Outlawing Repentance At The Supreme Court

The very first command of the Gospel as proclaimed by Jesus Christ in Mark 1:15 is ‘Repent.’ Repentance involves a clear recognition first that God’s Law is righteous, holy and true; second that as a sinner we have violated God’s Law and are therefore worthy of eternal damnation; thirdly that Christ Jesus came and offered Himself as the perfect, sinless substitute, dying on the cross to pay for our sins; fourth that by believing and receiving Him as your Substitute and turning in mind, soul and body from your sins you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. It all begins and ends with repentance. Or as one pastor has stated, “Genuine repentance pleads with the Lord to forgive and deliver from the burden of sin and the fear of judgment and hell. It is the attitude of the publican who, fearful of even looking toward heaven, smote his breast and cried, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” (Luke 18:13). Repentance is not merely behavior reform. But because true repentance involves a change of heart and purpose, it inevitably results in a change of behavior.”^[1]

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So if Satan and his minions were plotting on the best way to keep people off the path of salvation they could make no more strategic attack than to outlaw repentance. And now the judges wearing black robes in that marble mausoleum have done essentially that very thing regarding one particular sin. On April 24th this year they “declined to hear a challenge to an Appeals Court ruling that upheld a California law banning pro-heterosexual change therapy for minors. This is the fourth time that the highest court has turned back a legal challenge to such a law.

The 2012 California law, SB 1172, the first of its kind in the nation, prohibits “mental health provider[s] … from engaging in sexual orientation change efforts” with patients under 18 years old”….Lead plaintiff Donald Welch, an ordained minister and licensed family therapist, oversees counseling at Skyline Wesleyan Church, an evangelical Christian church in the San Diego area that believes sexuality belongs only in a marriage between a man and a woman. … Welch, along with … others, sued the state claiming the law is unconstitutional.

Their claim that the California law violates their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion was rejected last October by the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.”^[2] That refusal meant that counseling a person who has unwanted same sex attractions is now a crime in that State.

“Similarly, the Supreme Court declined to hear two challenges to a New Jersey ban on pro-heterosexual therapy for minors, patterned after the California law. Four other states — Oregon, Illinois, Vermont and New Mexico — have enacted the minor therapy bans, … The District of Columbia and various other cities have also enacted similar legal prohibitions… in a previous Liberty Counsel challenge to the California SB 1172 law, pro-family attorney Mat Staver, said, ‘Under this law, a young boy sexually molested by the likes of a Jerry Sandusky who develops an identity crisis, emotional stress, and who begins to experience unwanted same-sex attractions, will be further hurt by a law that deprives him and his family the option of receiving counsel that aligns with his religious and moral beliefs.”^[3]

When a culture not only promotes sodomy, but then prevents those affected with and by that terrible plague from finding the gift of repentance, I believe that culture is ripe for God’s judgment.

So the damage done by the tragic abuse of a child is further compounded by refusing him the help he could be given if he wants the gift of repentance. I pray that these wicked decisions by black robed tyrants will not stand in our land. That the people themselves will repent of allowing the acceptance of the sin of sodomy and now outlawing repentance. Without repentance for an individual there is no hope of salvation, without repentance for our nation there only awaits us a fearful judgment from the righteous and faithful judge of the universe our Lord Jesus Christ.

And Christ has given all that is necessary for salvation.

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Footnotes:

^[1] What is biblical repentance

^[2] Supreme court allows ban of sexual orientation change therapy for kids

^[3] Ibid.