God `Speaks' In Ad Campaign -- Pithy Billboards Urge: `Read My Best-Seller'

DALLAS - Here's a warning for drivers everywhere: "Keep using my name in vain, I'll make rush hour longer - God."

The message is on a billboard in Texas, one in a series of giant road signs with pithy messages purporting to be divinely crafted. Another warns Texans: "You think it's hot here?"

The signs are part of a national campaign called "God Speaks," advertisements with black backgrounds and stark white lettering and 18 different slogans.

The nondenominational ads - meant to pique the interest of people who don't attend church - began in Florida and have appeared in northern Texas since Friday.

Drivers in other cities will soon start seeing the billboards, which are also posted on the Internet and have won several national advertising awards.

"Let's meet at my house Sunday before the game," one billboard implores. "Loved the wedding, invite me to the marriage," another suggests. The Bible gets top billing in this one: "Have you read my best-seller? There will be a test." All of the ads are signed "God."

The Florida and Texas signs were financed by separate, anonymous groups.

But Rick Rendon, general manager of Outdoor Systems Advertising,

said members of the Dallas Outdoor Advertising Association were behind the Texas campaign, and that billboard owners have donated some of their space.

"We think it's a great campaign," he told The Dallas Morning News.

The Smith Agency of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., created the ads on behalf of an anonymous client. But the messages are boldly signed and to the point, as in: "Don't make me come down there - God."