Posted on 06/30/2016 7:19:38 AM PDT by aimhigh
After a series of messages over several weeks encouraging the listeners to respond to the ‘fire of God’, Pastor Bates waded into the controversy over homosexuality, highlighting it’s sin as compared to Scripture:
“I was literally shocked, personally, when I began to see people get up, move out, walk out the door kinda shaking their heads. “
Bates says that the people who were most likely to walk out on a message on the Biblical stance of homosexuality are those people with relationship connections with those in the LGBT community. Be it a son, daughter or parent, many going to traditional churches that seek to maintain Biblical standards are being actively challenged by the LGBT agenda in our nation.
(Excerpt) Read more at trunews.com ...
I expect that this will be a very isolated response (or possibly responses) within the A/G.
Our roots in the A/G go to 1973 and a glorious, supernatural, life-changing, born-again experience in a South Jersey A/G church. While we continue to grow in Grace daily in 2016 we have not been part of the A/G since the 90's.
We have ongoing friendships and contact with many A/G pastors/missionaries (were were credential-holding missionaries) who continue to faithfully serve The LORD. While the Assemblies of God has become more "corporate" over the years, they have not left the core values of preaching/teaching Who GOD is and the reality of His plan of salvation in Jesus.
I would especially like to point out that DIVORCE STATISTICS are not that much different between proclaimed born again evangelical churches and plain old pagan society.
Maybe you can personally dodge that one, but look at what you are ballyhooing as a “Christian society.”
Almighty God says that homosexuality is an abomination.
We pray for the sinner and hate the sin. Unlike Islam, who hates the sinner and throws them off the nearest rooftop.
I am doing so by being more specific.
I judge with FAIRNESS just as I would expect to be judged.
If roots went to bible times it would be even better? Just asking. Men’s traditions have a way of falling down.
Liberals treat church as asocial gathering. They’ll flip them off in traffic right outside their church. I lived in a liberal area near several churches and the libs were terrible people.
No, they don't. To use your (and Jesus's) analogy of the sick needing a doctor, those people rejected the treatment. There's no need to be in a hospital or a doctor's office if one rejects the treatment. Those people may as well go to some quack who will tell them what they want to hear because they are in denial about their condition.
And BTW, just because the remaining members did not make a show of walking out it does not mean they are not likewise sick and in need of a physician. The Bible is quite clear that all are sinners. The gay lobby and their fellow travelers simply refuse to see homosexuality as a sin.
The Church Militant is home to those who believe and serve the true God of Scripture. The Church of What’s Happenin” Now is home to those who follow what this sinful world tells them is right. The two will never be the same and God knows the difference. Christians should never be ashamed to follow their perfect God.
"If ye love me, keep my commandments."
Hebrews 4:12:
"For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
Matthew 13:36-43:
The Parable of the Tares Explained
36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.”
37 He answered and said to them: “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. 39 The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. 40 Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. 41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
Joshua 24:15:
15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
You may have misunderstood, my FRiend.
I was referencing OUR roots in Christianity (Mrs Prov1322 and I) and being born-again in 1973 in an A/G church...not the A/G roots.
MCC was too conservative for the homos in Dallas. They switched their affiliation to the UCC which was more tolerant of their activities.
Your post #44 is arrogant, at best.
It seems to me that it is you who have rushed to judgment. In a world rife with under-aggressive preaching, you appear to accuse this pastor of over-aggressive preaching without even knowing what he said. I find this unsupportable.
People will walk away from hard truths even when hard truths are presented by God Himself, in Person. The greatest preacher ever had people walk away from Him, try to stone Him, and eventually they crucified Him. To assume that people are walking away from a preacher because he is presenting the truth incompetently is not something I can agree with.
They know. They just don't care. The church will be strong for their leaving.
I would be curious to hear what the exact message was. If it was, “homosexuals will surely burn in Hell for all eternity”, I may have disapproved as well.
If the message was, “engaging in homosexual activity is a sinful, disordered way to behave and is a life that is not in line with God’s plan. Similar to greed, gluttony, fear, jealousy, and pride...sexual immorality in the form of lust, adultry and homosexuality should be repented of and guidance should be found in Christ.”....then I would be fully in favor of it.
A skewed statistic, since the pagan rarely marry anymore.
Many churches post MP3s of the sermons, His church might.
The cultural indoctrination starts in pre-”schools” now-—where Heather has two mommies.
The destruction of our Constitution-—Freedoms of Thought/Speech and Religion were completed by the 60s to destroy the possibility of critical thinking in children.
Today, most children are brainwashed to believe Slavery is Freedom, Up is Down, Boys are Girls-—exactly as the Atheist/Marxists (Fichte/Wundt/John Dewey) designed in curricula-—to destroy all Traditions (Reason), the concept of mother and father, so that little children can be so warped (irrational as tribal minds) and completely owned (loyalty) by the State.
Their plan is working because parents allow the Marxists to condition and brainwash even their babies (with TV/Moveis/music and Marxist curricula).
Few parents (brainwashed themselves) realize the dehumanization which occurs in their children who are forced to be “group-(non) -thinkers” by screens and the system (public schools: all destroy Self-Reliance and the ability to think coherently (destroys the mapping of the brain). Skools embed only dependency and habits of slaves.
I have seen churches where those who feel disturbed by the Holy Spirit leave and those left in the pews sit smugly and say “Good, they didn’t need to be here anyway.”
And the church withered and died because the purpose of the church is to go and find sinners and let the Holy Spirit work.
Yes, the seeds may be choked by weeds or fall on fallow ground, but we must still scatter the seeds where there is nothing planted.
I notice that the pastor in this article and the church members aren’t saying “Good, they need to leave”, rather they are saying “The word of God needs to be preached, and sinners need to repent.”
And that is the right attitude to have. A call for repentance, not joy that sinners are leaving the church.
His church is too big. He should sell the property and buy a smaller church, outright.
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