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Posts tagged ‘sexual immorality’

Rainbow-flag Christians quizzed by pastor


waving flagPosted By -NO AUTHOR- On 07/10/2015

Article reblogged from WND: http://www.wnd.com

URL to article: http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/rainbow-flag-christians-quizzed-by-pastor

gay_march_rainbow_flagIn the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s creation of “same-sex marriage,” a pastor’s list of questions for Christians who support the decision is going viral. It’s been shared on Facebook nearly 400,000 times and tweeted more than 3,000. Pastor Kevin DeYoung’s list of questions for rainbow flag-waving Christians includes: “As you think about the long history of the church and the near universal disapproval of same-sex sexual activity, what do you think you understand about the Bible that Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin and Luther failed to grasp?”

DeYoung’s questions have been posted on the website for The Gospel Coalition, which describes itself as a “broadly Reformed network of churches.” It “encourages and educates” current and next-generation Christian leaders by “advocating gospel centered principles and practices that glorify the Savior and do good to those for whom he shed his life’s blood.”Picture2

DeYoung is senior pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan.

He says the court’s ruling “hurts.”

Christian apologist Josh McDowell’s “Evidence for Christianity” addresses the need in society today for a solid body of persuasive evidence about Christianity. It answers the hard-to-answer questions.

“Making legal and theological decisions based on what makes people feel better is part of what got us into this mess in the first place,” he wrote. “There are many reasons for our lamentation, from fear that religious liberties will be taken away to worries about social ostracism and cultural marginalization.”

But he said the biggest hurt comes from Christians who give “their hearty ‘Amen’ to a practice we still think is a sin and a decision we think is bad for our country.”

Among the questions he asks: “How long have you believed that gay marriage is something to be celebrated?” and “What Bible verses led you to change your mind?”

He also wants to know how a positive case can be made from Scripture “that sexual activity between two persons of the same sex is a blessing.”

“What verses would you use to show that a marriage between two persons of the same sex can adequately depict Christ and the church?”

Why, he asks, did Jesus “reassert the Genesis definition of marriage as being one man and one woman?”

“Do you believe that passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Revelation 21:8 teach that sexual immorality can keep you out of heaven?”

“What arguments would you use to explain to Christians in Africa, Asia and South America that their understanding of homosexuality is biblically incorrect and your new understanding of homosexuality is not culturally conditioned?”

Specific to the United States, he asks, “Do you think Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were motivated by personal animus and bigotry when they, for almost all of their lives, defined marriage as a covenant relationship between one man and one woman?”

Once the biblical standard is abandoned, he asks, “Should marriage be limited to only two people?” and “On what basis, if any, would you prevent consenting adults of any relation and of any number from getting married?”

And addressing the responsibility of churches, he asks, “What open and affirming churches would you point to where people are being converted to orthodox Christianity, sinners are being warned of judgment and called to repentance and missionaries are being sent out to plant churches among unreached peoples?”

DeYoung said the questions “aren’t meant to be snarky or merely rhetorical.”

“They are sincere, if pointed, questions that I hope will cause my brothers and sisters with the new rainbow-themed avatars to slow down and think about the flag you’re flying.”

 

OrdinanceAgainstRainbowFlagDraftedinLouisianna070713For evangelicals who lament last Friday’s Supreme Court decision, it’s been a hard few days. We aren’t asking for emotional pity, nor do I suspect many people are eager to give us any. Our pain is not sacred. Making legal and theological decisions based on what makes people feel better is part of what got us into this mess in the first place. Nevertheless, it still hurts.

There are many reasons for our lamentation, from fear that religious liberties will be taken away to worries about social ostracism and cultural marginalization. But of all the things that grieve us, perhaps what’s been most difficult is seeing some of our friends, some of our family members, and some of the folks we’ve sat next to in church giving their hearty “Amen” to a practice we still think is a sin and a decision we think is bad for our country. It’s one thing for the whole nation to throw a party we can’t in good conscience attend. It’s quite another to look around for friendly faces to remind us we’re not alone and then find that they are out there jamming on the dance floor. We thought the rainbow was God’s sign (Gen. 9:8-17).

If you consider yourself a Bible-believing Christian, a follower of Jesus whose chief aim is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, there are important questions I hope you will consider before picking up your flag and cheering on the sexual revolution. These questions aren’t meant to be snarky or merely rhetorical. They are sincere, if pointed, questions that I hope will cause my brothers and sisters with the new rainbow themed avatars to slow down and think about the flag you’re flying.

1. How long have you believed that gay marriage is something to be celebrated?

2. What Bible verses led you to change your mind?

3. How would you make a positive case from Scripture that sexual activity between two persons of the same sex is a blessing to be celebrated?

4. What verses would you use to show that a marriage between two persons of the same sex can adequately depict Christ and the church?

5. Do you think Jesus would have been okay with homosexual behavior between consenting adults in a committed relationship?

6. If so, why did he reassert the Genesis definition of marriage as being one man and one woman?

7. When Jesus spoke against porneia what sins do you think he was forbidding?

8. If some homosexual behavior is acceptable, how do you understand the sinful “exchange” Paul highlights in Romans 1?

9. Do you believe that passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Revelation 21:8 teach that sexual immorality can keep you out of heaven?

10. What sexual sins do you think they were referring to?

11. As you think about the long history of the church and the near universal disapproval of same-sex sexual activity, what do you think you understand about the Bible that Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther failed to grasp?

12. What arguments would you use to explain to Christians in Africa, Asia, and South America that their understanding of homosexuality is biblically incorrect and your new understanding of homosexuality is not culturally conditioned?

13. Do you think Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were motivated by personal animus and bigotry when they, for almost all of their lives, defined marriage as a covenant relationship between one man and one woman?

14. Do you think children do best with a mother and a father?

15. If not, what research would you point to in support of that conclusion?

16. If yes, does the church or the state have any role to play in promoting or privileging the arrangement that puts children with a mom and a dad?

17. Does the end and purpose of marriage point to something more than an adult’s emotional and sexual fulfillment?

18. How would you define marriage?

19. Do you think close family members should be allowed to get married?

20. Should marriage be limited to only two people?

21. On what basis, if any, would you prevent consenting adults of any relation and of any number from getting married?

22. Should there be an age requirement in this country for obtaining a marriage license?

23. Does equality entail that anyone wanting to be married should be able to have any meaningful relationship defined as marriage?

24. If not, why not?

25. Should your brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with homosexual practice be allowed to exercise their religious beliefs without fear of punishment, retribution, or coercion?

26. Will you speak up for your fellow Christians when their jobs, their accreditation, their reputation, and their freedoms are threatened because of this issue?

27. Will you speak out against shaming and bullying of all kinds, whether against gays and lesbians or against Evangelicals and Catholics?

28. Since the evangelical church has often failed to take unbiblical divorces and other sexual sins seriously, what steps will you take to ensure that gay marriages are healthy and accord with Scriptural principles?

29. Should gay couples in open relationships be subject to church discipline?

30. Is it a sin for LGBT persons to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage?

31. What will open and affirming churches do to speak prophetically against divorce, fornication, pornography, and adultery wherever they are found?

32. If “love wins,” how would you define love?

33. What verses would you use to establish that definition?

34. How should obedience to God’s commands shape our understanding of love?

35. Do you believe it is possible to love someone and disagree with important decisions they make?

36. If supporting gay marriage is a change for you, has anything else changed in your understanding of faith?

37. As an evangelical, how has your support for gay marriage helped you become more passionate about traditional evangelical distinctives like a focus on being born again, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross, the total trustworthiness of the Bible, and the urgent need to evangelize the lost?

38. What open and affirming churches would you point to where people are being converted to orthodox Christianity, sinners are being warned of judgment and called to repentance, and missionaries are being sent out to plant churches among unreached peoples?

39. Do you hope to be more committed to the church, more committed to Christ, and more committed to the Scriptures in the years ahead?

40. When Paul at the end of Romans 1 rebukes “those who practice such things” and those who “give approval to those who practice them,” what sins do you think he has in mind?

Food for thought, I hope. At the very least, something to chew on before swallowing everything the world and Facebook put on our plate.

Note: An earlier version of this post had the questions in paragraph format rather than enumerated. The content is still the same. Readers interested in studying what the Bible teaches about homosexuality may be interested in checking out my new book on that theme.

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How Liberalism Violates All 10 Commandments


Group-protests-Ten-Commandments-620×350

One of my readers, we’ll call him Moses, is the publisher of a mainstream newspaper in California. He wrote me the other day with an insightful observation. Since Moses works in one of the most liberal industries, in one of the most liberal states in the union, I won’t divulge his real name. We don’t want Moses tarred, feathered and banished to Oklahoma with a scarlet “C,” for Christian, emblazoned on his Harris Tweed sport coat. (Note: I have antipathy toward neither Oklahoma – I once lived there – nor Harris Tweed, though I do recommend against wearing Harris Tweed in Oklahoma. Especially in the summer.)

“Matt, think about this,” wrote Moses. “Every one of the Ten Commandments is explicitly violated by a principle of the left.”

And you know what? Slap me with a Red River catfish if Moses ain’t exactly right.

To be sure, as individuals, we’ve all violated many, if not most or all, of the 10 Commandments. In our fallen, sinful state we have an inherent propensity to rebel against God’s perfect and holy will for our lives. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Thank God for making available a path, narrow as it is, for eternal redemption and salvation through Christ Jesus.

Still, there is a difference between individual sins and a philosophical worldview that embraces those sins as a matter of course. Modern liberalism – “progressivism,” leftism, secularism, pick your poison – is built upon, by and for sin itself. Liberalism’s entire fabric is constructed by precept planks that are soaked through and stained by man’s arrogant rebellion against our Creator God.

In sum, liberalism is folly. It represents man’s futile attempt to disorder God’s natural order. It’s the unholy brainchild of God’s very first enemy, given by that enemy to God’s favored creation, us, with the sole purpose of destroying that creation.

Unfortunately, we’re all too happy to help. Liberalism just formalizes the process, making sin public policy.

Volumes could be penned on the myriad ways in which the central tenets of liberalism violate each of the Ten Commandments. The following is a much truncated analysis:

1. Thou Shalt Have No Gods Before Me.

At worst, liberalism denies the very existence of God in the forms of atheism and secularism, while, at best, it adopts that wonderfully “inclusive” blasphemy called religious pluralism. Pluralism presumes to give the false gods of false religions equal footing and denies Christ as He defined Himself: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Liberal “Christianity” falls under this category. It’s pluralism with a Christian stamp.

Secular humanism, liberalism’s prevailing false religion, denies God altogether and crowns man as king over himself and the measure of all things. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

2. Thou Shalt Not Make Graven Images.

We’re talking idolatry here. Liberalism is built on it. First, there’s literal idolatry (the worship of man-made idols, animals or inanimate objects) enjoyed by our New Age friends. And then there’s everything else: pantheistic environmentalism, the idols of “reproductive freedom,” “sexual liberation and equality,” etc.

Essentially, liberalism worships the created over the Creator. Liberalism also worships the sins of the flesh (see Commandments No. 1, 6 and 7).

Leftist State Religion

3. Thou Shalt Not Take the Lord’s Name in Vain.

  • To deny God is to take the Lord’s name in vain.
  • To deny God as He defines Himself is to take the Lord’s name in vain.
  • To misrepresent God, to call other gods God or to deny the deity of Christ is to take the Lord’s name in vain.

Liberalism does this and much more. Many liberals also mock Christ, Christianity and Christians. They revile the exclusive nature of Jesus, His commands and His faithful followers. They hate truth.

4. Remember to Keep Holy the Sabbath.

This one is a bit tricky as it is widely understood to fall under the Jewish ceremonial law, not the moral law – the old covenant, not the new. Christ Himself healed (worked) on the Sabbath. That said, many Christians still view Sunday as the Sabbath and do, indeed, keep it holy. Not all liberals (there are certainly liberal Jews), but liberalism at large denies the Sabbath any significance whatsoever, much less a holy significance.

5. Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother.

Liberalism seeks to supplant parents with “progressive” government. It diminishes parental rights and encourages children to rebel against the antiquated conventions held by mom and dad. It denies that children even need a mother and father and bristles at the “heteronormative” lack of “gender neutrality” inherent within the very words “mother and father.” The sin-centered, counter-biblical notion of “gay marriage” desecrates God’s design for true marriage and family and is intended to undermine these cornerstone institutions.

6. Thou Shalt Not Murder.

  • Abortion,
  • euthanasia,
  • “pro-choice,”
  • “reproductive rights,”
  • “death with dignity.”

Need I say more? Sacrosanct is the liberal rite of passage for a feminist mother to slaughter her own child in the womb. Fifty-five million dead babies later, liberals continue to worship at the pagan altar of “choice” (see Commandments No. 1 and 2).

7. Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery.

This means all sexual immorality as identified in the scriptures, to include

  • marital infidelity,
  • fornication,
  • homosexuality,
  • bestiality,
  • incest,
  • et al.

Liberalism, it seems, embraces all perversions of God’s design for human sexuality. Central to liberalism is moral relativism. When it comes to sex, you can do no wrong because there is no wrong.

8. Thou Shalt Not Steal.

With class warfare as its fuel, liberalism embraces the redistributionist philosophies of Marx and Engels. Liberalism thrives on theft. Like some completely incompetent and inefficient Robin Hood, liberal government steals from the middle class to give to the poor, thereby ensuring that liberal politicians remain in power and everyone else remains miserable.

9. Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness.

I give you Saul Alinsky from his Rules for Radicals:

“The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means.”

As we’ve learned from Barack “you can keep your insurance” Obama, that includes lying. Liberals lie. That’s what they do. The ends justify the means. Bearing false witness about detractors of liberalism is par for the course.

10. Thou Shalt Not Covet.

Again, liberalism uses man’s inherent covetousness as the driving force behind all liberal economic policies. Creating a political climate of economic envy and class warfare gives liberal government the cover needed to take wealth from those who produce and redistribute it to those who don’t. Not only does liberalism violate this commandment, liberalism commands its adherents to do the exact opposite. “Thou shalt covet.”

As Satan “masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), so, too, does liberalism masquerade as good. It’s deceptively packaged in flowery euphemisms and feel-good sound bites that promise “equality,” “tolerance” and libertine notions of “social justice.”

Yet, in reality, liberalism, in both philosophical and practical terms, simply signifies man’s predisposition to “call evil good and good evil.” It’s sin, all dolled up and doled out.

Ronald Reagan once quipped, “I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.”

If the Gipper had lived another couple decades, he might’ve found out.

 
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