“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1Corinthians 6:9-10)
The words of the Scripture are clear. They fairly jump off the page. It is a list of sins, that if embraced – without repentance – disqualifies us from the Kingdom of God. My weakness is right there in its midst; a constant reminder of my weakness, my unworthiness – and my need for Jesus and the righteousness of God. That used to be the power of God’s Word working on our nation. It seems no longer the case. So much has changed.
The Supreme Court has decided. We will no longer be a nation founded upon the principles of God’s Law. We once were such a nation. It began in 1606 when King James of England granted a charter for the foundation of the Jamestown colony whose first purpose was the furtherance of the spread of the Gospel in the New World. The next year, the Jamestown settlers ratified that sentiment as they founded that first settlement in Virginia, in what would later become the United States.[i] A cross was planted at the landing of the Virginia Company in 1607. In the dedication the colonists declared, “…by the providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of His Divine Majesty, in propagating of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.”[ii] This was the declaration of a people who were declaring their purpose and that purpose was directly in line with the charge of Scripture to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19) America was so dedicated again in the Mayflower Compact of 1620. What we colloquially call the Pilgrims, were called Separatists or Puritans. They had left England, separating themselves from the Church of England. They sought to worship God according to what they saw as the purer principles of their faith. So sitting in the waters off of Plymouth, before they landed, they established a document that would serve as the basis for the government of the new colony. Here’s how they began. “In the name of God, Amen. ….Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic.” They were establishing a Government based on God & the Advancement of Christianity. Puritans left England seeking the opportunity to worship according to the dictates of their consciences. That is our heritage! Our Founding Fathers, whether believers or not – accepted the Judeo / Christian Tradition as the foundation upon which the new nation should and would be built. That tradition continued through the British colonial period up to and including the Revolutionary years. Many of our earliest statesmen affirmed this connection between Biblical principle and practical government. John Adams wrote: “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.”[iii] And Patrick Henry explained it plainly. “Righteousness alone can exalt America as a nation.”[iv]
All of that changed with the recent Supreme Court ruling that set aside the prerogatives of the states as guaranteed by the 10th Amendment to the Constitution and declared same-sex marriage to be the law of the land. America was the only nation besides God’s chosen nation, Israel, that was dedicated to Jehovah God at its founding. Israel’s dedication was administered at the hands of King Solomon at the dedication of the First Temple as recorded in 2Chronicles 7. The United States saw its official dedication occur at the behest of President George Washington on the occasion of his first inaugural, April 30, 1789. The site was St Paul’s Chapel right next to what would later become Ground Zero for the 9/11 attack. It was there that Washington, VP John Adams and members of the House of Representatives and the Senate knelt in prayer as they sought God’s protection and favor for the new nation. And here’s the important thing: By publicly dedicating the United States to the God of the Bible, they were both expressly and implicitly accepting the standards set forth by God Himself. They were accepting His Word as the POINT of AUTHORITY that would set the standard for the governance of the country. But the Supremes, influenced by the culture of the day, expressly and implicitly snubbed their noses at the Laws of God set forth in Scripture and established a law put forth by man alone. They rejected that POINT of AUTHORITY. America has determined to live apart from the Laws of God. Against the laws logic, we’ve announced that every path to God is equally valid. This is not the tolerance that allows the marketplace of ideas to sort out TRUTH. Instead, it is the intellectually lazy and morally bankrupt embrace of an anti-rational ethic that says that contradictory truth claims can all be ‘true’ at the same time. This has contributed to the rejection of our heritage. We no longer look to the past of our settling, when so many were driven by the love of God and the purposes of His service. We no longer look to the founding of this country when principles of governance and freedom were enshrined upon the foundations of our national temple; engraved in the ethic of our founding documents. We no longer seek freedom for men to pursue their own destiny – but rather a squishy ‘social justice’ that does not allow us to defend those principles upon which we were founded. And thus we wander into a wilderness of hyper-tolerance and flee from those laws of logic and truth. The rebellion that has been birthed is one that directly and diametrically opposes the Word of God as put forth in Holy Scripture. See this report from The Conservative Post entitled: “New Bible Translation ‘Queen James Bible’ Eliminates ‘Homosexuality As Sin’ Because It Insults Gays.” It reports: “The world’s first ‘gay friendly’ Bible [book] has been published as the ‘Queen James Bible.’ Multiple verses throughout the book have been rewritten to please the LGBTQ community and gay churches.”[v] And thus the sinners justify the sin.
But this is about so much more than just Gay Marriage. This is about the marginalization and even elimination of Christianity from the culture of America, the West and the entire globe. Within days of the Court’s decision, this writer began to hear calls for the elimination of tax breaks for churches that hold to the Biblical standard of marriage and opposition to homosexual activity. Writing in Olive Tree Views, Matt Ward gets to the heart of the issue. “The real issue here is not to win equality in marriage for gay people, as so many believe. The real agenda here, and it is a satanic one, is to marginalize Christians…. The real agenda here is to put Christians in a position where they are finally legally exposed if they follow and practice their faith. The endgame is ‘to get’ Christianity… the desired outcome is to put Christianity directly within the cross hairs so that its adherents can be proactively attacked and persecuted.”[vi] We have CHOSEN to be Enemies of God!!
Like Israel we began as a nation that – however imperfectly – sought to serve the purposes of Almighty God. It was Joshua who pioneered the Promised Land for the Israelites. After wandering for 40 years in the desert under Moses, Joshua led a generation of Israelites that established a proper relationship with Jehovah God as they conquered the Land given them by the Almighty. Judges 2:7 tells us: “So the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the LORD which He had done for Israel.” America too, amid many stumbles, had its period of at least seeking to loyally serve the Lord God. In case of both Israel and of the US, generations passed and the Divine connection waned. The ‘originals’ died off and the new generations slipped into apathy, forgetting their faith. “When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the LORD nor the work which He had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10) They had lost their sense of history; – their connection to the reality of God. And what does a people do that does not know God? “Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baals; and they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the LORD to anger. They forsook the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.” (Judges 2:11-13) They embraced gods of their own making. There is no darkness so deep as that! We have lost our POINT of AUTHORITY. We think we can make laws for ourselves without the guidance of the God who created us. We think ourselves wiser than our Creator. We have bought into the lie of the Serpent. We imagine that because we have tasted of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil……that we can be as gods. But the Apostle Paul details the result of such unsound thinking. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness… Professing to be wise, they became fools.”
[i] Ray Gano, Israel – America – Isaiah & God’s Judgment – A Nation Dedicated To God, Prophezine, Viewed July 15, 2015
[ii] Craig von Buseck, Faith of Our Fathers, CBN, viewed December 9, 2009
[iii] The Adams quote found in: Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington D. C.:
The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XIII, p. 292-294. In a letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson dated:
June 28, 1813.
[iv] Patrick Henry, Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondence and Speeches, William Wirt Henry, editor (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1891, Vol. II, p. 592, to Archibald Blair on January 8, 1799
[v] New Bible Translation “Queen James Bible” Eliminates “Homosexuality As Sin” Because It Insults Gays, Conservative Post,
July 10, 2015
[vi] Matt Ward, Night Is Falling, Olive Tree Views, July 13, 2015
Leave a Reply