Prologue to the book, “Live the Bible and Vote” By: Thomas Lee Abshier, ND 8/1/2023
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:17
Summary of Points in this Article
1. Obeying God’s laws and following his principles leads to individual and national liberty. When people reject Him, feed their hunger unrighteously, and live according to unGodly principles, the social order deteriorates, and tyrants must impose order to prevent social chaos.
2. God wants people to govern themselves by the 10 Commandments and teachings of Jesus. This satisfies His heart. In this physical universe, we live within His being, and He feels our lives. God wants to bless us, and when we express our love of Him by obeying His Law, and loving neighbor as self, He guides our nation in acts and opportunities that bring prosperity, health, and freedom.
3. Many have been seduced by Godless science into believing there are no absolutes and that all moral laws are man-made. Following the hungers of the flesh, they choose behaviors that alienate them from God’s heart and fellowship. God removes His presence, guidance and blessing from Godless societies, which then fall under the control of tyrants who love power, greedy men who trade influence for personal gain, and ideologues who pursue demonic doctrines and foolish ideals which sacrifice well-being and happiness.
4. The Godless theories of scientists and philosophers propagated with certainty and reason have made Christians doubt their faith and speak weakly. Christians need a new paradigm as potent and reasonable as science to speak boldly for God’s standards. I believe the Conscious Point Physics will provide a new paradigm that will allow people to see the reasonableness of postulating and believing in God.
5. As society embraces Godliness as the societal standard for public office, work, relationships, and personal conduct, the unGodly will be sanctified or displaced from positions of authority. But this transformation will take time, because chronic social problems require multifaceted solutions, which must be guided by God’s perfect standard.
6. Recognizing a problem is the first step to solving it. God’s eternal law is the standard we must compare against in judging governance and culture. Implementing solutions guided by Godly principles will heal society.
7. Immature believers will be ineffective in the battle to establish Godliness in the culture if they are intimidated by insults on their character for naming sin and condemning its practice. Knowing God’s character on a personal/heart/felt level, being able to justify the reality of God’s existence and His plan of salvation, and seeing the temporal and eternal stakes of victory and defeat gives the believer courage.
8. Voters can rightly judge leaders and candidates by applying the template of Biblical principles to their character and vision for governance. An informed, active and moral electorate recognizes, resists, and eliminates corruption. In summary, obeying His laws allows God to give us individual and national freedom. But addressing chronic societal problems requires a transformation – a return to divine principles and standards, boldly applied and defended against opposition. Conviction and courage come from seeking to know and please Him, reading the Bible and desiring to know the truth. A new scientific paradigm that grounds faith as justified and reasonable will make it easier to evangelize because it allows reason to fill in the gaps in faith.
A Conversation about the Liberty Available in Christ
Margo Abshier: The Freedom of the people of the nation is dependent on obeying God. If people don’t govern themselves by the 10 commandments, then slavery will come, as we see in 2 Corinthians 3:17 “…Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” If the Lord is not directing the hearts and minds of a nation’s people, leaders, and laws there will be tyranny and slavery. Our Founding Fathers recognized these principles and articulated them frequently as we see in the following quotes:
1. https://theoryofabsolutes.com/category/politics/founding_fathers/ 2. https://theoryofabsolutes.com/category/politics/founding_fathers/page/2/
Alexis de Tocqueville: “In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America, I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.
Religion in America… must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I am certain that they hold it States themselves look upon religious belief. I am certain that they hold it (religious belief) to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society. …all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God… Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same.
In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.
John Adams wrote in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, “Have you ever found in history, one single example of a Nation thoroughly corrupted that was afterwards restored to virtue? …And without virtue, there can be no political liberty… Will you tell me how to prevent riches from becoming the effects of temperance and industry? Will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly? …I believe no effort in favour of virtue is lost.”
John Adams, On October 11, 1798, stated in his address to the military: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams, on August 28, 1811, wrote: “Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not only of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all governments and in all the combinations of human society.” John Adams, in a letter dated November 4, 1816, wrote to Thomas Jefferson, “The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my religion…”
Thomas Jefferson, on March 23, 1801, wrote from Washington, DC to Moses Robinson: “The Christian Religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of its benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind.”
George Washington, in his Farewell Speech on September 19, 1796, said, “Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it?… Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue?”
George Washington, in his Inaugural Speech to Both Houses of Congress, April 30, 1789, proclaimed: “ …in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States…
We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps finally, staked of the experiment… (of our Constitutional Republic.)”
James Madison, founding father, known as the “chief architect of the Constitution,” on June 20, 1785, wrote in regard to the relationship between religion and civil government. “Religion is the basis and Foundation of Government…. We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
Thomas and Margo Commentary: Thomas Abshier: This reason for the connection between God and societal peace is seen in Acts 17:28, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being;” I believe this means that God feels us, knows and sees, and we live in His being. I take this literally; we live within God. But just as we can ignore/shut off/forget a part of our body that is painful, I believe God can do the same with the sinner, the rebel against Him, the enemy of His Kingdom. God is perfect, loving, and hates evil. God separates His attention/fellowship from those who practice/embrace/love the ways of evil. Even though evil is within His body (since all is within Him), if we choose to act out the ways of evil, He can remove His love and attention from those who oppose Him.
God created man to have free will and the ability to manipulate the universe. He created men with the hope of experiencing love in fellowship with man. I believe He feels our love when we follow His will and way. When we are obedient to His law and love our neighbor as much as ourselves, He is present with us, His attention is on us, and we are in fellowship with Him and we satisfy His desire for attention is on us, and we are in fellowship with Him, and we satisfy His desire for love. But when men choose to follow other spirits and the ways of evil, He isolates Himself from them.
When we worship other gods, which in practical terms means practicing any sin (e.g., unrighteously satisfying the hunger He gave us for sex, money, power, fame…), He takes His attention, guidance, and blessing from us. A nation that worships other gods by choosing the customs, habits, and vices of those gods loses its Godly order. The rulers of unGodly nations see the chaos emerging and attempt to maintain control of society with laws and enforcement. As laws increase, liberty decreases. God isolates Himself from the evil of unGodliness and lets society suffer under the spirits they have chosen to follow.
Margo: If the people that don’t believe there is a God to whom they’re accountable, and they break the ten commandments, they’ll live chaotically and disrupt the social order. The people will demand that the government protect them from the chaos. Tyrants will naturally arise to rule them with an iron rod to keep chaos from destroying society.
But if the people believe there is a God and are accountable to Him, they will govern their lives by the strict law of the Ten Commandments and the charitable law of the Sermon on the Mount. People who follow the ways of God can have a free country because such people will govern themselves according to the ways of the Lord. They need no external discipline, only a coordinating focus. In a nation of Godly people, Government can allow the people the freedom to rule themselves and serve only as the judge of those who violate person and property.
Thomas: The question is, why don’t people believe in God, fear Him, and follow his Law? I believe people have been convinced by science and its apologists that there is no God to which they are accountable. As a result, they don’t believe there are spiritual forces at work to put them under bondage, slavery, and tyranny.
Margo: People do not believe that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. When people grieve the Holy Spirit, God turns His back on them. When people sin, the pain of their impurity is too great for God to look upon. God cannot open His heart and attention to the man who commits sin, evil, and evasion of His law. God is holy and pure. Sin grieves and repulses Him. God isolates himself from fellowship with the man committed to sin and evil.
Thomas: If a nation accepts these precepts, and observes the laws of God, then that nation will be prosperous, healthy, and free. But throughout the ages, many believers have not taken God’s law and warning against sin seriously enough to observe it. Unbelievers believe there is no God, which implies that only natural law, the physical laws of nature, provide consequences. But even unbelievers are men of unsubstantiated faith. They believe, without scientific proof, that the universe arose from nothing by an unknown cause. This god of nature is their creator and lawgiver. It is an impersonal god without desire, intent, or preference. Thus, the unbeliever can justify his belief in a universe without moral absolutes and justify defining morality based on the will and judgment of men.
But if there is a God who has personality, desires and aversions, and men wrongly define the moral laws, then men can alienate His affection and fellowship. Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” Men can proceed wrongly with great confidence in their moral purity and unexpectedly precipitate personal disaster and societal collapse through their well-intentioned but wrong embrace of crimes against truth, person, and property. The most obvious example is the widespread societal violation of God’s laws governing sexuality. Many dismiss the Biblical sexual standards as myths arising from a primitive and superstitious age, believing that they can redefine the sexual mores to reflect their more “enlightened” and modern perspective.
Because the unbeliever declares his faith in an impersonal universe based upon the evidence and theories of Science, many Christians feel intimidated and do not speak with the force or logic necessary to convince the government to codify Biblical morality in legislation. This weak approach to advocacy for the gospel and Godly Law limits the believer’s force in speaking directly to the conscience of sinners in declaring the significance of adhering to God’s laws. The lack of reason, scientific evidence, and theory justifying a belief in God and the veracity of the Bible as God’s revelation prevents many believers from feeling certain enough about their faith to speak boldly. As a result, their witness is weak, and men of science appear to have the more defensible and credible position. Thus, unbelievers become the leaders who appear to hold greater authority because of their bold speech. Thus, society comes under the legislative direction of secular humanist morality.
The people of God need a paradigm of science that convinces them that faith in God is justified. Such a paradigm puts believers in God on an equal footing with those who have faith in the religion of science. Having conviction, the believer can invoke the paradigm of an immanent God whose Law must govern society for that society to be free. The believer, convinced by an equally scientific paradigm that God is present and acts within life, is empowered to speak boldly to those who declare that there is no God. God’s law is operative and important to implement in governing human affairs. Acting upon this knowledge gives men the courage to stand against Godlessness and enact Godly standards as societal policy.
When science implicitly includes God, this new paradigm allows the believer to put on the confidence to speak and act with force and demand that society embrace God’s law in its legislation. In the current paradigm of Godless science, believers don’t have enough conviction in their faith to do or say anything with unequivocal force. The new physics, the new worldview that came to me as a revelation, includes God and the Bible at the center of life. This new paradigm of science/creation/God/physics is a potent seed and is the center of my campaign. This worldview/revelation/paradigm transformed me from a doubting Thomas liberal intellectual to a Bible-believing, 2nd Amendment, family-faith, and country patriot. If a new view of physics can turn me into an unapologetic, unequivocal supporter of Biblical Godliness, it has the power of reason to flip anyone. My purpose is to give people reasons to justify a strong faith and forceful speech. This paradigm justifies electing overtly Bible-believing, Godly candidates as representatives, legislators, judges, and administrators. My campaign is about giving people the tools, reasons, and justification to stand boldly against evil. As this new paradigm becomes commonly spoken and embedded in society, having a science-based reason to confess and repent may persuade some or many who have stood against God. Others will remain unrepentant, self-justified, or flee justice. As society becomes Godly, judges and juries will convict the unrepentant. Those who sell their influence for personal gain must vacate positions of power.
I believe the message of the Bible has been ineffective in moving society to political and social action because, in modern days, many who call themselves believers do not use the Bible to define evil. Solving the problem of evil requires identifying it, opposing it with specific actions, and replacing it with new behaviors, systems, and belief structures. Many people realize there is a problem with the laws, culture, enforcement, and justice, but the bold, Biblical worldview/ standards/actions required to solve the problems are banned by our modern, politically correct/Woke culture.
Corruption, the buying of influence, perverts justice, law, and its administration. The general loss of Godly moral standards allows a culture of unregulated ambition, pride, and greed to grow and penetrate government. Corruption buys the misdirection of resources and results in societal decay. We see evidence of that decay in chronic and debilitating social problems such as drug addiction,