A Tsunami of God's Judgment

This week has been a sad one for British politics and a disaster for British society.  It was the day when a secular government chose to go head to head with the Living God and overturn his model for marriage partnerships.  I fear for the nation!

Scripture speaks in the letter to the Ephesians of a time when immaturity will be the mark of a nation:  “… infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men.” (Eph 4:14 NIV)  The vast majority of the Christian church in this country today sits firmly in this category.  It allows for every ‘bright idea’ and ‘feel good’ idea to be adopted, virtually without question.  In the shallowness of its biblical knowledge the subversive teaching of situational ethics often rules as a god in our church meetings and conferences – if it feels good and is loving, do it.   It seems the underlying necessity to attract attendance at church or Christian conference today is to entertain, not to teach.   People come, not hungry but bored with there superficial faith and require yet more sugar coated niceties to bring them back for a repeat visit.  As A.W. Tozer wrote: “Popular evangelicalism has been selling out to the worldly spirit and worldly methods to a point where Hollywood now has more influence than Jerusalem ever had….the  chaste dignity and sparkling purity of true Christianity has been displaced by a cheap hillbillyism wholly unworthy of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [Christian Life magazine August 1954]  The sad thing is that in the 59 years that have passed since those comments were made the church has listened less and learnt so little!  Its head may be full of knowledge but its heart echoes ever more empty of any meaningful relationship with God. 

 

The church, like society at large, has largely become proudly unshockable; anything goes, if you don’t like what this church does, go down the road and they will be able to accommodate you.  Pleasure has become our god, superficiality and biblical compromise is now packaged as so-called ‘love’ as we lower our moral and spiritual expectations and standards to accommodate any who may come near.  So bereft are we of any significant growth in our churches that we happily compromise our faith in order to accommodate anyone who shows an interest.

Secular society has rightly pointed the finger at us and shouted, “The emperor has no clothes!”  The shallow insipid witness of the church with its conflicting ‘good ideas’ and moral alternatives has caused society to understandably choose to separate from the church’s largely valueless offering.  The church, convenient as it is as a contributor to good charitable works, is none-the-less understandably seen by the world as having nothing of great value to follow.  Why follow the church’s teaching when its moral behaviour largely reflects the same statistics as a god-less world.  Society, now also anchorless and rudderless, continually revises its own morals and ethics downwards in a desperate attempt to find some agreed point at which social cohesion would become noticeable.  But it is a downward search which leaves this drifting boat of British society to be dashed on the rocks of moral and spiritual bankruptcy.

This week on the radio a primary head teacher was commenting on our children’s growing inability to physically communicate given the electronic alternatives.  To this I would add the growing problem of being unable to think for ourselves.  We have become a headline seeking, easy-read culture that does not wish to listen to argument and debate.  Reasoned logical discussion seems too much for many people to cope with, especially among our younger non-literary rising generations.  Even in terms of news, although bombarded with 24 hour news channels, we simply wish to be titillated and entertained, but not informed.  “Tell us what to think, tell us what to do” seems to be the underlying cry of vast swathes of modern couch potato society.  It is in this largely non-thinking moral vacuum of ‘instant tell’ ‘non-conversational society’ that the marriage bill finds it can easily sail.

The debate has been vigorous but largely shallow, the reasoning confused and the issues cross-pollinated to the point where the discussion of treating people with equal value (I agree) has become blurred with the different issue of the institution of marriage.  Staggeringly most politicians seem mentally and morally blind to this confusion.  In the bible, in the book of Isaiah God speaks in judgment and says: “I will make boys their officials; mere children will govern them.” (Isaiah 3:4 NIV)  Commenting on this verse one writer says: “when competent and capable men are removed from position of authority in government it is to be expected that incompetent and capricious rulers will take their place.” (Commentary by E. J. Young on the book of Isaiah) One only has to view the petty party politics, the childish point-scoring and the blindness to moral values reflected in the debates in the House of Commons by many (not all) to realise how profoundly true those words of Young have become.

Equality has little to do with sameness.  Indeed godly heterosexual marriage is about the union of two very different types a people; a man and a women.  You could not expect to find two more different people, physiologically, behaviourially, or emotionally.  Yet it works splendidly when equality is brought to the partnership.  Even the government recognises equality does not mean sameness; that same sex marriage will not be recognised in law as a the same as heterosexual marriage.  For example, in same sex-marriage adultery will not be grounds for divorce.  Bizarrely promiscuity will not be a moral crime in same sex marriages!  Why then claim that in order to give equal rights to same sex couples they need to be allowed to marry when clearly equality is missing from the outset?  Already the government has made distinction before the Act even becomes law.  Should we then, for the sake of equality, expect the State to remove the crime of adultery from heterosexual marriage also?

God’s judgment

The Roman Empire of old foundered on the rocks of wanton hedonism as its moral fibre was increasingly left in tatters.  Over the past few decades we have been subject to God’s warnings as increasingly large waves of financial crisis have washed ever higher over us.  Did we learn?  Far from it! Instead we patched up our boats and in the pursuit of evermore comfort paddled out into the sea of capitalistic selfishness and greed.  Ignoring God’s warnings for our moral and spiritual behaviour we now face the mother of all tsunamis as God’s wrath comes crashing down on an unrepentant society that now dares tamper with his moral structure for partnership, a partnership that was always intended to echo and mirror the relationship between Christ and his church.

This year? Next year?  I know not when, but this government’s pursuit of moral decadence for the expediency of winning a few votes has, I believe, called forth a trumpet shout from heaven that will shake this nation to its knees.  The pictorial images of the book of Revelation show how mankind’s disobedience of God is relentless (Rev 9:20,21; 16:8,9; Rev 16:21)  The warnings have gone unheeded, we shake our fist at God, curse him and shout, “Business as usual”. The outcome however is certain.  If you are willing to look through the picture language of Revelation chapter 18 the clear hand of God’s retribution on a world that thought it could play God can be seen.  God is not mocked!  I finish as I started, I fear for the future  of this nation.