Creation Ordinances

I was preparing my sermon on the fourth commandment this week. I was re-reading the book, The Market Day of the Soul by James T Dennison, Jr. where he shows the development of the Puritan doctrine of the Sabbath as a creation ordinance. The concept of a creation ordinance got me thinking about the news today of the action of the PCUSA affirming so called “homosexual marriage.” I refer to this as “so called” because by definition the term “homosexual marriage” is nonsense by definition. Marriage is a creation ordinance instituted by God as the mutual and intimate covenant relationship between a man and a woman and it has been acknowledged as a cultural universal for the history of humanity. Clearly the promoters of homosexual unions as “marriage” are on the wrong side of history, but I digress.

An acquaintance of mine wrote on his blog about the present state of the PCUSA. This action does not make them apostate. That sad fact occurred when that branch of Presbyterian Churches embraced “liberalism” and denied the scriptures as the infallible rule of faith and practice. J. Gresham Machen understood this in the 1920s and wrote the book, Christianity and Liberalism, in which he affirms that Liberalism is not another form of Christianity but entirely different, so different as to belong to a distinct category. The actions of the present General Assembly have their roots in this sad history of denying the scriptures. I am saddened by this expected result in the church of my youth. I was a member of the then UPUSA in Ohio. I remember as a teen when my family left with other families to start a new as a congregation of the newly formed PCA in the early 1970s that homosexuality was already an issue in Eastminster Presbytery of the UPUSA. The issue then and now is not homosexuality per se; it is the authority of God’s word. While I am not surprised, I am still saddened and even weep before God for the Church of Jesus Christ.

But my thoughts are not solely focused on the news of the PCUSA but really about creation ordinances. It absolutely astounds me that modern man has the very audacity to attempt to over throw the creation ordinances of God. To be sure, no lightening is immediately striking the arrogant rebels. They think God either doesn’t exist or doesn’t care. I think otherwise (Romans 2:3-7). Indeed God must sit in the heavens as ruler and king and laugh at our puny efforts to overturn His order (Psalm 2). A school boy learns that one can fight against God’s natural law of gravity only so long but in the end it will overtake you. We are creatures of this creation. God’s order, whether natural law or spiritual law, wins in the end. It is the reality we must deal with. We are not God. We bought the lie of Satan that we can be but that doesn’t make it any more true.

So my heart grieves for those who set up their own laws to replace the laws of God. This is nothing but self-destructive behavior. The reality and futility of sin will be made manifest but how many lives will be eternally ruined because of the present purveyors of such monstrous thinking and teaching? How many families will be torn apart by this irrational stupidity? In fact, I believe is it the goal of Satan and those that follow his perverse thinking that people should tear apart their most cherished relationships, kill their unborn offspring, and destroy themselves physically and spiritually by outright rebellion against God. What is the end? I marvel that many don’t see it. The end is the enslavement of all under sin and evil. Without spiritual discipline and the truth of God all we have is slavery and death. It seems ironic that this should be most manifest in America, “the land of the free and home of the brave.” America that has become the land of political correctness and government tyranny by regulation. America, the place where anything is tolerated so long as it isn’t the truth and true freedom.

But back to creation ordinances. They are the fabric of life in this age. They will not disappear whatever human beings may do. Only one man has kept them. That man is the man Jesus Christ, the Son of God come in the flesh. Only by faith in his righteousness and self-sacrifice is there life for the souls of men, women, and children. If we want to be true patriots we need to do two things. We must call men and women to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. We must defend and practice the creation ordinances of God. If we wish to remain free we must preserve the sanctity of marriage and the family, we must defend the necessity and legitimacy of labor, and we must observe and rest in the hope of the Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3; Heb 4:4ff).