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

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with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and

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faith. Today, what are the 12 things that America has given the world, gifts to the world,

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that were never seen in their fullness in the broad sweep of history anywhere at any other time?

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Huh? It's not always easy to calculate the profound impact which the American experiment

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has had upon the world and her history and her future, for that matter. Even if the United

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States of America were to disappear from the face of the earth today, our impact upon the world would

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continue ad infinitum throughout the course of human history to the end of the world.

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Well, yes, the abundant gifts given to the human race would continue to enrich humanity and improve

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her lot for the future. And as we approach our 250th year of independence, liberated from the

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tyranny of George III and the English Parliament, it is important to inject a bit of perspective on

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seen, given the vile, bitter recrimination being poured out upon our history, our traditions, and our way of

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life by our enemies. And these vicious jackals include people like the progressives of the left.

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One example, a Mr. Sabri Abdussalam, who is a writer for the left-wing publication MinnPost, right?

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Sabri Abdussalam. He wrote a piece entitled, Why We Shouldn't Celebrate the Founding Fathers on

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America's 250th Anniversary. That was the title of his piece, Why We Shouldn't Celebrate the Founding

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Fathers on America's 250th Anniversary. He accuses the Founding Fathers of, and I quote,

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Weaponizing Prejudice at the Time Against African Americans and Native Peoples to Unite the Colonists.

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He goes on to say, What does it mean if the document we treat today, that is the Declaration of Independence,

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as a representation of our commitment to freedom, also planted white supremacy into the country's roots

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intentionally? Is America's founding even worth celebrating, he asks.

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Of all the nerve, is the founding even worth celebrating? Well, then there are other enemies

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as well. Immigrants who are avowed enemies of the United States and seek not to assimilate,

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and this includes the Somali community and ghettos like Minneapolis, Minnesota, and militant

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Islamicists who aspire to bring Sharia law to our communities, displacing our founding

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documents. Other enemies, they're tyrants of every stripe worldwide to whom America poses a threat,

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right? Why brandishing our Declaration of Independence and Constitution in the faces of

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people like Xi Jinping or the leaders of the European Union or the mullahs of Iran? Well,

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it's like brandishing the cross in the face of vampires, isn't it? They recoil in horror and flee to

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the darkness ever hoping to destroy such emblems of liberty that threaten their very tyrannical

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existence. Well, all of these forces and more have fooled gullible Americans into hating their country

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and their history and rejecting these gifts that America has given the world of freedom and liberty.

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Perhaps we should remind all of our people at this time of the good gifts that history will look back

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upon with gratitude long after her vicious enemies have gone the way of tyrants, that is, to the grave.

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Last week, we articulated the first three of those gifts. They were a Republican constitution

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founded on an idea rather than a tribe or race, smaller Republican constitution. In other words,

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we're a republic, not a democracy. The second gift the U.S. has given the world is a written

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constitution composed in a brief period of time rather than oral traditions developed over centuries.

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And the third gift that America has given the world in perpetuity is a system whereby power is

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transferred in an orderly, peaceable fashion. Today, we'll take up three more of those good gifts

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that America has given to the world. Number four, the fourth gift that America has given to the world

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is our founding fathers succinctly and explicitly acknowledged our rights derived from God, not

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government. Yes, our rights derived from God and not government. Our founders did this for us.

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The phrase, all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain

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unalienable rights. Well, that sent and continues to send shockwaves through the course of tyrants

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everywhere. From the days of Cain, the presumptive operating principle is that to rule was to occupy

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the place of God. Isaiah captures well the aspiration of the king of Babylon when Isaiah says,

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You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven. Above the stars of God, I will set my throne on high.

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I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights

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of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high. Isaiah chapter 28. Bingo. This is the ultimate

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goal of Satan himself. This text is the perfect analogy of Satan, but it is also the hubris of every

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temporal ruler who gets a taste of power. It's no mere happenstance that the ancient pagan kings were

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divinized, comporting themselves as gods with mandates to rule the people by fiat. The pharaohs

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of Egypt were thought to be incarnations of Horus and Ra, the Egyptian gods, Horus and Ra. And the kings

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of Mesopotamia, like Naram-Sin of Akkad, claimed to be divine. And the kings of early Mesoamerica too,

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like the Aztecs or the Maya, all claimed a right to rule because of their divine lineage. Even if a

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particular civilization did not see their king as a god per se, they perceived him to be in rule over

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them via the divine right of kings. We've talked about this briefly in the past, the idea of the divine

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right of kings. This ancient principle held great inertia throughout the ages, right to the dawn of

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the American experiment. The French philosopher Bossuet is often credited with best articulating

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the divine right of kings, particularly through his work, Politics Derived from Sacred Scripture,

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where he emphasized that a king's authority is derived from God and is absolute. Other notable

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proponents include James I of England, the Stuart kings, Charles I and II, and of course,

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Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, right? Well, this theory, the divine right of kings,

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presupposed that the king and his government could grant or revoke rights and privileges to

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the people at will. The right to speak one's mind freely depended upon the inclination of the king

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and his government to tolerate such speech, as long as it didn't threaten the power of the regime,

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or the right to possess arms could be granted or revoked at will, depending upon the need for the

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monarchy to have at its disposal a militia to defend the kingdom. If the people became overly

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exercised at the tyranny of the king, weapons could be banned or seized at will. The same could be said for

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all other rights that we Americans take for granted, trial by jury, the right to privacy, or the right

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to be free from cruel and unusual punishments. Oh, everything we may construe as being a basic human

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right could be granted, altered, or abolished at the discretion of the government under the divine

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right of kings. Can you see how radical our founding fathers were in their breathtaking rewriting of the

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presuppositions of government by acknowledging for the first time explicitly in writing in a charter of

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government that human rights are endowed by their creator God of the Bible? Well, they overturned by

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one stroke of the pen millennia of tyranny. And the direct implication of this truth was that if God

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himself was the bestower of human rights and him alone, then no mere man or government of man could

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add, subtract, or alter them in any way, shape, or form. Our rights are etched in stone, if you will,

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for as long as the sun shines in the day and the moon glows at night. In fact, to add injury to insult

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for every wannabe tyrant in history, the very purpose of government was thereafter declared to be

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to secure these rights. That is the rights given by God. Governments are instituted among men,

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deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Oh, the founding fathers had relied upon

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enlightenment thinkers like John Locke or Montesquieu or Frédéric Bastiat to ground this principle

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that governments are here to secure rights and that they're given by God, not man.

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And they grounded this principle in biblical texts, these men. Such had been the thoroughness of this

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project that Jefferson could assert without descending into the weeds of scriptural proof. He would say,

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we hold these truths to be self-evident. It's well worth your time and labors to read these men and

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their pertinent works. That would be Montesquieu, Bastiat, and John Locke. Read their pertinent

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works to see just how the ideas that we are endowed by our creator with rights and that the very reason

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governments are instituted is in order to secure those rights. Oh, it's all solidly grounded in

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scripture. And so, the divine right of kings is transformed into the divine right of the people

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to govern themselves and exercise their God-given rights in liberty. Hereafter, every motion to

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abridge or abolish the rights of the people could and must be challenged and opposed with great vigor,

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even if it meant taking up arms against the tyranny. We must not squander the gift given us by God,

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articulated so clearly by the founding fathers that we are endowed, not by government, but by God,

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with unalienable rights. Progressives and Democrats and rhino Republicans cannot take them from us

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because of necessity, quote-unquote, right? When it comes to freedom of speech, the left constantly

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says it is not absolute, right? You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. That's the old nostrum.

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Well, okay, but neither can you yell silence in the theater of the absurd when the government says,

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shut up. The excuses of the left are no match for the absolute liberty of the people to speak.

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And the same can be said for our right to wield weapons against tyrants who oppress us.

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The Second Amendment was not added for the sake of hunters or merely for self-defense. No,

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the Second Amendment, excuse me, acknowledged the right of citizens to resist tyranny.

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The War of Independence started when British redcoats moved to seize arms and ammunition at

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Lexington and Concord. Patriots moved quickly to stop them. And the British knew that if the

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colonists had access to weapons, they could resist the predations of King George, which, of course,

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they did. As it was with that tyrant, well, so it is today with the tyranny of the federal dominion

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of demons. That is the deep state. Always remember the good gift America has given to the world in

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explicitly acknowledging that our rights are bestowed by God, not government. All right. Well,

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the fifth good gift, the fifth good gift that America has given to the world in her existence is

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the United States of America as a nation which self-consciously ended slavery. Yes, this good gift

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we must share with Great Britain, however, which began its journey towards ending slavery with the

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Slave Trade Act in 1807 that banned the transatlantic, transatlantic, excuse me, slave trade in the

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British Empire. And the biography of William Wilberforce, for example, shines brightly in his almost

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single-handed laborers in getting that action passed in his career in Parliament. And over many decades

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of education and policy changes and naval interdiction across the globe, England began to see the end of

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slavery in her empire. Especially significant was the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. Well, the abolition

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movement was well underway by this time as well in the United States of America. We can say

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that the movement to end slavery did not begin with the Civil War, no, but with the abolition movement

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that began in our colonial period of American history and stretched from roughly 1783 through

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1888. This is why we can say the gift of ending slavery is an American gift to the world, shared with

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our mother country, Great Britain. The abolition movement began in the churches of America, dear listener.

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The Quakers were in the forefront of calling for the immediate abolition of slavery, and they were

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quickly followed by ministers and congregations across a wide spectrum of denominations all across

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the country. To think that the first Americans to awaken to the evils of slavery were man buns, skinny

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jeans, lisping, pencil-neck Gen Zers, and millennials as a monument to the ignorance inculcated in our public

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school system. Millions of men and women, white and black, sacrificed themselves in blood, sweat, and tears

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to bring an end to the race-based slavery system that had flourished for centuries. Do not let the

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self-righteous, virtue-signaling progressives wield the sledgehammer of guilt against your conscience

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every time a new fault, foible, and piccadillo is detected on the surface of our collective body

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politic. It is time to refresh the American memory on the sacrifices of Americans to end slavery in our

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history. Oh, just a sample of men like the journalist William Garrison, who was the founder of the American

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Anti-Slavery Society. He worked for decades under countless death threats to end slavery, and he changed

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many hearts and minds. Or Julia Ward Howell, who was the composer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. She also

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worked tirelessly to end slavery with her speeches, her literary efforts, and her meetings in towns across

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America. Others, like the black former slave Frederick Douglass and the free black David Walker, they

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demonstrated that well-educated, articulate blacks could fight on their own behalf. And for their brothers and sisters

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in bonds. So, there is no excuse for contemporary Americans to be ignorant of the difficult history

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of our struggle to end slavery. Many other stories could be told. It wasn't easy, it wasn't pretty, and it

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wasn't as complete as it could have been, but it got done as it had never been done in the history of the

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world. What must be kept in mind by the hysterical hypnotized tribes of crusader rabbits out there in the

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streets, fighting ICE officers, decrying the racist society of America, and seeking systematic change, is that,

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remember, slavery was not unique to America. From the earliest mists of time, before recorded history, slavery has been

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practiced by almost every civilization that made an appearance on the stage of history. Without slavery, the pyramids

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would not have been built in Egypt, the Parthenon in Greece would be a worn-out shack, and the Colosseum in

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Rome would be little more than a man cave for Caesar. Slavery was integral to every society on the earth.

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Catherine Austin Fitz was a very savvy economist and currency expert. Catherine Austin Fitz says it succinctly,

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slavery is, always has been, and always will be the most profitable venture in human history.

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Oh, Catherine Austin Fitz had it. Nailed. The history of slavery is long and complex, dear listener.

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I urge you to consult our website, americastruths.org, where we have a catalog of all of our radio spots,

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and I just encourage you to check out this two-part series, The New American Slave, America's Unconscious Slide

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into Slavery, Parts 1 and 2, and that was broadcast on June 12 and June 26 of 2022.

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June 12 and June 26 of 2022. Well, the main point is that, unlike every other society in history who

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doubled down on slavery and increasingly relied on it, America ran counter to the stream and ended it.

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The Civil War, of course, being Exhibit A, of the sacrifice made in blood and treasure.

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Many people point out that the war between the states was primarily over whether the South would

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secede from the Union or be forced to remain in it, and that is true. But what is also very true

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is that slavery was integral to the economy of the South and the moral inertia in the North

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towards ending it was very strong. It cannot be disentangled from the purposes of the conflict.

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America's gift to the world is her ending race slavery as an institution. Now, this fact cannot

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be denied, even if it did not end racism, per se, or Jim Crow systems in the South, or the bitterness,

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suspicion, and tribal animosities that still haunt us today. History is messy, imperfect, and painful,

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but in this case, something was done never seen in history. A country put an end to slavery as an

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economic institution. Thank God for America. Well, the sixth gift that America has given to the world

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that will live on in perpetuity is that while Christianity was and is intended to be the

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religion of the people, there was no established state church. Yes, no established state church.

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One of the most destructive institutions of Europe over a millennia of our history were the corruptions

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of the state church. For example, the Peace of Westphalia, which was concluded in 1648, was determined

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after the Thirty Years' War, a terrible war, that whatever territory came under the dominion of a

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particular prince, his religion would be the religion of the people. And so France under Louis XIV would

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be Roman Catholic, the religion of Louis. England under James I would be Protestant, the faith of James,

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and Charles V of Spain would dictate Spain's loyalties. Well, on and on it would go. Our founders reflected

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on the rivers of blood and the perpetual catalog of souls sent into the afterlife by this war, among others,

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and they determined that the chief problem was the insistence that every Christian worship not

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according to his own conscience, but rather according to the dictates of the conscience of one man or group

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of men in a country. That conscience then bound those of the people, regardless of their convictions

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or beliefs. It had become the pretext for countless wars and conflicts for centuries. Well, the colonists

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had experienced this from the beginning of the American experiment too. They had immigrated to the

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New World from England, most of them precisely because the Church of England had imposed an absolute

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regulation of worship and practice uniformly on all the people. The state church was the Church of

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England, the Anglican Church, to which all must subscribe. This was especially acute under the zealous rule

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of Bishop Laud under Charles I and later under the Acts of Uniformity of 1662. Ministers and followers of anything

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other than the Church of England were persecuted and jailed, physically abused. The idea of an established church

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had these important features. Number one, it had government financial support of the state church. Your taxes went to

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support the state church. Additionally, government control over the creeds, the order of worship, its

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polity and clerical appointments. There were also restrictions. Number three, mandatory attendance at

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worship services in the state church and prohibitions on church services by others. Number four, there was

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micromanagement of daily life, use of the state church to record births and marriages and deaths and to

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perform all marriages and funerals, too. And then number five, membership in state church determined

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who could vote. There were religious tests. Public office and voting rights were confined to members

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of the state church. Dear listener, imagine yourself in such a situation believing as you do,

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having to face a federal government that strictly mandated that you believe in worship as a Catholic when

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you're not a Catholic or a Lutheran when you're not a Lutheran or a Baptist when you're not a

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Baptist or even a Presbyterian when you're not a Presbyterian. Although I can't imagine why you would not

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want to worship as a Presbyterian. Actually, I can. Anyway, this was a situation all across Europe when the

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American colonists came to America. And for most of them, all they did was reproduce what they came from in

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Europe. Yeah, there were state churches in the colonies in the states. For example, Massachusetts had an

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established state church, a Protestant congregational church, until 1833. And famously, Virginia did not

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disestablish its state church, the Anglican Church, until 1786 with the Virginia Statute for Religious

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Freedom. And Thomas Jefferson was a champion of this measure, supremely conscious of the dangers of an

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established state church. Thus, he wrote, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.

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It seems to be in the human bloodstream for humans to dictate what others believe, doesn't it? I hope you see the

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genius of the American system that actually showed restraint when it could have exercised power. Congress shall make no law

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respecting the establishment of religion. Do you see the significance of that word

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establishment? It meant no established state church in the United States of America. But does that mean that

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we're not to be Christian? Au contraire, dear listener. All historians have acknowledged that America is a

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Christian nation. The important distinction is that we are not one sect or denomination of Christianity. As we have

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pointed out on countless occasions, the Christian faith was seen to be the religion of America. And the Christian

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faith was relied upon to shape the moral and ethical life of the nation. Listen to what the Supreme Court said in

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1892, in the case, Church of the Holy Trinity versus the United States. This is the Supreme Court. And they said,

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our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of

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mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. And in this sense, and to this extent, our civilization and our

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institutions are emphatically Christian. Unquote. That was the Supreme Court of 1892. You wouldn't see that

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being said by the Supreme Court nowadays, would you? So, dear listeners, as we celebrate our 250th

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anniversary, declaring ourselves independent from Great Britain, let us not forget the good gifts to history

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that the United States of America has given. They cannot be denied. The world is and will forever be

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better for us having been here. May we be here another 250 years and beyond. Teach these good gifts

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to your children. Mention them at your church and see to it that those who are attempting to erase the good

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that the United States of America has done. They will not prevail. Let's see to it that they do not prevail.

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And may God continue to bless the United States of America. May the 12 gifts that I mention in this

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series of broadcasts, may those 12 gifts be only the beginning. This has been Pastor David Bass at New

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Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We meet for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the

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corner of 4th and Boulevard. I encourage you to stop by and see us sometime this summer. Give us a visit.

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You'll find a warm welcome. And we love and respect the good gifts that America has bestowed upon all of

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history and pray that there will be many, many more. New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church meets for

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holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street. Call us at area code 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.