Samuel was displeased with their request and went to the Lord for guidance. “Do everything they say to you,” the Lord replied, “for they are rejecting me, not you. They don’t want me to be their king any longer. Ever since I brought them from Egypt they have continually abandoned me and followed other gods. And now they are giving you the same treatment.  Do as they ask, but solemnly warn them about the way a king will reign over them.”

I Samuel 8:7-9, NLT

This Sunday I will be preaching an important message entitled, “The Unbearable Burden of National Rebellion.” America is in full blown rebellion against God and His Law. The recent SCOTUS ruling imposing same-sex marriage on all Americans is a blatant denial of God’s clear instruction on marriage and sexuality. It amounts to, what Pastor John Piper called, “the massive institutionalization of sin.”

We a witnessing what has been historically identified as “The Cycle of Political Freedom and Bondage.”

In 1776, the very year that the US became a sovereign country, a European historian named Alexander Fraser Tytler published The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic. In his book he made the following prophetic observations. It is as if he is peaking directly to America today. He wrote,

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loss of fiscal responsibility, always followed by a dictatorship.”

We are currently feeling the economic stress fractures from trying to shoulder our bloated national debt. The recent rogue SCOTUS ruling effectively strengthening and saving Obamacare is a perfect example of legislation leading to an ever-increasing debt coupled with a massive federal power grab. Both are remedies for disaster.

When studying the life cycles of the world’s great civilizations, Tytler noticed a two hundred year span before they fall into a period of decline. These nations moved through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith,
From spiritual faith to great courage,
From courage to liberty,
From liberty to abundance,
From abundance to selfishness,
From selfishness to complacency,
From complacency to apathy,
From apathy to dependency,
From dependency back again to bondage.

I think it’s a fair assessment to place America somewhere on the bottom half of this disturbing cycle.

How did we get here? And more importantly, what can we do to turn our nation around before it’s too late?

Join me this Sunday at Living Stones Church at 8:30am and/or 10:30am for some answers. If you are unable to be in our worship service, please enjoy this message via our podcast at www.lstones.org.

The ruling by SCOTUS on same sex “marriage” represents a flagrant abuse of power and a frontal assault on the institution of marriage and God Himself, the One who created and instituted this holy union. Americans, as a whole, should be outraged by this rogue, reckless and arrogant act of judicial excess.

But let me tell you another select group of leaders who should be livid – our legislators!

Why?

Because the Supreme Court continues to flagrantly step out of bounds, moving from their constitutionally prescribed role of interpreting the law, into an unauthorized role of making the law. This is an assault on the legislative branch and our members of Congress should be tossing penalty flags into the air in protest! As Justice Scalia rightly asserts, the Court’s action is a “threat to American democracy.”

But instead of crying “Foul!,” our leaders continue to roll over while the wheels of tyranny pick up steam. Consider the follow two responses from two our most powerful leaders in Indiana.

Governor Mike Pence:

After affirming his personal belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman, Pence says,

“Nevertheless, our Administration will continue to uphold the rule of law and abide by the ruling of the Court in this case. Under our system of government, our citizens are free to disagree with decisions of the Supreme Court, but we are not free to disobey them.”

And here’s a segment from Senator Dan Coates response:

It is my long-held opinion that this deeply personal issue – which divides many families and friends – should be decided by the voters in each state. Now that the Supreme Court has imposed its own definition of marriage, we must ensure that religious freedom is protected across America.

The response is basically the same. The damage has been done. Now let’s obey the law like good citizens and do our best to protect religious liberty. After all, our job is to obey whatever the Supreme Court tells us.

Let me get to the point – these responses are PATHETIC! Where are the STATESMEN?

Let me give you three reasons why we don’t listen to or obey the Supreme Court’s ruling:

1] It is an act of Constitutional overreach. The Constitution nowhere demands the right of same sex marriage.

2] It is an act of judicial activism where five unelected officials chose to impose their political ideals on the rest of America by judicial fiat.

3] It is an act of open rebellion against God’s law mandating the acceptance of a lifestyle He clearly condemns.

So what should be done?

Previous generations understood the doctrine of the lesser magistrate. First penned by John Knox, this doctrine asserts that when a higher-ranking civil authority makes an unjust or immoral law, policy or court opinion, the lower ranking civil authority has the God-mandated right and duty to disobey the higher authority. And if necessary, the lower authority may actively resist the superior authority.

Some see this form of resistance as a form of lawless chaos. But it’s not the resistance that is responsible for the chaos, but rather the lawless acts of the higher authority.

To place this into the contemporary context, it was SCOTUS that introduced the chaos by their unauthorized introduction of same sex marriage into American life. This horrible ruling has unleashed a flood of chaos into every realm of society. Our job is to resist the chaos by disobeying the ruling. When the higher power commands that which God forbids, men have the duty to obey God rather than man.

Unfortunately, for this to happen, the lesser magistrate must demonstrate a willingness to risk personal security for the sake of righteousness and justice. And that type of courage is hard to find in today’s political climate.

Note: I apologize for the picture. It is mild compared to the other images you find under the search “gay parade.” We need to wake up and get a good look at what we are welcoming “in the name of love.”

I am both sickened and grieved over the news of yet another activist federal judge striking down, via judicial fiat, Indiana’s statute defining marriage as the union of a man and woman, one that has served as the cornerstone for healthy societies since the beginning of creation.

This ruling is wrong for so many reasons. Hoosiers who value freedom should be outraged. From a governmental standpoint, judges are tasked with interpreting the law, not rewriting it. This is a flagrant trampling of the separation of powers and the rule of law. When rogue judges arbitrarily reshape statues to fit their personal viewpoint, it devalues the entire legislative process. The voice of the people, amplified through their elected representatives, is silenced by one, unelected, and largely unaccountable, judge. This is a disgusting abuse of power and it’s happening all across our nation.

But as a pastor, I am more concerned about the soul of our nation. When elected officials disregard God and His laws, in this case, by redefining the institution of marriage, an institution He created and has already defined, they forfeit the authority given to them by God to govern. Without the acknowledgment of absolute Truth and transcendent Law, human law is cheapened and lawlessness is left in the wake. When the law becomes whatever the ones in power say it is, or whatever the current ideology or political party deems is “the right side of history,” people no longer respect the rule of law.

This is not a new historical phenomenon. The Bible tells of times past when, “At that time there was no king in Israel. People did whatever they felt like doing.” (Judges 21:25) Let’s not deceive ourselves. There is no such thing as neutrality when it comes to lawmaking. Some ideology, someone’s worldview, will reign as “king.” When God is rejected, the end result is anarchy, where everyone does what they please in the name of freedom; and tyranny, when governments impose by force their own worldview.

In rejecting marriage and embracing sexual perversion, we are rejecting God. When we willfully reject God and suppress His Truth (Romans 1:18), the consequences are tragic:

So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them (Romans 1:24-25, Message).

This is the line we have just crossed. It’s a dreadful place, where God leaves us to reap the consequences of our own stubborn and selfish desires. But it doesn’t stop there:

Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches. (Romans 1:26-27, Message)

We have embraced lust and called it love. We have embraced sexual confusion and called it marriage. When we reject the design of God, we lose what it means to be men. We lose what it means to be women. And ultimately, we lose what it means to be human.

God, have mercy on America. Bring us to our knees. Forgive us for our pride and perversion. Visit our nation, once again, with revival and reformation before it is too late.