“Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven.” Psalm 110:89
Russ preached a sermon in late November about the immutability of God’s Word, using a passage from the Apostle Paul that is very sobering. As we start into this new year, it would be wise to consider Paul’s words and apply them to ourselves and to the world around us. We begin with the word “immutable.” Not only does immutable mean “unchanging,” it also means “unable to be changed.” Thus, the Word of God cannot be changed. His laws, His decrees remain in place, however hard men may work to change or belittle them. We as Christians must remember this awesome fact. The Ruler of the universe, the Creator exists and His laws continue to be in effect, despite those who find Him to be politically incorrect. A tree is no less real because I choose to believe that it doesn’t exist. Reality and belief do not always coincide.
So what does the immutability of God’s Word mean for us in 2019? Obviously those of us who claim to be Christians must be sure that our day to day lives reflect His Word and NOT the prevailing culture. Russ and I just returned from Scotland where we visited the Rosslyn Chapel which was featured in the Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. It was a beautiful chapel, ornately carved with all sorts of animals, scenes from the Bible, and symbols which, per the novel, related to the Templars, a group of Crusaders who supposedly found and have kept safe the Holy Grail. There are still services held in the chapel, but as in most of Great Britain, attendance is low. The majority of Europeans have turned their backs on God, as the progressives in our own country have done, leaving the great cathedrals which once stood as memorials to the Glory of God as mere tourist attractions.
We Christians must recognize this pernicious trend in our own country and resist it, because already far too many churches have begun to give in to the pressures of progressivism, performing homosexual marriages and even ordaining homosexual priests and ministers. Homosexuality has been recorded in the Bible since the times of Abraham and Lot, but it has always been viewed as a sin. In a long and frightening passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans (1:24-32), Paul gives us a clear look at those who have turned their backs on God when he begins, “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”
He goes on to say: “For this reason (their denial of God) God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”
Is there any question here but that homosexuality is considered to be a sin? Paul uses the words “shameful” and “error.” Obviously this is wrong in God’s sight. If we are unwilling to accept Paul’s words here as being divinely inspired we can look at Leviticus 18:22-24, Leviticus 20:30, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:9-11 to just name a few verses. They all condemn homosexuality as a sin. As a Christian, then, we must be willing to bear the title of bigot or homophobe if it is thrown at us and repeat courageously that we live by the Word of God which never changes, and that in God’s eyes, homosexuality is wrong. I do not suggest “shunning” the sinner, as the Amish shun those who have left their communities. We must treat them with friendship and love, but we can never condone their behavior. It is a fine line to tread, but we are instructed to hate the sin, but love the sinner, and so we must do.
Paul continues to speak of those who have abandoned God, who truly no longer really believe He exists, or if He exists, that He has any influence on our day to day world.
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”
And here we have the progressives of today. They not only accept homosexuality, they promote it by demanding gay marriage and gay “rights” of all kinds. They not only recognize that there are some individuals who are women who would prefer to be men, or men who would prefer to be women, but they celebrate them as courageous. One magazine even berated men for being unwilling to date “women with penises.” Parents of children as young as kindergarten are deciding that their little boy or little girl is the wrong gender and are starting them on hormonal treatment and insisting that teachers and classmates call them by their new name despite the very real problems involved. Transgenders commit suicide at a greater rate than the general population and no one knows what effect this hormone treatment will have on such young children! In addition, most individuals with gender dysphoria (discomfort with their gender), can become comfortable in their own bodies over time and through counseling. Still, the LGBT community has even come up with gender neutral pronouns ( zie instead of he/she; zir instead of his/hers and so on) that we can use to avoid misidentifying a man who looks like a man but (by their terms) is really a woman.
Men and boys who look very much like men and boys, but who say they “identify” as women or girls, may use the women’s restroom. That this presents safety issues as well as distress to some of the girls or women who might also be in that restroom has no bearing. The LGBT community demands rights for its members, and backed up by the progressive left and the Democratic Party, has cowed Christians and others into accepting these anomalies as normal. Most Americans believe as many as 1 in 4 of their fellow citizens falls into one of these categories because of the media hype, but according to the last last Gallup Poll, the actual percentage of the population who are homosexual, bisexual, or transgender is less than 4% of the population. And here is where Paul’s words come back with force: “who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.” Many of the leaders of the Democratic Party now and during the past administration are “Christians,” but they continue to ignore the beliefs they have been taught all of their lives. They ignore the truth of God’s Word, in order to cater to those progressive leftists who can get them reelected. Thus, they know that these people are promoting things that are wrong and harmful, but they approve of them anyway for political expediency’s sake.
But do any of them really believe in Heaven and Hell? Though Revelations 21:8 says: “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death,” countless numbers of people no longer really believe this. If they did, if they truly believed they were in danger of eternal damnation, would they continue to act as they are acting?
It has become difficult to believe in an all powerful, all controlling God in this modern age. We see man creating so many marvelous things — cell phones, computers, watches that are small computers, cars that can drive themselves — it is easy to forget that the minds, the intellect that have created these marvels were themselves created and gifted with those talents by the Almighty. We have become used to the trees, the flowers, the mountains, the oceans, the stars at night. None of it fills us with wonder anymore. And without that wonder, we often forget that they did not just explode into being as proponents of the “big bang theory” would have us believe.
Someone once explained to me that she was a Democrat because she “believed in science.” The obvious continuation of that idea was, of course, that Republicans don’t believe in science, especially not evangelical Christian Republicans. But that is not true by any stretch of the imagination. We believe in science that is proven, not in scientific theory, no matter how popular that “theory” might be. We remember that through the centuries “science” has been proven wrong over and over again. The sun and stars do not revolve around the earth as scientists once claimed that they did. The world is not flat. Using leeches to bleed people does not get rid of the “bad humors” causing their illnesses, but instead weakens them often to the point of death. Science once taught these as facts, but we now know they are not facts. “Science” was wrong.
Take some time to study nature around you — the trees which drop their leaves in winter and then grow them again in the spring, the animals who burrow in the ground to stay warm, the snowflakes which fall in myriads of different patterns, the millions of stars in the night sky. Can you really believe that they all happened by accident? That a plant dropped seeds and some of them became rose bushes, others oak trees, and still others grass? And our own bodies — muscles, veins, arteries, lungs, heart, kidneys — all working together, each doing a particular job. By chance? By sheer luck? No, we are all — plants, worlds, people, animals — created by a Supreme Being, God. And what God has created, God can destroy!
As we enter this new year, let us remember that regardless of what the media may tell us, God exists and his Word never changes. What was sin in Biblical days is still sin, and we must not allow ourselves to be cowed into accepting that which is wrong as being right. Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 9:26) “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” We must bring our minds as well as our actions into subjection to God’s Word lest we also lose eternal life. Our country needs us to stand strong.
Otherwise we will fulfil Psalm 9:17. “The wicked go down to the realm of the dead, all the nations that forget God.”