The Lititz Chooses Love Pride Festival of 2023 should have been called the Lititz Chooses Lust Pride Festival.
Lust, according to Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, is “to have carnal desire [or] to desire eagerly the gratification of carnal appetite.”
The event was not about love, but rather about gratifying sinful desires.
But concerning the use of the term “pride,” the label was unfortunately quite fitting.
The Scriptures tell us, “Though the Lord is on high, yet He regards the lowly; but the proud He knows from afar” (Psalm 138:6). Why, then, promote an event which sets one “afar” from the Lord?
This “Pride” event served to separate the attendees from God. On what possible basis can such activity be justified?
Furthermore, what are we to think of an event where the image and creation of the Lord of the universe is openly mocked?
Jesus Christ said, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female’?” (Matthew 19:4). Do we think we can change the way God made us by mutilation?
We can attack God’s creation; but we can never change the way He made us.
Jesus also said, “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” (Matthew 6:27). If we can’t change our height by worrying, we can be sure that we cannot change our gender through mutilation.
Speaking of those who would pervert God’s order, the apostle Paul tells us: “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting” (Romans 1:24-28).
Indeed, this year’s “Pride” event celebrating rebellion against God is not new or novel. In his own time, the prophet Isaiah faced a proud people who openly mocked and taunted the God Who gave them life and breath, who had cared for them even when they had been slaves in Egypt.
Isaiah says to them: “Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, And sin as if with a cart rope; That say, ‘Let Him make speed and hasten His work, That we may see it; And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, That we may know it.’ 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!” (Isaiah 5:18-20).
The people in Isaiah’s day were provoking God, essentially saying, “Yeah, so what if we sin? What’s God going to do about it?” But Isaiah responds, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil…”
Applying this to today: “Woe to those who celebrate lust and call it love.”
Isaiah’s warning is no less necessary in our day than it was in his. Throughout His Word, God states that He hates pride: “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate” (Proverbs 8:13).
I urge every sponsor, every organizer, and every participant that supported the pride festival in Lititz to consider the Word of the Lord. God will not be mocked. No one will sow and not reap. The time to turn from your sin – all your sin – is now.
Joel Saint
Joel is the Executive Director of the Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society and the pastor of Independence Reformed Bible Church (www.irbc.church). Joel resides with his wife, Audrey, in Lancaster County, and has 9 grown children and 24 grandchildren (and counting).
