What the Bible says about Perversion
(From Forerunner Commentary)
Because of man's lawlessness, this law of the universe has too often gone into effect. As a law of an impartial God, it will soon descend upon the nations of Israel in the form of "a nation of fierce countenance" (Deuteronomy 28:49-50). It is only a matter of time.
When a nation descends into perversions like homosexuality, its decline accelerates, its fibers weaken, and it becomes ripe for disaster, either natural or political/military. If the leadership of a nation participates in these perversions, the immorality spreads like a cancer among the people, accelerating the collapse. The leaders, already perverted personally, make immoral and unwise decisions regarding the nation's direction and conditions grow worse (Romans 1:26-32; II Timothy 3:13).
Knowing the nation's destruction is so near, Christians have a responsibility to "sigh and cry over all the abominations" (Ezekiel 9:4), preparing for the time when we will rule with Christ in a just and holy government (Revelation 5:10; I Peter 2:9; I Corinthians 6:2-3). Fortunately, God has made provision for homosexuals to repent, maybe not now but in the resurrection, if their minds have not been totally perverted (II Peter 3:9; I Timothy 2:4; 4:2; Hebrews 10:26-31).
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The 'Gaying' of America
Drink in the Bible suggests "to take in; to accept; to believe." In this case, it indicates that the person assimilates the very life of God by His Spirit, so it becomes a part of every part of his life. It is not the mere assimilation of facts, knowledge, proof, or evidence, but also all the nuances and subtleties of an intimate relationship—the kind that exists between a shepherd and his sheep and that should exist between God and us. These subtleties and nuances affect every aspect of life, and they can be learned only by experiencing life with another. They form the essence of our knowledge of the spirit of that other person—or of God!
God is complaining that people will drink from any dirty pool, which has led to man's history of false governments, false religions, false educational systems, false childrearing practices, false marital practices, and so forth. The deceit reaches into every facet of life because people are imbibing from any stagnant pond that they can find along the way rather than the one God would lead them to.
God's people will be satisfied by what they drink. But those who drink from any old pool along the way are feeding their minds—and therefore their spirits—falsehood and will come up thirsty. It does not matter how much they are drinking from that pool. They are going to become sick and diseased spiritually, and if nothing changes, they are going to die.
Mankind has an unfulfilled craving to worship. People desire to fill that longing within them and find a sense of well-being, accomplishment, and excitement. To get this fulfillment, we can see from our experiences and our observation of the world that people will drink from any dirty pool they find.
Humans will eat anything that wiggles or moves. They will put anything into their bodies to experience a momentary thrill or excitement. They will engage in any kind of perversion to satisfy this longing or need. Most people want to live on the wild side, which is what Paul writes in Romans 8:7: "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be."
Where will we drink? What are the long-range effects of what we take in to feed our minds and spirits? Will we end up in the Kingdom of God because of it? Will our lives acquire a sense of fulfillment because of our relationship with God? Or will we become like those who are "always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (II Timothy 3:7)—broken in spirit and in heart, and feeling frustrated and empty, as though God does not care? The Bible shows that for people with that last outlook, trouble will suddenly come upon them, and they will all fall in a pit that they themselves have dug.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Psalm 23 (Part Two)Related Topics: Addiction to Sin | Addictive Quality of Sin | Assimilating Spiritual Food | Assimilation | Carnal Mind Enmity against God | Deceit | Deception | Drink | Excitement | Falsehood | Perversion
Statistics show that the more education an American citizen has, the more likely he will support such human perversions as abortion and homosexuality. How can this be? These perverse activities have been repeatedly proven to be destructive. Simple logic suggests that the more educated and informed a person is about homicidal or suicidal behaviors and lifestyles, the more he resists supporting and condoning such actions. But these "well-educated" people who support self-destructive perversions are swallowing the lies of self-serving teachers. They have not honestly pursued truth in their endeavors to learn!
According to data provided by The Gallop Organization regarding attitudes toward abortion always being legal in the U.S., the higher the education a person receives, the more pro-abortion he is. Concerning attitudes toward the legality of homosexual relations, the more institutionally educated a person is, the more pro-homosexual he is.
Could it be that these institutions of higher learning are not teaching people the truth? Would academia wave the banner of knowledge and wisdom, yet flagrantly and consistently lie to its disciples? Obviously, the answer is yes! They are distorting the facts of life to promote their agenda, and their students love to hear their lies.
For the most part, teachers of higher education choose to ignore proofs of the existence and sovereignty of God, instead willingly embracing and promoting unsubstantiated and untrue knowledge. This enmity toward God by the academic community has produced tainted fruit on a grand scale. Mental and physical anguish are the real fruit of such perverted human activities as abortion and homosexuality.
Paul explains to the church of God in Rome about this same attitude existing in his day. Its origin is the rejection of God as the only reliable source of truth. Truth is only obtainable through a relationship with God. Teachers are duty-bound to teach truth, yet many neglect this responsibility, teaching "alternate lifestyles," evolution, and tolerance of sin because they have little or no relationship with their Creator. King Solomon, the wisest of the wise taught,
For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly; He guards the paths of justice, and preserves the way of His saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path. When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness; who rejoice in doing evil, and delight in the perversity of the wicked. (Proverbs 2:6-14)
Truth and wisdom are viewed in this world as major liabilities to the successful pursuit of the lusts of the flesh. Most TV programs and major motion pictures promote lying as an acceptable way to not "hurt" someone's feelings, to "get out of" a scrape, or to "protect" someone from mental anguish. In reality—in truth—lying breaks the ninth commandment, and therefore lying is sin, and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Lying always does harm, only tangles the web, and does nothing to protect anyone.
Public education today is a tool used by those who reject truth to promote their own agenda on a massive scale. Most higher education seeks to re-educate its disciples with false, humanistic propaganda. Maybe it is time more parents take the education of their own children into their own hands and teach truth whose source is the God of the universe.
Martin G. Collins
What's With Education Today?
"The deceitfulness of sin"! In this context, to be deceitful is to be seductively and enticingly misleading. Sin promises what it cannot deliver. It promises pleasure, contentment, fulfillment—life—but its delivery on these things is fleeting and ultimately unsatisfying. Its deceitfulness is the very reason why it has addictive qualities. It lures us on to try to capture what it can never deliver.
The pleasure is never quite enough to produce the contentment and fulfillment one desires. Thus, people are forced into greater and deeper perversions until it results in death. All along the way, from its inception to death, sin quietly produces hardness of heart. Like a callus that forms over a break in a bone or stiffens a person's joints, sin paralyzes right action.
"Hardness" is translated from skleruno, from which name for the disease multiple sclerosis is derived. In a moral context, it means "impenetrable," "insensitive," "blind," "unteachable." A hardened attitude is not a sudden aberration, but the product of a habitual state of mind that reveals itself in inflexibility of thinking and insensitivity of conscience. Eventually, it makes repentance impossible. The will to do right is completely gone.
The will is the power or faculty by which the mind makes choices and acts to carry them out. An old adage says: "Sow an act and reap a habit; sow a habit and reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny." At first, against his will, a person engages in some forbidden pleasure out of weakness, curiosity, or sheer carnality. If the practice continues, he sins because he cannot help doing so; he is becoming addicted to it. Once a sin becomes a habit, he considers it to be almost a necessity. When it becomes a necessity, the destiny is produced.
John W. Ritenbaugh
What Sin Is
In these seven verses, Jude expands on his general description of false teachers in verse 4. He compares them in turn to the unbelieving Israelites, to the angels that sinned, and finally to the perverts in Sodom and vicinity. He is giving examples of the three major hallmarks of apostasy:
Unbelief, the Israelites' major failing.
Rebellion, which the angels who sinned did.
Immorality, what occurred in Sodom and Gomorrah.
Unbelief, rebellion, and immorality all result in divine judgment and punishment. The Israelites died in the wilderness, the angels that sinned were placed under restraint, and Sodom and Gomorrah were blasted off the face of the earth. We cannot find better examples of divine judgment and punishment than these.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
JudeRelated Topics: Apostasy | Divine Justice | Divine Punishment | False Ministers/Prophets | False Teachers | False Teachers, Characteristics of | Immorality | Jude | Perversion | Rebellion | Sodom and Gomorrah | Unbelief
In his warning against false Christians, Jude refers to the "way of Cain," and the rest of the epistle details the men he is warning against (Jude 3-4, 8, 10-18). To summarize, the "way of Cain" is religion or worship on one's own terms, even though the person may claim loyalty to God and use the Bible to some degree to back up his practices.
Genesis 3:13-15 could indicate that Eve and Cain thought he was the promised Seed who would crush the head of the serpent. If Cain believed he was a messianic figure, he certainly would have followed a religion on his own terms! As Jude shows, the way of Cain manifests itself in unbelief, rebellion against authority, perversion, ungodliness, turning God's grace into license, and denying the Father and the Son—not denying their existence but denying God's authority and the need for Christ's sacrifice and redemptive work. Jude shows that those linked with the way of Cain are grumblers and complainers, living according to their own desires, using flattery to gain advantage, seeking material wealth, and causing division, yet having a veneer of righteousness and spirituality.
The story of Cain reveals a man who was not nearly interested enough in the whole story, particularly the truth about himself. He made assumptions regarding his standing with God, what God required and desired, God's grace, and how prophecy must be fulfilled. He was not interested in details that would contradict who he was—or who he thought he was.
Sometimes, as in this speculation regarding Cain, we cannot know the whole story. But it is definitely in our best interest to find out the whole story when it comes to where we stand with God and how we should be responding to Him. Cain lost interest in these things because he decided he already knew "the rest of the story." We need not share in Cain's wretched ending if we will make the effort to get all the facts straight and all the details worked out regarding our understanding of God, our standing with Him, and our following His will for our lives.
David C. Grabbe
Cain's Assumption (Part Two)