Bondage!

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Isaiah 48

Cops for Christ San Francisco 1987

Back in 1987 or so—while teaching in San Francisco in a small church of Christians from India—I was invited to speak at lunches of this amazing organization of police officers. (Since 1987 they have been called “Peace Officers for Christ").

My friend Ron Ritchie and I both were guest speakers at SF Cops for Christ back then. We were asked to share our life stories not to “preach to the choir”--- they already had a chaplain!

As guest speaker I sat at the head table with Lieutenant Jim Crowley of the Police Department, City and County of San Francisco. He was a committed Christian. All ranks of law enforcement from patrolmen to plainclothesmen showed up for the monthly luncheons—numbering over a hundred men and women as I recall. No hierarchy was observed at lunch--all were family.

Now 33 years later many wonderful memories of Cops for Christ came flooding back. I decided to surf the net this week to see if anything had changed. Conclusion: Quite a bit worse now--a slippery slope for sure!

Remembering Jim Crowley San Francisco Police Department July 1964 - May 1994 29 years 11 months. 30 years in SFPD including 21 years in Investigations, Homicide and Sex Crimes Detail. Retired as a Lieutenant of Police. Jim then worked 10 years as a Corporate Security Manager, the Hertz Corporation. Related History of the San Francisco Cops for Christ

On one occasion I picked up Jim at his office. Stacked a mile high on his cabinets were boxes labeled “unsolved cases year 19xx.”  At that time he said "The City" had about one new unsolved murder per day to investigate. He said there was only about one policemen in SFO per 1000 citizens. 

Over lunch I asked him about the gay part of town which was about an eighth of the populace. The sizable Jewish, Hispanic, and Chinese parts of town and so on, were quite law abiding citizens.

My friend Jim mentioned to me they were then investigating a death at a well-known S&M Gay Leather Bar down on South Market Street.

I was taken aback when he told me that this licensed, law abiding, perfectly legal, night club had an attached medical clinic in the back room where trained doctors and nurses sewed back together injured customers who were there at the bar, by choice, for sexual encounters known as “bondage sex.” The damage requiring medical attention was mostly due to sodomy and rough sex, not to physical fisticuffs. That week one man had died and his death had to be investigated.

But Jim told me that the police were there to maintain law and order not to mediate morals.

San Francisco has a diverse variety of citizens as the accompanying chart makes clear. This has been the case since the Gold Rush of 1849. How many citizens of SFO have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?---probably only 1-2%. Many large, empty church buildings in SFO attest to a season of many conversions to Christ back before the 1907 earthquake.

The City and County is constrained by the geography of the Peninsula -- 800,000 people fit into a mere 50 square miles. Although San Francisco is mostly safe, there are neighborhoods that can be tricky to navigate, including the Tenderloin, the Mission, and sometimes Union Square. In these parts of the city, being on high alert can keep you out of trouble. Statistics of religious profession for The City are very misleading. One important Christian group, SOS San Francisco has successfully conducted street evangelism since 1975. As is the case with other major cities, there exists a huge homeless population perhaps numbering 8000 in official records, but probably much higher. the surrounding Bay Area is home to about 8 million people--ten times more than live in San Fransisco.

Historically, larger churches in the suburbs have been the place one finds most followers of Jesus gathering. At the time I spoke to Cops for Christ, San Francisco was considered beyond saving. Surviving churches in The City back then were typically 50-100 people, enough to support a paid pastor and rent a tiny building.

Evangelists from the Midwest visited especially during The Summer of Love (1967) -- they soon left for home, empty handed, having won no converts because of the huge cultural disconnect. See Revisiting the Haight-Ashbury.

Back to my story, I had seen booted Hells Angels motorcyclists riding Harleys and stirring up trouble like outlaws or cattle rustlers. But I had no clues about their sexual proclivities (if any) and I did not want to to know, either. My friends were respectable, law-abiding white, Anglo-Saxon church people, living on the Peninsula and behaving according to traditional "Christian values." Sort of!

If you sign up for a BSD trip in San Francisco, you will be held constrained and helpless--by ropes rather than nails--your male member would be carefully teased into life and you experience what is called “edging.” You would be aroused repeatedly--by your hosts--and brought repeatedly to the very point of no return, to an orgasm, by your skilled masters. They would however not allow you to have the desired orgasm perhaps until hours later. You got your money’s worth in the end. Your hosts were thoroughly professional in ministering to your deepest wants and your perceived needs as they saw them. Pleasure and reward were where your session would end. Probably you'd be back for more.

Diving deeper, I learned what I already knew, that some men can’t get sexually aroused by the sight of a naked woman or a naked man. Porn leaves them limp. They can’t perform sexually, even by themselves (as in “self-abuse”). They can sometimes get very turned on when they are voluntary victims --where pain punishes them in advance. (Therefore they believe they are blameless for whatever happened to them, that which brought gratification in the form of at least one intense orgasm). 

In Hindu religion the lowest Shakra, at the base of the spine, is symbolized as a coiled serpent. Various sects such as Tantra are about harnessing libido. (Libido in Latin is "lust.") "Enlightenment" starts with God above: then, first the mind, then the heart, then the emotions (the "bowels) and finally the loins. The Bible presents a better understanding than unenlightened paganism, by revelation from God:

"Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all." (Colossians 3:3-5)

If neo-paganism is your religion of choice, just sign up at your favorite S&M bar or parlor for professional service from a “slave master” (Can be M or F, usually more than one ministering punishment and reward to you, a helpless victim). They will tie you up with ropes or chains, often on a cross, then remove every stitch of clothing exposing your manhood for everyone to watch. (Some Voyeurs love this kind of porn so it’s often filmed.) You signed up and were interviewed in advance so your "needs" and your wants for sex were spelled out in advance. Suppose you have never experienced anything better?

"Bondage Sex" with or without pain is also available for college age men and women alike these days--no longer the habitat for only dirty old men and ugly aging women! Attraction to members of the same sex (SSA) is all too common today! So is erectile dysfunction (ED) and a host of other reminders that we are fallen men and woman. Back at the time I was involved in reaching lost men, women and young people in the City, I wanted to know more about the Seamy Side of San Francisco. See The Seamy Side of Life.

So far this is about guys being the passive partner in a bondage ritual but all this aberrant sexuality attracts women as well. S&M, kinky sex and leather used to be (I thought) for “dirty old men” and lost sinners beyond redemption. No longer. The kids these days are into such things, and often know about the seamy side of life than their up-tight parents.

A related term, I picked up, "S&M" is short for “sadomasochistic sex” —a life style of choice today which is by no means limited to the gay part of town. How this came to be the situation we're in is very much because the people who know the real God--Jew or Christian have failed to live out authentic lives pointing to an eternal, unchanging holy Creator. God is now stepping in boldly to fix the situation. If He failed to step in, we'd self-destruct soon

The End of Sex
The End of Sex as we Know it (Part 2).
Mankind's Downward Spiral
Perilous Times
Idolatry Notes

Tortured Christians

Torture Methods Used to Coerce People to Hail Communism, Renounce Faith

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

In its 2021 annual report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has categorized China as one of the world’s key countries ambitiously engaged in “egregious violations” of religious freedom and human rights.

Commissioner Gary L. Bauer said in the report that communist China had been denying its citizens “the right to seek and worship God.”

The victims who survive the CCP-led violent suppression or who are able to escape and seek refuge in other countries have been bravely stepping forward to expose the inhumane treatment and torture being carried out behind the communist regime’s impenetrable terror walls of prisons, forced labor camps, and “reeducation” centers.

Torture reenactment of forced drug injections. (Minghui.org)

The CCP officials and guards have devised many torture methods to painfully coerce these religious believers—be it Christians, Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, or Buddhists—to renounce their faith and hail the communist party as supreme, enshrining it even above the divine.

Minghui.org, a U.S.-based all-volunteer organization dedicated to reporting on the persecution of Falun Gong in China, has documented over 100 torture methods routinely used to coerce these meditation practitioners, with many of the methods also being employed on other religious believers. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mind-body practice that includes meditative exercises and moral teachings centered around the core tenets “truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.” The practice has been persecuted by the CCP since July 1999, and tens of thousands of adherents have been arrested, detained, and tortured.

Here are some of the most inhumane torture techniques commonly used in communist China’s jails, labor camps, and “reeducation” centers.

Hanging Bricks Around the Neck

Hanging heavy objects around the neck is one of the most common torture methods used to break the spirit of determined Falun Gong practitioners.

The “hanging bricks around the neck” torture method. (FalunArt.org)

An ex-convict, who had his sentence reduced by 8 years for helping to torture prisoners of conscience, including Falun Gong practitioners and members of The Church of Almighty God (CAG), recounted to Bitter Winter how inmates torture the believers.

“The means to transform believers varied—from regular beatings to torture, like keeping believers in cold water in sub-zero temperature or hanging a 10-kg water bucket around their neck,” the former inmate said. “The prison guards would pretend not to see these violent acts.”

Whipping

“Whipping people is such a tiring job!” said inmate Gao Minglong at the Siping Prison in Jilin Province, after he stripped Falun Gong practitioner Liang Zhenxing naked and started whipping him on the back.

“I hadn’t beaten anyone for years. I had so much fun today! Whoever refuses to listen to me, come here and I’ll teach you a lesson!” Gao added, according to a witness who saw the torture, Minghui.org reported. Liang died in May 2010 due to whipping and other torture.

Qin Jing, a CAG member, had his fingers and toes whipped by a long bamboo rod when he was in police custody, reported Bitter Winter. “Every whip caused a piercing pain, my fingers, and toes covered with blood as they whipped me unceasingly, leaving my hands and feet swollen and in unbearable pain,” he said.

Reenactment of whipping. (Minghui.org)

Electric Shocks

Electrocution is one of the routine torture methods used on religious followers of all faiths. An elderly Christian man from the CAG in China’s Jiangsu Province was arrested in July 2020 and severely tortured during the interrogation, according to a report by Bitter Winter.

“A police officer poked me with an electric baton that crackled constantly,” said the man, who is in his 70s. “He poked my private parts twice, causing unbearable pain.”

Tursunay Ziawudun, a Uyghur woman who fled to the United States, told the BBC that she was shocked with an electric baton and gang-raped three times. “The woman took me to the room … They had an electric stick, I didn’t know what it was, and it was pushed inside my genital tract, torturing me with an electric shock,” she said.

Reenactment of beating a prisoner of faith with an electric baton while he is chained to a metal frame in a “spread-eagle” position. (Minghui.org)

Sexual Abuse

The CCP has constantly used gang rape and sexual abuse as a genocidal tool to eliminate faith and to persecute those who refuse to submit to the communist ideologies. A CAG female member, Gao Jie, told Bitter Winter how some female guards forced her to have sex with a male guard after they stripped her naked and bathed her.

“Fortunately, I was having my period at the time, so I narrowly escaped this,” she said.

An illustration depicting the sexual abuse and severe torture of a female Falun Gong practitioner. (Minghui.org)

In one report, Minghui.org documented how 18 female Falun Gong practitioners held at the notorious Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, were thrown into the men’s cells and the inmates were encouraged by the guards to rape the practitioners. In another instance, a 9-year-old girl, who was the orphan child of a Falun Gong practitioner, was raped by three men at a mental hospital in Beijing.

An illustration of gang rape and sexual torture on people of faith. (Minghui.org)

Force Feeding

Often, detained Falun Gong adherents who go on extended hunger strikes to protest their unlawful arrest are brutally force-fed by having their mouths pried open, which leads not only to damaged teeth and gums but, at times, to severe mishaps. Policemen, doctors, and prison guards team up to force-feed them “meals” laced with toxic nerve-damaging drugs, mixed with hot chili peppers, salty water, and even feces.

For instance, Chu Lin, a Falun Gong practitioner, went on a hunger strike after being arrested in April 2004. The police who took part in force-feeding her mistakenly inserted the feeding tube into her trachea, causing her to go into a coma due to suffocation. Despite this, the police said, “We are not responsible for her death.”

Reenactment of force-feeding. (Minghui.org)

Inhaling Toxic Fumes

Another grossly inhumane torture method is burning mosquito-repellent coil near the face or stuffing nostrils with cigarettes to force prisoners of faith to inhale the toxic fumes. The torture leads to nausea, vomiting, and causes a green liquid to flow from their nose.

Reenactment of stuffing nostrils with lit cigarettes. (Minghui.org)

Reenactment of mosquito-repellent coil burning near the face. (Minghui.org)

Tiger Bench

The tiger bench is another infamous torture method routinely used in detention centers or prisons. The victim is made to sit on a “tiger bench” with legs stretched out and tied down tightly with several straps or belts. Then, heavy objects such as bricks are stacked under the victim’s feet until the belts snap. The torture inflicts unbearable pain, making the victim lose consciousness.

A painting depicting the “tiger bench” torture method. (Minghui.org)
Illustration: The “tiger bench.” (Minghui.org)

Death Bed and Stretching Torture

The death bed is another inhuman device to coerce prisoners of faith, especially Falun Gong practitioners.

The victim’s hands and feet are cuffed and then tied to a bed with ropes, making it almost impossible for the person to move even a little. With the victim’s arms and legs extremely stretched and tied, this torture causes excruciating pain and wounds if the person tries to move. Another method used is called stretching torture. The victim is tied to the four corner posts of the bed and hung in the air for a long period of time, which can easily cause the person to become disabled.

Reenactment of the death bed. (Minghui.org)
Reenactment of stretching torture. (Minghui.org)

Shackled to the Ground

This is used to inflict pain and restrict movement. The prisoner of faith is cuffed and shackled to the ground. After being chained in this position, the victim can neither stand up nor squat down, and is unable to move. With time, pain and numbness ensue.

Illustration: Shackled to the ground. (Minghui.org)

Burned with Cigarettes, Red-Hot Objects

It is not uncommon for the Chinese police to employ red-hot iron bars to burn practitioners’ thighs or chests.

Jiao Lin, a Falun Gong practitioner in Fengcheng City, Liaoning Province, was burned on his jaw by police with cigarette butts and lighters, reported Minghui.org. Another adherent, Lang Qingsheng, had his nostrils stuffed with lit cigarettes.

Reenactment of burning with cigarette butts. (Minghui.org)

Pinching with Pliers

Pliers are used on Falun Gong practitioners during force-feeding to pry open their mouths.

Hou Manyun of Hebei Province wrote in her personal account to Minghui.org how a doctor hit her face with a pair of pliers before prying open her mouth to force-feed her. The doctor also stabbed her throat many times with a knife while shouting, “You don’t want to eat? Don’t want to eat? I’ll make sure you don’t eat.”

Besides using the pliers to pry open the mouth, the tool is also used to pinch the victim’s body or fingernails. Xiao Shufen of Heilongjiang Province had her fingernails pinched when illegally taken into police custody.

Reenactment of pinching the body with pliers. (Minghui.org)
Reenactment of pinching the fingernail with pliers. (Minghui.org)

Beating on Metal

The communist police are also known to use loud sound as a form of torture, resulting in many prisoners of faith enduring hearing loss or becoming mentally disordered.

A female CAG member told Bitter Winter that authorities at the reeducation center where she was detained forced her to watch videos defaming the CAG while turning the volume to the maximum. She started experiencing ringing noise in her ears after a short time and had irregular heartbeats. Moreover, the authorities tried to scare her from behind with loud noises. She eventually became depressed and disoriented.

“I wanted to die, felt like committing suicide. I was pondering what I could use to hang myself or cut my wrists,” the woman said. “I also thought of knocking my head against the wall but was afraid that it would not be enough to kill me. How I wished not to wake up!”

Minghui.org reported that when Zheng Hua of Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, was in police custody for refusing to renounce her faith in Falun Gong, she was tied to a metal chair and a metal bucket was put over her head. The police then beat the bucket while shocking her with electric batons at the same time.

Reenactment of beating on a metal bucket. (Minghui.org)

Arshdeep Sarao contributed to this report.

Comments

When this was first written, I delayed posting it and asked several mature brothers in Christ for their reactions.

"As I read this article I had deep spiritual pain about the introduction to rope sex ("bondage")....as in “I cannot go there with you.” I had a sort of knife stabbed in my back right side with sharp pain when I read it.  Though, your description of what happens in rope sex brought to mind my ex-wife said and some things she would tell me. To this day I get teary sad thinking about what she was, and is, into sexually.  It was helped by the reminder that we ALL HUMANS hide from God after, during and before sin. Made me think and picture the garden of Eden when A&E hid from Jesus. I’d like to know more about that! I see many people hiding from God. Maybe even me!?" 

In response to this brother from my home state (Idaho), I wrote:

Your reaction is not unique. Hardly anyone these days even considers the price Jesus paid to rescue us from our total depravity. “The church” by and large is in deep denial about our fall and our lostness —therefore unwilling to have anything to do with the millennial generation for whom M, and drugs, and sexual promiscuity--not just “hooking up”--is common now. God is greater still and He loves all sorts of people we loathe and despise and have written off. The default mode of the "old paradigm church" today is a stench to God!

Lambert 

From C.S. Lewis: "They tell you sex has become a mess because it was hushed up. But for the last twenty years it has not been hushed up. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess. If hushing up had been the cause of the trouble, ventilation would have set it right. But it has not. I think it is the other way round. I think the human race originally hushed it up because it had become such a mess....I think that [the current state of sex] is everything to be ashamed of."

He goes on to write about how our sexual drives and instincts have become a wrong kind of appetite. It has become a broken appetite, treating sex like the animals treat it, without any kind of reverence. However, Lewis went on:

"Finally, though I have had to speak at some length about sex, I want to make it as clear as I possibly can that the center of Christian morality is not here. If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither."

America today is a very idolatrous, pagan nation. Three of our many gods are Molech, Baal and Ashteroth. More on this later, God willing. The vernier of our being a Christian nation under God has worn very thin now. See Idolatry Notes.

This brief expose is but the tip of the iceberg! To a large extent, we do not know ourselves very well. Family and close friends and lovers know us better than outsiders but may not know how to help! God knows us perfectly!

Jesus: Crucified Naked

Jesus Naked with Judas? No Way!

This expose is all about Jesus being crucified naked. I have never even considered this possibility until a year ago when my Facebook Friend, Ethan Renoe, brought this up in a frank article he had written. The Real Reason Jesus Was Naked on the Cross. Ethan is 29, a prolific world traveler and a seminary graduate. Ethan says,

"Now, why is it so important that Jesus was crucified naked?

Throughout the millennia, artists have tried to restore to Jesus His dignity by covering up the shameful bits. They have censored the truth of scripture in order to protect young eyes.

The reason my school displayed the painting was to remind us that, while Jesus has absorbed all our sin and wrongdoing, He has also absorbed all of our shame. He was not covered up in order to maintain His dignity while dying on the tree; He was stripped and exposed, so that even until the end His atoning work would be seen as victorious, even over our sexuality and shame.

J. Vernon McGee writes: 'He was crucified naked. It is difficult for us in this age of nudity and pornography to comprehend the great humiliation He suffered by hanging nude on the cross. They had taken His garments and gambled for ownership. My friend, He went through it all, crucified naked, that you might be clothed with the righteousness of Christ, and so be able to stand before God throughout the endless ages of eternity.'

Something I have been thinking through recently is how I too have dichotomized my sexuality from my spirituality. As American Christians, I feel like this is the norm. We go to church over here and think and talk about sex over here. And if I looked at porn, I hid it from God until enough time had passed that I could go and safely confess.

But what I have realized recently is that this is wrong. When I begin to see my sexual desires as something good, something given to me by God, it is easier to align them with His will. When I realize that I don’t have to hide my desires from Him, but rather give them over to Him, it becomes easier to escape temptation and have peace that I can trust Him with my desires. I can trust Him to bring me a wife in His timing, and I don’t have to fear that He’ll never give me one because I have these bad desires.

I think many of my struggles with pornography came from this thought that ‘sex is bad, dirty, and shameful. I need to hide these thoughts from God.’ A lot of them came from a fear that my desires for sex were bad, and therefore I was a bad person. But God loves healthy sexuality. In reality, Jesus has taken all of my shame and all my twisted views of sex to the cross and destroyed them when He was crucified naked. He has redeemed our perverted views of sexuality. He has taken every last centerfold hanging on the walls of our minds and torn them to shreds. He was crucified naked so we need not be ashamed anymore..."

Jesus was not tied to his cross with ropes. He was nailed there. His garments were stripped from him. He was circumcised of course.

How Saved are You? | The Biggest Myth of Evangelicalism| | The Two Paradigms | The Meaning of Baptism | A Weekend with Jesus

"...that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:19)

"For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)

"For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." (Romans 5:6)

"Because Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring you to God, by being put to death in the flesh but by being made alive in the spirit." (1 Peter 3:18)

"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were bewildered and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." (Matthew 9:16)

Jesus’ Suffering and Crucifixion - A Medical Point of View

Psalm 139

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them." (Romans 1:18-32)

Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences. Be Reconciled to God For we do not commend ourselves again to you, but give you opportunity to boast on our behalf, that you may have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; or if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (1 Corinthians 5:11-21)

A Note about Libido

Recently I have been thinking about the true followers of Jesus who know Him, and love Him, and obey Him. We constitute Christ's glorious Church which Jesus has been building (one person at a time since Pentecost 30 AD). The family of God now numbers quite a few billion men, women, children from every conceivable background. Jesus is the Bridegroom and we are all His virgin Bride. There will be no need for genital sex in heaven, but intimacy and love will abound since it will be impossible for anyone to "mess up"--sexually or otherwise.

Sigmund Freud had his own quaint ideas about the sex drive in men and the genital development of sexual desire in boys and girls. Carl Jung differed and went on to suggest his own theories. Both had theories about the male sex drive. The Latin word, libido, by the way means "lust." It's not entirely about hormones.

Raging hormones and sex-out-of bounds have brought new books on "better sex" and "joyful sex" to every generation. New models of the sexual drive and raging hormones fail to take into account God's announced plan to give each one of His children a new bodies with lots of true-libido for each one of us. No one in heaven will be a wallflower, a wimp, a nerd, a loser, a drop out from life.

The grand differences between the two sexes will be enhanced. But as C.S. Lewis said, "God is so masculine, that we are all feminine in comparison." These are vast topics for discussion. I wish more of my Christian friends stopped talking about the dying life down on the planet now. We are supposed to all "strangers and pilgrims in this present world"--citizens from a high order of mankind. The only door in is through the gate of the cross. Jesus never sinned and He is not about to marry a whore.

Hence, The Revirginized Bride. New Bodies are waiting for us who know Jesus, because the seat of sin is found in the body not in the inner man (the soul and the spirit).

"Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:4-23)