A Word of Warning to a Gay-Approving Nashville Church and Beyond
During your lifetime, aren’t you glad caring people warned you at pivotal times?
Could God be doing a similar thing in this present hour to protect His people from the avalanche of gay propaganda that is seducing God’s people, leaders, and our children and grandchildren?
1. Warning to God’s people. As I began work on the previously mentioned video to equip God’s people on the LGBTQ agenda, a leader in our church told me that if I went ahead with this it would be a “deal breaker” for me in terms of my involvement in that church. My appeal then as it remains today is that we cannot downplay the seriousness of this issue in our culture today. It is the tip of the spear and leaders must be courageous enough to speak the truth in love and equip their people so they’ll stand strong and not be swept away.
I just sent out a sermon given by Dan Scott, Pastor of Christ Church of Nashville, alerting and equipping his congregation of what’s coming down the pike. In it he said, “The Episcopal Church USA has already fallen into this apostasy. The Presbyterian Church USA is wobbling toward it. The Evangelical Lutherans have nearly fallen into it as well.”
He continued his warning, “These churches are still filled with millions of believers. But the denominations are no longer legitimate expressions of orthodox Christianity. They have been seduced away from the gospel by the homosexual culture—hedonistic paganism—refined narcissism—whatever one wants to call this perversion of Christian belief they’ve embraced. Whatever you call it, the apostasy is deeply at odds with ‘the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.’ We cannot follow these churches!”
We must teach our people that immorality in any form—adultery, fornication, incest, homosexuality and the like are all prohibited in the Bible. “Porneia” is the all-encompassing New Testament Greek term for all sexual involvement outside of marriage between a man and a woman.
Biblically forbidden and once-culturally taboo expressions of sex now are celebrated, promoted and accepted in our mainstream culture. Our enemy’s schemes have infiltrated the church, which is to be holy with sex taught as a gift from God to be enjoyed within the boundaries of divine design.
Bible teacher Tim Keller says it best, “God put guardrails around sex because it is the most delightful yet also most dangerous of all human capacities.”
According to God’s revelation, practicing homosexual activity is morally wrong—just as adultery and fornication—and clearly contradicts God’s order for human relationships and family. Biblically faithful leaders and the people of God must charitably communicate that for a person to call oneself an authentic Christian and remain a practicing homosexual is to engage in a lifestyle that is a direct contradiction of the unchanging Word of God.
2. Warning to God’s pastors. “My brothers, not many of you should become teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater judgment” (James 3:1).
Pastors have an awesome responsibility for which we will one day give an account before Almighty God. One man can influence multitudes for right or wrong. The extreme example: Adolf Hitler.
After 42 years of full-time ministry, my overriding concern is the glory of God, care for God’s people, winning the lost, and sparing leaders from shipwreck and scandal. God means what He says when he tells us, “Do not give the devil a foothold” (Eph. 4:27). In other words, don’t open a door in your personal life with compromise or mixture because it can destroy your life, as well as that of your spouse, your children and the flock that has been entrusted to your care.
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12 that he “knew a man in Christ over fourteen years ago—whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knows … ” (v. 2). Indulge me here as I speak somewhat cryptically.
I know a man in Christ who a number of years ago repeatedly compromised in sexual immorality and committed adultery with numerous women in his church. This led to a tragic divorce. The man later married one of these women.
This man was dismissed and went on to start another church alongside of a helper who was gay and later acknowledged his homosexuality. Eventually the pastor began to open the doors for inclusion of gays and lesbians in the full life of the church, including the sacraments of marriage, communion and leadership positions and he presided at a same-sex marriage.
Finally, he stood before his congregation and said his second marriage was ending; that divorce was imminent. Before exiting from the service he said, “I’m not gay or bisexual—not that there’s anything wrong with that!”
People who care about this man and his wives and his children pray that he will come to his senses before he is shipwrecked and does further damage by influencing God’s people on the broad road to destruction.
