“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” Romans 11:33-36 ESV
As a self-defense instructor (your humble author’s day job basically) I often remind students to avoid the scourge of tunnel-vision. You see, under deadly stress our field of vision is restricted due to our body producing large amounts of adrenaline. The pupils dilate and that restricts our peripheral vision. In a self-defense scenario where we need to stay observant for, say, multiple opponents, obstacles, etc., such restricted can be vision dangerous.
Well, as a Bible teacher I’d like to suggest that we must be careful of the same thing happening to us theologically during the onslaught of LGBTQ propaganda during the so-called pride month. Yes, it’s everywhere in corporate America, social media and all that. For crying out loud, my Iphone keeps offering me a pride flag along with my usual smiley faces and thumbs up emojis. Can you imagine a world where Apple, those high-priests of modern tech, gave us emoji-Bibles as a routine suggest just because? ? Oh, well.
Anyway, the danger is tunnel vision on the issue so much that we miss the point.
A few things to think about as our country flaunts its insane push toward that terrible abyss of complete moral nihilism.
First, the LGBTQ folks don’t have a monopoly on sinful pride. The whole country is shot-through with it, especially the church. Pride is the action of declaring oneself and one’s goals as preeminent in any or all areas of life rather than the Lord Jesus Christ. Pride is often confused with vanity but that diminishes the theological implications of the issue. Pride is saying, “my will be done.” Christianity is praying, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done…on earth…in my life…especially in my life.”
Have you watched any professional sporting events lately? A wide-receiver in the NFL catches a routine 5 yard-pass and acts like he single-handedly defeated Hitler. Narcissism and vanity are everywhere on display – especially on social media. There are literally no verses in Scripture that extol the virtues of ambition, pride, or self-esteem. None. But our entire culture, beginning in day-care, is in opposition to this. The opposite of the fear of the Lord is self-esteem. We must call sinners to repent of self-absorption and turn to the true Lord of glory. And we must be vigilant over our own hearts while noticing the speck in the eye of these others. Have we totally surrendered our hearts and lives to Him? Is our bank account His? Our family? Our work? Is there any part of life where we demand our way over His?
Second, our infatuation with self permeates every aspect of our culture. The pride movement hasn’t come out of nowhere. Theological tunnel-vision can cause us to not notice the threat in our own minds/lives. Our love of physical beauty, athletic talent and outward success has caused a severe weakening of the mind. Our youth culture is hardly concerned with eternal issues. We obsess over trivial matters rather than wisdom and true knowledge.
We’ve ignored the assault of the philosophy of egocentricity in our schools. We’ve tolerated a public school system and higher education that flat-out preaches humanism and wonder why the younger generation struggles with meaning, depression, and addictions.
As a small-business owner I’m constantly being told by marketing/advertising “gurus” that I need to better appeal to customers. It’s assumed that profit is the goal rather than skillful service to the glory of God. It’s as though the Bible says nothing about economics! It’s as though business and marketing is a field on which the Bible is silent!
In fact, loving my neighbor to the glory of God is the path of a real business. The Protestant work-ethic was founded on the great truths of Scripture; today, though, many churchmen and women study ungodly principles of pandering and emotional manipulation. Pride is alive especially here. God doesn’t need my self-defense classes, but my neighbor does. God doesn’t need your accounting skills, but your customer does. Do these things to the best of your ability because God has given you these gifts in the first place. And, remember, above all, that the goal of our work is to serve our neighbor in the Lord through “win-win” relationships. The principle of Godly work is that no one owes us anything and vice-versa (Romans 13:8).
The Marxist work-ethic is alive and well, though…even inside the church. We believe that we’re entitled to our neighbor’s property. We believe that others owe us this and that. Do we rail against a Pride march but ignore the fact that Christians far and wide are not known as expert craftsmen who are extremely reliable? Do we lament the sexual sin in the world but not the socialist-idolatry, poor work-ethic, and bad reputation of Christians?
“He who is careless in his work Is a brother to him who destroys.” Proverbs 18:9 AMP
This leads us to the third point, which is that as we move farther from God and the principles of His word/law, we grow more self-indulgent and less productive. Pride convinces us that we’re valuable to others due to our intrinsic goodness rather than for our skill. Yes, I said that. If Romans 13:8 goes one way, it goes the other too. Our neighbor owes us nothing. Pride lies and flips the script so that we demand that our neighbor serve us. Pride demands win-lose relationships. Pride is the theological foundation of entitlement. The Bible expressly forbids the use of force, regulation, coercion, or pressure, in order to gain any value from others! The LGBTQ pride events are demanding that everyone honor them. That’s aggressive. It’s bullying. But it’s no different in theological origin than a union demanding that a business pay their members according to their dictates. It’s no different than politicians regulating so-called free business owners and citizens.
An LGBTQ pride event is the sexual manifestation of the humanistic philosophy that Christians have tolerated, even embraced. The basic impulse of humanism is to be served rather than to serve. It’s to worship the nanny-state rather than God because humanism is self-worship and self-worship hates frustration and risk more than anything else. Christians threw wide-open the door to Marxist ideology because we don’t trust Him with our economics. The downward spiral of self-absorbed hedonism is the logical implication of economic self-worship. A Pride march is the sexual offshoot of an economic march. Pride is self-worship and is seen in action by the demand that others give to satisfy our need. Pride is the philosophy of self on the throne, not God.
The common denominator of it all is that if God is God at all then He’s God of all. Our businesses, our labor, our money, our charity, our family, our education. But it’s clear that the overwhelming majority of Christians don’t know or understand this. That we’re conformed to this world’s way of thinking – in education, politics, economics and ethics – is a far greater sin than the sexual sin of the unbelieving world. The latter, in fact, flows from the former.
Do we really think that God is not a God of His word? Is it for nothing that He said, “seek first the Kingdom and its righteousness and these other things will be added to you (Luke 12:31)? Do we trust His promises so little that we ask the idol-state to assure our future rather than He who created all things? Do we really think His principles of economics and law aren’t as essential to daily life as His word on salvation is? Again: if His word is true at all then it’s true over all. To paraphrase Kuyper: there’s not a single element of societal structure over which the Lord Jesus Christ isn’t Lord.
So, yes, Pride month is a sin. But the greater sin is that His church is, in truth, polytheistic in practice – relying on the state for its economics and law. What we think is supreme we’re worshipping. Thinking that God’s word isn’t the authority over schooling, work, family and politics – giving us the regulative principles of all – is the very thing that made Pride month inevitable. So, let’s ask ourselves: have we sanctified the Lord Jesus in our hearts and minds (1 Peter 3:15)? Truly and without reservation? Have we still an island fortress in our soul flying the flag of self? Yes, let us preach the gospel to all this June. But first, let us especially preach its truth to ourselves.
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