Interview with Stephen Black (Part 2)

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the.

Podcast. Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael.

Durham, Stephen Black, Chris Giesler. All right, so we are in our second session now with Stephen Black. We're interviewing him and hearing from his experience in ministering to those who are identifying with the LGBTQ plus identifiers and community and so forth.

And if you've missed our first session, I encourage you to go back and listen to that and kind of get the background of how God has raised Stephen up for this moment and in this ministry. But in this session, we're going to focus on the Scriptures as our unchanging anchor, our rock-solid foundation for why we're saying what we're saying.

Scripture as the Unchanging Anchor in Ministry to Sexual Sin

God is a good God and he is a perfect communicator and he's given us an eternally solid word by which we are to understand who he is and who we are and how he wants us to live. So he has said a lot of wonderful things in his word to show us how to live as his special creatures and we need to depend upon those passages of Scripture in this particular debate having to deal with LGBTQ plus and so on.

Stephen, when you've been and you've talked about in last session how one of your fathers in the faith took you aside and said, here's how you study the word, here's how you get into the word and be a student of the word.

And what have you found in your study of Scripture that has been essential and.

Very helpful in your ministry? Well, from Genesis to Revelation, it's also in the picture in Genesis chapter 3, how God carefully helped Adam and Eve in their shame. He clothed them, he called them out.

So it's a very amazing passage of Scripture when you look at God asking questions about things that he already knew about. So we know that God intrinsically as a father comes into our sin, our brokenness, to draw us out and then clothe us.

And the clothing was, you know, animal skins. Most theologians think lamb skins, which is the idea that God also was preparing a sacrifice. So from Genesis to Revelation, God has always underscored the need for us to identify as his divine created ones made in his image, male and female.

And this has always been the attack of the enemy, always from the very beginning, is to distort that picture and bring death and destruction and division and immorality and idolatry into that picture.

And so that it underscores that the Scripture is God breathed for me, and when we see and study Scripture that it's true, and there's no mistakes in it. The Scripture really does not contradict itself.

It's very, very clear as you study it. And so that has been something as a revelation magnificent to me from the very beginning when he gave me his Word and showed me that the Word of God was real, and that these other people that were speaking to me were speaking.

Lies. You know, a lot of people when they hear about God's Word and think about who God is, and you've already mentioned in our last session how much biblical illiteracy there is in our world today, when people hear God and what do they think of?

A lot of people think God is love, and when they think of love, they think love is unqualified affirmation. Right. And so what are these mean church peoples talking about when they point to the Word of God and they say, God says thou shalt not act this way, live this way, or embrace these desires?

You know, I thought God was love, and I think love is unqualified affirmation. Yeah, and love.

Love as Sacrifice, Grace, and the Call to Deny Ungodliness

When we see that what love really is, it's sacrificial, and it gets to the very core of who he is, which the heartbeat of God is revealed in the crucified Son of God. Forgiveness for the world, forgiveness for the world.

Whenever we see the crucified Son of God, it's forgiveness for the world, but it comes at a cost, and that cost is death to self. And in a fallen world in which we live, we must yield ourselves to the good gift of God, which is his very presence now to abide in us, to lead us and guide us, being saved by grace, this power.

It's not just unmerited favor, it's literally a power that comes to abide and reside. The Holy Spirit, Hebrews 10 talks about, he's the Spirit of Grace, to give us the empowerment to instruct us to live godly, to instruct us to deny all ungodliness, Titus 2, 11 and 12.

And so when we think about this magnificent love that not only did he tell us to stop the way of death, which is sinning, because sin brings death, but he's provided a way for us to do it. I mean, you know, you.

Mentioned the passage in Leviticus 18 in our previous session, in Leviticus 20, that clearly condemns homosexuality, the acts of homosexuality, and so forth. Now if somebody hears that, they think, well, that's Old Testament, you know, and that's Leviticus.

Does the Bible really say that we're not supposed to be affirming these lifestyles or these desires? And, you know, that's just Old Testament, right? What kind of answer do you have for somebody who's thinking that way?

Well, a lot of times, paralleled with that is gay activists or people that are trying to be gay-affirming, quote-unquote, Christian, is they'll say, Jesus never said anything about this. Well, actually, he didn't have to, and he didn't say anything about bestiality either, which, this isn't popular, but actually in Leviticus 18, the run-on thought is verse 23, which connects homosexual behavior with the idea of sodomy, with the idea of bestiality.

And so when Jesus didn't say anything specifically on arsenokoiti or malakoi, which Paul did in 1 Corinthians 6 -9, those two words literally mean, I mean, it's so clear, it's so black and white, that the Greek makes it to where it's irrefutable, that it is a man receiving and a man giving homosexual sexual activity, generally speaking, sodomy.

And so to say that Jesus didn't say anything about it is also to say that Jesus didn't reiterate the fact that not one jot, not one tittle of the law will pass away, except that heaven and earth would.

And so he reiterates Leviticus 18, actually, in those statements on the Sermon on the Mount, and he actually brings a higher standard, which is the motivation of your heart of someone lusting after a woman.

He says that even if you look upon a woman to lust after her. And so that's what Paul does in my go-to passage is in Ephesians 4 and Ephesians chapter 5. Paul makes it very, very clear in Ephesians 4 that if you are living a Christian life, if you are truly a believer, starting in verse 17 in Ephesians 4, he makes it really clear, and he says, should you no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles?

And the word Gentile there would just be synonymous with someone living in the world. In the futility of your mind, the futility of your thinking, that's exactly parallel to what he said in Romans 1. And then having an understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God.

And how are we alienated from the life of God in our understanding? It's because in the ignorance that was inside of us, blinding our hearts, who being past feelings. So these are feelings that are in the flesh, desires, having given themselves over, and see he makes it really clear, lewdness.

He's talking about, again, sexual immorality of every kind, to work all uncleanness, which eventually leads to greediness. But you've not so learned Christ if, and there's that big word if, I always like to point that out to people, that it is a covenant.

If indeed you've heard from him and taught by him that you, and I think it's really interesting in verses 22 through 24, it's very clear you're putting off the old man and putting on the new man. Now you can't do that in the strength of your own flesh.

That's why grace is so powerful. That's why he reiterated you're not saved by your own works in chapter 2. But then my biggest go-to verse is 5 .5, and he says here you can know with certainty, or you can know for sure depending on what Bible version you're using, that no fornicator and unclean person.

So those words right there mean any kind of sexual uncleanness of any kind, including homosexuality. Nor covetous man or idolater has any inheritance in the kingdom of God in Christ. And I think it's really interesting in the battles that I've been in, I mean huge battles in the church, is they want to battle that and say, but I prayed a prayer, or but you don't understand, I believe in Jesus.

And this is coming from gay Christians, but look what it says in verse 6. Let no one deceive you with empty words. Because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. And when you study this out and you find out that the wrath of God is actually, like what he says in Ephesians 2 verses 1 and 2, the prince of the power of the air is actually working inside children of disobedience.

So these people have demonic oppression on them. They have mental illness. Psychology used to call it neurotic behavior. That's because I've never met, me included, any person who has struggled with this that didn't have some form of either really neurotic narcissism or emotional idolatry.

And this is a real problem in the church now because we're actually sanctioning people filled with pride and lust and emotional brokenness as normative under this banner of orientation. Yes, I think.

It's important to recognize that in the description of what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be born again, to be in Christ, that there really is a transforming that goes on. We're not left the same, but also you've been hinting at a few things and even kind of speaking directly to an idea here that I think is important to highlight.

That it's not simply the acts, the homosexual acts, the sexual acts that are being condemned or that folks are being warned about in these passages, but in fact the very desires and the affections themselves are not to be tolerated, accepted, or let's say affirmed.

That's.

The Old Man, the New Man, and the Renewal of the Mind

Right. Now when we say not accepted or not tolerating, that's not being bigoted or homophobic or mean or cruel. That means if you are a godly person yourself, you cannot tolerate that in yourself. You cannot allow that operation in your mind.

Now as men of God around this table, we want to disciple and help people. We know that the majority of people that struggle in these honestly really depraved behaviors have been sinned against greatly.

And so the pastoral discipleship part of this has to be underscored. Of course we understand to love people well, we are gonna have to suffer along with some of these people. And I'm so glad I had a pastor who suffered along with me.

I've had to suffer along with many individuals, some even decades, because of the back and forth. And this is the problem is we don't have good boundaries and accountability in church world and discipleship.

And without that there's going to be these inroads of the media, the computer technologies, the internet, media of movies or whatever, and then the communication that we just hear on the radio or anywhere.

There's always this Prince of the Power of the Air, you know, there's airways of darkness that are coming against people. And so if people do not get a renewing or a transformation, which I think it's really interesting, I was ministering to a young pastor and another man who both have addictions.

And they had never heard Romans 12 1 in the way that I presented it to them, along with Romans 6 verses 12 through 14. And that is as you present your body, that's the first part. So you're actual from the crown of your head to the to the sole of your foot, you're presenting your body.

Well that also is your reproductive parts. And how many men compartmentalize because what they have been subjected to that somehow their sexual feelings are somehow seedy or dark, rather than to bring glory to God in their bodies.

And presenting it literally says present the members of your body as as instruments of righteousness to God. Now it's not a far stretch that Paul was speaking to the Romans of a culture of debauchery.

And so of course he was speaking to the idea of our human sexuality with 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 paralleling sexual behavior with sanctification, which is the will of God. And so this is so important that shame is removed about your your feelings and what you've gone through to expose it to have a renewing of the mind.

Because that's the latter part of Romans verses 1 2 is don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed. And even here in Ephesians 4 where he says that there must be the renewing of the spirit of the mind.

And we now know with conquer series and some of these brain scans that a man's mind who has been addicted to pornography has the same kind of damage as a crack addict. Yes I've read that. And it is amazing now just in the last 10 years that we see this and that it takes three to five years for the brain to heal from that.

How much more so perversion. Right. How much more so sodomy or dressing up in an opposite sex or taking hormones. I mean how much more so is the damage to the human brain. And this word is forever settled in heaven and the more we study it the more that we see that science reveals to us that this is right.

That makes me think of a couple of verses.

Talking about dealing with the idea of people who are struggling with those temptations or those feelings or attaching I'm a gay Christian that needs to be affirmed. Paul says such were some of you. Past tense.

Then the scripture also says there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And so a person who is struggling with that who says I want to follow God I believe I'm a Christian but I have these feelings.

Dealing with the shame the past shame is saying there is no condemnation if you throw yourself upon the Lord Jesus.

Christ. But that is no longer your identity that is past. Very well said. And there's verse 17 and 21 which it says we're a new creation in Christ old things have passed away. And recognizing like what happened to me even on the night of my salvation verse 21 it said he who knew no sin became sin on our behalf that we could become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

And I see the main attack on everything that is going on is our faith. It has always been an attack on faith. It's always been about unbelief. It has always been the root of all sin is to disbelieve or not receive the truth of what God says about us and who we are and to have our minds renewed about those things.

Faith, Creation, and the Fear of the Lord

You.

Mentioned before we were going through any of these segments deception in the church and that's beginning with the way that the scriptures are either being taught or interpreted and somebody coming along and saying you're interpreting that wrong even though you may be well studied in it and this and that.

How often do we have somebody that is a deceiver in this way using the scriptures to try and twist them to deceive somebody. How often are they somebody who takes the Genesis account as historical and true.

I'm just wondering as actually do they believe that that's a true story a true account over six days of creation and one day of rest. How often do you come.

Across that? Really great question because what I find is most of them do not believe. They don't believe in an actual worldwide flood. They don't believe in a young earth. They don't believe in a God who is so powerful that he's a star breather that he actually could make this earth in six days.

They don't believe that and it's that is a great parallel to understand why this idolatry is being accepted because then this it sows the unbelief that a person who has strong same-sex attraction desires that we just need to accept the.

Fact that that's who they are. Right it's kind of a parallel. I think it's a good observation Dylan because it's a parallel to what science says that these people can't be changed therefore the Bible is wrong.

Science says that this is 4 .6 billion years old therefore the Bible is wrong. And generally this list of science says is also what is a culturally celebrated or accepted and if you don't want to be culturally shamed you better agree to.

And it's more a hermeneutic of the fear of man driving the interpretation of Scripture than the.

Fear of God. And those deceivers are revealing that hermeneutic when they.

Come to you with that sort of deception. Yes. I remember witnessing to a young man he was behind one of our buildings on a very cold and windy day. We began talking about the Scriptures and so on and so forth.

And he just you know had all sorts of objections to Christianity but his main one he kept on coming back to was that he is his friends who were homosexuals were not allowed to be Christians and he just kept on saying it's like that it's who they are.

It's who they are. They can't you know they can't help it. So on and so forth you know and it's like they can't change themselves. And we finally came down to the point where he said you know the disciples one time were pretty discouraged about Jesus's description of who could go into heaven and they said well then who can be saved.

And then Jesus said with man it's impossible but with God all things are possible. And at that point he said touche. He walked away thinking those thoughts but that's about having an understanding of who God is and all of his power and having that faith in a God who can do whatever he so desires to deliver people who the world is saying there's no hope for you.

Well.

And well said about the creation and in tying this in to really the beginning of wisdom. And the beginning of wisdom is another thing that I see that they dumb dumb down. Theologically they will they will take away the terror of the Lord like Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 5.

He said. Therefore now knowing the terror of the Lord they they'll dumb down or make soft the disciple whom Jesus loves account of seeing the Son of God for the in his glory where he falls down as a dead man.

And see this is precious to me because that's how I got saved that night was the fear of the Lord. And it was something that was underscored to me in a little revival that happened in the early 80s and the Southern Baptist called the fullness movement.

And it was so underscored over and over and over. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And so one thing I always look for is does their gospel whoever's messaging does their message have the fear of the Lord in it.

Because if they remove the fear of the Lord they're removing the very beginning of wisdom. And the idea that we are somehow unkind to remind people of heaven and hell is is tragic because that was the very D it's one of the DNA's of my life.

That's why this new ministry launches called quorum day-o it's the idea of discipling people quorum to live in the presence of day-o God. And that's a theological understanding that underscores God is holy God is awesome.

He is fire like a star. I mean God is so holy and awesome. And that will rivet you to deal with the root causes of your sin. And that is that has helped me. That's been one of my healing parts of my journey.

And on it honestly brothers when I have discipled people to get them to embrace the understanding of the fear of the Lord that's always there to the with those.

That are successful. Mm-hmm. Well I think this has been helpful because you know we think of passages that directly pertain to this particular issue or this particular debate. We think of Leviticus 18 or Romans chapter 1 or 1st Corinthians chapter 6 where there are very clear declarations from Scripture that God is against well all manner of sins but including in those list of sins these that are identified by the alphabet acronym right the LGBTQ plus and so forth.

Well you know those passages have sometimes been called clobber passages. Right. And the idea is that you're just bringing up passages to clobber people and to hurt people and to harm people. But what we've heard you share with us this evening is a much broader picture of looking at the whole person needing all of Christ all right that this this person needs to be saved and redeemed and and just turned around and healed because they're made in God's image and they need God's work in their lives.

It's not simply about their sin that is especially problematic. It's not simply about their sin that they have chosen to identify themselves by. It's about the whole person needing to be saved. And this really applies to anyone who is enslaved to sin that they need to turn to Christ who is our only Savior and not just our only Savior but an amazing Savior amen can save us all the way.

I'm all the more encouraged to hear you share your passion for the Word of God and the ways in which you use the scriptures to minister to others whether proclaiming to the church the need to stand for the truth or in your counseling and in your discipleship of those who are in need of healing and restoration and deliverance from these particular sins.

I think now we can maybe share a couple of our resources that might be helpful. One of them that I thought that was I'm glad you brought up about the the study of the brain. There is a book written by William M Struthers wired for intimacy how pornography hijacks the male brain.

Yeah this is a book that the elders here at Sunnyside read through and our efforts to be ready for counseling to anybody in our church who needs some help to understand more about how it is that what the Bible tells us that the inner man and the outer man are connected and when the inner man lusts and the inner man does things it affects the outer man.

And he uses the inner man and the outer man are connected in sin and thus also in the effects of sin. And it's good to understand what that connection is. Because we do have a great physician who can heal us and bring us out of that.

But this was an excellent book for understanding that connection that you mentioned I imagine you're familiar with.

I'm familiar I read that particular book so I would recommend this one for.

That a little bit more in-depth understanding that was very helpful. And then I think one other resource it's called the grace of shame seven ways the church has failed to love homosexuals by Tim Bailey Joseph Bailey and a guy whose name I'm not sure how to pronounce Jurgen von Hagen.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that that assist. And of course these men are doing ministry in Bloomington Indiana which is the Mecca of homosexual development where the Kinsey Institute is and so they are on the front lines in that sense and being very faithful in describing these matters and according to the Word of God and they too just like Stephen have been seeing people being delivered time and time again by God's grace through God's Word.

Might I recommend or extend the.

Recommendation to war horn media which is their publishing company. They actually have a lot of good stuff out there about family matters that are extending into the abuse in different areas as well not just homosexuality although they have to deal with that on a constant basis.

Yes they also deal with things that are cultural deceptions things that come out of Disney things that come out on Nickelodeon stuff we were mentioning beforehand. They deal with a lot of that and they they kind of break down older movies and content to to give you an idea of some some of the genesis of where some of this has come.

From as well. Okay excellent. All right. Why don't we move on to. What are we thankful for. Michael I am thankful for you had mentioned earlier Stephen about pastors being patient or you know men being patient and in discipleship and I know that I I have benefited from that benefited from men who have been very patient with me and discipling me trying to encourage me along and without their steady on calm insightful exhortations in certain needful areas in my life I would not be serving today and that God extended grace through them to me and I am.

I'm very thankful for people who taking some extra time to mentor me in my life and I've just got so many names in my head I'm not gonna mention them.

All but God knows who they are. Mr. black I want a platform. From what you just said I am thankful for skilled therapists who are biblically literate and biblically centered. Like my therapist that I went and saw all summer long who actually did something which I think is so important that we remember which is the word of encouragement to be able to not just look at your sin and bring correction to it but that we see the giftings in each other and empower the people that we are pastoring.

With the word of encouragement has been said that the oxygen of heaven is encouragement and so I am thankful for.

The word of encouragement amen. Chris yeah I'd like to piggyback off of that and say I'm I am thankful for my wife's encouragement just in the day-to-day we have our own tasks we've got things going on I'm at work and she's at home and I have things on my plate and she is a constant encouragement to keep going and I share my struggles and this is something that's going on and it's hard for me or it's a negative thing and she she knows what to say to keep me going.

And I'm thankful to God for that gift. Amen. I'm thankful to the Lord for sending his spirit to properly teach me how to hate my sin how to abhor it more than any of the other sin around me. Just recently Josiah de Forest handed me a Puritan paperback by Bunyan I can't remember the title right now but it's about contrition.

Wow. And it's going through the Psalms. And I just recently went through the Psalms. I drive a lot so I listened to a lot of the Bible. And having listened through the Psalms recently there's loads of contrition there's loads of proper hatred of one's own sin.

And that leads you to rightly have your your loves ordered as well to hate your own sin. And it teaches you to hate sin in general. But I'm so thankful to the Lord that we have a helper in.

That and we're not alone in that and that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with having not read.