1508 Some Boundaries Cannot Be Crossed
Some boundaries cannot be crossed without consequences. As Erwin Lutzer documents so well in his study of lessons learned from the early rise of Nazi Germany “When a Nation Forgets God”, others have been where our country is now with predictable results.
There are two things at the top of the list of things God abhors – evil in the name of love and idolatry. Malevolent love claimed victory in the national disgrace of 1973 when, in the name of “lov[ing] thy neighbor as thyself,” six justices declared that it was a higher good to take innocent life in order for women to do the “thyself” part rather than the “love thy (unborn) neighbor” part.
Now America has, through five justices, managed the second cataclysmic shift into idolatry. With the so-called “legalization” of same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court effectively looked into Heaven and said to their Creator “Get behind us, we are wiser than You, culture is bigger than You and sexual self-fulfillment is holier than your moral law.” The decision’s justifications may have been ingenious but the effects remain the same.
“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, but the respective parties called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.” (Abraham Lincoln)
The Supreme Court’s proclamation does not equal moral truth nor does civil law equal natural rights. The determination of truth and natural rights are infinitely beyond the Court’s pay grade or authority. But already both errors are being exploited at an appalling rate.
Attacks like these, http://freetobelieve.com/, have already been growing but now, intoxicated with success, the forces that just took us over the brink are already strutting into new frontiers. Democrat congresswoman Lois Capps has introduced a bill to remove the words “husband” and “wife” from federal law. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has unilaterally stretched federal law by issuing regulations banning sexual orientation discrimination. The Boy Scouts have begun accepting homosexual adults as troop leaders. Homosexual activist Zack Silk has announced that the next target will be guns because they are the moral equivalent of marriage. Most shameful of all. at the time of this writing, so-called Christian colleges including Hope, Baylor and Belmont have extended same-sex partner benefits to employees.
It is undeniable that our laws are being abused if not forsaken by the highest levels of leadership and now by the highest court in the land. Our borders are weak. Our enemies are gaining momentum against us. But spiritual battles have been increasingly forced upon people of faith.
Testing will now intensify. But unlike the jihadist bloodlust-fueled violence, we will not be known for murder and mayhem. Using the Constitution and just laws with which God has blessed us, we will stand and turn our faith into the winds of religious bigotry and injustice. We will simply refuse to compromise truth or bow the knee to other men’s delusions of righteousness.
God is not content to be a god confined to churches and private conversations. He rules this world just as He does the hosts of Heaven. Sometimes His judgement looks like surrender but He never loses. It may cost us dearly but there is One who is never defeated and never fails. Jesus Christ will have the last word.
R.J. Rushdoony“ put it well long ago: “If the source of law is the individual, then the individual is the god of that system…if the source of law is our court then the court is our god. If there is no higher law beyond man, then man is his own god… When you choose your authority, you choose your god, and when you look for your law, there is your god.”
As Lutzer writes, “We must ask ourselves: At what point do we have to become lawbreakers rather than betray our faith? At what price are we willing to take the cross into the world and identify with our Savior?”