Sermon Central
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Defending The 10 Commandments
Contributed by Dave Kinney on Mar 4, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: Sadly Christianity has lost ground over the last 40 years! Why? The main reason…the 10 commandments have been aggressively attacked in America and reduced this country to a moronic and miniscule mindset of morals!
“Defending The 10 Commandments”
Proverbs 4:7 “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom.
Notices that it says get “wisdom” and not “knowledge”.
I believe that the application of knowledge by way of Biblical wisdom is paramount for the believer in today’s world! We live in a confusing world with a buffet of philosophies to choose from. Which one will you bite into?
What is Philosophy but a type of knowledge that one lives by? There are forces in the world that are driving their philosophy down our throats in the most creative and destructive ways – Media and our Courts.
I ask…how is Christianity doing in getting its worldview out there? Sadly we’ve lost ground over the last 40 years! Why? The main reason…prayer, Bible reading and the 10 commandments have been aggressively attacked in America and reduced this country to a moronic and miniscule mindset of morals!
This progressive propaganda is really destructive pabulum!
Ecclesiastes 2:12, 13 “I turned myself to consider wisdom, madness and folly…then I saw that wisdom excels...”
As Europeans would visit America just as she was declaring her liberty 200 years ago, America was known for her godly wisdom and shining honor - just read Alexis De Tocqueville’s “Democracy In America”.
He writes…“In the United States the sovereign authority is religious…there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men then in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth…America is great because America is good and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
Ecclesiastes 10:1 “Dead flies putrefy the perfumer’s ointment, and cause it to give off a foul odor. So does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor.”
Does this describe Amercia?
Proverbs 4:8 “Exalt her (wisdom) and she will promote you; she will bring you honor, when you embrace her.”
How far down the slippery slope of secular slim will America go before America returns to this revelation?
Think about it - prayer, Bible reading and the 10 commandments are 3 avenues of gathering knowledge and then the ability to apply wisdom to society!
Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on whether it is Constitutional the have the 10 Commandments on display in public.
In the Texas case, a U.S. appeals court ruled that a 6-foot-high, 3-foot-wide granite monument erected in 1961 on the Capitol grounds in Austin could remain standing because it is part of a larger presentation remembering state history and culture.
In the Kentucky case, however, a federal court ordered McCreary and Pulaski counties to take down framed copies of the Ten Commandments that had been put up in their courthouses in 1999. The federal court said the displays were, “blatantly religious” — and therefore unconstitutional — even after officials added other documents, including the Declaration of Independence.
I just wonder if our Founding Fathers could have ever imagined this happening in America?
When the 10 Commandments were removed from the Alabama State Supreme Court, Judge Roy Moore said, "It is a sad day in our country when the moral foundation of our law and the acknowledgment of God has to be hidden from public view to appease a federal judge."
In the Kentucky case, most of Americans feel that the 10 Commandments have every right to be displayed.
The CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll found 77% of the 1,009 Americans interviewed disapproved of U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson’s order to remove the monument.
One cannot enter the National Archives and see the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution without first noticing the Ten Commandments posted at the entrance. Moses occupies a central position in the United States House Chamber and he faces forward — perched over the Chief Justice’s seat — at the United States Supreme Court.
As Chief Justice Warren Burger noted in Lynch v. Donnelly: “The very chamber in which oral arguments on this case were heard is decorated with a notable and permanent-not seasonal-symbol of religion: Moses with the Ten Commandments.”
So do Christians stand on solid ground when fighting these kinds of cases in the highest courts in the land? Absolutely!!!!
I Give You Several Pieces of Evidence To Consider:
1. The Northwest Ordinance.
Congress first enacted the Northwest Ordinance in 1789, when the nation was still operating under the Articles of Confederation. The purpose of the Ordinance was to create a temporary government for the Northwest Territory (a huge patch of land that extended from the great lakes to the Ohio river valley), and to establish a procedure by which territories could apply for admission into the Union. The Ordinance was reenacted with very minor changes in 1789, after the passage of the Constitution.
