Imagine that someone filed a lawsuit in the courts saying, “I am offended by the danger signs posted along the roads. They block my view of wildlife and the beautiful scenery along the highway. It not only bothers me – think of the animals and wilderness environment of their sacred habitat.

“Your Honor, you can agree road signs are old and outdated. No one heeds them anyway. Besides, it strikes terror into the hearts of my young children. I can hardly get them into the car to go on vacation. Those signs are going to scar my precious little ones for life. You understand it is my right as an American citizen not to be offended. Those signs must come down.”

Imagine the judge agreed, and all the road signs and traffic lights all over America were taken down. What chaos! What destruction! You can plainly see taking down the danger signs would not take away the danger. Unsuspecting cars would careen down canyons because they were traveling too fast to make the curve, and without guard rails, they wouldn’t have a chance.

Head-on collisions would be rampant. No one would know what side of the road to travel. Freeways would come to a halt, and the byways and cross-streets would be strewn with the carrion of pedestrians, who would have no rights under such a system.

Absurd? Yes. That would never happen to our traffic laws, but our moral road signs have fallen to such logic and persuasion. The Ten Commandments were given thousands of years ago – not as restrictions but as danger signs for society.

If followed, they would help society avoid the devastation of a lawless existence. Sadly, the Ten Commandments are being taken down all over the country under the pretext that they offend someone or some group of people.

We can see taking the Ten Commandments down has not removed the danger but has brought a curse of lawlessness upon the land. The moral compass now has so many needles that it spins haphazardly, and lost people are destroying their lives as well as those of their children because they don’t know what is right and what is wrong.

The Ten Commandments were given to a people who had been in bondage for hundreds of years. They had no moral compass because they were slaves to a dictator who used them to build his wealth and power. Human life or suffering meant nothing to Pharaoh. The people, of course, were possessions, and children grew up without direction or education.

When Moses freed the Children of Israel, the Lord gave them laws to live by. Because they were so indoctrinated with the culture of Egypt, it took 40 years wandering in the wilderness and the death of the older generation for the laws to have any effect on the younger generation.

I fear abandoning the Ten Commandments will cost us another 40 years of wandering in a lawless wilderness of bondage before we will realize we gave up the danger signs on the moral highway that would have saved us from years of grief and sorrow.

Each commandment we have abandoned as a society has come with a price.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me: And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

As we have put our quest for wealth, toys and technology before God, we have taught our children to value things and not people. We have taught our children to shut out the world of nature and human interaction to play video games and surf the Internet. We have taught them to laugh at the misfortunes of others and to adopt a “me” mentality.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

We profane God, and the idea of reverence is gone from our lives. We hold nothing sacred. Some are able to burn the flag and trample on the Constitution. Our manner of dress has become so casual we hardly cover ourselves at all. Pornography and child exploitation is rampant.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, not thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

The Sabbath day is just another day; consequently, we are reaping the calamities of depression, panic attacks, heart disease and mental exhaustion. We work and play without rest. We have given up the blessings promised for Sabbath observance.

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Never has there been such disrespect for parents and authority as we have in our society. Schools are filled with disrespect and bullying. Police are killed and property destroyed in riots. Because children disrespect their parents, some children are abandoned to foster care or the care of grandparents.

Thou shalt not kill.

Abandoning this commandment has led to much sorrow. Innocent people are killed in restaurants, schools, theaters and homes. We see terrible scenes of terrorists committing murder on television. Mothers kill their children and fathers kill their families and kill themselves. Teens kill their siblings and parents.

It’s not just a trend; it is a symptom of a society abandoning the moral road signs. It will only get worse if we don’t put back up the road signs and write them in the hearts of our children.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

This commandment was set in place to protect the family. As we have abandoned it, we can see the decay of the family unit. Families are not stable. Thousands of children are in foster care. Thousands more are living in one-parent households. Children are abused and abandoned. They are targets of child predators and are being taught lifestyles that will confuse their existence.

Many husbands and wives have little commitment to each other. Extramarital relationships are common and even termed acceptable. We are approaching a society where marriage means nothing. The new trend in young people: It is better to live together than to marry because it won’t last anyway.

Thou shalt not steal.

Personal property seems to be a thing of the past. Many think nothing of destroying or taking other people’s property to prove a point. Stealing from the rich in the guise of taxes to give to the poor is common in our form of government. Stealing from the rich to fund terrible practices is a pernicious side effect of our taking down moral road signs.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Truth and integrity in much of our society belong to a bygone day. “If it feels right, do it. If you don’t get caught, it’s OK. What difference does it make? Truth is in the perspective of the individual. There is not right or wrong.”

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, not his manservant, not his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

“I want and I will take it no matter the cost,” seems to be the trend. Keeping up with the Joneses is the watch cry. If it is a new gadget, we must have it.

We have abandoned the moral road signs for the sake of not offending anyone. The trouble is: We have offended God and ourselves. We will soon realize taking down the moral danger signs will not take away the danger or the consequences of disobedience. PD