Posted on 06/25/2008 5:27:37 AM PDT by GiovannaNicoletta
For clarification, Protestants do not view marriage as a scarament - we view only the Lord’s Supper and Baptism as sacraments.
While I believe the heathen will, and may likely succeed in using the courts to impose their will on the church, I am not going to lose sleep over it. I believe that God is sovereign over all, and that the church will persevere as He has promised in His Word. We have faced much more vicious attacks over the last 2000 years and this will likely not be the last. In essence, whichever way the law changes will not effect what I do as a Christian leader.
Whether you regard it as a sacrament or an ordinance, is of no matter. The state is also indifferent to the distinction, and will simply assume a right that properly belongs to the church and tell the church whom they must “service.” A bit like telling Baptists that they must have open communion. Of course, uner our laws, no special rights belong to communicants to any particular churchbecause they don’t spifically bar gays. However, I do have concerns that we Catholics may be sued for barring gays and women from ordination. The more power these fanatics acquire, the more they want.
My point is twofold here. First whatever the state does, does not effect what the church does. They can force me by law to marry gays, but I will not do so. If they imprison me for that, then so be it. My concern in that aspect of the issue is minimal - i.e. the threat of the state does not scare me at all.
Secondly, is the approach that social conservatives take with this is misguided. Rather than trying to get the state to outlaw gay marriage and only sanction heterosexual marriage, a truly conseravtive approach should be taken and work towards getting the state out of marriage licensing altogether. The state has no business issuing licenses and collecting taxes for the purpose of two people declaring themselves as being married. That’s my problem with the social conservative crowd in general - while they may have the right goal, their approach at accomplishing that goal is not conservative at all, and they want big government to do the work for them.
The state does have that right and has since the 18th Century. The grounds of the license is a showing of competence to enter into a contract whose future fruits the state have in mind: managing property and the proper care of progeny. For many century that duty was the social responsibility of the Church, but such matters are primarily the responsibility of the state.
Just because the state does something, does not make it a right and proper function of the state. Early Americans married without licenses, they simply recorded the date of their vows in their family Bible. It was, and should once again be, a function of the church.
I agree that the hour is late. In addition to the obvious fact that God is disgusted by homosexuality and may well unleash wrath on us because of it, I believe we have now approached the point of no return in our degeneracy. If there were a pressure gauge that displayed the level of moral rot in a society, I believe the embrace of homosexuality would be the red line on that gauge, a signal that the pressure of the moral rot has reached a critical stage.
When I see things like this going on, along with the the other pieces of the prophecy puzzle sliding into place, I am more convinced than ever that we’re close. BTW, I never had thought of the verse about “as in the time of Noah” in this light before seeing it in this article. VERY interesting observation, and worthy of some more study.
One more related thought: I’ve heard an interesting theory that one of God’s primary reasons for the flood was that the human gene pool needed to be cleaned out because of humans breeding with angels, hence the proclamation that Noah was chosen because he was “perfect in his generations,” ie. uncontaminated.
MM
Here is a good article from rapturealert.com that speaks to just that subject: that, by fallen angels impregnating human women, Satan was attempting to corrupt every human blood line for the purpose of preventing the Savior from being born and redeeming humanity and defeating Satan.
Things are not going to get better. The world's leadership, and indeed America's leadership, is made up of people who reject Jesus Christ, disregard His Word and His principles and commandments, and make policy and decisions based not on what God has said but based on human emotion and human reasoning. And we can all see the consequences of that.
Combine the above with the prophecies that are falling into place rapidly and we simply are not long for this earth.
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