December 19, 2017 Show with Gary DeMar on “The ‘Gay Wedding Cake’ Controversy & What this Means for America & for Christ’s Church” PLUS Josh Buice on “The New Calvinism”

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Chris.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth. We're listening via live streaming at iron sharpens iron radio .com. This is Chris Arnz.

And your host of iron sharpens iron radio wishing you a happy Tuesday on this 19th day of December 2017 and today we are going to be continuing a theme that we Actually started with pastor Josh Bice of Praise Mill Baptist Church months ago.

But today we are going to be continuing the discussion on the gay wedding cake controversy and what this means for America and for Christ Church with Gary DeMar of American vision. I'll never have that recipe.

All right, that's enough of the stupidest song that I've ever heard in my life. MacArthur Park. Someone left a cake out in the rain and you know one of the reasons I started the program with that song or at least a part of that song as much as I could handle is because You.

I mean obviously that song is supposed to be allegorical about something and I have no idea what it is. But people laugh at it usually because it sounds like this crybaby whining about a cake. Being left out in the rain, and it seems that we have a tyranny of crybabies who are really Great gaining far too much foothold in the United States and around the world.

But today we have Gary DeMar. As I was mentioning who has his Master of Divinity from Reform Theological Seminary. He's the founder and senior fellow of American vision an author of countless essays news articles and more than 27 book titles who has been featured by nearly every major news media outlet and has hosted the Gary DeMar show history unwrapped and Gary DeMar's vintage point vantage point, I'm sorry and web show and is a regular contributor to American vision org.

And as I said, we are going to be discussing today the gay wedding cake controversy and what this means for America and Christ Church During our first hour on the program and it's great to have you back Gary DeMar.

That's good to be back. And.

Before we go on to the theme even though you addressed a Summary of what American vision is all about there are new listeners joining our audience every day. So if you could give us another summary of American vision.

Well Actually in the late 1970s, I'm not really the founder it was. Founded by a fellow named Steve Schiffman. I was asked to come on to be a writer and a researcher back in 1980. He eventually American vision probably about 1983 or four.

And Time. And we started off mostly in the. That was the early theme of American vision. That's why it was called American vision by getting into worldview issues how the Bible applied to every area of life.

I did a series. Government is not equal to politics and the self-government family government Church government civil government and a very very decentralized civil government. That was the we're talking about Ronald Reagan coming into power and Christians.

Had finally gotten into the politicians for the most part. We're really not considering Reagan came on the scene. We're not getting involved in politics at that particular time. Was a new thing or kind of started it with his you know being a born-again Christian and Media at that time had no idea what a born-again Christian Was and Billy Graham wrote a book and called how to be born again.

So that was the emphasis of American vision and trying to put the world in which we live and that included and. And we've kind of grown in our topics. And Mary Apologetics.

And.

The Gay Wedding Cake Controversy and the Scope of Religious Liberty

What can you update us? with in regard to this Christian cake controversy, I should say gay wedding cake controversy and if you could Actually before that give us a little background everything that you know about this controversy to begin with.

Well for the last few years State governments have been putting into effect that it broadened the definition of what constitutes a civil right to bring blacks into Conformity to exist voting rights and getting rid of you know, so forth and so on was a big issue in the 50s and of course the 19 1960s.

And that has expanded now to include so you had women's women and then We began to see that there was this emphasis on homosexual rights or ruled that homosexual marriage Was was legitimate. That just kind of opened the door to all types of legal challenges.

To to anyone who would you know who would dispute that that claim and shits wagon? To the to the civil rights movement. Race is not the same as civil rights related to a sexual and identified in terms of the sexual behavior that they're engaged in.

Or homosexuality, of course is is determined based upon what type of sex a person engages in. It will just like a black person. Well, that's just that's just a crazy thing. There is no scientific way to determine whether or not a person.

Can you on with that? Bisexual more than 50 type one can even. Just the way it is and you got the whole transit transsexual issue has opened up a pansexuality. Not homosexual being a racist. So the Supreme Court ruled and said that homosexuality is legitimate and what has happened is that the Homosexuals have been homosexuals.

Would go to a photographer and said could you photograph our or film our wedding person would say no. They'd be sued. You had a cake sweet cakes by Melissa pick up in Oregon. She refused to do Jack Phillips in Colorado the same the same thing and it's it's Jack Phillips's case.

That is before the Supreme Court right now. The sweet cakes by Melissa. She ended up being fined. $135 ,000. Wow, she refused to bet not she didn't refuse to bake a cake. She refused to bake a cake and then garnish it with specifics related to a particular type of.

Wedding.

Jack Phillips is the same way. He sells he'll sell cakes to anyone. But he makes that. He's makes certain distinctions saying qualifying distinctions. He doesn't like Doing anything related to the occult.

So if you went in there wanted something related to the occult. Not going to make it for you if You went in there. You wanted some sort of lewd sexual type cake. He wouldn't make that. And in fact if you went in there and asked for a cake denouncing homosexuality, he wouldn't make that either.

And so he has been very consistent in his principles related to it will make a cake for Related to the message that's on the cake.

Yeah, it is. It is quite a scary thing. I mean we we Christians in the United States Rest on a relative bed of ease compared to what's going on in other parts of the world. But you can't help but wonder what is going to happen around the corner and there are as you just mentioned people who have been having their livelihoods ruined and have been fined outrageous fees and who knows when the when the the next Hammer will fall and we will see Christians going to prison and so on.

I'm gonna give our email address for those of our listeners who want to join us on the air with a question for you about This it's Chris Arnzen at gmail .com chris ar n ze and a gmail .com. Please give us your first name your city and state in your country of residence if you live outside of the USA and please only remain anonymous if you are asking about a personal and private matter and.

And Let's say you are perhaps a homosexual. You don't want you don't want to identify yourself or you disagree with your pastor on this or you disagree with your spouse on this or something like that or you are a business owner and you're just scared to death because you don't want to Be marked out as somebody who is opposed to homosexuality.

We can understand all that and you can remain anonymous if you choose to but other than that, please identify yourself by first name City and state and country of residence. Well, there is a divide in in the Christian Church as you know for well, Gary you have all kinds of Views on this from one extreme to another you have I Don't know if you would be considered an extreme but let's say if let's just for the sake of argument you're on one side of the spectrum being a theonomist and a reconstructionist and Then you have someone on the other end of the extreme who's an Amish person who is totally out of the loop doesn't get involved In any way shape or form in any kind of political discussion or dispute, but obviously most of Christianity.

At least professing Christianity is somewhere in the middle of that and you even have as you know people who are theologically In lockstep with one another on most things you have a lot of reformed people in Calvinists Who would agree with you on many theological things they might even be post-millennialist.

But they draw the line in certain areas and and don't think that it is the church's place To be politically active even though they may believe individual Christians. Have every liberty and freedom to do.

Such things as even run for office or campaign for candidates and all that kind of thing. But so tell us exactly where you stand on this as a Christian.

One of the reasons I'm issue up and notifications to this if someone can go into a private business and said you must. You must cater to my particular worldview in a message and let's let's say you're a this is not just freedom issue.

This is a free speech issue as well. And to just to make it about religion I think it's a huge is a huge mistake because anybody's in this position. Are you giving an example if you're they're a Jewish you're a Jewish baker and somebody comes in and says I?

Want a I want a cake for a Nazi themed wedding? Should the Jewish baker be forced to make a cake for somebody who wants a.

Jewish themed wedding or maybe only maybe if only it's a homosexual Nazi themed wedding.

This is where the craziness. I know and look by the way. I run a business and And in that business we have to we get to do business with other people. There's some business. We just won't take. Because we don't like the the world view of what they're espousing for example let's assume that you're an accounting you own an accounting firm and Someone comes in and says we want to we want to use your accounting business, and what kind of business you're in.

But we're in the pornography business. So well, we don't want to we don't like that kind of business. You know in the past you could refuse somebody's business because you didn't like the business. Let's say you're against.

You're against gun rights. And you're an accounting firm and somebody owns a gun store and you go in there, and you go to the accounting firm and says we want you to handle our our Accounting issues the person is no no no no I can't do that my conscience won't allow me to do it because I'm opposed to.

The guy would say look there's some here's another by three or four other accounting firms out there. They'll do your business, but I can't do it. That's just plain common sense in the business in the business community.

I'll give you an example. This is this is a real example. I believe it's in Kentucky where a lesbian-owned printing company Supported a Christian printing company because the Christian printing company would not print T-shirts.

For a march that condemned that promoted homosexuality and the owners of the lesbian printing company said I Look he has every right to do that because if someone came to me that wanted t-shirts printed Sexuality.

I want to have the liberty to refuse that kind of business as well see this just isn't about Christians and their rights and freedoms it's about all of ours and You know this is this is the issue that's gonna come down the pike and anybody who says oh We can't get involved in this politically.

Because we have some scriptural basis for not getting involved politically. I guarantee you that isn't going to work when Homosexual couple comes into your church and says we want you to marry us and you say well We can't do that because it's against our religion and say too bad Law is now you can't discriminate against us in any way.

You must marry us. What what's the church going to do? This is this is an issue that's much much broader than just simply not baking a cake with a particular message on it.

Amen, and by the way, you were mentioning the black civil rights movement. There are many many Black individuals even black individuals that are from churches that we might consider liberal in many areas who are vehemently opposed to having the homosexual activists jump on their bandwagon and ride on their coattails because they realize the the absurdity that you mentioned of trying to equate a behavior with someone's skin color and In fact in New York, there was a there was quite a considerable protest against same-sex marriage.

I don't know what it was like in your neck of the woods, but I used to live in New York until 2012 but there has been a considerable protest against same-sex marriage and Against the equating of homosexuality with the black civil rights movement by even pastors whose churches might Be prone to vote for a little or promote little liberal candidates until this came along.

So what you. I'm sure you recognize that I'm not sure what the Atmosphere is like there in Georgia on this regard.

Well, Atlanta has a very large Atlanta is get involved politically don't address politically because they think well, we're a 501 c3. We have a protection of the on and on and on. But I guarantee you just like they did in a lot of these cases the Colorado case will actually, you know singled him out.

And there was a there was another case. I think it was in Indiana regarding a pizza pizza shop. That was a huge huge deal a year or so ago. They went in there. I think a news team went in there and just confronted the the owner about about baking for a wedding and so.

These are targeted areas these and they'll do the small small Bakers and they'll do the small churches first and then they'll get a precedent set and then they'll use that precedent to go again. You know bigger and bigger bigger because they'll end up losing their their tax-exempt status.

You because of the 501 c3 is a government-designated You know tax issue. And so they'll we're gonna lose our tax-exempt status this is gonna cost us financially. They'll these churches are gonna have to make a decision as to what they're going to do now.

There's still some hope in this because the Supreme Court has not ruled yet on the Jack Phillips right now. It's you know, four to four with Kennedy being the you know The deciding factor very much like he was on the pro-homosexual marriage case.

Now just before we go to some listener questions. Do you see anything that you can have empathy with in regard to Christians who agree wholeheartedly with the perhaps even duty of Christians being salt and light in the world and having some kind of positive influence in the political arena.

But that they don't want the church to do that as an institution. Do you have any? Empathy with that at all, or do you just outright reject that entire argument?

Well, I'll give you a good example of it. I taught on Acts four and five on Sunday in our church and It's two chapters where there's the beginning of persecution of Christians for just for presenting the gospel.

And of course the appear makes it makes the statement must obey God rather than men. Well, I used that lesson to Introduce what was good what was happening here in terms of this this cake issue. But all the church has to do is get up and teach teach the Bible to people.

What does the Bible say about these issues? Vote accordingly. It doesn't mean that the church has to become a center of political activity. What the church should be doing is teaching the people what the Bible has to say About these issues and go out and act in terms of what Scripture has to say.

So the church should be teaching about abortion and homosexuality as those things come up. You know come up in Scripture. The Bible is filled with all these issues. Just you know, you can you can make a case biblical case for anything that's going on in our culture today.

We just preach the Bible.

All right. Let's start taking some of our listener questions because I know that you have to leave after the first hour. And you're gonna perhaps have to help me with the pronunciation of this since you're in Georgia.

Anthony from Hoshton HOSCH. To end, you know that city I Don't know. Okay. Well, I guess that's probably right or close to it and maybe I'm entirely wrong. But anyway Anthony from Hoshton Georgia says in light of the fact That most churches are raised with the dispensational outlook.

I guess he means most evangelical churches. What would be the most effective thing Christians who believe that the kingdom is present now and spreading? To go about making a difference other than education inside the church only and.

Also, is there any groups or legal legislators that Gary has seen that he thinks are? Moving in the right direction a lot of times. He has one more question. I'll wait for that.

Well, again, I just think that you know Christians need to need to need to be involved here. You have this, you know 25 of the people turned out. That was it. 25 of the voting public turned out for the election in Alabama.

And.

You know Christians who say well, there's you know, it's not a dimes worth of difference between the two parties. It's just nonsense. There is a difference and if you get in there and you know You get enough of these guys out of there you can you can change things politically now, let me be very clear here I am NOT a believer in using the government to do things for me.

I don't want to go. I don't want to change roles here, but you know, let's get conservatives in there. So now we have we're now in possession of the money and the power we can do with it as we please now.

It's our agenda. We're going to push. I want Christians involved in the area of civil government to decrease the power of civil government. Decrease its influence. Decrease its spending to decrease its taxing power and so forth.

I don't want I don't want to be involved in politics to force my world view down on people in the same way. As I don't want liberals going and using the power of power of politics that can force me to comply With with some some crazy law that says I must use my artistic Talent in my company in order to you know, not so much promote but to give.

You give support to a particular worldview that I think is completely wrong and harmful for society.

And Anthony's next question is I don't see in Christian literature Providing enough direction on how to bridge that gap. In other words We learned the theology on one hand but not so much on the practical side of how to implement and obey the command to occupy until Jesus comes that we find in Luke 1914 even in reference to this whole cake controversy and those who would try to curtail our Liberty any Recommended reading and your thoughts on Abraham Kuyper in this regard.

Oh, wow.

Start with Kuyper first. Kuyper, you know, he was too much of a pluralist. I mean you go over to the Netherlands today and If anybody knows who Kuyper is it's only because they have actually have a guy's he has his name but he was too much of a pluralist.

He didn't give us a Distinctive Christian approach. He only gave that Christian distinctive Christian approach and said there are other there are other approaches out there. We just need all need to all work together and.

Talk about.

Cobelligerence.

Yes.

But you can't compromise your position on that. I think there are a lot of good a lot of good people out there who involved in politic up, you know wet their finger put it up and see which way the winds blowing and They don't want to speak out against homosexuality because they know they're going to be targeted.

You got pastors and churches who don't want to speak about these issues because they're. They're going to offend certain people and a certain number of people may end up losing Leaving the church and as a result there the financial situation changes and they and their churches, you know go bankrupt.

So in order to Have no controversy don't talk about any of these particular topics. And so this is why you've got to look at Acts chapter 4 and 5. Because those particular passages they they stood their ground we must obey God rather than men, but they were also willing to take whatever the consequences were for their refusal to heed the Prohibition and unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who are not with the consequences the sweet cakes by Melissa Jack Phillips, they've suffered the consequences.

There was a GoFundMe appeal called support sweet cakes by Melissa, which raised over a hundred thousand dollars before. It was shut down by GoFundMe GoFundMe. And GoFundMe stated that the campaign was not compatible with their terms of service.

There's a price to pay for standing up for the truth. And so this is this is look this is big business here. This is this is this is tough stuff. It's not just about you know baking a cake for a particular worldview you disagree with the ramifications for this long-term is Strikingly Binding going to be binding on the church of the church doesn't stand up now.

And by the way the comment about Dispensationalism is that yeah, we've got lots of people who say oh, this is just all signs of Jesus is coming back soon. Nothing we can do to change Titanic. You know on and on and on and on and on and Christians have been talking about that for 50 or 60 or 70 years.

It's one of the reasons why we're in the mess we're in today because everybody believes that this is all these are all signs Of the end times and that Jesus is coming back. Well, they need to go back and read Romans chapter 1 and 1st Timothy chapter 1.

Homosexuality was an issue back in those days in Paul's day as well.

We're gonna go to our first break and just by the way forwarded you Gary a An email from Joe in Slovenia. His question was rather long. So I figured during the station break you could look it over. I sent it to your email address and When we come back, we'll start with Joe in Slovenia and try to get to as many of the other Questioners as we can before our time runs out.

And by the way Anthony in Hoshton, Georgia you have won a free copy of Gary DeMar's new book wars and rumors of wars. It has nothing to do with this issue. But it's his brand new book compliments of American vision and So make sure we have your full mailing address in Hoshton, Georgia, and sorry if I'm mispronouncing that don't go away.

God willing we will be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in our guest today for the first hour is Gary DeMar of American vision. We are discussing for the first hour the gay wedding cake controversy and what this means for America and For Christ's Church.

If you'd like to join us on the air now is the time to do it because we're running out of time. Very quickly. Our email address is Chris Arnson at gmail .com. If you have a question I forwarded you Joe and Slovenia's question and he says.

Dear brothers Chris and Gary. What are your thoughts about the argument that by refusing to provide the wedding cake Phillips wasn't engaging in anti-gay discrimination. Wasn't involving an anti-gay discrimination because he happily offered to provide Craig and Mullins with other baked goods is accepting the idea.

That's a very important very important point.

The Phillips.

Never.

Refused to sell a cake to and would not have refused to sell a cake to Craig and Mullins. The issue on the cake the Jack Phillips heard of refusing. Certain messages on cakes that have nothing to do with homosexuality.

It's his art. It's and so forth and just like if I went into somebody to want you to paint me the picture of this I don't want to paint a picture of that. He said well, I'm gonna force I'm gonna call the law on here.

I'm gonna force you to do so and say well I'm sorry. I just can't do that. So this is this is this is the argument in fact.

Phillips.

Gave them I think gave them information on where they could go to get a cake or their homosexual their homosexual wedding. And by the way, who goes into a baker and says hey, I'm a homosexual bake me a cake.

I.

Don't know I don't know if somebody's a homosexual or not. It could would come into my bakery sir, of course. There's no discrimination related to selling cakes to homosexuals unless somebody says well, I'm a homosexual.

And it's like some guy comes in and I'm a serial killer. Well, you know, okay I'm gonna I'm gonna suck you a cake. I mean these are these are just crazy arguments. The the issue in this particular case is The message that was on the cake now Samuel Alito during the question fair in court he brought up the point that said that some three people had gone into homosexual bakeries and Wanted cakes made up with an anti homosexual message on it and the bakers refused.

And so they went to the Civil Rights Commission and the Civil Rights Commission.

Dismissed.

Their complaint home to to a particular message on the cake of that message is homosexuality a pro homosexual message. But it's it's it's okay. It's okay to discriminate against someone when the message on the cake is anti homosexuality.

This is why the government needs to get completely out of this issue. Right, you don't want to make a cake for someone. By the way, I don't care what the reason is. You don't have to make a cake for them, right?

There are other there are other cake cake baking places. Bakeries you can go in fact with my understanding that this homosexual couple Passed quite a few of them on the way to Jack Phillips place. They're out there.

You know, this isn't this isn't an issue of discrimination. People people discriminate in business all the time Based upon some very legitimate reasons and this is a legitimate reason. I don't why I don't approve Of this relationship.

I can't put a message on it. Which would in fact be approving of it. It's very simple. Okay, we don't we don't like it, but we understand. We're gonna just take our business somewhere else and that's the way it ought to be.

Yeah, there was obviously an agenda behind that because who on earth wants someone Preparing anything that you and your loved ones are going to eat who's mad at you for some reason. It's just like that old saying about you never Curse at the person at the drive-thru at a fast-food restaurant because you never know it's gonna wind up in your food.

Why why on earth would you want anybody to prepare? Especially a cake for an event that you think is a very special even sacred event and You know that the person's heart isn't in it that they're not going to do their best with their creativity or anything.

It's ridiculous. Yeah, right.

All you have to do is watch the film to help you get some idea.

I'm not even going to repeat with that references. But if any of you have seen that you'll know exactly what Gary's talking about.

This is the essence of liberty in our in our culture now some people who discriminate against blacks. You can't keep making fine that 99 of the people out there Who are doing the right thing are now all of a sudden?

Under the duress of the the government.

Okay, Joe also says is accepting the idea that refusal to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding Constitutes discriminating against customers on the basis of their sexual orientation of failure to recognize the distinction between sexual orientation and sexual activity if discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is interpreted in such broad terms.

With a similarly broad definition of racial discrimination require a black baker to provide a Confederate flag cake for a white supremacist wedding lest he be accused of bias against whites. How about Jews being forced to bake swastikas and you already brought that up?

Yeah, now this is an important. This is an important question that Joe makes here. Because the answer the way this is answered by the problem of the sexual side is this. There is a special carve-out.

Legally for homosexuality. This is the issue. It's there is something legally special about the homeless about homosexuality. There isn't a carve-out for people, you know Confederate Confederate flag aficionados and there isn't a carve-out for people who identify as Nazis.

What what we've done in our country. We have a special carve-out for a particular sexual activity people who identify.

As.

Something related to sex. That to me is one of the worst things we have ever done in our culture. And again, you know What's the next carve-out going to be. Someone comes in and you know and says I'm not he or she I'm they.

So I want to. I want a cake now that Expresses my vainness. And then the next person comes in and he says hey, I you know, I identify as number 23 on.

On Facebook's.

Designation for you know for gender identification. Okay. So where does this stop? Who's who's allowed in and who's allowed out of the club? And so that the best thing to do is to get the government out of it.

You don't like this Baker because he wouldn't bake you a homosexual cake. Go somewhere else. Order one online. I mean, there's so many options today. I'm sure pretty soon that Amazon's gonna have a cake baking You know system where you'll be able to you know, get get cake cakes made.

So and this is just crazy and we put this in the hands of five unelected judges, right?

Well, if somebody comes into your store claiming that they're they then you charge them from ten people.

I'll bake you two cakes. Then you can put them together. I'm charging a double. I'll charge it double for you know.

And the last thing that Joe says is maybe the wisest thing for us to do considering the Pervasive wickedness engulfing the nation is to become comfortable with the Apostle Paul's experience to this present present hour.