This week, members of the Democratic Party in Congress voted unanimously to protect transgender ideology as the true understanding of human nature. The context was sporting events sanctioned by educational institutions subject to Title IX. It may have been the most ominously damning vote I’ve witnessed in my 30 years of direct political engagement.
I read multiple statements from Democratic Senators about the vote. They offered political justifications to their voting base.
For example, some claimed a correct and true understanding of what it means to be human is just not an issue anyone in this district cares about. Others claimed it was federal government overreach into decisions best left to states or that the legislation would require intrusive examinations of persons to determine if they were, in fact, male or female. These latter excuses, in principle, justify repealing Title IX, but don’t wait for that to happen.
But to me, the statement that best described their vote was made by John Owen, a 17th century Englishman who has been described by some at that nation’s greatest theological mind. It comes from his famous work, The Dominion of Sin and Grace.
I will quote from it and simply allow you to judge the applicability of his words. But if applicable, it should be most grievous to us who understand the “goodness and severity of God” (Romans 11:22).
[T]here is a time when God judicially gives up men to the rule of sin, to abide under it for ever, so as that they lose all right unto liberty. So he dealt with many of the idolatrous Gentiles of old, Rom. 1:24, 26, 28, and so he continues to deal with the like profligate sinners. . . .
When it is come to this, men are cast at law, and have lost all right and title unto liberty from the dominion of sin. They may repine sometimes at the service of sin, or the consequence of it, in shame and pain, in the shameful distempers that will pursue many in their uncleanness; yet God having given them up judicially unto sin, they have not so much as a right to put up one prayer or petition for deliverance, nor will they do so, but are bound in the fetters of cursed presumption or despair. See their work and wages, Rom. 2:5, 6. This is the most woful state and condition of sinners in this world,—an unavoidable entrance into the chambers of death.
You that have lived long under the power of sin, beware lest that come upon you which is spoken of in these scriptures! You have as yet a right unto deliverance from that bondage and servitude wherein you are, if you put in your claim in the court of heaven. You know not how soon you may be deprived of this also, by God's giving you up judicially unto sin and Satan. Then all complaints will be too late, and all springs of endeavours for relief be utterly dried up. All your reserves for a future repentance shall be cut off, and all your cries shall be despised, Prov. 1:24–31. Whilst it is yet called To-day, harden not your hearts, lest God swear in his wrath that you shall never enter into his rest.
And finally, this is the statement of Owen I found most alarming, ominous, and, indeed, terrifying for those Senators who persist in their present course:
That you may be warned, take notice [of one of] the signs or symptoms of the approach of such a season, of such an irrecoverable condition[:] A long continuance in the practice of any known sin. There are bounds to divine patience. The long-suffering of God for a time waits for repentance, 1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 3:9: but there is a time when it doth only "endure vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," Rom. 9:22, which is commonly after a long continuance in known sin.
May those with a meekness that arises from having come to know the goodness and severity of God be to these politicians like those described by the Apostle Paul in 2. Timothy 2:25-26, KJV:
“In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will”.
