I have friends who are unafraid and unashamed to post the biblical truth on social media, like James White, Michelle Lesley, Justin Peters, and so on. We learned a few days ago that Amazon pulled books on the subject of conversion (homosexual) therapy. This week also, the American Institute of Graphic Arts who puts on the Circles Conference disinvited a staffer from Matt Chandler's church who was to speak, due to his "organization's" allegedly discriminatory attitudes towards women and gay people. It's sad to see these things come to pass, but we expected the battle on those fronts. However, my friend Michelle also was just notified that a meme she posted on Facebook was hate speech. Here it is.
Feminism and the Homosexual Agenda are two of the enemy's favored doctrines. He is pressing them ever forward into American culture. As he does so, he is tightening the reins of how much truth will be tolerated. This is an example.
James White wrote about this recently, saying in his blog post Wisdom From Above-
what shall we do now that Google and Facebook and Twitter and Amazon are picking us off, one by one, for not saying Caesar is Lord?James White continues in his short blog post with a few ideas about what we should do, as related to social media.
He also wrote, commenting about a recent incident from culture, that we are looking at Romans 1:32 being lived out in front of us.
It was quite a reminder that those who know God’s righteous judgment against their sin suppress that knowledge by inviting others to join them in their rebellion.
Here is the verse he mentioned, about those who participate in these sins heartily applaud those others who do as well.
And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32)
When God gives them over to a depraved mind, it means their mind can't think straight. It's warped, twisted, and literally cannot think rationally. A vivid example of this is claiming that the meme's language is hate speech when it's actually just a verse describing the qualifications of preachers.
In the generations gone by, He permitted all the nations to go their own ways. (Acts 14:16)
Thirteen years ago John MacArthur preached a message that stayed with me. It was piercing in its devastating truths. It's called When God Abandons a Nation. We know that God is a God of love, but He is also a God of wrath. There are different kinds of wrath. One of them is the Wrath of Abandonment. We can't know when God performs certain acts, but our minds are not futile and we rationally observe the culture. As we know the prophesied outcome of All Things and the general trajectory of life and society, (Genesis 6, Judges...) we can detect by our observations when or if God might have abandoned the USA. MacArthur gives the steps to see this process. I excerpted them below.
1. So you look at a society and ask, is it driven by sexual immorality? Romans 1:24
2. Rampant degrading passions.- Plain and simple, Lesbianism, homosexuality. Romans 1:26
3. First the heart is rotten and the body follows, and then the mind goes. What is a depraved mind? Well, the word literally means tested and found useless, disqualified for its intended purpose, a non-functioning mind. Reasoning is so corrupted that it is crippled. Romans 1:28.
God given-over minds are so warped their reasoning doesn't make sense. If anyone has spent time on Social Media, you've seen this futile thinking. It's uncritical, unreasoning, twisted, and belligerent.
It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. It is also a terrible thing to be cast out of the hands of the Living God. Abandonment to one's own desires is one of the worst things that can happen to a soul. When this occurs on a wide-spread scale, as in an entire society being given over, it's horrible to watch.
I'm posting this not to 'tut-tut' the culture, but to encourage you to keep studying the word. We need to know what we believe and why. We should keep sharing the reason for the hope that is within us because as society darkens, the Light that is within us will be brighter. We need to prepare for alternative social media platforms as cultural intolerance appears to be increasingly rejecting Christ's truths. Other platforms beside Twitter and Facebook exist, and James White mentions one or two. There are others.
MacArthur offers a hopeful conclusion in his sermon When God Abandons a Nation:
The key, listen to Me. Walk in My ways. The only hope for this or any other society is to hear the Word of the Lord and obey it, to hear the Word of the Lord and obey it. And I would suggest that this is not a good time for weak men preaching weak messages in weak churches. This is a time for bold and powerful strong biblical ministry that calls people to hear the Word of the Lord and respond. This is the only hope for any people for any individual.All glory to God!