If Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Calif., has her way, the terms “husband” and “wife” will be removed from a number of existing laws. In a bill she introduced on July 14, Brownley proposes replacing those words with “spouse” or “married person,” which she insists would be more gender-neutral and all-inclusive. On her website, she calls this a “common-sense bill” aimed at securing LGBTQ+ rights against the actions of what she calls “an extreme Supreme Court.”

This is the latest move in the radical left’s pressure on the government to make their language regarding gender more “inclusive” — or rather, perhaps more vague. The Centers for Disease Control made a move in that direction in 2012, and in June of this year, the city of Portland, Oregon, published an Inclusive Writing Guide in an attempt to alter terms like women, Caucasian, or citizen — which some city officials say have evolved.

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Let’s not miss the spiritual significance behind all this. Satan is showing his true colors now more than ever before. The LGBTQ+ agenda is not merely about the “normalization” or “legalization” of what the Bible clearly happens to call sin. Rather, it’s about an attack on the human identity that God has created and established. The homosexuality practiced in Paul’s day (see Romans 1:24–27), which was simply the perverse pursuit of lust then, has become an ideology in our day.

God created Adam and Eve — ish and isha (man and woman) — in His own image. His design was that they would be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with divine image-bearers (see Genesis 1:27–28). Our human identity is rooted in male-female duality and in how males and females are created to complement each other physically, emotionally, and mentally. In fact, almost all living things are divided into male and female entities with the ability to procreate and to raise their young. This gender identity is innate to all creation.

The fact that men and women were created to be God’s image-bearers together is precisely why Satan hates this. He once was one of God’s angelic image-bearers before He became proud, rebelled, and was cast out of heaven (see Isaiah 14:12–15). He is obsessed with the exaltation of his own image and cannot bear the sight of God’s human image-bearers. So, he will do what he can to attack man’s God-given identity in an attempt to blur the divine image imprinted on humans. And a sin-soaked humanity that has turned away from God’s holiness and design for life will gladly allow it.

One of the key elements of this battle is language. That is why bills are being introduced and writing guides are being published to alter the language connected to human identity. Why is this so significant?

Let’s go back to Genesis for a moment. God created language as the primary way for His image-bearers to communicate. Not only that, but God created the universe by His spoken word (see Genesis 1); He spoke to Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:28); and Adam was tasked with naming every living creature (see Genesis 2:19–20). Naming living things is essentially giving every living creature an identity. God named man and woman, and man named every other living thing. Over time, biology has classified those names into families, genera, and species. The purpose of those names is to identify them. In other words, when we tell someone we see a bird, they know it is an animal with wings. They might ask: “What kind of bird?” and we could say: “A robin,” which would let the other person know we saw a bird with a black back and a red chest.

By confusing the language that identifies human gender identity, Satan is trying to erase God’s creative order.

Doing this sounds reasonable to people who do not know or care about God. After all, we celebrate individuals’ freedom to be whatever they want. So why not give someone the liberty to choose their gender label, whether it conforms with their biological makeup or not? And what easier way to do that than by erasing “restrictive labels” like man, woman, wife, and husband, or gender-specific pronouns such as he and she or him and her?

What the proponents of such bills don’t see is that erasing gender identity brings irreparable harm to the human race. Not only is this forcing the desire of a mere 2% upon the 98% who feel secure with our current gender designations, but it also makes it nigh impossible to raise children who have any secure sense of identity. And even more significant, it leads people further and further away from God’s design for life. Moral corruption will multiply, bringing devastating consequences for people’s mental and emotional health. And that is ultimately what Satan is after — not to set humans free from the yoke of God’s moral will, as he would have us believe, but to destroy their mental, emotional, and physical health.

For a while, I ran a nonprofit specializing in connecting people who had mental-health issues to the appropriate sources of professional help — something that can be daunting for people who don’t know where to look. I was amazed at how many cases of mental and emotional dysfunction were related to a person’s sense of identity. The clearer our sense of identity, the more resilient we are against mental and emotional disorders.

So let us recognize these bills, proposed in the fertile soil of wokeism, for what they are: attacks on God’s design for life. As the Church, we know what God’s design is for identity. Our responsibility is to keep proclaiming biblical truth to a nation that claims to be “one nation under God.”

As intercessors, we have the ability to call for divine intervention against the passing of such bills, and for courage on the part of God’s prophetic voices within government to steadfastly proclaim His counsel.

We must also not lose sight of the potential consequences of such bills for the Christian faith in America. Once behavior, language, and human rights that are hostile to God are legislatively enacted, the proclamation of biblical truth becomes “illegal” and “hate speech,” despite constitutional guarantees. I do not doubt that Satan aims to unleash persecution on the Church. And it seems the conflict surrounding LGBTQ+ language and “rights” is among his key tactics for causing Christians to be seen as “haters,” “bigots,” and impediments to human progress. So let us be vigilant and alert. Let us not become complacent in praying for God’s restraining hand to hold back the Enemy’s attacks on American citizens, who so urgently need to return to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Father in heaven, You have created all things. Your design for life is perfect. We are brokenhearted to see the identity You have created for men and women come under such attack. So, we call on You to intervene and to keep the bill to Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act from passing. We pray that Rep. Brownley and her allies will come to a knowledge of the truth. We pray also for Congress, that our lawmakers will seek You earnestly for the wisdom and counsel to make godly decisions against bills that would lead us away from being one nation under God. In Jesus’ name we ask all this. Amen.

Share below your own prayers about these satanic attacks on God’s holy design for humanity.

Remco Brommet is a pastor, spiritual-growth teacher, and prayer leader with over 40 years of experience in Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the U.S. He was born and raised in the Netherlands and pastored his first church in Amsterdam. He moved to the U.S. in 1986. He and his wife, Jennifer, live north of Atlanta. When not writing books, he blogs at www.deeperlifeblog.com and assists his wife as a content developer and prayer coordinator for True Identity Ministries. Jennifer and Remco are passionate about bringing people into a deeper relationship with Christ.