This has been an interesting week. On Tuesday evening Joe and I had the opportunity to testify before the Anne Arundel County Council, commending them for the resolution they voted in favor of to inform the County School board that their new policy of boys in the girls restroom, locker room and sleeping arrangements was wrong headed and should be reversed. A majority, four out of seven voted for this resolution.
The next morning I met with the County Executive’s Clergy Advisory Council on which I have the priveledge of serving. It is a rather diverse group including many “churches” and even an imam from the Annapolis Muslim Society. Which is kind of curious knowing that were he to follow the Koran, he would kill us were we not to convert to Mohamendanism. There among other issues discussed, several members brought up the issue of the County Council vote the previous evening on that resolution. These members stating that they strongly disagreed with the resolution on moral and ethical grounds. So let’s understand what this means – members of the County Executive’s Clergy Advisory Council are convinced on moral and ethical grounds that boys, who as we shared last week, are delusional and believe themselves to be girls should be allowed to compromise the safety and the rights of all the other girls by using their bathroom, locker room and over night accommodations. The tragic fact for me in this is that these are the leaders of congregations in our county and are quite probably teaching their own people this so called ethical and moral standard.
What has happened? How did right become wrong and wrong become right in the minds of these clergy members? It would seem that only one of two things can have has taken place.
First they may have rejected the doctrine of sin altogether. We know there are those in the world who do not believe that there is sin. The relativist claims that there is no absolute standard of right or wrong, its all up to the individual to decide for themselves. But that doesn’t seem to be the position of these clergy members. They were saying that there is a moral and ethical position on how to accommodate a boy who has the delusion that he is a girl; they claim there is a right way and a wrong way and that the County Executive and the County Council have chosen the wrong way, that have acted unethically and immorally. That is a pretty amazing assertion.
Now the other option is that they have rejected the clear Biblical standard of right and wrong, they have adopted some other belief system than the Biblical one, they having rejected the God of the Bible have begun worshipping some other thing which is not God, they are worshipping idols. And what is apparent is that the idol they worship is one who is very unlike the God of the Bible.
One of the things I hear typically is that the God of the Old Testament, is a God of wrath, but that the God of the New Testament is very different He is all love and mercy.
What most people miss is that God in the New Testament is the same as the God of the Old. His wrath against sin is unchanged. In fact Jesus actually teaches more about the reality of hell than any other Prophet in the Old or New Testament. See Luke 16 as but one example. The New Testament gives the complete picture, that in His great mercy God has given the atoning sacrifice necessary to propitiate for the sins of those who place their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In other words God’s full wrath against sin did not simply disappear, in stead it was directed at Jesus on the Cross, who paid the full penalty for our sins. For those who refuse the free gift of salvation Christ purchased on the cross, there is only a fearful future of eternal punishment that awaits them as the full wrath of God against their sins will rest upon them forever.
Those who reject the Wrath of God as true, reject a God who is just, a God who is holy and a God who is righteous. If God did not have wrath against all sin, if He did not demand that the full penalty of sin be paid, He would not be a just God, He would not rule over a just universe.
It is odd that people who reject the idea of God’s wrath often are very concerned that justice be done in this world. And those members of the Clergy Advisory Council are but a sample. When they see a wrong they themselves want it corrected, they demand justice but never ask themselves why they are driven to seek justice. The key is that man is made in the Image of God, and so as God demands justice they, in their very DNA, also demand it as creatures made in the image of God.
What I think these members of the County Executive’s Clergy Advisory Council are rejecting is that the God of the Bible is a God of Wrath. In Psalm 7:11 it states in no uncertain terms, “God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.” We see that wrath expressed throughout Scripture.
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