Monday, April 27, 2015

SPEAK UP ON HOMOSEXUALITY!
The Christian Mandate to Speak Biblical Truth to Gays and Call Them to Embrace the Gospel!
Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church


The gospel is God’s message of how He saves sinners that must be told to everyone! None can be saved unless they hear this gospel message and embrace it as the only truth and cling to the only One who can save their souls from eternal perdition — namely, Jesus Christ alone and His substitutionary work on the cross. Nothing could be more loving to sinners trapped in sin than to proclaim the saving gospel of Jesus Christ to them. To not preach the gospel to them and to accept their lifestyle and beliefs would be the utmost form of soul-hatred as it would permit them to swim with the current to hell. But Christians must love. And true love is supremely manifested in proclamation, verbal proclamation, of a message: the message of God’s grace in Christ whereby helpless sinners can be reconciled to God through repentance toward God and faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ. To speak this message demonstrates love, true love.

God commands all believers to love all people, including homosexuals (and those who promote homosexuality and affirm it as a permissible lifestyle), by speaking the gospel of Jesus Christ and calling them to embrace the gospel. Truly, the church must speak up and speak truth in love to all people and call them to forsake everything — including their sin — and for the surpassing joy and pleasure of serving Christ alone.


1. SPEAK UP!
To refuse to speak about evil is to embrace it. Silence regarding an issue loudly proclaims one’s affirmation and acceptance of it. The reason for this is simple. It proves that one loves the praise of men more than the praise of God and the person does not want to be shunned by the world. Christians, however, live dramatically different. Christians live to please God and make it their ambition to be pleasing to Him in all things. If a person pleases everyone and yet displeases God, he will go to hell. If a person, to the contrary, lives to please Christ and displeases others in the world, then he has a great and unfading reward reserved for him in heaven! Thus, the church must refuse to be silent about the topic of homosexuality and speak what God speaks about it. The Word is clear. The Word is sufficient. The Bible is authoritative. The Bible is eternal. Because of this, when God’s Word clearly speaks to issues, the people of God must speak up, refuse to be silent, and stand upon God’s Word and speak the truth of God to the world.


2. SHOW IT!
Christians must speak up on the issue of homosexuality and same-sex attraction. The reason that Christians must verbally, clearly, and boldly speak on this issue because the Word of God is crystal clear regarding homosexuality and the various ways in which it presents itself (same-sex attraction, same-sex marriage, lust/desires, et al.). Even from the earliest of Israel’s history, God told the nation that men should not lie with a male as one lies with a female, for it is an abomination (Lev 18.22). Furthermore, if there is a man who lies with a male as one lies with a female, both of them have committed a detestable act and they must both be put to death (Lev 20.13). These verses speak in no unclear terms of the utter abhorrence of males lying with males in the same way that a man would lie with a female. It is detestable in God’s eyes and, indeed, it is an abomination. So bad was this horrid act that they both are guilty and must be put to death. The Law of God did not come to good people but to all sinners including murderers, sexually immoral men and homosexuals (1 Tim 1.9-10). Homosexuals are together linked with murderers, sexually immoral men, kidnappers, ungodly sinners, unholy, profane (1 Tim 1.9-11) to show that all are in need of the same gospel since all have sinned against God. God speaks in no unclear terms to all people when he says that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, drunkards all stand together as those in need of saving grace since those who live this way will not enter heaven (1 Cor 6.9-10; cf. Rom 1.26-27). All people fit into these verses. One may not be a homosexual or a drunkard but all are guilty of idolatry and thus stand in desperate need of the gospel. But the good news is that the gospel of grace can wash and sanctify and justify sinners! They can be changed and made new by the blood of Christ (1 Cor 6.11; cf. 2 Cor 5.17; Ezek 36.25-27). Christians stand on the authority and inerrancy of God’s Word. The unchanging, eternal, inspired, sufficient, and clear meaning of Scripture (both the Old and New Testament) testifies that homosexuality is sinful and those who live this kind of lifestyle and those who give hearty approval to it will receive divine wrath in hell (cf. Rom 1.32). So then, Christians must show from the Scriptures what God says about homosexuality. This is not hatred; it is in fact the most loving thing a person could ever do.


3. PERSUADE THEM!
The Apostle Paul attempted to persuade people to believe the gospel (Acts 26.28-29). He begged people to be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5.20). Christians know the fear of the Lord and understand what it is to be saved from God’s just wrath and so they must persuade men to believe the gospel and surrender to Him (2 Cor 5.11). To persuade is to love. To persuade with vigilance, prayerfulness, and gentleness is not ‘jamming Jesus down anyone’s throat,’ it is loving sinners so much that you would do anything to prevent them from falling headlong into the eternal Lake of Fire. The wrath of God will soon come upon sinners who remain in sin, including those who practice homosexuality and those who endorse it as a valid, permissible way of life, and thus true Christians will speak up, show the truth from Scripture, and endeavor to persuade the lost to fly to Christ for the good of their own soul!


4. WARN THEM!
The church cannot remain silent because the church loves the lost with too much intensity to be quieted regarding sin. God-like love is a giving love. It is a warning love. It is a diligent love. It is a compassionate love. It is a love that speaks the truth rather than silently affirming a belief or a way of life that leads to hell. Christians must love sinners enough to speak up regarding sin, show sin from the Word of God, persuade them to believe in the gospel of Christ, and then warn them of the consequences of unbelief and continuing in wickedness. To warn actually is a picture of love because it verbally communicates to someone not to go here, or there, or do something. Bible-believing Christians present Christ and call all to repent and flee to Christ and Christians must also do as Christ did and warn unbelievers that if they remain in their hardness of heart and refuse to repent, they will perish in hell (Luke 13.3). To harden one’s heart and not follow Christ is to remain in unbelief and willful rebellion against God (Heb 3.8; 4.7). To continue in one’s sinful life and rebellious way of thinking is to follow the course of the world which is opposed to God (James 4.4). Indeed, true love warns. Truly, as Christ loved men by calling them to repentance and faith in Him, Christ-followers must emulate Him by calling all to turn from sin, forsake it entirely and resolutely for the eternal treasure of knowing Christ, following Him, and being welcomed into His family by faith alone. Christ warned people that if they did not decisively and diligently cut off their sin and forsake it entirely, they would be cast into hell where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9.47-48). Christians must love those who live in homosexual relationships, those who battle with same-sex attraction and desires, those given to so-called ‘same-sex marriage’, and warn those who endorse and condone same-sex marriage as a permissible way of life to flee from sin to follow Christ. Indeed, fly to Christ alone who changes, who converts, who washes, and who conforms into His image! Fly now! Fly at once! Fly immediately! Fly for the good of your soul! And find a Savior who willingly receives sinners and changes them by grace through faith. This must be the message of love, and the message that warns, that believers give to all sinners.

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