A CULTURE ON THE BRINK –CAN ANYTHING BRING US BACK?

A CULTURE ON THE BRINK –CAN ANYTHING BRING US BACK?

Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days.  I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell.  The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities.
Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, "Light, bearing on the starboard bow." 
"Is it steady or moving astern?" the captain called out.
Lookout replied, "Steady captain," which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship.
The captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship:  We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees."
Back came a signal, "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees."
The captain said, "Send, I'm a captain, change course 20 degrees."
"I'm a petty officer second class," came the reply.  "You have better change course 20 degrees."
By that time, the captain was furious.  He spat out, "Send, I'm a battleship.  Change course 20 degrees."
Back came the flashing light, "I'm a lighthouse."

God's truth is like the lighthouse- and we are like that battleship.  In our human arrogance, we chart our own course and demand that the world adjust itself to our wishes.  But God's truth is unchanging, unbending, unyielding.  It is not God's duty to alter His truth.  It is our responsibility to chart our course according to the light of His Word, which is ultimate, objective reality.  If we fail to do so, we risk running our lives aground (excerpt from Spiritual Warfare – How to Stand Firm in Faith by Ray Stedman)

America is a Christian Nation, not because we have more Christian churches or Christians but because our laws and government were founded on the Old and New Testament.  Pastors would preach sermons on morality, appropriate Biblical behavior and social virtue was the standard by which we lived.  We understood we needed to follow God’s Word in order to have a successful nation.

So let us fast forward to the 20^th century where a small group of socialists wanted to shift this Christian nation away from its Biblical roots.  The problem was that God’s Word was constant, unchanging, unbending, unyielding so our laws could not be changed.  The answer:  introduce a new science which would conclude that we were not designed by God and that we are evolving.  Introduce “human sexuality” which states that we are sexual from birth and should not be inhibited or restrained by God’s Law. 

This new science was the foundation to usher in the legalization of sex education, pornography, birth control, abortion, and sodomy in America.  In came no fault divorce, same sex marriage and intergenerational sex (used to be called pedophilia).  So where is the Christian church in all this?

This brings me to 1997 when I received the answer to where is the church?  I had been asked to speak for 15 minutes at a church school where my oldest son, then a Kindergartener was attending.  Someone thought since I had been a sex educator and was now an STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) clinic nurse; I would be a perfect person to be on the Sex Education Curriculum Review Committee.  As a committee we were looking over the Learning About Sex series which had been taught in this school for over 25 years.  It was one of the first “Christian” sex education programs to be introduced to Christians.

As I got up to speak, I felt a strange choking sensation.  Since I was a public speaker through the Health Dept. I knew that I was not nervous.  I also knew I was not ill.  What I spoke on was “I believe that Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s (father of the Sexual Revolution)” science” was at the foundation of the Learning About Sex series.”  I soon came to realize that this was spiritual warfare and that I needed to press on.  The choking sensation left me about two thirds of the way through my speech and when I was done I sat down physically exhausted.

What struck me during my speech was that all the women gave me eye contact (about 10 of them) and except for the Principal, all the men had their heads bowed (including the head Pastor and male teachers).  My thought at the time was, “Gentlemen look up!  We need you in this battle!”  I had seen that type of response before when my husband confronted the Church Board.  There had been 3 people who had gone behind the Boards back to get rid of my husband.  When my husband confronted the Board, although he never mentioned names, the 3 guilty parties never gave eye contact in the meeting.

I love the story in the Old Testament where God takes Ezekiel to a valley full of dry bones.  This was an army that had been slaughtered and was now wasted away.  God then asked Ezekiel if he believed that these dry bones could live again and Ezekiel, knowing full well what God could do, answered yes.  So God had Ezekiel say unto the bones:  “O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:4b)  Wouldn’t you have loved to have been there to see what happened as the bones came together and then flesh and skin covered those bones.

The last thing that had to be done is these warriors needed life again so God had Ezekiel prophesy the following words:  “Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” (vs. 9b)  Then Ezekiel reported:  “breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.” (vs. 10)

When I looked into the origins of not just the Lutheran sex education series, but all sex education, I found the plan behind the Sexual Revolution.  Part of the plan included neutralizing the Christian Church,” slaying it” as one might say, making it ineffective in influencing the culture, allowing “progressives” to usher in their agendas.  The down cast eyes of the male leaders in my son’s church and school let me know that the progressive’s mission had been accomplished.

How many of us have been slayed by sexual sin?  Fornication, adultery, pornography, trashy romance novels, R rated movies, sodomy, and abortion both surgical and now chemical (ie birth control) lead the lambs to slaughter.  I contend that there are three things that the Christian Church can do to turn the tide around.  Ray Stedman in his book Spiritual Warfare – How to Stand Firm in the Faith shares the following words:

“We can be of no help in solving the moral, social, and spiritual problems of the world as long as we remain part of the problem (pg. 70)”

Although I have concluded that Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s “science” is in all denominations, I will use the Lutheran Church and its books as an example. 

Here are THREE THINGS THE CHURCH CAN DO TO SAVE AMERICA:

1.        Protect the moral innocence of children.  We are to protect children, not put them in harm’s way. In Matthew 18:6 Jesus shares that if anyone leads a little one to sin, it is better to have a milestone around your neck and be thrown into the depths of the sea. 

Sex education was developed based on the fraud science of Dr. Kinsey.  He used data from pedophiles who raped children and then he declared that children were sexual from birth and needed sex information.  At the heart of the Lutheran sex education series, I found Kinsey’s “science” quoted along with his friends, Dr. Mary Calderone (past President of Planned Parenthood) and Lester Kirkendall (past President of the American Humanist Association).

We need to get back to God’s Word and parents are to instruct their children in chastity, purity, modesty, and self-control.  The goal of sex education is take away all modesty a child may have and this then opens them up to sexual sin.  All sex education needs to be recalled, especially in the Church!

2.       Value life, all life again.  When we look to history, the Population Control (Birth Control) Movement came just before the Sexual Revolution.  Is it no surprise then that they have many of the same players involved?  All Christian Churches were against the use of birth control, it was against the law which was based on God’s Word.  “Be fruitful and multiply” as mentioned in the Bible was the foundation for the law.  Children were looked upon as blessings from the Lord prior to the Industrial Revolution.  Procreation was never separated from pleasure in marriage; they went hand in hand.

When I looked into why the Lutheran Church changed its stance on birth control, I found the influence of Kinsey and Margaret Sanger.  The reason we use birth control are the same reasons men and women abort babies.  The challenge isn’t abortion but are we really willing to be open to life whenever God brings it?  We cannot win the abortion fight if we stand as a Church and say we can chemically abort our babies (which can happen using the pill and the IUD) but you people over there cannot surgically abort your baby because that is wrong!

3.       God desires the marriage bed to be pure and undefiled.  Since the Sexual Revolution, Pastors have bought into the lies and now advise couples:  “whatever you do behind closed doors as long as it is consensual is alright to do.”  Whatever?  With a society saturated with pornography, what is right and what is wrong?

One dear friend wrote a Supreme Court brief arguing to keep sodomy illegal in this country in the 2004 Lawrence v. Texas sodomy case.  He told me we lost that case not because the gay couple was arguing to commit sodomy but the Christian couple was saying that we can commit sodomy behind closed doors in our marriage bed, but you gay people cannot.  You see it had been illegal for Christian couples to engage in sodomy in the marriage bed based on God’s Word, yet there are/were a few Christian books out there that endorse it, including in the Lutheran Church.

God loves the sinner and not the sin. It is the sexual sin of sodomy that God hates and considers an abomination (Romans 1), not the one who commits the sin.  Historically sodomy was considered crimes against nature or an unnatural act.  One would never put their mouth on a sewer pipe.  Sodomy was normalized by the pornography movement.  The Christian Church cannot promote abominations and expect to influence the culture. 

So here we are today, the bride of Christ unable to turn the tide of Sexual Immorality.  Can this nation be saved?  Can this culture on the brink be brought back?  I believe yes, we can!

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.  II Chronicles 7:14

Written by Audrey F. Werner RN, B.S.N.     

Founder and President of The Matthew XVIII Group

Professor at Master’s International School of Divinity

For more information you can go to www.matthew18.org