To All My Facebook Friends Who Are Gay or Lesbian, or Have Children Who Are Gay or Lesbian
I have friends on FB who are gay or lesbian. I also have friends who have children who are gay or lesbian. I have heard preachers who have said that overcoming the sin of homosexuality is impossible or almost impossible. How hopeless are statements like these! I am no longer a member of their group or church. Truthfully, these so-called preachers of the Gospel are NOT preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, which offers hope to ALL sinners, of which I am the chief! Either the Gospel of Jesus Christ can do what no psychiatrist can do, what no sex change can do, or the Bible is a lie. Let God be true and every man a liar! Recently, I came across a book called Two of Me, by the late pastor David Wilkerson, of Time Square Church, New York City. Below is a section of the book (Chapter Two). If you are saved and are struggling with sin, no matter what your sin is, this book offers hope because it is the truth. If you are a homosexual or lesbian who thinks that there is no hope for you, this is for you. I have said over and over again that Jesus died for us, Jesus loved us (past tense) while we were without strength, while we were still sinners, while we were ungodly, while we were enemies of God. If you are waiting for God to accept you if you get your act together, get over it.
How many of us Christians tried to get our act together before we were saved? It doesn't work that way. He will accept you just as you are; he will change you; you can be born again; He will forgive you! How many of us Christians, after we were saved, tried to please God in our own strength, and failed miserably? We actually found ourselves back in what we had left behind! Let's be honest! Is it a hopeless situation? The answer is NO! The problem is that most pastors and Christians DO NOT KNOW THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST!
The gospel is what it says it is: the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes - Jew or Gentile. I think that most of you know that I firmly believe that judgment is coming on our country, the likes of which we could never imagine. Just remember, that though the judgment comes on the country, judgment by God is a personal issue. None of us wants to experience the wrath of God against sin. Is there hope in the midst of the warnings? Is there a way of escape? The answer is YES! I want you all to realize that there is still time to turn to God who has already turned to you.
I don't care what sin you are bound to, Jesus loved you; Jesus died for you; Jesus will forgive you; Jesus will come and make His home in you; Jesus will give you His Holy Spirit to strengthen you when you are weak! He is awesome! In other words, He is everything He says He is! Everything I have ever needed, I have found in Him. The Good News is that God is no respecter of persons. What He has done for me, He can and will do for you! There is hope!
How crazy is this hope? Here's how far God will take you. This is what God's Word says to believers (and you won't hear this in most churches): "Beloved, NOW we are the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be. But, we know that when He shall appear, WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM, for we shall see Him as He is." This is how far God says He can take us, believe it or not! As for me and my house, we choose to believe this is exactly what God will do, and this is the hope and expectation that we are extending to every sinner and saint alike!
Now, here is what David Wilkerson says:
"I am at the place that I believe it is the uncharitable Christian, so harsh and unforgiving, who drives the sinner away from the redeeming power of Christ. The church often drives people with life-controlling problems to reckless abandon and despair by their phony, pious ferocity against their sin. Christians, who are themselves victims of all manner of temptations, often shut out the habituated by telling them they are hopeless cases. This judgmental attitude says to the sinner, "Keep going deeper into your sin! You are hopeless! The Bible condemns you, so give yourself over to your iniquity. You are already lost, so we won't waste our time trying to help you.
"A young lesbian who attended one of my meetings told me of her difficulty with church people accepting her--even after her conversion to Christ.
"I wish Christians would quit 'totem poling' sins and treat everybody alike. They tend to put homosexuals on the bottom when it comes to being concerned about them, and on top of the pole when it comes to judging them as hopeless.
"I get tired of Christians accepting converted adulterers, prostitutes, alcoholics, masturbators, and then recoiling like vipers when homosexuals seek help. They seem on the verge of throwing up when they talk to me; they watch my every move; they eyeball and analyze me, looking for errors. They can't forget my past, as if Jesus came into this world to save everybody but homosexuals."
"No wonder sin is driven underground. No wonder people with life-controlling habits tend to react violently. These troubled souls are degraded; scorn is heaped upon them by a church that wants nothing to do with "queers," "fagots," and "nellies." We have all become very adept at heaping scorn on those we consider hopeless sinners. The scorn and smirk of Christians is one of the greatest causes of injury to those who indulge in sensuality.
"We stigmatize people with life-controlling problems. We take away their character by thinking of them as hopelessly hooked. We are so offended by their practices, we have made their sins so scandalous, we turn them into outcasts with no hope of return. We help to destroy their hunger for God by bringing down on them an avalanche of reproach and unforgiving wrath.
If you rob a sinner of his character, if you take away his dignity, if you focus only on his failures, if you treat him as a non-person, if you shut off all his roads of retreat—he is driven to hardness. He becomes calloused and begins to fight back because that is all that is left for him. It is an easy step from hardness to violence. Humiliate the sinner, take away his sense of worth, and soon you will have driven him to total remorse. If there is no God in him to support him, he will lose all hope and finally give himself over to those who will accept him. Then he often uses that hostility as an excuse to remain in his sin.
My compassion for hardened sinners has been sorely tried. I've seen gangs of leather-clad sadomasochists parading down Folsom Street in San Francisco, flaunting their perversion. They carry nail-studded belts, heavy chains, whips, and other such sadomasochist paraphernalia.
Drag queens strut around, proud, thumbing their noses at straight society. I have had countless numbers of gays call me a fanatic and a fraud. They have cursed my honest efforts to help them—they have thrown my books into the gutter, jumping on them, reviling the author with torrents of cursing.
It is then that horrible thoughts begin to surface in me. I think to myself, "God, they are hopeless. They don't want You; they don't want help. I'm wasting time. Maybe an earthquake is the only language they can understand. Why preach cure to proud people who won't even admit they need help?"
But when I go down to the Tenderloin in San Francisco and talk to those who have hit rock bottom—stoned, bombed out, at the end of their hope—something beautiful happens. Sinners tend to get honest when desperate. The truth surfaces when the games are all over. The phoney fronts, the make-believe facades, all come tumbling down. And suddenly you find just another poor, lost sinner needing the love and compassion of Christ. They weep out pitiful confessions of being kicked around, abused, used, rejected, and misunderstood.
I cannot explain the joy of seeing broken bodies and minds restored by the power of God. That is what draws some of us back time and again to the streets, willing to suffer abuse from the hardened Christ-rejectors. It may be only one out of a thousand who admits to a need or who hurts enough to want to change. But God will lead us to that one—and no power on earth or in Hell can hinder the Holy Spirit from zeroing in on that hungry heart to bring healing.
Peter the apostle said, "God has shown me that I should call no man unfit or unclean" (Acts 10:28).
From David Wilkerson's book Two of Me, Chapter Two - available free on the Internet
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