Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. Today, what is principle 26 of the Constitution that is explicated, that is explained, that is enlarged upon in the book, The 5,000-Year Leap? Now, if this is the first lesson you've heard on this topic, let me commend to you the book, The 5,000-Year Leap.

It is a book that asserts correctly that humanity has taken a leap of progress in every arena of human endeavor that is intellectual, scientific, technological, economic, and social, and has done that more in the last 230-plus years of the existence of the United States than in the last 5,000 years of human history. That's a pretty sweeping assertion, isn't it? Well, there's a reason for that. It's because the creation of and the opportunities offered by the Constitution of the United States of America. What has created the richest, most productive economy that the world has ever seen?

Oh, the economic liberties created by the Constitution of our nation. What has given us the greatest religious liberties in the history of the world? Oh, it is the Constitution of the United States of America with its special amendment guaranteeing religious freedom. What has enabled men to freely develop their talents and genius, creating everything from the steam engine to the automobile to the atomic bomb? Oh, once again, the Constitution of the United States of America that guarantees the right to every man, his ideas, in patents and in profits.

On and on we could go. Our Constitution has struck the perfect balance between the necessity of a modicum of government with the widest possible freedom for him to pursue his interests and passions without interference from the government. How the ancients would have given a right arm for this document. Yet God in his providence has given it to us, and we are its stewards for the duration of our pilgrimage upon earth. What the book, The 5,000-Year Leap, has done is distill the principles of that Constitution.

Oh, in our summary of them, we have made our way through the first 25 and now come to principle 26. And you may acquire this book from the National Center for Constitutional Studies. Their website is nccs.org. Well, principle 28 is, the core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family. Therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity.

Oh, how we need to hear this and assert this again and again and again, dear listener. The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family. Therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity. But our government is doing just the opposite these days, isn't it? If this principle is true, then someone should break the news to our rulers in Washington, D.C.

Lately, they seem to be doing everything they can to corrupt and destroy the family. Consequently, they're also corrupting and destroying the core of society as well, are they not? Oh, very few people understand today the centrality of the family to all of civilized society. And this is primarily due to the modern secular religion of progressivism that has as its holy trinity tolerance, diversity, and radical egalitarianism, which asserts the complete level equality without distinction in every area of civilization, right? Diversity, equity, and inclusion, right?

That's also another byword amongst progressives these days. Well, owing to this last member of the trinity, radical legalitarianism, the individual is supreme. The individual's needs and wants and fulfillment are uppermost regardless of the cost to anyone around them, even the closest of family. We have already observed this for generations in high divorce rates, child abuse, a whole spectrum of addictions that drain a family of its resources.

If such mothers, fathers, and children understood how they have been groomed by our radically socialist culture to focus on self in complete disregard for family, they would rightly feel betrayed and begin to change their way of life. This goes for that new subclass of child that has been abused by the system and having sex change operations performed on them, filled with drugs because they think that they might be another gender. On and on the damage goes and the destruction goes in the lives of individuals because they pursue a radical individualism rather than seeing themselves in a place of family.

Now, our founding fathers rightly understood the centrality of family, while tyrants have always understood that tyranny cannot be achieved without first destroying the family. Karl Marx plainly taught in documents like Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto that in order for communism to succeed, it must first destroy, number one, private property, number two, religion, and number three, the family. About the family, Marx says, bourgeois marriage is in reality only a system of wives in common. What communists seek to introduce is an openly legalized system of free love, unquote. Free love didn't begin in the 60s.

Free love began with Karl Marx. This they proposed to do through what Marx termed a community of women. Oh, a community of women which would serve the needs of men and, where necessary, bear children for the state. However, even this proposal did not always meet with warm applause, even in communist circles. As the Communist Manifesto notes in frustration, it says, quote, abolition of the family, even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the communists, unquote.

So it's not even popular with all communists. Well, our founders could not be further down the spectrum than such tyrants in their view of the family. One of my favorite summaries is from the Connecticut Constitution, which was written in 1639, all the way back then. The Connecticut Constitution declares in its first article, quote, the scriptures hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of all men in all duties, which they are to perform towards God and men, as well in families and common wells, as in matters of the church, unquote.

Now, here we have not only the role of the Bible in the formation of our Constitution, which was drawn on heavily by our founding fathers, but the three great covenants, which organize civilizations, three great covenants, and those are the family covenant, the church covenant, and the civil covenant. The Bible directs families and commonwealths, as in matters of the church, as the Connecticut Constitution puts it. But perhaps no one has stated it better than the founder, Elias Boudinot, who lived from 1740 to 1821. Boudinot was a congressman from New Jersey and president of the Continental Congress.

He said, quote, good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people degenerate, their political character must soon follow. Good government begins in the family, dear listener. This is precisely because we in the West understood with the principles of the Bible that family is the basic building block of civilization, not the individual. Alone, the individual perishes. In family, he thrives.

There are a number of reasons why God determined to make of the family the fundamental building block of earthly society and government. First of all, number one, husband and wife reflect the image of God. Husband and wife truly reflect the image of God. As clearly revealed in the Bible, husband and wife taken together represent the image of God and man. Genesis 5, verses 1 and 2 puts it this way, when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

Male and female, he created them, and he blessed them and named them man when they were created, unquote. It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve or Eve and Evelyn, that represented the completed image of God. It is one man and one woman taken together in the lifelong bond of marriage that represents the very image of God, not a homosexual relationship, a transsexual relationship, a man with man or lesbian relationship, woman with woman, or more than one or two. Any other construction is a distortion of that image, dear listener.

Well, secondly, the second reason why God determined to make the family the building block of earthly society and government. Number two, husband and wife accurately model Christ and his church. Husband and wife accurately model Christ and his church. The apostle Paul unfolds the fact that the husband is a mini picture of Christ, while the wife is a mini picture of Christ's bride, the church. He observes, Paul does in Ephesians chapter 5, husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church.

As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands. Now, this is so because in a unique way, the husband and wife relationship mirrors that of Christ with his church. It is tender and loving and unique and exclusive between the two parties. It is not two Christ in a gay relationship that's meant to be modeled here on earth. It's not two churches in a lesbian relationship that is meant to be modeled here on earth.

No, it is the husband as a model of Christ and the wife as a model of the church that is to be modeled in the family. So make no mistake about this, dear listener. Gay marriages, trans marriages, trans families, and lesbian marriages, trans families distort the model given in the Bible. Thus, they distort the very notion of family to any civilization and society. These kinds of relationships should be resisted at every level and every societal structure.

Well, the third reason why God has chosen to make the family the fundamental building block of earthly society and government is, number three, the family is the economic engine of all society. The family is the economic engine of all of society. Yes, the family becomes the prime motivator for a man to go out and wrest a living from a reluctant creation, for a wife to sacrifice in order to nurture her husband and children, and the reason for children to help enrich the family and model their lives on their parents' example, passing on a heritage and way of life.

In every example one can cite from Genesis to Revelation, property is exclusively familial and was designed by God to be so. Property is familial. Land and property for Adam and his descendants was passed on from father to son. Land and property for Abraham and his son was passed on from father to son. Land and property in Israel was exclusively held within the clan and family.

The whole purpose of the year of Jubilee, for example, celebrated every 49 years, was that every square inch of land and property was to be returned to the original family of origin as designed and given in its original disbursement in the conquest. Oh, even a superficial reading of the Pentateuch reveals that God cherishes and designates the family as the primitive building block of any nation's economy. Well, the fourth reason why God has chosen to make the family the fundamental building block of earthly society and government is the family is the political engine for all of society. The family is the political engine for all of society.

A republican form of government, that is a representative form of government, existed in Israel that began with a foundational building block, not of the individual, but of the family whose vote was represented by the father or patriarch. And this is made crystal clear in the Pentateuch with prescriptions for representation according to families. For example, in Deuteronomy 16, you shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.

In those tribes, it was the father or patriarch who cast the vote, not each and every individual. Government was federal or republican in nature. The family was represented by the father who cast his vote for the entire family as a unit. And number five, the fifth reason why God has chosen to make the family the fundamental building block of earthly society and government is the family is the creative engine for all of society. The family is the creative engine for all of society.

The family literally creates new citizens of both heaven and earth by virtue of its ability to birth and nurture and prepare children for life in the city of heaven and the city of man. Angels, as beautiful and powerful as they may be portrayed in the Bible, still cannot reproduce after their kind and make new baby angels. In this regard, man is unique. We are, in a sense, co-creators with God insofar as we reproduce after our kind and make little basses and smiths and joneses. This is reflected decisively in the creation mandate.

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living creature that moves on the earth, as Genesis 128 says. We are ensouled creatures who have the unique ability to create out of our own bodies other ensouled creatures. How awe-inspiring, how full of wonder this privilege is as a human. All praise must go to God for having designed and created such a thing.

We create from nothing little boys and girls who were not there before and then prepare them for a brief life here upon the earth and an eternal life with God in the heavenlies by introducing them to their Savior, Jesus Christ. Any model of marriage and family that does not reflect this ability and necessity is an unholy distortion. My challenge to the gay community still stands. You go to an island with your homosexual families and we will go to an island with our heterosexual families and within a generation we'll see who has thrived and survived with great posterity.

By definition, the homosexual and lesbian communities cannot create families but must prey upon us breeders, as you call us, if you are going to perpetuate yourselves and your culture. You must rely on deception and recruitment within the head of sexual community in order to survive. In this way, the homosexual becomes a drag and a parasite and a predator upon the body politic of any civilization. In the face of all these realities, it becomes apparent why the radical socialist progressives among us find it utterly necessary to destroy the family in order to establish the socialist workers' paradise.

As long as the five elements of the family endure in a society, that society thrives and prospers. If a people hates and seeks to destroy such a god and culture, then it must first destroy the pillars of that god and culture. In the case of the United States of America, it must destroy the family as we have known it. How successful has the social progressive among us been in destroying the family? Oh, just look at what has happened.

Insofar as the United States has accommodated the gay agenda, for example, or the trans agenda, it has weakened the family. To those who ask, what's so bad about tolerating gays and gay families and trans and transsexuals? Well, live and let live, I say. It doesn't hurt me and my family to have gay marriages and trans marriages and families living next to me. To that, we must say, think again.

Look for a moment how it does hurt you. All of the factors just noted for you that constitute a free society are under attack by the gay agenda. Remember, families not only live next door to you, but by definition, they are always modeling and exemplifying for you and your children the lifestyles they espouse. Your children are watching and learning. Do you want them persuaded of the gay lifestyle?

They are being deliberately recruited by these people, by these cultures. Make no mistake about this, young father and mother. Part of the agenda for the gay and trans community is recruitment, since by definition, they cannot reproduce after their own kind. They need to recruit your children if they are to perpetuate their way of life and culture to the next generation. Biblical Christianity is also under attack and is now considered hate speech by the progressive community.

Your freedom to practice your religious faith and speak freely on these issues is now threatened by speech codes and hate crime legislation. Even now, the power of the state is being marshaled to stifle opinion and dissent under the PC euphemisms hate speech and hate crime. Private property created and handed down to posterity in families is under attack as the very definition of family and is altered, dear listener. Where does your wealth go? Under our increasingly socialist economy.

Oh, it goes to these groups. Additionally, we see increasingly where the real hate is with a passage of measures like Proposition 8 in California, defining marriages between one man and one woman. You remember the resistance to that so long ago? And now the trans protective legislation where you can go to jail for speaking ill of transsexuals and their way of life and their desires for a transitioning, right? Oh, it does matter, dear listener.

These things do matter to you. And number two, also note, insofar as the United States of America has accommodated the culture of death, it has weakened the family. And America has accommodated the culture of death. Both abortion at the beginning of life and euthanasia at the end of life have seriously chopped away at the pillars of life and family. God intends for us to create new life at the start and respect his timing in the taking of life at the end.

This is the envelope of life whose sides are shrinking at both ends, facilitated by our courts and culture instead of respecting and protecting life's integrity. When we destroy life in the womb at the beginning with abortion and infanticide, and then we destroy life in hospice at the end of life with euthanasia, we cause the culture of death to thrive. America increasingly is becoming a culture of death. That is a culture where death has meted out to those deemed unworthy as once more the ugly, tri-headed griffin of tolerance, diversity, and radical egalitarianism, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion, right?

In declaring my life to be supreme, radical individual, in following the doctrine, others' lives must give way to mine. And so the baby in the womb, if it's too inconvenient for my career right now or apt to have a defect or even the wrong sex or eye color, that baby has to go. His or her life ripped from the womb. Conversely, if granny is eating away at my inheritance in the nursing home, pull the plug. If government health care becomes the law of the land, health care will be rationed, and euthanasia will be recommended.

You have a great irony here, then. When God is gone and my life is supreme, death becomes a culture, not life, as others' lives must give way to mine. Thirdly, observe, insofar as the United States has accommodated radical feminism, it has weakened the family. Every cultural mandate that pulls a woman away from her husband and children into the world weakens the family. This is precisely what the siren song of career and personal success and achievement have done to the American woman.

Oh, dear listener, a woman's first and primary calling is as a wife and mother. Without her, culture collapses, and we can bid adieu to civilization as we know it. The old adage, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, holds more wisdom than we give credit. This is where a woman's true power, authority, and chief joy reside.

If the so-called liberated woman of contemporary American culture, who has been hypnotized by the golden bauble of male achievement as her prize, too, if she would listen once again to the Bible and her own instincts in these matters, she would once again take her place as queen of home and hearth, and America would return in part to greatness. These are things government should be encouraging and protecting, not the blurring of sexes and interchangeability of roles and transsexuality.

When government and culture encourages women to abandon home and husband for the supposed greener pastures of paycheck and profession, that government and culture only weakens itself. Well, fourthly, we must also observe, insofar as the United States has accommodated the welfare state, it has weakened the family. How insidious and destructive is this component of the progressive in America? When one man offers the fruits of another man's labor to one who hasn't earned it, that's the essence of socialism, that one undermines a foundational pillar of society, that is, the right of a man to sell his labor in a free, open market for a just wage.

And like falling dominoes, other consequences ensue, too. That man from whom the ability to sell his labor has been deprived is also deprived of the enjoyment of the fruits of his labor, unhindered by meddling from the state. His incentive to work and earn is also stolen from him in the process. And how corrosive to the spirit of a father and husband. The prime directive and impulse of a man is to tame and bring to godly order and otherwise disordered creation, whether it be farming fields, damming rivers, or building skyscrapers.

Oh, this has been the spirit of America for generations, until recently at least. In a desire to fulfill the socialist mandate of Marx and his ilk, much of America has gone after the redistribution of wealth as one of the methods of the socialist state. And in doing this, families are destroyed in the welfare state. We've seen this in black culture, white culture, Hispanic culture, when the wealth generated by a father is seized through increasing taxes and redistributed to the enemies of family. Would you tolerate the taking of a portion of your paycheck to see it handed over to a neighbor of yours who wanted your current home?

In a thousand and one ways, your government is set against family, not for it. Can you deny or refute the examples I have given? You cannot. The 26th principle of our founding fathers, the core unit which determines the strength of any society, is the family. Therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity.

Oh, this is being violated egregiously by our government. Our government does not foster and protect the family. They insidiously undermine and they are destroying it. You are having the constitution piously waved in front of your nose from time to time by those in government. Oh, but behind your back, that government and your family is being eroded and destroyed.

Judge for yourself, dear listener, one of the glories of the gospel is that God saves sinners one by one, individual soul by soul. Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, as Mark has put it, as one individual soul that has been born from above by the power of God through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I personally rejoice in this. But I also realize that the primary setting for the word and sacraments of the church is not society or my own individual apartment, but the family and church.

I did not learn Christ as a little boy in government-run schools, but on my mama's knee. I did not learn character and the work ethic in a government boarding house, but from my father and my uncles. I did not imbibe the rich elixir of liberty and free government from what I saw in Washington, D.C., but from my family and neighbors growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dear friend and neighbor listening now, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this 26th principle if we are to reclaim America for her constitution. The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family.

Therefore, the government should foster and protect its integrity. May you and I labor together to hold our government accountable for fostering and protecting the integrity of your family, of my family. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. New Geneva meets for holy worship at 10 a.m. on Sundays at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard, and you can call us for more feedback at 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.