God has a history of using unsavory characters to accomplish His will in the world.
The list includes murderers (like Moses and David), Egyptian pharaohs, a brothel owner, Babylonian kings, a Roman prefect (governor), a narcissistic thief (Judas), and even a murderous religious fanatic (Paul). None of them wanted to be tapped on the shoulder for His cause (with the possible exception of the brothel owner: Rahab) but chosen nonetheless they were, to be a part the story of how God moves the world to accomplish His ends. What an unsavory group to be included in God’s plan of salvation and culmination!
Perhaps the reason is tied to His ardent inclusivity: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). That simply means there is no good pool of candidates to choose from when it comes to fulfilling His will and implementing His plan. When the Pharisees scolded Jesus for allowing people to sing a song of welcome as He arrived in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday He said, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:40).
There is also the issue of failed leadership in the household of faith. To whom does God turn to when those He has called and empowered to speak on His behalf decide their own worldview and agenda suddenly supersedes His? Western society and culture is flying apart at the seams. Police are being ambushed and gunned down in cold blood while college students claim to be traumatized by messages written in chalk in support of a presidential candidate. A Planned Parenthood official giggles about harvesting the organs of an aborted baby but our government refuses to cut a dime of funding from the organization. And where is the voice of the American clergy? Why officiating homosexual weddings and writing open letters to newspapers against laws that protect the religious rights of Christians!
I realize there are plenty of good pastors and preachers out there…but there seems to be no unified voice for God addressing the problems cited above (and myriads more). Sin (particularly sexual sin) is rising exponentially and there is hardly any pastoral or theological voice pushing back. The clergy voices you do hear are those shepherds in collusion with the wolves.
Nothing seems to be able to elicit a sense of moral indignation from the vast majority of decent common sense Americans. The rise of the porn industry didn’t do it. The indecency on prime time television hasn’t caused a broad sense of moral outrage. The Supreme Court decision to nullify the votes of tens of millions of Americans in more than 30 states who voted to define marriage as between one man and one woman, opting instead to force same sex marriage on the whole country didn’t do it either. Even the Planned Parenthood scandal couldn’t elicit a voice of national shame and condemnation for such blatant and egregious sin.
But along comes Target. Their infamous bathroom/fitting room policy allowing anyone to use the bathroom/fitting room “that corresponds with their gender identity” had been in place for awhile. However, on April 19 the company felt it necessary to fire a shot in the culture war and posted “Continuing to Stand for Inclusivity” on their website reminding shoppers that anytime a man decides he feels like a woman he is welcome to go to the ladies bathroom or use the ladies fitting room. How women or little girls feel about being suddenly confronted by a man in such an intimate location is apparently deemed irrelevant.
Target’s blatant disregard for either the feelings or the safety of its shoppers over something as patently ridiculous as opening the Ladies Room to men may just have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. The response to the AFA initiated boycott of Target is unprecedented in its history of boycotts. In only a week almost one million people have signed the pledge to boycott Target until it reverses its bathroom/fitting room policy.
And yet even in the midst of this outpouring of public support there is still hardly any sound coming from the leadership of the Church in America. If it is not an issue to America’s pastors then you have to begin to wonder about their concern for their flock’s well-being. And if they won’t be God’s watchman (see Ezekiel 33) then God will find someone (or something) else to communicate with His people. He has already used a bush and a donkey and promised to use rocks to communicate His will if it became necessary. Maybe God didn’t have enough preachers of righteousness and decided to use Target to wake up the remnant of people who haven’t tossed common sense out the window in favor of the rotting corpse of moral relativism.
(This blog was co-written by Ray Rooney, Jr. & AFA Sr. VP Buddy Smith)
