Two thoughts “Does God send all Gay people to Hell” & “Wake up Church!”
Sharing Christ this weekend has been a heart cry wake up call in my own life, I am excited about the gospel being proclaimed on Independence Avenue and in the city! I am also equally excited that another group from our church FCC is sharing Christ in the city market.
Thought #1 ( Recap, about this evening and our endeavors to reach out to the people of the city.)
We had a very interesting evening of sharing Christ on Independence Avenue. I sent out the email later today with the hopes of at least 4 people including myself would be able to make it…. we came close, both Bobby M. and David H. came this evening, which encouraged me a great deal.
Bobby started off my mentioning how his flesh wars against this sharing of the Gospel, and I completely identify with the struggle was going through tonight before we went out. The feeling of inadequacy never seems to fade. All the “What if” questions in the world pop into your mind and the war is on @ even the thought of evangelism.
For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. -Galatians 5:17
The Bible says that there is a war between spirit and flesh, and that Christ has won this war on the cross, conquering sin and death. We are no longer a slaves to sin but righteousness. So the question is how does this play out practically in our struggle to war against the flesh?
One thing I believe is that it has to do with our unbelief. If we find ourselves not moving beyond our “comfort zone” we are living by sight and not by faith. This is what the majority of American Christians often do, living for the next comfort or pleasure. This is the opposite of what the bible says, “We walk by faith and not by sight.” -2 Corinthians 5:7
So do we need to ask ourselves just how “comfortable” are we in our faith? Do we put ourselves in situations which make us uncomfortable for the sake of the gospel?
Needless to say we prayed for some time before heading to Independence Avenue, and although the opposition continued throughout the night we know that it is Christ who is victorious no matter what was going to take place this evening.
We met mostly people who once again had consciences which were seared by the hot iron of sin. We met two, which appeared to be possibly single mothers who were pushing two strollers and they each had a little child. These ladies were quick, and disheveled looking, they looked as thin as could be, and had several teeth missing although they couldn’t be over 30 years of age. It was obvious they were probably meth addicts from some of the sores and the lack of teeth for their age. We gave them a booklet and they were on their way. There was another lady that David spoke with a long time named Tamika. This lady was so confused, she read the “daily bread”, and was converted four years ago to Islam, she would also switch accents around several times, once from Russia, and then from the middle east. We met several more people, one guys name was Zoe he was attempting to sell us really cheap movies.
We spent most of our time speaking with a “drunk” black professing baptist preacher named Karl, who told us that King James was a great white drunk man, and hid the Gutenberg bible which is according to him the only good translation, it is the only bible that told the truth about Jesus being “black.” David and I both tried to guide the conversation to the things of Christ and although we said it doesn’t really matter what color Jesus is today, but it’s the fact that He died for our sins and we are reconciled by grace through faith, trusting in Christ and His finished work. These phrases barely came out of our mouths with out loud opposition from Pastor “drunk” Karl’s speeches about every other faith delusion he could think of at the time. He knew a bit about the bible but it has not penetrated his seared conscious thus far, and it was truly heart breaking to see such a man seared by the world.
We learned some things though, it’s probably best to go in two’s, it seemed like when we walked down the street we were parting the red sea. The darkness in a lot of cases would scatter.
I had one failed attempt in Spanish, to articulate much of anything, I was not thinking clearly in Spanish and the devil used the fact that I had no Spanish resources to paralyze me this evening with this young mother of two who spoke no English. I realize for sure that I’m putting my faith not in God during those times but they were in the lack of books that I had in Spanish, and although they would be good tools, my trust needs to rest with Christ during those times.
Now to the title of this post, toward the end of the evening I saw a guy pass by us on the road in a red pick-up while I was talking to another gentleman. He pulled around a few minutes later, and Bobby went to speak with him. Bobby gave him a book as the man asked for directions. Later after we get home this man who happens to have the same first name as myself “Jason” sent a text message to Bobby and said this in the message.
“I think I’m gay, don’t all gay people go to hell?”
The conversation continued via text, Bobby made one attempt to call him on the phone and got a voice mail, then several other text. Ending with the fact that this guy may at some point be willing to sit down and discuss this in a serious way, at least we are hoping in Christ for an opportunity with this particular young man. We are praying that God might be drawing “Jason” to himself.
Thought #2 ( Awake! Come out to see the world, it’s passing away before our eyes?)
Hearing great doctrine from God’s word you would think would be enough to compel us. We listen to powerfully presented biblical sermons from our very own gifted pastor, and then often from a ton of other different pastor’s online.
We go to work every day and we pass by people on the street and we so often a fear regarding the approval of men, much more than the approval of God. There is little conviction present for the lost, or Holy Spirit driven truth compelling us to share how Christ transformed our lives by the supernatural miracle of regeneration, which God has performed in our own lives, unless someone by chance engages us.
We have become passive Christians, in a reactive lazy/apathetical Christianese sleep walk, verses a proactive confident Body of believers bringing the Gospel. When Christ said “GO” in Mathew 28 in the imperative, I do not believe this was passive, nor do I believe it was for only those gifted for evangelism. Paul himself said that he did not come with eloquent speech or the wisdom of men but by the Power of the Holy Spirit.
So I ask myself is not the gospel centered life, one that compels you to conform to the image of Jesus Christ and to share Christ with a lost and dying world. Is not the supernatural power of God transferring you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light not motivation enough to share Christ with others?
Has God ever exposed the sin of apathy in your own heart and life toward the lost? There are times which I am discouraged because of my own heart, so often cold toward the things of the world, and the people of the world…. I pray to ask God to grant me repentance for such apathy in my own life.
In Matthew he speaks about having a light, and putting under a bowl to be hidden or do you shine the light for all the world to see, and right now the world sees often our light is hidden in our church buildings, and then just like we drive in and out of our garages to escape the elements when it is too hot or too cold outside, we also drive from our churches into our homes and our jobs escaping the elements of the outside leaving the world to die in a Christless eternity. We do not take seriously our role as disciplers so often because we war with the flesh and in these cases we allow our flesh to be victor because our society tells us to have a private faith.
I end with this quote from Ephesians, and I pray more will be stirred to share their faith in Christ with a lost world.
For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”- Ephesians 5:8-14
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Having done a study on Saturday morning at the Anchor House South entitled “Limits of God’s Forgiveness – What are they?” that used the glorious testimonies of two men that God saved from the seeming epitome of a depraved homosexual life, one within 5 days of his death, I would attest that there is ever the potential for one to be saved who is willing to come to Him on His terms (to repent and believe the gospel Mk. 1:15) and by His grace in His time.
The 2 testimonies are from John MacArthur’s series on God’s View of Homesexuality http://www.gty.org/Resources/transcripts/90-69
and http://www.gty.org/Resources/transcripts/90-70 are as follows:
From Part 1:
Some months ago I was standing in my office and I was looking at the little spindle that contains the messages that come in by phone and I noticed one that said, “A young man has called and asked that you come to the hospital to see him, he’s dying.” And so I decided to go immediately and I went down to Riverside Drive to the small hospital located there and went in the door and asked the person at the desk what room he was in. And I walked down the hall and turned into the room and took a look at this man in bed, a man I didn’t know, but I could take one look at him and tell he was dying of AIDS. He was just about skin and bones, gaunt with hallow eyes and sunken cheeks, almost lifeless. And as I saw him, my attention moved to another man who was lying kind of casually across a small sofa that was in the hospital room, and I said to him, “My name is John MacArthur,” at which point this man hastily exited the room and said, “I’ll leave you alone.”
I walked over to the bedside, knowing what I was about to hear. I took hold of his hand and he said to me, “I’m dying, I have not long to live, I have AIDS and cancer is eating my body at a rapid rate.” And then he burst into tears and said, “But I’m afraid to die because I know I’m going to go to hell.” He said, “I’ve lived a sinful, sorted, homosexual life for I think 26 years.” And then he went on to tell me, I said, “Tell me about yourself,” and he told me about a Christian mother and a Christian father. He told me about being raised in a Christian home. He told me about attending two years of Bible college. He told me about all the rebellion in his heart and the beginnings of that homosexual sin and how eventually it blew him right out of the Bible college into 26 years of the most gross kind of living in the mainstream of the rabid homosexual community. He said, “Now I’m dying and I know I’m going to go to hell.”
I said, “Tell me about homosexuality. Tell me about it. Tell me how you view it. Tell me what you think of it.”
And as he sobbed and cried he said, “It is sin, I’ve always known it’s sin, I hate it, God hates it and it damns men.” And he said it over and over about I suppose about a half a dozen ways, just as a cathartic to his own soul, the confession felt good.
And I said, “David, do you understand the gospel of Jesus Christ, the saving gospel of Jesus Christ?” And he said yes. I said, “Tell me the gospel.” And he reiterated to me unhesitatingly how Christ was God incarnate, born and died and rose again for our salvation and the efficacy of His death on the cross as a substitute for sinners and he knew it well and he understood that salvation was by grace through faith and only God could save out of His own mercy the one who willingly believed and was eager to turn from his sin. I said, “Are you willing to turn from your sin to repent, cry out for God and ask Him for salvation?”
He said, “Yes, yes, yes!” So I said, “Well, salvation is a gift that only God can give, let me pray for you and ask God to give it to you.” And so I began to pour out my heart and as I was holding his hand and praying, he was squeezing my hand tightly, the emotion of his heart coming out through the hand. And I pleaded with the Lord to be gracious and save him and to forgive him all this life of horrendous iniquity and deliver him. And I prayed for quite a long time, after which he burst into prayer, a sobbing kind of prayer, and confessed his sin again, probably a half a dozen times to the Lord, and pleaded to the Lord to be merciful and to forgive him for the way in which he had blasphemed His name and rejected the gospel and lived in sin.
This man, by all intents and purposes, an absolutely inveterate homosexual who has sinned in ways that are beyond description. And he’s crying out for mercy. After his prayer was over, there was a peace and a calm that came over his heart. And as he opened his eyes and kind of wiped away his tears, a smile broke across his face and he was looking at the wall and he kept staring at the wall with a little smile on his face. And I said, “What are you looking at?” He said, “I’m looking at the calendar because I want to remember the day of my new beginning.” And then he went on to reiterate that he…that he sensed that God had saved him, that he accepted by faith the fact that if he had trusted Christ God would save him in His mercy. And he believed in that moment that he was converted.
I think it was in a day or so from then that Lance Quinn took over a copy of The Gospel According to Jesus so that he could read it and fully understand and be sure that his faith was real. And within five days from the day that I had prayed with him, he was gone, dead. But I said to him that day by the bed, I said, “Now that you’ve become a Christian, what’s going to be different?” He said, “My whole life is going to be different.” He said, “The first thing is my whole life is filled with people who live in a homosexual world. The fellow who was in here when you came in is my lover. My male nurse here is a homosexual and the AIDS Association has sent me an AIDS worker to be with me in these days who is also a homosexual. Everybody in my life is a homosexual.” And he said, “Now I have the responsibility to tell them all of the sin that they’re engaged in and call them all to come to Christ.” God gave him five days to do that and then he was gone.
… All that said, God says being a transvestite is an abomination, being a transsexual is an abomination, being a homosexual is an abomination, aiding and abetting any of that stuff is abominable to God and there’s blood guiltiness associated with all of it. And the penalty is death and God will judge the nation that tolerates it and God will destroy the people that do it. Having said all of that, I go right back to where we started and remind you of this wonderful truth, this sin in all its categories and in all its extremes is forgivable. Does that tell you something about God’s grace? Does that tell you how gracious our God is? Does that tell you something about the death of Christ who in His own body bore those very sins? God is a God of mercy and grace. And if you will come to Him in your sin, He is willing to forgive.
From Part 2:
Some Sunday nights back, a young man named Robert was baptized in the water here. And he came into the water and he told a wonderful testimony. He said, “I have AIDS,” and he said, “I’ve been a homosexual for years and I said to someone I want deliverance from this life. Where can I go? Where can I go and find help?” And he said, “Someone told me to go to Grace Community Church and I could find help there. He said, “I walked into this church on a Sunday morning. I had never been here,” he sat right out over there. And he said, “I was desperate, I wanted deliverance from my sin and its consequence, death.” And he said, “John got up, as he does every Sunday, and read a Psalm.” And he said, “This is what he read.” And he recited it, Psalm 107, “They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region. They didn’t find a way to an inhabited city. They were hungry and thirsty. Their soul fainted within them. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, He delivered them out of their distresses. He led them also by a straight way to go to an inhabited city. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness, and for His wonders to the sons of men! For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, and the hungry soul He has filled with what is good. There were those who dwelt in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in misery and chains, because they had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High. Therefore He humbled their heart with labor; they stumbled and there was none to help. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble; He saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their chains apart. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness and for his wonders to the sons of men.”
He stood in these waters and recited that verbatim. And he said, “When I heard you read that, I knew I had come to the right place and that my chains could be broken and I could be set free.” And that morning, that first Sunday, that first time he had ever come here, he gave his life to Jesus Christ and was wonderfully saved and later entered the waters of baptism to confess that sin and that transformation to you. And I said to him privately, “What are you going to do with the days of life that God gives you?” Well he told me, he said, “The Gay Pride Parade is coming down the street near where I live, I’ve been in the mainstream of this whole thing.” And he said, “All of my former friends are going to be stopping by to greet me because they know I’m so ill and I’m going to give everyone of them the gospel of Christ.” And I know he did and he’s dying and yet he’s ready because he knows he’s going to meet Christ. That’s the good news, isn’t it?
Jason, sorry for the length, but hopefully it will serve a wonderful purpose by exposing some light on a difficult subject the His glory and honor and praise.