Recently, Pastor Andy Stanley on his
Drive Conference at North Point, last year shared his thoughts about how a church should respond to
community of the alphabet community that attend the church. Let's look at this short little clip.
Great people as excited about serving and engaging as the gay men and women I
know we would have a volunteer backlog. That's my experience in our churches.
A gay person I'll just read it to you, a gay person when I say a gay of men and women okay.
A gay person who still wants to in church after the way the church has treated the gay community,
I'm telling you they have more faith than I do. They have more faith than a lot of you.
A gay person who knows you know what I might not be accepted here but I'm going to try it
anyway. Have you ever done that as a straight person and where do you go that you're not sure
you're going to be accepted and you go over and over and over and over only your in-laws house,
that's the only place you go where you know you're not completely accepted but you go over and over
and over and it's because you have to but other than the in-laws ,what environment do you continue
to step foot in knowing at any moment, you may feel ostracized. No place. I'm telling you the
gay men and women who grew up in church and the gay men and women who've come to faith in Christ
as adults, who want to participate in our church, oh my goodness I know 1 Corinthians 6 and I know
Leviticus and I know Romans 1, it's so interesting to talk about all that stuff. But just oh my
goodness, a gay man or woman who wants to worship their Heavenly Father, who did not answer the cry
of their heart when they were 12 and 13 and 14 and 15, God said, No and they still love God.
We have some things to learn from a group of men and women who love Jesus that much and who want to
worship with us and I know the verses, I know the collateral passages right. We got to figure. Wow,
that's very interesting. I'll address that in just a second but I want to read one Pastor who was
there and then had a personal connection to Pastor Andy and he said on September 19, 2019, I was
invited to a private dinner with about 15 pastors at the local church. So this has been going on for
some time and he says the following, that there was a topic of homosexuality that came up and
lasted for 1.5 hours and he says, Andy shared overly heretical views that clearly contradict
what the word of God says. I was shocked to find myself arguing with Andy along with the other
pastors despite our respect for him. Andy Stanley said pretty much, Andy Stanley, homosexuality
is really a disability using the analogy that telling gay people that they should stop being
gay to follow Jesus Christ is like taking a wheelchair away from a guy who can't walk.
Andy said, I don't do gay weddings but if I I can't say that I would never do a gay wedding if
my granddaughter asked me someday maybe I would and he says, we need to make room for gay men.
Okay this is way off. For gay men who choose to be married to each other in our churches
because that's as close as they can get to the New Testament framework of marriage. He says,
I believe in gay people. Some are gay they can't change which is contradiction to the scripture and
then he shared a lot of other stuff. Now I want you to watch a little clip of what a progressive
Christian. Holy moly look at what mega. I want you to look at the clip by a progressive
Tik Toker which is there's a new wave of new evangelicals that's what they call themselves.
His response to Pastor Andy Stanley's statement on the alphabet community. Holy moly look at
what mega church pastor Andy Stanley said about the queer community, this weekend. We're gonna
skip this part because we already listened to it. So let's look at what he says right now,
here. Wow I mean okay. Is it perfect? No. Is there a long ways to go? Absolutely. But a mega church
pastor finally admitting that yes, the queer community has been harmed by the Evangelical
Church. That's a big freaking deal. Andy come on, the podcast let's talk about it. In a nutshell,
Pastor Andy pretty much blames God for why He does not deliver these people who are like on
the wheelchair. The queer community, the homosexual community and then of course he
apologizes to them and says the church has been so mean and rude in treating these people and they're
such a big victims and the church is just bunch of homophobic people who are not as sacrificial
and who are not as giving. Now for those of you who maybe think oh Vlad's just jumping on
the train you know trying to make a video about this.I had a lot of respect for Andy Stanley. I
used to listen to him every single week. Maybe 15 years ago or so really enjoyed his teachings. I
loved how he would tailor his teachings to bridge the the gap to reach unbelievers and with time,
I started to notice of course, he's a Baptist and so he would criticize and attack these
scriptures take them out of context in regards to miracles and that just didn't sit right with me
but of course, I would just ignore that and still would listen and then after a while,
I discontinued to listen to him because of a lot of weird things I started to notice even in his
theology and in his approach and a lot of this is becoming more and more evident with this approach
of not just accepting the gay people but affirming and really using the Bible as like yeah I know all
what the Bible says but you know like church has done such a bad job treating these people. They
have harmed these people. Church hasn't harmed anybody by preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ
and just because somebody doesn't want to repent, it does not mean that church is responsible nor
is God guilty for why these people don't want to repent. Now ,here are my four thoughts. Now,
if you are listening to this and by this time and you are homosexual or you are gay, congratulations
if you already lasted till this time. Please stay till the end if you're a Christian and maybe you
agree with more of a progressive theology concerning this, please listen to me without
going right now, leaving a comment okay. Four things, one of them is that God is not guilty
for making somebody a gay person because we were born sinners. Part of being born sinners ,we were
born with proclivity committing sin. God never created us to be like that. Jesus, who a lot of
homosexual people will say well Jesus you know He never said anything about homosexuals. But He
actually did. In Mark chapter 10, the scripture says, when Jesus talked about the divorce and He
goes back to the beginning and pretty much Jewish people had a loophole for divorce and Jesus says,
that's because of the hardness of your heart. He says, God never allowed that from the beginning
because He made a man and a woman and He wants a man to leave his father and mother and join
to his wife. That alone tells you that Jesus's standard for marriage and for a union is between
a man and a woman. He doesn't have to say any other expressions that we have today in
the culture because this is the standard. This is the original plan. It's the way God made it
and Jesus says too will become one flesh. A homosexual cannot become one flesh even the
way God designed our sexual organs, they don't fit, they don't compliment, that's why they don't
produce anything instead what it produces is a lot of headache what it produces is a lot of disease,
incurable sicknesses because God never created an original design for us to do that.
The second thing that I wanted to share is not only God is not guilty but secondly is that the
Bible keeps telling us that we are to place our faith toward Jesus and repentance toward God.
I'm noticing a common trend right now happening in Christianity where the gospel and the grace
of God is presented without repentance, where it's only about confess, say a prayer, maybe cry a tear
but you don't have to repent meaning, you come the way you are and you stay the way you are like God
understands. God is okay with that. This idea that God somehow stopped being holy because Jesus died
on a cross for us and the cross somehow changed the nature of God like that's so bizarre. Because
God doesn't change. God is as holy today as He was a thousand years ago and He will be forever.
And the gospel, Jesus did not preach the gospel without repentance. Apostles didn't preach the,
people say well, but apostles preached you know a gospel that didn't have repentance, really? Why
did Peter says, repent and be converted. Why did Paul in book of Acts chapter 20 and 21, he says
that he preached to the Jews and to the Greeks repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord
Jesus Christ. We have a generation today that has ignored repentance. Hebrews chapter 6 verse 1 says
that one of the foundation things of Christian faith is repentance. God commands repentance,
book of Acts chapter 17 verse 30. And repentance is not about coming to the altar and saying,
I want to accept Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not some terms or that you accept before you use a
website like you know it says, accept the cookies. He's not a cookie. He's the Lord and when we come
to Him, we acknowledge, we screwed up, we messed up, we did not measure, we will never be able
to earn salvation and we come like prodigal son saying, I am so sorry. I've sinned against you and
heaven. I am not worthy. I am a wretched sinner. I deserve lake of fire because the gospel confronts
our pride. The gospel is offensive because the gospel says, I am so messed up, I can't change on
my own. I need God's grace. I need God's mercy and so I repent of my pride. I repent of my religion.
I repent of my attempt to try to earn salvation. I repent of my sin and I say, God I am so sorry.
I want to live for You. I want to please You. Now, imagine you're a husband and wife and your wife
or your husband cheats on you and they come and they say, I am so sorry that I hurt your feelings
but I just wanted to let you know that I'm gonna go back to the person that I lived with,
cheated on you with and I'm gonna go to them tonight. I hope you're okay. I can't help it.
It's really hard for me to leave them. What would you do? Yeah of course, it's fine as long as they
came and they cried, this was just so precious. No, you will get furious why, because you don't
want to share yourself with somebody else. God says, There is going to be no other gods. God
does not want to share with us and mammon, with us and our sin. He wants us to repent. Does He expect
perfection? No but He expects repentance. Faith and repentance. This is not legalism
but the church has lost that. Christianity, we have developed greasy grace and anybody who says
anything about repentance, we throw stones and say, yeah they're just living on the other side
of the cross. they're just such a legalist. They're preaching the the salvation by works,
really? I don't know what Bible you're reading but that's why we have this stuff happening today
at church where people are not converted, people are not born again because we preach greasy grace.
The third thing is that homosexual behavior is not the same thing as being on a wheelchair.
We need to stop saying like what Andy says that somehow you pray to God and God didn't answer
it. I struggled with pornography and I asked God to take that away from me. He didn't take that
away but see God never told me that the remedy for battling with pornography is prayer. Remedy is to
cut things off that trigger those things. Remedy is repentance. We need to stop using prayer as an
excuse for repentance. The Bible doesn't tell a homosexual to ask God to take away the homosexual
desires. Now, you can go for deliverance. You can go for counseling. You can go for discipleship but
just hiding under this thing, where I asked God to take it away, He didn't so now I'm going to
live as a homosexual. What if the same thing would be applied to murder? What if the same
thing will be applied to adultery? What if the same thing would be applied to beating
your wife. What if the same thing can be applied to abusing children? I've really tried. I asked
God and He didn't take it away so now I go and I abuse children. I mean how foolish that approach.
Because it's our choice. Homosexual lifestyle is a choice. I was born like that. There's really no
scientific proof that, that is the case and even if it is, the Bible tells us to be born again.
The Bible says that we must possess our vessel in honor not to be like Gentiles who don't know God,
who live by their urges, we're not animals, we're not ruled by our urges. We rule our desires as
Christians and therefore, struggling with same-sex attraction and identifying as a homosexual are two
different things. That's why I don't believe there could be gay Christians. You can't call yourself
gay and be a Christian. Now you can call yourself gay but being Christ-like because as a Christian,
you identify with Jesus. When you get baptized, you identify with His burial,
death and Resurrection. Your identity is Christ. Your identity is not your sexuality and therefore
you submit your biology to your theology instead of living under the oppression of your sexual
urges. Now I would say that homosexuality is more like having something that's out of order
or something that's broken versus being on the wheelchair like for example, if you have a car
and it's broken, you don't say well, you know it is what it is. No, you take it to a mechanic and
if it doesn't work, you replace the car right. You don't simply not drive anymore because you have a
car that's broken. It can be fixed and if it can't be fixed, it needs to be replaced and so I believe
that there could be repentance, there could be deliverance, there could be counseling but as a
Christian, we don't accept this as our identity. Our issue is not our identity. Our identity is
Christ. We fight against it and we overcome by the power of the gospel and now the last thing
that I want to share, if we affirm the lifestyle of homosexuals in the church not just accept them
to receive Jesus but affirm their lifestyle after they accept Jesus, we confirm that the gospel has
no power unto salvation. The gospel has no power to change. Deliverance doesn't work.
Jesus doesn't deliver. We cannot do everything to Christ. God does not redeem. God does not give
a new beginning. Really, you come the way you are, you stay the way you are which contradicts
the scripture. Because in the scripture 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 through 11,
Paul says, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God and he says,
Don't be deceived. Wow really, we can be deceived thinking that we can continue to identify with our
unrighteousness, living unrighteousness and inherit the kingdom of God. He says,
Don't be deceived, neither fornicators, neither idolaters, neither adulterers, homosexuals,
sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners will not inherit the kingdom of God.
And then Paul says this and such were some of you. But what would happen, Did you pray
a sinner's prayer and you continue to live like you were. Paul says, No but you were washed,
sanctified and justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God,
that means there's a power of the Gospel that washes, sanctifies, justifies and then there's
the power of the Holy Spirit that delivers. To say that being a homosexual is such an honorable
place and the church is such a homophobic, judgmental, self righteous, not want to serve.
What about those people who got delivered from homosexuality? hat about those people who got
set free?What about those people who repented, got washed, sanctified and justified who actually
believed the Bible that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. What about them?
Should we ignore them? No, there is power in the gospel to deliver. Pastors, leaders, please don't
give in into the progressive gospel which has a form of godliness but denies His power. We
need the power of God again in our churches. That's why when you deny the power of God, you
deny deliverance, you deny the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you deny people, an encounter with God
and you only have mere words that are clever to draw people in and you rely on the human efforts
to keep people instead of the power of God. Then you have to twist the scripture to fit the culture
instead of stick by the scripture that is living and powerful and let it change people who want
to come to God. It is God's work to change people not ours. But we must stop changing the scriptures
to fit our culture. Thank you for watching this video. I hope that you were corrected, encouraged
and also for those of you who maybe embrace this progressive Christianity, that you repent.
And if you're still not convinced, please study the scripture for yourself and you will find that
what I'm sharing is the truth. Share this with somebody. Hit like to this video. Let me know
in the comments your thoughts. Don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you in the next video.