Why One Way, Session 4

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All right, I think this is on, hopefully it is. Yes, no, maybe?
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Okay, good. All right, the Britney Spears microphone is on, that's good. I really detest these things, they give me migraine headaches, but they're really popular today, so they do make me speak faster, so I suppose that's a good thing from your perspective too.
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What I want to do this evening is I want to have a brief opening presentation here just on a particular subject, and then open up for questions, so it will be primarily questions and answers, so feel free to make
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Brian work really hard today, he's looking for some extra work, he hasn't gotten much done this weekend, so we want to make him move around a lot, so be thinking of your questions on the subject that we've been addressing this weekend.
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But what I wanted to do on a very practical level was to, in a very practical way, talk about how it is we might get into this subject in our society today.
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We all know what subject is front and center in our society, in our legal system, in our educational system, and in the conversations that take place really only on one side of our society right now, but we know the opportunities that are ours that are raised to discuss
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God's law and God's revelation concerning gender and sexuality and marriage, and we know that this issue is front and center in the media, it's front and center in films, and therefore it comes up very, very quickly in any discussion, and you might say, but what does that have to do with whether Jesus is the only way?
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Well, they're directly, directly related, and we need to see how they're directly related and how we might, in a practical way, make the transition from a discussion of that subject to a discussion of the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ, and to do so in a way that might actually catch the attention of the otherwise very secularly -minded individual.
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So let me do that in just a matter of moments, and then we will move into some questions and answers.
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So turn with me, please, to 1 Corinthians chapter six. Now, if I might, on a very practical level, exhort you, there are, things have changed so fast in our society that I can honestly admit that when minimally when
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I graduated from Bible college, maybe when I graduated from seminary,
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I don't know that I could have listed for you what are called the big six passages on the subject of homosexuality in the
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Bible, and let me ask, how many of you would comfortably, don't look around at everybody else,
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I'm not gonna ask you to lower your heads so no one sees who's raising their hand, but how many of you would think that right now you could comfortably list the six major passages on the subject of homosexuality in the
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Bible, if you know which six I'm talking about? Anyone? Notice that Chris is trying to hide by drinking coffee.
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That's all, oh, I'm sorry, what were you saying? I didn't hear what you were saying. Yep, okay. No one, really.
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There are six primary texts. It's not that they're the only ones that make reference to it, but they are the six primary texts, and that would be, of course,
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Genesis 18, 19, the structure of the Sodom and Gomorrah, the two texts, Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20, that specifically say you shall not lie with a man as you lie with a female as a combination to the
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Lord, those are your three in the Old Testament, there are three in the New Testament, Romans chapter one, which you read this morning, verses 26 and 27, 1
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Corinthians chapter six, which we're looking at right now, verse nine, and 1
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Timothy chapter one, both use the same term, arsonikoitai, of homosexuality.
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Those are the six, three in the Old Testament and three in the New Testament. Just so you are aware of this, there is a flood, a veritable tsunami of books being published right now.
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Those of you who listen to my webcast know that I frequently review these books and the authors that are putting them out, but there are
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Bible scholars and others that are putting out books. They have been doing so for years.
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I thought there was a flood back when Jeff Neal and I co -authored the same -sex controversy together in 2001.
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My, how things have changed. A book was released only this past week by Matthew Vines called
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God and the Gay Christian. So important that Albert Moller and staff at Southern Seminary released a free e -book in response to it the same day his book came out.
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A book came out in 2013, The Gender, Sexuality, and the
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Bible, I believe was the name, by Brownson, that has really changed that area of discussion a lot.
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So there are a huge number of books, huge number of books, multiple, multiple books per year coming out on this particular subject.
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And so may I just suggest if you would like to see some practical interaction.
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I've debated this subject a number of times. You can actually watch one of them, even though he tried to sue us to keep us from being able to see that.
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What was that, 2001? 2001 against Barry Lynn here on Long Island at a
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PCUSA church, as I recall at the time. But my most recent debate on this subject was with the head of the
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Gay Christian Network. Interestingly enough, he would have been about 12, maybe, when
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I had the debate with Barry Lynn. But Justin Lee is the head of the Gay Christian Network, and we had a debate last year, as I, just about a year ago, a little over a year ago now.
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And that was a very interesting encounter because he didn't want to be there. And when you're debating someone that you're afraid is gonna get up and walk out the door at any particular moment, it does put a different spin on the discussion, shall we say.
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But that's available for you to listen to as well as a free download from our website. But it would be good for you to be familiar with some of those encounters to see how those types of discussions take place.
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But the reality is, I can only be in one place at one time. You're the one that's gonna be doing the vast majority of the one -on -one interaction with the people of our world on these subjects.
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And as we address the issue of God's intention and creation of man and woman and what marriage is, may
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I suggest that while we do need to know those six texts, if those are the only texts we know, that we aren't helping a whole lot if that's all we focus on.
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Now, I understand it's vitally important. We have many people trying to say today that this is the scriptures. Those scriptures do not say what they most assuredly do say.
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So we have to deal with that. We have entire denominations that have been based upon redefining what the
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Bible says about this particular subject. But the reality is that there is so much positive teaching in scripture as to the nature of male -female relationship, and especially what marriage is, that if we don't start there, we will always be stuck on the defensive, once again, defending those particular clobber passages, as they're called, rather than giving a positive presentation of what the scriptures say on this particular subject, which is so vitally, vitally important.
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So, for example, I would strongly recommend working through, in your own studies, Matthew chapter 19, about the first seven verses or so, where Jesus lays out a very positive presentation of what
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God's creative intention was in the creation of male and female. His own interpretation of the
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Genesis account. What is a family? What is the union that God blesses?
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And it is always heterosexual. It is never anything other than that. And there are a number of good
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Christian books. My book's a little dated. We wanna hopefully update it, even though anything you write today is gonna be out of date within a year, simply because the books that are coming out.
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But a friend of mine, Michael Rousey, wrote a book called A Queer Thing Happened to America, which is a huge volume on the development of the homosexual movement in the
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United States. And so there are good books that are out there from a Christian perspective, but we are vastly outnumbered now.
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Vastly outnumbered in the publication field as far as this is concerned. So it's good to have a positive perspective to be able to present.
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But with that being said, what I want to do is look at this one text and tie it together with what we have been talking about this weekend.
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Beginning at verse nine, or do you not know? And whatever Paul says, or do you not know, he's speaking rhetorically in that one.
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That the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived.
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Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers. And I'm going to use, first I'm gonna give you the standard translation that is found in things like the
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New King James and New American Standard. And then I will know the ESV. Nor effeminate, nor homosexuals.
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The ESV takes those two terms, which I'll discuss in a moment, and folds them together into men who practice homosexuality.
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I think the ESV is right there. I'll explain why in just a moment. Nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
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Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and the spirit of our God. Now, what we need to look at, briefly, just on an exegetical level, is what it is
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Paul's saying here. He is warning us, do not be deceived. There is, in God's purpose, in his saving of individuals, in his calling of people, in the relationship with Jesus Christ, there is a purpose that he has in conforming them to the image of Christ.
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And in changing their hearts, the idea of these individuals remaining in love with the ways of the world, not experiencing individual acts of sin, but living in the ways of the world so they could be identified as fornicators, idolaters, et cetera, et cetera.
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Paul says, do not be deceived. This is not what the kingdom of heaven is made up of.
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There is, something has happened. And that's why verse 11 says, but such were some of you.
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Not such are some of you. We'll look at that in a moment. But I do want to just emphasize the fact that the two terms that are found at the end of verse nine, utamalakoi, utaarsanakoitai.
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Malakoi is a term, and you'll notice it's in the context of adulterers, is the term that comes before this.
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You had pornoi, those who are fornicators, at the beginning of the verse.
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Clearly, this is the context of which Paul is speaking, and he uses the term idolatry.
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Sometimes those who are trying to redefine the scriptural message will say, ah, see, this is about idolatry, as if the idea is idolatry is some separate category, as we saw this morning when we read
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Romans chapter one. What's the context in which Paul addresses the specific homosexual acts of men and women?
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Idolatry, because it is a fundamental rejection of God's right to define the created world.
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That's what it's about. It is an expression of idolatry. And so it fits here perfectly, clearly as a part of Paul's thinking, but when it says neither the effeminate, it literally means the soft, and then arsonicoitai, very, very important here.
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Paul may have created this term. He may have actually coined this term.
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He coined a number of terms, and he did so by looking at the Greek Old Testament, remember we talked about this this morning, the
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Greek Septuagint, and he would take terms were found in the
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Greek Septuagint and would link them together, and in those two Levitical passages, in,
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I'm sorry, well, the law passages, in Leviticus chapter 18 and Leviticus chapter 20, you have the specific terms arsonos, male, and coitai, and those, that is, the easiest way to find it is what men do with men in bed.
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And so he has put them together to describe this activity from the very law itself in the
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Old Testament, and so he is very clearly describing what is described today as homosexual orientation or homosexual activity, and by putting these together, at least the
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ESV translators, and I believe that they are correct, are seeing that what you have here are the passive and aggressive partners in a homosexual relationship, and so that's why they have, instead of translating them separately from one another, put them together, men who practice homosexuality with specific reference upon both the active and passive individual involved therein.
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And so you have a really hard time. It is amazing the lengths which people will try to go to avoid, for example, the fact that when you're reading
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Paul on almost anything, the first place you go to interpret Paul is the Greek Septuagint as his background.
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Well, they'll run off to all sorts of stuff outside the Old Testament, ignore the
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Greek Septuagint, find an odd use over here, odd use over there, just trying to get around what is obviously
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Paul's meaning and intention in this particular text. So with that in mind, I want you to focus upon verse 11, and a few weeks ago,
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I put up a video on my website, and I said a word that the world wants you to disbelieve in scripture.
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And that is a little three -letter word at the beginning of verse 11. Such were some of you.
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Now, it's four letters in English, but in Greek, it's three letters. Kaitatatenes eita.
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Eita is the past tense, the imperfect tense. Such were some of you.
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And it refers to a lifestyle in the past. The imperfect generally refers to continuous action in the past.
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It can refer to other kinds of action, but primarily that's its meaning. And that fits here.
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Such were some of you. You were behaving in that way as the mark of your lifestyle, but it was in the past.
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Such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified, set apart, made holy.
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You were justified in the name of Lord Jesus Christ in the spirit of our God. Notice that even verse 11 is a
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Trinitarian verse, just in passing, as you might notice. Our society today, almost, or might argue, at the point of law, is insisting that we change the grammar of the
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New Testament. When we have the metropolitan community church, when we have the gay
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Christian network, when we have many more people demanding that we accept the validity of gay
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Christianity, homosexual Christianity, what they're saying is, you need to change the tense of the verb at the beginning of verse 11 of first Corinthians chapter six.
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Because what they want us to hear is, and such are some of you.
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The behavior, the mindset, the lifestyle continues.
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Such are some of you, and you were washed, and you were sanctified, and you were justified, but you remained and continued in the lifestyle that was yours.
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That's what we are being told. We must believe. If we are going to be considered inclusive, non -hating, non -bigoted, non -discriminatory, if we don't want to be sued, then that's what we have to believe.
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Now, there aren't any textual variants, there are no manuscripts in the world where that verb is present tense.
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Nowhere, I've checked. There's no way you can argue that the apostle said anything other than such were some of you.
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Now, what does this have to do with our subject? Real simple. When we think about what is going on in our society today regarding the absolutely clear, positive drive to normalize homosexual activity in a lifestyle, we see many evangelicals collapsing on this issue all around us.
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There is a rising flood of voices that are basically saying we need to move on.
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Our society's past this. If we want to see our churches filled to the brim with smiling, inclusive people, then this needs to be added to the list of verses that we sort of just skip over, or maybe come up with a way of dealing with it another way.
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But as Dr. Moeller pointed out quite appropriately in the e -book that was released just this week, this is a gospel issue.
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It's a gospel issue in two ways. First, it's a gospel issue because what we're being told is, well, we can't push these texts.
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We can't push Romans 1. We can't push 1 Corinthians chapter six. Because none of the scriptural writers understood what we understand today about sexual orientation.
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They didn't understand that certain people are born gay. They are born with these desires.
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That's the way God made them. They cannot change, and therefore, since they didn't understand that, it's a misapplication on our part to push their words to deal with something that they weren't meant to deal with.
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That's what we're being told. Now, I simply ask you a question. What does that say about scripture?
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Let's say Paul didn't know. I don't buy that for a second. He grew up in Tarsus of Cilicia.
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He read pagan poetry because he quotes from it. You can't tell me that Paul was ignorant of these things because other people in the society were well aware that there were people who were attracted only to the same sex.
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They knew that. But even accepting that argument for a moment that the modern clinical definition of SSA, same sex attraction, was not in some diagnostic manual someplace on every pastor's bookshelf, even accepting that, what is it saying about scripture that our interpretation has to say, well, the authors were ignorant of these things, therefore, we cannot really accept the authority of these texts any longer?
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What it fundamentally is telling us is that God is not the author of these things. God is not the author of scripture.
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These are merely the thoughts of men, and we have to be able to amend them and change them as we get smarter than the authors of scripture itself.
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And so there is a fundamental denial of the sufficiency of scripture that is part and parcel of the apologetic being offered by many who even call themselves
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Christians today as they address this subject. So that's the first thing. The second reason it's a gospel issue is this.
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And just as this morning I gave you a little illustration as to how you can turn the accusations that are used against us against the other person to at least cause them to step back for a moment and listen to what you're saying, this is the same situation here.
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When someone raises an issue like this to me, one of my first responses is to say, why do you feel you have the right to ask me to deny that Jesus Christ is my
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Lord? And they're like, what do you mean? I was just saying you should be for marriage equality.
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And I said, you don't realize what you're actually asking me to do? What am I asking you to do?
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Well, the Lord Jesus taught that marriage was between a man and a woman and that God joins them together.
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And what God joins together, let no man put asunder. And the Lord Jesus said that God's law is holy and just and good and that anyone who taught anyone to break the least of God's commandments would be leased into the kingdom of heaven.
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And Jesus said He went to the cross to be the ransom sacrifice for sin.
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And what you're telling me is, my Bible cannot tell me what sin is.
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Therefore, there is no reason for Jesus to die for sin because we can't know what sin is.
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You're telling me that I cannot proclaim the death of Jesus Christ as God's answer to sin because we can't know any longer what sin is in the first.
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And that's exactly what we're being told. If the Bible cannot define for us what sin is, what's this text about?
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I mean, if there was a movement of thieves, of people who take other people's property, and they said, look, this is the way
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God's made me. You don't understand the desires that are mine. And this is how
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God has made me. If you could just get enough Hollywood producers together to make some films, sort of Robin Hood style films, to start putting together churches based upon thieving
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Christianity, then wouldn't you find some way of getting around what the meaning of that word is?
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And how about covetous and drunkards or revilers or swindlers? There's always a way around anything, isn't there?
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It's just that this is the one group that right now has this societal backing and this ability to say, well, look, this is just the way
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I am. And by the way, I don't for a moment deny that people experience same -sex attraction. I have spoken with faithful Christians who are members of churches who will be honest to say,
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I experience same -sex attraction. I'm not denying that that exists. But I also talk with people who are just rabidly covetous.
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And people who are addicted to pornography and to fornication and everything else.
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And when you talk to those people, they don't want to be slaves to those desires. They want to be set free of those things.
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But I don't encounter people in the real church who say,
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I want to define my relationship with Christ by the desires that are mine, rather than by the word of God.
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That's where the difference is. And that's what we're facing today. So I don't deny that there are people who experience same -sex attraction in any way.
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But the point is, our society is telling us it doesn't matter what the authority of this is.
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You have to go with our understanding. You have to go with that which would allow us to view you as being inclusive, you see.
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And so how does that have to do with Jesus being the only way? Well, isn't that the exact same thing that they are saying to us when it comes to this whole area, this whole field of, well, as long as Jesus is okay for you, that's all right.
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But don't push that on everybody else. It all comes down to whether God has the right to define what sin is and define what the answer for sin is.
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But what our society is saying, no, he doesn't. We get to do that. We get to define and define for ourselves a
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God that will be the most comfortable to us. We get to define for ourselves a Jesus that would be the most comfortable for us as well.
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And we have to be ready, having thought these things through, to challenge that way of thought.
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We shouldn't be people who are left stuttering when we're given these challenges. We need to think them through ahead of time, not in a cookie -cutter way, not in a way that there's these evangelistic methodologies that some people will use, that you ask this question and this question, sort of like a sales and marketing thing.
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I'm not talking about that. But we need to think through these issues, and this is a subject that will come up all the times.
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I mean, what was the news this past week? You see who got married? Jodie Foster, Jodie Foster married another woman.
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I love the brilliance, the brilliance, I think of the USA Today article. It was talking about how she had spent a lot of time with this other woman, who
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I guess had once been with Ellen DeGeneres, or something like that. Or this was the woman who was with Ellen DeGeneres.
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I can't keep track of all of it. But anyways, there had been a breakup a few years ago, and there had been some questions about her sexuality.
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But now that they had gotten married, it said her recent marriage would seem to end the speculation about this.
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You think? Wow, okay, I'm really. So we see these things, and you stand around the water cooler.
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You're talking over the fence to the neighbor, and someone says, oh, did you see that Jodie Foster got married?
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What are you gonna do? I think I hear my dog scratching the door,
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I need to go now. Oh, you know what, I've left something on the stove.
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I mean, that is one way that we can go. Or we can go, ah, an opportunity.
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An opportunity. Now, as soon as you say the name of Jesus, they might run to the hills, but you never know.
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You can say a quick word, Lord, please allow me to give a testimony here, but say something along the lines of, you know, you know,
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I heard that, too. And it grieved my heart. Why did it grieve your heart? She's found happiness.
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Well, you know what? I think true happiness is found in really knowing God's intention for our life.
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Jesus spoke directly to this subject. In Matthew chapter 19, he talked about how God created the male and the female, and how
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God joins together the male and the female, and that union gives life, and becomes the foundation of a family, becomes the foundation of reality, that gives birth to the next generation.
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And it just seems to me that that particular use, the term married, goes directly against what the
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Lord Jesus himself said. And I find him, he's the one who prophesied his own death, burial, and resurrection.
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He's the one that has been exalted at the right hand of God. He's kingdom kings and lord of lords.
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I really think he's the one that has the greatest insight as to what marriage really is.
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Hmm. There is a way. Because right after that, they might say, well, that's just your opinion.
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To which I would say, well, you know what? The opinion of someone who died and rose again is generally better than the opinion of anyone who just died any day.
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There's a lot of ways you can go with that. You might not be as snarky as I am. You might not. But you can get to the same point, depending on how well you know the person across the way, or if they're holding shears, or something like that.
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You might want to think that one through, too. But there are ways to make the appropriate application and to be able to present the lordship of Christ.
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You always have to have the goal that you're moving toward. You want to have that goal of presenting the lordship of Christ, of getting to the gospel.
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That helps you to get there faster and not spin around in circles on side issues. But I want to give that as an example of how there are so many subjects in our society today that in a non -artificial way, in an appropriate way, gives us opportunity to come to this subject of Jesus as the way to peace with God.
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So, with that said, you might have some questions on that or some other questions on other subjects. But if you do, then you need to get the attention of Brother Brian over there.
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He will continue to hold the microphone lest you grab it and start running around sermonizing in the process.
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No sermonizing, Brian, okay? Good on that? So, if you have a question and answer you'd like to ask, maybe some clarification on some things we've said this weekend, now would be the time to ask.
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Who's gonna be that first brave person? That's always the first one we're looking for. There's a brave person right over here,
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Brian. Faster, yeah, faster.
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Don't ask him to go very fast. I'm gonna read it because I don't know the whole thing.
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How can we stand the tide of the radical homosexual agenda, and I'm an activist at heart,
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I am. As a Christian, is that the right posture to go forward actively, or do we wait for that opportunity as a puller, you know what
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I mean? Do we wait for it to come to us, do we go forward? I mean, I've signed petitions and all kinds of stuff like that, but I'm not sure that's enough.
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It's going so fast out there. Well, I think that's something that each person has to answer for themselves.
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I don't think that every person has an activist personality, and I don't think that those that do should look down on those that don't.
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God puts us in different positions to be able to minister to others. I think what all of us are called to do, we need to recognize that, let's say it is
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God's will and intention to continue to lift his hand of restraint and bring his judgment upon our society.
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Let's say that's what happens. I don't know, I pray that God will bring repentance, I pray that God will bring revival to our land.
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It's happened in the past, but let's say he doesn't, and this nation continues down its road of self -destructive behavior.
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What is our role as believers? We are called to be salt and light, we are called to be a prophetic voice, even if we're a small minority, that's still what we're called to do.
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And we look around this world, and that's where most of our brothers and sisters are, in most lands already as it is.
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We may need to be learning from people who have always looked to us for support and things like that.
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We may need to be learning from them the wisdom that they have garnered in being the minority voice that continues to be a clear voice of light and prophetic guidance and even prophetic warning.
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What does salt and light do? Well, salt slows decay. Well, we are to slow the decay that takes place in human society by modeling what is good and righteous and holy and just and explain to people why it is good to honor marriage and for a man and a woman to be together and the centrality of the family and all those types of things.
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And we are to be light. And when God in his mercy opens a person's heart to recognize that this life of mine is empty and these behaviors of mine are doing nothing to provide me with happiness and I recognize
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I need a relationship to God, I need guidance, where can I go? We need to be the light. So we're called to be salt and light and that's gonna differ from person to person and opportunity to opportunity that we have.
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So I think it's both. We look for, in 1 Peter chapter three, Peter says, be ready always to give an answer to everyone who asks you.
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It doesn't say be ready always to, in essence, attract somebody down the street and trip them up and shove a gospel tract in their face.
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The fact is we should be living in such a way that people see that we respond differently and hence are asking us, why do you have a hope that the rest of the people in our society do not have?
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So all of us need to be ready to do that and those to whom God has given the more activist, active personality, then as long as we have the freedom to do it,
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I'm certainly looking for, right now, Matthew Bynes, the book that we just mentioned,
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I did a five hour response to him two years ago and he has said he'd be willing to debate me and I've told him, he's actually training people to go into churches to subvert that church's perspective of homosexuality and change it.
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I've told, he's got, believe it or not, he's got a reformation organization to reform the church, to accept homosexuality and I've told him, since he's training people to go into churches,
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I'll go to his conference and debate him at his conference and so that's what we're trying to see if he'll be willing to do.
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So as long as we have the freedom to do it, we'll keep going, we'll keep going. Uh oh.
35:52
You were talking about Christians who have the same sex attraction. Isn't there a danger, though, of making a category of people as homosexuals and forgetting the element of the sin that is unnatural and, for instance, you have the
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Roman Catholic Church saying that it's completely valid to ordain a man who professes to be homosexual as long as he thinks about chastity.
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Right, that's right. Yeah, there is, this is a fundamental issue, the homosexual community and see,
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I reject that terminology. You almost cannot do that any longer but I reject the terminology.
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I don't believe there's such a thing as a community based upon unnatural sexual desire. There may be all sorts of people that share that and respond with different ways but it doesn't make a community.
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And one of the fundamental problems is that there are people who are accepting the idea that it actually shapes their humanity.
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They may experience it but from a biblical perspective, that is not, if you allow that to become the defining factor of your existence, you've already given up that battle.
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I don't know how else you can read the New Testament at that point. So when
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I say there are Christians who experience same -sex attraction, that's true. Just there are Christians who experience adulterous desires and all sorts of anger and jealousy and strife and all these terms that we will find in the
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New Testament. There are people who experience pride and arrogance and so on and so forth. But when you say this is the way
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God made me and it's going to define who I am, that's where you have completely left the
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New Testament categories of humanity. And unfortunately, most of the people writing the subject just take that as a given.
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They just, it's where you start and it has to be challenged from the very beginning.
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There's no question about that. The interesting thing is these books that are now coming out specifically like this, they try to make convincing arguments in regards to homosexuality even though all through their books, they'll go
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LGBT. Well, there's LG, okay, I see that. But BT, they don't even try to establish that on any type of biblical basis because once you get into bisexuality and transgenderism, where are you gonna go?
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Are you really gonna try to say that? I mean, that is just so clear in its rebellion against the created order.
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They don't even try. They just sort of hope that if you establish the first two, the last two will just sort of be accepted as a given after that.
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And they don't even try to. In the back, well, there's one over here and then in the back.
38:42
How you doing, James? I was reading something the other day that said 70 % of so -called
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Christians believe in evolution or in intelligent design or that,
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I don't know if the number was that high, but it was pretty high. Okay, you're confusing me because intelligent design and evolution are two different things.
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Well, they were saying that that percentage would believe in one or the other. Okay, okay,
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I'm confused. What did the other 30 % believe? That if I'm a Christian, there's...
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I believe in intelligent design. That's what the Bible teaches. So, you're confusing me. God intelligently designed the universe.
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So, we're using terms differently. So, you have to explain to me what you mean. Okay, well, evolution, okay. So, 70 % of Christians don't believe that God created the world.
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Is that what you're saying? That they believe in evolution. Which is, okay. Okay. Um, zwei...
39:41
No, I'm... No. My question is... Okay, I'm gonna speak German and we'll see if we can communicate.
39:48
All right, my question to you is, do you believe somebody could be a true Christian and still believe in evolution?
39:54
Hold on. Okay, all right. I would certainly hope so because I don't remember the gospel including the discussion of Darwin.
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There, you gotta be really careful here because this is the road that leads to hyper -Calvinism. I'll be honest with you.
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Hyper -Arminians and hyper -Calvinists all say that you have to have perfect theology to be a
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Christian. Anybody in here with perfect theology? I wanna beat you up if you put your hand up, okay? I should strive to be consistent and I have...
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I spent my high school years arguing about this issue and dealing with this issue.
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I went to a Christian college. I was the only creationist in the biology department in my Christian college. When I graduated,
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I finished a major in biology. The first book I read after I graduated was Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker and I read it specifically so I could be prepared to really understand and respond meaningfully to the position.
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And so I know what the theory is and that's why I was really confused because intelligent design is simply, to me, a recognition that everything we see around us demonstrates that there is a intelligence behind the design and that's exactly what the
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Bible says we would find and so that's exactly what I believe. I don't see where the contradiction is.
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And so obviously, I believe that there's tremendous danger. You have to believe, for example, that death is related to the representation of Adam in the human race, for the gospel to make any sense.
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There's all sorts of vitally important issues along that line, but on the other side, what I'm really scared of is that there are some people that would say, and if you don't see it like I see it, if you haven't thought through it like I see it, then you're not a
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Christian. And I might say, you're gonna be inconsistent. You're going to have flaws in your understanding, but I don't remember anything in 1
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Corinthians chapter 15 that said, oh, and by the way, 2 ,000 years from now, make sure you reject this particular theory.
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We need to be very, very, very careful at that point that we don't add things to the gospel that aren't there. Is it inconsistent, for example, to then take that theory out to its logical conclusion that there's no creator
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God? Of course. Do we have to believe that God is the creator of all things for him to have given us a law for the cross to make any sense?
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Of course. But are there people who do not take that to its logical conclusion? What really concerns me is
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I see a lot of Reformed folks who jump off the cliff on this point because what they'll say is they'll say something like, is it possible for someone who doesn't believe in limited atonement to be a
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Christian? And I go, look, I believe in particular redemption, limited atonement,
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I've debated it, I've defended it, I think it's absolutely beautiful that Christ's atonement is for his people and it's perfect and everything else, but I know people who don't believe it who still believe in salvation by grace, they're just inconsistent.
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We all have inconsistencies. And when I get to the point where I draw a circle that's so small that only
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I can stand in it, that's a dangerous thing, that's a dangerous thing. So we need to be careful that we recognize the difference between pushing people to be consistent in what they believe and recognizing all of us are on a journey in becoming more consistent and being willing to be formed by the word of God in our beliefs.
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And so do I know people who trust solely in Jesus Christ through salvation who also happen to believe in the theory of evolution?
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Yes, I do. Do I think they're consistent? I do not. Would someone who believes that be allowed to be a leader in my church?
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No. But would someone who comes to me and says,
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I trust in Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, I trust him only for salvation, but you just gotta understand that this is all
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I've ever been taught, should there be a willingness on their part to consider it? Yes.
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But can I look into their heart and say, because you believe that, gone. I can't do that, I can't do that.
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I won't do that. I will talk to them, I will argue with them, I will debate with them, I will direct them to the word of God, I will, all those things, but we need to be very, very careful that we don't say, you need to have all your
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T's crossed and all your I's dotted. I think a lot of people look at me and they see me doing debates with Roman Catholics and things like that and say, he must believe that.
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I don't. I do those debates because I think that we identify false teaching and the
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Bible gives us clear and solid grounds for so doing and calls us to consistency, but to then state that because I can see false teaching, it means
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I can look into someone's heart and mind and see exactly what God is doing in them, man, I do not have that ability and I am glad because something tells me someday
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I can get to heaven and look at my own situation and go, man, how could
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I have missed that? And if perfection is the standard, we are all a big world of perfection.
45:11
There's a man gonna make it. There was one back there, Brian, did you catch it? I was just wondering about the use of language and how, let's say, the homosexual lobby has hijacked language to the extent of like, anybody that is contrary to them is homophobic, for example, and that a homosexual male is gay, you know?
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I mean, the word gay used to mean so many other things, but now you can't use it in any other context.
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I have jokingly thought about, like when somebody says, how are you today? And I'm feeling very good after that.
45:55
I feel very gay today, you know? I mean, just, I mean, almost like to take back the language.
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Well, language changes, obviously. Language changes, and you're exactly right.
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What has been hijacked is not so much the language as the thought process. It's thinking that has been hijacked.
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We're no longer, in our schools, teaching people how to think. We're teaching them what to think. And when you can shut down any conversation by the immediate introduction of certain terms, such as homophobia,
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Islamophobia, any type of phobia, to call someone a hater, say that's discrimination, that's bigotry, when the reality is the person that you're talking with is engaging in discrimination, and in fact, bigotry themselves, that's the issue.
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The problem is, we have an entire generation now that doesn't know how to argue, and doesn't know how to evaluate an argument.
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I'm really big on this, because I'm a debater. And it's amazing to listen to people speak about hearing a debate, and what they heard, and what they didn't hear.
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What we call a debate in this society, those presidential fashion shows, those are not debates, just in case you were wondering, those are not debates.
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When people are spending time talking about what color power tie somebody is wearing, that's not a debate in any way, shape, or form.
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And so, those issues, when someone raises the issue of homophobia, saying you're discriminating, every one of us discriminates, and we have to.
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I mean, I went and got something to eat yesterday, or I'm sorry,
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Friday, I went and got something to eat in the afternoon. Well, I had two different places
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I could go. I went to an Italian place to have pasta, rather than going to Soho. I discriminated,
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I made a choice. Discrimination's good, just saying, you're discriminating. Well, they're not even thinking about what the word actually means, and the fact that they're engaging in that, they're discriminating against my beliefs, and for their own beliefs.
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And unfortunately, the media society we live in limits interaction to such a short, little snippet of time now, that you can rarely call people on that and cause people to think.
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It's amazing, I really think, I love my gadgets, I love the internet, it's a wonderful way to communicate with people and things like that, but the reality is that most of us now have an attention span of a flea in comparison to the generations, only a few generations removed.
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You can't get people to sit down and follow a line of thought for more than just a couple of minutes now, without them having to be distracted by something.
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Oh, my phone just went off, oh, my watch just buzzed, oh, you know, you watch people on the internet, you know, there's a link here, and a link there, and 10 minutes later, you hit 10 different links, and you haven't thought really seriously about anyone else that you looked at.
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That's how people think now, and that's why people can get away with the most atrocious arguments.
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Oh, you're homophobic, I'm not afraid of myself, what are you talking about, I mean, seriously, what do you mean?
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It's so obviously a ploy, that it has no merit or meaning on an academic or intellectual level, and yet it carries the day, and if you want to truly be concerned for our country and to see why this, in my opinion, is clear evidence of the judgment of God, our highest judges in this land have all bought the idea when the
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Prop 8 case and the DOMA case, one before the Supreme Court last year, did you notice what could not be even mentioned in the arguments before the court?
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Was it that homosexuality is moral or not? It was never mentioned, couldn't be, it's a given, it's been accepted. And now, the judgments coming down to marriage are all that marriage equality is a good thing.
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Folks, there are very few people in this land that believe in marriage equality, very few. And anybody who says they do,
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I just look at them and say, so, you really think the two brothers should be able to get married, right? Why not three?
50:27
End of discussion. It shouldn't be, haven't they thought that through? But if they're really for marriage equality, then two brothers, or three brothers, should be able to get married, because if that's what they truly desire to do, if that's where their fulfillment's gonna be found, why not?
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That's marriage equality. They don't believe in marriage equality. It's a lie. It's a slogan, and most slogans are not truthful.
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And that's what we're facing today. That's what we're facing today. No one ever wanted to do that. Oh, yes, they did.
50:58
Oh, yes, they did. It's a tax on the undead assets.
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You say, what's the logical conclusion, right? The basis of the thought process of the homosexual agenda is we truly love each other, we want to love each other, but we don't, and why can't a man marry his dog?
51:19
That's a short article. I like the button, a man truly loved his dog, but just a quick side note, how far of a stretch is it to conceive the possible idea that pedophilia, you know, there's people around the table, something, they have a right, a national association, that boys love each other.
51:35
Try to legalize that someday, maybe draw the line. Well, you know, that's called the slippery slope argument, and they generally just simply dismiss it, but what it illustrates is that on a moral and ethical level, we as Christians need to think through why those relationships are wrong from a biblical perspective on a deeper level than, well, there's a text that says it's wrong.
52:02
Well, there's normally a reason. That's why I said at the beginning, it's one thing to quote the text and say, don't do this, but in this situation, there is all sorts of positive biblical revelation as to why you're not to do this, and so we need to really be explaining to people positively what
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God has said about how we can experience true life as God intended it to be, and then having established that moral and ethical basis, then we have a foundation to say, and the reason these other behaviors are wrong is because they are destructive of the true life that God intends us to experience, and so this whole push for, you know, it's so clearly just the use of a term that, well, we're all for equality.
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No, we're not. No, we're not. Where's our blind brother?
52:57
Where is, where is our blind brother? There he is. Hello. Brother, let me just ask you a simple question.
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I'm gonna put you on the spot here. Should you be allowed to drive a vehicle? Should I be? Yes. I think so.
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Okay, now let me ask you as a Christian. For the good of other people on the road, should you be allowed to drive a vehicle?
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Probably not. There you go. Now, notice, there's nothing against the brother, but the fact of the matter is, in God's providence, he lacks a physical capacity that is absolutely necessary for the safe operation of a motor vehicle.
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I mean, the sad thing is, Doug and Brian will tell you,
53:47
I spent a lot of my time yesterday riding around the roads here. I wear a rear view mirror.
53:53
You know why? Because though it's illegal here, we saw a bunch of folks, and guess what they were doing?
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They had a phone, or they're doing this number. They're texting.
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And I have watched people, thankfully not while riding, but while diving. I remember watching this one lady, and I just watched that vehicle go over, over, over.
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Boom, into the side of the road, off. You'd think that would teach her, right?
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But in 10 seconds, her head's back down, and she's texting again. And so I'm constantly watching behind me.
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So there may be people who have the capacity, they have the physical sight. They still shouldn't be doing it.
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The point is that there are certain capacities that define certain actions.
54:45
You want the most effective rebuttal of quote, unquote marriage equality in homosexual marriage I've ever heard?
54:52
It's real simple. Verbs and direct objects.
54:58
Verbs and direct objects, what do I mean? Well, when I married my wife, that action was defined by the direct object of the verb.
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I can only marry in such a way that the direct object of the verb is a wife.
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Because then reflexively, that verb makes me a husband.
55:28
Husband and wife are absolutely definitional of what it means for the verb marry.
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And when I see two women and I see two men, there's no husband, there's no wife.
55:43
Hence, there's no father, there's no mother. Did y 'all see the picture this week of the three lesbians who are now married in Massachusetts?
55:52
One of them's pregnant. I can guarantee you something, not by the other two. Words have meanings.
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And to me, the greatest argument is simply this. If whatever the verb is does not create a husband and a wife, it ain't marriage.
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That's all there is to it. And our society can rush into self -destruction and self -deception all at once.
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Jesus said, the union that God blesses is a man and a woman, and that was his intention.
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So there are certain definitional abilities that are required to enter into that relationship.
56:42
And a father and a daughter, a father and a son, a mother and a son, a grandmother and a grandson, it's already happened in England.
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Are not able to enter into that relationship that scripture defines as marriage.
57:02
And the society that demands that God change his ways, the society that says, we don't want your blessing, we want your curse.
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That's exactly what our society is saying with loud voices at its highest levels today.
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Don't bless America, God, damn America. That's what our society is saying to God.
57:24
And we pray, what? God, bless America with repentance.
57:31
We can't just simply say, God bless us, oh Lord, just God bless our country. No Christian can say that looking around with eyes open without the first and foremost blessing of God being, give us repentance, open hearts and minds.
57:48
Warn us of the destruction that is very close at hand because there has never been a society that faced this burden that has had so much light and sinned against it that has survived that activity.
58:03
Ask the Romans, I've been to the Colosseum. There aren't any Roman soldiers in the
58:09
Colosseum anymore. All those great monuments stand as great testimony that once a society decays morally and ethically from the inside, it cannot stand against the enemies that God will send from the outside.
58:27
Anyway, I'm sorry, minor discernment. What, are we done?
58:37
One more and then. I have the copy. Okay, one more and then we're done.
58:43
So I have two related questions to what we're talking about. Number one, just last week that the lead singer of Jars of Clay came out at a
58:52
Twitter battle about same -sex marriage. And so my first question is relating to the argument on evolution.
59:01
Is that something that should be addressed as an inconsistency in his views? I'm sorry, I'm confused because I thought you were saying something about the guy from Jars of Clay.
59:10
The guy from Jars of Clay made a statement in support of the redefinition of marriage.
59:18
He's the lead singer of a so -called Christian band, I guess depending on which. I know, I tweeted to him and responded to him on my program.
59:25
I was just trying to figure out what the relationship to. So my question is, on the argument that we just discussed in terms of Christians believing in evolution as an inconsistency, is that also an argument that you can make in that respect?
59:41
Whether you're a Christian person with a homosexual tendency or not, as it would be for the guy from Jars of Clay.
59:49
And the second question has to do with, in a secular society, what's the position on civil unions as opposed to the word marriage?
59:58
Well, in answer to the first, yeah, both are matters of inconsistency and they are related to one another.
01:00:04
Obviously someone who holds to an evolutionary perspective is probably gonna have a difficult time arguing consistently that God has designed human sexuality in a particular fashion.
01:00:17
That's why the liberal denominations that have that perspective have collapsed on the issue of marriage very, very quickly because they don't have the foundation to really deal with that issue.
01:00:29
So what I said to that Dan Hasseltine, I think his name is, is that correct?
01:00:35
Anybody? Yeah, I think so. Okay, I think it's Dan Hasseltine. You know, what I said in the dividing line response to him was, look, you say you don't see what the problem here is going to be.
01:00:46
You haven't seen the three lesbians together, one of which is pregnant and they're calling this marriage. You don't see what's going on in Europe.
01:00:53
You don't see the confusion in gender. The eight -year -old boy in Colorado that got the right to use the little girl's room because he thinks he's a girl.
01:01:04
You know, this kind of stuff. You really want to send your 13 -year -old to a public school where a 13 -year -old guy can use the restroom right next to her.
01:01:11
You really think this is, you don't see what the result of all this does. I was fairly straightforward in that. And I would say the same thing to the person in that situation is you don't see that there is a fundamental flaw in your foundation here that you don't have a creator
01:01:25
God that determines these things. Unfortunately, most of them aren't theistic evolutionists and so they've got a view of evolution that no evolutionist actually holds.
01:01:33
It's the weasel way out. Real Darwinian evolutionary theory has no direction to it.
01:01:39
There's no teleology. It just goes whatever direction that the environment and genetics allows it to go.
01:01:45
But a lot of the people who want to religionize it will have it with a direction to it.
01:01:51
But that's not the theory of evolution. So they're being inconsistent on both sides. They're in a no man's land.
01:01:57
They don't belong in either side. And they need to be shown that and pushed on that. But as far as the second response, quote unquote civil unions, the reality is, again, our role is to say this is what
01:02:13
God has ordained. The first God -ordained institution amongst mankind is marriage.
01:02:20
And it's real simple. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. You want to have God's blessing? Here's what
01:02:25
God has said about social order as to man and woman marriage.
01:02:31
You want to honor that? Then that shows you want God's blessing. You don't want God's blessing?
01:02:37
You don't want his protection? You don't want his favor to shine upon your land?
01:02:43
Then do what you want. But really, our message shouldn't have it. Christian message has always been every nation that it's in.
01:02:49
You want this nation to have God's favor? Here's what God's will is. And we don't get to edit that.
01:02:55
We don't get to change that. Well, that's very exclusivistic. Well, really, the question is, do you want God's favor?
01:03:01
In the end, the vast majority of Americans don't even give it a second thought any longer. And I'm afraid they probably won't until we see our privileges, our finances, our safety being taken away from us.
01:03:16
Then all of a sudden, we cry out to God. But it might take enemies on our shores before we do that because it really does seem, this current generation, they've got ear buds in their ears and they're not listening to anything else.
01:03:34
All right, thank you very much for having me here this weekend. I really enjoyed my time.
01:03:41
I look forward to an opportunity to come back. We're having discussions about what we might want to try to do in the future.
01:03:47
As we were driving over here, we saw a Muslim family in one of the neighborhoods and said, hmm, yes, maybe we'd have some folks attend if we worked out a debate.
01:03:57
And I know some folks might want to be able to do that. But especially those of you who've traveled the distance, thank you very, very much for being here.
01:04:05
And Lord willing, and I'll get run over by a truck somewhere out there in Arizona. We'll be,
01:04:10
Lord will bring us back sometime in the future. I love being with you here. And thank you for having me. Thank you.