SoL Year-End/Christmas Message

The Standard of Liberty Voice
For God,Religion,Family,Freedom
A publication of The Standard of Liberty Foundation
www.standardofliberty.org
December 23, 2013, #77

Three Dreadful Things and The Good News
Year-End Message from SoL 2013

Three dreadful things happened this past week, two quite close to home. We’ll outline them and then testify of the good news that transcends all.

Number One. A Utah federal judge named Waddoups, who is active LDS, ruled that certain portions of Utah’s polygamy law are unconstitutional. Waddoups made this ruling referencing the fourteenth amendment (equal access under the law). This is bogus because marriage is already accessible to all willing man-woman couples. The upshot of Waddoups’s ruling is that the practice of polygamy (group conjugal living) is suddenly perfectly legal in the state of Utah. He got around Utah's marriage amendment definition by avoiding the issue of a marriage license. Yet he refers to polygamists as married, so apparently, people can be legally married in Utah now without a marriage license. Incredibly, Waddoups has taken it upon himself to redefine marriage contrary to the will of the state. He also referenced the two disastrously immoral rulings of the Supreme Court this past June relative to the Defense of Marriage Act, which decided that marriage isn’t confined to a man-woman union, that is, it must include same-sex marriage. Because of the above reasons the judge used for his ruling, this is another step down that slippery slope toward sexual anarchy we have been warned about. When God’s definition of marriage is abandoned as in the Supreme Court decision, anything goes. Polygamy may turn out to be the least of our worries–at least it’s biologically sound. (There are a lot of other problems that come with this development, particularly for LDS, that may come to mind.)

Number Two. It’s funny. We were babysitting two infant grandkids the other night and decided to check out the wildly popular show, Duck Dynasty to pass the time. We knew practically nothing about it until we popped in our Netflix DVD and laughed out lout at the in-your-face, deadpan, bold political incorrectness in between consoling fussy babies. Days later, Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson’s statements from a months-old magazine interview hit the news and stayed there. So much has been said about it that we hardly need to add anything. (Some good articles are included in this newsletter.) Suffice it to say, it wouldn’t have mattered how Robertson expressed his Biblical beliefs warning against sexual immorality (he mostly quoted the Bible itself), he would have been publicly attacked all the same by the fascistic gay community and its supporters. We know this from personal experience. In the mainstream culture, God is out, sin is in. If you call sin sin you are the only sinner, while all the people approving, producing, spreading, and performing promiscuous, risky, perverse sex are the saints. To borrow from Robert Bork’s warning in his prophetic book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, on a societal scale traditional morality is being harmed while many forms of sexual immorality are being preferred. This is the undeniable trajectory we are witnessing.

Note: As we publish this newsletter, the news is that both A&E and Cracker Barrel have reversed their decisions to punish Duck Dynasty, apparently due to public outcry (follow the money). If only the few instances like this we witness (Chick-fil-A) were enough to reverse this trajectory! As homosexuality is increasingly pushed through media, courts, schools, etc., it is obvious which way the wind is generally blowing. It looks like we are one bearded, chicken-eating generation away from the total homosexualization of society, or worse.

Number Three. Another federal judge in Utah, Shelby, took it upon himself to invalidate Utah’s constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a male and female adult thereby legalizing same-sex marriage. Here we have another abuse of power. This is not within a judge’s authority. And yet for all practical purposes, the deed is done. Ask anybody: Utah was supposed to be the last state in the union to celebrate sodomy in the form of pretend mating/marriage, and here it is number 18. But of course this has occurred not by the consent of the people but by a bad judge. Still, perhaps we Utahns are at fault because we did nothing, at least not recently, to stop the acceptance of homosexuality. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing, said Edmund Burke. But wait, we have done something, something wrong. Utah with all its resources and highly influential organizations and entities has done too many things in the last few years that actually encourage this form of immorality, even in youth. We approve and even dignify it in our families and our schools and our congregations and our legislatures and our media. We even parade it in our streets. In the wake of this ruling, as same-sex couples lined up to be “married” while authorities, news reporters, families, and friends celebrated, you could quite accurately call our capitol Sodom Lake City.

The good news? This is all temporary! Yes! We aren’t here in this crazy place forever! The best is yet to come.

A favorite scripture of many is Proverbs 3:5-6. Here at SoL we have been pondering especially the phrase, “Trust in the Lord . . . and lean not unto thine own understanding . . .” We used to think that meant that our own understanding wasn’t worth anything. That may be true about some things. We may have wrong ideas that need continual correcting. But it can mean something else, too. Of course there are some things we certainly can understand accurately. There is reality, there are facts, there are events we witness with our own eyes and ears. Although we may not do it perfectly because of our human flaws, we can access the Holy Ghost to teach us the truth of all things. So this may mean that even when we are confronted with cold, hard facts, even when things are going very badly, even when we see loved ones fall, even when there is no denying that Satan is currently having his vengeful way with God’s world, we must still lean on the Lord rather than putting our energy into our own intellect, emotions, and senses. In fact, it’s a huge, amazing opportunity to show where we will put our trust. The more opposition, the greater the test. We love this. It means that while we understand something perfectly we must make the Lord our God. It means we must take our own fretful feelings out of the equation. This is how to find equanimity in an upside-down world: wrench our hearts away from worldly events (although we see and know them for what they are) and rely on the wisdom and love of God. All this opposition, all this agency people are exercising, all this damage man is doing to himself and others, all of it is essential to God’s plan. The one thing we have total control over is what goes on in our hearts. The more clearly we see what is going on in our own flawed selves and all around us, the greater our need for faith in and reliance on the Lord. And that humble reliance is a very good thing with eternal significance.

For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Whatever good we may think we do, our eternity depends on what goes on inside us. We must believe in God’s Love, and be convinced of our sins and the redeeming power of Christ. We must increase our faith in the Lord and hope for eternal life. We say, let’s go for it! And share this good news with your loved ones and everyone else you can.

I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell. 2 Nephi 33:6

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Steve and Janice Graham at Standard of Liberty.

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