November 20, 2008
Anyone really noticing what's going on in California right now? I'm talking specifically about the ballot measure that voters approved that bans gay marriage.
The losing side of this measure is amazing, if you stop and think about it for a moment. They've long been advocating free choice and blasting any and all who don't support, or speak against, their position.
Now that they've lost through the legal system they appeared to have supported, they are now protesting against anyone or any institution who would dare cross them -- and much of their focus is toward the church. It reminds me of the 60's when folks were burning and pillaging in the name of peace.
So, are these days like the days of Noah?
We hear this a lot in our day and age. That it's like the times of Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah. That we have degenerated to such a low point that God will deal with us as He did then.
In Noah's day, society's evil was just as bad as it was in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, only more widespread. Genesis 6:5 says, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the Earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of His heart was only evil continually."
We see how man's thoughts, contemplations and plans were continually on self-centered, lustful and evil objectives.
Genesis 6:11 states that the world was "filled with violence". Verse 12 says, "All flesh had corrupted his way."
"This has been man's way of thinking and reasoning, substituting his way in place of God's way. Romans 3:18 says, "There is no fear of God before their eyes."
Proverbs 14:12 states, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."
Noah tried to warn the people of his day, but they did not listen. So God took away their miserable lives by the earth-wide flood.
Jesus said in Luke 17:28, "Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded."
They were doing all these things right up to the day God destroyed their cities. Verses 29-30 says, "Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed."
In other words, -- that has happened!!
Let's use an example; Today we see widespread acceptance of homosexuality. The debate now is about whether or not homosexuals can marry and this is revealing in itself. It illustrates our overwhelming acceptance of homosexual behavior.
Un-natural, unlawful sexual behavior is no longer controversial. It's marrying each other that's now the debate!
If it shocks someone when I say that if Jesus Christ was in charge of our nation, He wouldn't just ban same-sex marriage,He would outlaw homosexuality! If this does shock someone, then it reveals how far their thinking is from God's and how much of Satan's propaganda their minds have absorbed!!!
Romans 1:26-27 says, "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversions."
!!It is God's law!!!
Recently a pastor was quoted to admit that abortion and homosexuality were "minor concerns" at his church. "The bell we beat (he said) is that we must know Jesus."
Know Jesus?
You mean the same Jesus who called upon sinners to repent? The same Jesus who admonished the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well to "Call thy husband", knowing full well that she was living with a man out of wedlock? "Ye worship ye know not what," He told the woman after she claimed to be religious (John 4:22). That Jesus?
What about the Jesus that confronted the woman caught in the act of adultery? I don't condemn you, He said, before adding, "Go and sin no more." (John 8:11) She wasn't lost, but she was living in sin. And Jesus told her to stop! Shame on Him for shoving His religion down her throat.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:28 that to even look upon a woman in lust is adultery. And adultery is something we must repent repent of -- or else!
Or else what? New Testament theology says that adulterers and fornicators will not inherit the Kingdom of God (I Corinthians 6:9-10).
Here's the tragedy! Church leaders today know well that if they were to preach God's view on morality they would lose many of their congregants.
An example of today's evangelical stance is that while most evangelicals would like to see Christian morality as the ruling law of the nation, they also believe Americans should be free to live the way they choose.
The bottom line is that evangelicals today subscribe, in large part, to personal faith as paramount -- you can't shove religion down people's throats.
Let's put ourselves in the congregation at Corinth. You're sitting there before services in the spring of A.D. 55, and find out that a guest pastor wrote a lengthy letter that will be read as the sermon for the day.
"Fantastic!" you think to yourself. "We get to hear from God's Apostle today. And then -- BAM!!
Paul rebukes the entire congregation for allowing fornication in the church (I Corinthians 5:1). He then publicly ex-communicates the known offender and asks the brethren pointedly, "Don't you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?" (verse 6)
This is Christianity 101, he says. If we begin to tolerate such blatant disregard for God's laws in our midst, then that rebellious, define-faith-your-own-way attitude will infect the whole congregation.
Paul instructs, cast out the offender and don't even communicate with them (verse 9). He then asks, "Don't you know that adulterers and fornicators will not inherit the Kingdom of God? In other words, this is fundamental!
It's also deadly serious! Why aren't our leaders today willing to risk personal gain for the sake of telling their flocks the truth?
Now imagine this same Paul, whose body was visibly marred by the multiple beatings, stonings and whippings, starting a mega church where Christians were free to live the way they choose. Imagine the same servant of God, who "knew Jesus", saying that abortion, homosexuality, adultery and fornication were of "minor concern"?
Entertainment and building up people's self-esteem -- that's what really fills the seats!
2 Timothy 4:3-4 says, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears" and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."
Isaiah 30:9-10 states, "Because of their own lusts, people simply will not hear the law of God. They want to be told 'smooth things'."
And leaders today -- under the heavy influence of our secularist, anti-God, moral-relavist culture -- seem more than happy to oblige them.
Many theologians, preachers, minsters, teachers, who ought to be society's moral leaders, have forsaken the creator God and have become society's followers.
Finally, as Jesus said in Matthew 10:15, it will be more tolerable for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah when they are resurrected in the Day of Judgment than it will be for those cities that reject God's warning in this end time.
I encourage each of us today to look deeply into ourselves and repent of any sin that is lurking within us.
Jesus our King, will forgive and free us from anything that is hindering our walk with Him. Freedom is only in the asking.
Until next time,
Red