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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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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"
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Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved, David A. Roth |
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