Cissie Graham Lynch:
00:00:00 One Christmas, I opened up an envelope and my husband gave me a subscription to SiriusXM™ and you'd wonder why would my husband do that? And that's so I could listen to my grandfather Billy Graham on The Billy Graham Channel on SiriusXM™. It has been one of the greatest gifts for me to be able to sit in my car or wherever I am and listen to my grandfather's messages. The channel features messages all the way back from 1950 to the 2000s. And these messages are just as relevant today as they were when my grandfather spoke them, and that's because the Gospel is relevant. The Gospel does not change. The issues of the world have not changed. The same issues that they were facing 20, 30 years ago, we’re still facing today, and I promise you, they will speak to your heart. How often my family and I—even my kids—sit in the car and they listen to their Daddy Bill. If you're already a SiriusXM™ subscriber, you can find The Billy Graham Channel on channel 460 and on the SiriusXM™ app. And if you're not already a subscriber, you can become a subscriber by going to TheBillyGrahamChannel.com. The subscribe button is at the top of the page.
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00:01:13 Well, we're right in the middle of June, which is Pride Month, and all the obnoxiousness has started. So how do we as Christians respond to Pride Month?
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00:01:24 Hi, I’m Cissie Graham Lynch. Welcome to Fearless, helping you have a fearless faith in a compromising culture.
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Cissie:
00:01:45Welcome back to another episode of Fearless. And today's episode was supposed to be your questions, my answers, but the majority of your questions had to do with: What do we do with Target? Do we boycott during Pride Month? How do we discuss Pride Month with our family? So, instead of doing all Q&As, I decided to do an episode that focused on these questions based around Pride Month. And of course our culture is at a rapid moral decline, and it is like a giant game of whack-a-mole [chuckle]. We can't keep up. These moles just keep popping up and it's like we can barely keep our heads above the water as the waves keep crashing. And, it seems like we're fighting every demon from the pit of hell these days. Cuz every time we turn on the news, every time we turn on our social media, there's a new horrific story that is just demonic that we're seeing.
And just last week I was in a parking lot going to Panera and I parked next to this car and I pull out and it says—a big sticker—says, “Satan loves you.” And I started looking at all the other stickers, that said, “A proud member of the Satanic Temple.” And it just reminds us that Satan is not hidden in a dark alley anymore. He is out for all to see. He's dancing and parading, and we have to remember that the world loves darkness. And, of course, the month of June brings out all the true colors of corporate America. Of course, Target—that's majority of your questions came about was Target. North Face—Anthropologie just recently, you know, had a male dressed in a woman’s clothes and dancing—Nike, Disney, REI, and the list is truly never-ending. But even sporting events, the professional sporting events that we go to with our children and make family nights, they're now difficult to go to with our families as they represent and have a pride day during Pride Month.
Most of you have probably heard the story of the L.A. Dodgers, where they have the Sisters of the Perpetual Indulgence, which, it is just vile. They're an anti-Catholic, anti-Christian hate group who paint their faces white and with garnished with makeup and parade around. And when you look at those faces, to me, it is pure evil. I mean, it is so sad to see, and I've always said that the LGBTQ community is one of the most dangerous threats to America because it's the biggest threat to our religious freedoms. They are constantly and consistently attacking the Christian ideals and beliefs, and our religious freedom is the bedrock of America. And now we've even seen a company who was once hated by the far left for their conservative values is now on the bad list: Chick-fil-A, who announced just last week that they will have a vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And of course, when you read it, like I read their statement, it all sounds good on paper if you read it really quickly, but it's the first step towards cultural Marxism and it's dividing people into groups and treating them differently.
But with the LGBT community, the transgender subject is being pushed down our throats. It's all we are hearing about, but the transgender population accounts for less than 1% of Americans, and those who identify in the LGBT community is about 7%. But that's all that the marketing is going to, that's all that we are seeing. This is the voice that is the loudest in our country. And of course, this month and what we're gonna see in the month of June is never gonna end. And so it's kind of like, where do you boycott? What do you—what happens? How do we discuss this with our children? And if you're like me, all these questions have been probably in your head and you're bouncing them back and forth. I was doing this kind of early in May, preparing my heart for the month of June, because we know as a nation it's not gonna get better. It's only gonna get worse.
I remember, just a few years ago, maybe eight years ago, sitting with some friends talking about Bruce Jenner and our friend said that was his biggest hero as a kid. He had a Bruce Jenner poster on his wall. And he said, Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined 25 years later when I grew up that Bruce Jenner would become a woman. And I'm sitting here thinking, OK, well that was even eight years ago at this point, but if we think about now, what in our wildest dreams can we not imagine that's coming in the future? And I think we have such dark days ahead, and we as Christians, of course, as I always say here in Fearless, we have to stand with truth and we have to stand in grace.
But as the month of June was coming, all these questions were in my head—and it's probably many of you—of really, what is Pride Month? Why is it celebrated in the month of June? How's this flag come about? You know, when we start looking at the gay flag, where did that even come from? Should Christians uplift the month, of Pride Month, just so we're loving people because that's what the Bible says, we're to love our neighbor? What does the Bible say about boycotting Pride Month? And should we be part of those boycotts? And then really, how do we talk about this with our kids? I have three young children, and my 9-year-old daughter's already been asking me questions this month. So we're gonna dive in to some of those questions today. And so let's start.
What is Pride Month? And according to an article that I read, Pride Month is an entire month dedicated to the uplifting of LGBTQ voices, celebration of the LGBTQ culture, and the support of their rights. So it leads us to the next question: Why do people celebrate Pride Month in June?
And just a little side note, as I was preparing this, we think: This community gets a whole month of celebration in June. They take up, you know, they kind of just take over our whole lives in June, everywhere we go, every store we go into, but I also thought, where I live in our county, they tried to, in our school districts, have a whole month dedicated to LGBTQ history month. So then I started thinking, Not only do our kids get it all in the month of June, they're getting a whole month in their school year. But anyways, that was just my little side note thinking, Now our kids get two full months.
But why do we celebrate in the month of June? And I thought this was interesting—it's a little bit of history I did not know—but on June 28 in 1969, the police raided a popular gay bar in New York City's West Village. It was called the Stonewall Inn. And the patrons of the bar, they fought back, starting the Stonewall riots, which went on for days. And the Stonewall Inn was declared a historic landmark by the city of New York in 2015, and later in 2016, President Barack Obama named it a national monument. So this June is the 53rd anniversary of the first pride parade, which happened in 1970, which was one year after that uprising. So if we were to look at a timeline: in 1969 was the Stonewall riots; 1970 was the first gay par, or I should say the first pride parade; in 1978 is when the pride flag was created; in ’99, President Clinton declared the anniversary of the Stonewall riots every June in America as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month; in June of 2015, we all remember when our White House lit up as the gay flag when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by the United States Constitution—and here we are at the 53rd Pride Month in 2023.
And just another bit of history is how did the rainbow flag become the symbol of the LGBTQ movement? And here is an article—I’m going to read part of it—from the creator of the rainbow flag, and his name was Gilbert Baker and he said, Up until the late 1970s, their symbol was a pink triangle for the gay movement, “but it represented a dark chapter in their history of same-sex rights,” as Hitler “conceived the pink triangle during World War II as a stigma placed on homosexuals.” It was kind of the same way as the “Star of David was … against the Jews.” The pink triangle was the stigma against homosexuals. And he said, “We all felt that we needed something that was positive, that celebrated our love.” And he said, “I thought a gay nation should have a flag too, to proclaim its own idea of power.”
Let me just say that again. He said, “I thought a gay nation should have a flag too, to proclaim its own idea of power,” and a gay nation? [chuckle] I started thinking, What is ‘gay nation’? And, to proclaim its own power and their idea of power? And then he goes on to describe this kind of like psychedelic night, this night of partying they were having. And he said it was like they were riding—“We rode the mirrored ball on glittering LSD and love power,” and, “We were all in a swirl of color and light,” and, “It was like a rainbow.” And he said, that's it—“A rainbow. That's the moment when I knew exactly what kind of flag I [wanted] to make. A rainbow flag was a conscious choice, natural and necessary.” But what he did say is, “The rainbow came from [the] earliest recorded history as a symbol of hope. In the book of Genesis, it appeared as proof of a covenant between God and all living creatures.”
And of course as Christians, you know, that's baffling. He knew that, that it was a covenant between God and the Earth. But in Genesis 6 it says, “The Lord saw … the wickedness of man,” and it “was great in the earth, and that every intent [and] the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.” And so I think, you know, you read what this creator of the rainbow flag said, and it sounds familiar today, you know that—and I can't help but wonder how is God's heart grieved when He looks at us in this world today? So that's kind of the history of June and Pride Month and how the flag came about. I thought that was interesting because I truly have never kind of dove into it and researched some of those.
But the question that many of you have sent me is: Should Christians uplift, celebrate, and support LGBTQ voices, their culture, their rights in the act of loving people? And the simple answer is no. If you've followed me here on this podcast, you would know—you've probably heard me tell the story before of why I started Fearless. And it came because I had friends who didn't know how to navigate through this shifting culture. And it really was on the subject of I had many friends struggling, “Do we go to a same-sex marriage, a wedding?” And because it is 2023, we all know and love somebody in our lives that is a part of this community—whether it's a family member, a friend, somebody we went to school with—we all know and love somebody. So those were hard questions that many of my friends were struggling with when they would get an invitation to go to a wedding.
And I'll never forget, I think it was back in 2016 at this point, was Jen Hatmaker, who was a female Christian leader, an influencer in our culture. And she came out and she said that we should—she would go gladly to a wedding and celebrate a same-sex marriage, that it was holy before God. And as time would reveal, she was dealing with this with one of her children. But I've reminded you so many times here on Fearless that there in no way, shape, or form can we ever celebrate sin. Sin will never be holy before God, and a wedding is a celebration, it's a covenant before God, and we can't celebrate sin, and we can't be a part of that. And there's other ways to love those in our lives, but we can never affirm which we know is sin. And we can always stand with grace and we can always stand in truth, but there are gonna be difficult times that we have to face. And they're not gonna be easy decisions, and we're not promised to have easy decisions as believers when we stand on the Word of God. And I do think this is where the church has failed.
I've said here before, the second greatest commandment that Jesus said has been the greatest stumbling block in the church: to love thy neighbor, cuz we do all of this in the name of love. We wanna love them to keep that door open, but loving is not affirming what we know as sin. And this can be difficult when it comes to our children.
Of course I have young children and my prayer continually is that the Lord would protect and guard their hearts. I don't know what the future holds with my children. I don't know what I'm gonna have to deal with as a parent, especially with a culture of confusion and chaos and the lies that they are being told. I pray for their protection, but I don't know what I'm gonna have to deal with. And I've gotten so many letters from people who have agreed or disagreed with me. But I've gotten some letters from some parents, who have disagreed on episodes I've done on this subject, who said that they've had to deal, you know, with a gay son and they've had their wedding and that I was wrong, that they had to love ’em and keep those doors open. And so I know these are tough decisions we have to make, but we can never sacrifice truth. We always have to stand on God's truth. His truth does not change with our crazy times and with our marketing schemes and Pride Month and confusion; God’s Word does not change. And we do know in Luke 12:53 it says, they will be divided “father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” That those are the times to come, that Jesus said, “I came to divide.” As when we stand on truth, we divide ourselves from the world. And as our children are being taught all these lies and culture and growing up in these education systems, this is gonna happen more and more. And I just encourage you as parents to stand strong on God’s Word. Be faithful to the Lord, be fearful. Live a life that's fearful, which means take Him seriously.
And I also wanna say, be careful of those who you follow on social media. Sometimes we think we get to know these people because they're like us. We love their personalities, we get to kind of know their families, but really they don't stand on the truth that we do. And all of a sudden we'll start seeing a Christian influencer who goes to a gay parade or takes their child and dresses them up in rainbows. And then you start putting your guard down saying, Well if they're doing it, they live their life like this. I love watching them and know—you don't know them. And so just be careful those influences that you're putting into your life.
But Focus on the Family, they said that, “God isn't silent about human sexuality. … The story begins with God creating humanity in His image, male and female. Two distinct but complementary creatures, made for each other. Together, man and woman were fashioned to reflect the image and likeness of God. … Homosexuality is particularly egregious because it rejects God's design at its deepest point: Male and female were created for each other and together reflect the image of God. Same-sex relationships imply that the unique attributes both male and female bring to the table don't make much difference, that man and woman are virtually interchangeable.” But, “God's designed for human sexuality and marriage are clear.” And they also go on and say that “As our society becomes more sexualized and secularized, it's vital that Christians step up and present a vision of God's positive and life-affirming design for marriage between one man and one woman.” And I just encourage you, you know, I do believe the church has failed in this, many churches, because we wanted to love them. We wanted to accept the LGBT community. And of course we do, we love them, but loving them is wanting them to know the truth. And so we can never affirm their lies. We can't live by lies and so we always need to stand on truth with grace and love.
But what does the Bible say about boycotting? So this is where many of your questions have come in. And the short answer is, it doesn't specifically mention boycotting, but it does have wisdom on the issue of letting sexual immorality defile Christians. And that first kind of wisdom number one is that we're to mourn sin. We do not take pride in it.
Wisdom number two is Christians should not partner with a person who claims to be a Christian yet lives contrary to Christ's Word. They have rejected God’s Word, they've kind of made up their own truth. Truth is relative to them. And so I just wanted you to remember that. So with all those kind of reminders is the word to mourn sin. We do not take pride in it. Christians should not partner with a person who claims to be a Christian, yet lives contrary to God’s Word.
And then number three is, the only way to avoid all immoral people is to leave this world, which is impossible until we get to Heaven. But Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 5 kind of all those truths. And the main takeaway is Paul says it would be impossible to avoid contact with people who sin. While he does tell us to avoid people who call themselves believers and continue to live in sin, he seems to acknowledge that we will have to be surrounded with sinful people until Christ returns. But to remember that we are to live our lives separate, holy before God. We are to live a life that's fearful of God. Cuz I do know that—I think sometimes under the umbrella of, you know, ‘Jesus sat at the table of sinners and that we should be a part of the world’ is sometimes that line gets blurred a little bit. And yes, we are to be in the world, we're not to be of the world and we're still to our life separate of the world.
And so the next question is, should Christians boycott companies that promote Pride Month? And this is a question I've gotten asked, what do I do personally? And some of y'all might agree or disagree with me and you might be surprised with my answer. And personally, I have never believed that Christians should join every boycott out there because I don't believe you should boycott unless you're gonna do it every day for the rest of your life because you better be willing to stick to it for every day. Cuz if you don't, you'll be considered a hypocrite, then you'll be a mockery, and you'll look foolish to those around you.
I'll remember like in the ’90s, right? These are not new concepts that we're dealing with. In the ’90s, I remember everybody was boycotting Disney at the time, right? Because they were promoting the gay community, the homosexual community, and they were having gay parades. And even in their movies back then, I can remember like even in Aladdin, there was a little whisper when they were on the balcony. It said, “Good teenagers take off their clothes,” and The Lion King, when Simba would fall down and the dust went up in the air, it had the word “sex” spelled out into it. So, these are not new things, but they're just kind of putting ’em out more and more for us to see and it's not as hidden.
But, I have friends that'll jump on bandwagons so quickly in a boycott and then a couple months go by, it's not in the news as much and they quickly forget—they're going back to Target, they're going back to Starbucks, they're back at REI. And so I've always considered be very careful what you say. Now I do think times, if you boycott for a certain period, unless the Lord has laid it on your heart, I think this is up to the individual, that you do need to be obedient to what God has told you and your family. If that is to boycott Target forever, do it. You need to be obedient to what He's telling you. But because boycotting is arguably a discipline act of love, “love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth,” according to 1 Corinthians 13. And it's kind of, just like we vote with our ballots, we can vote with our dollars. And this time when it comes to Target, even before, in the last couple weeks when it was revealed that they had hired the satanic artist to do a lot of their merchandise and it, you know, it was all coming out, but Target really put their merchandise out before Pride Month so we all could see it.
So I had decided even early on in May that our family would boycott Target during the month of June. I thought that was something that was reasonable. I did start—stop—a few years ago when it became about the Target bathrooms. I had stopped going as much, but I couldn't say I was gonna boycott forever because the truth is, it's right down the street when it's late at night and we need a school project done and I need to go there, to be honest, I'm probably gonna go to Target cuz it's the only thing open around me. And it was funny cuz even though I was boycotting for the month of June, so, and my son needed jeans—and that's probably where a lot of us moms get our kids pants—said, Nope, I can't go to Target, so I'm gonna go to Kohl’s. Well, Kohl’s just came out with transgender onesies, so it's like we can't win. Like I said, it's one giant game of whack-a-mole, we can't keep up, but we can make restrictions that are possible for us.
So we decided not to go for the month of June because Target's branding, it includes the god of chaos and confusion and the father of lies and they're uplifting Satan. And that definitely needs to be challenged. They are coming after our children and this is undermining God's truth, design, and His merciful ways. 1 Corinthians 2 says that “the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, … he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” Satan blinds the minds of unbelievers, and I think we need to remember that. So my heart is actually really sad when I see these pictures of this satanist who is creating art for children. And so they are coming after our children. And so boycotting is a way of sounding the alarm, and that is helpful in trying to bring change in a loving way—that is admirable and we need to do that. And actually we saw what happened: Target lost a lot of money already and even my sister-in-law said they had went into Target, you know, in May when all the displays were already up, and when they went back a couple weeks ago, it was all—and she didn't even know, she hadn't even seen kind of the news of what was going on—and she realized when she went back in, Oh, that big display is gone. And so that is a time where we really did let them know, and your voices, you're kind of making a voice with your dollars. And so I do think this is a time to kind of reinstate those obvious Biblical truths.
But I do believe when it comes to boycotting, sometimes it may be impossible. Like I just said, I didn't wanna go to Target and I was gonna go to Kohl's, couldn't buy jeans there. If you wanna order from Amazon, you're gonna have a problem because corporate America, it's everywhere because they are of the world. But it may be impossible. And the Bible makes it clear that it would be impossible to fully disconnect from people practicing immoral behavior. We should, however, cut ties with those who claim Christ, but continue practicing sin. And so when we talk about Target, this is gonna step on a lot of people's toes, to be honest, I'm not surprised. It was not shocking to me and it shouldn't be shocking to you and we can make our voices known. But what I think I was more disappointed was with like Chip and Joanna Gaines, and I know they are beloved. Everybody loves Chip and Joanna, but I'm more disappointed in them who claim to be Christians, who have been attacked before from the far left because they went to a church that spoke on a traditional marriage, but they have been silent and they make a lot of money through the company of Target. And so, to me as people who claim to be Christians, that's where I'm more disappointed in, not so much Target cuz I don't expect much from them.
Number two are boycotts. It may be ineffective. The question of should Christians boycott companies that promote the LGBT advancement, it must be analyzed through effectiveness. And how can we be effective when we do it? And we need to do it and do it well. And that's kind of where I say people jump on a bandwagon and they slowly kind of fall off of that, and I don't think Christians have ever been good at it. Ted Cruz, I'm gonna quote him, which I know some of y'all might not even like the quote before I say it because Ted Cruz said it, but I thought it was a good point. He said that Christians are not very good at boycotts, they just don't work. “Conservatives have typically been not very good at boycotts,” and, “You can be annoyed at Disney, but if your kids really want to go to Disney World, [it's] hard to say ‘no,’” that “there’re not a lot of alternatives” to Disney World. He says, “There’s Six Flags, but Disney World is a pretty unique offering.” And he says, For that matter, you have Disney movies, there's only one Snow White, there's only one Cinderella, or one Toy Story. And, “That's a difficult product for many people to give up permanently.”
And I got a lot of people asking me because they did see on my Instagram that I went to Disney World a couple of months ago with my children. I live in Florida and instead of pulling my children out—and I respect the people that have decided to boycott Disney, but like I said, if you're gonna do it, you better do it every day for the rest of your lives. But when it comes to me and my children, and for me personally, I think of the pretty unique family experiences my family has had at Disney World. And I think of the heart of Walt Disney and what he wanted to create for the families. Now, there are certain movies that have been out that I do not allow my kids to watch. And I have those conversations with my kids of why they cannot watch them. My little girl knows that she can only watch kind of the traditional older movies unless I've seen it and approved of it. And we have a conversation of why people are boycotting. We saw people out boycotting Disney and I had those conversations with her.
If I was at Disney World and I was taking my little girl to the salon of the [Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo]—I don't even know if that's how you say it. I've never paid that much money to take my daughter to get dressed as a princess that looked kind of tacky—but if I had shown up like this video we're seeing of this man in this mustache dressed as a woman helping these little girls become a princess, I would have a word to say. I would not allow my kids to go in there. That is unacceptable. It's disgusting. I was talking to a co-worker who used to intern with Disney and she talked about like the rules that they had about kind of like grooming: their hair had to be a certain way, only women could have earrings—and this wasn't that long ago, 15 years ago or so—you could only wear a certain kind of shoes. I mean, your makeup, it had to be natural. Your hair color had to be a natural color. They were so strict. And now we see a man with a mustache and wearing a dress. And those are times where we have to stand up for truth and we have to let our kids know. But like I said, it is impossible to shelter our kids from absolutely everything.
Number three is it may be needed, boycotting. Of course, there are times it’s needed, but through gentleness focused on salvation, that we are to be zealous for what is good, that this may bring about suffering, but we need to be ready for this, that the times that we are facing, it's gonna take sacrifices from us. It's gonna take a world different than what we know. That means we might have to get rid of some of the nice things we've liked and done, but we have to be ready for this. But in all of it, we're to honor Christ as Lord by always being prepared to make a defense for those questions who come for eternal hope. We have be ready, and I've talked about that here on Fearless before: We have to be ready when the world comes and asks us questions. If we do it in a loving way, in a way that points people to Jesus Christ, be ready for those questions.
And how do we do this? How do we discuss this with our children? So let me tell you, a couple years ago, there's a church down the street from our home and they, of course, had the rainbow flag flying, and my little girl—because a rainbow flag is so beautiful—goes, “Mom, let's go to that church. That looks like a fun church.” Those were like her exact words, and I had to tell her what the flag meant, and of course I do it in a way that she could understand. We have to remember that our children's spiritual development is our primary responsibility as parents and that we have to keep that and share truth with them, but we're to do it in a simple way. Of course, the world that children are facing now is a world of confusion.
You think of young females, the LGBT community, they prey on young females and middle schoolers, middle schoolers whose bodies being changed. They're going through a difficult time with their hormones and emotions. Think about it: None of us like that time in our lives, that was a horrible time for all of us. So they're going after this children, right when they have all these questions in their life, they're highly targeted, and I've always said that the LGBT community, they have to recruit because they can't reproduce, and that is why they are so aggressive when it comes to our children. If they can reach that younger generation to change a nation and the heart of a nation, then they have won, and that's where we have to protect our children's minds.
Because I have a little girl who's getting ready to enter that. She's nine, she's in those preteen years, and I know those years are coming and parents of today, we're having to have conversations with our children that our parents and our grandparents never had to have. Sarah now wants to be a Seth and changing their looks. I've seen some young kids around my children's age already doing that. So we're having to have conversations with our kids at a really tough—but I promise you, as the Scriptures promised, the Holy Spirit will meet you as a parent in that moment to have those conversations, but remember, don't neglect truth. Always share it with grace and with love. Remember, Jesus was 100% grace. He was 100% truth. And of course He was love. But keep it simple for them. That's been my kind of motto. Of course I have still young kids. I'm not in those tough years yet. I don't know what's to come, but I pray for those years.
And with our children in a world of confusion and chaos, we have to be pointing them to truth, and when they come to us with those conversations, those are the ones we have to be prepared to have with them. Don’t shelter them so much that you're not answering those questions because at a young age, they are being exposed to far more than we can imagine. There was a TV show that they were watching that I have seen. I thought it was completely safe and OK and all of a sudden, something happened and my little girl has such a good heart, she came and she told me and I had to tell her, Thank you for being honest with me, but we can no longer watch that show. So I'm gonna continue to say it: It's like a giant game of whack-a-mole. We can't keep up.
Always like seeing my friends post on Instagram or Facebook when something bad has popped up, then I know it's on my radar. But you know, when it comes to Target and boycotting, you know, the Target CEO said that there had been threats against employees as a reason to discontinue their product line. And I kind of—you have to wonder or speculate whether the real reason, like were people really threatening, because even though I know so many people who are against what Target has done, none of them have had any interest in harming a Target employee. Not one. It's not on anybody's mind or radar. So when the Target CEO says that, you kind of have to wonder, is this them playing the victim because that's the way of the far left? They always like to play the victim—and that would be Marxism 2.0, but it's very, very difficult to believe that people were out there making threats. I'm sure there might be a couple, and I know that's not on our hearts, but with that said is that we have to do it with grace and truth. And there are ways to do that. I remember shopping a couple years ago and this gay man was helping me. It was very obvious he was gay and he helped me all day pick out my outfits of what I needed. And he later said, “Thank you so much for being so kind to me.” He said, “Most women,” this was a couple years ago and it was probably not as much, he says, “Most women will come into this store”—older women—“and they won't let me help them.” So you can love those around you and never sacrifice the truth you stand on. And there's ways to do that. And God and the Holy Spirit can lay on our hearts the way to do that, and that is not the way of the world.
So remember that we need to be in prayer and of course boycotting and challenging some of these corporations—that has merit. And I think this is between you and the Lord, what the Lord encourages you to do, but we can vote with our dollars, where we choose to spend our dollars, make those decisions, and make it in a way that is possible to stick to. For me and my family, this is definitely for the month of June, but we won't be going there as much. I just can't say it would never, because somebody might find me there at 10 o'clock at night getting some markers for a school project and they're gonna see me. So be very careful.
But we do need to be careful. Stand truth to God’s Word. Know His Word because Scripture says those who know their God will always be able to stand in strength and take action, and that's what we need in today's time. We have to be able to stand in strength and be able to take action in the days that we're facing. And as we close, I wanna remind you to pray for those who are facing challenging situations in their home, their church, their community, many who believe that this is a sin, but they struggle with people because they know people in their lives who are real people who are caught up in this community, and this is a tough, it's a tough situation for many of us. So pray for those in tough situations to always be able to stand in grace and in truth.
MUSIC TRANSITION
Cissie Graham Lynch:
00:37:04 Thank you for joining me on another tough episode of Fearless. I wanna remind you, Fearless podcast is a ministry of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and our website has so many resources of raising a family, spiritual questions you might have, events that might be—if my dad or my brother might be coming near you, you can check it out on BillyGraham.org for more resources. Thanks again for following me on another episode of Fearless.
CLOSING MUSIC
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