Love Wins

On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled in a controversial 5-4 decision to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states across the country. Naturally, pro-gay groups and the LGBT community at large were delirious, hailing the momentous decision as a great victory and a huge step toward the freedom and equality they seek.

Although it has been my firm conviction for several years now that same-sex marriage would become the law of the land before President Obama left office, I admit that the decision caught me off guard. Not the decision itself, mind you, but just the speed at which it occurred, as what appeared to be shaping up as a long, drawn-out struggle seemingly happened overnight.

True to form, President Obama tweeted the following shortly after the decision was announced:

"Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins"

Love wins. Ah yes, love. Oh, and don't forget freedom, equality, dignity, and last but not least, tolerance.

(Excuse me while I stand up and salute. Oh, and if you find it vaguely unsettling that he said "our march," you are not alone.)

That same night, the White House was bathed in a rainbow of lights to celebrate the decision. Of course, not everyone is in such a celebratory mood. The great majority of fundamentalist Christians and people of various conservative stripes throughout the country are bemoaning what they see as a precipitous slide into moral relativism, where anything goes and the traditional values that our once-great nation was founded on are being dismantled in favor of every trendy, politically correct perversion du jour.

The SCOTUS decision has focused attention on something that has been brewing for years, and that is the relentless attack on traditional values that is being waged by gay activists and various pro-gay groups in America. These individuals and groups are often collectively referred to by many conservatives as the "gay mafia," since their vicious, underhanded tactics would make any self-respecting mafioso weep with admiration.

It has reached the point, however, where attacks by the gay mafia are neither new nor surprising. The tactics of such people, who seek to eradicate every trace of God and godliness in American society, no longer shock many Christians. This is exactly what Christians can and should expect, especially in these last days, from a fallen, sin-infested world that is under the control of Satan. At least temporarily.

There is, however, a second prong developing in the attack against biblical morality and the traditional view of marriage as established by God, and that second prong is coming from an unlikely source:

Christians.

Over the past few years, several popular books have been written by people who (a) claim to be Bible-believing, born-again Christians, (b) are openly gay, and (c) have somehow convinced themselves that the Bible doesn't condemn their behavior. This trend came to a head in 2014 with the publication of God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships by a young man named Matthew Vines.

In his book, Vines pulls together and rehashes most of the arguments being bandied about these days in an effort to make the case that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality and same-sex marriage, and that Christians who attempt to use Scripture to do so are misinterpreting it and are blindly using it as a tool to spread their own bigotry and hatred.

Shame on you, all you born-again bigots.

Vines' book has become the de facto gay Christian manifesto, and as such has provoked a slew of responses from many Evangelical leaders, pastors, and Bible teachers. What I want to do in this article is briefly look at three of the arguments that are being put forth by Vines and others, or by what is starting to be known as the gay Christian movement (which I will refer to as the GCM for the remainder of this article), just to give you a taste of how clear passages of Scripture are being manipulated and twisted to make them say things they do not say, and not say things they clearly do say.

This is by no means meant as a thorough rebuttal of the GCM's scriptural position—other Christian writers have already done that far better than I ever could. I only picked these three specific arguments because at least they directly interact with Scripture, and serve to show how the GCM twists God's Word to justify their sin. I have seen a number of arguments the GCM is using to woo the Church into embracing the LGBT agenda as being biblical and thus acceptable to Christians that are just plain silly, some embarrassingly so.

For example, Matthew Vines recently put out the following gem as one of the reasons the Church should accept homosexuality:

"Well, shiver me timbers...everybody's doin' it, didn't ya know, so it's all aboard the Love Boat, maties!"

Sorry Matthew, but that ship won't sail. Bandwagons do not define God's truth—God's Word does. And God's Word says homosexual behavior is wrong. Oh wait, I'm sorry, it doesn't say it's wrong.

It says it's an abomination.

My bad. But I find it incredibly offensive that he would use a bandwagon argument to try and sway the Church like that—that's pretty lame. Then again, you never know—I've seen lamer arguments work on many people in the Church these days. But before we go any further, a few words about those rainbow-colored lights.

Roy G. Biv meets the LGBT

As I mentioned, on the evening of the SCOTUS decision, the White House was illuminated by a beautiful rainbow of colors, and legions of companies and organizations all over the country wasted no time in incorporating the rainbow symbol into their logos and advertising in various ways to show their support for the legalization of $ame-$ex marriage and the gay agenda.

But there's a subtle difference in the LGBT rainbow that most people don't notice. It's not quite the same as a traditional rainbow.

To show you what I mean, here are the colors of a traditional rainbow:

OK, here are the colors of the LGBT rainbow:

Pop quiz: Can you spot the difference?

Well, if you noticed that the LGBT rainbow seems to have fewer colors, you're on the right track. Note that the traditional rainbow has seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, with the first letter of each color spelling out the sequence "ROYGBIV." Many Americans recall the correct sequence of these seven colors with a simple mnemonic device that takes the form of the fictitious name "Roy G. Biv," while British people often use the phrase "Richard of York gave battle in vain." Or feel free to make up one of your own: "Retirees owning yachts go bust in Vegas." "Riding osteoporotic yaks gives bucktoothed immunologists vertigo." Go wild.

The LGBT rainbow, however, which is also used in the gay pride flag, only has six colors. So what's the big deal, one might innocently inquire.

The number seven is the number of divine completion, and is arguably the number most commonly associated with God and everything He does. God rested on the seventh day. God ordained seven feasts for Israel to celebrate. In the book of Revelation, there are sevens all over the place.

And there are seven colors in the traditional rainbow, which God gave after the Flood as a symbol of His covenant with mankind that He would never again destroy the world by water (Gen. 9:8–17).

On the other hand, six is the number of man, especially in his sinful, fallen condition. Man was created on the sixth day. Jesus suffered on the cross for six hours to redeem sinful men. No doubt the most celebrated biblical reference to the number six is seen in the infamous mark of the beast, or 666 (Rev. 13:18).

And there are six colors in the rainbow that people use to brazenly flaunt their contempt for God's laws and designs.

Color me surprised. Oh, but there's more.

Yes, there is a color missing from the LGBT rainbow. But what color did they remove? Look again. The LGBT rainbow consists of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

They removed indigo. Again, what's the big deal?

Just like numbers, colors also have biblical meanings and associations. The color indigo is a deep, dark blue with a bit of red mixed in. The color blue represents heaven, and by extension God. Red represents blood, and by extension the redemption for sinful men that Christ purchased with His blood on the cross. Taken together, indigo represents the blood sacrifice of God—in other words, atonement, or the propitiation for sin made by Jesus Christ so we could be redeemed from the law of sin and death if we repent and place our faith in Him and what He did for us. In a sense, the meaning of indigo can summed up quite nicely in one word:

Grace.

By removing the color indigo from the rainbow, the LGBT community has symbolically removed God's grace from their midst. It communicates the fact that they are intent on defiantly following after their own lusts and want no part of the gift of grace God offers to man, who is lost in sin and in desperate need of that grace.

And since I'm on the subject of symbols, I might point out that the official symbol for marriage equality (i.e., homosexual marriage), features two horizontal pink bars resembling an equal sign on a red background.

You might also say it resembles the number 11 on its side, as if it had fallen. The biblical meaning of the number 11 is sin and disorder.

I couldn't make this stuff up.

Lipstick on a pig

One of the foundational concepts being promoted by the GCM is that of sexual orientation, and it is an idea that undergirds and permeates many of the arguments they come up with in their efforts to persuade people that the Bible does not condemn homosexual behavior and relationships. Since this idea seems to infect the thinking of the GCM so deeply, I want to deal with it as a separate issue before getting into the specifics of any of their biblically related (but ultimately unbiblical) arguments.

It wasn't until the late nineteenth century that the idea that some people seem to have a natural sexual attraction to others of the same sex began to receive serious study, and many theories concerning homosexuality were developed. In the early twentieth century, one of the resulting concepts that began to take shape was the idea of sexual orientation.

When you read about sexual orientation today, a lot is usually said about many different aspects of human sexuality. But what shines through all the verbiage pretty clearly is the following simple fact:

Now, the American Psychiatric Association does go on to elaborate a bit further on what this entails. But at the end of the day, minus all the fluff and psychobabble, it basically comes down to the above statement. It's all about who's sexually attracted to who:

• If you are sexually attracted to people of the opposite gender, you have a heterosexual orientation.

• If you are sexually attracted to people of the same gender, you have a homosexual orientation.

In other words, it primarily comes down to feelings of sexual desire.

Everybody still on board? Hope that didn't confuse anyone. So there we have our oh-so-modern concept of sexual orientation: If, for example, you're a man and you're sexually attracted to men, then you have a homosexual orientation. Who knew? I guess a big tip of the hat is in order to the field of psychiatry for sorting that one out for us.

The problem, however, is that the GCM isn't satisfied with that. Oh no. They try to take this concept of sexual orientation and transform it into some modern, revolutionary new idea—a concept no one ever heard of before the twentieth century! They knock themselves out trying to gussy it up and attempt to elevate it to the loftiest heights imagination will allow.

But you know what happens when you try to put lipstick on a pig, don't you? In the end, you still have a filthy, grunting pig...only a rather clownish-looking one with lipstick smeared all over its snout.

Not only that, but they are ignoring competent historical scholarship. Books have been written in the last thirty to forty years that have completely put to rest the notion that the ancients were unfamiliar with what the GCM proudly hails as "sexual orientation." It has been well documented that ancient civilizations were fully aware that there existed people who were attracted to members of the same sex, and were capable of maintaining stable, long-term relationships.

As a result, one of the pillars that holds up the GCM's arguments that the Bible does not condemn same-sex relationships is the myth that the apostle Paul and those of his day knew nothing of loving, committed, monogamous gay relationships between those with homosexual orientations, relationships that have become more familiar to today's modern, enlightened society.

The upshot of all this, of course, is that according to the GCM, poor old unenlightened Paul must have been talking about something else entirely.

This issue of what the GCM means by "sexual orientation" is just one example of how various terms used by the LGBT community can cause a bit of confusion. Terms that have seemingly positive or at least innocuous meanings or connotations often take on whole new bouquets of meaning when used by people involved in the gay community. To help you decode and make sense of LGBT lingo, here are a handful of common terms you're liable to encounter when dealing with things LGBT:

tolerance (n.) — Tolerance is the capacity for or the practice of recognizing and embracing all types of homosexual activities and relationships, while demonstrating intolerance for any moral or religious beliefs or convictions that would run counter to the LGBT agenda in any way.

intolerance (n.) — See tolerance.

inclusion (n.) — Inclusion is the act of supporting, sponsoring, and working in a cooperative manner with any event or activity associated with the LGBT community, while excluding and refusing to work with any person or group that fails to embrace diversity.

to embrace diversity (v. ph.) — If you embrace diversity, you openly accept, support, and approve of all manner of homosexual activities and relationships in addition to the full spectrum of the LGBT agenda, while denouncing and rejecting any and all moral or religious beliefs or convictions that would in any way inhibit or restrict such acceptance, support, or approval (see hate).

affirming (adj.) — Anyone who embraces diversity is said to be affirming.

equality (n.) — Equality is the insistence on placing homosexual activities and relationships, including same-sex marriage, on an equal moral footing with their traditional heterosexual counterparts, while denigrating the idea that traditional heterosexual activities and relationships are normative.

bigot (n.) — A bigot is any person who has not completely capitulated to the strident demands for equality and tolerance from the LGBT community, and has the temerity to point out that the Bible condemns homosexual activity in clear, unambiguous terms.

hate (n.) — Hate is any opinion, attitude, remark, etc. that is in any way contrary to the LGBT agenda that is expressed by someone who believes homosexual activity, including same-sex marriage, is wrong and contrary to the Bible (see bigot). Also hate speech; hate crime.

Hope this helps.

The hots by any other name...

Now that we have a better understanding of the GCM's concept of "sexual orientation" and what it amounts to in reality, we are better equipped to look at several of the GCM's arguments that the Bible does not condemn homosexual acts or relationships.

There are several passages of Scripture in the New Testament that openly and clearly condemn homosexual behavior, and it's hard to imagine any of them being any clearer than what Paul wrote to the church in Rome:

This is arguably the number one "clobber verse," as members of the LGBT community like to call them, since it is one of the most frequently used passages of Scripture by Christians who want to point out that homosexual behavior is in fact condemned in the New Testament. Of course, calling them "clobber verses" helps convey the LGBT's sense of being victimized by all those mean, nasty bigots who stubbornly insist homosexuality is a sin.

Incidentally, when Paul writes "for this reason," the reason he's referring to is the fact that the people in question stubbornly ignore the overwhelming evidence of God's existence readily seen in the natural world and steadfastly refuse to acknowledge Him as Creator, and end up worshiping the things He created instead.

Armed with their fancified definition of sexual orientation, one of the prime arguments from the GCM is as follows:

First of all, remember how the American Psychiatric Association defined "sexual orientation"? They defined it in terms of sexual attraction. Sexual desire. Paul uses the word "lust." OK, powerful, inappropriate sexual desire. The GCM is putting lipstick on that pig again. But there's more.

Notice the phrase toward one other. In other words, Paul is talking about men experiencing mutual sexual attraction. How is this unclear? They've got the hots for each other! This one little phrase eliminates pederasty, male prostitution, and homosexual rape, all in one fell swoop. Then, as if to drive the point home, Paul specifically nixes the idea of pederasty with the phrase men doing what is inappropriate with men. Men, not boys.

The point is that mutual sexual attraction, powerful or otherwise, is not a characteristic of any of the exploitative relationships that the GCM claims Paul was referring to by any stretch of the imagination.

What?! No clams?!

Another argument put forth by the GCM has to do with the Mosaic law given to the Jewish people in the Old Testament. In the Torah, God laid out a highly detailed body of laws for the Jews, and it is broadly divided into the moral law, ceremonial law, and some recognize a third category of judicial/civil law. Its basic purpose was to delineate and codify Israel's position as an example to the world of a godly nation, and it covered both moral behavior as well sacrificial requirements. It set down for them detailed procedures that would serve to acknowledge God's holiness, reveal man's sinfulness, and make temporary atonement for sin—temporary atonement that was a shadow of the permanent atonement that would be accomplished by the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

The moral law includes the 10 Commandments, while the ceremonial law includes detailed instructions on how to remain ceremonially "clean" as well as the sacrificial procedures required to once again become "clean" if one inadvertently became "unclean." This part of the Mosaic law includes a fairly burdensome bundle of rules concerning what they can or cannot eat or touch, and what to do in case they do eat or touch it. For example:

Sorry seafood lovers, but clams are out. That same Mosaic law, however, includes a fairly stark prohibition against homosexual relations:

It's pretty tough to worm your way around that one, but the argument from the GCM is as follows:

It is true that Christians today certainly have no qualms about eating shellfish, and so the challenge coming from the GCM is basically this:

"When is the Church going to wake up and realize that this barbaric condemnation of and restriction on homosexual behavior applies to modern Christians about as much as the dietary restriction on eating shellfish? For Pete's sake, how much longer will the Church allow this archaic restriction to give bigots an excuse to viciously condemn loving, committed gay relationships between people who have been blessed by their Creator with a natural homosexual orientation?"

(Cue the violins...) By the way, as far as the claim that people are born with a homosexual orientation is concerned, here's another timely quote from our friends at the American Psychiatric Association:

So, if you think all this stuff about people being "born gay" is a bunch of LGBT baloney, give yourself a pat on the back because you're in good company. Modern science agrees with you.

Anyway, if you're a seafood lover, relax. The Bible makes it clear that the ceremonial law given to the Jews no longer applies after Christ's death. As far as food is concerned, Jesus says that it is what proceeds out of a person's heart that defiles him, not what goes into his stomach:

Along the same line, Paul explains that one of the purposes of the law was to bring us to Christ, and so the law has no more purpose or effect for those who place their faith in Him:

Paul expands on this idea more fully in his letter to the Romans:

Let each man be fully assured in his own mind. For those who have faith in Christ's atonement for sin, the only time partaking or not partaking in any particular ceremonial activity becomes a sin is when our conscience convicts us. In other words, if for some reason you are convinced in our own heart that it's not right to eat clams, but then you give in to the temptation to eat them, for you it becomes a sin. Why? Because in that case there's no way you can observe it to the Lord and give God thanks, as Paul puts it.

But that's the ceremonial law. That's all about things like eating or not eating certain foods, observing or not observing certain feasts or days of special ceremonial significance, etc. The moral law is a different story, because the moral law is a reflection of God's character.

And God's character never changes.

The moral law is intended to guide man's behavior in a manner in keeping with the fact that we are created in the image of a holy God, and our behavior should glorify Him. Unlike the ceremonial laws, the validity of God's moral laws is reaffirmed in several places in the New Testament.

And more to the point of the current discussion, the condemnation of homosexual behavior is repeated three times in the New Testament (Rom. 1:26–27; 1 Cor. 6:9–11; 1 Tim. 1:8–11). Yep, more clobber verses.

It is crucial, however, to understand what the GCM is actually doing here. The Bible itself tells us that the ceremonial laws no longer apply to those in Christ, and the Bible itself also tells us the moral laws are still in force.

The Bible tells us this—it's not the opinions of men.

But along comes the GCM, casually lumping homosexual behavior in with such things as dietary restrictions, thus failing to make a distinction the Bible clearly makes. In effect, they are acting as if Christians have the right to decide what parts of the Bible still apply and what parts don't.

In other words, according to the GCM, man has every right to decide what parts of God's Word are, shall we say, out of step with the times, effectively trumping biblical authority. Matthew Vines and other GCM writers claim to have a "high view of Scripture," but in reality this type of argument belies that claim and instead exposes their subtle (and deliberate) manipulation of Scripture.

Good fruit, bad fruit

When I first heard this argument from the GCM, it greatly saddened me to think that not only are there people out there who can so artfully bend what the Bible says in order to justify their sin, but they are influencing thousands of other believers who are struggling with desires the Bible condemns as sin.

Tragically, this argument effectively gives people an easy out when they fall under the conviction of the Holy Spirit in regard to their behavior that dishonors God, along with a pat excuse to defiantly persist in that behavior (rather than, say, repent and obey His Word).

First of all, let's go to the pertinent passage of Scripture:

(See Matt. 12:33–37 and Luke 6:43–45 for parallel passages.) In this part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is warning people about false prophets and how to recognize them. The point is that a false prophet or teacher—one who has failed to submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and who traffics in corrupt, unscriptural principles—will certainly prophesy or teach things that fail to line up with or conform to God's Word, and as a result will lead people away from the truth and into error (i.e., bad tree, bad fruit).

What the GCM is calling "bad fruit" here, however, has absolutely nothing to do with this. Assuming the individuals in question who are seeking to justify their homosexual behavior are in fact born-again believers, what Matthew Vines and others in the GCM call "bad fruit" is in most cases nothing more than the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who dwells within them knows it's sin, and down deep, they know it's sin—but they are defiantly looking for any conceivable excuse to hang on to it. I'd like to think that in many cases that conviction is brought on by other believers speaking the truth in love to them about their sin.

The Holy Spirit does that to believers who persist in known sin—that's His job.

And believers are supposed to lovingly, gently admonish other believers who are ensnared in sin to help them see how and where they are missing the mark in respect to God's Word—that's our job.

The truth hurts...and ultimately it heals. But it certainly doesn't produce "bad fruit."

And just to put a bow on it, we could use the exact same argument to condemn Jesus as a "bad tree," since His words certainly filled the scribes and Pharisees full of pain, anxiety and distress. Talk about bad fruit...Jesus apparently laid so much "bad fruit" on them they plotted to kill Him.

Speaking the truth in...love?

Now, lest anyone think that I'm just out to do some drive-by gay-bashing, let me say that I have been physically sickened by some of the cruel and unbiblical treatment I've seen some Christians, including ministers, dish out to the LGBT community over the last several years. One of the worst offenders that I am aware of is the pastor of a small, independent church in Tempe, Arizona named Steven Anderson.

Although his church is small and obscure, Rev. Anderson seems to have a flair for getting his name in the news, and he also has a significant presence on YouTube. In 2009, he drew national attention to himself by stating in a local news interview that he prayed for Barack Obama's death. Some of his YouTube videos include hysterical, vein-popping, anti-homosexual rants that leave you with a sense of relief that nobody in the congregation brought any tar and feathers. Or rope.

As far as I can tell, his view of homosexuals can be summed up as follows:

Every single homosexual is a depraved reprobate who not only isn't saved, but cannot be saved, and will spend eternity in hell. Forget about it.

He will not witness to them, minister to them, have fellowship with them, or allow them in his church. Even conscience-stricken congregants who express the slightest misgivings about his condemnation of homosexuals are not welcome and are unceremoniously asked to leave. (I'm not kidding—I've watched a few clips from some of his sermons on YouTube.) Videos have surfaced showing him spewing hate-filled epithets at members of the LGBT community in public.

Contrary to what people like Steven Anderson think, this is not "speaking the truth in love"—it's just spewing hate. The problem is he arrogantly assumes his attitude is completely biblical, and he gets there by playing a bit of logical flippy-flop with what Paul wrote to the Romans.

Remember the big clobber verse in Romans 1:26–27 that we looked at earlier, where Paul is saying that those who refuse to acknowledge God as Creator would be given over to their vile passions, with men burning in their lust toward one another? Here's the next verse:

The point Paul is making is that those who steadfastly refuse to so much as acknowledge God's existence as Creator are eventually given over to various types of lusts, including homosexuality. Ultimately such people can be given over to a reprobate mind, which means they themselves have placed a roadblock on the path to salvation and reconciliation with God, and God allows it to remain in place. Not that they care, of course, because they stubbornly refuse to even believe God exists, let alone believe He sent His Son into the world to die for their sins so they could be saved.

Are there such people in the world today? Yep, there sure are. I've dealt with a few of them on YouTube. Are some of them homosexuals? I didn't presume to ask, but I'm sure some are.

But what people like Steven Anderson do is flip this around and claim that if a person is homosexual, then they are automatically one of those who has been given over to a reprobate mind and thus beyond the hope of salvation.

But that's not what Paul is saying, and it simply doesn't follow logically.

By the way, Pastor Anderson is also outspoken about his belief that homosexuals should literally be executed, as per the Old Testament:

(The prescribed method of killing them was stoning, incidentally.) Listening to Steven Anderson mockingly offer this verse as a sure-fire cure for AIDS, however, begs the question:

Why don't we stone homosexuals today, exactly? After all, we believe the Bible, and that is what the Bible says, isn't it?

It's not a trivial question, because the Steven Andersons of the world claim they're just "following the Bible" when they talk as if they actually wanted to carry out the above punishment. Of course, all this accomplishes is to make the world regard all Bible-believing Christians as a bunch of lobotomized cretins rather than ambassadors of Christ. The world absolutely loves to use the fact that we don't follow such Old Testament practices anymore to paint Christians as self-deceived hypocrites who give lip service to what we brashly claim is God's Word. Sadly, most Christians today are unable to give a coherent scriptural response.

But here is what people like Steven Anderson fail to grasp:

The Old Covenant was based on the Law of Moses, and it condemned certain behaviors and prescribed harsh punishments for them, including the death penalty. But one of the purposes of the Old Covenant that Israel entered into with God was to set them apart as a nation chosen by God, and these external, physical aspects of the Mosaic law were meant to show the world that the God they served was holy, and demanded holiness from His people.

But when Christ died, the Old Covenant—external, physical, and written on tablets of stone—was done away with. The New Covenant that Jesus established with His blood is internal, spiritual, and written on hearts of flesh—the hearts of all those, Jew or Gentile, who repent of sin and believe in faith in the atonement He made for them.

Now, does that mean that homosexual behavior isn't a sin anymore? No! God's moral laws will never change because they reflect His eternal character. The New Testament makes it crystal clear that homosexuality is just as much a sin today as it was in the days of Moses, and it's just as much an abomination. The New Testament just says don't do that!

But are we still supposed to stone people for it? No! Why not? Because we're no longer obligated to carry out the punitive prescriptions of an obsolete covenant. Yes, obsolete. That's exactly what Paul called the Old Covenant (Heb. 8:13). Stone people?! The apostle Paul tells us to do our best to be at peace with all people (Rom. 12:18). We're just not to have anything to do with their sinful activities, and to set to the task of being the salt and light God calls us to be.

People like Steven Anderson not only fail to understand that the prescribed punishments in the Old Testament are obsolete and no longer in force, but they misinterpret verses in the New Testament to support their positions as well. For example, here's another one of the clobber verses that are often quoted to show that the New Testament still condemns homosexuality:

So, clearly homosexuality is still just as much a sin as it ever was. But people like Steven Anderson try to use this verse to prove that homosexuals are reprobates with no hope of salvation—that they will not inherit the kingdom of God! Oooh! And you can a-l-m-o-s-t get away with that...until you read the next verse, that is:

Such were some of you. In other words, some of the born-again believers Paul was writing to in Corinth used to be real sleazebags before they got saved. Apparently some were even (gasp) homosexuals! And were those Corinthian homosexuals all reprobates with no hope of salvation?

Uhm, apparently not...glory to God!

Love does win

I think it's critical to understand that, spiritually speaking, people struggling with homosexual desires are no different from any of the rest of us—we all feel desires to do things that displease God, and on a shockingly regular basis. Yes, we are sinners, and yes, we do sin. We just don't all commit the exact same sins. Homosexuals haven't cornered the market on fleshly temptations—we all get served a slice of that pie.

This may be a hard way to put it, but one question every born-again believer has to answer each and every day is this:

"Which do I love more, God or my favorite sin? Which is more important to me, striving to love, honor, and obey God and His Word with every fiber of my being to express my gratitude for the immeasurable grace He's shown to me, or satisfying the desires that still dwell in my flesh and manifest themselves all too often?"

It's hard. But it's simple.

The following is a quote by Dr. David Kyle Foster, author of Love Hunger: A Harrowing Journey from Sexual Addiction to True Fulfillment, and it speaks to all those who are proudly claiming to be "gay Christians":

God loves us—and He wants us love Him enough to obey Him. That's the whole point: God does love us—enough that He sent His Son into the world to die in our place so that we could be forgiven of sin if we but repent and believe in faith in what His Son did for us on the cross.

He loved us enough to die for us even though we were utterly unlovable.

That's love.

So President Obama, the LGBT community, and the whole wide world can sing and dance and celebrate the fact that "love wins," but understand that the "love" the world is celebrating isn't the kind of love we're talking about. Not by a long shot.

America is celebrating the fact that same-sex marriage—the pinnacle of a sexual perversion that God's Word clearly tells us is an abomination to Him—is now the law of the land. It breaks my heart...and it leaves me trembling at the thought of what lies ahead for our once-great nation. And I'm not the least bit sorry if that offends anyone's politically correct sensibilities.

But God's Word tells us something else—and ironically it's the same words the world is shouting and singing and tweeting and texting right now:

Love wins!

But this love is not what they're celebrating in the gay community.

This love is just another word for the gospel.

Greg Lauer — JUL '15

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