"Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
and you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in."
~ Isaiah 58:12
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"Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in." ~ Isaiah 58:12
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THINK ABOUT IT RADIO PROGRAM #427 "The Bible Is the Foundation of Civil Law" by: Don Pinson aired on: 1/31/08
If you were to begin to read the books which record our national laws in the Library of Congress; and you read them for eight hours a day for the rest of your life, you could not get them all read within your lifetime! Can you believe it? Why is it we have so many laws on today’s law books when early Americans had so few? Actually the answer to that is quiet simple. America’s Founders believed the Bible was the source for law. Noah Webster said; “The Bible was America’s basic textbook in all fields.” (Webster, Noah. "Our Christian Heritage," Letter from Plymouth Rock (Marlborough, NH: The Plymouth Rock Foundation), p. 5.) They believed the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount reveal the moral and civil laws by which man needs to live. They simply lifted the last six commands out of the Ten Commandments and built their civil laws on them. These commands, which tell us how to treat our fellowman, became the guideline for their civil statutes. The civil laws America’s Founders enacted were based on those simple teachings. That’s why it didn’t take many books to record them. They divided the Ten Commandments into two tablets. They believed this is how God intended them to be used. The first four Commandments were about our relationship to Him, thus, the first tablet contained the first four commands. The second tablet contained the last six commands and was about man’s relationship to his fellow man. These last six commands are based on the morality of the first four. Our Forefathers were trying to help us understand that our relationship to man is based on our relationship to God. Thus, they based our civil law on God’s moral law. Without a proper relationship to God there can be no true love toward our fellow man. Thus, they simply transferred the principles in the last six Commandments into our civil code. Then they warned us not to give up either our moral law or our civil law! John Quincy Adams, our sixth President who lived during the time most of our Founders were still alive, identified this when he stated: "The law given from Sinai was a civil…as well as a moral and religious code...laws essential to the existence of men in society…." "Vain indeed would be the search among the writings of [secular history]...to find so broad, so complete, and so solid a basis for morality as this Decalogue lays down." (Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings, Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850, p.61 & pp. 70-71) Decalogue meaning, The Ten Commandments. This is why, when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He identified two inseparable Commandments. He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22: 37) Then He added, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39) On these two Commandments America’s civil law was originally built. How does our civil law being based on our moral law apply to this present time? Like this: We now have a Governor in Kentucky who wants casinos to come to this state. There are candidates running in special elections to be held on February 5th , who will help Steve Beshear bring casinos to Kentucky. If you want to preserve civil law that will preserve the liberty of your children, then you must vote for candidates who refuse to bow down to the casino industry. You must vote to keep moral law in Kentucky, not law that will allow casinos to destroy families, business, and government in this state. This is how you can preserve moral law. If you don’t vote; or you vote for those who will bring casinos, you are helping to destroy our moral law. It was Founder John Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration of Independence, who cautioned us: “A republic must either preserve its virtue, or lose its liberty.” (Witherspoon, John. May 17, 1776, in his sermon entitled, "The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men" delivered at The College of New Jersey (Princeton). Varnum Lansing Collins, President Witherspoon (New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1969), I:197-98. John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution - The Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, A Mott Media Book, 1987, 6th printing 1993), p. 85.)
Will you vote to preserve moral goodness? Or will you bow down to the organized crime that pushes casinos? Those are your only choices. Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you--- and for your children! And you won’t like what that brings to you. I’m Don Pinson this has been Think About It. |
