Humility, Repentance and Prayer
Bruce’s Blog 7-20-2015
My 4th of July was a little subdued this year. The 5-4 Supreme Court decision legalizing homosexual marriage and all the media celebration the week before made me feel sad for the future of the country. But this is not the first time that court decisions or popular elections have gone against Christian values.
Several states are now following the lead of Colorado in rushing to legalize marijuana. At first, the justification was “for medical purposes” as if there aren’t any other legally obtained drugs that relieve pain. The long term results of this choice by voters is too early to tell, but it cannot be good.
In 1973, in another 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court legalized abortion in the United States. Hailed by feminists, the controversial decision has resulted in 2.5 million abortions every year since. The grisly revelation last week by a senior executive of Planned Parenthood that their organization sells organs and body parts of aborted babies has been shocking. Knowing that God hates “hands that shed innocent blood” those in the big money abortion industry need to repent before the terrible judgment that awaits them.
Long ago in the election year of 1932, the editors of the Christian Leader did all they could to stir their readers to oppose the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Their opposition came from Roosevelt’s promise to repeal Prohibition. Roosevelt was elected, and shortly after, Prohibition was repealed in a national referendum in November 1933. Fred Rowe shared his disappointment at the outcome. He blamed the “stay at homes” and said,"It will be noticed that had the stay-at-homes come to the polls there would have been over 30 states on the dry side. There were only six states that were wet above the stay-at-homes. This vote, or failure to vote, will give our church people something to think about. Personally the scripture comes to me 'He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin'." (Rowe, Stay at Home, 10).
Knowing of God’s judgment of nations in the past, the future of our country is bleak. I pray for my children and their future children. Their faith will be severely tested in the continued cultural civil war taking place in the nation. At the heart of this war of values is the word “freedom.” The secular Humanist views freedom differently than the Christian. D. A. Carson clarifies this difference, “The democratic tradition in the West has fostered a great deal of freedom from Scripture, God, tradition, and assorted moral constraints; it encourages freedom toward doing your own thing, hedonism, self-centeredness, and consumerism. By contrast, the Bible encourages freedom from self-centeredness, idolatry, greed, and all sin and freedom toward living out our lives as those who bear God’s image and who have been transformed by His grace, such that our greatest joy becomes doing His will.” (Carson, 138, italics in original). Secular Humanism and Christianity are diametrically at odds with each other because what the one understands as freedom the other understands as bondage.
In light of these historical precedents, Christians should be reminded that our hope is not in Western democracy. Hope must always be fixed in Christ and His rule from on high. No popular vote or Supreme Court decision will ever change the fact that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords – Revelation 19:16. Only in Christ is true freedom – John 8:31-32.
Long ago, God gave the formula for His people to return to Him. “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” – 2 Chronicles 7:14.
Works Cited
Carson, D. A. Christ and Culture Revisited. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2008.
Rowe, Fred. “The Stay at Home Vote” Christian Leader 48 (Nov. 14, 1933): 10.