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Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church,

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and I'd like to challenge you today to think through an important issue of life and faith,

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and that is part two of the men of Issachar. Just as Israel had the men of Issachar who

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had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do, as the Bible says,

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So we in America, in particular the church, needs men today who understand the times in which they

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live, and then consequently to know what the United States of America ought to do. This is part two

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of that series, and last week we looked at the first part of 1 Chronicles 12, verse 32.

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This is one of those hidden away verses, if you will, that we might tend to breeze right through

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when we're looking at the genealogies, and there is just a beautiful layout, genealogy, if you will,

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in 1 Chronicles 12. And verse 32 kind of leapt out at me when I was reading my Bible,

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and during the time of David's ascendancy in his kingship, there were men who rallied to his side,

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tribes of Israel that rallied to his side to help him establish his kingdom firmly within Israel,

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and the tribe of Issachar was one of those. And the Bible in 1 Chronicles 12, verse 32, says this

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about those men, men of Issachar who had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do.

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Every king, every ruler, every body of governance, every magistrate needs these kinds of men,

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regardless of the period and time in history. Of course, in the course of redemptive history,

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that meant that Israel had King David, which indeed becomes Israel's greatest king,

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had then by his side men of Issachar who had understanding of the times to know what Israel

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ought to do. And he consulted them, just as every magistrate today needs wise men of God,

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to consult and to know what the United States of America ought to do. And last week, we took the

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first part of that, and we saw what it means to know and to have understanding of the times.

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This is so crucial. If you're off in la-la land, off in left field, as progressives are,

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then you will not understand the times. In fact, you will stumble into them,

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and you will be led by the nose by those who have nothing but evil intent for the United States

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of America and our world, our greater world. And we've treated that in the past as well in past

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broadcasts, just precisely of which that consists. So we know what we're facing,

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and we need men of Issachar who know what they're facing, right? And not progressives,

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because progressives have been, and I have a whole lecture on that coming up too.

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What are they thinking? That'll be the title of that series. What are they thinking? That is,

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what makes a progressive a progressive? And what is the makeup of his mind and heart and spirit?

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Right. And we'll be touching on that in days to come. But in the meantime, we must have just the

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opposite of the progressive and have men of Issachar who know and understand the times,

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and then consequently, as a result, know what Israel ought to do. And so we looked at what that means

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last week, that is, how to begin to understand the times in which one lives. And that has to come

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first, you have to know what you're facing before you're going to beat it. You have to know your

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enemy. If you're indeed going to know what it is you're going to have to do to fight it. And then

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secondly, you need to know what comes in its place. What has God ordained? What does he intend

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to have established in the place of what is already dysfunctioning, if you will?

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So we looked at that last week. And this week, we want to look at part two of that verse, that is,

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to know what Israel ought to do. And for the men of Issachar in our own day and age,

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for what the United States of America ought to do. So let's look at that, okay? Verse 32b,

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as of the men of Issachar in Israel, so the church needs men today, who in consequence of understanding,

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know what to do. Brother and sister, it is one thing to have a command of the facts on the ground,

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but it is another thing to then proceed to action. Issachar knew and presumably led Israel in anointing

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David as king, for example, and they helped him subdue the rest of Israel under him, right?

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Psalm 144, David exclaims with great exaltation. Psalm 144, he says,

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Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers to fight. He is my steadfast

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love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I trust,

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who subdueth my people under me. Yes. And Issachar helped to subdue Israel under King David. Now,

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it's not always a simple thing to act upon the knowledge one has. One may have good knowledge,

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but that doesn't mean he's going to act on it. For example, Stalin knew for months in 1942 that

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Germany was building up its forces on the border with Ukraine for an invasion, finding how Ukraine

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figures in so many wars. But Stalin did not act on it, believing that the Molotov-Ribbentrop

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non-aggression pact would be honored by Hitler. But not until Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa

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did Stalin then realize his failure to act on the knowledge that he had. And Americans have known,

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more recently, of course, Americans have known for years that the flood of unchecked, unvetted,

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illegal immigrants would bring in criminals and gangs and military-aged males to the country

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with disastrous effects. We knew this. And especially now that Venezuelan gangs like

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Truende Aragua are terrorizing Americans with drugs and human trafficking, trafficking, excuse me,

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and extortion taking over that apartment building in Aurora, Colorado, for example.

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We are beginning to understand our failure to act any sooner than we have. Now, President Trump is

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indeed acting. He has men of Issachar around him who are advising and helping him to act in these

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things. But it should have been done a long time ago. And if you do not act upon what you know is

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right, oh, dear listener, the Apostle James notes the consequences for doing this. He says in James

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chapter 4, so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin, unquote.

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But Issachar, they knew the time to a night David King was propitious. And with others, as in verse 40

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of chapter 12 of First Chronicles, I quote now verse 40, they came bringing food on donkeys and on camels

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and on mules and on oxen, abundant provisions of flour, cakes of figs, clusters of raisins, and wine

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and oil, oxen and sheep, for there was joy in Israel. Well, dear listener, we have reached a similar

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crossroads in our own day. Do we have such godly men as did Israel, men of Issachar, men who have

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understanding of the times to know what the church and the country ought to do? Very important for the

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church to have its bearings and to have its head screwed on straight. Because once again, as we say

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again and again, as goes the church, so goes the nation. Now, one of my favorite examples of a man

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of Issachar who knew what the church ought to do is one of my favorite men in church history,

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J. Gresham Machen. You may not know him, but he was a Presbyterian minister back in the 20s, 1920s,

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and 30s, J. Gresham Machen. He helped to found our own Orthodox Presbyterian church, of which we are

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members. But Machen was also asked to help in the larger cultural and church issue that was raging at

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the time, that is the modernist fundamentalist controversy, as it was known, the modernist

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fundamentalist controversy of the 1920s, the early 20th century. And it was raging at the time in the

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country. Pick up an American history book and you'll find this out. Well, the Presbyterian church

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in the United States had delineated five fundamental doctrines without whose affirmation no minister

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could be ordained, because many in the Presbyterian church were denying these five truths. Number one,

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the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. Number two, the virgin birth of Christ. Number three,

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the substitutionary atonement of Christ's death. Number four, the bodily resurrection of Christ.

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And number five, the historical reality of Christ's miracles. The Presbyterian church in America,

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at least most of them, insisted that these things be affirmed because they were being denied by so many

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in the church at the time. Now, a wealthy Presbyterian layman, a man named Lyman Stewart,

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asked a number of conservative scholars to publish works that defended each of these five fundamentals.

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And then he was going to distribute that work to the wider American public, a great religious cultural

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venture. And Machen was asked to treat of the virgin birth. And so we have his masterful book,

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The Virgin Birth. Still worth reading today, dear listener. Now, J. Gresham Machen was a man of Issachar

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in this sense. No one understood the times better than him, and no one acted knowing what the

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Presbyterian church and America, the country, should do better than him. We would not have the

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Orthodox Presbyterian church if not from men like J. Gresham Machen. But unfortunately, one of the

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legacies of this controversy, which is very crucial to even what America is today, we don't often

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understand this, but that fundamentalist modernist controversy back in the early 20th century

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determined so much of the cultural times subsequent to it. Oh, the evangelical wing of the church

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during this period, during this controversy, got beaten so badly and humiliated so thoroughly

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that the evangelical church went into retreat and has never fully recovered from this defeat. Do you

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know this part of your history, dear Christian? Some of the habits, some of the practices, some of the

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attitudes of the contemporary church today are derived directly from this controversy and the way

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the evangelical church was beaten into submission by cultural secularism at the time, which included

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evolution, Darwinist theories, for example. And exhibit A in this controversy, dear listener, is the

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Scopes trial, the Scopes trial, also known as the monkey trial. And in this trial, so badly did

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William Jennings Bryan and other conservative Christians come off in that debate that it has come down to us

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known as the Scopes monkey trial. Oh, dear listener, having to do with Darwin and evolution. In

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Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925, John Scopes was a high school teacher, and he was charged with the crime of

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teaching evolution in the classes. Tennessee had outlawed, made illegal teaching evolution in the

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schools. And it was that trial then started out slow and modest, but gradually was hyped and amplified in

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the press all over the country. And that little courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee, I've been there, I

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visited it, spent some time there. Well, that little courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee became a media circus.

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And of course, the media who was on the side of evolution called it the trial of the century, right?

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Great drama, trial of the century. Well, all of America's eyes were on that trial. The then famous,

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you may not have heard of him, but many have, especially if you study a little bit of American

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church history, you know, William Jennings Bryan. At this time, William Jennings Bryan was America's

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evangelical, and he was the eloquent spokesman for Christianity. And he came to be the star witness

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for the prosecution. And he was going to magnificently defend the biblical view on the origins of man

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and goodly trounced evolution, right? Well, Bryan and the conservatives were really outflanked by the

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evolutionists in this little game. And they were led, the evolutionists were led by the famous defense

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attorney, Clarence Darrow. For the days of those trials, for three days in a row, the evidence for

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Darwin's theory of evolution was meticulously laid out. And many Americans heard it for the first time.

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Darrell attempted to make it sound as rational and scientific as possible. Yes, the scientific theory

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of evolution. But on the other hand, Bryan was admittedly unprepared. This was his fatal flaw.

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He was arrogant and presumptuous. He assumed that his position was the correct one,

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and that all he had to do was cite a few Bible verses, and the case would be made. Many evangelicals

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make this mistake, do they not? Cite a few Bible verses, and the case is made, and that's it, right?

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A very clever Clarence Darrow, in cross-examining Bryan, utterly humiliated Bryan on the witness stand,

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when, for example, Bryan could not give a reasoned scientific understanding of the biblical view.

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Well, it is often said that conservatives won the battle because Scopes, the teacher,

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was convicted of the crime of teaching evolution in his classroom. So, they won that battle,

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but they lost the larger war over evolution. America, at the time, was fascinated and obsessed with all

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things science. And Darrow had done a masterful job of making Darwin and Darwinism and evolution,

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of making it all sound scientific. There was indeed a glow, a patina of varnish over the doctrine of

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evolution. And Americans bought it and swallowed it. And Darwinism took on warp speed, if you will,

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at this trial, the Scopes trial, and the monkey trial, as it was also known, and Bryan being the

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chief monkey. Williams Jennings Bryan had come off as an ignorant buffoon who was a Bible thumper and

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nothing more. And William Jennings Bryan was never the same. He was destroyed. He was humiliated. He was

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broken. In fact, he died two weeks after the conclusion of the trial. And many say it was that

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moment that killed him. Well, in a larger sense, evangelicalism in America died a kind of public

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death, too. Not a lot of Americans realize this, but many views on culture and society and politics,

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the separation of church and state, for example. All of these things come down to us because of that

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humiliating period of time when, indeed, evangelicalism and Christians in general were not prepared to

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defend the biblical view of creation and do it in a scientific and rational manner. Conservatives

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retreated from the public square. They abandoned politics and culture altogether. Meanwhile, as,

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conversely, evolution and secularism came on with a vengeance, a new strength. Many factors contributed

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to that retreat, that banishment to the cultural wilderness, if you will, but it was the Scopes trial

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that was our Waterloo. And over the decades, the church in America has come back somewhat to its

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calling to impact the larger culture with the gospel, including politics, to be men of Issachar,

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or gradually scratching and clawing our way back, as well as saving souls and anticipating Christ's

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return. But that John the Baptist in the wilderness mentality has never quite gone away. And so many

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American evangelicals still embrace it. It still lingers in our souls. One of my favorite old-time

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preachers, Reverend J. Vernon McGee, many of you gray hairs remember him, just a marvelous Baptist

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preacher. I love listening to him. Well, he used to say, and I quote, we must not soil the garments of the

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gospel with politics and culture. He was famous for saying that. We must not soil the garments of the

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gospel with politics and culture. To the delight of myself and my fellow fundamentalists, but I've come to see that

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that that sentiment is misguided and just plain wrong. It is characteristic of his generation. It is

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characteristic of the fundamentalist modernist controversy. It is characteristic of the mentality

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of retreat and defeat that was reigning during that period. And it's still a hangover in the mentality

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of so many American evangelicals today, right? Do not soil the garments of the gospel with politics and

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culture. There's a separation between church and state, right? That is far too cynical and limiting of

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the power of the gospel. You cannot hold this view for long and parallel believe in the power of the

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gospel in every realm of life. Dear listener, when the gospel transforms, it transforms everything,

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including politics and culture. When the gospel is lived out by serious believing Christians,

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the church has always taught this and it's practiced it. And the world is a far different and better

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place than it would have been without doing this. Men of Issachar. The Men of Issachar would not be in

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retreat and retiring to a cultural cocoon. No, they would be understanding our times, knowing what the

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church and nation ought to do, and then do it. Dear listener, so consequently, you must know what to do.

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You must be men of Issachar who understand your times and then consequently know what to do and begin to

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do it. I have five recommendations for us as men of Issachar. Number one, be prepared for spiritual

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warfare. First and foremost, we fight a spiritual battle. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood,

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as the apostle Paul says in Ephesians. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,

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against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness

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in high places." Yes, spiritual wickedness in high places. That runs all the way to the White House,

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doesn't it? Dear listener, if we are going to be aware of some of these spiritual battles,

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we must realize just how wicked is our enemy that we fight against. Satanism, devil worship,

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is rampant all through our culture these days. I would just encourage you maybe to check out

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this young buck online. His name is Jay Dyer, and he has a website called jaysanalysis.com,

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jaysanalysis.com. And he chronicles especially the worship of Satan in Hollywood in particular,

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in our entertainment. It's rife throughout our entertainment, right, from movies to the Super Bowl.

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So, if you want to get more understanding of just how far Luciferianism has infiltrated our culture,

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I would just go ahead and have you check out his website, jaysanalysis.com. Secondly,

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that we must not only be prepared for spiritual warfare, that's our main field of battle is

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spiritual warfare. But secondly, work for spiritual revival and reformation in the United States of

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America. Yes, conversely, not only must we be aware of our enemy, but also then be prepared for

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spiritual revival and reformation in the United States of America. Pray for this, work for this,

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preach it, preacher. Preach revival and reformation amongst Americans in our culture and in our politics,

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too. And that will be the only enduring transformation. It must begin there in the

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hearts and minds of the people, revival and reformation in the hearts and minds of Americans.

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Dear listener, if we're going to make America great again, we must first make America good again. That

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must be precedent to making America great again. And number three, third recommendation, root out

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evil in our covenant institutions. God works through covenants. He has made three great covenants in

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this age, in this aeon after the resurrection of Christ. Three great covenants. That is the covenant

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with home and family, the familial covenant. That still holds strong. There's also the covenant with

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the church. This is the new covenant in my blood, Christ said at the institution of the supper.

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So there is a great covenant of salvation and redemption and resurrection with the church.

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This must be reformed too. No more Bishop Buddhas, Buddhas, excuse me, who gave that horrible speech

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in the nation's capital church, right, the other day in front of President Trump. No,

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we need reformation and revival in the church. Root out evil in our covenant institutions. And finally,

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the last covenant institution is the republic with the magistrate, with the government. There is a great

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covenant there going all the way back to the covenant with Noah in chapter 9 of, in chapter 12,

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excuse me, of Genesis, right? There is a social contract that we have with our magistrates that has

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been broken. And God insists that we root out evil in those covenant institutions. Then number four,

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recommendation number four, form those covenant institutions according to biblical principle.

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Know these covenants, dear listener. This is the focus. You will be unfocused in your energies until

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you know where to direct them. And God has established covenants, and that is the economy through which he

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works. So you must focus your energies in restoring the covenant institution he has established,

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that is, that is, home and family, church, and the republic. Take your kids out of public schools,

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for example, under home and family. Homeschool them, or create schools in your churches and in your

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communities as an alternative to public institutions. And reform the church. Form your church as a

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covenant institution responsible before God. And then finally, form a republic. Insist that our

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magistrates behave as covenant representatives before the living God. We will be held accountable

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for these things. Form, that's number four, form those covenant institutions according to biblical

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principle. And then finally, number five, dear listener, use your particular gifts to make these

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things happen. Every one of us has particular gifts, no matter how humble and how lowly you may feel,

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how ineffective you may feel. No, no, no, no, no, no, dear listener. As long as you have a mind that

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can think and a voice that can speak, you can affect all of these institutions, and you can be a man of

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Issachar. Study. Know what is right. Know your information. Get square before you. What is the lay of the

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land? And then make it happen. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian

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Church. We meet for holy worship. We try to be men of Issachar. We meet for holy worship on Sunday at

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10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And besides visiting us,

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you can call us at area code 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.