The purpose of Christianity is for it to be an avenue for sinful men and women to come and get reconciled to a holy God. Therefore, just as hospitals are places where the sick are to go and get help to get better, the Church is a place where sinners can go and get help from the Lord Jesus to overcome their sins. It’s a place where those who recognize God and Jesus as their Savior and Master, congregate with one another to worship God, learn from one another, and grow together in God.
One fundamental aspect of Christianity is that it is not a democracy! Rather it is a kingdom where God is King, and where He rules by His own set of laws, which He spelled out in the Bible. Therefore, anyone who wishes to belong to Christianity MUST adhere to God’s laws, as stated in the Bible. You don’t have to be a Christian; but if you so choose, then you must determine to abide by God’s laws.
For this reason Christianity is a faith based on repentance from sin, and repentance itself is based on agreement. I repented from my sinful ways and chose to follow God’s ways, because when I discovered His ways, I agreed with Him that my ways were wrong, and that I needed to forsake them and follow His holy ways. Therefore, as a Christian, I endeavor now to live by God’s ways, as revealed in the Bible.
Hence the problem with homosexuality in the Church, which stems from the fact that some homosexuals who would like to follow God have refused to agree with God’s expressed view that homosexuality is evil, and that they need to repent from it, and stop indulging in it. Rather they want to be accepted as ‘homosexual Christians’.
To non-Christians this seems like a legitimate demand, hence their belief that the Church is being unfairly intolerant of homosexuals. But the fact is that homosexuals ARE welcome in the church. The church IS for such sinners. It’s just that instead of them to come to church to get help with their condition, they want to impose their evil practices on the Church.
Let me be blunt about this: There can’t be such a thing as a ‘Christian homosexual’, just as there can’t be a Christian thief, or a Christian wife-beater. These are all unacceptable behaviors that we expect anyone with such issues to come into the Church to seek help with. The problem, therefore, is that when homosexuals come into the Church and demand to be left alone as they are, they are in fact asking that the will of God concerning homosexuality be ignored, and that they be allowed to continue in their evil ways.
The Church is for people who have recognized that they have a problem that they need the Lord Jesus to help them with. Just as the sick are expected to get well in hospitals, so are sinners who come into the Church expected to drop their sinful habits, and become righteous people who endeavor to abide by God’s ways. Therefore, homosexual and proud of it, and unwilling to change? That’s fine. Just stay out of the Church of our Lord Jesus-Christ. That’s all we’re asking.
Yes, everyone in the Church, including the pastors, is still battling one sinful habit or the other. But they have agreed that they have a problem with sin, and they are working on changing their ways to be conformed to the ways of God. Like a sick person who goes to the hospital to get well, we go to church to get help to overcome sin and become holy before our God.
WHAT IS EXPECTED OF THE CHURCH?
The Church must treat the sin of homosexuality the way it treats any other sin. The notion of being ‘tolerant’ of homosexuality has been misconstrued by so many folks, believers and unbelievers alike. A pastor who thinks that being tolerant of homosexuals means teaching that it is alright to be homosexual is not a Christian pastor – a Christian pastor bases his teachings strictly on the word of God. Not telling a gay person the truth about the way God feels about their lifestyle is not love or tolerance, but murder. The sin of homosexuality is one baggage he or she simply cannot carry into heaven.
And a pastor who refuses to admit homosexuals into his church does not understand his calling, which is to bring all sinners into the church and show them the way to freedom from sin.
Being tolerant of gays simply means accepting them the way we accept everyone else. The doors of the Church are open to all men from all walks of life. But the ultimate goal and purpose of the Church is for it to be a place where people come to reconcile with their Maker, and the way to do this is to lovingly bow to His will and seek after His holy ways. To love God is to hate sin! Anyone who wishes to remain in any type of sin has no place in Christianity.
When we discover that a brother or sister is still actively involved in some type of sinful behavior, we lovingly call them to order. So when we discover that a brother or sister who is homosexual has not only refused to change his or her views on homosexuality, but is actively flaunting the lifestyle, and trying to make a case that he or she has the right to be a ‘Christian homosexual’, of course we have a problem. It’s like an individual with any other sinful habit, say a wife-beater, or a thief, who comes into the church and tries to make a case that it is all right to be a wife-beater or a thief. You would see the same kind of spirited rebuke from the Church against any group that tries to claim that it is alright to engage in any other type of activity that the Bible has declared to be sinful.
This is why the two fundamental reasons that the Church has a problem with homosexuals are:
1. They are the only group of sinners demanding to be allowed to indulge in their sin.
2. They actively seek to change the Church’s views and stance on the issue of homosexuality.
You don’t hear of thieves or fornicators or any other type of sinners who demand that the Church change its views and stance on their type of sinful practice. But homosexuals do. They have actively mounted a fight to get the Church to embrace homosexuality, and they’ve been using all kinds of vile attacks and intimidating means to get their ways. Ironically, this fact alone totally discredits their stance, because it reveals the very evil and mean spirit behind homosexuality. Only the spiritually-blind can fail to see the homosexual attack on Christianity for what it is: An attack from the pit of hell to destroy the Church at its very foundation!
GOD’S CASE AGAINST HOMOSEXUALITY
Here’s what’s fundamentally wrong about homosexuality in God’s eyes:
Genesis 1:26-27 says: “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (NIV)
You see, brethren, when God created man, He also created the woman at the same time, with the woman hidden inside the man. So though the man was alone until the time when God brought the woman out of him, he wasn’t alone in God’s eyes. God always saw the man and the woman united as one when He looked at the man.
Fast-forward to Genesis 2, where God ‘formed’ both the man and woman. To some, Genesis 2 simply retells the story already told in Genesis 1. No!!! To understand the difference between what God did in Gen 1 and 2, one must understand the difference between ‘creating’ and ‘forming’. You create something out of nothing; but you ‘form’ something by using things that already exist.
Thus, in Genesis 1 God created man out of the blue by multiplying His very self into another being that looked and behaved just like Himself. And since God is Spirit, then the man that God created was a spirit – that’s what it means that He created man in His own image. So in Gen 1, God created the spirit of the man and the woman, with the woman’s own spirit being inside the man’s spirit.
Then in Genesis 2:7 we are told how God now took some dust from the ground – which already existed – and ‘formed’ the body of the man. This is why the body dies and goes back to dust, but the spirit never dies.
So in Gen 1, God created the main part of the man and woman that matters: Their spirits. Then in Gen 2, He took dust and molded a physical body over their spirits, so they can be able to dwell in a physical earth.
As we can see from the Gen 2 narration, the woman was still inside of man even after man was given a physical body, and he carried her around inside of him until God decided to bring the woman out and give her her own physical body (Gen 2:21-25). It was only at that point that they became two separate entities here on earth, BUT IN GOD’S EYES, THEY WERE ALWAYS ONE! Notice that when God gave the woman her own body, he didn’t just scoop dust from the ground to form her body, but he used a piece of the man’s own body to form her body. This signifies a spiritual bridge that preserved the concept of the man and woman being of one flesh!
This kind of union is God’s intent and purpose for men and women, and that is why right after God separated them into two people, we read: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24, NIV)
It’s crucial to understand this: There’s a serious spiritual phenomenon that occurs during sexual intercourse. The parties involves LITERALLY become one spiritually! In the realm of the spirit the two beings become one. This is why God intends for sexual intercourse to be strictly between a man and a woman who have been united in holy matrimony. If it is between a man and a woman united by holy matrimony, it is the most beautiful thing for God to behold!!! Otherwise, it is evil in His sight! This is why a healthy sexual relationship is crucial in a marriage. During intercourse, the man and the woman complete one another and exchange virtues.
There’s a story about a young man who let his curiosity about sex lead him to having sex with the family dog, just to see what sex feels like. Unfortunately for him, as he and the dog united spiritually, some of the dog’s personality got transferred to him. One day, as the boy sat down to take a very important exam at school, he suddenly started to bark like a dog. That’s all he could do at that time. They thought he had gone mad and sent him out of the exam room. At home, he confessed what he had done, and the parents sought spiritually help for him.
The point of all this is that sexual intercourse is something that God designed for a man and his woman to enjoy together and through it strengthen their union and get to know each other better. It is not something that He takes lightly!
It is crucial to understand what I’ve explained here in order to understand the way God feels about the idea same-sex relationship. IT GOES AGAINST HIS INTENT AND PURPOSE!!! I can’t emphasize any more the idea that God can never accept the idea of two men or two women uniting together as one both in sexual intercourse and in matrimony. HE CAN NEVER ACCEPT SUCH MATRIMONY AS HOLY. It goes against everything He intended! It is a lie from Satan that God is okay with it!!!
Think about it: when God created man, MAN AND WOMAN CREATED HE THEM! You want to tell me that God very specifically designed the concept of man as a being that came with his woman inside of him, just to now accept the idea of a man and some other man, or a woman and some other woman, together? Such unions are abomination in God’s sight!!! This is what so disgusted Him about the people of Sodom and Gomorrah that He sent fire to destroy them!
THERE IS HELP!
The notion that homosexuality is not a curable habit? Another lie from the pit of hell! There is power in Jesus-Christ to save human beings from every type of sin! Just ask the people at such ministries as http://www.SBMinistries.org. The Lord is doing wonders in the lives of homosexuals who are willing to recognize that they have a problem, and are willing to work with Him to have a change of life. That’s what Christianity is all about.
I enjoyed reading an article recently in CHARISMA magazine, about a lesbian who went to a church service with her partner with the intention of provoking the congregation with their lifestyle. But once she got there, God literally ‘arrested’ her and delivered her from the habit. They had thought that the church folk would be mean towards them, but what they received was pure love and indifference. This made one of them curious about Christians because she had only heard about how mean they are towards gays. So she decided to visit again, and began to read the Bible. Soon she discovered that her lifestyle truly offends God, and decided to allow Him to make a change in her. She is now free to live the way God intended for her to live, and is sharing her story to help deliver other gays.
WHAT TO DO
Outside the Church, the law of the land rules. So be sure to abide by the existing laws concerning the treatment of gay folks. And within the Church, we have an obligation to preserve the purity and holiness of the Church. This means that we must follow the lead of the Holy Spirit and lovingly teach the truth about the way God feels about homosexuality. As believers we are to love the sinner while hating the sin. NEVER HATE A PERSON for any reason, and certainly not for being gay. But do hate the sin in their lives, and pray that they would be delivered from it, that they might be able to make heaven. Relate freely and gladly with them as you would with anybody, and apply godly wisdom if you ever wish to minister to them on the issue.
God bless you.
Rhemasource 