By Brian Bailey

June 9, 2012

 May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be blessed! He is the compassionate Father and God of all comfort. He’s the one who comforts us in all our trouble so that we can comfort other people who are in every kind of trouble. We offer the same comfort that we ourselves received from God. That is because we receive so much comfort through Christ in the same way that we share so many of Christ’s sufferings. So if we have trouble, it is to bring you comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is to bring you comfort from the experience of endurance while you go through the same sufferings that we also suffer. Our hope for you is certain, because we know that as you are partners in suffering, so also you are partners in comfort. Brothers and sisters, we don’t want you to be unaware of the troubles that we went through in Asia. We were weighed down with a load of suffering that was so far beyond our strength that we were afraid we might not survive. It certainly seemed to us as if we had gotten the death penalty. This was so that we would have confidence in God, who raises the dead, instead of ourselves. (2 Corinthians 1: 3-9 CEB)

Last month we came to the end of a sixteen month economic trial. The solution surprised us because we thought we would not see any change for possibly another four to six months. Not all questions are answered yet but a favorable, merciful answer was given on THE major problem.

Let me be honest about this year and a half waiting period; it was hell at times and we really struggled with it all as our faith was tested.

Did I just shock you with that admission? You might say “Where is your trust in God? Don’t you believe His word?” To answer the question my faith is centered on Jesus and I believe the word of God but I am also frail, human, sinful, and at times loathing to trust. There is no such thing as cookie-cutter spiritual growth. God works on and in our lives in His timing and wisdom.

To those of you who read this who are still young I ask for you to be both open to instruction. In this walk with Christ you WILL suffer, you WILL be afflicted and you WILL cry out to God for relenting mercy at times.

If you, as a young believer are looking to this Christian walk as a shield and barrier against suffering and loss you will be sorely disappointed. The principle tool used to mature us spiritually, to produce the life and character of Christ in us IS trial, suffering and affliction. I beat this drum for good reason.

The reason this drum must be beaten is that too much of current evangelism for youth and others is designed to entice people into the kingdom by denial of the truth that we are sinners in need of repentance and Christ demands kingship in our lives. There is all too often an attitude of what is in it for me. Jesus does love his children but he will not leave you in a spiritual crib.

Please consider carefully the following quote from A.W. Tozer: “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.”

I have never seen that placed on a banner at an evangelistic meeting. When I was growing up in church I recall few sermons preached that dealt with suffering which is a travesty. A strong message of the church should be that Christ is an anchor in the storm; he is a mighty rock to cling to that the waves of affliction cannot break. He is our safe harbor. We are NEVER alone in the storm. Psalm 139: 8 tells us, “…If I make my bed in Sheol (hell), you are there!

In the hell that was our situation, He was there. Yahweh was there, every time I feared uncontrollable circumstances. He was there when we wondered how we would pay for medicines or put gas in our cars, or keep the lights on or eat. Our primary families and friends were wonderful and did help tremendously in our need. Without their help the situation would have been far more dire. Our gratitude and thankfulness is as wide as the ocean for them. God was with us in their kindness. When we would panic or be afraid He was calm and certain and did not let us go.

It would be nice to say that His calmness and certainty always rubbed off on me; but it didn’t. Certainly not at first I didn’t feel the peace. Over time, and over a long time at that, those events pushed me to go beyond fear and worry and actively seek trust and contentment at where God had placed me. God used these events to confront some of my greatest areas where I lacked trust in Him. Yahweh fed my soul through adversity. He ultimately brought me to a place of greater trust in chaos.

It would be nice to say that I didn’t question, but I did. I pleaded for God to bring the trial to a close and grant kind mercy. I asked Him what He was   doing. I told Him I was at the breaking point and could take no more. Anna struggled with these issues and her own debilitating pain. She had her own questions, not bitter, not accusing as were neither my questions. I was not angry at God but not having the immediate answers is a hard thing.

In these questions, in this pain, God showed Himself. God showed Himself greater than my fear, greater than my worries and greater than my needs. God showed me once again that He provides a refuge and is a strong tower. He showed me that His character is good and that He loves me. He showed me that He will take care of His children either in this life or in the next. He wants a deeper relationship and that requires affliction; there is no broad, easy road to maturity.

As hard as they were, God did not waste these many months. We have been richly blessed and brought closer into His presence. His love, His strength and His provision, all of these are infinite. Affliction is meant to lead us to trust when we cannot see. Having our faith tested is hard; it is not meant to be easy. The test of faith is in the refiner’s fire.

On that day you will be glad, even if you have to go through many hard trials for a while.  Your faith will be like gold that has been tested in a fire. And these trials will prove that your faith is worth much more than gold that can be destroyed. They will show that you will be given praise and honor and glory when Jesus Christ returns. You have never seen Jesus, and you don’t see him now. But still you love him and have faith in him… (1 Peter 1 :6-8 CEV)

The fire of affliction burns away the dross of sin and self-reliance. The fire consumes our hunger for self-will. The fire moves us to say, “Yes, Yahweh my father, I will rest in your will for my life. My heart more closely longs for you and the joy set before me even if the cost is my own desires.”

As the old hymn tells us, “I need thee every hour”. I need Him every minute of everyday on this planet. All our sufficiency is found in Yahweh.

Our heavenly Father wants us to trust Him in any and all circumstances, be it one that is altered relatively quickly or in a circumstance like Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul pleaded for a release but was told that his affliction was life-long and that God’s glory would cover and be on display in Paul’s suffering. Paul learned the lesson that the glory of God shines forth in our lives not because of our physical, emotional and spiritual wholeness but shines His glory through the holes of our imperfections. The glory is not diffused but rather shines all the more powerfully like a spotlight into the darkness.

To the reader I tell you that God is not overwhelmed by your problems; He is more than equal to meet any need. The wisdom of Yahweh is beyond all measure. He will provide for needs and grant answers most fitting to His glory and our true best. Be afraid and know He is not afraid. Ask your questions for your questions do not threaten Him or His great love for you.

Abraham asked God when told of the judgment on Sodom, “Shall not the King of all the earth do right?” Yes, yes He does right. Yahweh will do what is right in your life; submit to Him.

God is good. God is great.

We are emotional beings and our emotionality produces the spark of inspiration and joy. We can never divest ourselves of the duality of our brains and should not want to. To do what is right may cause us to suppress our emotional side. Our emotions can take us to foolish and dangerous places so to make decisions merely on the basis of emotion can be a ticking bomb.

There are hosts of reasons for allowing same-sex marriage circulating out there. I am going to list some of those reasons given and think out loud (or on cyber paper) about them. Among the reasons given are:

• We should be able to love who we desire to love
• This is a civil-rights issue
• There is no threat to traditional marriage
• Same gender attraction is genetic
• Public opinion supports same-sex marriage
• The Old Testament restrictions are no longer valid and the New Testament does not address homosexuality
• God is loving and affirms all

We should be able to love those we desire to love…

Perhaps when you read this statement you totally agree as you play in your mind the plot of Romeo and Juliette, West Side Story, Titanic and a host of other films and books with star-crossed lovers. To this we also add the fact that as we look at people in love some of the relationships truly cause us to scratch our heads. “How could those two ever get together?” we think. “Ah, amore’”.  Cupid’s arrows strike unusual pairings and those arrows penetrate deep. Emotionally, we root for the lovers and no one likes to see another unhappy.

But, happiness is not the deciding factor that makes the relationship good or proper for society and in the eyes of God. I would further say there is no lasting happiness in doing what is not right in the eyes of God. There are obvious examples that come to mind, adultery being one of them where the persons involved may feel very right and justified in their actions but are still ultimately in the wrong. The wrongness of adultery is agreed upon both in society and religion. We do not have the right to love who we want if we are married and want to step out of the boundaries of the marriage. The boundary is set for the good of both married spouses and for societal stability. Although we all want to be loved by someone of our choice adultery is still ultimately a sinful, self-centered action. Adultery is not a victimless sin as spouses and children are often wreckage left in the wake of the illicit relationship.

The emotional feelings of mutual love, or passion, do not necessarily make a relationship right in the eyes of society or God. So to define, if a love relationship is proper, the propriety cannot stand alone on the intensity and joy of the feelings.  Rightness or wrongness is far broader than just the two individuals involved. The law of God determines the rightness of a union; not the emotions or will of people. God will not affirm two adulterers and call it good. Is this hard? At times the denial of our self can really, really hurt and no one denies this. Life requires self-denial at times and on this earth and we will never reach total relational, emotional and physical nirvana. We cannot have it all our way, all the time.

This is a civil-rights issue…

It is no secret that the Gay community has adopted the playbook from the civil-rights movement for African-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. Certainly gays deserve equal treatment in regards to civic employment and against mistreatment and persecution due to their lifestyle in civil affairs, for example. However to equate the right of gays to marry, as some have,  to the African American former slaves gaining the right to marry after the end of the Civil War, is an apples and oranges comparison. Heterosexual African Americans were previously denied the right to marry due to their race and position and now wished to enter into marriage with the opposite gender regardless of their race. The right of marriage previously was largely denied on the basis of skin color. To state the obvious, no one gets to choose their race. However, a person still ultimately has a choice as to whether they engage in homosexual sexual behavior or not. Behavior is a choice. We will get into the issue of gay choice further on.

There is no threat to traditional marriage…

When you take a building block of any culture and alter it radically it is disingenuous to say the change in the boundaries and scope will have no impact. Speaking from logic alone this comment makes no sense. The gay bishop who brought the disagreement to a boil in the Episcopal Church divorced his spouse so he could take a gay lover. So his marriage was ended due to Robinson’s decision to pursue a man.

I have another friend from college who after several years of marriage had his wife leave him for a lesbian relationship. Although these incidents are antidotal I suspect the numbers of these de-cleaving to cleave anew are growing. The simple fact is one party in the relationship pursues their own personal happiness, perhaps at the expense of the soon to be former spouse and perhaps the children. We cannot say with any certainty what all the dynamics involved could be but this issue of bailing from marriage to another is still potentially there.  Regardless of the exact numbers, relationships will be altered not necessarily with the consent and approval of all impacted.

Another argument used under this general category of harm to traditional marriage is the oft repeated idea that traditional marriage is a deeply troubled institution anyway, so let’s loosen the boundaries. There is no denying that divorce is prevalent. The cause for the current number of divorces is not the institution of marriage but the practioners in that institution. The concept of marriage as it currently stands is not a fault but people who marry someone who does not want to play by the rules of kindness, fairness, civility and consideration. Or perhaps both do not abide by the ‘rules’ that create a good marriage. Marriage is work and sometimes the struggles frankly can leave one party or both wondering how they can fake their own death.

Same sex relationships fracture as well. It should also be mentioned that in countries where same-sex marriage is legal that the divorce rates among those unions is not lower than traditional marriage.  So for the cause of human nature alone we would think that these relationships would not be any more viable or long-lasting than heterosexual marriages. In other words, the same selfishness that dooms heterosexual relationships will also doom same-sex marriages. The fact is that if we see prevalent same-sex marriage we will also see same-sex divorce. Would we then say that the institution of marriage is broken? Or is it those who practice it?

Same gender attraction is genetic

This has been reported to me by individuals, that their same sex attraction had an early onset. This does fairly raise the issue of a genetic and or biological component and clinical studies have gone back and forth on what causes homosexual orientation. Let me say from the get-go that I have no scientific expertise or real intensive knowledge in this field of study.

I don’t have to have any expertise to address the reasonable question that arises as to the ‘rightness or wrongness’ based on these factors. A genetic or biological predisposition does not absolve a person of personal responsibility for their actions. We do not have the luxury of saying ‘my genes made me do it so it must be right and reasonable to do so’. Allow me to use an example that hits close to home for me. Obesity is my constant struggle and I have failed terribly at times. I am loosing weight now but it is not easy. When I say constant, I mean that there was a time when I was at a good weight but it didn’t last.

I have heard that there is a talk of a ‘fat gene’ or there is a genetic component in obesity as well. Regardless, I have an option as to how much and what I eat. I have an option as to whether I will be active or not. Please know that I am not equating homosexuality and obesity; I am making a point about responsibility. Simply put I can choose a course of action. I am still responsible for my decisions that pack on pounds. To say we have a genetic propensity and must follow those genes blindly is to deny personal choice and responsibility. This is not to say that fighting the genetics is easy. However we must own our choices.

Another point raised by some is that if this is genetic that fact alone makes the behavior ‘normal’ If it is normal, how can it be opposed? The assumption is that any genetic difference is good. Someone who has sickle cell anemia may strongly disagree. Please be clear; I am not calling homosexuality a disease. I am merely addressing the absurd position that some hold without carefully thinking through the implications.

Public opinion supports same-sex marriage

Honestly, we can get in deep water with public opinion. If we survey history we quickly see the subjectivity and fickleness of the public. In first century Rome in all likelihood, the masses if they were polled would say that gladiatorial games to the death were acceptable entertainment.  During the seventeenth century the New Englander majority may have approved the idea to take land from the native Americas. Doubtless the average person in the southern states of America would have approved of slavery in 1840. Need I go on? Opinion defines a trend, not absolute truth.

The Old Testament restrictions are no longer valid and the New Testament does not address homosexuality.

It is common for people to create a dichotomy between the Old Testament verses the New Testament Yahweh. The thought is that rules and judgment are aspects of a God who has somehow become more accepting and kind. The opinion is that all of the rules of the Old Testament where meant only for the Jewish culture. We do not love and serve Yahweh who has somehow evolved and changed. Indeed, God says of Himself “For I the LORD do not change…” (Mal 3:6)

The New Testament does not eradicate all requirements of the Law of Moses and all boundaries of behavior. For the believer their sins are covered by the blood on the cross, past, present and future. Clearly, in the New Testament the sacrificial system was ended due to Jesus’ all sufficient sacrifice. In the early church the dietary laws were abolished with exception of food sacrificed to idols, ingesting blood and food where the animal is strangled. Otherwise they could now enjoy crab-legs at dinner. This also meant that circumcision was no longer a requirement for males to be Christians (which doubtless brought many sighs of relief from gentile converts). The governance laws, the cultural laws were not passed to the early Christian church.

Sexual immorality however, was forbidden to both the Jewish as well as the gentile churches. Sexual immorality had been defined in both old and new testaments as adultery, fornication, incest and men and women engaging in same gender sexual relation. No other conclusion can be reasonably drawn from the text than that God does not grant carte blanche on sexuality and sexual expression. The only way in which a person can disagree is if they hold the position that this is not what God means. They are saying, “God couldn’t have been in control of what was said or, God are you serious?

Gene Robinson, the gay bishop in New Hampshire says that God is a loving God who wants to affirm everybody. I would pose the question is why is the Bible right when it says God is love but is denied when God places restrictions on sexual behaviors? It is interesting that they will say this part of the Bible isn’t true but this other part (whatever suits their purpose) is.

Why is the Bible taken literally when it prohibits murder but not when it addresses sexuality? No one in Robinson’s camp would deny the injunction against theft which is a literal interpretation of the text, but the scripture cannot be taken literally when it condemns sexual immorality. The only logical conclusion we can draw is that the prohibition against homosexual is ignored because they do not wish to obey it.

God is loving and affirms all (ergo he accepts a cornucopia of people, or is that a rainbow)

The assumption held by those who make this assertion is that total love means total tolerance (or that is a least where they are headed). When we read the Bible what we learn of Yahweh is that He is a jilted lover who desires his people to return to Him that He may heal and restore them. The God of scripture offers for us, a redemption. Yet it seems that those who yearn for same-sex marriage deny that this redemption is truly needed. God does not accept our brokenness as fixed and unchangeable. He desires to restore and heal; He goes to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate His love for us.

A mark of co-dependency is the willingness to submerge your own emotional and physical health, truly, your own person-hood for the love of another. God is not codependent; He does not lose His identity, His character, His holiness in His relationship with us. God is patient and tolerant but there are limits to His willingness to be so.

A wise parent does not indulge their child in every behavior or whim but places boundaries that are not to be crossed. God is our father; Jesus called Him Abba which translates as ‘daddy’. A good dad protects his children as best he can. We need our Father God for nurture, and guidance as we need wise and good parents to do this for us when we are children or bone-headed teen-agers. Sometimes children and teen-agers need to be protected from themselves and God will do this in our adult lives as well. The parent protects regardless of agreement or understanding of the child.

As I grew in adulthood I realized the wisdom of my parents who understood and could see so much of what I could not in my inexperience with the world. I realized the scope of my parent’s life experience and so saw in them what I never even suspected. A child, for their own good must trust the mystery that is their good parent’s will as they see the problems ahead. God sees all of time and space.

Just as a small child does not have to completely know every aspect of their parents and their lives to trust their wisdom neither do we really need complete understanding of God’s plans for the globe. At this point the comparison falls short because a child my grasp virtually everything of the parents but we will never fully grasp or understand God. God’s parental love for us will cause Him to say “no” at times. He will give us what is for our ultimate good but not necessarily for our temporal desires. We are called to rest in the arms of His love, mercy and goodness.

We are called to trust, and obey.

By Brian Bailey

May 23, 2012

For I the LORD do not change…” (Mal 3:6)

Part 1

Same sex marriage now seems to be all the rage in the media after the election Tuesday a few weeks back in North Carolina and after President Obama’s carefully choreographed ‘coming out’ on the same sex marriage issue. As much as I would personally rather side-step this cultural and political tar-baby I simply cannot. The issue at hand will not recede or fade; this seems to be the direction of our culture. Some would call it progress; as a Christian I can call it nothing but a spiritual and social regression.

I don’t enjoy battle. Some people love a fight; I do not. It would be nice if we could all sit around the campfire, all of us from different Christian perspectives hold hands and sing “Kumbaya”. Unfortunately, to do so with some would require a wholesale divesture of deeply held Biblical truth.  There are issues of faith and conscience that cannot be ignored even in a quest for common ground.

There are some ‘fights’ or disagreements that cannot be avoided if we are to maintain convictions for faith. In short, there are non-negotiables. As a believer it is my conviction that same-sex marriage is not advocated or permitted. It is for scripture’s sake that I take this position; it is because the issues here are far, far deeper than just who is permitted to marry. Please allow me to say right now that I am addressing the area of changing the legal definition of marriage. In no way, is this missive a call to mistreat the gay community. In all honesty the church has been anything but loving to the gay community and we are called to love. There is a big difference between acting in a loving manner as opposed to accepting all behaviors however. What we have seen frankly from many in the church is hatred; we are not called to hate. Hatred is not Christian behavior.  But neither do we have to agree.

Let me ask the question: Why cause a ruckus over a marriage? Why not let it slide and let others do as they jolly well please?

The ruckus originates not with the creation but the creator; Yahweh has a say in all of this mess. He is the owner of us all, the creator, and His ownership conveys rights. We may see ourselves as free moral agents but the freedom does not absolve us of accountability to God and consequence for our actions. At the end of the age we will give an account for ourselves and how we lived on this globe. To be honest, I will have more than enough of my own sin to give an account for. Everyone who has lived on this Island home we call earth except Jesus has sinned and transgressed God’s law. We are not sinners because we sin; no rather we sin because we are by nature, sinners.  The true, complete debate over same-sex marriage cannot escape what we truly are: sinners. The starting point for this whole issue is that doctrine of original sin. I would say that a disagreement with the concept of original sin is where most who are pro same-sex marriage take the leap that helps to form their position.

The clear teaching of scripture is that man is sinful, broken, in need of redemption AND re-creation. Original sin explains that we come into this world broken and remain that way unless God intervenes.  Indeed, as we read in Ephesians, we were dead in our trespasses and sins. (Ephesians 2:1) We were created ‘very good’ but we rebelled and the true image of God within died.  To illustrate, and this illustration is a gross simplification, we are as a clock that is missing some gears. We don’t function correctly; our timing is ‘off’.

Another example, perhaps more fitting is that we are on a life journey but our compass gives an incorrect reading; we will grow progressively off track if not corrected. Our sin leads us in the wrong direction. God tells us very clearly that we are off on a tangent but our rebellion leads to conclude that the character of God is suspect, He does not truly care for us, and we better look out for ourselves. We feel we cannot trust the one who made us. The seed of mistrust, planted into the hearts of men and women by the true enemy bore the fruit of falling from grace and total brokenness. This brokenness is past from generation to generation and from tribe to tribe; it is, as we have said, universal.

Some say that my belief in original sin is a leap of faith that cannot be proven. They say that man is born innately good or at worst a blank slate. Frankly, as I read the news daily I feel it is a far greater leap of faith to believe that they are right and I am wrong. We are, off the mark, we are sinners and missing the mark of God’s true holiness and goodness. This is what sin is all about. Because we are broken and dead in our sins we do not progress toward God and true goodness but ultimately we spiral downward.

Doing God’s will is not natural for us nor desired if we are still separated by our unrepentant and non-submissive hearts; we rebel and we head off in the direction that seems right for us. Proverbs has a serious warning for us about this self-wisdom: “There is a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

We have still not progressed very well, given our treatment of the poorest and most in need of medical coverage There are still failings in our justice system and we increasingly treat the most defenseless among us (children and the elderly) as burdens. Kindness, respect and civility are increasingly ignored in our treatment of others. So to this writer, taken as a whole it is hard to say that our society has truly progressed. Indeed, the socialization of Christian ethics and behavior is declining. It is hard to argue that people are progressively more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, more patient, more gentle and more self-controlled. Evidence shows that collective behavior is moving in the opposite direction: less loving, less joyful, more self-obsessed; less peaceful…you get the picture.

Any temporary goodness in man is through socialization but that socialization can evaporate in the tide of passions and emotions. This good socialization relies on restraint, restraint of emotions and restraint of behavior but these restraints are falling like the Berlin Wall. If you talk with the self-described elite you will be told that our society is progressing by the very removal of those restraints of passions and emotions. Our modern society has effective denuded the concept of and requirement for responsibility. Our new watchword is ‘personal happiness’. Increasingly, if personal happiness is threatened by responsibility, then responsibility is placed on the chopping block. If we are to be good members of society, if we are to be faithful to God there are, in fact, duties that cannot be denied.

We see these clearly when Paul in Philippians tells us how Jesus left Heaven to fulfill his responsibility and duty as our Savior. Yes, the joy was set before him, but Jesus had to go to the cross. A society that is held captive to the notion, that personal happiness before all other considerations is valid will come apart at the seams. Jesus did not promise total happiness on this earth but he did promise to grow his life and character in us. Any temporal happiness we achieve by denying the authority of God in our lives will ultimately leave us unhappy, perhaps in the short term and possibly in eternity.

By choosing our own wisdom and will, we choose the basest form of idolatry because we place our will above and against what is clearly revealed. We assume the throne of God for our lives. When we fight against His revealed will and wisdom for life we show the attitude of a three-year-old who loudly objects to not being allowed to use a busy street for a playground. It is for our own safety and good that we are restricted. Just because we do not have the sense or experience to see the danger doesn’t mean the danger is nonexistent.  Our nature is to see restraints as a curse when it fact it may be a blessing and to protect us and others.

Same sex marriage is a progressive removal of ancient restraints and prejudices, it is said; I argue the point that it is a rebellion and in fact a regression.  Just as the decline in Christian morals and ethics is a regression so the decline of family stability is an increasing regression in our society. I will assert that the family unit, comprised of a woman and a man with children is the primary, normative building block of society. This normative block has been the pattern across the globe for a very, very long time. In the Bible there is nothing written that indicates that this design is fluid and can be improved upon by the created. To attempt to change the pattern for family is to tell God that He didn’t know what He was doing or that we are smarter and wiser than Yahweh. Rather than question God’s design we need to bow our heads in worship and submission to His will. Same-sex marriage is not worship of Yahweh it is worship of the sinful self; it is rebellion against the clear decree of scripture. It is throwing off a restraint that should be in place.

It is clearly spelled out in both the Old and New Testament that the creation of marriage is bound in heterosexual relationships. We see this in the creation ordinance of Genesis one and two as well as Jesus’ own clear teaching in the gospels. Correspondingly, there is no mention of homosexual relationships, let alone homosexual unions allowed as a practice in the Jewish society or in the New Testament church. In fact, there is clear teaching against sexually immoral behavior and homosexual acts are included in the list of those immoral acts in the New Testament.

So, if this is so clear, why do people, even some in the church, disagree with my analysis? Put another way: what are their reasons to maintain that same-sex marriage is allowable? We will discuss this issue as well as some of the reasons used by people to justify same-sex marriage in our next post.