Screw You, God!

Yesterday the Illinois House collectively raised its middle finger in a childish temper tantrum and yelled “Screw You, God!” to the LORD God of heaven and earth. This gesture was disguised as a legislative bill that legalized same sex “marriage.” The Illinois Senate did the same thing back on February 14. The Illinois Governor has promised to sign this bill into law.

But try as it may, government can no more legitimately redefine marriage than it can legitimately redefine an apple “a banana,” a tree “a lake,” a dog “a crocodile,” or the sun “a giant luminous marshmallow in the sky.” Government cannot legitimately redefine what God has created, defined, sanctioned, and blessed. Nor does the Church recognize such a false “marriage” as true marriage.

God’s Word teaches us that marriage is a gift from Him. A man leaves his father and mother, holds fast to his wife, and the two become one flesh. God is the One who joins husband and wife together. In this sacred union, the husband nourishes and cherishes his wife as Christ loved His body, the Church. He pledges her his faithfulness. He loves, honors, and keeps her in sickness and in health and remains united to her alone as long as they both shall live. Reciprocating this love, the wife submits to her husband as the Church submits to Christ. She pledges him her faithfulness. She loves, honors, and keeps him in sickness and in health and remains united to him alone as long as they both shall live. In this way, marriage is held in honor and the bed undefiled.

Yes, we live in a sinful and broken world. Yes, husbands and wives daily fail each other. Yes, divorce runs rampant. All of these problems need to be dealt with in accordance with God’s Word. But none of these problems legitimizes our culture’s desire to redefine marriage to something it is not.

At the end of the day, you can take one of two stands on this issue. You can believe God’s Word and confess the beautiful gift a one man one woman marriage is, or you can reject God’s Word and raise your middle finger to Him in a show of defiance. I pray that you, by God’s grace, will add your Amen to what your loving God has given humanity for its good and with His blessing.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of His body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. [Ephesians 5:25-32]