THE LOST POWER OF SIN TO CONDEMN

DID GOD GET IT WRONG?

The Gay Lobby thinks so!

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”                                                                       1 Corinthians 6: 9-10

The Holy Bible has for almost three and a half thousand years been the only standard mankind has had to learn of God’s holiness, justice and grace. The devil has spent an equivalent number of years seeking to corrupt God’s written word to us in order to lead men from the truth and miss what God has actually said.

If the Bible is to mean anything to His creation, then it must be presented in the simplest of language with no hidden meanings which can only be understood by those whom are consider themselves to be the “enlightened” ones.

Many subjects of the Bible have come under microscopic examination by sinful men in order to make sinful behaviour fully acceptable in a given contemporary society - few more so than the subject of homosexuality in our modern society today.

The statement below shows just how far the “Gay” debate has come in only 30 years and the quote stands as something of a monument to the scale of surrender by the Church to the Gay Lobby.

“Being gay is a gift from God,  but our culture doesn't understand that, and consequently...our culture, sends out messages that we ought to isolate."

And so goes the latest in the “war” of attrition being waged against the Church of God!

It may come as a shock to some of our readers (maybe not!) that the quote comes not from the Lobby, but from within the ranks of the so-called Church itself, namely:  The Reverend Ed Bacon (J. Edwin Bacon, Jr.), an Episcopal priest of the Diocese of Los Angeles has been the spiritual head of Saints Church, Pasadena, since 1995.

Bacon’s stance on homosexuality and gay marriage has been well documented as his Church was blessing same-sex unions for a number of years prior to him taking his post at All Saints. Bacon had to decide whether to continue with these blessings. He decided in favour of it.

At the last count, about 50% of the denominational Church’s throughout the world have either softened their attitude to the sin of homosexuality, or abandoned the historical Church’s stance completely.  Of course debate still rages in many, many Churches.

The “Love Gospel” of the eighties and nineties has finally begun to bare “fruit” in the visible church and a veritable army of gay ministers now stand in a myriad of pulpits, preaching a gospel of love which is no gospel at all.

Today it is easy to discern the widespread loathing for the Church in the Gay’s demand for a recount of all of Jesus’ teaching regarding homosexuality.
The basic stance of the Gay lobby is to declare that as Jesus never spoke harshly of the subject, so neither should the Church!

Thousands of “pages” are on-line to show us where the historic Church supposedly manipulated the translations of the Scriptures in order to condemn those that would commit abomination!

The truth is there were many subjects about which Jesus said little, and homosexuality was only one of them. Hell, for example, found scant mention on the lips of our Saviour and marriage and divorce managed but a few lines. Creation itself was mentioned in passing but once and completely absent from our Lord’s teaching was the reality of dinosaurs and their time on earth.

Whilst the Rapture of the Church has no direct teaching from our Redeemer. Though the “Two men working in the field...”, (Matt 24:40) is often cited as a mention of this much anticipated event, it actually has no relationship to the Rapture, for here those said to  “taken away” are under judgement - not blessing!.

Who would contend then, that because Jesus left the teaching on these subjects to His disciples and to His prophet Paul, the Church should remain silent on any of them today?

In my studies on this subject I have been both offended and bemused by the hysterical ranting of those who seek to point out why the Church is wrong to maintain that sodomy is still a sin.

One such article went to great pains to show all the supposed mistranslations associated with the Sodom and Gomorrah saga, and in fact, in every other place in the Bible where that behaviour is dealt with.

Jesus’ so-called defence of the Gays, it is said, is to be found in the use of the word “eunuch” in Matthew 19:3-12.  This teaching holds that “eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb” were in fact, gays and lesbians, made in the image of God and exempt from condemnation!

In other words, our writer states, that all homosexuals are born that way and sin cannot come into the equation.

How ridiculous! On the one hand the Gay Lobby claim that Jesus had nothing to say about homosexuality and then deliberately mistranslate the word for eunuch (Strong’s #5631) (Hebrew: Saris, ‘cariyc’ saw-reece / #2135 Greek: Ευνούχος'; eynouchos) to somehow mean homosexual!               

We should examine that passage of scripture a little more fully before we move on...

In Jesus’ teaching on divorce He concluded with these words: “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, doth commit adultery... But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.
For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” Matt. 19: 9-12.

As desperate as the Gay Lobby is to find acceptance in the eyes of the Church, their twisted arguments founder upon their absurd rendering of the text above and again in the incident where the Roman Centurion approached Jesus to heal his servant. See Matthew 8:5-13. Their argument goes like this: The soldier’s “servant” was in fact his homosexual “love slave” and his refusal of Jesus’ offer to visit the boy was out of fear that his servant would be won away by the attractiveness of Jesus!
This is a convolution of word meanings on such a scale that it constitutes nothing less than expository fraud and perhaps is the pinnacle of all blasphemies.

Throughout the Bible the context of any word always shows its principle usage and meaning and to teach that a eunuch is one “born a homosexual” and to translate “servant” (‘Pais” παῖς: - a Child, a young son or daughter, or a servant or slave) as a “gay love slave” are simply exercises in wishful thinking.
The apostle Paul lived his life celibate and unmarried. Celibacy is the gift of God - not Sodomy!

Sadly, this bitter debate over homosexuality has degenerated into nothing more than Gay and non-Gay bashing. Men everywhere it seems, have lost sight of sin and its consequence.

Jesus taught that “... For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. Matt 19”5-7.
As much as some folk want it... Jesus left no room for any variation in the marriage covenant! Marriage only exists before God as a union between a man and a woman! There is no room for two men or two women!
What the legislators of this unbelieving world do about laws and by-laws have nothing to do with the Kingdom of God and its inhabitants! Gays are free to do as they wish, according to the laws of the day, but their entrance into the kingdom of God must be on exactly the same terms as every other sinner who repents of his sin and turns to God - Belief in the name of the Lord Jesus, and go and sin no more under the terms of the New Testament! Did God get it wrong? We think not!         Rod Rowland