Sept 15, 2008
Rare honesty from a Gay Activist
The modern gay movement is one of “casual degrading sex, drug abuse, and misery.” This statement is not a quote from some right-wing Christian organization. It is part of the findings of British homosexual journalist who produced the 2006 documentary, "The Trouble With Gay Men."
Simon Fanshawe created the documentary after becoming alarmed by the extreme emptiness and destructive nature of the "gay lifestyle." The film, made for BBC 3 television, questions the emotional and psychological immaturity, narcissism, nihilism, and self-destructive tendencies of many in the homosexual community. Fanshawe says he wants homosexual men to "grow up" and get beyond their state of "extended adolescence."
According to Fanshawe’s own website, “He is a leading champion of diversity and has been active in gay rights for thirty years.” He goes on to say, "We've fought discrimination and prejudice, only to wreck ourselves with drugs and wild sex."
It is rather amazing to find a leading homosexual who demonstrates such honesty. Most gay activists are unwilling to say anything negative about their subculture. Fanshawe freely admits that his documentary is not being received well by some folks, saying his film will “burn every bridge in the gay world I've got." One fellow gay man who objected to his work told Fanshawe that he is "the closest thing to a straight person in a gay man's body I have ever met. There should be an operation for you, dear."
The liberal media completely ignored Fanshawe’s film. It is not fashionable to say, “Gay men are so 'hardwired' towards finding casual sexual encounters, some going as far as plastic implants to enhance their appearance, that finding genuine intimacy is 'practically impossible.'"
The level of shallowness is amplified with the use of drugs like crystal methamphetamine. Fanshawe interviews a homosexual man, who could not be identified for fear of reprisals from drug dealers, who said that crystal meth is preferred in the gay community because it reduces the inhibitions and allows sex to be brought to an "animalistic" level "devoid of emotion." The film says that one in five gay men in London use crystal meth.
Another disturbing point made by Fanshawe was the willingness of gay men to engage in "unsafe sex." Despite the AIDS crisis being well into its third decade, homosexual men continue to risk death with unprotected sex. One in nine gay men in London is HIV infected, and new cases of HIV have doubled in the city in five years. Incidents of syphilis have increased by 616 percent in the same time period.
It is a shame that Fanshawe is not saved. He presents a better indictment of homosexuality than any preacher I’ve ever heard: "Vast amounts of our leisure time are organized around sex, straight or gay. But what gay men have done is organize our identity around sex. And that is corrosive. And to make things worse, promiscuity has become the norm."
I think the main reason the Christian church has lost the battle with the gay movement is because it has failed argue in practical terms against homosexuality. Yes, the Bible does say, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination" (Lev. 18:22), but says this for a very good reason. Homosexuality is wrong because it ultimately brings heartache, emptiness, and self-destruction.
Instead of arguing against gay marriage from a hot-button emotional issue, the focus should be on how it’s based on a falsehood. What needs to be pointed out is that few homosexuals would choose to confine themselves to a monogamous relationship. The only thing they wish to accomplish by wrapping themselves in the ritual of a Christian marriage is a sense of legitimacy. It’s a sham for people to attempt to base a relationship on a faith that so clearly condemns their lifestyle.
"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator who is praised forever amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion" (Rom. 1:24-27).
-- Todd
The Rapture Revilers
An e-mailer this past week addressed an ongoing matter that is perplexing, in that Christians read the same Word from God –the Bible--yet the message the children of God take from the same passages they read can be so different as to be troubling. Nowhere in the Holy Scriptures is this divergence of inferred meanings more pronounced than those pertaining to prophecy yet future--narrowing the problem, thinking about Bible truth about the rapture of the Church
Here are the e-mailer’s words, with a few redactions for the sake of not wanting to violate privacy, or to cast aspersions on specifically named people.
“Hello Terry, I just wanted to ask you a question, and possibly have you post this on your 'Interesting Email' for other visitors who have possibly had a similar experience. I listen to [a well known Bible teacher and radio program host] every morning on my way to work. I consider him to be a ‘true born-again Christian’, and really enjoy hearing his teachings. He seems very knowledgeable of God's Word. I have never heard anything from him that contradicts the word of God. However, on a recent radio program, he was teaching on the millennium… [He] was expounding on 'premillennium,' 'amillennium,' and 'post-millennium'. I know that he has a theological education of these issues [that] exceeds most layman's understanding, but there was something that he said upset me during this broadcast. He happened to bring up the pretribulation rapture, and to me, he sounded as if he had contempt for the theory of a pretrib rapture.
"Now, here is where my question comes in. Why do most theologians today seem to have this contempt, if I may call it that, for any teaching on a pretrib rapture? To paraphrase [the radio host’s] on this, he said that he has never been able to find even one shred of evidence of a pretribulation rapture in the bible, and from the sound of his voice when he said it, I guess I formed my own opinion that he had contempt for this theory. Anyway, the point I am try to make here is that I realize Christians do not have to agree on this idea to receive salvation and enter the kingdom of heaven as long as they are grounded in sound doctrine concerning the true meaning of salvation: that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, and no man can come to the Father except through Him and His blood sacrifice on the cross. I just don't understand why a pretribulation rapture theory seems to provoke people to the point of becoming hostile of this theory, and sometimes, even toward the Christians [who] believe it.
Personally, I believe that the pretrib rapture can be found in Scripture if a person will just read God's Word with an open heart and mind, along with prayer for the Holy Spirit to guide them...”
This question by our Rapture Ready friend involves things that have always puzzled me, too, and I've written about matters attendant to the subject on a number of occasions. Why the vitriol, the seeming hatred for the pretrib view, even for those of us who teach the Bible from a pretrib rapture view?
I believe it flows from satanic rage that affects even the born again.
To know who is right--these like the radio host to whom the e-mailer refers, who believe the pretrib rapture is a lie from the pit of hell, as they sometimes put it--or we who teach the pretrib rapture, it is best to just examine what is going on all around us these days.
A large segment of the rapture revilers say that all prophecy was fulfilled with the A.D. 70 destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem by Titus and the Roman legions. Some believe the world has, since that date, been in the tribulation. They spiritualize and allegorize all prophecy we see as yet future. They believe that modern Israel isn't God's chosen, that God is finished with the Jew, and that the Church now has been given the promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Is God indeed finished with Israel?
God’s Word says that Israel will be a nation just before His Son returns. His chosen people will be hated. It will be at the center of all the world's national chaos and controversy. Is this happening, or not?
There will be a false peace made between Israel and its enemies that will affect the whole world, God's prophetic Word says. Do we see any peace process in progress that involves Israel, its enemies, and, in effect, the entire world?
There will be a great power due north of Jerusalem and Israel whose leader will think an evil thought. Do we see any sign of such a power due north of Israel? Take a string on a globe and put it on Jerusalem. Run that string straight up from Jerusalem. Does that string bisect any major city? Moscow!
Persia, the prophetic Word of God says, will be a key partner with that leader and his nation, Rosh, the ancient name for the area that now is covered by Russia. These and a coalition called “Magog” will invade toward Israel, according to Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39. Do we see any collusion between Persia (Iran today) and Rosh (Russia today)?
There will be a coming back together, the Bible says, of the ancient Roman Empire (the last empire of Nebuchadnezzar's metallic man-image as seen in the Babylonian king's night-vision). Do we see that development taking place in our news today? Yes. The European Union.
Many like the radio host/teacher the e-mailer mentions believe that this world will be made better and better until Christ comes back to assume the earthly throne. Do we see the world getting better and better? Or is the world getting worse, according to the daily and hourly news headlines, just like prophetic Scripture predicts?
There are another dozen or more signals I could mention to draw the comparison between the beliefs that the preterists and other anti-rapture teachers hold and the pretrib/dispensational view we hold. Space does not allow.
The preponderance of evidence, both biblical and literal (things in the news), comes down thunderously on the side of the pretribulational, premillennial view of eschatology.
Why do they hate the pretrib view and the rapture teaching in considering things to come? I'm convinced it is because Satan hates Israel and the Lord's plan to save remnants out of Israel and out of His creation called man in general.
These who hurl invective are deluded, in denial. I don't doubt their salvation. But I do doubt their faithful adherence to God's prophetic Word. They prefer man-made eschatology, and that is given not by the Holy Spirit, but by Lucifer, the fallen one. One prophecy in particular speaks to the rapture revilers’ attitude toward Christ’s coming in a sudden, unexpected intrusion upon a world that will be conducting its nefarious business as usual: “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Pet. 3:3-4).
--Terry
