Sin City: Where sin abounds, grace abounds.

Las Vegas, Nevada: An oasis of over stimulating entertainment amists a dessert, quenching a thirst for physical momentary pleasures.




Entertainment.


Money.


Sex.



The forces that drive this city, and the forces that rightfully earn it the name, the City of Sin.

Nevada is the only state that still has legalized prostitution in the forms of brothels, escort services and “independent entertainers.” About 140 pages in the Nevada Yellow Pages are devoted to such “entertainers,” and over 30 licensed brothels employ upwards of 300 women.

According to the Decriminalizing Prostitution Now Coalition, prostitution is legal in Canada, most of Europe (including England, France, Wales, and Denmark), most of South America (including Mexico), Israel, Australia, much of Asia and South East Asia (including the Philippians and Thailand) and Iran.

The problem is that with a room, a bed, a condom and a red light, many women, especially in developing countries, have the opportunity to make 10 times what they would make as a factory worker. And as a parent, selling a child into the sex industry could earn them more than they would make in their entire life.

While I am deeply saddened by a world that has nothing more to offer these women and children than a bed and some cash, my question is this. While for many, the decision to sell your body for sex is the decision to find a way to eat, America is not a developing nation. We are a stable, organized, democratically lead nation which guarantees life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet the life of these sex slaves, in Nevada, is anything but free or happy and while it often physically kills the body, no women’s heart can survive emotionally or spiritually when she is selling herself.

Aside from trying to understand how a man can find pleasure in a body he not only must pay for but one that despises him, how can we as Americans allow this to take place anywhere in the world, let alone in one of our own states. These are American women and children. Regardless of where they are from, regardless of how they got here. These are American women and children who deserve life—one of liberty and happiness.

A city of sin within a sinful state left alone by a sinful nation.


But where sin abounds, graces abounds even more. But only if the redeemed step out in faith with a passion and a purpose to spread the kingdom of grace and the waters of righteousness across the desolation of a dessert.