Wednesday 15 February 2017

The Winnowing Fork

"Choose You This Day Whom You Will Serve"

It is very sad to see some sections and traditions within the Church going all squishy over homosexuality.  But we must always bear in mind that when the Lord directs such things to confront His Church it is always to winnow and purify His body over the longer run.

The real issue is for us to return once more to the teaching of Scripture and stand upon the Word of God.  Regardless of the spurious doctrines and beliefs peddled by the world of Unbelief, we are called to be faithful to His Word.  By this we affirm our faith and our loyalty, and we confirm that we belong to Christ.  "If you love me, keep my commandments", says the King.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. . . . Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”  [John 14: 15,21]
In this light, we believe the following statement by a contemporary pastor, Kevin De Young on homosexuality and the Scriptures is right on the money:

We cannot count same-sex behaviour as an indifferent matter.  Of course, homosexuality isn't the only sin in the world, nor is it the most critical one to address in many church contexts.  But if I Corinthians 6 is right, it's not an overstatement to say the solemnizing same-sex sexual behaviour--like supporting any form of sexual immorality--runs to the risk of leading people to hell.

Scripture often warns us--and in the severest terms--against finding our sexual identity apart from Christ and against pursuing sexual practice inconsistent with being in Christ (whether that's homosexual sin, or, much more frequently, heterosexual sin).  The same is not t rue when it comes to sorting our the millennium or deciding which instruments to use in worship.  When we tolerate the doctrine which affirms homosexual behaviour, we are tolerating a doctrine which leads people further from God.  This is not the mission Jesus gave his disciples when he told them to teach the nations everything he commanded.

The biblical teaching is consistent and unambiguous:  homosexual activity is not God's will for his people.  Since in the face of such clarity is not prudent, and hesitation in light of such frequency is not patience.  The Bible says more than enough about homosexual practice for us to say something too.  [Kevin De Young, What Does the Bible Really Teach About Homosexuality?  (Nottingham: Inter-varsity Press, 1915), p. 77.]
The reference to I Corinthians 6, in the quotation above, is to the following Bible text:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practise homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.  [I Corinthians 6: 9-11]

No comments: