Christians, more clearly than others, can see the tidal wave of pain that is on the way. Sin carries in it its own misery.”
It’s been nearly a week now since marriage for gay and lesbian couples was legalised in New York and since hundreds of thousands of Americans celebrated homosexuality with gay pride parades, not only in New York but in cites all over the nation.
Homosexuality and its celebrations are nothing new,
“[Homosexuality] has been here since we were all broken in the fall of man,” he wrote. “What’s new is not even the celebration of homosexual sin. Homosexual behaviour has been exploited, and revelled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia.
“What’s new,” he underscored, “is normalisation and institutionalisation. This is the new calamity.”
America, and the rest of the world, is moving toward the institutionalisation of homosexuality. Most are doing so in the face of the fact that the Bible clearly and always condemned it a seed of self destruction for any nation. Yet the Bible makes it clear that homosexual behaviour is sin, “Alongside its clearest explanation of the sin of homosexual intercourse (Romans 1:24-27) stands the indictment of the celebration of it.
The Apostle Paul said, “Though people know intuitively that homosexual acts (along with gossip, slander, insolence, haughtiness, boasting, faithlessness, heartlessness, ruthlessness) are sin, ‘they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them’ (Romans 1:29-32).’ The apostle Paul said of those who flaunted their homosexuality in his day; “I tell you even with tears, that many glory in their shame,”(Philippians 3:18–19).”
For the first time since it began tracking the issue of same-sex marriage in 1996, a Gallup poll last month found that a majority of Americans (53 per cent) believe marriages between same-sex couples should be recognised by law as valid.
Moreover, 56 per cent of Americans say gay or lesbian relations is morally acceptable, another Gallup poll found in May. Only 39 per cent perceive homosexual relations as morally wrong. Regardless of what polls say, God’s law is not cancelled oit by a majority or democratic vote.
One rotten apple can eventually destroy the wholer barrel.
I am not looking for a political debate on the subject but the Christian Church has always condemned it as morally wrong and devastating to a nation.
It is a sorrowful thing that New York State has done to the nation. And like a domino effect many feel it will cause other states to do so. Homosexuality is an assault on God and the dignity of man, and it certainly will have long unintended consequences upon other states as well. The nation will eat the bitter fruit of its own sins.
God does not hate homosexuals but he sure does not approve of their morally illicit lifestyle. As the cliché goes, “He loves the sinner but not their sin.” Those who promote this life style will have as much to answer for before the judgment bar of God, as any practicing homosexual.
Whether heterosexual or homosexual we are all guilty of sin before God and whoever calls upon his mercy can be saved from the penalty of their sins. The irony is that New York defied His awesome mercy and celebrated the sin of the public acknowledgement of homosexuality.
Why do Christians lament over what happened last week? It’s because they know history, they know the Bible, and it’s because they can see what is coming down the pike. No one escapes the unalterable truth that we reap what we sow, and that we reap more than what we sow God’s moral laws are written into the universe as irreversibly as the laws of gravity, chemistry and physics. Christians are not perfect in their walk and talk or their behaviour; but the major difference is that they weep over their sins, they confess them and repent of them; but they surely do not brag about them and certainly do not celebrate them.
They cling to that promise, “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)
I Thessalonians 1:10 reminds us, “…even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”
As Christians we weep for New York
Gay activists are already working to push similar legislation in Maine and to defeat a measure amending the constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman in Minnesota.
Have your “civil unions,” just don’t try to redefine marriage as it has always been defined for over 5000 years. God created sexuality and made it clear that it was between a man and a woman and that it was to be experienced with holiness and joy.
“His will is that a man might leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and that the two become one flesh “ (Mark 10:6-9). In this union, sexuality finds its God-appointed meaning, whether in personal-physical unification, sensual jubilation, or fruitful procreation.
I feel a little bit like the Psalmist who wrote, “My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law.‘ (Psalm 119:136).”
Pray For Your Country
Pastor Bob