Should children attend drag shows? Across America, libraries, schools and other public spaces are hosting children at “family friendly” homosexual- and transgender-themed story readings and performance exhibitions by sexually perverted men flamboyantly dressed as debauched women.

At least 15 states are considering or adopting rules to stop such displays. But a lot of Americans think they are fine for children. A YouGovAmerica poll in April found that 2 out of every 5 Democrats support allowing children at drag shows, along with “just” 1 out of every 12 Republicans. There’s an appetite for this even in America’s “conservative” political party!

Should adults attend drag shows? Three out of every four Republicans say, Sure.

If you are an American, this is the state of your country today!

Does anyone care what God thinks? The Creator of male and female established, “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 22:5; New King James Version). Abomination means something disgusting and morally abhorrent. That is what God thinks of “mere” cross-dressing, let alone sexualized drag shows and transgenderism, and still less imposing that on children.

Most people dismiss a biblical law like this as primitive, even abhorrent. But look at what has happened in America because we have ignored it. Transgenderism has abruptly, brusquely stormed to the center of the stage, the center of the classroom, the center of the legislatures. Teachers are indoctrinating a generation with perverted sex propaganda. The number of youths identifying as “trans” has exploded 1,000 percent in the last 10 years. Businesses are being forced, on penalty from the state, to accommodate and encourage such mental illness. Doctors are chemically and surgically stunting and mutilating children’s healthy bodies. Mobs of sexual deviants are storming state capitals and demanding special legal protections.

Doesn’t this trend demonstrate the real-world perils of ignoring God’s law? Our rejection of this simple, clear moral absolute has been disastrous. And where will we be in another year, or two, or 10?

If there were no other threats facing America, this one issue would destroy the country within a single generation.

But There Are Other Threats

Many of them. Americans are too distracted to notice, but a new post-America world order is forming fast.

Several nations are assertively moving away from the United States dollar. World leaders are warning their people and their bankers to ditch their greenbacks to secure their wealth. Core European states, seeking independence from trans-Atlantic entanglement, are unifying politically and militarily. China is helping pry Europe away from America. It is also supplanting the U.S. as the world’s peace broker—involving itself in negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, between Russia and Ukraine. Xi Jinping is building a new international order in China’s interests. China and Russia are refining technologies that could hinder or destroy the satellites America relies on so heavily. Vladimir Putin is waging war without fear of American retaliation, even to the point of threatening his enemies with nuclear weapons. China is preparing to conquer Taiwan. It is also building fast-neutron nuclear breeder reactors, moving toward becoming a nuclear superpower. Iran is ready to build a nuclear bomb and throw the Middle East into chaos.

When Pax Americana is dead, the world will be a cutthroat place indeed.

And Pax America is dying, because American will is dying. America is being fundamentally transformed by its moral weakness and by a radical government taking full advantage of it. Federal officials are controlling the media, censoring free speech, and bullying and intimidating people. They are stealing elections, boosting illegal immigration, encouraging criminality and discarding the rule of law.

Many Americans are unhappy about this fundamental transformation, but they are too weak to stop it!

There is an iron link between America’s shrinking status in the world, the affliction it is suffering from its own leaders, and the way it is surrendering to evils such as transgenderism.

A Nation of Cowards

Nearly 25 years ago, Trumpet publisher Gerald Flurry wrote: “America is called the world’s only superpower. Many nations have looked to the U.S. for protection. But that trust is rapidly fading.

“Nations like China know that Americans are too fearful to fight. … We do all we possibly can to avoid any human casualties. We do this to the point where we have become a nation of cowards. … Weakness only encourages strong, dictatorial leaders. … How can we correct this deadly disease of a broken will?” (Trumpet, November 1998; emphasis added throughout). This trend has grown far more deeply entrenched in the quarter century since Mr. Flurry wrote those words.

To correct our broken will, we must know the cause.

Leviticus 26 explains it. There, God warns Israel that rebellion against Him leads to punishment. “And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power …” (verses 18-19).

America’s persistent rebellion has resulted in God’s intensifying curses. Our will is broken because God has broken it.

“What a curse to have a broken will in a world full of dangerous, dictatorial leaders,” Mr. Flurry warned. “We simply cannot survive unless the problem is corrected” (ibid).

Will is so often the decisive factor in war.

Brig. Gen. Wayne Michael Hall (Ret.), author of The Power of Will in International Conflict, defines will in this detailed and excellent way. It is worth reading two or more times: “one’s desire, volition, life force—empowered by potency of resolve and willingness to sacrifice, that when yoked with strength of motive and appropriate capabilities, provides action sufficient to accomplish or satisfy an aim, goal, objective, strategy and thereby imposing one’s desires over and gaining the acquiescence of a resisting entity ….” In short, will is that vital desire and determination within a man or an army to do whatever it takes, sacrifice whatever is necessary, to triumph.

You must have this kind of will to win in warfare. And America’s is broken.

As grave threats multiply worldwide, America’s military says its top concerns are to “tackle the climate crisis” and “to improve diversity, equity and inclusion across the force,” with an emphasis on uncovering “possible racial disparity.” The Navy has a “drag queen” as a recruiter. Military bases have joined public libraries and schools in hosting drag shows. After one such show, a military spokesman told Yahoo! News, “Ensuring our ranks reflect and are inclusive of the American people is essential to the morale, cohesion and readiness of the military.”

America is living Leviticus 26! It is now out in the open: Our moral weakness and rebellion against God is so great that even our military is telling the world that promoting sexual deviancy increases fighting readiness.

In truth, promoting sexual deviancy is a root cause for breaking our will to fight any war at all, foreign or domestic! These types of depravity are the exact reasons why our nation is crumbling and God is cursing it. He has removed the mighty man, the man of war, the captain of 50 (Isaiah 3:1-3). Those leading in their place are rendering the mightiest military in world history impotent.

The latest figures show that the American military spends more than the next 10 nations combined. But it can’t stop the Chinese military, which spends only a third as much, nor can it stop the Russian military, which spends less than one 10th. Such is the effect of aiming your $877 billion budget at promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.

This is Leviticus 26:20 in action: “[Y]our strength shall be spent in vain ….”

By Reason of Transgression

America’s fecklessness comes from a curse. And that curse comes from disobedience.

Daniel 8:10-12 forecast that even the true Church of God would disobey and rebel. It describes a demon army attacking God’s people. This force “cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered” in its conquest. People who had known and been empowered by God were defeated, routed, destroyed!

How could this happen? Why did God allow it? This passage explains: It happened “by reason of transgression.”

“[T]he sins of the people gave Satan his opening,” Mr. Flurry explains in his book America Under Attack. “Then he went right into the sanctuary, working through the leaders at the top, and cast the truth to the ground. That is how Satan destroyed God’s Church.”

The same strategy of attack is now destroying target after target across America. “Now Satan and his mighty army of demons are destroying the superpower of end-time Israel the same way,” Mr. Flurry continues. “The values that helped make America great are being cast to the ground—from the top. And why? … It is ‘by reason of transgression’: because there is so much sin within the people.”

This is a crucial truth. People want to believe the issue is just a handful of radicals in power, or on the fringe, creating all the problems. God says differently.

“This is not merely a problem of one man at the top with a lawless spirit,” Mr. Flurry writes. “He would never have achieved the heights of power if not for a massive crisis of lawbreaking throughout the nation! Our people are saturated in sin of every imaginable type—and proud of it!” (Request a free copy of this important book.)

This lawless spirit is a curse. And it leads to many other curses—such as strength spent in vain and broken will. We can see it in our leaders. Can we see it in ourselves?

What happens when a superpower loses its patriotism? And its religion, and its desire to have children—all at once? America is about to find out.

Twenty-five years ago, the Wall Street Journal and nbc surveyed American adults about values they viewed as “very important.” Patriotism was “very important” to 70 percent; religion to 62 percent; having children to 59 percent. This past March, the Journal took the poll again. Today those numbers have plunged to 38 percent for patriotism, 39 percent for religion, and 30 percent for having children. These trends are worst among the youngest adults—18-to-29-year-olds. Religion is very important to a mere 31 percent of them; patriotism and parenthood to only 23 percent. (By contrast, the people for whom money is very important rose from 30 percent in 1998 to 43 percent today.)

If America was, as Mr. Flurry wrote, “a nation of cowards” 25 years ago, what about today, with patriotism practically half of what it was?

It appears that fewer than 1 in 4 young adults today are patriotic enough to fight for their country. Yet perhaps even more troubling is that the same trifling percentage are even fit to fight. A Pentagon study released in March found that 77 percent of Americans age 17 to 24 do not qualify for military service. All but 23 percent of prime-military-age youths are too fat, mentally ill, on drugs or otherwise unfit. Don’t expect this trend to turn around, with the next generation being trained to become emotionally unhinged if someone won’t call them by their preferred pronouns.

America is living in a fantasy that is about to be rudely disrupted by a world that will not tolerate it. A nation cannot harbor such self-hatred and softness and survive.

A Spirit of Surrender

Indulging in sin shatters an individual’s will and a nation’s will, breaks your will to fight, disarms your ability to resist evil. And in a world ruled by the devil (2 Corinthians 4:4), this is a catastrophic problem, because evil is everywhere. When we fail to fight evil, it spreads. In time, it conquers. This is true nationally, and it is true individually.

The appalling proof is all around us.

When you indulge in sin, by definition, you are separating yourself from God. You are rejecting God’s protection and inviting Satan’s influence. You are accommodating evil rather than fighting it.

You are in a spirit of surrender.

Consider it: How did the world’s most powerful military reach the point where a man who dresses like a woman is celebrated as America’s “first female four-star admiral”? How did we come to believe that we “affirm” our children by pharmacologically castrating them and surgically carving up healthy genitalia?

How did we reach such a moral abyss?

The answer: We got here step by step.

Why won’t society stand up to the blatant evil of transgenderism? Because we have already surrendered to the evil of same-sex “marriage.” And before that, to the evil of homosexuality. Before that, to the evil of pornography, the evil of divorce, the evil of adultery, the evil of fornication. For decades, America has been surrendering to sin on every front. How then can we expect to suddenly summon the fight to take on the latest evil?

The New Testament epistle of Jude reminds us of the fate of ancient cities saturated in immorality. “Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7). Supernatural destruction reduced these immoral cities to ash. Yet they had a certain allure, even to Lot and his wife (Genesis 19). Jude 18 shows that this prophetic epistle is for “the last time” and is “an example”—a warning for us.

Regarding verse 7, Mr. Flurry wrote, “Homosexuality and lesbianism have become chic today in the nations of Israel. … First, our people are ‘giving themselves over,’ utterly surrendering, to an evil spirit of fornication that destroys marriages and families. Then they go after ‘strange flesh,’ or ‘change the natural use into that which is against nature’ (Romans 1:26).

“Before the plague of homosexuality, there is the spirit of fornication, which tears marriages and families apart!” (Jude; request a free copy).

That booklet was first published in 2005. At the time, the “plague of homosexuality” had become mainstream, and the battleground in the culture war was shifting. Same-sex unions went from having virtually no public support in the 1980s to over 50 percent support in 2011. By 2015, approval had risen to 60 percent, and same-sex unions were legally recognized in all 50 states. (Today that number is over 70 percent.)

We had surrendered to fornication, adultery and homosexuality. Then we surrendered to same-sex “marriage.” So the battleground shifted again. Sin advanced—unless destroyed, it always advances.

In June 2015, Olympic gold-medal decathlete Bruce Jenner publicly declared himself transgender. Suddenly this new issue filled the spotlight. Public debate intensified when, in July 2017, President Donald Trump announced that transgenders would not be allowed to “serve in any capacity in the U.S. military.” Within months, courts overruled the commander in chief and forced the military to allow transgender people in. Surrender on this point set off a social transformation tidal wave aimed at accommodating people confused about their “gender identity.”

Mainstream media and politicians enthusiastically champion the movement. They label efforts to slow the tsunami as attacks on human rights and demonize opponents of child mutilation as enemies of “gender-affirming care.”

The battle continued. In 2021, West Virginia passed a law barring male students in public schools from joining girls’ sports teams. A district court blocked the law’s enforcement pending the outcome of a lawsuit over it, and the state sought to reverse that. But in April this year, in a 7-2 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the state’s challenge. They made sure that biological men can continue to participate in women’s sports.

Also in April, Jenner joined the fight against men competing against women. He tweeted, “Today I publicly launch Fairness First pac [political action committee] to fight the radical gender ideology, put parental rights at the forefront of education, and keep boys out of women’s sports.”

How dominant is sin right now in the American culture war? Take this as an indicator: A man who thinks he’s a woman is arguing with the Supreme Court about morality—and he holds the more conservative position.

Majority Opinion

All around in America, you see the spirit of surrender.

In April, Bud Light used a man dressed as a woman in a promotional campaign. Many Americans were angry, and sales of the beer dropped. How much? About 20 percent. Many viewed this as a big win in the culture war. But apparently 80 percent of consumers were fine with it and couldn’t be bothered to switch to another beer. The beer’s parent company said the loss represented about 1 percent of global sales volume, that it would win back customers by tripling its ad spending and offering free beer. Within a few weeks, demand for Bud Light had already started stabilizing. Most Americans simply don’t care.

This capitulation to transgenderism is just one sign of a widespread spirit of surrender enfeebling the nation.

Consider abortion. The abortion pill mifepristone is used in more than half of all abortions in the U.S. In early April, a U.S. district judge in Texas suspended legal use of this pill. The case quickly came before the U.S. Supreme Court. On April 28, the court struck down the ban. The case must still go through the lower courts, and the Supreme Court—which is notionally 6-to-3 conservative, “the most conservative in 90 years”—wants to make sure that as it does, people can still use mifepristone to kill babies without restrictions.

Several media outlets noted that the justices were simply doing what most people want. A 2022 Gallup poll showed that 85 percent of Americans support legal abortion in all or most cases. Pew and prri polled major religious groups in America and found that except for white evangelical and Hispanic Protestants, Latter-day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses, a majority in every other religious group favor abortion. prri also found that majorities of residents in all but seven states support abortion being at least mostly legal. Within those seven states, abortion supporters still number between 42 and 49 percent. No state has more than 14 percent of respondents who say abortion should be illegal in all cases.

Does anyone care what God thinks? He says abortion is murder. (Read “Inspiring Truth Abortionists Should Know.”) A great majority of Americans don’t care.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, some viewed it as a sign that conservative Americans were battling back and gaining some lost ground. Many religious people think America is enjoying a religious revival. The reality is, overturning Roe kicked the matter back to states, and a majority in 43 states want abortion. Voters nationwide have been punishing politicians who oppose killing unborn babies.

Last November, Montana voted on a legislative referendum requiring health-care providers to take “all medically appropriate and reasonable actions to preserve the life” of an infant that is born alive, including after an attempted abortion. Voters rejected it. Let those babies die, they decreed. Not in Massachusetts. In Montana.

Behold America’s moral infirmity. Our spiritual sickness is reflected in our broken national will. It accounts for America’s disappearance from the world scene, as well as public passivity as tyranny swallows the nation.

This is a war. Surrender to sin creates a toxic environment in which perversion flourishes. It is much like human health: Disease cannot grow in a healthy body; it grows in a weakened body. The healthier and fitter you are, the more you are protected from sickness. That is why the devil always works to weaken and sicken people: so he can control us and draw people deeper into spiritual slavery.

When people stand for nothing, they are vulnerable to exactly the kind of moral bullying that radicals are using today. The American spirit that animated the Revolutionary War, or the War of Texas Independence, is all but extinguished.

And whatever flame still flickers, the government is zealous to smother. Witness its truculence in crushing dissent and prosecuting the “insurrectionists” of Jan. 6, 2021. To actually reverse course and put down such tyranny would require extraordinary patriotism, courage and fight on a magnificent scale. And in today’s America, just about everyone is dropping to their knees and conceding to satanic, radical forces.

“We gained our freedom through much bloodshed and courage,” Mr. Flurry wrote in that article 25 years ago. “And our freedom cannot be sustained by cowards. We can easily deceive ourselves. But our enemies know the truth and will one day soon put us to the test!” (op cit). America’s ultimate defeat from our enemies will come because we first suffered a series of defeats in dealing with our own sins.

Only one thing will reverse this rout: a miracle from God, who has determined to save Israel by the hand of Jeroboam (2 Kings 14:28; this prophecy is thoroughly explained in America Under Attack).

Spiritual Courage

America’s will is broken, and the prospect of God healing it is remote. The nation seems doomed to die from its surrender to ever more wretched sin. But there is something you can do about it!

The war is ultimately for your mind. You have the final say on what wins in your mind, in your family, in your home. Each of us individually can strengthen our will to wage spiritual warfare against the evil we encounter.

“The further we get from God, the more cowardly we become,” Mr. Flurry continued. “The closer we are to God, the more we manifest courage.”

When you are spiritually healthy, you do not tolerate evil. Why? Because you are thinking like God, who is a warrior against sin. You discern between good and evil, and act accordingly.

The devil has seduced society into deep ambivalence about evil. God commands that we react with stout hatred! We love people, but we hate the sin they are engaging in that is destroying them! Read Romans 12:9. It doesn’t say, “Understand that which is evil,” “negotiate with evil” or “try to reason with evil.” It says, “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.” To abhor means to detest utterly.

You cannot prevail in warfare if you are lukewarm about your enemy. A casual soldier won’t attack the enemy with enough force. You will never win this culture war, even in your own life, until you first recognize clearly your own desperately wicked heart (Jeremiah 17:9). Abhor that which is evil in your own life, and you will be motivated to eradicate it. Cleave to that which is good, and you will be inspired to fight and even die for it.

Ours is a Laodicean age: rich, increased with goods, self-satisfied, complacent (Revelation 3:14-17). People are enslaved to materialism and luxury, lusts and sins. But this is a war. And complacency is deadly!

We live in modern Sodom and Gomorrah, surrounded by evil. Anciently, righteous Lot was vexed—grievously pained and tormented—by the Sodomites’ filthy conduct (2 Peter 2:7-8). Yet over time, seeing such evil day after day makes it difficult to maintain godly disgust. The tendency in human nature is strong to want to compromise with and accommodate evil. Even Lot, though he received this great commendation by the Apostle Peter, lingered when God tried to get him out of there to protect him from destruction (Genesis 19:16). It almost cost him his life. And his wife, who looked back on Sodom with longing, was divinely judged (verses 24-26).

To build the spirit of a spiritual warrior takes effort and vigilance, summoning a proper perspective on evil. Here is some practical instruction on how to do that: “[E]ndure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier” (2 Timothy 2:3-4).

Don’t entangle yourself with this sinful world and its ways. Avoid the toxic weapons that fill this world and its influences. If you are casually participating in its trends, entertainments and distractions, you are not thinking like a soldier. The Christian calling requires discipline. If God is to fight for you, you must live in a way that pleases Him. Read Psalm 101 to see how King David, a mighty spiritual warrior, stayed in fighting condition.

This sick world desperately needs strong, righteous leadership. God is calling and training such leaders today—and He needs fighters. That is what He is looking for in the leaders of tomorrow’s world, the people who will help put down Satan’s rule and replace today’s leaders, who have been conquered by the devil.

Are you among those few with the fighting spirit to join God’s cause?