In the past few weeks I have not written much as my physical condition has made that difficult. My disability can be very limiting at times. Due to sever muscle spasms my neck pain has gotten much worse, but the pain radiating down my shoulder and across my chest is no slouch. Turning to my left is extremely painful, but sneezing, coughing or simply sniffing a dripping nose is terrifying. I swore nearly thirty years ago that I would never take medications like this, but today I have taken methadone for chronic pain and vicodin for what is called breakthrough pain and I hate doing so. It could be worse for nearly six years I was on 200 transdermal units fentynal to deal with even worse chronic pain. Pain so debilitating that I could not move without whimpering like a baby. I finally agreed to the narcotics after weeks of being curled up in a ball on the floor unable to move. For years I prayed for healing, but always ended my prayers with an irresistible statement that not my will but His be done. I figured that healing was in my interest primarily and it should not take place except if it were for His glory or would extend His plan. I fully believed that He could heal me if He willed it, but I also believed that it must be His will not mine that dictated that healing. It took many years for me to understand why I felt that way.
After I lost my abilities to read, write, walk on my own or even recognize common things I eventually became nearly totally unaware of my surroundings. For nearly three years I was bedridden. Needing to be carried to the tub for bathing, helped on the toilet and fed by hands of others. In June of 2008 I became more aware and noticed that a black senator from Chicago was vying for the presidential nomination against Hillary Clinton and that John McCain was running for president with someone who looked like a reality TV star as his running mate. That was quite confusing, but not as confusing as seeing my children who had changed so much when I was gone. Two of my older children were gone and had rejected any relationship with me refusing my requests for contact. My younger ones were a little resentful about some of the things I had apparently said and done when I was not myself. My real grieving began. Why would God awaken my to such horrible rejection and sorrow? There should have been rejoicing, but there seemed to be only indifference and rejection. I was heart broken. Things got a lot worse before they got better.
I wanted to call my old pastor, but he was no longer around. In fact my church hade dissolved while I was out of it and all my Christian fellowship was gone. I turned to radio and the internet and due to God’s grace discovered some great teachers like John MacArthur, John Piper, Alistair Bigg, R. C. Sproul, Charles Stanley, and Chuck Swindol. Studying the book of Job as wells as James and Jude also helped immensely. James and Jude directed me to clear teaching and Job helped me realize my right relationship with God and helped me to truly recognize God’s sovereignty. My turmoil was one of the greatest blessings of my life.
I am clay that is being formed just the way the great potter needs me to be formed in order for His great Will to be fulfilled. Like Job I may not know the what or the why, but like Job I am learning that it really none of my business. It is the potter’s business and I am here to be used by the potter for his purposes. That and to worship Him are my only purposes for existing. Any other purpose I give myself is just my ego getting in the way. It is not a matter of fairness or what is right from my perspective. I am the created not the creator. If only I had realized that sooner in my life.
James tells us in chapter 2 that we are to be doers of the word not just listeners. Actually I think that is not quite enough. If we are doers of the word only we can become trapped in a legalistic mindset that will steal from us all the benefits of knowing God’s grace as fully as we should to experience His joy. We need to change our entire mindset about God and our relationship with Him. He owes us nothing. NOTHING. We owe Him everything and are unable to repay Him for what He does give us. Not only is our salvation a gift of His grace, so is the faith by which we believe for salvation, so is the heart that softens enough to turn to Him. Everything is a gift of His sovereignty. More on that another time.
My main point is that God wants us to think not just feel our way into a relationship with Him. Most Christians today don’t believe that Satan is real, fully one third believe that Jesus actually sinned while He was on the earth, 25% dismiss the authority of the Bible in directing our moral lives. These are professing Christians not atheists or agnostics we’re talking about here. Why? Because they are ready to believe anything that makes them more comfortable with themselves and more secure in defining God as they want Him to be. They deny the very sovereignty of God and set themselves up to be among those who will be told by Jesus to be gone because He never knew them. They have chosen to believe in a god of their own making rather than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God who is rather than the god they want.
Isaiah 1: 8 tells us to reason together or in the Message version to sit down and argue this out. We are not to leave our brains at the door when we come to Christ, but we are also not to leave God outside the argument while we make our own decisions. It is reasonable, even logical to have faith. We just need to think biblically and not just go by our “feelings” suppositions, desires or ‘gut instincts.” Romans 12 says we are to renew our minds and Philippians reminds us to put our minds on things above. We need to do away with “I think”, I believe”, “I feel” or “My god would never do such and such.” Our personal opinions are based on false information and a depraved nature and will always be suspect because of that.
We need to move to “The Bible says,” because then we will learn to think, feel and believe the right things, the things that our sovereign God has put in place. We need to recognize His sovereignty and our own depravity in order to move in the right direction. Experience is not a good basis for theology. Experiences can be confusing and deceiving by themselves. However, good theology can be the basis for the right experiences. I don’t know where he said it but I know it was C.S. Lewis who said that not listening to theology doesn’t mean you have any ides about God, but it does mean you will have many bad ideas about God and your life. Too many of us have been listening to the latest trend in thinking and experience that feels good to us, but therein lies a downward slope that gets steeper all the time. I have learned to understand my experiences in light of God’s Word not to try to make God’s word fit my experiences.
I don’t want justice from God. Neither His definition of Justice nor mine will do me any good. His definition will put me in hell and mine will put me in a place without Him at all now and for all eternity. I want and long for His mercy, His grace and I am prepared to live whatever life on earth fits His plan for all of us in order to receive His grace in the end. Think about it. Read His word and you will find that there is joy even in the most difficult of circumstances when you do things His way.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
God's Truth Versus The Biggest Lies About Abortion
Everyone knows the great historical decision that made abortion on demand legal in the United States: Roe v. Wade. What many people do not realize is that the decision in Roe v. Wade was rendered based on blatantly false factual data. One of the main arguments for allowing abortion on demand was that so many women were dying in this country from back alley abortion induced trauma and infection. That information was provided by Dr. Bernard Nathanson of the organization National Abortion Rights Action League, also known as NARAL. Nathanson would later admit that only thirty-six women were known to have died from abortion related injury at the time of his testimony and that the death rate of one in ten thousand from abortion remains at a similar rate now as it did before Roe v. Wade. Because thirty-six women died as a result of their own bad decision combined with medical or personal error, we have now killed millions of unborn children and created a permissiveness in our society that has permeated numerous other areas.
The argument was also made that women were dying because of back alley abortions, but most of the illegal abortions were being performed by medical doctors in their own offices. The balance were spread from nurses, medical students, self induced abortion and finally a few unskilled and untrained abortionists. Nathanson’s own records indicated that at least 91% of the illegal abortions were performed under medical conditions similar to those of today. With that spread of performers the rate of death was one in ten thousand as it is today. That percentage did not change. What changed was the number of abortions being performed. We went from hundreds a year to nearly a million. Nothing changed except the number of murders of unborn children.
Another reason given was that unwanted children were being born and then savagely abused. Therefore, legalizing abortion would decrease the amount of child abuse in our society. The facts are that less than two percent of abortions are done as a result of rape/incest or for the health of the mother. In a University of California study it was determined that 91% of abused children were from expected or planned pregnancies. The other 9% were spread across a group comprised of adopted or foster children, children abused by strangers or non-custodial caregivers and finally a very tiny few who were a result of an unwanted pregnancy. The reality is that reported child abuse incidents increased 500% in the decade after the legalization of abortion by the Supreme Court and has continued to grow annually ever since. Children are not abused because abortion isn’t legal, but rather because we live in an irresponsible and permissive society in which legalized abortion is only one symptom of that irresponsibility. We don’t want to change our immoral behavior, so we try to find ways of erasing the consequences of that behavior in this life.
A fetus is not an appendage of the woman’s body to do with as she see fits. The fetus is a distinctly separate entity with totally separate DNA as part of his/her identity. The fetus is another person entirely, no matter how inconvenient that news may be for those who wish to live their lives at the expense of others, including a child struggling to live.
GOD IS LIFE AND THE GIVER OF LIFE
(John 1:4 NASB) In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
(Gen 2:7 NASB) Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
(Job 33:4 NASB) "The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
(Eccl 5:18 NASB) Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one's labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward.
(1 Tim 6:13 NASB) I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus
(Gen 30:2,22; Deut 32:18; 1 Sam 1:5; Psalm 71:6)
MAN IS MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE
(Gen 1:26-27 NASB) Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…{27} And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Killing unborn children is nothing less than a satanic act of aggression against God by beings who resent or are revolting against His authority over them! Simple truths can really bite can’t they?
GOD CREATED THAT PERSON IN THE WOMB
Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived. But the children struggled together within her; and she said, "If it is so, why then am I this way?" So she went to inquire of the LORD.
The LORD said to her, "Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger."
When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
(Genesis 25: 21-23 NASB)
God knows you in the womb! Long before birth, God is aware of the child’s life and
interacts with that child in the womb. The fetus is a person in the eyes of God.
Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations."
(Jeremiah 1:4-5 NASB)
Each new human being begins at the moment of conception. The first detectable heartbeat is heard at 18 days. Brainwaves are present and all internal organs are in place at just 6 weeks. Virtually all of the abortions in America are performed after 8 weeks gestation. By the time a woman knows for sure she is pregnant, the individual characteristics of being human are completely detectable by man, but God is aware of them from the moment of conception. Abortion stops a beating heart almost 100% of the time. That’s right, I said almost. Sometimes the fetus ends up being delivered alive and is murdered by the doctor or other staff after the birth. In fact, in the case of late term abortion this happens every single time. The child is murdered after being born!
For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. (Psalm 139:13-16 NASB)
God weaves us together at the time of conception inside the womb of our mother. Life clearly begins at conception! Abortion is nothing less than killing a life that God has begun.
GOD FORBIDS KILLING YOUR CHILDREN
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "You shall also say to the sons of Israel: 'Any man from the sons of Israel or from the aliens sojourning in Israel who gives any of his offspring to Molech, shall surely be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones. (Leviticus 20:1-2 NASB)
The Greek word “brephos” is used to mean child when referring to John the Baptist in Elizabeth’s womb leaping for joy (Luke 1:41 and Luke 1:44) The same word is used to describe the child Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes (Luke 2:12). The same word is used to mean child still in the womb and child outside the womb. Therefore killing one is the same as killing the other!
THOSE WHO DID NOTHING WERE ALSO TO BE PUNISHED
'If the people of the land, however, should ever disregard that man when he gives any of his offspring to Molech, so as not to put him to death, then I Myself will set My face against that man and against his family, and I will cut off from among their people both him and all those who play the harlot after him, by playing the harlot after Molech. (Leviticus 20:4-5 NASB)
Before anyone makes the mistake of thinking that I am one of these espousing aggressive activism against abortion in the streets or outside abortion clinics, let me clearly say that I am not. Much of that aggressiveness is counter productive to say the least. Instead of leading people to the One who can solve their heartache, such activity is chasing them away instead. It drives them into the arms of the tender, “loving” care of the abortion workers. We do need to speak out, but without stepping outside of the peaceful walk of Christ.
Jesus had no problem telling the Pharisees that they were like rotting flesh inside the cemetery. He did not resort to screaming at them or yelling obscenities in their faces. He did not spew hateful comments and curse them to hell. He did not have to. The truth was sufficient. Spoken quietly and directly, the truth is more powerful than any shout, sign or violence of any kind.
We are called to speak and live the Gospel. The Gospel is sufficient to change the hearts and mind of others if we let it. God does not need our help to do that. We cannot change people. God calls. God convicts. God changes. We merely live and represent the Gospel to the world. Our salt and light, our example of living provides the image, God handles the rest.
The argument was also made that women were dying because of back alley abortions, but most of the illegal abortions were being performed by medical doctors in their own offices. The balance were spread from nurses, medical students, self induced abortion and finally a few unskilled and untrained abortionists. Nathanson’s own records indicated that at least 91% of the illegal abortions were performed under medical conditions similar to those of today. With that spread of performers the rate of death was one in ten thousand as it is today. That percentage did not change. What changed was the number of abortions being performed. We went from hundreds a year to nearly a million. Nothing changed except the number of murders of unborn children.
Another reason given was that unwanted children were being born and then savagely abused. Therefore, legalizing abortion would decrease the amount of child abuse in our society. The facts are that less than two percent of abortions are done as a result of rape/incest or for the health of the mother. In a University of California study it was determined that 91% of abused children were from expected or planned pregnancies. The other 9% were spread across a group comprised of adopted or foster children, children abused by strangers or non-custodial caregivers and finally a very tiny few who were a result of an unwanted pregnancy. The reality is that reported child abuse incidents increased 500% in the decade after the legalization of abortion by the Supreme Court and has continued to grow annually ever since. Children are not abused because abortion isn’t legal, but rather because we live in an irresponsible and permissive society in which legalized abortion is only one symptom of that irresponsibility. We don’t want to change our immoral behavior, so we try to find ways of erasing the consequences of that behavior in this life.
A fetus is not an appendage of the woman’s body to do with as she see fits. The fetus is a distinctly separate entity with totally separate DNA as part of his/her identity. The fetus is another person entirely, no matter how inconvenient that news may be for those who wish to live their lives at the expense of others, including a child struggling to live.
GOD IS LIFE AND THE GIVER OF LIFE
(John 1:4 NASB) In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
(Gen 2:7 NASB) Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
(Job 33:4 NASB) "The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
(Eccl 5:18 NASB) Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one's labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward.
(1 Tim 6:13 NASB) I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus
(Gen 30:2,22; Deut 32:18; 1 Sam 1:5; Psalm 71:6)
MAN IS MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE
(Gen 1:26-27 NASB) Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…{27} And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Killing unborn children is nothing less than a satanic act of aggression against God by beings who resent or are revolting against His authority over them! Simple truths can really bite can’t they?
GOD CREATED THAT PERSON IN THE WOMB
Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived. But the children struggled together within her; and she said, "If it is so, why then am I this way?" So she went to inquire of the LORD.
The LORD said to her, "Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger."
When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
(Genesis 25: 21-23 NASB)
God knows you in the womb! Long before birth, God is aware of the child’s life and
interacts with that child in the womb. The fetus is a person in the eyes of God.
Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations."
(Jeremiah 1:4-5 NASB)
Each new human being begins at the moment of conception. The first detectable heartbeat is heard at 18 days. Brainwaves are present and all internal organs are in place at just 6 weeks. Virtually all of the abortions in America are performed after 8 weeks gestation. By the time a woman knows for sure she is pregnant, the individual characteristics of being human are completely detectable by man, but God is aware of them from the moment of conception. Abortion stops a beating heart almost 100% of the time. That’s right, I said almost. Sometimes the fetus ends up being delivered alive and is murdered by the doctor or other staff after the birth. In fact, in the case of late term abortion this happens every single time. The child is murdered after being born!
For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. (Psalm 139:13-16 NASB)
God weaves us together at the time of conception inside the womb of our mother. Life clearly begins at conception! Abortion is nothing less than killing a life that God has begun.
GOD FORBIDS KILLING YOUR CHILDREN
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "You shall also say to the sons of Israel: 'Any man from the sons of Israel or from the aliens sojourning in Israel who gives any of his offspring to Molech, shall surely be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones. (Leviticus 20:1-2 NASB)
The Greek word “brephos” is used to mean child when referring to John the Baptist in Elizabeth’s womb leaping for joy (Luke 1:41 and Luke 1:44) The same word is used to describe the child Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes (Luke 2:12). The same word is used to mean child still in the womb and child outside the womb. Therefore killing one is the same as killing the other!
THOSE WHO DID NOTHING WERE ALSO TO BE PUNISHED
'If the people of the land, however, should ever disregard that man when he gives any of his offspring to Molech, so as not to put him to death, then I Myself will set My face against that man and against his family, and I will cut off from among their people both him and all those who play the harlot after him, by playing the harlot after Molech. (Leviticus 20:4-5 NASB)
Before anyone makes the mistake of thinking that I am one of these espousing aggressive activism against abortion in the streets or outside abortion clinics, let me clearly say that I am not. Much of that aggressiveness is counter productive to say the least. Instead of leading people to the One who can solve their heartache, such activity is chasing them away instead. It drives them into the arms of the tender, “loving” care of the abortion workers. We do need to speak out, but without stepping outside of the peaceful walk of Christ.
Jesus had no problem telling the Pharisees that they were like rotting flesh inside the cemetery. He did not resort to screaming at them or yelling obscenities in their faces. He did not spew hateful comments and curse them to hell. He did not have to. The truth was sufficient. Spoken quietly and directly, the truth is more powerful than any shout, sign or violence of any kind.
We are called to speak and live the Gospel. The Gospel is sufficient to change the hearts and mind of others if we let it. God does not need our help to do that. We cannot change people. God calls. God convicts. God changes. We merely live and represent the Gospel to the world. Our salt and light, our example of living provides the image, God handles the rest.
Monday, May 17, 2010
He is Love and I am not
Recently I read something I wrote about eight years ago after reading First John for the thousandth or so time. John had a direct and stunning approach to making our relationship with Christ so clear. After reading his words I began to ponder the greatness of God's love for us, for me in particular. I clearly did not deserve anything God has given me. As a father, I could not imagine doing as He had in sacrificing or allowing His Son to voluntarily sacrifice Himself. It seemed beyond comprehension. I began to write a poem that would talk about how small my love is compared to God's , but it came out differently than I had intended. I hope you enjoy it.
He Is Love And The World Knows Us Not
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son
To suffer humiliation, torture, pain and shame even to the draining of His blood
That you and I might find redemption hope and life eternal
When we lacked any right to claim it or be justified by it.
What kind of God would give so much to those who turned their backs on Him?
Why would He open His heart and pour out mercy on the undeserving?
I am a father and I love my children.
Gladly I would sacrifice myself for them.
But allow my child to die so that someone who disdains me would live instead?
This I know and truly say in sight of God and Man I would not do.
I am ashamed that I would stand before my God in knowledge of His grace
And say that despite all He gave, I can’t imagine I would give the smallest piece
And even then I would likely test the one who sought my aid to be certain
That my sacrifice would be sufficient to bring this one to God and turn him around.
Then I read First John and realize all I’ve said is untrue.
For God has come into me and His Spirit fills my soul.
I could no more deny that love He fills me with than go back to ways of old.
Christ is Love and God is Love and in me His Spirit dwells.
So I am bound in joyous love to beat down the gates of hell.
Would that I could give Him just the smallest taste
Of the mercy, hope and joy He gave me in His place.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Just Thinking About Romans 8:28
One of the reasons that so many Christians fail to grasp the real beauty of Romans 8:28 is that they fail to realize that everything good, and everything bad that God will turn to good is there in the first place because Jesus Christ died on that terrible stake of death, the cross. This has resulted in a church that is neither Christ centered nor cross focused. American Christianity and its terrible heresy export the prosperity gospel have caused so many to act on an attitude that personal goods, friends, family, health, life, even our very breath are ours by right rather than grace. That fact is we do not deserve what we have, no matter how little or how much. We do not own what we have. We only have temporary use of it and even that is not by right or earning.
We are creatures. We were created by the One, Eternal Creator and He is not bound by any rule or obligation to provide us with breath, life, health, personal goods or anything else. Our very existence is at His Will. We have all heard political appointees say, “I serve at the will of the President.” Well we live at the Will of God, Himself. We forget that at our peril.
Besides being created beings who have no say in how we are created, we are egregious sinners who fall so short of His glory as to be inconsequential except for His grace. (Romans 3:23) He can give, He can take and He does us no injustice in that process for all is His to do with as He sees fit. (Job 1:21) All we deserve from Him is judgment. (Romans 3:19)
Every time we take a breath, every time our heart beats, every spark that passes the synapses of our brain, every sun rise, all we see, all we hear, all we taste, every step is a free and undeserved gift to sinners who deserve only judgment. If we fail to see His grace in these gifts at some point they will change from gifts to evidence of ingratitude and high treason. There are many who will be surprised that day to hear the words, “I never knew you.”
Scripture tells us these things are gifts of grace “the riches of His kindness, forbearance and patience” that direct us to repentance. (Romans 2:4) However, when we take these things for granted and do not acknowledge God’s grace in them, “Because of your hardened heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” (Romans2:5)
Everything in life should point us at Christ. Jesus is the creator of all that we care about. He is the giver of life, physical and spiritual. He purchased with His blood all that we hope for, all that we should treasure, all that we should dream. He is our hope, our treasure and our dream. Every experience in life should magnify the cross of Christ in our hearts and minds, because every good thing, or bad thing that will be changed into good, is meant to magnify Christ and Him crucified.
All my Christian life I have clung to Romans 8:28 like a life raft in a turbulent sea. Each time I read it, thought about it or prayed over it; I saw and experienced the great and gracious love of Jesus poured out for me. Lately as I see the, to me, terrible changes that have taken place in the church over the last decade in particular, I also hear a more somber tone in these words as I read them. Just as hope and great joy can be found here for those who trust in God and acknowledge His supremacy, so is there great judgment for those who ignore the grounding principles and truths that are the foundation upon which this passage is built.
Everything God has made and everything God gives is aimed at bringing glory to His Son, Jesus the Christ, Yeshua Messiah. The aim of God is the honor of Christ. When Paul says in Galatians “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he is saying that to boast in any other way for any other purpose is the opposite of God’s will and desire for us. Without recognizing God as source and full supremacy over all things and the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all matters we cannot know the wonder of that fruit we call Romans 8:28. That fruit is most flavorful because we understand the basis for it, but if we fail to recognize that we turn it into our own curse.
When we glorify ourselves and our ideas of what is right, we miss out on the One Who has all right and power to determine our fates. My heart breaks for those who would turn God into servant instead of recognizing what it means to say His gifts are gracious indeed.
We are creatures. We were created by the One, Eternal Creator and He is not bound by any rule or obligation to provide us with breath, life, health, personal goods or anything else. Our very existence is at His Will. We have all heard political appointees say, “I serve at the will of the President.” Well we live at the Will of God, Himself. We forget that at our peril.
Besides being created beings who have no say in how we are created, we are egregious sinners who fall so short of His glory as to be inconsequential except for His grace. (Romans 3:23) He can give, He can take and He does us no injustice in that process for all is His to do with as He sees fit. (Job 1:21) All we deserve from Him is judgment. (Romans 3:19)
Every time we take a breath, every time our heart beats, every spark that passes the synapses of our brain, every sun rise, all we see, all we hear, all we taste, every step is a free and undeserved gift to sinners who deserve only judgment. If we fail to see His grace in these gifts at some point they will change from gifts to evidence of ingratitude and high treason. There are many who will be surprised that day to hear the words, “I never knew you.”
Scripture tells us these things are gifts of grace “the riches of His kindness, forbearance and patience” that direct us to repentance. (Romans 2:4) However, when we take these things for granted and do not acknowledge God’s grace in them, “Because of your hardened heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” (Romans2:5)
Everything in life should point us at Christ. Jesus is the creator of all that we care about. He is the giver of life, physical and spiritual. He purchased with His blood all that we hope for, all that we should treasure, all that we should dream. He is our hope, our treasure and our dream. Every experience in life should magnify the cross of Christ in our hearts and minds, because every good thing, or bad thing that will be changed into good, is meant to magnify Christ and Him crucified.
All my Christian life I have clung to Romans 8:28 like a life raft in a turbulent sea. Each time I read it, thought about it or prayed over it; I saw and experienced the great and gracious love of Jesus poured out for me. Lately as I see the, to me, terrible changes that have taken place in the church over the last decade in particular, I also hear a more somber tone in these words as I read them. Just as hope and great joy can be found here for those who trust in God and acknowledge His supremacy, so is there great judgment for those who ignore the grounding principles and truths that are the foundation upon which this passage is built.
Everything God has made and everything God gives is aimed at bringing glory to His Son, Jesus the Christ, Yeshua Messiah. The aim of God is the honor of Christ. When Paul says in Galatians “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he is saying that to boast in any other way for any other purpose is the opposite of God’s will and desire for us. Without recognizing God as source and full supremacy over all things and the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all matters we cannot know the wonder of that fruit we call Romans 8:28. That fruit is most flavorful because we understand the basis for it, but if we fail to recognize that we turn it into our own curse.
When we glorify ourselves and our ideas of what is right, we miss out on the One Who has all right and power to determine our fates. My heart breaks for those who would turn God into servant instead of recognizing what it means to say His gifts are gracious indeed.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The Truth About Biblical Homosexuality
I haven’t written in awhile because my computer was down, broken actually. Perhaps I will share lessons learned on that topic another day. In any case, I have a new laptop and a desire to write something that will stir things up a bit. I hope that desire comes from God. You discern the truth of that and be the judge.
In the past I have made clear that I will not write on politics or political issues. This strays very near that line, but it is intended to be a theological, biblical approach to a much talked about issue in the church and society today. Too many churches have confused cultural and political issues with biblical concepts or theological truths in the past few decades. More and more, we hear sermons that sound more like political speeches than teaches to enlighten us on how to follow Christ. Too often we hear sermons that confuse the sin with the sinner as well. Such is the case with the issue of homosexuality.
It is not a sin to believe that you are genetically disposed to be homosexual anymore than it is to believe the same about heterosexuality. The issue in scripture has always been what sexual activities are condoned and which are condemned by God. A sin is a sin is a sin is a sin. There is no such thing as a small sin or a big sin. All sin, any sin comes between us and God. If two men have a sexual relationship it is a sin according to scripture. If a man and a woman have a sexual relationship outside of marriage it is a sin as well. In fact, if we read scripture properly, they are the same or similar sins in that they involve fornication, sex outside the bonds of matrimony. Scripture is also clear that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Having said that, I intend to present a study on the actual biblical view of homosexuality, because I believe that both sides of the political and religious arguments get it wrong almost all the time. I do this from the understanding that I am discussing what is right in the eyes of God not what should or should not be acceptable in the view of American culture. I want to change the world for Christ one person at a time. I am not interested in political action or cultural involvement. I am only concerned with Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The rest is Caesar’s business and I render it unto Caesar.
I am reminded of the tale of a man who came home exhausted after a hard day at work. His little boy met him at the door anxious for attention. All dad wanted was some time alone with the evening paper. He took a page of the paper and tore it into pieces giving the pieces to his son. He said, “ Here, this is the world. You go tape it together and when you are done, I will play with you.” Some of you have already gotten to the punch line, but here it is for the rest.
A few minutes later the boy returned with the paper properly repaired and the father was amazed. “How did you do this?” He asked. “You cannot read all these words.” The boy replied, “On the other side is a picture of a man. When I got the man together, the world was easy!” It is my view that we are called to provide the news men need to repair themselves and the world will get repaired in the process if that is God’s will.
So here is the biblical view on homosexuality as I have discovered it in scripture. I advise you that there is great hope, compassion and understanding in these passages. Don’t assume too much about Leviticus, keep going and see the wonder of God’s love.
Leviticus 18:22 “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 “Do you not know that the wicked will to inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy or drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Romans 1:21 “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
Romans 1:24-27 “Therefore God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised, Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts, Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for each other. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”
1 Corinthians 3:19a “For the wisdom of men is foolishness in God’s sight.”
Certain liberal thinkers view no New Testament references to homosexuality as condemnations of "natural, committed" gay relationships per se, but rather link any negativity apparently attached by New Testament authors to homosexuality with pagan idolatry or Greco-Roman pederast practices. Since the Romans passage stands as the most lengthy and significant "new revelation" reference dealing with homosexuality, we'll analyze these verses at some length.
Romans 1:18-32
This passage forms the "pagan" section of a sustained argument by the Apostle Paul written to prove that (1) Godless pagans and idolaters, (2) virtuous pagans, and (3) Jews under the Mosaic law all (a) are fundamentally sinful and corrupt by nature and by choice; (b) fall short behaviorally of God's nature and standards revealed in creation and in Scripture; (c) are incapable even by "good works" of pleasing and making peace with God; and (d) in need of his grace through faith in Christ to be reconciled to him.
Thus, Paul's statements regarding homosexuality must be seen in his perspective that not only many different kinds of sin, but all self-willed "good works" as well, thoroughly disqualify all humankind from relationship with a holy God. And, while the passage we're looking at does discuss idolatry, these verses have as their primary subjects godlessness, wickedness and their effects, such as idolatry. They also deal with a host of other offenses, including homosexual behavior. Note how the passage begins:
"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -- his eternal power and divine nature -- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (vs. 18-20)
Paul's analysis of factors that bring on God's wrath begins, not with pagan humankind's descent into idolatry, but with its outright, willful rejection of God's clear self-revelation in creation. He explains how the next step to idolatry is taken:
"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles" (vs. 21-23).
Early 20th-century author G.K. Chesterton once observed that when men refuse to believe in God (as Scripture reveals him), they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything.
In Paul's view (which Chesterton shared) humankind are not atheists by nature, but worshippers. When people en masse become futile in thought and dark in heart, says Paul, and reject the concept of an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, holy, loving, and sometimes wrathful God, they don't cease to worship, they cast about for something other than God to worship.
Those who reject God, says Paul, "exchange" God for something else with some kind of embodiment of things he created. In more primitive societies, people create and worship images of animals, celestial bodies or other natural phenomena -- or idealized images of human beings themselves. In more sophisticated societies, worship of creation may become more "intellectualized"; people may revere science, the wonder of the universe or nature itself, anything inspiring but less threatening, than the omnipotent Deity Paul speaks of.
It is inevitable that people seeking the greatest godless object to worship will choose the most God like one, humanity itself. Hence, we come to what is known today as secular humanism.
In Paul's frame of reference, the highest of all created beings in spirit, intellect and authority is man. Thus, Paul proposes, when godless human beings seek an ultimate being to worship other than God, they eventually conclude their search revering the most awe-inspiring and esthetically beautiful specimen(s) of humanity itself. At this point, Paul says,
"God [gives] them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator -- who is forever praised. Amen" (vs. 24-26).
In most cultures that have taken this direction, fervent admiration (approaching or encompassing) worship of human male and female forms becomes common. Often, sexual preoccupation of this sort manifests itself in ritual, religious prostitution (as it did in the Baalistic cults the Israelites contended with and sometimes indulged in Canaan). At other times it resolves into elevating various esthetic sexual obsessions to the status of cultural norms, as it did to some extent among both the Greeks and Romans.
In such eras, as they combine admiration for the acme of creation with sexual estheticism, males pursue passionate, quasi-worshipful sexual relationships with other males. Reacting to male neglect, yet still pursuing a physical manifestation of similar esthetic ideals, women seek sexual relations with other women. At this juncture, Paul says, God lifts any restraints the Deity might have sovereignly placed on such pursuits:
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion" (vs. 26-27).
Clearly, if we allow the entirety of Scripture to "comment" on these verses, it is a sheer distortion to try to square their meaning with the spin put on their depiction of homosexuality by humanistic theologians. The text plainly regards both the desires/"lusts" and physical activities of both males and females (this is Scripture's only reference to lesbianism) who desire and have sexual relationship with partners of the same gender as "shameful" and "indecent," and as "perversion." We should also note those same terms are used to describe God’s view of adultery and fornication, heterosexual distortions of God’s design.
There is no reason from the plain sense of the text to assume that Paul is positing that the offenders are heterosexuals deliberately and perversely engaging in homosexual relations, or that he in any way considers homosexuality "natural." Nor does he conversely spend any time condemning homosexuals for "unnaturally" engaging in heterosexual behavior, which it would if humanistic or ultra liberal theologians analysis of this passage is correct. It would only follow that such activity would be a parallel and comparable sin.
Lest any more conservative readers think that in this passage Paul is implying that homosexuality is the "lowest" form of sin, he finishes this first chapter of Romans by detailing a further decline into what Paul calls "a depraved mind." We must assume from the context that Paul considers this a stage of even greater evil. As such, it is characterized by a whole cluster of "every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity," a sinful mindset, if we accept Paul's logic, collectively worse than mere homosexual behavior, that includes:
"...envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them" (vs. 29-32).
Obviously, throughout this passage Paul is talking about descending degrees of "wickedness" resulting from a God-rejecting mindset, and about individual behavior not directly related to the formal worship of idols. Therefore, it would be scarcely reasonable to assume that every offense he recounts, including homosexuality, is to be directly associated with cultish idolatry. Furthermore, Paul doesn't end his "disqualifying" argument with this chapter. He goes on to demonstrate that not only "high-moraled" pagans but Jews with the advantage of knowing Mosaic law are also totally incapable of pleasing God. Paul indicates that God regards Jews under the law as most culpable of all; their responsibility is greater in God's eyes because of they are familiar with the law yet fail to adhere to the heart of its precepts.
Paul's attitude in Romans toward sexual sin is remarkably similar to that of Jesus Christ, who was far more condemnatory toward hypocritical religious leaders than he was toward sinners given to more fleshly vices. Not that Paul or Jesus condoned fleshly vices; both regarded such sins as contrary to law and sound teaching, as we will see clearly from analysis of the two other "new revelation" passages that deal with homosexuality.
1 Timothy 1:8-11
These verses include but a brief reference to homosexuality, but the context of that reference is again significant:
"But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous man, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, or the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted."
Again, some conveniently claim that the word translated "homosexuals" does not refer to homosexuality per se, but to "general moral weakness," ritual prostitution, or some other form of immorality. Their argument is one from silence. They argue that they can find no pre-Pauline use of this term in Greek, therefore Paul must have invented it and it doesn‘t necessarily follow that he is talking about homosexuality. This view conceals the simplest translation possible of the word used: "a male who goes to bed with another male." If Paul invented this term, it's quite likely that he did so to make his statement on homosexuality as generic as the Deuteronomy references, with which, as a Hebrew scholar, he was doubtless familiar.
As in Deuteronomy, no age distinction is made here; the reprehensible nature of any male bedding any other male is what Paul wishes to communicate, in as simple terms as possible. In the context of this passage, it is obvious that Paul regards homosexual behavior as a sin, among those offenses listed that it's the law's function to proscribe and control, though he doesn't seem to single out homosexuality as worse than other sins listed.
It's also clear, from the final "new revelation" passage we'll examine, that Paul doesn't consider the offense of homosexuality unforgivable or irremediable, a harsh blow to some of my more doctrinally confused brethren.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
In this last passage we examine three "new revelation" references dealing directly with homosexuality, Paul introduces a strong note of hope that, while homosexuality is a sin, it can be forgiven, and homosexuals can be "cleansed," "made whole" and "made right with God":
"...Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God."
Here again, the word used for "homosexuals" merely means "men who bed men." It sense is active not passive. In other words, the emphasis is on behavior not one’s state of being or nature. The preceding word translated as "effeminate" has traditionally been interpreted to connote passive homosexual behavior, but more likely refers to cross dressing behavior which was not uncommon among some Greeks just as one might see in San Francisco or along Hotel Street in Honolulu or Sojo or Greenwich village.. Note the many other offenses he also regards as unacceptable. No one should conclude from this passage that Paul regards homosexuality as more reprehensible than the other offenses listed -- or any less possible to be freed from.
(2) Paul is saying that individuals for whom these sins are so dominant as to constitute a central emphasis in their lives will have no place in the kingdom of God. One can't, Paul says, claim to accept God's sovereignty and continue to be dominated by these offenses at the same time.
(3) Paul points out that it is possible to be deceived into thinking that one can continue to let one's life revolve around these sins and still take part in God's kingdom. Paul says, "Do not be deceived." It's not possible, he says.
In this passage, Paul also strikes three very positive notes. And he precedes these with a remarkable observation: "And such were some of you..." In other words, among Paul's Corinthian readers were some who had at one time been dominated by homosexual desire and activity, but were not any more! What were they? In earlier verses of 1 Corinthians, Paul describes his readers as "saints" (people "set apart," vs. 1:2), "babes in Christ" (vs. 3:1), "newborn," new creations saved by God's power (vs. 1:18).
Because this is true, Paul goes on to say in 6:11, his readers, including former practicers of such behaviors, had been (1) washed, cleansed within from their previous sins; (2) sanctified, set apart and made holy, separated from sin and reserved for God; (3) justified, made morally and legally acceptable to God because of the sacrificial death on Calvary of Jesus Christ. Thus, these offenders, including those involved in homosexual activity, were forgiven, restored to right relationship with God, and accepted in his eyes as if they had never sinned. Considering one’s self to be homosexual will not keep you out of heaven, but acting on that consideration mentally or physically will unless one repents and seeks their salvation at the foot of the cross. That is the truth of scripture not the licentious liberal view nor the hateful neoconservative view, but rather the singular and grace filled position determined by God’s design and His Grace.
In the past I have made clear that I will not write on politics or political issues. This strays very near that line, but it is intended to be a theological, biblical approach to a much talked about issue in the church and society today. Too many churches have confused cultural and political issues with biblical concepts or theological truths in the past few decades. More and more, we hear sermons that sound more like political speeches than teaches to enlighten us on how to follow Christ. Too often we hear sermons that confuse the sin with the sinner as well. Such is the case with the issue of homosexuality.
It is not a sin to believe that you are genetically disposed to be homosexual anymore than it is to believe the same about heterosexuality. The issue in scripture has always been what sexual activities are condoned and which are condemned by God. A sin is a sin is a sin is a sin. There is no such thing as a small sin or a big sin. All sin, any sin comes between us and God. If two men have a sexual relationship it is a sin according to scripture. If a man and a woman have a sexual relationship outside of marriage it is a sin as well. In fact, if we read scripture properly, they are the same or similar sins in that they involve fornication, sex outside the bonds of matrimony. Scripture is also clear that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Having said that, I intend to present a study on the actual biblical view of homosexuality, because I believe that both sides of the political and religious arguments get it wrong almost all the time. I do this from the understanding that I am discussing what is right in the eyes of God not what should or should not be acceptable in the view of American culture. I want to change the world for Christ one person at a time. I am not interested in political action or cultural involvement. I am only concerned with Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The rest is Caesar’s business and I render it unto Caesar.
I am reminded of the tale of a man who came home exhausted after a hard day at work. His little boy met him at the door anxious for attention. All dad wanted was some time alone with the evening paper. He took a page of the paper and tore it into pieces giving the pieces to his son. He said, “ Here, this is the world. You go tape it together and when you are done, I will play with you.” Some of you have already gotten to the punch line, but here it is for the rest.
A few minutes later the boy returned with the paper properly repaired and the father was amazed. “How did you do this?” He asked. “You cannot read all these words.” The boy replied, “On the other side is a picture of a man. When I got the man together, the world was easy!” It is my view that we are called to provide the news men need to repair themselves and the world will get repaired in the process if that is God’s will.
So here is the biblical view on homosexuality as I have discovered it in scripture. I advise you that there is great hope, compassion and understanding in these passages. Don’t assume too much about Leviticus, keep going and see the wonder of God’s love.
Leviticus 18:22 “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 “Do you not know that the wicked will to inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy or drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Romans 1:21 “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
Romans 1:24-27 “Therefore God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised, Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts, Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for each other. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”
1 Corinthians 3:19a “For the wisdom of men is foolishness in God’s sight.”
Certain liberal thinkers view no New Testament references to homosexuality as condemnations of "natural, committed" gay relationships per se, but rather link any negativity apparently attached by New Testament authors to homosexuality with pagan idolatry or Greco-Roman pederast practices. Since the Romans passage stands as the most lengthy and significant "new revelation" reference dealing with homosexuality, we'll analyze these verses at some length.
Romans 1:18-32
This passage forms the "pagan" section of a sustained argument by the Apostle Paul written to prove that (1) Godless pagans and idolaters, (2) virtuous pagans, and (3) Jews under the Mosaic law all (a) are fundamentally sinful and corrupt by nature and by choice; (b) fall short behaviorally of God's nature and standards revealed in creation and in Scripture; (c) are incapable even by "good works" of pleasing and making peace with God; and (d) in need of his grace through faith in Christ to be reconciled to him.
Thus, Paul's statements regarding homosexuality must be seen in his perspective that not only many different kinds of sin, but all self-willed "good works" as well, thoroughly disqualify all humankind from relationship with a holy God. And, while the passage we're looking at does discuss idolatry, these verses have as their primary subjects godlessness, wickedness and their effects, such as idolatry. They also deal with a host of other offenses, including homosexual behavior. Note how the passage begins:
"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -- his eternal power and divine nature -- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (vs. 18-20)
Paul's analysis of factors that bring on God's wrath begins, not with pagan humankind's descent into idolatry, but with its outright, willful rejection of God's clear self-revelation in creation. He explains how the next step to idolatry is taken:
"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles" (vs. 21-23).
Early 20th-century author G.K. Chesterton once observed that when men refuse to believe in God (as Scripture reveals him), they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything.
In Paul's view (which Chesterton shared) humankind are not atheists by nature, but worshippers. When people en masse become futile in thought and dark in heart, says Paul, and reject the concept of an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, holy, loving, and sometimes wrathful God, they don't cease to worship, they cast about for something other than God to worship.
Those who reject God, says Paul, "exchange" God for something else with some kind of embodiment of things he created. In more primitive societies, people create and worship images of animals, celestial bodies or other natural phenomena -- or idealized images of human beings themselves. In more sophisticated societies, worship of creation may become more "intellectualized"; people may revere science, the wonder of the universe or nature itself, anything inspiring but less threatening, than the omnipotent Deity Paul speaks of.
It is inevitable that people seeking the greatest godless object to worship will choose the most God like one, humanity itself. Hence, we come to what is known today as secular humanism.
In Paul's frame of reference, the highest of all created beings in spirit, intellect and authority is man. Thus, Paul proposes, when godless human beings seek an ultimate being to worship other than God, they eventually conclude their search revering the most awe-inspiring and esthetically beautiful specimen(s) of humanity itself. At this point, Paul says,
"God [gives] them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator -- who is forever praised. Amen" (vs. 24-26).
In most cultures that have taken this direction, fervent admiration (approaching or encompassing) worship of human male and female forms becomes common. Often, sexual preoccupation of this sort manifests itself in ritual, religious prostitution (as it did in the Baalistic cults the Israelites contended with and sometimes indulged in Canaan). At other times it resolves into elevating various esthetic sexual obsessions to the status of cultural norms, as it did to some extent among both the Greeks and Romans.
In such eras, as they combine admiration for the acme of creation with sexual estheticism, males pursue passionate, quasi-worshipful sexual relationships with other males. Reacting to male neglect, yet still pursuing a physical manifestation of similar esthetic ideals, women seek sexual relations with other women. At this juncture, Paul says, God lifts any restraints the Deity might have sovereignly placed on such pursuits:
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion" (vs. 26-27).
Clearly, if we allow the entirety of Scripture to "comment" on these verses, it is a sheer distortion to try to square their meaning with the spin put on their depiction of homosexuality by humanistic theologians. The text plainly regards both the desires/"lusts" and physical activities of both males and females (this is Scripture's only reference to lesbianism) who desire and have sexual relationship with partners of the same gender as "shameful" and "indecent," and as "perversion." We should also note those same terms are used to describe God’s view of adultery and fornication, heterosexual distortions of God’s design.
There is no reason from the plain sense of the text to assume that Paul is positing that the offenders are heterosexuals deliberately and perversely engaging in homosexual relations, or that he in any way considers homosexuality "natural." Nor does he conversely spend any time condemning homosexuals for "unnaturally" engaging in heterosexual behavior, which it would if humanistic or ultra liberal theologians analysis of this passage is correct. It would only follow that such activity would be a parallel and comparable sin.
Lest any more conservative readers think that in this passage Paul is implying that homosexuality is the "lowest" form of sin, he finishes this first chapter of Romans by detailing a further decline into what Paul calls "a depraved mind." We must assume from the context that Paul considers this a stage of even greater evil. As such, it is characterized by a whole cluster of "every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity," a sinful mindset, if we accept Paul's logic, collectively worse than mere homosexual behavior, that includes:
"...envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them" (vs. 29-32).
Obviously, throughout this passage Paul is talking about descending degrees of "wickedness" resulting from a God-rejecting mindset, and about individual behavior not directly related to the formal worship of idols. Therefore, it would be scarcely reasonable to assume that every offense he recounts, including homosexuality, is to be directly associated with cultish idolatry. Furthermore, Paul doesn't end his "disqualifying" argument with this chapter. He goes on to demonstrate that not only "high-moraled" pagans but Jews with the advantage of knowing Mosaic law are also totally incapable of pleasing God. Paul indicates that God regards Jews under the law as most culpable of all; their responsibility is greater in God's eyes because of they are familiar with the law yet fail to adhere to the heart of its precepts.
Paul's attitude in Romans toward sexual sin is remarkably similar to that of Jesus Christ, who was far more condemnatory toward hypocritical religious leaders than he was toward sinners given to more fleshly vices. Not that Paul or Jesus condoned fleshly vices; both regarded such sins as contrary to law and sound teaching, as we will see clearly from analysis of the two other "new revelation" passages that deal with homosexuality.
1 Timothy 1:8-11
These verses include but a brief reference to homosexuality, but the context of that reference is again significant:
"But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous man, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, or the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted."
Again, some conveniently claim that the word translated "homosexuals" does not refer to homosexuality per se, but to "general moral weakness," ritual prostitution, or some other form of immorality. Their argument is one from silence. They argue that they can find no pre-Pauline use of this term in Greek, therefore Paul must have invented it and it doesn‘t necessarily follow that he is talking about homosexuality. This view conceals the simplest translation possible of the word used: "a male who goes to bed with another male." If Paul invented this term, it's quite likely that he did so to make his statement on homosexuality as generic as the Deuteronomy references, with which, as a Hebrew scholar, he was doubtless familiar.
As in Deuteronomy, no age distinction is made here; the reprehensible nature of any male bedding any other male is what Paul wishes to communicate, in as simple terms as possible. In the context of this passage, it is obvious that Paul regards homosexual behavior as a sin, among those offenses listed that it's the law's function to proscribe and control, though he doesn't seem to single out homosexuality as worse than other sins listed.
It's also clear, from the final "new revelation" passage we'll examine, that Paul doesn't consider the offense of homosexuality unforgivable or irremediable, a harsh blow to some of my more doctrinally confused brethren.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
In this last passage we examine three "new revelation" references dealing directly with homosexuality, Paul introduces a strong note of hope that, while homosexuality is a sin, it can be forgiven, and homosexuals can be "cleansed," "made whole" and "made right with God":
"...Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God."
Here again, the word used for "homosexuals" merely means "men who bed men." It sense is active not passive. In other words, the emphasis is on behavior not one’s state of being or nature. The preceding word translated as "effeminate" has traditionally been interpreted to connote passive homosexual behavior, but more likely refers to cross dressing behavior which was not uncommon among some Greeks just as one might see in San Francisco or along Hotel Street in Honolulu or Sojo or Greenwich village.. Note the many other offenses he also regards as unacceptable. No one should conclude from this passage that Paul regards homosexuality as more reprehensible than the other offenses listed -- or any less possible to be freed from.
(2) Paul is saying that individuals for whom these sins are so dominant as to constitute a central emphasis in their lives will have no place in the kingdom of God. One can't, Paul says, claim to accept God's sovereignty and continue to be dominated by these offenses at the same time.
(3) Paul points out that it is possible to be deceived into thinking that one can continue to let one's life revolve around these sins and still take part in God's kingdom. Paul says, "Do not be deceived." It's not possible, he says.
In this passage, Paul also strikes three very positive notes. And he precedes these with a remarkable observation: "And such were some of you..." In other words, among Paul's Corinthian readers were some who had at one time been dominated by homosexual desire and activity, but were not any more! What were they? In earlier verses of 1 Corinthians, Paul describes his readers as "saints" (people "set apart," vs. 1:2), "babes in Christ" (vs. 3:1), "newborn," new creations saved by God's power (vs. 1:18).
Because this is true, Paul goes on to say in 6:11, his readers, including former practicers of such behaviors, had been (1) washed, cleansed within from their previous sins; (2) sanctified, set apart and made holy, separated from sin and reserved for God; (3) justified, made morally and legally acceptable to God because of the sacrificial death on Calvary of Jesus Christ. Thus, these offenders, including those involved in homosexual activity, were forgiven, restored to right relationship with God, and accepted in his eyes as if they had never sinned. Considering one’s self to be homosexual will not keep you out of heaven, but acting on that consideration mentally or physically will unless one repents and seeks their salvation at the foot of the cross. That is the truth of scripture not the licentious liberal view nor the hateful neoconservative view, but rather the singular and grace filled position determined by God’s design and His Grace.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Just A Poem On Penance Or Not
NO PENANCE
My heart rattles in my chest as each stuttering beat
Desperately presses through the spasmodic muscle
In hope of moving oxygen filled blood cells
Into the farthest corners of my weakened flesh.
I know I will survive this night just as I know
The fatigue that saps my strength today
Is my own fault.
I did not stop.
I did not rest.
I did not protect this gift God gave.
Too busy doing what I thought best,
I ignored the way my toes dragged across the carpet.
As I tried to lift exhausted legs
And move a more exhausted body
To someplace distant from this work
Where I might meet with God.
His blessings pour down on me even as I move astray
Of rules intended to give more time upon this sphere
Until here is no longer here.
When I find that place I seek
We will meet and greet
And share that singularly sweet
Flow of His spirit.
All these rattles, squeaks and stuttering tangled steps
Become for me greedily treasured joy abounding
As they force me to my knees that I might better know
The One who gave His life to live in mine.
Michael McLarney June 21, 2001
Saturday, January 23, 2010
A Special Message
Dear brother in Christ, I give you a gift - two testimonies from one man written more than five years apart. The first was written when the man knew he was dying of an unknown disease. He knew this because a team of doctors said so and his body was failing rapidly. He had what is known as chronic neurological degeneration. Every organ was failing and his central nervous system was shutting down. His last memory occurred in
August of 2005. He would be “asleep” until June of 2008.
How God Finally Got My Attention And Made Me Whole
Whenever I am asked to give my testimony about how I came to the Lord I become anxious. It isn’t that I am nervous about speaking or writing, I have never had a problem in those areas except as produced by the disease I now have and which is slowly erasing me. I get anxious because my testimony should be about the wondrous power of God and His unrelenting effort to save this lost sheep.
Unfortunately, by the time I am done telling my tale, people have already begun to make the story about me. It isn’t about me. It’s about Jesus. As a young Christian I eventually listened to those who made it about me and I became swollen with pride and my subsequent fall from grace was significant and extended over a long period of time. So as you listen to my tale remember who the hero is here. It’s all about Jesus. It’s always been about Jesus, from the day God formed man from the dust of the earth until the day He returns in glory and power. If it weren’t about Jesus, I would have no story to tell.
I was born nine months after my Dad came home from World War II. I grew up on military bases in the fifties. In those days the first thing you asked someone who came in your front door was “What will you have?” Alcohol was common in most homes as were cigarettes. I grew up fixing drinks for high-ranking military personnel and politicians and other important people. My Dad was a military officer in the Navy and a doctor responsible for the administration of several large military hospitals before he retired in 1964. I used to pick up the half empty glasses scattered about the room and take them to the kitchen. On the way I would taste the various concoctions and eventually I began fixing drinks in secret for my self. By the time I was fourteen I had a drinking problem in a society that didn’t admit adults had drinking problems.
The high school I attended was off base and located in the poor part of town in Bremerton, Washington. West Bremerton High was not a bad school if you belonged to the right class structure in the community. Shipyard workers and military personnel were not considered part of the right class structure. My Dad did alright because he was commanding officer of the Naval Hospital second only to the Admiral in charge of the shipyard. Unfortunately, his social status did not extend to his children. My first few weeks at the high school involved various humiliations I won’t describe and regular beatings from the rougher element in the student body. I was small for my age and that made me an even more appealing target.
Being a drunk already at age fourteen made me a little more willing to express my frustrations than I would have if I had been sober. One day I brought a piece of wood or it might have been a length of pipe, I don’t remember which. In any case I used it to hit the first person to threaten me that day. All of his buddies jumped on me and pulled me to the ground, but a teacher came by and broke up the free for all. The fellow I hit told me he would be waiting for me after school and I had better show up.
One of the wilder kids on campus came up to me afterwards and expressed admiration for what I had done. He said he would go with me to meet this other guy after school to be sure things were handled fairly. His name was, well I’ll just call him Pat, and he would be come my best and only close friend for the next four years. After school Pat met me in the hallway and walked with me to the vacant lot down the street where all the big fights took place. By the time we got to the field, there were about 40 boys walking behind us. Pat said they were friends of his coming along to help out. The fight took place and it remained between the two of us because of Pat and his friends. I even found out I could fight pretty well and I actually won the battle. That day I became known as “Crazy Mike” and the name stuck for nearly ten years.
Pat and his friends made up a sort of disorganized gang with no name, but with quite a reputation. We drank. We smoked cigarettes. We skipped classes whenever we felt like it and we robbed warehouses and liquor stores. We rolled sailors along the downtown strip where all the bars were. We got into fights, wars really, with other groups from both of the high schools. We even staged major battles with shiploads of sailors on liberty while their ships were in dry dock. People got seriously hurt. A sailor died. None of it seemed to matter. I was so afraid of people finding out that I was afraid that I stayed drunk most of the time.
In January of 1964 I was “allowed” to graduate early to avoid expulsion. My father was humiliated by my 1.0 grade point average and my familiarity with the local police. The only reason I never got arrested like the other guys was because of who my dad was and all his politically connected friends. Dad retired and we moved to San Luis Obispo, California. Pat followed us because he had no family. His mother was dead and his father was an alcoholic fisherman without a home. Pat and I continued to get into trouble in California and when I was seventeen, my Dad threw me out of the house. Pat ended up in the army and disappeared from my life. I bounced around until I ended up in Hawaii in 1968.
Everything I owned was stolen from me in Hawaii. I got a job tending bar at an illegal gambling joint at night and running a jackhammer during the day. I needed more money to get on my feet and when one of the gangsters at the bar offered me a job running errands I took it. I was picking up packages and delivering them to various locations around the island. Most of what I delivered was drugs. I was making good money and since I was always getting fired from my legitimate jobs, I started doing drug runs full time. I lived my life in a fog of marijuana, LSD and alcohol. I didn’t know it, but I was on a collision course with God.
One night I saw a Chinese man talking to a bunch of street kids on the Boulevard in Waikiki. Out of curiosity I wandered over to see what was going on. It turned out the Chinese guy was an evangelist from Tai Wan. He was telling these kids all about Jesus. I suddenly became angry and began arguing with him. I know now it was Satan working through me. I began quoting scriptures I had never read trying to prove the Bible was filed with contradictions and attempting to confuse him and make him look bad. There was no good reason for me to do this. I had no vested interest in those kids, but Satan did and he had a major interest in keeping me.
I never learned the Chinese man’s name, but he never missed a beat. He countered everything I said in a calm voice and y quoting the word of God. He finally looked me in the eye and said that he had a message for me. He said that for the next two weeks a lot of people were going to bring messages to me from God and that I had better listen, because God wanted me to make a decision and I had to make it soon. I laughed at him and spit at his feet, but inside I was shaken by his confidence and puzzled by my own behavior toward him.
For the next two weeks every time I rode a bus someone sat next to me and told me about Jesus. If I hitched a ride I got picked up by a Christian who started were the last person left off. It didn’t matter where I went, there was always at least one, and sometimes more Christians, waiting to talk to me. I became terrified to go out of my crummy studio apartment. I smoked pot and hashish all day. I drank anything available and I took acid and mescaline in an attempt to drown out the voices. They wouldn’t go away.
Finally, one night I was out getting loaded with a soldier on leave from Vietnam. His name was Vince and he was from Chicago. That’s all I remember about him. We were walking down the street when we ran into the Chinese man. He looked at me and said very quietly, “ You’ve had a busy time. Tonight you must decide.” He walked away and I never saw him again. Vince asked me who he was and for some reason I began telling Vince everything that had been happening. I repeated everything that all those people had been saying to me. I was witnessing to Vince and I wasn’t even a Christian! Vince began to tell me how afraid he was to go back to Vietnam. He even started to cry. He said if God were real maybe God would help him. I suddenly began confessing to Vince how I had been afraid all my life and that I covered my fear with violence and anger. We sat in the sand on Waikiki Beach and we both became quiet.
I don’t know what Vince was thinking at the time, but I imagine it wasn’t much different from what I was thinking. I realized I was alone and that I had been alone all my life. I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I didn’t want to be afraid anymore. I didn’t want to hurt people anymore. Finally, I said very quietly, “God, I don’t know if You are real. I don’t know if Jesus is Your Son. These people say You are real and that Jesus died for me. I don’t know if any of this is true, but if You are real, please help me.” When I opened my eyes Vince was looking at me smiling with tears running down his face. We began laughing so hard we could hardly breath. When we finally stopped we realized we were both sober and that the filthy clothes we had been wearing were as clean as if they had just been washed. That was just the beginning of the wonders God had in store.
I bought a Bible the next day and sat down to read it. I had no spiritual father to guide me, no brothers and sisters in Christ yet to help me. I only knew that God inspired the men who wrote the Bible to tell the world about Him and so I wanted to read it all. I barely ate for the next few days as I read the Bible from cover to cover three times. The first time I just read it. The second time I underlined important points or at least what I thought were important points. The third time I was writing notes and cross-referencing. By the time I was done my first Bible was almost done in as well. I began to go out on the street to talk to the hookers, drug dealers, hippies and bums who were the people with whom I had been most intimate for the previous years. I told them all what had happened to me. I told them it could happen to them too. I shared what I was learning in my reading. Little by little I began to reach some of them.
One morning as I returned to the broken down dump I called home I found a huge sign attached to my door. In red block letters on a blue background someone had written “Bible Mike.” I was no longer Crazy Mike. This was meant as sign of respect. Street people would direct people who were hurting emotionally, physically and yes, spiritually, to the rundown one room house with the blue sign that said Bible Mike. I held drug addicts as they came down and went through withdrawal. I helped hookers escape their pimps and get on planes back to their families. I held Bible studies and depended on God to give me the answers to everyone’s questions.
Every night I would pray and then I would hit the streets. I never knew where I was going. I went wherever the Holy Spirit seemed to be leading me to go. And every time I found someone who needed to hear that Jesus loved them and valued them more than they valued themselves. The Holy Spirit spoke words through me that kept people from committing suicide and even stopped one probable murder. My reputation was spreading and this was not good news to the people who used to employ me.
One night a young Vietnamese boy told me there was a contract out on me and he intended to collect it as he pressed the barrel of a 9mm pistol against my forehead. I looked him in the eye and said the first words that came to me. “I forgive you. I know where I am going when I die, do you?” He asked me what I was talking about, so I told him. Eventually he handed me the gun and said “I’m probably a dead man now., then he walked away. Some of the street people raised enough money for a plane ticket to Los Angeles and I left Hawaii in the middle of the night in a pair of shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and sandals.
It was 54 degrees in Los Angeles when I arrived. A radio minister from Whittier met me at the airport and took me to his home. He interviewed me on his radio show for two days and then gave me a bus ticket to my family’s home. When I got there some of the churches had heard about me and I was asked to give my testimony everywhere. I began helping out in a Christian coffeehouse and volunteering with a youth group at a local church. The pastor arranged for a correspondence course in Bible, Theology and Church History which I passed and I was subsequently ordained by a small denomination out of Fort Bragg, Carolina call Christian Congregation, Inc. I had a head full of knowledge, but I wasn’t being fed spiritually. I was being used to bring in people and to lead them to the Lord, but I wasn’t growing in the Lord myself
I became the youth pastor about a year after I married a young woman the pastor introduced me to. It was almost an arranged marriage. I was feeling more and more like I was in way over my head. Then my wife introduced me to the man she had been having an affair with as they left with our two children. I wouldn’t see my kids again for eleven years.
Because of the divorce I lost my job as youth pastor, which was really the best thing for the kids. It also gave me someone to be mad at. I was angry with my ex-wife, the church, the elders, and God. The next few years weren’t pretty. I backslid terribly. I was using cocaine and committing all sorts of sexual sins. God was calling me, but I wasn’t listening. Eventually I sobered up and went back to college and got my degree in business. I wasn’t right with God, but I wasn’t overtly fighting him anymore.
I got married again, but it wasn’t about love or God or anything else. It was about convenience. She and I agreed that we didn’t love each other, but we were tired of chasing around for sex so we got married for convenience. When I started getting the first signs of sickness, she packed her bags and split. I had eight surgical procedures on both kidneys. They were beginning to partially fail a condition know as chronic renal insufficiency. The good news was I met and fell in love with my doctor’s nurse, Rhonda. This time I knew I had to do it right.
I led Rhonda to the Lord and we were married by a Christian minister who first ascertained that we were doing this for life and with Jesus as the head of our home. Rhonda had a daughter who I eventually adopted. We wanted another child but could not make one so we adopted the first available child. They told us he would never walk, talk or even sit up, but we said that we had prayed for a baby and this was the baby God sent. Michael Paul runs and talks and plays today. Then we took in foster children. Mandi and Andrew were the first followed by Alex and Michelle; the last to arrive was Makana and all of them stayed. They are all ours now. The closest I can come to describing the feeling in having these children become ours is to jump back to the days in Hawaii and the first early days after my return to California.
Those first early days were like the days of the early church as described in the Book of Acts. God directed me where to go and what to pray for. As our numbers grew the incidents of miraculous healings grew more frequent and more phenomenal. At first it was simple things like God easing withdrawal from an addictive drug or healing infected cuts or scratches. But then I remember one night when we received a telephone call from Phoenix, Arizona asking us to come pick up Ginger a young girl we had helped in the past. She had fallen away and gone on a methamphetamine run. Now she was repentant and wanted to come back to the Christian family who had saved her. I tried to talk to her on the telephone, but the reception was terrible and her voice kept cutting in and out. We just kept telling her that Jesus loved her and he wasn’t going to leave her and neither were we.
We drove twelve hours straight, four of us in a 1964 Ford Mustang square back. When we first arrived at the address she gave us they wouldn’t let us in. Speed freaks are notoriously paranoid. Finally one of them recognized me and let us in. Ginger saw us and came running down the stairs until the carpet tangled and she went down with her leg twisted in the carpet. When she hit the bottom of the stairs there was no doubt the bone was broken, part of it was sticking out through the skin. People were screaming to call an ambulance, but she grabbed my friend Dick and my hands and begged us to pray for her first. We prayed that God would heal her in Jesus name and that he would also heal her unrepentant heart. When we looked at the leg again there was blood on her clothing but the skin was intact and the bone was in place. She kept saying over and over, “Jesus, I am so sorry. I am ashamed to speak with you. Please forgive me.” Both prayers were clearly answered that night.
We saw healings like that and deliverance from what can only be described as demonic possession. I am not claiming that I am or was in any way holy or special. God chose to intercede for a reason. I don’t know what it was, but I am certain that it was the power of God made manifest by the Holy Spirit. Many people were saved because of what they saw and heard. All honor and glory belongs to God for what He did while we stood by and prayed to Him in Jesus’ name.
After I turned away, I discovered how alone a man can really become. I had known God with a familiarity that cannot be described and when I turned my back on Him, the emptiness was like a festering sore that could not heal. For several years I managed to pretend that it wasn’t God that was making me feel so torn apart inside, but it was. Once you have known God with the closeness that I had know Him with, you cannot survive without Him anymore. Finally, I fell to my knees and asked Him to forgive my selfishness and foolishness and He did. It was really that easy. God’s love is so pure that there is no room for complexity. If you give Him love He pours out His love and mercy full measure, pressed down, and flowing over.
Because of my fall, I am no longer Bible Mike, but I will treasure the memory of God’s blessing for eternity. No one who knows me now ever knew me as Bible Mike and that is a good thing. I am just another Christian struggling daily to work out my relationship with God and to become more like Christ. Once it was certain that I had returned to God to stay, He blessed me with ministry opportunities. I don’t have to work at finding answers to their questions, I just get to enjoy the fresh way of life thirteen years brings to the table. I have watched kids grow from frightened, tenuous speakers into self-assured confident followers of Christ. God is blessing me every day. He has allowed me to share His word with youngsters and more mature individuals as well. I praise His name for His mercy in giving me the opportunity to serve Him again. I hope the rest of my days are spent glorifying Him and sharing the wonder of Who He is with anyone who will listen.
I have a disease which has stolen my ability to read except in special circumstances, I have a form of dementia that takes away my ability to understand or remember what I have read, except in one glorious exception. I can read scripture and books that deal directly with scripture. Books that follow the latest fad and add Jesus’ name as an after thought make me ill. The word of God is a living and vibrant experience for me. It is not just reading God’s word, it is conversing with the One who made me and loves me more than I can describe. When I am in pain, I turn to God’s word for strength and support. When I cannot remember what day it is, I turn to God’s word for guidance and comfort. I have learned to praise God on my bad days and to serve Him on my good ones. That is miracle enough for me.
Every day is a new opportunity to show God how much I love Him. Everyday is a new opportunity to experience His power, His comfort, His joy and His peace. Every day is new. Every day is precious. Like Paul, I have learned to rejoice in all circumstances and to find joy in the midst of any trial or tribulation. In all things and in all ways, I seek to praise the Lord.
Don’t get me wrong. I am just a normal guy struggling daily in his walk with Christ. I don’t do healings or bless holy cloths. I am far from perfect. Dementia causes you to say and do things that are hurtful to those who love you and this disease has been an ever-increasing burden on my family. The stress it causes is unbelievable, but we are making it. Some days we hand on by our fingernails, but we are making it.. The good days are all God’s doing and the bad ones belong to me.. Pray for me and I will pray for you.. Someday we may meet around the throne.
Michael McLarney
February 16, 2004
Pretty amazing isn’t it? What is more amazing is that just when my family was making funeral arraignments for the mannequin in the back bedroom, I woke up! It was a slow process at first. Learning to talk and walk normally was hard, but thrilling. Today I can bathe myself, walk without assistance, make sense when I am talking and , most importantly, I can read my precious Bible again.
I don’t know God’s plan for me, but He most certainly has one. I have been shot at, stabbed, in numerous car wrecks, overdosed on drugs, declared dead, written off as terminal. Every time God has intervened in spectacular ways. If that isn’t a message, I don’t know what a message looks like.
Just before falling asleep I contracted pneumonia for the sixth time in three years. This fungal pneumonia led to a bacterial infection called MRSA. Ten units of blood and two surgeries later I went home feeling healthier than I had in many years. Yet less than a few months later I disappeared from the world around me and the world disappeared for me. I should not have come back from that last event, but I did. Not by the power of science but by the power of the one, eternal God made incarnate in Jesus the Christ and expressed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I am called and I am making myself available for God’s purposes. He seems to be placing me before Christians, and especially Christian leaders, who are confusing their own social and political values with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Perhaps that is my calling. Perhaps not. For the time being I am taking God‘s plans just the way I walk, one step at a time.
May God bless you and grow you in His word and may you always be led by the Holy Spirit and not your own plans and ideas.
August of 2005. He would be “asleep” until June of 2008.
How God Finally Got My Attention And Made Me Whole
Whenever I am asked to give my testimony about how I came to the Lord I become anxious. It isn’t that I am nervous about speaking or writing, I have never had a problem in those areas except as produced by the disease I now have and which is slowly erasing me. I get anxious because my testimony should be about the wondrous power of God and His unrelenting effort to save this lost sheep.
Unfortunately, by the time I am done telling my tale, people have already begun to make the story about me. It isn’t about me. It’s about Jesus. As a young Christian I eventually listened to those who made it about me and I became swollen with pride and my subsequent fall from grace was significant and extended over a long period of time. So as you listen to my tale remember who the hero is here. It’s all about Jesus. It’s always been about Jesus, from the day God formed man from the dust of the earth until the day He returns in glory and power. If it weren’t about Jesus, I would have no story to tell.
I was born nine months after my Dad came home from World War II. I grew up on military bases in the fifties. In those days the first thing you asked someone who came in your front door was “What will you have?” Alcohol was common in most homes as were cigarettes. I grew up fixing drinks for high-ranking military personnel and politicians and other important people. My Dad was a military officer in the Navy and a doctor responsible for the administration of several large military hospitals before he retired in 1964. I used to pick up the half empty glasses scattered about the room and take them to the kitchen. On the way I would taste the various concoctions and eventually I began fixing drinks in secret for my self. By the time I was fourteen I had a drinking problem in a society that didn’t admit adults had drinking problems.
The high school I attended was off base and located in the poor part of town in Bremerton, Washington. West Bremerton High was not a bad school if you belonged to the right class structure in the community. Shipyard workers and military personnel were not considered part of the right class structure. My Dad did alright because he was commanding officer of the Naval Hospital second only to the Admiral in charge of the shipyard. Unfortunately, his social status did not extend to his children. My first few weeks at the high school involved various humiliations I won’t describe and regular beatings from the rougher element in the student body. I was small for my age and that made me an even more appealing target.
Being a drunk already at age fourteen made me a little more willing to express my frustrations than I would have if I had been sober. One day I brought a piece of wood or it might have been a length of pipe, I don’t remember which. In any case I used it to hit the first person to threaten me that day. All of his buddies jumped on me and pulled me to the ground, but a teacher came by and broke up the free for all. The fellow I hit told me he would be waiting for me after school and I had better show up.
One of the wilder kids on campus came up to me afterwards and expressed admiration for what I had done. He said he would go with me to meet this other guy after school to be sure things were handled fairly. His name was, well I’ll just call him Pat, and he would be come my best and only close friend for the next four years. After school Pat met me in the hallway and walked with me to the vacant lot down the street where all the big fights took place. By the time we got to the field, there were about 40 boys walking behind us. Pat said they were friends of his coming along to help out. The fight took place and it remained between the two of us because of Pat and his friends. I even found out I could fight pretty well and I actually won the battle. That day I became known as “Crazy Mike” and the name stuck for nearly ten years.
Pat and his friends made up a sort of disorganized gang with no name, but with quite a reputation. We drank. We smoked cigarettes. We skipped classes whenever we felt like it and we robbed warehouses and liquor stores. We rolled sailors along the downtown strip where all the bars were. We got into fights, wars really, with other groups from both of the high schools. We even staged major battles with shiploads of sailors on liberty while their ships were in dry dock. People got seriously hurt. A sailor died. None of it seemed to matter. I was so afraid of people finding out that I was afraid that I stayed drunk most of the time.
In January of 1964 I was “allowed” to graduate early to avoid expulsion. My father was humiliated by my 1.0 grade point average and my familiarity with the local police. The only reason I never got arrested like the other guys was because of who my dad was and all his politically connected friends. Dad retired and we moved to San Luis Obispo, California. Pat followed us because he had no family. His mother was dead and his father was an alcoholic fisherman without a home. Pat and I continued to get into trouble in California and when I was seventeen, my Dad threw me out of the house. Pat ended up in the army and disappeared from my life. I bounced around until I ended up in Hawaii in 1968.
Everything I owned was stolen from me in Hawaii. I got a job tending bar at an illegal gambling joint at night and running a jackhammer during the day. I needed more money to get on my feet and when one of the gangsters at the bar offered me a job running errands I took it. I was picking up packages and delivering them to various locations around the island. Most of what I delivered was drugs. I was making good money and since I was always getting fired from my legitimate jobs, I started doing drug runs full time. I lived my life in a fog of marijuana, LSD and alcohol. I didn’t know it, but I was on a collision course with God.
One night I saw a Chinese man talking to a bunch of street kids on the Boulevard in Waikiki. Out of curiosity I wandered over to see what was going on. It turned out the Chinese guy was an evangelist from Tai Wan. He was telling these kids all about Jesus. I suddenly became angry and began arguing with him. I know now it was Satan working through me. I began quoting scriptures I had never read trying to prove the Bible was filed with contradictions and attempting to confuse him and make him look bad. There was no good reason for me to do this. I had no vested interest in those kids, but Satan did and he had a major interest in keeping me.
I never learned the Chinese man’s name, but he never missed a beat. He countered everything I said in a calm voice and y quoting the word of God. He finally looked me in the eye and said that he had a message for me. He said that for the next two weeks a lot of people were going to bring messages to me from God and that I had better listen, because God wanted me to make a decision and I had to make it soon. I laughed at him and spit at his feet, but inside I was shaken by his confidence and puzzled by my own behavior toward him.
For the next two weeks every time I rode a bus someone sat next to me and told me about Jesus. If I hitched a ride I got picked up by a Christian who started were the last person left off. It didn’t matter where I went, there was always at least one, and sometimes more Christians, waiting to talk to me. I became terrified to go out of my crummy studio apartment. I smoked pot and hashish all day. I drank anything available and I took acid and mescaline in an attempt to drown out the voices. They wouldn’t go away.
Finally, one night I was out getting loaded with a soldier on leave from Vietnam. His name was Vince and he was from Chicago. That’s all I remember about him. We were walking down the street when we ran into the Chinese man. He looked at me and said very quietly, “ You’ve had a busy time. Tonight you must decide.” He walked away and I never saw him again. Vince asked me who he was and for some reason I began telling Vince everything that had been happening. I repeated everything that all those people had been saying to me. I was witnessing to Vince and I wasn’t even a Christian! Vince began to tell me how afraid he was to go back to Vietnam. He even started to cry. He said if God were real maybe God would help him. I suddenly began confessing to Vince how I had been afraid all my life and that I covered my fear with violence and anger. We sat in the sand on Waikiki Beach and we both became quiet.
I don’t know what Vince was thinking at the time, but I imagine it wasn’t much different from what I was thinking. I realized I was alone and that I had been alone all my life. I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I didn’t want to be afraid anymore. I didn’t want to hurt people anymore. Finally, I said very quietly, “God, I don’t know if You are real. I don’t know if Jesus is Your Son. These people say You are real and that Jesus died for me. I don’t know if any of this is true, but if You are real, please help me.” When I opened my eyes Vince was looking at me smiling with tears running down his face. We began laughing so hard we could hardly breath. When we finally stopped we realized we were both sober and that the filthy clothes we had been wearing were as clean as if they had just been washed. That was just the beginning of the wonders God had in store.
I bought a Bible the next day and sat down to read it. I had no spiritual father to guide me, no brothers and sisters in Christ yet to help me. I only knew that God inspired the men who wrote the Bible to tell the world about Him and so I wanted to read it all. I barely ate for the next few days as I read the Bible from cover to cover three times. The first time I just read it. The second time I underlined important points or at least what I thought were important points. The third time I was writing notes and cross-referencing. By the time I was done my first Bible was almost done in as well. I began to go out on the street to talk to the hookers, drug dealers, hippies and bums who were the people with whom I had been most intimate for the previous years. I told them all what had happened to me. I told them it could happen to them too. I shared what I was learning in my reading. Little by little I began to reach some of them.
One morning as I returned to the broken down dump I called home I found a huge sign attached to my door. In red block letters on a blue background someone had written “Bible Mike.” I was no longer Crazy Mike. This was meant as sign of respect. Street people would direct people who were hurting emotionally, physically and yes, spiritually, to the rundown one room house with the blue sign that said Bible Mike. I held drug addicts as they came down and went through withdrawal. I helped hookers escape their pimps and get on planes back to their families. I held Bible studies and depended on God to give me the answers to everyone’s questions.
Every night I would pray and then I would hit the streets. I never knew where I was going. I went wherever the Holy Spirit seemed to be leading me to go. And every time I found someone who needed to hear that Jesus loved them and valued them more than they valued themselves. The Holy Spirit spoke words through me that kept people from committing suicide and even stopped one probable murder. My reputation was spreading and this was not good news to the people who used to employ me.
One night a young Vietnamese boy told me there was a contract out on me and he intended to collect it as he pressed the barrel of a 9mm pistol against my forehead. I looked him in the eye and said the first words that came to me. “I forgive you. I know where I am going when I die, do you?” He asked me what I was talking about, so I told him. Eventually he handed me the gun and said “I’m probably a dead man now., then he walked away. Some of the street people raised enough money for a plane ticket to Los Angeles and I left Hawaii in the middle of the night in a pair of shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and sandals.
It was 54 degrees in Los Angeles when I arrived. A radio minister from Whittier met me at the airport and took me to his home. He interviewed me on his radio show for two days and then gave me a bus ticket to my family’s home. When I got there some of the churches had heard about me and I was asked to give my testimony everywhere. I began helping out in a Christian coffeehouse and volunteering with a youth group at a local church. The pastor arranged for a correspondence course in Bible, Theology and Church History which I passed and I was subsequently ordained by a small denomination out of Fort Bragg, Carolina call Christian Congregation, Inc. I had a head full of knowledge, but I wasn’t being fed spiritually. I was being used to bring in people and to lead them to the Lord, but I wasn’t growing in the Lord myself
I became the youth pastor about a year after I married a young woman the pastor introduced me to. It was almost an arranged marriage. I was feeling more and more like I was in way over my head. Then my wife introduced me to the man she had been having an affair with as they left with our two children. I wouldn’t see my kids again for eleven years.
Because of the divorce I lost my job as youth pastor, which was really the best thing for the kids. It also gave me someone to be mad at. I was angry with my ex-wife, the church, the elders, and God. The next few years weren’t pretty. I backslid terribly. I was using cocaine and committing all sorts of sexual sins. God was calling me, but I wasn’t listening. Eventually I sobered up and went back to college and got my degree in business. I wasn’t right with God, but I wasn’t overtly fighting him anymore.
I got married again, but it wasn’t about love or God or anything else. It was about convenience. She and I agreed that we didn’t love each other, but we were tired of chasing around for sex so we got married for convenience. When I started getting the first signs of sickness, she packed her bags and split. I had eight surgical procedures on both kidneys. They were beginning to partially fail a condition know as chronic renal insufficiency. The good news was I met and fell in love with my doctor’s nurse, Rhonda. This time I knew I had to do it right.
I led Rhonda to the Lord and we were married by a Christian minister who first ascertained that we were doing this for life and with Jesus as the head of our home. Rhonda had a daughter who I eventually adopted. We wanted another child but could not make one so we adopted the first available child. They told us he would never walk, talk or even sit up, but we said that we had prayed for a baby and this was the baby God sent. Michael Paul runs and talks and plays today. Then we took in foster children. Mandi and Andrew were the first followed by Alex and Michelle; the last to arrive was Makana and all of them stayed. They are all ours now. The closest I can come to describing the feeling in having these children become ours is to jump back to the days in Hawaii and the first early days after my return to California.
Those first early days were like the days of the early church as described in the Book of Acts. God directed me where to go and what to pray for. As our numbers grew the incidents of miraculous healings grew more frequent and more phenomenal. At first it was simple things like God easing withdrawal from an addictive drug or healing infected cuts or scratches. But then I remember one night when we received a telephone call from Phoenix, Arizona asking us to come pick up Ginger a young girl we had helped in the past. She had fallen away and gone on a methamphetamine run. Now she was repentant and wanted to come back to the Christian family who had saved her. I tried to talk to her on the telephone, but the reception was terrible and her voice kept cutting in and out. We just kept telling her that Jesus loved her and he wasn’t going to leave her and neither were we.
We drove twelve hours straight, four of us in a 1964 Ford Mustang square back. When we first arrived at the address she gave us they wouldn’t let us in. Speed freaks are notoriously paranoid. Finally one of them recognized me and let us in. Ginger saw us and came running down the stairs until the carpet tangled and she went down with her leg twisted in the carpet. When she hit the bottom of the stairs there was no doubt the bone was broken, part of it was sticking out through the skin. People were screaming to call an ambulance, but she grabbed my friend Dick and my hands and begged us to pray for her first. We prayed that God would heal her in Jesus name and that he would also heal her unrepentant heart. When we looked at the leg again there was blood on her clothing but the skin was intact and the bone was in place. She kept saying over and over, “Jesus, I am so sorry. I am ashamed to speak with you. Please forgive me.” Both prayers were clearly answered that night.
We saw healings like that and deliverance from what can only be described as demonic possession. I am not claiming that I am or was in any way holy or special. God chose to intercede for a reason. I don’t know what it was, but I am certain that it was the power of God made manifest by the Holy Spirit. Many people were saved because of what they saw and heard. All honor and glory belongs to God for what He did while we stood by and prayed to Him in Jesus’ name.
After I turned away, I discovered how alone a man can really become. I had known God with a familiarity that cannot be described and when I turned my back on Him, the emptiness was like a festering sore that could not heal. For several years I managed to pretend that it wasn’t God that was making me feel so torn apart inside, but it was. Once you have known God with the closeness that I had know Him with, you cannot survive without Him anymore. Finally, I fell to my knees and asked Him to forgive my selfishness and foolishness and He did. It was really that easy. God’s love is so pure that there is no room for complexity. If you give Him love He pours out His love and mercy full measure, pressed down, and flowing over.
Because of my fall, I am no longer Bible Mike, but I will treasure the memory of God’s blessing for eternity. No one who knows me now ever knew me as Bible Mike and that is a good thing. I am just another Christian struggling daily to work out my relationship with God and to become more like Christ. Once it was certain that I had returned to God to stay, He blessed me with ministry opportunities. I don’t have to work at finding answers to their questions, I just get to enjoy the fresh way of life thirteen years brings to the table. I have watched kids grow from frightened, tenuous speakers into self-assured confident followers of Christ. God is blessing me every day. He has allowed me to share His word with youngsters and more mature individuals as well. I praise His name for His mercy in giving me the opportunity to serve Him again. I hope the rest of my days are spent glorifying Him and sharing the wonder of Who He is with anyone who will listen.
I have a disease which has stolen my ability to read except in special circumstances, I have a form of dementia that takes away my ability to understand or remember what I have read, except in one glorious exception. I can read scripture and books that deal directly with scripture. Books that follow the latest fad and add Jesus’ name as an after thought make me ill. The word of God is a living and vibrant experience for me. It is not just reading God’s word, it is conversing with the One who made me and loves me more than I can describe. When I am in pain, I turn to God’s word for strength and support. When I cannot remember what day it is, I turn to God’s word for guidance and comfort. I have learned to praise God on my bad days and to serve Him on my good ones. That is miracle enough for me.
Every day is a new opportunity to show God how much I love Him. Everyday is a new opportunity to experience His power, His comfort, His joy and His peace. Every day is new. Every day is precious. Like Paul, I have learned to rejoice in all circumstances and to find joy in the midst of any trial or tribulation. In all things and in all ways, I seek to praise the Lord.
Don’t get me wrong. I am just a normal guy struggling daily in his walk with Christ. I don’t do healings or bless holy cloths. I am far from perfect. Dementia causes you to say and do things that are hurtful to those who love you and this disease has been an ever-increasing burden on my family. The stress it causes is unbelievable, but we are making it. Some days we hand on by our fingernails, but we are making it.. The good days are all God’s doing and the bad ones belong to me.. Pray for me and I will pray for you.. Someday we may meet around the throne.
Michael McLarney
February 16, 2004
Pretty amazing isn’t it? What is more amazing is that just when my family was making funeral arraignments for the mannequin in the back bedroom, I woke up! It was a slow process at first. Learning to talk and walk normally was hard, but thrilling. Today I can bathe myself, walk without assistance, make sense when I am talking and , most importantly, I can read my precious Bible again.
I don’t know God’s plan for me, but He most certainly has one. I have been shot at, stabbed, in numerous car wrecks, overdosed on drugs, declared dead, written off as terminal. Every time God has intervened in spectacular ways. If that isn’t a message, I don’t know what a message looks like.
Just before falling asleep I contracted pneumonia for the sixth time in three years. This fungal pneumonia led to a bacterial infection called MRSA. Ten units of blood and two surgeries later I went home feeling healthier than I had in many years. Yet less than a few months later I disappeared from the world around me and the world disappeared for me. I should not have come back from that last event, but I did. Not by the power of science but by the power of the one, eternal God made incarnate in Jesus the Christ and expressed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I am called and I am making myself available for God’s purposes. He seems to be placing me before Christians, and especially Christian leaders, who are confusing their own social and political values with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Perhaps that is my calling. Perhaps not. For the time being I am taking God‘s plans just the way I walk, one step at a time.
May God bless you and grow you in His word and may you always be led by the Holy Spirit and not your own plans and ideas.
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