ANOTHER AMERICAN MILESTONE
Yes, America has reached another milestone in the degradation of our nation. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Jason Collins, the 34 year old center for the Washington Wizards basketball team, openly admitted to being a homosexual.
While there are, no doubt, many homosexuals in professional sports, prior to Monday, April 29th, 2013, there were no openly gay athletes playing major professional team sports in America. The Tuesday morning news programs covered the story with great enthusiasm and support with commentators praising the courage of Jason Collins for opening the door for other gay athletes to acknowledge their “sexual orientation. Mr. Collins even got a call from President Barak Obama offering his encouragement and support.
Many God fearing people in our society believe homosexuality to be a sin but are apathetic to the growing homosexual influence in our society, believing it to be no worse than other sinful behavior.
While the Bible does not deem homosexuality to be worse than other sins, homosexuality is a sin that begins in obscurity and always moves toward normalization and acceptance in society.
The embracing of homosexuality is portrayed in the Bible as one of the last phases of degradation as a society becomes so wicked that God will no longer tolerate its existence. Consider the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), the Canaanites (Leviticus 18:22-28), the Israelite city of Gibeah (Judges 19 and 20), the kingdom of Israel (II Kings 17:1-8) and the kingdom of Judah, (II Kings 24:1-4).
In the days of Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, homosexuality had become so common that homosexual prostitutes were living in the temple of God in Jerusalem (II Kings 23:7). Though Manasseh’s grandson, Josiah, worked diligently to remove the wickedness from Judah and return the people to worshiping and serving the Lord, it was too late.
II Kings 23:1-25 records the work that Josiah did to remove the wickedness promoted by his grandfather, yet in verses 26-27 we read, "...Nevertheless, the LORD did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke him to anger. So the LORD said, “I will remove Judah also from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘There shall my Name be.’”
In Romans 1:21-32, Paul describes the step by step degradation of a society which ultimately brings about the wrath of God.
The first step of this degradation is failure to glorify and be thankful to God. The degradation progresses into idolatry, sexual immorality and materialism. Then society is given over to “shameful lusts”, the sin of homosexuality. The final stage of this degradation is society being given over to depravity. Depravity is defined as: evil, corrupt, perverted. This was the condition of society in the days of Noah.
We are told in Genesis 6:5, The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. Because of this wickedness the LORD was grieved and said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth…
Do you ever wonder what the LORD sees when he looks down on our nation? As a nation, we no longer give glory to God. Public prayer and the teaching of biblical principles have been banned from our public schools and are strongly shunned in public discussion and the political arena.
The worship of God is increasingly being replaced by objects of worship such as sports, entertainment and money. Sexual immorality is being promoted through every form of media and has become commonly practiced and accepted. Promiscuity is being encouraged by providing our teens with contraceptives and now the “morning after” pill is being considered for sale, over the counter, to girls as young as eleven.
The worship of created things instead of the Creator is becoming the norm as the philosophy of our nation becomes more and more materialistic. And the homosexual agenda is making great strides toward normalization in our society. It is almost like Romans 1:20-32 is a movie script that is being played out in our nation’s history.
We, of all people, should know how the story ends because this same script has been played out in the history of a number of nations before us. The question is, are we going to ignore the lessons of history and the warnings in Scripture? Are we going to sit quietly and watch our nation degrade to the point God can no longer tolerate our existence? -Wendell Ingram
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