Confessing Christ in an Antichristian Culture

Old Testament reading: Deuteronomy 6:1-25
New Testament Reading: Ephesians 6:1-4

Confessing Christ in an Antichrist Culture

“The Principal Priority of Parents”

Genesis 1:26-30

Wayne J. Edwards, Pastor

    All of the forces of sin and evil are trying to destroy the family as the basic unit of society. Today, the spear of the battle is pointing at the heart of our children.

• The Marxist-Leftist activists and politicians who want to see a socialist revolution in America believe they are within reach of their goal of establishing a new world order.
• Their immediate goal is to turn the children’s hearts from their fathers and mothers. Many secular psychologists now believe that unless there is a significant change, today’s children may be the terminal generation, and Western civilization will be over.
• Parents are the dominating force in their children’s lives, and the principal priority of parents is to protect their children from evil.
• However, if they are to protect their children from those whose explicit goal is to destroy their souls with Satan’s lies, parents must purposely minimize, if not wholly withdraw their children’s involvement in those entities and events that do not respect their God-given authority over their children.

   Never has our society been more confused about what it means to be “man and woman,” and that’s by Satan’s design.

• Gender dysphoria is defined as “the inner anxiety a person feels when their gender identity is at odds with their biological sex and their parents.”
• Transgenderism is based upon the false ideology that our physical bodies are not an essential part of who we are as human beings. Therefore, we can transform our bodies into our chosen gender.
• However, the Bible says God made us “male and female” (X or XY), and we cannot change that, which means there is no such thing as transgender.
• When we tamper with God’s divine design and God’s perfect will, it always ends up in chaos and confusion.
• Once we acknowledge God for Who He is, God will reveal to us who we are; human beings, created in His image, for His purpose and His glory, and we will rejoice in that reality, whether male or female.

   It is imperative that parents see this issue in light of Satan’s ultimate goal to destroy the family.

• Among the evil goals outlined in “The Communist Manifesto,” published in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, perhaps the main one would be the “Abolition of the Family,” as the basic economic unit of society. Their desire was to:
  • Abolish all inheritance rights, all home, and religious education, one’s pride in their hometown by a continual infusion of people who would not appreciate the closeness of their community.
  • Impose heavy taxation, which would require mothers to seek employment outside the home so the children and youth could be trained in “state” schools for the benefit of the state.
  • Centralize the banks to control the credit, nationalize the farms, factories, commercial businesses and all means of transportation and communication so everyone would work for the betterment of the “state” rather than their own family.
• The transgender issue is among the final weapons in Satan’s arsenal to abolish the family as the foundational unit God designed it to be, and to stop the spread of the gospel to the next generation.

1. Man’s Unique Identity – Genesis 1:27 – “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

  On the sixth day of creation, God created the various animals and insects that walk or crawl upon the earth, and He created them with the ability to reproduce “after their kind.”

• Then God created a full-grown man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Man was created in the “image of God,” which includes four dimensions:
  • The spiritual – man could communicate with God – discern holy from unholy – obedience from disobedience, order from chaos, etc.
  • The intellectual – man could reason, think, analyze and understand – therefore, he could know God and recognize His handiwork.
  • The moral – being created by a holy God, Adam was born in absolute integrity.
  • The relational – God never identified with anything He created until He created man, and then He expressed His desire for an intimate, personal relationship with him.
  • Man (generic for mankind) was created male and female: “EESH” – man, and “ISHSHAH” – out of man.
    • God, who is Spirit, has both masculine and feminine qualities. Therefore, He needed both male and female persons to reflect his full divine nature.
    • God did not create two persons of the same gender but two persons of different genders, to complement and complete each other in order to fulfill their roles and responsibilities.

2. Man’s Unique Responsibility – Vs. 26-30 –

 Vs. 26 – “Let them have dominion over the earth.”

• “Let us” means to allow or appoint or bestow.
• “Dominion’ means to take care of or to guard.
• God gave man positional authority over the earth; to use it for his survival and pleasure; knowing he would give account unto God.

Vs. 28 – “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth.”

• God commanded Adam and Eve to bear children, who would then “multiply” so as to fill the earth with those who would continue to have the same reverence and respect for God.

   To accomplish this, God ordained the union of “marriage” between the male and female.

• His purpose – for the purity of the process of procreation.
• His partners – male and female; able to produce godly children.
• His permanency – leave all other relationships and cleave to each other.

3. Man’s Unique Destiny – Genesis 2:24-25 – “Therefore, shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.”

   Marriage is the most important relationship – it is the foundation of society, superseding the government and the Church in its authority over the children born into that marriage.

• If we don’t believe in the divine distinction between male and female, then neither is the sanctity of marriage important and therefore, our desires for true love and intimacy within the marriage will never be achieved.
• Our gender is ordained by God, and those who attempt to alter it are dishonoring God, denying God’s authority, and sentencing themselves to a life of depravity, from which there is no return. (Romans 1:18-32)

  As Christian parents and grandparents, we cannot surrender to the culture on this critical issue, for the eternal destiny of our children, and perhaps even this generation, is at stake.

• However, the way we respond will either turn the tide of moral depravity in this nation, or it will drive it deeper and deeper into the darkness of moral depravity, from which there is no return.
• The most effective thing we can do is to celebrate the differences between males and females, especially in the way we dress.
• Our first responsibility as parents is to teach our boys how to be men, husbands, and fathers and to teach our girls to be women, wives, and mothers.
• If we don’t teach them about gender and sexuality, Satan has his legion of liars to do it for us.
• If we don’t indoctrinate our children in a biblical worldview, Satan has his false prophets who will brainwash them in his worldview.
• While parents cannot guarantee their children will turn out to be godly, we can guarantee our children that we will live godly lives before them.