August 2014 – Homophobic God
by Ps Gary Levens OMC
Apparently, anyone who thinks that homosexual practices are wrong is considered homophobic, so I guess that includes me and it also includes Jesus Christ. I’ve had other conditions in my life so another one is not a big deal
For God though, I’m pretty sure that this is His first. However, I doubt that He’s too worried about it, especially as it’s not a real “illness”.
I’m writing this blog because I have grown tired of Christian Leaders remaining silent on the subject. During our silence a generation of Christian kids in our churches have emerged thinking that practicing homosexuality is ok and are saying, “what’s wrong with Gay marriage”.
The church has left the educating of our kids on this subject, to the media and to those pushing the gay agenda.
A pastor friend told me that one survey conducted in a large evangelical church revealed that around 80% of the young people think that gay marriage is ok and should be allowed by law.
Well I’m here to say that it’s NOT ok. My voice is not a loud one and I’m tucked away in a small country town and so I probably don’t have as much to lose as my city colleagues do.
However, being silent is sometimes just plain wrong.
During my ministry life, I’ve had quite a bit to do with gay people and I have several gay people who are life-long friends.
I love them and accept them, as they do me. That has allowed us to speak openly about the subject of homosexuality and the gay lifestyle.
One of them said to me, “Gary, the gay lifestyle is anything but gay. It is awful and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.”
Well, he may not be able to speak on behalf of everyone in the gay community, but I suspect that he’s pretty much right although there’s won’t be many who’d admit it publicly.
But back to our homophobic God…a friend recently posted on Facebook a picture from the ABC featuring an Anglican priest in NSW who was displaying a sign outside the church which read, “Dear Christians, some ppl are gay. Get over it. Love, God.” Hmm, quite something to say on behalf of God.
He has obviously concluded that what the Bible says about the subject is not what God thinks about it.
One of the first things we learned at Bible College is “don’t go outside of the scriptures to form/build your theology.”
Looking deeper into the ABC article, the priest states, “What inspires me and us, as a faith community of course, is the life and teachings of Jesus. So we stand for what He stood for, what we believe he stood for, which was justice and equality, compassion and a society that looks after the edges, that doesn’t just look after the powerful and the wealthy.”
Sounds great hey? Except that it seems that folk who say that are separating Jesus from God. It’s like they are saying, “before Jesus came, we were shocked at how harsh God spoke and how much he judged and how inequitable he was.
But then Jesus came and he showed us another way. Jesus showed us to just accept that there are homosexuals and to get over it. Show compassion and acceptance and we’ll all get on together and live in harmony.”
Well, the reality is that Jesus came to earth AS GOD. He walked on earth no less God than when he appeared to Joshua as the Captain of the Lord’s host. Jesus was there and participated when speaking to Moses at the giving of God’s Word (which never passes away) saying, ‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.’ (Lev 20:13).
God says that it’s detestable. Jesus says that it’s detestable. It was punishable by death in those days. Why then, would He now be saying that it’s ok, get over it?
The passage of scripture is about all things sexual that God prohibited… incest, sex with animals … and homosexuality. So, did God change His mind? In the day of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, did he decide that it is now ok? That it’s not detestable anymore?
The message I keep hearing from Christian proponents of gay marriage is that in Jesus, love took over and became the principle thing, over-riding all other things. I hear, “Look, if they truly love each other, why shouldn’t they be able to get married?” But it’s such a flawed argument.
Jesus DID give us a new commandment, that we should love one another. But he never said that love cancelled out every other thing God ever commanded. In fact he said, “I have not come to do away with the law but to fulfil the law.
The Bible says that the law is the school master that leads us to Christ. If we followed the love argument through, we could have daughters and fathers wanting to get married, mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, cousins… you get my drift. So long as love becomes the deciding factor, we could do anything, so long as love is involved it will make it ok.
Listen Christian friends, it’s NOT ok. It is sin to practice homosexuality. Does saying that make me homophobic? I don’t know, but if so it’s a condition that I’m willing to live with.
The truth is that I don’t have a hating bone in my entire body. I love people. I have traveled to almost 60 countries taking the message of the love of Jesus to all peoples whether they be black, white, poor, rich, immoral or moral, gay or straight.
Incidentally, I’ve discovered that Jesus doesn’t love a straight person anymore than he loves a gay person. We are ALL sinners in need of a saviour and straight fornicators, adulterers, porn addicts are as in as just as big trouble with a holy God as practicing homosexuals are.
Jesus didn’t come to leave a person in their sin but to deliver them out of it.
So, what does a person who “feels” homosexual do about their feelings? I’ve known and pastored quite a few men who’ve just grown up feeling effeminate and liking girl stuff more than bloke stuff. Yet, they’ve married, had children and lived a normal heterosexual life.
They tell me, “I made a choice. I could have followed those tendencies and become homosexual, but I decided not to.”
But isn’t that living in denial? We’re always being told not to do that. Well, in truth, as Christians we’re told to do exactly that.
The entire tenor of the New Testament is about denying your carnal SELF and living for God. Jesus Himself said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it“. (Luke 9:23)
Paul talks about the warring nature within us all saying, “the thing I want to do I don’t do and thing I don’t want to do, I do…who will deliver me from this dilemma? Thank God, it’s Jesus!”
Are we to love homosexuals? Emphatically, YES!
During a two year period of my ministry life, I spent most of it among an inner-city homosexual community. I loved those people. I prayed with them, wept with them and laughed with them. They were my friends. Jesus led me to them and he brought many of them to my door.
Do I love homosexuality? Emphatically, NO!
I’ve never met anyone who does. God loves the homosexual and he has provided them with the same way of escape from the war within themselves as he has for me.
God bless you and thanks for reading this.
Gary