The Great Hillsong Sellout - Brian Houston Fudges On Homosexuality

Apparently Brian Houston looked rather nervous before making these remarks about the LGBT debate - and rightly so. It is a pity that he does not fear God more than men (Hebrews 13/6; Proverbs 29/25). These remarks follow Houston's outrageous false claim that Muslims and Christians serve the same God earlier this year - a claim that he quickly retracted! 
http://bewareofthewolves.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/brian-houston-hillsong-muslims-and.html

TRANSCRIPT:

Brian Houston: "The message is sacred but the methods have to change uh- for the church to stay relevant. And uh it’s challenging! It’s challenging to stay relevant. I mean we go to you – you know – the one big hot topic maybe for churches is now with homosexual marriage uh legalised and uh – you know – and churches for generations, they- they hold a set of beliefs around what they believe the Word of God- the bible says. And all of a sudden in many circles the church can look like a pariah because- to many people it’s so irrelevant now on that subject. So staying relevant, it’s actually a big challenge. Uh- I think it’s more than just – you know – singing more contemporary songs and- and uh – and – you know, the c-c-colours you paint your walls or whatever.
It’s- it can be challenging for churches to stay relevant because many mainstream churches – uh – you know – in how in what- would they would believe is a long established view in what the bible says on the subject of homosexuality. But the world’s changed around and about them.
On the subject I always feel like there’s three things: there’s the world we live in, there’s the weight we live with and there’s the word we live by. The world, the weight, the word. And to me, the world we live in, whether we like it or not, is changing around and about us. Um- homosexual marriages legal in your city and uh- and will be in probably in most Western world countries within a short time. So the world’s changing and we want to stay relevant as a church. So it- that’s a mixing thing. You think, 'How can we stay- ho-how can we not become a pariah'.
So that’s the world we live in. In the weight we live with is the reality that in churches like ours and virtually in any other church, there are young people who have serious questions about their sexuality. And uh- who maybe spea- you know – hypothetically – speak to a youth leader. A youth pastor. And says -uh, 'I think – you know- I’m gay'.
And maybe they feel a sense of rejection there. Or maybe even their own Christian parents can’t handle it and uh- exclude them at the time when they are the most vulnerable in their life. So you can have in churches not- not just our church – churches, young people who are literally uh depressed. Maybe even suicidal. And sadly often times grow up to hate the church because they feel like the church rejected them.
So there’s the world we live in, the weight we live with and the word we live by. And the word we live by is what the bible says. And uh- it would be much easier if- if- if- if you could feel like all of those three could easily- easily wind up. But they don’t necessarily. And that’s why Carl always says, 'For us it’s a conversation'.
You know to us, I think it’s very easy to reduce, 'What do you think of homosexuality' to just a public statement. And that would keep a lot of people happy. But we feel at this point that it is an ongoing conversation. That the real issues in people’s lives are too important for us to reduce it down to a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer in a media outlet. So we- we’re on the journey with it aren’t we?"

BRIAN HOUSTON'S THREE POINT VERSION OF CHRISTIANITY AS IT RELATES TO THE LGBT DEBATE:

1. THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
2. THE WEIGHT WE LIVE WITH
3. THE WORD WE LIVE BY

Notice that the Word of God comes last in Houstons three points! He has it completely backwards - the Word of God always comes first biblically.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 119/105)

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2/15)

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12/2)

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1/27)

You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. (James 4/4)

Houston says that because the world is changing Hill$ong wants to stay RELEVANT! Should Christians be relevant to the world or pleasing to God (2 Corinthians 5/9)? Although the world is subject to change, GOD DOES NOT CHANGE (Malachi 3/6). Houston/Hill$ong do not want to become a pariah.... this is nothing less than cowardice and compromise - Jesus Christ said that Christians can expect to be a pariah:

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you...." (John 15/18-19)

.....and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10/22 and also Matthew 24/9, Mark 13/13, Luke 21/17)

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. (Matthew 5/11)

Houston says that many mainstream churches have traditionally held a set of beliefs around what they believe the word of God says. NO BRAIN HOUSTON - The Word of God is unequivocal - The Bible condemns homosexuality and calls it a sin. If this offends anyone then I am very unhappy, but it says what it says. It is more important to Houston to "stay relevant" than to preach the Word of God. Houston is no real friend of homosexuals I can assure you. He is squirming and stuttering through this issue to stay relevant i.e. to pacify the LGBT community and to keep his rather large "church" (if you can call it that).

For Houston the LGBT debate is an ongoing conversation!!! It may be an ongoing conversation for Hill$ong and other traitors of Jesus Christ, but it is not an ongoing conversation for those who truly follow the Lord.  The Lord Jesus Christ calls sinners everywhere (including homosexuals) to repent and turn to him in faith so that they will be saved from the wrath to come.

Carl Lentz New York City Hill$ong pastor also fudges the issue:

“When it comes to homosexuality, I refuse to let another human being or immediate moment dictate how we approach it. Jesus was in the thick of an era where homosexuality, just like it is today was widely prevalent. And I’m still waiting for someone to show me the quote were Jesus addressed it on the record in front of people. You won’t find it because he never did.”
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1406/02/acd.02.html

THIS IS A GROSSLY INACURATE STATEMENT

Jesus Christ was NOT in the thick of an era where homosexuality was widely prevalent!!!!  Homosexuality was condemned by the Jewish tradition and it was almost unheard of in first century Jewish culture.

The author of the Syballine Oracles, thought to be an Egyptian Jew (approx. 163 - 45 B.C.) "The Jews are mindful of holy wedlock, and they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children, as do Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Romans, specious Greece and many nations of others, Persians and Galatians and all Asia."  http://www.conservapedia.com/History_of_homosexuality#Homosexuality_among_the_Jews

JESUS CHRIST AFFIRMED THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS!

Jesus Christ: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5/17)

Jesus Christ: “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.” (Luke 16/17)

Leviticus 18 forbids various types of unlawful sexual relations calling them “unclean” - verse 22 explicitly calls homosexuality an abomination as does Leviticus 20/13).

Jesus Christ's affirmation that marriage is between a man and a woman: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh." (Matthew 19/3-6; Genesis 2/24)

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”  (Acts 17/29-31)

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” (Revelation 21/8)

HILL$ONG MEMBERS BEWARE!  The feel-good factor at Hill$ong has nothing to do with Biblical Christianity!

Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; (Revelation 18/4)

THE BIBLE AND HOMOSEXUALITY

·You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18/22)

·If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20/13)

·For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1/26-27)

·Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, (1 Corinthians 6/9)

·This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching (1 Timothy 1/9-10)

THE DAYS OF LOT

The days of Lot were were defined by sexual immorality and rampant homosexuality just prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus Christ warns us that the world will be just the same in the end times prior to his second coming. Now is the time for church leaders to be warning about the coming judgement rather than fudging the issue.

Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building..... (Luke 17/28).

They (Sodom and her daughters) were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it. (Ezekiel 16/50)

Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust (perversion), serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1/7)

…… they called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know (be intimate with) them." Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, "I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly." (Genesis 19/5-7)

Dear Reader – Do you have questions about Jesus Christ and how to be truly saved? If so, then please read my post: GOD'S PLAN OF SALVATION THROUGH JESUS CHRIST

http://bewareofthewolves.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/gods-plan-of-salvation-through-jesus.html