This post is a follow-up message from Pastor Ben's sermon entitled "Marriage Equality, Part II". [Watch video]

Does God know the end from the beginning? Is He really the Alpha and Omega, the God who was, and is, and is to come? Does God know what is going to happen in history? 

Consider God’s words through the prophet Isaiah, “Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure’” (Isaiah 46:9-10).

This, and many other verses of Scripture boldly proclaim that God is the Sovereign Lord who knows and controls all things. “Great is our Lord and abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:5).  God is not small and limited, He is immense and unlimited.

These truths help us in understanding God’s design for men and women in marriage and the church. God is more than capable of delivering His Word to us in a form and fashion that we can understand and obey as He has spoken. All the saints who came before us were unconditionally equipped to live out God’s roles for men and women as He instructed.

So why all the angst over this issue of men and women? Why such disagreement today? Our culture has changed. Our culture has changed, but God’s Word never changes. God has delivered His truth to us in a manner that is true for all times, in all places, in all cultures. 

When the Scriptures were written, God was certainly aware of the culture of the day. He was definitely aware of our culture yet future. He was most assuredly aware that there would be changes in the latter half of the 20th Century in America that would result in His truth being challenged. 

Was God powerful enough to deliver His truth on gender roles so we could understand and obey? Or, would He really leave us confused and misled for nearly 2,000 years on the subject of the roles of men and women? No. That’s why Jesus and the Apostle Paul appealed to two timeless, culturally unencumbered truths whenever they spoke to God’s design for men and women: Creation and the Trinity. God made men and women equal before sin entered the world, and God gave male authority in marriage before the Fall. The Trinity instructs us that equality and authority exist without contradiction. These truths have been known for all times, in all places, in all cultures, because God made them known in His Word. And He gave us His Spirit to understand them as Jesus promised.

Is God so puny that He would leave us in the dark until the 1970s? I think not.