One of the biggest issues facing the Christian Church today is the attack on the family and biblical worldview, as demonstrated by the rise in deconstruction and biblical illiteracy — but there is a solution, according to Jack Graham, senior pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas.
Yesterday, the United Methodist Church seemingly underscored his concerns by showing the world what a non-biblical worldview looks like.
Yesterday, they officially cut ties with biblical Christianity to embrace homosexuality and so-called "same-sex marriage."
Pastor Graham says, "There is a solution to all this."
Be informed, not misled.
United Methodist delegates repealed their church’s longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy with no debate yesterday, removing a rule forbidding “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed as ministers.
Delegates voted 692-51 at their General Conference — the first such legislative gathering in five years. That overwhelming margin contrasts sharply with the decades of controversy around the issue. Past General Conferences of the United Methodist Church had steadily reinforced the ban and related penalties amid debate and protests, but many of the conservatives and thousands of Methodist churches who had previously upheld the ban have left the denomination in recent years, and this General Conference has moved in a solidly leftist direction.
Also approved was a measure that forbids district superintendents — a regional administrator — from penalizing clergy for either performing a same-sex wedding or for refraining from performing one. It also forbids superintendents from forbidding or requiring a church from hosting a same-sex wedding.
Delegates are also expected to vote as soon as today on whether to replace their existing official Social Principles with a new document that no longer calls the “practice of homosexuality … incompatible with Christian teaching” and that now defines marriage as between “two people of faith” rather than between a man and a woman.
Applause broke out in parts of the convention hall Wednesday after the vote.
The UMC then tried to be all things to all people by explaining that "The change doesn’t mandate or even explicitly affirm LGBTQ clergy, but it means the church no longer forbids them."
Silence in the face of evil is evil.
I noticed that the delegates were unhappy with the large banner hanging in the convention hall, which said, "And Know that I am God."
They may claim to know that He is God, but their actions betray any suggestion that they actually believe He is.
Their actions profoundly contradict God and His Word which clearly condemns what they are affirming.
The biggest issue facing the church today.
The Methodists have, this week, demonstrated how the church views Scripture through the lens of the world---redefining Scripture to affirm anti-biblical beliefs, practices, and behaviors.
He says:
The family is the foundation of civilization, divinely ordained to flourish through a biblical perspective.
“People want to know, 'What does the Bible say to my family, to my children, how I raise my kids?' We're seeing this whole movement of deconstruction now. We're seeing young people grow up in Church and then potentially abandon their faith. What we want to do is preventative medicine."
“I believe the Church right now needs to be on the cutting edge of preventative work in terms of our children, preparing them to answer the big questions that are coming their way, and to equip parents to be able to answer their children's questions so that when their children leave home, they'll have a faith to live by and not to abandon.”
The megachurch pastor says, “The church must deal with the question of marriage” like never before, adding: “The Bible is clear on male and female; He created them. So, we're not going to be flying rainbow flags in the church that's reaching families for Christ, because it is an opposition to the Bible.”
“We have to deal with it. We have to give people a reason to believe and a reason to know, but people don't know their Bibles. That's why I keep getting back to the Bible. People just don't know what the Bible says. So we go by our feelings, or we go by culture, we go by what our friends are saying, or even maybe what our parents said. We're just trying to get people to open their Bibles and to help explain what the Bible says about all these issues.”
“There is an extreme interest in the Bible,” Graham said. “The more Satan resists, where sin abounds, grace much more abounds, according to the Scripture, and I just believe that we overcome evil with good. And with all the people wanting to cancel the Bible and check the Bible off, the Bible lives because the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible, indestructible Word of God, and God's Word will prevail over all of its enemies.”
Amen!
Read your Bible.
Be Informed. Be Discerning, Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Fearless. Be Prayerful.