Winners & Wanderers

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Timestamp: 2009-02-19 18:12:57 UTC

Congrats to Michele Williams and Xandra, winners of Outlaw Marshal! Send me your addresses, ladies, and I'll get the books in the mail to you.

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It's interesting to me how God sometimes works in a thematic way in our lives. We read or study something, and suddenly it's as if everywhere we turn that particular truth is demonstrated.

We discussed God's sovereignty over evil and His permissive and causative will as it relates to sin in this week's post for the Spectacular Sins Book Club. And while aspects of this are hard for our finite minds to grasp and even conceive of, one thing is certain: God is never caught off guard by the evil that surrounds us, and His glory will be manifest in its fullest in the fullness of time.

In the meantime, however, we grieve over this sin-sick world. Be sure to read Vicki Courtney's latest Virtue Alert for a timely and urgent reminder about conversations we need to be having with our kids in light of the recent news of the baby fathered by a 13-year-old boy.

And just this week a TV station here aired a story about a website being heavily promoted in the major cities in Texas. I won't link to the actual site for obvious reasons, but this is an infidelity site. Similar to dating services, individuals can become members in order to find someone with whom they can break their marriage vows. From the news story, you can see the taglines for the site include "When divorce isn't an option" and "Life is short. Have an affair."

I find it interesting that a defense/rationalization the founder gives for people using this site is "religious background". (As in, people have suppressed desires because of their religious backgrounds or they might not divorce because of that.) Last time I checked, the Bible was pretty straightforward in its views on adultery!

But really, none of this should surprise us. . . .

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
(Romans 1:18-32)

Tens of thousands of people in Texas have signed up with this service, with 3 million total users of the site. And sadly, many don't seem to realize that those who think so little of their marital vows have no foundation for integrity in any other aspect of their lives. I shudder to think what sort of business decisions they are making and the non-values they are teaching their kids. May God have mercy on our society.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!