EARLY CHURCH DEALT WITH SIN AS GOD COMMANDED

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A sobering article by John Burton on sin in the church and how God commands us to deal with it: He has been developing and leading ministries for over 20 years and is a sought-after teacher, prophetic messenger and revivalist. He has authored nine books, has appeared on Christian television and radio. Check out johnburton.net

People are leading ministries and churches and yet the Bible instructs us not to even eat with them. It’s time for a house cleaning.

Facebook is a great, if unscientific, medium for discussions about culture and Scripture (and kittens, food, vacations and so forth). I’ve participated in many such discussions online, and I constantly find myself shaking my head when supposedly solid, Spirit-filled Christians flat out reject clear, simple truths found in the Bible. We have declined into a church that all too often employs human reasoning in favour of Biblical principles.

As an example, when is the last time you heard a pastor teach on the issue of divorce? At best they may suggest it’s negative and painful while fully ignoring what God himself has to say about it.

Right in the middle of Luke 16, we see the following: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced by her husband commits adultery.” Luke 16:18

We have a bunch of people in our churches today who are living in adultery because they divorced and remarried without validation. We need a mass movement of repentance for wrongful divorce and remarriage. After getting remarried, there can be redemption and forgiveness, but that is a process that must be completed. Divorce rates in the church should be near zero. I say “near zero” because there are legitimate and approved reasons to initiate a divorce. There are times when it’s fully appropriate to get remarried as well. God is in the restoration business, but we must submit to his process and follow his protocol.

The point on divorce was simply one example as I begin this article on discipline in the church. We have to agree that Scripture rules. We must stop minimizing it, modifying it, ignoring it or rewriting it.

Before you attempt to crucify me for being cruel and unfeeling regarding divorce or the other issues I’ll address in this article, I want to challenge you. First, my heart is broken over sin in the camp. Second, why do you presume you have the right to dismiss clear directives in Scripture? You don’t. Neither do I. I believe it’s an act of love and humility to trust God’s wisdom as we deal directly with sin in the church. God has given us a measure of stewardship over his holy church, and we are failing, especially in regard to holiness.

It’s Time to Clean House

Take a moment and let the following verse sink in:

I wrote to you in my letter not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I did not mean the sexually immoral people of this world, or the covetous and extortioners, or the idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. But I have written to you not to keep company with any man who is called a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. Do not even eat with such a person.

For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?  But God judges those who are outside. Therefore “put away from among yourselves that wicked person” 1 Cor. 5:9-13

Sin in the camp is defiling the house.

The above passage reveals that God judges the unsaved, the lost, those in the world. It also reveals that we have been mandated to judge those within the church. This, friend, rarely happens and that is a key reason revival is not near.

Please remember, we don’t have the right to exercise mercy that’s not endorsed by the Word of God. We don’t have the freedom to let someone off the hook when God demands we deal with their situation.

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from Him who calls you. A little yeast leavens the whole batch.

One immoral person in a church can compromise the entire congregation.

Love Them Out the Door

It’s time to express love, with tears in our eyes, by inviting people to leave our churches. Multiplied thousands of professing Christians must be shown the door—and fast.

If they profess Christ and are guilty of sin, we cannot even eat with them. This is severe, and it is necessary. It’s also literal.

Are there any people attending church today who are greedy? We can’t go grab coffee with them. Is anybody involved in porn? Do they get intoxicated? Do they have idols in their lives? Are they abusive? We must deal directly with them for the sake of their souls and those of everybody in the church! Why? Check out a verse that’s strangely similar to what we read in 1 Corinthians 5 (it takes it to a whole other level):

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Cor. 6:9-10

While so many are welcoming these offenders into church services and functions every week, God has determined they will not be welcomed into heaven. We are celebrating the people God is rejecting. We are confirming those God is calling out.

Allow me to make this point very clear: If anyone who names the name of Christ is guilty of these sins, they must immediately repent while bearing fruit or they must be removed from fellowship. Period.

Yes, most youth groups will be wiped out. Elders in the church will have to go. Many pastors will have to relinquish their positions. Churches will decline significantly in number as they lose those guilty of sin and their sympathizers!

What will be left? A holy, remnant church that can finally move in power, unity and purity.

Turn Them Over to Satan

Sexual sin is especially destructive. If anybody tells you all sin is the same, don’t believe them. It’s not true. For example, one type of sin cannot be forgiven. Other sins are not unto death. Sexual sin is one that demands a more severe response. Again, the response is rooted in love, not revenge. It’s to protect the church and to awaken the offender.

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that a man has his father’s wife. But you are arrogant. Instead you should have mourned, so that he who has done this deed might be removed from among you. For indeed, though absent in body but present in spirit, I have already, as if I were present, judged him who has done this deed, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When you are assembled, along with my spirit, in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.

“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch? Therefore purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new batch, since you are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us.” 1 Cor. 5:1-7

The world has the right to accuse Christians of hypocrisy. When sin happens, it’s swept under the rug. It’s ignored. It’s certainly not dealt with. It’s rarely judged.

The instruction is clear and cannot be modified. The one who is guilty must be turned over to Satan. They must be excommunicated. They are a danger to themselves and to the church.

Restoration

The purpose of discipline is twofold:

  1. The restoration of the person: God, in his wisdom, knows just what it will take to give people the greatest chance of restoration. Biblical discipline is a part of that process.
  2. The protection of the body: A little leaven leavens the whole lump. We must insist on a holy church for the sake of the innocent and unsuspecting:

“Deliver [this man] to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.” 1 Cor. 5:5

“For whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and scourges every son whom he receives.” Heb. 12:6

“For they indeed disciplined us for a short time according to their own judgement, but He does so for our profit, that we may partake of His holiness.” Heb. 12:10

When restoration works, the Bible tells us that we will win our brother. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out the way we’d prefer, but it’s imperative that we try as Scripture demands:

“Now if  your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, then take with you one or two others, that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every word may be established. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Matt. 18:15-17

Keep in mind that severe church discipline must follow earlier attempts at restoration.

“Now we exhort you, brothers, warn those who are unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, support the weak, and be patient toward everyone. 1 Thess. 5:14

The first step isn’t removing them from fellowship. It’s calling them higher, exhorting them to live righteously and patiently yet invasively, uncomfortably, demand they respond to the correction of the Lord. Walk the walk with them until their rebellion or repeated failures would cause you to violate the Word to maintain fellowship with them. That time comes sooner than we typically presume.

God Demands That His Church Be Holy

John L. Dagg said this: “When discipline leaves a church, Christ goes with it.”

Ichabod is posted above the doorposts as the presence of God vacates a once holy church that’s inundated with immorality.

The question is simple: Do you want God to remain, or the unrepentant offender? You can’t have both.

CHURCH AS GOD INTENDED: MINISTERING IN THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

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‘7 Days Adventure with God’ is a powerful movie that gives you a glimpse behind the scenes of a seven day trip in Brazil.

Experience first hand how the Holy Spirit is leading and how God is changing people’s lives on the streets, in the homes and at the “kickstart” meetings.

This documentary is meant to challenge you to discover what it truly means to live out the life we read about in the book of Acts – a life that is so much more than just going to church. This life is an incredible adventure with God.

 

 

IRAN CRACKS DOWN ON CHRISTIAN CONVERTS; SENTENCES BELIEVERS TO TEN YEARS PRISON

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“But know this , that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves…” 2 Timothy 3:1

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5:11-12 

“Yes and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” 2 Timothy 3:12

Blessed are those that are persecuted for righteousness sake , for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:10

 

Authorities in Iran are increasingly targeting Christian converts with arrests and imprisonments, according to the New York-based Centre for Human Rights In Iran.

“In less than two months, since June 2017, Judge Mashallah Ahmadzadeh of Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran has issued long prison sentences to at least 11 Christian converts and the former leader of the Assyrian Pentecostal Church in Iran,” CHRI said in a report.

On July 6, the judge sentenced four Protestant Christian converts to 10 years in prison each “in a trial completely lacking due process,” the group said, quoting Mansour Borji, the advocacy director of a London-based group, Article 18, which defends Christians in Iran.

The four converts — Yusif Farhadov, Eldar Gurbanov and Bahram Nasibov from Baku in the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Iranian national Nasser Navard Goltapeh — were arrested at a reception hosted by their Christian friends in Andisheh last June.

Prosecutors couldn’t produce any evidence to show the converts had acted against national security, Borji said. Yet they were convicted of being “Zionist Christians” who “acted against national security with the intention of overthrowing the state in a soft war.”

Two weeks earlier, the same judge had given Christian converts Yousef Nadarkhani, Mohammadreza Omidi, Yasser Mossayebzadeh and Saheb Fadaie 10-year prison sentences for propagating house churches and promoting “Zionist Christianity.”

A ruling is still overdue for a decision on an appeal by Omidi, Mossayebzadeh and Fadaie against a sentence of 80 lashes each for drinking wine during a communion service. The Christians were arrested May 13 during a series of raids by security service agents on Christian homes in Rasht.

The U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide has also criticised the government of Iran for persecuting converts.

CSW’s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said in a statement.”We reiterate that the national security charges levelled in all of these cases amount to the criminalisation of the Christian community for exercising the right to freedom of religion or belief, and that this is occurring despite the fact that the Iranian constitution recognises Christianity. We urge members of the international community to extend the sanctions still in place against Iranian individuals to include members of the judiciary who are implicated in ongoing and severe harassment and persecution of religious minority communities.”

Perhaps this crackdown is occurring due to the reported large number of Iranians converting to Christianity.

 

ARK LIT WITH RAINBOW – COVENANT REMINDER

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The rainbow is a reminder God will never again judge the wickedness of man with a global flood—next time the world will be judged by fire.

In 2016, Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis urged Christians to reclaim the rainbow and teach young people its true meaning.

“The rainbow itself wasn’t designed to be a symbol of freedom, love, pride or the LGBTQ movement. God created this beautiful, colourful phenomenon and designated it as a sign of His covenant with Noah and his descendants forever.”

“Sadly, people ignore what God intended the rainbow to represent and proudly wave rainbow-coloured flags in defiance of God’s command and design for marriage. Because of this, many Christians shy away from using the rainbow colours. But the rainbow was a symbol of God’s promises before the LGBTQ movement—and will continue to be after that movement has ended. As Christians, we need to take the rainbow back and teach our young people its true meaning.”

The 500-foot-long ark is the centrepiece of the biblical theme park based in Williamstown, Kentucky. Hundreds of thousands of visitors have toured the replica of Noah’s ark.

“The ark is lit permanently at night with a rainbow to remind the world that God owns it and He decreed it’s a sign of His covenant with man after the Flood—Christians need to take back the rainbow as we do at the Ark Encounter,” Ham said.

Critics denounced the decision—accusing him of stealing the rainbow colours from the LGBT community.

“This is Ken Ham’s sad attempt to take back the rainbow symbol from the LGBTQ community,” read a headline in the Orlando Weekly.

“It makes the ark look incredibly gay,” Kentucky Fairness Campaign’s Chris Hartman told USA Today.

“Knowing this first: scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’ For this they wilfully forget… by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded by water.” 2 Peter 3:3-4

 

REBUILDING THE THIRD TEMPLE IS BEGINNING

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When asked about His Second Coming, Jesus told His disciples that one of the signs would be “when you see the ‘abomination of desolation’ spoken by Daniel the prophet , standing in the holy place” Matthew 24:15. This means that a Third Temple would need to be rebuilt for this event to occur.

The information revealed in this video about the site of the old temple and preparations to reintroduce temple sacrifices indicate we are seeing “end times’ events unfold in our time.

Jesus also warns us in the Olivet discourse that the church would be asleep and a great falling away would occur in the “last days”. Numerous times Jesus warns us, to be ALERT, to WATCH; “See, I have told you beforehand.” Matthew 24:25

DID HUMANS EVOLVE FROM APES?

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Humans did not evolve from chimps, gorillas, or orangutans. However, according to Darwinian evolution, humans are related to modern apes in that we shared a common ancestor.

This informative article by Dr Don Batten and Warren Nunn of Creation Ministries will equip you to explode this commonly held notion.

ape-man

Artists’ impressions of Homo erectus have most often depicted some really primitive, subhuman ‘ape-man’. However, the evidence that these were people (that should even share our species name) is mounting. So artists’ renditions are gradually shifting toward a much more obviously human appearance, as here.

Since Charles Darwin first proposed the basis for such ideas in the 19th century when he wrote On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, molecules-to-man evolution has increasingly been taught as fact. Later, he fleshed out the idea of human evolution from a common ancestor with apes in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.

The concept that humans and apes share a common ancestor contrasts with what we read in the Bible, because on the sixth day God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26) Further, in verse 27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” In Genesis chapter 2 it gives us more details, including that God made Adam from ‘dust’ and fashioned Eve, the first woman, from part of his side.

The two contrasting explanations for our existence—and for apes—have obvious philosophical/faith starting points because neither side can go back in time and observe how everything came into being. Both sides can only examine what we have in the present and draw conclusions from that.

Biblical creationists accept the Bible as an eyewitness account of that—for us—unobservable beginning. Thus, we can expect that by examining anything from germs to giraffes, that the data will best fit the presupposition of a perfectly created life-form that now exists in a world that is imperfect because of the Fall (Genesis 3). Therefore, we can expect (predict) that all life-forms now are not as genetically ‘perfect’ as their first parents.

So, ‘Did humans evolve from apes’ is really part of the bigger question, ‘Did humans and apes, and everything else, evolve?’

The answer is no, nothing ‘evolved’ in the sense that Darwin proposed through naturalistic, unguided processes. Instead, God created everything (including Adam and Eve) in six, 24-hour days and it was very good, as we are told in Genesis 1:31.

Because we can trust the Bible as real history, we know that

(a) all life was created about 6,000 years ago,
(b) there was a global Flood of judgment on the world, which only eight humans and a limited number of creatures survived, and that
(c) all air-breathing land animals are descendants of those that walked off Noah’s Ark about 4,500 years ago.

The DNA evidence

Chimpanzees are said to be the closest relatives of humans. There is an oft-repeated claim that human-chimp DNA is 98% (or more) similar. This figure was based on rather primitive comparisons published in 1975. These early reports were popularized by evolutionists, but this was long before even the initial drafts of the human and chimp genome that were announced in 2001 and 2005, respectively. As explained in Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels, and other places, with our modern understanding of genetics, we now know that “98%” is simply not the case.1 Even with genes that are similar between chimps and humans, the similarity is closer to 80%. If we consider the genes that chimps have that humans don’t and vice versa, the similarity drops to 70% or even less. However, the 98% myth persists.

An objective analysis of the claimed ape-men fossils shows that there is loads of wishful thinking involved.

Not enough time!

For the sake of the argument, let’s assume that the human and chimp genomes derived from a common genome in the six or seven million years since evolutionists say that humans and chimps split from the common ancestor. Then there is a need to account for 35,000,000 single-letter (base-pair) differences that had to arise and become fixed in the two genomes (i.e. the original letter in that location was replaced completely from the line to humans or the line to chimps); tens of millions of chromosomal rearrangements also had to occur, spread, and fix; as well as tens of millions of base-pair (‘letter’) insertions and deletions. (See Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels chapter 2 for more details). In short, there is simply insufficient time for evolutionists to account for the differences between chimp and human DNA, even with highly unrealistic assumptions in favour of it happening.2

Evolutionary time is measured in generations, not years. In six million years, there would only have been a few hundred thousand generations since chimps and humans were supposedly the same species. How then can there be enough time for so many brand-new genes to arise and be integrated? Each generation would have to select and retain an unbelievably huge number of mutations. This problem has come to be known as Haldane’s Dilemma. Despite claims to the contrary, Haldane’s Dilemma has never been solved. Modern knowledge of the genetic differences between chimps and humans shows that the problem is far greater for evolutionists than even Haldane imagined.3

Adam and Eve?

Studies of mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from your mother, show that all humans had a single female ancestor.4 Likewise, studies of the Y-chromosome, which is only inherited from your father (to son!), show that all humans had a single male ancestor.5 Of course the evolutionary time scales attached to these individuals don’t match the Bible, but recalculations based on measurements of mutation rates in today’s world show that the biblical time frame is consistent with the data.

The world-wide genetic evidence in humans is consistent with the Bible’s history, that we are all descendants of Noah’s family, beginning some 4,500 years ago.6

Genetic decay

The number of mutations added to the human genome each generation is now known to be so high that it is inevitable that the human genome is deteriorating. This points back to a created perfection in the recent past.7 The same problem applies to all other complex creatures. This is another serious problem for the evolutionary idea that mutations and natural selection created humans and chimps from a common ancestor 6–7 million years ago. As the Russian geneticist, Alexey Kondrashov, remarked, “Why aren’t we dead 100 times over?” (he was assuming the evolutionary time frame).8

Fossils?

Are there really ‘ape-men’? An objective analysis of the claimed ape-men fossils shows that there is much wishful thinking involved, which is driven by the desire to ‘prove evolution’, or to justify the funding from National Geographic (e.g.), given to find ‘ape-men’.

There are a range of Homo species, including Neandertals. These are all descendants of Noah’s family. One exception is Homo habilis (‘handy man’), which prominent evolutionary anthropologists acknowledge is a ‘mixed taxon’, meaning that the fossil bones came from both apes and humans (hence it not surprisingly looks like an ‘ape-man’).

Other than that, objective numerical analysis shows that Australopithecus (‘southern ape’), supposedly the ancestors of humans (Homo spp.), are just types of apes that are not intermediate between chimps and humans.

That is, based on the fossils, there is no coherent story of human evolution from a common ancestor with apes, which is not surprising, considering the genetic evidence that shows they never existed.9

Conclusion

By reading the associated links to this article and books such as Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels, or by searching creation.com, you can learn more about this subject and when next someone asks you about any human-ape connection, you too will be able to gently suggest that they perhaps should take a closer look at the evidence.

SERIES OF POWERFUL EARTHQUAKES ROCKS THE WORLD WITHIN 14 HOURS

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The world has shaken violently within the last 14 hours between July 17th and July 18th. Are these signs of Christ’s second coming?

A series of powerful quakes rocked Russia (M7.7, M6.2) and Peru (M6.4).

It all started on July 17, 2017 as a M6.2 earthquake hit 183km ESE of Nikol’skoye, Russia at 11:05 am (UTC). This earthquake marked the beginning of an earthquake swarm comprising at least 15 quakes between M4.4 and M7.7 in the region. Then, a bit more than 12 hours later, 11:30 pm, a M7.7 earthquake hit the same area of Russia – 198km ESE of Nikol’skoye, Russia. The earthquake was very shallow – only 10 km below the seabed. The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre initially warned hazardous tsunami waves were possible for coasts within 300 km of epicentre. The tsunami threat had now passed. Finally, two hours later, a M6.4 earthquake hit 98km WNW of Camana, Peru.

The following map shows where the largest twenty earthquakes occurred in the last twenty four hours.

List and maps of the 20 largest earthquakes during the past 24 hours

On this website I have many posts on Bible prophecies relating to Jesus second coming that are being fulfilled in our day. Another “last days” prophecy in Matthew 24:7, repeated in Mark 13:8 and Luke 21:11, Jesus states there will be an increase in earthquakes in various places. Are the earthquakes occurring now more compelling evidence that we are in the “last days”?

PLEASE SPEAK THE TRUTH ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY, PLAINLY AND WITH LOVE

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A MESSAGE FOR ALL CHRISTIAN LEADERS: Let us stop dancing around the greatest spiritual and moral challenge of this generation, and let us do the right thing, regardless of cost or consequence. We owe it to God. We owe it our kids and grand-kids. And we owe it to those who identify as LGBT, says Dr Michael Brown host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program

Let us stop dancing around the greatest spiritual and moral challenge of this generation, and let us do the right thing, regardless of cost or consequence. We owe it to God. We owe it our kids and grandkids. And we owe it to those who identify as LGBT.

At this critical time in history, we’ve got no business dancing around these life-and-death issues, issues which affect people we love. We’ve got no business playing games with words, trying to be so subtle that no one understand us, working so hard not to offend that we fail to warn and save. We’ve got no business being unclear when God’s Word is so clear, and we’ve got no business calling ourselves representatives of Jesus when our hearts don’t flow with His love.

Just consider what’s happening in our society today.

Drag queens are reading stories to our two-year-old children in libraries.

Kindergarteners are learning about being trans.

Middle-schoolers are encouraged to come out as gay without their parents knowing. College students have to share their PGPs (Preferred Gender Pronouns) at the start of each semester (as in, “I’m Shannon, and my preferred gender pronouns are ze and zir.”).

Business colleagues have lost their livelihoods because they could not in good conscience participate in a same-sex “wedding.”

And we’re afraid to be direct and clear because we don’t want to offend someone? How is that strategy working?

In Ontario, if your child identifies as transgender and you don’t affirm and support them, they can report you to their school, which can report you to the government, and your child can be taken from you to be raised by others. This is now the law in Ontario!

Yet we’re afraid that if we speak up we’ll lose some tithing members? What kind of compromise is this? Are we mercenaries or are we men and women of God?

Things have gotten to the point where boys and men are competing against girls and women, smashing records and winning competitions because they identify as females. But we don’t want to rock the boat just in case one of our friends or family members is transgender.

How about speaking the truth in love – with tears, with compassion, and with care, but without compromise? True compassion is not silent. True compassion warns.

There’s a reason some of us have been sounding the alarm for years, despite the vilification that comes our way and despite the doors of ministry that shut in our face. We’ve seen where this was going and we’ve known that the price to pay for silence is much greater than the price to pay for obedience. Do we still not see the handwriting on the wall?

Our society is now celebrating menstruating “men” and glorifying pregnant “dads”who plan to breastfeed their kids, yet we don’t want to rock the boat. My friend, the boat is ready to capsize!

One California college is dealing with a credible threat of violence from a 46-year-old male student who identifies as a woman and is upset because there are no urinals in the women’s restrooms. As a local website reports, “She also noted how walking around on Southwestern’s campus in a bra or panties for three days has opened her eyes to having the brain of a woman…but having male anatomy.”

This is sickness and madness, yet rather than raise our voices like a trumpet and teach clearly about gender and sexuality and marriage, we retreat behind our safe sermons and soft words. In the process, we hurt people far more than we help them.

I was speaking at a conference last year when the conference organizer stated that a famous American pastor now supported same-sex “marriage.” Because I had this pastor’s contact information, I texted him, asking him how he would respond. He replied, “I don’t support this. Please ask him to correct it.”

I was glad he responded like this, but that only begged the question. Why was there any confusion to start? Why did the conference organizer, himself a careful theologian, get this pastor’s position so wrong?

Some of you are loud and clear when speaking about these issues in private but warm and fuzzy when speaking about them in public. To what purpose? To help whom?

I fully understand that most of us these days have loved ones who identify as LGBT, and we care for them deeply. As expressed very powerfully in a blog post by Rebecca K. Reynolds, “There’s a huge difference between speaking of gay people categorically and speaking of your gay friend, Christine, who was brutally abused by her uncle for two decades and now feels nauseated every time she smells a man. It might be possible for me to walk with an evangelical swagger and act like an expert when postulating about the first category, but the second is a real person whose story brings me to my knees.”

That is a perspective we must carry in our hearts, and when people ask me about me about reaching out to the LGBT community, the first thing I tell them is to ask God for a supernatural baptism of love for them. Love reflects the heart of God. Love reflects the life and death of our Savior. Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7).

But love doesn’t compromise. If it did, it would no longer be love. That’s why Reynolds could also write, “Do I think sex outside of marriage is wrong? Absolutely. Do I believe in the sanctity of male-female marriage? Yes.

“Do I also sometimes kneel beside my bed and weep for my abused friends by name–friends who seek relief in ways that don’t align with God’s word? Yes. I do.”

Oh, that all of us would have such hearts!

And that brings me to the last reason why we must speak the truth in love to our congregations and followers.

If we don’t lovingly warn that gay couple in our church about the wrongness of their relationship, we have their blood on our hands.

If we don’t tell that lesbian-identified teenager that God did not make her gay, offering her real hope in Jesus, we are contributing to her demise.

If we don’t urge that husband not to leave his wife and have sex-change surgery, telling him we’ll get in the trenches and stand with him for his marriage, he can point to us on judgment day: “They never told me it was wrong!”

So, I’m pleading with you as a fellow-leader and fellow-elder and fellow-servant. Let us stop dancing around the greatest spiritual and moral challenge of this generation, and let us do the right thing, regardless of cost or consequence. We owe it to God. We owe it our kids and grandkids. And we owe it to those who identify as LGBT.

Just this week I received an email from a woman named Nadia who used to be “married” to another woman. She wrote, “Hi Dr. Brown! First I want to thank you for having the courage to speak the truth in love on various unpopular topics, especially marriage and sexuality. Your teaching helped me find freedom in my own life.”

Let us help others find freedom as well, the freedom that comes by knowing the truth (see John 8:31-32).

So from the depth of my heart, in the strongest way I know, I urge you once more: Please join me in speaking the truth in love. The Father will be glad as you do.

Dr. Michael Brown (www.askdrbrown.org) is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. His latest book is Saving a Sick America: A Prescription for Moral and Cultural Transformation. Connect with him on Facebook or Twitter.

 

ARE OUR CHURCHES MAKING DISCIPLES?

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Great fame, a massive following and financial fortune did not matter to Jesus. And it should not matter to us.

His only obsession was to please the Father. We should be likewise obsessed.

Matthew reported that Jesus preached the gospel and healed the sick all over Galilee. (4:23) Because of his preaching and healing “His fame spread” which resulted in even more preaching and healing. (4:24) The predictable result of all this preaching and healing was that “great crowds followed him.” (4:25)

So, Jesus now has fame and crowds. The only thing missing (for modern success) is the fortune. But great fame, a massive following and financial fortune did not matter to Jesus. And it should not matter to us. But it often does. Even in ministry.

What did Jesus do with His newfound fame and huge following? How did He “leverage his platforms” in order to increase his following? How did He alter His content to increase His followers? How did He monetise His influence? That’s what we would do, right?

Notice carefully what Jesus did. “Seeing the crowds, he went up on a mountain. And when he sat down, His disciples came to Him” (Matt. 5:1).

Two important words: “crowds” and “disciples.”

1. “Seeing the crowds, he went up on a mountain.” Today when we see crowds in our Sunday service, in our campus ministry or on social media, we think we have succeeded. We must be doing something right and God is must be blessing our efforts. In order to be good stewards of our success, we do everything imaginable to maintain and grow our audience. Our first move is to leverage our platform for growth and influence. Jesus did the opposite. His first move was to walk away from the crowd.

2. He traded a massive crowd of adorning followers for a small group of committed disciples. A careful reading of the Gospels will reveal that the more crowds followed Jesus, the more he retreated to be alone with the Father and with his disciples.

Every leader of a growing ministry will be faced with an important decision: attract crowds or make disciples. Will we leave the crowds in order to make disciples, or will we allow the demands of the crowd to pull us away from small group discipleship?

Too many pastors and ministry leaders choose the crowds. Pastor Francis Chan, author of best seller, Crazy Love chose correctly, as shown in my recent post Church as God Intended.

This article originally appeared at stevemurrell.com. Steve serves as the president of Every Nation Churches and Ministries, a ministry that does church planting and campus ministry in over 70 nations.

Eugene Peterson Retracts Same-Sex Marriage Statement

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Eugene Peterson should have taken more note of James 3:5-8. Sadly, he comes up with a new word to describe the outcome of his remarks – “lightless” heat.

“Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest, a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell… But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” James 3:5-8

Peterson’s retraction:

Recently a reporter asked me whether my personal opinions about homosexuality and same-sex marriage have changed over the years. I presume I was asked this question because of my former career as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA), which recently affirmed homosexuality and began allowing its clergy to perform same-sex weddings. Having retired from the pastorate more than 25 years ago, I acknowledged to the reporter that I “haven’t had a lot of experience with it.”

To clarify, I affirm a biblical view of marriage: one man to one woman. I affirm a biblical view of everything.

It’s worth noting that in my 29-year career as a pastor, and in the years since then, I’ve never performed a same-sex wedding. I’ve never been asked and, frankly, I hope I never am asked. This reporter, however, asked a hypothetical question: if I were pastoring today and if a gay couple were Christians of good faith and if they asked me to perform their wedding ceremony—if, if, if. Pastors don’t have the luxury of indulging in hypotheticals. And to be honest, “no” is not a word I typically use. It was an awkward question for me because I don’t do many interviews at this stage in my life at 84, and I am no longer able to travel as I once did or accept speaking requests.

With most interviews I’ve done, I generally ask for questions in advance and respond in writing. That’s where I am most comfortable. When put on the spot by this particular interviewer, I said yes in the moment. But on further reflection and prayer, I would like to retract that.

That’s not something I would do out of respect to the congregation, the larger church body and the historic biblical Christian view and teaching on marriage. That said, I would still love such a couple as their pastor. They’d be welcome at my table, along with everybody else.

When I told this reporter that there are gay and lesbian people who “seem to have as good a spiritual life as I do,” I meant it. But then again, the goodness of a spiritual life is functionally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

We are saved by faith through grace that operates independent of our resolve or our good behaviour. It operates by the hand of a loving God who desires for us to live in grace and truth and who does not tire of turning us toward both grace and truth.

There have been gay people in a variety of congregations, campuses and communities where I have served. My responsibility to them was the work of a pastor—to visit them, to care for their souls, to pray for them, to preach the Scriptures for them.

This work of pastoring is extremely and essentially local: Each pastor is responsible to a particular people, a specific congregation. We often lose sight of that in an atmosphere so clouded by controversy and cluttered with loud voices. The people of a congregation are not abstractions, they are people, and a pastor does a disservice to the people in his care when he indulges in treating them as abstractions.

I regret the confusion and bombast that this interview has fostered. It has never been my intention to participate in the kind of lightless heat that such abstract, hypothetical comments and conversations generate. This is why, as I mentioned during this interview, I so prefer letters and will concentrate in this final season on personal correspondence over public statements.