Nation Building

Psalms 119:105:

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

God’s Word is His owner’s manual to the sons and daughters of men.  His beautiful and glorious Word is true and righteous altogether.  It is filled with secrets of living and the secret of eternal life.

A common cry heard in the Christian ranks is, “I’ve been set free.  I’m not interested in the do’s and don’ts of the Bible!”  When believers understand that the restraints of the scriptures are the blessings of God, they will view them differently.  Inherent within each of God’s commandments is a blessing or a curse.  The blessing is simply the fruit of doing the right thing.  The curse is the fruit of doing it wrong.  Thus Proverbs 9:8:

...rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.

The Word of God is full of do’s and don’ts, and the wise will embrace them.  Psalms 119:93:

I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me.

Psalms 119:126-128:

126  It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law.

127  Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.

128  Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.

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GOD SAID, Deuteronomy 28:1-2 & 8:

1  And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

2  And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.

8  The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

MAN SAID: Get these Bible-thumpers out of my face!  There is no God.  The Bible is the writings of old men and not fit to direct today’s enlightened society.

Now THE RECORD.  God’s direction for nation building was given by His servant Moses to the children of Israel.  The first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch, were given by God to Moses for instructions to live by.  Explicit instructions were given, such as issues concerning the following:

• Responsibility to God;

• Daily conduct;

• Diet;

• Sanitation;

• Agriculture;

• Animal husbandry;

• Punishment for offenders;

• Governance;

• And more.

In the final chapters of Deuteronomy, Moses made preparations to die.  He left the nation of Israel with final admonitions—instructions for nation building.  Deuteronomy 28:1:

And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

What would have happened if all of God’s commandments given to the children of Israel were obeyed?  Would they have been set on high above all the nations of the earth?  This feature will be just another proof that God is and that His Word is the inerrant truth.  GodSaidManSaid presently hosts, in text and streaming audio, 435 feature subjects—d astounding articles that say yes to the Masoretic Old Testament and majority-text New Testament of the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.

God’s Word is the unadulterated truth.  Rejecting it simply makes one wrong, and that rejection bears real, deadly fruit.  Think of the Bible as an owner’s manual.  Suppose a man purchases an automobile.  He reads the owner’s manual and sees that the manufacturer—the creator of the vehicle—says to inflate the tires with 32 pounds of air.  He says to his wife, “Who is this manufacturer to tell me how much air my tires need?  Doesn’t he know that more is better?”  So he pumps 100 pounds of air into a tire and it blows up in his face.  A wise man pays attention to the owner’s manual. 

It is not possible to cast off the Word of God without reaping punishment—the results of doing the wrong thing.  Conversely, it is not possible to embrace and obey the Word of God without reaping the blessing—the results of doing the right thing.  It is written in Galatians 6:7-8:

7  Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

8  For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

On GodSaidManSaid is an astounding four-part series titled, “The Wages of Sin.”  They are listed below:

The Wages of Sin -- Prepare To Be Shocked

The Wages of Sin -- Part Two

The Wages of Sin -- Part Three

The Wages of Sin -- Part Four -- Conclusion

In these articles, we catalog the cost of disobedience to a nation and its citizenry.  Romans 6:23:

For the wages of sin is death;...

The formula for assessing the cost of sin—the sin tax—used in “The Wages of Sin” series, as demonstrated in the first feature, was as follows:

The number of American households in 2006 was 124,521,886.  I took the cost of crime at $2.04 trillion, and divided it by the number of households, yielding a cost of crime per American household of $16,383.  Next, I took the cost of crime per household of $16,383, and divided it by the median U.S. household income of $47,034 (‘04 adjusted numbers at 3% growth per annum).  This yielded the annual crime tax of 35% levied against every American household.  The wages of sin are staggering in every conceivable way.  [End of quote]

In the final installment of “The Wages of Sin” series, we list the sin, calculate its cost by percentage of U.S. household income, and tally the cost.  It is listed below for your consideration:

1. Crime 35.0%

2. Pornography 4.0%

3. Divorce 3.4%

4. Drugs 3.0%

5. Usury 11.0%

6. War 10.0%

7. Alcohol 4.0%

SUBTOTAL 70.4% SIN TAX

This calculation does not include the cost of homosexuality, fornication, adultery, pedophilia, sexually transmitted diseases affecting one out of five Americans, abortion, loafing on the job, etc., etc.  With just the sin listed in the calculation, if you earn $10 per hour, $7.04 of it is paid to Mr. Sin.  When you add all the rest, I’m sure the percentage will hover around 90%.  [End of quote]

The wisdom, the health, and the wealth of a nation’s citizenry is the measurement of its global stature and power.  Imagine a people who are not plagued by crime (See “The Perfect Penal System.”), pornography, divorce, drug addictions, usury, alcoholism, or war (for wars would be rare if a nation was supremely dominant and made it a habit of taking the spoils of war).  Surely that nation would be set on high above all nations of the earth. 

God’s plan for nation building is found in His commandments.  The nation that excels will be the one that observes them.  This nation building begins one citizen at a time—one household at a time.  Bring yourself and your family before the Lord in obedience and receive God’s blessing—the blessing of doing what’s right.

GOD SAID, Deuteronomy 28:1-2 & 8:

1  And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

2  And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.

8  The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

MAN SAID: Get these Bible-thumpers out of my face!  There is no God.  The Bible is the writings of old men and not fit to direct today’s enlightened society.

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

GodSaidManSaid, “The Wages of Sin -- Prepare to Be Shocked”

GodSaidManSaid, “The Wages of Sin -- Conclusion” 

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