Saturday, May 14, 2011
A Biblical Response to Open Homosexuality
Watch this Video to be fair. Many who have watched this have lauded the young woman as brave, honest, forthright and in all those ways without hypocrisy as moral. It is important to give this fair hearing. In the video, this young woman declares that she is a Lesbian, a Homosexual.
It's hard not to have some sympathies for this young woman's plight. She is in a place she didn't choose. She tried NOT to be. She will be subject to significant rejection and even abuse because of her transparency. Her coming out was hard.
I want to be clear. I must only say what God says. Like Baalam, if I try to deviate, I will be shut up. So, it must speak the heart of God as revealed in scripture and by the Holy Spirit. I must ONLY say what God Says. People will interpret this as a teaching. NO, teaching is taking principles and meshing them against the world. I am taking the world and meshing them against the WORD of God. There is no relevancy, no cultural adjustment for hearers. That is teaching that holds a plum-line of the Word of God (in love) next to where the world is and by the Word demonstrate how far from the that center we have drifted.
I would also invite anyone who reads this to TEST, JUDGE and MEASURE if the this has been successful in revealing the heart of the matter. As I have allowed this to sort in the Spirit, this is what I See:
Every person on the planet that has ever lived or ever will live (other than Jesus the Christ) has sinned or carries the curse of a sin nature and therefore comes short of the perfection to stand in the presence of the Holy Perfect Glory of God. He cannot allow a person who is a sinner in HIS presence or HE would cease to be Holy and HIS Heaven would be stained by sin.
If you sin, you cannot enter heaven. If heaven's perfection is what is destined for you on earth as it is in heaven then any sin, big or small, open or secret is less than God's purpose for you.
We were all born with a twisted nature, iniquity. None of us were born with perfect obedience to the will of God to successfully live as HE purposed for us. I was born twisted in many ways and so were you. The good news is HE was bruised for our twisted-ness (Iniquities). So when people say, they didn't choose this, it was handed to them, that they were born this way, there is truth in what they say:
I have worked in prison ministry long enough to know the truth of this. Many of the men and women there are there because of generational iniquity, twistedness that came to them, some by bloodline. Breaking those generational twistednesses is NOT just deliverance, it requires a long discipleship process that untwists values and mindsets they were born with or developed.
The result of the twisted values and mindsets, no matter how acquired, is a propensity to sin. To bear the twisted nature is not a sin. To practice it is. Every person bears the twisted nature of some kind or another and is sinful by nature. If you deny that you sin, you are deceived and without truth in you.
The Laws of God and HIS Word is a light and a mirror for us to recognize the sin in our life and our need for the cleansing blood of Jesus. The list isn't that long. There are the ten commandments, and the revelations from the Gospel and writings of those after the day of Pentecost. Jesus makes it pretty clear and so do the apostolic utterances, that there are things that if we PRACTICE them are Sin and will condemn us to an eternal hell. Damnation may even be something that we will begin to experience on this side of the veil. In working with prisoners it is obvious that they are already living a hell that will intensify when they step from time into eternity. Those in bondage to sin know they are, even if they try to rationalize it. They know something is not right. If they suppress it for a while they are deceived by the deceiver.
Like lying. Everyone does. They know it's not right. They know it goes against the truth and laws of God. They know they should NOT do so. Yet they lie. We lie. I lie. You lie. If I tell a lie, does that make me a liar? If so there is no hope for me at all? According to the scriptures I am eternally lost, to be thrown into the lake of fire:
SO, am I lost because I lie? NO. I am not a liar because I lie. I am a liar if I make peace with my sin, submit to, openly practice such things. The word of God is clear, it is not the sin repented of that condemns us, it is the PRACTICE of such things. I am not a liar because I lie, I become a Liar when I see that as my identity, my practice, my standard operation. The Blood of JESUS is enough to cleanse me from EVERY unrighteous act, even lying. BUT if I practice it without repentance I become a Liar and there is no remission of sin. I am condemned by my practice.
Jesus recognized the right of a crowd to stone a woman caught in adultery. He didn't stop them. He did something that made them stop. Then after they went away, He said,
If she had protested, "But Lord, I was born this way. I can't help it. I have these adulterous impulses. I like to sleep around. God made me this way". She would have walked away condemned, BY GOD. It was the practice of the sin that caused him to say what he did.
Certainly she sinned again in the rest of her life. Like you and I do. She MIGHT have even committed adultery again. BUT if she repented, fell on her face, she was instantly restored. God IS faithful and just to forgive our sins. BUT also to Cleanse us. It's that second part that must be seen in light of the video.
Sin is sin. The Practice of continual sin without repentance makes us a sinner, and will cost us our eternal soul if we don't turn around, repent.
I lie, but I am not a liar for I am not willing to give into the sin that trips me up. I will not make peace with my sin. I will fight against the impulses that would cause me to sin. I will run to the Cross and plead the blood when I fail. If I didn't I would be on the wrong side of the Cross.
I am therefore NOT a liar as Jesus described in:
I know HIM and therefore am a Child of God who struggles with a Sin, Forgiven, Restored, Headed for a certain Heaven, but only as one who sins and repents rather than one who makes peace with a sin identity and says, I am a Liar, I lie, I was born a liar and therefore lie. It causes reproach to be a liar, but if I boldly admit my lying, you can't harm me any more, I have come into the light. My transparency protects me. Right? Wrong.
IS that the call of God? If this young girl gets to heaven (and I hope she will) will she be a lesbian in Heaven? Will a liar who embraces the Liar identity be a liar in heaven? Will Joni Erickson Tada be a quadriplegic in heaven? Of course not. So if we call out on earth as it is in heaven....?
An old Russian Proverb says: Make peace with man and war with your sins....
Our flesh and our Spirit are at war. Constantly. We may be overpowered even occasionally by the enemy, to have lost the battle sometimes. Sin and the devil have been defeated. That much is clear. The problem is satan didn't get the memo. He thinks he still has a shot. Sin Flesh and the Devil is in the world.
1 John 2:16
In the words of Isaiah, “no one who believes in him will be put to shame” (Rom 9:33, 10:11). Peter reminded Christians of the same thing: “For it stands in scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and he who believes in him will not be put to shame’” (1 Pet. 2:6).
“ Sin shall not be your master, for you are not under law but under grace" (Rom.6:14).
“Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John. 3:3).
Christ is “our wisdom and our righteousness” (1 Cor. 1:30). Our righteousness is not of ourselves, “for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4)
“... we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Please notice the word “but”, following the words “...we wrestle not against flesh and blood...” This is even in our own flesh......
She is lost forever if she doesn't find Jesus and come to him as broken as most of you have done. To praise her bravery might be a good thing for the moment, but we should mourn for her willingness to embrace a life of sin. Jesus stands ready to forgive her, without condemnation, but then he will say, "go then and leave your life of sin. Sin no more".
She is on the wrong side of the Cross of Christ. Let grace abound to her as her sin abounds. She needs Jesus....who will go? She can be healed of this affliction. She may always have the urges and impulses. She may even stumble. But she can be whole where she is broken.
All of this is drawn from the Word of God written down for us.
It's hard not to have some sympathies for this young woman's plight. She is in a place she didn't choose. She tried NOT to be. She will be subject to significant rejection and even abuse because of her transparency. Her coming out was hard.
I want to be clear. I must only say what God says. Like Baalam, if I try to deviate, I will be shut up. So, it must speak the heart of God as revealed in scripture and by the Holy Spirit. I must ONLY say what God Says. People will interpret this as a teaching. NO, teaching is taking principles and meshing them against the world. I am taking the world and meshing them against the WORD of God. There is no relevancy, no cultural adjustment for hearers. That is teaching that holds a plum-line of the Word of God (in love) next to where the world is and by the Word demonstrate how far from the that center we have drifted.
I would also invite anyone who reads this to TEST, JUDGE and MEASURE if the this has been successful in revealing the heart of the matter. As I have allowed this to sort in the Spirit, this is what I See:
Every person on the planet that has ever lived or ever will live (other than Jesus the Christ) has sinned or carries the curse of a sin nature and therefore comes short of the perfection to stand in the presence of the Holy Perfect Glory of God. He cannot allow a person who is a sinner in HIS presence or HE would cease to be Holy and HIS Heaven would be stained by sin.
If you sin, you cannot enter heaven. If heaven's perfection is what is destined for you on earth as it is in heaven then any sin, big or small, open or secret is less than God's purpose for you.
We were all born with a twisted nature, iniquity. None of us were born with perfect obedience to the will of God to successfully live as HE purposed for us. I was born twisted in many ways and so were you. The good news is HE was bruised for our twisted-ness (Iniquities). So when people say, they didn't choose this, it was handed to them, that they were born this way, there is truth in what they say:
The meaning of “iniquities” comes from a Hebrew word that means “to twist, to distort or to bend”. Often times an iniquity will start as a bended version of the truth; a slight distortion of the real. An iniquity puts its own twist on life, values, mindsets, etc. Upon further study of God’s word it seems like iniquity is different from transgression in that it is something handed to you whereas transgression is something you personally do.
I have worked in prison ministry long enough to know the truth of this. Many of the men and women there are there because of generational iniquity, twistedness that came to them, some by bloodline. Breaking those generational twistednesses is NOT just deliverance, it requires a long discipleship process that untwists values and mindsets they were born with or developed.
The result of the twisted values and mindsets, no matter how acquired, is a propensity to sin. To bear the twisted nature is not a sin. To practice it is. Every person bears the twisted nature of some kind or another and is sinful by nature. If you deny that you sin, you are deceived and without truth in you.
The Laws of God and HIS Word is a light and a mirror for us to recognize the sin in our life and our need for the cleansing blood of Jesus. The list isn't that long. There are the ten commandments, and the revelations from the Gospel and writings of those after the day of Pentecost. Jesus makes it pretty clear and so do the apostolic utterances, that there are things that if we PRACTICE them are Sin and will condemn us to an eternal hell. Damnation may even be something that we will begin to experience on this side of the veil. In working with prisoners it is obvious that they are already living a hell that will intensify when they step from time into eternity. Those in bondage to sin know they are, even if they try to rationalize it. They know something is not right. If they suppress it for a while they are deceived by the deceiver.
Like lying. Everyone does. They know it's not right. They know it goes against the truth and laws of God. They know they should NOT do so. Yet they lie. We lie. I lie. You lie. If I tell a lie, does that make me a liar? If so there is no hope for me at all? According to the scriptures I am eternally lost, to be thrown into the lake of fire:
I am lost forever if this is true. Since this comes from the source of all authority, I should just give up, admit I am lost, become a bold liar and tell people I was born this way (it's true) and that I am hopeless; UNLESS...there is a redeemer. UNLESS there is a Savior. UNLESS someone else could make this wrong right for me. A psychiatrist helping me rationalize the reality of my untruthful nature can't. Society saying, "Everyone does it" doesn't justify it. An education system that tries to normalize lying won't change me. A social movement of Liars that encourages people to come out as liars and embrace how they were born will put me on a path that leads to hell.
The cowardly, unbelieving, vile, murderers, sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, idolaters, liars, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexual offenders, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers, and swindlers (Rev. 21:8; 1 Cor. 6:9,10; Gal. 5:19-21)
SO, am I lost because I lie? NO. I am not a liar because I lie. I am a liar if I make peace with my sin, submit to, openly practice such things. The word of God is clear, it is not the sin repented of that condemns us, it is the PRACTICE of such things. I am not a liar because I lie, I become a Liar when I see that as my identity, my practice, my standard operation. The Blood of JESUS is enough to cleanse me from EVERY unrighteous act, even lying. BUT if I practice it without repentance I become a Liar and there is no remission of sin. I am condemned by my practice.
Jesus recognized the right of a crowd to stone a woman caught in adultery. He didn't stop them. He did something that made them stop. Then after they went away, He said,
“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”This is the story where "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone comes from". It is misused constantly to say we shouldn't judge those who have made peace with their flesh nature. When Jesus released her, she wasn't off the hook. SHE was instructed to LEAVE YOUR LIFE OF SIN.
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
If she had protested, "But Lord, I was born this way. I can't help it. I have these adulterous impulses. I like to sleep around. God made me this way". She would have walked away condemned, BY GOD. It was the practice of the sin that caused him to say what he did.
Certainly she sinned again in the rest of her life. Like you and I do. She MIGHT have even committed adultery again. BUT if she repented, fell on her face, she was instantly restored. God IS faithful and just to forgive our sins. BUT also to Cleanse us. It's that second part that must be seen in light of the video.
Sin is sin. The Practice of continual sin without repentance makes us a sinner, and will cost us our eternal soul if we don't turn around, repent.
I lie, but I am not a liar for I am not willing to give into the sin that trips me up. I will not make peace with my sin. I will fight against the impulses that would cause me to sin. I will run to the Cross and plead the blood when I fail. If I didn't I would be on the wrong side of the Cross.
I am therefore NOT a liar as Jesus described in:
John 8:54.55 says, "Jesus answered: “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father that glorifies me, he who you say is your God; and yet you have not known him. But I know him. And if I said I do not know him I should be like you, a liar."
I know HIM and therefore am a Child of God who struggles with a Sin, Forgiven, Restored, Headed for a certain Heaven, but only as one who sins and repents rather than one who makes peace with a sin identity and says, I am a Liar, I lie, I was born a liar and therefore lie. It causes reproach to be a liar, but if I boldly admit my lying, you can't harm me any more, I have come into the light. My transparency protects me. Right? Wrong.
IS that the call of God? If this young girl gets to heaven (and I hope she will) will she be a lesbian in Heaven? Will a liar who embraces the Liar identity be a liar in heaven? Will Joni Erickson Tada be a quadriplegic in heaven? Of course not. So if we call out on earth as it is in heaven....?
An old Russian Proverb says: Make peace with man and war with your sins....
Our flesh and our Spirit are at war. Constantly. We may be overpowered even occasionally by the enemy, to have lost the battle sometimes. Sin and the devil have been defeated. That much is clear. The problem is satan didn't get the memo. He thinks he still has a shot. Sin Flesh and the Devil is in the world.
1 John 2:16
For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.Paul well knew the law of sin and death:
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"The issue with the young lady is not that she is a homosexual, trapped in a homosexual lifestyle that is as sinful as lying, but that she is headed for hell as an unbeliever and has bought a social lie that she has now embraced:
--Romans 7:15-24 (NIV)
“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: 7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. 8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. 9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:...” Colossians 2:6-10.She has NOT received Christ Jesus and needs him. He will save her, deliver her, sanctify her. It isn't instant. It will take time. But she will be whole if she steps from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. God doesn't want anyone to perish. She is on the road to certain perdition and for that we should pray that she find Jesus. Her homosexuality is a symptom of her lost nature and the deception she has given into. The shame she has felt, the rejection she fears will not be solved by her posting this video. It may in fact lead many to follow her in her quest for acceptance. He quest will be empty without Jesus.
In the words of Isaiah, “no one who believes in him will be put to shame” (Rom 9:33, 10:11). Peter reminded Christians of the same thing: “For it stands in scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and he who believes in him will not be put to shame’” (1 Pet. 2:6).
“ Sin shall not be your master, for you are not under law but under grace" (Rom.6:14).
“Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John. 3:3).
Christ is “our wisdom and our righteousness” (1 Cor. 1:30). Our righteousness is not of ourselves, “for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4)
“... we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Please notice the word “but”, following the words “...we wrestle not against flesh and blood...” This is even in our own flesh......
She is lost forever if she doesn't find Jesus and come to him as broken as most of you have done. To praise her bravery might be a good thing for the moment, but we should mourn for her willingness to embrace a life of sin. Jesus stands ready to forgive her, without condemnation, but then he will say, "go then and leave your life of sin. Sin no more".
She is on the wrong side of the Cross of Christ. Let grace abound to her as her sin abounds. She needs Jesus....who will go? She can be healed of this affliction. She may always have the urges and impulses. She may even stumble. But she can be whole where she is broken.
All of this is drawn from the Word of God written down for us.
