DID YOU SEE THE PRETTY BLONDE?

I was in New York City for a time of ministry and made arrangements to have lunch with my former boss and friend, David Wilkerson.

I met Brother Dave at the offices of the church he had begun, Times Square Church, and we chatted for a few minutes and then prepared to walk a few blocks to a restaurant. As we walked through the reception area of the office building, Brother Dave greeted several staff and church members and then we were on the street.

As we headed toward the restaurant, Brother Dave turned to me and said, “David, did you see that tall, pretty blonde woman in the reception area?” My mind immediately went into overdrive as I thought, “Did my eyes linger too long or something?” I answered honestly, “Yes, I saw her.” His response was unexpected and left me speechless: “She is not a she, she is a he.” The woman had been very professionally and attractively dressed in a skirt and blouse and looked very much like a woman.

I’m sure Brother Dave saw the dumbfounded look on my face, and calling the blonde by name, he said, “He attends our church regularly. This gives you a glimpse into what it’s like to pastor a church in New York City.”

After we reached the restaurant and were seated, we talked for a few minutes about the transgender, sex change issue. I finally asked him, “When a man says, ‘I’m really a woman and I’m going to go through sex change operations and I’m going to dress and live like a woman, not a man’—how do you handle this issue in the church?” Brother Dave said without hesitation, “Whatever they were when they were born is how we treat them.”

I did not detect any anger or disdain in David Wilkerson about this whole complex issue. What I did detect was compassion and a willingness to be a pastor to some of society’s undesirables.

Now skip forward twenty-plus years and here we are in 2015. Who would ever have thought that one of the biggest news stories of this year would be about the whole transgender issue? And we are having it pushed at us by the media. 

A couple of things trouble me about our contemporary world.

1.      The blatant attempt by the liberal mainstream media to sell us on alternative lifestyles, including sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, and now “transgenderism.” In the eyes of the media, this is acceptable and therefore should be acceptable to all. And especially targeted are the conservatives.

2.      Even more troubling to me is the movement within the church that suggests that the New Testament writings about sex in and out of marriage are grossly out of date. A number of liberal theologians feel that the New Testament should be reinterpreted from a more contemporary position on moral behavior.

Please understand that what appears to be an attack on the validity of Scripture is not that at all. It is a direct attack on God Himself. Scripture is not out of date, because God is not out of date. Scripture is the Word of the eternal God who changes not—and neither does the meaning of His Word.

I find no ambiguity about this issue of “transgenderism” but, then, I believe in an eternal, almighty God about whom the Psalmist David said:

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:13-16, ESV).

God made each of us as a man or a woman and there is no confusion with Him about our “identity.” We were born to be who we were supposed to be.

The liberal media is being manipulated by the enemy of our souls to negatively influence people's views on God's moral laws. The media is promoting as something beautiful the transgender transformation of someone well-known. But the transgender issue is only a small portion of the influence being exerted by the liberal media. They are also promoting the relaxing of moral values by presenting sex outside of marriage and homosexuality as being normal and acceptable.

As we draw closer and closer to the end of the age, we are going to see a corresponding rise in potentially confusing issues like the one I’ve written about in this blog. This is not a time to be casual in your relationship with God or His Church.

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:23-25, ESV).