Mar 19
Homosexuality Is Immoral
Well, it looks like if I'm going to write an article condemning homosexuality, I better do it now. In the not-so-distant future, attacks on the alternative lifestyle might get me flogged and tossed into the stockade.
In the past few months, several media uproars have signaled an abrupt shift towards the acceptance of homosexuality as a normal sexual practice. The year is not yet into its fourth month and four well-known individuals have already been called on the carpet for speaking negatively of gays.
At the January Golden Globe awards, "Gray's Anatomy" actor Isaiah Washington used the word "faggot" to describe costar T.R. Knight. After news of his remark surfaced, Washington was forced to apologize for his "unfortunate use of words during the recent incident." He also entered "rehab" to deal with his homophobic issues.
In February, NBA player Tim Hardaway got into trouble for speaking his mind on the wrong subject. Asked during a radio interview for Miami's 790 how he would deal with a gay teammate, Hardaway said he "wouldn’t want him on my team." When Dan Le Batard asked Hardaway if he realized that his remarks were homophobic and bigoted, Hardaway responded, "Well, you know I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States." Hardaway lost major endorsements and was penalized by the league.
On March 2, Ann Coulter got into trouble for a speech she gave at a major gathering of political conservatives. While making a series of jokes about Democrats, Coulter said, "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot.' So ... I can't really talk about Edwards." Anyone familiar with Coulter would know that this is standard fare from her. A year ago, she called former Vice President Al Gore a "total fag" on national television, and it barely caused a stir. This time around, the reaction could not be called tame. Coulter has been blacklisted by nearly every major media organization.
Marine General Peter Pace is the most recent person to draw fire for speaking negatively of homosexuals. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Pace compared homosexual activity to adultery and said the military should not condone it. "As an individual, I would not want (acceptance of gay behavior) to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior," Pace said.
There is no justification for calling someone defamatory names like queer and faggot. The Bible says we will stand in judgment for being angry with someone without a just cause and are in danger of hell fire for labeling someone as a fool.
"But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire" (Mat. 5:22).
With that being said, nothing is wrong with saying homosexuality is immoral. Having called sin for what it is, General Pace has no reason to offer an apology.
The Bible includes a long list of passages that condemn homosexual practices. I've always been baffled by people who try to gloss over God's strong condemnation of this type of activity. Rather than trying to reform Christianity, my recommendation would be for these people to start from scratch their own gay-friendly religion. For some strange reason, George and Bob want to walk down the aisle and receive marital blessings from a deity that promises to someday send them both to the lake of fire for their abomination.
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [shall be] upon them" (Lev. 20:13).
"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet" (Rom. 1:26-27)
The driving force behind the effort to legitimize homosexuality is the liberal media. Satan is a spiritual entity that lacks the ability to act in this physical realm. He also lacks the ability to be in more than one place at the same time. To get around his limitation, the devil and his legion of fallen angles utilize the services of human organizations to the fulfill their demonic agenda. The various media outlets have been the perfect tool with which to control the fate of the nation.
The normalization of the gay lifestyle is probably the last major step in Satan's master plan for total moral corruption. Once homosexuality is freed of any social restrictions, the world will have arrived at the level reached by Sodom and Gomorrah. As a dispensationalist who believes in continual stage of development, I can only conclude that divine judgment is made all the more certain by reaching this end zone.
--- Todd
End-of-Days Scenarios Part 3
The rebelliousness of the creature called man is, in my view, manifest blatantly for the student of God’s truth to discern in a particular news story that occurred this past week. The media and politically correct crowd’s uproar over the U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff making the comment –when asked his personal opinion-- that he thought members of the same sex in the military who engage in sex with each other are committing immoral acts was quite telling. The voracious feeding frenzy to start the drumbeat for having Gen. Peter Pace removed from his position in the Pentagon has fueled new vitriolic invective against those who hold to such “unenlightened” prejudices.
God, incidentally, is obviously included in our ranks. His Word, the Bible –the instruction manual for the creature, mankind, whom he made from the dirt upon which we stand—says about homosexuality:
“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly,
and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was [fitting]” (Rom. 1:26-27).
The Creator’s Word against homosexuality is even more powerful in an Old Testament prescription for those who engage in that activity. (If it makes you angry, get mad at God, not me. I don’t make the rules. He does.)
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [shall
be] upon them” (Lev. 20:13).
I know what will be one of the objections: This was for the Israelites, not today’s people. Really? Well, in giving the prescription for living, God hasn’t changed for any people at any time. Jesus, we have established, is Creator of all things, and by His power holds all things together. This, God’s Word says about the Lord of all creation: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Heb. 13:8).
The problem is, as we’ve seen this week with this one issue, fallen mankind will not have the God of heaven rule on Planet Earth. Since the fall, man has determined to do what is right in his own eyes. This is an attitude for catastrophe. Human government is fatally flawed. These have tried to create a utopian earth for millennia. All efforts to do it their way –apart from God—have met with abject failure.
The earliest attempt of human government, which followed the flood of Noah’s antediluvian era, was Nimrod’s attempt to build the tower to heaven (read Genesis chapter 11). The Lord knew this would end in disaster for mankind, so He came down and separated the one-world builders by giving multiple languages, thus driving them to diverse places around the globe. But man has spent the millennia since that time circumventing God’s intervention. The one-world drive is again being pursued in a concerted effort by the powers elite. When things reach a certain point of depravity, God always has intervened. A prime example was when He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. (Read Genesis, chapter 19 to learn about both the depravity and the Lord’s intervention.) Which gets us to the thing about end-of-days scenarios I would like to explore.
Jesus himself set the prophetic stage for a future time when He will again intervene–catastrophically—into depraved man’s playhouse of lasciviousness. He said: “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all” (Lk. 17:28-29).
This is a description of a society, a culture, a generation going forward with business as usual. Jesus prophesied that it would be just like this, when judgment from heaven would fall, at the time of His end-of-days intervention. It is not, however, description of the tribulation era when Jesus comes physically to earth, as foretold in Revelation 19:11. At that time, as many as two-thirds of the earth’s population will have died in the apocalyptic judgments. It will not be business as usual, like the Lord describes here. The things that transpire here, though not as disastrous as things will get later in man’s last grasp to rule himself, will still be calamitous. And, the possible scenarios presented are mesmerizing. Let us look at my postulations, based upon the pre-trib view of the rapture, which, of course, we at Rapture Ready are convinced is the correct view, from God’s perspective.
Jesus’ description of Lot’s being removed from that condemned city is almost certainly a picture of the rapture of the only good God sees on this earth…born again Christians… the church Jesus began building, and which was born at Pentecost (in Acts, Chapter 2). Lot, Abraham’s nephew, although not a perfect example of living a godly life, was nonetheless considered a “just” man in God’s eyes. That is, the Lord saw Lot as righteous, a believer –one who accepted God’s governance over his life, accepted God’s salvation plan. Lot and his family lived in a society that was–well—much like ours. It was wicked to its black core. Incidentally, homosexuality had, in that society, become accepted as, even expected to be, part of life in Sodom.
God removed Lot, and His wrath began to fall upon that wicked, ungovernable people. Jesus indicated that this is exactly what will happen near the time of His coming again. It will happen at the rapture --at least seven years before He comes back and touches down on the Mount of Olives. The first part of God’s wrath, I’m convinced, will be His removal from the consciences of earth-dwellers. The people left behind will have rejected God’s governance. Now, raptured saints will perhaps, from the balcony of heaven, be given a God’s-eye view of whether the rebels' claim that they don’t need God to govern them is true.
Millions will vanish in a millisecond –an “atomos” of time-- the prophecy tells us. This nation, the United States of America, which had at the same time more gospel light than any other nation of history and access to more filth and depravity than even ancient Rome at its decadent, orgiastic worse, will experience an implosion that, upon its contemplation, staggers the imagination.
We will look at my scenarios, in this regard, next week.
--Terry
