Crisis is an accelerator. Our society has seen this in the business world. We’ve seen it in churches use of technology. The pandemic and shutdown have brought a series of changes throughout our culture, and for many of them, there’s no going back. The future has arrived even faster than we imagined.
But these transformations are not all welcome. Remember all the times over the past few decades when Christians were mocked as alarmists, simply because we worried the redefinition of marriage would become a slippery slope for greater perversion?
Here we are.
On July 1, the New York Times reported that Somerville, Massachusetts, had become the first city in the nation to legally recognize polyamorous relationships.
This came in response to the coronavirus pandemic, as a flood of sexual partners were suddenly not allowed to visit their loved ones in the hospital. Why? It’s because they were not “legally” married.
[A Somerville city councilor] said he knew of at least two dozen polyamorous households in Somerville, which has a population of about 80,000.
“This is simply allowing that change, allowing people to say, ‘This is my partner and this is my other partner,’” he said. “It has a legal bearing, so when one of them is sick, they can both go to the hospital.”
The coronavirus was all it took to redefine marriage…one more time.
Getting Nowhere Fast
In case you’re having trouble with the ever-expanding definitions of sexual expression, don’t feel guilty—even the Oxford Dictionary struggles to keep up with current trends. They added the word “polyamory” as recently as 2006, using the following definition:
Polyamory: The practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the agreement of all the people involved.
This definition has given rise to a host of others. And that’s the problem, isn’t it?
A “triad” speaks of three partners. “Polyfidelitous” refers to those who don’t date outside of their household. “Spice” has become the plural for spouse—a word that, according to God’s plan for marriage, shouldn’t need a plural.
Ironically, the more we define the meaning of marriage, the less marriage means. Definitions that served every civilization for thousands of years are being reworked like road construction that never ends. Our road to nowhere is getting there fast—and very clearly, it’s a sign of the end times.
Unrivaled Sexual Insanity
In “latter times,” the Bible says, people will forbid traditional marriage and sexual abuse will run rampant. Five times in Revelation, the nations are described as drinking the filthy “wine” of Babylon’s sexual immorality (see Revelation 14:8, 17:2-4, 18:3, and 19:2). While fornication is a metaphor for abandoning Christ, such verbal repetition should be taken more than just figuratively.
The last days will be a period of unrivaled sexual insanity. The “kings of the earth” will commit concrete “acts of immorality”—just as we have seen in recent news about the pedophile ring of Jeffrey Epstein.
God is too good to allow rampant sexual perversion to continue indefinitely. In Colossians 3:5-6, we read that “the wrath of God is coming” upon those who persist in sexual misdeeds. The Book of Revelation records this outpouring of wrath, but with a sad testimony: “the rest of mankind…did not repent of…their sexual immorality” (Revelation 9:20-21).
Some people say that Christians should just be quiet and stop legislating morality. But shouldn’t we prefer that approach—rather than actively legislating immorality?! We can’t love the world by staying silent when we see something wrong. Silence in the face of immorality can be a form of complicity.
Jesus wasn’t silent. He tells the Church of the last days not to tolerate “that woman Jezebel” who seduces His servants “to commit sexual immorality” (Revelation 2:20).
A compromising Church can’t be the hope of the world. Nor can it be the pure and spotless Bride for whom Jesus is coming back. The more we hope in His return, the more He conforms us to a timeless standard that’s every bit as pure as the Son of God Himself:
“When He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”—1 John 3:2-3
We are seeing sexual morality erode at a blistering pace, unlike anything humanity has ever seen before. God hates immorality because it destroys the people He loves. It devastates and ruins.
That’s why I believe a day is coming—very soon—when God will no longer allow sexual immorality to run rampant.