“Respect for Marriage.” That is how the leaders of the United States characterized a bill signed into law on December 13 at the White House. The building was lit in the rainbow colors of the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-queer-plus movement that rejects natural use of sex and marriage. Among the invited guests was a man who flamboyantly wears women’s clothing and has publicly glorified adults having sex with children.

In this atmosphere, Joe Biden signed the so-called Respect for Marriage Act, announcing, “This law and the love it defends strike a blow against hate in all its forms.” This act requires the federal government and any “person acting under color of state law” to fully recognize same-sex unions. The government summary says it “repeals and replaces provisions that define, for purposes of federal law, marriage as between a man and a woman and spouse as a person of the opposite sex with provisions that recognize any marriage that is valid under state law. The bill [now law] allows the Department of Justice to bring a civil action and establishes a private right of action for violations” (emphasis added throughout).

That is what this is truly about. It enables the government to mount legal attacks against anyone who objects to this perversion of marriage. Even if you own a private company and refuse to endorse these unions, you can be treated like a criminal.

Some lawmakers proposed amendments to protect the rights of people or organizations to act according to their conscience or religious beliefs. These amendments were rejected and the bill passed with dozens of Republicans in support. The Senate passed it, 61 to 36, and the House of Representatives, 258 to 169. “In an era of polarization and partisan conflict, this is a rare bipartisan vote at the heart of America’s culture war,” Axios wrote approvingly. This is what lawmakers can agree on: casting aside tradition and Scripture, trampling religious liberty, and promoting homosexuality—which God defines as sin—as virtuous. “Compared to the decades upon decades it took to dismantle Jim Crow laws or secure women’s right to vote, America’s about-face on same-sex marriage happened in the blink of an eye” (ibid).

This is as blatant a rejection of biblical and even traditional morality as has ever been promoted in the American republic. Those who believe this will strengthen the nation, and those who think this doesn’t really matter, are grievously, dangerously wrong.

Moral Collapse

What is sin? You don’t hear this word these days—but the reality is, an astonishingly strict moral code is enforced in America today. Today’s moralists demand that everyone ignore election fraud, comply with official covid orthodoxy, and renounce Donald Trump. They command compliance on sexual norms, gender roles and definitions, racism, multiculturalism and many more aspects of our lives, and they enforce it with religious fervor. Their moral code—though fluid and self-contradictory—is stringent and unforgiving. All forms of noncompliance are condemned—especially those commanded by God Himself.

God has strong opinions about marriage. He authored it. He defined it. He married the first man and woman. Lawmakers presumptuously redefining marriage is but one instance of their broad efforts to wrest from God the authority to define what is right and what is sin.

This takes breathtaking arrogance and hubris. But these lawmakers wouldn’t be surrendering to the radical minority that has been pushing for this revolutionary transformation if not for a complacent, amoral public.

This radical, anti-God bill was supported by the Episcopal Church and more than 40 other faith organizations. A September 2022 Grinnell College National Poll found that 74 percent of Americans believe same-sex “marriage” should be a right. In this poll, 13 percent were uncertain, and a mere 13 percent disagreed. Even a majority of Republicans now say the law should recognize these unions. When Gallup first asked this question just 26 years ago, only 27 percent of the public approved. That was when Democrat President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied same-sex marriages federal recognition.

It was a liberal president who signed legal protections for marriage just four presidencies ago. Now it is supposedly conservative legislators who were the deciding votes to strike these down. Public opinion on this issue has completely inverted in less than one generation.

You are living through a stunning and precipitous moral collapse—yet it barely makes the news. Nobody really cares.

This is just one story in an avalanche showing just how sick we have become. You literally cannot keep up with all the ways that sin is choking the life out of our nations.

‘Show My People Their Sins’

In December, Project Veritas exposed Joseph Bruno, dean of students at Chicago’s private Francis W. Parker School, boasting that he gives high school students sex objects used by homosexuals, prompting them to ask, So how does this work? He says, on camera, “That’s a really cool part of my job.”

After this exposé, the principal of the school issued a statement. Did he fire the dean? Condemn these behaviors? “At Parker, we care deeply about the health, well-being and development of our students,” he wrote, later stating, “We are heartbroken.” Why? Not because the children under his care are being educated in perversion but because “one of our colleague’s words have been severely misrepresented for a malicious purpose. Project Veritas is a far-right activist group that produces deceptively edited videos …. Parker administrators and Parker’s Board of Trustees support Parker’s programming, the strength and inclusivity of our curriculum, and the dedicated and talented faculty and staff that teach it. We are sickened by [sickened by what?] this group’s deceptive tactics … and their attack on the lgbtq+ community. We will be meeting with Middle and Upper School students tomorrow to offer support and guidance.” This man and so many educators nationwide want this filth fed to teenagers. They go to great lengths to ensure parents don’t know about it.

God commands in Isaiah 58:1, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” This is why this magazine is named the Philadelphia Trumpet. God wants people warned of their sins and their consequences! This is what a church that actually follows God and the Bible will do.

“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1-2). Many people are praying, yet God says He will not listen. Why? Because of our sins.

Read God’s indictment in the verses that follow: We are defiled with violence, sin, lies and deceit. “None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. … The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace” (verses 4, 8).

This is God’s view of our nations. We need His view, or we easily grow complacent. Spend enough time around sin, and it becomes normal. Think of how swiftly public opinion flipped on same-sex unions.

God promises that “every secret thing” will become known (Ecclesiastes 12:14)—and there are a lot of secret things becoming known today. God is exposing so much—it truly is astonishing (article, page 23). But who is reporting it? Why aren’t headlines blaring on all major networks and in major papers? Why do you only read about it from small, fringe publications? Why don’t millions of people listen and respond?

“Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey …” (verse 15). This is fulfilled prophecy: Those who renounce evil are attacked. Nations that have a history with God are now pressuring people, through force of law, to accept lies about vaccine injections, about stolen elections, about how two men can be “married”—and those who don’t play along are branded extremists, fired from their jobs, even thrown in jail.

Verse 15 concludes, “and the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.” God sees our multiplying sins! He is very angry, and He is going to do something about it. This is a crucial aspect of these prophecies: the fact that God will correct these problems.

“[God] saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intervene; then his own arm brought him victory, and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in fury as a mantle” (Isaiah 59:16-17; Revised Standard Version). Fixing our minds on this outcome helps us see things from God’s viewpoint, and it provides us a sure hope.

Sin Piled High

“We must remember that these prophecies are primarily for the end time,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in Jeremiah and the Greatest Vision in the Bible. “That means they are specifically for God’s Church and generally for the nations of Israel, which have an ancient history of briefly following, then rejecting, God. The only nation God ever called to serve Him was Israel. They failed God anciently and are still rebelling today. Because of Israel’s history with God, they are held more accountable to God than other nations. … [T]he prophecies for physical Israel in this end time refer mainly to the American and British peoples. These people have ‘refused to return’ (Jeremiah 5:3).”

Read Jeremiah 5. In this chapter, God says, I will forgive if you can find just one person who is doing right! But even the religious-sounding people are entrapped in sin. We are lazy, idle, unproductive, uneducated, dependent on government, abusing drugs, shoplifting by the billions, establishing after-school Satan clubs, stealing, robbing, and committing other crimes.

God has given this nation so much, yet people have turned against Him toward filth and rampant sexual sin (verses 7-8). Studies show that about 80 percent of men and 45 percent of women watch pornography weekly. Lurid headlines appear continually: sexual perverts are appointed to high government offices and given jobs designing school programs to pervert children and keep parents in the dark; an executive lures 9-year-old girls into sex; a landlord solicits sex from tenants struggling to pay rent; a high-end fashion label uses child porn tropes in its advertising; mainstream publications praise “a play about pedophiles” as “brilliant.”

“Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the Lord; and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?” (verse 9; English Standard Version).

Verses 27-28 describe our coarseness, materialism, excess, gluttony, lack of conscience and absence of a moral compass. And God again asks, Do you think I’ll stand by and do nothing about this? (verse 29). God is going to correct our nations! In the face of our egregious wickedness, it would be wrong for Him to let us continue on indefinitely as we destroy our minds and those of our children. Our people who “declare their sin as Sodom” are about to get to know this God (Isaiah 3:9-11).

Notice something amazing, however. God will destroy, yet He says He will measure out the destruction (Jeremiah 46:28). Even in correction for massive sins, God will not destroy us completely, and the correction itself is for a powerful and ultimately wonderful reason!

Everlasting Love

The destruction we are racing into isn’t just punishment or revenge. Back in Isaiah 59, verse 18 shows that God will unleash fury on those who have defied Him. But it will lead to something beautiful: “So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of the Lord drives” (verse 19; rsv). God says He will come as a Redeemer, saving anyone who turns from sin (verse 20).

This is God’s ultimate aim. He gives these warnings to try to save people.

This is the living God of judgment. He is a God to fear, but He Created us because He loves us and wants to bless us and save us. Standing in the way are our own sins.

Jeremiah 30:7 warns of the worst time of suffering ever in history for our people. God says, I am going to correct you—hard! This won’t be a mere slap on the wrist (verse 11). And why? “[F]or the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased” (verse 14). In verse 15 God says, Don’t act like you don’t deserve this. You have a long litany of sins!

But in the next chapter, we read of God’s ultimate intent: “At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. … Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee” (Jeremiah 31:1, 3). God sees all that is happening and will punish for sin, but that punishment is an expression of His love and desire to help us.

Verses 7-9 describe our peoples being rescued out of foreign captivity, humbled and repentant. “I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble,” God promises: “for I am a father to Israel [speaking of America today], and Ephraim [Britain] is my firstborn.”

In verses 32-34, God says He will make a covenant with these repentant people: “… After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” What a wonderful day that will be!