LGBTQ + The Devil

 

One of my favorite hymns is "The Love of God" by Frederick Martin Lehman, one of the verses says this:

"Could we with ink the oceans fill

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on earth a quill

And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above

Would drain the oceans dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky."

Wow!  God's love is truly vast and amazing.  It defies description and comparison.  No matter what any of us have done, no matter what our history, where we have come from, or where we are right now, God loves us with a deep, abiding, and passionate love.

Because God loves us, He has given us guidance and instruction for how to live our lives here on earth so that we can find goodness, glory, and infinite joy.

But this goodness, glory and infinite joy cannot be found down any path we choose.  They are only found as we chase down the will of God and strive to bring our lives into alignment with His purposes and designs.  This is nowhere more true than when it comes to our sexuality.

There are all-too prominent voices in our culture that tell us that any form of sexual deviancy a person may choose, any gender identity or lack thereof is wholesome, good, and right and is a valid expression of that individual's authentic self.  We are asked to check our common sense and God-given conscience at the door and accept every novel aberration as progress, as though our society is moving toward some higher and more noble good by accepting and affirming these unnatural and disordered behaviors.

These assaults on gender and sexual identity are an assault on the very foundations of reality and the image of God and on the goodness He has stamped on our bodies both as males and females.  Sexuality is a nuanced and complex thing that is formed in part by our physiology, family history, upbringing, and childhood experiences.  Innumerable variables weave together to form who we are as sexual beings, and for those who find themselves captive to homosexuality and transgenderism these factors can run deep, to the very core of our being.  As much as biological and environmental factors play a role, I see something more sinister at the roots of the sexual confusion in our culture.

The foundation of the Christian faith is found in the first three chapters of Genesis and transgenderism and the modern sexual revolution are direct assaults on the truth that we find there.  When God completed His work of creation, He surveyed all He had made and said, "It is very good."  Human sexuality as expressed in the two genders and consummated in the marriage relationship is God's good design.

We have an enemy who delights in tearing down everything that God has created and called good.  As much as political leaders, celebrities and so many others in the culture support and celebrate the sexual revolution and bear responsibility for that, they are not ultimately the source and the cause of this disruption.  The moral decline we see is Satanic in its origin.

The Apostle Paul saw clearly into this spiritual conflict and described it vividly in Ephesians 6, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (v. 12)

God is a God of goodness, order, fruitfulness, and life.  Satan spreads chaos, destruction, confusion, and fear.  God is not the author of confusion, but of creation and beauty.  Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  Christ came to give us life and to give us life more abundantly. (See John 8:44, 10:9-10; and 1 Peter 5:8)

The conflict we face with the cultural revolutionaries is not primarily left versus right, conservative versus progressive, Christians versus non-Christians.  It is battle of spiritual forces, between God and the Devil, between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Hell.

Satan is a deceiver.  He is a liar and has been from the beginning.  He delights in deluding us.  He gets his barbs in us early, as children, and fills our hearts and minds with false beliefs.  He bombards us with toxic shame and guilt.  Many of these lies center on our sexuality and our identity.  He tells us we are not good enough as we are, that our bodies are flawed, and no one will love us as we are.  For many, Satan has their minds so blinded by lies that they believe their bodies are so broken that even their gender is not right.  Somehow there was a mistake and they got put into the wrong body.  I cannot think of any greater delusion than to doubt the goodness of your identity as a male or a female.  I cannot think of any deeper or more profound confusion that to believe that somehow your soul does not match your body.  This confusion and chaos of heart and mind ultimately has its source in Satan and his lies.

Our gender as defined by our biology is central to our understanding of who we are, it is central to our identity.  When we fight our way out of the womb the doctors and nurses shout with delight, "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!"  And for millennia humankind has celebrated this.  Today there are those that want to tell us this celebration is a bad thing.  Who we are today began to take shape in those early moments, and being identified as a boy or a girl is central to that.

Before Jesus began his earthly ministry, He went into the desert to fast and pray.  While He was there, Satan came to Him and tempted Him.  You can read about this in Matthew 4.  In two out of the three temptations Satan leads with some form of this question, "If you really are the Son of God..."  In this question, Satan was attacking Jesus's identity.  He wanted Him to doubt who He was as the Son of God.  If Satan could drive a wedge between Jesus and God, and between Jesus and His identity as the Son of God, he knew he would have power over Him.

This is how Satan comes to us as well.  He makes us doubt our identity as unique creations and children of God.  He will make us believe that God does not love us and does not have our best interests in mind.  His lies tell us that who we are is fundamentally flawed, that we are worthless and irredeemable.  For some the attack comes at the level of our bodies, he makes us believe that are bodies are dysfunctional, ugly, and inadequate.  The attack goes still further for others, telling them that even their gender is somehow flawed and corrupted, and their identity as a male of female is wrong.

Satan spreads the lies of transgenderism because he knows the powerful truth behind marriage and birth.  He knows both are reflecting the truth of redemption and eternal glory and when properly played out in our lives bring us tremendous joy.  There is nothing more dangerous for Satan than joy.  Joy is God shining a light into our souls and inviting us to Himself.  Satan wants us sad, miserable, and alone.  He wants us focused on our own dissatisfaction and discontent.  He wants us to only think about having our sexual desires satisfied without any thought to our higher purpose and meaning.

I believe that those trapped in transgenderism and other sexual dysfunctions are deeply confused, if not mentally ill and spiritually oppressed, if not possessed.  They are in the same category as those who struggle with depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety.  I believe, more than anything, these people need compassion, love and our heart-felt prayers.  Only God can touch their hearts, free them from the bondage of Satan, and open the eyes that have been blinded to the truth.

God's love is truly boundless.  It reaches to the lowest, sin-sick soul, especially those who are trapped in sexual bondage.  Our job is to be filled with that love and to share that love with all those we come in contact with, especially if they happen to be LGBTQ.  Only God's love will lead them out of the darkness and into the light.