“If you were determined to consign a population to poverty and any number of social pathologies, how might you do it? If your design is to extend the effects of these pathologies and pains to successive generations, what might be your plan? The answer to both of these questions is clear. Just marginalize marriage.” – Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
How is it even possible that we should be disappointed, much less surprised given the many precedents already experienced over and over again that the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals can determine duly created legislation, lawfully enacted and placed in a state constitution – the result of a voter mandate no less – be struck down as “unconstitutional?” It isn’t possible to explain in any other terms than spiritual warfare. Marriage, also known as holy matrimony is a target for the forces of secular progressivism and leftist political ideology that seek to dismantle tradition, religious conviction and family values. The precise reasons for this aggression require further commentary. Suffice it to say, nothing is safe from attack. Nothing.
To be clear, Mohler’s comments are a response to the reversing demographic trends of divorce among the middle class and the higher education and earnings for more upper class Americans – including those identifying themselves as Christians. But the point is clearly this: marriage as an institution among the shrinking middle class population has become relatively speaking a difficult moral foundation to sustain. High divorce rates, infidelity and sociopolitical marginalization are bad enough. But now we must add the phenomenal view that same-sex marriages enjoy Constitutional protection. We might as well ask: what is the point of marriage anymore? Here is what scripture has to say:
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. – Mark 10:6-9
Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. – Jeremiah 29:6
He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. – Proverbs 18:22
These and many more verses make it obvious; God sanctions and sanctifies marriage and marriage between a man and a woman.
Simply ask the question, why has homosexual marriage become the issue it has only in very recent times? It is because the enemy has determined that a fallen people are ready to embrace the idea. The enemy is not the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. The enemy is the father of all lies.
Perhaps the Church has become much too absent from the forum of public discourse. We seem to have become increasingly marginalized and, in the minds of many, rendered ineffectual and irrelevant. If so, is it our fault entirely? Of course it is not. But now that we are surveying the wreckage of the world ravaged by unconstrained modern secularism and progressivism, it may be well to consider this: How does the Church match compassion and forgiveness with Biblical precepts and Godly truths? With uncompromising love. We speak the truth in love. We demonstrate our commitment to God’s laws by obeying his admonition to keep our own marriages sacred and fruitful. If we accept the Christian worldview that marriage has God’s imprimatur because it is a covenant act, all other concepts concerning marriage simply fail to compete. We do not have to accept homosexual marriage simply because a judge says it enjoys Constitutional sanction.
So then, what do we do now?
We marry, and give our children in marriage. We train up our children in the ways of the Lord so that they will not depart from them. We show people we are sons and daughters of the King and give a reason for the hope that lies within us in gentleness and peace.
We respectfully object to lawlessness, protest the decision and prepare for the next battle – the Supreme Court of the United States, because it is consistent with our desire to promote justice and peace for the nation. Holy matrimony is the right thing. Not because we say it is but because it is the truth. We can prove it. And we must persevere in this endeavor, yielding to no one at any time who would oppose our mission.
“Our Lord’s confidence in God, and in what God’s grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up despairing of everyone.” – Oswald Chambers
For the Church to take back the culture for our children’s heritage and our communities, we must be prepared for a tough battle. But even if we cannot take back the culture, we can certainly live out the truth in it. We know there is no better thing we can do than that. A court decision does not and cannot change the laws of God and His nature or our faith in Him.