PLANKS AND SPLINTERS

An attitude in the Church toward homosexuality generally bothers me, and should concern us all. While most Christians would agree that Scripture speaks against it, Scripture censures us all for other sexual acts many churchgoers practice with little objection from the pulpit.

As we follow the leading of the Spirit we find freedom and life, but our sinful nature continually tries to draw us back into bondage and death. Bondage to drugs, sex, pornography and other pursuits is only a symptom of our major addiction that encompasses them all: opposition to God, and it’s called sin.

We were sinners before conversion, but afterwards we still fight the war that rages between the sinful nature and the indwelling Spirit. Paul experienced it, Romans 7:21–23, 8:12–14, Galatians 5:16–18, and we must acknowledge it.

The created ideal of marriage is an extension of the truth about God Himself—the love and unity in the Trinity. All that breaks marriage or opposes it is a lie. We cannot live with a lie: it will increasingly torment us, and eventually collapse in on itself.

We are all aware of adultery in the Church. High profile cases make the news, and congregations acknowledge the occasional “moral failure” of one of its leaders. That is only the tip of the iceberg. For every known event, many go unreported and both perpetrator and victim suffer in silence.

Adultery—whether with the same or opposite sex—includes sexual liaisons before marriage. The sex act alters the brain chemistry attaching the partners together. The idea “they will become one flesh,” Genesis 2:24, is more than a picturesque idea; it’s a physical response. In this sense, adultery against a future marriage partner has already occurred.

Pornography, pernicious and addictive, is included in adultery, by Jesus’ use of the Greek word porneia (sexual uncleanness) from which “pornography” comes. He uses it for “marital unfaithfulness” in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9, and those watching pornography commit “adultery with her in his heart,” Matthew 5:28.

All of us struggle with some area of life opposed to the Spirit, different but always equal deviations from God’s ideal. The Spirit is the “paraclete,” One who comes alongside to bring conviction and change, John 16:8–11. As Spirit-filled believers it is also our mandate: to come alongside those who struggle with sin as we ourselves did, not with smug judgment, but with sympathetic love.

If we hide and refuse to stare down these enemies within—both personally and corporately—we engage in the Pharisaical hypocrisy Jesus regularly scorned, placing burdens on others we still carry ourselves. Let’s remove the plank in our own eye before we criticize the splinter in the eye of another.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone!

CHILDREN: SEXUAL COMMODITIES

Sarah Williams, lecturer at Regent College in Vancouver, reminded us several years ago that sexual liberation has normalized every sexual activity except rape and pedophilia. I have since commented that pedophilia will, by stages and with some limitations, also become acceptable.

Sexual permissiveness has spawned a vast increase of pornography, especially on the web and in particular promoting pedophilia and incest. This is driving an explosion of child abuse in real life, as illustrated by the following case of child abuse reported last week in Hamilton Ontario.

A 34-year-old Hamilton man is facing 40 sexual abuse-related charges. A mother’s boyfriend abused the seven-year-old daughter and made her available for abuse on Craigslist. Images of the seven-year-old were also distributed.

Investigators realized they were dealing with a network of people connected in arranging sexual abuse and distributing child pornography. To date, the investigation has executed 14 search warrants and 15 production orders, and has seized more than 100 electronic devices. 

This one example is only the tip of the iceberg. Hamilton police laid no charges for child pornography or child exploitation in 2005. By 2015, those numbers had risen to 42 for child pornography and peaked at 50 in 2014 for child violations.

Unfortunately, Hamilton is typical of what is happening throughout Ontario. Provincial police reported 358 Child pornography incidents in 2005, which rose to 1,292 in 2015. Child violations followed the trend, from 19 in 2005 to 894 in 2015.

We indicated previously, sexual pleasure is now a greater good than the welfare of the children produced by it, leading to the degrading of children as a commodity. This is the basis of abortion on demand, children without a parental legacy, but also the proliferation of children as sexual objects.

The normalization of sexual activities that were previously stigmatized gives tacit permission to practice other, still forbidden, sexual desires—and a greater cry for their recognition. Wide-open sexual permissiveness precludes ending the downward spiral from traditional marriage at some arbitrary point.

Studies consistently show low conflict families of two parents of opposite sex produce the mostly stable and secure children. We should expect this, as the
traditional family is the created means of human reproduction. Those children will be the future bedrock of a stable society. 

However, maintaining the traditional family concept in the current environment is not easy. We need to persevere in the Truth, to work at ensuring our children have the best upbringing we can give them, and stand up to the pressures currently bent on destroying the natural family order.

PS: Ann and Bryan are Showing the Truth Project in their home on Friday evenings. You are invited, call 403-328-3745.