Tomorrow afternoon, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will likely lift the “stay” on the “order to remove” the Ten Commandments from the Alabama State Judicial Building. Once the stay is lifted and the order to remove is in place, Chief Justice Roy Moore will have approximately fifteen days to obey the order.
But he will not obey this order. To do so would be (a) to violate his oath of office to the Alabama Constitution which specifically declares the state laws to be under God; (b) to grant jurisidiction to a federal court which is acting beyond the scope its lawful jurisdiction; (c) to ratify an unlawful and usurpatious application of the First Amendment; and most importantly (d) to concede that the God of Scripture is not supreme over the laws of the United States.
Because the Chief Justice will not obey this order, he may well be found in contempt and the stage will be set for one of the greatest constitutional crisis in American history (second perhaps only to the crisis between Andrew Jackson and the Supreme Court over the establishment of an unconstitutional monetary system, and the crisis precipitated by the Lincoln Administration when it raised troops against Virginia).
Justice Moore contemplates the battle ahead during lunch with Bob Renaud and Vision Forum staff.
There are many Ten Commandment cases surfacing around the country. This one is different from most of the others for two reasons: First, the defendant in the case is not a school official, or a lower judge, but the highest judicial officer of a state, the Chief Justice of a Supreme Court. Second, the Chief Justice has refused to employ the specious arguments which are so tempting to conservative constitutional attorneys intent on winning the case and so concerned about not seeming foolish before the court, that they frequently employ enemy arguments based on enemy assumptions in the hope that they can win a victory without fundamentally challenging the ruling paradigm of the Supreme Court on First Amendment issues. Such lawyers consider it a victory when the Ten Commandments are allowed to stand because they were able to squeeze such a practice into the “Lemon Test” or because the court found the placement of the monument to be of purely historic significance.
Justice Moore refuses to use such arguments. He has staked his case, his career, his very life on a simple proposition: The Lord God of the Bible who gave us the Ten Commandments is the only source of law and authority under which our nation and its judges may govern. It is this very God of Scripture to whom our Framers appealed when they drafted the charter documents for our nation. These same Framers gave us a Bill of Rights, the First Amendment of which makes it clear that the federal government may not interfere with the Church, nor prohibit any individual from freely exercising their religious beliefs.
To be precise, the First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise therof.” As Moore has pointed out: He is not Congress, and no law has been passed. He is simply acknowledging the source of law, God Almighty.
This is the type of argument that makes the judges of the land quake with indignation. They are the gods of the land and do not like to be challenged. Like Pharoah before Moses, Eleventh Circuit Judge Myron Thompson has hardened his heart, mocked, belittled, and even taunted the prophet who stood before him. Thompson and the Republican-appointed judges who ruled against Moore have forgotten God’s warning to them:
Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Psalm 2:10-12
The true mettle and faith of many professing Christians may soon be tested. Where will they stand? If the Governor of Alabama stands with the Chief Justice, God’s Law will remain publicly displayed in the gates of that state. As the Chief Executive over the federal government, President Bush may also be presented with a decision of far-reaching implications: Enforce the federal court and stand with the 11th Circuit Court in their opposition to the display of God’s Law, or declare it invalid and stand with those who revere the God of our Constitution. Either way, America will have a constitutional crisis which opens the door for what is, from a spiritual perspective, arguably one of the two or three most significant Supreme Court cases in history.
The Supreme Court has discretion as to whether to hear a case or not. But where a significant conflict exists between jursidictions, it is virtually obligatory that the Court help to resolve the matter. If the Court grants a writ of certiorari to hear the case, you and I will be living spectators to an unprecedented event.
Picture this: For the first time since the Founding era, a state Chief Justice with faith in God Almighty will stand before the Supreme Court and exhort them of their duty to God, to man, and to the Constitution. He will defend the proposition that the God of Christianity is supreme over the laws of our nation and we must acknowledge Him or perish. Perhaps he will quote Scripture. Perhaps he will exhort these judges to “kiss the son, lest He be angry.” But whatever happens, it will be a defining moment in our nation’s history.
Once again, America will be tested. Where will we stand? (This was the subject of my sermon before the Body of Christ today during the meeting of the Church.)
One thing is clear. God has raised up Chief Justice Moore as a Moses to the children of these United States. He stands immovable because his confidence is in the Lord. He knows that the Lord of hosts will do battle for us. The same God who opened the sea with the blast of His nostrils to free the children of Israel is the same God who will defend all those who diligently seek him.
Perhaps because of this Moses of the American court system, we will someday live to see the same principle God gave to Israel, realized in the life of our own nation:
Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore saith the LORD, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies: And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. Isaiah 1:23-26
Oh, that God would restore our judges as at the first. Oh, that we would be called a city of righteousness! Do you believe in the power of God? Will you stand with Him and the prophets of righteosuness that He raises in our own land? Who is on the Lord’s side?
Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord!