John: Ladies and gentlemen. I don't know if people can hear me. Maybe they can. ⁓ I don't know if people can hear me. Maybe they can. ⁓ But it appears maybe they can. I haven't done this. I haven't been doing this. So. And usually it's because my sound doesn't work for me to go live. But I wanted to try and do something real quick today because I do not have time to record and upload. This particular message, this is my pride month message, as I always try to do. And this is basically just a kind of a call to the people of God to not waste an opportunity this month. As you know, unless you live under a rock, you do know that the forces of darkness have selected this particular month to celebrate evil, to celebrate rebellion, to shake their fist at God. This is this month. This this happens all year round, of course. ⁓ But We are at a time in history, now people don't know this, but sodomy, homosexuality used to be illegal. ⁓ Sodomy used to be illegal in the same way that all kinds of other unnatural things are illegal, such as bestiality is illegal. Some people don't know this, but sodomy, which is homosexuality, used to be illegal in all 50 states, used to be illegal in most parts of the world, but the world has changed. The world changes, God doesn't. As far as the Word of God is concerned, homosexuality is an abomination before God. This is not unloving. Okay, this is truth. This is something that people should be willing to say ⁓ because it's true. Now, how we say it matter, okay? How we communicate it matter and I'm using the airwaves, I'm going live to communicate this message on Facebook because there are thousands and thousands of people who will be communicating the opposite on this same wavelength. So we do need to go out there and use our platform and communicate the truth in love. ⁓ I'm not angry. I am not afraid. I don't have a phobia against homosexuals. I just want to tell the truth. And again, in real life, as I interact with people, I go about it differently. But as we go about on the airwaves, we have to communicate directly because the other side communicates directly. And this is what I'm here to say. I'm here to encourage Christians to not be afraid to use your platform. In fact, God gave you that platform for such a time, for this reason, for such a time as this. ⁓ The greatest evil of our time, the greatest deception of our time right now is this. ⁓ If you can imagine that We're calling good evil and evil good by celebrating pride as a country, as a community. This has become such a part of life that most people don't even realize just how egregious it is before God. ⁓ And look, this cannot go without judgment. God has been gracious to this country and to, you know, other countries around the world that have gone about engaging in this this thing. ⁓ But we're calling good evil. Believe you, you know, the people who will be watching this, you know, right, that what I'm saying right now, there's someone that's going that's fully 100 % convinced that I'm a head full bigot, even though I'm actually telling them, there's a cliff, you're going over a cliff, you need to stop and turn around. I'm the bigot. That's how far low we have gone as a society. Darkness is light and light is darkness. Remember, truth equals light. Lies equals darkness. So who's laughing? The one who's telling homosexuals to Love, love is love to love who you want to love and go ahead and sleep with whoever and and that's God is okay with that. God blesses it. Is that person really loving? No, no, they're not loving. But the world wants you to think differently. The world wants you to adapt that as the truth and to live behind the idea. that homosexuality, just like bestiality, is unnatural, is ⁓ an affront before God, is going against God's design, is an abomination before God. And again, it used to be illegal here and also in the world. It is still illegal in a lot of parts of the world, in a lot of countries in Africa, it is still illegal. They probably in most cases do not enforce it as they should, but it's illegal on the books. ⁓ So we as Christians need to get back to the truth. And by the way, here's the thing. A lot of Christians believe what I'm saying. A lot of conservatives, a lot of evangelicals believe what I'm saying. They might not even agree with me and everything else politically, but on this particular question, they know I'm right. ⁓ They just will never say it in public. They will never say it as I'm saying it now. They will never go on their pulpit and declare this and read this out of the Bible and declare it. If they do, and a lot of people have seen do it, but they do it in passing. They don't stay there as, as, ⁓ you know, they should, they don't teach people how to think through this in an inappropriate way, in an intentional focused way. They just zoom past it. ⁓ those that do talk about it, they qualify it a thousand times before they actually declare the truth. Right. But many more Christians are quiet. They stay silent. Right. They stay silent. And that's exactly what the enemy wants you to do. Especially during pride month. The enemy wants you to be quiet. The enemy wants you to say nothing. The enemy wants you to either affirm, be an ally. Right. Or say nothing. Those two, they work. Right. The enemy wants you, your church website to say nothing. Church website is vague. It has the general kind of evangelical 12 point statement of faith that are good but are not clear on the most important questions of our day. One thing that has blessed me recently as I've been looking through different mission statements of different organizations is that some organizations are starting to put a line in there about marriage being between one man and woman. life beginning at conception and the fact that, you know, God created us in his own image, male and female, and that there are only two genders and that sex is to be had within a marriage covenant of a man and a woman as God will have it. This is an important line. It should be in every church. If Even if it's just for your own people to see, hey, ⁓ this is what this church believe. Right. If they have questions, how do you defend this biblically? Of course, you should be ready to defend this biblically. But there are many, many resources out there in society to help you, to equip you. Many that I can recommend even, you know, if anybody wants a recommendation. But the point I'm trying to make is this pride month. is a month that has been selected for EVO to really do their victory lap, right? To show just how powerful the movement has become, right? How successful they have become with regards to their advancing their gospel, their false gospel, right? But the people of God, the people of the book, those with the actual gospel need to stand up. and say, hold on a second. We love you too much. To let you just do this right. And look, when you stand up, like when I'm saying this, I don't have a big platform, obviously. But if everyone with a platform, whether it's a life group, whether it's a Bible study that you lead, whether it's a pulpit that you you preach on every Sunday. if if if we all were to communicate the message from God telling because at any given time there are people in your life that God has put in your life for you to communicate and equip right ⁓ Ephesians 4 says this if I can put it bring it up really quickly Ephesians 4 talks about the offices that God has ⁓ given to the church. And in verse 12, he said, God gave these offices, whether you believe it's four offices or five offices, different people believe different things. But the point is here is that God gave these offices ⁓ to equip the sense for the work of ministry. and for building up the body of Christ until we all attend the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood and to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. This is why God has given the leadership, those who are to equip the saints in the church. And in the month of June, all year round really, but especially in the month of June, The people of God, the men and women of God should be ready to explain to those people in your life what God says about this, because God says something about this. God is clear and God doesn't change. Right. You can be progressive or you want. God does not change. He stays the same, which is why even Progressives will not say, God changed. They will say that conservatives were wrong. Right. The ones who try to claim some, some, ⁓ place in the Christian faith, many of them would say, well, conservatives were wrong. They were, you know, influenced by white supremacy. That's why they, or the patriarchy. ⁓ but, but God doesn't change. That's a fact. So if God says this is wrong, this is wrong. At no point that does murder ever become OK, simply because the society decided that it is the same goes for stealing, for covetousness, for ⁓ immorality of all kinds, which includes sexual immorality and homosexuality is in that category of immorality. This must be taught. There are people who are listening to CNN. And they think that God is love and therefore he would never punish anybody for loving somebody else and engaging in this act with somebody else. A lot of people are convinced of this, including people sitting in the pews believing to be Christians. Some of them are Christians, they're genuinely saved, but they're deceived on this point. There are people in the pews who would say, hey, what is your business? Why don't you? Why are you worried about someone else and who they're having sex with? Right. Why don't you just do you and let them do them? Well, look, I'm a Christian and I love you too much to let you go down this road when the Bible is clear that people who engage in this kind of lifestyle and repentant will not inherit the kingdom of God. That doesn't make me any better than anybody because I have my own problems that I have to I have before God. Right. I'm not trying to claim some sort of superior position in the kingdom of God. I'm just saying sin is sin. Stealing, lying, lust, covetousness, worshiping of idols. Right. and homosexuality. So what's so hard about this? Right? But as an example, I wanted to pull out an example that I found just to outline what I'm saying real quick. And I'll be gone because I don't want this to take long. It's already gone too long. So real quick, there's a person named Miss Rachel. She is a popular YouTuber for kids. This person talks to kids. Okay. And so remember we already read in Ephesians four that people that the saints are to be equipped so that they are no longer be children. Right. But also so that they are not tossed to and fro by the waves carried by every wind of doctrine by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful scheme. Now, Miss Rachel talks to actual children, little children. She has a YouTube. She's a very famous big YouTube channel for children, but she falls under the every wind of doctrine, human cunning, craftiness, and deceitful schemes when it comes to the LGBT question. Listen up, okay? Now, again, remember There are people who don't know how to think through these things that need our help. And those people are many, especially younger people, especially if they go to the government schools. The government school is affirming in most cases. Okay. Here's what Ms. Rachel said. Bring it up to the screen. Miss Rachel said, again, this person has a lot of influence. And of course, Ali Beth Starkey was responding to her. This is why I'm getting this post. She says, quote, throughout history, people have used the Bible to defend slavery. Remember the craftiness. This is about craftiness. ⁓ Throughout history, people have used the Bible to defend slavery, enforce segregation, and ban interracial marriages. All true. Okay? Today, it is used by some to attack, harm, and discriminate against LGBT plus community. Stop there. The Bible should not be used to attack. But as far as Mr. Rachel and all the LGBTQ people are concerned, I'm attacking. I'm not just disagreeing, right? Saying, hey, this is wrong. I disagree with your lifestyle. I'm attacking. I'm harming, right? If I was to say that we should not allow this lifestyle to be celebrated in certain places. like in front of children. Okay. They would say I'm discriminating. If I would say, Hey, I run a Christian organization and I'm not going to hire you. If you're openly practicing a homosexual lifestyle, far as they're concerned, I shouldn't be doing that. That's not right. That's what she means. Okay. Continue. Quote, Jesus never spoke a single word condemning people who are LGBT. Okay, now. Technically in a very very very very very very very technical sense like if you look at the things that Jesus said He never of course There was no community called the LGBT community when Jesus was alive Okay, this was far as Jesus was concerned Jesus is God This is an abomination It's known it's written Jesus did not have to list every single abomination Jesus did not say anything about abortion. You think Jesus is okay with abortion? Well there's people who would claim that Jesus thought abortion was okay. Abortion was not okay. There's a lot of things Jesus never said. She's saying Jesus never said a single word. And if you go through the gospel and look at every word that Jesus ever said, you would find that is true. Jesus never actually said a word about specifically, he did say about marriage being between one man and woman. Okay. ⁓ And of course, Jesus is God. He wrote the whole Bible, right? The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, one God in three distinct personalities. are present throughout history as the entire canon of scriptures are being written. So to say that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality is also not true in that sense, because the Bible, the word of God is God breathed. God wrote it, used humans, but he authored, orchestrated. She continues, he focused on love. This is Jesus. He focused on love, love, inclusion, inclusion and compassion. Remember Jesus did not have the kind of problems we have today. We're talking about ⁓ a 2000 years ago person in ancient Palestine, in ancient Israel. Okay. ⁓ not the same, but a lot of people don't know this because a lot of people have not been trained to think through this kind of stuff. Have not been equipped. She continues, quote, he stood with people who were marginalized and rejected. True. That's true. No person or group owns Christianity in the Bible. Okay. spoken like a true progressive. This is progressive theology. They want to be able to claim a place at the table while twisting the whole scripture. They don't want to start their own religion, even though progressivism or liberal Christianity is another religion. A book I would recommend on that is J. Gresham Marchion. Christianity and liberalism. Outlines imperfect. ⁓ in perfect picture how Christianity and liberalism are two different religions. All right. So let's say a little bit of what Ali Bef-Staki says and I'll be out of here. Ali Bef-Staki said, what's true? By the way, highly recommend Ali Bef-Staki as a resource that people can use to learn some of these things. Not that Ali Bef-Staki should be the one equipping people that God has placed in your life, but She's a resource. All right. So what's true? Christian identifying people have used the Bible to justify evil. True. What's not true? The Bible slash Jesus are silent about or supportive of homosexuality and transgenderism. That's not true. Homosexuality is condemned in both the Old and the New Testament, Leviticus, 1 Corinthians. It is not true, as some say, that these verses are changed and added to the Bible in 1946. That's what progressive claim, okay? Progressive make these claims and a Christian who has not been taught and equipped on how to think through that kind of claim get tripped up. Like, wait a minute, right? ⁓ Again, the behavior is explicitly described as sinful in Romans, chapter one, 26 and 27. That is truth. Romans chapter one is one of the best place you can go to to make a case against homosexuality. But of course, there's other places in the Bible. The Bible as a whole is the Word of God, not just parts of it, not just the Gospels as some of the progressives would want us to believe. All right. She says quote, but we don't just read the Bible asking what does God call sin. We also ask what does God call good? Good point. When God met Adam and Eve, he created two genders, biologically defined male and female. Unlike anything else in all of creation, God calls this very good. They join in marriage and are commanded to have children. There we see that God's definition of gender and marriage are rooted in creation. These definitions are also reiterated throughout the scriptures, Anna your father and mother. And it goes on and on as she's saying, ⁓ showing the two genders throughout the Bible. Okay? The one woman, one man marriage structure is clearly repeated by Jesus himself in Matthew 19, 4 and 5 as I said already. It is not true that Jesus never spoke on sexuality. He defined it just as Genesis 1 does as I already said as well. So plus Jesus is God. The Bible is God's word. Thus everything God and his word says Jesus says to Old Testament and new. Jesus in love repeatedly urges his listeners to repentance, commanding them, go and sin no more. Alibeth continues, marriage is between one man and one woman is representative of Christ and the church. True. Ephesians 5, 28, 32 tells us that a husband and wife are an earthly picture of Christ, the groom and his bride, the church. Facts. That means marriage has eternal significance only between a man and a woman. This institution is therefore reflective of the gospel. The Bible starts with marriage and ends with a marriage. How we define male and female, husband and wife, mother and father really matters to the God who created them to be earthly representatives of an eternal and eternal gospel reality. The biblical truth about marriage won't score you any points with the world. That's okay. Jesus said, what to you when all people speak well of you. Jesus was full of grace and truth. Stephen was full of grace and power. Both were full of grace yet were executed. Good point. Be gracious, be truthful. Don't let the world's response be the judge of your effectiveness. Let God and his standards be the judge. Christian. Christian love doesn't exist without truth. love well and speak truth boldly. Amen. I think, you know, this basically in a nutshell says kind of everything I was going to say. And I want to get back to this slide here, which says that biblical truth about marriage won't score you any points with the world. It won't. In fact, again, like I said before, the world wants you to be quiet, especially this month. Quiet. Say nothing. If you don't have anything nice to say about Pride and the LGBT community, then say nothing. Be quiet. Cover your light and slide into the church house and sing your songs and go home. If you do that, the world will love you. They will invite you to places. They will include you in their agenda. They will give you money. They will partner with you and they will advance you. The moment you start speaking out against this, you lose customers, you lose positions. You will not be invited into places and you probably won't get that promotion because you are causing ⁓ problems in the community. But Alibeth says that's okay. Okay. So look, I just wanted to come on here as I normally do, I try to do this every year to communicate to those three people that listen to me to say, look, God gave you a platform. This is my platform, Facebook. Okay. I have other platforms in my life and, this is, this is one of them. And I use it. I speak out as much as I can. You know, it's not easy for me to do, contrary to what people might think. It's not easy for me to do this because you know, I like, I want to be liked also, naturally speaking. But I have to tell the truth. I have to obey God in what I believe He's called me to do. And, you know, I'm not trying to be obnoxious about this. God has called me to this. I believe it with all my heart. And so I do it. So in closing, look again, make no mistake. God has given specific offices to the church. ⁓ The apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds or pastors and teachers. Now, some people think pastor and teacher is one office. I understand that. I respect that. Some people say that apostles, prophets and evangelists, pastors and prophets are not offices active in the church today. understand that too. ⁓ But the point is, the point remains, whatever, however you interpret verse 11, Ephesians 4 11, even if you end up with just the evangelist, shepherd and teacher. You still have to contend with verse 12, 13 and 14. And 15, which says verse 15 after after we're told about, you know, not being children, toast to and fro by the words and carried about by every window of doctrine by human cunning, craftiness and deceitful schemes. The Bible says this in verse verse 15, quote. rather speaking truth in love. We are to grow up in everywhere into Him who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined together held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. The Bible also says ⁓ In Ephesians 5 verse 11, it says in a quote, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. we are to expose darkness. The month of June has been selected by the forces of darkness to celebrate darkness as light. Okay? It's a gospel. It's a false gospel, but it's a gospel. They want the world to believe that they are loving and kind. And a lot of them are kind. If you meet them in person, they are prepared to give you the last jacket off their back. but they have a distorted view of love. And it is the job of the people of God to turn that light back in their way and shine that light, which is uncomfortable. And again, as Ali Biff-Stackie said, it's not going to gain you a lot of friends because the forces of darkness would like to keep it dark as long as possible. Christians need to know one thing. closing, my last closing. Ideas have consequences and ideas either bring darkness or light. Truth, ideas rooted in truth bring light. Jesus is the light of the world, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus has come, the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. He brings darkness so he can steal, kill and destroy. Jesus has come to give us abundant life because he is the light of the world. He has given us this light as the people of God, Spirit-filled believers to shine this light into the world, to be a city on a hill. Again, if the world is happy with you, if the world is comfortable with you, if you're being invited to these parties and these soirees, if you're being celebrated and promoted, there's a likelihood that you have compromised, that you are not declaring the truth, that you're not effective in the advancing of the kingdom of God. So we must get to it now rather than later. Capish? Yep.
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
In this episode I caver a range of topics related to Pride Month, biblical views on homosexuality, and the role of Christians in communicating the truth. I address historical context, progressive theology, and the importance of standing for biblical truth. I especially emphasize the need to equip the saints, expose darkness, and shine the light of truth in a world that celebrates evil.
Takeaways
- Communicating the truth in love
- Exposing darkness and false gospel
Chapters
English
United States
TRANSCRIPT 🔗
SEARCH PAST EPISODES
Search past episodes of The CounterRevolution with John Rushemeza.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Rushemeza, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
EDIT
Thank you for helping to keep the podcast database up to date.