A Warning To The Church In America
By Dr. Scott Lively, President, Defend the Family
International
You may have heard of me. I am the pastor being sued in U.S. Federal
Court for “Crimes Against Humanity” for preaching against homosexuality in
Uganda. But I am really a “Canary in the Coal Mine,” with a warning for every
Bible-believing Christian in our land, especially pastors and ministry leaders.
This collapse of the Christian infrastructure of
America is, in my opinion, already in progress and irreversible because it is
part of God‘s judgment. The “end-times” revival which many, including myself, expect
and eagerly await will not stop this collapse, but will in fact hasten it by
strengthening the remnant in their obedience to Christ while hardening the
world (and fallen Christians) against us. The crisis will be so pervasive that
no-one will be spared the choice of embracing or rejecting Biblical truth on
this topic. The whole purpose of this trial is to test the strength of believers to
endure greater troubles ahead.
We shouldn’t be surprised that God is using this issue
as our test. A
careful examination of His Word shows that open homosexuality in the Bible is
symbolic of extreme rebellion against God leading to judgment. Thus, unique
in all of scripture, Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by fire and brimstone as
the examplar of God’s wrath (2 Peter 2:6, Jude 1:7, Genesis 19:1-12), male on
male sodomy is listed as the most heinous sin on the short list of sins which
caused the land to “vomit out” the Canaanites from the territory promised to
Abraham (Leviticus 18:1-30, esp. 22), and both male and female homosexuality
are together identified as the examplar of the depraved or “reprobate” mind
that defines the age of apostasy leading to Christ‘s return (Romans 1:18-32, 2
Timothy 3:1-5).
Even 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, the “ex-gay” passage that
proves that healed and recovered homosexuals were a part of the church from its
earliest days, warns that unrepentant homosexuals “will not enter the Kingdom
of Heaven.” There is no room, even when we emphasize compassion for homosexual
sufferers, to condone homosexual relationships or worse, to claim that
homosexuality is blessed by God as a normal, intended variant of human sexuality.
My life’s work has been to stand against the
(increasingly successful) assault of the homosexual movement on Biblical values
in our society and around the world. My nearly 25 years of full time, front lines ministry
on this battlefield has given me special insights and understanding of this
issue. My refusal to be silenced by a long series of increasingly more
dishonest and aggressive attacks on my work and reputation has familiarized me
both with persecution and with the tactical “playbook” of the “gay” movement. I
am thus issuing my warning to the church not so much as a prophesy (though it
is confirmed in my spirit), but as the natural conclusion of deductive
reasoning by a front-lines analyst with a unique vantage-point. In support of
that conclusion, I offer the following observations.
First, on June 28, 1969 the goal of the American homosexual movement
shifted from tolerance (the right to be left alone) to control (the complete
restructuring of society in its own image, with “gays“ or their surrogates in
all seats of power). Its tactics shifted from civil dialogue to implacable militancy.
That was the date of the Stonewall Riot in New York City, today celebrated
annually as “Gay Pride Day.” Logically, this movement cannot achieve its goal
without replacing the Biblical social ethic of marriage-based heterosexual
monogamy and the natural family with its own philosophy of unlimited “sexual
freedom” (which is in reality moral anarchy). In short, the true and
necessary goal of the “gay” movement is the defeat of Christianity.
Second, in the space of just forty years homosexual
militants have defeated every secular institution in their path in the United
States. The
first to fall was the American Psychiatric Association in 1973, when “gay”
activists, using Brownshirt tactics of disruption and intimidation, forced the
APA to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in its Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual IV. The most recent and final secular institution to
fall was the Boy Scouts of America in 2013 when the BSA leadership voted to
allow openly self-declared homosexual boys into the organization. The
next-to-last entity to fall was the U. S. military. In both
cases, the first news following the capitulation was of uniformed members of
each organization marching triumphantly in “Gay Pride” parades.
Third, the “gays” have always intended to attack the
church in the final stage of their conquest of our culture. As early as 1987 they
openly admitted this plan in an article called The Overhauling of Straight
America, which later became the basis for the book After the Ball, which has
ever since been their primary strategic blueprint. They wrote:
When
conservative churches condemn gays…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
interpretations of biblical teachings, and exposing hatred and inconsistency.
Second, we can undermine the moral authority of homophobic churches by
portraying them as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times and
with the latest findings of psychology. Against the mighty pull of
institutional Religion one must set the mightier draw of Science & Public
Opinion (the shield and sword of that accursed "secular humanism").
Such an unholy alliance has worked well against churches before, on such topics
as divorce and abortion. …. At a later stage…it will be time to get tough with
remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be vilified. (Guide Magazine, November 1987)
Frankly, even at this late stage of the game, much of
the church seems to be still asleep or in denial about the state of our
culture. Even
many conservative Christian leaders who are awake to the seriousness of the
crisis are only dimly aware that the culture war at its foundation is and has
always been a winner-take-all contest between Christians and homosexual
activists. Now that the last secular barriers to the “gay” agenda have been
crushed, all of their weapons and all of their warriors will be focused on the
last remaining obstacle to their power, the Christian church.
What comes next is a full-on homosexual blitzkrieg
against “homophobia” and “hatred” in the church, and a concurrent culture-wide
advocacy of “gay theology.” Gone, of course, will be all concern for the “separation of
church and state” as the secular powers work hand-in-hand with the “gays” to
shame and “correct” the Bible-believing church, using Scripture that has been
deviously twisted to fit their goals. The only defense will be Biblical
literacy backed unshakable faith. To be blunt, we will be all be
vilified and only the strong of faith will endure.
To be sure, one’s view of homosexuality is not
necessarily a salvation issue, but one’s ability to cling to Christ through
persecution may well be. Will a person too spiritually weak or cowardly to defend
Biblical truth on such a clear and fundamental teaching be strong enough to
resist the Mark of the Beast? During a time of testing such as we are entering,
the Prophet Jeremiah put it this way: “If you have run with footmen and they
have tired you out, Then how can you compete with horses? If you fall
down in a land of peace, How will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?”
It might not be noticeable now, but their campaign has
been launched and will steadily increase in breadth, depth and persuasiveness.
Remnant, be prepared, and share this warning.
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