I try to stay away from politics because a political party won’t save us and political stands often splinter the body of Christ.  However, many believers are choosing political values over biblical values.  When we stand before God, and we will, he will not ask us about political affiliation but how faithful we were to his word and how we stood for biblical truth in the face of social pressure.

Adam and Eve compromised the commands of God by coming into agreement with Satan. The devil presents objections to God’s truth that always sound reasonable to an unrenewed mind that is ruled by the flesh.  The flesh wants to submit to no one.  It wants to be in charge or, at least, wants no one else in charge.  The Old Testament says that during the period of the judges, there was no king in Israel and every man did that which was right in in own heart. Remember, these were unregenerated hearts and “no king” meant that they were often not held accountable for their actions.  That is what the flesh wants and that is what Satan peddles. You can be like God and the master of your own destiny.  Do your own thing.  Follow your heart.  Do it your way. Follow your own truth.

I was in China a few years ago ministering to underground church pastors and members.  I was having lunch with a young pastor in Hong Kong and asked him what the condition of the church was in China at that time.  Of course, people were coming to Jesus by the thousands and even hundreds of thousands and most Chinese believers are willing to go to prison or even die for their faith.  He said, however, there was a lot of division among church leaders.  I asked why and he said, “There is just something in every Chinese man that wants to be emperor.”  In other words, there is something even in these church leaders that wants to be in charge and call the shots while being unanswerable to anyone.

We have to guard against that dynamic in each of us.  Paul says in Romans 7, “So I find this law at work: When 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 the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members” (Rom. 7:21-23).  In other words, even among the saved there is still a fallen nature warring against our redeemed nature.

In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul declares, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:2-5).  Because we still have a natural man warring against our spiritual man and because the tempter is frequently whispering lies in our mind, we have thoughts that are not obedient to Christ.  Therefore, we must take those thoughts captive and bring them into alignment with the Word of God. 

The Word is the only unchanging standard in this world.  It is unchanging because 

God us unchanging.  We must stay true to his word without compromise, even though some of the world’s arguments seem to make sense…to our unrenewed mind.  I am still astonished that many churches, Christian schools and universities are buying into the worldly arguments that homosexuality is an accepted lifestyle to Jesus or that abortion for any reason is a godly value.  They are buying into arguments that transgenderism or the effort to do away with gender differences altogether is somehow compassionate and righteous and that those who speak against that cultural view are haters. Scripture says that God made them male and female and no other genders are mentioned.  Churches and educational institutions who adopt cultural views in these areas seem to believe that God needs to be informed by our “science” and “progressive thinking” in these areas.  The Word must inform culture; culture cannot inform the Word. 

We have, perhaps, the most consequential election in the history of the United States coming up.  Ultimately, it will be a decision by the nations to either return to God’s values and standards or to continue to depart from them. We should not be voting on personalities or even our pocket books, but on values.  We must inform ourselves of what God says about the issues at hand and vote for those who best reflect his standards.

Paul is very clear when he writes, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap destruction, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life^” (Gal. 5:6-7).  That is true not only for individuals but also for nations. When November of next year rolls around, we must not listen to the voice of culture or our fallen nature or the voice of the enemy.  We must listen to the voice of God.  The future of this nation depends on it…not just for us but for our children and grandchildren.  

Some of the issues we will need to have an informed biblical view of are going to be abortion, same sex marriage, homosexuality, transgenderism, globalism (a one world government), holding criminals accountable, the state having authority over children rather than their parents, and so forth.  As these political platforms are presented, please find out what God says about the issues.  Remember, at first glance the issue may sound right because our natural man gravitates toward those positions, but determine to represent God rather than the world.  So much depends on us doing so.

But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. 

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance. (Ps. 33:11-12). 

As the emphasis on transgenderism, same sex attraction, and sexual identity continues to grow in America, we need to know what God says about these things so that we know we have firm footing wherever we stand.  Our senior pastor is about to preach on these issues so some of our discussions around his sermons has prompted me to share some of my thoughts in this blog.

The first time gender is mentioned in scripture is in the first chapter of Genesis where we are told, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen.1:27).  

God created two sexes, both of which have been made in his image. In the beginning, before sin shattered our relationship with God and our environment, God made men and women.  If we follow the science (real science) we are told that there are vast differences between men and women – not just physically but also in their hormones, brain chemistry, and so forth. There is a real sense in which men and women complete and compliment each other.  That was God’s plan from the beginning and there is no biblical suggestion that God was ever going to change his mind about his creation, the nature of marriage, or that there are more than  two genders.  A man is to leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they are to become one flesh. Jesus quoted the same scripture in his teachings about God’s intent for marriage.

Now, we have to account for all the views on sexuality, gender confusion, transgenderism and so forth that we see championed around us these days. The confusion around sexual identity was not introduced by God, but by sin when Adam and Eve stepped into Satan’s trap in the Garden and forfeited their authority over the earth.  At the point of their ejection from the Garden, not only did they lose their intimate spiritual connection with God, but became subject to both death and sickness.  The natural realm became subject to decay (Rom. 8:21). Satan took authority over the earth and began immediately to distort God’s creation. 

In my forty years of ministry, I have seen several things that contributed to gender confusion in men and women.  One is trauma.  When a boy or girl is molested at a young age, especially by the same sex, it seems to create questions about the individual’s sexual identity as he or she grows up.  Typically, shame and fear are both attached to the experience. None of that is brought about by God, but by sin and Satan who comes to kill, steal and destroy. 

A second source of gender confusion and, eventually, homosexual relationships can be spiritual.  I have personally ministered to several people (men and women) who were afflicted by a spirit of homosexuality or lesbianism to the degree that they pursued the lifestyle.  In these cases, deliverance set them free from their confusion and their God-given sexual identity was restored.

A third source I have seen is misinformation.  I have also personally ministered to individuals who decided that they must be “gay” because they had developed emotional ties to others of the same sex.  Scripture is clear that both men and women (David & Jonathan / Ruth and Naomi, etc. ) could be extremely close emotionally and relationally without being homosexual. Our culture has put a sexual imprint on every relationship so that we confuse love with sex.  We think that if we love someone, that love must have a sexual expression.  It does not.  Scripture says that David and Jonathan’s souls were knit together, but both were healthy heterosexual men.  One of the young men to whom I have ministered thought he must be gay and, therefore, became homosexually active with a friend although he had no sexual attraction to the other man.  After discovering that he could have deep friendships with men and not be “gay,” he was able to leave the lifestyle.  Solomon said, “There is a friend, who is closer than a brother.”  In our culture, Satan has perverted both sex and friendship.  The church needs to redeem both from a broken culture sl that men and women can love one another without a perverse sexual component.

We must also acknowledge a fourth source of gender confusion.  When the earth was cursed because of sin and became subject to decay, genetic damage and sinful predispositions also became part of the gene pool that gets passed down from generation to generation.  In the same way that birth defects are a side effect of sin and decay in the natural realm, due to genetic distortions that vary from God’s original intent, gender confusion can be experienced in the same way. Research suggests that we can be born with a propensity toward alcoholism or other addictions.  It also suggests that even emotional predispositions such as fear, anger, or depression can be transmitted generationally through genes.  It may also be that gender confusion is passed down through genetic codes. 

Each of these sources of gender confusion arise from the effects of sin on the world.  There is something so holy about our sexuality, that Satan has targeted that part of God’s creation with a vengeance.  Lust, pornography, human sex trafficking, sexual abuse, molestation, incest, transgenderism, and even homosexuality are a distortion of God’s intent for our gender identity and our expression of God-given sexuality. 

The first key to dealing with these issues is to understand that these are not part of God’s plan for his people. We don’t have to demonize those who have been victimized by sin and Satan.  In fact, we should love and have great compassion for who struggle in these areas.  Many of these men and women are truly tormented. Having said that, we cannot enable the pursuit, normalization, or even glorification of these things that depart from God’s intent.

For every sin, God has a solution.  For every wrong path, God has a way back.  Whether truth sets us free, deliverance, emotional healing, physical healing or simply the grace to say “No” to sin, as believers we cannot bow to cultural pressures orchestrated by the enemy to compromise God’s intent when it comes to gender and sexuality.  If we come into agreement with Satan on any of these issues, we empower him in our nation and our own lives. We must have faith for a solution so that every person damaged by sin can be redeemed and walk in a right relationship with the Lord. To do less, is to miss the mark.