Have You Not Read S3:E18 - Interview with Stephen Black (Part 3)

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Durham, Stephen Black, Chris Giesler.

Well we are now into our third session with Stephen Black. If you are just now listening to our podcast and have come upon this as your first episode, welcome.

But we want to let you know that we've had two previous sessions with Stephen Black and he is a man whom

God has saved and delivered and called into ministry, especially to those who are identifying with the LGBTQ plus community and sharing with them the good news of Jesus Christ and how they can be saved and delivered.

And he is doing his ministry within the church and two churches and to those outside the church. And hopefully soon

God will give him the opportunity to go across the ocean to other nations and bring this same teaching of God's Holy Word to other folks abroad.

So we are praying for that and we here at Sunnyside Baptist Church are supporting his ministry and we hope that you will become acquainted with his ministry as well, which is

Coram Deo. And we have a series of questions that we've been asking. We started with his background, how

God has saved him and brought him into this ministry. We've been talking about the anchor for truth, the

Word of God, and how it unfailingly equips us to answer whatever new sexual perversion is being paraded in front of us.

And not only that, but also we are reminded from the Scriptures how God saves sinners. We know this to be the truth, that Jesus Christ is coming to the world to save sinners, and indeed he does.

This session I wanted to ask Stephen Black, we want to kind of discuss what kind of opposition, what kind of opposition have you faced in your own experience, and what kind of opposition are you observing in the broader context to this type of ministry that you're engaged in?

And we want to think about the three forms of society. What kind of opposition are you facing from the state, from the civil government?

What kind of opposition have you seen from the church? And what kind of opposition from families of those to whom you're trying to minister?

We'll start with the state. Okay, well the state, depending on where you are in the

United States, but in Canada it's already it's a done deal.

C4 made it to where anybody that speaks publicly on the airwaves or in any way to denigrate an

LGBTQ person as being sinful is against the law. And so the

Human Rights Campaign and the Southern Poverty Law Center have done a great job at coming beside state legislators and convincing them that anybody that communicates a way of freedom from homosexual orientation is called conversion therapy.

And so now they've branched into, they first were attacking therapists and doctors, now they've branched into anyone, even pastors, that would communicate possible changes, conversion therapy ministry or conversion therapy churches.

And there are now over 14 states that have passed laws that no one under the, and get this this is interesting, pay attention to this, under 18.

Now why would they do that? Well because that is minors and adults it's kind of hard to pass a law in the

United States right now that adults, because adults can do whatever they want right?

They can even be a furry, which is you know dress up in a furry costume and that's their orientation.

That's how wild things are. But under 18 we're not gonna let anyone have the truth that they can actually find.

Now that is diabolical. Because think about that, you're going to remove counseling and care for minors.

And those are the people that need it the most. And it certainly was true in my case, I was so sexually confused having been beaten, having been raped, having been molested as a little boy.

By the time I was a teenager I was convinced I was homosexual from my experiences and from what everyone was telling me.

And so I definitely needed counseling and help. And it's ironic and there's over 45 municipalities now.

So you and one of them is here in Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. So Norman, Oklahoma has now passed an anti -conversion therapy bill.

Sadly we're not surprised about Norman. We have several families visiting with us that have come from California and we tell them, well

Norman's our little slice of California. It is true and people aren't recognizing that but you've got some real liberal, totally you know they're not they're not biblical thinkers, totally illiterate of God's ways that are in authority on City Council there.

So that's a tragedy. But that's what's happening you know if you've got a nation to the north of you and a nation to the south of you.

Mexico is also wanting to pass a C4 type bill. In Catholic world, which they've had some pushback, thank

God, because there are some Catholics that actually believe in the divine intention of God, one man one woman.

Even though we just two weeks ago we had the Pope announce he wants to bless same -sex marriages.

So we have this this resistance that's going on in other countries in England and Denmark and all of the

Scandinavian countries have pretty much completely embraced this ideal of LGBTQ plus sign, very important, plus sign orientation and anyone that stands against that is actually a bigoted, hateful person.

Would your book fall under the category of hate speech or yeah but even the conversion therapy materials right?

Yeah absolutely. Yeah my book would be outlawed in Canada. Okay I thought so. Yeah it would be and there are many many books that were taken off Amazon because of that.

I think mine's still there on Barnes & Noble but there were there are others that have been taken off.

I think matter of fact that Robert Gagnon's book has been banned in Canada too. The Bible and homosexuality.

You know something that was interesting it was maybe a couple of years ago maybe more than that I was reading about couples in the

Scandinavian countries that when a man and a woman got married that very often that they would keep it secret and not tell their friends because of social ostracization if they found out that they had been married as a heterosexual couple that that was that was considered to be shameful that they would even engage in something that was considered a form of classic oppression, that form of sexual relations was.

And that's what they call it is it is a form of oppression from the roots of Catholicism and Christianity.

Yes exactly. It's crazy. Yeah it's crazy. So we have heard a lot of that opposition from various forms of the state and we talked about you know the the federal level and then some states have outlawed it and then some municipalities some cities have outlawed it as well and so we see that if you are wanting to get help and you need somebody to help you you're out of luck if you're in some states.

Thankfully if municipality you should be able to you know take a little drive but still it's not a good sign to hear that and we have heard a lot of terrible things going on in Canada and also in the

UK and so forth. Just saw a little interview wherein a man was going through the statistics talking about how 600 people in the country of Russia had been imprisoned last year for things that they put on social media in the

UK it would the number was 3 ,300. In Russia it was actually 400. You overshot it by quite a bit.

Yes I did I did but in the UK 3 ,300 people had been put had been arrested and now are felons because of something they put on social media that did not meet the approval of these censors.

Thankfully our social media over here in the States is is not government influenced. Yeah if we did have video you can see the expression on Chris's face the tongue is all the way into the cheek.

So we're but we're talking about the legislative side or even the executive side of and we can get into the judicial side of governance or state opposition but what about the bureaucratic side of state opposition have you had touch points with things like the

FBI or DHS or these these organizations that can kind of move unilaterally on this stuff and make up rules as they see fit and then enforce those rules how much of that opposition have you had personally?

Well I was a part of a lawsuit against Biden we were suing him and the federal judge was going to hear our case and then all of a sudden it all just got scrapped.

If you do not believe that there are other powers behind these people you're very naive because there is some real wickedness going on and clearly our lawsuit was pretty black and white on human sexuality and life and in dealing with this issue and that people should have a choice because he signed into law pretty much the what's called the

Equality Act at a presidential level and so all federal institutions must bow down to LGBTQ plus sign accommodating you have to be completely accommodating and now even to accommodate trans surgery and trans medicine and so this stuff is already taking place in our government and so with that and with some other gay activists

I've had friends who have literally have the FBI show up at their homes to harass them and ask them questions a good friend of mine

Peter LaBarbera went through that and and it was as a result of myself and him dealing with a gay activist on Twitter by just tweeting out the truth about this gay activist who is a serial pedophile rapist and was convicted of that and because of that he got the

FBI to investigate and harass Peter at his home and now the nice thing was is that this particular agent had you know some common sense and he understood what was going on but don't kid yourself there are people that are so far left that they would like to do that and they will do that with people who are communicating righteousness and pastors in the future and I have often wondered when will it be the day that I'm at one of these

Patriot pastors conference and I'm preaching on this and the FBI show up hmm it was interesting we were studying the book of Philippians in our

Sunday school right now and early on in Philippians and of course Paul's writing from jail right he's in he's the

Roman prison he's writing to the church in Philippi he's got this wonderful relationship with him but he's writing to them you know hey look

God's bringing this all about for good I'm in prison I'm preaching the gospel to the prison guards and you know

God's doing something good here but then he also says in verse 15 of chapter 1 some indeed preach

Christ even from envy and strife and some also from goodwill the former preach

Christ from selfish ambition not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my chains but the latter out of love knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel and then

Paul says what then only that in every way whether in pretense or in truth Christ is preached and in this I rejoice yes and will rejoice and we thought was a kind of an interesting moment here in the letter where Paul identifies that some are preaching

Christ in such a way that they are aiming to add to the affliction of Paul meaning that they're looking at the fact that he's in prison and if that was a knife in his leg they're now twisting it yeah like so we have this idea you know that sounds kind of weird but actually it's not all that weird we have many present -day examples in the

North American church and in broader across the globe in which if there's a pastor who's faithfully standing for the

Word of God on this issue or others and he gets into trouble so to speak with the state he ends up in prison perhaps or he's being fined or there's a great deal of scandal surrounding him others who also preach

Christ point at him and they say you're doing it wrong right and you're suffering because you're doing it wrong and if if you were being more loving you wouldn't have these problems right and they'll say they'll label you you're a bully hmm they will say well if you were really following the

Lord if you were really a man of God you wouldn't have had these things happen to you and ironically the probably one of the greatest men of God the most anointed certainly touched by God to give us the

New Testament the majority of the writings Paul is imprisoned and I've literally heard people say like other friends who are bold preachers out there and they say well he got what was he deserved it because he you know he provoked them or you know he did it the wrong way and of course each of us have our different giftings and the evangelist and the prophetic soul preaching the truth of God's Word is going to come across very black and white that doesn't mean he's doing it wrong or that he's wrong or outside the

Spirit of God and I love it when you hear the words of Jesus the greatest man born of a woman was

John the Baptist yeah and so you know what if John the Baptist were to show up in most of our

American evangelical churches today I think he would be saying you brood of vipers you snakes and of course saying those kinds of derogatory terms and calling out sinful leadership would be considered hateful and unkind in this modern -day

Christianity yeah Matthew 5 11 12 and blessed are you when you when they were vile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you and I know this we talked about the context of this the scripture earlier today and when thankfully

Andrew brought that up in our discussion but it does remind me that the cause of the persecution should be if it is the cause is us acting righteously we should be exceedingly glad yes we should be and we should be glad and I think that passages like that which sustained me in my prayer for our

Canadian brothers who were pastors who who went to prison simply for saying we're going to continue to gather continue to have

Lord supper continue to preach the gospel and Caesars not going to tell the church when and how to gather and when and how to worship and these men went to prison maximum security prison and TGC Canada wrote articles about how you know they didn't have that shouldn't have happened because you know they're not doing it right and I think that that's an example that's fresh in my mind but it also comes to ministries like yours

Stephen wherein because it does not approve of the things that the world approves of and causes a great deal of consternation controversy

I know you've been in the middle of a lot of controversy controversy crops up and then folks in the church might oppose perhaps some of the things you stand for some of the ways that you go about maybe they say well we agree with what you are saying but we think you're going about in the wrong way have you faced that I have and I am pretty bold especially get behind a pulpit and I'm set loose on being able to proclaim the truth about these things and the corruption with the platform with leaders you know your audience who you're speaking to and when

I've been with leaders I've been pretty bold and I've even been shamed and condemned by your fame is because you are hateful behind the pulpit and I was like wow that is tragic because I am

NOT hateful matter of fact several times in preaching some of those times I've had tears running down my face at the the level of corruption that's come into the church when

I've even heard after I'd preached have a pastor come up to me and say but you don't understand

I'm saying did you not just hear what I shared and either but I have the biggest tithers in my church of gay children or you know you don't understand that this will cause a disruption in my home this will come

I have a gay brother and Christmas and holidays would be ruined if I and so they start all these excuses and it's like wow the very thing that actually did need to be preached was the very thing

I did because it upset these pastors it got them thinking and yet they're still capitulating and so I know that the

Lord has called me to be bold about this because it I have some some moral authority having lived it having known it having known what it takes to really overcome having pastored people for over 30 years

I think I have may have a little bit of experience with this and and I'm not saying that probably

I sincerely mean I know I have things to learn and I can grow and I can also grow in the discerning of the

Holy Spirit and what I should say and shouldn't say but you know we're human and we're and especially in the community of believers we're supposed to be encouraging and empowering this more not less and this is the tragic thing is we have people out there now and I couldn't name a slew of names and people might be surprised by them that are saying you need to calm down mm -hmm yeah given your what you just explained about preaching about the darkness talking and telling truth to these people in churches you're shedding light on what is dark there how much of the opposition in the church is actually letting those who have these orientations try to present themselves with light as though what they're living is filled with light

I'm thinking just given the parades we have colors everywhere we have bedazzled clothing we have light shows all this stuff to show off and we're really hiding all the darkness that lies behind a lot of this lifestyle how often does it happen in the church you mentioned earlier about a gay dance on a church stage they're trying to represent or trying to show you something beautiful with people who are living in darkness is that some of the deception or is that is that a heavy amount of the deception and opposition that we're seeing from the church well that's a great example

I mean you were talking about JD Greer it's no secret it's on YouTube with a what was a quote unquote gay staff member who had actually you know was found to be on Grindr and other things that were going on lip -syncing a song a

Whitney Houston song you gotta love somebody you know two men dancing on a church stage that you've got to love somebody and that's nuancing this idea that if you do not laugh and have frivolity around the subject matter of people struggling with homosexuality then you're being mean and and I understand what they're trying to do in that we're saying we're a safe church we think this is silly and funny and even our gay staff member we're calling him to come into repentance and yet you know you got the president of the

Southern Baptist patting this guy on the rear end as they're dancing and you're going okay there's something so compromised about that picture it is unclean it is literally making something that is so serious it reminds me of Ecclesiastes when you put a fly into a bottle of perfume that that that analogy is to joke about something that is so serious and and that's like ruining a bottle of perfume by putting a fly in it and this is what's happening in the church and it's happening everywhere under the banner of love and trying to understand people you got

Preston Sprinkle who is really a proponent of revoice in this movement of gay

Christianity and that is the level of and kind of communication that's coming in to these circles when these people are saying you've just got to accept people right where they're at and and there's a see how nuance that is because it's it's not actually saying you know we're gonna call these people into a deep passionate repentant contrite relationship with Jesus Christ in the fear of God we're just gonna accept them in their orientations in other words internal sin and let them be and so this is what's rampant in the church now at large and there's so many other people that are involved in this in the highest places of Christianity I think people would be blown away who they are it's interesting you've mentioned revoice and of course revoice is a conference but also a movement and it we could call it a para church organization but something that has found support from various churches and various groups even from Covenant Seminary and some some

PCA churches thus far but we also there's also been support from some other denominations as well but there's other groups like this right now it's not just revoice there are other groups that we should be aware of like living out from the

UK mm -hmm and we know that there are websites publishing groups like Desiring God or TGC that have not always been very good on this issue and they're sometimes very compromised what do you see in terms of these para church organizations that often families are trying to go and try to find some kind of resource to help them but what which ones are not being very helpful and actually leading people astray well you mentioned it's pervasive

I mean because Nate Collins came out of the the Southern Baptist theological seminary and while he was there he was actually teaching inclusivity with the blessing of Albert Moeller and I was at the

ERL see on homosexuality in 2014 I believe it was and you've got you know them right on the stage literally giving pass on some of this and Albert Moeller repenting of not believing in orientation in his own words

I watched and and so you you see this stuff and so this level of corruption Michael we what we are talking about is pervasive behind the scenes and literally a pastor

I used to really hold in high regard you know when I brought up the Tim Keller situation with living out and made all kinds of excuses because they were a part of this community of PhDs and so it's a good kind of a good boy society good old boy you know we're smart and we have the

PhDs and yet they're circumventing on this particular issue the truth of holiness and really propagating unbelief that people can really find lasting freedom and a mental soulish inside their soul change and I know it's possible because it has happened to me and I know many others that it has happened and the desires wane away as you continue to walk in sanctification and you do walk in actual real freedom freedom realized that's good to hear well we know that there's opposition sometimes from the state and then unfortunately there's opposition from from some churches and from some church groups and sometimes very well funded with very loud voices there's opposition but then also have you experienced as you try to help someone that you get opposition and they get opposition from their own family has it happened oh absolutely yeah it really has

I remember one young man who actually came as a result of being at a revoice conference and Greg Johnson had actually said my name in his workshop and pointed to this study and said

I was a liar so this young man actually lived in Stillwater Oklahoma and so he wanted to confront me and ironically we became friends and I started ministering to him and I let him really shoot at me and I would unpack it with him and lo and behold he surrendered his life completely to Jesus and for the first time of his life he was able to actually start dealing with a root cause which was one of the most shameful darkest things of his life that he was able to confess and that was incest how his father used to sexually abuse him and so when he was finally able to start dealing with the pain and the results of his life he started walking in freedom and so I have seen this where one time

I had a young man who was actually being sexually abused this was back in the 90s so a long time ago by a local football coach and but it wasn't at his school he would actually drive to another city and a football coach at this at this high school would invite him home and this young man noticed oh he's married and has three kids and if so this football coach was actually having sex with a 16 year old boy and his oldest was 14 and you're going this is unbelievable well when

I of course DHS in my position I had to make a report of it and I tried to talk the parents into making a report of it and the parents you would have thought that I was destroying their home because the parents were angry that we were even gonna report it and it was like this is this is a football coach in a high school and if he's willing to do it with a 16 year old boy showing up at his house from another part of town you know this is ongoing mm -hmm and so this was pretty tragic so yeah

I've gotten some pushback I've even had parents angry I've had situations where one pastor told me well we don't have that problem in our church

I'm like I'm looking right at him thinking about I'm ministering to your worship leader you don't even know and your worship leader is confirming you are not a safe man hmm and so there are all kinds of things like that that happen in confidential pastoral care ministry well it's something that everybody who knows you and supports you you know that's something we wanted to bring some attention to you have a lot of opposition you know coming your way but you're not alone because our support of you is more than financial though that's important but it's also praying for you and God would give you the strength to continue this ministry despite several levels of different opposition yours is an increasingly unique ministry as other ministries have gone the way of lesser resistance to try to avoid some of this opposition but we're thankful that you're continuing on what you're doing and I really enjoyed the stories that you just are to begin you're mentioning about that young man from Stillwater Oklahoma who went to that Revoice conference and then but his whole life got turned around and that's the kind of story we want to talk more about in our next session and talk about how it is that God through his word is faithful by his by his grace and through his son using his servants to to help men and women who are caught up in sexual bondage and all manner of perversion to deliver them to redeem them and to heal them and we're gonna talk about that in our next session right now

I think we should have another resource recommendation for anybody who's interested in these particular issues

I think Stephen you had something that was kind of standard and you already mentioned it a little bit yeah

Robert Gagnon dr. Robert Gagnon PhD many years ago decided to set out to do a thesis on homosexuality it ended up being a book it's called the

Bible and homosexual practice what the text and hermeneutics really say and what's great about it's a textbook it's well footnoted and it's scholarly and so I've had people say wow that's a that's a really hard read because he gets into really detailed historical information and legal information as well in our world in context of the

Bible and so if you are somebody who really wants to know all the scripture in Hebrew and in Greek and he's also a

Greek scholar and unpacking it and making sure you're really clear on this that is a an absolute we call it the gold standard all right well

I'm gonna go somewhere on the other end of the spectrum from scholarly into a novel written by Doug Wilson rides out the ride a sex rules novel which is a book that is a little bit of prophecy actually as Doug Wilson put some themes in his book that are already now coming to pass in our nation so it's a story about how a young man was the last straw that broke the camel's back and initiated a civil war in the

United States of America and it all happened from an incident where he threw a sex robot into a garbage compactor and was charged with murder because the owner of the robot identified the thing as his wife and so it's an interesting thing it seems outlandish but actually it's not that outlandish on this day when you see how things are going so very interesting book rides how they ride a sex rules novel kind of putting some of these concerns and considerations into a situation that tells a pretty good story well do we want to move on to what are we thankful for Michael I am thankful for my wife

I'm thankful for her constant labor in the home she is always working overtime and with six children to to look after and to love and to nurture she does a fantastic job and I am very thankful for her so often she's holding down the fort when the pastor has to go and I'm just very very much appreciative of her

Amen Steven I want to say I'm thankful for my wife as well and also my adult children that they've had their own because of what their dad does their own pushback and my son who when

I he was growing up I had to deal with the feelings of you know he's he's a strong man he's six foot four he's super macho and just the shame of having a father who was a homosexual in his past and he has so encouraged me by saying dad

I couldn't be prouder of you because of what you have done and the way you've lived your life and your willingness to speak the truth from your place of repentance so I'm really thankful that my adult children

Mandy and John I have a daughter in heaven charity they were all very supportive of me and always have been and my wife and and really a hard line of work and trusting the

Lord for provision and in the early days we our provision was really tight and things are a little better now but you know it's as a minister you know we don't make tons of money and they've all been so supportive so grateful so grateful amen

Chris I'm thankful for the children that God has given to me growing up as a boy that's what

I know but now having the blessing of having children of both genders and raising them and just saying wow they're different they're not the same raising this little boy is not like the last three times we did this is very different so just to see how

God works in their lives what communicates what resonates with them but then even I'm learning and growing and being sanctified by trying to to raise them in the fear of the

Lord and saying just what that looks like from a father's point of view and what it must be like for God to have to chastise me because he loves me and having that responsibility is just such a blessing amen kind of to piggyback off that a little bit