We should keep in mind God through Peter, as all the bible is God’s word and man wrote only as inspired by God, said in 1Pe 5:8 that “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:”. He is NOT as some christians seem to think today a toothless tiger who can do you know harm. Who will gum at you but can do a thing to you. While the devil can’t have our souls since we are christian he can and DOES tempt us. He want to shame us and lay guilt on us and thus make us ineffective. His temping can and sometimes do lead to sins and that produces guilt and shame in us and we shrink away from fighting the good fight because of it. If he can’t have your soul by keeping you from christ he’ll settle for neutering you by temping you to sin then making you feel guilty and ashamed to the point of with drawing from battle. I know a lot about the temptations he tempts me a lot and yes some lead to sin. Sins are listed in order Thought, Word, and Deed. Thought is first since A) all words and deed are preceded by thought and B) they are the hardest to control. Most of my sins are thought sins but still they are sins. Remember Jesus said in Mat 5:28 “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” So the man walking down the street who sees a pretty lady and says in his heart ‘I would love to romp in bed with her’ has just committed adultery even if he keeps walking and does NOTHING to her. But the man who then goes to home with her and the two have sex has committed adultery twice once in thought and again in action. We must remember that thought does NOT have to lead to action. While yes the thought was a sin he committed adultery but he can rebuke satan and confess and repent to God but better to have to only repent of the adultery committed in thought than have to repent of both the one in thought and then action. Remember 1 Corinthians 10:13 “…but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” Thoughts while hard to control can be. Often our thought sins happen when we let our guard down or haven’t put our guard up. If you are tempted to commit a certain sin it is because you CAN handle the temptation. If you fail to handle it it is NOT God who is to blame for your sin …. it is you!
Back to the Roaring Lion we have another problem in that there often is a window of opportunity for satan to grab a new convert to christianity there is a little bit of a lag time between the head and the heart in accepting christ the head transaction takes place first we speak the words of conversion and accepting Christ but the heart transaction, the true acceptance of Christ, often happens later. Most christians will go through a “pledge phase” they have pledged to accept Christ but haven’t fully done so. The heart hasn’t surrendered yet. Because of this they are still vulnerable to satan’s attacks. Matt 13:5-7 speaks of these. They ARE planted so the head transaction has happened but satan comes in a prevent the heart transaction. Either he brings a persecution to scorch them or attacks them internally or with affairs of the word and thus chokes them off. We have to stay vigilant during this pledge phase to ensure the heart transaction takes place. It is too often assumed that since they have said they accept christ that the work is done and we can move on to converting someone else. But We then leave a ‘babe in christ’ vulnerable when they need us the most. This can also apply to children. I have read many a person saying ‘my son came to Christ at 2’ or ‘ my daughter chose Jesus at 4’ yet a child of that age has NO ability to make such a decision as they don't comprehend what they are agreeing to. That is why we have so many who ‘came to Christ’ as toddlers leaving as teens. They most likely said what they said to please mommy and/or daddy and thus what they said was just words. But since they said it we don't focus on really winning them to christ so they never make the head transaction and in the teens they walk away. We have to be aware that most children will not be able to even make the head transaction until middle school or even high school although yes some will make it in elementary school. Even then we MUST keep helping them during the pledge phase or they will not make the heart transaction. Just as the adults who enter the pledge phase are targets of satan to try and prevent one more soul accepting Christ children in this phase are targets too even more so since he want to grab souls when they are young and especially if they are the children of christians he want to snatch them away not only to gain soul but to cause grief to the parent at the lose of the child for eternity. Too often with children we treat christianity as if it is in the DNA or is a family heirloom handed down through the generations. We make no real effort to convert them because they ‘already are christian’ by right of birth. How many people out there are ‘christian’ because their parents were christian as were their parents as were their parents??? Salvation is NOT a birth right. You don't get saved by being born into the right family. You must be born AGAIN. But too many treat their first birth as sufficient to make them a christian. Or worse treat it like the chest of drawers great-grandma had that then was grandma's then was mom's and now is yours and in the future will be your child’s. You must choose to be christian you don't just inherit it like furniture.
We have to realize that it is the Holy Spirit's job to draw people to Christ or to put it more crudely to ‘get the butts in the seats’ (see sister act movie). We see a lot of churches try to change to a more worldly format (more entertainment and showmanship than preaching and educating and using worldly music and sound in worship)(we strip the Gold [tunes] off the world music idol and poor them onto a cross [christian words] and then say it is christian rock, rap, hip hop or heavy metal {see Deu 7:25}) and more programs (having nothing to do with christ and not even presenting christ to people in them) (YoGOD the “godly yoga” etc) to draw in the unsaved. But it is not our job to bring them in God will do that using the Holy Spirit. Yes outreach is important but we must speak the truth in outreach and let the HS bring then ones who are Christ's to us.
Speaking of outreach yes outreach to the homosexual and transgender community is important but it must be with truth. Too many churches are outreaching by distorting the truth. The Liberal redefinition of love mean you must accept a person as he is for who he is and must not condemn him for what he does or you are not being loving. Thus mentioning sin is hateful not loving. But we must go on God’s definition that Love will always align with truth and love will always speak the truth even if unpopular. If God says something is wrong it is always wrong even if the whole world says it is right. Also if God says something is right it is always right even if the world says it is wrong. Now it is true that most of the activist and upper echelon people in the homosexual and transgender movements are not reachable as Rom 1:24,27-28 says “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:” “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” That is not to say that there aren’t some that can be saved but let God lead you to them rather than go of your own accord and try to sift through them all to find the few who will listen. However most rank and file homosexuals and transgenders are reachable and we should reach out to them with the truth. But we have to be aware of a few things before we start: the church bears some responsibility for the current climate {the rise of militant homosexuals}.
In the 50’s-60’s and before many professing christians beat and mistreated homosexuals. Many others called for it, including some pastors [especially in the so called bible belt (quite a few of christians there seem to know what the bible says but not always what it means even today)], and others with winked and nodded or simply looked the other way while it was happening. The church has a history of considering some sins so egregious that the perpetrators must be punished harshly BEFORE they are saved or that because of the nature of their sin the church must be God’s instrument of punishment upon them since they can not be saved. The catholic church had this problem with the Jews for years believe that the church must punish Jews for rejecting Jesus. That the sin of rejecting christ was so egregious that no salvation could be offered and that the guilt was a perpetual guilt inherited by blood so that all jews throughout time would be guilty and thus unsaveable. We must acknowledge our failings to the people suffering under homosexual and transgender sin and offer them the truth about christ and salvation. (may today still mistreat homosexual rather than give them the gospel and help them out of homosexuality. Again especially in the so called bible belt) We must help them find out what caused their current problem. Inform them that true reparative therapy is not about “praying away the gay” or torturing them but is about finding the root cause of their homosexuality be it molestation or absent father or neglectful or disinterested father or whatever the cause. The same for Transgender therapy it is about finding why they have this belief they are in the wrong body.
Years ago christian’s tried fight transgenderism with “God doesn’t make mistakes” which is true but know the community is using that against us trying to say that they must be boys in girls bodies or girls in boys bodies because that is how God made them and God doesn’t make mistakes. We must help them come to know that God didn’t make them transgender and find out what did. What cause this in them an then work to fix it. We must help parents know the truth too since MOST children who feel they are in the wrong body will after going NATURALLY through puberty will accept their true gender. (98% of boys and 88% of girls. why girls are lower I don't know) Knowing that they can avoid the puberty blockers that will prevent this. That is why satan has activist working to get doctors to prescribe these blockers to children is to arrest their development to keep them in bondage to the delusion he is giving. This is why he is having governments and doctors tell parents of 2 and 3 year olds to treat them as the opposite sex if they say they are. He wants to trap them when young into this destructive God denying lifestyle and TOO many in the church are going along with this believing they are showing the love of Christ to these children. “God made him this way who am I to judge??” These affirming churches make our mission is especially hard. The true church Give one message and the “affirming” church give another. Yes many in America believe in Jesus but the question is which Jesus??? Too many believe in a Jesus of their own making or in one of someone else’s making. The “easy on the eyes” Jesus. The “hip cool” Jesus. The “I love you just the way you are” Jesus. The “who am I to judge” Jesus. The “if it feels good do it just include me too” Jesus. Or even “Comrade” Jesus. The socialist/communist one who believe in ‘unequal’ equality, in redistribution [theft] of wealth, in the collective being more important than the individual, in the benevolence of total government, and that the ends justify the means. While 75-80% of Americans claim to be christian I am bettering the true number of followers of christ, the REAL christ, is 10-15%.
I mentioned 1 Corinthians 10:13 before and this is true even if some people underestimate there ability to bare up to temptation. Yes some people are tempted with sins they are unable to perform for various reasons because God knew they would not be able to bear up and so he put them in situations or gave them conditions that would prevent a temptation from becoming anything more that a thought sin. But for others he know they can resist the devil and his temptation and that they can prevent themselves form giving into sinful actions but they refuse to do so and then they do sinful deeds and some will blame God for not helping them stand up to temptation or for allowing them to be tested more than they could handle. I am lucky that God knew I would not be able to handle some temptations and was given a condition that has made many deed sins impossible but I struggle with thought sins. (Sometimes it is only after the passage of many years or decades that we can appreciate the things God has done for us.) We need to help people who struggle with these deed sins find their strength so they can resist satan and can bear up under the weight of strong temptation to commit sins of deed. (While thought sins are bad, don’t get me wrong, it would be better to have to struggle with thought sin without the deeds than to have to struggle with both since deeds come from thoughts a deed sin is 2 sins. Ideally you will fight so that even the thought sins will not happen but we all know sin happens in this fallen world thought can be easier to deal with and quicker to repent of.) Homosexuals need this strength. The ones not given over to their vile affections CAN stand up to the temptation to sexually sin but they need strength to do so they need our help. We can’t tell them they are just how God intended them to be but that God has a better way for them but they must accept him and fight satan and that it will be a life long fight and a rough one. Because of the nature of their sin satan will continue to tempt them even after they become christian so they must stay on guard and we must help them. Transgenders need this too satan will not give up on them after they come to christ. He will keep pushing them toward gender confusion. Satan like any bully knows what buttons to push and even after you become a christian he will push those buttons to get you to react and slip up and maybe even backslide. When you leave sinful lifestyles he does what he can to keep people from knowing but if you slip up and return he broadcasts it all over. It is why you don’t hear much about all the EX-gays out there but you will hear about EX-EX-gays those who returned to the sinful gay lifestyle. He would hush up the news of 1000 who convert to Christ but will go wall to wall coverage on the 1 who backslides.
We need to get back to basics back to the fundamentals of the faith. This isn’t going to be easy. Many churches don't even believe much of the bible and some christian in them are essentially atheists. Others believe most but not all one the bible and thus let society influence what they believe the bible means. We have to fight Spiritually and we have to take back the church before we can see much progress in other areas of life. How can we help America get its house in order when ours in in such disarray??? How can an army fight when its soldiers are all marching in different directions??? If we expect to take back the church and America we need several spiritual D-Day style offensives. Do we have that in us??? (D-day being the largest amphibious assault in history and changing the war in Europe)
Paul Wilson
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