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 ...
If your kids are in public school, and if they get their entertainment from TV, they are already being indoctrinated to believe the very opposite of what the church teaches on a host of issues but particularly on this issue.
By the time they finish school they have had 12 or 16 years of indoctrination. After that it can take time, a decade or two sometimes, to get them deprogrammed if you ever do.
I would like to know the specifics of the sermon, delivery, makeup of congregation, etc.
There are ways to preach the truth biblically and uncompromisingly while STILL being winsome. Especially if a pastor knows his people.
That is something that everyone hears, but recent studies have shown not to be true. Those who attend church regularly run around a 15% divorce rate while marriages as a whole in the U.S run around a 30% divorce rate.
15% is a pretty significant variation.
Many reject the Word.
Many so-called Churches don’t even preach the Word anymore.
I thought, well that won't last, but looking at their footprint today, they are all over the world and have now spread to Texas. I believe the AG has dropped them, but that doesn't seem to phase them at all. We now get "missionaries" from California's "mother ship" sent to AG churches in small towns and they spin out from there.
If you are a Bible believing church member, get ready for persecution spoken of in Matthew. We are quickly becoming outnumbered. Our own children will be turning us in to authorities. I always knew I would be in the minority, but minority among Christians? This must be the "falling away" spoken of in Scripture.
Jesus thinned his followers on a regular basis, too. At the very last, “they all forsook Him and fled.”
That is the typical "bottoms on pews = successful church" reasoning that I hear all the time. IMO, the main purpose of a church is to serve as a meeting place for people to worship God. A church in and of itself is not going to save people. Only God saves people. Going into a church and sitting on a pew and listening to a sermon is not going to save anyone. I've seen many people start attending a church because their kids want to go. Those parents sat there week after week and never really became believers (I carpool with one). Sitting in the church did not result in some magical transformation or osmosis. Church is ultimately a place where the saved sinners can go and worship with other saved sinners. If there are people going to a church who do not like the form of worship at that church (don't like the music, don't like the preaching style, disagree with doctrine, etc), they can go elsewhere; as there are only a gazillion churches from which to choose.
Pro LGBT supporters who go to churches that are not already pro-LGBT go there in an attempt to undermine the beliefs and doctrines of those who are not pro-LGBT. It is time that Bible-believing churches accept the fact that those people are 5th columnists who want to betray the church to the enemy.
So, if membership declines because people who could not accept the doctrine chose to leave, then the church probably should die because there is not enough living tissue to support the tree after all the rot is cut away. I would choose a dead church over the first United LGBT Church of the Rainbow Banner any day. And I am getting tired of hearing namby-pamby cliches like "hate the sin and love the sinner" while the LGBT'ers take over everything. They are locusts who consume everything in their path. Church should be a sanctuary from the LGBT crowd, not a haven for them.
Wonder why they simply didn’t change the locks and prevent the sodomist from ever entering the church again.
Nevermind my previous comment. Read the info wrong.
No need for the "walk a mile in my shoes..., etc."
God does indeed call some to be his messengers, to point the way to salvation, lest they (the lost or wavering) be forever lost but people today, just as in the Old Testament, hate the strong light of the truth, stone and even kill His messengers and refuse to listen to His messages.
Jesus reminded the religious leaders of His day that they killed the prophets sent to tell (some might say "preach") God's warnings to His people.
People need not be perfect to speak of God's laws to people, or even to have been tempted by a specific sin, to warn others of the unchanging nature of God's hated of sin.
Those kind of people are described by Isaiah 30:10,11 -"...Who say to the seers, “You must not see visions” And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy to us what is right, Speak to us pleasant words, Prophesy illusions." “Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
So you are putting most of the blame on the pastor who is staying true to the word?
If we were all as pious as Hi Tech Liberal the world would be such a grand place. All kidding aside, he usually puts all the blame on traditional Christians.
Do you believe the condemnation of homosexuality in the scripture is just a cultural issue?
If a preacher condemned adultery, should the congregation walk out? If so, then the congregation is at fault, not the preacher!
“There are ways to preach the truth biblically and uncompromisingly while STILL being winsome.”
Tell the Apostle Paul:
On the next Sabbath almost the entire population of the city assembled to hear the message of God, but when the Jews saw the crowds they were filled with jealousy and contradicted what Paul was saying, covering him with abuse. At this Paul and Barnabas did not mince their words but said, “We felt it our duty to speak the message of God to you first, but since you spurn it and evidently do not think yourselves fit for eternal life, watch us now as we turn to the Gentiles! Indeed the Lord has commanded us to do so with the words: ‘I have set you to be a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.’”
When the Gentiles heard this they were delighted and thanked God for his message. All those who were destined for eternal life believed, and the Word of the Lord spread over the whole country. But the Jews worked upon the feelings of religious and respectable women and some of the leading citizens, and succeeded in starting a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from the district. - Acts 13
That's why Jesus taught bit by bit along His way, then took a full day and a night for His Sermon on the Mount!
Fortunately, we are blessed to have all His words God chose to give us in Holy Scriptures so we may have them with which to teach us and share (and preach, if so chosen) to others.
Currenly, the sins of greed, glutonny, fear, etc. are not sins being strongly pushed to our young in every aspect of life by the culture but it is the Big Lie of the "naturally, normalcy and even preferable sin of homosexuality."
I was about to post something similar thanks!
Brother Bales is cutting into the profits.
“They are trying to avoid division and just “love” them into the Kingdom. “
A person who believes they have no sin, certainly has no need for a Savior.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.