June 30, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Dr. Michael Brown on “Outlasting the Gay Revolution” & Pastor Jim Harrison on “The SCOTUS decision on ‘Same-Sex Marriage'”

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Dr. Michael L Brown is on to discuss his new, soon-to-be published book, “OUTLASTING THE GAY REVOLUTION”: The 2nd half of the program features Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mahopac Falls, NY, to also give his reactions to the SCOTUS decision on “SAME-SEX MARRIAGE”.

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
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Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon
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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth listening via live streaming.
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This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 30th day of June 2015 and I'm very excited and delighted that today we have as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr.
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Michael Brown of AskDrBrown .org and the Line of Fire radio program, that's lineoffireradio .com
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and if you could, email us questions immediately to ChrisArnton at gmail .com,
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ChrisArnton at gmail .com because we're going to be on the air with Dr. Brown momentarily and I believe this may be
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Dr. Brown right now. Dr. Brown, are you with us today? Hello, Dr.
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Brown, are you with us today? For some reason I'm not hearing
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Dr. Brown, but we're going to go to a commercial and we'll find out what the technical problem is in a minute, so don't go away, we'll be right back.
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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.
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This is Chris Zarnsend. And if you just heard me open up the program a couple of minutes ago, we have for the very first time ever on Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr.
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Michael Brown of the Line of Fire radio program. And you can find out where he broadcasts that program on stations all over the
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United States at lineoffire .com. And he also has MP3s archived of past broadcasts.
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In addition, he can answer your questions at askdrbrown .org. And he is a prolific writer, and I can recommend him highly.
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He comes highly recommended by a very mutual friend that is no stranger to the Iron Sharpens Iron audience,
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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. And you know that if Dr. White can heartily recommend an apologist who's both
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Arminian and charismatic, you know that Dr. Brown must be saying something worthy of listening to and taking heed to.
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And it's my honor and privilege, truly, to have you for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr. Michael Brown.
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Hey, Chris. It's great to be with you. And thanks for that great introduction. Hey, it's my pleasure, brother.
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And we already have a listener who has emailed more of a comment, but I am going to turn into a question.
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We have a listener in Jacksonville, Florida, Richie. And Richie has nothing but the highest regards for you.
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And, in fact, I'm going to go back to, here it is, here's
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Richie's question. Richie's question is, let's see, please let
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Michael Brown know how much I appreciate his ministry and his response to Tony Campolo. The way
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Michael Brown wrote the open letter to Tony Campolo was truly spirit -led and filled with true, mature love for the brethren and the lost.
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Too many of us miss the mark, so many of us miss the mark in our approach.
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A gentle but truthful answer many times turns away wrath and opens up a heart to God's truth and will.
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May God continue to bless you, Chris and Mike, and all others who labor in the gospel. Well, that was a very nice commendation for you,
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Mike. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to open the program up right away with that email, and I will turn it into a question in a minute.
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But one of the things that seems to be the hallmark of your ministry is even if you vociferously and even sternly at times rebuke someone for a heretical view or an ungodly behavior, you always have the maturity and the composure to do so with love.
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And I wanted you to comment about that. I mean, obviously, you may be too humble to accept that kind of a compliment, but isn't that something that we need to do whenever we address issues, including the one we're talking about today?
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Yeah, well, first, thanks for the kind words and the emailer. I do appreciate that.
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Look, I do love people, so it's not something that I put on. It's not some front that I put on to sell a point.
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I do care about people, and I recognize that I'm not God's policeman, God's answer man on the earth.
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And I write out of a burden in a specific way when something is wrong, something aggrieves me, and I feel that God wants me to address it.
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And I also know that there's a principle that a gentle answer breaks the bones of problems of others.
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Proverbs also says, in a harsh word, there's a strife, but a soft word turns to a wrath.
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So we can provoke in our attitude. We can seem self -righteous, hypocritical in our attitude.
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We can do things that drive people away, or we can make an appeal. If the goal is just to look right and sound right and authenticate, then we'll satisfy our little group of followers.
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If our goal is to honor the Lord and really try to reach out in a constructive way and then model it for others as well, then we do need to have a certain spirit of humility in what we do, and a certain spirit of grace in what we do, especially in terms of disputes within the body of those who identify with us.
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And one of the questions that I was going to ask you in regard to Tony Campolo specifically, before I go on to your new book that's coming out, can we as Christians treat people like Tony Campolo, who have clearly antithetical views, 180 degrees opposite to the
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Holy Scriptures when it comes to something like homosexuality, can we view them and treat them as brothers in Christ, should we consider them as to be born -again believers with the
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Spirit of God living within them? Right. God alone knows those who are
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His and those who are not. 2 Timothy 3 .19 says the Lord knows those who are
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His, that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord is a part of iniquity. Obviously, if someone is a
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God -denier, a woman renounces the Bible, renounces Jesus, renounces God, and is a woman in openly sinful life,
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I understand they don't belong to the Lord. But if someone professes to believe in the fundamentals, professes to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, the
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Bible is the authority of God's Word, salvation of Jesus, and certain fundamentals like that, if they are not actively living an ungodly immoral life, then a major question is, where do they stand if they're advocating something immoral?
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So ultimately, God is Tony Campolo's judge. He's certainly misleading others now, he's doing tremendous damage to the body with whatever voice or authority he has, he's bringing great harm, great confusion, discouraging people, he is opening a path of destruction.
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We're practicing homosexuals who now think, well, Tony Campolo, Dr. Campolo says it's okay, so as committed couples we can do this.
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Has he crossed the line where he's no longer a brother? That's God's business to know that, but we can't call him on account for his misuse of Scripture, or he didn't know the use of Scripture, and for his wrong statement.
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Now, if he was in my local fellowship, and he did this after appealing to him, if he wouldn't repent,
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I could not fellowship with him. I would absolutely have to break fellowship with him, because there are two tests.
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There's the moral test and the credo test. The credo test is what you believe, the moral test is how you live.
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He may be living a godly life in other respects, but he is now advocating immorality, and advocating a definition of marriage which is sinful and wrong in God's sight and clearly contrary to Scripture.
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The same with a fellow like Matthew Vines. I don't know if he's ever been born again. I don't know if he knows the
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Lord in any respect. I know he professes to be an evangelical. I say he certainly does not have an evangelical view of Scripture, despite what he says.
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He is not actively involved as a homosexual. He's simply saying that when he finds the right person,
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God can bless him with that relationship. Where does he stand? Only God knows. But he is deceiving people in a destructive way, hurting people, denying fundamentals of Scripture.
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God is his judge, but the same thing with him. If he was part of my congregation, if he would not renounce his opinion, then we would have to publicly excommunicate him.
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You have written a book that many of our listeners are already very familiar with, The Queering of America.
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And you have a new book coming out this fall, Outlasting the
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Gay Revolution, where homosexual activism is really going and how to turn the tide.
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Sounds like you may be becoming a post -millennialist there. You think that we can outlast it. How do these two books differ in their content and approach?
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The Queering of America and your new book that's soon to be released. Yes. A Queer Thing Happened to America came out in 2011.
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It was based on six -plus years of research in the midst of my other writing and ministry responsibilities.
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And the purpose of that book was not to lay out a strategy for change, not even to make predictions about the future, but simply to say, this is where gay activism has taken a 700 pages long, 1500 endnotes.
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This is where we've gone in the school system. This is where we've gone from kindergarten to university.
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This is what's happened in the media. This is what's happened with suppression of scientific knowledge.
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This is what's happened with the rewriting of the Bible. This is what's happened with oppression and stealing of religious freedoms and rights.
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This is what's happened with the deconstruction of gender. And this is where things have gone so far.
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How do you like it? It was written to help awaken the conscience of the nation. No major publisher would touch it.
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We had to ultimately self -publish. No publisher told me that it wasn't well -written. No one told me it wasn't well -researched.
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No one told me it wasn't compassionate. Simply too controversial, too hot to handle. Several publishers since then apologized to me over that.
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We got the book out, by God's grace. It's had good distribution. It's made an impact. It's changed hearts and minds.
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It's been given to key leaders in America and other countries. But Outlasting the
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Gay Revolution really is the sequel to A Queer Thing Happened to America.
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It builds on it, but it now goes further. It's less than 300 pages, so it's much more readable for everyone.
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Obviously, a lot's happened in the last few years. It covers things right up to the moment it was submitted for publication.
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But in this book, there are two things that I do beyond A Queer Thing Happened to America.
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Number one, I demonstrate how gay activism has within itself already the seeds of self -destruction.
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I demonstrate that clearly based on many, many factors that are in front of our eyes and unfolding, even confirming what
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I've written as we speak. The other part of the book, and weaves throughout the book, are eight principles for long -term cultural change.
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I'm not a post -millennialist, but I have an eschatology of optimism, meaning that no matter what happens,
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I know that God's ways are still going to triumph. My personal view is that the end of the age, whenever that happens, will be a time of parallel extremes, and that the darkness will get darker and the light will shine brighter.
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And this will all be happening at one and the same time. So, I don't know, you don't know when
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Jesus is returning. If it's not in our lifetimes, then I believe the tide will turn. If Jesus doesn't come first,
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I believe the tide will turn, and we will ultimately look back at this period in America with shock and astonishment to see how far off track we actually got.
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By the way, I just wanted to quickly say that the Brethren at Christian Witness to Israel send their regards, and a dear friend who is going to be on this program in August, who is a thoroughgoing five -point
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Calvinist, thinks there are few better than you in regard to evangelizing the
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Jewish people about the Messianic fulfillment of prophecy from the Old Testament into the
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New. So, I just wanted to send those regards to you. And we do have a listener in Fort Myers, Florida.
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Mike, who says, Greetings Dr. Brown, I appreciate all your efforts in proclaiming the truth of our
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Lord and of your materials. My question is in volume 5, pages 231 -332 of your masterful
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Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, you mention the Reform Jews and their very low view of Scripture along with their lax stand on homosexuality.
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Do you personally deal or speak with Reform Jews differently in the matter of Scripture and homosexuality than you would a non -Jew?
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If so, would you mind providing examples of conversational strategy? And of course we have to differentiate between a
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Reform Jew, which is known for liberalism, and a Reformed Christian, with an
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ED at the end, which is known for usually conservatism and a belief in biblical inerrancy and so on.
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But if you could comment on the listener's question there. Yeah, Reform Jews believed in reforming of the traditions.
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It's completely different from being a Reformed Christian with a high view of Scripture.
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Reform Jews are extremely liberal. Reform Jews ordain homosexual rabbis. Reform Jews perform homosexual court marriages.
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Reform Jews say that the laws of God are for guidance, not for governance. Reform Jews have broken away from many historic
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Jewish traditions. So, if I was speaking to a Reform Jew, I would speak to that person as if they had the same views of the
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Bible that a liberal Christian had. That there may be inspiration in it, but it's not
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God's inspired Word. That it's not authoritative. They would think it's antiquated and contains many, many human opinions that we have moved on from.
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So, absolutely, a Reform Jew would need to come to the revelation of the truth and authority of God and the truth and authority of God's Word in order to really follow
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Him rightly. Otherwise, Reform Jews would be among the most liberal part of the
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American population. We have a listener in Ridgewood, Queens, New York, Johnny, who wants to know if you believe that Christians should begin participating in civil disobedience regarding this
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Supreme Court decision on last Friday, a day that will live in infamy, and how this civil disobedience, in your opinion, would manifest itself.
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Yeah, I look at this as biblical obedience that we obey the highest authority and that we cannot sanction something
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God does not sanction any more than if two brothers, 30 years old, twin brothers, came into the church and said, we'd like you to marry us.
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We're brothers as well. No, you can't marry that. You're blood brothers. It's wrong. It's sinful. This is eternally wrong in God's sight.
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Two men and two women marrying will never be right in His sight. And it's the first principle of my new book,
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Outlasting the Gay Revolution. By the way, folks can go to Amazon and pre -order it now. But when they read it, the first principle is never compromise your convictions.
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The fourth principle is refuse to redefine marriage. So, of course, we don't participate in it.
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We love everybody. We care for every person. If a homosexual couple comes into your grocery store, they get to shop like everybody else.
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You don't discriminate against them. If someone's nasty to them, then you tell that person who's nasty, hey, they have every right to shop here like anybody else.
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They come into your bakery and they buy cookies and whatever. God bless them as they buy cookies.
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Take good care of them. Be sweet to them. Be nice to them. They come in and say, we'd like you to bake a cake celebrating your marriage next week.
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Say, I'm sorry, I can't do that. Just like if someone came in and maybe they said, listen, we've got a new porn magazine.
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And we've got this beautiful centerfold. We understand you're the best photographer in the city. And we want you to shoot this for us.
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No, thanks. I don't do that. I'm a Christian. Just the same. Just like if you went to a Muslim caterer and said, yeah, we'd like you to cater our wedding, but we want pork as well.
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No, don't do that. I'm a Muslim. You go to an Orthodox Jewish photographer, I'd like you to shoot our wedding. It's the first Saturday of September.
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Sorry, I'm religious, too. I don't work on Sabbath. So the same way we as Christians don't participate in things that are a fundamental violation of our faith.
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And you might say, yeah, but look, there might be someone getting divorced and remarried and you don't know the details. And you don't know what the situation is.
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Do they have a right to be remarried or not? That's true. Except for the fact that they could ultimately, through repentance and other things, have a marriage that's valid.
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But under no circumstances could two men or two women ever have a marriage that's valid, that's really marriage.
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The other thing is, you don't have to ask the question. The question's already being answered in front of you. You know that this is not marriage.
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So to participate in same -sex marriage, to recognize it as a violation of our faith, many, many
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Christian leaders and individuals have signed a petition saying that we will not recognize this.
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And signers of the petition include Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. So the lines are being drawn.
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Now, you know as well as I do that there are fellow believers who like to become the language police and sometimes even sound like liberals in the way that they go perhaps overboard in controlling what we say and how we say it in regard to homosexuality specifically.
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And, for instance, I just brought up in the outset of the program that you are known for being a person who is diligently proclaiming a biblical truth on any issue that confronts you unwaveringly without compromise according to your position or your convictions.
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But you also combine that with the love of Christ and the compassion for lost souls. But can you be, is there such a thing as being too nice about this issue?
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And is it always the loving thing to do to be too nice? Yeah, in point of fact, open rebuke is better than secret love,
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Proverbs 20 .7 .5. Proverbs 28 .23, he rebukes a man and the animal has more favor than the one who speaks with a flattering tongue.
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So, in point of fact, we want to avoid offensive terminology.
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There are words that are supercharged, so -called f -word, faggot, it's just like a white person using the n -word, nigger, speaking to a black person.
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These things are volatile, are unnecessary, are insults, and we're not making ourselves any more holy, any more godly by using terms like that.
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That being said, I will absolutely speak the truth about homosexual practice always being wrong in God's sight.
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That being said, I will always tell the truth that two men and two women coming together is not marriage.
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So, I'm going to reach out to all people, I'm going to reach out to the gay community with compassion, and I am going to resist the gay agenda with courage.
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We do have an anonymous listener in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who says, Having said what you said, why did you title your book
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The Queering of America? Yeah, my book The Queering of America was done quite intentionally, and I appreciate the question.
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And I think that's about the last answer I'll be able to give with my time constraints running to another interview,
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Chris. So glad you're back on the air, by the way, and glad that your internet audience is growing.
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I'm sure you're doing a great job in stimulating great discussion, but the word queer has been mainstream for at least a dozen years now.
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The 2003 Associated Press said it's a now mainstream, hipster word. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, that was a
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TV program that was very popular, the cast for Queer Thing threw out the opening pitch at Fenway Park for a
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Boston Red Sox game. For years now, you can go to universities and take queer studies. So because the word has been so mainstream,
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I used it. Obviously, I used it with a smile in a double way, a queer thing happened to America.
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But I showed that title to quite a few gay activists and others that were just gay, lesbians, but were not activists, and most of them thought great title or funny title, and they smiled.
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Not a one of them was offended by it. If the title had been offensive, I wouldn't have used that title.
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And I want to apologize for misspeaking when I used the title. It's A Queer Thing Happened to America is the name of the book.
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Yeah, close enough. You were very close. And again, folks, if you visit my website, askdrbrown .org,
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if you visit there, we've got thousands of hours of free resources. I write three or four new articles a week.
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We've got 25 books that I've written, YouTube videos, and then two hours of radio daily, five days a week, all there for you.
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And tons of it is free. And you can connect with me on social media, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, through the website, askdrbrown .org.
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Great. And you can keep your eye open for when the book is actually published. And we can also plug
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Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who will be selling the book. They are one of our sponsors. cvbbs .com
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cvbbs .com Thank you so much, Dr. Brown, for being on. We look forward to your return to Iron Sharpens Iron.
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Yes, sir. God bless you so much. You too. And we're going to be going to a break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for our next guest,
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Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church. He is going to be also responding to the
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Supreme Court decision. So don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages.
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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnes and if you've just tuned us in for the first half of our broadcast we had
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Dr. Michael Brown of AskDrBrown .org
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and he also hosts the Line of Fire radio program which can be found at LineofFireRadio .com
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and you can find a local station that airs that broadcast. The second half of the program we now have returning to Iron Sharpens Iron he has been a guest before when we previously ran before our hiatus
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Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mahopac Falls, New York but this is the first time that we are privileged to have him on Iron Sharpens Iron since our relaunch in June and it is my honor and privilege to welcome you for the first time to the all new
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Iron Sharpens Iron Pastor Jim Harrison Chris my friend good to have you back and good to be back with you it's been too long
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I agree brother and well actually I guess God's timing is just right isn't it exactly right and before we go into the theme at hand welcome to the oligarchy it was a nice little republic while it lasted please tell our listeners something about yourself and about Red Mills Baptist Church ah well
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I've been the pastor of Red Mills Baptist Church for 22 years now we are in as you said
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Mahopac Falls in Putnam County New York just north of Westchester County and we are a church that is centered upon the word of God trusting not only in it's authority but it's sufficiency as well and so we are a church that loves people and that proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ and that's really one of the things that I've been focusing on in regard to the situation that we have seen unfolding recently where should the attention of the church be what should be our focus in responding to some of the things that we're seeing going on in our culture and our nation and tell us something about the
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Spurgeon Fellowship that you're involved in as well that's involved with the Conservative Baptist Association Yeah our church is a part of the
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Conservative Baptist Association and the Spurgeon Fellowship is a group within the
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CBA that is seeking to do what we can to call churches back to the foundation of scriptural authority and sufficiency and sound doctrine we are concerned that many churches are going off and looking to other sources for power in their ministry and for effectiveness and so they're focusing on this program and that program and this methodology and so forth and we just want to remind pastors and churches that the power of God as it works through the church comes through the
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Word of God it comes through the truth and the gospel and that that's where we need to place our focus
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Well let's go to your article now that you posted on your website Welcome to the
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New Oligarchy please define that for our listeners Sure well as you know our nation was founded as a republic and it seems to me that we have left that behind an oligarchy is a an authority which rests not with the people not with their representatives but with an elite group and so as we've seen this past week we have a handful of supreme court justices in black robes and they are from my perspective they have left behind the founding authorities of our nation in the constitution and they have been legislating and that is not their prerogative and so whether you're looking at the legislature the congress which is going forth and doing things that are outside of their constitutional authority whether you look at the executive branch which is doing the same thing or whether you look at the supreme court we find a group of people who really don't feel bound to the constitution any longer and so that's an oligarchy we've got this small group of people who feel that it is their prerogative to run things that they know better than the people we do have a listener in Yuma Arizona we have
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Clarence he asks how much protection based on the first amendment will pastors have to refuse to marriage same -sex couples and he has two other follow -up questions that I will ask you after you comment on that sure sure well
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I don't see anybody you know coming down and breaking down the doors of my church to carry me off just yet but just yet but honestly in other nations that have been silenced not jailed yet but they've been silenced so I don't see it happening anytime quickly but certainly that's the direction in which we're going and I'm not the first amendment offers us protection only if the powers that be pay attention to it and if those powers do not feel themselves bound to the first amendment that's an issue one of the things that came out in justice
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Kennedy's Supreme Court ruling is that he mentioned the word speech when he was trying to make the religious community feel comfortable with what the court was doing and he speaks about you know the first amendment protecting their right to teach what they want but the first amendment doesn't talk about teaching the first amendment speaks about exercising that congress will make no law infringing the exercise of religion and those are two different things and so when these supreme court decisions come down the language is very important and I think we see a little daylight there through which they can change things in the years to come through which they can drive the wedge so to speak and say justice
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Kennedy said you have the freedom to teach but that doesn't mean that you have the freedom to exercise your religion as you see fit.
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I'll just ask two more of these and perhaps save some of Clarence's questions for when we have a legal expert or attorney or judge or something on the program but Clarence also asked what about the rights and protection of private companies based on their own religious position and isn't this decision a major attack on states' rights with long standing consequences particularly considering those states that had elected by each state a definition of marriage?
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Yeah, whenever you throw out that phrase states' rights you're going to get into controversy there, but frankly the form of government that has existed in this nation is what has been called federalism and so we are a collection of states.
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In fact, before the Civil War we were called these United States not the United States and so there has been traditionally authority given to the states that is increasingly being taken away.
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Now, we've seen kind of the pendulum go back and forth in regard to private companies, private businesses.
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We've seen the Hobby Lobby decision which Evangelicals thought was really good and then we saw the decision with bakers and photographers who decided, listen,
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I don't want to participate in a same -sex wedding because it goes against my convictions and they're losing their business.
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So it's not like there's not a back and forth in this but the tendency is in one direction and it's away from the direction of individual rights and the rights of conscience.
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And I want to repeat our email address if you have any questions for our guest, Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mahopac Falls, New York.
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It's chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com
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and please include your first name, city and state and country if you are outside of the
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U .S .A. How do you cope because it's not an easy thing for me, it's not easy for most
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Christians that I know. How do you cope with the anger and the burning bitterness that we sometimes feel rising up with us and dare
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I say at times hatred when we see our nation collapsing to people who are a tiny, tiny, tiny minority of the population meaning the homosexual left and we witness how the governments and the corporations and everybody in authority around us seems to be caving in to their whims and I've said this before,
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I actually said this many years ago back in the nineties I believe it was when my friend
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Dr. Smith wrote a book called Sodom's Second Coming I told him that I believe that there are real people who are homophobes and they're called politicians they're the ones that are truly afraid of this tiny minority of people because they seem to bow and scrape to their every whim and Dr.
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Smith had told me that he wished I told him before the book was in print because he would have put it in there but how do you deal with this and how do you recommend our
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Christian listeners cage in the anger that we have so that we're more effective witnesses for Jesus Christ in this day and age that we live in?
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Well you know I'm a pastor so I'm concerned with the church.
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I'm concerned with God's people. In fact the day that the ruling came down I made it a point to get into contact with some of the people in my congregation to make sure they had hidden all of the sharp instruments in their house so that nobody would get hurt.
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What I do is to call people back to the truth. Call people back to the word.
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When I come to the scripture I will preach what the scripture says and when
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I come to passages that deal with various social issues I'll handle them directly as the scripture lays it out but I'm not a political animal.
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I'm a Christian and I'm a pastor and so I want to call people back to the truth of the word of God.
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I want to reorient their thinking so that they no longer put their trust in as the
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Psalms say chariots and horses and princes and mortal men and politicians and legislation.
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I want them to put their trust in God and his word, his sovereignty and his providence.
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And so I come back and I direct people back to the scripture. 2 Timothy chapter 2 at the end of the chapter
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Paul says this, the Lord's bond servant must not be quarrelsome but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition.
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If perhaps God grants them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil having been held captive to him by his will.
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That's what we want to see. We don't hate people. We love people and we want to see people come to a knowledge of the truth.
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Now for the people of God that truth is God is in control. He knows what he's doing and nothing is taking him by surprise.
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He has a plan and a purpose that he is going to work out and that he is working out and we can trust in that.
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One of the things I say in my blog post as I was trying to help people think through these things is that God is not concerned to save the
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United States of America. That's not his primary concern and he may not want to do that at all.
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What he wants to do is to build his kingdom and so as we preach the gospel and as men and women come to faith in Christ that's going to have ramification in the culture and in our nation but that's up to him.
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We proclaim God saves and if he purposes to do so he can bring revival, he can turn things around.
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Now that has been and still is very much a problem in the church.
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The fact that many of us have made an idol of America. Now obviously we all should be patriots, we should be good stewards of this country, we should love our country and be grateful to God for the freedoms that we have.
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We should be active participants in the well -being of this nation in any sphere that we have the ability to do so.
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But can we not make the Star Spangled Banner an idol and dismiss the wickedness that is flowing from it more and more as the days pass us by?
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Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think the church has done that. I remember,
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I started paying attention to these things 40 years ago, you know, Jerry Falwell and the
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Moral Majority, and I just keep asking the question, you know, we've had 40 years of Christian activism, we've had 40 years of elections, of trying to get, quote, our guys, unquote, in office, and where's it gotten us?
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40 years, as I say, of dead babies. 40 years of constant decline.
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We need to try something else. What we need to try is the gospel. We need to go back to that.
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We have placed our trust in everything else, and we need to come back and say, no,
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God works through his word, God works through the gospel. That's what we have to focus on.
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And then let God do what he will. You look back to Europe, for instance, and Europe at one time, the
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Reformation comes along, and there's this great revival of biblical Christianity, the biblical gospel, and it spreads throughout northern and western
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Europe, and now what happens? Where is that now? The churches in Europe are empty.
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Christianity is not completely dead, but it's pretty close. Well, God's doing something else.
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God's bringing about revivals in South Korea, in China, in South America, in Africa.
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God does what he will do, and we've got no promise from him that he is going to maintain our understanding of what the
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United States should be indefinitely. Once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
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If you have a question for our guest pastor Jim Harrison on the SCOTUS decision on same -sex marriage, that it is now law of the land, that it is legal, and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. We have another anonymous listener who asks the question,
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I know that you are unwilling to marry homosexual couples because of your belief that the
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Bible would clearly prohibit such a thing, but how would you treat a same -sex couple that were to begin attending your services in a quiet and respectful manner?
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Oh, that's easy. I would welcome them, and I would seek to extend to them the love of Christ, and part of extending to them the love of Christ is telling them the truth.
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And so I would explain to them as I would explain to anyone else who is caught up in sin, what the
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Scripture says about it, and what the remedy for it is, that they need to come to grips with what
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God has said about what they are involved in, and what they are, frankly, in bondage to, and that the way of liberation is through repentance and trust in Christ.
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And so, I really don't want to put homosexuality up on its, you know, some shelf all by its lonesome, as if it is some special kind of sin.
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It's not. Every one of us are sinners. Every one of us have fallen short of the glory of God.
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Every one of us are in need of repentance, and the forgiveness which comes through faith in Christ.
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And homosexuality is no different in that regard from any other sin, but in our culture, this is on the front line.
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This is something that we've got to deal with. People have often asked, well, you know, you're dealing with this sin and that sin, and what about gluttony?
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How come you don't deal with gluttony? Gluttony is a sin. Yeah, it is. And if there's an individual who has an issue with that,
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I'll deal with them on it. But nobody is having a parade. Right?
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We don't have court cases seeking to change the law of the land so that gluttony is acceptable.
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And as people have got, we need to minister to our culture by addressing those issues that are first, that are foremost in the mind of the culture.
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And of course, gluttony is completely legal, so they wouldn't have to. But, yes, and I am really leery about this constant drum beat about all sin being sin.
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Sin is sin, sin is sin. Now, you and I, as Bible -believing Christians who believe in the gospel of grace, we both fully affirm the fact that any sin, no matter how trivial we may think it is, will send an individual to hell if he is not covered by the blood of Christ.
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But that doesn't mean, therefore, that all sin is the same, correct? I mean, there are sins that pastors could commit that would not disqualify them from their office.
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In fact, since you are a sinner, and every pastor I know is a sinner, it would be impossible to carry on the biblically ordained office of the pastor if only sinless people were eligible.
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So, how do we differentiate this way? Because it really becomes annoying after a while when we constantly hear this drumbeat from Christians even, that sin is sin, who are you to judge, you know, why are you making that more serious than the other sin, et cetera.
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Now, I understand that pride is very often involved when we do that, when we hear that lunatic in Arizona, Steve Anderson, the way that he is obviously speaking as a
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Pharisee and elevating the sins of others far beyond his own, and the way that he speaks, you would think that he doesn't even believe he has any, but if you could comment on that, because there is a difference between different sins, isn't there?
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There's a difference between different sins, there's a difference in how we deal with different sins.
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What's the context? You know, as you said, I'm a pastor, and Chris, you know me well, but you don't have to know me that well to know, as you said, that I'm a sinner.
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That's pretty obvious to anyone who does know me. Well, how can
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I lead a church then? Well, because the Scripture puts down certain qualifications for an elder.
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The Scripture says that when one is caught in sin, he is to repent, that there are struggles that we endure in walking the
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Christian life, just as Paul did, Romans 7. I do the things I don't want to do, I don't do the things
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I do want to do, and there's a battle raging within me. And so, if someone comes to me and says, listen pastor,
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I'm really struggling with this or that sin, whether it be same -sex attraction or anything else.
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I recognize this sin. I hate my sin. I want to turn from it. I want to deal with this.
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Can you help me? Well, I'm going to deal with that person in a much different way than I would deal with someone who comes up to me and gets in my face and says, you can't tell me this is wrong,
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I'm going to do this and this is what I love and this is who I am, and so forth. And there's no hint of any kind of biblical repentance.
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Well, you deal with those things in different ways, and then you bring the law of God to bear, and you pray the
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Holy Spirit to bring that kind of conviction, which will enable him to deal with that, which holds him in bondage.
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So there's all kinds of issues there, and the Scripture does not give a cookie -cutter response in dealing with this sin or that sin, or this person or that person.
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We have another question from Johnny in Ridgewood, Queens, New York, who asks, what pastoral counsel would you offer to Christians to influence change by rendering to Caesar while submitting to Christ?
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Well, I think he summarized it. We render to Caesar that which is
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Caesar's. And insofar as we can submit to the governing authorities, we do so.
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When the governing authorities desire to push us to do that which is contrary to the law of God, that's where the issue comes in.
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And this is what I believe Dr. Brown was saying earlier. This is biblical obedience.
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I like what he said there. Not civil obedience. It is biblical obedience. Shall we serve man rather than God, the apostle asked?
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Well, no. We're serving God. And we will seek to be good citizens of this nation insofar as we can.
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We are commanded by scripture to submit to the governing authorities. Paul tells us. Interestingly enough,
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Paul says in 1 Timothy 2 that we are to pray for kings and those in authority.
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Now, why does he tell us to do that? He doesn't tell us to pray for kings and those in authority so that we will change the nation so that the unbelievers around us will start acting like believers.
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Paul says pray for kings and those in authority so that you might live a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and dignity.
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Now, that tells me that my prayers for the king and those in authority, or in our case, the president, and all of those in authority, are going to have an effect on how
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I am able to live my life. I want to be left alone to worship
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God and to serve him as I see fit, and through my prayers for the authorities, that is going to come about, or at least that's the desired end.
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I have a follow -up question to our anonymous listener earlier who asked about whether or not you would welcome same -sex couples visiting your church, whether you would welcome them into worship services.
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I'm assuming you would not welcome them into membership, number one. No, no, absolutely not. Right. But my follow -up question is, how do you put guidelines for them, other than just literally giving them guidelines on their behavior while amongst
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God's people, for instance, there are things that heterosexual couples, even the ones that aren't necessarily married, they may be engaged or so forth, that we fully expect, we think that are tame and innocent expressions of intimacy in public, if they're at the church barbecue, they may be strolling with their holding hands, they may ask, please, honey, can you pass me the potato salad, things like that, that we just take for granted as trivial little things, but when it comes to same -sex partners, when we have children surrounding them, and to step it up a notch, my question,
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I have a very good friend who is a pastor in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who had a homosexual couple attending and one of the partners was in drag when they would show up.
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They ceased attending, but there was, apparently there was nothing more nasty or stern or cruel or what have you ever said to them than the clear teachings of the
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Bible, but they weren't singled out in any way and spoken to in an unnecessarily harsh manner, and they ceased attending.
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But how do you approach that, especially when you have children in the midst of the flock? Well, let me go back and clarify something that I said earlier.
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I made the statement that absolutely they would not be permitted into membership, and that is, again, the way we would handle any unrepentant sinner.
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Someone comes into the church, regardless of what sin may be afflicting them or holding them in bondage, if they are unrepentant and not seeking the redemption of Christ for that sin, they would not be permitted into the membership.
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As I tell people who come in through our membership classes, our membership process, we are not going to receive into membership someone who is professing
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Christ but involved in sin that they would be disciplined for if they were a member.
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So that's kind of the standard there. Now, yeah, if somebody's coming in, we would expect that they would respect our church and respect us and our convictions and would not put on those displays just as we would expect that from anyone else.
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If someone comes in off the street and perhaps they don't even realize they're doing it, but their language is just filthy because that's who they are.
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Well, I'm going to lovingly take them aside and say, listen, this is not how we speak here.
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There are children, there are ladies, and we need you to stop that. And we'd really appreciate it if you would.
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And further, let me show you something that the scripture says about this and about our language so that the word of God can come to bear on the situation.
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And we do the same thing. And if there is someone who is, if they're there because they want to be there, they want to sit under the word, there's something that's drawing them, most people would be respectful of that.
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And if they're not, they probably, like the situation you mentioned, they probably wouldn't come back.
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But for the sake of children in the midst, would you even permit the continuing visits of a cross -dresser, for instance?
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No, I think that would be an issue that they would have to be spoken to about, because that is a
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Biblical issue. That, you know, men are to dress like men, and women are to dress like women.
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And so I can't control what you do anywhere else, but I would appreciate it if, when you come to attend the worship of God, that you would accede to our wishes and have enough respect for us coming into the
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Lord's house to not do that. And Pastor Jim, if you could give our listeners your website for Red Mills Baptist Church.
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Yeah, redmillsbaptist .org, and email address is there on the website, but it is rmdcpastor at horizon .net.
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redmillsbaptist .org, we thank you so much for being on our program today, Pastor Jim Harrison.
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We look forward to you returning, and I want to thank everybody who listened. I also want to thank again
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Dr. Michael Brown of Line of Fire Radio for being our first guest today. I want you to all always remember, no matter what you've done, no matter how you've sinned,
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I want you to all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far far greater Savior than you are a sinner.