Or, The Things of Which We Are Now Ashamed 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 January 16, 2022 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

Sometimes a magnificent waterfall waits at the end of a long trail. At least we can walk the trail together in this introduction.

At Men to Men last Monday night Jonathan prayed about how many pivotal and life-altering issues seem to be confronting us, and how quickly they keep coming. It is a great time to be a Christian, because we can see how laughable it all is to our God (Psalm 2:4; 37:13) and how “easy” it is to be light in the world. Courage is required but not much wisdom if all you have to do is tell the difference between a boy and a girl.

But, yeah, our government gamblers keep going all in on every hand. You’d think by now they’d be out of the game after now many times they’ve lost, but they’re playing with our money, and apparently there is more where that came from. So our hand has been forced to think about lockdowns and restrictions on assembling for worship, forced to think about forced vaccinations and religious exemptions. Then the State brings out new decks, and lays things such as quarantine camps and even tighter gun restrictions on the table. Maybe it would be less frustrating if so many of our neighbors weren’t cheering on the State’s cheating.

We are allowed to care as citizens and as (Kuyperian) Christians, and it’s a lot to care about. Can you even keep up with the forms to sign? Now is not a good time for reluctant life-long learners.

To the north of us it is worse. I don’t know much about the Canadian system of government, but I know enough to know that not enough Canadians even have guns to complain with. At least some parts of Canada have pushed the pronoun lunacy, other parts have been arresting pastors for having church services, and now their nation has criminalized conversion therapy. These three things do actually go together.

I don’t remember which source I heard about Bill C-4 from first, but an email was sent on behalf of John MacArthur about a month ago describing the legislation and calling pastors to consider joining their pulpits together against it. Not every dumb, let alone immoral and destructive, law necessitates a special sermon, and this law isn’t even applicable to us in the U.S., yet (though as of 2018 the WA State RCW does prohibit licensed health care providers from performing conversion therapy on minors). But this kind of threat by a government is uniquely targeted against humanity in God’s image, and directly against the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Bill C-4 is a law that prohibits the use of, or even promotion of, conversion therapy. (See the Parliament page here.)

From the Preamble:

Whereas conversion therapy causes harm to the persons who are subjected to it;Whereas conversion therapy causes harm to society because, among other things, it is based on and propagates myths and stereotypes about sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, including the myth that heterosexuality, cisgender gender identity, and gender expression that conforms to the sex assigned to a person at birth are to be preferred over other sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions;And whereas, in light of those harms, it is important to discourage and denounce the provision of conversion therapy in order to protect the human dignity and equality of all Canadians;

The Definition of conversion therapy:

conversion therapy means a practice, treatment or service designed to(a) change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual;(b) change a person’s gender identity to cisgender;(c) change a person’s gender expression so that it conforms to the sex assigned to the person at birth;(d) repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour;(e) repress a person’s n[...]