June 29, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Pastor Ronjour Locke on “Same-Sex Marriage & the Hijacking of the Civil Rights Movement”

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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, 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 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 Monday and I'm so delighted to have for the very first time as a guest on our program,

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Pastor Ron Jorlach. He is pastor of First Baptist Church of Brooklyn in Baltimore, Maryland and he is married to Annie and they have four children,

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Joshua, Noah, Micaiah and Naomi. He is a Maryland native and a graduate of Washington Bible College and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Ron Jorlach exists to display and declare the greatness of Christ in all of life that all may delight in the glory of God.

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To that end, he cares deeply about preserving the biblical pattern of marriage for the display of the glorious union of Christ to his church and today we're going to be addressing in light of the tragic, horrific, but sadly fully expected decision of the

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Supreme Court last Friday, Friday, June 26, as I said last week, which is a day that will live in infamy when same -sex marriage was legalized.

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We are having our new guest, Pastor Ron Jorlach today to speak on the hijacking of the civil rights movement by the homosexual left and it's my pleasure to welcome you for the very first time,

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Pastor Ron Jorlach. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. And before I forget to say it,

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I'll make sure that I state it now and hopefully I'll repeat it a few times later, but the website for First Baptist Church of Brooklyn, Maryland is firstbaptistbrooklyn .org.

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That's firstbaptistbrooklyn .org. A lot of our listeners may, well obviously most people on the globe know

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Brooklyn, New York, but many of them may not know about Brooklyn, Maryland. I joke about that occasionally and say we're the ones without the basketball team.

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Yeah, and they've only had it a short while too. That's correct. And well,

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Ron Jorlach, tell us something about your background and your church. Before we even go into the topic,

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I want to let our listeners know that I'm interviewing Ron Jorlach today because of the high recommendation of a mutual friend of ours,

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Eric Redman, who is now on the faculty of Moody Bible Institute. But Eric Redman is a dear brother in Christ, a dear friend who

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I had on the older version of Iron Sharpens Iron between 2006 and 2011.

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He became a dear friend over those years and I had him speak at a pastor's luncheon out on Long Island, New York, and all of the pastors without exception gave glowing reviews to Eric's preaching.

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But Eric was originally invited to do this program today but could not due to previous engagements.

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And he gave a glowing, glowing recommendation of our guest Ron Jorlach and said, in fact, that he believes that Ron Jorlach will do a better job than he would today.

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And I also want to quickly thank Richard Bennett of Berean Beacon Ministries, the former Roman Catholic priest who is now a born -again believer in Christ and a

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Reformed Baptist and a zealous, diligent evangelist of the gospel.

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He gave us the liberty to move his two interviews that were originally going to take place today and tomorrow to later in July so that we could obviously address a very timely subject like the one we're doing today, the hijacking of the civil rights movement by the homosexual left.

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And so let's go back into my original question to Pastor Ron Jorlach, if you could please give our listeners some background about yourself and about your church,

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First Baptist Church of Brooklyn, Maryland. Sure. I actually grew up in a

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Christian home. My folks had come to Christ when I was literally in diapers, so I don't remember much of living in a home without Christ and without the witness to Christ from my parents.

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It was about high school that I made a profession of faith in Christ.

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Even though I had grown up in church, I like to joke that my father is definitely his mother's son because if the doors are open, he's in church.

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And so that was my life growing up, but it wasn't really until high school that the scriptures really made sense to me.

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It wasn't until then that the Lord opened my eyes to understand the reality of his word and the reality of the gospel and my own need of salvation through Christ.

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And so I came to faith in Christ as a teenager. It was about junior or senior year of high school that I came to faith in Christ, and it was not that much long after that that I sensed a call to the ministry.

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And so I spent one year at a college out in the Midwest, and from there

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I transferred to Washington Bible College, and that's where I had finished my undergraduate studies.

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It was also there that I met my wife, Annie, and we were married after I had graduated from college.

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And about a couple years later, I had received an open door to get to the seminary, and so I went over to Western and completed my master's degree there as well.

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And it wasn't that much long after that that we were on a plane flying to Baltimore, which

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I'm from the Maryland area. My parents were born and raised in D .C., and I grew up in southern Maryland.

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And so it was kind of a homecoming of sorts, coming back here to the state of Maryland.

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The First Baptist Church of Brooklyn is predominantly a white church, but over the last few years we've become much more blended, and we are pursuing the

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Scripture's pattern, it seems, of people of all races, people of all nations, all tribes, all languages gathering together to worship

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Christ. That's really our aim as a church, is that we would display and declare the greatness of Christ in all of life, ultimately as a multi -ethnic, multi -generational, multi -cultural people that all may delight in the glory of God.

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And so it's been a joy being here in the Baltimore area. It's been a joy being back home and getting to see the

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O's. We're just a couple minutes away from the Orioles, and so it's good to be back around here during this time.

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But obviously anybody that's heard the news knows that it's not all a bed of roses over here.

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There's been a lot of unrest and so on, especially in the last few months.

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But we as a church have really looked at it as another opportunity to show forth the light of the gospel, to penetrate through the darkness.

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Amen. And in fact, I'd like to have you back on again in the near future to address the riot situation over there and give a pastoral response to that.

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And I think it's significant to mention that you are a black pastor because of the subject matter.

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If I didn't mention that, there may be some who wouldn't think that you as a guest would have a right to speak about who has and who has not hijacked the civil rights movement.

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So I mentioned that for that reason. And also, I think it's of interest to note that you're in an interracial marriage, and some on the left might think that you are betraying the progress of the civil rights because you yourself, not that long ago, especially in the

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South, would have been putting your life at risk for doing such a thing. And there may have been places that wouldn't have, and there were no doubt places that would not have married you.

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And so therefore, what is your response to this horrific

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Supreme Court decision on same -sex marriage being legalized and the fact that you are just as aware as I am that the homosexual left, uh, they have really, uh, used in a great way the civil rights movement as a, um, as a, uh, tool, if you will, to get their own rights to freely practice their depravity in even greater ways now.

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So if you could response to that. Yes. Um, from a fundamental standpoint, um, there's a difference between the civil rights movement of, uh, the previous generations and the homosexual movement, the same -sex marriage movement of this generation.

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Uh, at the heart of it all is one, uh, the civil rights movement was a response to, uh, the violation of one's, uh, of one's core being, one's core identity in terms of their, their skin color, discrimination on the basis of the color of their skin.

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Uh, whereas the other is really, uh, a redefining of, uh, a particular institution, namely marriage and defining certain, uh, the behaviors, uh, namely sexually out, uh, sexuality and, uh, sexual intimacy and so on as good, even though historically, uh, those definitions have been, uh, relatively set in stone.

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And so, uh, there are those, of course, that would, uh, that have argued, especially in recent times, that homosexuality is not, uh, so much of a behavior as it is an orientation.

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And by orientation, what they mean is that this is a part of my core identity.

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This is who I am. And obviously when we're talking identity, we say, well, I am who

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I am and I can't change who I am. Uh, but of course we would know that that is not true.

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Uh, in fact, from the scriptures, we would know that that's not true, uh, because in first Corinthians six, uh,

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Paul talks about about various different things, but in particular, he mentions homosexuality and he's very clear, uh, in there when he says, and such were some of you, which means that, uh, though it may, uh, seem, uh, to those who are struggling, uh, struggling through homosexuality or those who have chosen the particular lifestyle that this is a part of their identity in reality, at least according to the biblical revelation, uh, this can be changed.

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Uh, it is a behavior, uh, at its core, uh, as opposed to, uh, the color of skin, which, you know,

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I can't be a former black, uh, or anything like that. Um, Rachel Dolezal, notwithstanding, apparently, uh, notwithstanding, uh,

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I can be a former black, uh, but I can, of course, by the power of the gospel, be a former homosexual.

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Yes. Yes. If there is a big difference between the color of one's skin or the origins of their ethnicity and violation of a command of God, and, uh, these two things are constantly being mixed, uh, as if they are one in the same, homosexuality is being treated just as if it deserves special rights, like people of all ethnic groups and races and creeds and colors and so on.

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Uh, but obviously this is not the case. Uh, now this, the thing that I find interesting, you, you are a black pastor who happens to be theologically conservative, uh, with theologically reformed leanings and the, from what

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I have seen, not necessarily, or should I say not at all in the mainstream media, but what

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I have seen in not only in the Christian media, but, uh, the more conservative media and, and also in my own travels, having been involved in Christian radio for 30 years,

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I've seen even the black pastors and the black congregants of many, uh, churches that would be clearly more liberal than you are.

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The, the African -American community and the Hispanic community seems to be very much in disagreement with homosexuality and same -sex marriage in particular, aren't they?

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Um, the, even though there are disagreements in terms of theology, uh, there is one thing, uh, at least in terms of your churches, liberal black churches, uh,

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I can speak to particular, uh, the black church tradition, and that is a love for the word of God.

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Uh, you know, black churches, uh, historically, uh, have opened their

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Bibles, and folks have read them and have understood them and have memorized, uh, the scriptures, uh, you know, even in my own family that are, uh, my family that may not necessarily be in this mission that I'm in, uh, in terms of a denominational or, or, or things like that, but at the same time, uh, you know, they know their

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Bibles, and, uh, and they, they, uh, have plenty of verses that they have memorized and have known well, and of course, even in my own upbringing, uh,

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I'm the product of much of the scriptures that, um, my own parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and so on have taught me over the years.

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So even though that we may have agreements over, uh, uh, you know, certain scriptures and certain passages, and obviously, you know, some of those disagreements would even be significant disagreements, um, at the same time, uh, if you will, you, uh, there's this sense in which there's certain things that all agree on.

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There's certain things that all of us recognize, and that is especially when it comes to the issues of marriage.

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We got a lot of different, but we know Genesis 1 and 2. Amen. And I don't know if anything has changed with your phone, but for some reason, you've been cutting out a little bit, and I'm not certain why.

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Okay. But, uh, well, let's, hopefully that won't continue to occur. Um, and of course, as I mentioned earlier, uh, you happen to be in an interracial marriage, and we want to make something very clear that even though there have been wicked people who professed faith in Christ who have opposed that, uh, there is nothing biblical that would prohibit people of different, uh, races or colors or ethnicities to be married together, correct?

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Right. And actually, that was a very personal thing for, uh, for my wife and me.

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When we were in college, uh, we actually spent good time studying the

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Scriptures, and, uh, we wanted to know for sure, uh, what was, what was God saying about this?

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You know, is this acceptable, uh, according to Scripture, or is it not? And we were willing to end the relationship if we, uh, saw from the

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Scriptures that it was, that it was indeed unacceptable. Uh, but in fact, the more we read the

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Scriptures, the more we were convinced, uh, not just of the fact that the Lord, uh, accepts, uh, people from all different races and, uh, all different, uh, nations and tribes and people groups and so on, uh, but also that God actually was the one who brought many, uh, biracial couples together.

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A good example of that is Boaz and Ruth. Uh, you know, obviously in the

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Book of Ruth, you know, the main point in the Book of Ruth is, or the main focus of the

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Book is the providence of God. Uh, that here is the Lord who brings the famine and the Lord who brings, uh, uh,

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Naomi back from, uh, Moab into Bethlehem, coming with Ruth, and, uh, and there's

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Boaz there who has the field, and all of these different things were, uh, were not coincidental, but they were actual workings of our providential

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God. Uh, so God was the one who brought, uh, famine, and God's the one who brought the barley harvest and all of these things, and in the same way,

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God is the one who brought Boaz and Ruth together, uh, and thus, and so doing, uh, preserving the line, of course, that we see at the end of Ruth leading to David.

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So, uh, Christ, in his genealogy, uh, you have

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Gentiles, uh, in Matthew 1, uh, throughout that list, which means that in those, uh, in his genealogy, there are

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Gentiles who marry Jews. Uh, and also, when you look in the Scriptures on marriage, it's very clear that the one, uh, prerequisite for marriage is that, uh, a believer marries a believer.

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Uh, so if there's one thing that they are to have in common, it is to be their common faith in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. And it seems beyond that, uh, whether you're talking ethnic differences, cultural differences, even, uh, uh, national differences, uh, it seems that those things take a back seat to the primary, uh, aim, and that is that, uh, believers are, uh, linked together in one flesh with other believers.

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Right, and of the opposite sex. That is correct. Yes, and of course, one stunning example we have of God's anger toward racism is when

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Moses's, uh, sister criticized him for marrying a, or being married to a woman of another race, and the

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Lord struck her leprous, did he not? Yes, in Numbers 12. Yes. And again, you know,

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I think that that is, uh, evidence of the Lord's displeasure, uh, on one hand, his displeasure over racism, but also his pleasure, uh, and blessing of, uh, of biracial relationships and marriage.

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And it also seems absurd that in regard to the Great Commission, that we are to go into all the world, uh, making disciples, that God did not fully intend those individuals going into all parts of the world to eventually be marrying people of different races and ethnic origins.

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Right, right. And, uh, so what, we do have a question, and in fact,

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I want to, um, repeat the, uh, email address for Iron Sharpens Iron.

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It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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that's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. We do have a listener in Elizabethton, Tennessee, uh,

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Nathan Lane. Now, it's not the Nathan Lane that everybody knows who would certainly be in favor of same -sex marriage.

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This is a completely different Nathan. I'd be happy to talk to him, too. He, he asked something that, that you basically already answered, but you can touch on it again if you had anything further to say.

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But I thought that the question is worthy of repeating. Nathan in Elizabethton, Tennessee asks, could you please speak on the distinction between the rights movement of the 1960s and the current homosexual rights movement?

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But I, but I would even like to ask, can you compare the civil rights movement of the 60s to the civil rights movement in general today?

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Well, sure. Um, one of the things, in fact, uh, I noticed that Dr. Bode Baucom, uh, released a video on, uh, the

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Desiring God website, uh, that, that kind of touches on it a little bit more. I definitely forward, uh, folks to, uh, to that video, uh, where he talks about some of the even, uh,

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Marxist roots of, of, uh, of the civil rights movement in general.

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I'm not saying that everybody's adopted, that was a part of it and participated and were Marxist. Of course, we don't believe that.

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Um, but this sense of, in essence, uh, dividing the people into different constituencies, uh, and, and then, you know, for each of these constituencies claiming their own, you know, rights for their group and so on, and demanding those rights from the state, uh, there, that was, uh,

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I think a good, uh, insight from Dr. Baucom on that. Um, but in terms of differences, uh, one difference, uh, really fundamentally comes down to the fact that, uh, the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s, uh, was largely, uh, a response to Scripture.

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So if you notice in the civil rights movement, uh, you had pastors and, and, uh, reverends and bishops that were gathering together, uh, and largely because of what they were seeing in the about, uh, all of humanity being created in the image of God, and therefore everyone, uh, uh, is endowed with certain, uh, certain dignity, uh, and should be treated, uh, with dignity.

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Those, uh, those were a lot of the driving factors, uh, uh, you know, to the civil rights movement, and in all honesty,

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I believe that that was, you know, largely the reason that that it gained such traction was because it was founded on, uh, certain biblical principles that, uh, we are all created in the image of God, and therefore we should all be treated with dignity.

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Now, the recent year, uh, in my opinion, is a totally different kind of movement.

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Uh, instead of appealing to the Scriptures and appealing to, uh, to our fundamental, uh,

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Constitution and being created in the image of God, uh, this is more a response to what is already established in terms of the definition of marriage and, uh, the understanding of sexuality and so on, and redefining those things in order to include lifestyles that were, uh, considered deviant.

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And so, if you could look at it from a, uh, Genesis 1 through 3 standpoint, uh, the civil rights movement was largely a response to Genesis 1, whereas the gay rights movement is largely, uh, an erasure of Genesis 3, and saying, we don't want to be, uh, considered, uh, we don't want this to be considered sin, we don't want this to be considered wrong or culturally deviant or anything like that, we want this to be accepted, uh, normalized, and even, of course, as we saw last week, institutionalized.

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Um, uh, and, and obviously, I think when you look at that from that standpoint, you see that these are two completely different movements.

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Now, you have, uh, back in the 60s, you did have some black homosexuals like James Baldwin who were a part of the civil rights movement in, in a way.

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What do you think, do you know anything about what Dr. Martin Luther King and some of the more prominent members of the civil rights movement would have said today about homosexuality, and what do you think that they would have been in favor of what we see happening, and especially what we heard last

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Friday in regard to the Supreme Court decision legalizing same -sex marriage? You know,

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I honestly couldn't say what they, what they would say, uh, these days, um, just because obviously, you know, for them to be here in this time would mean that they would have to go through all the cultural, uh, uh, uh, dimensions and so on that we've gone through over these years as well.

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Um, what I do know, though, is that, uh, Dr. King, if you read his writings, um, and I would recommend for everybody to read, uh, his, uh, 1963 letter, uh, letter to a, in a

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Birmingham jail, um, if you could read, uh, his arguing, he was thinking especially from a biblical worldview.

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Um, he understood that there was a creator, and he understood that this creator has, has created us in his image, uh, and that we are, uh, uh, given certain dignities and, and, um, uh, there's a certain sanctity to human life, uh, and that sanctity, uh, is not an end in and of itself, but it's so that we will then turn back to him, um, and use these rights and, and, uh, responsibilities and, and, uh, freedoms, uh, for him.

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And so, I think you also see that as a side, uh, even in our own, uh, founding documents, and it talks about how we were endowed by our creator with certain inalienable, inalienable rights, uh, and of course, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but I don't think that our, uh, framers looked at those inalienable rights apart from the creator.

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So it's not, I think the point in the, um, in the documents is that he gave us these inalienable rights so that then we would relate rightly to him with those rights and with those privileges, uh, and you see that kind of language in, uh, in Dr.

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King as well. Uh, and so I think that in terms of how, uh, they would have responded, like I said,

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I don't know exactly how they would respond, but I would think given the theological foundation that they had, at least in this regard, subject, it seems as though they would probably, uh, be against homosexuality, uh, by and large.

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Uh, but again, like I said, uh, I, I really wouldn't know how they would respond. And we're going to be going to a break right now.

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If you have any questions for our guest, Ron Jurlock, who is the pastor of the

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First Baptist Church of Brooklyn, Maryland, uh, please email us at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please include your first name, your city and state, and if outside the

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United States, please include your country as well. We're going to be right back after these messages, so don't go away.

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30:58

Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen. If you've just tuned us in, our guest today is

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Pastor Ronjor Locke, and he is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Brooklyn in Maryland.

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And we are discussing today the hijacking of the Civil Rights Movement by the homosexual left.

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And just because of the fact that it makes it more relevant as far as our discussion is concerned, our guest today,

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Pastor Locke, is a black pastor. He also happens to be a conservative

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Baptist and a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace. Once again, our email address, if you have any questions, is

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ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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We do have a listener in Dublin, Ireland, Joe, who actually has recommended his pastor for a future interview because as many of you may know, same -sex marriage has already been legalized in Ireland, and he thinks that this would be a good program, and we will definitely look into this,

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Joe. We thank you for listening in Ireland and for sending us the email. That's Dublin, Ireland, and hope to develop a program with your pastor there in Dublin at the

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Reformed Baptist Church there. And again, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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We do have another listener in Fort Myers, Florida. His name is

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Mike, and he asks, given the faulty recent Supreme Court decision on same -sex marriage, what pastoral advice would you give conservative evangelical

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Christians to go about discussion in the marketplace, if and when the subject is broached by those, whether they be a confessing believer or not, who support the new law?

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Thank you and blessings. Could you give some pastoral advice on how to speak on this issue in the public marketplace,

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Pastor Locke? Sure. If you are a pastor in the marketplace, you have to realize that you are an outsider coming in.

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So there are already certain cultural understandings and a cultural worldview and so on that is largely outside of Christianity, and you're coming in, and you've got to learn how to speak the truth in love.

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What I would do personally is I would have the discussion in a free society, in a free marketplace area or marketplace context.

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You should be able to have conversations like this openly and candidly, but you also have to recognize the fact that Christianity and the

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Christian position, especially when it comes to homosexuality, is just out of style.

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It's out of season using Second Timothy 4 language. It's out of season for the kinds of things that we have to say.

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So you have to learn how to speak, like Paul said in Colossians, seasoned with salt.

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So pray for a winsome spirit, not necessarily an argumentative spirit.

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Speak the truth in love and pray that the Lord will provide favor in the eyes of those who hear.

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One of the things that I had said yesterday to my church family, there was a group of folks at church, we were talking after the service, and I told them it's becoming increasingly hard in our society to evangelize.

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It's not impossible. If the apostles could evangelize in the

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Roman period, then we can evangelize here. But it's becoming increasingly hard, and what

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I've noticed just for me personally is that the harder it gets to speak in the categories that we speak in as believers in the public square, the more confident

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I am of God's sovereign grace. Because as unpopular as it is to say things like, your sexuality is not your identity, it's your behavior, you choose your actions, you choose how to act on your sexual desires and things like that, and you are held accountable for those things before God, none of that is popular.

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None of that is accepted culturally. So when somebody does latch onto that and they do receive that, there's no other explanation than the sovereign grace of God.

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God is moving in your conversation and moving in them. So don't lose heart even when things are going seemingly in the opposite direction.

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Pray that God will give you a winsome and loving and gracious spirit, and that you would speak the truth in love.

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Be firm, but be gracious, as Paul said, season will salt, and trust that the spirit will open up to the hearts and minds as you continue to do it.

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And we do have another listener, Jacob in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.

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I was curious about what you and Ron Jour think about countering Christians who support same -sex marriage and are convinced that this

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Supreme Court ruling is a victory for civil rights for Christians.

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Now that doesn't seem to make sense to me, but I personally don't think that a born -again believer in Jesus Christ who has the

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Holy Spirit dwelling within them could possibly support same -sex marriage.

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You might have some that different political understandings on how the government has authority over marriages and that kind of thing, but if you could respond,

37:42

Ron Jour. Sure. The first question that I would ask that person would be some type of baseline question to figure out what their standard of authority is.

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So what are they appealing to? Do they see the Bible as the final authority?

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Are they thinking the Bible and personal experience, or are they thinking in terms of sympathy towards friends or family members?

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What is the baseline for that professing believer's decision?

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What is it that guides them and informs their thinking? Once we establish that, then

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I know where to go. So if they don't see the

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Bible as the final authority, if they don't have a robust understanding of Sola Scriptura, then obviously that would explain why they would look at this as something to applaud.

38:52

So then I really, I probably would do the discussion at hand in terms of homosexuality or so on,

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I would have to make a case for the authority of the Scriptures. And I would attempt to persuade that person to take

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God's Word as it is, the authoritative. Until we establish that common ground that the

39:20

Bible, in fact, is the authoritative in all of its parts, then we're just going to run in circles in regards to particular issues like same -sex marriage.

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Yeah, a lot of people who say that they're Christian, and a lot of them, all they mean by that is that they're not

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Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist, and they celebrate Christmas and Easter and may have been raised with some kind of a nominal background where their parents told them something about the

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Jesus story in the manger or whatever, but these people are not truly disciples of Christ.

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They're not born -again believers in His Word and followers of His teachings, correct?

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Correct. There is a big difference between what I call cultural

40:18

Christianity or civil Christianity, if you will, and biblical Christianity. And really, in all honesty,

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I think what we're seeing from a cultural perspective, if you just sit back and look at all that's going on in our country,

40:34

I think what we're seeing is the erosion of Christianity as a civil religion.

40:42

There are folks who, even myself, as I have mentioned in my testimony, I remember growing up and going to church.

40:49

Where were we on Sunday? We were in church on Sunday. Unless we were sick or there was bad weather or something like that, we just couldn't make it there.

41:01

We were in church on Sunday, and that wasn't unique for my family. That was indicative of just about everybody in the society.

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But as the remnants of this civil religion,

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Christianity, are starting to erode, now we're seeing, in essence, the return of paganism and the uprising of paganism in our society.

41:30

For those who are nominal believers, again, like I said,

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I would go right back to the Bible is the Word of God. This is the

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Word of God, and therefore this is the final authority. And so we understand right and wrong, good and evil, in terms of the final authority of God's Word.

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And if they cannot accept that, if they can't accept that God's Word is indeed the

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Word of God, then, of course, I would have to question if they understand that the

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Gospel, which, of course, the Scriptures are the revelation of the good news of Jesus Christ.

42:12

If you don't believe the authority of the Word, then how do you believe the Gospel? All confidence in the

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Gospel is lost if the Word of God is not indeed the steadfast and sure

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Word of God that it is. Yeah, and I believe that a lot of this misconception about what

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Christianity is comes from people who have a

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TV movie or greeting card understanding of Jesus that is only humility, love, compassion, gentleness, meekness, mildness.

42:52

They forget that the baby that was in the manger is no longer a baby, and when he returns, he will be a wrathful judge.

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And they can seem to completely forget or purposely eliminate that entire aspect of Christ's anger and wrath towards sin and towards sinners.

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Right. And again, you see the fingerprints of civil religion, where we make

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God into our own image. We delete the large passages of the

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Scriptures that would say things other than what we would want God to be. And obviously, that God cannot save.

43:36

A God who is all love and no wrath, I would argue, is not a

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God of love at all. If I love my wife, then I'm going to be really upset at anyone that would pose a threat to her.

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I would fight for her because I love her. Well, that's wrath.

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You know, if I, for instance, my children, they decide that they're not going to obey their mommy, they're not going to have a happy daddy.

44:09

Why? Well, because I love my wife, and I want to make sure that my wife is honored. Well, the same thing with our

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God. If God is a God of love, then by necessity, he must be a

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God of wrath over those things that would threaten that which he loves.

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So the ones that would say, well, you know, we believe that God is a

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God of love and solely a God of love, to me, they don't understand either

44:41

God or love, because the God of the Scriptures is a

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God of love, and therefore, because he is a God of love, great is his wrath toward those that would threaten that which he loves.

44:59

And we do have Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, listening, who wants to know if I'm interviewing the guy who played first base for the

45:10

Expos in the 70s, Ron Jorlock. No, that's a different person. And leave it up to a guy from Tuscaloosa to ask that question, but anyway.

45:22

I must say that is the very first time I've ever heard anybody ask that question.

45:31

Well, we're going to be going to our final break right now. If you have a question for Ron Jorlock, not

45:40

Ron Jorlock, if you have a question for Pastor Ron Jorlock, please email us at chrisarnzen,

45:48

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N. We are talking about the hijacking of the civil rights movement by the homosexual left, and we look forward to hearing from you and your questions after these messages, so don't go away.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

47:43

This is Chris Zarnes. And if you've just tuned in to Iron Sharpens Iron, our guest today is Pastor Ranjour Locke, who is pastor of First Baptist Church of Brooklyn, Maryland.

47:52

And we are discussing the hijacking of the civil rights movement by the homosexual left in a response to last

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Friday's horrific decision by the Supreme Court legalizing same -sex marriage.

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And I did say horrific, not terrific. And we do have a listener from Toronto, Canada, Brian, who says,

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I chatted with a Christian who supported same -sex marriage, but he only supported it for the reason that he believed all should have freedom.

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But at the same time, his theology was against same -sex marriage. I've seen him as more confused than not being a

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Christian. I pointed out that the Bible calls Christians ambassadors, and as ambassadors for Christ, we must uphold what our

48:42

King says. He has seen my point, and as far as I know, changed his mind about supporting same -sex marriage.

48:49

So that was more of a comment than a question, but I think it's a good one that as I even said in my initial response to the earlier question, there are people there, for instance, libertarians who are born -again

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Christians, who are very, very conservative and in many points would be more to the right than your average

49:11

Republican, but who believe that the government should be so small that they shouldn't even be meddling in anybody's marriage.

49:19

So there you have, I think that that somewhat touches on this person's belief. But what do you have to say about what our listener

49:26

Brian in Toronto, Canada had to say? Yeah, I think in terms of freedoms, the question that I would ask first is, what exactly are the freedoms that are being withheld from the homosexual community?

49:45

You know, to say you are not allowed to marry a person of the same sex is not the same as saying you are not allowed to be married at all.

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So we're not refusing marriage. We're refusing to identify a certain relationship as marriage.

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So I don't quite know what freedoms are being withheld.

50:15

You know, to me, that seems more like what we tend to have seen over the last few years, a rewording or reframing of the discussion in order to make it, of course, like we've been talking about thus far, in order to make it more parallel to the civil rights discussions of the previous generation.

50:39

But there aren't any freedoms, at least not to my knowledge, that have been withheld for many in this particular community.

50:47

Yeah, they've had to redefine exactly what marriage is. And it's almost like saying we demand the right for men to give birth to babies.

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Well, you can't because that's just not what giving birth means. It's impossible.

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So therefore, no matter what a ceremony or a pledge may be between two men or two women, it's not a marriage.

51:11

Mm -hmm. Right. I would also add to that in terms of the role of law and the role of the government and so on, because I wrote an article,

51:26

I guess it was over the weekend. He wrote his response, and his response basically was that government should get out of the marriage business altogether.

51:37

There is a role for the government, and there is a role for laws.

51:45

From a biblical standpoint, what we see is that law is supposed to—the law is supposed to codify, if you will, what is right and what is wrong.

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So that right, righteousness, is rewarded, and unrighteousness is punished.

52:09

So when the government says, in essence, we're not going to deal with this at all, we're not going to touch the situation at all, it seems to suggest more of a morally neutral position than an actual position of declaring this as right or declaring this as wrong.

52:31

And I don't think that that will actually help out society in the long run. Now, I do understand the sentiment to get back to the medieval times when the church was the—were the ones who recognized what a marriage—they were the ones who were to declare a marriage and so on.

52:54

To say that the government writes a law on the definition of marriage doesn't mean that the government is the authority on a marriage.

53:01

That would be really my response to that. What the government should do is recognize what marriage is and recognize its institution and uphold it, whether, you know, through the writing of laws and so on, in order to protect it and to preserve it for what it is.

53:22

Now, we do have another listener, Johnny in Ridgewood, Queens, New York, who says, how do you respond to the argument that the

53:31

Bible is completely silent on same -sex marriage? And that is quite a ridiculous argument, isn't it?

53:42

Because if the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality, then there's no way that it could be condoning same -sex marriage.

53:49

But if you could further comment. Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. From the beginning, in the

53:59

Old Testament, of course, in the Garden, when the Lord made male and female, and he told them to be fruitful and multiply, to, of course, the destruction of Sodom, to the laws that were given in Leviticus and Deuteronomy in particular, you go all the way through to judges.

54:23

Are you there, Rondreau? You disappeared there. Sorry, can you hear me? Yeah, but you did cut out, so I didn't hear, like, half of your sentence.

54:33

Okay, what I said was in the Book of Judges, the clear reference to homosexuality in the

54:40

Book of Judges, and obviously it's painted in a negative light in the Book of Judges, and all the way to Christ's own words.

54:49

There are people who say that Christ didn't speak on homosexuality, and it's true. He didn't explicitly speak of homosexuality, but he did explicitly speak of heterosexuality.

54:58

When he goes back to the Garden, and he says that God made male and female, and he talks about marriage as what

55:05

God has put together, and it's clear that what God had put together were a male and a female as husband and wife.

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Then, of course, you could talk about Paul's references as well in the Epistles.

55:18

The Bible is absolutely clear that homosexual behavior is not acceptable.

55:25

It is against his pattern, and his pattern for sexuality is within the relationship of marriage, and it's marriage between a husband and a wife, and it's clear in Genesis 2, or I'm sorry,

55:42

Genesis 1, that the purpose for marital sex and so on is so that they would be fruitful and multiply, and so it's a sealing of the bond, as it says, and the two became one flesh, and it is a means for procreation, and thus it establishes a stable family unit, of course, for the rearing of the next generation.

56:16

When you take all of those elements out, then sure, yeah, homosexuality is okay, but the problem, of course, is all of those things stand, and on the grounds of all of those things, homosexuality is not acceptable.

56:33

And you and I both saw the MAFA 21 DVD, which is a, if you haven't, if those of you listening have not seen

56:42

MAFA 21, you must see it. It's spelled M -A -A -F -A 21.

56:49

It's about the origins of the abortion industry, and specifically Planned Parenthood, and the racist roots of this horrific practice, this genocide of children, or infanticide.

57:06

What was said during that documentary is that a lot of the people in the limelight of the black civil rights movement today have really sold their souls to the

57:23

Democratic Party because of the fact that they know that they would not receive a penny of financial aid for their own campaigns and their own activities if they were to begin to speak out against not only abortion, but same -sex marriage.

57:39

Now, same -sex marriage didn't come up in the MAFA DVD documentary, but I'm applying it now.

57:45

Do you think that that is a reason why the blacks in the limelight of the civil rights movement, the ones that you see most often in the media, do you think that's why they're silent on the issue?

57:59

I think that's one of the reasons. Obviously, you look at, in particular, the

58:05

Reverend Jesse Jackson, who, if I recall, he was pro -life until about the time that he decided he was going to run for president.

58:16

Yes, exactly. And once he decided that he wanted to become the Democratic nominee for president back in the 80s, he decided that he was going to renounce his positions, and he was therefore going to be pro -choice, and I believe he's been pro -choice ever since.

58:33

That type of thing happens just all too often, and, in all honesty, on both sides of the aisle for different reasons.

58:42

It just seems to be the name of the game in Washington. But that's definitely a problem that I see.

58:51

I don't think that it's fair, personally, that, especially in the

58:57

African American community, you've got to choose between, basically, you've got to decide, if I want to be a part of a particular party where I can have aid and so on for my community, whether it be in terms of education or whether it be in terms of job opportunities or things like that, but if I do so,

59:25

I must also accept homosexuality. And we're out of time right now.

59:30

I'm sorry, Pistor, and we thank you so much for being on the program. 1stbaptistbrooklyn .org