Has Immorality in the Church Left America Beyond Repair?

In the past 50 years (and even more so today), the cause of Christ has been ridiculed and maligned by forces that promote evil. God’s moral precepts have been met with derision and rebellion. Day after day, it seems the enemy has won another battle. As a result, God’s people have been increasingly filled with fear and anguish—particularly on issues of morality and the pressure government has placed upon them to participate in such atrocities (or at the least, to not oppose or speak against them).

Many years ago, the nation was visited by a great darkness when the Supreme Court declared (in essence) that innocent, living human beings in the mother’s womb are not persons and can therefore be killed up to the moment of birth, all done under the guise of a “right to privacy.” Such horrors are reminiscent of the sacrifice of babies in ancient times at the altar of Molech. Then, babies were burned to death. Today, they are torn limb from limb while furiously trying to escape the abortionist’s forceps. Even with saline abortions, the fetus writhes in pain during the procedure and in most cases is not even afforded the mercy of a painkiller (even though science has shown that babies feel pain as early as eight weeks into the pregnancy).

About the same time, pornography was legalized (essentially) under the guise of “freedom of speech” and “freedom of expression”. Today, any 5 year-old can access depictions of the worst perversions ever conceived by man. And so, as a nation, we have exposed our children to great harm in order to satisfy our own lusts. We have legalized immorality by imagining that things formerly and universally recognized as unlawful and immoral are permissible—behaviors the original lawmakers (in their litany of enumerated freedoms) never intended.

None of this has escaped the gaze of a holy God!

Some years ago, the courts and legislatures began removing legal penalties against grossly immoral sexual behavior. And as the law of entropy warns, today we are facing an onslaught of legal measures that seek to make it illegal to even speak against immoral behavior or to try to help those who want freedom from its unrelenting grip. George Orwell’s 1984 couldn’t have been more prescient.

Children are also targeted in our nation’s schools with lessons on perversion and are groomed by the culture to embrace all manner of immorality as normal, healthy and in most cases, blessed by God. In many instances, they are even being taught how to perform immoral acts and encouraged to do so.

“God overlooked the times of ignorance, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent. For He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He has appointed [Jesus Christ'” (Acts 17:30-31a).

In recent years, the courts have once again legalized immorality by redefining marriage so it is no longer limited to one man and one woman. And there is a great price to pay for anyone who speaks against or refuses to recognize this redefinition—echoes of oppressive, totalitarian governments throughout history.

But because of your hardness and impenitent heart, you are storing up treasures of wrath against yourself on the day of wrath when the righteous judgment of God will be revealed, and He “will render to every man according to his deeds. … But to those who are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath (Rom. 2:5-6, 8).

The latest assault on freedom of speech, freedom of religion and God’s moral law (sometimes referred to as “natural law”) comes in the guise of forcing everyone (upon penalty of fines and imprisonment), to refer to people by the pronoun that they “identify as” even though it may go against the reality of their genetic make-up. This is so insane that many trans and gay activists oppose this denial of reality. But the juggernaut of evil and rebellion against God keeps rolling. Satan is having a field day deceiving men into defacing the image of God found in human sexuality—sexuality that is intended to reflect the pure and perfect marriage between Christ and His church.

^“Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. ⁸ For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:7-8).

Today, there are even licensed psychologists who argue that pedophiles and pederasts exhibit a normal variant of human attraction. And time does not allow writing in any detail about the atrocity of sex trafficking that goes virtually unchecked in the nations of the world. Sadly, most child molesters and sex traffickers will never see a single day of imprisonment.

As one in ministry to sexually bound and broken people, this accelerating departure from reality and increasing rebellion against the character of God is extremely disillusioning. It’s one step forward and 100 steps backward, or so it seems when looked at in the short term.

And the most frustrating part of it is that our churches have been infiltrated by rampant immorality in all its forms and have even begun calling evil good.

Many pastors or leaders of ministries continue to depart from the faith. They seem to be dropping like flies, as the Lord winnows those “who [have gone] out, revealing that none of them were of us” (1 John 2:19b, see also Matt. 3:12).

The apostle Paul sought to comfort the frustrated believers of his day by writing:

“And let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9).

A principle found throughout Scripture (particularly among the Old Testament prophets) is that God has called us not only to win the lost and make disciples, but to also bear witness to the truth to those who refuse to repent even as they are warned of the impending judgment of a holy God. It is a part, I believe, of establishing the rightness of God’s final judgment against those who refuse to listen and repent.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58).

No matter what the outcome!

Finally, we turn to God’s Word for sustenance:

“Here is your God!” See, the Lord God will come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him; see, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him. He shall feed His flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span,and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him? (Isa. 40:9d-13).

Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants are as grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in.
He brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely shall they be planted; scarcely shall they be sown; scarcely shall their tree take root in the earth, when He will also blow on them, and they will wither, and the whirlwind will take them away as stubble.

To whom then will you liken Me, that I should be equal to him? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one of them is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my justice escapes the notice of my God”? Have you not known? Have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint, nor is He weary? His understanding is inscrutable. He gives power to the faint, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint (Isa. 40:21-31).

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, yes, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. Certainly all those who were incensed against you shall be ashamed and humiliated; they shall be as nothing, and those who strive with you shall perish. You shall seek them and shall not find them, even those who contended with you. Those who war against you shall be as nothing, as a thing of nonexistence. For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, “Do not fear; I will help you” (Isa. 41:10-13). {eoa}

Dr. David Kyle Foster (M.Div, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; D.Min, Trinity School for Ministry) is the author of Transformed Into His Image and Love Hunger and is the founder/director of Pure Passion Media (purepassion.us).

Read more of his take on sexual sin and brokenness in his newest book, The Sexual Healing Reference Edition.