10 Commandment Series

I am Yahweh1 thy God.... Thou shalt have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:2-3)2

The First Commandment, expressly stated, appears twice in Scripture: Exodus 20:3 and Deuteronomy 5:7. Although the First Commandment does not appear in commandment form in the New Testament, several New Testament passages contain its fundamental premise. The Old Testament is replete with similar admonitions. For example, Deuteronomy 6:14, informally renders it, “Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you....”

It Begins . . .

The Bible opens with, “In the beginning God....” Yahweh’s3 moral law likewise begins with Himself as the initiator of His covenant with the Israelites. Unlike polytheistic religions that tolerate and worship a pantheon of gods, the Bible allows for only one God—the First Cause or Prime Mover. The word “before” in Exodus 20:3 (KJV) seems to imply an inclusion of other gods, indicating primacy but not exclusivity. However, the word is best understood to mean Yahweh will not tolerate other gods before His face. Consequently, the First Commandment is better understood, “thou shall have no other gods besides me”:

Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that Yahweh he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else. (Deuteronomy 4:39)

Thus saith Yahweh the King of Israel, and his redeemer Yahweh of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. (Isaiah 44:6)

...who is the blessed and only Potentate [Sovereign, NASB], the King of kings, and Lord of lords.... (1 Timothy 6:15)

This claim to exclusivity puts Yahweh in conflict with any person, religion, or political system that acknowledges or serves other gods:

But Yahweh is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation. Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. (Jeremiah 10:10-11)

There is no other god but Yahweh—the self-existent, eternal, omnipotent Creator, the exclusive sovereign over His creation, answerable to no one. He is the source of life, all blessings, salvation, and the ultimate judge of those who refuse to recognize and honor Him as the Creator and only God. He is the same God who became poor that we might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). By emptying Himself into “the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men ... He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8, NASB).

Great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works. And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts: and I will declare thy greatness. They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness. Yahweh is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. Yahweh is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. (Psalm 145:3-9)

Lordship

The First Commandment is principally a call for us to recognize and acknowledge our Creator’s exclusive claim to sovereignty over us and all creation. However, our acknowledgment is not enough. We must personalize it. Implicit within the First Commandment is a call for us to personally submit to Yahweh’s lordship over every aspect of our lives. This submission involves a conscious decision to covenant with Him. A covenant requires the express identification of both parties to any alliance. The First Commandment begins when Yahweh identifies Himself by name as the executor to the covenant established with the nation of Israel:

I am Yahweh thy God.... Thou shalt have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:1-3)

This is one reason it is important to use the Creator’s principle name, Yahweh, instead of merely the generic titles “god” and “lord,” which can refer to any god:

Thou shalt fear Yahweh thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. (Deuteronomy 10:20)

Man’s defiance of his Creator reflects a First Commandment violation. Whenever man breaks the other commandments, his rebellion is always rooted in placing other gods before Yahweh:

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me” ... means in part that every violation of any law involves placing ourselves and our will above God’s word and is therefore a violation of the first commandement.4

Humanity’s eminent question is never that of god or no god, but which god: Yahweh or Baal (1 Kings 18:21), God or Caesar (Matthew 22:21), or God or mammon (Matthew 6:24)? Even atheists serve a god: in most instances, they are their own god. This was Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden when they attempted to redefine good and evil (Genesis 3:5). They believed that if they rejected Yahweh as sole legislator (Isaiah 33:22), they would become as gods.

Autonomy ... is man’s attempt to be his own god. This ethical autonomy is the essence of the central tenet of humanism: “Man is the measure of all things.”5

This sin is also what Judges 17:6 and 21:25 describe as “every man [doing] that which was right in his own eyes.” This universal sin is at the heart of man’s rejection of Yahweh:

Ye shall not do ... every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. (Deuteronomy 12:8)

Collectively, this is expressed in the Latin phrase vox populi, vox dei (“the voice of the people, the voice of god”). This is the rallying cry of humanism, republicanism, constitutionalism, and every other “ism” that rejects Yahweh’s authority, as found expressed in His law.6

A government’s laws reflect its morality, and the source of that morality (or immorality) is its god. We cannot escape law; therefore, we cannot escape theocracy. The only question is which theocracy, laws, and morality will we choose to live under? The American people, by way of their elected officials, are the source of the Constitutional Republic’s laws. Therefore, the Constitutional Republic’s god is WE THE PEOPLE.

The rejection of one god leads inescapably to the choice of another god. If a person, group, court, etc. establishes himself as the final arbiter of right and wrong, then he/they have assumed the attributes of a god. Thus, he/they are theocratic…. Democracy [and Republicanism] can become theocratic if absolute power is given to the people…. Those who promote a particular worldview and want to see it implemented socially, educationally, politically, and judicially have elevated the majority to the status of gods….

One assumes the mantle of deity when he sets himself up as the ultimate authority [as in Article 6’s claim that the Constitution is the “supreme law of the land”]. It’s the attributes of deity that makes someone god-like. In the eighteenth century, the French revolutionaries declared “reason” to be the goddess of their new state religion. Nineteenth century France was spoken of as “goddess France” by patriotic figures like Victor Hugo and Charles Maurras. Hegel, the philosophical patron saint of communism, wrote that “the State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth…. We must therefore worship the State as the manifestation of the Divine on earth…. The State is the march of God through the world.”7

One of God’s defining attributes is the authority to delineate and legislate good and evil:

Any ethical system that rejects the law of God as the sole and supreme standard of right and wrong, must necessarily be an ethical system which is at its core autonomous, i.e., a law unto itself.... God’s revealed law, which is a transcript of His holy character, must of necessity be the only true rule that defines for man what is good and right, what man ought to do and be. Thus for man to reject Gods’ law and establish some rival rule of ethics is to suppress the truth in unrighteousness and to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:18-25). The promise of autonomy was central to the Serpent’s temptation, “and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). Satan’s lure that led man into sin was the lie that man did not need to depend upon God and His Word for the knowledge of good and evil, but that he could be his own god and know and determine these things for himself. Autonomy in ethics is man following Satan’s lie and living out his rebellion against God and His law. It is man’s attempt to be his own god. This autonomy in ethics is the very essence of humanism.8

The exclusive authority to define good and evil means Yahweh is also the sole legislator over the universe:

For Yahweh is our judge, Yahweh is our lawgiver, Yahweh is our king; he will save us. (Isaiah 33:22)

There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy.... (James 4:12)

Any man’s claim to autonomous legislation (as in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution) is ultimately a rejection and usurpation of Yahweh’s exclusive authority to define good and evil. Because there is only one true God, there can be only one standard for good and evil. “To have none other gods, means to have no other law than God’s law....”9

Beware that thou forget not Yahweh thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day. (Deuteronomy 8:11)

Behind the law of the Lord is the Lord of the law. Yahweh’s law is a reflection of His righteousness. The knowledge of Him and His law are inseparable. You cannot reject one without rejecting the other. To know His law is to know Him:

Hear the word of Yahweh, ye children of Israel: for Yahweh hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.... My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee ... seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God.... (Hosea 4:1, 6)

Anyone who attempts to change Yahweh’s definitions of good and evil is usurping His place as God. “[T]he other gods about whom we must be concerned are, as they ever have been, to be found in the seats of temporal, or human, government.”10 In Matthew 23:2, Jesus11 depicted this as sitting “in Moses’ seat.”

...Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
(Matthew 15:6-9)

In Micah 1:5, Samaria and Jerusalem (the capitals of the house of Israel and the house of Judah) are identified as the Israelites’ high places, upon which they were sacrificing themselves to false gods. It’s the same today with Washington, D.C.

Because “…there is none other God but one” (1 Corinthians 8:4), there can be only one true theocracy. All other governments represent some form of humanism. The United States Constitutional Republic (whose Constitution’s Preamble begins “WE THE PEOPLE”) is one of many governments in which the people have dethroned Yahweh as the god of their society. China is another example:

As Mao Tse-Tung has said, “Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people.” In Western culture, law has steadily moved away from God to the people (or the state)....12

All governments are theocentric. This is true of a government of, by, and for Yahweh, and it is true of a government of, by, and for the people. Herein, we find the war between God’s will and man’s will. This battle is described throughout the Bible:

It is better to trust in Yahweh than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in Yahweh than to put confidence in princes. (Psalm 118:8-9)

This eternal conflict is found in the contrast between the first three words of the Preamble (“WE THE PEOPLE”) and the first four words of the Bible (“In the beginning God”).13 When men place other gods before Yahweh, these gods become their masters, and these gods exact lordship by imposing laws and requiring obedience.

As a rule, our choice of another god is not articulated. Most people reveal their rejection of Yahweh by the way they live their lives. The law by which a person chooses to live determines his god. Any time we choose another’s or our own will over Yahweh’s, we enthrone another god in our hearts. On the other hand, when Almighty God is lord of our life, our innermost desire becomes one of pleasing and serving Him. We do this by obeying His commandments, statutes, and judgments, which are His principle means of revealing His will to us:

He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 John 2:4)

Many people claim Yahweh as their God and Jesus as their Lord, but their actions determine the truthfulness of their words:

And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? (Luke 6:46)

Yahweh’s law, to one degree or another, embarrasses many Christians.14 Their rejection of His statutes tacitly proclaims their belief in their own morality and divinity. Their conscience is pricked, not by God’s law, but by their own perception of good and evil:

Conscience must be under authority, or it ceases to be conscience and becomes a god.... Under the facade of conscience, an assault is launched against conscience and authority.... Conscience [in such instances] ... is simply a term for our own desires, enthroned as law....

True conscience is under authority, godly authority. True conscience is governed by Scripture; it does not set itself up as an arbiter over God and His word.... True conscience subjects itself to God’s authority: it is at all times under God, never itself a god and lord.15

When men reject Yahweh’s righteousness as codified in His perfect law and altogether righteous judgments (Psalm 19:7-9), they implicitly reject the Author of those laws:

Beloved, ... it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:3-4)

In the King James “lasciviousness” is translated from asélgeian. The New American Standard translates this same word as “licentiousness.” Licentiousness is the “excessive indulgence of liberty; contempt of the just restraints of law….”16 Turning God’s grace into licentiousness is known as antinomianism.17 This mindset, which is tragically espoused by most modern Christians, can be traced all the way back to Adam and Eve. By rejecting the bulk of Yahweh’s morality as provided in His commandments, statutes, and judgments, antinomians reject Him as God and Jesus as Lord. By accepting only some of His morality, they derive the remainder of their ethics from the law systems of other gods. In practice, antinomians are polytheists.

It does not matter how many times a person assures us that he is in favor of Christian civilization and opposed to the humanistic myth of neutrality. If he does not affirm the continuing validity of the biblical case laws [the Ten Commandments’ statutes and judgments], his affirmation in favor of Christian civilization is in vain, intellectually speaking. At some point, his denial of the continuing moral and judicial authority of God’s revealed law will logically force him to affirm some form of natural law theory or common ground reasoning, i.e., the myth of neutrality.18

Jude depicted antinomians as not only rejecting God’s law, but also denying God Himself.

Since there is only one true God, and His law is the expression of His unchanging nature and righteousness, then to abandon the Biblical law for another law-system is to change gods.19

To whatever degree antinomians reject Yahweh’s law, they are to that degree humanists. Without God’s moral compass, every man is either a law unto himself or a slave to some surrogate god. Their antinomianism is an implicit rejection of the First Commandment.20

The First Commandment is the most consequential of all the Ten Commandments because it determines whether we will obey the remaining nine commandments and their respective statutes and judgments. Its exclusive claim to homage is foundational to Yahweh’s kingdom and law, and is pivotal to our relationship with our Creator.

Monotheism

The First Commandment is at its very core a declaration of monotheism:

Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God is one Yahweh: And thou shalt love Yahweh thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
(1 Corinthians 8:5-6)

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, even Benjamin Franklin, who admitted he was not a Christian, urged his fellow framers to call upon the “God [who] governs in the affairs of man.”21 Although he did not refer to Yahweh by name, there is no doubt to which God he referred:

I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business.22

Shamefully, everyone “except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary.”22 Not only did the majority of framers think soliciting God’s assistance unnecessary, they officially rejected Christian monotheism when they adopted Amendment 1’s freedom of religion provision, which protects and facilitates the open worship and proliferation of any and all gods in defiance to the First Commandment. Invariably, a nation follows where its government leads. In the aftermath of Amendment 1, America has become progressively less Christian. We have become the most polytheistic nation to ever exist, with the possible exception of the Roman Empire.23

Political pluralism has consequences. It leads directly to polytheism: many moral law-orders; therefore, many gods. Polytheism (all gods are equal) leads to relativism (all moral codes are equal); relativism leads to humanism (man makes his own laws); and humanism leads to statism (the State best represents mankind as the pinnacle of power).24

Ironically, many Christians hang their religious hat on Amendment 1 as if some great Christian principle is found therein. In fact, it marked the beginning of America’s fall from an exclusive commitment to Yahweh and His law:

The Portsmouth, Rhode Island Compact, 1638
We whose names are underwritten do hereby solemnly in the presence of Jehovah incorporate ourselves into a Bodie Politick and as He shall help, will submit our persons, lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of His given in His Holy Word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby.25

Fundamental Agreement of the Colony of New Haven, Connecticut, 1639
[T]he scriptures do hold forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of all men in duties which they are to perform to God and to men, as well in families and commonwealth, as in matters of the church ... so likewise in all public officers which concern civil order, as choice of magistrates and officers, making and repealing laws, dividing allotments of inheritance, and all things of like nature, we would all of us be ordered by the rules which the scripture holds forth to us ... [and] what kind of persons might best be entrusted with matters of government ... such men as were described in Exod. xviii. 21, Deut. i. 13, with Deut. xvii. 15,  and 1 Cor. vi. 1, 6-7….26

America’s most popular schoolbook in the 1800s, McGuffey’s Eclectic Reader, also testified to America’s early exclusive fidelity to Yahweh:

Their form of government was as strictly theocratical insomuch that it would be difficult to say where there was any civil authority among them distinct from ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Whenever a few of them settled a town, they immediately gathered themselves into a church; and their elders were magistrates, and their code of laws was the Pentateuch…. God was their King; and they regarded him as truly and literally so….27

French historian Alexis de Tocqueville testified to the American colonials’ allegiance to Yahweh and intolerance of false gods:

The legislators of Connecticut begin with the penal laws, and ... borrow their provisions from the text of Holy Writ. “Whosoever shall worship any other god than the Lord,” says the preamble of the Code, “shall surely be put to death.”28

Just how far America has fallen from her early Christian moorings was demonstrated on June 25, 1991. At the request of Congressman Nick J. Rahall (Democrat, West Virginia), Congress called upon Sirah Wahaj, a Black Muslim chaplain, to pray to Allah on behalf of America. This First Commandment defection was an inevitable consequence of the framers’ First Amendment sedition and a significant step in America’s departure from God Almighty.

A contrast between early and contemporary America reveals America is being cursed for her departure from God’s law, as foretold in Deuteronomy 28. The rejection of Yahweh’s exclusivity began with the framers, then the states, and is now embraced by a majority of citizens.

Even the original thirteen state constitutions rejected Yahweh as their sovereign. Although they required Christian test oaths for civil leadership (unlike the federal Constitution, per Article 6), humanism was already well entrenched. For example, Section V of Massachusetts’ State Constitution reads, “All power residing originally in the people, and being derived from them....” This humanistic blasphemy stands in stark contrast to Yahweh’s sovereignty:

God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God.
(Psalm 62:11)

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. (Matthew 28:18)

To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. (Jude 1:25)

Section VIII goes on to make officials “at all times accountable to” the people, rather than to Yahweh. All thirteen Constitutions contain similar language. This religious dualism resulted, in part, from William Blackstone’s popular Commentaries on the Laws of England:

Sovereignty and legislature are indeed convertible terms; one cannot subsist without the other. ...[this] natural, inherent right ... belongs to the sovereignty of the state....29

Blackstone was correct that sovereignty and legislature are indivisible. However, because Yahweh is the only lawgiver (or legislator), He alone is sovereign. All officials are accountable to Him, not to the people. Any entity (federal, state, or otherwise) that endeavors to make a law incompatible with Yahweh’s law usurps His sovereignty.

In stark contrast to the First Amendment, Daniel Webster reminded his 1820 audience of America’s 17th-century monotheistic roots and the Puritans’ design to rid the continent of all false gods:

…if God prosper us [the Puritans], we shall here begin a work which shall last for ages; we shall plant here a new society, in the principles of the fullest liberty and the purest religion … we shall fill this region of the great continent … with civilization and Christianity; the temples of the true God shall rise, where now ascends the smoke of idolatrous sacrifice….30

Unlike the constitutional framers, America’s 17th-century Christian founding fathers were intolerant of false gods and religions. The pluralism advocated by today’s secularists and defended by many Christians is not found in either the Old or New Testament. Moses clearly warned the Israelites against polytheism:

Thou shalt fear Yahweh thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you; (for Yahweh thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of Yahweh thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 6:13-15)

Jealousy is an attribute of a living, personal God. This jealousy is something we should be thankful for:

The fact that jealousy is associated repeatedly with the law, and invoked by God in the giving of the law, is of cardinal importance in understanding the law. The law of God is not a blind, impersonal, and mechanically operative force. It is neither Karma nor fate. The law of God is the law of the absolute and totally personal Creator whose law operates within the context of His love and hate, His grace towards His people and His wrath towards His enemies.... The jealousy of God is therefore the certain assurance of the infallibility of God’s court of law.... The jealousy of God is the guarantee of justice.... Without a jealous, personal God, no justice is possible.31

Jesus demanded the same exclusionary worship:

…Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. (Matthew 4:10)

…I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
(John 14:6)

Yahweh is a God of love and mercy. Yet His justice requires His righteous judgment on both individual and national covenant breakers:

…those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. (Luke 19:27)

Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:29-31)

Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord Yahweh. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord Yahweh: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye. (Ezekiel 18:30-32)

Yahweh is uncompromising regarding the worship of other gods, and He expects His people to be the same. He commanded His followers to eradicate false gods from their land:

…ye shall destroy their [the heathen’s] altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: For thou shalt worship no other god: for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. (Exodus 34:13-14)

When, as a people, we finally repent of our and our forefathers’ tolerance of polytheism and return to Yahweh and His law, the synagogues, mosques, and the temples of other gods will have to come down. Until that day, woe to us for having relegated Yahweh to one among a pantheon of deities.

First Commandment Statutes

Every viable, dynamic law contains commandments, statutes, and judgments:

Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them.... Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it [by removing either the statutes or judgments], that ye may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I command you.
(Deuteronomy 4:1-2)

And the word of Yahweh came to Solomon, saying … if thou wilt walk in my statutes, and execute my judgments, and keep all my commandments to walk in them; then will I perform my word with thee…. (1 Kings 6:11-12)

If we intend to keep Yahweh’s commandments as a society, we must “walk in [His] statutes” and “execute [His] judgments.” Without any one of these three components, the law is crippled. For example, modern society has initiated traffic laws, including a commandment against speeding. However, without statutes to explain what constitutes speeding (e.g., an excess of twenty mph in a school zone), the commandment cannot be understood or obeyed. By the same token, without judgments, the law has no teeth with which to punish violators or check potential transgressors.

A thorough study of the Ten Commandments must include their respective statutes and judgments. Following are the First Commandment statutes.

Faith

…Jeshurun [a poetic term for the nation of Israel] … forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods…. And he [Yahweh] said, I will hide my face from them … for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities…. (Deuteronomy 32:15-21)

Although no statute specifically requires faith, all of the First Commandment statutes rest upon the faith that “he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). The First Commandment requires faith that “Yahweh our God is one Yahweh” (Deuteronomy 6:4). The Prophet Habakkuk announced, “the just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). This same faith is required under the New Covenant:

…faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen … without faith it is impossible to please him.... (Hebrews 11:1, 6)

The existence of Yahweh is apparent everywhere. All creation testifies to the handiwork and existence of its Creator:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
(Psalm 19:1)

...that which may be known of God is manifest [evident, NASB] in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead [divine nature, NASB]; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. (Romans 1:19-21)

Only a fool does not believe in God, and only the wicked refuse to seek Him:

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works … they are all together become filthy…. (Psalm 14:1-3)

The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. (Psalm 10:4)

Many people refuse to believe in Yahweh because with faith comes accountability—“Faith without works is dead” (James 2:20). What they fail to realize is that ignoring God does not eliminate accountability, it compounds accountability.

But the fearful [cowardly, NASB], and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. (Revelation 21:8)

Under the New Covenant, faith in Yahweh is principally expressed through our faith in Jesus (John 3:16). This is the monotheistic faith of the New Covenant:

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Ephesians 4:4-6)

Belief is not enough. “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (James 2:26) Consider William Einwechter’s simple but insightful words:

Salvation, covenant, and torah cannot be severed (Exod. 20:2; 24:6-8); they are all manifestations of God’s grace and His redemptive plan. Faith leads to salvation, salvation to covenant, and covenant to torah.32

Fear

…these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which Yahweh your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them … all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. …Thou shalt fear Yahweh thy God…. Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you…. And Yahweh commanded us … to fear Yahweh our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive…. (Deuteronomy 6:1-24)

Deuteronomy 6 follows the reiteration of the Decalogue in Chapter 5. “[T]he reason for the giving of these commandments is to awaken the fear of God, and that fear might prompt obedience. Because God is God, the absolute lord and law-giver, fear of God is the essence of sanity and common sense. To depart from a fear of God is to lack any sense of reality.”33

Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not: Fear ye not me? saith Yahweh: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it...? But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone. Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear Yahweh our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you. (Jeremiah 5:21-25)

Notice the development of God’s argument, which is in fact a covenant lawsuit brought against [the house of] Judah by His prophet, Jeremiah. God sets boundaries to the sea, the seasons, and the harvest. The implication is that He also sets legal and moral boundaries around people, both as individuals and nationally. Men are to fear this God who sets cosmic boundaries. How is this required fear to be acknowledged? The prophets answered this question over and over, generation after generation: by obeying God’s law.34

The fear of Yahweh brings blessings too numerous to list here. The following should suffice:

...Blessed is the man that feareth Yahweh, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in his house: and his righteousness endureth for ever. (Psalm 112:1-3)

Not only is the fear of Yahweh the beginning of knowledge and wisdom (Proverbs 1:7, 9:10), it is also fundamental to our acceptance of Him as our god. Fear is a potent catalyst. Whom a person fears is almost always whom he obeys, and obedience is the principle criterion for identifying a person’s god. Thus Yahweh demands we fear only Him:

…Yahweh commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel … saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them: But Yahweh … him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice. And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment, which he wrote for you, ye shall observe to do for evermore; and ye shall not fear other gods. And the covenant that I have made with you ye shall not forget; neither shall ye fear other gods. But Yahweh your God ye shall fear; and he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. (2 Kings 17:34-39)

We are repeatedly commanded not to fear men, men’s governments, men’s courts, or any other man-made entity:

The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in Yahweh shall be safe. (Proverbs 29:25)

Yahweh is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? Yahweh is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? …Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. (Psalm 27:1-3)

…Yahweh spoke to me with mighty power and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, “You are not to say, ‘It is a conspiracy!’ In regard to all that this people call a conspiracy, and you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. It is Yahweh of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, and He shall be your dread.” (Isaiah 8:11-13, NASB)

Hearken unto me [Yahweh], ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. (Isaiah 51:7)

…fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him [Yahweh] which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell [geena]. (Matthew 10:28)

Why? If for no other reason than because all “power belongeth unto God” (Psalm 62:11).

Suppose you should curse a deaf man, he could not hear you; or you were to lay a block in a blind man’s way, and cause him to fall, he could not see you do it: but the fear of God will make you forsake sins which can neither be heard nor seen by men. The fear of God destroys the fear of man.... The greater noise drowns the less; the noise of thunder drowns the noise of a river; so, when the fear of God is supreme in the soul, it drowns all other carnal fear.35

We are admonished to beware of men and their governments, but we are not to be fearful of them, regardless their destructive potential:

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought [do not become anxious, NASB].... (Matthew 10:16-19)

…if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear [reverence, NASB]: having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation [behavior, NASB] in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. (1 Peter 3:14-17)

King Solomon provided an important reason why Christians should not fear despots or their governments:

If the ruler’s temper rises against you, do not abandon your position, because composure allays great offenses. (Ecclesiastes 10:4, NASB)

Paul described the absence of fear as a “sign of destruction” to Christendom’s enemies:

Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ … standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; in no way alarmed by your opponents – which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God. (Philippians 1:27-28, NASB)

When we kneel in faith before Yahweh, we can stand in faith before kings. Refusing to fear anyone or anything other than Almighty God is a demonstration of faith, and our faith overcomes the world (1 John 5:4).

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
(Romans 8:31)

Had the Israelites in Numbers 14 feared Yahweh more than the Canaanite giants (who were just a species of slightly larger “grasshoppers” in His sight – Isaiah 40:22), dominion would not have been delayed forty years.

Fear of God-Fearing Leaders

The fear of Yahweh extends to both religious and civil leaders—both of whom must fear Him themselves:

…thou [Moses] shalt provide out of all the people [of Israel] able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers…. And let them judge the people at all seasons…. (Exodus 18:21-22)

Thou shalt in any wise set him king [ruler] over thee, whom Yahweh thy God shall choose…. And it shall be … that he shall write him a copy of this law.... And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear Yahweh his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left…. (Deuteronomy 17:15-20)

The God … the Rock of Israel spake to me, he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. (2 Samuel 23:3)

This fear of Yahweh assures leadership on His behalf. Because the United States constitutional government adjudicates on behalf of the state and the people instead of Yahweh, many rulings are unjust and adverse to His morality. That not even one constitutional framer contended for Almighty God, as did King Jehoshaphat, speaks volumes about the framers’ disregard for Him and His judicial system:

And he [King Jehoshaphat] set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city, and said to the judges, Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for Yahweh, who is with you in the judgment…. And he charged them, saying, Thus shall ye do in the fear of Yahweh, faithfully, and with a perfect heart.
(2 Chronicles 19:5-9)36

To honor God-fearing leadersis encompassed in fearing God Himself:

My son, fear thou Yahweh and the king…. (Proverbs 24:21)

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.... For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. (Romans 13:1-7)37

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. (1 Peter 2:13-14)

The same is true regarding godly parents:

Yahweh spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them.... Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father…. (Leviticus 19:1-3)

In Romans 13:7, the Apostle Paul admonishes us to render not only honor to whom honor is due, but also fear to whom fear is due. Fear of one’s parents is a statute under both the First and Fifth Commandments.

Tithe

Yahweh’s law identifies the tithe as one way by which we demonstrate our fear of Him. To reject the tithe under the New Covenant is tantamount to abandoning the fear of Yahweh as well:

Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year. And thou shalt eat before Yahweh thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear Yahweh thy God always. (Deuteronomy 14:22-23)

Yahweh actually requires three tithes. The first is usually identified as the Lord’s tithe (Deuteronomy 14:22); the second is the festival or rejoicing tithe (which the tither is to spend upon himself and his family—Deuteronomy 14:23-27); and the third is the poor tithe (which is paid every third year in a seven year cycle, and is principally used to provide for deserving poor, widows, orphans, and sojourning strangers—Deuteronomy 14:28-29, 1 Timothy 5:3-10).

Under Yahweh’s system, only a man’s increase is taxed, and the first and third tithes combined never exceed 13.3 percent of a person’s gross annual increase. This is an amount any man with an increase can afford:

Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of Yahweh thy God which he hath given thee. (Deuteronomy 16:17)

The second tithe, which amounts to a tithe to yourself, fosters both frugality and productivity and discourages debt. Implied in the second tithe is that only those with an increase should reward themselves with amenities, such as vacations, new cars, and other luxuries. Such things are obviously not to be purchased on time (Proverbs 22:7), so this would all but eliminate personal debt. Less productive people would be motivated to greater thrift, diligence, and productivity by witnessing frugal and productive people reward themselves from their increase. Also implied in the second tithe is that the person with an increase is to spend only ten percent of his increase on extravagances. After this and the other two tithes, the person with an increase would then have 76.7% of his increase to reinvest in his business or to use in increasing his capital, which would in turn strengthen the economy. Even the tithe spent on ourselves demonstrates our fear of Yahweh.

The tithe is an acknowledgment of His sovereignty:

God delegates [property] ownership to mankind in terms of a leasehold contract. Men owe Him a tithe as His legitimate return…. Paying a tithe to God is public admission that they are not the sovereign owners, not the autonomous creators.38

Even Christians who debate the validity of the New Covenant tithe should recognize the importance and applicability of the Bible’s first-fruits principle:

Honour Yahweh with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
(Proverbs 3:9-10)

Our first fruits reveal whom we worship. Our god is whoever or whatever receives the first of our increase. If your “first fruits” are not furthering Yahweh’s kingdom, they will be furthering some other kingdom and you will be serving and financing a god other than Yahweh. This god may even be yourself.

Because the tithe helps finance the kingdom, it is integral to achieving dominion on behalf of Yahweh:

The tithe is an acknowledgment of God’s kingship; in I Samuel 8:4-19, the consequences of a rejection of God’s kingship are cited: they are totalitarianism, oppression, a loss of liberty, and an increased cost of civil government. Without the tithe, basic social functions fall into two kinds of pitfalls: on the one hand, the state assumes these functions, and, on the other, wealthy individuals and foundations exercise a preponderant power over society. Tithing releases society from this dependence on the state and on wealthy individuals and foundations. The tithe places the basic control of society with the tithing people of God.39

The tithe … is not only God’s tax, but His appointed means toward blessing and dominion (Mal. 3:8-12). Tithing is plainly set forth as a means of power, whereby the people of God can be assured the outpourings of God’s prospering hand. The tithe provides the means materially for godly reconstruction, and it makes possible the development and application of Biblical faith to the basic problems of life. To deny the tithe is to affirm slavery. It means choosing statism as against God’s order. It is basic to Christian faith, and essential to any Christian order. No man can honestly hunger and thirst for a righteous order and fail to tithe, for to fail to tithe is to ask for statist slave-masters to rule over us.40

…the tithe [makes] a free society possible. If every true Christian tithed today … we could counteract socialism by Christian reconstruction, by creating Christian institutions and a growing area of Christian independence….41

Malachi 3:8 demonstrates tithing is an Eighth Commandment (“Thou shalt not steal”) statute. Because it demonstrates fear of Yahweh, it is a First Commandment statute as well.

Love

…thou shalt love Yahweh thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, always. (Deuteronomy 11:1)

Both the Old and New Covenants, made between Yahweh and Israelites (Romans 9:3-4, Hebrews 8:8-9), are marriage covenants.42 When Yahweh’s wife stops loving Him and goes after other gods, her sin is often described as harlotry. The fear of God is where First Commandment observance begins, but this fear must be yoked with love. Combined, the two result in reverence for Yahweh, which, in turn, results in undivided wife-like devotion.

Many extol love as the highest virtue, and therefore, make love the guiding principle of ethics.... But what does that mean, and how are we to determine what love truly does demand? The autonomous ethic of love fails because it can give not [sic] concrete guidance as to what love does require, and leaves each one to decide for themselves. An undefined ethic of “love” is as helpful as an ethical system that merely instructs people to be “good” [e.g., Article 3, Section 1 of the United States Constitution]....

The Bible says that we love God when we keep His commandments (Jn. 14:15; 1 Jn. 5:3; Deut. 10:12-13). Biblical law instructs us on how to love God! The law presents to us the holy nature of God, and educates us on how to worship and serve the Lord in the way that pleases Him.... An ethic of love that is not rooted in biblical law is an ethic based on a humanistic view of love.... Theonomy [God’s law] is the true ethic of love because it is based on the law of God. As Paul says, “therefore love is the fulfilling of the law”
(Rom. 13:10).43

Love for God and love for our fellow man should be our primary incentive for keeping not only the First Commandment but all of the other Commandments as well.

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40)

Seventeenth-century Puritan minister Thomas Watson shed light on the real benefactor of such love:

What is God the better for our love? It adds not the least cubit to his essential blessedness. He does not need our love, and yet he seeks it. Why does he desire us to give him our heart? Prov xxiii 26. Not that he needs our heart, but that he may make it better.44

...eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (1 Corinthians 2:9)

Worship

…thou shalt worship no other god: for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. (Exodus 34:14)

Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves ... lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them.... (Deuteronomy 4:15-19)

Give unto Yahweh the glory due unto his name; worship Yahweh in the beauty of holiness. (Psalm 29:2)

Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:7-9)

…we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. (Philippians 3:3 NASB)

In Acts 17:24, Paul informs us that God does not dwell in temples made with hands. In Psalm 22:3, David declares He inhabits the praises of His people or is “enthroned upon” our praise (NASB). Something special and powerful occurs when we render to Him the “calves of our lips” (Hosea 14:2), a “sacrifice of praise” (Hebrews 13:15):

Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him. (Psalm 67:5-7)

Love for Yahweh generates obedient worship. Those who worship other gods do not love Yahweh. Astrologers, evolutionists, humanists, and Jews, among others, transgress this First Commandment statute by replacing worship of the Creator with worship of His creation (Romans 1:25). “[W]orship in itself is not holy and can be blasphemy; holiness does not refer to worship but to God in all His ways and in all His being.”45

Astrologers’, evolutionists’, and humanists’ violation of this statute is apparent, but how do today’s Jews do so? Rather than observing the Biblical Torah, most Jews adhere to the Babylonian Talmud, which perverts the laws of Almighty God. This perversion alone means Jews do not worship Yahweh as their God. Furthermore, many Jews look to themselves as their own god. Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal expounded upon how his fellow Jews have substituted the worship of God with the worship of themselves:

In contemporary Judaism the worship of the state of Israel and its symbols has been gradually and unfortunately crowding out the worship of the One God.46

…the Jews … became abject idolaters of the new polytheism – nationalism. Their relationship to God was subordinated to their relationship toward one another.47

Do not overlook these statements’ similitude to constitutionalism and its god WE THE PEOPLE, which consummates in State worship.

In an address delivered in 1910 before the New York Free Synagogue, Jacob H. Schiff was more direct:

“Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord our God is the only God” has a living meaning … the day will come … when the Unity of God and the brotherhood of man will be universally recognized, is a Jew.48

The blasphemous idea of Jewish divinity probably originated in the Jewish Kabbalah49:

The Jew is the living God, God incarnate: he is the heavenly man. The other men [non-Jews] are earthly, of inferior race. They exist only to serve the Jew. They are the cattle seed.50

In his book The Messianic Idea of Israel, Joseph Klausner presented the Jewish concept of the redeemer:

…the whole people Israel [the Jews misnamed51] … gradually became the Messiah of the world, the redeemer of mankind.52

The Messiah is a physical incarnation or manifestation of the unseen God (John 1:1, 14; Philippians 2:6-7; Hebrews 1:2-3, etc.). Anyone claiming to be the Messiah is claiming to be God and thereby worships the creature rather than the Creator.

Obedience

Thou shalt therefore obey the voice of Yahweh thy God, and do his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this day. (Deuteronomy 27:10)

...to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15:22)

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon [money, wealth, or anything that replaces Yahweh]. (Matthew 6:24)

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:24-27)

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass [mirror, NASB]: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. (James 1:22-25)

A person who refuses to serve Yahweh and keep His commandments does not love Him:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity [lawlessness, NASB]. (Matthew 7:21-23)

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. (1 John 5:3)

Antinomian ministers who teach Christians do not need to keep Yahweh’s moral laws are teaching rebellion and sedition against Almighty God:

Do we then make void the law through faith [or grace, or love]? God forbid: yea, we establish the law. (Romans 3:31)

Observance of Yahweh’s law demonstrates our love for Him and our fellow man. Although obedience under the New Covenant is not the means by which we are justified (Galatians 3:11, 5:4, etc.), anyone who does not strive to obey God’s law is carnal and at enmity with Him.

Christians are condemned who profess to own God for their God and yet do not live as if he were their God.53

The antithesis of Yahweh’s law is not grace, but lawlessness and, therefore, sin. His laws are meant to keep us from sinning; grace is the solution after we have sinned. 17th-century Puritan minister Samuel Bolton wrote, “The law sends us to the gospel for our justification; the gospel sends us to the law to frame our way of life.”54 When His law is willfully violated, a godly society will enforce civil sanctions (restitution, capital punishment, etc.—Romans 13:3-4, 1 Timothy 1:8-10, etc.).

Our obedience to His law demonstrates, as nothing else can, that we love Him and that He is our God:

...hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love Yahweh your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 11:13)

No Other Names

...Yahweh ... this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. (Exodus 3:15)

…in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let [them] be heard out of thy mouth. (Exodus 23:13)

Thy name, O Yahweh, endureth for ever; and thy memorial, O Yahweh, throughout all generations. (Psalm 135:13)

The Apostle Peter applied this statute to Jesus:

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

Hosea 12:5 informs us that His name “Yahweh is his memorial.” In order for His name to be memorialized, it must be used. Conversely, Exodus 23 commands us not to mention—memorialize—the names of other gods, particularly to make them appear equal or superior to Yahweh:

Then [Shalmaneser] the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the [Levitical] priests whom ye brought from thence [Samaria] … and let him teach them [the non-Israelite exiles in Israel’s land] the manner of the God of the land. Then one of the priests … came … and taught them how they should fear Yahweh. Howbeit every nation made gods of their own…. And the men of Babylon made Succothbenoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech…. They feared Yahweh, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence. (2 Kings 17:27-33)

In this passage, Yahweh became just another god, joining the ranks of Succothbenoth, Nergal, Ashima, Nibhaz, Tartak, Adrammelech, and Anammelech. Yahweh does not suffer this kind of apostasy:

...I will cut off man from off the land, saith Yahweh ... and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarims with the priests; and them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and that swear by Yahweh, and that swear by Malcham; and them that are turned back from Yahweh.
(Zephaniah 1:3-6)

Today this is known as pluralism. Agnosticism, the belief that God is unknowable, is the next regressive step. What better way to accomplish this design than to eradicate Yahweh’s identity, beginning with His name? This would render Him even less of a god than the other gods. While the other gods are identified by name, Yahweh becomes nameless. If His name is not reinserted into 2 Kings 17 where it was unlawfully removed by the English translators, He becomes a nameless God among seven man-made gods all of which are identified by name.

When Paul was in Athens, he observed altars dedicated to named gods. Among them was an altar with an inscription to an unnamed God:

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens ... as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. (Acts 17:22-24)

Paul identified this altar as belonging to Yahweh. As early as the first-century A.D., He had become nameless and unknown. This was principally the result of second-generation Greek Septuagint translations of the Old Testament, in which the Tetragrammaton was replaced with kurios (Lord) and theos (God). The word “unknown” is translated from the Greek word agnostos, from which our English word “agnostic” is derived. Atheism follows agnosticism down this slippery road to spiritual ruin.

The Bible warns of false teachers who would cause His people to forget His name:

…prophets of the deceit of their own heart; which think to cause my people to forget my name … as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal. (Jeremiah 23:26-27)

One of the meanings of Baal is lord. The English translators’ substitution of “the LORD” for “YHWH” in the Old Testament has contributed to many Christians’ forgetting the name of Yahweh.

Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell? Every word of God is pure [how much more so His name?].... Add thou not unto his words [nor take away, Deuteronomy 4:2], lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. (Proverbs 30:4-6)

Anyone who consciously removes Yahweh’s name from the Scriptures is guilty of a Third Commandment infraction. Once a Christian becomes informed of this deception and continues to use “the LORD” and “GOD” (when found in all capital letters) in place of “YHWH” in the Scriptures, he becomes complicit in the English translators’ sins.

When the English translators chose to follow Jewish tradition (as they admit in the prefaces to their English versions) and removed the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), they not only violated Matthew 15:6-9, they also transgressed multitudes of Scriptures that charge us to use, proclaim, swear by, praise, extol, call upon, bless, glorify, and hold fast to Yahweh’s name. Should Christians be any less tenacious in identifying their God by name than, for example, are Muslims with their god?55

No Divination

When thou art come into the land which Yahweh thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto Yahweh: and because of these abominations Yahweh thy God doth drive them out from before thee. …But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die…. (Deuteronomy 18:9-12, 20)

Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times. Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am Yahweh. (Leviticus 19:26-28)

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for Yahweh your God proveth you, to know whether ye love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after Yahweh your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. (Deuteronomy 13:1-4)

Under the heading “Divination,” I’m including observation of times, enchantment, witchcraft, charms, consultation with familiar spirits, necromancy (which includes such outward expressions as shaving the head and beard and cutting the flesh for the dead56), and false prophecies.

One thing all of these forbidden practices have in common is an attempt to prognosticate. As the only one who exists outside time, Yahweh is the only one who not only knows, but controls the future. From His vantage point, the future has already been accomplished. It is one of the secret things that belong exclusively to Him (Deuteronomy 29:29):

He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.... The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.... (Daniel 2:22, 27-28)

To look anywhere else for insight into the future is to reject Yahweh’s sovereignty:

And when they say to you, “Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter,” should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? (Isaiah 8:19, NASB)

More than anything else, man desires control of his destiny. Instead of submitting to the One who owns both him and the future, he instead looks to the stars or tarot cards in a futile attempt to eliminate accountability to God.

Christ is the only prophet we are to heed today:

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son…. (Hebrews 1:1-2)

In Him are “hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3)

No Unequal Yoking

Thou shalt make no covenant with them [pagan non-Israelites], nor with their gods. (Exodus 23:32)

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)

Biblical covenants require a common God, faith, and law:

Hear this word that Yahweh hath spoken against you…. Can two walk together, except they be agreed? (Amos 3:1-3)

National Covenants

This statute applies to treaties, pacts, alliances, coalitions, and federations. The United States Constitution qualifies as a forbidden contract on at least two levels: Article 6’s ban of Christian test, eliminating Biblical qualifications for federal officials and Amendment 1’s provision for the freedom of religion, enabling polytheism. Both provide for non-Christians and anti-Christians to rule over Christians. The framers doomed their divided house to eventual destruction when they unequally yoked themselves with those who were not Christians.

An egregious example of unequal yoking is a public official’s placing his hand on the Bible and swearing to uphold the antithetical and hostile laws of WE THE PEOPLE.57 A hand on the Bible no more Christianizes the oath than Aaron’s naming the golden calf “Yahweh” sanctified his idolatry. The Bible offers no precedent for swearing to uphold any other law than Yahweh’s. Swearing by Yahweh, or swearing on the Bible, means nothing to Him if you simultaneously swear to keep the laws of another god. This is treason and sedition against Him.

The treaties the United States government have entered into were made possible by Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution and made part of the “supreme law of the land” by Article 6, Section 2. If America were a Christian nation, treaties such as GATT58 and NAFTA,59 and other disastrous unbiblical trade agreements, would be violations of Exodus 23:2 and 2 Corinthians 6:14-16. Yahweh is a jealous God, and He does not permit His people to make treaties with individuals or nations in rebellion to Him:

And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer … said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate Yahweh? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before Yahweh. (2 Chronicles 19:2)

And after this did Jehoshaphat king of Judah join himself with Ahaziah king of Israel, who did very wickedly: and he joined himself with him to make ships…. Then Eliezer … prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, Yahweh hath broken thy works…. (2 Chronicles 20:35-37)

These passages also rule out foreign aid to non-Christian nations. To provide financial assistance to pagan nations is to disdain what may be Yahweh’s judgment on an ungodly nation. No amount of money can bail out a nation under God’s judgment.

Christians are warned against participating in the evil deeds of those who reject Christ. The following applies as much to nations as to individuals:

For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh…. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. (2 John 1:7-11)

This also apples to elections. “Do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily and thus share responsibility for the sins of others....” (1 Timothy 5:22, NASB). Electors share in the sins of those they help elect. Unlike Yahweh’s system, which provides for the appointment of the best of the best, without Biblical qualifications, Constitutional elections can only (hopefully) provide the best of the worst. It also necessitates unbiblical and ungodly political parties.60

Congress’ prayer to Allah on behalf of this nation in 199161 was a consequence of rejecting Yahweh’s law as far back as 1788, when the First Amendment was ratified. One of the first mistakes made by our government, preachers, and Christians was permitting Muslims and adherents of other non-Christian religions to reside openly in our land. Congressional prayers to Allah and other gods are the consequence of a prior First Commandment violation:

They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee. (Exodus 23:33)62

Violation of this First Commandment statute inevitably leads to the election of foreigners:

Thou shalt … set him king [or ruler] over thee, whom Yahweh thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. (Deuteronomy 17:15)

...Yahweh shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of Yahweh thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them. (Deuteronomy 28:13)

It should not surprise anyone that Congressman Nick Rahall, who invited the black Muslim to give the invocation before Congress, is himself half-Lebanese.

Verse 9 in the following prophecy refers to the Greater David, Jesus. This and other internal evidence reveals this is a New Covenant prophecy about Israelites. In this same prophecy, Jeremiah declares that, during the New Covenant dispensation, the Israelites’ rulers were to be appointed from among their kindred:

Thus speaketh Yahweh God of Israel, saying … lo, the days come … that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah…. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith Yahweh of hosts, that … they shall serve Yahweh their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them…. And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them…. And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Jeremiah 30:2-22)

As long as day and night continue, Yahweh requires Israelites to be ruled by fellow Israelites (Jeremiah 33:25-26). Nothing has changed since Deuteronomy 17:15. Anything to the contrary—such as Amendment 15—is a violation of His law.

Identifying Israel

These instructions and warnings are as applicable to the Israelites under the New Covenant as they were under the Old Covenant. Few people recognize that, like the Old Covenant, the New Covenant was made exclusively with the physical descendants of the two houses of the nation of Israel:

…Behold the days come [quoted from Jeremiah 31:31-33, when the New Covenant was yet future], saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt....
(Hebrews 8:8-9)

This prophecy is not about an alleged “spiritual Israel” out of all nations, but a spiritual (born-again) remnant out of the nation of Israel.63 Verse 9 indicates the New Covenant beneficiaries are the physical descendants of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, whose progenitors Moses led out of Egypt. The Israelites in this passage do not represent a multi-ethnic spiritual Israel. These Israelites are descended from the original twelve tribes. The New Covenant was not made with anyone but Israel (although non-Israelites may become proselytes). This is because the New Covenant is a marital covenant with redeemed Israelites (1 Peter 1:1-3, 2:9-10) in fulfillment of several Old Testament prophecies (Isaiah 10:20-22, 11:11, 16; 62:2-4; Hosea 1 and 2, etc.), whose intended recipients cannot be changed into non-Israelites without making God an impotent liar.64

Because the New Covenant specifies Israelites, today’s Israelites must be correctly identified. Go back and read Hebrews 8:8. Yahweh does not lie. When you pinpoint the countries in which true Christianity has flourished for the past two millennia, the identity of today’s Israelites becomes apparent. Either the Celtic, Germanic, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, and related peoples (hereafter identified as Celto-Saxons) are Israel, or Yahweh has not been true to His promise in Hebrews 8.

Because Yahweh is always true to His Word, He can only have made the New Covenant with Israelites.

For whatever reason, God clearly intended that His message be directed toward the West. In the book of Acts, chapter 16, verses 6-10, the apostle kept seeking to take the message of Christ to the East into Asia, but he was forbidden to do so by the Holy Spirit. Instead, Paul received a vision in which he was led to understand that God’s purpose was for Paul to go west into Europe…. From this point forward, the Gospel would make an external impact on societies that lay toward the West. Paul made plans to go to Italy and then on to Spain in obedience to this westward calling of God. As a result, the flame of liberty would spread west to many locations in Europe, before it would be carried across the Atlantic to America.65

The gospel did not go west by chance. It went west by providence, prophecy, and covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-37). God’s word never fails and therefore the peoples of the West (the Celto-Saxons) to whom He principally sent the gospel must be the true descendants of the Israelites of old.

Over the last 2,100 years, Celto-Saxons have been most responsive to Jesus’ call to salvation. Other nations would be oblivious to Christianity if not for the Celto-Saxons’ proliferation of the gospel. Only the Celto-Saxons fulfill all of the Biblical markers for Israel. Additionally, some 1,400 Assyrian cuneiform tablets provide various names assumed by the house of Israel during their Assyrian captivity. Some of these ancient names can be traced to the Celto-Saxon peoples.66

Today’s Jews do not fit any of the Biblical markers. In their almanacs, encyclopedias, historical writings, and other literature, they admit they are not physical Israelites:

Strictly speaking, it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a “Jew” or to call a contemporary Jew an “Israelite” or a “Hebrew.”
                                                                                The Jewish Almanac (1980)67

Here’s a paradox, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox: an anthropological fact, many Christians … have much more Hebrew-Israelite blood in their veins than most of their Jewish neighbors.
                                                                                 Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal, Jr.68

When Israelites find themselves ruled by foreigners, it is punishment for their disobedience to Yahweh’s law:

The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. …[H]e shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.
(Deuteronomy 28:43-44)

Article 6’s elimination of Biblical leadership stipulations, Amendment 1’s provision for polytheism, Amendment 14’s first-birth citizenship, and Amendment 15’s non-Biblical and non-Israelite voting privileges specifically legislated and guaranteed this curse. This eventually resulted in leadership positions for non-Christian non-Israelites. Jesus described the result of such Biblical violations:

...Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. (Matthew 12:25)

America’s house began to be divided with the ratification of the Constitution. It was completely severed with the addition of Amendment 14, which paved the way for non-Israelite leadership. Before 1868, Deuteronomy 17:15 was the rule. In 2008, a non-Christian black man became the leader of the United States Constitutional Republic. That Barack Obama is neither an Israelite nor a Christian is much more consequential than his dubious United States citizenship.

Legislation reflecting the culture and ethics of non-Israelites often causes Yahweh’s people to further rebel against Him. As a result, they fall under compounded judgment. God intends Christian Israelites to rule according to His superior and magnanimous laws. His laws, including Christian-Israelite rule, are not detrimental to non-Israelites, but rather are for their physical betterment and spiritual enlightenment:

The Bible is not a history of the human race at large, but one distinct strain of people amongst the family of races. All the other races are considered with reference to it…. The Bible deals with one race [more properly nation] which flows like a gulf Stream through the ocean of humanity. As the actual gulf Stream touches two continents and blesses the nations, so this race, in its origin, history and destiny, was selected and equipped for the service of the [other] nations….

Of course, many people still have their own ideas about this, and that creates a difficulty. For when people get their own ideas about things, it always leads to confusion. A man will rise and demand, “By what right does God choose one race or people above another?” …God’s grading is always upward. If He raises up a nation, it is that other nations may be raised up through its ministry. If He exalts a great man, an apostle of liberty, or science, or faith, it is that He might raise a degraded people to a better condition. The Divine selection is not a prize, a compliment paid to the man or the race – it is a burden imposed. To appoint a chosen people is not a pandering to the racial vanity of a “superior people;” it is a yoke bound upon the necks of those who are chosen for a special service.69

When assessed logically and Biblically (essentially one and the same thing), the Fifteenth Amendment proves to have benefitted none of the races. Few people understand the importance of Christian leadership, let alone the necessity of kinsmen leadership. Deuteronomy 17:15 is as applicable under the New Covenant as it was under the Old Covenant.70

Individual Covenants

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 forbids individual Christians to marry or enter partnerships with non-Christians.

Leviticus 18:6-30 expounds upon illicit sexual relations. Sandwiched between statutes against marital infidelity (verse 20) and sodomy (verse 22), we find a prohibition that initially appears out of context:

And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am Yahweh. (Leviticus 18:21)

There’s more to this than just idolatry. Why would a statement about idolatry (specifically child sacrifice) be included in a chapter devoted to sexual interdictions? The phrase “the fire” in verse 21 are italicized, indicating no corresponding words exist in the Hebrew manuscripts. The translators added these two words. Molech worship did sometimes include the offering of children as burnt sacrifices, as indicated in other passages, but Leviticus 18 is not addressing that practice. Leviticus 20 provides the judgment for passing seed to Molech:

…Whosoever … giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. (Leviticus 20:1-2)

The translators did not add the phrase “the fire” in the judgment for this sin. Its absence, along with some other factors, demonstrates there is more than one way to sacrifice seed to Molech. Neither Leviticus 18:21 nor Leviticus 20:1-2 uses the Hebrew word ben, translated “children.” Instead, the word zera`, meaning “sperm” or “future progeny,” was used. The phrase “pass through” is translated from the Hebrew word `abiyr, which has sexual connotations:

…A primitive root; to cross over … specifically, to cover (in copulation).71

…Prop. causeth to pass over, sc. semen….72

In Job 21 the Hebrew word `abiyr is translated “gendereth”:

Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf.
(Job 21:10)

Other versions of Job 21:10 translate `abiyr as “mates” and “breeds.”

The statute in Leviticus 18 and the judgment in Leviticus 20 are not meant to be understood as prohibitions against sexual participation with the god Molech itself. Therefore, Molech must represent something or someone else. That Molech was the national deity of the Ammonites (one of three racially alike lineages with whom the Israelites were forbidden to intermarry) is the final clue in discovering the correct interpretation of this prohibition. Passing one’s seed to Molech is a Hebrew idiom prohibiting marriage with a pagan, by which posterity would be “sacrificed” to pagan gods.

Peake’s Commentary on the Bible questions the customary interpretation of Leviticus 18:21, then provides alternate analyses and translations:

21 is generally interpreted as referring to a ceremony whereby children were passed through fire, possibly burning them as whole-offerings. But it is curious that the prohibition here occurs among sexual matters. The ancient versions have ‘cause to serve’ (Sam.), ‘serve,’ (LXX), ‘cause to lie down for sexual intercourse’ (Syr.), whilst other Greek Versions have ‘compel by force’.73

In his book Old Testament Light: The Indispensable Guide to the Customs, Manners, & Idioms of Biblical Times, George Lamsa provides Leviticus 18:21 from the Syriac translation of the Old Testament:

“Seed,” in this instance, means “semen.” The Eastern text reads: “You shall not let any of your semen be cast into a strange woman to cause her to be pregnant….” …This ordinance is against cohabiting with pagan women….74

“Pagan women” referred specifically to non-believers, and generically to non-Israelites. During the Old Covenant dispensation, only lineages closely related to Israel worshiped Yahweh. Everyone else was pagan. Therefore, Leviticus 18:21 also applies to interracial relationships. Lamsa also points out that the word “‘Molech’ … [in] the Aramaic reads ‘a strange woman’; that is, a woman of another race or religion.”75

Apart from a few rare exceptions, Yahweh was the exclusive God of the Israelites. To Old Covenant Israelites (and more importantly, to Yahweh), both the forbidden lineages and people from other races were pagan. In Leviticus 18:21, Molech represents not only the Ammonites, but all forbidden lineages and other races. All such unions polluted Israel’s genes and invariably led to idolatry. Deuteronomy 7 further substantiates this by including all pagan nations in its prohibitions:

When Yahweh thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou.... Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.... For thou art an holy people unto Yahweh thy God: Yahweh thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 7:1-6)

Verse 6 cannot be severed from its context. The prohibition against mixed marriages in Verses 3 and 4 applied to all pagan peoples. Verse 6 is but one of many passages (Exodus 19:5-6, 33:16; Leviticus 20:24, 26; Numbers 23:9; Deuteronomy 15:6, 32:8, 33:28; 1 Kings 8:51-53; Amos 3:1-2, etc.) that sets Israel apart as genetically distinct. If for no other reason, she was set apart because she was Yahweh’s wife.

Many of these passages also point out that Yahweh not only segregated Israel from the majority of other peoples, but that He set her above all other peoples. This comes with being His queen. At her Husband’s side and as His helpmeet, Israel was to rule with Him over His kingdom.

Israel’s preeminence and required geographical segregation made her genetic integrity imperative. Had she remained true to Yahweh’s segregation mandate, her genetic integrity would have never been compromised. Had Israel been permitted to intermix with other races, a black or brown mulatto people would have resulted. Had such occurred (as it has in Haiti, for example), how would the Israelites have been distinguished so as to fulfill Yahweh’s mandate for separation and ascendancy? Yahweh intended Israel to be segregated from all pagan peoples, not just the seven nations of Canaan.

Only other races and the forbidden lineages of Canaan, Moab, and Ammon are included in the prohibition in Leviticus 18:21. God permitted Israelites to marry racially alike non-Israelites. The Midianites, for example, were not Israelites, but because they were descendants of Abraham and worshipped Yahweh, they were not included in the Leviticus 18:21 prohibition.

Deuteronomy 21 is often used in an attempt to condone interracial mixing:

When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and Yahweh thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife. Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house.... (Deuteronomy 21:10-12)

These verses must be understood within the limitations of such passages as Deuteronomy 7:1-6. Otherwise, Yahweh contradicts Himself.

Leviticus 18:21 addresses this sin in an idiomatic fashion; the priest Ezra is more direct:

The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians,76 and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands…. Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons … that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever. (Ezra 9:1-12)

We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land…. Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. (Ezra 10:2-3)

That no exceptions were made for believing wives and children dictates that religious corruption was not the only reason for these instructions. In Chapter 9, Ezra provided two additional reasons: genetic corruption (Verse 2) and lost inheritances (Verse 12).77

With these witnesses in mind, and because the phrase “pass through” in Leviticus 18:21 can have sexual implications; and because zera, meaning “sperm,” or future progeny, was used instead of ben, meaning “children”; and because Leviticus 18 is a chapter devoted to sexual perversions and not to idolatry, it should be apparent that verse 21 fits the chapter’s context. This verse prohibits forbidden-lineage and, by extension, interracial relationships, both of which pollute Israel’s genes and lead to the worship of false gods.78

R.J. Rushdoony explains the covenantal implications of unequal yoking:

...man’s life is covenantal. If he is in covenant with anything or anyone, his life is enmeshed therein, and there is then a reshaping of his life in terms of that covenant and faith.... Therefore, to make a mixed marriage is to deny the covenant of the living God in favor of an idolatrous covenant. Paganism is syncretistic, inclusivistic; the Bible is exclusivistic in its demands on man. The one true God demands the total life of redeemed man. Idolatry undercuts and destroys God’s covenant.... This is why mixed marriages are impossible, or any kind of yoking together with unbelief.79

Rushdoony was equally concerned with interracial “marriages”:

Unequal yoking [2 Corinthians 6:14] plainly means mixed marriages between believers and unbelievers and is clearly forbidden. But Deuteronomy 22:10 [“thou shalt not plow with an ox and ass together”] not only forbids unequal religious yoking by inference, and as a case law, but also unequal yoking generally…. Man was created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26), and woman in the reflected image of God in man, and from man (1 Cor. 11:1-12; Gen. 2:18, 21-23). “Helpmeet” means a reflection or mirror, an image of man, indicating that woman must have something religiously and culturally in common with her husband. The burden of the law is thus against inter-religious, inter-racial, and inter-cultural marriages, in that they normally go against the very community which marriage is designed to establish.80

This begs another question: When Christians send their children to secular schools are they not covenanting with non-Christians and thereby academically sacrificing their children to the secular education establishment?

Christian parents send their children into the judicially and self-consciously pagan environment of the public schools. Parents are not acting faithfully as representatives [of Yahweh] when they do this. They are tithing their children to the State.81

The law requires education in terms of the law [Deuteronomy 6:7-9, 20-25]. Anything other than a Biblically grounded schooling is thus an act of apostasy for a believer: it involves having another god and bowing down before him to learn from him.82

Segregation

They [pagan non-Israelites, verses 23-28] shall not dwell in thy [Israel’s] land, lest they make thee sin against me [Yahweh]: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee. (Exodus 23:33)

Wherefore come out from among them [unbelievers, verse 14], and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
(2 Corinthians 6:17-18)

Both Old and New Testaments promote segregation rather than integration and uniculturalism rather than multiculturalism.83 This is particularly true regarding Israel:

For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. (Numbers 23:9)

When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For Yahweh’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
(Deuteronomy 32:8-9)

For they be thy people, and thine inheritance ... thy people Israel.... For thou didst separate them from among all the people of the earth, to be thine inheritance....
(1 Kings 8:51-53)

Because the New Covenant was also made exclusively with Israelites (Jeremiah 31:31-37, Romans 9:3-4, Hebrews 8:8-9),84 these orders and the repercussions for violating them remain the same under the New Covenant. Consider Deuteronomy 7 in light of Ecclesiastes 1:9: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done….”:

When Yahweh thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee … thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of Yahweh be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art an holy people unto Yahweh thy God: Yahweh thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 7:1-6)

The potential for idolatry in a multicultural society remains the same today as when Moses penned Deuteronomy 7. In 1776, approximately 2.5 million people resided in America. More than 99 percent were white Christian Protestants. The remaining 1 percent was collectively represented by 20,000 Roman Catholics, 3,000 Jews, and some deists. In light of these statistics and America’s present-day demographics (51.3 percent Protestant, 23.9 percent Roman Catholic, 3.3 percent other Christian, 1.7 percent Jewish, 0.7 percent Buddhist, 0.6 percent Muslim, 0.4 percent Hindu, 1.2 percent other religions, and 16.1 percent no religion85), we cannot escape the fact that the more non-European immigrants allowed to enter and remain in this country, the less Christian America becomes. The more racially mixed America becomes, the more pluralistic she becomes, and the more pluralistic she becomes, the more pagan she becomes. In 1776, only 1 percent of Americans professed some religion other than Christianity, whereas of October 2009, almost 50 percent of Americans professed a religion other than Christianity:

Immigration will slowly change the nation’s [predominately Christian] religious affiliation…. Because most of the nation’s immigrants are from Mexico … the Roman Catholic church is likely to gain adherents. The influx of Asian immigrants should boost the share of Americans who are Buddhist or Hindu.86

The same demographic consequences apply to Jewish, Muslim, and other non-European immigrants. Acclaimed demographics expert Martin E. Marty corroborated this inevitable consequence of integrating races and cultures:

No one noticed it at the time, but the biggest event affecting pluralism [the ever-increasing multi-religious composition of the United States] was in 1965, when immigration quotas that favored Europeans were altered.87

Moses’ instructions in Deuteronomy 7:1-6 are still valid. Because the New Covenant was made exclusively with Christian Israelites (by which they became Yahweh’s wife again, as only Israelites could, and as was prophesied by the Old Covenant prophets), Deuteronomy 7:1-6 is still true today, as are the consequences of multiculturalism and its promotion of integration.

Most Americans, fearing they will be vilified, do not want to face this reality. Such information is usually met with accusations of racism and white supremacy. But the real racists are those whose agenda destroys the distinct races and their cultures through amalgamation. Nehemiah understood the consequences of the Judahites88 mixing with conflicting cultures:

In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves…. Shall we then … do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?... Thus cleansed I them from all strangers…. (Nehemiah 13:23-30)

Integration Consequences

Anyone who thinks integration has solved America’s race problem is blind to the statistics and to the realities of life, particularly in the inner cities where the problem is most evident. The race problem is best solved through segregation, since with segregation, even the potential is eliminated. Integration inevitably leads to amalgamation and ultimate amalgamation amounts to genocide. Rushdoony unmasked the real racists:

Men have tried over and over again to establish a community on the basis of blood. …[T]his racist idea of community [has been extended] to include all men, a one-world order. All men, it is pointed out, are a common species and hence should live together in community. A widely promoted book of a few years ago was titled The Family of Man, a deliberate appeal to the unity of the family in blood as the ground for the same unity of all men as one in blood. …[H]owever intensely the national state and the one-worlder try to create a unified human community in terms of blood, these attempts are a failure. Instead of a unified society, there is a divided one which continues to fractionalize.89

Consider post-apartheid South Africa. (You will have to look somewhere other than the mainline media to get your information. After condemning apartheid as such a wicked practice, they are not about to report on the aftermath of bloodshed, rape, and pillage.) Christian Israel cannot allow practicing pagans to abide in her midst without suffering horrific consequences. The following principle applies as much to nations as to individuals:

Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.” (1 Corinthians 15:33, NASB)

God warned that foreign settlers would become snares and thorns:

…Yahweh spake unto Moses … saying, Speak unto the children of Israel … drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures [figured stones, NASB], and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down [demolish, NASB] all their high places: And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land…. But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them. (Numbers 33:50-56)

Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love Yahweh your God. Else if ye [Israel] do in any wise go back, and cleave unto the remnant of these [non-Israelite] nations, even these that remain among you, and shall make marriages with them, and go in unto them, and they to you: Know for a certainty that Yahweh your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which Yahweh your God hath given you. (Joshua 23:11-13)

Some Jewish authors have been honest enough to admit that today’s non-Israelite Jewish people are a modern fulfillment of these two passages:

The Christian nations, you believe, would have perhaps less objection against the restoration of the Jewish State, since they would hope through this to be rid of an alien population which was always a thorn in their side.90

Every synagogue we Jews build in Christian countries is a finger of scorn we point at our hosts, a sore finger we stick into their eyes, like the leering of a senile old woman who does all sorts of foul mischief before you, and feels safe in the knowledge that you will not lay hands on her to remove her, for fear of contamination.91

When the Bible’s segregation laws are disregarded, we are warned that foreigners (such as Barack Obama) will rise above us:

And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of Yahweh thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that Yahweh thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth.... But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of Yahweh thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.... The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. …[H]e shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail. (Deuteronomy 28:1, 15, 43-44)

The Prophet Hosea described another consequence of unbiblical integration:

Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people…. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not…. (Hosea 7:8-9)

The tribe of Ephraim lost their strength (their God, their sons and daughters, their land, and their wealth) to the strangers with whom they mixed. Hosea 7 could just as easily be describing modern-day America.

Egalitarians, non-Christians and Christians alike, would have us believe integration is a good thing. However, the integration of Israel with other nations was a judgment from Yahweh for rejecting Him and His law:

And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of Yahweh thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that Yahweh thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth.... If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book … it shall come to pass, that … Yahweh shall scatter [integrate] thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods…. (Deuteronomy 28:1, 58-64)

Therefore thou [Yahweh] hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because … they please themselves in the children of strangers. (Isaiah 2:6)

The consequences of breaking God’s laws do not change. Rushdoony pointed out one ramification:

Segregation or separation is thus a basic principle of Biblical law with respect to religion and morality. Every attempt to destroy this principle is an effort to reduce society to its lowest common denominator.92

Rushdoony’s comments regarding civil rights groups are also apropos:

The [United States’] law has often been used as an ostensible weapon to gain equality, but such attempts represent either self-deception or an attempt to deceive by the group in power. The “civil rights” revolutionary groups are a case in point. Their goal is not equality but power. The background of Negro culture is African and magic, and the purposes of magic are control and power over God, man, nature, and society.93

This “power drive” is also evident in the Hispanic anti-American La Raza (The Race) movement and in Islam, which is taking over many parts of Europe and is gaining an increasing stronghold in America.

The Israelites who returned with Ezra and Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem understood this First Commandment statute must be implemented in order to restore the kingdom of God:

…when they [the returning Israelites] had heard the law, that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude…. Thus [were they] cleansed … from all [permanent non-Israelite] strangers…. (Nehemiah 13:3-30)

All of the foregoing statutes—faith, fear, love, worship, obedience, abstention from using the names of spurious gods, equally yoked covenants, and segregation—are essential in keeping the First Commandment.

First Commandment Judgment

If there arise among you a prophet [or your brother, son, daughter, wife, friend or neighbor, as per verses 16-18] … saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them ... that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from Yahweh your God … to thrust thee out of the way which Yahweh thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. (Deuteronomy 13:1-5)

If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which Yahweh thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of Yahweh thy God, in transgressing his covenant, and hath [openly] gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven … and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates … and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. (Deuteronomy 17:2-5)

Rushdoony explains why overt violations of the First and Second Commandments require the death penalty94:

To the modern mind, this seems drastic. Why death for idolatry? If idolatry is unimportant to a man, then a penalty for it is outrageous. But modern man thinks nothing of the death penalties for crimes against the state, or against the “people,” or against “the revolution,” because these things are important to him. The death penalty [in Deuteronomy 13:1-18] is not required here for private belief; it is for attempts to subvert others and subvert the social order by enticing others to idolatry. Because for Biblical law the foundation is the one true God, the central offense is therefore treason to that God by idolatry. Every law-order has its concept of treason. No law-order can permit an attack on its foundation without committing suicide. Those states which claim to abolish the death penalty still retain it on the whole for crimes against the state. The foundations of a law-order must be protected....

Basic to the health of a society is the integrity of its foundation. To allow tampering with its foundation is to allow its total subversion. Biblical law can no more permit the propagation of idolatry than Marxism can permit counter-revolution, or monarchy a move to execute the king, or a republic an attempt to destroy the republic and create a dictatorship.95

All gods—whether Caesar or Yahweh—require absolute allegiance. Rushdoony also pointed out important exceptions:

It should be noted that Deuteronomy 13:5-18 does not call for the death penalty for unbelief or for heresy. It condemns false prophets (vv. 1-5) who seek to lead the people ... into idolatry. It does condemn individuals who secretly try to start a movement into idolatry (vv. 6-11). It does condemn cities which establish another religion and subvert the law-order of the nation (vv. 13-18)....

This condemnation does not apply to a missionary situation, where the land is anti-God to begin with: this is a situation for conversion. It does require a nation grounded in Gods’ law-system to preserve that order by punishing ... basic treason against it.96

A mere suggestion from Yahweh is enough to prompt Christians who love their God to do what He desires. However, for those who are described as walking in the broad way, the judgments must be enforced to secure adherence to the commandments and to ensure a functioning Christian society. Paul conveyed this idea to the Roman Christians:

…[righteous] rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he [the righteous ruler] beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath [the judgments of God] upon him that doeth evil [who willfully transgresses one or more of Yahweh’s commandments]. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. (Romans 13:3-5)

Paul’s description is of a Christian government established upon Yahweh’s law.97 God’s law alone determines what is good and evil. Under this form of government, we have three options:

1. Voluntary compliance to Yahweh’s law, prompted by a good conscience.
2. Forced compliance to Yahweh’s law, prompted by fear of Yahweh’s judgments.
3. Punishment for non-compliance, implemented by the enforcement of Yahweh’s judgments.

All governments function under these options. People recoil at the idea of a theocracy’s morality being forced upon them, but because all governments are theocracies, someone’s morality is always being enforced. This is an inevitability of government.

Paul elaborated:

…the law is … made for … the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind [homosexuals], for menstealers [kidnappers], for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. (1 Timothy 1:8-10)

The commandments and statutes alone are inadequate to prevent the crimes described in this passage. Paul was referring specifically to the judgments of Yahweh. In a society established upon Yahweh’s law, either criminally minded people will keep the commandments and statutes out of fear of “the sword,” or they will be judged for their disobedience and put under “the sword.” These judgments purge wickedness from society. Under a government administering God’s judgments, wickedness would be the exception rather than the rule.

Restoration of Yahweh’s kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven begins with First Commandment obedience. Under the lordship of Jesus Christ, Yahweh must be honored as God and King. Let us love and serve only Him.

End Notes

1. Where the Tetragrammaton (YHWH)—the four Hebrew characters representing the personal name of God—has been unlawfully rendered the LORD or GOD in English translations, I have taken the liberty to insert Yahweh where appropriate. For a more thorough explanation concerning important reasons for using the sacred name of God, “The Third Commandment” may be read online. The book Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh thy God in vain may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, 69363, for a suggested $4 donation.*

2. All Scripture is quoted from the King James Version unless otherwise noted. Portions of Scripture have been omitted for brevity. If you have questions regarding a passage, please open your Bible and study the text to ensure it has been properly used.

3. YHWH, the English transliteration of the Tetragrammaton, is most often pronounced Yahweh. It is the principal Hebrew name of the God of the Bible and was inspired to appear nearly 7,000 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. In honor of His memorial name (Exodus 3:15), and the multitudes of Scriptures that charge us to proclaim, swear by, praise, extol, call upon, bless, glorify, and hold fast to His name, I have chosen to use His name throughout this book.

For a more thorough explanation concerning important reasons for using the sacred name of God, “The Third Commandment” may be read online, or the book Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh thy God in vain may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $4 donation.*

4. Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973) p. 223.

5. William O. Einwechter, Walking in the Law of the Lord: An Introduction to the Biblical Ethics of Theonomy (Stevens, PA: Darash Press, 2010) p. 54.

6. For more regarding the numerous ways in which the Constitution conflicts with Yahweh’s law, Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective may be read online. The book may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $19 donation.*

7. Gary DeMar, “Defining Terms: Theocracy,” 26 February 2007, http://americanvision.org/1629/defining-terms-theocracy/.

8. William O. Einwechter, Ethics & God’s Law: An Introduction to Theonomy (Mill Hall, PA: Preston Speed Publications, 1995) p. 17.

9. Rushdoony, p. 47.

10. T. Robert Ingram, The World Under God’s Law (Houston, TX: St. Thomas Press, 1981) p. 33.

11. Yeshua (Yah saves) is the English transliteration of our Savior’s given Hebrew name, with which He introduced Himself to Paul in Acts 26:14-15. (Jesus is a second-generation English transliteration of Iesous, the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Yeshua.) Because Yeshua is unfamiliar to most readers, I have chosen to use Jesus in this book in order to remove what might otherwise be a stumbling block. For a more thorough explanation regarding the sacred names of God, “The Third Commandment” may be read online. The book Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh thy God in vain may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, 69363, for a suggested $4 donation.*

12. Mao Tse-Tung, The Foolish Old Man Who Removed Mountains (Peking, China: Foreign Languages Press, 1966) p. 3, quoted in R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973) p. 5.

13. For more regarding the serious implications of WE THE PEOPLE as a deity, see Chapter 3 “The Preamble: WE THE PEOPLE vs. YAHWEH” of Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective. Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution may be read online. The book may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $19 donation.*

14. Not everyone claiming to be a Christian has been properly instructed in the Biblical plan of salvation. Mark 16:15-16; Acts 2:36-41, 22:1-16; Romans 6:3-4; Galatians 3:26-27; Colossians 2:11-13; and 1 Peter 3:21 should be studied to understand what is required to be covered by the blood of Jesus and forgiven of your sins. For a more thorough explanation concerning baptism and its relationship to salvation, the book Baptism: All You Wanted to Know and More may be requested from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for free.

15. Rushdoony, pp. 122-123

16. Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. “licentiousness” (1828; reprint ed. San Francisco, CA: The Foundation for American Christian Education, 1967).

17. “[A]ntinomian ... a person who maintains that Christians are freed from the moral law by virtue of grace and faith.” Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, s.v. “antinomian” (New York, NY: Random House, 2000) p. 59.

18. Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989) p. 179.

19. Rushdoony, p. 20.

20. For a more thorough explanation concerning Yahweh’s law as it pertains to the New Covenant, Law and Kingdom: Their Relevance Under the New Covenant may be read online The book may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $5 donation.*

21. Robert Yates, “Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787,” Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Constitutional Convention 1787, entered according to an Act of Congress in the year 1838 (Hawthorne, CA: Omni Publications, 1986) pp. 197-98.

22. Benjamin Franklin, quoted in William Templeton Franklin, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin (London, UK: Henry Colburn, 1818, 3rd ed.) p. 195.

23. For a more thorough explanation of the polytheistic repercussions of Amendment 1, see Chapter 11 “Amendment 1: Government-Sanctioned Polytheism” of Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective. The book may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $19 donation.*

24. North, p. 158.

25. The Portsmouth Compact, an Ancestry.com Community, 7 March 1638, http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rinewpor/compact.html.

26. Fundamental Agreement of the Colony of New Haven, 4 June 1639, Click for link.

27. William Holmes McGuffey, McGuffey’s Sixth Eclectic Reader (New York, NY: American Book Company, 1879) p. 225.

28. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, translated from French by Henry Reeve (New York, NY: The Colonial Press, 1899) vol. 1, p. 37.

29. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vols. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press [1775] 1979) vol. 1, pp. 46-47.

30. Daniel Webster, discourse at Plymouth Rock on 22 December 1820, The Works of Daniel Webster, 3 vols. (Boston, MA: Brown and Company, 1858) vol. 1, p. 10.

31. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, pp. 24-25.

32. Einwechter, Walking in the Law of the Lord: An Introduction to the Biblical Ethics of Theonomy, p. 42.

33. Rushdoony, p. 16.

34. North, p. 40.

35. Thomas Watson, The Ten Commandments (Carlisle: PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, [1692] 1986) p. 51.

36. For a more thorough contrast of Yahweh’s judicial system with the Constitutional Republic’s, see Chapter 6 “Article 3: Judicial Usurpation” of Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective. The book may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $19 donation.*

37. Christian Duty Under Corrupt Government: A Revolutionary Commentary on Romans 13:1-7 by Ted R. Weiland may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $7 donation.*

38. Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990/1997) p. 706.

39. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 55.

40. Rousas John Rushdoony, Law and Society (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1982) p. 206.

41. Edward A. Powell and Rousas John Rushdoony, Tithing and Dominion (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1979) pp. 4-5.

42. For a more thorough explanation concerning the marriage covenants and the identity of today’s Israelites, The Mystery of the Gentiles: Who Are They and Where Are They Now? may be read online. The book may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $10 donation.*

43. Einwechter, Ethics & God’s Law: An Introduction to Theonomy, pp. 65-66.

44. Watson, p. 10.

45. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 71.

46. Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal, The Other Side of the Coin (New York, NY: The Devin-Adair Company, 1965) p. 62.

47. Lilienthal, p. 64.

48. Jacob Henry Schiff, quoted in Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise, Free Synagogue Pulpit: Sermons and Addresses (New York, NY: Bloch Publishing Company, 1910) vol. 2, p. 127.

49. “Kabbalah (Heb. ‘tradition’): The mystical religious stream in Judaism. The term K. originally denoted the oral tradition which was transmitted along-side [sic] the Written law, but in the 12th cent., it was adopted by mystics to denote the alleged continuity of the mystical ‘tradition’ from early times.,” s.v. “Kabbalah,” The Standard Jewish Encyclopedia (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966) p. 1087.

50. “Cabala” (alternate spelling for Kabbalah), quoted in Dr. Edward R. Fields, Judaism: The World’s Strangest Religion (Marietta, GA: The Truth at Last Publishers) p. 8.

51. God’s Covenant People: Yesterday, Today and Forever establishes, by the testimony of the Jews themselves, that today’s Jews are not Israelites. God’s Covenant People may be read online. The book may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $14 donation.*

52. Joseph Klausner, Ph.D., The Messianic Idea in Israel (London, UK: Bradford & Dickens, 1956) p. 163.

53.Watson, p. 53.

54. Samuel Bolton, The Moral Law: A Rule of Obedience, http://www.the-highway.com/articleFeb00.html.

55. For a more thorough explanation of important reasons for using the sacred name of God, “The Third Commandment” may be read online. The book Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, 69363, for a suggested $4 donation.*

56. The context of the passages in which beard shaving and flesh cutting is prohibited demonstrates that rather than generic prohibitions, they specified ancient pagan rites for contacting the dead or petitioning false gods. For example, in an attempt to awaken Baal, the 850 priests in contest with Elijah on Mt. Carmel participated in flesh cutting as a part of their ritual sacrifice (1 Kings 18:28).

57. For more regarding the numerous ways in which the Constitution conflicts with Yahweh’s law, Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective may be read online. The book may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $19 donation.*

58. The General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was signed in 1947. The agreement was designed to provide an international forum encouraging free trade between countries, regardless their religious affiliation. In 1994, GATT membership had grown to 128 countries. On January 1, 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) replaced GATT.

59. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was approved by the United States and Mexico in November 1993. Canada joined in December 1993. NAFTA called for a complete removal of trade barriers within 15 years.

60. For a more thorough explanation of the Constitutional Republic’s unbiblical elections, see Chapter 5 “Article 2: Executive Usurpation” of Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective. The book may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $19 donation.*

61. On September 14, 2000, “…a Hindu priest from Parma, Ohio, delivered the opening prayer to the House in conjunction with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari-Vajpayee addressing a joint meeting of Congress. The guest of Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala was the first Hindu ever to give the House invocation.” “Conservative group criticizes Hindu prayer in Congress,” The Journal Times (Racine, WI: Richard R. Johnston Publishers, 22 September 2000).

On July 12, 2007, “For what is believed to be the first time in its history, the U.S. Senate ... [was] opened with a Hindu prayer [by Rahan Zed, a Hindu chaplain from Nevada]....” Nathan Burchfiel, “Hindu Prayer Will Open Senate Session in July,” CNSNews.Com, Cybercast New Service, http://cnsnews.com/node/7489. 26 July 2007.

62. The November 5, 2009, Fort Hood massacre (in which thirteen people were killed and thirty others wounded at the hands of Muslim Major Nidal Malik Hasan) was another consequence of violating Exodus 23:33. Amendment 1 was the origin of what occurred that fateful day. Had the framers established a government based upon Yahweh’s law, Islam would not be tolerated and its proponents would not be in America’s military.

63. For a more thorough explanation of the erroneous teaching about a spiritual Israel out of all nations, Spiritual Israel: Out of All Nations or Out of the Nation of Israel? may be read online. The book may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $4 donation.*

64. For a more thorough explanation of the Old Testament prophecies about Yahweh’s remarriage to a remnant of believing Israelites under the New Covenant, The Mystery of the Gentiles: Who Are They and Where Are They Now? may be read online. The book may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $10 donation.*

65. Mark A. Beliles, Douglas S. Anderson, Contending for the Constitution: Recalling the Christian Influence on the Writing of the Constitution and the Biblical Basis of American Law and Liberty (Charlottesville, VA: Providence Foundation, 2005) pp. 81-82.

66. For a more thorough explanation of the Assyrian Cuneiform tablets, Missing Links Discovered in Assyrian Tablets by archeologist Raymond Capt may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $10 donation.*

67. Richard Siegel, Carl Rheins, eds., “Identity Crisis,” The Jewish Almanac (New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1980) p. 3.

68. Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal, Jr., What Price Israel (Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery Company, 1953) p. 223. For additional admissions by today’s Jews that they are not Israelites, God’s Covenant People: Yesterday, Today and Forever (which includes over 700 documented quotations, many from Jewish sources) may be read online. The book may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $14 donation.*

69. William John Cameron, lecture in Dearborn, Michigan (1933), quoted in The Covenant People (Merrimack, MA: Destiny Publishers, 1966) pp. 2-9.

70. For a more thorough explanation regarding Amendment 15, see Chapter 24 “Amendment 15: Colorblind Voting” of Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective. The book may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $19 donation.*

71. James Strong, s.v. `abiyr, “Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary,” The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990) p. 85.

72. Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, Charles A. Briggs, William Gesenius, s.v. `abiyr, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew-English Lexicon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1979) p. 718.

73. Matthew Black, General Editor, Peake’s Commentary on the Bible (Nairobi, Kenya: Thomas Nelson and Sons, LTD, 1962) p. 249.

74. George M. Lamsa, Old Testament Light: The Indispensable Guide to the Customs, Manners, & Idioms of Biblical Times (New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1964) p. 177.

75. Lamsa, p. 182.

76. Ezra 9:1 lists Egyptians (Hamites—Psalm 78:50-51, 105:23-27, and 106:21-22) among the peoples from whom the Israelites were to separate themselves. The Hamites as a whole (descendants of Noah’s second-born son and therefore closely related to the Shemites) were not forbidden for the Israelites to marry (provided they had not turned pagan). This would seem to indicate the Hamites in this instance had either done just that or had intermingled with the Canaanites.

77. To believe there were no converts among the wives and older children is to believe the Israelite men were so spiritually inept that not one of them was able to lead even one wife or child to faith in Yahweh. If religion were the only reason, Ezra would have instructed the men to put away only their wives and older children. Infants and young children could have been raised to follow Yahweh.

78. For a more thorough explanation of the Biblical injunctions against interracial integration, multiculturalism, and miscegenation, including answers to many objections, “The Seventh Commandment” may be read online. The book Thou shalt not commit adultery may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $6 donation.*

79. Rushdoony, Law and Society, p. 475.

80. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, pp. 256-57.

81. North, Political Polytheism, p. 601.

82. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, pp. 21-22.

83. Exodus 33:16; Leviticus 20:24-26; Numbers 23:9; Deuteronomy 32:8, 33:28; Joshua 23:7; 1 Kings 8:51-53; Nehemiah 9:2, 10:28-29; Hosea 7:8-9; Acts 17:26, 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, etc.

84. Non-Israelites may become proselytes to the covenants. But because they are not a direct party to the covenant, they are not in the same marital relationship with Yahweh as is Israel. For a more thorough explanation of the marriage covenants, The Mystery of the Gentiles: Who Are They and Where Are They Now? may be read online. The book may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $10 donation.*

85. Religions of the United States, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Religions_of_the_United_States.png.

86. Cheryl Russell, “Most Americans Claim Religious Affiliation,” The Official Guide to the American Marketplace (Ithaca, NY: New Strategist Publications, Inc., 1995) p. 252.

87. Martin E. Marty, quoted in Tom Heinen, “Scholar sees strength in abundance of faiths,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 26 April 1999.

88. The Jews (better rendered Judahites) in the Bible represent only the descendants of the southern two-tribed house of Judah, in distinction from the northern ten-tribed house of Israel. For more about this important and often over-looked distinction, The Mystery of the Gentiles: Who Are They and Where Are They Now? may be read online. The book may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $10 donation.*

89. Rushdoony, Law and Society, pp. 83-84.

Rushdoony was vilified for this and similar statements. Some of his followers are still embarrassed by such statements. He should be lauded for his bravery in speaking the truth. Tragically, modern Christians have been influenced by the one-world agenda alluded to by Rushdoony (case in point, Ken Ham’s One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism).

90. Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem (New York, NY: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1862) p. 77.

91. Samuel Roth, Jews Must Live (New York, NY: The Golden Hind Press, Inc., 1934) p. 129.

92. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 294.

93. Ibid., pp. 60-61.

94. For a more thorough explanation of Yahweh’s laws on capital punishment, Capital Punishment: Deterrent or Catalyst? may be read online. The book may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $3 donation.*

95. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, pp. 38-39.

96. Ibid., p. 39.

97. Christian Duty Under Corrupt Government: A Revolutionary Commentary on Romans 13:1-7 by Ted R. Weiland may be ordered from Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $7 donation.*

*We are admonished in Matthew 10:8, “Freely ye have received, freely give.” Although we have a suggested a price for our books, we do not sell them. In keeping with 2 Corinthians 9:7, this ministry is supported by freewill offerings. If you cannot afford the suggested price, inform us of your situation, and we will be pleased to provide you whatever you need for whatever you can send.