What it does is erode the power of the gospel of Jesus in the minds of those who are lost. After all, if Christianity is just another religion, then if there are tenants of Christianity that are not liked, then they can be ignored with relative ease. Within Christianity and Judaism there is a sacredness of human life. Both the Old Testament and New Testament teaches that human life begins in the womb and that from the womb the Lord knows everything there is to know about us. The world hates this truth; we witness those who support abortion claim the Bible doesn’t teach on it. They claim it is more cruel to bring a child into the world into poverty, or whatever other hardships and not to allow the child the opportunity to live. It is better to trust in death than to have hope and to place faith in the Lord that He will provide for the child’s needs. We are even told that the life of the mother must be spared at the sacrifice of her child. Yet I am still reminded in the verse, Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself (Isaiah 44:24) of the amazing love the Lord demonstrates with each of us. When the mother’s womb is no longer sacred and life is redefined as anything other than beginning in the womb, then motherhood itself becomes under attack. All through both the Old and New Testaments, the Lord holds motherhood in high regard; for it was from a woman’s womb that Jesus made his first appearance. If you ask me, this is why the world hates motherhood.
The world also hates the absolute of marriage and in the United States, Biblical marriage has been under attack since the middle of the 20th century. Again, being a child of the 1970s and 1980s, I remember the sit-coms, such as Three’s Company and others that poked fun, ridiculed, and mocked the values of traditional marriage. If you recall, in Three’s Company, the young people always mocked and made fun of the Ropers, their middle-aged husband and wife landlords as being out of touch, old-fashioned, and relics in the modern age of the sexual revolution. At the community college where I teach, many of the young people are deciding to forsake marriage in favor of just living together. In their minds, if it doesn’t work, then they both can walk away. With my first marriage, my mother gave me the advice “if it doesn’t work out, you can always get divorced…” which simply changes what is supposed to be a life-long partnership which is centered upon the Lord into a partnership of convenience focused on ease of commitment and the needs of the flesh.
Once we change the definition of what the Lord intended marriage to be, (between a man and a woman, centered upon the mutual love for the Lord, and within its safety, the perfect place to raise the next generation), it has been redefined into whatever the world has desired it to be. Whether it’s gay marriage, communal marriage, multiple spouses of either gender, or even as some modernists have suggested, the complete elimination of traditional marriage, the end goal is the same – the world hates marriage as God defined it. It seeks to rid itself of the testimony of the Lord, of even the memory of God’s presence in society. In fact, in its struggle to sideline the debate over the definition of marriage, those who support the Biblical definition are given the names of homophobe, hater, or any other unflattering moniker that can be tossed out. Why? Because those who uphold the biblical world view of marriage bear witness to the plan of the Lord and give a stark contrast to those who reject God’s plan.
Is there grace for the sinner? Absolutely. We see the hypocrisy of the world when it came to Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who was willing to go to jail and not to take part in gay marriage. The news media and so-called civil rights activists were quick to condemn her as being homophobic for her adherence to her faith, then attempted to judge her according to their understanding of Christianity and biblical marriage. She never hid the fact that she had been married four times; she did profess (as did members of her church) that she came to know Jesus as her savior after her third marriage and since that point, as a Christian, remarried and has maintained that marriage through her shared faith with her husband. What makes her union – her fourth marriage – different from homosexual marriage is this: both Old and New Testaments forbid homosexual marriage.
God’s grace can never excuse something that has been pronounced as sin – not only homosexuality, but gluttony (overeating), adultery, theft, or any other sin you want to name. Davis’ multiple marriages before she was saved, legally ended in divorce, but since the day she received Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior, they are under the blood, just the same as if a gay person comes to accept Jesus as their savior. Her marrying her current husband is under grace, for which there is no prohibition in scripture about it. Even the apostle Paul wrote extensively on the topic of marriage. However, his writings do, as does the rest of scripture, warn about what was considered as forbidden or unnatural acts, of which homosexuality was named. Why does the world hate the biblical condemnation of all alternative forms of human sexuality and sensuality? Because the world is in opposition to everything the Lord has offered.
Left to its own devices, the world will destroy itself
I really didn’t understand the life-transforming power of the message of Jesus until I was 36 years old. Until that point, I had believed the lies I had been taught by friends, family, and by those charged with my education. I believed that all paths led to the redemption of man. I believed that God would look at the intentions of the human heart and would judge that person based on what they believed. Unfortunately, long ago the world adopted a live and let live philosophy where there are no moral absolutes. Instead of everything being clear-cut with stark divisions between good and evil, mankind has adopted ideas where sometimes it is acceptable to do evil as long as the intended outcome was good. We have an entire genre of superheroes, such as Batman, The Arrow, and others where laws are broken and ignored with the end result being some form of justice. I once heard it say that it is never right to do wrong to do right. Yet we have all been guilty of cheering on these characters fighting for the greater good – yet is the good they seek really the greater good?
Within American society we are seeing the absolutes of good and evil not only blurred, but redefined. We are seeing good – anything relating to God, the Bible, or even church – being defined as the source of all problems in society. It becomes easy for Christians to pull back or to compromise for the sake of not being adversely labeled or persecuted for our beliefs and acceptance of timeless biblical teachings. It’s hard to maintain a biblical stand on issues of the day when Christians are constantly being bombarded about the intolerance and cruelty the world claims Christianity teaches. For the world, for those who are lost without Christ, this existence is as close to Heaven as they will ever get: There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death (Proverbs 16:25) and in the teachings of Jesus: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God (John 3:16-21).
There are no exceptions, there are no exemptions. The world hates that in spite of its efforts, it will never be able to overcome the sovereign will of the Lord nor will it ever be able to silence the gospel of Jesus.
