Listening Carefully, Thinking Carefully

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Continued our examination of the Gaskins’ review of Rosaria Butterfield, this time digging more deeply into the key issues, issues that require pastoral sensitivity and thought, not the heavy hand of the bludgeon. Nearly 100 minutes in length. Visit the store at https://doctrineandlife.co/

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Greetings, welcome to the Dividing Line. On a Thursday, we are continuing with our response.
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We started on Tuesday, so it's sort of a continuation type situation. You might want to catch what came before.
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But going some other directions, so not just the same old, same old.
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I'm hoping to be interrupted at some point during the program by the arrival of a child.
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But hasn't happened yet, and so I'm concerned that someone is taking a page out of my daughter's handbook because her first was a short little 44 -hour long labor experience.
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So let's hope that's not the case. But anyway, do you have my screen over there?
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What I want to start off with, we've been looking at Diane Gaskin's response, review, rebuttal, whatever you want to call it, expose is what it was called on the website initially, of Rosario Butterfield.
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And so one thing, this is not a part of that, but published by the same people, at least it's been posted by the same people hosting that expose, let's put it that way.
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I just want to use this as an illustration of what we're up against.
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The internet has made it dangerous to be a deep thinker. The internet has made it dangerous to be a deep thinker.
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Because remember when Doug Wilson went to, what was it, the University of Indiana or Illinois?
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Started with an I. And the totalitarian leftist nutcase protesters were getting up and screaming and pounding on walls and stuff.
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And at one point, Doug engaged this one woman, and she would only let him get one sentence out at a time before she would interrupt him.
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And eventually, Doug said, would you please let me finish? He said, I often have thoughts that require more than one sentence to express them.
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And it was the most ultimate slam ever, only if you're a deep thinker.
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They're all going, what? I don't get it. Because they weren't deep thinkers. You could just tell by the way they're behaving that they were anything but deep thinkers.
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So the problem is that there are people in our history, for example, who've written great works of literature that now languish upon bookshelves without being read, because it not only takes you many pages to grasp hold of a concept, but sometimes you might have to reread those pages.
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You might have to go back after you read something later on and then reread again. And that's not entertaining.
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And so what, you know. And so the danger in seeking to address difficult topics, deep topics, in a society that no longer honors those things, is that it's very, very easy for someone, if they have nefarious purposes, to isolate your words, meme them, and attack you, and attack you effectively.
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Not because there's any truth to what you're saying, but you just need to realize in our day, the truth content of any attack, article, meme, video is pretty much irrelevant.
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It's how much emotional impact did you create? And how difficult will it be for someone to undo the emotional impact that you have created by your statements?
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So here is a meme that was posted that you'll notice, for example, the quotation given,
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I can't see it on the screen. There we go. Sodom was not destroyed because of sodomy, but because of their neglect of the poor and the needy.
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Rosaria Butterfield. There's something down below there that was cut off in the images it was posted.
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The something something. But who knows? But I see no references.
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You always should be somewhat suspicious if there is no book and page reference provided.
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But when I saw this, having written a book on the subject of homosexuality myself, together with Jeff Neal, and having myself specifically written the chapter on Sodom and Gomorrah, and hence well -knowing
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Ezekiel 16, 49, 50, issues like that, the first thought across my mind was not to decide that Rosaria Butterfield is a plant of the
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LGBTQ community and she's infiltrating and we need to expose her.
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No, my first thought was, I wonder what she's actually said. I wonder what her published thoughts were.
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Because any meme, any meme cannot give you a context.
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There's just not enough space for it. So it's just a matter of, you know, getting out a book and doing some searching.
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And so I got out the secret thoughts of an unlikely convert, looked for Sodom and Gomorrah, found the section on it, and here we go with context once again.
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And here we go, turning the sound off once again. Quote from, unfortunately, at this point,
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Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert does not have page numbers like Housekey does, so it's only location, 22 % in location, $5 .99
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if anyone cares. At this time, I was just starting to pray that God would show me my sins and help me to repent of them.
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I didn't understand why homosexuality was a sin, why something in the particular manifestation of same -gender love was wrong in itself.
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But I did know that pride was a sin, and so I decided to start there. As I began to pray and repent,
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I wondered, could pride be the root of all of my sins? I wondered, what was the real sin of Sodom?
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I had always thought that God's judgment upon Sodom in Genesis 19 clearly singled out and targeted homosexuality.
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I believed that God's judgment against Sodom exemplified the fiercest of God's judgments. But as I read more deeply in the
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Bible, I ran across a passage that made me stop and think. This passage in the book of Ezekiel revealed to me that Sodom was indicted for materialism and neglect of the poor and needy.
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Now, let me stop right there. If you have looked at the same -sex controversy and looked at the bibliography of the same -sex controversy, which would mean that you would think that I believe everything that the homosexual side says because the bibliography lists books by homosexual authors, you will find the works of people like Daniel Hyminiak, who was the first person
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I read, at least in my reading, back coming up on 20 years ago now, who attempted to use
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Ezekiel 16. And basically what he did in his book is he only quoted
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Ezekiel 16 49, which indicts
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Sodom for its inhospitality, for its lack of care of strangers.
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And that's what made me look it up, and in the next verse, it says they committed abominations.
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Toeva, the one sexual sin in the Holiness Code that Toeva is used of is homosexuality.
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So, any type of meaningful intertextual interpretation would tell you that Ezekiel is drawing from the
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Genesis account, and therefore, that verse 50 specifically does make reference to homosexuality.
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So, what you're dealing with there is someone who is specifically trying to say that homosexuality has nothing to do with Genesis 18 and 19.
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Folks, this again is where we get to learn how to analyze false argumentation, even when false argumentation is being used by Christians.
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And that is very often what Christians, the trap we fall into, is to push back on a particular issue that we know these people are coming against biblical truth.
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If the other side's smart, they will phrase their argumentation in such a way that if we just push back at a 180 -degree angle, we'll end up defending something that we actually don't believe, and then they've got us.
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So, how does that work here? One side says
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Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing to do with homosexuality. So, what's the dangerous trap for the
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Christian? To attempt to defend what? Not that Sodom and Gomorrah had anything at all to do with homosexuality, but end up defending the idea that the only thing that Sodom and Gomorrah had to do with was homosexuality, when that's not what the text says.
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In fact, Ezekiel 16 says otherwise. So, see how that happens? We do it all the time.
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We get manipulated by the form of the argumentation to defend something that we have no business defending.
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Shouldn't go there, but we end up doing it anyways. And so, in this situation, there are revisionists,
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Daniel Hilminiak, saying has nothing to do with it.
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Quotes Ezekiel 16, but he misquotes it by stopping so that you don't see it.
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Homosexuality was relevant, but that doesn't mean that Ezekiel 1649 doesn't exist.
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That does not mean that Sodom is not indicted for its lack of hospitality.
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It is. So, the reasons are more complex than a single sin.
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So, with that in mind, returning to a Rosaria, I ran across a passage that made me stop and think.
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This passage in the book of Ezekiel revealed to me that Sodom was indicted for materialism and neglect of the poor and needy, and that homosexuality was a symptom and an extension of these other sins.
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Stop again. In the regular English language, if there is such a thing anymore, given how fast it's changing, but in the
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English language, let's hear this again, and that homosexuality was a symptom and an extension of these other sins.
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What is homosexuality being identified as in this English sentence? A sin, right?
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Other sins. It's in the category of sins. Just keep that in mind. In this passage,
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God is speaking to his chosen people in Jerusalem and warning them about their hidden sin using Sodom as an example.
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Importantly, God does not say that the sin of Sodom is the worst of all sins. Instead, God uses the sin of Sodom to reveal the greater sin committed by his own people.
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Quote, and here's the quotation from Ezekiel, As I live, says the Lord God, neither your sister Sodom nor her daughters have done as you and your daughters have done.
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So, stop for a second. God is saying that what Israel has done is worse than what
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Sodom has done. Didn't Jesus do the same thing? Woe to you, crazed and beset, if what is done in you had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented, right?
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Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters had pride, fullness of food, abundance of idleness.
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Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy, and they were haughty and committed abomination before me.
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Therefore, I took them away as I saw fit. Ezekiel 16, 40, 50. I found this passage to reveal some surprising things.
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In it, God is comparing Jerusalem to Sodom and saying that Sodom's sin is less offensive to God than Jerusalem's.
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That's what it's saying. Next, God tells us what is at the root of homosexuality and what the progression of sin is.
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We read here at the root of homosexuality is also the root of a myriad of other sins. First, we find pride.
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Sodom and her daughters had pride. Why pride? Pride is the root of all sin. Pride puffs one up with a false sense of independence.
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Proud people always feel that they can live independently from God and from other people. Proud people feel entitled to do what they want when they want to.
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Second, we find wealth, fullness of food, and an entertainment -driven worldview, abundance of idleness. Living according to God's standards is an acquired taste.
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We develop a taste for godly living only by intentionally putting into place practices that equip us to live below our means.
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We develop a taste for God's standards only by disciplining our minds, hands, money, and time. In God's economy, what we love, we will discipline.
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God did not create us so that we would, as the title of an early book on postmodernism declares, amuse ourselves to death.
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Undisciplined taste will always lead to egregious sin, slowly and almost imperceptibly.
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Third, we find lack of mercy. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. Refusing to be the merciful neighbor in the extreme, terms exemplified by the
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Samaritan traveler to his cultural enemy, left to die on the road to Jericho, Luke 10, 25 -37, leads to egregious sin.
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I think this is a shocking truth, and I imagine that most Bible -believing Christians would be horrified to see this truth exposed in such bare terms.
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God calls us to be merciful to others for our own good, as well as for the good of our community. Our hearts will become hard to the whispers of God if we turn our backs on those who have less than we do.
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Fourth, we find lack of discretion and modesty, for they were haughty and committed abomination before me.
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Pride combined with wealth leads to idleness, because you falsely feel that God just wants you to have fun.
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Why is that true? If unchecked, this sin will grow into entertainment -driven lust. If unchecked, this sin will grow into hardness of heart that declares other people's problems no responsibility or care of your own.
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If unchecked, we become bold in our sin and feel entitled to live selfish lives, fueled by the twin values of our culture, acquiring and achieving.
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Modesty and discretion are not old -fashioned values. They are God's standards that help us to encourage one another in good works, not covetousness.
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You might notice that there is nothing inherently sexual about any of these sins. Pride, wealth, entertainment -driven focus, lack of mercy, lack of modesty.
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We like to think that sin is contained by the categories of logic or psychology. It's not. So why do we assume that sexual sin has sexual or affectual,
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A -F -F -E -C -T -U -A -L, origins? That is because we have too narrow a focus about sexuality's purview.
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Sexuality isn't about what we do in bed. Sexuality encompasses a whole range of needs, demands, and desires.
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Sexuality is more a symptom of one of our life's condition than a cause, more a consequence than an origin.
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Importantly, we don't see God making fun of homosexuality or regarding it as a different, unusual, or exotic sin.
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What we see instead is God's warning. If you indulge the sins of pride, wealth, entertainment, lack of mercy, lack of discretion, you will find yourself deep in sin.
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And the type of sin may surprise you. That sin may attach itself to a pattern of life closely or loosely linked to this list.
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While sin is not contained by logical categories of progression, nonetheless, sin is progressive.
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That is, while sin does not stay contained by type or trope, if ignored, excused, or enjoyed, sin grows and spreads like poison ivy.
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But God is a God of mercy, redemption, second chances, and salvation, and therefore when Jesus uses Sodom as an example during his ministry on earth, the example reveals that God is angrier at the religious people of Jesus's day than the inhabitants of Sodom, and then goes on to the section that I was just referring to.
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So, what do we have here? Well, again, if you...it
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depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking to fairly hear and understand a writer who comes to this from an incredibly unique background.
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So, in other words, if you go, you know, I would like to know what someone who's come out of the homosexual community thinks and how they dealt with their sin and what was it the
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Lord used to open their eyes and to break their hearts in the good sense of breaking their hearts from pride and rebellion and how did that happen?
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If you think that way, then you will read Rosaria and you will not set her up upon a pedestal as the final authority in all things.
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We need to avoid identity politics here. Just because Rosaria lived the lifestyle for quite some time does not mean that coming out of that lifestyle means that you have every insight that needs to be had, every balance that needs to be had.
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No, but what it does mean is if you really do want to know, if you're the type of person who goes, my conclusions on this issue will be deepened and made more rich and hopefully
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I will be more useful to the kingdom and to speaking to people who might be experiencing same -sex attraction if I think these issues through and if I hear from others and if I have other perspectives to bring into mind and that may mean sometimes you might read something from Dr.
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Butterfield and go, I can't go there because of the fact that I'm, you know,
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I think I see she's being unduly influenced by this aspect of her past or something like that.
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And I would be completely stunned if Rosaria would say, well, that's not valid.
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No, she would say, no, it's completely valid. And I get the feeling she's the type of person who would listen to what
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I have to say and weigh it fairly and go, well, here's someone with, you know, decades of ministerial experience, pastoral experience, theological experience, linguistic experience.
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I want to learn from what I can gain from him and vice versa. That's how it should work.
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That's how we enrich ourselves. None of us can read everything and experience everything.
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But if we will listen honestly to others with an open heart and mind, not with an open brain in the sense that we will accept anything we're told, but with meaningful discernment, godly, disciplined discernment, man, we can learn a lot from one another and grow as a result.
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One of the greatest disappointments I had was seeing how many of my fellow
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Christians back in 2018, or was it 2017, whenever it was, that the kickback for the simple statement that I said
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I had learned so much about Islam from Yasir Qadhi, from a
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Muslim scholar, so many Christians were like, you can't do that. And I'm like,
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I mean, it was so hard for me because when I first studied Mormonism, yeah,
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I started with Christian books and immediately went to Mormon books because I realized I needed to know what the Mormons themselves were saying.
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I needed to understand. I needed to hear in their own language and in their own categories.
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So to realize there are so many Christian people who honestly believe that it is an act of compromise to listen to what a non -Christian says and learn from it.
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But this is part of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is a worldview of fear.
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And so I was saying in St. Charles, and a well -known scholar was sitting right over here from me, and I saw him going like this when
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I was saying this. I said, in conservative seminaries, we study what liberals believe.
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We read their books. We understand where they're coming from. We understand what their criticisms are, and we interact with them.
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In liberal seminaries, they don't study what conservatives believe. They don't think that has any meaning to them.
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But on the right side of us, in fundamentalism, now you're back in the mindset as in liberalism.
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They don't listen to what anybody other than fundamentalists have to say. Even the quote -unquote conservatives, they're liberals too from their perspective.
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So everybody's to the left and say listen to no one. And so you end up with an echo chamber on the extreme right and an echo chamber on the extreme left, and you don't ever hear what's being said from another perspective.
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This is part of fundamentalism. So I could conceive of a situation very, very clearly where I could come to a different conclusion than Rosaria Butterfield on the interpretation of X, Y, or Z.
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It happens to be that if you read the same -sex controversy on Sodom and Gomorrah, I don't think she would disagree with what
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I said, and I certainly didn't disagree with what she was just saying here. Now, I had a different purpose.
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I was interacting with people who were trying to say there's nothing of homosexuality.
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It doesn't even appear. She's not dealing with that. She's dealing with people who tried to turn it into the only thing, and Ezekiel 16 and Jesus' own words preclude that interpretation completely.
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So we go back to the meme, and we simply ask a question.
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Where'd you get that? Was that an isolated sentence, and the next sentence would have clarified it?
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Why produce something like this? You're producing it for a reason, and the reason is to attempt to create in the minds of viewers and readers a prejudice against someone based upon a purposeful misrepresentation of their position, because when someone puts up a meme, when some
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King James only puts up a meme about me saying, I don't believe the Bible's God's word, and I don't believe that God is actually spoken, and blah, blah, blah, blah, you know that I've written entire books in defense of the
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Bible being the Word of God, and so there has to be something else going on.
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There has to be an unwillingness, and normally a purposeful unwillingness, to actually engage what it is
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I'm saying and why I'm saying it. Same thing here. And so I just wanted to use that as an example of how memes are fun.
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Someone did a meme today. Well, it's not a meme. It's a video. Well, it's a video meme. If you haven't seen it, it's the
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Baby Yoda loves Radio Free Geneva video, where it's a section from the
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Mandalorian thing, which I've not seen, but little
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Baby Yoda keeps turning on Radio Free Geneva, and I guess that's the
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Mandalorian. I don't know. I assume it is. Keeps turning it off, and then Yoda turns it back on, and it's fun.
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So memes can be fun, but anything that is fun can also be used as a weapon if you join untrustworthiness, dishonesty, bias, and prejudice working themselves out.
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You can turn it into a weapon, and that's what was done with that particular thing.
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So with that, oh goodness, how to get back to that? Huh. All right.
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Well, I'm going to have to scroll back. I thought I had already scrolled this back to this point, but anyway, we'll find it here.
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All right. Let's look at some of the key issues that Diane Gaskins derived, not so much from her book, not so much from Rosario's book, as they were derived from the
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Gospel Coalition 2014 Women's Conference video, which again, very easy to find.
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It's less than 20 minutes in length. I would recommend listening to all of it in its own context if you want to have a more balanced presentation understanding.
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But turning to the Gaskins article, it talks about the interview. The interview is just under 20 minutes, but includes
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Rosario's key slogans that summarize her message and those of the SSA movement. Those of the
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SSA movement. What's the SSA movement? I mean, that is not a meaningful category.
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What are you talking about there? Because you can't, for example, in this interview,
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Rosario specifically says she rejects the terminology of gay Christian, and she explains why from a linguistic perspective.
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You're modifying, you're changing the meaning of Christian based upon your self -identity.
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This is inappropriate. But what's the SSA movement? We're not told.
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There is much problematic content in this interview, more than space allows to relay, and discerning readers will want to view it in its entirety.
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I agree. Please do. Because I think if you are willing to listen without bias and prejudice, you're not going to be bothered by almost anything.
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Born this way. Because the fall, we are all born some way.
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Rosario teaches that the fall means we are each born with a particular sinful inclination, and homosexuality is such an inclination.
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Homosexuality is an ethical outworking of original sin. Quote, quote, sorry, quote, this is quoting
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Rosario. Homosexuality is an ethical outworking of original sin. Do you know what that means?
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We're born that way. End quote. Now, here again, and if Diane Gaskins had not identified herself as being
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Reformed, I would have found this very confusing. Well, no, if she hadn't,
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I wouldn't have been as confused. But since she identifies herself as Reformed, I do find this confused.
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But I also have to recognize that in my experience, there are people who are Calvinistic regarding general soteriological schemes, but not
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Reformed in their anthropology. They may profess the T, but they won't let the
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T go as deeply as the T goes. Total depravity. And this especially true about original sin.
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I think a large portion of the Southern Baptist Convention doesn't believe in original sin at all. I'm pretty sure that the traditionalists don't, not in any meaningful fashion.
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Anyway, homosexuality is an ethical outworking of original sin. Is there something wrong with that?
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It's not the original sin, is it? Is homosexuality the original sin? No. So it is an ethical outworking of it, right?
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I mean, that's what Romans 1 says. I mean, because it's used as an example of what happens when idolatry goes to full flower and ends up influencing the entirety of mankind's experience, even to the of one's sexual desires, which you would think are hardwired for the continuation of the species.
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And yet even that can be perverted. But clearly that's not the original sin, right?
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So it is the ethical outworking of original sin. Do you know what that means?
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We're born that way. Born fallen. Every one of us is born fallen and born sexually broken in some fashion.
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And I think the reason that people struggle with this is because they want to think that the, all of the
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Me Too movement, what was it you were just reading me?
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65 % or something of sex slaves in the
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United States, foster care.
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Yeah. So, so you have, you have the human trafficking, sex slaves all, all over the world.
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I mean, the guy who did not kill himself. Yeah. Epstein, as far as we can tell
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Epstein wasn't a homosexual, but are you going to tell me that his sin was somehow less because of that?
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And see, and this is where, this is where the category stuff comes in. This is where we have to think categorically.
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There is something fundamentally disordered in homosexual desire because it goes cataphysis, against nature.
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It's against the created order. And in the sense that adultery or fornication between a man and a woman does not go against the created order in the sense of the desires that define men and women.
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So in other words, you don't have the Romans 1. They left the natural function of the male in either direction.
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So it's different on that level because it involves a, the impact upon the natural created desires of man that allows the species to continue.
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But does the difference in character that it is disordered, does that make it worse than the serial rapist or the serial, um, committer of, of adultery that spreads venereal disease or, or, or whatever else.
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And the thinking is, yeah, as long as it's disordered, that somehow makes it morally worse.
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And on that basis, that's why there are certain people. I think Steven Anderson's one of them that does not believe that homosexuals can be saved.
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Um, and remember he does something really goofy weird with first Corinthians six to try to get around, uh, what that is specifically referring to.
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But there's a confusion there of the fact that there is something about homosexuality that is specifically disordered and saying that makes it the worst of all sins.
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It's not original sin. And how you rank it is really going to depend from God's perspective on what you know and what your, um, intentions are in the commission of it.
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So someone, and again, Jesus says to cities in Galilee in his day, it will be more tolerable for the people who surrounded
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Lot's house and wearied themselves trying to get in once blinded than for you.
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Have you thought about that? Have you thought about what that means? Again, you know, we're going to Israel next year.
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Keep that in mind, folks. Uh, less than a year now. Um, and I can't help but think about visiting
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Bethsaida, um, these cities that were specifically mentioned and thinking about why would
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Jesus say it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, which were destroyed by God with fire and brimstone than for Chorazin and Bethsaida.
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Why? I, I know that Lot was a righteous man, though, boy,
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I'll tell you over the weekend, Lot came up in the discussion and there were some people that just were, just wouldn't get off it.
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They would not, I mean, they, they wouldn't accept Peter's statements about Lot and his soul and being a righteous man or none of that stuff.
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They were, they, Lot was, Lot was just a bad, bad man. Anyway, um, we're not given any indication that Lot functioned as a prophet amongst these people.
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We don't see him out in the city square preaching. He eventually does, he does say to them, do not do this great evil.
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And it's when he identifies what they want to do as evil that they go crazy and try to break the door down and everything else.
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Could we argue that Lot should have been identifying their indolence and indulgence and selfishness and pride and arrogance as sin before this point in time?
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We're just not given enough information to know those things. But the point is, if you take
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Jesus's teaching at face value and at face value, seriously, he's saying the amount of light that you have is all important.
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And in comparison to the light that Christian and Bethsaida had, because he who made light was walking through their streets, because he had ministered in their synagogues, because he had preached the unvarnished word of God and they didn't care.
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It's not that they attacked him.
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I just didn't care. They were so in love with their self -indulgent lifestyle.
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Not that they're, not that those little villages would have been the homes of a lot, would have had the homes of a lot of rich people in them, but even the poorer people.
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Yeah. Apathetic. And the son of God's walking amongst them. It's one of the reasons, by the way, why some of the expression of divine attributes had to be laid aside.
39:28
Can you imagine if Jesus is walking along and he still has the kind of glory of God? I think he would have been reacted to a little bit differently, but he just looks like the carpenter's son.
39:40
And yeah, his words, they're convicting, but maybe someday.
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It seems that Jesus was saying that is more reprehensible in the sight of God than what the guys in Sodom and Gomorrah were doing.
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And maybe that's why we don't like to think about this way. Maybe that's why we like having homosexuality as the worst possible sin.
40:03
Because it's too easy to sound like you're from Crazan and Bethsaida. So when she says we're born that way, what she's saying is we are born in original sin.
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We are born broken. And does someone disagree with this? Then it says
40:23
Rosari Butterfield discounts the idea. Well, the subtitle is, we are all messy.
40:31
All sins are equal, except unbelief is worse. Rosari Butterfield discounts the idea that any sin is more heinous than another, quote, we should not think of our gay and lesbian neighbors as struggling with something that is different.
40:45
It is part of the human condition, end quote. Now, why does that say, where does that say what the subtitle said?
40:52
It doesn't say that. And it's not saying all sins are equal.
40:57
It is saying that the root sins that give rise to the later sins are the sins that have to be dealt with.
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If you simply deal with the fruit that comes later on, rather than the root, you accomplish nothing.
41:19
She, I know that she used an illustration. It's a good illustration because I remember this, but no one in Arizona gets this.
41:28
Well, no one in the desert. Remember dandelions?
41:34
Okay. I'll bet you there are kids that have grown up in Phoenix. I've never seen them. I mean, if everybody around you has their desert lawn, how would you know?
41:46
Yeah, you grew up in Prescott. And so you had, you had grass and when dandelions would come up, how did it, how did the seed spread?
41:57
Once the flower goes, you get these seed pods that open up and then the wind blows the seeds everywhere.
42:05
And that that's, I think that was designed. I'm not sure about you. I think someone designed that because it works very, very effectively.
42:13
Palm tree seeds do the same thing. Ever noticed palm tree seeds can get almost anywhere. Same, same thing. So what was the worst thing you could do when you had dandelions was to just lop the heads off.
42:26
That would just spread the seeds. And then weeds, where do you got to get the weeds at?
42:32
Gotta get them in the root. If you just run over, if you just took your lawnmower, ran over, all you're doing is just creating the world's greatest seed distribution service ever.
42:44
And they're going to come back and they're going to come back with a vengeance because now it's getting blown all over the place.
42:49
It's a very effective seed distribution system. And that's the illustration that she used.
42:55
If you just lop off the top, if you lop off the fruit sin rather than the root sin, it's just going to keep manifesting itself because you're not dealing with what's giving rise to it.
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And so is the argument that idolatry and pride are the root that need to be gotten to rather than mere manifestations, is the argument that she's saying that that means homosexuality isn't a sin or it isn't relevant?
43:27
She repented of this stuff. How would that be the case? What she's saying is nothing impacted her until the reality of what she was seeing in scripture came true in her life.
43:41
And that is, she is a prideful person who thinks she's in control of all of her relationships and her entire destiny.
43:49
And it's God that's in charge. And if God's in charge, then God says, you live this way, and therefore
43:55
I have to line myself up with God's will. And the reformed error in this is what exactly?
44:06
We're not told. We're not told because what's appealed to by Mrs.
44:12
Gaskins is this idea of there is an assumed orthodoxy that we all just get it.
44:21
And if she doesn't sound like us in the way she says these things, there must be a reason.
44:27
It's that Henri Nouon guy. And it's that other occult lady. And we're going to find the hidden messages and all the rest of that kind of stuff.
44:40
But notice that even in the statement, she is saying that homosexuality is a manifestation of original sin.
44:53
It's the fall. That's not what the gay
44:58
Christian movement is saying when it describes homosexuality as a gift from God. How can you not see this?
45:07
Well, the only way you can't see that is if you have a really, really, really major thing going on.
45:15
Now, so Mrs. Gaskins says, while it is true that any sin is sufficient to merit an eternity in hell, she wasn't talking about that.
45:25
That's not what Rosaria was talking about. She's talking about the relationship of sins and that sins rarely exist unto themselves separated from everything else.
45:41
This is an important insight. It's a good insight. So why are we now going someplace else?
45:50
Is it because she doesn't understand or that she doesn't have a response to what
45:56
Rosaria is actually saying? I don't know. I can't tell. Well, it is true that any sin is sufficient to merit an eternity in hell.
46:04
The Bible calls some sins abominations, Leviticus 18, and some affections vile,
46:11
Romans 126. We glorify God when we recoil from those sins according to how they are treated in his word.
46:19
That is something intolerable in a mindset that believes in the sin of homophobia.
46:27
Okay, let's try to follow the mindset here because this is helpful in understanding how people think.
46:36
The Bible does call some sins abominations. A full study of toevah, the
46:46
Hebrew term for abomination, is somewhat challenging because toevah is not always used only of something that is morally reprehensible in God's sight, more so than something else.
47:02
Because there are some things that are called toevah that are ceremonial. But in Leviticus 18 and 20, that which is toevah is homosexuality.
47:14
And some affections, vile, vile affections. Remember, I'll never forget.
47:24
Well, you know, I don't know why we use that phrase. I may. I may forget. But I keep saying,
47:30
I'll never forget. And that's the way of how we say this was really important and memorable. But I'll never forget the look on Barry Lynn's face during the
47:40
Romans 1 cross -examination, our debate in 2001. Vile affections.
47:47
So is this, well, there's these different lists of sins and could
47:53
I borrow your Bible? Man, by the end of that debate, he was spitting nails.
48:03
He, oh, man, was not a happy camper. Nobody had ever forced him to actually walk through Romans 1 before.
48:11
Never. They don't do that on, did CNN exist back then? I suppose so. It's the original?
48:19
Well, well, I don't know when that stuff started. Really? Well, we didn't have cable for a long time, so anyway.
48:28
Okay, so there are some things that are vile affections. Agreed. We glorify
48:35
God when we recoil from those sins according to how they are treated in His Word.
48:41
So I guess what that means is abomination and vile affections make them the worst sins.
48:48
So where does that come from again? Because the argument of Romans 1 is that all of mankind's sinful actions flow primarily from idolatry, which results in pride.
49:08
So how could you have stuff that flows from the root cause that is actually more abominable in God's sight than the root cause itself?
49:21
Let's just face it, for a lot of folks, you'd go, pride? Yeah, it's a sin, but you know,
49:27
I sort of like it when my favorite basketball player is, you know, just sort of really getting to it out in front of the camera, you know, and stuff like that.
49:38
No. Scripture says that is an abomination in God's sight too. Yes? Well, as you're talking about this,
49:44
I'm thinking about Romans 1, and what do they do? What is it? How does it lay it out?
49:50
Is seeking to be wise they became fools and did this, and then did this, and then did this?
49:57
That's the way Rosario's presenting this. So what is the objection?
50:02
Because I'm not seeing it. The objection is that Rosario is saying that we should not be focused upon the sin of homosexuality in reaching homosexuals, we should be focused upon the sin of pride and unbelief in God that gives rise to homosexuality.
50:23
That's the objection. So here, Rosario wishes to remove the detestable factor from vile affections and instead focus exclusively on unbelief.
50:37
Now, the only way that you could substantiate this is if you've either communicated with her, which has not taken place, or you're misunderstanding something she's saying.
50:48
So let's see if the two quotations given substantiate the assertion that Rosario wishes to remove the detestable factor from vile affections.
51:03
Let's see if that's the case. Quote, don't assume that for your gay and lesbian neighbors, the worst sin in their life is homosexuality.
51:13
Maybe their worst sin is unbelief. In fact, that is the higher sin. Homosexuality is a fruit of something else.
51:20
It is symptomatic. If all you do is repent of his sin at its surface, it makes it worse.
51:27
So where's the connection to knowing what Rosario wishes to do?
51:32
What Rosario seems to be wishing to do is to encourage us to have a holistic view of sin and to see the connections to the most primary manifestations and to how they then show themselves, which is an insight she gained from the conviction of her own sin as a committed homosexual.
52:00
In fundamentalism, there is a tendency to individualize sins.
52:13
Okay, how do you say this without it coming out all wrong? In my own experience in that world, sins' relationship to root sins was rare.
52:33
That was rarely discussed. And here's why I think. To maintain your membership in the group, you have to put on a display of conformity and some sense of holiness.
52:48
And so, if you make those the real bad sins over there and I ain't doing any of that, then
52:54
I must be doing pretty good. The reality is that my sins of pride and not being like others, being like the
53:02
Pharisees, has its root in pride and idolatry, just like all of their manifested sins do too.
53:11
But I don't do their manifested sins, so I must be better than they are. That's how it worked with the
53:17
Pharisees. That's how it works in fundamentalism. And so, what do the fundamentalists do all the time?
53:25
They'll point to these particular things they call sins. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. But it's always out there.
53:33
It's always out there. Never any holistic view of how one sin arises from another.
53:44
So, taken again as a whole here, Rosaria wishes to remove the detestable factor.
53:55
How? Don't assume that for your gay and lesbian neighbors, the worst sin in their life is homosexuality.
54:02
It was not until the Lord dealt with Rosaria about her unbelief, her rejection of God's authority to define truth, that she was ever able to deal with her homosexuality.
54:18
Because when you think about it, you know, what if someone asks you a question? I'm talking to a homosexual, and I have clearly given evidence that scripture teaches that homosexuality is a violation of God's truth, and that is not what
54:39
God intends for us. And their response is, I don't believe God has spoken to the subject at all. It's a response of unbelief.
54:47
So, what is the root thing you have to deal with? Convince them what the Bible already says? They're already convinced of what the
54:53
Bible already says. They just don't believe the Bible is authoritative. They're unbelievers. They're putting themselves in the position of being able to judge the one who rose from the dead.
55:04
What's the issue you got to deal with? And in the fundamentalist mindset, it's homosexuality.
55:12
But it isn't. That's a manifestation of something else. Well, that gets really complicated.
55:20
Not really, but no more complicated than Romans 1 or 1 Corinthians 6.
55:30
Homosexuality is a fruit of something else. It is symptomatic. If all you do is repent of sin at its surface, it makes it worse.
55:38
So, what good are you doing for the person if you get them to stop being a homosexual, but you confirm them in their unbelieving pride, end up making them twice as son of hell as they were before?
55:57
If Jesus's interaction with the Pharisees means anything. Oh, ouch.
56:05
Well, thought this was a given, but then there was this thing.
56:18
I'm going to, she objects to Rosaria laughing. Okay, now this one's important.
56:26
Okay, got, had to get to this one. Had to get this one. Okay. I've been thinking about this one for a few weeks, and this is, this is important.
56:35
Um, again, we have to think clearly in our day.
56:46
Utah governor signs a bill making reparative therapy illegal.
56:53
California did it. New York's done it. New Jersey, I think, starts on the coast and moves inward.
57:01
And we recognize that there is a grave danger here.
57:08
And the grave danger is if what you're saying is no one can offer help to someone who wants to change their sexual orientation, then not only are you putting in law that sexual orientation is immutable, even though sexual orientation is whatever you think it is for any given day.
57:26
So, it can't be immutable. But anyway, um, I saw an article today about how the
57:31
T's are trying to get rid of all the L's and G's and B's.
57:37
And it's true. There is a, and, and I, I'm for one going to sit back and go, you all have fun on that one.
57:45
Um, because the T is particularly pernicious along those lines.
57:54
Um, but anyway, um, if we put into law that sexual orientation is not something that can be touched, then we're concerned that that's going to impact my preaching
58:08
First Corinthians chapter six or First Timothy chapter one or Romans one or anything else.
58:15
Um, so here's, here's where once again, what we've gotten into is we've, we've seen a danger and then we end up being pushed into defending something we're not consistently capable of defending.
58:37
You can on the one hand say, look, the government shouldn't be involved in any of this stuff. And if somebody wants to seek help religiously or non -religiously, then they should be free to do so.
58:50
And all this is a bunch of totalitarian nonsense. Okay. That's one thing. But from a Christian perspective, if we say that we are afraid of the banning of reparative therapy, does it mean that that means reparative therapy is a
59:10
Christian concept? Think about it. Think about it.
59:19
Rosari Butterfield states, quote, I do not believe sexual orientation changes are a gospel imperative.
59:25
I'm on record for saying reparative therapy, therapy is the prosperity gospel.
59:31
Reparative therapy is a heresy on this earth. God will give one person 10 crosses to bear and another person, one end quote, what's she talking about last year?
59:43
Sometime, maybe the year before there was a bunch of discussion about therapeutic moralistic deism.
59:50
Remember that how there's self -help methodologies out there.
59:57
That's, that's not what the gospel is. The gospel is not a self -help methodology. And the
01:00:04
Christian understanding of salvation regeneration is that human psychology, there might be people who find in human psychology, you know, if they, if they don't want the attractions that they've experienced,
01:00:24
I could see a situation where in some instances that might be helpful to them in some sense, maybe some discipline in their lives or identifying something in their past, whatever.
01:00:35
But from a Christian perspective, reparative therapy is not conversion and you can't change a heart outside of conversion.
01:00:47
So we have no business defending secular, psychiatric, psychological reparative therapy any more than we would any other kind of psychological paradigm that does not deal with the heart, that does not deal with the need for regeneration.
01:01:07
But once again, what happens is we see the danger in banning that in connection to our own proclamation and therefore we defend that rather than our own proclamation and think that that makes it somehow a good thing.
01:01:26
And what Rosaria is saying is that's the prosperity gospel. That's, that's saying that God has promised that you're going to be healthy, wealthy, and wise as soon as you get converted.
01:01:38
So when the gospel's turned into reparative therapy, the idea is get saved and all your problems are going to go away.
01:01:51
You're not going to have any desires for whatever your problems are any longer.
01:01:57
Just come to Jesus and everything's going to be good. And this leads us to then probably the most important part of the discussion and that is we know of people, the media doesn't want to talk about them, but there are people who can testify and then have 20 years of Christian experience afterwards that also testifies to the fact that upon repentance and faith, a fundamental change in desires took place in their lives.
01:02:48
So there have been people who have been saved and never touched drugs, whatever their drug of choice had been, heroin, methamphetamines, speed, whatever.
01:03:03
Never touched it again. Complete change. There are others who were sexually addicted and they're wonderfully delivered.
01:03:18
There are others who could not keep their hands off of other people's property. They would steal all the time and they haven't touched anything since their conversion.
01:03:31
We know that that happens. We know that can happen and that's a wonderful thing.
01:03:39
But we live in a fallen world and outside of sinless perfectionists, the few of them that there be, most self -deceived people ever to walk the planet, outside of sinless perfectionists, the experience of any minister in the
01:03:59
Church in dealing with souls is that we need an advocate with the
01:04:04
Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, because we still experience sin.
01:04:13
And hence, we know people who are fully delivered and then people who are not.
01:04:24
What do you do with a person who is not? What do you do with a person who comes to you very honestly and they say,
01:04:35
I want to follow Jesus. I want to honor Jesus. I do not want the feelings and desires that I have.
01:04:46
And in my upbringing, I knew nothing, nothing whatsoever about addiction.
01:04:55
I didn't know anyone, at least knowingly know.
01:05:01
I may have, in my ignorance, have known some addicts.
01:05:08
Let me just tell you a story. I'm not saying this to embarrass him, but just as an illustration of this point.
01:05:18
But I ate at Cafe Rio today. I love Cafe Rio. I love their chicken quesadillas. They're just wonderful.
01:05:25
And for some reason, ever since last year when
01:05:31
I joined Apologia, and then when I became an elder, that's seemingly the only place that we meet together.
01:05:38
It's the other guys think it's the only place I ever eat at all. And you know, it's not because I've eaten at Taco Time.
01:05:46
So the look I just got is worse than anything he's ever done about a
01:05:54
Coogee. Anyway.
01:06:01
So, you know, I like other places. I like Olive Garden and places like that.
01:06:06
But anyway, we eat at Cafe Rio. A number of months ago, we're getting there.
01:06:15
We get there at different times. And a couple of us walked in. I think it was Zach and I had walked in.
01:06:23
And all of a sudden, Jeff peeled off. I don't think Luke was there yet. Jeff peeled off.
01:06:28
And outside, there's a place you can sit with some misters, you know. Even in Phoenix, July, August, nobody sits out there.
01:06:36
You can't. But there's this guy sitting out there. And I saw
01:06:41
Jeff sort of peel off and go talk to the guy. So Zach and I ordered, and we sat down.
01:06:49
And I see Jeff going through the line, and then he drops his food off the table.
01:06:56
But then he takes more food that he got out to the guy on the patio. And I'm sort of watching this going, well, is he just seeing a homeless person and, you know, doing some benevolence or what's going on here?
01:07:11
Well, finally, when he comes in, he sits down, he goes, heroin, mainline it.
01:07:20
And I'm like, what? He says, yeah, I saw that guy out there. I could tell he was on heroin. And so I went up to him and said, are you shooting or smoking?
01:07:34
Just straight up. You shooting it or smoking it? I'm shooting it. So you know it's gonna kill you.
01:07:39
Yeah. And he says, you know,
01:07:45
God can free you from this. You have to turn from your sin. Jesus is a powerful savior.
01:07:52
He came in, bought his food and bought the other guy food and took it out to him and just told him, if you want help, we can help you, but you're going to kill yourself.
01:08:05
You don't have long. I can tell. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. So I didn't see that, but Jeff did, because Jeff has worked with addicts forever and from 40 feet away could tell what drug he was doing and where he was in the progression of his addiction.
01:08:29
I did not grow up with that. That's outside of my experience zone by a long, long, long, long shot.
01:08:39
And so the question then becomes, what would have happened if that guy said, dude,
01:08:48
I want help right now. Can you help me right now? Well, I know what
01:08:56
Jeff would have done. And we wouldn't have had a meeting that day. We would have been taking this guy and getting him the help that he needed and then staying in contact with him and visiting him and getting him involved with the church and everything else.
01:09:09
That's that's how we do things. Um, there would have been follow -up.
01:09:16
There would have been application. There would have been, but what if, let's say he got off heroin and let's say he's baptized and we find him a job.
01:09:30
And six months later, he calls us up and says, guys, I, I almost did it today.
01:09:38
I almost fell off the wagon, man. I, I saw somebody I used to know, I know that they deal. And I just,
01:09:45
I just wanted it so bad. What do you do with that person? What do you do?
01:09:53
Do you say, well, must not have taken up beyond Jesus's help. You, you want to believe that all those desires would be done away with, but they aren't always done away with.
01:10:09
So what do you do? Well, I know I, I mean, I could ask
01:10:14
Jeff to talk about this. I think, hasn't he, did he ever do it? He did a program on this one, didn't he? When I was gone. Um, they focus upon the idolatry that is the root foundation of addiction.
01:10:29
Idolatry. I'm sorry, what? Yes, yes, yes.
01:10:36
Yeah. Um, talks about idolatry. There would have been personal responsibility.
01:10:46
It's the first church I've ever been at that has a supply of, um, breathalyzers, um, has the ability to, if someone wants that kind of accountability to establish that kind of account, accountability in regards to drug usage, the whole nine yards, because that's what, that's what the church grew out of.
01:11:10
So in other words, we have a lot of experience. Not me, I'm only learning, but the church has a lot of experience in dealing with people who come out of that lifestyle and yet continue to struggle in this life.
01:11:28
Now, the options are, um, they're not saved in the first place.
01:11:35
So there's, there are some who would say that if a person professes faith in Christ, but still has a desire for alcohol, all the various forms of drugs, so on, so forth, just not a
01:11:54
Christian, that every single person will be delivered completely from those desires.
01:12:03
Is it just those desires? Is it just the desires that had wreaked havoc in your life?
01:12:09
Or is it all sinful desires? Because I think most
01:12:15
Orthodox Christians recognize we continue to experience sinful desires. So we have to be real careful here where we're going to draw the line.
01:12:26
And it seems that for some people, well, you draw the line at sexual sins and drug abuse, and it's like, why those?
01:12:35
Because they're so much different than my experience. And even when you say sexual sins, you don't, you don't mean, you don't mean porn, and you don't mean, um, any of the related heterosexual manifestations of lust.
01:12:55
You only mean that other stuff. The really, really bad stuff. Because if it's part of my desires, then it's not the really, really bad stuff.
01:13:04
It's the normal bad stuff, but not really, really bad stuff. Theologically, I don't think that's an option.
01:13:13
So what do we do? How do we handle this? Most churches have never given a second thought.
01:13:22
And I've been talking about addiction. Okay, let's put that off to the side. We know what we're really talking about.
01:13:30
Is there a promise in the gospel that every person who is saved will be delivered from same -sex attraction?
01:13:39
I suppose we could deal with issue of transgenderism too. That's even more complicated.
01:13:49
I almost didn't get to talk about this in a certain country I was in this year, because I expressed to my hosts my belief that I believe it is acceptable and normative to express, to expect,
01:14:12
I'm sorry, to expect a process of sanctification in the life of a true believer that would, over time, lead to the establishment of godly parameters of life.
01:14:33
On almost any level of a discussion of sin, I think that's going to be accepted as an orthodox statement.
01:14:47
What then does that mean in regards to a person who experiences same -sex attraction?
01:14:58
What I'm saying is I think it is normative, I'm using that term purposefully, to expect over time a growth in holiness that would indicate a commensurate decrease in desires that are directly against the heart of God.
01:15:26
As I grow in my love for God, I decrease in my love of the things of the world. Whatever your addiction or attraction or desire might be, as I grow in holiness, that moves me farther away from unholiness, ungodliness.
01:15:49
Does that process move at the same speed for everyone? That's not my experience in ministry.
01:16:00
I don't think it's anybody else's experience in ministry, that we can all just track it. Oh, he's at month three, he's at month six.
01:16:07
No. Is it a progress that is over time and can experience ups and downs?
01:16:17
Yeah. What do you do with the person who 10 years in still says,
01:16:27
I'm still struggling with this? I would want to know, I would especially want to know what kind of true progress is being made in a growing love for God's truth, and does the person possess knowledge of what it is
01:16:48
God calls, for example, a man to be or a woman to be?
01:17:00
And in light of that growing understanding of the goodness of those things, has that resulted in a diminishment of a desire for that which you know is disordered?
01:17:15
You know is disordered. So when Rosaria and others say that the solution to homosexuality is not heterosexuality,
01:17:32
I hope she's not saying that there is not a fundamental difference between the two, that one is
01:17:41
God's creative desire for mankind and the other is against that. She admits that in her book, so there is a difference between the two.
01:17:50
But what I assume she is saying is what we were talking about before, and that is if you're just dealing with the surface level stuff, the top level sins, and chopping the top of the dandelions off by switching from homosexuality to heterosexuality, boom, well now you have a prideful heterosexual rather than prideful homosexual.
01:18:16
You haven't gotten to the root matter. And so the solution for homosexuality isn't heterosexuality, the solution for homosexuality is realizing it's rooted in idolatry and pride.
01:18:31
You change the heart of idolatry and pride, and then you instruct the person, this is what would be pleasing in God's sight, and this is why, this is his creative order, and therefore, this is the path that you should walk.
01:18:48
And I think it's perfectly fair to say that normatively over time, there should be a growth in that grace.
01:18:57
But I'm not prepared to say what the time frame has to be, and I'm not prepared to say that it's not
01:19:05
God's intention to have certain people struggle with the same things their entire life, because I happen to know far too many aged
01:19:15
Christians who will profess to you that they thought that passing 70 was going to mean that things were going to get really easy then, and in point of fact, that wasn't the case at all.
01:19:30
Certainly some temptations are not nearly as much for the 70 -year -old as for the 20 -year -old, no question about that, but the reality is an aged saint is even more sensitive to certain aspects of their sin than the younger saint is.
01:19:47
And so, the battle never ends. The battle never ends. So, I think there is a necessity to stand firm on homosexuality is a disordered desire.
01:20:03
It is against the created ordinance of God. It brings death.
01:20:10
It is not to be seen alone, but as Paul presents it in Romans 1, it is the fruit of a more basic twisting of the creator -creation relationship.
01:20:20
On the part of man, it's pride. Negatively on the part of man, it's idolatry. It is setting yourself up as an authority apart from and in opposition to God.
01:20:31
And therefore, that regeneration is to, we pray and hope for a complete removal of any desires that would cause stumbling in that person's life.
01:20:48
That's not normally what happens, and so the normative experience is a process of sanctification, application of God's truth over time, and growth and holiness that should result in the diminishment of the power of those desires and a growth in the opposite desires for godliness that would counterbalance those things.
01:21:13
You have the microphone up? Am I unfairly hearing a little bit of an element here as they discuss the issue of going from homosexuality to heterosexuality and there being a conclusion to that or some kind of conversion in there, that I'm sensing a legalistic approach to this?
01:21:34
In other words, not that I'm saying that it's better for culturally that we have a heterosexual society and that we're not bringing
01:21:44
God's judgment down upon us through rampant homosexuality like you would have in, for instance,
01:21:50
Sodom and Gomorrah, but the solution to this is conversion and change.
01:21:58
For one to simply switch from being homosexual to heterosexual is still just as dead in sin.
01:22:07
Well, the context here is all, the context I hope here, at least at this point, is all in reference to Christian conversion.
01:22:20
So we're not talking about for society or any of that. The issue is when a person is converted and they become a member of the church, what is the appropriate expectation that we should have in regards to that person's attitude towards sinful actions that they were accustomed to or attracted to in the pre -conversion situation?
01:22:42
Right, but I'm still, I'm just hearing a little bit of that moral reformation appeal, and that doesn't change the person.
01:22:50
Well, right. Yeah, I wouldn't call that legalism in the sense, I mean, moral reformation, yeah. Therapeutic self -help deism, that type of thing, no.
01:23:02
What I think, I'm going with the best scenario here. The best scenario is that the discussion is, are you actually saying that God cannot change a person?
01:23:17
And I don't believe that either myself or Rosario are saying that. I think that what some people will say is
01:23:24
God promises always, because 1 Corinthians 6 -9 says, such were some of you.
01:23:31
Right, right. Does that mean that, and looking at that text, and we're, let me do this to finish up the program.
01:23:42
Okay. And we can go over here. So, would we be right to look at 1
01:23:53
Corinthians chapter 6 in the following fashion? Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, using the
01:24:10
ESV rendering, this says effeminate, nor homosexuals, but it's the, it's the malakoi, there's an akoitai, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God, such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the
01:24:34
Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God. So, you have the assertion, such were some of you.
01:24:45
So, let's, let's leave the homosexual issue off to the side for just a moment. Let's use covetous, covetous.
01:24:57
Before your conversion, you have a constant unhappiness and desire for the possessions of others.
01:25:10
No, no contentment. God has cheated me. Look at what, look at that car that other guy has.
01:25:15
I had some guy in a, I think a Camaro coming down Bethany home today. And it's the
01:25:21
Camaro that has the blue and orange LEDs in the headlight. So, during the day, it looks like it's looking at you and it wants to eat you.
01:25:30
He was trying to run me off the road. So, it sort of did feel that way too. But you might be the kind of person who goes, why does that guy have that?
01:25:39
I need that. I want that. God owes that to me. Covetousness.
01:25:48
So, according to 1 Corinthians 6, 11, you once were covetous, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the
01:25:58
Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit of our God. Does that mean sinless perfectionism?
01:26:05
Does that mean we will not experience coveting in our lives as believers?
01:26:17
Thieving, thievery, drunkenness, revilers, revilers, that's an interesting term.
01:26:34
Are we to take a passage like this? Some people would say there really isn't that much of a difference between the pre -conversion and post -conversion person.
01:26:47
I'm not saying that. The question is, in light of the continuing presence of abiding sin, in light of putting to death the deeds of the flesh, if there weren't still deeds of the flesh to be dealing with, there would be no need for mortification, putting them to death.
01:27:14
All these things are no longer to define us. They are not our identity.
01:27:21
And therefore, and Rosaria has said this, there's no such thing as a gay
01:27:26
Christian. And so, the revoice people, the idea of this is a gift from God, all the rest of that kind of stuff, no.
01:27:39
It is something to be rejected, that I will define myself in this fashion.
01:27:46
No, no, and more no. But what if in your deepest, honest situation, you recognize you continue to deal with these desires?
01:28:01
Then you mortify the flesh, you go to the body, you seek the body's assistance in holding you accountable.
01:28:11
And what I think Rosaria is trying to say, and some others are trying to say, is that if we're going to do that, then there has to be the provision of some mechanism, because people just can't do this alone.
01:28:28
In our families, we have mechanisms to help us in that way, but if you are a homosexual, you don't have a family to do that with, at least in the
01:28:36
Church, necessarily. I mean, I suppose if your family's in the Church, but that's an unusual situation. And so, how does that flesh itself out?
01:28:47
Her insistence is hospitality, being around other
01:28:54
Christians, being held accountable, being encouraged. That's how she was brought to her position.
01:29:06
The real problem is that this is a subject that requires a tremendous amount of sensitivity from the elders of a
01:29:17
Church and the ministers of a Church, and hence is particularly liable to be used inappropriately, to take a extreme position and then use it as a weapon against others, rather than going, yeah, you know what, this is a really tough situation and it's something that has not been discussed nearly as much as it should be, and we live in a day of great compromise where Scripture isn't seen as being sufficient to answer these questions any longer, all the rest of that kind of stuff.
01:30:01
It certainly should not be a subject that is used to vilify someone else when all of us have a great deal of thought to be putting into exactly how pastorally to make application of these things.
01:30:17
And I think, unfortunately, well, there's a paragraph right after this that really puts that out there, and I know it's 3 .30,
01:30:30
but I'll just go a minute or two long. Here's what Gaskin's right. Here's a question for all those who think these slogans wise, and what she's talking about is the slogans of Rosaria saying
01:30:46
God calls some people to carry many burdens and other people to carry fewer burdens, which
01:30:53
I didn't think was a disputable point. Is it the prosperity gospel?
01:31:00
Because, again, what Rosaria is saying is if you tell people as soon as you're converted, healthy, wealthy, wise, your teeth are straightened, your legs are even, etc.,
01:31:10
etc. That's prosperity gospel. Is it the prosperity gospel to expect converted
01:31:16
KKK marchers to grow out of their desire to lynch? Are we weighing on the cross of pedophiles if we expect that at some time in their sanctification they will no longer want to fondle toddlers and instead want a wife?
01:31:32
What about those oriented to have sex with barn animals or murder their wives? Wait, what's that you say?
01:31:38
No, of course not, because those are heinous sins out of the norm of mature Christian experience. Abominations?
01:31:44
Oh, just checking. So you have the assertion, isn't it obvious?
01:31:59
I did find it interesting, to grow out of their desire to lynch. Well, how long is that going to take?
01:32:06
I think that's what I was just saying, but how do you get the converted
01:32:11
KKK marcher to grow out of their desire to lynch? Doesn't there need to be the communication of divine truth about the fact that there is only one race and that their prejudice and hatred is completely in opposition to the purpose of God in their lives, and there needs to be teaching, and so there needs to be growth in loving what
01:32:35
God loves and hence not loving what God hates. Yeah, but is that really the same thing as same -sex attraction?
01:32:48
The idea here is there's no difference whatsoever, that wanting to kill your wife is the same thing as same -sex attraction.
01:32:57
I think that's a naive view of things, but the idea is, well, they're all abominations, so therefore everything that's abomination is all the same, you see, and so pastorally, it's all going to be the same answer.
01:33:10
Well, I suppose on one hand, you can say pastorally, it's always going to be the same answer, Jesus, but that's not answering the actual question.
01:33:23
So this is a sarcastic way of throwing gasoline on the fire rather than actually dealing with the pastoral reality.
01:33:36
I don't know if – I can't see why she would, but I don't know if Diane Gaskins has ever sat and talked with someone who will pour their heart out to you about how they want to honor
01:33:50
God in their life, and yet they're still, years after conversion, experiencing same -sex attraction.
01:33:56
I've had that happen. I don't know whether – I can't see that it would be appropriate for her, but I've had that happen, and just simply saying, well, pfft, well, if you're a former
01:34:09
KKK guy, just get over it. Is that really the answer? And was that put in there to help people in this situation or to be a back -sided hope for refutation of what she's actually struggling with and stating to us?
01:34:33
I don't know. I was just going to say, if you take the incendiary out of that statement,
01:34:41
I don't read someone who understands what's being expressed to them at all.
01:34:47
I don't. Not at all. She's just going right past it.
01:34:54
No, and there's a purposeful nature to it, because a couple paragraphs later, Rosario Butterfield regularly states that she is against the term gay
01:35:03
Christian because it denotes an identity. But taking the above points together, if SSA is something one is born with, something
01:35:13
God does not necessarily move for one's entire life, is a God -given cross to bear, and qualifies one to membership in an oppressed real community, how is this not an identity and a
01:35:25
God -honoring one at that? So this is string together the worst spin you can put on everything above, and then go, oh, she may say that, but she doesn't really mean that.
01:35:40
What that actually is, is I'm going to read her in the worst possible way. I'm going to spin each one of these things.
01:35:47
When she talks about real community thing, there's a whole long section that I didn't get into, but spin everything as best you can.
01:35:56
String that together and say, she may say this, but it doesn't really mean what she wants you to think it's going to mean.
01:36:03
The reality is, this is someone who, I'm not going to say could not understand
01:36:10
Dr. Butterfield's position, but doesn't want to, has a reason not to.
01:36:17
That seems to be the best explanation for how this kind of thing is going to find its way into print.
01:36:26
So anyways, that's over an hour and a half of discussion on that subject, and I don't know if I can go any longer than that.
01:36:34
We've been doing some heavy -duty stuff, so maybe, maybe next week we'll just open up the phones and maybe try to lighten it up a little, or something like that.
01:36:42
Maybe opening the phones would be the last thing that would lighten anything up. Who knows? Maybe it would light everything up.
01:36:48
Different use of the term light at that point. English is such a wonderful language along those lines.
01:36:54
But anyways, thanks for listening to the program. Hopefully it was useful to you. Lord willing, we'll be back next week.