WWUTT 1335 Q&A Responding to Comments About the 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Tweet

Some of the things I'm going to talk about today are a little mature in subject matter, so parents, you may want to listen to this first.

At the heart of this message is understanding that true transformation happens in Christ when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text, as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt

.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky, who is not in the studio with me this week.

I know. I hear your disappointment. I believe it was an email we read last week from somebody who said, a

Friday Q &A just isn't a Friday without Becky. I feel you, man.

I wish she was right here next to me, but yeah, our life is still kind of in that up and down thing, especially since I can't have the studio at home.

It's at the church, and so being able to find somebody who can care for the kids while we record, that's going to be difficult, especially when we don't really plan this into our week very well.

It just kind of gets to Thursday and we're like, oh yeah, hey, we're supposed to record tomorrow's podcast.

We are going to try to do next week's much earlier, and in fact,

Becky and I want to do our Christmas program next week, responding to a lot of your questions about Christmas.

If you have any, be sure to email them to us promptly because we don't know when we're going to get time to record the program.

It could be tomorrow. You just don't know. So send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

We're going to talk about the book, 25 Christmas Myths and What the Bible Says. You can still pick that up on Amazon.

You can read it right now on your Kindle. If you have a Kindle, I think it's just three bucks for your

Kindle and then 12 and paperback or something like that. But it's at amazon .com. Do a search for Gabriel Hughes or 25

Christmas Myths. It's the only book titled that. I've done a search.

That's what comes up. So there was at one point, it was a couple of years ago when

I released the book. It was the number one best selling Christmas book on Christmas Day.

How about that? I know there's there's like two or three hundred different categories for books on Amazon.

But in the Christmas category, I had the number one best selling

Christmas book on Christmas Day. You got to give me those those little victories there. Pick it up on amazon .com.

I promise you that you will enjoy it. That is my no money back guarantee. My thanks to Nate Pickowitz for sending me his latest book,

How to Eat Your Bible. I started reading it as soon as I got it.

And then Tom Buck walks in my office. He hands me an advanced copy of Vody Bokom's latest book, which doesn't come out until April.

So I don't know how long Tom is going to let me have that manuscript. I had to start reading it right away.

Sorry, Nate. Vody takes priority. But what I've read so far of How to Eat Your Bible is really, really good.

Be sure to pick that one up. And don't forget the other book that Becky and I plugged at the end of the program last week from Fred Butler.

It's hot off the presses. You can find this one on Amazon as well. Royal Deceptions exposing the

King James only conspiracies against God's word. Now that one I bought for my

Kindle so I can read that one in bed on a screen. The other two are books. I can't read that one in the dark.

But Fred, you're the last thing going through my mind before I drift off into La La Land. How do you like that?

And then next week, Becky and I are going to talk about 25 Christmas myths and what the Bible says. If you want to get your

Christmas questions to us, send it to when we understand the text at gmail dot com.

The first email that I have to read to you here is not a question, but actually somebody new to the podcast,

Gabe. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I found your podcast earlier in the week before deciding to add any podcast into my meager library.

I always listen closely for incorrect teaching and or at worst heresy.

I have heard only truth and sound teaching from your podcast. Thank you for expositing and exposing the way that you do.

I'm adding your ministry to the others that I promote among those in my sphere of influence and among those names that he listens to are

R .C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Alistair Begg, Steve Lawson and others. Keep it up.

Grace and peace. Thank you so much, Neil. I am not worthy to be listed among names like that, but I am so glad that you have found the podcast and I'm going to continue by the grace of God in in faithfulness to his word.

It is such a privilege to have this opportunity to serve in the church where I serve, preaching the scriptures, teaching it to others and even doing it right here on this podcast.

My commitment to you is faithfulness to the text, and I am glad that it could be such an encouragement to you.

Your email has been an encouragement to me for sure. This next one from Don in Temple, Texas.

Pastor Gabe, two questions. Number one, did you see this Babylon Bee article?

And number two, what hat size do you wear? Well, I wear a seven and a quarter.

That is that is my hat size. If you're thinking about buying a cowboy hat for me for Christmas, I will wear it and I will take a picture of me doing this podcast wearing a cowboy hat.

I'm not sure how that's going to work with my headphones, though. I have like the over the head headphones, like real headphones.

How do you wear a cowboy hat on top of that? I don't know. I guess I'll have to figure that out, but I won't turn down a nice cowboy hat.

The article that Don was referring to from the Babylon Bee is headlined

Texas governor announces cowboy hat mandate. In case you don't know,

Babylon Bee is satire. Do I really need to say that anyway? So this isn't a real mandate from Governor Abbott.

It is a great Babylon Bee article. Here's how the article reads. Texas Governor Greg Abbott was heard yelling,

Yeehaw, while firing two revolvers in the air, the traditional way to announce a new

Texas law. This law is a new public safety mandate requiring all citizens to wear a cowboy hat when leaving their homes.

This bill has been a long time coming, said Abbott. We need to flatten the curve of people being a bunch of Californians.

That means everyone needs to wear a proper hat at all times and be a true Texan. Yeehaw.

Just to interject here, even though I know this is satire, a good friend of mine is

Californian, and he's one of the most dedicated cowboys that I know. There are surprisingly plenty of cowboys in California.

They're probably more from the eastern side of the state rather than the coastal side. Anyway, the article continues.

With this bill, anyone seen out in public without a cowboy hat will be approached by a

Texas ranger who will say, You ain't from around here, are you? Before tossing the offender across the state line.

The bill was mainly met with wide support. Anytime you see someone near you without a cowboy hat, you feel unsafe, said

Tex Brewer, a Texan. You wonder what that guy is up to. Is he going to raise my taxes or take my

AR -15? I don't cotton to that. The bill did receive some pushback, though.

Hat's itchy, said one man. There will be some exceptions to the cowboy hat mandate, such as if your hat was just shot off your head in a showdown.

There is also a mask mandate, but that only applies when you are robbing a train. Well done,

Babylon B, I loved it. And yes, Don, I had seen I had seen that article.

For those of you want to send me a Christmas gift, particularly in the form of a cowboy hat, send it to First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas.

I won't turn down a free hat if you want to send me one. All right. So I preface this program by saying that some of the things we're going to talk about today were a little a little more mature in content.

If you have young ears in the room, mom and dad, you may want to listen to this first before letting your kids listen, or you may just decide that that this is not for them yet.

But this has to do with a tweet that I made a little over a week ago and the backlash that I received in response to it.

Before getting to that, I'm going to read this comment from Cynthia, which she made on my blog.

Dear Pastor Gabe, I looked at your page as I was interested in the book on Christmas.

The page is full of pornographic pictures and bizarre comments.

I'm certain that you are not aware. I believe what it was that Cynthia saw was my

Twitter feed. And yes, it was full of pornographic images. If you have certain filters on, then you probably didn't see them.

But if you don't have a Twitter account and you don't have those filters on, then unfortunately you were probably subjected to all of it.

And this was in response to a tweet that I made on December the 1st. It was not just on Twitter, but it was screenshot and circulated around Facebook and Instagram as well.

In that tweet, I said the following. You are not gay. You are not trans.

You are a sinner. Repent, turn to Jesus Christ.

He will wash you and make you new. See 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11.

And it's in that particular passage that we read the following. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality and in the

NASB you have the addition of men who are effeminate, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified.

You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our

God. In this particular chapter in 1 Corinthians 6, the apostle Paul is calling the church to purity, not just spiritual purity, but purity in the body for the body is a temple of the

Holy Spirit whom we have been given from God. And there among the people in the church in Corinth were those who had previously practiced every manner of sexual immorality, sex outside of marriage.

Which is what God created sex for intimacy to be enjoyed between a man and his wife only.

And that love that they share with one another is is not just pleasurable. Of course, sex is pleasurable.

I don't think I have to tell that to anybody. It is also procreative. That's what God gave it to a man and his wife for.

Not just that they would have love for each other, but they would also bear children that they would be fruitful and multiply.

A man and a man cannot do that. The the sexual immorality between a man and another man is unnatural because we know that their anatomy is completely incompatible.

We can look at that and we can know that this isn't rocket science here. But there in the church in Corinth, you had people sitting in that church who had previously been engaged in all manner of sexual immorality.

Paul just got done telling the church that you need to put anyone out of the church who is sexually immoral.

They don't have a place with you. They're not truly part of the church if they're still engaged in these passions of the flesh, going after things which

God has called an abomination. So after he has said, purge the evil person from among you, that's right at the end of chapter five.

He then talks about this call to be pure, pure in the body. For as we've been reading going through Romans 12, that we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice unto

God. This is our spiritual act of worship. So first of all, he talks about sexual immorality.

That's kind of a blanket statement that covers a lot of different passions of the flesh.

He also mentions idolaters. So these are the ones who will not inherit the kingdom of God, the sexually immoral nor idolaters, which actually fits in the same category of those who are sexually immoral because in the idolatry that was going on in Corinth, they were having sex in the temples to their false gods.

It was all coupled with their paganism, he says, nor adulterers.

So those who don't honor marriage at all, they just sleep around with everybody, nor men who practice homosexuality.

And then you'll see in some translations it being added the effeminate, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor the effeminate.

This means both the giver and the receiver in a homosexual act. That's how we understand the

Greek that's written there. Verse 10, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, people who continue in these sins, unrepentant, unabated, they will not inherit the kingdom of God.

And verse 11 is where you have the good news shared with the Corinthian church.

Paul has previously shared the gospel in this letter to the

Corinthians, but he mentions here the good news that they have been redeemed from that. You used to be in that, but you're not anymore.

So verse 11 says such were some of you. You used to be in those sins, sitting among the people there in the church in Corinth where people who could say,

I once was that I once was engaged in all that sexual immorality. I was once sleeping with the priestess prostitutes in the temple of Aphrodite.

I was once engaging in abominable acts over in the saunas, but I have been washed.

Paul says you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our

God. And so having been washed, we're not to continue in those sins any longer, lest we actually demonstrate we haven't been washed at all.

We're still continuing in the same rampant filthiness that we were in before we started calling ourselves a

Christian. This is why, again, Paul says, purge the evil person from among you, anyone who bears the name of brother, but is still continuing in these sins.

Back in verse chapter five, verse nine, he says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since you would have to go out of the world.

But I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother. If he is guilty of sexual immorality, these exact sins that are mentioned even here later on in chapter six, verse nine, he mentioned previously in chapter five, do not associate with those who call themselves a brother or sister in Christ, but are still engaged in sexual immorality, greed or is an idolater, a reviler, a drunkard or a swindler.

Do not even eat with such a one. They are not among you. They are still worldly.

They're still in the world. So they are not part of the church. Purge the evil person from among you.

These persons will not inherit the kingdom of God. But again, among the church there in Corinth were those who could say

I once was that, but I have been washed, meaning I am not continuing in that sin anymore.

God has washed me. Christ has cleansed me and made me new. The Apostle Paul said in Galatians two twenty,

I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me and the life

I now live in the flesh. I live unto the son of God who gave himself for me and died for me as a as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

So if we are in Christ, we are a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come.

We're no longer walking in the sins that we once were in before we came to Christ. We have been made new.

These identity labels that the culture has made up, these are not immutable characteristics in the sense that a person is always going to be that and there's nothing that they can do about it.

A person is not gay. They choose to engage in homoerotic behavior, but that doesn't make them a homosexual in the sense that they're always going to be that person.

This is my identity. This is who I am and there's nothing that I can do about it. A person is not trans like I'm a

I'm a woman, but I'm in a man's body. That's not possible. That's unnatural.

We know that's unnatural. This is common sense stuff. But as our culture continues to become more secular and rejects

God, they're giving up natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, exactly what we have in Romans one twenty six.

And as it says in verse twenty one, although they knew God, we know

God. We can see his invisible attributes around us everywhere in the things that have been made.

And although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.

And they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

These are behavioral choices that people make. You don't have an identity as a gay person or a you don't have an identity as a straight person.

That's just normal behavior. Why is it that even the LGBTQ community will call heterosexual behavior heteronormative?

Why do they call it that? Because it is normative. It's normal. And that is that is the natural order of things.

So a person doesn't have an identity of straight any more than they have an identity of gay or lesbian or trans or whatever those other letters are supposed to stand for.

By the way, that acronym, that LGBTQIA, stick a plus on the end of it for anything else that we can't think of or whatever we want to add to this.

That's just one long string of lies. And the LGBTQ movement does not care about anyone that they ensnare in those lies.

It's just one more piece of meat that they can put in there to satisfy these sexual, lustful appetites that are consuming and destroying people by the manipulative tactics of Satan.

When a person hears the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Jesus died on the cross for sins, that he rose again from the grave and whoever believes in him will not perish.

They will be forgiven and have everlasting life. When a person hears that message and they believe it, they are born again and they become brand new.

Jesus said to Nicodemus that if you're not born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Being born again means that the old is gone and the new has come, that they know the truth and the truth has set them free from the sins and the wickedness that had previously enslaved them to do the things that their flesh wanted to do.

We are no longer enslaved to our flesh in Christ. We've been set free to know him and to worship him with all that we are.

All our heart, soul, mind and strength belongs to Christ.

This world cannot have it and it will not perish when the world is judged.

We will live forever with God in glory when we put our faith in Jesus Christ.

That is what I want for anybody who calls themselves LGBTQIA.

I would want them to repent of their sin and believe in Jesus Christ, no longer identifying with the things that are going to be judged with this world.

Those people who identify with that will not inherit the kingdom of God. It's right here in first Corinthians, chapter six.

But if you are in Christ, you are washed, you are made new. You are not a slave to those passions anymore.

You are a slave to the righteousness of God. A couple of days after making that tweet,

I started getting threats and they were rather idle threats at first, nothing that I haven't received from, you know, like Rachel Held Evans fan base or the social justice warriors.

Realizing, though, that I was about to be flooded with comments, I went ahead and disabled the notifications. I'm not sure if you're on Twitter and you know how that works, but you can actually make it so that you don't receive any notifications to certain tweets.

I also have pretty good filters on Twitter, as I mentioned earlier, so I don't see any of those inappropriate images, whether it's to a tweet like this or anything else that somebody might post.

My critics have attempted me, have attempted to subject me to some of those things, and I really don't see them.

I get it gets reported to me by other people that they saw them. And then that's how I know that they're there. So though I don't have to see those images, unfortunately, other people did.

And over the last weekend, I was flooded with comments on my social media accounts, not just Twitter, but also

Facebook and Instagram. Literally thousands of comments at the present. The tweet that I had made on December 1st says there are just over 5000 comments, but it's actually much more than that.

There were like you can make a comment and then you can do a thread, adding more comments.

And on Twitter, that still just registers as one comment. So it was thousands and thousands of comments.

What were in these comments exactly? Well, there were the usual comments that were things like I was a

Pharisee. I received the typical Matthew 7 -1 response, judge not lest ye be judged.

I was told that I was unloving, that I was unchristian. I needed to love my neighbor or I needed to mind my own business.

Never mind that I was really concerned for the eternal souls of the people that I was talking to.

No, I was accused of being evil. But then there were also comments where I was accused of being a homosexual myself and I was just projecting my internal sexual struggle onto other people.

My wife, who is in my avatar, there's a picture of her with me on Twitter.

She was called a beard. By the way, that's I had to learn what that is. That's a derogatory term in LGBTQ circles for a person who poses as a false partner to mislead others as to the status of that person's sexuality.

In other words, Becky only appears in my pictures to hide the fact that I'm gay. That's what that's what these

LGBTQ persons were accusing me of. I was also sexually harassed.

Men were inviting me to join them in their flood of debauchery. They would describe what they were doing and that they were waiting for me to come and join them or they would say, hey, we could hook up and no one will ever have to know about it.

I received many blasphemous statements as well, which I'm not even going to dare repeat. Of course,

I also received death threats. One image that I shared was a video of a man made up to look like he was shooting me.

Another man said, can someone knock off this guy and his family to send a message?

A woman that I personally know, we used to attend the same church. She called me foul names and said,

I really hope someone hits him with a garbage truck and sends him straight to the pits of hell where he belongs.

The names and language thrown at me were R -rated and pornographic. Speaking of porn, that brings me back to Cynthia's comment.

She said there were a bunch of pornographic images on my site. I was sexually harassed with dozens, if not hundreds of images of men in the act of sodomy and performing other sexual acts on other men.

These weren't just JPEGs. They were also GIFs, which are video images.

For those of you who do not know, this was triple X rated pornography and it was right there out in the open on Twitter for everyone to see.

There were hundreds of witnesses to this. Do you know what a flasher is?

A typical flasher is a man that's in like a trench coat wearing nothing else underneath, and he gets his kicks by walking up to people in public and showing them his privates.

These things that were being thrown at me on Twitter were worse than that. Imagine walking down the street and two random naked men run up to you and start doing perverse, abominable things with each other right there in front of you.

Surely that would be illegal, right? We would call that a sex crime. Sexual harassment doesn't even begin to describe it.

If anyone did something like that in public, they would be arrested and thrown in jail and registered as a sex offender.

But Twitter didn't see it that way. Or such vile images would not even be allowed on their platform.

I and several other people reported these perverts to Twitter. Let me read to you the responses that I received on two equally offensive tweets.

Both of these persons had done the same thing. They tweeted multiple images of men in the act of sodomy with each other.

On one of those reports, Twitter responded with the following email. Hello, thank you for your report.

After our review, we've locked the account for breaking our rules. Please keep in mind the account does have the option to take the actions we've requested to have their account unlocked.

This can include deleting the tweets that violated the rules, having their account features temporarily limited or updating specific information on their account.

We appreciate your help and encourage you to reach out in the future if you see potential violations.

Thanks, Twitter. So, Twitter agreed that this was a violation of policy, and they locked the account that had sent me the offensive images.

But they did not permanently ban these offenders, even though what they did was on the level of what a flasher does.

All the offender had to do was delete the offending images, and the whole thing would be resolved. That would be it.

But at least Twitter agreed this was not good behavior, right? Well, listen to this other email that I received.

It was the exact same offense under the exact same tweet, but with a different response.

Hello, we're writing to let you know that after reviewing the available information, we did not find a violation of our rules in the content that you reported.

We appreciate that you let us know what happened and encourage you to reach out again in the future if you see any potential violations.

Thanks, Twitter. Yes, thanks a lot, Twitter. So, I shared these two responses on Twitter side by side, and they got the attention of a reporter from World Magazine who had observed the harassment that I had received.

She said, quote, I saw the post, Twitter support. It was straight up sexual harassment.

If a man sent a woman images like that, I expect their account would be suspended at the very least, unquote.

But that's not the way Twitter saw it. Why? How was one set of images deserving of locking the account, but the other exact same kind of images resulted in no penalty?

Because Twitter is run by the same sodomites who were harassing me. There are men and women who identify as gay and trans working for Twitter who saw nothing wrong with the response that I received for what

I said in my tweet. Maybe one person agreed that it was over the line, but someone else who is

LGBTQ working in Twitter's support department saw no problem with it at all.

I share this with you, dear Christian, because I want you to know that this really is the world around us right now, and it's getting worse.

This is what the Western world is becoming. Western Europe, Canada, America, Australia, and it's becoming like this very quickly.

The spirit of Sodom is very much alive in America today. Remember what happened in Sodom when

God sent the two angels to retrieve Lot and his wife and his family before the

Lord was going to judge Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone. You know this story where the two angels came to Lot and the men of Sodom descended upon the house and they called to Lot, where are the men who came to you tonight?

Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them, that we may rape them.

Lot went out to the men at the entrance and shut the door after him and he tried to stop them from doing this wicked thing, but they descended upon the house.

The angels pulled Lot inside. They struck the men outside with blindness and it didn't matter.

They still tried to get in the house to get Lot and these other men and do the wicked things that they wanted to do, even though they were stricken with blindness.

If you got stricken with blindness, wouldn't you stop trying to advance? You can't even see where you're going.

But these men were so depraved in the lusts of their flesh that that's all that they wanted.

And that's what I saw on Twitter last weekend, exactly the same spirit of Sodom on social media.

The apostle Peter said, 1 Peter 4, starting in verse 1, since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passions, but for the will of God.

Verse 3, for the time that is past suffices for doing what the pagans want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery and they malign you, but they will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

And how is it that we as Christians are supposed to respond whenever the world presses in on us like this?

Well, Peter goes on to say in verse 12, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice insofar as you share

Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

Remember that Jesus told his disciples, The world hates you? It hated me first.

And Peter says previously in 1 Peter 2, Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.

He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

Even in the midst of the insults that I received for sharing the gospel,

I got this message from a woman named Sherry. Hi, Pastor. From 16 to 18, I lived as a lesbian.

Thanks to God's grace and men not watering down his message. I'm now married and I have two kids.

Keep going with Christ. Thank you so much for that message, Sherry. This next one is from Hunter.

He says, Dear Pastor Gabe, I am from Dallas, Texas, and I wanted to write to you to tell you just how much

I am a fan of your content and words of Christian truth and encouragement. I am a very recent

Christian and I became a follower of Jesus from a totally unlikely background. I was previously a

Jew who called myself gay. In the span of the last year, all of those things have changed and have begun to be transformed, all because of how gracious God is to be working through me.

I found your Instagram page within the last year while I was looking for Christian encouragement. It's helped to keep me strong in faith amidst a culture so willfully confused by delusions about sexuality, as you so strongly point out, and have received the hate

Christ assured for it. Thanks so much for being an amazing role model on and off your

Instagram account. In Christ, Hunter. I thank you so much for that,

Hunter. And he sent me a picture of him being baptized as well. Praise the Lord for that. This next email that I received here, this is going to be much longer, but this is from a young man named

Garrett, and he shared with me the following. Well, first of all, he prefaced it by saying,

Good morning, Pastor Gabe. I sent the email below to your old church, so the one in Junction City, Kansas, and then realized that you had moved.

I hope you find encouragement in this. Thank you so much for standing up for truth. You have no idea how much this means to me.

Here's the story that he shared. I was 13 when I first became aware of my same -sex attraction.

It all began with me noticing that my friends were showing interest in girls while I did not share the same captivation.

This culminated with me lying in bed one night when all of a sudden it dawned on me that I was gay.

In one sense, I was relieved that the confusion I had been feeling was finally identified.

On the other hand, I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that I now had a dark secret that would forever alter the course of my life.

It would be many years before I gained understanding that these feelings are a part of God's plan to display

His immense love and redemptive power through my life. Growing up,

I was not close to either of my parents, and it felt as though I did not belong. The feeling of isolation as well as constant insecurity stemmed from the belief that I did not meet up to the world's standard of what it means to be masculine.

My relationship with my father was especially estranged, but all this would soon change.

Our family began going to church, and I started hearing stories of this man named Jesus. I remember reading of how he healed people in the books that comprise the

Gospels. I had a deep desperation to be freed of my homosexual attractions, but to my dismay, the feelings just became stronger, leading to a hopeless outlook on my future.

At the age of 15, my parents found out about my dark secret. Their reaction consisted of confusion and despair.

Despite our worlds being turned upside down, this man named Jesus became increasingly real to us.

Both my parents began displaying changes of heart, but it was particularly significant with my dad, because in my eyes, he was the epitome of masculinity.

If a man like him could love me, then surely I was worthy of masculinity. He began showing me affection and telling me that he loved me on a daily basis.

This father that I had felt so distant from was all of a sudden a tangible depiction of God's love for me.

By the time I was a junior in high school, our entire family had changed from the inside out.

This transformation manifested through cold relationships becoming vibrant and immovable.

I first met Pastor Ricky my freshman year of college at a conference in Houston, where he spoke on same -sex attraction and how

Jesus is the solution. His teaching blew my mind, because it shed light on something that for years had been so dark and controlling.

I occasionally visited his weekly meetings and eventually moved to the Dallas -Fort Worth area to be closer to the ministry.

They provided a safe environment where I could share my most intimate struggles without fear of judgment.

Better yet, I met same -sex strugglers that had been living out Christ -centered lives for an extended period of time, and this served as an example that change was possible.

I began to learn that marriage and children are not the end goal, rather obedience to the

Lord is paramount. It is worthy of stating that blessings such as the previous two

I just mentioned were not uncommon within the lives of the members of this congregation.

While attending college in the Dallas -Fort Worth area, I began building a strong Christian community.

I was doing well for a year or so, but I did not put to death certain sins in my life.

These sins were not detrimental in themselves, but they served as a stronghold in my heart for the enemy to hinder my spiritual growth.

It felt as though my spiritual life had stalled out, and it was very discouraging. I subsequently became closed off from my

Christian community, further expediting this otherwise gradual decline. I had a difficult time for many months, constantly trying to obey the

Lord, but naively attempting this by my own strength. People tried to get through to me, but I was stubborn, refusing to die to the dream that the gay lifestyle could satisfy my heart.

After a lengthy downward spiral, I chose to completely embrace the gay world.

I abandoned my Christian network and began working at a gay nightclub.

Nonetheless, I stopped attending classes in the middle of fall semester, which resulted in me failing out of college.

Dropping out of college felt like the greatest failure of my life, which only added to an already heavy sense of shame.

My days and nights were spent in nightclubs because I felt desired there.

Despite being wanted and pursued, I felt completely empty, so I turned to drugs.

I soon became addicted to cocaine, and my use of the drug continued to grow to the point of me having sex in exchange for drugs or money.

I had very quickly reached a low that I never imagined possible. Cocaine eventually gave way to methamphetamine, and I was not prepared for the destructive power of this substance.

My physical appearance began to change due to the use of this drug. I remember walking into a gas station one day to buy cigarettes, and the cashier refused to sell them to me.

He said I looked nothing like the person on my license. Absolute rock bottom came in the form of a drug binge during which

I did not sleep for two weeks. The sleep deprivation resulted in immense paranoia and hallucinations.

I even began talking to people that were not there, and the men that once pursued me in the clubs began avoiding me altogether.

I was completely out of my mind, which ultimately landed me in a psychiatric facility.

During this season of life, it was clear that I had a death wish. I just wanted my life to end, so that all the struggles and bad decisions would be over with.

Thankfully, God's plan for my life did not end with my lack of a will to live.

Once I was released from the psych ward, my parents took me to a Christian men's home for individuals seeking freedom from substance abuse.

The next six months of my life would be spent there. Of the 50 or 60 men, I was one of only a handful of white men, with the remainder being black or Hispanic.

Many of these men were ex -gang members, thieves, and even murderers, but the transformative power of Jesus Christ was apparent in them.

Prejudices that I unknowingly had in my heart were broken during this time, and I grew to love these men that were hard on the outside, but loved

Jesus on the inside. After finishing the six -month program, I left the men's home and moved back in with my parents.

I was on fire for Jesus again, and my parents were thankful to have the old

Garrett back. My failed college semester was miraculously wiped from my record, and the $40 ,000 hospital bill that I had amassed during my psychiatric stay was pardoned.

Much of this was due to my mom's relentless efforts to help her son, but God had an undeniable hand in it.

Everything was so bright, and it seemed as though I had received a clean slate.

Due to the promiscuous lifestyle I had lived, it was necessary for me to get checked out by a doctor.

I had a full STD test done, and two weeks later, I received news that I was

HIV positive. In an instant, my entire world crumbled.

The hope and joy that had returned was all of a sudden stolen from me. How could my life be worth anything at this point, was a question

I would ask myself every day. I began falling back into my old ways of being closed off and non -transparent.

Yet again, I was disobeying God, because our God is bigger than HIV. In turn,

God did something unexpected. He gave me everything my faithless heart desired.

Within a year, I had a college degree, a lucrative job, and a boyfriend.

This man was young, handsome, masculine, and made a salary well over six figures.

He even knew of my medical diagnosis and still wanted to be with me. There were moments when

I would look at him and sense something supernatural about how well all of this was working out.

It was unsettling, because I felt as though God had truly given me over to my sin.

Despite the unease, I continued down this long and deceptively sustainable path.

We moved into an expensive townhome in the heart of the city, and with our combined income, there was little we could not have or do.

Viewed as having it all, we were envied in the gay community. Truth is, we did have it all.

Despite having everything a gay man could possibly want, I was yet again filled with that familiar emptiness

I had felt during my drug -induced clubbing days. I had tasted

God's love before, and it was as though a definitive love standard had been branded into my heart.

No amount of love or gifts this man could provide me would ever amount to the standard of God's love.

After two and a half years of this relationship, the Holy Spirit increasingly convicted my heart.

I would watch movies, and I would see symbolism of Jesus in spite of the film being secular.

I would hear people at parties talking about faith, or someone would randomly ask me if I was religious.

I would reply with no, and feel as though I had just denied Jesus. The ultimate tug on my heart came in the form of fear, fear that each day

I continued on this path was one more day of a wasted life. I would see older men in the gay lifestyle, and regardless of having achieved and obtained every single thing the gay world values, they all had noticeably empty eyes.

The youthful glow that emanates from the younger gays had faded away, replaced by a void.

I knew that I would end up like them if I continued living this lie. After many months of this spiritual restlessness, something changed in me.

I had reached the end of myself, completely worn out by running from God. After work one day,

I called Pastor Ricky, which was the first time we had conversed in years. I explained how the life

I had built was a complete disappointment. Responding with grace, he gave me encouraging words, and explained that I would never be satisfied with a life outside of Christ.

I went home and contemplated how I would end the relationship with my boyfriend. I don't think

I have ever been so scared in my life. While sitting in the living room with him, I just began crying.

I stated that I loved Jesus, and I explained how our relationship was keeping me from him.

As this was happening, I felt as though my mouth was moving on its own, and words were just flowing out of me.

The articulation consisted of words that were confident, strong, and firmly grounded in truth.

I was not blaming some obscure reason for the breakup. I was ending the relationship for the sake of Jesus, and the

Holy Spirit was proclaiming that I belonged to him. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the ultimate helper, because for so many years

I had quenched him beyond measure. Yet he returned with a vengeance, taking back my heart that Jesus had died for.

My ex stormed out of the house, cursing and crying. I went downstairs to the guest bedroom and collapsed on the floor.

I felt like my heart was splitting in two. The hurt was overwhelming in that moment, but at the same time,

I could feel something coming alive in me. The weight of conviction that had plagued me for so long was instantly lifted, and I felt as though my heart was burning with life again.

After the breakup, I went to church the next night, and had an intensely convictional experience with the

Lord. It was as if the sanctuary was saturated with his presence, and my only response was to fall on my face and weep.

I had never experienced such a presence of God. I got up, and for the very first time in my life,

I worshipped God with all my heart. The following days were incredibly difficult.

All I could do was read my Bible, pray, go to work, and attend church.

Despite the adversity, God parted the sea for me so that I could escape the false life that I had worked so hard to build.

The burning sensation in my heart that began on the night of the breakup persisted for months, and served as a daily reminder that something had truly changed inside of me.

In those days, I was transformed from a scared little boy into an unashamed man of God.

I was no longer afraid of what the world had to throw at me because I had just given up the world for Jesus Christ.

Since the ending of that relationship, I have held fast to the Word of God, and utilized wise guidance to keep me on the narrow path.

The key to walking away from the gay life is being utterly surrendered to the

Lord. He is the only one who has all the answers. However, it is also essential to remain accountable to a

Christian community. That is why I am so grateful for the church that I am a part of. God's timing of drawing me back to himself was impeccable because around the same time, the church was establishing another plant just a short drive from my apartment.

Over the past few years, they have served as a source of counsel and encouragement.

The ministry showed me unconditional grace when I returned from the far -off country, and its leaders have walked beside me every step of the way.

You may be wondering how my health is doing. Thanks be to God for blessing this world with remarkable

HIV medication. I live a healthy life. I have not been miraculously healed, but the virus is completely under control, so much that it is undetectable in my body.

Through God's immense love and grace, I have the opportunity to live out a normal and healthy life.

HIV is no longer a death sentence like it was in the 80s and early 90s. I have been given a second chance at life, and with this comes the decision to either go on sinning or use this life to glorify

God. And I choose to glorify God. Today, I am still working at the same company.

God has blessed me with a management position, and the experience I am gaining is invaluable. Yet again,

I have a strong Christian community that continues to increase, making me more and more established in this new life.

There have been many difficult days, but I have never once regretted returning to the

Lord. I may not have it all together, but I can honestly say that I am wholly sold out for Jesus.

I will never return to what the world has to offer because I know it's a lie. My story is one that I cannot keep silent because so many individuals that struggle with same -sex attraction believe the gay lifestyle can satisfy.

I believe God spared my life so that I can declare the truth. I have experienced both the absolute worst and very best of what the gay lifestyle has to offer at both ends of the spectrum.

I was left longing for my Savior. Therefore, I can say with certainty that no amount of anything in between the two ends can ever satisfy as much as Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the answer to drug addiction. Jesus is the answer to transforming a boy into a man of God.

Jesus is the answer to homosexuality. All the glory belongs to Him and Him alone.

Amen. Thank you for that message, Garrett, and I will continue to pray for your continued sanctification.

In Colossians 3, verse 5, we have the following, Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. That's verse 6. So I read earlier in 1

Corinthians 6 that these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Those who practice such things will not enter heaven but will rather be cast from His presence into eternal destruction, into hell, if you continue in those sins.

I do not want that for anybody. Despite that I had this woman who, I read you her comment, she wished hell for me.

I don't want that for anyone, despite the vile comments and images that were thrown at me on Twitter.

I don't want anybody to go to hell. I want you to repent, to believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ, and so live. And Paul goes on with the Colossians in verse 7 to say,

In these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away.

He goes on in verse 9 to say, Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its

Creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian,

Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all.

There is salvation from your sin. There is salvation from death.

There is salvation from the wrath and judgment of God. And that salvation is in Jesus Christ.

It is by faith in Christ alone that we are saved. Even these incredibly depraved and destructive sins such as homosexuality, transsexuality, and all these other things that fit within that LGBTQIA plus narrative.

Christ died even for these sins so that all who believe in him will be forgiven, will be washed, and be made new.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the goodness that you have shown to us. I am but a sinner worthy of the destruction of God, if not for the grace of God that came to me and shared the gospel with me that I may believe in Jesus and live.

And so I wish that for everyone listening that they would repent of their sin and turn to Christ and so be saved to be washed and be made new.

Lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake and may the glory of God be a testimony in every one of our lives.

That others who know us may worship the Father above and live.

In the midst of a crooked and depraved generation, may we shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life and holding out that message of the gospel to everyone who would believe in Christ and be adopted as a son or a daughter of God.