HERESY ON GRACE AND HOMOSEXUALITY

[Ebedmelech]

ANDY STANLEY’S HERESY ON GRACE AND HOMOSEXUALITY
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(Friday Church News Notes, May 11, 2012, http://www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
In a sermon entitled “When Gracie Met Truthy,” the seventh in an eight-part series on what it means to be a “Christian,” preached on April 15, 2012, Southern Baptist mega-church pastor Andy Stanley proclaimed heresies pertaining to grace and homosexuality. He described a couple in his church who divorced when the wife discovered that her husband was in a sexual relationship with another man. Instead of disciplining the man, the church allowed the homosexual couple to move to another “campus” of North Point Church and work together as a “host” team. They were allowed to do this until it was discovered that one of the men was still married and therefore was “living in adultery” (Al Mohler, “Is the Megachurch the New Liberalism?” May 1, 2012). The homosexuality was apparently never an issue. Stanley told of how the wife showed “forgiveness” by bringing all of the parties to a Christmas service (her and her daughter, the former husband and his homosexual partner and that man’s daughter). But proper forgiveness as defined scripturally requires repentance (Luke 17:3). Stanley is promoting the psycho-heresy of “unconditional forgiveness,” which is blind emotional mysticism.

This is not surprising, since Andy’s father, Charles, has promoted psycho-heresies for many decades. Andy concluded by telling the congregation that because of the cross Jesus does not condemn men, even if they cannot or do not leave their life of sin. This flies in the face of Jesus’ teaching that those who do not believe are condemned already (John 3:18) and that if men do not repent they cannot be saved (Luke 13:3-5). Stanley has replaced biblical “grace” with cheap antinomian license, which is the “grace” that is acceptable to the crowds who love mega-churches today. Contrast Paul’s teaching on grace as follows: “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee” (Titus 2:11-15).

STANLEY SAYS CHRISTIANS “HAVE A BRANDING PROBLEM”
(Friday Church News Notes, May 11, 2012, http://www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In his final message in the aforementioned series entitled “Christian,” Southern Baptist mega-church Pastor Andy Stanley said that Christians “have a “branding problem” in that they are viewed as being “‘judgmental, homophobic, moralists’ who think they are the only ones going to heaven and who ‘secretly relish the fact that everyone else is going to hell’” (“Andy Stanley Avoids Gay Issue,” Christian Post, May 6, 2012). The fact is that it would be impossible to obey the Bible and still avoid this willful misperception on the part of unbelievers. God’s Word commands us not only to avoid the unfruitful works of darkness but also “to reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11), and the Christian preacher is to “rebuke with all authority” (Titus 2:15). The world does not take kindly to godly reproof. We are to follow Jesus’ compassionate and holy example by proclaiming man’s lost condition before a thrice holy God, warning men of eternal hell and stating that unless they repent and are born again they cannot be saved (Mark 9:43-47; Luke 13:3-5; John 3:3-5). We are God’s ambassadors to proclaim that God commands that all men everywhere repent of their sin and idolatry (Acts 17:30). This type of preaching will always result in the false charge that believers are self-righteous, judgmental moralists. Jesus is love incarnate, but the world hated Him and for the most part rejected Him. He said that the world hated Him because He testified that its works were evil (John 7:7). The world also hated and slandered the Lord’s apostles, and nothing has changed. If Andy Stanley were to obey the previous commands and speak God’s Word plainly and without compromise, if he would reprove the foolish pop culture and its works of darkness instead of playing footsie with it, he would not have a mega-church, of course, but he would please God and that is worth more than anything else. Andy Stanley well represents “conservative evangelicalism” today. It is filled to the brim with heretics who have a name that they live but are dead (Revelation 3:1). The fact that so many “fundamentalists” and independent Baptists are attracted to evangelicalism is evidence of their deep spiritual compromise.