In the midst of your chronic suffering, remember that God has no aimless thorns. Each thorn perfectly meets its mark exactly as He intends for the duration He determines. Each one will accomplish all He desires. Learn to seek God in the struggle with the thorn. See how He might be using it to conform you to the image of Christ and prepare you for eternity with Him.

“You have dysentery.” My common fate on the old Oregon Trail computer game became reality three years ago in Madagascar when my doctor spoke these words to me. As much as I wanted to laugh at how ironic it was to struggle with such an old disease as dysentery, I was in pain.
Little did I know then that this illness would set me on a trajectory of doctors’ visits, medical diagnoses, and hospital stays for the next three years, leading up to this very day where I sit once again in isolation at St. Luke’s East Hospital, missing my family and wondering why they can’t design hospital beds to be more comfortable.
I’m a firm believer in the sovereignty of God’s grace. I believe everything that happens to the believer is for good. After receiving an autoimmune diagnosis and seeing the subsequent bills roll in, though, this conviction has been put to the test.
Amidst temptations to doubt, God continues to reveal His good purposes for me in my affliction. As I sit in my hospital bed today, three lessons stand out among the rest as reminders of the sovereignty of God’s grace and His goodness in my life.
1. Your present trajectory does not determine your eternal reality.
Beginning in the fall of 2020, my life seemed to be on a negative trajectory. A house fire displacing our family for six months, the loss of my job and financial stability, and an autoimmune diagnosis hit us all in the span of a few months. Health, home, career, and finances- all taken away before we knew what hit us.
Any onlooker to the situation would quickly- and rightly- surmise that we were in a tough spot, in all senses of the phrase- emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
And in that season, Psalm 73 became my refrain.
“My feet had almost stumbled… For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked…For they have no pangs until death…They are not in trouble as others are…Behold, these are the wicked; always as ease.”
Why do the wicked prosper? So often, prosperity seems to attend the wicked while the Christian seems to go from bad to worse. I often wonder, “How can this be?” Anticipating my question, God answers…
“But when I thought how to understand this; it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end… Truly you set them in slippery places.”
For the Christian, God saves us not only from our sin, but He also saves us from all other saviors. During this season, I began to see that I found more comfort, identity, and satisfaction in my home, health, and finances than I had previously realized.
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Written by John A. Sparks |
Monday, March 13, 2023
Literally on the same day in 2017 when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ original case involving the two gay men, Scardina placed an order with Masterpiece Cakeshop for a cake to celebrate both Scardina’s birthday and transition to being a woman. Scardina first placed the order without mentioning the cake’s purpose, noting only that the cake was to be blue on the outside and pink on the inside. But during a second call on the same day, Scardina made clear the purpose of the cake for a trans celebration. At that point an employee of Masterpiece said the business could not bake such a cake. Phillips explained the reason why in testimony. He believed “that God designed people as male and female, that a person’s gender is biologically determined.” Making such a cake to celebrate a gender transition would violate his religious beliefs and force him to express views that were contrary to those beliefs. Scardina filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. 

In 1950, Eileen Barton’s rendition of “If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake” became #1 on the Billboard charts. Until 2012, that song might well have been Colorado baker Jack Phillips’ favorite. But in that year, his three-decade love of baking cakes and other baked goods for those who patronized his Lakewood, Colorado Masterpiece Cakeshop turned into a decade-long nightmare of legal and cultural battles.
Today, Phillips would like nothing better than to return to the quiet hum of his baking establishment’s kitchen. Why isn’t that possible? Why can’t he resume preparing confections for customers without members of sexual minority groups demanding that he adopt and help celebrate their own peculiar view of human sexuality? Why is the state of Colorado menacing an upright citizen like Phillips with criminal complaints and fines?
Let’s briefly trace Jack Phillips’ unhappy legal trek.
In the 1970s, Phillips became a Christian and was convicted that his faith put limits on the types of customized cakes he would bake in his own private business. For example, he refused to portray witches and ghosts for Halloween or sexually suggestive images. In keeping with his Christian beliefs that marriage should be between one man and one woman, he concluded that he could not be part of the celebration of same-sex unions by artistically designing custom wedding cakes for such occasions.
Phillips’ faith commitments did not pose problems for him until 2012 when he respectfully declined a request from two gay men to bake a custom wedding cake for them. That got him in trouble with Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) and the Colorado Civil Right Commission after the pair filed a claim alleging that Phillips discriminated against them because of their sexual orientation. Phillips defended his refusal, saying that his religious liberty and his freedom of speech, including the right not to be compelled to express a certain message, were being violated. To his chagrin, the administrative law judge hearing the case ruled that Phillips either had to bake cakes for all weddings or none. Furthermore, the judge’s order required Phillips to “retrain” his staff to accept requests involving gay weddings, and to report, over a two-year period, all cake orders he refused.
To make matter worse, when Phillips appealed, the Colorado Court of Appeals supported the commission and the law judge’s findings and remedies and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. There, in 2018, the Supreme Court found in favor of Phillips, but only on the weakest possible grounds. Some of the Colorado Civil Rights Commissioners made outlandish public statements during proceedings about Phillips’ religious beliefs, referring to them as “despicable pieces of rhetoric” which allowed him to use his “religion to hurt others.” There were other similar statements. All of this was too much for the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Anthony Kennedy, along with six other justices who joined or concurred in his opinion, said that “the Commission’s treatment of Phillip’s case violated the state’s duty under the First Amendment not to base laws or regulations on hostility to a religion or a religious viewpoint.” (Keep in mind that Justice Kennedy wrote the Obergefell decision making same-sex marriage the law of the land.)
The Kennedy opinion, though a temporary victory for Phillips, was based on flagrant and foolish public misconduct by the Colorado governmental body hearing his case, and which was not likely to be repeated. Unfortunately, Kennedy’s opinion failed to address the central issue of whether the recently devised use of “public accommodation laws,” like the CADA law, to advance the claims of sexual minorities for equal treatment, should override the long-standing constitutional rights of speech and free exercise of religion. The court’s failure to face head-on that set of issues meant that providers like Phillips would be open to further legal challenges. That is precisely what has happened. A transgender woman—Autumn Scardina—who was an attorney, is doggedly pursuing Phillips and Masterpiece by every legal means available.
Literally on the same day in 2017 when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ original case involving the two gay men, Scardina placed an order with Masterpiece Cakeshop for a cake to celebrate both Scardina’s birthday and transition to being a woman. Scardina first placed the order without mentioning the cake’s purpose, noting only that the cake was to be blue on the outside and pink on the inside. But during a second call on the same day, Scardina made clear the purpose of the cake for a trans celebration. At that point an employee of Masterpiece said the business could not bake such a cake. Phillips explained the reason why in testimony. He believed “that God designed people as male and female, that a person’s gender is biologically determined.” Making such a cake to celebrate a gender transition would violate his religious beliefs and force him to express views that were contrary to those beliefs.
Scardina filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Before that case could be heard, however, Phillips and Masterpiece brought an action in federal court against Colorado. Eventually, Phillips and Colorado settled by each withdrawing their respective suits. But the dispute was not ended.
Scardina then filed a civil suit on her own behalf in a state court, the current case being litigated.
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The LGBTQ agenda has become the new orthodoxy of woke culture. Anyone who even questions it is declared a heretic and cast from society for blasphemy. In this cultural setting we can expect resistance to and eventually persecution of those who hold to biblical orthodoxy. This agenda is new in recent Western history, so it is important for us to take a look at ancient history. History is crucial for understanding the theological and spiritual implications of homosexuality for the thinking of today’s church and culture. 

The cultural conflict is no longer simply political. The economic value of socialism or capitalism is no longer the debate separating citizens. It is, rather, what our children are learning, whether in non-Christian state schools or even in some Christian schools, about their sexuality, their family life and the theological issues that determine ultimate meaning.
The Sixties was a key moment for Western culture. It might be hard to imagine, but when I was growing up as a lad in working-class Liverpool, England, and even when I became a young man in the Fifties, I had never even heard the word “homosexual.” If, by some chance, that word came up at one time, I would not have known what it meant. Then came the Sixties, when deviant sexuality exploded into the public square and now “alternate” sex is seen as normative.
Normalizing the LGBTQ Agenda
The present administration boasts that its cabinet has more female, gay, black and trans members than ever before. It went further in the normalization of sexual extremism by appointing Sam Brinton to the Department of Energy, where he is responsible for nuclear waste. It seems he took “nuclear” to heart, appearing at the White House in high-heeled shoes, bright lipstick, a striking moustache—and sporting a fetching dress he had stolen at an airport luggage collection point! When his theft was uncovered, the administration reluctantly let him go. The Biden Administration also elevated Rachel (née Richard) Levine, a trans lad/lass with flowing golden tresses. Levine is a four-star admiral who holds the post of Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services. In public, he proudly presents in formal naval attire, thus reinforcing the administration’s position on transgenderism. This is the new political norm,[1] which the President made official. At the end of the “Proclamation on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Pride Month, 2023” the president declared (joining God and queer issues) that the month of June was to be a time for all Americans to “recognize the achievements of the LGBTQI+ community, to celebrate the great diversity of the American people, and to wave their flags of pride high.” The final line states: “In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-seventh.”
It’s little wonder that “nearly every major U.S. brand promulgates the LGBT agenda,”[2] and many people are proud of their support of LGBTQ issues. This is especially true of sports personalities. Georgia Marie Stanway, captain of the British ladies’ soccer team, exults: “We’re never shy in saying what we stand for. We’re a squad that promotes inclusivity, equality, we obviously have a number of people that feel very strongly about it.”[3] The California Senate engaged in a ceremony honoring “The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.[4] The “Sisters” are gay men dressed as nuns, who make fun of the traditional nuns’ view of sex. They are drag queens in nun outfits, calling themselves by obscene names, peddling hatred and reveling in blasphemy. Americans are a tolerant people. But we should realize that sexual deviance has by now become an issue to divide the nation into the morally and socially cool, versus the luddites.
They Are Coming for Our Children in Their Schools
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, friend of Jeffrey Epstein and visitor to his island, has invested tens of millions of dollars in a radical nongovernmental organization called the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), which is endorsed by the World Health Organization. The IPPF is pushing for young children to be considered “sexual beings.” “Sexual activity may be part of different types of relationships, including dating, marriage, or commercial sex work, among others,” IPPF said, about what children under 10 should be taught. The toolkit said that children under 10 should also be told: “As you grow up, you might start to be interested in people with diverse gender identities.”[5]This view is taught in numerous schools.
Such explicit instruction is clearly emphasized in the drag queen shows put on in public libraries for children all over the country, developing in them an interest for “diverse gender identities,” that is, interest in non-binary sexual androgyny in which sexual identities are joined in a hopeless mish-mash. This androgynous sex is expressed in: homosexuality, in which both males become females in their love-making; bi-sexuality, in which a person enjoys both male and female sex; transgenderism, in which a male or female person pretends to be the opposite sex; and in drag queen practice. Interestingly, Texas Christian University now offers a course teaching that the male/female gender binary is an expression of white supremacy![6] It also discusses how to create a drag persona. As the culmination of this “academic work,” students participate in a performance in the university’s annual drag show.
They Are Coming for Our Children in Our Churches
On Monday, June 5, 2023, the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine hosted a “Faith Perspectives Panel” examining the intersection of religion and the LGBTQ+ movement as part of the Cathedral’s iconic Pride celebration. The panel discussion centered around deconstructing the “binary view” of the church, namely the doctrine of God the Creator.[7]
In June, 2023, another Lutheran female “minister” recited a heretical “Sparkle Creed” as part of a recent church service, (about which I have already commented).[8] The Edina Community Lutheran Church (ECLC) “minister,” Anna Helgen, led the congregation in the “creed”:
I believe in the non-binary God whose pronouns are plural. I believe in Jesus Christ, their child who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads and saw everyone as a sibling-child of God.I believe in the rainbow spirit who shatters our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity….
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