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The War of the Wills within Us

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The War of the Wills within Us

James R. Aist

Introduction

“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” (Romans 7:21-23). Paul is speaking here of various “laws” at work within him (and, by extension, within us). And, like us, he senses that there are opposing forces within us that are at war against each other. How can we make sense out of these inner struggles, and how can we turn a better understanding of them to our advantage as we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling”? 

The Wills within Us

Perhaps it would help if we first try to identify and define the different “laws” at work within us. To do this, I find it useful to think of them as “wills” instead of “laws.” If we subscribe to the idea of the triune nature of man as spirit, soul (mind, will and emotions) and body, then we can identify three different wills of man by re-examining the structure of Romans 7:22-23 in a slightly different way, as follows: For in my inner being I delight in God’s law (will of my spirit); but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind (will of my soul) and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me (will of my body). This analysis suggests that everyone is born with three wills: the supernatural will of the human spirit, the natural will of the human soul and the natural will of the human body. Each of these wills is able to influence what we do and don’t do in life (i.e., our behavior), and we can easily get a sense that they are often at war with each other when we are tempted to do something that goes against our “morals” or “ethics”, regardless of how we may have come by them. If this is, indeed, the “order of command” in a person — spirit commands soul commands body — then, for example, the will of the body may be to get drunk on wine because it feels good, the will of the soul may not think it is a good idea to get drunk because it is harmful to your health, and the will of the spirit is left to mediate between these warring wills and make the final decision. Inevitably, one of the warring wills will lose out.

Enter Even More Wills!

Unfortunately, because of the fall of man, our natural inclination is to do evil all the time (Genesis 6:5); we are born with a fallen conscience and are at enmity with God (James 4:4). But God has come up with a remedy for this problem: we call it “salvation.” In the process of being “born again”, we receive a new human spirit from God (click HERE), a spirit that is morally pure, delights in the things of God and is not at enmity with Him. But wait, it doesn’t stop there. We also receive the Holy Spirit of God (Acts 2:38) who takes up residence within our new human spirit and has His own will. Now we have not three, but four, wills within us: the supernatural Holy Spirit of God, the supernatural will of our new human spirit, the natural will of the human soul and the natural will of the human body. And the order of command now becomes Holy Spirit commands human spirit commands soul commands body. This is, of course, the way God intends for it to work, and to the extent that we are obedient to the Holy Spirit within us, it does so. But, unfortunately, the “old man” doesn’t give up easily, and so we have to go through a process of “sanctification” to align our wills with the will of the Holy Spirit living within us. Thankfully, it is the work of the Holy Spirit living in us to sanctify us (2 Thessalonians 2:13) and to “cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Summary

“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,  for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:13)

(For more articles on BIBLICAL TEACHINGS, click HERE)

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The Gay Agenda’s “Planned, Psychological Attack” on Straight America

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The Gay Agenda’s “Planned, Psychological Attack” on Straight America

James R. Aist

 “.. .by conversion [toward public acceptance of homosexuality] we mean… 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.”  “…our effect is achieved without reference to facts, logic, or proof.” – Kirk & Madsen, After the Ball, 1989, page 153.

Introduction

In an earlier article, I presented a partial list of action points of the “Gay Agenda” (Click HERE), without going into much detail about any one of them. In the present article, I draw your attention to a couple of publications in the late 1980s that have provided a blueprint for the homosexual movement to the present day, a plan of action for a massive and unrelenting propaganda campaign to win over the hearts and minds of the heterosexual majority. The success of the homosexual movement depends absolutely on the successful execution of this plan, because the entire gay-lesbian population is only about 1.5% of the general population and could not possibly wield much power and influence by itself. If you have been paying any attention at all to what has been going on around you regarding the issues of homosexuality, then you will recognize readily the relentless following of this plan by gay activists in America and elsewhere.

Why would I bother to put this information together and publish it? Because, I believe that straight Americans, and in particular, born-again Christians, need to be aware, not only that we are being manipulated, but also how we are being manipulated, by the homosexual movement. With this knowledge, we should be better able to 1) keep ourselves from being negatively influenced or discouraged, and 2) stay the course in our opposition to the homosexual movement.

Before I delve into the substance of this article, I want to make it very clear that I explicitly differentiate between people who have same-sex attractions but do not act on them, people who have same-sex attractions and practice homosexuality, and the “gay agenda” per se. Those are three completely different things, as just because someone is a homosexual person doesn’t necessarily mean that they push the “gay agenda”, and just because someone is pushing the “gay agenda” doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a homosexual person. Thus, when I speak against the “gay agenda”, I am not speaking against any individual as a homosexual person, but against a social movement with which they may have only a fringe association.

The Homosexual Propaganda Campaign

The primary source material for this article is found in two publications, both authored by two gay activists, Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen: 1) A 1987 article entitled “The Overhauling of Straight America” and published in Guide, a homosexual publication, in 1987 (for a synopsis with numerous direct quotes and a link to the article, click HERE); and, 2) a book, entitled “After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s”, published in 1989. This book was so popular among gay activists that it made the New York Times Best Seller List (for an extensive, relevant excerpt from this book, click HERE). Keep in mind that the success of this homosexual propaganda campaign requires the eager cooperation of our overwhelmingly liberal media, in order to win over the heterosexual majority in America to their cause. The bulk of this information is presented here “in the authors’ own words”, via direct quotes.

This “planned, psychological attack” involves six distinct strategies, which can be summarized as follows:

Desensitization: Talking about Gays and Gayness as Loudly and as Often as Possible

And I quote: “To desensitize the public is to help it view homosexuality with indifference instead of keen emotion. Desensitization aims at lowering the intensity of antigay emotional reactions to a level approximating sheer indifference. The principle behind this advice is simple. Almost any behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it at close quarters and among your acquaintances. The acceptability of the new behavior will ultimately hinge on the number of one’s fellows doing it or accepting it. The way to benumb raw sensibilities about homosexuality is to have a lot of people talk a great deal about the subject in a neutral or supportive way. The masses should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex should be downplayed and gay rights should be reduced to an abstract social question as much as possible. Novelties cease to be novel if they just stick around long enough; they also cease to activate alerting mechanisms. You’ll have noted this in your own life: if you hear a protracted, earsplitting mechanical screech, you’ll either be so alarmed, or so annoyed, that you’ll be forced to take action; if you hear a softer–though, perhaps, nonetheless annoying–sound, like the ticking of a clock, and can’t shut it off, you will, eventually, shut it out, and may cease to hear it altogether. Apply this to the problem of homohatred. If gays present themselves– or allow themselves to be presented–as overwhelmingly different and threatening, they will put straights on a triple-red alert, driving them to overt acts of political oppression or physical violence. If, however, gays can live alongside straights, visibly but as inoffensively as possible, they will arouse a low-grade alert only, which, though annoying to straights, will eventually diminish. Straights will be desensitized.”

And I quote: “While public opinion is one primary source of mainstream values, religious authority is the other. When conservative churches condemn gays, there are only two things we can do to confound the homophobia of true believers. First we can use talk to muddy the moral waters. This means publicizing support for gays by more moderate churches, raising theological objections of our own about conservative interpretation of Biblical teaching and exposing hatred and inconsistency. We can undermine the moral authority of homophobic churches by portraying them as antiquated and backwards, badly out of step with the times and with the latest findings of psychology.”

Another popular strategy used to undermine the moral authority of Christian churches is to repeatedly point out the moral failings of churches and their leaders. Unfortunately, there are more than enough of such moral failings to keep the gay activists supplied with fresh ammunition.

Jamming: Creating an “Incompatible Emotional Response”

And I quote: “In Jamming, the target is shown a bigot being rejected by his crowd for his prejudice against gays. The ‘incompatible emotional response’ is directed primarily against the emotional rewards of prejudicial solidarity. All normal people feel shame when they perceive that they are not thinking, feeling, or acting like one of the pack. The trick is to get the bigot into the position of feeling a conflicting twinge of shame, along with his reward, whenever his homohatred surfaces, so that his reward will be diluted or spoiled. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, all making use of repeated exposure to pictorial images or verbal statements that are incompatible with his self-image as a well-liked person, one who fits in with the rest of the crowd. Thus, propagandistic advertisement can depict homophobic and homohating bigots being criticized, hated, shunned. It can depict gays experiencing horrific suffering as the direct result of homohatred–suffering of which even most bigots would be ashamed to be the cause. It can, in short, link homohating bigotry with all sorts of attributes the bigot would be ashamed to possess, and with social consequences he would find unpleasant and scary. The attack, therefore, is on self-image and on the pleasure in hating. Remember, a bigot seeks approval and liking from ‘his crowd.’ When he sees someone like himself being disapproved of and disliked by ordinary Joes, he will feel just what they feel –and transfer it to himself. This wrinkle effectively elicits shame and doubt, Jamming any pleasure he might normally feel. Our effect is achieved without reference to facts, logic, or proof.”

Examples of “Jamming” would include: 1) the repeated use of name-calling, e.g., “bigot”, “liar”, “fundie”, “bible-thumper” and “homophobe” to create a feeling of shame; and 2) the repeated use of potentially disturbing accusations, e.g., “you are part of an ever-dwindling minority”, “more and more churches are supporting gay rights”, “you’re losing” and “all of the mental health and medical associations say that there is nothing wrong or bad about being gay”, all of which are designed to make the opposition – such as born-again Christians — feel isolated, marginalized and out of the mainstream of society; 3) derogatory references to God as “your mythical sky fairy” and to His Word as the “buy-bull”; and 4) witness this trail of vitriolic comments from a single commenter concerning just one article re. homosexuality published on a Christian website…

  • “You have no right to interfere with the secular political culture of this country.”
  • “You can believe this nonsense all you like but do it behind closed doors and in the privacy of your own homes and churches.”
  • “I don’t want to hear another word about your weird cultish beliefs in the streets and public squares.”
  • “All religious evangelism is assault.”
  • “Americans do not share your views anymore.”
  • “You are a reactionary post-modern convulsion.”

Portray Gays as Victims, Not as Aggressive Challengers

And I quote: “Gays must be cast as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role of protector. If gays are presented, instead, as a strong and prideful tribe promoting a rigidly nonconformist and deviant lifestyle, they are more likely to be seen as a public menace that justifies resistance and oppression. For that reason, we must forego the temptation to strut our ‘gay pride’ publicly when it conflicts with the Gay Victim image. A media campaign to promote the Gay Victim image should make use of symbols which reduce the mainstream’s sense of threat, which lower its guard, and which enhance the plausibility of victimization. In practical terms, this means that sympathetic figures of nice young people, old people, and attractive women would be featured.”

And I quote:“The mainstream should be told that gays are victims of fate, in the sense that most never had a choice to accept or reject their sexual preference. The message must read: ‘As far as gays can tell, they were born gay, just as you were born heterosexual or white or black or bright or athletic. They never made a choice, and are not morally blameworthy. What they do isn’t willfully contrary – it’s only natural for them. This twist of fate could as easily have happened to you! Straight viewers must be able to identify with gays as victims. To this end, the persons featured in the public campaign should be decent and upright, appealing and admirable by straight standards, completely unexceptionable in appearance.”

Witness here the bombardment of our visual media – TV, movies, comics, theater — with homosexual characters looking entirely normal and being fully approved and admired by heterosexual characters, and the continuing (bogus) claims that homosexuals are “born Gay.”

Give Heterosexual Protectors a Just Cause

And I quote: “Our campaign should not demand direct support for homosexual practices, but should instead take anti-discrimination as its theme. The right to free speech, freedom of beliefs, freedom of association, due process and equal protection of laws–these should be the concerns brought to mind by our campaign. It is especially important for the gay movement to hitch its cause to accepted standards of law and justice because its straight supporters must have at hand a cogent reply to the moral arguments of its enemies. The homophobes clothe their emotional revulsion in the daunting robes of religious dogma, so defenders of gay rights must be ready to counter dogma with principle.”

Familiar examples would include couching “gay marriage” in terms of “civil rights”, insisting on adoption “rights” for homosexual couples and demanding that openly gay boys and teens be welcomed into the Boy Scouts of America because “it’s not their fault” that they like boys. All of these issues are being promoted in the name of “equality”, and mainstream America is buying into it.

Conversion: Make Gays Look Good to the Public

And I quote: “In order to offset the increasingly bad press that these times have brought to homosexual men and women, the campaign should paint gays as superior pillars of society: ‘Did you know that this Great Man (or Woman) was ____?’ We are safest, in the long run, if we can actually make them like us. Conversion aims at just this. We mean 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. In Conversion, the bigot, who holds a very negative stereotypic picture, is repeatedly exposed to literal picture/label pairs, in magazines, and on billboards and TV, of gay- explicitly labeled as such!–who not only don’t look like his picture of a homosexual, but are carefully selected to look either like the bigot and his friends, or like any one of his other stereotypes of all-right guys– the kind of people he already likes and admires. The image must be that of an icon of normality.”

Witness here the eagerness of the liberal press to publicize the gayness of popular celebrities, whether they are music stars, movie stars, TV stars, sports stars, politicians, etc. This tactic is designed to create an internal conflict within the fan: “Do I dislike the celebrity because of his/her homosexuality, or do I accept his/her homosexuality and continue to like the celebrity?” The average, uninformed or misinformed American is likely to choose the latter.

And I quote: “The objection will be raised that we are exchanging one false stereotype for another equally false; that our ads are lies; that that is not how all gays actually look; that gays know it, and bigots know it. Yes, of course–we know it, too. But it makes no difference that the ads are lies; not to us, because we’re using them to ethically good effect. In Conversion, the target is shown his crowd actually associating with gays in good fellowship. Once again, it’s very difficult for the average person, who, by nature and training, almost invariably feels what he sees his fellows feeling, not to respond in this knee-jerk fashion to a sufficiently calculated advertisement.”

Witness here the bombardment of our mainstream, liberal media – TV, movies, magazines, newspapers, comics, theater, billboards and the internet — with homosexual characters looking entirely normal and being fully approved and admired by heterosexual characters and/oror praised through rhetoric.

Make the Anti-gay Victimizers Look Bad

And I quote: “At a later stage of the media campaign for gay rights it will be time to get tough with remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be vilified. Our goal here is twofold. First, we seek to replace the mainstream’s self-righteous pride about its homophobia with shame and guilt. Second, we intend to make the antigays look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from such types. The public should be shown images of ranting homophobes whose secondary traits and beliefs disgust middle America. These images might include: the Ku Klux Klan demanding that gays be burned alive or castrated; bigoted southern ministers drooling with hysterical hatred to a degree that looks both comical and deranged; a tour of Nazi concentration camps where homosexuals were tortured and gassed.

A common tactic used nowadays to vilify born-again Christians is to claim that the Bible approves of slavery, polygamy, incest, etc., in order to portray Christians as rank “cherry picking” hypocrites for selectively condemning the practice of homosexuality. Another common tactic is “jamming”, as described above, where born-again Christians, in particular, are constantly subjected to name-calling, e.g., “bigot”, “liar”, “fundie”, “bible-thumper” and “homophobe.” And, of course, this strategy depends entirely upon the eager cooperation of our mainstream, liberal media – TV, movies, magazines, newspapers, comics, theater, billboards and the internet. And, as you will see below, even Christian online magazines are joining in.

The Legacy Lives On

Present day gay activists vehemently deny both any knowledge of Kirk and Madsen and the influence of Kirk and Madsen on the strategies of today’s homosexual movement. They do this because they don’t want the dark and sinister underbelly of the homosexual movement to be exposed to the heterosexual majority. That would hinder their goal of winning the hearts and minds of the heterosexual majority to their agenda. But much of what they are actually doing to further their “gay agenda” is proof positive that they are both the progeny and the legacy of these two pioneers of the homosexual movement. I cited many present day, and all too familiar, examples of this in the sections above. The actions and the words of gay activists themselves demonstrate that the legacy of Kirk and Madsen does, in fact, live on.

The Use of Christian Websites to Attack Born-again Christians

I have personally investigated more than a dozen Christian online magazines that allow readers to comment on their feature articles, and almost every one of them permits gay activists to freely use these very same psychological attacks, via their Comments, against the born-again Christians who are among their readers and commenters.  These publications are free to filter comments any way they want to; the First Amendment does not prohibit them from doing so. Now, I don’t know if the editors of these magazines are simply not aware that the homosexual movement is using them in this way – as a Trojan Horse, in effect —  to attack born-again Christians; or if, perhaps, they already know this, but have their reasons to permit it anyway. But I do know this: everything is done for a reason, but not everything that is done has an excuse. And I do know that born-again Christians should be able to read Comments on Christian magazine websites without being subjected to psychological attacks by gay activists.

The Antidotes

The Bible provides effective antidotes to help born-again Christians combat these psychological attacks. Jesus experienced similar psychological attacks and said: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12); “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” (John 15:19); and “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.  My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” (John 17:14-15). And Hebrews 12:2-3 reminds us that Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, and then instructs us to consider Him (Jesus) who endured such opposition from sinners, so that we will not grow weary and lose heart. 

Summary

In the late 1980s, two homosexual activists, Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, published an article and a book detailing a planned, psychological attack on the straight opponents of the homosexual movement, especially targeting their strongest opponents…born-again Christians. These publications rapidly became the main sources of strategic planning employed by homosexual activists to win over the hearts and minds of the heterosexual majority to their cause. Without the support of the heterosexual majority, Kirk and Madsen knew that the homosexual movement would be doomed to failure, because homosexuals make up only about 1.5% of the general population. These strategies involved a massive and ongoing propaganda campaign, fueled by the liberal media, that called for the following strategies: talking positively about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible, while keeping silent about the repulsive details of homosexual sex; creating an “Incompatible Emotional Response” in their opponents (called “Jamming”); portraying gays as victims, not as the aggressive challengers that they are; giving heterosexual protectors a just cause by couching their issues in terms of “rights” and “justice”; making gays look good by parading positive images of them before the public, using the liberal media to get their message out; and making the anti-gay victimizers look bad by comparing them to the worst elements of society. To them, it makes no difference that they are using lies to achieve their ends; they feel justified in doing so because, in their minds, they are using the lies to create an ethically good effect. These strategies constitute a large and essential component of the overall “gay agenda.” Present day gay activists vehemently deny both any knowledge of Kirk and Madsen and the influence of Kirk and Madsen on the strategies of today’s homosexual movement, but the actions and the words of gay activists themselves demonstrate that the legacy of Kirk and Madsen does, in fact, live on. Even Christian websites allow themselves to be used by the homosexual movement to carry out these psychological attacks against born-again Christians! Fortunately, the Bible has effective antidotes that born-again Christians can use to combat this insidious psychological assault.

(For more articles on HOMOSEXUALITY, click HERE)

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The Timer Fuse (Or, Why did I Even DO that?)

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The Timer Fuse (Or, Why did I Even DO that?)

James R. Aist

This true story took place when I was about 12 years old and living in Evening Shade, a small town in rural, north-central Arkansas. At that time, Evening shade had a population of 315, so everybody knew almost everyone else in town, and most everyone knew that Daddy was the minister at the local Methodist Church. That meant that I was trying very hard to stay out of trouble, so as not to embarrass Daddy and bring scandal down on the preacher’s family. Not to mention the fact, of course, that I didn’t want to embarrass myself; I was quite self-conscious.

Back then, at least in Arkansas, we had three full months of summer vacation from school. That was plenty of time to get bored and feel driven to do something interesting, or even exciting. Fireworks were legal, and they helped liven things up, especially in July. I had picked up a few firecracker tricks from some of my buddies, so one afternoon I reckoned it wouldn’t cause any harm to try to wake up sleepy little Evening Shade and get a giggle or two out of it for myself. Now, the key to this little prank was to make a homemade fuse that would produce a delayed explosion of the firecracker, a “timer fuse” as it were, and then insert one end of the timer fuse into the free end of the fuse of a firecracker. As it turns out, the perfect, convenient raw material for a timer fuse is thin, white, cotton string. When you light the end of the string with a match and then blow out the flame, the string will continue to smolder and burn shorter and shorter, much like a lighted cigarette left sitting in an ashtray. So, I did some test runs to determine how long the string needed to be to give about a two-minute delay, just long enough for me to make my getaway and appear completely innocent if there was an unexpected “incident.”

The action plan was to hide my materials and supplies (firecrackers, string cut to length, and safety matches) in my pockets, mosey innocently down to the center of town (about one block), stop at the big maple tree next to the telephone operator’s house on the left, you know, the tree with a huge hole, about waste high, that was facing the sidewalk. Then, I would turn and face the big hole in the tree, reach in and assemble the “bomb” inside the hole so that no one could see what I was doing, light the timer fuse, turn back toward home and mosey innocently up the hill, waiting to see if anyone would be startled by the “bang” so I could and watch (i.e., be entertained by) their reaction. I was more than a little nervous and apprehensive about this practical joke, because this kind of behavior wasn’t really like me, and because I didn’t want to cause Daddy (and me) any embarrassment should I got caught in the act.

That afternoon the town was especially quiet and almost devoid of traffic and pedestrians, a perfect setting for my plot, or so I thought. Everything went just as planned, and as I walked up the hill, I began feeling rather proud of myself for pulling off such a clever prank. Every so often I would take a quick look back to see if there was someone near or approaching the tree, because if they were too close, they might get hurt. The more I thought about that the more I became filled with the fear of causing an accident. I soon slipped into a panic mode, shaking and sweating and filled with angst (that’s not what we called it back then, but you know what I mean). Then, I began to wish that I had not set this plan in motion at all, and wondering if there was time for me to mosey on back to the tree and abort the mission, leaving no one the wiser. But, alas, I was almost two minutes away from a tree with a lit, two-minute time fuse in it. You do the math.

Suddenly I heard a loud “bang” and looked back to see a small cloud of smoke wafting out of the hole in the tree. Did anyone hear it; did anyone panic; did anyone lose control of their car and strike an innocent bystander? Why did I DO this?! Well, wouldn’t you know it, as it turned out the joke was on me: No one was there, not one pedestrian, not one car and not even one alarmed citizen rushing outside to see what had caused the explosion. Evening Shade really was asleep!

I was at once relieved and disappointed that no one was startled by my escapade. And, I was apparently the only one who even knew that anything unusual had happened on that lazy, summer afternoon in Evening Shade. But, I had managed to entertain myself for a while without embarrassing Daddy, so…mission accomplished.

(For more articles on TRUE TALES, click HERE)

 

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The Sexual Revolution: a Dangerous Delusion

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The Sexual Revolution: a Dangerous Delusion

 James R. Aist

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20)

 Introduction

The primary reason I am writing this article is that I want to add my voice to those who want to minister the truth of God’s Word to a Christian sub-culture that somehow believes it has become acceptable to conform to the sexual morals of an increasingly secular world, as if the God of the Bible has either ceased to exist or has changed His mind about sexual morality. Let’s begin by taking a quick look at the sexual sins that are recorded in the Bible.

Sexual Sins in the Bible

A list of sexual sins mentioned in the Bible would include the following:

adultery – e.g., Exodus 20:14, Deuteronomy 5:18, Matthew 5:27-28, Mark 7:22, 2 Peter 2:13-15

bestiality – e.g., Exodus 22:10, Leviticus 18:23, Leviticus 20:15-16

fornication – e.g., Matthew 15:19, Galatians 5:19, Colossians 3:5

homosexual practice – e.g., Genesis 19:5 with Jude 1:7, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26-27, I Corinthians 6:9-10 and I Timothy 1:10

incest – e.g., Leviticus 18:6-18, Matthew 14:1-4, 1 Corinthians 5:1

rape — e.g., Deuteronomy 22:25, 2 Samuel 13:13-14

This leaves only one biblically approved context for the expression of human sexuality: a marriage between one man and one woman. This may seem unduly restrictive to some, but we have God’s Word on it and He’s not asking for our advice!

Has God Changed His Mind?

Since we know that God is not dead, let’s look and see whether or not He has changed His mind and no longer condemns these sexual sins: “I the Lord do not change.” (Malachi 3:6); “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” (James 1:17); and “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind” (Numbers 23:19). So no, God did not change His mind about sexual sins; He got it right the first time. That’s why, especially where the faithful Christian church is concerned, the so-called “sexual revolution” is really a “sexual delusion.” And it can’t wait to get its hooks into your marriage and your children; it’s a very dangerous and deceptive worldly movement.

Setting It Straight

The modern Christian church, as a whole, has not preached, practiced and taught consistently or strongly enough against sins, including sexual sins. I have no doubt that this tragic reality has had a great deal to do with the increasing acceptance of the worldly version of sexual morality, over against biblical sexual morality, within the church. While it may seem at first blush that the responsibility for this failure should fall squarely on the shoulders of our pastors – there is some truth to that perception – there are two other people groups in the church who must share responsibility: namely, governing boards that will not support teaching and preaching against sin, and parents who are afraid to raise their children “in the knowledge and admonition of the Lord.” Regardless of the reasons given, there is no excuse for the church “winking” at sexual sins. Oh, there’s always a reason for our actions (or inactions), but there’s not always an excuse!

If your congregation is ignorant about sin — all kinds of sin –- and the need for repentance, then they are prime targets for the lies, philosophies and myths of unbelievers. You can rest assured that they are going to be listening to someone’s version of sexual morality, and if they are not hearing the biblical version at church and at home, then they will hear false teachings from unbelieving liberals who can’t wait to win them over to their way of thinking. And don’t be afraid of the outcome if you and your church provide this kind of preaching and teaching. Just be faithful to the word of God, leaving nothing out, and let God take care of the outcome. Jesus said “I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18), not “you will build my church.” Be faithful in this way, and God will be faithful to you! I’m sure of it.

(For more articles on BIBLICAL TEACHINGS, click HERE)