We’re in a war. It’s a spiritual war, and the attack is on the institutions God ordained: marriage and the family. But it’s even more insidious than that. The assault on marriage and family is because our enemy, Satan, wants to destroy all those who bear the image of God and the best way to accomplish this is to undermine marriage and family. Destroy marriage and the family, and you’ll destroy society. Destroy society, and humans no longer flourish and more people die.
This spiritual war has been raging for 6,000 years and will continue until the day when the victorious Christ will cast Satan into the lake of fire. (Praise the Lord, no matter what evil we see in this world, evil will ultimately lose, justice will win, and through it all, Christ reigns on his throne.)
Now, it seems that this war is really heating up. A day doesn’t go by where we don’t see some new, even more egregious evil against those who bear God’s image. Consider these three recent examples:
Don’t Have Kids (And Kill Them If You Do)
An “extinction activist” (yes, apparently that’s a thing!) wants humans to voluntarily die out. In his view, we should care for the people who have already been born, but everyone should immediately stop having children so that humanity will die out and “the biosphere ‘will have a chance to recover.’” As he snappily puts it, “‘Feed ‘em don’t breed ‘em.’”
Now, I don’t know how he thinks this will work practically—if everyone stops having children, in just a few decades the world will be filled with millions of seniors and no one to grow food, provide health services, or build or maintain housing—so the last humans will slowly die of starvation, disease, illness, disability, and exposure. What a horrific view of the future!
His “feed ‘em don’t breed ‘em” view is a secular religious viewpoint that worships earth and places no value on human life. Instead of viewing humans as caretakers or stewards of God’s creation—with earth designed and built for life, particularly human life—he sees earth by itself as more valuable than humans. What a sad view—and one that’s totally antithetical to the biblical view that humans are the crown of God’s creation, tasked with multiplying and filling earth and caring for creation for man’s good and God’s glory.
This religious activist then went on to say that “reproductive freedom” (a common euphemism for abortion) is “the most important thing we need today . . . [as] hundreds of millions of couples are denied their right to not procreate.” In other words, we need more birth control and abortion so everyone can not have kids and, if they do happen to become pregnant, they can kill their children before they are born.
Ironically, it’s said that while he “may be against the creation of more humans, he shows great compassion for the ones that already exist”—great compassion, unless of course, that person isn’t born yet! It’s all very inconsistent!
And it gets worse! During the same interview, a panel of guests was discussing “overpopulation” and the “ethics of procreation,” and one panelist claimed that people cannot be trusted to be responsible enough to use birth control (is he suggesting forced sterilization à la the turn of the twentieth century?) and these people:
end up having to be taken care of “whether it be the prisons that we built for them, or the social services that we have to create for them, and they do not become more educated and do things differently. They breed more, that’s what happens.”
This is the language of eugenics and forced sterilization programs to keep those deemed socially or physically “unfit” from having children! (Notice the dehumanizing “breed” language—it’s the same language the eugenicists of the last century used!) All of this illustrates the depravity of man—man being his own god (Genesis 3:5).
It’s heartbreaking to see how children are being treated as not just unwanted, but as a bad thing and those who have children as “irresponsible.” What a different view of the littlest among us than the view of Jesus, their Creator.
Matthew 19:14 KJV – “But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Sexualize and Destroy the Children
But the attack continues. If Satan cannot kill the children, he will do all he can to hurt them physically, emotionally, and physiologically by foisting sexualized and confusing content on them to get them to doubt how God made them.
Take, for example, the once-trusted brand American Girl, a toy company that produces large, lifelike dolls and accessories and then writes books to go along with the characters. In the book A Smart Girl’s Guide: Body Image—reportedly written for children as young as three—they teach children about “gender joy” and “gender expression,” saying things like:
- Parts of your body may make you feel uncomfortable, and you may want to change the way you look. That’s totally OK!
- You can appreciate your body for everything it allows you to experience and still want to change certain things about it.
- If you haven’t gone through puberty yet, the doctor might offer medicine to delay your body’s changes, giving you more time to think about your gender identity.
- If you don’t have an adult you trust, there are organizations across the country that can help you. Turn to the resources on page 95 for more information.
- Being transgender isn’t a medical transition. It’s a process of learning to love yourself for who you are.
Get what these authors are trying to do: they aren’t merely suggesting to children that they might not really be a boy or a girl but can be whatever they want (and that there are eager medical professionals out there willing to help them change their bodies however they want!). That would be bad enough, but it’s worse than that!
They are purposely teaching children to be skeptical of their parents and conditioning them to believe that if their parents don’t agree with what they’re doing, they cannot be trusted. It’s an attempt to pit children against their parents, undermining parental love, trust, and authority and destroying the familial bond that keeps children safe from predators!
It’s insidious and dangerous, and the result will be more hurting children, emotionally or even physically isolated from their parents, stuck on the conveyer belt of medical procedures that will mutilate their precious bodies, destroy any future hopes of having children, and in the end leave them broken—as the gender revolutionaries, acting in defiance of God’s created order, cannot deliver on the promises of happiness and freedom they have advertised! If we can, we should stop supporting these companies and the products they produce.
Kill the Elderly, Disabled, or Ill
And it continues. Canada is hurtling as fast as possible down the “slippery slope” of euthanasia legislation. As I reported a few weeks ago, some Canadian doctors are now proposing euthanasia for “severely disabled” newborns and for 14–17-year-olds to be eligible for assisted suicide. Canada amended the euthanasia program so death no longer has to be “reasonably foreseeable” for someone to qualify. Doctors can now—and, according to one document, have an obligation to—initiate discussions about assisted suicide with their eligible patients. And next year, the assisted suicide criteria opens up to those suffering from poor mental health. No wonder 3.3% of total deaths in Canada last year were via assisted suicide (a 32% increase from previous years)!
And it will only get worse. Consider recent reports of a veteran who was disabled during a training exercise. This paraplegic, who competed in the 2016 Invictus Games and the 2016 Paralympic Games, made a request to the government for a wheelchair ramp. Instead, she testified that what she eventually received was “a letter saying that if you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying.” (This is reportedly the fifth reported instance of this happening to a veteran.)
Manipulative cases like this will only increase as assisted suicide becomes more mainstream in Canada. The entire premise of euthanasia shows a horrifying dismissal of the value of human life. While cloaked in terms of compassion, euthanasia says that life is only worth living if it’s relatively free from suffering, can contribute something to society, and if the person is relativity healthy and happy. It’s such a utilitarian view of life.
Advocates try to ground euthanasia in so-called personal autonomy, but really, at its heart, it’s cunning, designed to “weed out” the weakest and sickest (read: most expensive on Canada’s health care system), rather than coming up with solutions to the problems in our fallen world in a way that respects the dignity and value of every human life. And it’s so sad that when those who have not trusted Christ as Savior die, they will then suffer a second death of eternal separation from God. Oh, how people need to hear the truth that they’re made in God’s image and suffer a problem called sin for which God has paid their penalty.
A War, but We Have Divine Weapons
Yes, it’s a war—a war against those who bear God’s image. Our enemy hates those God has fearfully and wonderfully made, and he wants to see every image-bearer destroyed. So what’s the solution—how do we fight in this war? With the weapons God has given us: the armor of God (including prayer and God’s Word) and the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ (that’s the message we’re teaching children next year in our 2023 Answers VBS, Keepers of the Kingdom: Standing Strong in Today’s Battle for Truth).
Ephesians 6:11–18 KJV – “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;”
And take heart as you fight—we know how it ends! Christ is victorious, and those who have trusted in him will dwell with him for eternity. Praise the Lord!
