Don’t Bow To Babylon

And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace…Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

Daniel 3:6, 16-18, 

From the Book of Genesis 3, satan has been assaulting our identity. He lied to our first parents that if you declare independence from God, you will be like God. In other words, you can transition from being human to being divine. That was the first lie. Humanity believed that lie. 

The same satan tempted Jesus, the Son of God, saying, “If You are the Son of God…” The devil always launches an assault on our identity. Christianity is a faith that alters our identity because we identify with Jesus Christ. That is why we are called Christians. When we are baptized, we are buried as Jesus was. When we come out of the water, we identify with His resurrection.  

In Christ

There are over 70 references in the New Testament to ‘In Him, in Christ” which shows that our identity is in Jesus Christ. We are made in the image and likeness of God. The core of the Christian faith is that He died for me and I died with Him. He died for me and I died with Him. 

In Galatians 2:20, Apostle Paul said that he has been crucified with Christ. That means our old life and identity – whatever that identity was – was crucified with Jesus and now, in Christ, I have a new identity. He calls me with a new name. He gives me a new heart and a new eternity. That is what the whole Christian faith is about. This is why the enemy creates a counterfeit.

In our culture, today, we see the prevalence of confusion, and doubts about who they are, and what love is. The culture has gone as far as saying love is love. Imagine using the same logic for water in your house! If you say water is water, would you also give your kid a straw so they can drink from the toilet? It’s water but everybody knows that water has different purity.

A dog will drink water from a toilet because, to a dog, water is water. But we are not dogs. Yet, our culture is trying to brainwash us to believe that we came from monkeys, and therefore, we are animals. However, the Bible clearly declares that you and I are made in the image of God. We have dignity and we have value. Every human being, even if they are physically deformed, blind, deaf, crippled, or not all there mentally, every human being has value in the eyes of God. 

God Created And Chose Our Gender

God respects every human being’s choice and commands us to respect every human being. We are not animals; we are made in the image of God. When God created us, He decided our gender. God chose that in His goodness. He chose you to be male or female. Maybe you grew up and find that you don’t like that. As Christians, we deal with that simply. We submit to a good God, trust in His good plan, and submit our desires and mental preferences to God’s Word. This is not oppressive because sometimes, we don’t even know what we like. Have you ever really wanted something until you got it? So many people just want to get what they want until they get what they want. 

As Christians, we submit our feelings to our faith, our chemistry to our convictions, and our biology to our theology. We are not mastered by our passions; we rule our passions. The Bible says we are a spirit. We are not our emotions. We have emotions but we are not feelers; we are believers.

The Spiritually Dead

When you are not born again, your spirit is dead. Then, all you have to lean on is your mind. That’s unreliable. To trust your mind to guide your life is like trusting a blind person to lead you or letting a toddler make a decision about your mortgage. You cannot trust it. Your mind is supposed to be disciplined and trained, not trusted. That is why the Bible says lean not on your own understanding. But the idea of what is happening in our culture today and the spirit behind transgenderism says you have to lean on your mind: your mind knows better and the solution is to do what your mind wants. If you don’t have a spirit that is born again, that is all you are going to do. It is not that those people are bad; it is just what happens when your spirit is dead.

The Same Agenda

We live in a generation that is experiencing what happened in the days of Daniel. When he was in exile, Daniel was taught Babylonian theology, to deny God and their pagan ways. But Daniel still kept the purity of his heart and devotion to his God. Daniel refused to eat the delicacies of the king. We see Daniel’s three friends refuse to bow to the idol that the enemy had set up. 

We live in enemy-occupied territory today. The ruler of this world is still the devil. He is the prince of the air and has his principalities established in today’s culture but we are rebels; we are people that cause opposition. I love the fact that the enemy set up a statue but they still had some people who would not bow to it. They stood tall and wouldn’t fit in. The enemy is setting up his statue today in our culture of woke progressive ideology. This statue today is highly exalted. The percentage of people who identify as transgender is very small but the idea that people support is extremely high. 

The issue of creation is not political; it is biological. We believe that God made man male and female. This has nothing to do with what is happening in the White House. This is in the Bible. 

What Is Gender Dysphoria?

Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person’s gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth, causing significant distress and discomfort. Transgenderism goes a step farther. Transgenderism refers to individuals whose gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth. In gender dysphoria, there is a struggle but in transgenderism, there is no struggle but an embracing of an identity that contradicts your biological sex. 

A lot of people who come out as transgender testify that it doesn’t satisfy or fix that thing they feel inside completely. There are currently 107 gender identities listed for 2023. More identities keep being added because it is never enough. They are always searching for something. There is a God-shaped hole that exists and no amount of surgeries and hormones can fix what is deeply broken on the inside.

Feelings, Fantasies And The Truth

We must understand that there is truth and there are your fantasies. There are facts and there are feelings. There are things that are anchored in reality and things that are floating in the air. If everyone has the right, and the government has to support everyone’s fantasies which are not anchored in reality, we will have a world where guys become tigers, where somebody over 50 years of age will claim to be a thirteen-year-old girl, go into a girls’ bathroom. This will lead to men sleeping with children because they say love is love. This will lead our world to self-destruction.

Therefore, as Christians, we have to understand. The culture is not going to speak up against this. I believe it is a demonic agenda. I am not against people who are battling with gender dysphoria. We are not even against people who are transgender. We love them and they are as welcome as any and every sinner is welcome to church to receive the Gospel and Jesus Christ.

What we are standing for is that the truth is not what you think the truth is. Buddha said he was a truth seeker. Mohammed said he was the prophet of truth. Jesus Christ said I am the truth. Our government cannot change that. Your inner brokenness cannot alter that. The truth is outside of you; it is eternal and it is fixed. We realign our lives to that truth. We do not twist the truth to fit our temporary brokenness.

Jesus Is The Truth

There is an idol set up today and there is a demand that it be worshipped. This is focused on the idea that truth does not exist anymore. Your truth, my truth, we all have our own truths. The result of this idol is that people are not happy in their skin. Some want to be animals, others want to be the opposite sex, a different race or age than they are.

As Christians, our faith rests in facts, not fallacies and fantasies. Christian faith is not about discovering yourself and chasing the never-ending cycle of your fantasies. The Christian faith is summed up in the Words of Christ – if any man would come after Me, let them deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow Me. Jesus says if you want to find yourself, lose yourself. Every person who discovers their real self, who they are in Christ, does so at the end of their denying themself. 

God Is Good

The New Age teaches that we are all gods and we must realign and refocus ourselves to become our own god but the Christian faith says there is a God and it is not you. God is good and you are not; you are broken. In Romans 3:10, the Bible says no one is righteous, not even one. Everyone has fallen short of the glory of God, including you and me.

This good God is not somewhere distant or too far from us. He sent His only Son to die for our wrongs. He paid for it with His precious blood because this good God is not only good, but He is holy. This means He doesn’t tolerate sin; He punishes it. He punished sin through Jesus Christ so God can be both forgiving and righteous at the same time. If God put all our sins under the carpet, He would be a corrupt God. But our God is not a corrupt God, He is a holy God. You wouldn’t want a God who can be bought, bribed, bullied or changes His mind. 

We didn’t make our God; He made us. We rebelled against Him but He pursued us and brought us salvation. All we have to do is renounce the thing that flows in our veins called pride. That is our biggest problem. Our biggest problem is not our sin but the pride that says I know better and I will prove it. That rebellion threw satan out of Heaven to Earth and from Earth to hell, and it will do no less to us. Pride corrupts even deeper than our sin.

Compromise And Control

The idol which was set up in Babylon, it was described in Daniel 3 that whoever did not bow to it, was thrown into a fiery furnace to die. When the three Hebrew men refused to bow down, the King threatened them by turning up the furnace 7 times hotter to force them to bow. I am sure there were other Hebrews working in the palace who simply said they would believe in God in their hearts but bow to the idol with their knees. This is how a lot of people live in today’s culture. 

The demonic agenda wants to bully you into saying something that you know is not true. I want to encourage you: Do not bow or be bullied into silence.

Transgender Pronouns

A UK doctor was fired for refusing to use trans pronouns.

“Intentional refusal to use someone’s correct pronouns is equivalent to harassment and a violation of one’s civil rights.” 

National Institute of Health, USA

“Using a person’s pronouns is the most basic need they have to feel safe and to exist in public spaces.”

University of Colorado

“Property owners in New York City will be fined $250,000 for using “improper pronouns” due to new transgender laws. The fine also falls on those enforcing dress codes, uniforms, or grooming standards that impose different requirements based on sex or gender, failing to provide employee health benefits that cover gender-affirming care, or failing to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals undergoing gender transition, including medical appointments and recovery, whereas such reasonable accommodations are provided to other employees”

NYC Official Site

Proper Pronouns

Today, if you don’t use the proper pronouns for somebody, you get accused and labeled right away. I want to address this so that you can know as a Christian, what you can do, and what you should do in the public square. 

It is one thing to be told you cannot talk about God but it is another thing to be told you should say something is true that you don’t agree with in your heart is true. For us as Christians, this is called a lie. Calling people by their pronouns is speaking something you don’t believe is true. Respecting someone doesn’t extend to endorsing ideas that are not-biblical.

If you want to show love towards the transgender community, you have to remember that the Bible says, love rejoices in truth, not tolerance.

“Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.”

1 Corinthians 13:6

Truth At All Costs

Christians do not pursue fighting with people that are not of our faith. We avoid purposeful conflict but don’t pursue peace at all costs. Some Christians have become pacifists and they think that you can achieve peace with everyone at all costs. There are people in this world that are broken, foolish, and evil. You don’t get peace with evil people. I am not saying that all people in the transgender community are evil but if you live with this worldview that you must have peace with all people at all costs, you will never have it because it is not a Biblical view of peace.

“If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.”

Romans 12:18

Interestingly, Apostle Paul adds the phrase, as much as possible, meaning, sometimes, it will not be possible to be at peace with other people. Evil doesn’t stop; it has to be stopped. As Christians, we seek peace to the best of our ability but not at all costs.

“Peace if possible; truth at all cost.”

Martin Luther

I seek peace with people all the time but I am not going to compromise on Jesus or give up the truth that Jesus died for me. Don’t take part in the deception that’s leading people into a dark path by constantly referring to people by their pronouns.

The Transgender Agenda

“I no longer use transgender pronouns and you shouldn’t either. Using transgender pronouns is a sin against the ninth commandment and encourages people to sin against the tenth commandment. Using transgender pronouns is a sin against the creation ordinance and image bearing. It discourages the believer’s progressive sanctification and falsifies the Gospel; it cheapens redemption and tramples on the blood of Christ. It fails to love my neighbor as myself. It fails to offer genuine Christian hospitality, and it yields the definition of hospitality to liberal progressivism, identity politics, and human flourishing.” 

Rosaria Butterfield, Former Professor of English and Women’s Studies, NYU.

If you cave in to the transgender ideology, it doesn’t end with them transitioning to the other gender. The spiral will continue and it will never be enough. When a Christian calls a transgender by their preferred pronoun, a transgender knows that the Christian is lying. The transgender knows it is not enough that you call them by the pronoun they want; they want the Christian to believe in that pronoun. So, if you decide just out of politeness to call transgenders by their preferred pronouns, not only do they see right through you, but they also know that you are scared. Sooner or later, it is either you go all the way and change your beliefs or you stand on God’s truth and love a person without compromising the truth.

De-Transitioners

Out of the multitude of testimonies from people who de-transitioned from the transgender community, one of the things they appreciated was that Christians had a spine and were willing to lose politeness in the eyes of the world for what they believed. Just as the three Hebrew men did not compromise and bow before the idol, we are believing to see many more of the transgender, homosexual, and lesbian community coming to know Jesus Christ. In the same way, we see people from the background of drug addicts, coming from different religions, or being lost in their sin, the same way all of us came to Jesus Christ, we will see it in their community in greater measure.

Teaching The Next Generation

In Babylon, Daniel had to reject the diet of Babylon. 

For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”

Genesis 18:19

One of the reasons God has known you as parents is not only that you will go to Heaven but so that you will teach your children righteousness and justice. Not greasy grace or legalism; we have to teach God’s truth. We cannot accept the premise that repentance is no longer required, nor the love of holiness on the idea that God is understanding. Truly, God loves us just as we are but He doesn’t leave us the way we are; He changes us by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Your diet determines your destiny. If you want to change someone’s destiny, you have to change their diet. That was why Babylon was seeking to contaminate their diet but Daniel would not comply. I believe this applies spiritually in that we have to be careful of what we and our children are eating. Some of us are battling with lust because we are feeding our lust. If we would only disconnect from the lustful source, we would see greater purity in our lives as we connect to the Holy Spirit. 

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria

This is the name of the rise among teenage girls who identify as transgender but don’t have the signs of gender dysphoria which most people battling gender dysphoria exhibit at a young age. This is caused by a few factors.

One of the main factors of rapid onset gender dysphoria is that it is easier to become popular by coming out as transgender than to win at sports or to be good in school academically.

Another factor is the perception that if you want to get back at your parents, one of the best ways is to do something that you know they won’t like. Traditional conservative parents are extremely hurt when they see their child go through gender confusion and it has become a tactic to rebel against parents.

The third factor is that there are people who don’t battle with the trauma or signs but adopt the identity of transgender because it is socially acceptable or cool.

About 5% of young adults in the U.S. say their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth. 1.6 million Americans now identify as transgender. The largest share is among ages 13-17. 

What Do We Do As The Church?

We have to bring our children to church and bring God’s Word to them. It is the job of the parents, not the government or education system to teach your children God’s Word. You have to be careful of what goes into their mind and what goes into their mouth. 

At Hungry Generation, we are being intentional to bring a lot of focus, attention, and resources to our children. Our goal isn’t to change all children one at a time but to build a core group of Jesus-loving children, who are filled with the Holy Spirit, and who will go to universities without losing their faith. 

Sin is still sin and will destroy people. Once it starts destroying people, they need a place to come to for rescue, and that place has to be you. God is going to use this generation to reach the next generation. 

Our Senior pastor says that he did not build the church for old people; he built the church for kids because kids will always bring their parents but parents do not always bring their kids to church. We are seeing that and that is why there is a focus on young people and young adults and children in our church. We want to help our children navigate these struggles with Jesus in the centre.

Dr John William Money – The Father of Transgenderism

He was a scientist and researches who pushed the agenda of gender ideology in the United States. Dr Money was also a professor at John Hopkins University. He researched human sexuality and gender.

These were his three conclusions: 

1. Gender is a Learned Social Construct – he was one of the first scientists to acknowledge that one’s biological sex may not correspond with his or her gender identity. This was what made him revolutionary at the time.

2. Positive Pedophilia – He studied pedophilia and identified a distinction between a love-based attraction to children and sadistic pedophilia. Some claimed Money was tolerant of pedophilia while others claimed his research provided a better way of understanding inappropriate sexual attractions. 

3. The Case of David Reimer – this was one of Money’s main cases that drove his arguments home. David had a botched circumcision. David’s parents took him to Dr Money who recommended that he be completely castrated and raised as a girl. This was done. David reported that he never felt like a girl. David de-transitioned at the age of 14 and killed himself at the age of 38. It wasn’t until he was 14 that he was told that he wasn’t a girl and he said it made sense because he never felt like it.

Dr. Money’s Theories Were Fraud

Dr Money’s idea was that you could condition somebody into a different gender that has nothing to do with their biological sex is really complete fraud but it is still being propagated today.

The Bible clearly says God created male and female. When male and female come together, they produce something they cannot do on their own, which is a family. Men and women are different on the deepest levels of their being. Our chromosomes, body shapes, strengths, and voices are different. Our bodies are designed to be different and work at full capacity when they work and function together. Everything about our physiology is designed to work together. The sex organ is the only body part that requires the body part of another human being of the opposite sex to fulfill its ultimate function. 

Truth Or Tolerance

“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Genesis 1:27

1. God created male and female. (Genesis 1:26).
2. Men shouldn’t act sexually as women. (Leviticus 18:22).
3. Men shouldn’t dress like women. (Deuteronomy 22:5).
4. Men and women embracing other-gendered expressions is a disgrace. (1 Corinthians 11:14-15).

Our World Is Broken

Our world is broken. It is not the way God created it, (Romans 8:20-23). Humans are broken. Our hearts are broken and what happens is we try to fix it by ourselves. But we are better at breaking things than fixing them. When it comes to brokenness, both people with gender dysphoria, homosexual tendencies, victims of abuse and trauma, and those who never suffered any of these things are broken on the deepest level. None of us are living how God originally intended for us to live. We live in a body that is decaying and dying, breathing toxic air and eating unhealthy food. God never intended it to be like this. To blame God for the pain and suffering is as wrong as to blame the minister of transportation for the accidents that happen on the highway. 

Humans break rules and broken rules break our lives. Click To Tweet

The Transgender Transition

The transgender community offers a solution called the transition. This consists of two parts.

The Transition:
1. Hormone therapy

2. Gender reassignment surgery

 When you begin to identify with gender dysphoria, you can take pills that begin to battle the hormones in your body. This is never enough to fix the problem and after that, people as young as 14 years of age go under the knife to receive what is being called gender-affirming surgeries. These are irreversible surgeries in which perfectly functioning body parts are mutilated and removed. 

Testimonies Of De-Transitioners

What the transgender community likes to ignore or be silent over are the stories of people who transitioned into transgenderism and then, de-transitioned. They call them de-transitioners. Most of them came to Christ and left that lifestyle. March 12th is Detransition Awareness Day. They are trying to sound the alarm that a lot of what happens in that community is being hidden from the public.

1. 40% of people who de-transitioned felt pressure from healthcare professionals to medically transition. 
2. 57% of de-transitioners felt that their evaluation of gender dysphoria was inadequate.
3. 65% of de-transitioners reported that possible contributing factors like trauma, and other mental health issues were not considered during their gender distress assessment.
4. 45% of biological females stated that their mental health did not improve after transitioning, meaning the promises they were given were not delivered upon. 
5. 41% de-transitioned after realizing their gender dysphoria was caused by something other than their gender identities, such as trauma and other mental health diagnoses.
6. 40% of biological women reported that transitioning worsened their mental health as underlying issues were not addressed by the gender clinic or therapist.

The Broken Engine

The Bible says the engine of your life is your heart. That heart is so sick it cannot be fixed by surgery, by a doctor, or by religion. It has to be fixed by Jesus who will nail it to the cross and give you a new heart. Your heart is beyond repair. That is why it is so broken and this is responsible for all the unhappiness in your life. I know people like to blame everything on the devil, society, and circumstances but even if there are contributing factors to your brokenness like abuse, ultimately, something you share with every person on this planet including the worst people is the broken engine called the heart.

God’s remedy is not external behavior modification; it is internal transformation. How He did that was to send His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus endured agony. He was fully divine yet lived in the body for 33 years. The Son of God experienced betrayal and rejection. He never came in contact with sin as God; it was against His nature. All human sin was placed upon Him and He who knew no sin became sin for us. Jesus knows what it is like not to be understood and to be perfect, yet carry the sin of the world for you. Jesus was broken so that we could be made whole, (Luke 22:44; 2 Corinthians 5:21). 

Only Jesus Can Save You

God the Father rejected Him because of the sin He carried. He experienced all the suffering and affliction you can experience. Jesus didn’t do it so He can sympathize with you; He did it so He can save you. He is the only one who can replace your engine if you would only open the hood of your vehicle. Jesus will give you a new identity, an identity that is anchored and secured, not in fantasy but in the fact and truth of the cross. Only there does your chasing end.

Your fantasies go under His Word and God gives you a new mind and new life, and you no longer have to chase the next thing. You rest in Him and He begins to cleanse, deliver, sanctify you, and make you more like you because you were made to be like Him. When you deny yourself, you discover that your true self was always hidden in Him. Your life is hidden in Him. You will never find your true self without Him. 

Jesus wants to forgive you today, so graciously but He does require one thing: That you repent of your sin, repent of your pride, and believe in the cross, in His death and resurrection for you – that He is your God. He is not a bad oppressor; He is a good liberator, the Doctor of all Doctors, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

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