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Dave Roth is currently serving as the Director of Multihousing Ministries for the York Baptist Association in Rock Hill, S.C. and as Pastor of Midtown Ministries, a new church plant in Rock Hill. He also runs the Seeker's Network website on which he publishes a daily Bible study.
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I guess the reason the word blaphemy seems so wierd to most people is that the actual act of plasphemy has become so popular and so common that we do not think about it anymore. Young people do it all the time and don't even know that it is wrong. No one tells them. I guess most adults don't even remember how serious the sin is.
Blasphemy is a violation of the third commandment, which says, "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." Taking the Lord's name invain includes using it for empty purposes, denigrating it or opposing it in any way.
The Columbia Encyclopedia: blasphemy "...in religion, words or actions that display irreverence toward or contempt for God or that which is held sacred. Blasphemy is regarded as an offense against the community to varying degrees, depending on the extent of the identification of a religion with the society at large or the government. Sedition, an attack on the sovereign, is thus analogous; both it and blasphemy can be seen as subversive of order and authority." Isn't that interesting? Blasphemy is analogous to sedition, rebellion, an attack on the sovereign authority of the state. And who is our sovereign? We are one nation under God. In many countries the crime of sedition carries the death penalty.
Continue reading "Chapter 2: Hello-o-o! God's name is still holy!"
It has been a long time since my last entry to this blog, but I promise that it was not my fault. Our web host upgraded their programs and there were a lot of technical problems, which kept me from accessing the site. I am working again on the next chapter to USA's Godless Society and will post it very soon. Meanwhile, I invite you to join me for a Daily Bible Study. Right now we are doing a verse by verse study of the fascinating book of Zechariah. So, come and learn. Click Here.
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15)
If we are going to explore the spiritual condition of our nation, the best place to begin, in my humble opinion, would be with the Ten Commandments. I chose the commandments as a starting point, because at least the last six of them are widely accepted principles of morality, even though they cannot be posted in public places.
The first commandment is as follows:"I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me." (Exodus 20:2-3) Now, we must understand that everyone has a god or gods, even atheists. In the Hebrew, the word elohiym, gods, means, magistrate, judge, or ruler. "For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us." (Isaiah 33:22) Everyone has someone who makes the rules and judges them. It may be that they are their own god, but they do have one. So it is not a matter of believing or not believing, but whom do you serve?
 This commandment, however, specifies that the Lord, Yahweh, is our God. There is no room for us to choose which God we shall serve. Yahweh is our God, like it or not. Eventually, everyone will answer to Him and to no other. He will judge nations and men according to His law.
Most Americans profess a belief in God but live by their own laws and morality. Without any standard for determining right from wrong, their self-centered religion has contributed to a very diverse mixture of world views and has confused the political direction of our country. Both domestic and foreign policy suffer radical changes every time we have an election. The effects have been disastrous.
Look at the confusion that now exists. We have a group called "Evangelicals for Romney," which was responsible for his winning the straw poll at the recent Southern Republican Leadership Conference. What kind of evangelical (I am assuming that they are Christian evangelicals) would want our nation to be led by a man who does not have the wisdom to see the enormous and obvious lies embedded in his religion, Mormonism? All that these people are interested in is his money managing ability, which has proven to be a dismal failure in the Massachusets healtcare legislation that he pushed through. Do even evangelicals not understand that we need God's blessing on our nation before anything else good can happen?
Continue reading "Chapter 1 - One Nation Under Too Many Gods"
I have written several articles in this blog about America's political problems caused by our departure from the principles of the Constitution. Now, I wish to take us deeper into the problem. You see, the Constitution is not the supreme law of the land and never was intended to be. "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (John Adams)
Which kind of religion did John Adams and the founders have in mind? Islam? Mormonism? Hinduism? I cannot imagine that they would have thought the constitution to be wholly adequate for any of these pagan religions. Adams together with John Hancock said, "We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!" [April 18, 1775] I think that makes it pretty clear. We also have the following words of Benjamin Franklin:“ God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel†(Constitutional Convention of 1787 | original manuscript of this speech)  What, then, did the founders mean by the inclusion of the first Amendment to the Constitution? Consider this official quote from the Library of Congress concerning the Continental Congress. "Although the Articles of Confederation did not officially authorize Congress to concern itself with religion, the citizenry did not object to such activities. This lack of objection suggests that both the legislators and the public considered it appropriate for the national government to promote a nondenominational, nonpolemical Christianity." (http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel04.html) Apparently early Americans thought that it was fine for the government to participate in religious affairs as long as they kept it nondenominational and uncontroversially Christian.
Continue reading "The Supreme Law of the Land"
 I like watching Glenn Beck's TV show. He is always telling us what the politicians have been doing to us for the past hundred years. According to Beck, we have all been asleep, but that is not completely true. The things that he is teaching now are the same thiings that various patriot groups were teaching twenty five years ago, but we were called crazy conspiracy nuts. The powers-that-be called us dangerous and now they say the same thing about Beck. The difference is that now the people want to learn, and Beck has the medium through which to teach them.
However, even Beck has not gotten to the heart of the problem. You see, our problem is that the government has tricked us into volunteering into a jurisdiction in which the constitutional protections of our rights do not apply. That is why the Democrats can be so sure of themselves when they say that the health insurance mandate is the same as the mandate to have auto insurance.
Now, you are probably thinking that these are two different things. Auto insurance is for the safety of the public. Not true. Whenever a government writes a new program like healthcare or the Department of Motor Vehicles, they write an enabling statute. The enabling statute explains the purpose of the program and gives someone the administrative and regulatory authority over it. The enabling statute for every state's DMV, with the exception I believe of Louisiana, says that its purpose is to raise revenue. Their only purpose is to get your money.
Your car is your property, you have the God given right to travel where you want, and the highways are public roads, not state property, over which you do not need permission to travel. But you have been tricked into applying for a driver's or operator's license. In legal terms, a driver or operator is someone who transports goods or people over the public roads for commercial reasons. It is not an exercise of the right to travel but the privilege of using the public's roads for profit. When the government grants you a privilege, they can attach any conditions to it that they want. Your rights have nothing to do with it. Thus, you need to have your vehicle insured, if you want to exercise the privilege.
Continue reading "The Healthcare Mandate is Constitutional!"
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Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved, David A. Roth |
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