Yancy at Gay Christian Conference (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry. That wheezing you hear in the background is

Pastor Steve, and it was from a laugh. Steve and I are friends, and we are comrades in ministry, but our musical tastes are different, aren't they?

Not at all. You love Michael Bolton. That is not true. I do not have one

Michael Bolton song on my iPod. I'm more of a Michael Stipe fan. Sometimes I like some

Stipe songs. What's the one thing that we always say in pastoral ministry, the Michael Stipe quote? It's the end of the world as I know it.

I feel fine. No, it's not that one. It's another one. What do we say? Something about not liking something or some kind of spider sense or something.

I can't remember. I can't believe you. This is live radio, Steve. You don't know? Oh, I'm totally messing up then.

Let me go. Oh, Radio Freedom. That's it. Something. But there's something about, you know,

Michael's feeling ... Oh, Michael's nervous and the lights are bright. There's something going on that isn't quite right.

So in pastoral ministry, when something's going on that's not quite right, I think of that, sadly. And so you say, get to the topic.

Well, today's Tuesday, and so Tuesday is we talk about what we want, and so we're trying to redeem pop culture.

We're trying to ... Did you know all the members of REM, they're all Christians? Did you know that? We're just trying to laugh a little bit because we just got a letter in the mail from someone who knows better and said, you know,

I'm leaving the church and, you know, here are my keys kind of thing. And I just thought if you're ever going to leave a church, you should say something like this.

I've spent years with these people and served with them and cried with them, and I should probably just call them up and say, you know what,

I'd love to get together and meet and have lunch or buy you lunch. Or maybe I could just talk to you on the phone. But if you're resorting to some kind of letter and you just scribble a few notes, my respect for you just goes straight down the

REM valve. You know, I think REM stands for Religious Experience Movement.

Maybe. Mountaintop experience. Anything else happening in pop culture, Steve, that you'd like to make a comment about?

Absolutely nothing is going on. Okay. Well, let's see. If I was driving down the street today listening to WV &E, what would

I like to talk about? What would be interesting? What would be provocative? What would be biblical? I think part two of the

Yancey series. There you go. Well, what was your comment earlier about Yancey? You had some funny little quirky kind of comment.

Do I double dog dare you to say it on the air? Well, I... No. Okay. No.

Here's the scoop. We like to look at things from a biblical perspective because we want you to do that.

We don't want you to say, everything in the world's wrong except what my pastor says. Everything's wrong except what

John Piper says. Everybody's bad except us. We don't want you to do that, but we do want you to discern.

Tell me why it's righteous, Steve, to have biblical discernment. Well, because it's what the

Bible calls us to. I mean, if we're to embrace those things that are good and we're to put off those things that are not, if life as a

Christian is a process of sanctification, then certainly we want to be focused on the things that help us in that quest and not be involved in things or attracted to things or studying things that are not going to be helpful in that.

Isn't it interesting, Steve, in Titus chapter 1, Paul is writing to the elder, to the pastor

Titus, and he said, you know when there are these false teachers, these rebellious teachers, he said these kind of empty talkers, these deceivers must be silenced.

Can you imagine that? The Greek word is to muzzle. People that teach false doctrine must be muzzled and they need to put a sack on it.

You need to do that as an elder. How about this, Steve? It's good, don't you think, to ask the question, what does the text not say?

It doesn't say you need to have a committee to talk about that false teaching. You need to kind of put it to a congregational vote.

What about a five -year moratorium? A five -year moratorium? Well, today we are talking about homosexuality and is there forgiveness found for homosexuals?

And the answer is yes, and we're talking from last week about the Mountaintop Experience, a quote -unquote gay

Christian conference held just January 6th through 9th of this year, 2011, and Philip Yancey was the speaker.

And so I think this Mountaintop Experience does damage to those who are struggling with the sin of homosexuality, because if you don't think you're sick, you don't need a physician.

That's exactly what Jesus said, and you know, the question is, if you can be gay and be a

Christian, then what do we do with those other passages and why would we ever call on somebody to repent, you know, and that's the goal, isn't it?

To just get us to accept this, and to me this is like, you know, asking the

Philistines, asking the Jews to just kind of get over it. You know, hey, these different gods that we worship, what's the big deal?

You know, we all worship the same God and you have some quirks, we have some quirks, we all have quirks, and it's the same thing.

The homosexuals are like, you know, you have sin, we have sin, we all have sin, let's just agree to sin. And of course, adultery is sin, fornication is sin, of course evangelicals are hypocrites,

I'm a hypocrite, you're a hypocrite, of course we can always deflect the main issue, but Jesus was no hypocrite,

God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are no hypocrites, and they have a standard, and it's their heaven.

I'm not allowing people or disallowing people into my church, we're talking about, do you go to heaven when you die?

And so when you try to do this duck and jive business and put the blame someplace else, friends, you are hurting yourself because you'll stand and meet

God one day, and unless all your sins are forgiven, including the sins of homosexuality, you will not have entrance into God's holy heaven.

And we want you to. We're not mad at you, we don't hate you, we're trying to tell you the truth.

And when I go have my MRI later today, an MRI of the arteries in my brain, and if they say, you know what, that guy's got a huge aneurysm in his brain, but I don't think we should tell him.

Might make him mad, might make him sad, might change his travel plans. Yeah, don't want that. I want them to tell me, and if they tell me and they say, you know what, you've got two days to live,

I'm going to say, I want to make sure my house is in order. That's what we want. In love, we're telling you the truth, speaking the truth in love.

You know, they act like when John the Baptist came out of the wilderness, what he actually said was,

God loves you just the way you are. What happened to repent? There is no repentance.

I would be fascinated to hear the so -called gospel messages that they gave this mountaintop of experience, because I'm going to almost certainly guarantee you that it was actually not a challenge.

It wasn't any kind of, this is God's holy standard, but it was just like an affirmation.

Not a challenge, but just an affirmation. God loves you. You're just perfect and wonderful the way you are.

God don't make no junk. Did you know that, Steve? Well, all I know is that God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die for less than perfect, acceptable people.

We're all sinners, condemned apart from the work of Christ and the grace of God.

Well, when you look at Matthew chapter five and Jesus speaking, and he gives blessings, and he says, you know,

God is a God who blesses. By the way, Steve, I've been reading the Old Testament and many times in Genesis you'll see that God blessed people.

Just imagine that thought, that the holy God of the universe would bless sinful people.

It's an amazing thing. We want God's blessing for you. We want the Lord to bless you and to keep you and to make his face shine upon you.

But it all starts with recognizing sin, whether it's a rich young ruler and greed and covetousness are you and your homosexuality.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

So you've got to mourn about your sin and you've got to realize you're bankrupt spiritually before the blessing happens.

Isn't that true? I mean, the greatest—I'll tell you what the mountaintop experiences of life are, are when you've been laid so low by the understanding you have of your own sinfulness and then you come to realize that in spite of your sinfulness that God loves you, that he sent his son to die for you.

That is a mountaintop experience. When you think to yourself, I wouldn't save me, I wouldn't send my son to die for me, and yet God did.

I mean really, and I'm not trying to joke and I'm not trying to flatter or unflatter anything like that.

I have one son and I would not say, you know what, I'm going to send

Luke to die in Pastor Steve's place. Pastor Steve has murdered someone in cold blood and I'd rather have my son killed instead of Pastor Steve.

I would say, Steve, you know what, sorry, love you, got caught up in the moment, but you know you're going to have to pay for your own crime.

I would never send Luke to die for you if you've committed murder. I think I need a break.

I have to compose myself after that. So think about, this is the magnanimous love of God.

Luke is a sinner. My son's a sinner and Jesus is not a sinner. So God the Father sends his son, the sinless one, to die for sinners like those who are idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, and homosexuals.

And if you're not careful, you can be deceived. That's why Paul says, do not be deceived.

Now Philip Yancey, if he was going to get up and say, there's hope for you, there's hope for repentance, we'd be fine.

But he has done an interview in a recent blog and was asked about this very issue when it comes to homosexuality in Christians.

He has a friend named Mel, and Mel is a ghost writer for all kinds of people in the past,

Billy Graham, et cetera, Mel White. And so I think, Yancey's problem is this, Steve, I think he became such a good friend with Mel White that he has lowered the biblical standard for righteousness because he sees

Mel White, who is a kind man, a nice guy, and articulate when it comes to Orthodox theology.

And we talked about it last week, you know, this whole idea of being good, you know, therapeutic moralism.

I mean, how could anyone who's involved in a sinful pattern, a sinful way of life, think that they're getting to heaven?

Well, it's this kind of God is all affirming. And there you go, Yancey has this friend who is a good person, therefore he must be a

Christian, otherwise he wouldn't be good. And in society he probably is good, and the common grace of God, the common mercy of God is so spectacular, it can even have gay homosexual people do things that are good for the community and good to others.

I have been on the receiving end of kindness from homosexual men and homosexual women, but that doesn't mean they are good enough to get into heaven.

See, the bell curve is perfection, Matthew 5, 48, makes it super clear.

And what does the text say? Therefore you are ought to be perfect, you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

So I think Mel's friendship has clouded Philip Yancey's, and don't you think media clouds even our own listeners today?

Absolutely, because we're just bombarded with this idea that of, you know, of doing anything or coming out against homosexuality is somehow discriminating against them, putting them down, thinking that we are better than they are.

And you know, just for the record, to be very clear, you know, with Paul we would look at ourselves as very sinful people, people who don't do what

I know for me. I don't do what I ought to do, and I do what I ought not to do. And that doesn't mean that somehow

I have to overlook sin when sin exists. I mean, the worst thing you could do with a homosexual person who thinks that they're a

Christian is to affirm that Christianity and to promise them that God loves them and is going to let them into heaven as they are.

That's not love, that's hate. If you want real hate speech, tell somebody who's living with his girlfriend and having sex regularly that God loves that, loves him, and he's going to heaven when he dies in that state of unrighteousness.

That's not love, that's hatred. That's a despising of the person in the glory of God. Yeah, or somehow saying, you know, well

God may not approve of that, but he understands because we live in a different culture. Yeah, how do you get around Romans chapter 1 and 1

Corinthians chapter 6 when it explicitly says homosexuality is sinful? Answer, you hire a bunch of theologians from liberal schools who tell you some nuance with the

Greek or something like that. Steve, Yancey said that on an issue like this,

I'm quoting, and he's talking about homosexuality, I try to start with what I'm absolutely sure of and work outwards.

I'm sure of what my own attitude should be toward gays and lesbians. I should show love and grace.

So far so good, don't you think? Yeah, I'd agree. I mean, well, let's flip the other side of that, you know, to anyone

I should show hatred and dislike and, you know, be mean to them. Yeah, we are not trying to say they don't have rights.

They have full rights in the Constitution. I just don't want to give them more rights than what the Bible says they should have.

They don't have the right to be married because marriage is defined by the God who created people and created marriage, and so they don't need any extra rights.

I'm sure soon enough this will be hate speech, but I think many homosexuals, while I don't hate them and I have friends who are homosexuals, practicing homosexuals,

I think at the top levels we have homosexuals who hate evangelicals.

They are evangelical -phobic and they hate what they say, and I don't think they've ever met a real evangelical.

Maybe some Republican right -wing loon who's, you know, God hates fags kind of picketer, they think that's evangelicalism.

But I personally, and Steve, I say this to the glory of God, the homosexual friends that I have don't say,

Mike is homophobic, Mike hates us. They would say, he thinks we're living in sin, but they don't hate me because I try to show love and compassion and grace to them.

Yeah, I can't even, you know, tell you, I mean, time would fail me to kind of paraphrase

Hebrews 11. If I were to talk about during the course of my lifetime, because being in law enforcement for 21 years, in fact,

I'll just say one of the jobs I had for a while was to get people out of jail and onto house arrest and dealing with transsexuals and all these, and I'll tell you what, you can't help but be moved with compassion when you see people and they are people, they have a soul.

I mean, you see people, especially in the minority communities, because of the way they have lived their lives, they are cut off from their families.

They have absolutely no hope whatsoever. And I understand the lostness and the sadness that fills their lives.

I get that. But the answer is not to just affirm them as a homosexual.

The answer is to affirm their need for salvation, just as we all have that need.

Absolutely. NoCompromiseRadio .com. You can write us at info at No Compromise Radio. Here's where Yancey's true colors come forth.

Do I believe that gay people, I'm quoting Yancey, can be committed Christians? Ab -so -lutely.

That's exactly what he says. And in the same paragraph, he says, After all, Jesus had much to say about greed, hypocrisy, pride, and lust, sins

I struggle with, but did not mention homosexuality. And so Yancey has fallen off the deep end, and that is a false teaching.

I mean, what does it mean to be a committed Christian? In my mind, that's one who seeks to obey the word of God, and it's pretty hard to reconcile that with the idea of being a homosexual.

Can you be a committed homosexual and a committed Christian? And I think the answer is no. Yeah, but Steve, here's what he says.

I also disapprove of sexual promiscuity whether hetero or homo. And so, that was just a lightning bolt that was sent down by Steve's last comment there.

I have no idea what that is, but Steve does. That was a little static electricity. Let me do that again. All right. So here's what

Yancey's saying. I disapprove of sexual promiscuity whether hetero or homo. So as long as you're committed, it's okay.

So if you love each other and you're committed to monogamy, homosexual sex is right.

Well, that's not true for hetero or homo. God has made us sexual creatures. He's given us libidos.

He's given us hormones. He's given us the desire to have sex. That's all good, but it was affected by the fall.

And so, the only arena, the only platform, as it were, the only relationship where you can have as much sex as you want, as often as you want, to the glory of God, is if you are man and woman in a marriage.

What even is that idea of a committed relationship? I mean, that is such a worldly concept that he's importing there.

I mean, you're committed, we're committed, and then tomorrow, we're not committed. That's what a guy says to a young girl so he can sleep with her.

That's exactly right. We're going to be committed, but I'm too much of a weakling to actually make the commitment of marriage.

And so, I love you, and we're committed, now can we please go to bed? Right. I love you today.

That's my commitment to you. Yeah, and if you get pregnant, I'll give you the money for an abortion, and I'll be nowhere to be seen.

And so, especially for ladies, don't buy into this whole I love you stuff. You know, you need to, of course the guy can say

I love you, and men can say I love you and really mean it. But if it's I love you, therefore sleep with me before marriage, he's not loving you, he's loving himself.

So I'm digressing to this whole thing. See, let me just, let me make this. Here's what Yancey said. I simply try to love, gaze individually,

I know, and bring a little grace and mercy to a church that puts this particular sin in a special category.

Are you putting this, are we? Does the Bible put this sin in a special category, somehow off to the side in this kind of leprous pariah category?

Absolutely not. I'll tell you who puts it in a separate category. It's this world. And this world is put in a separate category because they say this is a sin that you absolutely must overlook.

This is a sin that you absolutely must accept. This is a lifestyle that you must embrace as normative.

It is 100 % normal to be homosexual, and anyone who says otherwise is unloving, unkind, and unjust.

And we're going to try to get you off the radio is what they're going to try to do. And like Sweden and Canada, we're going to tell you that's hate speech and we're going to throw you in jail.

And so what Steve and I are trying to do today is equip you, the listeners, so when Steve and I are put in jail, that you can carry on the gospel ministry because God's going to give us a jail ministry.

Steve thought he was out of the jails after working there for 20 years, but he might have a jail ministry. Steve, what do you do if people say, you know what, these passages in 1

Corinthians 6 and Romans 1, they aren't about homosexuality, the behavior, sodomy.

They're about going to be with a temple prostitute who is of the same sex.

I mean, this is a kind of a... Can you give me a little more static electricity after that one? Yeah. I mean, this is just kind of an esoteric argument because they get into the

Greek word and whether it's pederast and all these other issues. And here's the key question.

The key question is, sexual activity outside of marriage, is that permissible or is it not permissible?

And we can get into all the word studies you want, and I think at the end of the day, you would even see that their word studies are just games.

But if God designed marriage as to be the singular vehicle through which human beings express their sexuality, then that's the creation and that's the correct way of doing it.

Anything outside of that, anything outside of that is sinful. Read Song of Solomon. Read Proverbs 5.

God is not a prude. God invented sex and all the pleasures of sex that you can experience.

And if you're in marriage that we want you to experience. We are not prudes. I don't know, Steve. I have a lot of problems, but I never thought of myself as a prude.

I'm definitely not a prude, nor a prune. Listen to what Yancey says. My church in Chicago spent a couple of years carefully studying homosexuality.

Now here's the thing. If you study this issue, and it takes you two years to study it, you're trying to figure out a way to approve it.

You don't need to have a study. When the Methodist church, the Episcopalian church, when whatever other liberal

Lutheran church says, we're going to have a little study on this. To begin the study is to condemn that church and have

Jesus say to that church, Ichabod, and I can just give that Lutheran church a new name, Sardis Lutheran Church, because you don't need to study it.

It is clear. Well, what they're saying, it's interesting even the wording there. Studying homosexuality, he didn't say studying what the

Bible has to say about homosexuality, but studying homosexuality. In other words, how do we reconcile what the

Bible says with the culture that surrounds us? And that's always the wrong approach.

Culture says it's a woman's body, and if you want to get rid of whatever's inside of it, that appendage, that parasite, as some of the now ladies call it, then go ahead.

But we are not going with what the culture says. The Bible is true. Culture says there's no difference between men and women.

Culture says you don't have to be married to live together. Culture says children should have their own rights apart from what their parents say.

The culture says a lot of things. I mean, what would the culture of Sodom and Gomorrah have said, and should

God have affirmed that? What if we run into someone who said, I've got a homosexual past,

I know it's wrong, I've asked God for forgiveness, but I still struggle in that area. Pastor, could

I attend your church, could I be a member, and could you help me? Absolutely. I mean, we should want to help people like that, and, you know, the key though is, like you've said before, we wouldn't want to have some kind of celebrating recovery from homosexuality.

In other words, we wouldn't put people together who struggle with the same sins. But what you want to see is with any person who's repented from any sinful past, you want to just see them grow in their knowledge and love for the

Lord. Confession means this. Here's your Greek word for the day. It's actually for the word where we get the word homo.

Yes, homo means the same. Same word. Homo lageo, or homo lageto, or I'm having my

Greek stuttering right now. It's to say the same as. Yeah, and so you go, you know what, whatever God says about this particular thing, issue, state, activity, behavior, attitude, whatever

God says, I'll say the same thing. That's confession. So God, I have desires for other men, and I would like to act on those things, but you say

God, it's a sin, and therefore I'm not going to do that. Help give me bravery, courage, obedience to live in light of the cross, and I won't do those.

I am asking for forgiveness. And don't we want our people to get forgiveness and mercy after they confess their sins?

That's what we're after, a ministry of mercy. Absolutely. And, you know, I mean, it's just like any other sin.

We would not, you know, parade somebody up and say, you know, this brother struggled with homosexuality for years before he got saved, and now look at him.

That's just, you know, any more than I would have a guy stand up and say, this guy used to rob banks, and now look at him.

I mean, it's the same thing. We just don't do that. Our verse for you, if you're a homosexual today, besides pointing you to the cross, is in light of the cross, if you look at Proverbs 28 13, he who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes him will find mercy.

Preach it. We want mercy for you at No Compromise Radio Ministry. We love you enough to tell you the truth. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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