Sunday, May 17, 2015
GodsView : The Great Gay Deception!
GodsView : The Great Gay Deception!: In February 2007, a colleague of mine attended the annual fundraising dinner for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the world’s largest gay...
The Great Gay Deception!
Next to him at the table was a homosexual couple, and as my friend was talking to one of the men in the couple, he suddenly had a vision—and he is not prone to such things—of a snake wrapped around the man’s neck. He knew he had to kill it before it strangled the man to death, but he also knew if he didn’t exercise extreme care in killing the snake, he would kill the man in the process.
That, in vivid pictorial illustration, is the predicament we find ourselves in today in the church. On the one hand, we see the real dangers of gay activism affecting virtually every area of our society. In fact, it can be said without exaggeration that gay activism is the principal threat to our freedoms of speech, religion and conscience. And we see how our kids are being negatively influenced in their schools and through the media by curricula and programming produced by gay activists and their straight allies.
At the same time, we want to reach out to those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender with the love of God and the compassion of Christ, recognizing how much rejection many of them have suffered and being fully aware they perceive conservative Christians to be their greatest enemies, viewing us as hateful, bigoted, intolerant and homophobic—as condemning all of them to hell.
How then do we stand against gay activism without hurting our witness to gay individuals? And how do we reach out with sensitivity without softening our stance for righteousness? How do we walk in both grace and truth together?
Reach Out and Resist
In January 2005, the Lord spoke this word to my heart: “Reach out and resist.” I knew this word to mean I was to reach out to the homosexual community with compassion while resisting gay activism with courage—and I have been seeking to live that out ever since.
I can hear already what some believers will say: “We agree we need to reach out to gays and lesbians with the gospel. Of course we do! Homosexuals are loved by God just as much as heterosexuals. Jesus shed the same blood for gays and straights. All of us are created in the image of God yet are broken and fallen. It is our sacred responsibility to share the gospel with the LGBT community—but we’ve got no business opposing gay activism. That’s mixing politics with religion, and it will only hurt our witness.”
Really? Are you sure? Was it mixing politics with religion when Christians opposed slavery and the slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries? Is it mixing politics with religion now when Christians stand up for the lives of the unborn or oppose human trafficking?
In the same way, it is not mixing politics with religion when we stand up for gender as God intended it, for sexuality as God intended it, for marriage as God intended it, just to name a few of the issues here. And while there is a real challenge to our witness to the LGBT community when we stand for righteousness, we really have no choice.
Let me explain why the stakes are so high and why it is imperative we practice the “reach out” part as well as the “resist” part.
The War on the Bible
Forty years ago, gay activists concluded their two main enemies were the psychiatric profession and the church. The former classified homosexuality as a sickness, the latter as a sin, and so an ideological war was launched to combat these mindsets.
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (followed by a host of other organizations) depathologized homosexuality, saying it was not a mental or emotional disorder of any kind.
This meant the last major obstacle to overcome was the view of the church, and that’s why there has been a concerted effort to change public perception about the Bible and homosexual practice. This effort has involved arguing that the message of the Bible is antiquated and irrelevant or, in more conservative circles, that the Word of God was condemning things like pedophilia and homosexual prostitution as opposed to committed, loving, same-sex relationships.
Make no mistake about it: Gay activists will not be satisfied until Christians across the nation believe Moses and Jesus and Paul would affirm same-sex marriage. After all, love is love, right?
This battle is coming to a church or denomination near you.
The War on Gender
What many believers do not realize is that there is not only a war on heterosexism (defined by the San Francisco Unified School District as “an overt or tacit bias against homosexuality rooted in the belief that heterosexuality is superior or the norm”). There is also a war on gender—on male-female distinctives and on the male-female dichotomy.
As stated by lesbian sociology professor Barb Burdge, “The social construct of dividing humans into male and female is oppressive and should be rejected altogether.”
In keeping with this ideology, Newsweek magazine asked almost four years ago, in its August 16, 2010, issue, “Are we facing a genderless future?” and further stated that “a small but growing number of people are rejecting being labeled male or female.”
Even more shockingly, standard policy in Los Angeles schools states, “‘Gender identity’ refers to one’s understanding, interests, outlook and feelings about whether one is female or male, or both, or neither, regardless of one’s biological sex.” (I’m not making this up.)
That’s why you’re hearing more and more about female prom kings and male prom queens. As one 16-year-old girl explains, “It’s not like the stereotype where the [prom] king has to be a jock and he’s there with the cheerleaders anymore. We live in a generation now where dudes are chicks and chicks are dudes.”
Who can imagine what’s coming next if we don’t uphold the standard of God’s male-female creation?
The War on Children’s Education
Writing in the flagship gay publication The Advocate in 1995, lesbian journalist Patricia Nell Warren stated, “Whoever captures the kids owns the future.” Long before this, in 1958, Allen Ginsberg, the famed Beat poet and gay hippie icon, shouted to a young conservative leader, “We’ll get you through your children!”
Gay activists have been incredibly successful capturing the hearts and minds of our kids, not primarily by trying to seduce them into gay sex (as if all gays were child predators), but rather through indoctrination. As stated by the National Union of Teachers in the U.K., “It is particularly important to begin to make 3- to 5-year-olds aware of the range of families that exist in the U.K. today: families with one mum, one mum and dad, two mums, two dads, grandparents, adoptive parents, guardians.”
Coloring books like Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls seek to deconstruct traditional gender roles. Children’s readers like One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads and Oh, the Things Mommies Do! What Could Be Better Than Having Two? influence the minds of nursery school kids.
And “Terminology Game Cards,” provided by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, quiz elementary school students on terms such as biological sex, gender identity, gender role, transgender, gender expression, sexual orientation, heterosexism, transphobia, asexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay, transsexual, intersexual, androgyny, cross dresser, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, queer, LGBTQ, sexual reassignment surgery, D/L (down low) and MSM.
In the last two years, the state of California passed bills that 1) call for the mandatory celebration of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender history in America for all grades and districts, with no ability to opt out for parents or students; 2) make it illegal for a minor with unwanted same-sex attractions to get professional counseling and help, even with parental permission; and 3) give rights to a student in any grade who identifies as the opposite of his/her biological sex to use the bathroom of his/her choice and to play on the sports team (male or female) of his/her choice with use of the respective locker room.
And you say we shouldn’t care about this or get involved? (Remember also that what I’m sharing here is the tiniest tip of a massive iceberg; for many more details on all these fronts, see my book A Queer Thing Happened to America.)
The War on the Media
Writing in 1989, gay strategists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen called for the “conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media.”
They and their colleagues have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams to the point that film critic and radio host Michael Medved noted several years ago, “A Martian gathering evidence about American society, simply by monitoring our television, would certainly assume that there were more gay people in America than there are evangelical Christians.”
We could now say the Martian would also conclude gay people are, with rare or no exception, incredibly nice, family-oriented, creative and considerate, while evangelical Christians are mean-spirited, judgmental, dull, greedy and hypocritical.
Back in 2010, gay media activist Jarrett Barrios stated, “It’s not enough to be Will and Grace anymore. The benchmark is higher.” (For our kids, Glee has certainly gone a good way toward advancing that goal.) That same year, an article on the insidemovie.com website noted “a particular sub-genre has emerged as perhaps the hottest gimmick in Hollywood: girl on girl [kissing].”
Yes, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is now old hat and Brokeback Mountain (which featured gay sex scenes with mainstream actors on the big screen) is remembered with nostalgia for its groundbreaking role.
Today, Hollywood is becoming more and more militant, with leading actors like Mark Ruffalo, who appeared in the lesbian-themed movie The Kids Are All Right, saying this about the stand for marriage as God intended it: “It’s the last dying, kicking, screaming, caged animal response to a world that is changing, a world that’s leaving a lot of those old, bigoted, unaccepting views behind. It’s over. Those against it are very tricky, and they’re using really dark ways to promote their ideas.”
Hollywood has declared war on biblical values—and, sad to say, many American evangelicals are more familiar with the latest movies than with the Word of God.
The War on Our Freedoms of Conscience, Speech and Religion
Whole books could be written on this subject detailing the stories of university students punished or kicked out of their schools because they could not affirm gay activism, employees fired from their jobs or fined for posting their views on homosexuality on their private Facebook pages or in local newspaper editorials, street preachers arrested for preaching the Word of God on sexuality, business owners fined for refusing to participate in gay commitment ceremonies—and the list goes on and on.
As I wrote in December 2013, “It is not just private individuals who have been punished for refusing to bow the knee to gay activism or for speaking out of turn, but also public figures like Dr. Ben Carson, pastor Louie Giglio and Sen. Rick Santorum. (In case you missed what happened with Mr. Santorum, in April, a Michigan high school canceled his speaking appearance out of concern that he would address same-sex marriage, eventually agreeing to let him speak with the caveat that students could only attend with parental permission [!]. In stark contrast, Bible-bashing, gay-sex-exalting speakers like Dan Savage are hailed as heroes in our schools and campuses, given carte blanche to talk about the most vile subjects to our young people.)”
And who can forget what happened to Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson after his comments about homosexuality were published by GQ magazine?
The simple truth is that if we don’t stand up for what is right today, we will have to apologize to our kids and grandkids tomorrow. Yet many Christians refuse to believe this, thinking that by ignoring these critical social issues and simply building bridges to their LGBT friends and co-workers, they will remove the gay community’s opposition to the gospel.
The reality is that unless we affirm that homosexual relationships and homosexual practice are fine in God’s sight, we will still be branded as homophobes and bigots.
Our Reaching and Resisting Response
What then must we do? First, we must ask God for His heart of love and compassion toward those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, recognizing the vast majority of them did not simply choose to have these attractions or gender-related issues and that, more than anything, they want to be accepted for who they are.
Second, we must get our own houses in order, repenting of our sexual sin and of our rampant, no-fault divorce.
Third, we must pray for the LGBT community and reach out to them in friendship with the message of the gospel, remembering that Jesus offers forgiveness and redemption equally to all.
And fourth, we must stand firmly against the encroachment of gay activism, recognizing the unspoken mantra of LGBT activists is, “We will intimidate and manipulate until you capitulate.” We must make it known clearly—with love, grace, compassion and humility—that capitulation is not an option.
It is our nature to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and in Jesus we will stand.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
GodsView : Your Role as a Godly Wife!
GodsView : Your Role as a Godly Wife!: There’s so much misunderstanding in the world today about the position and role of women. Those who are Bible-believing Christians are o...
Your Role as a Godly Wife!
But did you know that when the writers of the New Testament gave us God’s position on the role of women, it was absolutely counter-cultural? In that day women were treated as possessions that could be discarded at will! But when Jesus came, the position of women in the world was dramatically elevated. This is why Paul tells husbands to love their wives “as Christ loved the church” (Eph. 5:25).
Keep this in mind when you read 1 Peter 3:1, which says, “Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives” (New King James Version).
So what does being submissive look like in a biblical marriage? Well, what does your husband need? He needs a wife who honors him, a wife who prefers him, a wife who notices him, and a wife who believes in him. Above all else, a husband needs a wife who respects him!
Above all else, a husband needs a wife who respects him!
On the other hand, disrespecting your husband — being critical, non-supportive, and passive about his needs — can damage his self-esteem and cause him to emotionally withdraw to avoid being insulted again.
When God the Son came to earth to die on the cross, he clearly submitted to the will of God the Father. So here you have two co-equal beings…with one submitting to the other. What a perfect picture of a Christian marriage! So you and I must do the same. We must submit out of love to our husbands and respect them as they lead.
Understanding true biblical submission — the kind that Jesus showed to the Father — is the key to having a fulfilling marriage. A submissive wife is one who joyfully declares, “I love my husband and my family, and I am going to live my life God’s way!”
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
GodsView : The Prophecies of Ezekiel Concerning the Restorati...
GodsView : The Prophecies of Ezekiel Concerning the Restorati...: Ezekiel prophesied about the judgment of Jerusalem and other nations in Ezekiel 1-32. In Chapter 33, a messenger came and gave the news t...
The Prophecies of Ezekiel Concerning the Restoration of Israel!
In trying to understand Ezekiel’s prophecies concerning the restoration of Israel, we must realize that he was giving hope to his immediate audience who were the Jews in exile. He was giving them a message from God that told them that all was not lost and that their nation would be restored in the future. This restoration would take place beginning when many of the Jews returned to Palestine under Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel and the temple was rebuilt. However, we cannot say that Ezekiel’s prophecies concerning the restoration of Israel were fully fulfilled in this return of the Jews from exile. True, there was a definite restoration and the temple was rebuilt. Yet, his prophecies pointed to more than just that return from that first exile of the Jews in the time of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel.
For one thing, Ezekiel prophesies that David would be their shepherd and king. Now, David was long dead when they returned from the first exile. So, this prophecy could not have been fulfilled then if Ezekiel was referring to the David in Israel’s history. He would have to be referring to another David who would yet come. Who then was that David and had he come when that first restoration from exile took place? We read in Ezekiel 34:23-24 – “I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord have spoken.” Again, we read in Ezekiel 37:24 – “My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever.” This David could only be referring to the Messiah who would yet come and not to the historical David who had already died. David was a type of the Messiah who would come in the future. When the people of Israel came back to their homeland under Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel, the Messiah had not yet come, but He would come to their descendants in the future.
Certainly there was a beginning of the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecies at the first restoration. The Jews came back to their homeland and rebuilt the temple. It was this same temple to which the Messiah would come. Two passages point out the significance of this second temple and its relation to the coming of the Messiah. First is Haggai 2:6-9 which says, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.” Another passage is Malachi 3:1 which also points to the Messiah and says, “’See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the Lord Almighty.” The Messiah did come to His temple when Jesus came. He visited the temple, He taught in the temple, He cleansed the temple, He prophesied concerning the temple, and eventually brought judgment on the temple in 70 AD.
This first return of the exiles prepared the way for the coming of the Messiah by the rebuilding of the temple and it would be their descendants such as Zechariah, Simeon, Anna, and others who would welcome Him when He came. He would also be welcomed by all who believed on Him during His earthly ministry.
Though David had died long before, yet His descendant was there in Jesus Christ. It was this descendant of David who was recognized and welcomed as the Messiah. On the Day of Pentecost Peter declared that Jesus was indeed the descendant of David who would come that it was this Jesus who was the Messiah. In Acts 2:29-36, Peter says, “Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Not only had the Messiah come but He had poured our the Holy Spirit upon His disciples to be with them reminding us of Ezekiel’s prophecy in Ezekiel 37:27 where he says, “My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
So, we can say that Ezekiel’s prophecies were fulfilled when the Jews returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple at the first restoration and was further fulfilled when Jesus came to the temple Himself being the David that was promised. It was further fulfilled at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out and came to live in and with the disciples. However, we cannot say that this completely fulfills Ezekiel’s prophecies for there seems to be more yet to come.
One thing we must make clear is that God’s people were continued in and through the church. Even now Ezekiel’s prophecies are being fulfilled through the church, the new Israel, as people come to the new David, Jesus Christ and as God’s Spirit lives in and among them. There is a definite continuation of God’s people in the church of Jesus Christ and we cannot accept the sharp distinction made between Israel and the Church by some popular teachers today. This can be the only proper interpretation of passages like Ephesians 2:11-22 – “Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called ‘uncircumcised’ by those who call themselves ‘the circumcision’ (that done in the body by the hands of men) – remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
This passage and others like it in the New Testament seem to teach that the church is a continuation of Israel and the people of God. The prophecies of Ezekiel point to a time when the people of Israel would serve David, their King. Certainly a beginning of the fulfillment of this prophecy happened at Christ’s first coming. The New Testament church was begun by the descendants of those who heard this prophecy of Ezekiel the first time. The New Testament church was founded by Jewish descendants of the very ones that Ezekiel gave the promise to.
Again, we read Ezekiel 37:24-25 – “My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. The will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever.” The founders of the New Testament Church were certainly the ones to whom this prophecy initially referred. They lived in the land of Israel and they served the new David, Jesus Christ. However, we cannot say that they completely fulfilled this prophecy for it speaks of their living in the land forever.
Therefore, we must look for a further restoration of the Jews in which they would return to their own land and this time would not leave it again. We must remember that in 70 AD Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were disbursed among the nations. So, the first restoration was not a permanent one for the Jews. There would have to be another restoration in the future to see these prophecies of Ezekiel fully completed. Chapters 38 and 39 seem to point to some future period beyond the first restoration. It would be a time when the Jews would once again return to their homeland but this time they would not be scattered about but would remain in the land. Although nations would attack them, the Jewish people would remain for God would rescue them. It would also be a time when they would turn to the Lord and the implication is that they would accept the Messiah at that time and as a whole would become the followers of the new David as their shepherd. Ezekiel 39:21-29 describes this wonderful conversion of the Jewish people to the Lord – “I will display my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see the punishment I inflict and the hand I lay upon them. From that day forward the house of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God. And the nations will know that the people of Israel went into exile for their sin, because they were unfaithful to me. So I hid my face from them and handed them over to their enemies, and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleaness and their offenses, and I hid my face from them. Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will now bring Jacob back from captivity and will have compassion on all the people of Israel, and I will be zealous for my holy name. They will forget their shame and all the unfaithfulness they showed toward me when they lived in safety in their land with no one to make them afraid. When I have brought them back from the nations and have gathered them from the countries of their enemies, I will show myself holy through them in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God, for though I sent them into exile among the nations, I will gather them to their own land, not leaving any behind. I will no longer hide my face from them, for I will pour out my Spirit on the house of Israel, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
Ezekiel 38-39 corresponds remarkably to Zechariah 12-14 and seems to describe the same events. God pours out His Spirit on the Jews in both passages. Zechariah 12:10 says, “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.” It is true that in the early church there were Jews who mourned over their rejection of Jesus and then turned to Him. Yet they were only a remnant of the total Jewish population. Many Jews continued to reject Jesus and also persecuted the Christians. The prophecy in Zechariah mentioned above seems to show a mourning of a much greater extent encompassing all of the Israelites. Zechariah 12:11-14 tells of the extent of the conversion that takes place among the Jews – “On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives, the clan of the house of Levi and their wives, the clan of Shimei and their wives, and all the rest of the clans and their wives.”
This future conversion of Israel predicted by Ezekiel in chapters 38-39 seems definitely to be a future event that is yet to come. Though the Jews are even now back in their homeland in Palestine, the Jewish people have not as a whole been converted to Christ. Yet, that day will come according to the Apostle Paul who seems to describe a future conversion of Israel in Romans 11; 25-27 (ESV) – “Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.’” Earlier Paul talked about the olive tree representing the people of God. Israel was the root of the tree but some of her branches had broken off and had been replaced by others showing that the Gentiles had been grafted into the olive tree. Yet, he points out that the Jews could yet be grafted in again to their own olive tree. In Romans 11:23, Paul says, “And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.” Romans 11 predicts a future conversion of the Jews associated with the fullness of the Gentiles. This could very well be pointing to a future worldwide revival including the conversion of the Jews to Christ.
Unlike my dispensational friends, I believe that Israel’s future conversion will not be a separate event from the church but rather a wholesale coming into the church and becoming followers of Christ. Their coming in will be accompanied by an extensive revival among the Gentiles as well (fullness of the Gentiles).
What we see in Ezekiel 34-39 points to the Messianic age and a future conversion of the Jews. Parts of those chapters are fulfilled in the New Testament church but they also point to a future conversion of the Jews to Christ and a future grafting in of the Jews into the church.
This article is not a detailed study of Ezekiel 34-39 but rather a simple overview showing that the prophecies given there point not just to the first restoration of Israel from exile but rather to a further fulfillment some of which occurred when Jesus came the first time and more will be fulfilled in later times when the Jews as a whole are restored and accept Jesus as their Messiah.
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