Not the cheeriest of headlines, but it should grab our attention. Better yet, it should grieve our hearts and cause us to fall to our knees in repentance. Who is crying out to the Lord God Almighty, to rescue us and our nation from his holy gaze?
What prompts my stark headline? Daily I read story-after-story of moral insanity, of anti-flourishing, of rejecting the God of the Bible for the god of the self. As a grandfather, I fear for the sacrifices our next generation will experience, because of our rejection of God Almighty and His ways.
Today I read a USA Today article about an Ohio Public High School's graduation ceremony, where the commencement speaker had the apparent gall to tell graduates they should read the Bible and align their romantic relationships to God's pattern: men with women and women with men (i.e. heterosexual, no gay marriage).
The outrage was deafening.
Here are the words of one listener, a 2018 graduate of the High School:
When [the speaker] made the comment that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, my jaw dropped to the floor, and I honestly thought I was hearing it wrong. I had to look around and see if other people were having the same reaction that I was, and they were. I felt like crying when I heard some people in the crowd clapping. But I was absolutely outraged and so were my parents and brother. I heard people behind me whispering about how inappropriate the comment was as well.
Chew on her words. Don't they sound like those of an upstanding citizen of Sodom? When I was her age, it would have been inconceivable that anyone at that commencement ceremony would have been outraged by the speaker's comments. How the world has turned upside-down!
Also, note her "argument" to bolster her self-righteous point of view: "I felt like crying." There it is – the sine qua non closing argument of the modern mind – crying, feelings, emotion. Eschewing the effort to think, to reason, to debate ... every moral choice is reduced to a feeling. This is the new way to know truth: "I feel it in my heart." There's no external source of truth, only my individual, inner-gut intuition. I am the arbiter of right and wrong. I am the authority. I am. I am who I am... words formerly reserved for the Creator (Exodus 3:14, John 8:58).
We live in Sodom.
This leads me to ask two questions:
- Can sharing the simple Gospel of Jesus change a nation?
- Who are today's true radicals?
Can Sharing the Simple Gospel Change a Nation?
Of course, on one hand, I believe it can – because the Gospel of Jesus changes the heart of a person, aligning the inner voice to God's voice. And a collection of such changed people can certainly change a society.
However, it's not that simple. I mean, conversion isn't that simple. When one says "Yes" to Jesus and his Gospel message, he can't simply be saying "I like you Jesus and want you in my life." For it to genuinely take hold, he must be saying, "Jesus, you are my new Authority, and your Bible is my only sufficient, powerful authority that I now align my entire life to." You see, that's a whole lot more than simply "inviting Jesus into your heart."
So, while the Gospel message certainly could save America, true conversions are a deeper thing than "praying the prayer." Conversion isn't like joining a club. It's more like being overthrown by a Benevolent Dictator.
Who Are Today's True Radicals?
Which leads to this final question. If the current, woke groupthink on moral issues has a stranglehold on America, I propose that today's true radicals – the genuinely courageous individuals – are not those espousing the woke LGBTQ mantra. No. Rather, they're the ones who have the courage to resist the anti-biblical nonsense being paraded as truth ... the ones willing to stand up and declare, "The Emperor is Not Wearing Any Clothes. He is Buck-Naked."
Care to join me?
Dear Sodom, You are Buck-Naked.