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 20th 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