When Perversion Goes Mainstream

FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS
volume 22, number 24, June 15, 2023

“Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away from Him.” -Isaiah 1:4.

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, ten New York City policemen raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, a place frequented by homosexuals. Most states at the time, including New York, had sodomy laws outlawing homosexual behavior. Since homosexuality was unlawful, the police were there to disperse the people from the bar. Things got out of hand and people resisted arrest. More and more homosexuals and others from Greenwich Village and surrounding parts of the city gathered the next several nights to protest so called discrimination against homosexuals. Thus was born the current homosexual rights movement. On June 28, 1970, one year after the Stonewall riots, gay pride marches were held in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. Of course the Gay Pride Movement is now ubiquitous and cities, towns, churches, businesses, and corporations have “bought into” the hype, fully embracing what progressives call inclusion, equity, and diversity. 

Just last week in Southern California a brawl broke out during a meeting of the Glendale Unified School Board. The school board was reconsidering their “Pride” curriculum and LBGTQ+ issues, one of which was whether or not young children should be given the right to use whatever pronoun they choose to identify themselves. On one side of the brawl were LBGTQ+ activists and Antifa members who were stirring up trouble by attacking citizens of Glendale; and on the other hand there was a number of Armenian parents who do not want their children indoctrinated with such filth. At the very least the Armenian people (who fled to Glendale after the 1915 genocide by the Ottoman Empire where as many as one million people were murdered) are largely nominal Christians who possess very strong family values. These parents were upset by the progressive, godless, atheistic effort to indoctrinate their children. The parents were having none of it. In the meantime, my friend Phillip George, PCA pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church, Glendale, was present at the altercation and spoke on behalf of the Armenian parents. 

You do not need more evidence. You read the news. You see what is happening in our nation. Perversion has gone mainstream. This begs a question. Why is this so? One could approach this question from a political perspective, noting that the left is fully on the side of this perversion, while many on the right are merely paying lip service in their opposition to it. One could study the issue of this perversion from a cultural or psychological position, asking what cultural trends have caused this phenomenon? Or what is in this perversion which draws people to adopt behavior and attitudes, which only a short time ago, were considered abnormal, even harmful to one’s mental health?

In answering such questions our tendency is to look at the symptoms rather than the root problem. To put it another way, we tend to focus on sins rather than sin. To be sure, sins, any lack of conformity to the law of God, are rampant and very much plague us daily. Unforgiven sins lead people to hell and judgment. Sins are things like failure to honor one’s parents, committing adultery, fornication, or homosexuality, lying, stealing, and bearing false witness. We, however, must go deeper to diagnose the problem. An incorrect diagnosis may lead to an incorrect remedy which could prove fatal. 

Okay, what then, is the root problem? What is the proper diagnosis? Isaiah 1:2-4 gives us the answer. The prophet says that God’s people have revolted against Him. They have rebelled, choosing to go their own way. He illustrates their folly saying, “An ox knows its owner, and a donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know, My people do not understand.” Isaiah is astonished, amazed, grieved, horrified at their willful rebellion. He says, “Alas, sinful nation.” He then outlines their sins. They are weighed down with iniquity and perversion. Their sins are generational, handed down from their parents and grandparents, “the offspring of evildoers.” They are sons who act “corruptly.” The word corruption carries with it the idea of putrefaction, decay, stench, rot, like the scene a week after a military battle where the dead are still lying in the field. 

These are all sins and the results of sin, but then Isaiah tells us the reason for Israel’s disobedience to God’s law. He says, “They have abandoned the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away from Him.” At least one hundred years earlier they had jettisoned the true and living God for the idols of Baal and Asherah (1 Kings 17,18). The Apostle Paul makes the same point in Romans 1:21-32. “Even though they knew God they did not honor Him as God. . . professing to be wise they became fools. . . they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, birds, four footed animals, and crawling creatures.”

So perversion has gone mainstream because people have rejected the God of the Bible. We have a theological problem. And this rejection has led to the three-fold declension into untold depravity. First, “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. . . exchanged the truth of God for a lie. . .worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”   

Secondly, God has given our nation over to homosexuality. Make no mistake about it, this rampant perversion is the judgment of God on our nation and church which has turned from Him. “God gave them over to degrading passions. . . women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. . . men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts, receiving. . . the due penalty of their error.” 

And thirdly, since they have rejected God and no longer seek Him, in judgment He has given our nation over largely to a reprobate or depraved mind. What else could possibly explain the mindless, destructive folly which seems to hang like a mist over our nation, and even some church denominations (Roman Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian)—wickedness, greed, evil, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, arrogance, pride, inventing evil, disobeying parents, an absence of understanding, a failure to be trustworthy. . . not only gladly engaging in all this wickedness but encouraging others to the same.

Now that we know the root cause, we can then address the problem. It always comes down to the preachers, both in the pulpits and in the streets, as well as all believers as they are equipped and able. We must proclaim the Bible in all its fullness, proclaiming to men everywhere the true nature of the Triune God, the sinfulness of man who is born with a corrupt and wicked heart, the glory of Christ’s death, and the need everywhere for men to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved (Acts 16:31). 
I remember several years ago a woman in our community was converted through one of our churches. She was married to a Muslim man who over the years continued, as far as I know, to live in rejection of the only means of his salvation. Recently this Muslim man became very ill. A chaplain at the hospital befriended him and before this Muslim man died, he asked the chaplain to conduct his funeral. At the funeral the chaplain said, “God has many names and one of them is Allah.” The clear message from the chaplain is that there are many way to God which, of course, is a lie from hell. This chaplain is a false prophet and he faces the judgment of God if he fails to repent and call on the name of the Lord to save him.

Are you in any way watering down the gospel message? Do you shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God when you are around people whom you perceive as sophisticated or of higher status that you? Are you a Bible man or woman? What is your authority for life and death? Are you embarrassed by the fact that Jesus is the only way to God? May it never be said of any of us that we compromised the plain teaching of Scripture. “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved,” (Acts 4:12).