by Standerinfamilycourt
“Like a roaring lion and a rushing bear
Is a wicked ruler over a poor people.
A leader who is a great oppressor lacks understanding,
But he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days.” – Prov. 28:15
“But the vine was plucked up in fury,
cast down to the ground;
the east wind dried up its fruit;
they were stripped off and withered.
As for its strong stem,
fire consumed it.” – Ezekiel 9:12
“I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
And you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord.” – Amos 4:11
“If you will return, O [ United States, the nation I, the Most High established], says the Lord, if you will return to Me, and if you will put away your abominable false gods out of My sight and not stray or waver, And if you swear, As the Lord lives, in truth, in judgment and justice, and in righteousness (uprightness in every area and relation), then the nations will bless themselves in Him and in Him will they glory.” – Jeremiah 4: 1-3
“Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much, and whoever is unrighteous in very little is also unrighteous in much.” (Jesus) – Luke 16:10
Not that there’s any special recognition due me, but in between election days this stander/citizen, like so many others across the country, I fasted and prayed extensively for godly leadership to be restored to our nation through the 2014 mid-term election. I’ve been personally serious about this since at least 2008, when my only practical choice for President of the United States was between a rabidly pro-abortion (and, as it turned out, pro-faux marriage) ultra-liberal and a conservative serial adulterer who had abandoned two prior wives, including a disabled one, because his god is his appetite. Neither candidate seemed likely to serve our nation unselfishly, nor honor God in doing so.
2008 would not be the last time I had to hold my nose from the moral stench while casting my ballot. It is simply the escalating curse our nation has been under at God’s hand since the 1970’s when the twin abominations of abortion on demand, and unilateral divorce were imposed across our land – the worship of Baal and the worship of Asherah (the absolute right to immoral remarriage), respectively. I believe God was especially provoked to bring progressive discipline on our nation when His bride the Church was not only silent about the latter, but chose to widely embrace it.
It was an amazing week, the week of November 4, 2014 across our nation. I once again complained about the lack of acceptable candidates on the ballot, this time for governor of our state. One of the candidates had signed the marriage redefinition bill in 2013, flouting God’s (Matthew 19:4-6) timeless definition of marriage. The other is yet another serial adulterer who also supports abortion-on-demand. The U.S. Senate race was just as bad: a choice between the liberal incumbent with the near-100% voting record against the sanctity of marriage, life and traditional family versus yet another adulterer who had recently made a public statement that he now favored marriage redefinition despite his 2013 state legislature vote against it. The state family policy counsel published a link to an interesting viewpoint on how to handle that situation while staying true to my godly responsibility to cast my ballot for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God. Early on election morning, I was personally messaged by its leader, which the Holy Spirit quickened in me as confirmation that this was how God wanted me to vote in resolution of my moral dilemma. I was grateful not to have had to abstain in those two races, or write-in a throwaway name.
Aside from these legislative and executive candidates, several judgeships were on the ballot. How many times in my roughly 40 years of adult citizenship had I gone into the voting booth with not a clue who these individuals are who hold such sway that with a mere stroke of a pen they can override what GOD has permanently joined as one person (Matt. 19:5-6), and change the course of a family for GENERATIONS to come? I spent a year, approximately 10 court sessions, finding out precisely who these black-robed marriage executioners are! Once again our state family policy council has greatly improved my citizenship by reporting on who is endorsing and financially supporting those candidacies. (It also helps to have an increased acquaintance with seasoned attorneys!)
With our constitutional appeal awaiting trial next spring, I realized I could also be voting on retention of two of the judges who may potentially be on the panel who will hear our case. Of all the previous constitutional challenges to the unilateral divorce laws which I researched in other states, 2 or 3 pivotal decisions that could have spared our nation (particularly the budgets of local governments) some 40 years of evil fallout from this unconstitutional unilateral divorce law turned on the opinion of only 1 judge out of 3, while the dissenting judge’s opinion was actually far more creditable. You can bet I burned up Google the night before, trying to find out all I possibly could!
And the outcome? The nation was abundantly blessed that the Lord established a meaningful check on the despotic power of the current Chief Executive. The cause itself of socially conservative godly government was also blessed when diverse candidates by age, race and gender in an overwhelming number of states replaced liberals who were poised to continue and to step up their attacks on the traditional family. Our own state didn’t fare so well in comparison, but largely because the fruit had already been “cast from the vine” (Ezekiel 9:12) long before the ballots were even compiled. Nevertheless, God seems to be hearing the prayers of the saints for the leadership of our nation as a whole.
I’d urge that before we get too smug about drubbing the liberals, we keep seeking the Lord for our further repentance as a nation. I believe He’s watching to see how we steward the graciousness He’s extended to us. Will we return to Him? Most of the national legal ministries do not consider unilateral divorce – which tramples on the very image of God’s covenant with ALL of us, to be a fundamental rights or religious freedom problem, and they fail to grasp (or admit) the very real connection between marriage redefinition 2014 and marriage redefinition 1969. This is despite the various organizational mission statements on which they raise donor funds:
Organization A – “Restoring the culture by advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family.”
Organization B – ” …free legal assistance to Bible-believing churches and Christians who are experiencing difficulty in practicing their religious faith.”
Organization C – “the spread of the Gospel by transforming the legal system and advocating for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family..”
And so forth. One admirable exception of “walking the talk” is the Family Research Council who in 2006 materially supported a serious legislative challenge to Michigan’s unilateral divorce law. Cynically, it seems there are far more numerous powerful individuals whose adultery or commercial interests have benefited from state unilateral divorce laws (some of whom are most likely large donors to these ministries) than there are homosexuals who have benefited from the current wave of state marriage redefinition. (Always best to gore someone else’s ox if you are a 501(c)3.)
Did God directly reward righteous political courage around the (heterosexual) sanctity of marriage issue last Tuesday? I’ll let the reader ask Him and judge. The following states have either enacted covenant marriage laws or mounted recent legislative challenge attempts to their longstanding unilateral divorce laws:
Arkansas, Louisiana, Arizona, Kansas, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Georgia
The following states defeated a liberal incumbent to fill a Senate seat with a conservative, family-values replacement, checking the President’s amoral social agenda by the resulting gained majority of seats:
Iowa, Arkansas, South Carolina, West Virginia, Colorado, and South Dakota. (Louisiana’s Senate race was forced into a run-off election for early December, and Kansas held on to its conservative senator.)
Two days later, it got even more exciting as state traditional marriage referenda and traditional marriage definition legislation were upheld by the 6th Federal Circuit in their ruling on the case DeBoer vs. Snyder for 4 states:
Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Michigan.
Our state, on the other hand, failed to benefit from the strong citizen showing in 2013 in the state capitol which miraculously held off marriage redefinition for several months after it seemed sure to pass quickly, stunning the whole nation and chagrining the media. Meanwhile, the unwillingness of that family policy council to publicly oppose and EXPOSE the truly catastrophic pending “family” law bill that would shorten the unilateral divorce waiting period to 6 months from 2 years, would remove any option for fault-based grounds, as well as remove legal sanctions against deliberate spouse-poachers and firms (such as employers) who knowingly allow spouse-poaching to occur, the near-universal silence ultimately allowed this repugnant legislation to pass 90-17 in one legislative chamber without the public’s knowledge or meaningful media publicity. The real enemy of true marriage is Satan, and you don’t beat him with the resources of mere men, you beat him with the unmerited favor of God in response to obeying Him completely and trusting Him with any consequences of putting His kingdom first. Tough to walk out before a very human ministry board, but no less what it takes.
As a result of policy leadership mis-steps, one of the two states with heretofore the lowest divorce rates may gain the unsavory distinction of being the only state resisting the national trend of rethinking no-consequences unilateral divorce in the face of very well-documented societal damage resulting from it. Citizens should keep in mind from past occurrence that a doubling of the divorce rates has in the past led to a proportional ramp-up in government fiscal woes, something our state could not recover from in its current financial condition. As a Divinely-orchestrated result of all the foregoing, we now have a Republican governor who’s on record as not concerning himself with “social issues” other than the unfettered access to abortuaries, and who is poised to retool his state party accordingly. We have a state senator who failed to unseat an ultra-liberal U.S. senator because the Lord saw no reason to swap one LGBT partisan out for another. And He had already delivered the U.S. Senate to the faithful without any help from our state.
I think He truly does care very deeply about this unilateral divorce issue, and He let us all know it. 
7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!
www.standerinfamilycourt.com