You are here
The Ring of Truth?
By Roger Salter
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
January 6, 2015
Time was, in detecting a gold band on the third finger of the left hand, it was safe to conclude that the wearer was decently partnered to a person of the opposite and complementary gender. Whether the nuptials were celebrated in a place of worship or certified in a civil registry the union performed was of equal validity as an ordinance of God designed for all human beings of every culture as a creation mandate for the perpetuation of our race in a regulated and publicly declared fashion. There was the commitment to mutual care and support as the basis of stable family structure and preparation for the business of life.
Now you cannot tell if the traditional symbol of wedlock is faithful to the divine intent or a humanly devised forgery. Same sex attachment can never be construed as marriage, for it is contrary both to the voice of the divine and the "appearance" of nature. God's stipulations speak against it. Human makeup deplores it.
Human lovers, male and female, living in accord with the divine mandate of marriage, unite face to face in frank and mutual self-giving and fruitfulness. Fidelity seals the physical coupling as one expression of a shared and varied comprehensive companionship for life. Anything else is stolen pleasure, possible exploitation, and self-degradation. The temptations are strong. Nature is weak. Forgiveness is at hand for the contrite. But the way of the Lord is clear, clean, and recoverable. Violators may be made virginal through penitence. Our sexuality may be a burden to be borne since our breach with God. By his mercy sexual instinct may be a source of grace and benefit. But most know the power of the struggle at various times in various ways. Only our self-preservation is a more powerful urge.
The ecclesiastics and politicians who legitimize homosexuality are at grave fault. We leave them to the justice of God with prayer for their amendment of mind. They seem to have no sense or fear of their notorious folly - a judgment of God (Isaiah 3:4-5). Who knows the mischief they have set in train? (Blair, Cameron, Obama are typical prime offenders).
The deluge of advocacy for sexual irregularity in our self-gratifying milieu is immense. Celebrities, so called, commend it in their "art and life" and their admirers copy their attitude and action. Many who are worthily human in creative and cultural endeavor manifest same sex preferences. Many benefactors of our race in so many specialist fields are of the same tendency. This does not arouse our malice toward them but causes us to mourn that in every single soul the repercussions of the Fall are great and overpowering, save for the presence of grace, restraining in us all, restorative in the redeemed. All-round pity and prayer are needful. Our nature is ruined and the wreckage strewn throughout human experience.
We are not to be led by human opinion or example but by the Word of God, the manual of our Maker's instructions and the collocation of his invitations to our general maintenance at his expert hand. Our self-control is ineffective and the Spirit's control is our only hope. Our every urge has no automatic license to function. Not all the promptings of nature are permissible. That is obvious, and yet in our time the boundaries are being blurred in an environment of ungodly and "me-centered" thought that increasingly relaxes prohibitions that once stood firm and unquestioned. Gradually our native barbarism and savagery are being unleashed as in societies of the past.
While compassion and fellow-fallenness stirs concern for the universal human predicament lived out in individual lives it does not, and can never, amount to condoning of sin in self and others. Our misery signifies our common need for salvation to be wrought by God alone and only he can press us into its pursuit. We are urged to seek his favor for ourselves and our fellows.
Most particularly, we cannot wink at the efforts of active promotors of homosexuality and the recruiters to its practice. There are the strugglers with sexuality in its various expressions that warrant our sympathetic understanding and support. There are the seducers who glory in sin - "They not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them" (Romans 1:32). If there is suffering and temptation in matters of sex there is also the evil that parades itself in pride, that sneers at righteousness, endangers welfare of soul and societal wellbeing, and is horrifyingly defiant before God. The vocal and aggressive lobbyers are dangerous. From this quarter the severe persecution of the people of God may be expected.
