Don Pierson
By Don Pierson
Pastor, Stewart’s Chapel Baptist Church, Flintville
A few years ago if someone had told you that our nation would be debating whether a person could marry a person of the same sex, you would have said, “No way!” Yet we are not only debating it, some of our states are already doing it, and even some churches are doing it. We are in critical days, the Bible describes these days as the Last Days and “perilous times.”
On April 28, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on two questions related to marriage: The first is whether state laws defining marriage as the relationship between one man and one woman are unconstitutional. The second is whether states that define marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman have to give legal recognition to a marriage between two people of the same sex performed in another state. The laws before the Supreme Court are those of Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio.
This is a time for prayer! Like in Esther when God’s people were called to prayer and fasting for Esther as she approached the king, we need to be praying for God to anoint the attorneys that will be defending marriage in our state. We need to bathe them in prayer asking God for clarity and great wisdom. We need to be praying for the Supreme Court judges that God would work through them and in them for righteousness.
Denominations across our state are uniting in these days praying and fasting for the sanctity of marriage. I urge you to join us in this urgent time of prayer. I also want to encourage our pastors to set aside Sunday, April 26, the Sunday prior to the Supreme Court hearing the oral arguments, as a time of concentrated corporate prayer.
I urge our people to mark their calendars for 10 a.m. eastern time on April 28 to pray for the judges and lawyers when the oral arguments begin.
This united prayer effort is called “Pray for Marriage.” You can find a prayer guide and a bulletin insert at www.pray4marriage.org. You can follow the “Pray for Marriage” effort on Facebook at Pray4Marriage.
May we pray.
— Pierson, former prayer coordinator for the Tennessee Baptist Convention, is pastor of Stewart’s Chapel Baptist Church, Flintville.
