Views on Homosexuality, Interaction with Lindsay on Gnosticism

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:32

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. Thank you for being patient. We had some software stuff we had to deal with that took a little time today, but hopefully got through it.

00:43

It's amazing how much of our lives are now spent with such things no one in the past could have ever understood.

00:50

First world problems, I guess they say. Lots to get to today. Let's start with... I saw, it's interesting,

00:56

I saw someone mention on Twitter yesterday, they said, I hope you comment on what

01:02

Francis said, and I'm going, what did Francis say? So I had to go looking it up. And so if you've seen it,

01:09

Pope Francis did an interview yesterday, I think at the

01:15

Vatican, basically saying that homosexuality should not be a crime.

01:25

It's a sin, but not a crime. Now, it's interesting. There are a number of things that biblically we would say would be sins, but not crimes.

01:37

But the question is, has it not been the reality of the experience of the

01:47

Roman Catholic Church in the vast majority of nations for centuries that homosexuality was both a sin and a crime?

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And at that time, Rome said nothing to those nations, which would include Italy. In fact,

02:05

I have to wonder, and I'm not sure how you'd even check something like this out, but the

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Vatican is a nation -state, is it not? Has the

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Vatican always distinguished between homosexuality as a sin, but not viewed as a crime within its borders?

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What about Italy? Spain? Mexico? Many, many places like that.

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We all know that it was only a couple decades ago that the

02:42

Supreme Court threw out all sodomy laws. And that means that when this nation was founded, homosexuality was a crime.

02:57

This does raise lots of questions right now in the midst of the Christian nationalism discussions, which no one was having only a few years ago, at least not in any full -throated way.

03:16

Back to Francis, it really demonstrates where he's coming from. I think any honest person, any honest

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Roman Catholic, will have to go, yeah, that's not where the vast majority of popes have been in the past.

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And if that's the case, then how much of the current theological teaching of the

03:41

Bishop of Rome, the infallible Vicar of Christ, is actually dependent upon his political background?

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Because he has a very strong and clear political background, which is very, very different than preceding popes, very, very different than Ratzinger, John Paul II, and those are modern popes.

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Jump back only a hundred years and you're not gonna find anybody, anywhere near.

04:11

Go back to the Papal Syllabus of Errors, okay? Go back to the Papal Syllabus of Errors from the 19th century and compare it with Francis today, and if you can't go, oh, yeah, there's big difference.

04:27

Big, big difference. Well, of course, there is. Major, massive difference. No two ways about it.

04:34

So, what does that tell you? If this man's theological application is primarily coming from his own political background, doesn't that tell you something?

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Isn't this why a lot of people have been, quote -unquote, red -pilled recently? And doesn't it tell you really,

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I mean, because in his comments he describes... His comments, he sounds like Andy Stanley.

05:11

You know, God's children are all loved the way they are. I find that to be such emotionally derived, unbiblical,

05:33

I don't know, mashed potatoes. You just spread it all over the place. It's just, there's no substance to it.

05:38

It's jello. You can't nail it to the wall. When you talk about God's love from Scripture, if you can't take into consideration the fact that it is

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God's purpose to sanctify us, to make us holy, that means to change us.

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He doesn't leave us where we're. And if when he, or Andy Stanley, are saying that God makes people gay, and there's nothing you can do about that, then you simply have to go, and that means

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I now need to start taking an exception to 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11.

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Because that's not what is found in Scripture. And there's lots of people who do that.

06:30

Lots of people. There are these quote -unquote progressivists in Twitter, and Dr.

06:43

Kevin M. Young, we're gonna look at some stuff he said in just a moment.

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But I've seen a bunch of people over the past couple days saying, you know, why do we even bother with this?

06:56

You know, he's just out here trolling us. No, he actually believes this stuff, and this is 15 years ago when

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I said, just prepare for a tsunami of apostasy on this subject. That's what

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I'm talking about. Once you abandon a particular view of Scripture, there is no basis for Christian Orthodoxy any longer.

07:24

There just isn't. And that's where these people are coming from. So, this is the situation we face.

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Roman Catholics are facing this in a much more, I think, painful way, in a sense, because like I said, it was obvious where Rome was for a long period of time, but Rome has the problem, as the late

07:52

Pope admitted in his new book, posthumously published, that because Rome has a directly anti -biblical discipline, which functions as a dogma, of precluding marriage on the part of its clergy.

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Now, of course, the whole issue of the priesthood, we can go into that too, that's, you know,

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I recently reposted my debate with Mitch Pacwa on that subject, but because of that, there is just a massive amount of homosexuality amongst the

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Roman Catholic priesthood, and because of that, there can't be any functionally consistent, long -term resistance to the homosexual movement.

08:48

When you've got the gay mafia in the Vatican, which, that's their terminology, that's people in the church's terminology, eventually things are going to change, and when society embraces that change, it'll probably change even faster.

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I mean, who's the next Pope? Look at the Cardinals that Francis has elevated, and then ask yourself a question.

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Is there going to be a hard right turn after Francis? Very, very doubtful.

09:23

Very, very doubtful. So, all this stuff about, you know,

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I've said many times when I first started studying Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholics would point me to the

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Bishop of Rome, we've got the Pope, we don't have all of the confusion you all have, and the reality is, the range of theological expression within Roman Catholicism is just as wide as Protestantism, and the

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Pope doesn't answer the questions. The Pope is not the final arbiter. You couldn't ask him one way or the other, and the funny thing is, when he makes it very clear where he's coming from, as he is right now, then people are like, that's not an infallible definition, you know.

10:15

Okay, not very useful, but there you go. So, I made reference to this.

10:24

Dr. Kevin M. Young posted a thread just today that I think is very useful, and I'm going to try to repost.

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We have a homosexuality playlist on YouTube, and those are primarily debates, oral presentations, things

10:50

I've done, sermons. I've asked that we add to it the six hours of response

11:01

I did to Matthew Vine when he first burst on the scene. He sort of disappeared.

11:07

Have you noticed that? I've not heard a word about him for years now. In fact, some people in the audience may be going,

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Matthew who? For a while, he was the poster boy for some type of believing

11:23

Christian acceptance of homosexuality type stuff, and he did a talk at a,

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I think it was a Methodist church, maybe, in Kansas, and the talk went viral, and so, like I said, we did six hours.

11:50

It was a hour -long talk, so I guess that would be five hours of response since we went through all of it, and then

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David Gushie came out as affirming. He was a Christian ethicist, and I think we did five hours of response to him walking through his presentation at Matthew Vine's organization's thing, and so there's a lot of material in that, like, 11 hours worth of stuff, and so I want that put in there.

12:21

The two or three videos that we've done, dividing lines we've done, in response to the, I haven't seen it yet, 1946 movie.

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It doesn't seem to be making much of a splash, but that may be because it's not on social media or platforms yet, and then last, the

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Sunday before last sermon at Apology of Church on on Sodom and Gomorrah, so I don't know how much all that would add up to.

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It would be way, way, way too much for anybody to listen to in a short period of time, but hopefully we'll get that up, and I'll be able to post that, and that'll give you a lot of information.

13:06

That, as a background to this thread from Kevin Young, and here's what

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I'm saying to you. I think all of us, I don't care, you know, you go, hey, you go debate these people.

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You've debated this subject in the United States, in South Africa, all over the place, and we're not gonna have this, so we don't have to know what you have to know.

13:30

The fact of the matter is, this subject, it has been rightly said, and this is interesting, by one of the best -known

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Southern Baptist leaders in the United States, well, all the best -known Southern Baptist leaders in the United States, obviously, that there's no place to hide.

13:48

There's no place to hide, and that's true. The irony is that on the last program, we talked about First Baptist Church Orlando, and I was sent, you know, all sorts of stuff from people.

14:04

Justin Peters sent me stuff demonstrating that First Baptist Church Orlando is gay -affirming.

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They have practicing homosexuals in their congregation. They're baptizing them without repentance. An entire gay community has become attached to that particular church, and it's

14:21

Southern Baptist Church, and Southern Baptist leadership is like, it's the

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Eleventh Commandment. You can't say anything. Thou shalt not speak evil of a fellow

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Southern Baptist, and that Eleventh Commandment, I mean, every single seminary president, every single entity head, the president, the vice president, should all be on this like a duck on a

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June bug, if they have any concern whatsoever about the integrity of the Baptist faith and message, but they don't.

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They're just sitting there going, they know. They know it better than I know it. They knew about this stuff long before I did, and they're silent.

15:05

They're silent because of the Eleventh Commandment, and there you go.

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So anyways, back to our progressivist friend here, who's a big weightlifter, big guy.

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Great, wonderful. Enjoy it while you can. I enjoyed it when I was a weightlifter. Eventually, stuff starts breaking down.

15:29

How I became LGBTQ plus affirming. Man, if you can affirm the plus, you're really out there.

15:37

Without sacrificing the authority of the Bible, a thread. Oh, without sacrificing the authority. Let's see if that's possible.

15:47

Oh, yeah, yeah. Number one, Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19. No one in the story is gay.

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This is ancient gang rape for power and domination. Bible never says the sin was homosexuality. Ezekiel 16, and Jesus say it was pride in hospitality.

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I simply posted my sermon from a week ago

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Sunday. That's pure lies. Could never be defended in public debate.

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That's why they won't debate it. It would be so simple to refute that paragraph.

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That, again, I'm not gonna repeat my sermon. Please look it up on Apologia Studios or on whenever we get our

16:32

YouTube thing updated with that on it. And you will see that while this is, that is...

16:43

Let me back up a second. What I was trying to say earlier is everybody, I don't care who you are.

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Homeschool mom, especially you. Homeschool kids. Every dad in the audience, you should be able to read through Kevin Young's thread and shred every single argument without having to look anything up from memory.

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Just because you know what the Bible teaches on this subject. We don't have any excuses.

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My generation, we got blindsided by this. It snuck up behind us. You didn't talk about like stuff like this in church.

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Okay. No, no, no. Too late for all that. If you're going to hold to any kind of meaningful model of biblical authority and biblical inspiration,

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I know it's not pleasant. I don't want to think about this stuff either. There is a heavy ick factor.

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There's a whole nine yards of it. I get it. But you've got to know that what

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Kevin Young is saying here is fundamentally erroneous.

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Indefensible from a biblical perspective. And you've got to know how to demonstrate. Because most people, most

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Christians don't. Because we don't, we're uncomfortable talking about these things.

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Now, there may be some background stuff about Toey Vah. About, for example, his quotation of Ezekiel 16.

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I'll bet you he only quotes verses 48 and 49. He doesn't quote 40. He doesn't quote 50. Because that's where Toey Vah is.

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Nope. Not gonna go there. Not gonna go to 2

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Peter and Jude. No, no, no. Don't want to see a New Testament interpretation of it.

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And Jesus did not say it was pride in hospitality either. He was using

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Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of God's righteous wrath. And pointing out they didn't have the light that that the

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Jews in Galilee had. And so their destruction would be worse. But you need to be able to, this stuff should be second nature to any mature believer in Christ today.

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If you're gonna, if you're gonna walk the streets and talk to people, they've seen all this stuff. They'll throw it at you.

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You need to be prepared. You need to be prepared. So, I did respond to that one and just say fully refuted by and posted

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Sunday's sermon there. Leviticus 18 .22 and 2013.

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We should know these. I've, I have admitted, I have admitted on this program,

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I graduated from seminary without knowing off the top of my head what these key texts were.

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Now, these aren't the only key texts. These are called, the homosexuals call them the clobber passages as does Andy Stanley.

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But these are the specific texts that are a part of a much broader biblical teaching on the subject of human sexuality.

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So, once again, if you go to, you know what we need to do? We need to, because I know you downloaded these in 2018 because I asked you to, we need to get permission from Pastor Smith to post ourselves the entirety of the

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Holiness Code series. Have it on our own servers or put it on something instead of just having to constantly send people to Sermon Audio to get it from PRBC's thing.

20:49

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he, by the way, just between you and me, he'd like to come by and watch the dividing line and chat and stuff like that.

20:57

So we can cue. Okay. So, Pastor Smith, some of you,

21:08

Algo will remember, Algo will remember, when Warren Smith was volunteering with us here at Alpha Omega Ministries, and man, he would come down to the radio station, remember?

21:24

And, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And my way of getting people to call and stuff back then, and it drove him crazy, was to threaten to start singing

21:37

John Denver songs. And this was back before we had quite the same size audience we have now, so sometimes to get people to call, you had to do dire things.

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And me singing John Denver might be one of those things, which, by the way, I happen to be a big fan.

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So I was very sad when he left this world. Anyways, so Warren is now the pastor of the

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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, where I was until 2018. And so, yeah, we need to talk with Warren and see if we can't grab the

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Holiness Code series, because that's 38 sermons on pretty much every text that you can deal with.

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But the point is, the first few sermons, I'm laying down the foundation. And, hey,

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I'm sorry for those of you, it's really funny. In 2018, a lot of you really appreciate...

22:45

well, not 2018. I started preaching that in... man, I forget what year it was. But when

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I first preached this, I think I finished up around 2016. When I preached that, nobody had any problems with anything

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I said. You listen to the foundation that I laid as to how to interpret, specifically the

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Holiness Code in Leviticus, and then we went beyond that into Deuteronomy and some of the other texts. That was...

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the only way to describe that term is theonomy. And nobody had any problem with it then.

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Because he didn't use the term. But if you listen to it, it was very theonomic. It was general equity theonomy, but that's what it was.

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And it wasn't because I was reading Rush Jr. or something. I wasn't. I was dealing with the text and dealing with the whole section and how to understand it in light of application today.

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So it is interesting. What? Well, yeah.

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Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, but Jeff would say he was back then. So, but yeah.

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Anyway, I know. I know. There's been consistency all along. There's been consistency all along. So we need to do that, though.

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Don't let me forget that, because I will, as soon as I get done with the program. On to the next thing.

24:12

Okay, so back to Kevin Young. We're not going to get done very fast at this rate. Leviticus 18 .22

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and 20 .13. Leviticus equals manual for ancient priests, not us, i .e.

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not binding. Which is why, between Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20, you have that not binding thing, that not binding text called love your neighbor as yourself, honor your father and mother.

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These are really surface level, I mean, you really have to be incredibly ignorant of scripture to buy this stuff that he says converted him.

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But there are a lot of people that have bought it. There are a lot of people that have bought it. So that's why

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I immediately said, you know, if you really want to dig deep and be prepared, you know, 38 sermons on the holiness code and related subjects.

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Um, Leviticus is a manual for ancient priests, but it's a manual for the people of God.

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And specifically what Leviticus is, you have a holy God dwelling amongst you, how do you be a holy people?

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Which is why Leviticus is one of the most commonly cited texts in the New Testament. And so to say it's not binding, it's not for us, is to show a massive ignorance, massive ignorance of the

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New Testament's use of Leviticus and of the principles found therein.

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Tehuvah, abomination, does not equal sin, wrong, or evil, but crossing cultural mores that is taboo.

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Well, sometimes it can. That it is a lie out of the pit of hell to say that's always what it means, especially because Tehuvah is used of Pesel.

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Now, I don't think Dr. Young's much of a biblical language expert, but the

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Pesel, the graven images, and those who worship them are

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Tehuvah. Huh. Is that just a taboo, crossing cultural lines?

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No, it's something that brings the wrath of God. There are two different words for male use, so it is about sex for power domination, no mention of LBTQ.

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I wonder why I skipped the G there. I don't know. Oh, oh, I see why, because it is talking about G.

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Actually, yes, arsonos that is used there is picked up by Paul, and applied in the

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New Covenant in 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1. In fact, that's where Paul derives the term, is from Leviticus 18 and 20.

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So, complete face -plantingly bad comments there, completely in error, sorry.

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For some reason, my camera thingy has stopped working, and we live in an area where I like keeping an eye on the old truck out there.

27:38

Well, it's not an old truck, that's the problem, that's why I need to keep an eye on it. It froze up, so I wanted to...

27:44

We're East LA today, what can I say? So, the material in Leviticus 18 and 20, fully refuted in the same -sex controversy, and in the other material that we referenced earlier, really, really bad comments on that one.

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Abandoned natural relations, Romans 1, 26 -27. That's something else we need to add to the playlist, is

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I did start doing a response to Brownson, because Brownson's the new big name.

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Um, well, he was a few years ago, maybe he's not so much anymore, but Brownson tries to say

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Romans 1 is an application of Stoic philosophy and stuff like this.

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There are 50 different ways, not only 50 different ways to leave your lover, 50 different ways to try to get around the plain teaching of Scripture.

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That's sort of been the song. Someone should do a parody, but actually make it true, along those lines.

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There are 50 different ways people come up with trying to get around the plainest meanings of Scripture. Here's another one.

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About hetero -idol slash temple sex. Paul quotes

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Jewish critiques of Gentiles exposing prejudice. Romans 2 -1 reverses Romans 1 with evocative.

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Paul calls hetero -acts shameful but evil, the same word he used for men with long hair. Okay, now, the only thing to mention there, because the rest of it is just complete wackoism.

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I mean, this guy should never do it. I would love to debate him, but it would be, wow.

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It would be epic. I would love to do it, though.

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I would love to do it, because all this stuff is just, as soon as you get into cross -examination, it would collapse like I cannot even imagine.

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In the background of some of this is this insane theory that Romans 1 is just a gotcha argument from Paul, and that Romans 2 changes all that.

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The absurdity is easily demonstrated, but if you've never heard something like that before, you don't see the flow of the text.

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You don't see how 1, 2, and 3 fit together perfectly, and they lead you to 319 and on into the presentation of justification.

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Then you can go, I've never heard of that, and it's an extremely minority view, extremely minority view, and certainly not a view of anybody who believes in the inspiration and authority of Scripture, which he's pretending he still believes in but clearly does not.

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Paul calls hetero -acts shameful, not evil. Now, you'll hear someone else who tried this once.

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We've got to make sure, Rich. I hope Chris is listening, because this was something that came up in my debate in 2001 with Barry Lynn.

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For those of you who don't go back that far, Barry Lynn threatened to sue us if we put the video of this stuff out, so we need to link to the

31:09

Barry Lynn debate, but especially the cross -examination period, because this is what he tried to do. He tried to say, well,

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Paul uses different terms here. He's got two different lists of sins, and obviously he had not been pushed on this since seminary.

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So, if you don't watch anything else, at least watch the cross -examination period, because he became so angry, because he was used to being on the media and being given softball questions and stuff like that that he could just easily knock out of the park.

31:46

He didn't bring a Bible to a debate on whether homosexuality is consistent with the Bible, and so I had to let him borrow this little...

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Man, I wonder what happened to that thing. I wonder... It was this little...

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It was like this wide, but it was tall, and it was the entire

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Bible, but it was so small. The print was so small. It was the only

32:10

English Bible I had with me, and so watch the cross -ex. I handed over to him because he didn't bring a

32:17

Bible, and he's struggling to read it because the font's so small. I get that part now. That was not purposeful.

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At that point in time, I could still read that size font, all right? And so I got out my

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Greek New Testament, and I pushed him on this point where, well, there's two different lists, and it doesn't say shameful, and just nailed him to the ground, because it just...

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It falls apart if you actually deal with the text. It was as bad as when Stravinskis tried to work with 1

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Corinthians chapter 3, and I just keep pushing on the text, pushing on the text, and he's got no answers.

32:55

It was just as bad. So the only thing that's true here is that when he says paraphusis, paraphusikos, that he used the same term that he used for men with long hair.

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So unless this guy's a wacko IFB fundamentalist, his idea is, well, if it means it here, then it must mean it there.

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Not allowing paraphusis to have a meaning in 1 Corinthians 11 and a meaning in Romans chapter 1.

33:26

They never... These people could never offer you an exegesis of Romans 1 if their life depended on it.

33:34

They can't walk through that text. They can't do it. Now, I can tell

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Kevin Young is that type of person who would ever listen to anything like this program, but pick up God It Justifies.

33:50

I did Romans 1, entire chapter on Romans 1. They can never do that.

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Never happened. Never happened. But again, sounds like someone's done some studying.

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All you've done is read... And I pointed this out over 20 years ago in the same -sex controversy.

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For these people, the more interpretations they can come up with, the better. It doesn't matter if they're all self -contradictory.

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If I give you one interpretation, and then I give you a second interpretation that contradicts the first one, hey, as long as they both contradict what

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I'm trying to say, we're good. We can contradict ourselves day in, day out. It doesn't matter.

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And that tweet is so filled with self -contradiction, it's not even funny. But they don't care. They don't care.

34:40

Won't inherit kingdom. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 -10. 1 Timothy 1, 9 -10. Paul avoids first century words for gay sex, instead creating a word to describe religious sex rituals and or morally weak exploitive sex for sale.

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As written, neither text can refer to loving, monogamous, same -sex relationship. As soon as you hear anybody fall into that, none of this refers to monogamous, same -sex relationships.

35:08

First of all, monogamy amongst homosexuals is less than 1%. Every single study has shown it.

35:15

So 99 % of male homosexuals are not monogamous. At all.

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Okay? Let's keep that in mind. Secondly, there's no such thing as monogamous, same -sex relationships in the

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Bible at all. None. Zero. Every single gamus relationship, a monogamous relationship, is a male and a female.

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Anywhere in the Bible. And if you're going to sit here and say, well yeah, but they didn't know back then. Did Jesus, Dr.

35:48

Young, did Jesus know? Did Jesus know there were people in every audience he spoke to that were transgender?

35:56

That wanted to have maybe a monogamous, same -sex marriage relationship? Why didn't he say anything?

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They'll never answer that. They will never answer that. Because they're abusing

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Scripture. And they're abusing Jesus. They will never answer that question.

36:14

If these things are good and right and just, and Jesus never defended them, you're telling me you're still worshiping

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Jesus? Secondly, why did Paul, and this, you should know why the first part of this tweet is, again, just utter lies.

36:36

You should know. Why? Because we have helped people to understand what's going on with the 1946 movie and its attack upon the meaning of arsenicoites.

36:48

Arsenicoi -tai is plural in 1 Corinthians 6. So we've gone over this.

36:53

We have gone over the Greek septuagint in Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20. We've gone into the

36:59

Hebrew. We've talked about, you know, if Paul made up this term, we don't know whether he did or didn't.

37:05

There's one, no, I remember, I'm not pointing this out, but we have new listeners. 22 years ago, working on the same -sex controversy,

37:17

I had back then what was called the TLG CD -ROM. It's now a subscription thing. You pay to use it online.

37:25

But you can go to TLG. Look it up yourself. There was only one reference that could possibly be pre -Pauline, but most dating of it put it post -Pauline.

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So did Paul make up the term? He could have. Did Paul borrow it from a rabbinic source of his time period?

37:44

He could have. Because it plainly, plainly comes from the

37:51

Greek septuagint, straight out of the text of Leviticus 18 and 20. So it's not that Paul is avoiding first century words.

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He's using God's law. He's using the very form of the law that the people he's talking to would be most familiar with.

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The vast majority of people he's writing to in Corinth don't read Hebrew. They have the

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Greek septuagint, which means they have Moses in Greek and say they know exactly what he's talking about.

38:21

It's what men do with other men in bed, and it ain't eating crackers.

38:28

That's how Jeff Neil put it the first time we sat down over lunch to talk about writing that book, and that's how he put it then.

38:37

Thank you, Jeff. So this is male homosexuality, which, by the way, back in Romans chapter 1, specifically says men burning with lust for other men.

38:53

This isn't older men, younger men, all that. Every excuse in the world has come up.

38:59

Romans 1 is clear. First Corinthians 6 is clear. What's furthermore never talked about by Young and his compatriots when they're trying to give these surface -level responses is that in 1

39:12

Timothy 1, 9 through 10, if you follow the sins as Paul lays them out, he is following the moral element of the

39:22

Decalogue, and so when he gets to the you shall not commit adultery, he includes homosexuality in the sexual sins precluded by the

39:31

Decalogue, by the law itself. It's right there. Oh, but maybe he just didn't know about He could have read

39:41

Gagnon if he wanted to. He could have read Michael Brown. We've been writing these books for a long time, a long, long time.

39:52

So, as written, both texts refer to abusive, whether monogamous or not, same -sex relationships, because every same -sex relationship is abusive because it's narcissistic.

40:06

There is no etzer kenegdo. Etzer kenegdo is the Hebrew term used in Genesis, describing the woman as the helpmate, the one who is the same as, yet different from, and corresponding to.

40:19

There is none of that in a same -sex relationship. That's why it's not in Scripture, and therefore there is no such thing as a loving, monogamous, same -sex relationship, because to be loving, love has to be defined by Scripture, not by the current social trends.

40:38

Then he has some common rebuttal, even if we accept that all that is accurate, which we just did not, and demonstrate it's not.

40:45

Jesus still never affirmed homosexuality, not so fast. Jesus likely did affirm LGBTQ +, and then you have to go and sign up for his

40:54

Substack to read the article, which I'm not going to do, but I can guarantee what it is.

41:01

This will be the lie about healing the centurion's pice, which they will turn into homosexual young lover, which is not what it means.

41:12

That is a complete joke to anyone who actually reads the language. It's just another one of those mythologies that the internet helps people out there.

41:21

What that means is every reason that he gives for becoming LGBTQ affirming was a lie, a bold -faced lie that anyone who wanted to know the truth could have found out.

41:35

That probably means that wasn't what the real issues were at all for why people have given in.

41:46

What makes that interesting is

41:51

Ryan Visconti. I've seen Ryan's name on Twitter before,

41:58

Ryan Visconti posted a thread that I found very interesting because it had to do with Andy Stanley visiting here in the

42:09

Valley, and I'm very glad that he posted it, and I'm just going to read it to you and make some commentary along the way.

42:18

On September 19, 2019, I was invited to a private dinner with about 15 pastors at a local church in Gilbert, Arizona to participate in a

42:29

Q &A with Andy Stanley after he finished speaking at a conference. I'd be really interested to know. Google Gilbert, Andy Stanley, and September 19, 2019.

42:41

See if, for some reason, something pops up. I'd be interested. Since I'm going to be reading over here,

42:52

September 19, 2019, and since I'm going to be reading over here, this other camera has started to become very lonely and feeling it's unused.

43:01

There we go. Hi. You can also see our really cool background back there.

43:08

My really pretty Monet and stuff like that.

43:14

Anyway, I also need to go to this camera once in a while to let a certain dear friend in Inverness know that I'm still thinking about him.

43:24

I'm not sure if you get that, but that's okay. After finishing the conference, the subject of homosexuality came up over the next one and a half hours.

43:36

Andy shared overtly heretical views that clearly contradict what the

43:41

Word of God says. I was shocked to find myself arguing with Andy Stanley, along with other pastors, despite our respect for him.

43:50

Andy Stanley's homosexuality—Andy Stanley's homosexuality is really a disability.

43:58

Let me put the quotes in. Is, quote, really a disability, quote, using the analogy that, quote, telling gay people that they have to stop being gay to follow

44:07

Christ is like taking a wheelchair away from a guy who can't walk, end quote.

44:15

Andy Stanley said, quote, I don't do gay weddings, but I can't say I would never do a gay wedding.

44:20

If my granddaughter asked me someday, maybe I would, end quote. That's scary for his granddaughter.

44:31

Worst of all, Andy Stanley said, quote, we need to make room for gay men who choose to be married to each other in our churches because that's as close as they can get to a

44:42

New Testament framework of marriage, end quote. Andy Stanley said, quote,

44:48

I believe in gay people. Some people are gay. They can't change, end quote, directly contradicting 1

44:56

Corinthians 6, 9 through 11, which is quite true. He said, quote, I know

45:01

I shouldn't let experience dictate my theology, but I have. Maybe I'm wrong, end quote.

45:08

Yes, he is. I debated whether or not—going back to Ryan here—I debated whether or not

45:14

I had a responsibility to share his remarks, but I concluded that because he shared these thoughts in private,

45:20

I wouldn't be right to share them publicly. I hoped that maybe he was just struggling with his faith and would return to biblical belief.

45:28

In 2022, at the annual DRIVE conference, Andy began sharing publicly many of the same sentiments with pastors and Christians.

45:36

In this talk, he never says homosexuality is a sin or that God can set gay people free or that gay people need to turn from their sinful lifestyle.

45:44

If anything, he holds up gay people as morally superior to regular Christians. He refers to all the pastors that clearly condemn homosexuality as clobber pastors.

45:52

He's talking about the material we reviewed on the last show, on the last program. Andy is brilliant and a master communicator, which makes him a master manipulator.

46:04

Listeners want to give him the benefit of the doubt out of respect. He keeps one foot close enough to the line so he can retreat if backlash becomes too strong and claim misunderstanding.

46:15

In the DRIVE 22 talk, Andy Stanley essentially admits his tactic. He says, don't take people's church away from them unnecessarily.

46:23

He goes on to explain that if a pastor comes out as openly affirming homosexuality, then half the people will have to leave their church.

46:31

He claims that a pastor's job is to nudge and lead people, not announce their new position.

46:37

He says we must be shrewd and cunning, and he surely is. This clip hits differently when you know

46:45

Andy Stanley has said gay people can't change. In our private dinner and in this conference talk, he never says homosexuality is a sin, or that it's desirable for gay people to leave the homosexual lifestyle at any point.

46:59

Be clear, when Andy Stanley says accept, he means affirm. Most Christians are clear the

47:05

Father will accept anyone who seeks Him, but we are clear that God will never accept sin. This is me speaking, it's that repentance issue.

47:19

He says it's clear how the LGBTQIA plus community is interpreting Andy Stanley's teaching.

47:24

So he quotes a guy, Andy Stanley is getting so much heat from the conservative Christians over his latest statements on queer Christians.

47:30

I applaud Andy for taking this seemingly small but historically significant step toward full LGBTQIA plus affirmation and inclusion.

47:38

Let me just mention, I didn't have a chance to track it down, but I happened to see this morning that Brandon Robertson, the homosexual that I said years ago when he first came out was talking about being orthodox and all the rest of this stuff,

47:52

I said years ago, we've talked about him a number of times, played a number of his videos, he's gone radically, swinging radically off to the left.

48:01

He likewise has done a video applauding Andy Stanley. They all see where he's going, they're not deceived by anything, they all see where he's going and what he's doing.

48:13

Going back to Ryan Visconti, Andy Stanley is clear what he thinks, supposedly Christians are weird and gay people are cool, and we're trying to figure this whole thing out, so he asks the cool gay people to be patient with us weird, confused

48:24

Christians when we've had this figured out for 2 ,000 years. I thank

48:34

Ryan for the thread and for speaking about what his personal experience was here in Gilbert.

48:42

Gilbert's an eastern suburb of Valley of the Sun, Phoenix, at a conference in 2019 with Andy Stanley saying these things to an entire group of pastors.

48:58

So with that, I suppose in light of the last,

49:07

I do need to get to a topic that I said I would get to today. I'll go ahead and leave these queued up. I have two clips, they're only, both of them are less than one minute and 45 seconds.

49:18

Yeah, but I'm going to have to expand on so much stuff. The other one's one minute and 16 seconds. I'll leave them queued up.

49:25

It's Andy Stanley again, and it's what unity is supposed to look like.

49:37

He's with Ed Stetzer, so he's a little bit more open with him. My understanding is this was a part of the he gets us thing.

49:50

The fact that the SBC was involved with that, again, just tells you where the

49:56

SBC has gone. It would be worthwhile to listen to them, but to respond to them in meaningful fashion,

50:08

I think we'll do on the next program, because like I said, it's...

50:15

I hope I remember. I'll probably shut the computer down. Yes, sir.

50:22

So the event that he was at, he was at Mission Community Church at what was called, it's the only stop that I can see, it was called the

50:32

Irresistible Tour. Yes, yes, yes, because... With Andy Stanley.

50:38

Yes, okay. Because I was directed to video that other thing he said, if we make the

50:49

Bible our authority, then so and so was from the irresistible stuff too. So yeah, that would make sense.

50:56

Yeah, so this is nothing new. His devolution away from any kind of orthodox view of scripture and the like is nothing new at all.

51:08

It's been going on for quite some time, and it doesn't look like there's anybody who can reach him and speak into his life to try to change things.

51:21

Might have something to do with his background and issues with his father, but we won't get into that right now.

51:28

Okay. All right, last thing that I... This is the one thing I did mention on Twitter yesterday.

51:37

Yesterday, there was a big old war on Twitter.

51:50

So we had James Lindsay make a comment concerning the

51:58

Christian nationalist book Stephen Wolfe, and...

52:06

Oh, I'm watching a bus barely squeeze past.

52:13

There's a big old homeschooling van parked out in the 21 feet long each, and so the space between is not as wide as it normally would be.

52:28

So I'm like, I'm watching that. Sorry. Anyway, there was a statement made by Wolfe in the book regarding Adam pre -lapsarian, before the fall, and the essence of the statement was that Adam would not have been happy in the garden perpetually, because Adam was made for heaven.

53:15

Now, James Lindsay's response was to say this is just classical

53:20

Gnosticism, and so there's this war developed out of that, and there's two people with the last name of Wolfe.

53:37

Gets confusing as to who's who at times. But this big exchange takes place, and some people...

53:51

There was one person I saw, and one of the problems with Twitter...

53:59

There might have been 20, but I wouldn't necessarily have seen them. It's just the way the platform functions and works.

54:09

But there was one person that said, you know,

54:15

Wolfe is wrong here, and in fact, any kind of Orthodox confessional position, at least from a

54:23

Protestant perspective, would have to say that he is wrong here.

54:29

And I agree. He's wrong. Adam was created for that context, and the idea that he would be, in some fashion, unhappy, unfulfilled, something along those lines, really is not a biblical position to hold.

54:56

And I'm not exactly sure where that comes from in Wolfe's theology, but it should be corrected.

55:06

It's not a biblical understanding of Adam as he was created and things like that.

55:13

But then I made the comment on Twitter. I said, I'll make a comment. I disagree with Wolfe's statement.

55:20

It's erroneous. But number two, that ain't Gnosticism. So last night...

55:28

Did you follow most of this last night? You didn't? Oh, interesting.

55:38

Oh, okay. Yeah, and it is hard to follow stuff. James Lindsay responded to me, and responded to my saying that I would discuss this on the dividing line today.

55:51

And we had a good conversation there on Twitter. I think he recognized that, and he says this in his discussions on the topic, that his understanding of modern -day

56:12

Gnosticism involves a major evolution from Gnosticism as it existed, say, in the days of Irenaeus, or even as it existed...

56:28

There was a form of Gnosticism prior to its encounter with Christianity, and then you developed a kind of Gnosticism that tried to find a place for this

56:44

Christ figure. And I've said a couple times,

56:51

Paul's commentary is either prophetic, or that encounter was already taking place in places like Colossae, maybe reflected in 1

56:59

John as well. But you have many different forms of Gnosticism in the ancient world.

57:09

The Nag Hammadi library gives us variations even then, because there wasn't a desire on the part of the

57:18

Gnostics to have what would be considered a consistent, systematic theology. It was an experiential mystery cult, and its essence was in the participation of people in that cult.

57:37

Valentinian Gnosticism develops in the 2nd century, and it is specifically designed to mimic

57:44

Christianity and to be a competitor to Christianity. It was the greatest danger externally that the primitive church faced, there's no question about it.

57:55

Valentinus knew the biblical faith well, and hence recognized the incredibly complex pantheon of eons and emanations and all the mythology of non...

58:14

there is no such thing as Christian Gnosticism, but Gnosticism not dealing with the

58:23

Bible, the New Testament. That was so complex that Valentinus recognized there needed to be a simplification for it to function as a serious challenge to the church, and so it seems very evident to me that that's what his project was.

58:46

And so there are differences, but what I said in my conversation last night on Twitter with James, he's looking at broad -spectrum concepts within Gnosticism and seeing how these things become applied, making connections with Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, Hegel, Marx, all into the modern period.

59:28

And I'm sitting here as Professor of Church History at Grace Bible Theological Seminary going, there are necessary definitional elements within Gnosticism for something to really be historically

59:45

Gnosticism. And see, the context of Woolf's comment is in a biblical context,

59:54

Adamic context, so on and so forth. And so I think

01:00:00

James recognized fairly quickly what my criticism was going to be in the very first tweets that he posted to me.

01:00:06

This is one of the problems with Twitter is I started responding before all of his tweets were posted, because that's how it works.

01:00:13

You've got 280 characters, and anyway. So I think he recognized, okay, it's not identical with the ancient

01:00:22

Gnosticism back then, and a lot of the spiritualism, mysticism that was definitional of all the

01:00:35

Gnostic forms in the second and third centuries is not necessarily present in this modern application.

01:00:44

But this idea of human beings being imprisoned, and the only way out of this imprisonment is found in receiving

01:00:57

Gnosis, special knowledge. We can see this playing out in the popular religion of the time in which

01:01:11

Marx is functioning. And even though they're pushing away on the existence of God, obviously there isn't the

01:01:24

Christian God, or the Jewish God, in Gnosticism.

01:01:30

Instead, you have a demiurge, Yaldabaoth, Yahweh, who is a mistakenly begotten deity.

01:01:42

When Sophia, Wisdom, not being in harmony with her male counterpart, contemplates the pure being, she gives birth, there's always sexuality in Gnosticism, she gives birth to Yaldabaoth, and it is through Yaldabaoth that the physical creation is made.

01:02:08

But since he is from the Pleroma, though he's kicked out of the

01:02:13

Pleroma, it depends on which story you're reading, but Sophia tries to hide him, but then she eventually informs the rest of the

01:02:22

Eons, and they receive her back in, and so on and so forth. But the point is, he has access to divine power, and since he creates mankind, then you have this spark of the divine that is trapped in the physical realm, and through the obtaining of Gnosis, you are able to escape back to what you should be.

01:02:45

And he makes the fascinating connection to the utopian visions of Marxism and other things related to it, and this is the argument that he and Michael O 'Fallon are making right now, that this

01:03:00

Gnosticism, Hermeticism, comes through various forms of Swabian Pietism and influence all of these people who are the people who then influence the modern writers that are creating the narrative that we're dealing with with CRT and cultural

01:03:22

Marxism and everything else. Okay. So, what was interesting,

01:03:31

I haven't heard anything back from Wolf about my comment that, you know, I think this, you're not being biblically sound in saying that Adam would not have been completely satisfied in the context in which

01:03:47

God made him if he didn't fall. It'd be nice to have a conversation. I think I can demonstrate that scripturally, but there wasn't a response from that side.

01:03:58

But it was interesting that James Lindsay and I could have this conversation, sort of clarify, and he's got, look,

01:04:05

I know what you're saying as a historian. I'm not saying that modern

01:04:11

Gnosticism is identical to that stuff back then.

01:04:17

There's been certain elements, sort of been de -emphasized and pushed off to the side, but his idea is the thrust of what made

01:04:29

Gnosticism so popular is still the thrust that is being used today in seeking to overthrow and to undo

01:04:41

Western society, which got rid of all that stuff because Christianity rejected

01:04:47

Gnosticism. So, A, I was glad that we were able to have that conversation.

01:04:55

There wasn't any harsh words or anything like that. The only further comment that I wanted to make is, as I contemplate that perspective as a person who teaches

01:05:11

Church history and as an apologist and as a theologian,

01:05:21

I would say that the connection, and I did use the term stretched connections, which said

01:05:31

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. Okay. I think the connection between ancient

01:05:40

Gnosticism and what we're seeing in CRT and Marxism and everything that is seeking to destroy humanity as being made in the image of God, the imago

01:05:57

Dei, because I would say what made Western culture great was the imago

01:06:05

Dei, was recognizing that mankind is made in the image God and that there is an objective truth beyond mankind, and that objective truth is knowable because God wants to be knowable, and he's spoken to us in his word.

01:06:18

And he speaks to us in the natural realm, but we only know that because of what's in his word.

01:06:26

And it is man's constant state as one who bears the image of God but suppresses that knowledge that results in the connections that James is seeing between these ancient rebellions, because Gnosticism was a rebellion against divine truth.

01:06:53

And modern rebellions, Hegel, Marx, the whole

01:06:58

LGBTQIA, transgender, everything.

01:07:05

James is right. There is a connection between these things, but the connection is not people in the modern period looking back and going,

01:07:16

I like that, or I'm going to pick from this. The connection, I believe, is what it means in Romans 1 to know that God exists and to suppress that knowledge.

01:07:32

It's suppression. And then the key term in Romans 1 will be found specifically in, after it says they are unapologetus at the end of verse 20, they become futile, foolish hearts darken, professing to be wise, and the key term is verse 23.

01:07:56

And there are two terms that are used. There's a strengthened term and a less strengthened term to exchange, the exchange.

01:08:07

They exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for an image and likeness of a corruptible man. I would say that the clearest connections you'll be able to make down through history,

01:08:17

Gnosticism and everything else, is in the exchange on the part of rebel man who bears the image of God, but will not deal with the holiness of God, hence suppresses that knowledge and turns his natural worshiping to the created order.

01:08:36

And the only way to do that is to exchange what you know about the true

01:08:41

God for what is false in the created order. And so the desire for a utopia without ever dealing with sin, the desire for autonomy without ever dealing with creatureliness, it's not just Romans 1, though that is,

01:08:59

I think, one of the clearest.

01:09:05

If people were to ask me, point me to passages of scripture you believe bear the clearest marks of inspiration,

01:09:13

I'd say Romans 1, because it speaks of man in any condition, in any culture, in any language, at any time, with an insightfulness that the psychological and psychologist and the psychiatrist will never get to.

01:09:32

They can't. That's where the connection is. Suppression and exchange. And the

01:09:39

Gnostics were doing it, Marx is doing it, and that's why you can see the connections between them.

01:09:46

And it's not just Paul that did this. Go back to Psalm 19. Psalm 19 will give you the exact same foundational issues that Romans 1 then explicates.

01:09:57

And in Romans 1, Paul's drawing from that foundation of Psalm 19 and then making application because what he's doing, even though the

01:10:08

LGBTQ apologists try to get around this, yes, all the

01:10:14

Gentiles under sin, then Romans 2. You think just because you've got the scriptures, you've got

01:10:20

God's law, that you're free of this? No. You violate God's law, too. Romans 3, therefore, everybody,

01:10:27

Jew and Gentile, under sin, only one way of being right with God, through Jesus Christ, justification by faith.

01:10:34

That's his whole point in Romans 1. That's the message, that's the gospel message for every single generation.

01:10:41

And the only way that any nation, at any time, no matter what our scientific knowledge ever becomes, will ever have peace between its people, because they're made in the and with God, horizontally and vertically, is through that gospel, through the submission to the way that God has provided for the restoration of that image, and that's through an empty tomb in Jerusalem.

01:11:13

That's the only way. And so, that's where I would see the connection.

01:11:19

And I think that's the biblical way of seeing that connection. That's viewing scripture as a whole.

01:11:28

That is its theme. That's where it's going. And so, the

01:11:34

Gnostics were rebelling against their created nature, they were professing to be wise, they're trying to find gnosis by which they could escape, but the reality is, the only escape is not by denying that I'm creating the image of God, and therefore changing what

01:11:55

God looks like, but to recognize I am a sinner, I am under the wrath of God, and he has provided the only way for me to have peace with him.

01:12:07

And that's true for anybody, at any time, and that's why it's a message for every generation.

01:12:14

And that's why the connection exists. Scripture does show it.

01:12:21

So, I don't know if that's going to be helpful to anybody, as you're seeking to navigate these things.

01:12:28

I hope and pray that in the not -too -distant future, the

01:12:39

Lord will, by his Spirit, pour out a revival, because if there isn't one, the depth of evil that I'm seeing in our world today is going to result in a massive amount of death.

01:12:58

A massive amount of death. I don't want to see my grandchildren going through this. God can sustain them.

01:13:08

God may raise them up to be the greatest generation ever. So, I have full confidence in his ability to do that.

01:13:18

But as a grandparent, you do not want to see them facing those types of things. And so,

01:13:25

I hope and pray for that outpouring of the Spirit of God. I think we all need to be praying for that.

01:13:33

And I hope that results in, because right now, it does not seem that even a tiny little group like Reformed Baptists can get along with each other.

01:13:48

And when I see the ease with which we Christians divide against each other, over miniscule things, tiny little things, and that we don't have unity on the big things that will give us the strength to stand in the time of persecution that's coming, it seems to me that is judgment.

01:14:14

And so, when I pray for the outpouring of the Spirit, that is a prayer for grace.

01:14:21

And one of the first signs to me of that grace being poured out will be more and more

01:14:28

Christians who can see what the important central issues are and stand firm on that without getting distracted by all the little stuff.

01:14:37

Because what we're talking about with Andy Stanley is not little stuff. It defines the church. It defines what sin is.

01:14:43

It defines what the message of the cross is. I try, the stuff that we deal with, sometimes you might think, well, it seems that's like, it's really off to the side someplace.

01:14:55

Well, I try to make sure that what we discuss, translational issues, authority issues,

01:15:03

Thomas Aquinas, whatever it might be, has a direct connection to having a healthy future church.

01:15:11

Because we're not a church. We are here only to edify the church.

01:15:17

We've always said that. We can never pretend to be something we're not, and we won't. But what do we pray about for the church?

01:15:27

Well, there needs to... I don't pray for a faux unity, because that's one of the clips

01:15:33

Andy Stanley was talking about. In fact, I called the clip faux unity.

01:15:43

When I see more and more believers naturally submitting to the full counsel of God and recognizing where that is to be found, that's when

01:15:57

I see things turning around. Okay, that's where I am.

01:16:03

That's where I am. And hopefully that's helpful to most of you in the audience.

01:16:09

Thanks for watching the program today. Next week, hopefully, will be normal, even though it's the week before I take off on Saturday.

01:16:22

So there's, I mean, who knows when the unit's going to be ready to go? Well, you know, if it doesn't have wheels on it, we're going to have to change our plans, unfortunately.

01:16:33

That would be really, really, really, really bad. We'd be renting one at that point. No, not getting that bicycle out.

01:16:42

No, not in February. No, not doing that. But we'll see how next week goes.

01:16:48

We may have to throw things up in the air. But we'll see you next week.