The US Supreme Court, as it has in the past, imposed its will on the states and changed the state definition of marriage. How should the church react? What should people who love the Lord do? How should the voice of those who are concerned about moral decline be heard in the public square? Clearly, the Christian community must first turn to the Scripture to find direction. What does the Lord command His people to do? Let’s consider the idea that the Lord commands us to do virtually nothing in the public square.

We read in Genesis 2:24 "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." This verse is repeated in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Ephesians 5. You might get the impression that what the Lord decreed He meant. This is the fundamental declaration of marriage. It is defined by the Lord and man cannot supersede the Lord’s decrees without assuming the role of God Himself.

When the institutional church or the state sets its own definition of marriage it assumes the right to regulate and modify its terms, which is what we have seen. The state, through sleight of hand, set out a certificate to declare a couple as married. They bought their way into the family be setting up taxation terms that encouraged participation in state certified marriage. The church did not resist with vigor. Rather it cowardly embraced the state’s decree.

A certificate does not define marriage. Submitting to the state’s terms places the state above the Lord. What should the Christian do? Ignore the state! If the state decrees things contrary to the Lord, should we not leave the state in the hands’ of the Lord? When Moses gives his song in Deuteronomy 32, as if he we writing of the issue at hand, he mentions Sodom and Gomorrah and then we read the Lord saying "Vengeance is mine". This is another concept repeated throughout Scripture. Who are we to step into the Lord’s place? Should we not trust the fate of the state in the hands of the Lord?

What should the Christian community do in the public square? We should ignore the state and practice marriage as the Lord defines. Imposition by legislation does not change the heart. Our contention in the public square is with persuasion and love. Our trust is in the Lord and not the state.

What is your model? Is your model such that when you hear "the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music," you "fall down and worship the golden image" and acquire a state certificate, or do you follow the model of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3? Do you respond: O Supreme Court, "we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up" nor live by your certificates?

To the Christian community: Ignore the state! Serve the Lord!