About Jesus Steve Sweetman

About Jesus - Steve Sweetman

The Rough Road We Travel

To preface what I'm about to say, please know that I am not homophobic according to the strictest definition of the word. I hold no hostility towards anyone in the LGBTQA community. I attempt to live at peace with everyone as the Apostle Paul taught us in Romans 14:19. Even though some hostility has been directed towards me by a few in the LGBTQA community, I have not responded in like fashion. In a calm, yet matter of Biblical fact manner, I simply repeat what I understand the Bible to say about this issue. I know that won't satisfy my critics, but that's okay. There's nothing I can do about that.

I now refer you to the recent United States Supreme Court's ruling that has legalized same sex marriage in America. The U. S. now joins Canada and other nations by approving that which the Bible calls sin. According to Paul's remarks in Romans 1:18 to 32, the reason for such an approval by a nation is due to the removal of God from the cultural conscience of that nation, resulting in God handing that nation over to the sins it has chosen to embrace. Once rejecting the existence of God, and thus rejecting Biblical morality, it's only logical that the Biblical concept of marriage being the union of one man to one woman becomes irrelevant.

Paul's reiteration of the Old Testament's
view of homosexuality was culturally, religiously,
and politically unacceptable in his day. Both heterosexual and homosexual prostitution was
a routine form of worship at pagan temples. Homosexuality was the sexual preference for many, if not for most. men in the first century Roman Empire . Boys as young as 6 years old were raised to be homosexual and were expected to engage in homosexual sex with their father's adult male friends upon reaching puberty. Yes, men did have wives, but not because that was their sexual preference. The crude fact is that wives were viewed as baby machines, something Paul would have vehemently opposed. Although some insist that Paul was anti-women, his opposition to wives being viewed as baby machines should calm the debate a bit.

Paul put his life in danger by opposing homosexuality. He stood his ground on this and other controversial issues right up to the day when a Roman sword slivered its way through his neck, slicing his head from his shoulders. Paul had spiritual guts. His inner fortitude enabled him to withstand the pressures from the anti-Christ culture of his day. The same inner fortitude must resonate from every fiber of our being. Our anti-Christ culture has clearly removed God from its cultural conscience which accounts for the fact that God is handing it over to the sins it has chosen to embrace.

As Christians, we must seriously consider our response to the consequences of standing our Biblical ground. We can't hide our heads in the sands of indifference and compromise, hoping for better days to come. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a pessimist. I do have faith, but once God hands a culture over to sin, better days won't be seen soon. The horse has been let out of the barn, as the saying goes. The future we hoped to avoid is upon us. So buckle up your spiritual seat belts and get ready to ride the rough road ahead.

We're already maneuvering our way around the speed bumps and pot holes in this rough road. Pastors are being pressured to submit to the state's new morality or else forfeit their state credentials. Church groups are being pressured to rip out what the state calls hate literature from the Bible and from their doctrinal statements or else forfeit their special tax status. Christian business owners are being pressured to comply with a new morality based economy or else be sued in a court of law. Individual Christians are being slandered and viewed as bigoted and intolerant by a so-called tolerant culture. Like it or not, these are the facts we encounter as we travel this rough road.

I don't view these things as being negative. I actually view them in a positive light. The rough road we're traveling will separate the sheep from the goats in that which we call church. Although the traditional exterior of church will no longer exist as we presently know it, and I have no problem with that, individual believers and teams of believers will form a chain that will network its way across the land. Church will be church as understood in New Testament terms. We won't be like those who shrink back and cave into the cultural pressure (Hebrews 10:39). We will, however, endure these trials and tribulations that come our way as Paul said we can expect before we enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:22).

I pose the following question for your consideration. Most of us live in a jurisdiction that has redefined marriage and the family through legislative and legal rulings. This new cultural definition is clearly unbiblical. Is it, therefore, time for Christians to uphold the Biblical definition of marriage by repeating their marriage vows before God, family, friends, and the church, without defiling these vows with their association with an unbiblical state sponsored marriage certificate?

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