Twisting Scripture To Fit Our Lives

I was taken to a homosexual web site while trying to view a news story about Ray Boltz who was a Christian music artist who "came out of the closet" last year. He went on to proclaim he was gay but that he was still a Christian. I was amazed at some of the different postings on that web site. How these people twist Scripture to make it fit their lifestyles instead of making their lifestyles fit Scripture. One woman called Bible believing Christians "nothing but scribes and pharisees" and went on to state that Scripture says nothing about homosexuality. Included below is my response to her diatribe.

Just wondering, you say Scripture says nothing about homosexuality. What about Romans 1:24-27,

"Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. 25, For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. 26, For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error."

Sounds a lot like Paul is talking about homosexuals here.

You also seem to be very judgmental toward those of us who hold to the inerrancy of Scripture. As Christians, are we not supposed to live our lives as best we can, according to the Scriptures?? Did Jesus not say, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say?" Luke 6:46

We certainly should pray for Ray Boltz that the Lord would bring him to repentance, but no matter how you want to twist Scripture to make it fit your lifestyle, homosexuality is still a sin and needs to be dealt with. No one can call themselves a true Christian if they continue living in sin and think its ok. If they refuse to recognize sin as sin and are unrepentant, then they risk dying in their sins and spending eternity in the Lake of Fire.

All sin is an offense to God, from lying to sexual immorality to murder and we have all sinned. This is why Jesus came into the world - to save sinners. He lived the perfect life that we are unable to live, thereby fulfilling the law for us. Then he died a death he did not deserve, thereby paying our fine. What would take us an eternity to pay for in hell, Christ paid for in just a couple of days. Then He defeated death and now sits at the right hand of God and will return soon to judge the living and the dead.

So for all the folks at TurningPoint and anyone else who claims to be a Christian, it is very important to know that it is we who need to make our lives fit to what Scripture says and not try to twist Scripture to fit our lives. We are the ones who are sinful and need forgiveness. We can't run around saying, 'well that was 2000, 3000, 4000 years ago so it no longer applies to us today.' We may have changed but God and His word never change. God tells us to, "Be Holy for I am Holy." So lets make 2009 a year of repentance and lets work to live by the teachings of Scripture and not make Scripture live by the teachings of man.

God bless

Rob

Suicide of the West

Judge Roy Moore

Some of you may be wondering what Judge Roy Moore has been doing since he was removed from the bench for refusing to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom wall. Judge Moore was sued by the ACLU for displaying the Ten Commandments in his courtroom foyer. He has been stripped of his judgeship and now they are trying to strip his right to practice law in Alabama! Wake up Christian, it won't be much longer now until this type of thing is a common occurrence throughout our land. The judge's poem sums it up quite well.

America the beautiful,
or so you used to be.
Land of the Pilgrims' pride;
I'm glad they'll never see.

Babies piled in dumpsters,
Abortion on demand,
Oh, sweet land of liberty;
your house is on the sand.

Our children wander aimlessly
poisoned by cocaine
choosing to indulge their lusts,
when God has said abstain

From sea to shining sea,
our Nation turns away
From the teaching of God's love
and a need to always pray

We've kept God in our
temples,how callous we have grown.
When earth is but His footstool,
and Heaven is His throne.

We've voted in a government
that's rotting at the core,
Appointing Godless Judges;
who throw reason out the door,

Too soft to place a killer
in a well deserved tomb,
But brave enough to kill a baby
before he leaves the womb.

You think that God's not
angry,that our land's a moral slum?
How much longer will He wait
before His judgment comes?

How are we to face our God,
from Whom we cannot hide?
What then is left for us to do,
but stem this evil tide?

If we who are His children,
will humbly turn and pray;
Seek His holy face
and mend our evil way:

Then God will hear from Heaven;
and forgive us of our sins,
He'll heal our sickly land
and those who live within.

But, America the Beautiful,
If you don't - then you will see,
A sad but Holy God
withdraw His hand from Thee.

~~Judge Roy Moore~~

Please be in prayer for this great Godly man and his family who have endured so much over the past couple of years.

Rob

This Was Your Life!!

Mary Did You Know?

I found this very powerful video online at a website called, Jokes and Jesus. The video is made up of clips from the movie The Passion of the Christ put to the music of "Mary Did You Know." Seeing as how this is the Christmas season and everywhere you look you see nothing but commercialism, I thought I try to put Christ back in Christmas with this very powerful video so everyone can truly remember not only that Jesus is the reason for the season but also WHY He is the reason for the season.

The Christmas Story

We pick up the story shortly after Mary & Joseph arrive in Bethlehem,

"And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country, shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And the Angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were very afraid.
And the angel said unto them; Fear Not: For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying; Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, good will toward men.

And it came to pass, as the angels had gone away from them into Heaven, the shepherds said to one another; Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us. And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the Babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. Luke 2:7-20

Now watch the video below to see what our Savior went through so that those who believe in Him and repent of their sins might receive the gift of eternal life!

May you all have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

Love in Christ

Rob

TWAS THE MONTH BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Seeing as how celebrating Christmas in our country is so offensive and will probably soon become a crime, but its okay to celebrate Ramadan or Hanukkah or whatever other holiday might come along, I thought I'd share this little tidbit with everyone.

Enjoy


*Twas the month before Christmas*
*When all through our land,*
*Not a Christian was praying*
*Nor taking a stand.*
*See the PC Police had taken away,*
*The reason for Christmas - no one could say.*
*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*
*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*
*It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say*
* December 25th is just a 'Holiday'.*
*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*
*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*
*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*
*Something was changing, something quite odd! *
*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*
*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*
*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*
* At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.*
*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears*
*You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.*
*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*
*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*
*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*
*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!*
*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*
*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*
*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*
* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*
*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*
*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*
*So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'*
*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*
*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*
*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,
not Happy Holiday!*

WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS

And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?"
And Jesus answered and said to them, "See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many."
"And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs."
"Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations on account of My name. And at that time many will fall away and will deliver up one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many. And because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved."

Matthew 24:3-12

When I look out at our world today it seems to me that we are very close the the return of our Lord. When you look at what Jesus told His disciples in the above passage, you can really see these things coming to pass today.

In this passage Jesus mentions 3 things we need to look out for and they are the following:

• Increased Deception


• Increased Conflicts


• Increased Lawlessness

First - We see an increase in deception: There are many today posing as Christian leaders who are leading many people astray with false doctrines and false prophesies. One person who comes to mind was a guy, just this year, by the name of Todd Bentley who was leading something called the Lakeland Outpouring right here in Florida.

He talked about having a spirit guide/angel called Emma. He also talked about speaking with Jesus. He claimed to have the gift of healing. Yet when all was said and done, instead of glorifying the name of Christ, he had inflicted a great amount of harm against the name of Christ in the eyes of the world. He ended up divorcing his wife thereby hurting his family not to mention all his deceived followers. Yet the most amazing thing to me is that there are still people who defend him saying what a great man of God he is.

"See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many... And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many." Mt. 24:4-5, 11

As far as I'm concerned, there was never anything Godly about Todd Bentley or his ministry - ever. He never preached about sin and repentance, instead everything with him was self centered. In fact if you watch some of his video's on You Tube, you'll never see him open a Bible. He never warns the sinner about a hell to avoid; instead, he preached another gospel. Instead of patting this false prophet on the back, his followers should have been calling him out and rebuking him so that he might repent and turn to Christ for forgiveness.

That the church would put forth a charlatan such as this and line up behind him as one of its leaders, just shows the sad state of the Christian church today. If Johnathan Edwards or Charles Spurgeon could see this they'd roll over in their graves. Today's church is, unfortunately, no longer morally grounded on the Word of God. Instead, like a wicked generation it seeks after signs and wonders and none will be given it.

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance too their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths." 2Tim 4:3-4

This is the Deception that more and more churches are falling for today.

Second - Increased Conflicts: We see an increase in conflicts world wide. I was listening to a recent sermon by John MacArthur and he had some great statistics showing how conflicts are increasing around the globe over time:

Historians have recorded all significant conflicts and grouped them as follows:

1. 70 Major Conflicts before Christ


2. In the first 1000 years after Christ there were 50 major conflicts.


3. 500 years after that, there were 100 major conflicts


4. 300 years after that, there were 250 major conflicts


5. 200 years after that, there were 500 major conflicts


6. In the last 4 years there have been 20 major conflicts

As you can see, the history of man has been marked by constant conflict and as time goes on things just get worse and worse. I think Pastor MacArthur puts it best when he says, "the only peace you can find in man's history is when he stops to reload."

Third - Today we definitely see in increase in lawlessness. Man in his infinite wisdom took God out of schools back in the 1950's and today we are reaping the rewards of what we've sewn.

Today we have generations of kids who are completely disrespectful to anyone in authority and fewer and fewer of them know who the true God of the Bible really is. We have legalized the inhumane murder of the innocent unborn and called it "freedom of choice." Like Genna Jessen said, "if the rights of women are so important than what about the rights of the baby?" Unfortunately today, the blood of millions of innocent babies is on our hands, and we wonder why God is removing His hand from our nation.

Then instead of recognizing the homosexual lifestyle for what it is - an abomination against the Lord, we have instead legitimized it by calling it an "alternative lifestyle." Yet God tells us in Romans 1:18-32 that not only has He given them over to these degrading passions and a depraved mind but even those who approve of this practice are worthy of death.

Everything in this generation today is backwards. Today we call evil, good and good, evil. When you have your very own courts of law twisting the Constitution to make it say that which was never intended just to suit a small minority of people you know we're in trouble. It's because of this continued confusion that I feel the Lord will be returning very soon.