While on the one hand a leading LGBT activist has publicly denounced her lesbian lifestyle as the ‘sin of same-sex’ (more of this story later), we are being harangued from every other side by symbols of the gay agenda. What on earth is happening?

At the dawning of a new era of reconciliation following the relatively peaceful transfer of power to black majority rule in 1994, South Africa became known as the Rainbow Nation, reflecting a future of great promise among the many different racial groupings there.

But now the rainbow – originally a biblical symbol of God’s covenant with his Creation – has been hijacked for the sinister purpose of encouraging sexual immorality and general rebellion against our Creator.

These ‘rainbows’ are appearing – not in the sky – but almost everywhere else you look. Some of our best-known companies, including Argos, Sainsbury’s and the Automobile Association, have joined the campaign by adopting the logo. Even Ely Cathedral and a host of other ‘Christian’ centres of worship have been flying the flag, indicating their unflagging support for the gay gospel.

Falling Short of Perfection

It is of course significant that only six colours – not the actual seven contained in this most splendid aspect of God’s Creation – are represented in their logo. Why is that, I wonder?

I suspect it is because, like sin itself, homosexuality is short of perfection. After all, the biblical meaning of sin conveys the sense of ‘missing the target’ – and all of us are consistently guilty of this. I am not just having a go at gay people; I am merely stating that God has not designed us that way.

LGBT ‘rainbows’ are appearing everywhere you look – including in ‘Christian’ centres of worship.

I even start to wonder if this movement is a precursor of the apocalyptic ‘mark of the beast’ given the mystical number 666 in chapter 13 of Revelation (the last book of the Bible) which describes the abject horror experienced by people everywhere in the last days of this age.

I say this not just because 666 is a recurring number that obviously stops short of the perfection represented by the number 7 (for example, the universe was created in seven days, and God said it was ‘good’) but because those involved in buying and selling, like Sainsbury’s and Argos, are so easily falling prey to the brainwashing techniques of the six-coloured rainbow campaign.

The Bible warns us that there will come a day when no-one will be able to buy or sell without taking the mark of the beast (Rev 13:16f), however that is applied. At any rate, it’s a worrying development as the Bible also states that those who take the mark will suffer the full fury of God’s wrath (Rev 14:9f) and all hope of their salvation will be lost.

Transformed by God’s Love

REAL RAINBOW: A fountain at Derbyshire’s magnificent Chatsworth House estate is flanked by a rainbow on a hot summer’s day. Photo: Linda Gardner

In the midst of all this comes a testimony of great hope from an internationally renowned former LGBT activist, Val Kalende, who says God has forgiven her. Instead of being LGBT, she now identifies as TBGL – Transformed by God’s Love.

After growing up as a preacher’s kid in a Pentecostal home in Uganda, she left behind her family and career as a journalist to become an LBGT activist in 2007. When the Ugandan Parliament criminalised homosexual behaviour in 2014, she gained asylum in Canada and became a fellow at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

But she has since been “set free from her sinful past by the truth of the gospel”, according to CBN News.¹

“The enemy had a plan to divert and eventually destroy my identity. God had a plan; a good plan,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “He preserved my womanhood and never stopped loving me…and calling me back to his purpose.”

Looking back, she admits she struggled over same-sex attraction and became hardened. Now she realises she should have trusted God in spite of not understanding her feelings. She regrets her involvement in the gay movement and owes much of her transformation to the “power of a praying family”.

Hoping others like her also find the grace and love of Jesus, she has publicly expressed her sorrow to those she chastised including pastors and politicians, adding: “I am at peace with my soul because I am forgiven and forever set free.”

Former LGBT activist Val Kalende has now found the grace and love of Jesus, and says that she owes much of her transformation to the “power of a praying family”.

True Love and Loving Truth

One of the frequent criticisms of Christians opposed to the gay lifestyle is that they are not thus showing love, which is surely what Christianity is about. But Val’s testimony deals with that squarely.

It was God’s love – and that of her family – that drove her to recognise her rebellion (see 2 Corinthians 7:9f); and believers I know would adopt the same attitude to homosexuals by loving the sinner but not the sin, which is the authentic approach of Jesus himself, who said he had come to fulfil, not abolish, the Law (Matt 5:17), which describes homosexuality as “detestable” (Lev 18:22). And yet, to the woman caught in adultery, he did not condemn her, only adding the crucial rider: “Go, and sin no more” (see John 8:1-11).

In a promise specifically addressed to the Chosen People, along with those who have been grafted in to the olive tree of Israel through Messiah Jesus, God says: “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer 31:3).

The Apostle Paul says “Love never fails” (1 Cor 13:8) and a famous French mathematician and astronomer said, as he was dying: “Science is mere trifling…nothing is real but love.”²

Our Daunting, Privileged Position

Christians are facing a head-on clash with a culture every bit as pagan as that faced by the first century believers in Rome. The challenge posed by their lifestyle caused them to be thrown into an arena where gloating crowds cheered as they were torn apart by wild dogs.

Today’s Christians are in a similarly daunting, yet privileged, position. Are we willing to stand up and be counted by defying those who oppose the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ?

References

1 Quotes are taken from Gateway News (South Africa) www.gatewaynews.co.za, 24 August 2018; the story was originally published in CBN News.

2 Laplace, quoted in Every Day with Jesus, July/August 2018.