Those of you who are my age or older I want you to try to remember back to your high school days. As I read this news item from June 18th ask yourself this question, “How did we, as a nation, get here?”
As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies — more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there’s been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town. School officials started looking into the matter as early as October, after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, "some girls seemed more upset when they weren’t pregnant than when they were," Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the principal says, shaking his head.
The girls who made the pregnancy pact — some of whom, according to Sullivan, reacted to the news that they were expecting with high fives and plans for baby showers — declined to be interviewed. So did their parents. But Amanda Ireland, who graduated from Gloucester High on June 8, thinks she knows why these girls wanted to get pregnant. Ireland, 18, gave birth her freshman year and says some of her now pregnant schoolmates regularly approached her in the hall, remarking how lucky she was to have a baby. "They’re so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally," Ireland says. "I try to explain it’s hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m."
The high school has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers. Sex-ed classes end freshman year at Gloucester, where teen parents are encouraged to take their children to a free on-site day-care center. Strollers mingle seamlessly in school hallways among cheerleaders and junior ROTC. "We’re proud to help the mothers stay in school," says Sue Todd, CEO of Pathways for Children, which runs the day-care center.
Gloucester’s elected school committee plans to vote later this summer on whether to provide contraceptives. But that won’t do much to solve the issue of teens wanting to get pregnant.
Kathleen Kingsbury, “Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High,” Wednesday, Jun. 18, 2008
Welcome to modern America! That bizarre little story is just a taste of what’s on the way. I fear that we are only beginning to harvest the bitter fruits of the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s. That was the era when young people started overthrowing biblical standards for a more liberated view of sexual expression. In one generation we made the transition from one man and one woman in marriage “until death do us part” to “If it feels good, do it!” Ironically, what we thought would bring freedom is leading us into bondage and setting out nation up for ruin.
What’s happening in our nation is nothing new. We’re following an old path to degradation first set forth by Ham, one of Noah’s three sons. His story, from Genesis chapter nine, is one of the most bizarre and ambiguous in the Bible. Noah got drunk and naked in his tent, Ham walked in and saw him, went outside and told his brothers who then covered Noah without looking at him, and finally Noah awoke and cursed Ham’s youngest child Canaan to perpetual slavery. That’s the literal interpretation, but it leaves many questions marks about the story.
In order to make sense of the story various attempts have been made to fill in the blanks left open by the Genesis account. One interpretation says that Ham’s sin was homosexual voyeurism – looking at the nakedness of another to gratify lustful desires. The Jewish rabbis speculated that Ham went even further and raped Noah. Others disagreed and said that Canaan, Ham’s son, emasculated his grandfather while he was drunk with his father’s approval. Recent scholarship says that the story is discretely communicating that Ham raped his Noah’s wife and Canaan, the child produced from his disgraceful act, was cursed as a result.
The fact is that we’re not really sure what happened between Ham and Noah, but we do know a lot about Canaan’s descendants. The Canaanites were sexual degenerates. Leviticus 18 describes their disgusting practices. (You’ll be glad to know that I’m not going to read it.) It’s a horrible list of perversion, so bad that God commanded the extermination of the Canaanites at the hands of Israel. Whatever deviant thing Ham did to his father, his descendants through Canaan followed. As a result, they were enslaved and destroyed.
Here’s what’s really frightening: All of the sins of the Canaanites described in Leviticus 18 are practiced in our nation today … plus some. We have wandered way beyond sexual expression between a husband and wife to virtually any perversion our minds can conceive. The results are increasing enslavement and the disintegration of our country. As we walk in the path of Ham our nation suffers the consequences of his descendants. Let’s take a look at how this works.
Enslaving and Corrupting Effects of Sexual Emancipation
1. Pornography
At the very least, Ham’s sin involved looking on another for sexual gratification. Today nothing is off limits in what we can look at through DVDs or the internet.
- As of 2003, there were 1.3 million pornographic websites and U.S. adult DVD/video rentals in 2005: almost 1 billion.
- More than 70% of men from 18 to 34 visit a pornographic site in a typical month.
- A 1996 Promise Keepers survey at one of their stadium events revealed that over 50% of the men in attendance were involved with pornography within one week of attending the event.
- 51% of pastors say cyber-porn is a possible temptation. 37% say it is a current struggle. - Adults admitting to Internet sexual addiction: 10%; 28% of those are women
Pornography enslaves. That’s how those websites make so much money. They allow people to view some of it for free. Once the thrill is gone, the viewer is invited to pay for further services. Pornography use follows the law of diminishing returns. The images have to be increasingly provocative and crude to bring the same level of satisfaction as before.
It undermines families because husbands who indulge in pornography do not remain satisfied with their spouse. The result can be adultery and the breakdown of the marriage.
"At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers who attended said the Internet played a significant role in the divorces in the past year, with excessive interest in online porn contributing to more than half such cases. Pornography had an almost non-existent role in divorce just seven or eight years ago." (Divorcewizards.com)
Soft porn, which you can now find on network TV, enslaves our young people. They’re copying the values and fashions of the stars who not only say it’s okay, but are actually starring in porn productions. It perpetuates the idea of sex without commitment or consequences. How many people in sexually explicit movies contract an STD or have an unwanted pregnancy? A few years ago pornography was actually a fashion statement. Did you see the t-shirts some kids were wearing that said “porn star” on the front?
I would place topless bars in the same category as pornography. Those places are generally fronts for organized crime. They take in women with low self-esteem, many of whom have been sexually abused, and they get them hooked on the cocaine that the establishment is selling out of the back room. Men who frequent those places are funding the destruction of someone else’s daughter and organized crime.
2. Pre-marital sex or its biblical name, fornication
Many people live under the mistaken impression that God wants to ruin their fun by imposing such strict standards on sexuality. That’s a wrong way to view it. His boundaries are for our pleasure and protection.
Think about the enslavement that comes with so-called liberated sex. There is the constant fear of disease. There is no such thing as safe sex, except in marriage. While there are cures for some STDs there are numerous infections that are viral for which there is no remedy. Some lead to various cancers. At least one can kill all by itself. Doesn’t it make more sense to wait for the freedom of marriage?
Increasingly today there’s fear of exposure. People will talk. If they’re not committed to you, they’ll talk a lot. Now thanks to YouTube and other internet video sites exposure can reach a whole new level.
Pre-marital sex also leads to the general breakdown of society. 29% of unwed mothers abort their babies. 52% keep them. While it is more commendable to keep the child than kill it, that child has some distinct disadvantages from a single parent situation.
Boys living in a fatherless home are two to three times more likely to be involved in crime, drop out of school, and get divorced. Girls living in a fatherless home are two to three times more likely to become pregnant teenagers and have their marriages end in divorce.
“Heading Toward a Fatherless Society,” by Barry Kliff, MSNBC News, www.msnbc.com, March 31, 1999.
Almost 70 percent of young men in prison grew up without fathers in the home.
“American Agenda,” World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, January 12, 1995.
In 1960 the number of babies born out of wedlock in the US was 5%. Today that number is 37%. That’s 1 in 4 babies in this country which are born to women who are not married. The pregnancy rate among teenage girls has actually declined, but the troubling news is that now women in their 20s are choosing to have babies while unmarried. This is going to erode our society. In some black neighborhoods 70% of the children are born out of wedlock.
What happens when a nation has increasing numbers of babies born into single-parent situations? A growing criminal class. I’m not saying that all children of single parent families become criminals, but a higher number do than in homes where mom and dad are present. What will it take to control this breakdown? More laws and law enforcement, more taxation to hire officers and maintain prisons, and less freedom overall.
3. Homosexuality
Today we see the rising level of homosexuality in our nation. Again, we’re following the lead of Ham and his descendants. Homosexuality is itself a form of bondage. Here’s how you can tell. Gays and lesbians identify themselves by their sexual choice. Their preoccupation with their sexual preference becomes their label. Like an alcoholic trapped in drink (by choice) they trap themselves in a deviant lifestyle.
Homosexuals argue that they should be left alone because their lifestyle harms no one. I found some research that conflicts with that claim.
A forty-eight page study … in the peer-reviewed journal, Psychological Reports, compares extensive and newly released Center for Disease Control (CDC) data, concluding that homosexuals are far more likely to engage in illegal and socially dangerous behavior than heterosexuals. In fact, according to the study, homosexuals are over 107% more likely to have been booked for illegal activity than heterosexuals.
Dr. Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute led and penned the report, which is based upon data gathered in 1996 by the CDC. The data for criminality indicated that 22.8% of homosexuals have been booked for committing a crime, compared to 11% of heterosexuals. This statistic held true for both gays and lesbians. “That’s noteworthy,” said Cameron, “It shows a rebellion, an unwillingness to go along with society.”
The study also indicated an increase in the use of illegal substances, driving while intoxicated, and dangerous sexual practices, including intercourse with multiple and HIV+ partners.
This is not to say that all homosexuals are criminals or necessarily even bad people, but a disproportionately high number display antisocial, criminal behavior. Maybe this is one of the reasons why the Bible warns against it over and over in both testaments.
Clearly, we are a Hamnation. This may not bother you in the least. Live and let live right? God doesn’t see it that way. Though Noah, He revealed the fate of Ham’s perverted descendants.
“Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.” Genesis 9:25
As the Israelites prepared to fulfill this prophetic curse by exterminating and enslaving the Canaanites, God gave them a warning that we’d do well to heed:
“Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you (for all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled), lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you.” Leviticus 18:24-28
If you want to live and let live in the area of sexuality, prepare to be vomited out. Societies that follow the path of Ham’s descendants find themselves enslaved and eventually destroyed. It happened to the Canaanites, the Israelites, the Greek city states, and the Roman Empire. Europe in on the verge as Muslim populations explode and the permissive Europeans decline. Western Civilization is on the brink of collapse and within the next couple of decades America will likely stand alone if we stand at all. We transgress God’s boundaries for sexuality at our own peril. A Hamnation will be enslaved and eliminated eventually.
God has a better way. It was the path followed by Shem and Japheth. Rather than throw off sexual restrain like their brother, Shem and Japheth covered their father’s shame. They would not look at or act on the sexual perversion of Ham. As a result, they and their descendants lived in freedom and the blessing of God.
That’s the way you can tell whether or not you’re living in God’s truth. If your life is characterized by freedom and the blessings of God you’re living in His boundaries. A life of bondage and destruction is typical of those living apart from God. Jesus said,
“If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free …If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:31, 36 (NIV)
Knowing and applying God’s truth to sexuality brings freedom and blessing. A few years ago the University of Chicago found that the segment of the population which had the highest sexual pleasure and satisfaction rate were married couples with only one life-time partner. You won’t see that on TV shows or movies, but the facts bear it out. Knowing and applying God’s truth to sexuality brings freedom and blessing. Think about it. When sexuality is expressed in marriage between a man and a woman for life there’s a high level of trust and commitment. There’s no shame or fear of exposure or fear of disease. Anxiety over an unwanted pregnancy disappears and when babies do come into this world they’re born into stability and the care and nurture that only a family can provide. What’s good for the individual is good for the family. What’s good for the family is good for the nation. Knowing and applying God’s truth to sexuality brings freedom and blessing.
