“If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.” (Proverbs 24:10)
The church which embraces “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) has always had to contend for it against those whose eyes are still blinded by the god of this world. Today two of the flash points in the battle are abortion and same-sex ‘marriage.’ These are deemed ‘social issues’ which are mostly matters of ‘politics’ to the dominant voices in our American culture, thus relegating them to matters of mere opinion. However, the unavoidable message of God’s perspective is that these are matters of fundamental importance: both of them are at the core of who He is and what He has done in creating man
In creating man in His image, God’s very ‘personhood’ is stamped into every fertilized human egg at the moment of conception: nothing in the space-time cosmos is more valuable than that DNA formed embryo. In rejecting the truth expressed in Psalm 139:16 [“Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them”], the advocates of abortion are minimizing the value of human life and thereby disregarding the value of the God in whose image we are made.
Celebrating yesterday’s Supreme Court decision declaring the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional, the gay community and its fellow-travelers have denied the nature of the God who made them male and female. The diversity within the unity of the Triune God is reflected in the distinctive maleness and femaleness of the one ‘man’ created in His image as recounted in Genesis chapter 1. Marriage as defined by God is to give a picture of the unity and diversity of God’s nature: one man and one woman joined sexually for life. Any other definition of ‘marriage’ is invalid, whether with multiple or same sex partners: such unions are simply not marriages.
It is not merely that ‘gay marriage’ goes against tradition; it goes against nature. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writing of the deteriorating consequences of sin, gives this analysis of homosexuality: “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error.” (Romans 1:26-27)
Believing in natural marriage (one man and one woman) puts the faithful Christian community in the cross-hairs of the cultural politically-correct elite. The church is entering an instensifying front of animosity against the supremacy of the Christ of the Bible. In unforeseen ways we will experience adversity because of our faithfulness to the God of the Word. We must resolve to stand strong in our allegiance to the only true Lord of All. God’s promises are there for us; His strength is available to us. Nothing must impede our focus to bring glory to God through the exaltation of Christ in our lives.