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When the apostle Paul went into the city of Ephesus, through his witness, a significant number of idolaters there, by the grace of God, had a change of heart and become Christians. (Acts 19:11-20) Because this threatened the livelihood of most of the silversmiths (who made idols) they began spreading the word that there was a danger that "the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing." (Acts 11:27) A good number of people were enraged and were crying out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” So the city was filled with the confusion.." (Acts 11:29-30) Such confusion that most of those who gathered did not know why they had come together and there was practically a riot.  

Today, in our current culture, where people worship at the altar of their idols of hyper sexuality, it often seems like the the same kind of inner rage is directed toward those who hold Christian convictions. Those who are blinded to the gospel proclamation of liberty and still want to be chained to their old masters, are threatened by the gospel ... that it will overthrow their gods so they are "enraged" and think that by shouting louder than others they can get the wider culture to believe the false message that our love for our fellow human beings is really hate and bigotry. But for several thousand years Christians & Jews have believed that the only place for sexual union is in a marriage covenant between one man and one woman for life. This is a matter of conscience and change cannot be forced or coerced by bullying, social pressure, contrary values of culture, politics, or law. This is who we are and what we believe and it is not going to change.

Legalism overthrows the gospel, since it trusts, at least partly, in one's own self-righteousness and not Christ alone for salvation. It erroneously believes that God is somehow satisfied with our pathetic attempts to maintain our right standing with Him by being moral. (Gal 3:3; Phil 3:3) But this is to usurp Christ's office as Savior. Perhaps the worst offenders of this within the visible church are those who believe we can lose our salvation, thinking that Christ's work is incomplete or insufficient and that we must somehow make up for it with our own enduring faith or merits or else risk losing our status as His adopted children. But Christ "is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." (Heb 7:25) "For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." (Heb 10:14)

Those persons in the visible church who say that a regenerate believer can lose their salvation (or forfeit their faith) may indeed affirm that Jesus' atonement paid for past sins, but since they believe our post-regeneration sin can disqualify us, it would mean that their future justification is dependent, in whole or in part, in their own ability to persevere to the end. As such they are not trusting in Jesus Christ alone for their redemption but partly in their own efforts and ability. The Bible indeed teaches that we must persevere to the end but it also teaches that those who are born again will not, indeed CANNOT life a lifestyle of sin because God's seed dwells in them ... and since Jesus always lives to intercede for believers, He will preserve them to the end (1 John 3:9; John 6:37-39).

The following passage really makes up the heart of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. Here he reveals a great mystery which was hidden in previous ages:

While trust in network media has previously been pretty low, in the last few years, the news media has simply lost all credibility. They have become nothing more than propaganda outlets to shape public opinion ... brazenly suppressing news they don't like and mostly over-promoting ideas they agree with. From all appearances they now feel it is their job to re-educate the masses to think along the lines of their own elite ideology.  The depravity of man is on full display in the press as powerful and wicked people now openly suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18).

The examples of this are too many to count but you can witness it most recently in the way the press has mishandled the entire Planned Parenthood drama. First by not showing the inhuman criminal behavior in the videos that they knew would impact public opinion and next by promoting the argument that they were fabricated and then when demonstrated to be genuine, utter silence (crickets). But the problem is hardly limited to this. Other grossly distorted stories abound and it is alarming. The pervasive use of the words bigotry, hate and ___phobia directed against Christians and other people of faith is not an argument but a tactic and one based on uneducated prejudice and ignorance. The press, being derelict in their duty, perhaps more than anyone else, are doing the greatest harm to our democratic republic and are shaping the public to believe a distorted Manichean picture of the world.

Moral: Things are not always as they seem in the world. Do not believe every piece of (dis)information you hear. Let it sit for a while before making a judgment or drawing a conclusion. Or we could easily fall into promoting the same kind of distortion. Truth is all important here.