What is the spiritual state of America? Pew Research Center’s latest 2014 Religious Landscape Study revealed a number of important clues.
Among them: Our nation is becoming less religious overall, with the number of Americans professing a belief in God or going to church declining modestly. The largest religious group within the Democrat Party is now “the nones” (though how that counts as a “religion” at all, one can only guess). On the brighter side, Pew found that among the religious, there’s been no discernible drop in most measures of their religious commitments.
But perhaps the biggest tidbit from the survey has to do with what The Washington Post calls “the Christian evolution on homosexuality.” When the last Religious Landscape Study was conducted in 2007, 58 percent of Roman Catholics said “homosexuality should be accepted by society.” Now, that number has risen to 70 percent. Fifty-six percent of mainline Protestants supported homosexuality acceptance in 2007, and that number is up to 66 percent now.
And among evangelicals? Twenty-six percent accepted homosexuality in 2007. Now, 36 percent support it — a gain of 10 percentage points in only seven years.
How can this be? How could more than a third of evangelical Christians approve of sin?
What this really indicates is that 36 percent of these evangelicals either don’t read the Bible or do read the Bible, but don’t actually believe it. Either way, these numbers show that the relentless LGBT propaganda machine that permeates absolutely everything is having a greater effect on one-third of evangelicalism than the inerrant Word of God. And beyond just the issue of homosexuality, that is a long-term recipe for disaster.
In Mark 12, the Sadducees approached the Lord Jesus Christ with a question: If a widow subsequently marries seven brothers, losing each one to death before marrying the next, whose wife will she be at the resurrection? Jesus’ reply was succinct: “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?” (v. 24)
Is this not our same problem today? We hear the culture ask, “Don’t you believe in equality?” “Who are we to tell someone that his love for his male partner is inferior to a man’s love for his wife?” or “Shouldn’t society protect people against discrimination?” Among the so-called “gay” Christian activists, the questions might become even more devious: “I was born this way, and so why would God condemn me?” or “Did you know that the Bible passages you thought you understand don’t really condemn homosexuality?” And for too many evangelicals today, the reply is: “Well, maybe I was wrong … maybe I should rethink that … I don’t want to be a hater, after all …”
But how can we be so deceived on this subject, when the Word of God is so clear? Are we not in error because we do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?
When the Bible speaks, is it our final authority — or do we believe the Bible is up for negotiation with the same world that rejects it?
Is the Bible enough when the world says homosexuality is morally permissible … but God says, “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable?”
Is the Bible enough when the world says abortion is an acceptable choice … but God says, “Thou shalt not murder?”
Is the Bible enough when the world says good people go to heaven… but God says, “There is no one righteous; not even one?”
Is the Bible enough when the world says do whatever feels good … but God says, “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death?”
Who gets the final say on truth? God — or the world? For all evangelicals, one would presume that the answer would be the former. But tragically, the poll numbers tell us otherwise. Indeed, the spiritual state of America stands or falls upon whether we believe — or don’t believe — the Word of God.
Evangelicals today are heading into dangerous waters, as a Romans 1 paganism takes hold all around us and unleashes vicious new attacks upon the Lord Jesus Christ and His church.
It is time for the church to stop thinking we can be both lovers of the world and lovers of God, picking and choosing what we like from the Bible and merging it with what we like from the world. Instead, it is time to stand firmly upon the perfect and unchanging Word of God, believing and trusting that where it speaks, God speaks. It is time for us to confess that all of the spiritual errors we are committing these days have indeed come about because we do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.
It is long past time for evangelicals to realize that the Bible is indeed enough — and we should repent in tears for ever daring to believe otherwise. As Christians, we must believe the Scriptures, read the Scriptures, study the Scriptures and know the Scriptures. Because without the perfect and unchanging Word of God as our foundation, Christ’s church cannot stand at all.
“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:14-17)