The Josh Alcorn Suicide: Thinking from a Christian Worldview

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Greetings and welcome to the Dividing Line, first Dividing Line of 2015, January 2nd.

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I think we left the lights up much higher than they normally are, actually, I'm sitting here going, ehhh. It's a cold winter's morning here in Phoenix.

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We schedule winter in for a couple days, normally right at the beginning of January, and it's definitely here now.

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I think it was 28 degrees, I believe, it was definitely 29 at my house, and that's pretty cold for us.

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I'm hoping my little cacti will be able to survive this brief visit of winter, because according to the weather forecast by next week,

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I have at least three days in a row of 71 for a high and 43 for a low. So, like I said, we've scheduled in for a few days, and then it goes away, and everything starts warming up, and up, and up, and up it goes.

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So that's just the way things are. First Dividing Line of the year, pretty serious topic today.

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There are a lot of people talking about memorizing scripture here at the beginning of the new year, in the

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Christian community that is, certainly not in the wider community. And if I could make a suggestion concerning how you might want to do that, or at least a section that I think should be committed to memory for any of us who would seek to have a

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Christian worldview and to responsibly provide a

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Christian voice in our day and age. Matthew chapter 19, verses 4 through 6 is a section that I would highly recommend to you for your memorization.

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You are familiar with it. Jesus is answering an attempt to drag him into the middle of a current raging theological debate amongst the

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Pharisees and different schools amongst the Pharisees regarding divorce. And as Jesus responds, he says in verse 4, he answered and said, well,

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I didn't know you're going to switch over to that or I would have made it much larger, but he answered and said, and I, since we've done that, we'll take the

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ESV out there and there we go. Now it's actually a somewhat readable on the screen.

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He answered and said, have you not read that the creator from the beginning, and there would be some discussion as to whether up our case should be connected to a

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Poison or if it's modifying the creator, the creator from the beginning made them male and female and said for this reason, a man shall abandon, leave his father and his mother and shall be joined or cling to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

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Now the reason we might wish to memorize these words is because it is

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Jesus's teaching. First of all, Jesus and of course, liberals are going to say, well, this is just Matthew.

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Matthew is just making this up. We don't know what Jesus believed, et cetera, et cetera. And that kind of radical agnosticism leads to the utter irrelevancy of Jesus, the utter agnosticism of Jesus, his teachings or anything related there too.

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But looking at what Jesus himself is reported to have said from these first century sources in the divine and holy scriptures, he holds men accountable for recognizing that the creation story is absolutely necessary for our self -understanding.

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It was central to Jesus's self -understanding of who we are. And it is the abandonment of any meaningful

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Christian humanism. What is Christian humanism?

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Well, a Christian humanism would be a recognition that God made man in his image and that therefore man has a transcendent meaning and purpose in life.

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That human life is special, that human life is different than animal life.

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While animal life is also created by God, it is not created in his image. And you are not to kill an animal that kills another animal, for example.

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But you are to take the life of one who takes another human's life. Why? Because that person has created the image of God and that person has therefore forfeited their right to life by taking the life of another in an illegal fashion, not in the situation of war and so on and so forth.

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Again, reading the Bible as a whole would help at this point. Anyway, without the creation narrative, you have no foundation.

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Today we live in a day where in Western civilization, mankind no longer has transcendent meaning, is no longer created, is merely the mistake of nature.

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If you really understand what the evolutionary theory is about, it is undirected.

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I remember for years in high school, I had lengthy conversations with one particular science teacher and he would give me college -level papers on evolution and I understand neo -Darwinian micromutational evolutionary theory and I know it so well that I can see how modern people like Dawkins and others are trying to find some way to mold it so there can be some level of explanation of why man is the way he is.

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Because we naturally, when you see someone sacrifice themselves for their brothers on the battlefield or something like that, we naturally recognize that there's something more there than just animals running around with other animals and engaging in mayhem.

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Even at man's worst in that context of violence toward other men, we see this and so I've seen how they've attempted to say, well, you know, maybe natural selection allows for this and that in some way of grounding morality, but there really isn't.

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Natural selection is unguided. There is no teleos. There is no end toward which it is aimed and when you talk about higher and lower, that's a taxonomy that is relative.

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It's not an absolute thing at all. And so in our society today, men and women believe themselves to be mere accidents.

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There is no transcendent meaning. There is no final judgment. We just simply are what we are and therefore we're just to make the best of what we are.

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And then you have this genetic determinism that has come in that you are what your genes say you are.

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You are what... I'm getting complaints on Twitter that you moved the plaque, by the way. I didn't move it.

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Who moved it? You need to affirm that too. It's down there.

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It's right there. Yeah. We're looking... I'm looking for a new spot for it. I don't know why. I just thought it was a little distracting there.

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Oh. Okay. So... But hey, you know, it's me. I can't leave anything alone, can

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I? No. No. We know better than that. Okay. Anyway, as I was saying, so from the secularist perspective, there is no foundation for morality

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Morality is subjective. You have determinism now in the sense that, well, we are simply made up of our genes and our genes determine what we're going to be.

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And so if your genes indicate that you have a predilection for eating a lot, you're just going to be big.

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The idea that you can discipline yourself and that you can... And then it's good for you to discipline yourself. No, no, no, no, you're not.

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You're not supposed to do that. And, of course, once we get into the area of sexuality, if you are born with desires for the same sex, then that's good.

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That's natural. That's the way it should be. Of course, from an evolutionary perspective, that means you're toast. I mean, from a simple, basic,

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Neo -Darwinian perspective, that is the worst thing that could ever happen to you. Because if the best thing for you is to pass your genotype on to the next generation, then same -sex attraction is a no -go.

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And if morality is derived from that, if that's the ultimate good, well, that's why people are saying, well, but it's not the ultimate good.

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Now we need to look and see how it works for the species. And it's good to have a small percentage who, even though they will not pass on their genotype, they might be more loving and kind to others.

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And so they'll take, maybe during war, they'll take care of people. It's such a glued -together system with scotch tape on the outside.

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Anyway, but the idea is that, in people's thinking, that if you have certain emotions and desires, that's what determines you.

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Your desires and emotions are what determine you. Not discipline, not your mind, not your mind over your body, not your mind over your desires.

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Man is no longer determined by his mind and his thoughts and reflection upon transcendent values and conformity to transcendent values.

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Now it is all just every man for himself.

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As the scriptures describe those periods of dark, moral anarchy in the history of the people of Israel, every man did what was right in his own eyes.

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And the result was anarchy and a non -flourishing of humankind.

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And that's where we are now. That's where Western civilization is now. And that certainly is the case when it comes to human sexuality.

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The reality is Jesus grounded his teaching on the relationship of man and woman in the fact that we are the creatures of God.

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Now, why have I started off here? I've said all of this before. You're all going, wow, did I tune into the

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Wayback Machine? Well, I'm sorry if it sounds repetitive.

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Um, you may end up feeling that having to explain what I just like to what

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I just explained. Um, is, you know, becomes repetitive for you.

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But if we are going to even give a meaningful answer for the soon coming efforts of a large portion of our society to silence us, to end programs like this, to, uh, to demand that we no longer have, uh, the right to even say what we're saying.

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If we want to, at least at that last time before imprisonment, give a meaningful testimony to the world, then we need to think these things through and be prepared.

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Um, because over the holidays, a story broke that once again requires us to, on our own part, before we speak to others on our own part, do some serious self -examination as to how deeply we as believers have been impacted by the thinking of the world so that we embrace the narrative of the world in defining love, in defining compassion, and hence being left without a meaningful basis upon which to respond forcefully and in Christian love to stories such as that of Josh Alcorn.

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Now, if you've read most of the coverage, you already are aware of the fact that if someone, it has become absolutely accepted in the educational realm and in the media realm, that if you claim to be something, then you are that thing, whether you are or not.

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And so since this young high school student, a male, decided he was a female, then the vast majority of the, uh, press accounts have used female pronouns and referred to this person by a name that that person was never given,

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Lila. For many, if you are, if you refuse to do this, you're hateful, unloving, and need to be silenced by law.

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The, the hatred, the vitriol, the anger that is being expressed primarily against the

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Christian faith and against Joshua's parents is unbelievable.

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The hypocrisy of those who scream for inclusiveness, we need to accept everybody, except if you don't accept us, then you are to be excluded.

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The hypocrisy, hatred, and anger of these individuals is astounding.

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It is astounding. Uh, God has, has lifted his hand of restraint and the moral anarchy that has resulted is truly an amazing thing to observe and a sad thing to observe.

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Today, uh, Joshua's parents in the midst of their grieving for their son, they are a family with other members.

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Other siblings, uh, are the objects of unmitigated hatred.

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Um, individuals are putting their pictures, uh, that they have gotten from social media.

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Uh, they want on the net, they want them to be the objects of scorn and ridicule.

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This is the, the true face of the LGBT movement.

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If you don't recognize that the LGBT movement takes no prisoners, accepts absolutely positively no compromise, it is our way or we will destroy you.

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Look at what they have done to major corporations, the blackmail they have engaged in. These people know no mercy and they know no compromise.

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This is their life. It defines them and they will not rest day or night.

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And I believe there's a theological reason for that. Romans one explains what that is. When you put out so much effort to suppress the knowledge of God, when that is the constant definition of your life, then it gives you a purpose for living.

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It's not much of a life, uh, but it certainly explains why they were, will be so much more active in the promotion of godlessness than the godly will be in the promotion of godliness because they have to, it is an everyday experience for them.

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But that is another issue, not for today. When we look at the story of Josh Alcorn who ran out in front of a semi tractor trailer and killed himself.

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By the way, I have not heard a word one from anyone of sympathy for that truck driver.

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Not a one suicide, my friends is an extremely selfish action.

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It's an extremely selfish action. You're not allowed to say that because in our society, the media has created a certain set of dogmas and you're never, ever, ever allowed to recognize evil on the part of someone who commits suicide.

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For example, um, very often, uh, the New York city shooter that, that, that killed the two police officers.

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He shot himself, right? Haven't you ever sat there and said, what a coward? What a coward.

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That is, that is a immoral act. It was, it was grossly immoral to execute those two police officers, but it was also an immoral act to then kill himself.

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It was an act of cowardice. There is no reason to honor someone who does that.

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And when someone will disrupt other people's lives simply because they don't think they're going to be happy, there is no reason to honor that.

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You can feel sorry for the person. And especially if they are, if they were truly the victims of, of horrific mistreatment on the part of others.

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But even then the reality is, do we not honor in a great way those who survive the brutality of others?

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Um, isn't there a movie out right now? Haven't seen it. Generally my movies come out. I figure

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I'm going to be traveling so much overseas. I'll, I'll get to see him eventually. Yeah, it'll be on a screen.

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Yay, big, um, interrupted by flight attendants going, uh, the duty free catalog is coming to you.

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But it's free and, uh, it makes time pass better. Uh, but isn't there a movie out right now called unbroken?

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And, and isn't it, isn't the whole reason that we look at someone like this and go, wow, what a, what a tremendous story is that they survived.

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Um, and, and demonstrated a, a higher commitment to life and to, to their, to their beliefs in the face of such, uh, such opposition wouldn't have been easier for someone in that position to just hang themselves or shoot themselves or, or, or whatever, just, just escape, get out of it.

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There's, there's nothing beyond this anyways, right? There is that lack of transcendence.

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But anyways, as I said, I haven't heard a word, but I, um,

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I feel for the truck driver, uh, innocent man, innocent in the sense of not having had anything to do with this.

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There is no such thing as an innocent person. Biblically speaking, we need to keep that in mind. Um, but, uh,

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Josh Alcorn killed himself and in looking at one of the articles, and this is from the mail online, daily mail online, so this is leftist as it can get, uh, as biased as possible, but they did publish the suicide letter.

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Now keep in mind, uh, in another article, all this from the daily mail, uh,

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Lila Alcorn's refuses to honor teens identity after death. You see, you need to understand the

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LGBT and liberal communities will use anything.

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They have no morals and no mercy. They will use this death as a club, as a bat to beat anyone who opposes them, including the parents, the grieving parents.

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They have no compassion, none. You must celebrate transgenderism.

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You must celebrate the confusion that this young man had.

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He was created by God as a male. He rebelled against God's creative decree in his life.

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When you rebel against God's creative decree in your life, you will not experience happiness, joy, flourishing and life itself.

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That is a fact. And as Christians, we must start at the right foundation that God makes man and God determines the boundaries of man's behavior.

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And Jesus taught without question that from the beginning, the creator, the creator from the beginning made them male and female.

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That was Jesus's teaching. And my question for each and every believer is what is most important to you?

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What was the great commission? Go into all the world, make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, Son, Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever

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I've commanded you. Here's his commandment. Here's his teaching. It is our duty to teach what he taught and believe what he taught.

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And what he taught was God makes men male and female and transgenderism is a fundamental rejection of God's right as creator.

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It is a fundamental rejection. Of God's right as creator to determine the very nature of our lives.

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It is sin. It is sinful rebellion. How else can it be viewed?

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It's sinful rebellion. So now we're getting.

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In fact, I marked down below this somewhere below this,

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I thought in the comment section. That the letter.

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I can't find it now. Might have been a different section, but that the letter shows so plainly, maybe it was in here.

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Was there? Yeah, there it is. There it is. We go back. Here it is. Someone named from from your ebony

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Louise, 81 from Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Unless I can't tell here whether what goes above or below it.

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Let me see here. So it's below it. All right. So this is yeah.

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Ebony Louise, 81 from Yorkshire. This story broke my heart. Reading her suicide note on Tumblr made me tear up, which clearly showed that the parents had so much hatred towards her.

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So much hatred. Well, when you read the letter, you learn a lot.

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You learn a lot. Talks about his life.

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I feel like a girl trapped in a boy's body. When I was 14,

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I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. And the big thing he wanted to do was to transition.

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Now, let's this is such a wonderful word that has been developed. Transition. Let's let's be brutally honest what this means.

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We are talking about the fundamental chemical and surgical mutilation of a human body.

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It is only available now because the advancements in man's technology.

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It is the fundamental destruction of a healthy human body. That's what transitioning is.

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As Dr. Michael Brown pointed out in his article on this story yesterday. What you need to understand.

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Is that there is a 20 fold increase in suicides amongst people.

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In this group. Including those who transition. What was the exact quote?

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Let's see where I. Yeah, here it is. If you want to find it, it's.

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It's linked from ask Dr. Brown. He talks about the.

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Trouble in transtopia, murmurs of sex change, regret. Talks about this is not the end of the story.

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And according to a major 30 year study of sex reassigned persons in Sweden. And I cited an op ed piece in Wall Street Journal by Dr.

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Paul McHugh, formerly chair of the Johns Hopkins psychiatric department. Quote, their suicide mortality rose almost 20 fold.

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Above the comparable non transgender population. That was.

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Why are people so free to condemn Joshua's parents? When they wouldn't dare criticize doctors who performed or recommended sex change surgery on someone who then killed himself or herself.

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Unhappy with their new identity. Shouldn't all these suicides give us pause for thought. 20 times more those who transition.

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Nobody will talk about that. Oh, no, no, no. It doesn't, doesn't fit our paradigm. See, we are talking about the mutilation.

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Of a perfectly healthy human body. It is not healthy. Cancer wise or any other way to fill the male body with estrogen.

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It is not healthy to block testosterone. God didn't make us to work that way.

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And from a Christian perspective, it is a fundamental rejection of God's right as creator to determine who we are in this life.

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Now, I've known young men. I remember when I was teaching at a

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Christian school, very nearby where we are right now. Very nearby. We had a, we had a young man on the basketball team.

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He was awesome. He, three point shooter, drive, point guard, everything.

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But he was about five, four. He was never going to get past that level. He was never going to be, you know, there are, there are only so many spud webs, you know.

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The vast majority of the people in the NBA are trees.

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Now, have there been people? I'll bet there have been. I didn't look, but I'll bet there have been.

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I'll bet there have been young men who have committed suicide because they did not make a sports team because they weren't tall enough.

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I bet there have been men. There've been young men who've killed themselves because they didn't make the football team because they weren't big enough.

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They weren't heavy enough. They were too skinny, whatever. And while all of those are tragedies, they need to be interpreted within a worldview context that gives them meaning.

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They were sinful acts. They came out of a sinful heart. And they were acts of rebellion against God.

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God did not make me to look like Brad Pitt. Okay. Just the way it is.

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Do I have some right to be angry with God for that? Most of you know,

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I just posted my 2014 workout report. And I appreciate the two dozen of you that read it.

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And I, I work hard. I work hard. I work hard on the bike. I work hard running now.

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I work hard rowing. But you know what? Brother Nick, I hope you don't mind if I use you as an example here.

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I, I went rowing, rowing on the Concept2 rower with my dear brother,

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Nick Lelievsky from Ukraine. And when we rowed against each other in Kiev, I beat the young man.

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I'm old enough to be his daddy, but I beat the young man because he's just starting out. But Nick's taller than I am.

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And I knew that once we got down to the short distance sprints, when it comes to rowing, have you noticed anything about Olympic rowers?

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They're not my height. No, they're 6 '3 minimum, maybe 6 '2 minimum, but over 6 feet minimum.

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6 '5, 6 '6, that's about right. Because that allows you to get a real long pull on each, on each thing.

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And you can, you can generate so much more energy. And I knew once we got down to the 500 meter sprint, someone like Nick's got the advantage on me.

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And about what, how long ago was that, Nick? About 10 days? Somewhere around there.

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I get this photo in Facebook. He's taking a picture of the

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PM4 or PM3 head on the rower. And he's done a 500 meter sprint at one, was it 138 .9?

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I think it was 138 .9. Well, I went out,

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I gave it my best. All I could do is what, 140 .4? I think it was one. I could not even pull for more than 100 meters as hard as he pulled.

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Because he's, it's, it is, it's physics, man. It's just simple physics.

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Now at 2 ,000 meters or 10 ,000 meters, I've got the advantage of cardiovascularly.

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But not, if I was just really into Olympic rowing, would

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I have the right to kill myself? Because I'm never going to be happy unless I can be an

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Olympic rower. And I can't be. I'm just, God didn't make me that way.

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Do I blame my parents? No, I accept that God has given me what

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I have. And I seek to utilize what he's given me to the max.

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And so am I the fastest bike rider in the world? No, I'm not.

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You know, in the 50 plus, I'm in, you know, on Strava, I'm certainly in the top 5 % for my age group, but I'm not the fastest.

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Or I can't go the longest distance or whatever. Do I have the right to somehow end it all because I can't have my heart's desire?

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No. Because if I recognize God has made me the way I am, then my responsibility is to use what he's given me in his service in the greatest way that I can and be happy with that.

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That's what I need to be called to do. So when we hear this kind of mindset, we need to recognize that what we are hearing is a fundamentally sinful attitude.

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And certainly, as I read this suicide note, here is a young man who killed himself so as to make final his rebellion against God and his hatred of God.

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That's what he did. Notice it says, my mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to Christian therapists who were all very biased.

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Aren't you biased? Well, of course you were biased. So I never actually got the therapy

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I needed to cure me of my depression. Do you hear the attitude there?

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There is a deep and abiding attitude of rebellion, of detestation for the fact that God says you're to be this, and I will not be that.

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I refuse. I see no evidence of self -reflection. I see no evidence whatsoever in this letter of any type of attitude other than in -your -face rebellion, and I'm going to go out with a blaze of glory.

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And let me tell you something, the LGBT community that is heaping hatred and scorn on Joshua's parents, let me tell you something,

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I hold you partially accountable for what he did. Because you use every single one of these suicides.

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You lionize these people. You turn them into martyrs. You turn them into heroes.

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The reason that there is an increase in suicide is because there's something wrong with the lifestyle.

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You want to make, turn these people into victims and stop looking at the real reason for these suicides, whether it's homosexuals or transgenders.

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It is not natural to live in a way contrary to the way God made you to live. It is not the way of life.

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It is the way of death. That's why the life expectancy for the homosexual community is so much less than the life expectancy for the heterosexual community.

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You are rebelling against God's creative decree, and you are cutting yourself off from life.

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And so when you lionize these people, when you turn them into heroes, if this young man did not think, if this young man did not think he would be made a hero for doing this, do you think maybe he might not have done it?

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When I was 16, I realized my parents would never come around and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, i .e.

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I'd have to wait until I was 18 to start emasculating myself. Damaging my body.

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Destroying perfectly healthy organs. Let's be honest about what transitioning is.

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And it's never complete. You can never become what you're not. He'll never have children.

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He'll never be a wife. It's a fantasy.

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It is a pure and complete fantasy. It is not loving to look at people and encourage them in fantasy.

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That's not loving. In a secular worldview where there are no realities as to what you are and what

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God made you to be, I'd have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart.

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The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I wonder where he got all that from. I felt hopeless that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life.

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Well, that's because you were born a man. On my 16th birthday, when

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I didn't receive consent for my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep. So his parents did not give permission to him to start mutilating his body.

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And for that, they should be hated? What a backwards society we have become.

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There should be moral outrage being expressed against every single person who is expressing moral outrage against Joshua's parents.

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I formed a sort of F .U. attitude towards my parents. Sounds like rebellion.

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And a lot of people find it very strange in Romans chapter 1, in the midst of all those sins, disobedient to parents.

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Because that's a fundamental demonstration of one's rejection of God's authority in one's life.

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I formed a sort of F .U. attitude toward my parents, and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans, it would be less of a shock.

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Although the reaction of my friends was positive, my parents were P .O.'d. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them.

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They want me to be their perfect little straight Christian boy, and that's obviously not what I wanted. Well, let me tell you something.

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Here you get a real picture. Of the reality that no parent can change the heart of a child.

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You can put restraints, which is what they did, and congratulations to them.

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You can put restraints upon your children, but you can't change their hearts. And if God doesn't change their hearts, when they get out from underneath, you know, when their feet are no longer put under your table, and they're out on their own, well, we've all seen it.

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The restraints come off, and the rebellion that was there the whole time, becomes expressed to the maximum level.

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To the maximum level. Lorelei, I'm sorry you're not impressed with the tone today.

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It's a tough subject. And may I suggest, maybe you don't like it, because, well, let me just ask you,

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Lorelei, have you examined your heart to see how much you've been impacted by a worldly definition of what compassion and love is?

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I asked everybody to examine themselves. Have you? That's what

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I'd ask you. So you have a young man who adopts an

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F -you attitude toward his parents, and then they cut him off from, obviously, he was being impacted by external sources.

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We've already seen that, in the very language he was using. So they cut him off from that, and I thought parents,

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I bet they were paying for all that, too. What do you think? Yeah, but it's a human right now, isn't it?

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No, anyways. Then he discovers his friends really aren't great friends.

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Eventually, they realized they didn't actually give a bleep about me, and I felt even lonelier than I did before.

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After a summer of having almost no friends, plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week, and feel like, bleep, because everyone there is against everything

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I live for. Now, catch that. Catch that. What we're being told by the society is we must celebrate this man's lifestyle and decisions.

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He lived for sexual confusion.

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That's what he lived for. He defined himself by this.

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My friends, there is everything wrong with being defined by your sexual desire.

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Everything wrong. And it doesn't sound like he was willing to hear that.

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It doesn't sound like he was willing to recognize that. I have decided

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I've had enough. I'm never going to transition successfully, even when I move out.

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So with no idea, not out of ignorance of his value as a human being created in God's image, but out of rebellion against God as his creator, and therefore he created the image of God, made a male by God, and therefore under necessity, duty to fulfill what

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God called him to be as a man. In rejection of that, he lives for the rebellion against that.

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I have decided I've had enough. I'm never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I'm never going to be happy with the way

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I look or sound. This is selfishness to the nth degree.

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This is selfishness to the nth degree. No thought of others, siblings, parents, friends, and most importantly, what makes all those important?

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God's calling upon your life to be what he has called you to be.

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I'm never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. You develop friends over time.

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Entitlement mentality. The world owes me this. No, the world doesn't owe you this.

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I'm never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I'm never going to find a man who loves me.

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I'm never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself.

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This is a trap of his own creation, of his own creation, of the websites that he was visiting and the people who were encouraging him in this.

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You want responsible parties other than himself? Look to them. Look to them.

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Don't look to the people who said there is another way. There is a proper way. God made you in a certain way.

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You have a duty to God. You have been given gifts by God. There's no winning.

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There's no way out. I'm sad enough already. I don't need my life to get any worse. People say it gets better, but that isn't true in my case.

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It gets worse. Each day I get worse. And so he wants 100 % of the things

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I legally own to be sold and the money, plus my money in the bank to be given to a trans civil rights movement and support groups.

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I don't give a bleep which one. But then here's where the

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LGBT community needs to look itself in the face. They won't. The only way

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I'll rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren't treated the way I was. They're treated like humans with valid feelings and human rights.

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Notice how he defined valid feelings and human rights. The right to mutilate my body.

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Did you know that there are people? I mean, other than the fact you've got a 20 fold increase in transitioned individuals in suicide.

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Other than that, you know, there are people who do not feel they should have legs.

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Mentally, they it's a recognized psychological disorder.

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They do not believe that they should have legs and that they will not be happy as long as those foreign bodies are attached to their body.

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They will not be happy. Until they have those appendages sawn off.

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So I guess that's their human right, huh? Every every doctor by law by law should be required to saw off anyone's leg healthy or not.

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If they just desire that they have it sawn off, right? Oh, that's different.

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Why? Why? Gender needs to be taught in schools.

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The earlier, the better. I wonder where he got that. And what does he mean by gender?

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Not Jesus is teaching about gender. No, no, no, no, no. The idea that gender is just simply something, you know,

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I'm, uh, yeah, my body says I'm male, but I'm actually female. If I says

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I'm female, I'm actually male. Or I'm somewhere in between. Why not stop there?

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There are some people who think that they have animal spirits within them. Uh, I'm, I'm not a human.

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I am a wolf. It's always some, you know, it's, it's rarely a earthworm, you know, a rat.

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Yeah. Or something like that. You know, um, why not just say, you know what, for some people

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I'm, there's probably some people sitting there going, yeah, that's what we should do. Whatever you, yeah. My death needs to mean something.

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My death needs to be counted. The number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. Well, Josh, it will be, it will be.

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Why though, should it not therefore tell us that transgenderism is a fundamental defect in the human soul and the human mind that it's something that is not to be celebrated.

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Problem is, of course, you try to treat it in a secular context and they have no basis for doing so because they have no meaningful anthropology.

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They have no meaningful doctrine of man. I want someone to look at that number and say, that's effed up and fix it.

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Fix society, please. What does that last line tell you? It's about everybody but me.

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I'm the only one that's right. I'm, my happiness is absolutely the most paramount thing in the universe.

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And if the universe won't give me what I want, I'm checking out. Yeah, there's something wrong with someone like that.

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Something deeply wrong. Yeah, there's something wrong with all of us. It's called sin.

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But in the old Western society, at least in the United States, there was a restraint.

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Upon this kind of absolute self -centeredness, we were actually taught as we were raised.

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I was. That I didn't have the right to feel sorry for myself.

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I didn't have the right to demand that everybody do what I wanted them to do. I was taught that I had a responsibility to others and to God to behave in such a fashion that I didn't make myself a pain to everybody else.

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That I, because I'm made in God's image, have certain responsibilities. And that functioned as a restraint upon the propensity.

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Look, look at little children when they're born. The whole universe is about them.

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Their wants, their desires, their toys, their food. And life is all about ripping selfishness out of us.

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That's the way we come into this world. That's why I've said many times, you know, getting married, big step, big step in sanctification and attacking selfishness.

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But it's not till those little ones come along that you really, really, really start experiencing

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God's designed way of getting rid of your selfishness. Because you can see it, you have to respond to it, and you have to give yourself.

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You have to give yourself to the service of someone else, that little child.

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So Laura Lee responded elsewhere, just didn't say anything to me. Didn't tag me. Fed up with Christian response to Alcor and suicide.

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Where is grace? Truth and love. Stop treating LGBTs like Pharisees treated beggars. Laura Lee, you are not listening to me.

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You're not hearing a word I'm saying. But I will tell you one thing, Laura Lee. I am much more concerned about offending

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God than I am you. Because I know God does not think as a humanist. Grace brought

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Jesus Christ into this world and put him on a cross to provide a means for salvation.

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That's what grace does. Why did he die upon that cross? Because there's such a thing called sin.

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And that includes lesbianism, homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism.

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They're all sins. And so to sit here and attempt to present a biblical anthropology as the basis for then recognizing that what

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Joshua Alcorn did was sinful, is biblical and necessary to even understand the necessity of the cross.

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The cross is not some kind of sentimental place where we can all feel warm and loved.

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It was a place of death and sacrifice. Sin is not a pretty thing.

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Did you hear about how many people do this transitioning, i .e.

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mutilation, and then kill themselves? Did you hear that? Where's the grace for them? That's what

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I'd like to know, Laura Lee. That's what I'd like to know. Truth and love.

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Where have I spoken untruth? And who must the love be for first and foremost for God?

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And then for his creatures made in his image. And when one of those creatures tragically takes his life because he absolutely refuses to repent of his sin and absolutely is determined to remain in his rebellion against God.

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And then for other human beings to take that act of sin and self -destruction and turn it into something where they can then encourage others to do the same thing.

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And you won't join with me in trying to say, stop. Where's the grace,

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Laura Lee? Where's the truth in love? Said, you know, it's become a t -shirt slogan.

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Theology matters, but now we see that it really does. And this may be a subject, this may be a topic where you don't want to listen to me on that.

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But theology does matter. And how we respond to this, we will either go ahead and follow the world's lead and refuse to recognize sin for sin.

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Refuse to recognize rebellion for rebellion. And end up encouraging more

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Josh Alcorns as a result. Or we'll do what we need to do and stand up and say to every

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Josh Alcorn out there, young man, young woman, God made you the way you are.

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He has given you gifts. His decree is final.

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It is your duty to live in light of what he has given you.

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And the only true happiness is going to be found in submitting to his will, not in rebelling against it.

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The world will tell you, you have the freedom to rebel. God's word, Jesus Christ tells you that the only freedom you'll ever have is in obedience to his will.

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There are your choices. Who's going to speak up and tell the truth? Those who've been compromised by the spirit and attitude of the world or those who stand firmly on the basis of the scriptures?

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That's the question. Tough way to start out 2015. Something tells me we're going to have a lot more challenges like this in the future.

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And again, I don't know how often we're even going to have this opportunity. But while we do, let's speak the truth.

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Let's honor God, speak the truth in love. First for God, for his gospel, and then for his people.