65 00:07:04,050 --> 00:07:10,290 holds up the will of the majority. One of the reasons that Charles I, for example, of England was so 66 00:07:10,290 --> 00:07:17,009 roundly hated and therefore beheaded in 1639 is that he constantly frustrated the will of parliament 67 00:07:17,009 --> 00:07:24,410 by canceling their acts and their legislation again and again because of his own petulant desires. 68 00:07:24,949 --> 00:07:31,149 The will of the majority on every issue, war and peace, the Church of England versus religious freedom, 69 00:07:31,730 --> 00:07:37,709 rampant spending by the king, inconsequent burdensome taxes on the people, all of this was 70 00:07:37,709 --> 00:07:44,970 stopped dead in its tracks by this arrogant minority of one, Charles I, King of England. These kinds of 71 00:07:44,970 --> 00:07:51,170 abuses were fresh in the minds of our founding fathers. And Hamilton says this in Federalist paper 72 00:07:51,170 --> 00:07:58,389 number 22. Hamilton says, and I quote, the public business must in some way or other go forward. 73 00:07:58,670 --> 00:08:06,529 If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, pertinacious, I love that word, 74 00:08:07,029 --> 00:08:13,870 pertinacious means stubbornly adhering to a pursuit or opinion, perversely persistent, pertinacious. 75 00:08:13,870 --> 00:08:19,790 Hamilton says, if a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, 76 00:08:20,209 --> 00:08:25,209 respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority in order that something may be done must 77 00:08:25,209 --> 00:08:31,449 conform to the views of the minority. And thus, the sense of the smaller number will overrule that 78 00:08:31,449 --> 00:08:38,990 of the greater and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays, continual negotiation 79 00:08:38,990 --> 00:08:45,470 and intrigue, contemptible compromises of the public good, unquote. These are the consequences of a 80 00:08:45,470 --> 00:08:52,289 minority controlling the opinion of the majority. Well, how often have we observed these abuses in 81 00:08:52,289 --> 00:08:57,990 our own country of late, right? Tedious delays, continual negotiation and intrigue, contemptible 82 00:08:57,990 --> 00:09:06,350 compromises of the public good, huh? Whether it's been budget or war or peace. It's been noted by many in the 83 00:09:06,350 --> 00:09:12,450 past that our country has descended into a nation of special interest, for example, vying not only with 84 00:09:12,450 --> 00:09:18,389 a majority of Americans, but with one another, where every minority not only wants a voice and a vote 85 00:09:18,389 --> 00:09:24,289 to which they're guaranteed in the Constitution, but they want their way as well. The transgender 86 00:09:24,289 --> 00:09:30,309 minority not only wants protection in their persons and their property, but special rights, especially gay 87 00:09:30,309 --> 00:09:35,070 rights to which they're not entitled, like public sanction and recognition of gay marriage. 88 00:09:35,070 --> 00:09:41,850 The Muslim minority amongst us wants not only the liberty to practice their faith, but exemption 89 00:09:41,850 --> 00:09:49,710 from American civil law by having their own Sharia law imposed in their own communities. And how long 90 00:09:49,710 --> 00:09:55,690 do you think it will be before they insist on Sharia law being imposed on the whole country? Well, the 91 00:09:55,690 --> 00:10:02,990 environmentalist minority, for example, has recently destroyed an entire agricultural community in the 92 00:10:02,990 --> 00:10:09,169 Central Valley of California by turning off the spigot of irrigation water on behalf of the Delta 93 00:10:09,169 --> 00:10:17,029 smelch. Oh, and almost got away with turning off the water to our farmers in Southeast Idaho, 94 00:10:17,230 --> 00:10:26,149 sequestering almost 200,000 acres of good farmland for environmentalist reasons. Oh, this pertinacious 95 00:10:26,149 --> 00:10:33,549 minority is indeed guilty of contemptible compromise of the public good, as Hamilton puts it. Well, on and 96 00:10:33,549 --> 00:10:39,269 on the list of minorities go, emphasizing their differences and distinctions, not the things that 97 00:10:39,269 --> 00:10:45,970 bind us together as Americans. They have clearly demonstrated their pertinacity by being perversely 98 00:10:45,970 --> 00:10:52,330 persistent in insisting not only upon a voice and a vote in our culture, but their way, our founding 99 00:10:52,330 --> 00:10:59,330 fathers built into our constitution that the majority of either house shall constitute a quorum. Two-thirds 100 00:10:59,330 --> 00:11:04,750 majority can expel a member. A majority is required to pass legislation in the Congress. Two-thirds 101 00:11:04,750 --> 00:11:10,909 majority can override a presidential veto of that same legislation. On and on the constitution goes, 102 00:11:11,269 --> 00:11:18,250 requiring simple majorities and two-third majorities for legislation and discipline. Nowhere is 103 00:11:18,250 --> 00:11:25,409 their provision for unanimity in anything. Yet our founders were not negligent of the rights and 104 00:11:25,409 --> 00:11:30,309 vulnerability of the minority either. Fresher in their memories was the way that Britain had 105 00:11:30,309 --> 00:11:36,389 pertinaciously ignored the rights of the minority, that is, the colonists. Washington and Franklin and 106 00:11:36,389 --> 00:11:42,070 Adams and Jefferson were all minorities in the recent past and now were part of the majority in this 107 00:11:42,070 --> 00:11:48,809 new American republic. They were ready to ensure that no legitimate minority in the future would 108 00:11:48,809 --> 00:11:54,210 be jeopardized by the majority in terms of their rights and security in their persons and property. 109 00:11:54,730 --> 00:12:00,210 This reason is one of the prime motivations for the Bill of Rights appended to the constitution. 110 00:12:00,710 --> 00:12:06,629 Religious minorities, political minorities, ethnic minorities, all protected by our constitution, 111 00:12:06,629 --> 00:12:14,350 and it is one reason why people have flocked by the millions to our shores. Empathy. Ah, empathy is 112 00:12:14,350 --> 00:12:21,029 that ability to understand and resonate with one person's experience since it is your experience too. 113 00:12:21,250 --> 00:12:26,610 Empathy. It is what our founding fathers had with all minorities everywhere. As Jefferson puts it, 114 00:12:26,669 --> 00:12:32,649 and I quote him, all too will bear in mind this sacred principle that though the will of the majority 115 00:12:32,649 --> 00:12:40,710 is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable, that the minority possesses 116 00:12:40,710 --> 00:12:46,990 their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Unquote. 117 00:12:47,309 --> 00:12:53,909 Very succinctly put by our founding father, Thomas Jefferson. From whatever angle you observe our 118 00:12:53,909 --> 00:13:01,710 constitution, principle 20 is evident in every respect. That is, efficiency and dispatch require government 119 00:13:01,710 --> 00:13:07,210 to operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to 120 00:13:07,210 --> 00:13:12,909 protect the rights of the minority. This, our founding fathers built into the constitution, 121 00:13:13,210 --> 00:13:19,409 elegantly and wisely, if only we would be faithful to it. Well, the very same things can be said about 122 00:13:19,409 --> 00:13:27,450 principle 21. Principle 21 of the 5,000-year leap is strong local self-government is the keystone 123 00:13:27,450 --> 00:13:33,730 to preserving human freedom. I love this one. Strong local self-government is the keystone 124 00:13:33,730 --> 00:13:38,710 to preserving human freedom. If there's one blind spot in the American character that's darker than 125 00:13:38,710 --> 00:13:44,350 all others, it's this one, I'm afraid. Almost every American I encounter has lost that sense for 126 00:13:44,350 --> 00:13:49,309 strong local self-government. To most Americans, every solution to every problem has to come from 127 00:13:49,309 --> 00:13:55,990 Washington, D.C. What's so wrong with that, Pastor? Are you, well, are you poor? Well, there's a 128 00:13:55,990 --> 00:14:01,110 government program to give you subsistence wages. Are you sick? Oh, don't worry. There's government 129 00:14:01,110 --> 00:14:06,730 health care now, courtesy of Obama. If Medicare or Medicaid do not cover you, have you fallen behind 130 00:14:06,730 --> 00:14:11,169 in your mortgage payments? Let the federal government bail you out. On and on it goes with 131 00:14:11,169 --> 00:14:16,450 everything from roads to schools to weddings to cigarettes to even your electric bill very soon 132 00:14:16,450 --> 00:14:22,350 if the cap-and-trade legislation continues to grow. All of it determined by the federal government. 133 00:14:22,350 --> 00:14:30,470 The ancient solution to tyranny inculcated by our founding fathers. That strong local self-government 134 00:14:30,470 --> 00:14:37,409 preserves human freedom. Oh, that has been forgotten by Americans today. Replaced by its evil twin. That 135 00:14:37,409 --> 00:14:43,610 is, strong centralized federal government is the keystone to your every imagined women need. Oh, 136 00:14:44,190 --> 00:14:49,350 you no longer need God. The president or some government bureaucrat will take his place. You no 137 00:14:49,350 --> 00:14:55,850 longer need your mother. Oh, no. Hillary Clinton, right? Or some government program will take your 138 00:14:55,850 --> 00:15:02,190 mama's place nicely. You no longer need your neighbors, your extended family. We are the world 139 00:15:02,190 --> 00:15:08,610 and the human community, as Obama puts it, is here to take care of you. How evil is the temptation 140 00:15:08,610 --> 00:15:16,850 for a strong, centralized federal government to rule over us and take care of us? Yeah, they'll take care of 141 00:15:16,850 --> 00:15:22,870 us all right. Indeed, Mr. Skousen notes perceptively, and I quote Leon Skousen now, he says, 142 00:15:23,210 --> 00:15:28,570 political power automatically gravitates towards the center, and the purpose of the Constitution is to 143 00:15:28,570 --> 00:15:34,889 prevent that from happening. The centralization of political power always destroys liberty by removing 144 00:15:34,889 --> 00:15:41,289 the decision-making function from the people on the local level and transferring it to the officers of 145 00:15:41,289 --> 00:15:47,269 the central government. Unquote. This automatic gravitation of political power towards the center 146 00:15:47,269 --> 00:15:53,789 is an irresistible temptation of the human spirit, isn't it? We have to admit that. We have observed it 147 00:15:53,789 --> 00:16:00,190 time and again, from the centralization of power of all humanity at the Tower of Babel to the 148 00:16:00,190 --> 00:16:06,149 centralization of power in Israel when she asked for a king. Well, on the one hand, those in power want as 149 00:16:06,149 --> 00:16:12,529 few impediments to their will and ways as possible, ostensibly to do so much good for us. Thus, the 150 00:16:12,529 --> 00:16:18,129 ambitious ones are always scheming to gather as many of the reins of power into their hands as possible, 151 00:16:18,129 --> 00:16:23,029 and their subjects, if we're not trained and disciplined with a biblical spirit for self-government 152 00:16:23,029 --> 00:16:29,750 and independence, well, their subjects continually seek for a human savior for their problems and a 153 00:16:29,750 --> 00:16:36,129 provider for their needs. And so, they continually tend toward seeding. We, the people, continually trend 154 00:16:36,129 --> 00:16:42,009 towards ceding more and more of our rights and privileges and independence to those in power 155 00:16:42,009 --> 00:16:48,350 in exchange for perceived security. Our founding fathers noted this in history, especially in 156 00:16:48,350 --> 00:16:54,230 ancient Anglo-Saxon Britain, where a strong tradition of local self-government held sway for 157 00:16:54,230 --> 00:16:59,450 centuries. Our founding fathers looked to them. The historian Richard Frothingham puts it this way, 158 00:16:59,509 --> 00:17:05,549 and I quote him. He said, in ancient England, local self-government is found in connection with a 159 00:17:05,549 --> 00:17:12,769 political and territorial divisions of tithings, hundreds, bergs, counties, and shires, in which 160 00:17:12,769 --> 00:17:19,250 the body of inhabitants had a strong voice in managing their own affairs. Hence, it was the 161 00:17:19,250 --> 00:17:27,569 germinal idea of the Anglo-Saxon polity. Unquote. Local self-government. And over the centuries, more and 162 00:17:27,569 --> 00:17:32,089 more decision-making power gravitated to the central government in the form of the king in England. 163 00:17:32,089 --> 00:17:38,349 You know what happened next, right? The crown deprived the body of the people of this power of 164 00:17:38,349 --> 00:17:45,609 local rule, vested it in a small number of persons in each locality, according to Frothing. Power gravitated 165 00:17:45,609 --> 00:17:50,970 to the center. And if this was true of the average English citizen of the 18th century, think of how 166 00:17:50,970 --> 00:17:58,470 centralized power concentrated in George III felt to the American colonists. Jefferson captures it well in 167 00:17:58,470 --> 00:18:03,990 his grievances in the Declaration of Independence. He summed up in this pungent phrase, he says, 168 00:18:03,990 --> 00:18:11,970 when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design 169 00:18:11,970 --> 00:18:20,150 to reduce them under absolute despotism. Eloquently put, Mr. Jefferson. So, make no mistake about this, 170 00:18:20,210 --> 00:18:27,029 dear listener. This is the pot of lead at the end of the socialist rainbow for you. The design of all 171 00:18:27,029 --> 00:18:33,450 those abuses and usurpations, promising you health care if you just let us abuse you and usurp your 172 00:18:33,450 --> 00:18:37,710 resources and freedom to choose health options, promising you financial stability if it just 173 00:18:37,710 --> 00:18:42,849 lets you abuse and usurp your banking and investing options, promising you a secure retirement if you 174 00:18:42,849 --> 00:18:48,930 just let us abuse and you usurp your retirement investment, on and on we could go. This is nothing 175 00:18:48,930 --> 00:18:54,670 less than the concentration of power into the hands of a few until you have absolute despotism. 176 00:18:54,670 --> 00:19:00,730 Israel found this out soon after she asked for a king. England found this out after she ceded the 177 00:19:00,730 --> 00:19:06,029 last of her liberties to the crown. And we are finding out the very same thing as we increasingly 178 00:19:06,029 --> 00:19:12,569 abdicate our local concentration of power that is in the people and their representative assemblies. 179 00:19:12,750 --> 00:19:19,490 We cede them to a strong centralized government. And, dear fellow citizens, the same thing might be 180 00:19:19,490 --> 00:19:26,369 said of us as was said of the ancient Anglo-Saxons. As the historian, French historian, Francois Guizot 181 00:19:26,369 --> 00:19:32,690 says, and I quote him, when there scarcely remained traces of popular assemblies, the remembrance of 182 00:19:32,690 --> 00:19:38,430 them, of the right of freemen to deliberate and transact their business together, the remembrance of them 183 00:19:38,430 --> 00:19:44,569 resided in the minds of men as a primitive tradition and a thing which might come about again. 184 00:19:44,569 --> 00:19:51,349 Unquote. Oh, the wistfulness. This is the heritage we are bequeathing to our children, where liberty and 185 00:19:51,349 --> 00:19:57,029 power concentrated in the hands of the people at the local level is but a remembrance, right? 186 00:19:57,369 --> 00:20:02,130 Residing in the minds of men as a primitive tradition. Oh, is that what you want for the 187 00:20:02,130 --> 00:20:08,109 babies you have bouncing on your knee, dear father and grandfather? Will you wistfully speak to them of 188 00:20:08,109 --> 00:20:15,230 liberty as a memory with a tear in your eye as they ride around in Russian Yugos, maybe, or wearing 189 00:20:15,230 --> 00:20:22,430 gray Mao jackets in North Korea, eating three gruel meals a day, afraid to criticize the government? 190 00:20:22,690 --> 00:20:28,789 Ah, this is approaching. And the heritage you will leave to your children if we do not do something to 191 00:20:28,789 --> 00:20:34,490 change it now. For the generation of those who made our American Revolution, liberty and power 192 00:20:34,490 --> 00:20:41,049 power at the local level was a primitive tradition that did come about again as the skill and wisdom 193 00:20:41,049 --> 00:20:48,509 of our founders hedged about that local level power as a written constitution. It is scarcely possible 194 00:20:48,509 --> 00:20:55,670 to overemphasize how meticulous and insistent our founders were to bind down despotic tendencies in men 195 00:20:55,670 --> 00:21:01,250 by the chains of the constitution, as Jefferson puts it. Do you remember how suspicious they were of 196 00:21:01,250 --> 00:21:07,789 federal government, not naively trusting it as our generation does? Jefferson puts it this way. 197 00:21:07,849 --> 00:21:12,950 Once again, he says, the way to have good and safe government is not to trust it all to one, 198 00:21:13,109 --> 00:21:19,410 but to divide it among the many, distributing to everyone exactly the functions he is competent to 199 00:21:19,410 --> 00:21:26,250 perform best. It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the great national one down to 200 00:21:26,250 --> 00:21:35,009 through all its ordinations until it ends in the administration of every man's farm by himself. Unquote. 201 00:21:36,210 --> 00:21:44,369 Yes, all distributed power should end in the administration of every man's farm by himself. I love that. 202 00:21:44,930 --> 00:21:51,589 Despotism and tyranny are checked by dividing and subdividing power, not by concentrating in Washington, D.C. 203 00:21:51,589 --> 00:21:57,690 This is the whole philosophy behind the doctrine of enumerated powers. That is, the federal government 204 00:21:57,690 --> 00:22:05,910 is only licensed by the constitution to exercise those powers specifically delegated to it by the 205 00:22:05,910 --> 00:22:12,670 states as enumerated in the constitution and absolutely no others. As the 10th amendment puts it, 206 00:22:12,910 --> 00:22:18,990 the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution nor prohibited by it to the states 207 00:22:18,990 --> 00:22:27,049 are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. Unquote. There are 23 specific enumerated 208 00:22:27,049 --> 00:22:33,230 powers delegated to the federal government in our constitution. Did you know that? 23 specific 209 00:22:33,230 --> 00:22:38,029 enumerated powers. And perhaps we can touch on those someday. But for now, you must understand, 210 00:22:38,170 --> 00:22:45,309 dear listener, that our federal government has far exceeded those specific limited enumerated powers 211 00:22:45,309 --> 00:22:51,750 many, many fold. Our founding fathers would be aghast at how we the people have let the camel's nose of 212 00:22:51,750 --> 00:22:55,650 the federal government get under the tent to the point where at this stage of our history, 213 00:22:55,950 --> 00:23:02,069 the whole camel is in bed with us. As Samuel, I love this quote, Samuel Goldwyn puts it, he said, 214 00:23:02,150 --> 00:23:07,890 if George Washington were alive today, he'd be rolling over in his grave. Oh yeah. This was not the 215 00:23:07,890 --> 00:23:13,289 state of affairs that has been bequeathed to us by our founding fathers. No. James Madison in 216 00:23:13,289 --> 00:23:19,269 Federalist paper number 45 puts it this way. He says, the powers delegated by the proposed constitution 217 00:23:19,269 --> 00:23:25,349 to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments 218 00:23:25,349 --> 00:23:32,230 are numerous and indefinite. Unquote. Oh, dear friend, fellow citizen of this land with a powerful 219 00:23:32,230 --> 00:23:38,549 heritage. Our founding fathers gave us an extremely spare and sparse federal government because they 220 00:23:38,549 --> 00:23:44,230 relied upon the people to have the personal responsibility and courage to honor the fullness 221 00:23:44,230 --> 00:23:51,289 of self-government. Govern yourself from within by the power of God's Holy Spirit, and you will not need 222 00:23:51,289 --> 00:23:58,630 an external force to impose government from without. Who needs a nanny state providing you with a grubby 223 00:23:58,630 --> 00:24:04,789 mere subsistence for doing little or nothing when you have the potential to prosper beyond your wildest 224 00:24:04,789 --> 00:24:09,609 dreams, when the government stays out of your way, and you have no limits as to what you can do and 225 00:24:09,609 --> 00:24:14,049 what you might achieve. No one knows the needs of your life like you, and those around you in your 226 00:24:14,049 --> 00:24:19,970 family, your church, your neighborhood. Decisions about property, schools, taxes, roads, water, air, sewer, 227 00:24:20,190 --> 00:24:25,430 health care were meant to be made by you and your neighbors, not by some bureaucrat in Washington, 228 00:24:25,430 --> 00:24:32,049 D.C. or Boise. This is why you have city councils, school boards, county commissioners. You know them, 229 00:24:32,130 --> 00:24:38,109 they know you. Therefore, how true and wise were our founders in articulating principle number 21, 230 00:24:38,750 --> 00:24:45,970 strong local self-government is the keystone to preserving human freedom. Strong local self-government 231 00:24:45,970 --> 00:24:53,529 is the keystone to preserving human freedom. Oh, nowhere is this principle of justice also the 232 00:24:53,529 --> 00:24:58,309 biblical principle that, for example, inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, 233 00:24:58,390 --> 00:25:03,049 my brethren, you have done it unto me, Jesus said, right? It was applied to the most vulnerable 234 00:25:03,049 --> 00:25:08,269 and weak in society by our founders, too, for that matter. That is the minority of the nation. 235 00:25:08,750 --> 00:25:14,230 Therefore, the rights and property of minorities protected on our Constitution without sacrificing 236 00:25:14,230 --> 00:25:20,369 the will of the majority. That was principle 20. Efficiency and dispatch require government to 237 00:25:20,369 --> 00:25:25,309 operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to 238 00:25:25,309 --> 00:25:31,170 protect the rights of the minority. Nowhere is this principle of justice combined with mercy so well 239 00:25:31,170 --> 00:25:36,289 in the civil sphere as it is here in this principle, balancing the will of the majority with the rights 240 00:25:36,289 --> 00:25:41,890 of the minority. When God commands us, he's told you, O man, what is good? What does the Lord require of 241 00:25:41,890 --> 00:25:47,390 you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God? Dear fellow citizen, 242 00:25:47,390 --> 00:25:52,970 keep in mind as you go about your daily lives that you do so with the freedom, liberty, and prosperity 243 00:25:52,970 --> 00:25:59,910 you have due to biblical principles applied in forming our Constitution. Take away the Bible 244 00:25:59,910 --> 00:26:05,650 and Christianity from it, and you take away the kind of liberty we've known in the U.S. for some 200 245 00:26:05,650 --> 00:26:12,109 years. May you find not only the true justice which God requires of a nation, but also know his blessing 246 00:26:12,109 --> 00:26:19,589 in mercy to express supremely in Jesus Christ and even in his providential care over you as he has 247 00:26:19,589 --> 00:26:26,609 placed you in this time and place in the United States of America in the years of the 21st century. 248 00:26:26,849 --> 00:26:32,390 This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth. 249 00:26:32,789 --> 00:26:39,049 New Geneva meets for holy worship at 10 a.m. on Sunday at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and 250 00:26:39,049 --> 00:26:49,609 Boulevard. Call us for more information or feedback at area code 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.