In his abundant kindness, God continues to remind us that America is delusional. We do need these reminders for the Christian Church is tempted to get tangled up in the sins of the nation. But we do not deserve these reminders. So we should be thankful for our gracious God who lavishes such undeserved blessings upon us.

Now there are two types of delusions. The first is the delusion of remedy. The man who has come under this spell is better off than the man who has come under the second type. The man under the delusion of remedy is much like Captain Naaman the leper. Naaman was under no delusion regarding his condition. He knew he was a leper. He was, however, deluded about his remedy. He thought the rivers of Damascus could cleanse him. His pride blinded him from the healing waters of the Jordan. 

The second delusion is the delusion of condition. The man suffering this delusion has gone around the bend. He is a leper who claims to be clean. He calls evil good and good evil, light darkness and darkness light. Now I am no Otolaryngologist. But I venture to tell you that this second delusion has America by the throat. And God apparently wants us to know that it does. 

A Two For One Deal

The latest reminder God has sent us is a two-for-one deal. Coupon ladies would call this a “Buy One Get One.” But I run the risk of making you think I’m a biologist, so better to call them coupon unidentifiable entities. 

Yes, the first eye-opener from God is Ketanji Brown Jackson’s inability to define a woman. She may soon be a Supreme Court Justice of the United States. But she cannot say what a lady is. Her inability allegedly stems from the fact that she’s not a biologist. And according to USA Today, the scientists can’t give us a straight answer either. Now, if Judge Jackson were a Reformed Christian, she would have said something like, “a woman is the image of God and the glory of man.” And she would perhaps have added, “And we really shouldn’t be slaughtering so many of them in the womb.” That is the kind of judge we are aiming for. And anyone who tells you that we merely need a judge who can say that woman has two X chromosomes in her cells is a person who does not grasp the gravity of our predicament. 

So the first reminder from God is that Americans cannot define what is. A woman, of course, is a real thing. She is. Woman is not a figment of one’s imagination. Neither is she a projection of our collective imagination. You could die, and woman would still be here. The whole nation could die, save one woman, and there she would be. She is a thing, if I might put it that way. And human flourishing consists of coming to grips with things, naming them, understanding them and their purpose generally enough that we do not plunge ourselves into hell on earth. 

The second reminder from God that America has lost her mind is not disconnected from the first. The second reminder is the response from many to Florida’s bill that prohibits Florida Government Schools from teaching LGBTQ+ theory to K-3rd grade children. Opponents of this Florida Bill have called it the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.” They contend that Gay is important, Gay matters, Gay is truth, so it must be taught to the least of these.

The problem is that, as Rosaria Butterfield has been saying for some time, there is no such thing as a gay person. A gay person, unlike a woman, is a dream. A gay person is a figment of the imagination. A gay person is not. And Americans are hellbent on saying that gay people exist. Now people who are given to homosexual lust and practice indeed exist. And you can define these people. They are men and women, created in the image of God. But they are not gay people. And the same point goes double for the transgender issue.

So Americans can’t say woman, but they can say gay. They can’t name what is, but they can name what is not. And this is God’s BOGO reminder that we have walked all the way through the back half of Romans 1. We have worshiped the creature (Romans 1:25), been given up unto vile affections (Romans 1:26), and have now been given up to a reprobate mind (Romans 1:28).

So God is making it clear where we are. And in light of these gracious reminders, we first need a word to the saints and second a word to deluded America.

Find a Reformed Foundation

To the saints, the word is this: Find a reformed foundation and community. What you are seeing, you really are seeing. And given the signs of the times, you need to do what it takes to see that you and your family are not swept away in the judgment coming upon our land. Evangelical, individualistic, misty Christianity will not survive this attack from the enemy. If you are in a community that does not understand family, manhood and womanhood, Christian education, covenant, and a robust vision for what it means to live Christianly in the world, then you need to high tail it out of there and find one that does. 

If you are in a community that maintains it will keep the faith and avoid the culture wars, then you are in a community that will not keep the faith. The “culture wars” are the manifestation of the dominion mandate. And you cannot leave off that dominion mandate and remain faithful to your Creator and Redeemer. On the other hand, if you are in a community that fights the culture wars with Philistine tactics, you also are in a community that will not keep the faith. If you wonder if your community is using Philistine tactics, then a principal place you can look is its worship. The church you want to be at understands that Sunday worship is the central place where we wage our warfare. Sunday worship is not oriented to unbelievers, continually tailoring God’s Word to their inclinations. It rather is oriented toward God in heaven, who brings his word and kingdom to earth as we assemble at the heavenly Jerusalem. 

America, You Must Be Born Again

America has gone head over heels into darkness. She is like Nineveh of old, not knowing her right hand from her left. And while you, America, are far more wicked than that ancient God-forsaken city, having slaughtered far more innocents than she ever did, I am in no position to withhold the saving message from you. Jonah tried that several years ago, and it did not go well for him.

So the message is this: You must be born again. You are dead in your sins. And that is why you don’t know what a woman is. You cannot know what a woman is because you are blind. She is the image of God, and you have forsaken worshipping him. She is the glory of man, and you don’t know what he is either, so you can’t know his glory. You are dead in your sins. And that is why you think a gay person is a real thing. That is why it feels dehumanizing to many when I say that there is no such thing as a gay person. You hold onto a lie. You hold on to death, thinking that it is life. 

And if America would be born again, then her individual citizens must be born again. Each of you must individually enter the kingdom of God. And as Christ himself said, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). The remedy for your condition is entirely out of your hands. The message the Christian Church has delivered to you has far too often been that you can heal yourself. But the true message is that you are dead and cannot give yourself life. There is no hope in man, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

There is no fixing you. There is only new life. You cannot be repaired. You must be reborn. And that only comes from the Spirit of God himself. He is your only way out. So, I repeat, you must be born again.