Signs & Wonders Blog

Even before committing my life to the Lord, I knew homosexuality was wrong. The thought of same-sex couples having intimate relations repulsed me. Nevertheless, I grew up around at least two guys who I discovered years later were homosexuals. One was a neighbor who lived two houses away from   my childhood home   in Moorhead, Minnesota. David was a bit eccentric. He had tall plants growing in his front yard that looked like a jungle. A year after I moved to Minneapolis, David died of AIDS. My parents told me he had admitted to them of being gay. Another was a junior high classmate whose locker was next to mine. Thomas seemed popular with the girls and even became class president. So it surprised me when I eventually learned of him becoming a homosexual. In 2011, Thomas died unexpectedly of a heart attack at 46. Although he wasn’t friendly toward me at school, I still hate to think of this guy being in hell. Three years before his death, Thomas got “married” to his long-time pa...

I saw many Walt Disney movies in theaters and on TV during my childhood. My family and I often watched “The Wonderful World of Disney” on Sunday nights (I also remember my dad doing a great Donald Duck imitation). Although some Disney productions such as “Fantasia” and “Escape to Witch Mountain” had occult themes, they mostly promoted family values.  Sadly, the Walt Disney Company has drifted into endorsing ungodly lifestyles. In 2005, a friend of mine briefly worked at Disney World in Orlando. He told me about “Gay Days” hosted by the amusement park. In a company-wide Zoom call this past Monday, a Disney executive said they must be more “inclusive” by increasing the number of LGBTQIA characters. Karey Burke claimed, “I am here as a mother of two queer children – one transgender child and one pansexual child.” Not surprisingly, this moral decline has shown up in their productions. Four years ago, Walt Disney Studios released an R-rated flick called “Eighth Grade”, which feature...

The first time I heard of someone having a sex change was while listening to “American Top 40” in 1979. Casey Kasem talked about a musician named Walter Carlos who was a pioneer in electronic music (his 1968 album “Switched-On Bach” was one of the first successful recordings to feature a synthesizer). Walter dropped out of the public eye for a number of years and had gender reassignment surgery before emerging as “Wendy Carlos.” I was shocked when Casey wished “her” luck and looked forward to “her” upcoming work. At 15 years old, I couldn’t believe someone changing their sex was something to be taken seriously.  Fast forward forty years later. We now live in a society of gender fluidity. Individuals of all ages can suddenly change their sexual identity at the drop of a hat. Facebook now offers users 58 different ways to identify their gender. The proofreading app Grammarly recently published a blog article about “how to use gender pronouns respectfully” because “it’s Pride ...

During the 1980s I regularly watched MTV (an initialism of Music Television) to hear cool sounding songs I wouldn’t have heard otherwise on the radio. Although I wasn’t living for the Lord then, I still didn’t care for the suggestive imagery in many of these music videos. It’s ironic this network still calls itself MTV considering their programming nowadays is mostly reality shows that have nothing to do with music. That’s also the case with MTV’s sister channel VH1, which originally played songs targeting older viewers. One of their current programs called “Dating Naked” features nude contestants (with certain areas of their bodies blurred) talking openly about sex and body parts. This program came to my attention through a Charisma article about the activist group One Million Moms. They launched a protest that resulted in one of the “Dating Naked” advertisers pulling their ads. Some argue nudity is “natural” since the first people mentioned in the Bible “…were both naked...

It’s often been said we are our own worst critic. Many of us have characteristics about ourselves we wish were different. When I was younger, I often got permanents because I liked how I looked with curly hair. Eventually I stopped getting those because I grew tired of the time and expense involved. Besides that, Psalm 139:14 says, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made...” All of us should be thankful for how God designed us. However, we now live in a day where people are celebrated for changing their gender. This past week the media has been bombarded with reports of a former Olympic athlete becoming a woman. Bruce Jenner now prefers to be called “Caitlyn” and be addressed by feminine pronouns. Because of this gender reassignment, Jenner has been awarded this year’s Arthur Ashe Courage Award by ESPN. Even more disturbing is Jenner professing to be a Christian and claiming God gave him “the soul of a female.” As a minister of the gospel, I cannot accep...

One sign we’re living in the last days is society’s increasing acceptance of homosexuality. At the time of this writing, 36 American states have legalized same-sex marriage. In response to Florida being the most recent, a Tampa Tribune writer claimed it “should represent no threat to anyone’s personal faith.” Baloney! In many other places, Christian business owners who stood up against the homosexual agenda have been severely persecuted. One Colorado baker named Jack Phillips was threatened with jail time for refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. Instead of going to a different bakery, the two men filed a lawsuit. A judge ruled Phillips was guilty of “discrimination” and ordered him to make wedding cakes for other same-sex couples who visit his store. He has since stopped making wedding cakes altogether. One homosexual wrote to me claiming Jesus never discriminated against anyone. Therefore, Christians shouldn’t do that as well. A closer study of Scripture would ...

During my teens and early twenties, I was a regular listener of Casey Kasem’s radio show “American Top 40.”   That inspired me to subscribe to Billboard magazine whose record charts Casey based his weekly countdown on. Nowadays I avoid listening to most of today’s hits because of the increased amount of profanity and sexual content in the lyrics.   Still, I occasionally log onto Billboard’s website to find out what’s happening with the pop music scene.   T here's now a song in the Top 20 by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis called “Same Love” that openly endorses same-sex marriage.   Some of the song’s lyrics attempt to discredit the Bible’s prohibition of homosexuality… The right wing conservatives think it's a decision And you can be cured with some treatment and religion Man-made rewiring of a predisposition Playing God, aw nah here we go God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five hundred y...

While riding a bus in Tampa, Florida a few weeks ago, I briefly browsed through a newspaper someone left behind.   One particular article  by a New York-based freelance writer named Jill Filipovic grabbed my attention.   I was inspired to search for her Facebook profile and email her this reply… Dear Jill, This is in response to your article “ The Moral Case for Sex Before Marriage.”   I first read an edited portion of it in a Tampa newspaper.   Later I went online and found the full version on your blog. I used to frequently have sex outside of marriage. Had I read your article when I was in my early twenties (I’m 48 now), I would have agreed with most of what you wrote.   But after having been infected with venereal disease twice and being forced to pay child support for a daughter I never raised, I see things differently now.   While I agree there are benefits of having a healthy sex life , I must take issue with many of ...

In a Yahoo News article entitled “Going Cohab? 8 Survival Tips For Staying Together”, it pointed out how more unmarried couples are bypassing the altar.   New figures from the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the number of opposite-sex unmarried couples living together had increased by 13 percent from 2009 to 2010. “Shacking up” has become commonplace today even among some Christians.   Because I wasn’t aware of this practice specifically mentioned in Scripture (later discovering John 4:18), I used to think there wasn't anything wrong with that.   At the time I recommitted my life to the Lord in March 1991, I shared an apartment with my then-girlfriend.   Eleven months later we were still living together but sleeping in separate beds.   I knew it wasn’t God’s will for us to get married.   Still I was reluctant to end the live-in relationship because I enjoyed the affection this woman gave me. One day my girlfriend experi...

Singer/actress Jessica Simpson gave birth to a daughter a few days ago.   There was some media controversy about her child being named Maxwell, which sounds more like a man’s name.   But what’s really disturbing is how children born out of wedlock are celebrated so much these days.   (Jessica is engaged to the baby’s father but decided to postpone getting married until after the baby was born.)   A couple of generations ago, illegitimate births by Hollywood celebrities were considered scandalous. Before the birth of Maxwell, Jessica Simpson appeared nude on the cover of Elle magazine displaying her baby bump (à la Demi Moore).   T he Huffington Post praised Jessica for being an example of “ modern motherhood.”   This is a sign of the times we live in.   Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Jessica was rai...

Since I’ve worked as a disc jockey and keyboard salesman plus owned my own recording studio, I still have an interest in what’s going on with the secular music industry. During last night’s Grammy Awards, Lady Gaga hatched out of a giant egg as she performed her new release, “Born This Way.” The song’s lyrics (inspired by the old Whitney Houston hit “Greatest Love of All”) promote a message of loving one self. Sorry to say, “Born This Way” also endorses homosexuality and people who live a “transgendered life.” Surely God wants everyone to have a positive sense of worth and not live in condemnation. But apart from the lordship of Jesus Christ, self-esteem can take people down a destructive path. 2 Timothy 3 says that in the last days “…men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money…lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Psalm 139:14 does say that we are all “…fearfully and wonderfully made.” However, we live in a fallen world resulting in some individuals...