GodsView : The Great Gay Deception!

GodsView : The Great Gay Deception!: In February 2007, a colleague of mine attended the annual fundraising dinner for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the world’s largest gay...

The Great Gay Deception!

In February 2007, a colleague of mine attended the annual fundraising dinner for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the world’s largest gay activist organization. As a Christian man deeply committed to righteousness in our nation, he wanted to see how the HRC operated firsthand.
Next to him at the table was a homosexual couple, and as my friend was talking to one of the men in the couple, he suddenly had a vision—and he is not prone to such things—of a snake wrapped around the man’s neck. He knew he had to kill it before it strangled the man to death, but he also knew if he didn’t exercise extreme care in killing the snake, he would kill the man in the process.
That, in vivid pictorial illustration, is the predicament we find ourselves in today in the church. On the one hand, we see the real dangers of gay activism affecting virtually every area of our society. In fact, it can be said without exaggeration that gay activism is the principal threat to our freedoms of speech, religion and conscience. And we see how our kids are being negatively influenced in their schools and through the media by curricula and programming produced by gay activists and their straight allies.
At the same time, we want to reach out to those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender with the love of God and the compassion of Christ, recognizing how much rejection many of them have suffered and being fully aware they perceive conservative Christians to be their greatest enemies, viewing us as hateful, bigoted, intolerant and homophobic—as condemning all of them to hell.
How then do we stand against gay activism without hurting our witness to gay individuals? And how do we reach out with sensitivity without softening our stance for righteousness? How do we walk in both grace and truth together?
Reach Out and Resist
In January 2005, the Lord spoke this word to my heart: “Reach out and resist.” I knew this word to mean I was to reach out to the homosexual community with compassion while resisting gay activism with courage—and I have been seeking to live that out ever since.
I can hear already what some believers will say: “We agree we need to reach out to gays and lesbians with the gospel. Of course we do! Homosexuals are loved by God just as much as heterosexuals. Jesus shed the same blood for gays and straights. All of us are created in the image of God yet are broken and fallen. It is our sacred responsibility to share the gospel with the LGBT community—but we’ve got no business opposing gay activism. That’s mixing politics with religion, and it will only hurt our witness.”
Really? Are you sure? Was it mixing politics with religion when Christians opposed slavery and the slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries? Is it mixing politics with religion now when Christians stand up for the lives of the unborn or oppose human trafficking?
In the same way, it is not mixing politics with religion when we stand up for gender as God intended it, for sexuality as God intended it, for marriage as God intended it, just to name a few of the issues here. And while there is a real challenge to our witness to the LGBT community when we stand for righteousness, we really have no choice.
Let me explain why the stakes are so high and why it is imperative we practice the “reach out” part as well as the “resist” part.
The War on the Bible
Forty years ago, gay activists concluded their two main enemies were the psychiatric profession and the church. The former classified homosexuality as a sickness, the latter as a sin, and so an ideological war was launched to combat these mindsets.
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (followed by a host of other organizations) depathologized homosexuality, saying it was not a mental or emotional disorder of any kind.
This meant the last major obstacle to overcome was the view of the church, and that’s why there has been a concerted effort to change public perception about the Bible and homosexual practice. This effort has involved arguing that the message of the Bible is antiquated and irrelevant or, in more conservative circles, that the Word of God was condemning things like pedophilia and homosexual prostitution as opposed to committed, loving, same-sex relationships.
Make no mistake about it: Gay activists will not be satisfied until Christians across the nation believe Moses and Jesus and Paul would affirm same-sex marriage. After all, love is love, right?
This battle is coming to a church or denomination near you.
The War on Gender
What many believers do not realize is that there is not only a war on heterosexism (defined by the San Francisco Unified School District as “an overt or tacit bias against homosexuality rooted in the belief that heterosexuality is superior or the norm”). There is also a war on gender—on male-female distinctives and on the male-female dichotomy.
As stated by lesbian sociology professor Barb Burdge, “The social construct of dividing humans into male and female is oppressive and should be rejected altogether.”
In keeping with this ideology, Newsweek magazine asked almost four years ago, in its August 16, 2010, issue, “Are we facing a genderless future?” and further stated that “a small but growing number of people are rejecting being labeled male or female.”
Even more shockingly, standard policy in Los Angeles schools states, “‘Gender identity’ refers to one’s understanding, interests, outlook and feelings about whether one is female or male, or both, or neither, regardless of one’s biological sex.” (I’m not making this up.)
That’s why you’re hearing more and more about female prom kings and male prom queens. As one 16-year-old girl explains, “It’s not like the stereotype where the [prom] king has to be a jock and he’s there with the cheerleaders anymore. We live in a generation now where dudes are chicks and chicks are dudes.”
Who can imagine what’s coming next if we don’t uphold the standard of God’s male-female creation?
The War on Children’s Education
Writing in the flagship gay publication The Advocate in 1995, lesbian journalist Patricia Nell Warren stated, “Whoever captures the kids owns the future.” Long before this, in 1958, Allen Ginsberg, the famed Beat poet and gay hippie icon, shouted to a young conservative leader, “We’ll get you through your children!”
Gay activists have been incredibly successful capturing the hearts and minds of our kids, not primarily by trying to seduce them into gay sex (as if all gays were child predators), but rather through indoctrination. As stated by the National Union of Teachers in the U.K., “It is particularly important to begin to make 3- to 5-year-olds aware of the range of families that exist in the U.K. today: families with one mum, one mum and dad, two mums, two dads, grandparents, adoptive parents, guardians.”
Coloring books like Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls seek to deconstruct traditional gender roles. Children’s readers like One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads and Oh, the Things Mommies Do! What Could Be Better Than Having Two? influence the minds of nursery school kids.
And “Terminology Game Cards,” provided by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, quiz elementary school students on terms such as biological sex, gender identity, gender role, transgender, gender expression, sexual orientation, heterosexism, transphobia, asexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay, transsexual, intersexual, androgyny, cross dresser, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, queer, LGBTQ, sexual reassignment surgery, D/L (down low) and MSM.
In the last two years, the state of California passed bills that 1) call for the mandatory celebration of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender history in America for all grades and districts, with no ability to opt out for parents or students; 2) make it illegal for a minor with unwanted same-sex attractions to get professional counseling and help, even with parental permission; and 3) give rights to a student in any grade who identifies as the opposite of his/her biological sex to use the bathroom of his/her choice and to play on the sports team (male or female) of his/her choice with use of the respective locker room.
And you say we shouldn’t care about this or get involved? (Remember also that what I’m sharing here is the tiniest tip of a massive iceberg; for many more details on all these fronts, see my book A Queer Thing Happened to America.)
The War on the Media
Writing in 1989, gay strategists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen called for the “conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media.”
They and their colleagues have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams to the point that film critic and radio host Michael Medved noted several years ago, “A Martian gathering evidence about American society, simply by monitoring our television, would certainly assume that there were more gay people in America than there are evangelical Christians.”
We could now say the Martian would also conclude gay people are, with rare or no exception, incredibly nice, family-oriented, creative and considerate, while evangelical Christians are mean-spirited, judgmental, dull, greedy and hypocritical.
Back in 2010, gay media activist Jarrett Barrios stated, “It’s not enough to be Will and Grace anymore. The benchmark is higher.” (For our kids, Glee has certainly gone a good way toward advancing that goal.) That same year, an article on the insidemovie.com website noted “a particular sub-genre has emerged as perhaps the hottest gimmick in Hollywood: girl on girl [kissing].”
Yes, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is now old hat and Brokeback Mountain (which featured gay sex scenes with mainstream actors on the big screen) is remembered with nostalgia for its groundbreaking role.
Today, Hollywood is becoming more and more militant, with leading actors like Mark Ruffalo, who appeared in the lesbian-themed movie The Kids Are All Right, saying this about the stand for marriage as God intended it: “It’s the last dying, kicking, screaming, caged animal response to a world that is changing, a world that’s leaving a lot of those old, bigoted, unaccepting views behind. It’s over. Those against it are very tricky, and they’re using really dark ways to promote their ideas.”
Hollywood has declared war on biblical values—and, sad to say, many American evangelicals are more familiar with the latest movies than with the Word of God.
The War on Our Freedoms of Conscience, Speech and Religion
Whole books could be written on this subject detailing the stories of university students punished or kicked out of their schools because they could not affirm gay activism, employees fired from their jobs or fined for posting their views on homosexuality on their private Facebook pages or in local newspaper editorials, street preachers arrested for preaching the Word of God on sexuality, business owners fined for refusing to participate in gay commitment ceremonies—and the list goes on and on.
As I wrote in December 2013, “It is not just private individuals who have been punished for refusing to bow the knee to gay activism or for speaking out of turn, but also public figures like Dr. Ben Carson, pastor Louie Giglio and Sen. Rick Santorum. (In case you missed what happened with Mr. Santorum, in April, a Michigan high school canceled his speaking appearance out of concern that he would address same-sex marriage, eventually agreeing to let him speak with the caveat that students could only attend with parental permission [!]. In stark contrast, Bible-bashing, gay-sex-exalting speakers like Dan Savage are hailed as heroes in our schools and campuses, given carte blanche to talk about the most vile subjects to our young people.)”
And who can forget what happened to Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson after his comments about homosexuality were published by GQ magazine?
The simple truth is that if we don’t stand up for what is right today, we will have to apologize to our kids and grandkids tomorrow. Yet many Christians refuse to believe this, thinking that by ignoring these critical social issues and simply building bridges to their LGBT friends and co-workers, they will remove the gay community’s opposition to the gospel.
The reality is that unless we affirm that homosexual relationships and homosexual practice are fine in God’s sight, we will still be branded as homophobes and bigots.
Our Reaching and Resisting Response
What then must we do? First, we must ask God for His heart of love and compassion toward those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, recognizing the vast majority of them did not simply choose to have these attractions or gender-related issues and that, more than anything, they want to be accepted for who they are.
Second, we must get our own houses in order, repenting of our sexual sin and of our rampant, no-fault divorce.
Third, we must pray for the LGBT community and reach out to them in friendship with the message of the gospel, remembering that Jesus offers forgiveness and redemption equally to all.
And fourth, we must stand firmly against the encroachment of gay activism, recognizing the unspoken mantra of LGBT activists is, “We will intimidate and manipulate until you capitulate.” We must make it known clearly—with love, grace, compassion and humility—that capitulation is not an option.
It is our nature to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and in Jesus we will stand.

GodsView : Why is it so imperative that you learn to function...

GodsView : Why is it so imperative that you learn to function...: For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us. - (Isaiah 33:22) Why is it so imperative t...

Why is it so imperative that you learn to function by biblical authority?

For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us. - (Isaiah 33:22)

Why is it so imperative that you learn to function by biblical authority? A simple exercise will demonstrate your need.

Take a blank sheet of paper and try to draw a straight line down the middle. What will happen? It will be crooked. I don’t care how steady your hand is, if you try to draw a straight line on your own there’s going to be a curve in that line somewhere.

But now try drawing a straight line with a ruler. Lay a ruler next to your line and draw another line with it.The difference will be obvious.

You get the idea. When you try to live life on your own, it’s going to be crooked. I don’t care how much you try or how straight you are, your life is going to have lumps and bends in it because the best of us can’t live a straight life on our own.

Too many of us in God’s kingdom are trying to live life on our own, and we keep messing up. But if you’ll let the Word of God be your ruler and draw your life according to its standard, you’ll take care of the bumps.

God’s Word is the only authority that will enable us to draw a straight line in our personal life, in our family life, in the church, and in society.There’s only one King in this kingdom, and He has a ruler called His Word.That’s our standard.

Reflection: Are you living life by your own standard or God’s? How are you making sure that you hear, know, and understand God’s Word? How are you training your children (or younger men/women within your circle of influence) in the Word of God?

Your Word is the authority and the guideline I am to use to show me how to live  my life for You. You’ll take care of me as I seek You, and for that—I am truly grateful.

GodsView : Redefining the Family!

GodsView : Redefining the Family!: I read recently that the definition of the family needed to be revised in light of cultural changes. The writer said a family should be ...

Redefining the Family!

I read recently that the definition of the family needed to be revised in light of cultural changes. The writer said a family should be thought of as "a circle of love," including any individuals who were deeply attached to each other. Somehow I know this is wrong but can't articulate why. How do you see it?

I am familiar with the effort to redefine the family. It is motivated by homosexual activists and others who see this institution as a barrier to the social engineering they hope to accomplish. But what is the traditional definition of the family? It is a group of individuals who are related to one another by marriage, birth, or adoption-- nothing more, nothing else. The family was divinely instituted and sanctioned in the beginning, when God created one man and one woman, brought them together, and commanded them to "be fruitful and multiply." This is where we begin, and this is where we must stand.
By contrast, if the term family refers to any group of people who love each other, then the term ceases to have meaning. In that case, five homosexual men can be a "family" until one feels unloved, and then there are four. Under such a definition, one man and six women could be regarded as a legal entity, reintroducing the debate over polygamy. We thought we settled that issue in the last century.
It would also be possible for parents who dislike a rebellious teenager to opt him out of the "circle of love," thus depriving him of any legal identity with the family. With such amorphous terms, wives would have no greater legal protection than female acquaintances with whom men become infatuated. We end up with an unstable social structure rife with potential for disaster.
There is good reason, then, to defend the narrow legal definition of the family as understood over the centuries. After all, the family as I have characterized it is not merely human in origin. It is God's marvelous creation. And He has not included casual social relationships--even the most loving ones--within that bond of kinship. Nor should we!

GodsView : The Battle for the Next Generation!

GodsView : The Battle for the Next Generation!: A couple of years ago there was a movie made about a woman named Erin Brokovich. The movie centered around the town of Hinkley, which u...

The Battle for the Next Generation!

A couple of years ago there was a movie made about a woman named Erin Brokovich. The movie centered around the town of Hinkley, which unknowingly had its water supply poisoned.
You see, for over 40 years, the major employer of the residents…Pacific Gas and Electric…had knowingly dumped a poisonous, cancer-causing chemical called Chrom 6 into the ponds surrounding its plant in Hinkley.
After time, the poison soaked into the ground water in Hinkley, to the point that people were washing their hands in it, bathing in it and even drinking it! They didn’t know they were being poisoned…and a large percentage of them eventually died of cancer as a result.
Today, America is living in a cultural “Hinkley.” Day after day our hearts and minds are being poisoned by the insidious lies of our culture. Satan has so infiltrated our culture’s worldview that we now find ourselves engaged in a battle of epic proportions…a war for the hearts and minds of our children.
If you doubt this, consider the many cultural battles we are fighting as a result of our culture’s worldview. From the normalization of abortion…to the embracing of the homosexual lifestyle…to the ever-decreasing importance placed on traditional marriage…to rampant sexualized content in media…our culture has succumbed to the lies of the Evil One.
And the lives of our children and grandchildren…the next generation…are at stake.
So how do we fight this battle? How do we arm ourselves? I believe there are two critical armaments.
First, we must understand that this is a battle for our minds…our children’s minds. Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 make this abundantly clear:

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every (C)lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (NASB)

The battle you and I are fighting today is unseen. It is a battle for the mind. And you and I must arm ourselves and our children to think biblically…to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. How do you capture your every thought? How can you let Jesus rule over your mind when so many other forces want control over it? And how can you help your children in that same quest?
Now be prepared, you may not like what I have to say because it’s not always easy to hear. But if you really do want the victory…if you really want a new life, a new joy, a new freedom, a new belief…you must memorize Scripture.
And you need to help your children do the same.
You must intentionally replace the poisonous mantras of our culture that seep into our minds and the minds of our children with the powerful truth of God’s Word.
Memorizing Scripture is as simple as writing a verse on a card and reading it from time to time throughout your day…and meditating on its truth. This is something you can help your children do even at a young age.
Each of us must recognize the garbage that has seeped into our minds from the waste dump of our culture. And each of us must combat the Evil One by putting the words of God in our minds and on our hearts

GodsView : The Distinguishing Mark of Christianity!

GodsView : The Distinguishing Mark of Christianity!: Jesus is Lord ( 1 Corinthians 12:3 ) is the distinguishing article of Christianity and marks the essential confession of faith ( Romans 1...

GodsView : The Distinguishing Mark of Christianity!

GodsView : The Distinguishing Mark of Christianity!: Jesus is Lord ( 1 Corinthians 12:3 ) is the distinguishing article of Christianity and marks the essential confession of faith ( Romans 1...

The Distinguishing Mark of Christianity!

Jesus is Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3) is the distinguishing article of Christianity and marks the essential confession of faith (Romans 10:9). Jesus proclaimed it to His disciples, His enemies, and His casual inquirers alike — and He refused to tone down its implications.
The expression "Lord" (kurios) speaks of ownership, while "Master/Lord" (despotes) denotes an unquestionable right to command (John 13:13; Jude 4). Both words describe a master with absolute dominion over someone else. That explains Jesus' incredulity at the practice of those who paid homage to Him with their lips but not with their lives: "Why do you call Me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?" (Luke 6:46).
Doulos frequently describes what it means to be a true Christian: "He who was called while free, is Christ's slave [doulos]. You were bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 7:22-23). It describes the lowest, abject bond slave; his service is not a matter of choice.

A Misleading Translation
Unfortunately, readers of the English Bible have long been shielded from the full force of doulos because of an ages-old tendency to translate it as "servant" or "bond-servant." This tendency is regrettable, since service and slavery are not the same thing. "No one can be a slave to two masters" (Matthew 6:24) makes better sense than "No one can serve two masters." An employee with two jobs could indeed serve two masters; but a slave could not. Scripture repeatedly calls Christians "slaves" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), purchased for God (Revelation 5:9). This is the very essence of what it means to be a Christian (Romans 14:7-9).

A Revolting Concept
Not only is slave a word loaded with negative connotations, but our generation is also fixated on the concepts of freedom, fulfillment, and autonomy. Saving faith and Christian discipleship have been reduced to the cliché "a personal relationship with Jesus." It's hard to imagine a more disastrous twisting of what it means to be a Christian. Many people (including Judas and Satan) had some kind of "personal relationship" with Jesus during His earthly ministry without submitting to Him as Lord. But His only true friends were those who did what He said (John 15:14).

A Difficult Truth
Slavery to Christ is not a minor or secondary feature of true discipleship. It is exactly how Jesus Himself defined the "personal relationship" He must have with every true follower (John 12:26; 15:20). In fact, the fundamental aspects of slavery are the very features of redemption. We are chosen (Ephesians 1:4-5; 1 Peter 1:2; 2:9); bought (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23); owned (Romans 14:7-9; 1 Corinthians 6:19); subject to His will and control (Acts 5:29; Philippians 2:5-8); called to account (Romans 14:12); evaluated (2 Corinthians 5:10); and either chastened or rewarded by Him (1 Corinthians 3:14; Hebrews 12:5-11). Those are all essential components of slavery.

A Divine Introduction
Jesus introduced the NT slave metaphor. He frequently drew a direct connection between slavery and discipleship (Matthew 10:24-25). His words reflect what every true disciple should hope to hear at the end of life: "Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master" (Matthew 25:21).
Jesus always described true discipleship in such terms, with no effort to adjust the message to make it sound appealing to worldly-minded sinners. He never muted what it would cost to follow Him. Would-be disciples who tried to dictate different terms were always turned away (Luke 9:59-62).

Slaves Who Are Friends
Perhaps the key passage on Jesus' demand for implicit obedience is one already alluded to — John 15:14-15: "You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you."
The fundamental principle here is obedience. Jesus was not suggesting that His favor could be earned through service. Rather, He was saying that obedience is a singular proof that someone is His friend. Implicit obedience to His commandments is the natural fruit of genuine love for Him - the telltale mark of authentic, saving faith.
Why, then, does He say, "No longer do I call you slaves…I have called you friends" (v. 15)? Is He expressly telling them their relationship with Him was now a familiar, personal camaraderie between colleagues, rather than a master-slave relationship governed by authority and submission?
Not at all. The apostles were still His slaves, because that's precisely what they were. He was simply saying they were His friends as well as His slaves. "The slave," He explains, "does not know what his master is doing." A slave isn't owed any explanation or rationale. But Jesus had kept nothing secret from His disciples: "all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you" (v. 15). They were therefore much more than mere slaves to Him. They were His friends as well, privy to His thoughts and purposes (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:16).

Slavery and True Liberty
So understood correctly, the gospel is an invitation to slavery. On the one hand, the gospel is a proclamation of freedom to sin's captives and liberty to people who are broken by the bondage of sin's power over them. On the other hand, it is a summons to a whole different kind of slavery: "Having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness" (Romans 6:18; cf. 1 Peter 2:16).
Both sides of the equation are vital. There is a glorious freedom in being the slaves of Christ (John 8:36), but it means the end of human autonomy for the true follower of Christ. In other words, everyone serves some master. We are all enslaved in one way or the other (Romans 6:16-21).
There is no legitimate way to adjust the message in order to make it sound appealing to people who admire Jesus but aren't prepared to serve Him. Jesus didn't seek admirers; He was calling followers — not casual followers, but slaves. Remove that spirit of submission, and the most profound kind of "admiration" for Christ is a spiritual fraud that has nothing to do with true faith.