As society continues to eat of the toxic fruit of the sexual revolution, those feeling its sickening effects must take the only antidote available: repent and fully submit to Christ.
Western society sacralizes sexuality, and nowhere is this more evident than during Pride Month.
The great, unfortunate lie that our culture has embraced teaches that sexuality makes up the very core of a person’s identity. And if that is true, then why let moral restrictions written long ago in a book you don’t even believe in stop you from fulfilling your most basic instincts?
We are now reaping the toxic fruit of the sexual revolution. What started with an embrace of widespread promiscuity continued with open celebrations of same-sex attraction and the idea that men can be women, and vice versa. No one knows how this trend will culminate, but it is terrifying to contemplate.
But that millennia-old book, the Bible, so quickly dismissed by critics, bears an excellent antidote for the culture’s glorification of sin.
Specifically, James’s epistle offers those struggling with same-sex attraction a better path: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
Christianity’s critics often blame believers of bigotry for pointing out that homosexuality is a sin. Scripture is clear on this fact (Romans 1:27), and no amount of mental acrobatics can get around the truth.
But we also know that those who identify as “LGBTQ” — whether gay, lesbian, or those with gender dysphoria — are still made in God’s image. We love them, and because we love them we call them to repent of their sin, trust in Christ, submit to God, and resist the devil, as James exhorts.
Secular society rejects this view because it tosses out the very concept of sin. There is no “devil” to resist, no God to offend — and this removes any roadblocks that might exist in the path of such a primal force as sexual temptation.
But we know from Jesus that “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34), and we heed Peter’s warning against false teachers who “entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved” (2 Peter 2:18-19).
And sin is a cruel and deceptive slave master. It promises pleasure, but that fleeting pleasure brings not only a weight of eternal condemnation in the next life (if not repented of) but misery and suffering in this one.
The terrible consequences of an LGBT lifestyle are evident not just physically but mentally and spiritually as well. If “sexual liberation” is supposed to make happy those who follow this path, then why are so many of them so miserable?
Why is it, for example, that 50 percent of LGBT-identifying people surveyed between the ages of 18-29 “reported symptoms of depression, compared with about 29% of non-LGBT respondents in this age group,” according to a 2022 Census Bureau report? Why is it that suicide rates among those identifying as “transgender” are tragically stratospheric?
Despite claims to the contrary, these numbers cannot be explained away by saying that society is intolerant of the LGBT movement. Especially in June, rainbow flags — in all their permutations — bedeck storefronts and other buildings everywhere. Corporate training sessions teach employees how to be more LGBT-affirming. LGBT messaging is in TV shows, movies, and commercials. And woe to the man, like Jack Phillips, who refuses to go along.
Even many churches who have flagrantly abandoned biblical doctrine are teaching that there is nothing wrong with actively acting on same-sex attraction.
Those in the age group of 18-29 are alive in what is the most LGBT-adulatory time period in human history, yet they seem to be among the hardest hit when it comes to their mental health.
(Coincidentally, this is true for heterosexual men and women too — Generation Z is growing up in this era of unchecked “sexual liberation,” yet it has still been called “the loneliest generation that the world has seen.”)
So what can explain the high rates of depression and suicide if not the fact that these poor souls have become slaves to sin? They were promised ultimate happiness if they could gain the freedom to indulge in every sexual temptation they could think of. They attained that freedom — and found it a bitter, empty lie that brought no lasting joy.
But there is a better way, and that way lies in submitting to God and resisting the devil.
Jesus encourages this submission in Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Serving the Lord of the universe and rejecting the “father of lies” (John 8:44) can bring those with same-sex attraction true, lasting, enduring peace.
It is a peace that infinitely overtakes the ephemeral satisfaction of indulging sinful sexual desires, which promises joy and delivers ashes. It is a peace that comes from rendering due worship to the only omnipotent, omniscient, truly good Being in this entire universe and knowing that you are forever supported by His everlasting arms (Deuteronomy 33:27), that even the pain in your life ultimately turns to your good (Romans 8:28), and that one day, “He will wipe away every tear” (Revelations 21:4).
What is temporary sexual gratification in the face of a joy like that?
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