[Darris McNeely] As expected today the United States Supreme Court handed down rulings on two issues regarding same-sex marriage, and as many feared they did rule in favor of the cultural shift toward recognizing same-sex marriage as they struck down a California law that banned gay marriage and also ruled in a very narrow area of the Defense of Marriage Act, the DOMA, which dealt with the taxation and the monetary rights of those that are within a same-sex relationship, same-sex marriage. A number of issues, a number of matters will continue to flow out of this. It really has not solved the issue, but it has made a major step in that direction of eventually recognizing same-sex marriage likely across the United States. One thing for sure, the deep cultural divide and cultural wars over this particular issue will continue to go on and further divide this nation. One of the things that was most disturbing as I was going through the news this morning was to hear the fact that at noon today in churches across the country and the national cathedral in Washington, D.C. bells would ring celebrating this particular ruling by the Supreme Court. That's probably going to be the subject of another daily or perhaps even something longer in the future. We have reached a crisis and a point in America and in our culture that begins to ratchet up this discussion and give us great concern.

One of the judges made a statement, one of the Supreme Court judges, that bears note here. Justice Alito said, "At present no one, not even social scientists, philosophers, and historians can predict with any certainty what the long term ramifications of widespread acceptance of same-sex marriage will be. And judges are certainly not equipped to make such an assessment." But the judges made an assessment upon at least the legality of certain points of law in this ruling here today. But they cannot, and they are correct in that they cannot predict long term ramifications of the acceptance of same-sex marriage. But there is one source that can: the word of God, the Bible. I was reading about it this morning in Romans chapter 1 and thinking about verse 18 where it talks about the wrath of God in a very remarkable passage that the Apostle Paul wrote regarding the subject of not just sexual morality, but a culture that is against God. In verse 18 Paul writes, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them" (Romans 1:18). In many different ways has God shown to mankind what is righteousness and what is unrighteousness. In this passage he goes on to get even more specific. We'll come back to that in another daily for another time.

But God can assess and He does long term ramifications of the acceptance of same-sex marriage and other sins of morality against the law of God and the way of God. The wrath of God will at one point reach a tipping point and that wrath will be a time of judgment upon not only the United States, but any nation that continues to defy the law of God, the way of God. It's inevitable.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.