The Christian and Homosexuality

First time speaking in public in about 30 years. Do be charitable.

You can download the Powerpoint presentation to watch as you listen. You can also download Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 as mp3 files.

Part 1 - What the Bible says


Part 2 - Answering the arguments of the gay advocates


Part 3 - Conclusion

The New Tolerance

I have so many things to write about my head is spinning. But before I tackle the backlog, I must link to this excellent post which was highlighted by my brother Isaiah.

Dr David R Reagan nails in on the head when he defines it:

But this traditional concept of tolerance has been replaced by the "New Tolerance" that is being taught to our children today. The "New Tolerance" demands not only respect, but also endorsement and praise. Thus, it is no longer sufficient for me to simply tolerate the homosexual lifestyle. To be truly tolerant, I must also endorse it and praise it. And if I refuse to do so, I am a bigot!

The Queen's Gambit

In case you haven't heard about it yet, you will, soon.

pinkdot.sg

Deny it as they will, it's basically going to be a Gay Pride parade. Good photo-opportunity, "Free love" and an animated pink blob that looks like he (she?) came from the Woodstock Festival. Hey, the Hell's Angels might even turn up. I'm wondering whether I should go down, but probably not. Not edifying to my soul.

They really believe in seizing the moment to carry the day. With all this increased visibility, no better time to make a statement than now. Sway those who are undecided. keep up the momentum and make headway into (locally) uncharted territory. Gay marriage next, no doubt.

The human viewpoint

Speaking from a purely human viewpoint, it's a pretty good tactical move. Like placing your queen (pardon the pun) in a vulnerable position on the chessboard, and daring your opponent to take it. A queen's gambit, as it were.

If the government lets them go ahead, it will be seen as a great victory for the LBGT faction. Tacit acceptance and endorsement by the government, or at least an admission that the group is too significant to be trifled with.

If the government clamps down, they can cry discrimination and the deafening rhetoric will be heard all over again.

Either way, greater visibility, greater penetration into the public psyche, greater acceptance.

Indeed, as my aunt says, they're "very smart people".

God's viewpoint

But then, from God's point of view (ahh, how I love the Psalms!):

Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision. (Psalm 2)

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;
though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.
The wicked plots against the righteous
and gnashes his teeth at him,
but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that his day is coming. (Psalm 37)

Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. (Psalm 73)

Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?
The steadfast love of God endures all the day.
Your tongue plots destruction,
like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit.
You love evil more than good,
and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah
You love all words that devour,
O deceitful tongue.
But God will break you down forever;
he will snatch and tear you from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
The righteous shall see and fear,
and shall laugh at him, saying,
“See the man who would not make
God his refuge,
but trusted in the abundance of his riches
and sought refuge in his own destruction!” (Psalm 52)

Let's never forget God's viewpoint! Now that's what I call REAL laughter therapy!

Psalm 73

God Is My Strength and Portion Forever
A Psalm of Asaph.

Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.



For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.
And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.

Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.

* Isn't it amazing how Psalms 37 and 73 are so complementary?

Psalm 37

Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
be not envious of wrongdoers!
For they will soon fade like the grass
and wither like the green herb.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
For the evildoers shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;
though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.

The wicked plots against the righteous
and gnashes his teeth at him,
but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that his day is coming.

The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows
to bring down the poor and needy,
to slay those whose way is upright;
their sword shall enter their own heart,
and their bows shall be broken.

Better is the little that the righteous has
than the abundance of many wicked.
For the arms of the wicked shall be broken,
but the Lord upholds the righteous.

The Lord knows the days of the blameless,
and their heritage will remain forever;
they are not put to shame in evil times;
in the days of famine they have abundance.

But the wicked will perish;
the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures;
they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.

The wicked borrows but does not pay back,
but the righteous is generous and gives;
for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land,
but those cursed by him shall be cut off.

The steps of a man are established by the Lord,
when he delights in his way;
though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong,
for the Lord upholds his hand.

I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or his children begging for bread.
He is ever lending generously,
and his children become a blessing.

Turn away from evil and do good;
so shall you dwell forever.
For the Lord loves justice;
he will not forsake his saints.
They are preserved forever,
but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
The righteous shall inherit the land
and dwell upon it forever.

The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,
and his tongue speaks justice.
The law of his God is in his heart;
his steps do not slip.

The wicked watches for the righteous
and seeks to put him to death.
The Lord will not abandon him to his power
or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial.

Wait for the Lord and keep his way,
and he will exalt you to inherit the land;
you will look on when the wicked are cut off.

I have seen a wicked, ruthless man,
spreading himself like a green laurel tree.
But he passed away, and behold, he was no more;
though I sought him, he could not be found.

Mark the blameless and behold the upright,
for there is a future for the man of peace.
But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed;
the future of the wicked shall be cut off.

The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
he is their stronghold in the time of trouble.
The Lord helps them and delivers them;
he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,
because they take refuge in him.

* PS - take a careful look at the picture: it isn't a woman.

Confronting Idols

I first heard about The Gospel Coalition when I attended Redemption Hill Church a couple of weeks ago. Simon Murphy, the pastor there, was sharing about God had miraculously provided a way for him to attend the conference (it's a long story, so I won't repeat it here).

Then I saw Dan Phillip's post on Team Pyro about Tim Keller's sermon on “The Grand Demythologizer – The Gospel and Idolatry”. Of course I had to download it (and all the rest of the sermons). I've just listened to it, and I find it surprisingly relevant for these days.

He takes as his text Acts 19:23-41:

About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.”

When they heard this they were enraged and were crying out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions in travel. But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him. And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater. Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, “Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky? Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. For you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess. If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another. But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly. For we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.” And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly.

Sounds like the AWARE meeting that's going to happen tomorrow, doesn't it?

Anyway, the message was about confronting, exposing and destroying the idols of our day. As Christians, we are, as salt and light, to affect the culture around us. The early church turned the world upside down! The notes on the sermon are available here, but you really need to HEAR it.

Here's an excerpt:

When idols are opposed, it's dangerous. Idols are violent. Through idols, the powers and principalities control us. If you oppose them, you take your life in your hands. Paul risked his life to oppose them; he rested in Jesus, who had already given his life to defeat the principalities and powers.

For Christians, the issue involved in the AWARE debate is about exposing, confronting and destroying the idols of OUR society (and I'm NOT talking about homosexuality). Someone commenting on the ST forum has described one of these idols quite eloquently - political correctness:

Today, it is fashionable and politically correct to make statements like, “I have nothing against homosexuals”, “In a multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural society like Singapore, we must be open to alternative ideas and lifestyles”, “We must be tolerant, non-judgemental and inclusive”, and “We should not discriminate”.

The majority in our society have allowed themselves to be cowered into a corner by the minority because they have been lulled into a sense of “non-thinking”. The AWARE saga provides an opportunity for the majority to wake up from a self-induced slumber. Alas, this may not be taken up, judging from the responses to the saga so far. Both camps are careful to toe the line of political correctness.

Our being inclusive, tolerant, non-judgemental will be looked upon by posterity as cowardice, especially in the light of the intolerance of advocates of ‘tolerance’, the judgementalism of those who cry foul of the ‘judgements’ of some who speak out against the sins in society , and the exclusivity of those who eschew ‘inclusivity’.

Since when is it uncivil to hold on to an idea and to actively defend it? It is logical for someone who accepts moral absolutes to make a statement like, “It is wrong to steal.” For someone who declares himself to be a relativist, it is inherently wrong to make such a statement. In any case, he makes it anyway, and very loudly at that. If the majority in our society continues to revel in their ‘liberated thoughts’, the day will come when it is politically correct and fashionable to say, “I Have Nothing Against Heterosexuals!”. (Homosexuality, Lesbianism, Bestiality, Same-sex marriage and Polyamory will be commonplace).

Do have a listen – it's worth your time.