Raise up Stones

Dear Brethren,

“[John the Baptist] came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins… Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.”  (Luke 3:3, 3:8)

God doesn’t need us – He could use rocks – we need Him.  We in the Church of God have the responsibility of preparing God's people and warning everyone to repent of their sins.  However, in these last days we have let down to the point that we only have an ineffectual pretense of religion – just enough to make us feel like we are being religious.  Our efforts to awake America to its sin is inadequate and unimpressive, to say the least.

Jesus Christ came with a message that was not politically correct.  His words were hard to hear and downright offensive to the great majority of His audience.  Why is it that we think we have to soften His words to make them more palatable and acceptable?  Why must we make the Gospel message kinder and gentler than the version that Jesus brought?  Why is it that we feel that we must change the Gospel to make it more appealing?  Understand this brethren, the only way God calls new saints into the Body of Christ is through His undiluted truth – as harsh as that seems to today’s Church leaders.

Again, God doesn’t need us – we need Him.  Notice what happened this week in a very big way to get a truthful message of what sin and repentance are – to hundreds of million Americans.

Who would think that any good thing would come out of Louisiana – let alone the backwater floodplains of Louisiana?  While U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby was ruling against Utah's voter-approved, will of the people, ban on unnatural homosexual marriage – causing many LGBT lesbian, gay, bisexual transvestite couples to rush to the Salt Lake County Clerk's marriage certificate office, Phil Robertson, one of the stars of the highly rated reality series, "Duck Dynasty" was in fact preaching a message of repentance from sin to all of America.

More people looked into their bibles at one time this week to see if what he said was really there – than ever before.  It wasn’t only his 14 million fervent disciples – all of America took note.  Here is what Phil preached – and people listened!

"We ought to just be repentant, turn to God, and let’s get on with it, and everything will turn around.”  What does repentance entail? Well, in Robertson’s worldview, America was a country founded upon Christian values (Thou shalt not kill, etc.), and he believes that the gradual removal of Christian symbolism from public spaces has diluted those founding principles. He goes on about why the Ten Commandments ought to be displayed outside courthouses.  “Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong,” he says. “Sin becomes fine.”

Phil Robertson was asked, “What, in your mind, is sinful?”

“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

Compare Phil’s paraphrase with the actual King James rendition:

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, [sodomites] Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”  (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

Phil was accused of being judgmental and hateful because of those words.  Not true!  That is God’s judgment on the matter – that is God’s point of view – they will not be in the Kingdom of God unless they repent – turn around and turn to God.  That is not “hate speech” – it is “Godly Love Speech.”

Phil offers his point of view: “We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?”

“For the sake of the Gospel, it was worth it, all you have to do is look at any society where there is no Jesus. I’ll give you four: Nazis, no Jesus. Look at their record. Uh, Shintos? They started this thing in Pearl Harbor. Any Jesus among them? None. Communists? None. Islamists? Zero. That’s eighty years of ideologies that have popped up where no Jesus was allowed among those four groups. Just look at the records as far as murder goes among those four groups.”

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