Last week Emma Watson won an award for best actor for her role in the new musical “Beauty and the Beast”. It was not “Best Actress”; just “best actor”, because these were the first “non-gender specific” awards given — it’s not going to be “best actor” or “best actress” any more; just “best actor” — because they don’t want to encourage “gender.” And this is going to be the new trend.

I saw where someone on Twitter asked “WHY … WHY is that such a big deal?” WHY is gender so bad? What is so wrong with being a man or a woman?

It all goes back to hatred for God and His word. Gender is the creation of God. Genesis 1:27 tells us that when God created mankind, “MALE AND FEMALE He created them.” Scripture says that GOD is the author of gender. HE designed us as male and female.

And God did not merely create gender as an overall concept, He is also the One who assigned to each one of us our specific gender. Psalm 139:13 says “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” The Bible tells us there that God purposefully created each of us the specific gender we are. He “knit us together” inside our mother, just the way He wanted us. And the response of faith to God’s gender assignment to us is like David’s: to say, “I will GIVE THANKS to You” for that — for our gender is a gift from God. We are to recognize that gender is a part of God’s design, and it is good. To reject our gender is to reject the creation and purpose and gift of God.

This is why Satan is waging such a war against gender today. He HATES God; He HATES His word; He HATES marriage, which pictures Christ and the Church; He HATES people, who were made in the image of God, He HATES God’s plan and design for mankind — so he is doing everything he can to mar and deface what he hates: to contradict that plan, to destroy that picture, to oppose that word, and to lead astray the people God loves.

WE NEED TO SEE THAT THIS IS NOT JUST “SOME SOCIAL ISSUE”; THIS IS SPIRITUAL WARFARE. In spiritual warfare Satan tries to get us to believe something false about God or about ourselves, and that is exactly what this is. He wants us to believe that gender isn’t important, or that it shouldn’t exist; that marriage isn’t important; that it is slavery and degradation; he wants to do everything he can to mar the beautiful picture God intended in marriage, which portrays Christ and the Church.

Christians need to respond to this in several ways:

— First, we need to know the truth of what God’s word really says ourselves, and we need to share that truth with others.

— Second, we need to LIVE these truths out in our own marriages and families.

— And finally, we need to PRAY.  This is a spiritual battle. It is spiritual warfare. Satan is doing all he can to destroy marriage and families, to tell lies about marriage, and creation, and gender, and God — and we need to seriously pray against those lies, and consistenly and fervently pray FOR God’s power and protection on our marriages and families.