MORAL TURPITUDE

From My Perspective - - -

Our nation and the Supreme Court stand at and on a moral threshold. Should national surveys be the valid guideline for that which will be national law? Is there a ground for the human race being evaluated and granted legal rights solely on the basis of the physical with disregard for the spiritual definition of the human race? When was the decision made and accepted that we would become a secular society and culture while disregarding any and all spiritual and moral values? When did we decide that moral turpitude (vile, shameful, or base character; depravity; a vile or depraved act) would be and is preferable to God’s Laws and Biblical Standards? Is there a way by which decadence and moral abandonment can be averted and reversed?

WORLD Magazine has suggested one possibility: “The Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has prepared…a guide to prayer this week, as Supreme Court Justices hear oral arguments concerning same-sex marriage cases. The Guide suggests different Prayers for each day, and the last is…Ask God to visit each of the Justices and speak His Words of comfort and conviction to them. Ask Him to bring someone into each of their lives who will remind them of their Accountability before God for their own souls and for the sake of the nation. Ask Him to work in a powerful way to bring to Himself through faith in Jesus Christ if they have never trusted Christ as their Savior. Ask Him to grant a…outpouring of His Spirit on each Justice so they may all be reminded of His Love, His Power, His Presence, and His Compassion. Ask Him to convince each Justice to uphold His (God’s) definition of marriage.”

Part of the societal dilemma is the vacillation within “The Church” (so-called). An example of this is a statement quoted in the Washington Post – December 2010 – where Sally Quinn wrote about the bent of an Episcopal Bishop. The summary of his remarks regarding Sodom and Gomorrah – Genesis 19 - was: “Whatever else one makes of this story, it cannot be used to decry loving, committed, lifelong-intentioned, monogamous relationships between two people of the same gender. It is simply not about that kind of relationship. The story is about homosexual rape - and like any rape, it is an act of violence, not an act of sexuality. In short, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all references to it elsewhere in scripture, provide no guidance for modern day believers about the morality or immorality of same gender loving people. It simply does not offer an answer to the questions we are asking.” (The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson is the IX Bishop of New Hampshire, in the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, and a visiting Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Washington, D.C.)

One can only suppose that the Bishop and Ms. Quinn chose to ignore God’s Reason and Purpose in His decision toward the trends, questions and moral turpitude that resulted in His Judgments upon His Creation. There are at least two passages of the Holy Scriptures that the Bishop and Ms. Quinn ignored. The first passage is Genesis 6 as God observed the moral turpitude of that day. A summary is given in Genesis 6:5-8 (NLT), “Now the LORD observed the extent of the people's wickedness, and he saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil. So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them. It broke his heart. And the LORD said: I will completely wipe out this human race that I have created. Yes, and I will destroy all the animals and birds, too. I am sorry I ever made them. But Noah found favor with the LORD.” The second passage is Romans 1:18-32 (NLT). A couple of thoughts from that passage are: “…God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who push the truth away from themselves… they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused…So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies…they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever. Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men and, as a result, suffered within themselves the penalty they so richly deserved…God…abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done…”

This judgment of God can only be averted IF the human race begins to take a serious God seriously by turning to Him, repenting, seeking Him, forsaking their sinful ways and confessing their sins – God will show mercy and will forgive them and heal their land (See: II Chronicles 7:14). Consider these things with me.