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Thanks to Bruce Jenner's recent public "transformation," it seems transgenderism is front and center in American pop-culture.  A missionary friend of mine who works primarily in New England sent me a picture this week of a transgender bathroom sign in Boston.  He called it "a sign of the times."

Indeed.  A "sign."  Of our sinful depravity which we now celebrate, embrace, promote, flaunt and force upon everyone, everywhere.  While the world is being terrorized by radical Islamists, and our cities are ablaze with violent crime, our State Department is busy trying to force the LGBT agenda on the rest of the world, especially "backwards"Africa and Asia.  But America is the Nation going backwards.  And downwards.

I believe the Church of Jesus Christ is called to extend kindness and love to every person, including those suffering from the sinful delusion called "gender confusion."  I want to state that up front.  There is no justification for mistreating a transgendered person, or a person who expresses confusion in these matters.  They are a human, made in God's image, like me.  They are a depraved sinner, like me.  They have no hope of heaven apart from the saving grace of Jesus Christ, like me.  They need to repent of their sin and trust Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, like me. They need to learn as believers in Jesus to fight sin and temptations to sin by the power of His Spirit and Word, like me.  They may not share the same sins and temptations, but they are no less or more in need of the saving love of Jesus than I am.  So, in many ways, we are the same.  To say it again, in the most important ways, we are the same.

That said, a genuine love for a person who is transgendered or gender-confused, must constrain us to tell the person the things I just said above!  It is not loving of a doctor who knows the disease and the cure to withhold that information from a dying patient.  It is hateful.  Despicable.  A crime!

And the transgendered community, and those experiencing gender confusion, are dying.  Consider a recently published, long-term study of this community in Sweden here.  In brief, the researchers found that those who had undergone sex-change surgery were now:

• 20 times more likely to commit suicide.
• 5 times more likely to attempt suicide.
• 3 times more like to require psychiatric hospitalization.

Does this look like a picture of health and happiness?  Did changing "sex" fulfill these people?  You see, this thing called "transgenderism" is merely another manifestation, or symptom, of the true human condition - sin.  Jesus said we do what we do and say what we say and think what we think because of resident evil - sinful hearts, minds, and wills (Mark 7:14-23).  Denying or ignoring or rejecting God's creative design of humans as distinctly "male and female" (Genesis 1:27) will never give us joy and fulfillment in life.  We sinners are always looking for joy and satisfaction and love in all the wrong places.

Long-time Psychiatrist-in-Chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Paul McHugh said this:

“At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. ‘Sex change’ is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is a civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.”

McHugh went on to say that America is supporting a "psychiatric misadventure."

"A woman shall not wear a man's clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman's clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 22:5).  

God minces no words.  His will and Law in this matter are clear.  But take heart!  There is hope for all us "abominations."

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us - for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree' - in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:13-14).

Stop looking for joy and fulfillment in your gender, in your confused mind, in your friends and family, in your bank account, in your appearance, and in your surgical alterations.  Look to Jesus, the Man of all men, who came to set both male and female free in the deepest parts of our souls (Gal 3:28).  Jesus can free us, even from the sin of gender-confusion, sex re-assignment, and mass perversion.

O transgendered sinner, repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ!  

by Keith McWhorter