Posted on 02/17/2016 3:58:16 PM PST by Kaslin
In a very troubling video, Theodore Shoebat, son of former Muslim Walid Shoebat, has claimed that if "sodomites" had walked into the Temple of Jerusalem, Jesus would have killed them.
This is absolutely outrageous, totally unscriptural, and downright dangerous.
Mr. Shoebat, I urge you to repent.
To be perfectly clear, I agree with Theodore that homosexual practice is detestable in God's sight (as stated plainly in the Scriptures); I totally oppose same-sex "marriage"; and I firmly believe that homosexual activism is the principle threat to our freedoms of religion, speech, and conscience.
I also share Theodore's abhorrence of the abusive acts of homosexual predators, just as I abhor the abusive acts of heterosexual predators.
At the same time, I categorically reject his encouragement of violent acts against homosexual men and women, and I renounce his statement that Jesus would have killed homosexuals who walked into the Temple.
That is utter rubbish.
After referring to gays as "faggots," Theodore said on his video, "When you have the sodomites coming out into the streets [meaning, in a gay pride parade] and the Christians come and beat them up, the people who are beating up the sodomites don't really get punished because the society is so conditioned that way. If there's a law written in the hearts of the people, then the people who fighting this evil, physically, with their hands, fighting them, beating them up, those people are not going to get in trouble."
But, he added, "We don't have that in America."
So, Theodore is telling us that it's a good thing when "Christians" physically attack gays and lesbians who are marching down the street in a gay pride event, in particular when these "Christians" do it in a country that will not punish them. And the reason the country will not punish them is because "there's a law written in the hearts of the people," meaning, the law of God that detests homosexual practice.
Not only is this not supported anywhere in the New Testament, which teaches us to overcome evil with good (see, for example, Romans 12:17-21), but it is flatly against the law, since, as much as we may oppose these gay demonstrations, we do not have the right to take the law into our hands and attack homosexual men and women. And if you have God's heart of love and you want to see them saved and transformed, why would you want to beat them up?
The fact that Theodore laments our lack of anti-gay violence is deplorable, and to the extent that he speaks these things as a professing Christian, he hurts the cause of the gospel, brings reproach to the name of Jesus, and blemishes the witness of 99% of true Christians who reject his violent rhetoric.
In fact, after listening to Theodore's words, one can only wonder if he would commend Yishai Schlissel, the ultra-Orthodox Jew who stabbed 6 participants at gay pride event in Jerusalem last year, shortly after being released from prison for stabbing three participants at a similar event in 2005.
Lest you think I'm exaggerating, consider what Theodore said about Jesus Himself, referring to John 2:14-15: "In the Temple, He found the merchants selling oxen, sheep, and doves; also the moneychangers sitting there. Then He made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the Temple, both the sheep and oxen. He dumped out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables" (TLV).
Theodore states, "Jesus Christ took up a whip and beat people up in his Father's temple," adding, "Now imagine if sodomites were in his Father's temple. Jesus would have killed them all. He wouldn't just have hit them; Jesus got violent!"
First, the prophet Isaiah tells us explicitly that Jesus did not get violent: "And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth" (Isa 53:9, ESV, my emphasis).
If Jesus had whipped people bloody, that would have been violence. Instead, He overthrew tables and drove out the vendors, using a whip on the cattle.
So, I'll take Isaiah's word for this rather than Theodore's.
But even if you want to claim that Jesus swung a whip at people to drive them out of the Temple, it's more than a massive jump to claim that, "if sodomites were in his Father's temple, Jesus would have killed them all."
Actually, there's a good chance that there were "sodomites" in the Temple - or, if not "sodomites," then others, like adulterers, who also deserved the death penalty under Old Testament law. (Jeremiah 7:1-11, which underlies the gospel accounts of Jesus' cleansing of the Temple, would suggest that, just as in Jeremiah's day, there were adulterers, murderers, and idolaters who hypocritically worshiped at the Temple in Jerusalem, and all of them were liable to the death penalty at that time.)
Jesus, who knew what was in man (John 2:24-25), surely knew that there were gross sinners in the Temple courts. But He didn't kill them, He died for them.
Not only, then, are Theodore's words terribly dangerous, since some unstable listeners might think they are doing God's service by attacking or even, God forbid, trying to kill homosexual men and women.
But they also bear false witness to the character of Jesus, "who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himselfto Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness-- by whose stripes you were healed" (1 Pet 2:22-24, NKJV).
It is my privilege to work with godly leaders throughout America and around the world, a good number of whom are frontline, fearless Christians who stand firmly against homosexual activism, and every single one of them would join me in renouncing Theodore Shoebat's words.
They do not represent Jesus, they do not represent the spirit or letter of the New Testament, and they do not represent His true followers.
Share this article widely if you agree with me, and let's pray for Theodore to embrace God's heart and submit to God's Word.
Yes, and remember just above how Isaiah clarified? Apparently the animals were chased out — not people beaten. Scripture cannot contradict itself.
You put bitter for sweet and keep on doing it even when called on it.
Just by referencing Scripture? I think not.
I’m not the one looking for a fight. And you aren’t making a point, but are falling to worldly Alinskyite accusations, with all due respect.
And nobody can “deserve” mercy, buster. Right away that puts you on the wrong wavelength with respect to God. You’ve been hoping to “deserve” it. The age old folly of Eden. Knowledge of good and evil, it dances at your call. Rather than at the call of God. “I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy.” No deserving there: only a policy. Even if you HATE the policy like Jonah did with respect to Nineveh (and he took a trip in a fish to prove how determined God was).
It is a universal free offer; just approach Him with the attitude that you accept it for His purposes of restoration and return, and it is yours. It parallels grace.
What you will not get mercy or grace from, is Satan. And God will definitely, if not with gladness, turn you over to Satan if you insist on getting on the wrong wavelength. You may even sound like Satan’s spokesman before this process is over. But you will rue it in the end, once you come to your senses. (IF you do.)
Now I wonder in a way why I bother. Well if you don’t get the point, someone else might. Like the Proverbs say: flog a mocker, and the simple will learn wisdom. (”Hey, if this happens to mockers, maybe I had better not go any further in that direction.”) Doesn’t say anything about the mocker learning wisdom, by the way. Just the simple.
Just by interpreting scripture in a way that is impossible when scripture is compared to scripture. That’s all.
Yes you did pick a fight. I don’t know what Alinsky has to do with scripture; let’s talk about scripture, okay? It makes it a lot simpler.
Just please calm down.
Many people have ideas of God that didn’t even so much come from the bible, as they came from the attitudes of the humans that in turn preached about God to them. This is a very easy trap to fall into.
God insists on one route: TEACHING. Even the word Torah means teaching. There’s no back of the book to turn to and glibly rattle off the answers, and voila you get a 100% grade.
Assuming we are willing (and some people are not) — we’re sinners but we’re being taught righteousness. And it is not complete till we get to heaven. All this is 100% backed up by scripture.
Now why did homosexual relations get singled out for such a bad rap, if they like other sex sins could be so readily repented? As yours truly and many others are vigorously asserting, with scriptural backup as well?
Well I posit there is a very easy answer. Until modern days, people took pride in their families. It was instinctual. Not to be able to father or mother a child was considered shameful, even on a worldly level. Hence homosexuality as willful or habitual act was known as a wrong not just from a standpoint of holiness, but even from a standpoint of worldly pride. If you wanted a stronger example of something everybody would agree was very bad, there probably wasn’t one.
Our modern “zero population growth” liberals have thrown a monkey wrench into that presumption. This is an attitude that the bible does not assume. And it isn’t very long after such an attitude is taken, that one would reason from it that all manner of sexual perversions are just wonderful. Don’t believe it? I do. I had an old science book by the atheist George Gamow that has exactly this kind of statement. Published in the 1950s.
No; you replied to me. My comment was to the effect that the Jesus of the first coming would certainly not slay homosexuals, but that Jesus in the second coming would be a different matter, especially towards the stiff-necked and unrepentant (just to expand a little). And thus far, I cannot see aught in scripture that deviates from such.
Very good summation.
Well and fine, but I think we are talking about wrath of this sort coming upon a whole spectrum of sinners. Not singling out a certain sin as most bad, or as excluding the sinner from the possibility of mercy, grace, and repentance. The questions are independent.
I don’t think homosexual relations got cited at the top of the rogues’ list because it is tantamount to an unforgivable sin — but because it would throw a monkey wrench into what, until very recently, was considered a duty or mitzvah (to use Jewish terminology) for all mankind. As habit, it can even be bad enough to render males impotent towards females. Females would have less trouble accepting copulation, but then they would stink as mothers (”butch dyke”).
Also the iron rod might not even bespeak violence so much as firmness of spiritual control. This is when the lion will lie down with the lamb and a little child will lead them. The wildness will have been suppressed by main force — NOT against human sinners, but against the devil!
If this is a proper take, then the question of wrath on anyone but Satan at that time might be mooted. Nobody, or almost nobody, would do anything bad enough to evoke wrath, at least till the period has ended.
I tend to be very annoyingly optimistic about the attitude of Christ, but such is the condition of being born again.
We Jews take “thou shall not commit murder” very seriously.
Also, Torah very plainly states homosexuality is a sin against God, not man. Therefore the Jew must repent to God, not man.
Too many translations got that wrong.
Not for the same reason as Muhammed, I'd guess.
I...
Must...
Resist...
I've heard that NO one is.
??
Mark 11:15
On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves,
Scripture cannot contradict itself.
AMEN!
I find it MUCH easier to teach what the bible actually says; than to UNteach what it doesn't!
Oh?
Can you illustrate this?
Pastis will GET you for that tagline!
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