Why Do The Nations Rage?

Title: Why Do the Nations Rage?

Text: Psalm 2:1-12

Time: July 2nd, 2013

Well, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of homosexuality and gay marriage as a result of what can only be seen as one of the biggest propaganda wars waged upon any population. Through media outlets the homosexual lobby has taken a fairly traditional population, a generally Judeo-Christian consensus, and in just a few short years changed a majority opinion against same-sex marriage into a majority in favor of it. Sensing the changing social wind currents, the Supreme Court, always eager to be out in front of social change, conformed to peer pressure and overturned the standard definition of marriage, one man and one woman, that had formed one of the pillars of society. Now whether a real, true majority of Americans actually think so-called homosexual marriage is the equivalent of heterosexual marriage is hard to know, but the perception is, the media message is, that a majority, and therefore the majority of people, think so. And in a democracy, a majority, the majority, is huge, because it basically decides what will be. Like I said, I’m not sure an actual majority thinks so, but the perception is that they think so, that is, that homosexuals should have the right to so-called marriage. So then the Supreme Court and its majority progressive members are all too eager to participate in the revolution. What did the Court do? It struck down DOMA, which defined marriage as between a man and woman. The Court said it wasn’t fair because homosexuals want to marry to, and to deny them a right to marriage makes them feel like second-class citizens. They didn’t address the problem of polygamy, and whether DOMA makes polygamists feel like second-class citizens too. No, this was all about gays, nothing more, nothing less. The Court seemed so worried about homosexuals feeling left out, excluded, marginalized. But it didn’t give any thought about how God Almighty might feel about his moral commands against homosexuality being violated at a national level, or about the consequences of violating a basic moral and spiritual law. They didn’t seem to pay God any mind, or think about the possibility of angering Him or that their decision might trigger divine judgment. No, all they cared about was throwing off any vestiges of the old Judeo-Christian moral framework for society. That was the DOMA decision. The Prop. 8 decision was basically a refusal to do anything about that issue one way or another, thus, effectively letting a lower court ruling against Prop. 8 stand – essentially clearing the way for same-sex marriage in California (which is now a reality as we speak). In ruling the way it did this last week, the Supreme Court basically rejected all Judeo-Christian morality as a foundation for social policy. In so doing, it essentially rejected God as well, despite what we say on our coinage, “In God we trust,” or in the Pledge of Allegiance, “One nation under God.”  But there are consequences for such actions. I’d like to explain this a little further by using a passage in the Old Testament of the Bible, Psalm 2:1-12 (read).

First, we see rebellion against God. Psalm 2:1-3, “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his anointed one. ‘Let us break their chains,’ they say, ‘and throw off their fetters.’” What a perfect description of modern rebellion against God and all Bible-based, godly moral principles — exactly what we see happening in our society today, from top to bottom. At the high end of culture, at the top, we see the majority of Supreme Court Justices ruling against the basic moral principles of God found in the Bible and the Judeo-Christian tradition. They rule against traditional morally so casually, so carelessly, as if it were such a trifle thing, such a minor, inconsequential thing. After all, it’s just religion, right? Isn’t religion just a personal, psychological thing? Isn’t it up to the individual, how they feel about ultimate questions? That’s what they think and that’s how they make their decisions. But they aren’t the only ones who casually dismiss God’s moral commands; it happens on the low end of culture, and everything in-between in the popular culture. Opinion polls show that more and more people are throwing off the moral restraints of God and opting for a more casual “make-it-up-as-you-go-along” method of decision-making. Fueled by the mass media, TV, Internet, newspapers and magazines, Hollywood, music and the arts, government, business and almost every other aspect of society, the old moral standards based on the Bible and Christianity are more and more discarded today. “Let us break free from God’s chains,” they say. “Let us throw off all restraints that religion imposes.” That’s the popular attitude today, and it seems the Supreme Court, these so-called wise leaders in society, they too are eager to go along with such a departure from morality. The majority decision in the DOMA case acknowledges that while many people suppose that marriage is defined as between a man and a woman, new thinking about marriage is also taking place that opens it up to other possibilities, including same-sex marriage. So the Court acknowledges the old standard, but quickly dismisses it as mere moralism. The verse mentions the people, the nations and their kings or leaders gather against God and his Christ in order to throw off any moral restraints. Sound familiar? That’s modern day America. We want no limits, no boundaries, no restraints on personal moral behavior. We are seeing this verse played out before our very eyes, and the recent Supreme Court decision is just calling attention to a trend that has been gaining ground for some time. “Don’t put any moral restraints on our lives. We don’t want to hear anything about God, the Bible, or morality. Remove all moral laws, except the ones we ok.” That’s the moral rebellion we’re seeing today before our very eyes. But there’s more.

Second, we see God’s reaction to human rebellion. Psalm 2:4-8, “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, ‘I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.’ I will proclaim the decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‘You are my Son, today I have become your Father. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.’” Now there’s a lot of theological and spiritual meaning in this verse that we can’t get into today because we don’t have the time. But let me point out the main thing for this evening. Notice the attitude of God towards puny human rebellion – he laughs and he scoffs at them. He’s not worried one bit about these puny human actions and activities. And I picture God in heaven right now and his reaction to the foolish Supreme Court majority decision we’re discussing – he’s laughing at the arrogance and the hubris and the gall of these Justices in thinking they can overthrow divine morality with their little decisions. The verse says God scoffs at these rebels. He mocks them, these great big earthly leaders. They make these long, fancy, profound, formally written decisions and everyone pays close attention to their every word, but it’s all a farce, it’s all a delusion. We know from the Bible that no authority exists on earth unless God permits it. So these Justices only have their job because God lets it be, or else they’d be out on the street homeless and looking for work. God isn’t intimidated or worried in the least because these earthly gods rule against his moral laws. It probably amuses him to see little people act like big-shots. He’s also not concerned because opinion polls show that a majority of Americans favor same-sex marriage. God isn’t impressed; and neither should we be overly swayed one way or another by polling date. A lot of it is manipulated anyway and used as propaganda in the cultural war. But my main point here is that just because the Supreme Court is now promoting homosexuality doesn’t mean the last word on the subject has been spoken. Yes, they are on the right side of history now, but it’s short-term history. We shouldn’t worry ourselves about being “on the side of history” because we really don’t have any perspective. We need to consider whether something is right or wrong, not guess where it stands in history. God says homosexuality is wrong, and therefore, obviously, if it’s wrong, so is so-called gay marriage wrong. That’s God’s ruling, and he’s the Supreme Judge even over the Supreme Court; he has the final say it all things, eventually. But there’s more.

Third, we see God’s instructions to people and their leaders. Psalm 2:10-12, “Therefore, you kings, be wise; he warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” Ok, in this part of the verse God has had enough laughs and he has had enough pocking fun at puny humans and their foolishness. Now he gets serious. He carefully instructs people, especially the leaders, to turn away from their folly and serve the Lord with fear and trembling. In other words, enough foolishness, return to God and God’s divine moral law immediately or the wrath and judgment of God will fall upon you and the land, because it can happen quickly at any moment upon a stubborn and prideful population of disobedient sinners. God is letting this gay marriage “thing” go for now, letting it play out a little, but we’d better turn this foolishness around or else God’s judgment will come heavy upon us. Now God has many options in judgment. He can let our economy tank and break us financially, bringing us to our knees and crippling us as a nation this way until we properly respect and acknowledge him. Or he can cause a natural disaster to hit our nation, or a specific region of our nation. Or he can bring in a terrorist attack even worse than 911, or multiple terrorist attacks hitting us in different places in different ways. Will that bring us back to moral sanity? Or he can let us become engaged in a long and prolonged war with some other nation or a group of nations that saps our national strength. Or he can bring a biological epidemic upon us, or even let an epidemic hit and not prevent it. Or we can experience a nuclear explosion, whether intentional or accidental, it’s all the same from a destruction standpoint. Will that get our attention and turn us back to God? Whether it does or not, it’s a form of judgment from God. You see, there are consequences for dismissing God’s moral commands. You can deny God, you can deny any moral command from heaven, but you can’t escape the consequences that result from your actions. We’re talking about negative consequences. Ok, the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of homosexuality. Now what are the consequences of this decision?  We’ll see soon enough. I’m afraid they won’t be pleasant. I’m afraid they might be devastating. I know some people don’t believe that. I know many people don’t fear God, nor do they fear God’s judgments, but it’s real. We will experience it in the days ahead. I don’t know in what form it’ll come, but it’ll come. And when it comes, we’ll deserve it because of our foolish rejection of God’s moral laws.

Look what the verse says to avoid the judgment of God. “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way.” The imagery here is in approaching a king you bow down and when the king extends his hand you kiss his hand or ring as a sign of humility and obedience. Now presently, our people and our leaders are a long way from getting to the point of bowing down to the authority of God Almighty, morally or otherwise. That means we’ve got a long way to go to regain the humility required to properly relate to God successfully. As it is now, we aren’t on too good a terms with God as a nation. We’ve trampled his moral commands, we’ve rejected his authority, and we’ve basically turned our backs on him. Oh, we give him lip service on our coins and in the Pledge of Allegiance and other places, but we’ve basically dismissed him of any influence in our public lives. So we’ve got a long way to go as a nation to get back to the humility it will require to please God; that’s why it will probably take some big, catastrophic disaster of some sort to humble us properly, so that we can once again regain our sanity as a nation and return to God’s moral order. Gay marriage is out of order. It’s a joke. It might be something that causes God to laugh from heaven. The audacity of humans to even come up with something like so-called gay marriage. God probably laughed, like the verse says, but then God probably ceased laughing and now his attitude is more serious. Right now, unless we turn from our present sinful course in society, we are headed for an encounter with the divine wrath of God – and it won’t be pretty. The death and destruction that will result from a society promoting homosexuality will be evident in the future. But there’s no talking us out of it, because the only thing that will change us is for God to act in divine judgment. When will it come? In the next five years? In ten years? Sooner? Later? Who knows. But isn’t it interesting that Hollywood is producing more and more apocalyptic movies very year? Even in secular society there’s a sense that what we’ve got here, the good we’ve got, can quickly end, will quickly end. We’re just trying to imagine how it will end. We’ve got this uneasy feeling that what we’ve got can’t go on forever, that something is about to happen, big, catastrophic, devastating, disastrous, but we don’t know when or how. Well, I think that instinct, that intuition is correct. Something bad is about to happen to our nation or our world, and it’s because we’re abandoning God and God’s laws. The recent Supreme Court decision is proof again of this.