Perhaps I should ask, if Jesus were here, where would He be standing? With the young people holding up the sign that says ‘Small Town Not Small Mind’ and ‘#Love wins’? With the older people holding up small signs saying ‘Freedom of Religion’ in front of their faces and above their heads? Or with that stubborn woman sitting her ground in that office?
I can’t ask the question, ‘if Jesus were here’ because He is here. He’s here as always, among us, trying to save us even though we oppose Him at every turn, pitting our wills against His, all of us as guilty as the next guy, ‘kicking against the goad’ as Paul the Apostle calls it, because we want things our way, we want to be right.
Once again the evil one has succeeded in tricking us into hating one another, despite our rhetoric or our dogma that we don’t hate anyone, we don’t hate the sinner, we only hate his or her sin. What about hating our own sin? Is ours any less than the sins of others? Do we think that Christ is happy with our marriages, especially if we’ve been married three or four times like the woman in the third picture?
If we know what marriage is, what God instituted as marriage in the beginning, why He designed not only the human race but even most living things as opposite but complementary pairs so that the pattern of His being, as Love, could be shared by them, if we know this, how can any human law change anything, redefine the Divine economy, or be a threat to us? The issue that is currently dividing the nation is clearly a civil issue, not a religious one. No one’s religion is being curtailed. This is about the rights of a citizen.
Can citizens hope to have rights to do just whatever they please, irrespective of God’s Law? Well, no, of course not. The problem lies in discerning just what God’s Law is. One way to find out is to permit a ‘right’ and see where it leads us. If it leads us to greater peace and freedom, health and happiness—all of these being real, not pretended, or wishful thinking—then I would say it is probably in accord with God’s Law. Things that go against God’s Law inevitably and eventually fail. They lead to worse conditions in society. Just study history.
Whether a society is Christian or not, when it goes against God’s Law, it falls. What has just been established by the Supreme Court is just such a permission. We don’t know yet where it will lead, but hope, not fear, should guide us in allowing it to run its course. Let God decide, not the Supreme Court, the man in the street, or a fearsome, rebellious woman, if this ‘law’ is just.
For laws are just only when they accord with God’s Law, and yet He tolerates all our legislation, even when we are sure He must hate it.
Following as a half-forgotten, neglected shadow behind the ‘marriage equality’ ruling is the spectre of ‘a woman’s right to choose,’ that slippery euphemism for abortion, itself a detoxicated term for infanticide—killing babies. I wonder what the three pictures would look like, if this were the issue.
Who would be in the first? Would it be young people holding up signs that read ‘Love wins’? Hardly. And in the second, would it be older people shielding themselves from view with signs demanding ‘Freedom of religion’? I doubt it. As for the third, what kind of woman would stand up for the unborn ripped from the womb, and go to jail rather than let another abortion be performed? Would she have the same look of fierce determination on her face?
Fortunately for us, Jesus is among us, mercifully.
He is steadying our course, even when we seem to be sailing off course. He’s with us here in this boat out on the stormy sea. Yes, sometimes He may be asleep in the stern, because His trust in the Father who sent Him to save us is so strong that He can sleep.
As for us, we are frantic, trying to save ourselves, trying to protect ourselves, even to protect Him, until we realize, it’s no use. We had better wake Him up, because we’re going down. We’re sure of it. Yes, we had better wake Him up, talk to Him, find out what He wants us to do, even if it means to do nothing and let Him work.
For the work of Jesus is to save, and our work is to let Him do it, to cooperate with Him, let Him have His way with us, to trust Him as much as He trusts His heavenly Father. If we only did this, every issue that arises would evoke a single response from us, not three. Only one picture would show what we would do.
A hundred million people on their knees in prayer.
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