Topic: An Encounter with Stones — Wednesday October 18, 2017.
Read: Isaiah 53:1–6, Bible in a Year: Isaiah 53–55; 2 Thessalonians 1 He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. Isaiah 53:5
After centuries of war and destruction, the modern city of Jerusalem is literally built on its own rubble. During a family visit, we walked the Via Dolorosa (the Way of Sorrow), the route tradition says Jesus followed on His way to the cross. The day was hot, so we paused for a rest and descended to the cool basement of the Convent of the Sisters of Zion. There I was intrigued by the sight of ancient pavement stones unearthed during recent construction—stones etched with games played by Roman soldiers during their idle moments. Those particular stones, even though likely from a period later than Jesus, caused me to ponder my spiritual life at the time. Like a bored soldier passing time in idle moments, I had become complacent and uncaring toward God and others. I was deeply moved by remembering that near the place I was standing, the Lord was beaten, mocked, insulted, and abused as He took all of my failure and rebellion on Himself.
“He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5).
My encounter with the stones still speaks to me of Jesus’s loving grace that is greater than all my sin.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, through Your great sacrifice for us, we find forgiveness, healing, and hope. Thank You that we live today and forever in Your love.
Our sin is great—God’s grace is greater.
Insight:
In their context, few Old Testament prophecies of Jesus look like clear predictions. For the most part, it is only by reading backward that we can see how Jesus brought fullness of meaning to words that were mysterious in their own time. Yet when read in light of Jesus, these words can now be life-changing.
Isaiah’s prophecy of the Suffering Servant is an example of this. Many in Israel believed it was their own persecuted nation that was bearing the sins of the world. Only by looking back can people like us realize that “we” were the ones who unwittingly demanded the death of our own God and Savior (Zech. 12:10–14).
As hard as it is to admit, this is the kind of grief that is for our good and comfort. This is how we can read words that were once so mysterious and see how much our God loves us.
This message was written By David C. McCasland [Our Daily Bread Ministries.]
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Federal prosecutors on Tuesday said a Massachusetts man accused of plotting to attack police and behead a conservative blogger was a passionate supporter of the Islamic State militant group who recruited people including his own uncle into the scheme.
The prosecutors contend that David Wright, 28, along with his uncle and a friend had plotted to kill the blogger, a woman who organized a 2015 “Draw Mohammed” contest in Garland, Texas. They said the plan unraveled when the uncle, Usamaah Abdullah Rahim, lost patience and said he wanted to kill police officers instead.
“The defendant was a sophisticated recruiter, he manipulated people, including his own uncle, into believing that they needed to join ISIS and kill Americans,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Siegmann, using a common acronym to refer to Islamic State.
“The defendant was committed to ISIS and he knew exactly what he was doing,” Siegmann said in prosecutors’ closing statements at Wright’s trial in Boston federal court.
The three bought knives and planned to travel to New York to kill Pamela Geller, the organizer of the “Draw Mohammed” contest. That plan fell apart in June 2015 when Rahim told Wright he had lost patience and planned to attack police in Boston.
Law enforcement, who had been surveilling the group, overheard the conversation. When police approached Rahim to question him, he pulled a knife and was shot dead by officers.
Defense attorney Jessica Diane Hedges said that Rahim’s actions were a surprise to Wright. The defendant took the rare step of testifying in his own defense, saying he had never really intended to attack Geller. He described his actions as “role playing.”
Hedges noted that even law enforcement was surprised by Rahim’s attack.
“They weren’t planning on arresting Mr. Wright until Usamaah Rahim did something,” she said. “What the government has done in this case over and over is exploit the fear that ISIS inspires.”
If Wright is found guilty of the charge of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, he could face a life sentence.
Geller had organized the Texas event in May 2015 featuring cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, images that many Muslims consider blasphemous. Two gunmen had attacked that event and were shot dead by police.
Geller contends her event was intended as a demonstration of the free-speech rights protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
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Seven people were killed and another 15 injured when suspected Islamic State militants targeted a bank and a church in Egypt.
Egyptian Christians, known as Copts, have been facing intensified persecution recently. According to The Christian Post, the ISIS militants attacked a bank and then the Church of Saint George in El-Arish, Egypt. They reportedly robbed the bank and then proceeded to fire on security forces who were guarding the unused church.
The militants then celebrated the attack by waving their black flags and marching through the streets.
“The militants fired shots randomly in the street as if they were celebrating with some of them raising their black flags (of ISIS) and they roamed the streets for about 20 minutes then disappeared,” said Alaa Lotfy, a shop owner in the area who was a witness to the attack.
This attack marks the second attack on Coptic Christians in hardly more than a week. Last week, Samaan Shehta, a Coptic Christian priest, was slain by a suspected ISIS militant. The attack was caught on video.
“This incident makes us once again ask so many questions. Why should a priest not be able to walk safely down a street, especially a suburban street in Cairo?” asked Bishop Anba Angaelos, the General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church. “Why should he be chased by a man brandishing a deadly weapon and have no one run to his aid; in actual fact, everyone was running away.”
Just because you do good doesn’t mean you don’t need God. (TheHilaryClark/Pixabay)
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For the first time, a majority of Americans—56 percent—say it is possible to be a good person without a religious belief.
“God is not a prerequisite for good values and morality,” Greg Smith, Pew’s associate director of research, said in a post about the findings. ” … [T]he public’s increased rejection of the idea that belief in God is necessary for morality is due, in large part, to the spike in the share of Americans who are religious ‘nones.'”
Nones now account for about one-quarter—23 percent— of American adults, up from 16 percent in 2007. But their growth is not the whole story behind the numbers.
In the current poll, Protestants and Catholics were also polled, and 45 percent of them agree that God is not necessary for personal morality, up from 42 percent in 2011.
Even white evangelicals, who traditionally believe a relationship with God is crucial to morality, have budged. In 2011, one quarter of them (26 percent) said it was possible to be good without God, while now almost a third (32 percent) say so.
“To be sure, most white evangelicals still say belief in God is necessary for morality,” Smith writes. “But the share who say belief in God is a necessary underpinning of being moral has declined from 72 percent to 65 percent in just six years.”
The poll’s findings were published Monday (Oct. 16), four days before “Openly Secular Day” on Oct. 20, an event promoted by multiple organizations of atheists, humanists, agnostics and other secular individuals to highlight their lack of religious beliefs.
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(Photo: Reuters/Stefano Rellandini)Saint Peter’s Basilica is pictured at the Vatican March 7, 2013.
While many have seen a remarkable togetherness occurring among evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics ahead of Protestantism’s 500th anniversary, important institutional and theological issues still separate us, according to two Wesleyan scholars. Such significant ground cannot be glossed over, they explain, and the debates that arise are worth having.
Both in a recent phone interview with The Christian Post and throughout the book’s 410 pages, the co-authors repeatedly stress that they consider Roman Catholics their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and that their aim is not to widen the existing theological chasm. They maintain, however, that conversations where difficult questions are raised about these centuries-old, often painful divides are deeply needed.
Walls and Collins contend that it’s not the “Catholic” part that stands in the way of real unity, but the “Roman” part, as evidenced by the book’s title. Roman Catholics often criticize Protestants over “sola scriptura” (scripture alone), which they think is unworkable and has led to endless schisms. But the authors reply that Rome’s “sola Roma” approach comes with serious problems of its own and does not make them immune from division.
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(Photo: Courtesy of Ken Collins)Roman But Not Catholic: What Remains At Stake 500 Years After the Reformation
Other than the Roman Catholic distinctives about Jesus’ mother Mary and her role in the life of the Church, the office of the pope is perhaps the most profound source of division between Catholics and Protestants, a subject explored extensively in Chapter 11, “The Papacy: Shaking the Foundations.” Collins, who was raised Roman Catholic but became a Protestant in college and is now a professor of historical theology at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, believes this is an area where the Roman Church is committing the error of anachronism.
“[Rome] takes later historical products and reads them back into the first century where they don’t belong,” Collins told CP, regarding the office of the pope. Roman Catholics assert that Peter was the first pontiff to lead the Church. But the papacy is actually “an office based on a constellation of claims that developed over time,” Collins says, and it took centuries for it to come into place.
Several elements of the Roman church hierarchy were not even on the scene for there to have even been anything remotely close to a pope and the powers he exercises, Collins continued. The Asbury professor considers it “debatable” as to who the first actual pope was.
“It’s like saying, for example, that the United States of America, during the 13th century, didn’t have many people,” Collins explained. “Well, that’s a nonsense sort of statement because America didn’t exist in the 13th century.”
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(Photo: Courtesy of Ken Collins)Ken Collins, co-author of “Roman but Not Catholic: What Remains at Stake 500 Years After the Reformation.”
What is more, Walls interjected, is that the Roman Catholic Church maintains that the papacy is the unifying center of the Christian world today, when not only is that not the case for Protestant believers but also Eastern Orthodox Christians. The rumblings over Pope Francis and the recent controversy over “Amoris Laetitia” — a 2016 papal exhortation that addresses the Church’s stance on access to communion, divorce, sexual mores, and pastoral practice — demonstrate that such division exists even within the Roman Catholic faith, he added.
And aside from current disputes, the Roman Church may purport to be united but is for all practical purposes divided, Walls noted.
“Most [Roman Catholic] laity believe things that are quite out of sync with official Church teaching,” Walls said.
“Functionally, the Roman Catholic Church is the world’s largest pluralist Christian denomination comparable to many liberal Protestant denominations.”
Collins agreed to join Walls in co-writing Roman but Not Catholic to contribute his historical knowledge to the project. He told CP that he initially resisted the invitation from Walls but decided to take part when he considered how the Roman Church stands in negative judgement of his evangelical and Pentecostal peers in Latin America. Rome’s ill feelings toward them there and elsewhere are born out of an understanding of their ecclesiology, their doctrine of the Church — that they are the “one true Church.” At that point, being a co-author of the book became a “sacred calling for me,” he added.
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(Photo: Courtesy of Jerry Walls)Jerry Walls, author and professor of philosophy at Houston Baptist University.
Walls, who is a professor of philosophy at Houston Baptist University and was one of the originators of the Reforming Catholic Confession — a Protestant affirmation of the essentials of the Christian faith published on Sept. 12 — noted that, like the Confession, their book intends to recover and reclaim the word “Catholic,” a term Rome has appropriated for itself but in fact belongs to faithful Christians of every stripe.
“Certainly, our book is pointedly critical in one sense of the word but it’s ultimately one that aims for unity, and to attack and critique the barriers that divide Christians that should not divide Christians,” like the Lord’s Supper and who can be anointed with oil on the deathbed, Walls said.
“And ultimately we want to promote a vision of the Holy Catholic Church that is more expansive and larger than the Roman Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, or the Protestant Church. It’s bigger than all of those.”
Christian unity is going to come about when Christ is at the center, Walls continued, when “all traditions recognize and respect each other fully as brothers in Christ, welcoming each other at the communion table, not because of your views of ecclesiology or sacramental theology but because of your commitment to Christ and your recognition that as followers of Christ he has called us to celebrate this together as a sign of unity.”
But until both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy stop fighting over who is the “one true Church” and recognize that the Church of Jesus Christ is much bigger than any of them, Walls added, no real chance of unity is possible.
For Roman Catholics, ecclesiology seems to trump everything, Collins noted, even agreement on theological matters important to Protestant evangelicals like the doctrine of justification.
Collins emphasized: “It almost seems that in terms of Rome there is not only sacred Scripture, revelation that has been given to us by the Holy Spirit, but that the Holy Spirit has also given a particular polity and its that second move that this really does come from God.”
Unlike the official Roman Catholic governing body, the Magisterium, which Roman Catholics regard as supremely authoritative, Protestants do not believe that a specific, divinely-ordained Church structure carries the same weight and status as Scripture.
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German theologian Martin Luther
In Chapter 14, “Protestants in the Crosshairs,” Walls and Collins address in detail the phenomena of ardent Catholic apologists whose works have become popular, such as Protestant-turned-Catholic Devin Rose’s The Protestant’s Dilemma. Another book they mention, Surprised by Truth, boasts of selling over 250,000 copies on its cover and contains 11 testimonials of former Protestants who became Roman Catholic. The foreword for this book was penned by Calvinist-turned-Roman Catholic apologist Scott Hahn, who refers to the former Protestant writers describing their spiritual journey to Rome as “theological step-children who have finally come home.” Walls and Collins unpack how these popular Catholic apologetics also contain a considerable amount of imprecise and uncharitable language toward evangelicals and heavy, all-or-nothing, Rome-centric reasoning.
Protestants who read these works are likely exploring “conversion” to Rome already, they write, and they caution those who are exploring to avoid what they call “Roman fever,” a symptom of which is the tendency to compare the best of Roman Catholicism with the worst of Protestantism. Snarky lines like “We have Dante’s Divine Comedy, and you all have the Left Behind series,” are but one example of this, Walls recalled once hearing a Roman Catholic friend quip.
Despite all of this and other areas of conflict, Walls and Collins conclude Roman But Not Catholic by reiterating their affirmation of the genuine faith of Roman Catholic believers around the world, and prayerfully appeal to John 17:20–21, Jesus’ prayer that all those who would follow Him would be one, as He and the Father are one. They praise Pope Francis’ recent comments toward more inclusive practices in celebrating the sacrament of Holy Communion, even if his words were said in the midst of lingering doubt and ambiguity.
“Perhaps the pope will take further steps in this same direction, during the pivotal 2017 year, to allow us to celebrate the fundamental reality that we are all characterized by one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We surely hope so. The advance of world Christianity on occasion and its witness to the world would be epic,” the authors write.
Until such a time or some other breakthrough moment occurs, the disagreement will no doubt continue as it relates to how the disunity in this life will transition to unity in the next, they explain.
“Indeed, we are all getting closer to that glorious reality by God’s grace as we live out our Christian lives from decade to decade, walking in the obedience of faith, encouraged by hope and empowered by love.”
“God is not a prerequisite for good values and morality,” Greg Smith, Pew’s associate director of research, said in a post about the findings. ” … [T]he public’s increased rejection of the idea that belief in God is necessary for morality is due, in large part, to the spike in the share of Americans who are religious ‘nones.’”
Nones now account for about one-quarter — 23 percent — of American adults, up from 16 percent in 2007. But their growth is not the whole story behind the numbers.
In the current poll, Protestants and Catholics were also polled, and 45 percent of them agree that God is not necessary for personal morality, up from 42 percent in 2011.
Even white evangelicals, who traditionally believe a relationship with God is crucial to morality, have budged. In 2011, one quarter of them (26 percent) said it was possible to be good without God, while now almost a third (32 percent) say so.
“To be sure, most white evangelicals still say belief in God is necessary for morality,” Smith writes. “But the share who say belief in God is a necessary underpinning of being moral has declined from 72 percent to 65 percent in just six years.”
The poll’s findings were published Monday (Oct. 16), four days before “Openly Secular Day” on Oct. 20, an event promoted by multiple organizations of atheists, humanists, agnostics and other secular individuals to highlight their lack of religious beliefs.
“It’s getting to the point where even devoutly religious people know somebody who’s an atheist,” he said in an email.
“Just as we saw with the LGBTQ movement, it becomes a lot harder for religious people to demonize us when they know us, and knowing us poses a direct challenge to the absurd idea that people can’t be good without God.”
Two years ago, archaeologists began excavating under the section of the Western Wall known as Wilson’s Arch hoping to determine its age. It leads to the indoor men’s prayer section. (CBN News)
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) unveiled a huge underground section of the Western Wall on Monday that had been hidden for nearly 2,000 years and while digging, they also discovered a Roman-era surprise.
Two years ago, archaeologists began excavating under the section of the Western Wall known as Wilson’s Arch hoping to determine its age. It leads to the indoor men’s prayer section.
“We drilled down these beams to support the floor,” IAA archaeologist Tehillah Lieberman told CBN News. “One of the main goals of the excavation was to not interrupt with the prayer activity going on.”
Wilson’s Arch is the only intact, visible structure remaining from the Temple Mount compound of the Second Temple period.
It was the last arch in a series that made up a giant bridge leading to the Temple Mount from the west and served as a passage for people to enter the Temple Mount and aqueduct.
It was no surprise that archaeologists exposed eight new courses or rows of massive stones of the Western Wall that had been buried beneath it for 1,700 years.
“We knew it was here, but to see it is very exciting,” said Lieberman.
“This is the Western Wall. This is the exact same thing that you see upstairs and outside. The preservation here is a lot better because it’s been covered—no rain, no sun. The preservation here of the stones is probably the best of the stones in the Western Wall that we know of today,” she said.
What they found under the street level there was a surprise.
“The most interesting thing that we found over here is a semi-circular building or theatre-like building,” said archaeologist Dr. Avi Salamon.
Salamon said it’s the first time in 50 years of excavating in Jerusalem that archaeologists found a public Roman building like this.
“Therefore the importance of the excavation is enormous,” Salamon told CBN News.
And it also confirmed historical writings that said there was a theatre near the Temple Mount. But oddly enough, archaeologists believe it was never used. Still it showed the change in character of the city.
“This shows us the change of the culture of the city from a Jewish city focusing on Temple Mount, Jerusalem changed into a Roman colony that has different needs, different uses—one of them is building entertainment, leisure buildings as this theater-like structure,” said Lieberman.
And there’s more.
“Underneath, where the floor originally was, we exposed the drainage channel that is built out of stone,” said Lieberman. “It’s parallel to the Western Wall, it’s parallel to the arches pier and it slopes towards the south.”
Lieberman says there’s another drainage channel that connects Robinson’s arch to the south to the City of David.
“It might even connect to that same drainage channel we know in Robinson’s Arch and to City of David and if that’s true you can probably walk from underneath the Western Wall plaza of today, the modern Western Wall plaza all the way to pool of Siloam,” she said.
Archaeologists hope to open the site to the public in a few years.
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Many of us feel discouraged whenever the answer to our prayers seem to arrive late. We feel desperate for an answer to our questions and come to God in prayer to inquire of Him, but we don’t receive a swift reply. Have you ever felt like God is slow to respond?
If you have, I have something to share to you.
When the answers come late
Many, if not all, of us have experienced praying for something only to see the answer to our prayer arrive seemingly late. Some pray for provision to pay for hospital bills, only to see the money come after the loved one is pronounced dead. Some pray for urgent help in crisis, only to see the crisis pass and properties or lives damaged before the response comes.
I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about: you’re praying but the answer arrives way past the time or moment of your need. Or perhaps, you’re praying but the answer is delayed and you can’t move on to the next step because God doesn’t seem to reply fast enough for you.
Friends, I understand you. Things like this happen. But since our God has His purpose in mind for everything that happens, you can be sure there are reasons why delays happen and prayer answers sometimes arrive late according to our timeline.
Reasons to hope
Friends, the truth is that God is never delayed, nor is He too early. The Bible says God does what He wants, and since He is good, righteous and just, we can be sure that what He wants will always be the best for us. What we perceive as “delays” are actually God’s ways to bring about His desired end.
To help you find hope and purpose for the delays that are happening to you, here are some things you need to know.
1) Delays can be caused by the devil
Daniel, a man of God during Babylon’s reign, experienced a tremendous delay. Early in the book of Daniel, we find him quickly receiving God’s revelation for the king’s dream (see Daniel 2). Later, however, we find him praying but not receiving the reply as quickly as that.
Daniel 10 tells us that he prayed and fasted for 21 days before the answer arrived. God actually sent His reply to Daniel’s prayer as soon as the latter prayed, but the devil prevented the answer from arriving (see Daniel 10:13).
2) Delays should cause us to pursue God harder
Daniel, seeing no reply for quite some time after he prayed, didn’t get discouraged. He didn’t stop praying; rather he kept praying harder. Remember that he fasted 21 days or until the answer arrived. He grew all the more persistent to receive God’s answer.
3) Delays should cause us to check our hearts
While Daniel showed us that we should be persistent in prayer until the answer arrives, James tells us we should also check our hearts before we expect to receive any reply from God:
“You ask, and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your passions.” (James 4:3)
Maybe we aren’t receiving what we are praying for because we don’t have the right heart. God won’t give us something that will be dangerous to our relationship with Him. As such, we must ask according to His desires, which are good for us.
A final word
Friends, don’t be discouraged when the answers to your prayers seem delayed. God loves you and wants what is best for you. I pray that the delays you experience cause you to press into Him harder.
“This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. So if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have whatever we asked of Him.” (1 John 5:14-15)
Shane Idleman | Contributor to ChristianHeadlines.com
I recently spoke at a community college in Southern California demonstrating that faith and science are not at odds. In posts leading up to the event, I was labeled a “hate pastor” as LGBT activists protested the event. Sadly, due to escalating campus protests across America, a number of sheriff deputies were on stand-by.
My wife and I were perplexed – when did a message of love become a message of hate? We love the LGBT community and I wasn’t talking about this issue that evening. When my wife approached them, she was attacked verbally – from profanity to sexual innuendos. Ironically, those who promote tolerance are often intolerant of those who disagree.
This experience, as well as an upcoming appearance on Fox News.com with Lauren Green to debate a pastor who supports homosexuality, prompted me to define the misunderstandings.
Photo courtesy: Unsplash/Max Templeton
1. Tolerance “tolerates” differences; love embraces regardless of differences.
In 2016, I received a call from a concerned sister whose brother was suicidal. The following day, I had the privilege of visiting him, a male prostitute, in North Hollywood. I spent two hours sharing God’s love, my prodigal story, and hope in Christ. I left him feeling hopeful and encouraged.
A month later, I received a call that he had died in his sleep, possibly from complications of pneumonia. Just prior to his death, he told his family that he was reading my book, Desperate for More of God.Tolerance would not have motivated me to drive three hours round trip, but love did. The message from his memorial is here. Judge for yourself – love or hate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT4AISU44bc&t=9s.
2. Challenging those with whom we disagree is often a characteristic of love, not hate.
Parents confront, challenge, and admonish daily. They don’t hate their children. Doctors and therapists challenge lifestyles that are high risk to help their patients. The reason it’s being labeled hate speech is to silence the messenger. In short, they don’t want to hear.
Jesus said that since the beginning of creation, God created them male and female in order that they would be joined together and become one flesh – to be fruitful and to multiply. He adds, “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mark 10:9). Males and females were created purposely and complementary by design.
The question arises, “But not all married couples can have children, thus procreation is not necessary?” True, but this fact does not support homosexuality. Some are unable to conceive, and some have no desire for marriage or sex – exceptions do not void the rule. 1 Corinthians 7:2 is very clear that each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
5. There is no Scriptural support for homosexuality.
Some argue, “The Bible is not an ethical textbook – culture changes and so does truth.” Not so. Not one moral law that God gave is obsolete, from adultery to fornication to homosexaulity. Things that were harmful then are harmful now. They are never painted in a positive light. They caused deep pain then as they do now. Some have even suggested that Naomi and Ruth and Jonathan and David had same-sex relationships. This gives the phrase “grasping for the wind” new meaning. This is eisegesis in its purest form – reading things into the text that are not there.
Some parents change their view when they find their son or daughter in an LGBT lifestyle; confused, they “accept” the lifestyle, but feelings are not a gauge for truth. Instead, offer hope and remind them that we all struggle with something. If a child sins in the area of anger, infidelity, or addiction we don’t change the Scriptures to fit their behavior, we offer hope in the midst of the struggle. Why should homosexuality or transgenderism be any different? No matter how many laws are passed in favor of gay marriage, it will not change God’s mind. Times change; truth does not.
6. The Bible is crystal clear on the issue of sexual sin.
As a famous teacher once said of the Bible, “If the plain sense makes good sense seek no other sense lest it result in nonsense.” I cringe every time I hear misguided statements in an attempt to support homosexuality, such as misinterpreting “abandoning natural relations” in Romans 1:26-28. Or that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was only neglecting the poor. Or that Corinthians is outdated and Leviticus is talking about rape. Indeed, neglecting the poor is/was a sin, but it was not the only sin. In addition to rampant homosexuality, they were drunkards, gluttons, covetous, profane, and wicked. The context of Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction was much more than neglecting the poor: “they were haughty and committed abominations.” (See Ezekiel 16 and Jude 1:5-8.) Additionally, early church Fathers, as well as creeds and confessions and Reformers all echoed the same truth.
7. God can advise against eating shellfish, as well as homosexuality.
Although the dietary laws of the Old Testament do not apply today, they are still beneficial. For example, we now know why things like pork and shellfish were forbidden – they are unhealthy. God’s wisdom is sound and purposeful in guiding relationships as well. Leviticus 20:13 states, “If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination…”. Romans 1:24-26 says that homosexuality dishonors the body – an exchange of the truth for a lie takes place and they worship the creature rather than the Creator: “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.”
To suggest that these verses are invalid today because God also said to avoid shellfish or because it was the culture back then, is erroneous. I can tell my son not to place his feet on the table, and in the same sentence tell him not to play in the street – both “do not’s” are true even though the consequences differ.
8. The mocking tones of most pastors who support homosexuality speak volumes.
A movement that truly is of God is undergirded with humility; words are seasoned with grace. But the opposite is often true with pastors who distort truth. One well-known pastor chided fundamentalists, “They are not fun and they are mental.” How foolish – the term fundamentals comes from essays constructed around 1905 covering the “fundamentals” of the faith. He is actually mocking the foundation of the faith.
Another leader made a shocking statement, “Our greatest spiritual problem has not been sin, it’s been shame.” Confused? So was I. Shame comes from sin. Many of these Christian leaders who support gay marriage only speak to their cheerleaders – they mock anyone who does not agree. I think of Jeremiah 23 often – they are teachers who alter God’s Word, avoid the difficult truths, and encourage sin. Granted, arrogance and anger happen on the other side as well, but we don’t accept that behavior from either camp.
Although new biological and psychological evidence suggests that born gay lacks scientific support, let’s assume that a person can be born gay. We were all born with a bent to lie, cheat, lust, indulge, and deceive. In fact, pornography has been coined “every man’s battle.” But that doesn’t make it right…it makes us sinful and in desperate need of a Savior. The hearts of men can change, and they change daily through a relationship with Christ.
Photo courtesy: Unsplash/Levi Saunders
10. The struggle for gay rights is not a civil rights issue.
Race and color are not choices. Homosexuality is not a civil rights issue. It cannot be linked with the abolishment of slavery either. Some say, “The Bible encouraged slavery. Therefore, homosexuality is obviously okay now!” The Bible doesn’t say that slavery is “right”—it merely references a time when people had slaves and what those conditions were. [Dr. Michael Brown did an exceptional job of breaking down the civil rights issue here: https://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2012/05/22/why-gay-is-not-the-new-black-n1068673.]
In closing, there will be a time when we stand before God to give an account. Some may say, “Lord, I anchored my life in Christ. I believed Your Word and based my life on it as best that I could.” Others will say, “Lord, you gave me a new perspective…a new truth. Although Scripture once said that homosexuality is sin, I don’t think that applies now.” Whose shoes would you rather be in?
“When we become so tolerant that we lead people into mental fog and spiritual darkness, we are not acting like Christians—we are acting like cowards” (A.W. Tozer). We are so worried about offending others, but have we stopped to consider that we may be offending God?
*A sermon on these 10 points will be posted at WCFAV.org after 10/22/2017.
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