The Seamy Side of Life

Prelude

Some will find the following notes morbid or depressing. If so, please skip. The information below is not required reading and will not be on everyone’s final exam. For some respite to start with, please listen to the Carter Family sing “Keep on the Sunny Side of Life,” on YouTube, from 1928.

There’s a dark and a troubled side of life
There’s a bright and a sunny side, too

Though we meet with the darkness and strife
The sunny side we also may view.

Keep on the sunny side always on the sunny side
Keep on the sunny side of life

It will help us every day it will brighten all the way
If we keep on the sunny side of life.

The storm and its fury broke today
Brushing hopes that we’ve cherished so dear

Cloud and storm will in time pass away
The sun again will shine bright and clear

Let us breathe with a song of hope each day
Though the moments be cloudy or fair

He keepeth everyone in his care.
Let us trust in our Saviour away

Now for something completely different

A Letter from a friend: April 26, 2018

Dear Lambert,

Have you any knowledge of lesbian women being witches, or conversely, witches being lesbians?

I think I have encountered at least two of these. The first one, a State appellate court lawyer, back around 1992, and the second one, a middle-aged woman working at the Walmart store near me, more recently. I have also observed that the local police department has quite a few lesbian women working there.

And, I do believe that the County sheriff is a lesbian. She was on my driveway back in 2009 when the local police raided my home. Shortly after that raid, several police officers got demoted, one got involved in crashing a police car, another got cancer of the testicles, and all those who were in my house (about 5 in number) subsequently “retired early.” These people don’t get fired. They are asked to leave! Their careers end! This has happened to a number of people who have gotten involved with me since 1974. I’m aware of a pattern. Very aware!

It seems like perverted women get jobs that would normally be done by men. Lesbian women seem to be getting involved in legal & Pharisaical professions more & more now. I have become very sensitive to this activity. I feel that I really do have a spiritual ability to expose the demonic works of certain people and businesses that are involved in demonic works.

Why? Is this some kind of spiritual gift? I think it’s been in my life for a long time, perhaps even when I was a teenager. I believe God “planted” me in this area back in 1955 for a very specific purpose.

There is something about this area that God has plans for and that I am a part of. Why me? I live a very quiet life, mostly uninvolved with other people. It’s been like that since I was a very young child. There’s something different about my life and I just can’t understand it. Seems weird at times. Not particularly unpleasant, just weird!

Please pray (ask God) to make me more aware of what I’m here for and what my purpose is, in this area, the so-called “Silicon Valley,” seemingly a very important spot in the world in these latter days of mankind’s rule over the Earth. (Maybe a very corrupt spot in this country!)

(Signed)

“...And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” (John 3:17-19)

The Seamy Side of Life: Reply to a Christian Friend

Hello my friend,

To answer your question, I have not known many lesbians but I have known quite a few gay men, especially from the Summer of Love in 1967, the Jesus Movement c.1970, and from SOS San Francisco in 1983. I realize you grew up in the suburbs and stayed out of the “City” and all related social situations.

But see The Prodigal Project.

I hope my candid answers below are helpful and redemptive on your path to wholeness as a unique follower of Jesus Christ our Lord.

One of the names of God in the Hebrew Bible is Yahweh Rophe — Yahweh is our Healer, . Jesus makes broken people whole no matter where they are coming from. He said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." (Luke 5:31-32)

The entire subject of sexual expression apart from an intimate relationdship with Jesus Christ can be clarified by considering basic idolatry.

My insights: When gay men come to know Jesus they tend to blend into straight society leaving the gay subculture behind. Some marry and raise kids with no obvious problems. Only a few acknowledge their experiences and liaisons in the gay life. Many apparently straight men will acknowledge “same sex attractions.” Many of them lack only normal, healthy male bonding and affirmation. Some admit to ambivalence in regard to their sexuality. It’s for men to marry the right affirming wife and attain healing and wholeness in marriage. In many cases SSA (Same Sex Attraction) is really just "natural affection."

The gay "lifestyle" is a haven for young men mostly. Most refugees from the gay life would say they were born this way. That perception of reality is in large part a reflection of the failures in the older generation of Christians. This unwelcome indictment of the Establishment is discussed by my mentor, Ray Stedman, in classic messages, Dangerous Times and Fraudulent Faith.

The gay men in San Francisco (and other major cities) form a subset of homosexuals living in community. In San Francisco, the “ghetto” is called the “Castro District.” Life there is much more frenetic compared to the suburbs where most gay men are discreet in their socialities and their living situations.

The “City” is home to about 100,000 gay men and women out of a total population of 750,000 or so. Younger gays in the suburbs live at home with their parents mostly and are diffused through society. The large gay population in our major cities reflects men and women being ostracized in the Midwest, not necessarily being born in the Big City. Young men and women born and raised in San Francisco seldom turn out gay, and they often dislike the kids from the Midwest who are seeking sanctuary and acceptance in the City.

Obviously two men or two women living together in Silicon Valley causes little concern in a time of extraordinarily high cost-of-living situations. Few heterosexual marriages are thriving and noteworthy these days. So it’s OK to be single now, whereas singleness was anathema when I was a boy.

Kids as young as 11 or 12 surf the net these days, knowing more about experiential sex than their parents, in many cases. Not about sex as designed by God, to be sure, but every form of unrestrained behavior under the sun. Thoroughly pagan, Baal, Asherah, Moloch and the “host of heaven” are the behind-the-scenes agents at work. Peer values govern the milieu, not what was taught in church or back at home. In other words, all sex is OK and normal if that's your choice. "Who am I to judge?" "Everyone is sexually active these days." It comes as a shock for the home folks to discover the values and norms generally accepted by straights and gays in our big cities. Denial is a good word to use in describing both sides in the present cultural equation.

What is denied is the right of the living Lord Jesus Christ to meddle in our personal affairs.

In the Castro District there exists a wide range of chosen lifestyles all of which are non-heterosexual. I believe God created us male and female, and this is reflected in our emotions and our bodies. “The natural use of the man for the women” can’t occur in lifestyles that run contrary to the created order, so there is a need there to seek sexual gratification in modes that are “contrary to nature.” Absence of role models in older people is a big factor. Both sides are at fault.

Sodomy is the principal way two men engage in sexual interaction. Sodomy (anal intercourse) requires that one man identify as a “bottom” and his partner as a “top.” The relationship is very one-sided obviously and the “bottom” often must masturbate and fantasize while being sodomized. The excretory organs were not designed for sexual use, the passive partner must get used to pain, physical damage, and inconvenience while his “top” gets his rocks off in a somewhat more natural way. Sodomy carries many health risks that are not found among monogamous heterosexual couples. There is nothing very mutual or synergestic going on!

Anatomically two men males or two women don’t exactly “fit well together in bed,” sexually.

But, two soldiers in a foxhole can gain considerable solace from living in close quarters. Kids to this day enjoy slumber parties as part of growing up. These intimate, socially acceptable, situations are non-sexual of course.

“Two are better than one,|
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.

Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

Sadly guys commonly learn about masturbation from a peer or from scuttlebutt in the school locker room. “It must be cool since everyone does it.” Mutual masturbation or oral sex brings with them painful alienation between friends—and zero fulfillment--because these activities run contrary to the created order of the universe. God can not be a partner in behavior contrary to who He is as a Person.

The back seat of a car or an unsupervised couch is where a lot of straight guys discover sex. I can’t recall anyone I know really learning much from their parents! (I often ask younger friends if they received good advice and sound teaching from parents or teachers).

Sexual interaction was designed by God to be a wholistic relationship, one reason why an older term for marriage is “holy matrimony” — a covenant between bride and groom, invoking Jesus as a Third Party. Sexual promiscuity is inherently pagan by nature. This topic deserves a separate article. The Old Testament does not shy away from this vital subject. Demons are usually involved in all relationships where Jesus is unwelcome. The history of Israel is recorded for us in the Bible to show us how sinful humans in every generation have lived out their lives in the past, in ignorance or in defiance of God. Physical sexual expression is intended by our Creator to be reserved only for heterosexual marriage but few marriages today serve as role moels for the young.

The Sexual Revolution and the Great Disconnect

“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.” (2 Peter 3:10-18)

In a previous generation, (c. 1960), adolescent boys and girls were taught by their parents and Sunday School teachers to “abstain from sex until marriage.” Talks about the “birds and the bees” by many parents back then was vague and general—just about the time when help was most needed! The implication is that one can have all the sex he or she wants after marriage. Therefore just wait. This approach is incredibly naive. Of course most men should marry and enjoy family life in the full. Jesus never married but remained single because of His unique calling. (Jesus is a Single Man).

When I was in junior high, desperate school officials decided to host a sex-education week, because it was felt that kids were not getting the basics of sex and relationships from their parents. True enough. Renting a local movie theater, the school sent us 9th graders to endure with much snickering, the highly acclaimed c.1948 film, “Mom and Dad,” which attempted to show us how "wholesome" marriage really is and how horrific and disastrous sex outside of marriage really was.

The not-so-subtle messages continued in the sequel to the movie. First a couple was shown holding hands in the back seat of the car. Then abruptly, in rapid sequence, slides were presented showing ugly lesions and sores from syphilis, gonorrhea, leprosy, cancer and the like. Talk about the dangers of holding hands! Cause and effect were all too clear to us kids. But we 9th graders knew more about sex than our parents and teachers combined. After all, we had inside info from the boys' locker room. We joked about Portnoy’s Complaint and the old adage that “playing with yourself is like playing with fire.”

A “jock mentality” prevailed among us boys and public social interactions with the opposite sex were much more curtailed back then. Most of my ninth grade male peers were looking for girls they could make out with. Living rooms were often off limits. The school did sponsor ballroom dancing to help awkward boys and girls meet in a safe well-chaperoned auditorium with bright lights and "safe" music. I myself was too scared to take part.

We had no idea what Christians believed back then since religion and God were excluded completely from the public schools. Most of us kids felt that God hated sex, tolerating limited sex, but only in marriage. “Ignorance is NOT bliss.”

“Brothers, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load. Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches.

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Galatians 6:1-10)

When puberty sets in hormones switch on, and all manner of inflamed emotions and strange surprises start happening in the body. Boys and girls are inquisitive and open to learning about all everything with curiosity and relative innocence. The ominous silence of mom and dad can be plenty suspicious. "Nature abhors a vacuum."

Emotions run wild and ought to be tamed when our natural sexual drives, instincts, emotions, and inclinations need channeling and mastering. All humans born on the earth are fallen and self-centered in at least some areas of life. The reservoirs of libido in men, and women, are vast. Much of this energy needs to be tamed and channeled for the good of the individual and society. God is on our side--because He seeks our best interests and He strives with us in order that we should seek life not final ruin and perhaps destruction.

“Good little boys and girls” do adapt to their parents' values to some degree, but often find their “straight marriages” are lackluster and unfulfilling. Yet another generation passes along their cultural conformity to their offspring, as the old myth we should all live by. Adult sexuality is covered up a lot which only promotes the counterfeit in the young.

Society is supposed to be orderly, so when parents fail to explain, train, and discipline their sons and daughters, schools try vainly to pick up the slack. Wise council is supposed to liberate not constrain, not to breed fear, guilt and shame. To keep the peace, divorce becomes way too easy, abortions soar, and all manner of sex (except as designed), becomes the norm. The resulting chaos is what the Bible calls “lawlessness.” The next stage that follows is violence, hate crimes, suicides, mass murder, war. At this final stage Jesus must often step in with protective measures. God is too full of compassion for us to tolerate our self-destruction. But Jesus does not violate our “free will” -- even when He is fully aware of our self-destructive ways.

If two men or two women "marry" and intend to be sexually active together, there are obvious practical hurdles to be overcome in the bedroom. Presumably there is an exchange of affection and acceptance of one another naked. Otherwise there would be no reason to be naked and affectionate. In today’s society most men admit to having been sexually active since puberty. 

How often do you watch porn? From a survey of “virgin males.”

Masturbate? Man A: I don't watch any porn. Not much of a desire to watch it either. I looked at pornographic pictures when I was 12 and got caught and never really had an urge to go back to it. Masturbation is probably three to four times a week. 

Man B: I don't watch porn anymore since I feel uneasy with the reality of porn industry.
Now I masturbate about one or twice a week, to the images of a celebrity or a friend.

Man C: My habits ebb and flow. Sometimes my sex drive is higher than at other times. Typically a few times a week, often every other day. Other times, I can go a week or so without doing it. I actually didn't masturbate until I was 18. I guess I figured doing it would just make me feel worse about not having a girlfriend. Nowadays, it's an outlet for sexual frustration. 

This is self-deception for sure! Celibacy means no-sex, not ever. How to get there is quite another matter! Only Jesus can tame a man's libido. He will if you ask.

Mutual masturbation is probably the "safest" form of marriage in a gay marriage. Fellatio is not usually mutual (69) because both partners need to be of similar stature. Sodomy is often high on the list of options provided one of the partners is comfortable with being the “top” and other the role of “bottom.” Watching porn together is probably common. Merely “cuddling” for affection is probably where many gay marriages end up after the “honeymoon is over?”

“In truth, straight, married couples have sex about seven times a month. Do the math. That's works out to less than twice a week. So if that's the par for you in a gay relationship, you can take comfort in knowing that you're not alone in what may seem like a stalled run.

"So what's going on? Regardless of sexual orientation, sex drives are at their peak when we're young, so age has something to do with it. If you and your partner are in your late fifties, you might find that you've slowed down a little since you were in your twenties. 

"And as mentioned, both gay and straight couples tend to have sex less frequently in long-term relationships. A "sex rate" of three times a week or more for gay couples in the first two years of a relationship is almost 70 percent. It drops to less than 50 percent for straight couples and to about 33 percent for lesbian couples. In other words, gay men in short-term relationships have about 20 percent more sex than straight men in shorter relationships, and more than double that which lesbian couples are enjoying. 

"But the numbers nosedive for couples who have been together 10 years or longer: Just above 10 percent of gay couples still have sex three times a week, under 20 percent of heterosexual couples enjoy this frequency, and this drops to about 1 percent for lesbians. The stats were gathered from various studies that took place from the late 1990s through 2011."

There are demons behind the gay culture just as there were in ancient Israel when pagan religion came in and displaced personal fellowship with Jesus. Male and female cult prostitution in the Greek and Roman worlds was popular and widely accepted. (Demons are spiritual beings, fallen angels and spirits from the dark side who delight in seducing, perverting, ruining mortals).

Jesus said, “The thief came only to kill and destroy, I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”

When parents fail to be transparent with their kids and fail to come clean about the “facts of life,” or the “birds and the bees,” many kids today find that vast libraries of scurrilous information is only a few clicks away on the Internet. This includes huge resources of pornography so explicit and so diverse that the seductress of Proverbs Chapter 7 seems innocuous to people who fail to see the modesty and discretion in the Hebrew Bible. Mature adults usually learn to avoid porn like the plague knowing that they can't handle it either!

A whole generation in our nation learned about sex in the locker room or from explicit movies and peer influence. In my generation where all this sea of deceptive information was less available, boys found their way to “dirty pictures” from the Orient or stories to masturbate by.

During my college years, Playboy magazine was in every college male’s bottom dresser drawer under underwear and sox. Playboy was well known to be a guy's friend and an aid to better masturbating. I was a freshman in college when I read the then reputable Kinsey Report in the college library. Masters and Johnson were soon in vogue. In one sense the Sexual Revolution gave everyone permission to speak freely about their sexuality. Single boys and girls felt tacit permission to be “sexually active.” An old adage in college said that “95% of single males masturbate and the other 5% are lying.” The fraudulent Kinsey Report launched a sexual revolution which continues to wreak havoc unchallenged today, six decades later.

Usually no one wanted to abstain, and celibacy was said to be only for an impaired few on the periphery of real life. So tacit permission was given for adolescents to be sexually active, to learn from experience, to experiment. Suppose a boy felt attracted to another boy or was exploited by a scout leader, a school or church leader and led to believe there existed viable ways for same-sex experimentation? If a young man was not biologically turned on by girls had that boy been “born that way?” Probably not! Was there a “gay gene?” No! Natural affection was all too easily mislabeled as lust.

Sigmund Freud believed that everyone was born “polymorphic-perverse.” (His views were shocking back in the Victorian era). Freud also feared that allowing the contents of the unconscious to flood into the world would be catastrophic, as if opening Pandora’s Box. Carl Jung disagreed with his mentor, claiming the unconscious was friend not foe. Making friends with one unconscious side would allow reconciliation with real but unwanted aspects of who we really are. No wonder the older generation seems naive to many of their offspring.

A wonderful Christian young woman and dear friend I knew some years ago once gave me her take on the low state of the church back in the ‘60s. She said,

“Christians believe that the Word of God was made flesh, but only from the waist up.”

I am tempted to call such a state of affairs “half redeemed.” But such a term does not appear in the Bible. In other words, we are 100% redeemed by Jesus—or we are not redeemed at all. Of course no Christian attains to a holy lifestyle without a long journey which only begins at spiritual rebirth. Were many parents as broken and incomplete in Christ as their offspring who dreamed of a better world? I think so. Social breakdown in past civilizations was gradual until a point of no return.

The present sexual revolution is in many ways a search for intimacy.

The sexual revolution of the 60’s and 70’s brought huge changes in our society as recorded in Wikipedia and countless books concerning what has changed and what was unaffected. Ray Stedman documented several demonic invasions in those years, but of course secular investigators can not look behind the scenes into God’s domain.

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” (1 Timothy 4:1-6)

In 1967 Anton Sander LaVey started a Church of Satan in San Francisco, and soon the Haight-Ashbury had home-grown witches and male warlocks. That “church” went underground but there are some stories of human sacrifices and the Black Mass for Satan and the like.

Along about 1970 or so I became curious about “life in the City.” I enlisted a night club musician friend to show me around San Francisco. We first had dinner at an elegant men’s restaurant (which I think still exists to this day). Then my guide pointed out popular bath houses and half a dozen gay bars packed with young guys and some old predators. I learned that kids new to the City were worshiped for their youth and often placed on pedestals for a few years. Old fags paid top dollar to hire such house boys to live in their glitzy apartments. The older man protected his protege zealously but the kid was of course seldom attracted sexually to his aging mentor. The young and virile boys, eager to learn all about sex, ended “tricking” almost every night, having anonymous sex with hundreds of men in a few short years. Utterly destructive behavior for all parties of course!

I remember how appalled I was after my first guided tour to San Francisco. Then and there I knew I never, ever could fit into “the lifestyle.” Years later (c1981) a friend from San Francisco, Frank Stipech, terminally ill with AIDS, came to live with me on the Peninsula. He had come to know Jesus, but his last days in a hospital ward were awful. Frank was only about 35 when Jesus took him home. His parents were greatly grieve but knew nothing about Frank’s lifestyle. Frank had told me everything about life in the City that I did not already know. A pastor friend of ours tried valiantly to rescue a fragile convert, Bob Tabor, from his San Francisco friends, about that same time, but in vain. Bob died suddenly in an accident, and all of us who knew him were devastated.

About this same time I met a rather interesting retired IBM executive working in San Jose. (Warren Thompson later became a follower of Jesus, sold all that he had, and entered into the Episcopal priesthood). I don’t know how I met him, but Warren introduced me to a group of celibate gay males who were well placed in the upper echelons of Silicon Valley. These important men were not sexually active, or were very discrete in their liaisons. Yet, except for Warren, none of these men seem to have found his way out of the accursed lifestyle. Promiscuity appalled them, but straight marriage eluded them. Churches eyed them with suspicion. They had a hard time fitting in.

But there is a fascinating sequel to all my “research” into the gay subculture as it was fifty years ago. An acquaintance, Dan Cobb, who ran an office janitorial service here in Silicon Valley, asked me if I would teach the Bible to a dozen or so gay men who met in his home one night a week. I jumped at the opportunity of course. The next few months amazed me. The guys were meeting weekly to compare conquests and to commiserate about their common lot in life, but I saw them as unique and worth knowing as real persons. I was a waxing follower of Jesus at the time and each man in the group interested me quite apart from his “sexual orientation.” I knew plenty of dull, boring, lack-luster “straights” by then. Why not just hang out, teach the Bible and answer their questions?

The Bible studies and prayer times at Dan’s house continued for some months as I scrambled to find books of the Bible to teach. Realizing that Song of Solomon is about relationships not sex, we jumped right in. It worked. The guys were excited about relationhips as described in King Solomon’s Song of Love.

After some months, our men’s Bible study at Dan’s House disbanded. One brother said that his men’s group at his church (Menlo Presbyterian) provided the same encouragement he had found at Dan’s without the gay trappings. Another brother at Dan’s told us that his Iranian parents had ordered their son back home to marry the girl they had picked out for him. The new Christian “ex-gays” from Dan’s Bible disappeared into the woodwork of straight society. I soon lost track with most of them.

Back to generalities, my own observations from half a century ago.

Committed lesbians become stereotype as “bull-dikes” or “railroad engineers,” but their male counterparts are “Nelly queens” (often with female nick names). Quite a number in each group migrate to transvestism or “bondage” subgroups. Only major cities offer sanctuary to such gender confused persons, and so on. These highly distressed and alienated kids have fought back politically, sponsored by all sorts of troublemakers in society. Romans Chapter One reveals that homosexual activity results in gender confusion, and this ought to be obvious. My friends Ken and Brandi and I befriended a transexual person back then to everyone's benefit.

Here I want to recommend a fine message, “The Tragic Sense of Life,” by Ray Stedman .

Men are often drawn into gay lifestyles by porn makers. These very, very rich dudes scout around for straight guys and pay them to masturbate on camera while the producer helps the innocent guy to accept M as “normal and natural,” and no cause for guilt. Next the film producer offers his victim more money to M with another guy who is also doing the same thing. Guy #2 is often gay or “easy” with his sexuality. That hurdle overcome, the producer moves right into sodomy where the recruited victim learns how to be a top or a bottom. At this point, our straight, handsome, normal athletic man is conditioned to AC/DC as “normal” and he can live in a house with other guys and make good money doing gay porn. Is this not a sign of an evil agent pillaging and plundering a nation’s next generation of fathers and leaders? I believe so!

In porn films made for straight audiences (which are much bigger money makers), the bait offered to the victim will be often a young female prostitute who can seduce the guy into whatever the producer knows will sell well to a given audience. The ruin and devastation of the women involved is usually greater than the guys who “get their rocks off” while catering to the producer's wishes for good "money shots."

In any case, vulnerable guys and girls in their formative years are lured into the gay scene and “repatriated” by their new owners. Many once-straight men who end up thinking they are gay are brainwashed or were molested, yet they may really be perfectly straight deep down inside. The shame and guilt many gay men carry often makes them terrified of being found out or “outed” by his peers. Gay men and women can be vicious and the subculture offers no real sanctuary. Persecuted minorities are often scapegoated by the self-righteous majority! What church welcomes these derelicts?

I suspect that lesbians look to gay males as examples. Of course both men and women in the gay “lifestyle” become gender-confused as Romans 1 tells us. Hence all the lobbying for “same-sex marriage.”

Psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Nicolosi of NARTH studied a number of male gay couples and found they evolved into mere roommate living (non-sexual), within only five years. I knew one gay couple in Portola Valley 50 years ago where the partners agreed to a free night a week each, for anonymous sex in San Francisco. But this arrangement was full of compromise. The partner who stayed at home had a sleepless night worrying that his “other half” would come home with AIDS, or not return home at all.

Dr. Nicolosi also found that many men who thought they were gay really were not. A few sessions with Dr. Nicolosi or his staff was usually sufficient to show his clients they were basically straight after all. What I got out of Nicolosi’s videos was how bonding in early childhood with mom and dad happens--or fails to happen. In my case, I learned how I did not bond with either of my parents in childhood, and so I had to invent my own persona and constantly rearrange it for years until I discovered that we Christians are complete and whole in Christ.

Sexual promiscuity sets a person’s identity in place in a terrible way. But gay men who choose to become celibate followers of Jesus quickly lose their old identity and usually become guilt-free. Sexual desires not acted upon are common among men. Deliberate, willful acts do change a person on the inside for the worse—with the end result that pejorative labels stick. Temptations not acted upon are not sin. (All of us are capable of sinning in thought, word or deed.) The role of pornography in all this ought to be obvious.

Thus for many--especially women who don’t feel close to their moms--the lesbian gay subculture offers what appears to be safe haven. In some situations I do believe women who think they are gay seek for power and influence by becoming mediums, astrologers, counselors, school teachers and witches. They are free to do their thing until some church or government agency drives them underground.

Why all this disclosure? Nothing is really new here to most “moderns.” A lot of what I have related is common knowledge in the present generation. Not so to many older folks who live “across the cultural Great Divide.” “Ignorance is bliss” they might say, but Jesus is about full disclosure. “All the hidden things of darkness will be brought to light,” says First Corinthians 4:5.

As near as I can tell (almost) ALL millennials these days are sexually actively in one way or another. They tolerate all sorts of behavior and all lifestyles in others, even if they are not for me! Most millennials, I believe, think that self-control regarding sex as impossible, therefore sex in any form is to be indulged in “in moderation.” Abstinence is unthinkable. Purity is unknown! “Waiting until marriage to have sex makes no sense.”

Any individual man or woman who is abstinent is assumed to be lying or self-deceived. Tacit approval or at least tolerance from one’s peers is paramount. Criticism from the church or from parents is considered invalid. (Never mind that many millennials feel lonely and insecure even in a crowd). “We belong to our generation and we are pioneers of a new world order. It does not matter that there is no long term reality in sight—today is all we have.”

The openly gay men I met in years past almost always stopped having sex after a few miserable years in the “lifestyle” —because it is so contrary to the created order. They were not usually welcomed in church groups because of their past.

Porn is a billion dollar addiction. Abortion is considered amoral or a matter of free choice. How much more broken can things get?

Promiscuous behavior is commo among millennials I have met, but peer pressures opt them for heterosexual fidelity when possible. Being “in a relationship” is what gains acceptance by one’s peers. No one seems to care about the quality of such relationships! It is expected such relationships will “not work out” because of incompatibility. The quest goes on...

Older Biblical values are gone. The hypocrisy of my generation and the consequences of our deficiency are everywhere! We dare not scapegoat the truth.

From an acquaintance: "Gay men in San Francisco with 1,000 partners may be light years beyond me in sexual technique and proficiency. But I doubt whether they have found a high level of mature sexual satisfaction. They have addressed the "animal" aspect of their sexuality, but at the expense of developing relationships. We are more than animals: that is the basic Christian contribution to sexuality. (And, in fact, as the anomalies of human sexuality show disproportionate sexual organ size, the need for privacy, the constant availability in sexuality we may be least like other animals.) Whatever leads me to emphasize exclusively the "animal" side of my sexuality will likely lead toward confusion and dissatisfaction. I have learned that my addiction to lust probably expressed other human needs. What was I searching for in the porno literature and movies? The image of the perfect female breast? More likely, I was searching for intimacy, or love, or acceptance, or reinforcement of an insecure male ego, or maybe even a thirst for transcendence. I was searching for something that could never be satisfied by two- dimensional photos printed on slick magazine paper. And not until I recognized that could I begin to turn toward a more appropriate sexual identity. In my search, I "de-mystified" sexuality. I made the female body as common as a daily newspaper, rather than as rare as the one woman I had chosen to spend my life with. I destroyed the fences around sexuality, chasing away any remnants of "holiness." Nudity became not the final mutual achievement in a progression toward intimacy, but the very first step. These are the results of my choices toward indulgence. From all of them, I am still trying to recover."

"But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another.

Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if any one thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each man will have to bear his own load."

(Galatians 5:18-26, 6:1-5)

A Realistic Approach to Attractions

Another friend of mine writes,

“What you claim was already true in my experience among medical professionals twelve years ago. My doctor and the hospital staff where I was a patient refused to believe that I had been celibate for 25 years since becoming a Christian. They insisted on running STD tests for both me and my fiancé — who was still a virgin even later, on our wedding night. It was simply unthinkable to the medical team that any mature adults could either never have had sex at all or not had any sexual relationships for many years.”

I see you, my friend, as a victim, impressionable and searching as a boy. You certainly were a likable and talented young man when I met you. You were obviously a gifted photographer. In those days nude photos of consenting guys over 18 did not attract much attention, but photos of kids under the magic-age were alarming. The kids often liked their photographers more than they “liked” their parents which caused the kids to later want to get away from mom and day as soon as they could afford it. Not in every situation of course! Churches had by then lost their true spiritual power to alter the status quo in society. You were never a “predator” in the usual sense of the word as I understand it.

You came to know Jesus after your were hunted down and tracked by sleuths in Law Enforcement (as if you were a deadly menace to “society” —which perhaps you were). I see you as partly a scapegoat carrying the sins of a generation “outside of the Camp.” As a follower of Jesus you are now a totally new person inside. You have wisely stayed apart from the gay ghettos and your life style has been honorable as long as we have known one another. You wrote me from prison decades ago, and I could tell Jesus was with you in spite of all the stereotyping against you by jailers and fellow inmates in the “system.”

Of course many “convicted” felons become Christians in jail as we both know. It’s easier than finding Jesus in jail than in most churches! No wonder, Christians in jail are often more godly while incarcerated than those outside, as a man named Charles Colson discovered firsthand.

You have been a loyal friend of mine for many years and we have many common Christian interests. I am sorry I never met your parents. It was terrific to see your present housemate the other day. I remember meeting him previously. He seems like a good man to me, but you live with him and I don’t. I wish you and he would pray together and perhaps start a men’s core group in your living room? It would change things for the better if you read the Bible together every week.

Long story short, you have enriched the lives of many, in a culture where God is less and less welcome and hard times may lie ahead for all Christians. If you yourself get into the Bible every day I believe Jesus will show up more consistently and change the status quo. I am here for you and ready to encourage you and affirm you as your brother and friend in Jesus. We all need to unplug more and more from the fallen world around us.

Finally, I have shared what I have learned about only one facet of life in America today. I have not talked here about Drugs or Rock ‘n Roll, or a dozen other major aspects concerning a decadent culture. The worst sins are not sins of the flesh. The list of six things God “hates” does not include people.

“These six things the Lord hates,
Yes, seven are an abomination to Him:

A proud look,
A lying tongue,
Hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that are swift in running to evil,
A false witness who speaks lies,
And one who sows discord among brethren.” (Proverbs 6:16-19)

Remember, we live in a very bankrupt world! We are but “strangers and pilgrims” here for a very limited time. Jesus came and found each of us who know Him. He has rescued us, saved us completely, and He will “never fail you nor forsake you.” Jesus Christ is our life. He “does not wish that any should be lost” and He is “able to save to the uttermost all who come to God through Him.” There are no other options. The counterfeit is everywhere. God must intervene to save us from ourselves. His next visit will not be “gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” It will be “fire next time” for all who refuse to be saved by our great God and Lord Jesus Christ. You are an all-new man in Jesus destined for endless life with the billions of fellow travelers down through the ages. “You are complete in Christ who is the head of all rule and authority.”

“We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other, so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer; since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.

Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 1:3-12)

Finally,

“...judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes,
who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts.
Then each one's praise will come from God.” (1 Corinthians 4:5)

Hebrews 13:10-16 comes to mind as a way to close this discussion about what it is that we have been saved out of,

“We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”

Your friend and brother in Christ, a fellow pilgrim,

Lambert

Some References

Jesus and the Homosexual | Masturbation and the Bible | Cold Turkey or the Gradual Way? Alan Medinger

Grateful Heart: An Antidote to Lust. Alan Medinger | The War Within: An Anatomy Of Lust

The Meaning of Sodom and Gomorrah | The Wasted Years: Lot's Life in Sodom, Ray C. Stedman

The Great Harlot | SEX: Should We Change the Rules? | Human Rights and the Homosexual,Ted Wise

Aberrant Sexuality in the Bible | Our Collapsing Civilization | God and Sex, Helen Fryman Setterfield

Sex and Wholeness, Ray Stedman | Pornography and the Church, Larry Ball

“But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.

For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)— then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord.

But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children. They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man's voice restrained the madness of the prophet.

These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire’.” (2 Peter 2)

 

Revised August 6, 2018, August 23, 2018. October 28, 2018. January 15, 2019. January 31, 2019. September 7, 2019. June 13, 2020. Edited 8/2/2019 by AL.