Posted on 06/27/2013 5:42:29 AM PDT by shortstop
For more than 200 years, the United States was a Christian nation.
And then right was wrong, down was up, evil was good, and the vote was 5-to-4.
Our judicial masters spoke and the gleeful reporters shoved microphones in the faces of people wearing rainbow t-shirts.
Something God placed in the heavens as a sign of his love, and something man put on a flag to tell God to go screw himself.
The course has been set to make gay marriage the law of the land, the first giant step has been taken, and yesterday’s vice has become today’s virtue.
The Bible doesn’t matter, the vote of the people doesn’t matter, the tradition doesn’t matter.
And opponents are to be mocked and ridiculed. Indeed, to be Christian – real Christian – is to be stigmatized in today’s society, to be a presumptive bigot and to be blackballed.
Which naturally raises the question: How should believers react to a Supreme Court ruling that they know is not only wrong, but wicked?
The answer: Ignore it.
Not just the decision, but the entire topic.
Believers should remember that the best affirmation of faith is an affirmation of faith. The best way to convincingly communicate what’s in your heart is to focus on what you’re for, not what you’re against.
Yes, Islam, Judaism and Christianity all condemn homosexual sex as a sin. There is no confusion about that. Religious leaders who teach otherwise are blind leaders of the blind, wolves in sheep’s clothing who defile the ministry by their presence and unbelief. The embrace of homosexual practice by various denominations is nothing more than proof that those denominations have long since strayed from any sort of biblical or spiritual foundation.
Those things are all true.
But they are not particularly relevant.
Because, typically, the best way to advance your case is to describe what’s right about what you offer, not what’s wrong about what your opponent offers.
The abomination of gay marriage is either self-evident or non-existent, depending on your largely unchangeable perspective. You either get what’s wrong with it, or you don’t.
And you’re not likely to be argued out of your position, no matter what your position is.
So believers should declare the truth. They should not focus on the darkness of sin, but the light of truth.
If the topic is marriage and the family, let the topic be marriage and the family. Real marriage and real family. In a society where we have the lowest marriage and birth rates in our nation’s history, and the highest out-of-wedlock birth rates, job one is not telling people what’s wrong with gay marriage, it is telling people what’s right with real marriage. We gain very little by attacking a negative; we may gain the world by defending a positive.
If we really are concerned about marriage and family, we have to recognize that the grave danger is heterosexual attitude, not homosexual marriage. If you want to strengthen the family, teach the beauties of love and marriage combined together to produce parenthood.
Remember that “gospel” means “good news,” and the core of Christianity is the “good news” that a Savior has been sent, that sins can be forgiven, that salvation can be found. Properly done, Christianity is not a gloomy religion. It is a faith of hope and joy, and of loving one’s neighbor.
It offers peace in this world and eternal life in the world to come. Those are pretty joyous things.
And they are what should be talked about.
They are what believers should be sharing with their neighbors and friends. If there is a spiritual battle going on – and there is – the way to win it is to invite others to discover the spirituality that brightens your life, in the hope that it will also brighten their lives.
That’s what it’s all about.
Gay marriage is a side show, it is a distraction, and people of faith must remember that.
They should also remember that the truth will not always be popular. For a couple of hundred years, Christian values were respected in America. That will soon no longer be the case. They may become extremely unpopular. Holding to them may well come at a price.
No reader of the Bible can be surprised by that. No true follower of God can be surprised if his faith draws the ire and persecution of those who do not share it.
So how do you respond?
With faith, courage, humility and resolution.
Daniel faced the lions, Stephen faced the stones, and Jesus faced the cross.
Why should we automatically assume that our fate will be any better?
For more than 200 years, the United States was a Christian nation.
But that’s changing.
Though, thankfully, we’re not.
Until the hate crimes trials start...
The United States has become either Babylon of the New Testament, or the rise of Sodom and Gomorrah. A place where all kinds of wickedness and immorality prevails. God will judge this nation for it’s sins. Pretty much. And yes it’s true Obama is the Anti-Christ. Even Scotus is afraid of him and has given all their power to him.
I ignore sodomites until they are in my face. The two or three I am actually around are very reserved. It is known they are what they are but there is no fanfare and they stay to themselves. My rub comes with the actual hijacking of our language do denigrate the institutions I believe in and the attempts in making me accept it.
But, Christians need to STOP divorcing. Christians need to STOP living together in sin. They need to STOP pre-marital sex. We cannot live like the heathens around us and then pick and choose the sins we are vocal about.
I agree with Bob, but how are we to be a witness for Christ when are lives (according to the Barna study) is basically indistinguishable from everyone else?
> The best way to convincingly communicate what’s in your
> heart is to focus on what you’re for, not what you’re
> against.
I must vigorously disagree.
If you cannot preach AGAINST sin, there is no reason to preach FOR the Gospel.
We are *ALL* sinners, whether or not our sin is sanctioned by the government.
Murder is sin.
Adultery is sin.
Stealing is sin.
lying is sin.
Drunkenness is sin.
Homosexual conduct is sin.
Coveting that which is not yours is sin.
Even lusting in your mind is sin.
If you cannot preach AGAINST sin, there is no reason to preach FOR the Gospel.
Sorry but the ignore it advice will not work. Not when you are a baker or a florist.
Thanks for posting this.
I agree with you, we should speak with the certainty of our conviction but we must also always speak in love.
Great, BL. That's exactly what the lazy cowardly sheep want to hear.
> but we must also always speak in love.
Yes, speaking the truth in love.
But see how Jesus spoke the truth in love. See also how the apostles spoke the truth in love in their epistles.
Their speaking is very direct and would be called “hate speech” if it were used against government-sanctioned sin.
Ping for later
Christians can witness to the difference between Godly marriage and ungodly government “marriage, “ which may be approved by five ungodly Supreme Court judges, but will never be approved by God.
There is the “12 step spirituality” but that does involve accepting others more than the average person who wears the Lord’s name on his shirt wants to.....Honestly, there’s nothing I can do about the folks like that.
I’m powerless over the failings of others who claim to follow God, but I can deal with my own failings......
Glenn Beck has been urging folks to “know who they are” and “make amends” and so on.
He should know because he is a recovering alcoholic who walked into an AA meeting earlier in his life.
My regular reading includes the first 164 pages of “Alcoholics Anonymous” and I know what my problem is.
Others need to face their issues squarely (alcohol, drugs, sex, money etc.) and find God quickly but I have no power over that other than to advise the “religious” people out there to consider the experiences of Beck and myself.
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
I won't let Obama or Satan blow it out, I'm gonna let it shine.
I won't let the Supreme Court blow it out, I'm gonna let it shine.
I won't let LGBT or NAMBLA blow it out, I'm gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Romans 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 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:
27 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.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Other verses in KJV on sodomites, aka. homosexuals.
Deuteronomy 23:17 | Read whole chapter | See verse in context There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
1 Kings 14:24 | Read whole chapter | See verse in context And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.
1 Kings 15:12 | Read whole chapter | See verse in context And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
1 Kings 22:46 | Read whole chapter | See verse in context And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land.
2 Kings 23:7 | Read whole chapter | See verse in context And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
Until the hate crimes trials start...
Exactly. IF ONLY, people of faith could ignore this ruling. However, the GAYSTAPO will not permit that. In the same manner that they have sued cake bakers, hotels, caterers, etc., they will now sue Churches who dare to try to live their faith and religious freedom by not affirming or participating in 'gay marriages'. They will be sued, attacked and beaten into submission with every legal or tax code means available to the gaystapo.
Psalm 37. Keep the faith.
I agree. Using the "what God has joined together" scripture would be highly inappropriate in a gay marriage ceremony . . . all the way to the point of blasphemy
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