Well, it’s interesting, the 220 years ago when they were writing the Constitution, they had that discussion. How are we going to preserve what we’ve done here? And at the convention, a guy named John Francis Mercer, one of the delegates at the convention. He made a very wise, very astute biblical insight. He says, people are going to look at this constitution, and they’re going to think that this constitution is really what governs America. He said, and that’s not accurate. Here’s what he said. He says a great mistake to suppose that the paperwork to propose will govern the United States. He says, If you think it’s a constitution that governs America, he said you are dead wrong. He said it’s not the constitution, but it’s the men that the constitutional bring enter the government interests they have and maintain entered that will govern them. He said what we’re gonna do is we’re going to give you a paper that shows how to choose your leaders. And if you choose the right kind of leaders, this constitution will preserve itself. If you choose the wrong kind of liters, this constitutional be absolutely worthless. He said the paper will only mark out the moat in the form of men of the substance and then MR. the business, the paper is no good without the right kind of liters to go with it to preserve the values that are in that paper. That’s what we’ve seen on the US Supreme Court. We’d get dean stable. Tell you right now we get four justices on the court who actually read the Constitution. We have five justices who don’t know what it is. See, it’s worthless in the hands of those kind of justices or those kind of leaders, whether they be local leaders, county leaders, state leaders are federal leaders. And that’s nothing more than Proverbs. 29 to the Scripture tells us that when the Righteous rule, the people rejoice, when the wicked rule the people grown. You can be in a nation like Israel established by God with laws given by God Himself. And if you’ve got the wrong kind of liters, not a foundation to be in. If you’ve got leaders like Ahab and Joseph Bellarmine, nasa or Jeroboam or other bad liters. It doesn’t matter the god founded the nation doesn’t matter that it has God’s laws wrong. Kind of liters will screw up a nation. Now having said that, what that means is elections, because the only way the righteous are the wicked rule in America is we choose them and we place them in the office. We look at an election cycle this year as we do every two years. And as we look in an election cycle this year, if you watched anything about either of the two parties conventions over the last few weeks, you heard dozens of issues that were raised there. Also at the candidates, both parties. They got about 40 issues that had been raised between them. As you look at those issues as a Christian, you say, Well, man, how do I prioritize those issues? You know, how do I know what’s most important and what do I need to do to, to preserve the prosperity that we’ve enjoyed for 221 years. And the way you preserve the prosperity is going back to the Scriptures. The scriptures tell us and progress 1434, that righteousness exalts a nation. So if you want the nation be exalted, you gotta make sure that the policies you pursue will promote righteousness. Economic policies will not necessarily do it unless they’re based on righteousness and don’t think that, that economic policies are counted a righteousness. So not the Bible is very clear about economics, but it just has to be done in a biblical way if it’s going to work. So righteousness of the basis, what has to be done. Fortunately for us, the Bible is very clear about all of those issues. As a matter of fact, if you look at what God gave His people, god gave his people a total of 613 laws. And if you look at the laws that he gave, that is the most comprehensive legal system ever given any people anywhere. Those 613 laws we have in the scriptures they deal with health care. And by the way, man, one of the greatest books you’ll ever find on biblical health care is this book called none of these diseases by a medical doctor says, You know, God gave these health laws 5000 years ago. And we’re just now figuring out through studies that he was really right 5 thousand years ago. All these things he told us we can now put medical stuff. I saw another study that came out just this week, validating yet another one of God’s health laws, which is a prize to the medical community. That it’s again, the thing that got deals with healthcare and he tells us exactly how to do it right out of the scriptures. Got also deals with social justice issues of how do we deal with poverty? How do we take care of those who are in scriptures are very good about that in the scriptures don’t stop there. The scriptures also tell us about immigration that tell us about the war and military education, taxes, foreign relations, environment, named the issue the Bible deals with. Now, out of the 613 laws that God gave in that comprehensive system, there was a point in Exodus 34, he says, now, I’ve given you all these laws, but I do need you to know that some are more important than others. And so he took those 613 laws and hit reduced to its top 10. He gave us the top ten that that made his top ten list out a 613 laws, dozens of issues, he said Now here’s my top 10. We would call that today the Ten Commandments. And as you look at those Ten Commandments, you can look and say, well, what issues didn’t make God’s top ten? What, what are issues of righteousness that are most important to him? Well, you certainly have the CICS command which says thou shall not kill. Now actually doesn’t say Thou shall not kill. Ask any Hebrew scholar and they’ll say Thou shall not murder. There’s a big difference between killing and murder. You will find that the Bible allows the taking of life on three occasions without you getting in trouble. If you take a life in self-defense, the scripture says you don’t even have to go to the city of refuge that the venture can’t come after you if you kill someone in self-defense. That’s, that’s not, you’re not in trouble with God for having done that. If you kill someone and it justified war, you’re not in trouble. And if someone is put to death through civil justice under Genesis nine, if God, so God says, Whoever sheds man’s blood by him, well man’s blood be shed if someone kills someone else and then put to death, That’s not a problem. And that guy, what God always gets ticked off over, what he cannot handle is a shedding of innocent blood. Now, that’s the difference between capital punishment and abortion. Abortion is a shed in medicine blood, capital punishments are shedding of guilty blood. And there’s a big difference between the two. And say that’s why it’s easy to look at something like the sixth command and say that. Say, what made God’s top ten list was murder. And by the way, if you go into the New Testament and look at the two occasions where Jesus went over the ten commandments again, Matthew 5 and Matthew 19. It’s translated properly there. Jesus says, thou shall do no murder, and that is the important thing. So when I look at that passes, Sai, God does not want to shed and then some blood. It’s real easy to say abortion makes God’s top ten. No question about it. I’m going to look at command number seven about thou shall not commit adultery. That comes right on the heels of having Genesis 1 through 3, where God says, Now here’s the relationship. I want to get one man, one woman, put them together for life. This is a good thing and he said That’s good, That’s a relationship. And then he tells us in Tompkin, you preserve it exactly the way I told you to back there. I don’t want you messing that relationship up. So it’s real it’s real easy to say that marriage makes God’s top ten, which is why gay marriage is an issue that can be put in the top 10. But you know, as you look through those top 10, there are things that don’t make God’s top ten. What does not make God’s top ten, for example, is things like poverty, things like healthier, and they are important and they are biblical. It’s just, they don’t make the top priority list. It’s not that they’re not important, they are, but they don’t make the list. And as you look at the Ten Commandments and you may be aware of this, The Ten Commandments as they appear in Hebrew or not, that they’re not versus they’re not numbered. There’s just a paragraph and it all appears in a paragraph. And that’s why there are five different versions of the Ten Commandments. There’s a Catholic version, Ten Commandments, a Jewish version, ten commandments of Protestant version, an orthodox version and Lutheran version. And the differences the way they’re numbered. When you see a Ten Commandments monument like this, and this is the one that was one at the Supreme Court case two years ago and impaired versus Van Orden. This is the Ten Commandments monument out of Texas that the court said it’s okay to leave that out there. You see up top where it says I am the Lord thy God. You see that opening phrase there? That the way this is setup tells us that this is a Protestant version of The Ten Commandments, because Protestants use that as the prologue to the Ten Commandments. We use that and then we’d have the Ten Commandments under that. Now, the Jewish version that, that, that part, that circle right there is actually the first command. And I really like Jewish logic on this because as you say, the reason we tell you upfront that I am the Lord, thy God. The reason the number one thing is to acknowledge God is if you don’t acknowledge God as your source and authority than none of the other commands have any authority below that. I mean, the reason we don’t kill us because we recognize that God will hold us accountable. The reason we don’t purge yourself as we recognize. So they say the number one command and the Jewish for, and again in the Hebrew all this is just a paragraph, but this is the opening line of the paragraph. And the Jews make this commandment number 1 is you have to acknowledge God right up top. When I look at the Ten Commandments, that’s an easy three issues that make the Ten Commandments, abortion and marriage protection and religious acknowledgments. All of those three things are in God’s top ten. There’s one other this worth knowing because righteousness, that is the emphasis. If righteousness is going to exalted nation and what produces righteousness? Let me take you guys a 126. 126. You have a situation where God has called the prophet Isaiah to try to return the nation of Israel are actually Judah back to its roots, get them back to God. And Isaiah had a tough task. The civil leader that Thomas Mann, nasa and maybe the most wicked king and Judas history. And God told Isaiah, I’m going to get this nation back to me. And here’s how I’m going to do it. They are 126. God says, I’ll give you judges as at the beginning and lawyers as that. The first is that I’m going to give me the right kind of judges, the right kind of lawyers. He says and then, and the word then is really big. Guys just said on this conditional, then here will be the results. If I give you the right kind of judges, lawyers, he says then you’d be called the City of rights, isn’t the faithful city. That it is interesting that God ties the righteousness of an area to the type of judges you have in that area. And that really is the culture war in America. We have never had a legislature in the history of the United States. In 232 years since the declaration, we’ve never had a legislature pass any law that says, we’re going to have abortion on demand. And our state, I came from judges. We’d never had a legislature say we’re going to change the definition, marriage. We’ve only had judges tell legislature’s to do that. We’ve never had a legislature say you can’t create a football game and you can’t have a priority at a graduation. We’ve only had judges to see the whole thing we find on the culture wars come from judges, not from a single legislature. And that’s why God says the righteousness of a land is based on the type of judges net land. So when I look at that and say, you know, judges are really important in, by the way, judges are so important that God gives a number of verses. Directing or how we should deal with judges. And you take this one, Psalms to 10 to 12. The scripture says, be instructed you judges of the earth serve the Lord of fear, just the son, S-O-N, lest he be angry and wrap the candle. Judges pay attention here. Fear God, honor, his son or God’s going to get ticked off and we’re all going to be in trouble. Met a real clear directive for judges. You have the same thing a second particles 19 versus six or seven judges. Take heed to what you do for you’re not judging for the, for man but for the Lord is with you in judgment. Therefore, let the fear of the Lord be upon. You, will get a lot of judges with no fear of God whatsoever. But that’s what judges are supposed to have as a fear of God, or they fear God, you get the right kind of rulings. You get rulings had preserved biblical values rather than attack them. Same way you have a Azra 725 is as appoint judges who know the laws of God. Now, that is a direct command, a candidates running for president this year, Bible says, put judges in there who know the laws of God because then there can be righteousness in the land. So judicial appointments really becomes a very important thing. And as Dean steric can tell you that, you know, we’re kind of at a mixed court right now. We’ve got four guys have read the Constitution for who don’t foreground fairing guys. We have two justices on the court added recently, her pro-life justices. We’ve had our first pro-life victories that the US Supreme Court since Roe v Wade 1973, as a result of those that we’re seeing, we’ve had the first Ten Commandments victory in 26 years at the Supreme Court. We’re seeing changes as a result. And this next election, the precedent, the sworn in on January of 2009 of the nine justices are sitting on the US Supreme Court. Six of the nano be 70 years or older, somebody’s going to make a lot of appointments and they need to appoint judges who know the laws of God. That’s what the scripture tells us very clearly. Now. That’s why certainly what makes the list, these four areas, these four areas of judicial appointments, abortion, protection, public, really, that makes God’s topless. There’s no question about that, but you’ll notice that poverty did not make the list. Why didn’t make that? Don’t we care about the poor? Absolutely. We care about the poor. The Bible, if you will. If you’ll take the word poor and search the Bible, you’ll find 205 verses in the Bible that address poor dress. The poor were told how to deal with the poor. I mean, there’s so many versa. But you know, what’s interesting is the three institutions that God created in the Bible. He created family in Genesis 1 through 3. He created civil government in Genesis 4 over 332, and it created the Church engines is 32, 350. You look at the three institutions. It’s interesting that in the Bible and 205 Vs. On dealing with the poor, government does not receive a single verse on addressing the needs of the poor. Now the church and civil government does. And I don’t want you to think I’m being challenged here, but Isaiah 58 says we’re supposed to fast. And while we’re supposed to fast, I say 50s as you’re supposed to faster that you will learn to get your bread to the poor so that you won’t turn your eyes away from the needy. So you’ll see what’s what. And we have Matthew 25 where Jesus says, You came and visited me when I was in prison. You fed me when I was hungry, you clothed me. When I say, this is all individual action. Then we have Paul going through the book of Acts, taking collections for the poor, jerusalem, going through all the churches, taking collections of the church can do. We’d get all these nice, nothing in the Bible with the government deal with for now. Let’s say that they’re, the Bible didn’t address the issue of poverty, would it then be a good idea for government to deal with the poor? If the Bible didn’t say very clearly that this is the jurisdiction of individuals and church. Would it be okay for government deal? Let me take you to a group called the American Institute of philanthropy. These are the guys that if you give money to a charity, they tell you whether your money is actually getting worse supposed to, sometimes you give to charity, it ends up in the pockets of people run into charity rather than people you’re given two. So the American Institute of philanthropy rates all the charities. They look and say, is your money actually going where it’s supposed to? And according to these guys, if you’d give a dollar to a charity over give to charity called wounded warriors for the soldiers who had been hurt and their families. So when I give to that, is my money actually making it there? Well, they say if 60 percent of the money you give reaches the goal, then that’s a good charity. To expect that 40% can be taken to be used for fund raising, an advertising and mailing to get more. But if 60 percent of the dollar I give reaches the wounded warriors, then that’s a good charity. So that’s what you look for is a 60 percent threshold. Now, we have given through the Federal Government $9 trillion to the poor, percent rich, the poor, 30%. That’s a lousy charity. There’s not a person in America who would give to a charity who only got $0.30 out of every dollar grief support. If the federal government would just take the money it has and give it to churches to reach the poor. You had more than double the amount of money that the poor received just by the government staying out of it. It’s a god did not design government to deal with that. He designed our parts to deal with that government doesn’t have a car to deal with that. And by the way, if I can touch real quickly on faith-based programs, this is the difference of the church can make when it gets involved in social justice issues. Governments not to be involved in these kind of issues, at least not biblically, there’s not a model for. Recidivism, when you look at prisons, we have all these state and federal prisons right now, the recidivism rate and state and federal prisons, 68%. In other words, 68% of those released from prison within three years will commit a crime. They put some back in prison. But we now have 15 states who have faith-based prisons texts as in Indiana and Florida and elsewhere. You know what the risk-free rate it is most prisons, only 8% of those in those prisons get put back in prison. It makes a difference when you deal with the heart set on 85%, approve it. You have the same thing. You have the same thing when you look at drug rehab in a government run drug rehab program, less than 20 percent of people are cured of drug problems. Faith-based drug rehab program, over 70 percent are cured. That’s the same with poverty. Anytime. Anytime the church and people get involved and meeting needs, needs get met, federal government will not meet needs. It was never designed to meet needs. That’s not the way God designed garments. So having said that, righteousness is what’s exalts a nation, when you look in the scriptures, the issues of righteousness, and these are the issues on which we need to vote. Very simple judicial appointments, Abortion, marriage protection, religious acknowledgements. Those are the top issues. Now, we have an election with two candidates and we’re saying where these two guys, let me tell you something about both of these candidates. I recommend highly that you do not listen to what either one of these two guys say. Totally ignore everything. I’ll tell you why. The reason is they’re both US senators. They both get between 10 and 13 thousand bills introduced every session of Congress. They both have thousands of votes that they have made. Why do I care what they say? When I can look at what they’ve done, see if I go look at their votes. I don’t care what they say. Both of them, they both have voting records. Now, here’s where I’m gonna encourage you to do. There is a website that’s called Project Vote Smart. If you go to vote smart.org, you can check the actions are both candidates. Ignore the rhetoric. People can say the right thing and do the wrong thing. Look at what they do. If you do, you’ll see that presidential candidates in the top right-hand corner circle you click on presidential candidates. It’ll take you to the page with the six presidential candidates who have now, Now’s the two primary candidates that we had the most talked about, or McCain and Obama. So click on either picture. When you get there, this page will come up and I recommend that you go to what’s called Interest Group ratings. With thousands of votes that are out there, you’d have all these different groups that monitor how they vote and they get goose that monitor agriculture roofs and monitor economic spending groups among all these different issues. So I can look at the group ratings and I can say, well, human rights campaign which the Moscow Art and strenuous. There are activists, pro homosexual activist, gay organization. They wanted to destroy traditional marriage. If they have endorsed one of those two cameras, I’m probably going the other way because I don’t hold the value system. They have the same thing would happen with the ACLU if they seal you like so mom probably not going to go. On the other hand, you’ve got folks like family research council, Family Resource Council, awesome. That’s a biblical value group. If, if they look at all those votes and say they voted right, all these biblical issues, then that’s probably candidate. Then I’m going to lie the same thing with national right to live. On the other side, you got Planned Parenthood. Planned parenthood says this is a perfect writing. We write this person as a perfect 100 for Planned Parenthood. That’s probably not the person I’m going to be looking for. Same thing on a around the same thing with groups like National Rifle Association. Whether if you’re concerned about the right to keep and bear arms. These are people who do nothing but look at their voting record. So I encourage you to do that as I close out this morning, let me encourage you to go to a website while bowlers.com, we have presidential butter guides you can get. Also there are, there are answers that you can use for people around you to get them out to vote. You’ve already heard, please register to vote here locally on campus. You need to be involved right here around be salt and light right here. And finally, there’s a book called the Bible voters in the 2008 election that I would recommend to you. Let’s close out with a word of prayer. We can. Father, thanks for the wonderful nation you’ve given us. It’s a blessing sometimes when we take it for granted. But father, Your blessing has been over this nation. A father, we pray that we would have the stewardship to continue. Give you an opportunity to bless this nation, help us to elect individuals at local, county, state and federal levels that will promote righteousness. We want you to bless America, but we know you gotta have something to work with fathers to help us choose leaders and elect leaders. There’ll be wives and promote righteousness and Father, we pray for all the candidates running the selection that you strengthen them, that you raised up the ones you want Father, but raise up your people to go and vote for those folks and let us be strong influences and preserving the Constitution that you’ve given us in Jesus name, we pray Amen.
