June 1, 2015 ISI Radio Show with James White on Same Sex Marriage

Iron Sharpens Iron iconIron Sharpens Iron

5 views

Subscribe to Iron Sharpens Iron on-demand / podcast:

0 comments

00:02
Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
00:09
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
00:16
Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:24
Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
00:32
Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:46
It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:57
Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,
01:05
Cumberland Valley, Pennsylvania and the rest of the planet earth. This is Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron, and I am so glad to be back after a four -year hiatus for this program.
01:18
And before I introduce my very first guest, Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, I'd be sitting alone in an empty room holding a hairbrush and pretending it was a microphone if it wasn't for these wonderful people who made
01:31
Iron Sharpens Iron possible, including Jason Kirtman of the Leading Edge Radio Network, who enthusiastically invited me into their broadcasting family,
01:41
Charles Kirtman, his father, who is a pastor of a church in Missouri, who eagerly recommended me to Jason, Wading River Baptist Church in Wading River, Long Island, Linbrook Baptist Church in Linbrook, Long Island, ConfessingBaptist .com,
01:56
who created a masterpiece in regard to a website for Iron Sharpens Iron, 1031
02:03
Sermon Jams, and the folks over there at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where John Piper ministers for creating my theme music,
02:13
Eric Nielsen for doing backup recording for me, and Ralph Lambiasi of Apologia Designs for my
02:21
Facebook design. I'd like to thank our new voiceover artist for the introductions, actor
02:28
Morgan Freeman. Actually, no, that's just my very good friend, Gray Payne, who sounds a lot like Morgan Freeman, and Bill Shishko of the
02:36
Orthodox Presbyterian Church in for recording that opening announcement.
02:43
Nelson Frye of WPFG Radio, who helped here in the studio in addition to Dustin Battles, Chris Richardson, Taylor Ignacio, and I've got to thank, a big shout out to the sultan of the soundboard, the admiral of audio, and the star of the studio,
03:00
Joe Ignacio, who really did the troubleshooting necessary, and who rescued this sound system here from being dormant and silent because of the fact that we were running into a lot of technical problems until Joe showed up.
03:17
I'd also like to thank his mother, Susan Richardson Hopkins, who led me to Christ 30 years ago, and gave birth to Joe, and two other individuals that I just mentioned.
03:29
But I'd so glad, I am so glad to have Dr. James R. White as my first guest.
03:35
As I mentioned, he is the founder and director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and author of dozens of books, including the book we're discussing today, co -authored with Jeffrey Neal, The Same -Sex
03:46
Controversy, due to the obvious fact that the highest court in our nation is going to be making a vital decision,
03:54
God willing, before the end of June on same -sex marriage. Dr. James R.
04:00
White has participated in approximately 150 live public moderated debates, including opponents representing
04:07
Roman Catholicism, liberal Protestantism, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Unitarianism, homosexuality, and those who deny biblical inerrancy.
04:19
He is also host of the Dividing Line broadcast, which airs Tuesdays and Thursdays most weeks at AOMIN .org.
04:30
My honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr. James R. White.
04:36
Well, it's great to be with you, Chris. I'm not really sure that four years really defines the term hiatus really well, but I like saying that word a lot, we'll let you do that, that's okay.
04:47
Well, something that the listeners might find interesting is that my guest, Dr. James R. White, it's actually doubly appropriate that you're my guest today, not only because you were my first guest in 2006 when
05:00
I first started Iron Sharpens Iron, but a lot of people might not know that Dr. White was born here locally in Mechanicsburg, very close to the studios.
05:08
No, no, no, no, no, I lived in Mechanicsburg. Okay, you lived in Mechanicsburg.
05:14
I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Oh, okay. Yep. Well, he lived as a youngster here in Mechanicsburg locally, and was baptized in a local
05:25
Baptist church, and it is amazing that the city there of Mechanicsburg actually erected a sign dedicating the site where you were baptized as a local landmark.
05:37
I don't think so. You know, that's funny, they don't have that in Google Street. I missed that.
05:44
Well, that's probably because, unfortunately, some local Latin Rite Catholics tore the sign down and melted it down to make
05:49
St. Christopher medals, so that's probably the reason that that sign no longer exists.
05:55
That's possible. But, James, we are obviously discussing a hot topic today, a topic that sometimes causes even
06:06
Christians to forget that God is in control of the entire universe. Obviously, no matter what decision the
06:14
Supreme Court makes, God is still in control, but we're talking about same -sex marriage in particular.
06:23
And, Dr. White, a lot of the arguments being given in favor of same -sex marriage, what
06:30
I'm typically hearing, it's one of two things or both of these things. It's, number one, appealing to the liberties that even conservative
06:42
Christians believe in the freedoms and liberties we have in our country, where a person can conduct himself as he pleases in the privacy of his own home, as long as he is not harming anyone, especially children or pets or what have you.
07:00
And people are saying, hey, look, this is, even if you disagree with us, you find this repugnant, repulsive, even if you think it's damning, these people are saying, we don't agree with you, and we have the liberty and the freedom in this country, or should have the liberty and freedom in this country to pursue marrying whomever we choose to, if you could just pick up from there.
07:24
Well, of course, no one is actually saying that. I mean, not yet, anyways.
07:30
I don't know of any radicals who are saying that we should be able to marry our mothers, our grandparents, our kids, our children, our dogs, or anything else.
07:42
So this whole idea, the whole utilization of the phrase marriage equality has been utilized and developed simply to appeal to the current generation that has been taught what to think and not how to think.
08:00
It is a phrase that is not meant to actually communicate anything meaningful, and those who know what the result of all this will be know that they are talking about the fundamental destruction of the entire concept of marriage, because we're already seeing this.
08:18
In Europe, anyone with any ability to look down the road recognizes that once this takes place, then polyamory, polygamy, everything else is now on the table, and there's no moral or logical reason to say to a bisexual, you cannot experience fulfillment of your sexual desires if you've already said that saying to a homosexual, you need to be able to fulfill your sexual desires, allows for the complete redefinition of marriage.
08:50
So a bisexual would have to be married to two people, at least, to fulfill all their desires, so there that goes.
08:57
So the whole number two gets thrown out, and the result is the destruction of the one
09:04
God -ordained institution that the founders of at least this country recognized was absolutely central to a well -functioning governmental system, culture, the continuation of morality and ethics.
09:20
The founders recognized that without that framework of morality and ethics, the constitutional system would never work, and that once that was no longer the case, this form of government would no longer work.
09:35
So it is, you know, I haven't had a chance to listen to it, but I was just informed just a little while ago, literally like half an hour ago, hour ago, about some friends of mine who went up to Canada to speak up in Canada, and when they got to Customs, they were taken off the side because they mistakenly said something about a church.
10:00
And they took their phones and their computers, and they made them fire them up and give them the password so they could look through their materials to find lists of topics.
10:09
They were looking for anything. They felt they were looking for anything that had to do with homosexuality. And that, right now, our
10:19
Christian brothers and sisters in Canada well know that they do not have the freedom of speech and expression that we currently still have here in the
10:29
United States for now. But as anyone knows, in listening to the conversation that took place between the
10:37
Solicitor General of the United States and one of the Supreme Court Justices just last month, if the
10:45
Supreme Court redefines marriage, and that's what they've been asked to do, is to, it's not redefine marriage, it's undefined marriage, is what it is.
10:55
If they do that, then fundamentally that will require a complete shifting of the emphasis in regards to the rights held by citizens of the
11:07
United States. And we all know what the result of that is going to be. And I have been saying for a long time,
11:15
I don't know how long we're going to have the freedom to address these subjects. I'm going to be faced with the question, do
11:25
I continue addressing this so that I cannot, as a result, address the issues that impact the entire church overseas in doing the work and equipping
11:39
Christians to deal with Islam, for example? Because, you know, that's going to be one of the questions, is how do you weigh the priorities that you have if you live in a culture that is under the judgment of God, then how do you deal with that?
12:00
Well, there isn't a question that we cannot compromise when it comes to the nature of God as creator, we as his creation.
12:11
He defines what is right and wrong for us. He defines what is life because he's the source of life.
12:17
And as a result, if we love anybody, including those who practice homosexuality, we have to be able to tell them clearly and directly that they are cutting themselves off from the source of life.
12:32
We don't have any choices on that. And so there is going to be a tremendous amount of cost.
12:40
And it's much closer than I think, I think all of us, we don't even want to think about it. So we just keep putting it off.
12:46
Well, you know, years down the road, years down the road, I don't think it's years down the road. I think this month, in a rapid acceleration of the degradation of our civil rights in this culture, if the
13:08
Supreme Court does what we know without any question for the people in the
13:13
Supreme Court are complete ideologues, it's not even an issue of whether there's any meaningful argument to be made on the subject.
13:21
They're there to vote for this. I mean, when you have one of those individuals performing a same -sex wedding just a few weeks ago, after the oral arguments have already been heard, it, you know, the fix is in.
13:37
It's pretty much a foregone conclusion. I mean, I certainly hope that's not the case. I pray it's not the case.
13:42
But let's say that a few weeks from now, probably in a 5 -4 or 6 -3 decision, the
13:49
Supreme Court throws out human history and the entire cultural and ethical and moral foundation of our nation.
14:00
What is, therefore, keeping the forces that hate the gospel from moving forward, knowing that we cannot ignore our own
14:12
Lord's teachings in Matthew chapter 19 in regards to the nature of marriage, and using this as the means of silencing the gospel, and in bringing about the tsunami of apostasy that we're already seeing taking place, it'll just accelerate rapidly as many people decide this is not a gospel issue, we need to stay, quote -unquote, relevant, and you're not just going to have the people we already know are often in the woods someplace, like Rob Bell, collapsing on this.
14:46
You're going to have some big, big names that would be considered conservative, stalwart, etc.,
14:53
etc., and if we stand firm, we are going to be in a small minority, and it's going to be very, very costly.
15:02
And we're going to need tremendous wisdom from God as to how to press on in the midst of what's going to be coming our direction.
15:11
I just want to announce the email address where we're going to be accepting questions, chrisarnson at gmail .com.
15:20
If you'd like to ask a question of Dr. White, that's how we are going to be accepting questions for our guests until further notice, when we will eventually,
15:32
God willing, be accepting phone calls for future guests. But chrisarnson at gmail .com.
15:39
Dr. White, it seems that a lot of what you are saying in regard to the same -sex marriage issue, apart from the theological issues, apart from the biblical issues, is this more a matter of how
15:56
Christians and other people who oppose, radically oppose, same -sex marriage, that our rights are going to be radically and dangerously infringed upon, is that more of the issue than permitting homosexuals to partake in some kind of a ceremony that they call marriage?
16:20
After all, most Christians I know, even very conservative ones, don't believe that the police should show up at the homes of homosexuals with battering rams and kick the doors in to arrest them for what they're doing in private.
16:36
So if they have some kind of a strange ceremony where a magic wand is waved over their head in their backyard, or some liberal church where they're proclaimed married, why is this such a dangerous thing for us?
16:50
And is that really the issue? Is that it's not necessarily that we're opposed to the personal freedoms of people, but we are opposed to our own rights being infringed upon?
17:03
And of course, I'll go to the theological in a minute, but I'm speaking right now just of the legal aspect and the personal liberty aspect.
17:10
Well, on the legal aspect, and I can't separate the two because when the question, and a lot of Christians take different views on this, when the question arises of how
17:23
God is going to judge a nation, when we talk about asking for, praying for God to bless a nation, well, there are certain foundational requirements for that kind of a request to have any meaning.
17:42
I mean, when Kate Smith used to sing God Bless America back during World War II, there was an understanding that that was only relevant within the context of a repentant nation that was seeking to honor the
17:58
God that was being addressed and whose blessing was being requested. And so obviously from my perspective, it's impossible to separate them out, but I am personally convinced that the forces that are behind this cultural revolution really could care less about homosexuality at all.
18:22
This just happens to be a tremendously useful mechanism for the destruction of the system of government that was designed by the founders of this nation, who recognized that it would only work so long as there was a shared moral and ethical foundation.
18:40
They found a way to destroy that. And once that's destroyed, combine that with the teaching of the millennial generation that the government is there to look to the government for anything and everything.
18:54
And back when I was in high school, we actually had to read books like 1984.
19:01
And so we can actually go, wow, I've seen this someplace before.
19:08
But I guess evidently the younger generation doesn't read that book anymore or isn't afraid of Big Brother.
19:15
And Orwell could not even could not even begin to imagine the capacity for observation and control and tracking that now exists in Western cultures.
19:27
And as a result, it is, I mean, the scenarios that one could come up with are incredibly frightening.
19:34
I've visited the Stasi prison camp in former
19:39
East Germany. And I don't even want to think about what happens when you get a totalitarian government in control.
19:48
But that's where we're moving towards. And again, it has theological ramification, because in the
19:55
West, at least in the past, we recognize because the Christian doctrine of sin, that you do not allow power to be centralized in the hands of individuals who are sinners.
20:08
They're going to use that power corruptly. Well, we've lost that foundation. And so many people today don't recognize the need for their participation as citizens, for the division of powers and things like that, which all has theological foundations.
20:26
It was what we once agreed upon when we believed there was a creator and we were made in his image and so on and so forth.
20:33
That's gone. And so the consensus and moral worldview that allowed the building of foundations like this no longer exists.
20:45
And I'm not a prophet nor a son of a prophet, so I don't know what's going to come. But the reality is we're not talking about the whole issue of arguing about rights.
20:59
That's why I have very little confidence in what's going to happen in the court, because even when DOMA was overturned, if you listen to the argument, nowhere could there be any discussion whatsoever of the morality of the act and the lifestyle and the resultant diminishment of lifespan and the damage to children and all.
21:22
You couldn't discuss any of that stuff because the morality was a given. It's a good thing.
21:28
And the next step after that is forcing us all to celebrate that issue.
21:34
So it's not a matter of rights. The, I know many who have been active in years past in the civil rights movement who are just outraged that that has been hijacked by this movement.
21:54
And yet that's basically now the accepted orthodoxy of our culture is that, yep, this is a civil rights issue and you're a bigot and so on and so forth if you disagree.
22:07
Nobody in any meaningful debate could substantiate that for more than a few moments. But that's why there's no meaningful debate.
22:16
That's why the leaders of this movement, especially the quote -unquote gay Christian movement, are not in hiding.
22:24
They're certainly out there doing their thing, but they won't debate. Believe me, we try and it's very difficult to get them to actually stand up and do anything.
22:35
Yeah, just picking up where you left off there, it's kind of, it's actually fascinating how many
22:42
African -American and Hispanic folks who are, many of them are clergymen, pastors, even in liberal congregations who have a very overwhelmingly large liberal voting base, are vehemently, many of them are vehemently opposed to this same -sex marriage from the minority community.
23:09
Oh, most definitely. But again, we now have a situation where there is such obvious complicity on the part of the media and that the media has a specific, well -defined agenda in what it's seeking to promote and how it's seeking to promote it that it doesn't matter.
23:32
Those voices are not going to be heard. You're only going to hear the voices of those that are going to help support the promotion of this particular agenda.
23:41
And this is the situation that we face. So the reality is, you know, we are talking about this here at the beginning of June.
23:50
Within three, within what, four weeks at the most, I guess, we will probably have to revisit the development that will take place after that because we are going to start seeing, well, our
24:08
Christian educational institutions will either, will, well, they will lose accreditation first and then they will lose the ability to have student loans used for education within those educational systems, those programs.
24:26
So many of the large seminaries that have large facilities that are not spread out and basically found within churches, things like that, they may not survive it.
24:40
I mean, Al Mohler has been talking about this. He's been open in talking about what's coming.
24:46
And I can guarantee you anybody who is in leadership in one of those large institutions, they've been having meetings trying to figure out what in the world they could do.
24:54
How can they sell off their buildings and change over to another form of education and all sorts of stuff like that.
25:00
That's going to happen very, very quickly because once you have a Supreme Court decision that says this is good, this is right, this is moral, then anyone who opposes it is not good, is not right, and is not moral.
25:15
And therefore, you can use the force of law against them and must use the force of law against them. And so you have churches will first, pastors will no longer be able to have the parsonage allowance, the 501c3 stuff or any other kind of tax exemption stuff right out the door in a very short period of time.
25:40
And you're going to see, you know, I've been to Europe a number of times, and you will see all sorts of major churches from the past, either now are just landmarks and decaying, or I remember one in Edinburgh that has been turned into a nightclub.
26:03
I mean, we're talking about this just gorgeous cathedral -style church, and it's a nightclub. Nightclubs, hotels, stuff like that.
26:11
You know, maybe the Houston Rockets can get their new practice facility back from one certain well -known pastor, because, you know, once all the tax benefits are gone and the government says, you know, power taxed, power destroyed.
26:27
So even those of us that have just little small buildings and small congregations, we need to be putting some thought into how are we going to deal with this once we are faced with the reality of this kind of cultural backlash, because it's coming.
26:47
It's coming, and it really, it is directly, there is a direct connection in regards to the redefinition of marriage, because this is an act of rebellion.
26:59
Marriage was given by God, defined by God. It is given for man's benefit. I'll steal, since Al Mohler keeps saying theology matters,
27:08
I'm going to start stealing Al Mohler, his terminology. It's intended for human flourishing, and therefore, when
27:18
God gives a culture over, and I think this is the terminology we see from Romans chapter one, when
27:23
God gives a culture over in his judgment to their own self -destruction, then they are going to begin to flail away at all of those good gifts of grace that God has given to us, and having a mother, and having a father, and having a stable home, and having those examples given to you, so that you can develop as a healthy whole human being, that you can understand who you are as a man, understand who you are as a woman, embrace those roles that are natural to us as God has created us.
28:00
Those are going to be the target of the rebellious attitudes of man when that hand of restraint is removed, and that's exactly what we're seeing.
28:10
There was a day when I was younger, if I heard someone talking like this, I would have thought, oh man, that guy is really into trying to scare people and stuff.
28:19
I'm not trying to scare people. We've just never seen anything like this in our experience whatsoever.
28:27
I mean, the speed and the depth of the cultural revolution has to point to supernatural origin.
28:37
There's a scriptural principle that often we forget, and it's not that our friends in Europe, our brothers and sisters in Europe, are looking at us like, what?
28:46
What are you surprised about? Because they've been experiencing this for a long time. They've been having to deal with this for a long time, but we've been living in the cultural inertia of what
29:00
America has always been. Three churches and a gas station on the corner. In the south someplace, and we've just got to recognize that America is gone.
29:11
It's only a part of the history books, and only when the history books are accurate enough to say something about it.
29:18
That is all gone, and so we have to deal with what's heading our direction.
29:24
I had another point I was going to make there, but the illustration caused me to go a different direction.
29:29
Yeah, well if you want to make that other point after a brief break, we just want to send out another word of thanks to some of the folks that have made this day possible.
29:38
So we'll be right back, and send in your emails with questions for Dr. White at chrisarnson at gmail .com.
29:46
chrisarnson at gmail .com. We'll be right back. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.
29:52
The New American Standard Bible is perfect for daily reading or in -depth study. Trust, discover, and enjoy the
29:58
NASB for yourself today. Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com.
30:09
Tired of box store Christianity? Of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?
30:15
Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.
30:25
Well there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience, featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.
30:36
And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times.
30:44
631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us.
30:52
That's wrbc .us. Introducing 1031
31:09
Sermon Jams. Sermon Jams. But now for the good news. That sounds like sweet music in the hell -bound sinner's ears, especially if you're like me and you know that you don't need
31:24
Romans 3 to remind you of how wicked you are. If you would like to learn more about 1031
31:29
Sermon Jams, visit us at our website at 1031SermonJams .com, or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
31:37
Welcome back. This is
31:43
Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron. Our guest today is Dr. James R.
31:48
White of Alpha Omega Ministries. We are discussing same -sex marriage. And Dr. White, isn't it amazing that today we have average citizens who are not particularly liberal, who are not even
32:05
Christian. They perhaps are not even involved in any religion of any kind.
32:17
And they don't have any kind of left -wing agenda. No pro -homosexual agenda is what I meant to say. And yet they seem to believe that this is completely acceptable, especially young people.
32:30
Young people that might not be extremely liberal or vocally in favor of anything left -wing, if you will.
32:40
But they seem to have some kind of a concept in their head that to be opposed to something like same -sex marriage is just based on cruelty and bigotry.
32:52
And it shouldn't be accepted. It should be not only tolerated, but we should just be happy that people are seeking happiness in this way.
33:04
And perhaps even seeking a more monogamous lifestyle, if you could comment on that.
33:12
Well, that's actually thankfully reminded me of what I that we need to keep in mind that we don't like to think about, we don't like to talk about.
33:27
But when I had the one opportunity that I have actually had to preach from behind John MacArthur's pulpit,
33:35
I preached from this text. And it's Paul wrote to the Thessalonians. And he lays out a concept that a lot of Christians don't talk about and don't see the application of.
33:49
But fundamentally what he says is a person who refuses to love the truth will be caused to love a lie.
34:00
And that we have actually a moral requirement as the creatures of God to love his truth.
34:08
And when he has revealed that truth to us, if we in our arrogance and in our rebellion refuse to not only believe that truth, we may believe it.
34:20
We may even recognize the reality that, yes, that is a true statement. It is true that God ordained marriage.
34:28
It is true that manhood is a good thing, that being a woman is a good thing, that motherhood is a good thing, and fatherhood is a good thing.
34:36
These are gifts. You can recognize the truthfulness of all of those things.
34:42
But if you don't love that truth, then you can, by the judicial action of God, be justly caused to love a lie.
34:53
And as I look at the speed with which this revolution has taken place,
35:02
I cannot help but see the fulfillment of the warning that we have in Scripture. Uh, when you look at people, and 30 years ago, they would have, as a given, accepted certain realities, and now today, without any type of overwhelming moral or ethical argument that's put forward, basically because of movies and television shows.
35:31
I mean, the most frightening thing is that the
35:36
CDC put out a number just a matter of a few months ago, as I recall, and the numbers remain the same, that there's only about 1 .6
35:48
percent of the population that self -identifies as homosexual. If you throw in bisexual and transgender, it might get up to about 2 .1
35:57
percent grand total. And yet, the polls, remember the study that was done just a few years ago, polling the average
36:06
American populace, asked the average American how many, what the percentage of the population is gay, 25 percent!
36:15
They think one out of four of people around them are homosexual. They're off by a factor of 10.
36:24
And so, what causes that? What can lead to such obvious self -deception?
36:34
I mean, when you can change an entire culture, a culture that only a few generations ago fought
36:40
World War II and sacrificed itself in that way, and I think that's actually part of it, because I think a lot of those folks came back and the results were good.
36:53
But what can explain the rapidity of the change outside of some type of supernatural act of judgment?
37:05
I can't see any other way to explain it. I really can't. Yeah, it's amazing that people forget that it was just a few years ago that our president, our liberal president,
37:16
Barack Obama, claimed to be opposed to same -sex marriage, and so did Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and many other liberals in the political arena.
37:27
And yet today, just a few years later, people can lose their jobs for publicly saying that they're against same -sex marriage, especially if they're involved in any kind of media.
37:42
Oh, the enforcement of the totalitarian leftist dogma is now universal, and there's no hiding it.
37:54
There's not even an attempt to hide it anymore. It is all now, all you've got to do is yell the word bigotry, and whoever you aim it at is doomed, because the people in the society will not even ask the question, well, is that really bigotry?
38:11
What does discrimination actually mean? What does it mean to discriminate? Everybody discriminates every single day.
38:21
If you ate today at Burger King instead of McDonald's, you discriminated against McDonald's.
38:28
If you took the I -4 instead of Route 71 to get to work today, you discriminated against Route 71.
38:39
I mean, it just simply means to make decisions. And we all make decisions, and we all have to have a solid foundation for making those decisions, especially when they're moral and ethical decisions.
38:51
And when you use the term bigotry, that is refusing to make meaningful moral and ethical decisions based upon an overriding prejudice and an irrational rejection of certain positions.
39:09
Well, that's not what anybody's doing, but today, what words mean is irrelevant. And that, to me, again, takes me back to what is truly a frightening thing, and that is the ability to actually redefine terms, redefine the language.
39:26
And it's being done by Hollywood, it's being done in cooperation with the media. And once again, once you have, once you've reached a point where you have a sufficiently large number of people who have been taught what to think and not how to think, you can get away with it.
39:43
And the sad thing is, it's those very people who are trading away their liberties, trading away their future, trading away their transcendent value as human beings.
39:53
And they're the ones that will be the losers in the long run. I mean, I hope
39:59
I still have a number of years left on this planet, but I've already gotten in my first half century.
40:05
So it's the young folks that are going to be growing up in a culture that will be very, very different, and I think significantly less amenable to human flourishing than what you and I grew up in.
40:22
Yeah, it's interesting how the push, the overwhelming push by homosexuals and their advocates, and of course, when
40:31
I say homosexuals, I'm not talking about all of them, because I'm quite sure that there are many thousands of homosexuals who just want to be left alone, and they're not interested in this political movement.
40:43
But it's interesting how the real push is not only that we accept them or tolerate them, it's that we celebrate them.
40:51
We must enjoy what they're doing and rejoice with them in it.
40:58
And an example would even be the typical news anchor person who is reporting on a celebrity involved in a same -sex marriage or something to that effect.
41:10
You know that they're being told that they have to be wearing a beaming smile and having a countenance of full approval of this activity, because it happens every time.
41:21
They don't just report it as a news story, it's as if they're congratulating these folks for what they're doing.
41:29
Oh yeah, well they recognize the absolute necessity of vowing to Caesar at this point, and Caesar is saying, not only shall you be tolerant, you shall rejoice, you shall celebrate, you shall identify as good and healthy and proper and morally upright these activities and this lifestyle.
41:54
And that is what is being demanded. And part of that, part of that we have the theological answer for, and that is the homosexualist movement itself, we recognize theologically there is a suppression of the natural revelation of God in the life of that individual.
42:11
And so there is evidently just a overwhelming desire to be affirmed in light of the daily suppression of that revelation of God within them.
42:24
And so if you can get other people to be patting you on the back and saying, you're good, you're good, you go, that's something that is very, very much desired.
42:35
You know, it's interesting, part of the reason that we have such frustration in this situation is because it's not just simply a secular culture versus the church issue.
42:48
There is just, what has been truly amazing is the demonstration of the fact that there has been a tremendous amount of nominalism within the church, what is called the church in our society.
43:00
The collapse of the liberal denominations on this particular subject, the speed with which it has happened, and now the fact that we find those very liberal churches very much joining arms with those who would seek to suppress our rights of expression, our right to even engage in a warning of the deleterious result of the redefinition of marriage, the undefinition of marriage.
43:33
They're joining in seeking to have our rights suppressed and claiming that they're doing so in the name of Christ.
43:44
That truly is, for many of us, one of the most difficult things to deal with, is just as you would have the false prophets in the days of God bringing judgment upon Israel, who were constantly saying to the king, oh, you go for it, king, you're good, the
44:02
Lord's on your side, etc., etc. They always outnumbered the true prophets of God, but I'm sure it was still extremely frustrating for the true prophets of God to see these people speaking in the name of God, but speaking what they knew to be falsehood.
44:18
And so when I see that being done by the James Brownsons and the Matthew Vines and the
44:23
David Gushies and all the rest, there's tremendous frustration there, but at the same time a recognition that this is the time period we have been called to minister in, and so that's what we have to do, whatever that's going to mean.
44:45
We have a few emails that I'd like to start reading. Jim in Massapequa, Long Island emails, should a
44:53
Christian ever attend a same -sex wedding or some other celebration that specifically involves the celebration of the sexual union or the union of people who are involved in such an activity of same -sex marriage, for instance, even an adoption of a child by a same -sex couple if they are having some kind of a celebration regarding that, etc.?
45:25
Right. Yeah, it's interesting. That has now come on the front burner.
45:32
A few weeks ago, Dr. Moeller addressed that, and then just this morning, in fact, he addressed it again within an even more...
45:42
Well, actually, I'll take that back. His program called Ask Anything, which appeared over the weekend.
45:48
I was listening to it in the dark at about 3 .30 this morning at about 21 miles per hour westbound on Union Hill Avenue.
45:55
That just happens to have been stuck in my mind. You know what I'm doing at 3 .30 in the morning on a bike as the rabbits look at me as I ride by and go, those humans are crazy.
46:05
But anyways, he was talking about the exact same thing, and he was doing it within the context of someone saying, okay, you say that it's not proper to do that.
46:16
What about these other what we would call disordered situations where unrighteous divorces or things like that involve...
46:27
How can we become consistent on all these things? We got to admit that up until this situation, we pretty much didn't even give thought to almost any of these things.
46:37
We didn't give thought to what it means to even attend a wedding or what that indicated or what our participation would be and things like that.
46:47
I don't think that there is any question whatsoever. And again, a lot of young people struggle with this, but I don't think there's any question whatsoever that for the believing
46:57
Christian, if you honor Christ's teaching in Matthew chapter 19, if you honor his lordship over his own creation and his right to define what is true and what is right and what is just, you cannot put yourself in a position of implicitly celebrating an act of rebellion against what
47:25
Christ has ordained. That is not to say that you have to search for perfection in the moral characters of every single person that you go to their wedding or attend any other type of event where there is an implicit endorsement of what's going on.
47:44
There's a fundamental difference between what God has recognized as marriage, which is always and unquestionably heterosexual anywhere in scripture.
47:59
No matter how you slice it, if it was marriage, it was a man and a woman.
48:04
It may have been a man and many women in certain lower times in God dealing with men, but it was never, ever, ever two men and two women.
48:15
You cannot logically have that as a marriage because you have to have a husband and a wife.
48:23
The very term marry is determined by the subject and the direct object.
48:30
And once you have same sex involved, those verbs no longer work. And that doesn't matter what the
48:36
Supreme Court does. They can't change the reality of those things.
48:42
So what you have is not a marriage at all.
48:48
And so to pretend that you're going to something like that is to fundamentally say, yes,
48:56
I concur that this is a marriage and that it's appropriate and proper and right and so on and so forth.
49:05
I cannot possibly see how a Christian could attend such an event.
49:13
I know what the answer is going to be, oh, but I just want to show love for people. Well, the question
49:19
I have to ask is, how do you define what love is? I mean,
49:27
Christian love is in its fullness seen upon the cross of Calvary.
49:35
It's in self -sacrifice, it is in recognition of the just wrath of God against sin and the self -giving of the
49:42
Son of God, giving himself for his people. That's where love is defined. And are you quite possibly just seeking to avoid conflict and to take the easier road rather than being most concerned about what
49:58
God's priorities are rather than man's priorities are? Does that really show Christian love?
50:04
Has to be the question that is asked of anyone who is thinking about something like that. So do you want to hopefully have the opportunity of explaining what you understand marriage to be and why marriage is such a beautiful thing and all these things that, let's be honest, until the late 1990s, we never even thought about talking about.
50:31
We took it as granted because this wasn't an issue. Yeah, we recognized that for far too long we took for granted the freedoms that we had and the blessings we had.
50:45
But do we now take that opportunity and hopefully be able to explain why marriage has to be the way it is, knowing that there's going to be a tremendous backlash?
50:55
Well, yeah, you would think so. But are we often given that opportunity?
51:01
As often as we'd like. We're going to take one more break before we conclude with some more questions.
51:07
And so one more time, it's chrisornson at gmail .com if you'd like to send in a question for Dr.
51:13
White. We'll be right back. Linbrook Baptist Church on 225
51:21
Earl Avenue in Linbrook, Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century. Our church is far more than a
51:28
Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.
51:33
It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing.
51:41
We're a diverse family of all ages, enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship, play, and together.
51:48
Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Linbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.
51:54
Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.
52:01
Or visit linbrookbaptist .org. That's linbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is
52:07
Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron, and we are discussing same -sex marriage with Dr.
52:12
James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. And we have another question here from a listener,
52:20
Susan in Newville. We have, actually this is a follow -up question, so I have to look at the first question.
52:27
Let's see here. Do you think there is a future agenda to eliminate the institution of marriage altogether, snowballing into government control of relationships and the numbers of children that people are permitted to have, such as in China?
52:43
That won't take very long, yes. I mean, it does seem to me that there is a very obvious desire on the part of a large segment of the governmental population in the
52:57
West, and I would include the EU, the UK, Canada, United States, to do exactly that.
53:04
The cultural elite think they know better than us, and we all know that there have been people in the past who push for eugenics.
53:15
We know that one of the discoverers of DNA argued that religious people should not be allowed to have children.
53:22
Certainly Richard Dawkins has made the same type of argument. So, yes, and I think these people are recognizing that today, with the electronic capacity that we have, their vision of the perfect utopia is within their reach.
53:40
But that perfect utopia is, again, just simply a googled version of 1984, and as such is tremendously frightening.
53:50
And the follow -up question, do you believe this is also going to bring about a total elimination of gender recognition?
54:00
Well, when we say, will this bring about? Remember, this is, this requires a fundamental erasure of the natural understanding of mankind.
54:17
We are still born in the image of God, and you are seeing more and more, though you have to look for it, simply because of the control of the media, but we're seeing more and more of people who have, in their lives, been given these wild freedoms and allowed to live these lives, and they're discovering they're empty.
54:41
I'm looking at an article from a Canadian person, which is amazing, I wonder if it wasn't published up there, but a
54:50
Canadian person, says I am one of six little children of gay parents who recently filed amicus briefs with the
54:57
U .S. Supreme Court asking the court to respect the authority of citizens to keep the original definition of marriage. Says I am the daughter of a gay father who died of AIDS.
55:04
These people are starting to speak out and say, you know what, this doesn't work. You know, we're seeing more stories about, you know, children raised by two women who, you know, are just torn to shreds desiring to know their father, and to know that having two mothers is not enough.
55:28
I want to know my father, or vice versa. And so, since we're made in the image of God, the government can only suppress so much of that.
55:36
I think that was part of the, even the message of 1984 was, you know, the government can control us, but cannot eradicate how it is we're actually made.
55:49
And so, will there be a backlash? I don't know. I do not know.
55:55
I wish I could have that kind of insight. I'm not that smart. All I know is we are made in the image of God, and you can, sadly, destroy individuals by robbing them of their knowledge that being a woman is a good thing, and God has called them to be a woman, and to experience
56:22
God's fullness for her life in that way. And for a man, you're called to be a man, and these are the things that God's called you to do, and it's not a cookie -cutter thing.
56:31
We're not all the same, but here are the parameters. You can destroy people by stealing that from them.
56:39
I mean, if anybody sends me one more link to the Vanity Fair cover of a certain former gold medalist that just came out today that just just turned my stomach,
56:55
I'm just gonna, I'm gonna get really angry with them if they do it, but it just happens to be, it's the very same day. You want to see the destruction of life?
57:02
You wanted to see the destruction of human flourishing? There you go. It's right there in front of us, and our society is celebrating.
57:09
We have a question from Christine in Atlanta, Georgia. She wants to know how do you respond to people that claim we as Christians are putting the spotlight on homosexuality and categorizing it as a worse sin than any other sin?
57:23
Well, this is this is exactly what the homosexualist movement wanted to have happen.
57:30
They're the ones who live every single day promoting this lifestyle and demanding its celebration.
57:38
All we're doing, all we're doing is responding to the fact that this is a gospel issue and that we're being demanded to bow the knee to Caesar rather than to Christ.
57:50
It's, you know, if it's what our society is demanding, then that's where the attention is going to be.
57:56
If this was some other of the many sins mentioned in scripture, I mean, if this was bestiality, if that was the thing that was being pushed, then we'd be hearing, oh, well, why are you saying bestiality is worse than anything else?
58:09
This is where the society is seeking to require of the church compromise, and that's why our focus has to be where it is.
58:18
We didn't, we didn't start this. We didn't bring this about. You know,
58:23
I'd love to get up in the morning and never give another thought, but since those involved in the movement absolutely every single day give everything they have to it, then there's nothing we can do about it if we're going to be able to, you know, respond and give a defense for the focus within us.
58:46
I want to apologize to Pastor Josh in Riverhead, New York, and also to Todd in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
58:54
I couldn't get to your questions because we've run out of time. Thank you so much, Dr. White, for being our guest again, and we have to have you back to discuss more of the theological end of this issue, and thank you so much for continuing the tradition of being my first guest as you did in 2006.
59:13
I appreciate it, Chris, and God bless you. And Dr. White's website is aomin .org.
59:19
That's aomin .org, and you could look up other resources there on this and many other issues, and I wanted to dedicate this relaunching of Iron Sharpens Iron to my precious wife who passed away in 2006.