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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