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"Take
Heed" Ministries
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Cecil Andrews, PO BOX 13, Ballynahinch, BT24 8AL, Northern Ireland. Telephone/Fax 028 9756 5511. E-MAIL - takeheed@aol.com WEBSITE - http://www.takeheed.net |
‘Sunday Worship’ – BBC Radio
4:
Jesuit-led ‘service’ for mostly ‘gay’ congregation
On page
41 of the Daily Mail of
‘The BBC is to relay a “gay
Mass” from San Francisco this Sunday, the first time such a service has been
broadcast. The 50-minute Mass at the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in the
predominantly gay Castro district of the city will feature prayers and readings
tailored for the gay community…Its parish priest, Father Stephen Meriweather
blesses participants in the San Francisco’s annual gay pride march…Last night a
media watchdog said Sunday’s radio broadcast was “bound to cause offence” to
mainstream Christians…However Father Donal Godfrey, the U.S. Jesuit priest
celebrating the Mass said he was delighted the BBC was “exploring how gay
people fit into the perspective of the Christian narrative”. “Being gay is not
special,” he said. “It’s simply another gift from God who created us as rainbow
people”…The preacher will be James Allison, a homosexual British Catholic
theologian and author of “Is it ethical to be Catholic? – Queer perspectives”.
What
particularly caught my attention in this Daily Mail article was the reference
to Jesuit priest, Donal Godfrey as Mr Godfrey had been based for
a number of years here in Northern Ireland. In July 2004 I wrote an article
entitled ‘Presbyterianism and State-sponsored peace’ [the
following link will take you to that article]
http://www.takeheed.net/Presbyterianimamended.htm
in which
I expressed concerns about the ‘ecumenical ambitions’ of the Youth Board of the
Irish Presbyterian Church. In the course of that article I wrote a short
section on Mr Godfrey and this is what I said –
--------------------
‘I was born in Liverpool in
1959…I was brought up as a Catholic in a neighbourhood where faith did not seem
to be very important for most people. In fact we were considered rather odd
because we actually went to church each week!…My parents sent me to a boarding
school called Stonyhurst College. It was run by Jesuit priests. ..I met a
visiting American who was an evangelical Christian. Doug helped me to see that
being [note – not ‘becoming’] a Christian was not about
working at pleasing God by my own efforts, but rather about surrendering to
Jesus as my personal Lord and Saviour. I thought about it and decided that I
would trust in Jesus as my personal Saviour and see if He would help me…I had
found a new beginning and a new life. In Jesus I now knew that I was loved and
accepted exactly as I was…I had discovered a personal relationship with Jesus…I
now experienced this NEW BIRTH which is always God’s work…Now many years later
I am an ordained priest. I am also a member of the Jesuit order which was
founded by St Ignatius of Loyola...As part of my Jesuit training I did the
‘SPIRITUAL EXERCISES’ of St Ignatius…Although I was born and raised a Catholic
I know I cannot be a Christian by birth, by custom or by tradition. I can
only be [note –
not ‘become’] a Christian by deciding to choose Christ and accept Him into my
heart…Being reborn in [note – not ‘into’] Jesus is about
surrendering to the power of the Spirit and allowing Jesus to take over’.
This is
truly ‘Jesuitical spin’ designed to convince the
unlearned that Mr Godfrey shares evangelical convictions on spiritual ‘new birth’
and on ‘being
a Christian’. On reading these excerpts one might think that Mr Godfrey was
‘born
again’ after his encounter with an ‘evangelical Christian’ called
‘Doug’. The question must be asked – how many times can an unregenerate sinner
be ‘born
again’. By reading the Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus as
recorded in John 3 it is clear that such a spiritual regeneration takes
place only once.
Mr Godfrey would
have us think that his ‘new birth’ or his
being ‘reborn
in [note – not ‘into’] Jesus’ took
place when he was an adult but yet he also informed us that he was ‘brought up as a
Catholic’ and that his family ‘actually went to church
each week’. I can only assume [and if wrong I will readily
retract] that his parents would have brought Mr Godfrey as
an infant to the Catholic Church for the Catholic Sacrament of Baptism and
that, as they subsequently faithfully attended the Catholic Church, that they
would all have witnessed many other infants being baptised by their priest.
Mr Godfrey has
informed us that he himself is ‘an ordained’ priest’ and I
would be most surprised if he has not himself baptised many children of Roman
Catholic parents. ‘The administration of Baptism’ is
one of ‘The functions especially entrusted to the parish priest’ [Code of
Canon Law: 530]. What are the claimed effects of Roman Catholic
baptism by a parish priest – ‘Baptism, the gateway to the sacraments, is
necessary for salvation, either by actual reception or at least by desire. By
it people are freed from sins, ARE BORN AGAIN as children of God and made like
to Christ by an indelible character, are incorporated into the Church. It is
validly conferred only by a washing in real water with the proper form of words’.
If Mr
Godfrey was baptised in the Catholic Church as an infant and
then in his capacity as a priest he has likewise baptised many babies, is he by
his ‘testimony’
inferring that through the Sacrament of Baptism babies are
not ‘BORN
AGAIN’ as Roman Catholicism teaches but that an experience,
later in life, such as he related in his ‘testimony’ must
be sought in order to be ‘reborn in [note – not ‘into’] Jesus’.
There are
serious consequences for Roman Catholics who reject the claims made by Rome for
the Sacrament of Baptism – ‘If anyone saith, that in the Roman Church, which is
the mother and mistress of all churches, there is not the true doctrine
concerning the sacrament of baptism; let him be anathema’: ‘If any one saith,
that baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto salvation; let him be
anathema’. [Council of Trent; Session 7: Canons III & V].
Mr Godfrey is
a Jesuit
priest and I think we can safely assume
that he would not continue in this position if he did in any way reject the
claims of the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Baptism, as otherwise he would be
under the ‘anathema’ [curse] of the Roman Catholic Church.
Certainly
‘being
[not ‘becoming’] a Christian’ involves
‘surrendering
to Jesus as…personal Lord and Saviour’ but becoming a Christian
through ‘new birth’ happens only and sovereignly through the “quickening” work
of the Holy Spirit. ‘New birth’ only happens as He, the Holy Spirit,
sovereignly chooses and moves and not automatically [as defined in Roman
Catholicism as ex opere operato (which
means ‘from the work performed’)] through
any Roman Catholic Sacrament of Baptism.
This ‘testimony’ of
Donal
Godfrey is full of theological ‘double-speak’. In the ‘Collins English
Dictionary & Thesaurus – 21st Century Edition’
the following entry is found under the definition of ‘Jesuit’
– ‘a person given to subtle and equivocating
[ambiguous] arguments’. Someone who ‘equivocates’ is
as this dictionary also states ‘deliberately misleading or vague; avoiding
speaking directly or honestly; of doubtful character or sincerity’. These
definitions lie at the heart of ‘Jesuitry’.
Mr Godfrey confirmed
that in his training he ‘did the ‘SPIRITUAL EXERCISES’ of St Ignatius’. In
these
‘Exercises’ there is a section
entitled ‘RULES FOR THINKING WITH THE CHURCH – The following rules should be
observed to foster the true attitude of mind we ought to have in the church
militant’ and one of those ‘Spiritual Exercises’ 365:13
teaches – ‘If we wish to proceed securely in all things, we
must hold fast to the following principle: What seems to me white, I will
believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines…For it is by the same Spirit
and Lord who gave the Ten Commandments that our holy Mother Church is ruled and
governed’ [‘The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius by Louis J
Puhl SJ: Loyola University Press – Chicago: pages 157 & 160].
--------------------
From this
segment, according to my analysis of it, we are apparently ‘taught’ the
following by Mr Godfrey –
1. The
‘gay pride’ lobby have adopted ‘the rainbow’ as the symbol/emblem on their
community’s flag and so when their people see it they know exactly what it stands
for – it identifies and flies over a community of those who engage in
lifestyles and behaviour similar to many who lived in Sodom and Gomorrah.
2. The
rainbow apparently was a sign that the flood was over and that creation could
now rest secure.
3. The
rainbow apparently teaches that for God there is no ‘us’ [presumably those who are God’s children]
and ‘them’ [presumably
those who are not God’s children] but ultimately only God’s
children – we are all the rainbow people of God.
I want
now to comment upon these ‘teachings and I want to begin with point 2. From Genesis 9 we learn God’s purpose in
placing ‘the rainbow’ in the sky. It was not so much a
symbol that ‘the flood was over’ but
rather that never again would God use a universal flood as his instrument of
judgment upon mankind’s sin. Then what about Mr Godfrey’s ‘teaching’ that ‘creation could
now rest secure’. With Mr
Godfrey being a Jesuit we have to try extra hard to figure out what exactly he
meant when he asserted this. I think there could be 2 possible options when
trying to decide what he meant.
Option 1
could mean that Mr Godfrey believed that as a physical reality the ‘natural
world’ could ‘rest secure’ from any future cataclysmic
upheavals. Well, if that’s what Mr Godfrey meant, history, the words of Paul in
Romans 8:22 [“the whole creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain”] and
the words of the Lord Himself in Matthew 24:7 [“earthquakes”] show that
the ‘natural world’ is far from being ‘secure’
when it comes to experiencing ‘natural disasters’. If Mr
Godfrey meant that ‘creation could now rest secure’
from ever again experiencing a destructive global flood [the only true certainty because God
specifically promised this in Genesis 9:11] then he
should have stated that clearly and specifically.
Option 2
could mean that Mr Godfrey believed that the world would never again be subject
to God’s universal judgment because of mankind’s sin. Well, if that’s what Mr
Godfrey meant, the words of the Apostle Peter in 2 Peter 3 refute
that possible interpretation of what Mr Godfrey said. In response to the views
of “scoffers,
walking after their own lusts” [verse
3] Peter assures his readers that “the heavens and the earth
which are now…are…reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition
of ungodly men”.
The words
of Jude also refute such a notion for we read in his
epistle of “angels…he hath reserved…unto the judgment of the great day. Even as
Sodom and Gomorrah…giving themselves over to fornication and going after
strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal
fire” [verses 6-7]. If
Mr Godfrey meant that ‘creation could now rest secure’
from ever again experiencing God’s universal judgment
because of mankind’s sin then he was ‘flying in the face of’ what God’s Word
teaches.
The
Biblical reality is that neither the ‘natural world’ nor ‘unrepentant sinners’
can ‘rest
secure’ in the light of the certainty of the coming fiery
judgment of God.
Then
moving on to the’ teachings’ of point 3 I would comment as follows.
There is absolutely no Biblical basis for Mr Godfrey to assert that ‘the rainbow’
signifies that everyone in the world, without exception [no ‘us’ and ‘them’] is
now part of the only ultimate reality, namely that of all being ‘God’s children’, or
as he colourfully phrased it, ‘we are all the rainbow people of God’.
No less a
person than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself puts paid to such an unbiblical,
fanciful notion. In John 8:44 He stated clearly to the unbelieving Pharisees
that they were “of your father, the devil”. When writing to the
Christians in Ephesus, in Ephesians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul reminded them
how that prior to their conversion to Christ they had [verse 2] “walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air [the devil]” and how they had been [verse 3] “by nature the children of
wrath, even as others”.
The
biblical reality is that everyone born since ‘the fall’ of Adam is [according to Psalm 58:3] “estranged [from God as their Father] from the womb” for
“they
go astray as soon as they are born”.
When
someone is ‘born again’ of the Spirit of God, through Holy Spirit conviction of
sin and conversion to Christ, one of the great spiritual privileges that they
are blessed with is that of “adoption” as a son or daughter into
God’s family. Paul wrote to believers in Rome [Romans 8:15] “Ye have received the Spirit
of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father”. Paul
explained to the believers in Galatia that the saving mission of Christ was [Galatians 4:5] “so that we might receive
the adoption of sons”. It was in the light of this need
for repentant sinners to be truly ‘born again’ that the apostle John wrote of
the joy of being a child of God in these terms [1 John 3:1-2] “Behold what manner of love
the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of
God…Beloved NOW are we the children of God”.
John then
goes on to state [verse 3] how
“every
man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he [God] is pure” and
that brings me to what I want to say about point 1.
‘The rainbow’
should remind all who see it of God’s judgment upon sin. It should remind all
who see it of God’s absolute purity and holiness and how mankind’s sin was such
an offence to these that God had no option but to move in universal judgment by
means of the flood.
The truth
that ‘the
rainbow’ is inextricably linked to God’s purity and holiness
is demonstrated by John’s vision of heaven where we read in Revelation 4:2-3 of
how John “was in the Spirit and behold a throne was set in heaven, and one sat
on the throne. And…there was a rainbow round about the throne”.
The gracious reality of “NOW” being “the children of [a pure and holy] God”
should spur all such to ‘purify themselves’ by
repenting of all known and habitual sin so that they shall increase in “sanctification” which
according to Paul in 1st Thessalonians 4:3 is “the will of
God…that ye should abstain from fornication”.
Under the
banner of a ‘rainbow’ flag do the ‘gay pride’ community “abstain from fornication”.
Anyone, Christian and non-Christian alike, who has ever
viewed the behaviour of those taking part in ‘gay pride’ parades under ‘rainbow’ flags
will know the answer to that without me having to spell it out. The use by the
‘gay’ community of a ‘rainbow’ flag at such events is the
outworking of those who [Isaiah
5:20] “call
evil good…who put darkness for light…who put bitter for sweet” and
who [Romans 1:32] “knowing the
judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death, not only
do the same but have pleasure in them that do them”.
I
want to conclude this section by quoting some words from a sermon preached by
Pastor John MacArthur on "The Certainty of the Second Coming" and
based upon
2
Peter 3:1-9. Pastor MacArthur said -
There are 260 chapters in the New Testament, 260. There are 300 references to the Second Coming. The New Testament is replete with warnings about judgment, information about the Lord coming to gather His own, teaching about the fact that He will judge the wicked, establish His Kingdom and bring in eternal righteousness….
And if you study the Scripture you find everything you need to know. It tells us that He will come in the clouds, He will come in the glory of His Father, He will come in His own glory, He will come in flaming fire, He will come with power and great glory, He will come as He went, He will come with a shout, He will come accompanied by angels, He will come with His saints, He will come suddenly, He will come unexpectedly, He will come as a thief, He will come as lightning, the heavens and earth will be dissolved and on and on it goes. It says the purpose of His coming is to complete the salvation of the saints, to be glorified in the saints, to be admired in the saints, to bring delight to hidden things of darkness, to judge, to reign, to destroy. That's only the first argument…
Argument number two, Peter says the second argument for the Second Coming is the argument from history. I love this, the argument from history, verse 5, follow what he says. Now in verses 3 and 4, which we studied last time, they say, "All things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." Peter says, "For when they maintain this," what? This uniformitarian view, this evolutional view that everything just keeps going along at the same pace, and there are no cataclysmic, catastrophic invasions by God and no judgments…they say, "There will never be a Second Coming because there has never been any cataclysm, there has never been any catastrophe, everything just goes along as it always has. It escapes their notice…The Greek says; "They shut their eyes to the facts."… I love what the Authorized Version, the old King James says, "They are willingly ignorant of..." they shut their eyes to the facts…Why? They love their evil. They love their sin. They love their lust. They don't desire truth. They don't desire virtue. So they don't want a judgment…
But you
know something? They have to shut their eyes to two great historic, cataclysmic
events that totally disprove evolution and uniformitarianism. You say,
"What are they? What do they shut their eyes to?" First of all, creation...
But even in that perfect environment man fell into sin and God looked at the
world…in Genesis 6:5 and He saw that wickedness of man was great on the earth
and every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, and He
was sorry that He made the whole thing. And He said I'm going to destroy
it…How is He going to destroy it? Well, He's going to use... Water…God built
into His creation the tool of its destruction…
The present world system then is reserved for future judgment…Only the next time He'll do it by fire. It is reserved for fire. The word "reserved," treasured up, ‘thesaurizo’, from which we get thesaurus, a treasury, stored up. The world is waiting the destruction of fire. Once water, next time fire…In Isaiah 13 [Cecil – see verses 1, 6, 9, 11, 19] it says, "When the final Babylon [Cecil – see Revelation 18:1-2; 9-10 – notice especially ‘the smoke of her burning’] is destroyed, it will be destroyed as were Sodom and Gomorrah." How were they destroyed? By fire and brimstone…
Look at verse 7; I have to give you this. The present heavens and earth, that's different than the long-ago ones, "The present heaven and earth are by His Word reserved for”...what?...fire, not water. Remember the rainbow. What did the rainbow signify? God will never destroy the world again by water. So this time it's being reserved to be destroyed by...what?...fire, "Kept for the judgment, the day of judgment, and the destruction of ungodly men." The present world system then is reserved for future judgment and that future judgment will come by the Word of God just as the past judgment came and just as the creation came.
I want to
move now to the second audio segment that I would entitle ‘Lazarus
comes out’and this link will let you hear
what Mr Godfrey said ['Lazarus Comes Out'
- Audio Segment]
From this
segment, according to my analysis of it, we are apparently ‘taught’ the following
by Mr Godfrey –
1. Mr
Godfrey speaks of ‘the struggle’ of ‘being gay and spiritual’ and declares his
belief that ‘it is God who calls and
loves all of us whatever our sexual orientation…it is God who calls us to be
fully human and fully alive’.
2. After
a reading from John 11 of how the Lord Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb Mr
Godfrey taught ‘Coming out is actually for everyone and not only for gay people
for it is not only gay people who need to come out of the tombs of our own
making in this life…we need to listen to Jesus call us all to come out of our
tombs and speak the truth of who we really are. We need to listen and respond
to Jesus inviting each of us to take off the shrouds that keep us from being
ourselves before God and each other’’
3. Commenting
further on point 2 Mr Godfrey taught ‘It may come slowly or quite unexpectedly
and suddenly this realisation that you are entombed but need not be, this
realisation that what you thought was evil, corrupting, life-denying is in fact
good, liberating and life-giving’.
I want
now to comment upon these ‘teachings and once more I want to begin with point 2. Being a Jesuit there is perhaps unwittingly
an aspect of ‘truth’ in what Mr Godfrey says but that is really only there to
‘mask’ the deadly poison of the main point that he wants to teach. He is
Biblically correct when he says that ‘Coming out is for everyone’ - however he
would probably not acknowledge and believe the biblical reality of his
statement as his later comments show.
The
Biblical truth of his statement is that all people according to Ephesians 2 [verse 1] are “dead in
trespasses and sins” – spiritually-speaking all people are by nature
entombed and cut off from the presence and blessing of God because of their “trespasses and
sins”. The need for all to ‘come out’ of such a spiritual tomb is
enshrined in the command of Christ in Mark 1:15 of “Repent [of sin] and believe the gospel” and
in Paul’s preaching on Mars Hill when he told those listening in Acts
17:30 that “God…now commandeth all men everywhere to repent [of sin]”.
It is
very clear that Mr Godfrey does not have this repentant spiritual ‘coming out’
in mind – his idea for people is to ‘come out’ by revealing ‘who [in our present lifestyle] we
really are’ rather than repenting of ‘who [in our present lifestyle] we really
are’. He sees no need after ‘coming out’ to remove the shrouds that were in
fact our sins, that had us in our ‘spiritual tomb’ – according to him we must
remove the shrouds of secrecy that have stopped us from revealing both to God
and to each other the type of life-style that we pursue and indulge in.
Mr
Godfrey is teaching that this miracle of the raising of Lazarus shows that
everyone has the ability to raise themselves out of ‘the tombs of our own
making in this life’ so that, by our own ability, we can then take off our own
‘shrouds’ in order to reveal and to follow our own natural desires and
instincts in full-view of God and man. He is basically telling all people to
‘come out’ just as they are, don’t change and don’t worry about what others
think or say about you [the
‘shroud’ of fear of man] and stop covering up what you do
and stop hiding the way you want to live.
Is
that what the miracle of the raising of Lazarus shows? Let me answer that by
quoting from a sermon preached by George Whitefield [1714-1770]. Mr Whitefield
said in his sermon -
Come, ye dead, Christless, unconverted sinners, come and see the place
where they laid the body of the deceased Lazarus; behold him laid out, bound
hand and foot with grave-clothes, locked up and stinking in a dark cave, with a
great stone placed on the top of it! View him again and again; go nearer to
him; be not afraid; smell him, ah! How he stinketh. Stop there now, pause a
while; and whilst thou art gazing upon the corpse of Lazarus, give me leave
to tell thee with great plainness, but greater love, that this dead, bound,
entombed, stinking carcass, is but a faint representation of thy poor soul in
its natural state: for, whether thou believest it or not, thy spirit which thou bearest about with thee, sepulchered in flesh and blood, is as
literally dead to God, and as truly dead in
trespasses and sins, as the body of Lazarus was in the cave. Was he bound hand
and foot with grave-clothes? So art thou bound hand and foot with thy
corruptions: and as a stone was laid on the sepulcher, so is there a
stone of unbelief upon thy stupid heart. Perhaps thou hast lain in this state,
not only four days, but many years, stinking in God's nostrils. And; what is
still more affecting, thou art as unable to raise thyself out of this
loathsome, dead state, to a life of righteousness and true holiness, as ever
Lazarus was to raise himself from the cave in which he lay so long. Thou mayest try the power of thy own boasted
free-will, and the force and energy of moral persuasion and rational
arguments (which, without all doubt, have their proper place in religion); but all thy
efforts, exerted with never so much vigor, will prove
quite fruitless and abortive, till that same
Jesus, who said, "Take away the stone," and cried,
"Lazarus, come forth," comes by his mighty power, removes the
stone of unbelief, speaks life to thy dead soul, looses thee from the fetters
of thy sins and corruptions, and by the influences of his blessed Spirit,
enables thee to arise, and to walk in the way of his holy commandments.
When the
Lord Jesus deals graciously with a sinner and grants them forgiveness, He
expects to see the fruits of holiness and righteousness, through obedience to
His commandments, blossoming forth in the new life that He has given to them.
We see that in John 8 when He tells the sinful, adulterous woman, that He had
just forgiven, [verse 11] “Go and sin no
more”.
He certainly didn’t tell her that she had licence to pursue
her former sinful lifestyle ‘before God and each other’ - yet that is basically
what Mr Godfrey was teaching his listeners in point 2.
Moving on
now to the’ teachings’ of point 3 I would comment as
follows. In what he said here Mr Godfrey sheds more light on what he means by
being ‘entombed’. He is clearly alluding to the lifestyles that many of his
listeners have been told are ‘evil, corrupting, life-denying’ but in Mr
Godfrey’s opinion they are in fact ‘good, liberating and life-giving’.
Earlier
in the service Mr Godfrey listed many of these lifestyles – homosexual,
lesbian, trans-gender etc. These lifestyles are not ‘foreign’ to the Word of
God. Paul writes in Romans 1 [verses
26-32] of God ‘giving people up unto vile
affections…even their women did exchange that natural use for that which is
against nature; And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the
woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men, working that
which is unseemly…Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,
wickedness…inventors of evil things…without natural affection…knowing the
judgment of God that they who commit such things are worthy of death, not only
do the same but have pleasure in them that do them”.
In God’s
sight such lifestyles are ‘evil, corrupting, life-denying’. But with echoes of
Genesis 3:4 and the serpent’s declaration “Ye shall not surely die” we
find Mr Godfrey assuring many of his listeners that their lifestyles, that are
clearly referred to in Romans 1:26-32 are in his view ‘good, liberating and
life-giving’.
Mr
Godfrey wants to convict his listeners through his preaching that their present
lifestyles do not constitute ‘sin’, that their lifestyles represent acceptable [to God] ‘righteousness’
and that their lifestyles will not result in ‘judgement’ by God. This is
another ‘spirit’ at work through Mr Godfrey and not the Holy Spirit whose
mission, according to John 16:8, where unconverted sinners are concerned, is to
“reprove
[convict by convincing] the world of sin,
and of righteousness and of judgment”.
Commenting
in his Study Bible, Pastor John MacArthur notes ‘The world can’t make
righteous judgments but the Spirit of Christ does. All Satan’s adjudications
are lies…The Spirit will lead sinners to true judgment’. To Mr Godfrey
God’s Word says in Isaiah 5:20 “Woe unto you who calls evil good”.
Let me
deal now with point 1. Here Mr Godfrey teaches that ‘it is God who calls
and loves all of us whatever our sexual orientation…it is God who calls us to
be fully human and fully alive’. The call of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
certainly does go out to all, ‘whatever our sexual orientation’, but if that
‘sexual orientation’ manifests itself in sexual practice that falls outside the
confines of God’s boundaries for sexual intimacy as detailed in Hebrews 13:4 “Marriage [one man and one woman – Genesis 2:24] is honourable in
all, and the [marriage] bed undefiled” then
until by the gracious enabling of the Holy Spirit we repent of that sinful
lifestyle and turn to and trust in Christ alone for salvation, God most
certainly does not love us in our sin. In fact, in stark contrast, the Psalmist
wrote in Psalm 7:11 “God is angry with the wicked every day”.
In our
unrepentant, unregenerate, sinful state are we as
Mr Godfrey put it ‘fully human and fully alive’. The Lord
Jesus said in John 5:24 “Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that heareth my
word [‘Repent and believe
the gospel’] and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not
come into judgement, but is passed from [spiritual] death unto [eternal] life”.
Until a sinner is converted to Christ he/she is not ‘fully human and fully
alive’. Far from God’s ‘love resting on them we find from
John 3:36 that “the wrath of God abideth on him/her”.
In
conclusion, the apostle Paul had the joy of counting amongst his ‘congregation’
some who had followed lifestyles similar to those who would have sat recently
under Mr Godfrey’s preaching. This was what he wrote to them in 1st
Corinthians 6:9-11 –
“Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind…shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such WERE some of
you; but ye are WASHED, but ye are SANCTIFIED, but ye are JUSTIFIED, in the
name of the Lord Jesus AND BY the Spirit of our God”.
This
article is certainly not intended as a ‘witch-hunt’ against ‘gay’ people for as
Pastor John MacArthur in his Study Bible comments on 1st Corinthians
6:9-11 ‘Though not all Christians have been guilty of those particular sins,
every Christian is equally an ex-sinner, since Christ came to save sinners’.
Paul used
the law of God to alert sinners to the reality of their sin and to their need
of the Saviour – he wrote in Galatians 3:24 “The law [by convincing people of the reality of
their sin] was our schoolmaster [taught
what sin was] to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith”.
Unlike
Paul in Acts 19:27, Mr Godfrey has failed to “declare unto his
listeners all the counsel of God” and for that and the
resulting consequences he and they must according to Acts 17:31 give an account
to God when one day “He [God] will judge the
world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; concerning which he
hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him [Christ] from the dead”.
One
final, ‘final thought’ – earlier in this article I wrote that ‘a
book was produced by the so-called ‘Evangelical Catholic Initiative’
called ‘Adventures in Reconciliation – 29 Catholic
Testimonies’ and of how… ‘The ‘Foreword’ was
written by the [then] current Presbyterian
Moderator, Ken Newell and one of the ‘Protestant’ ‘Commendations’ was
by former Presbyterian Moderator Trevor Morrow’.
This
was part of what Ken Newell wrote – ‘The book you are
holding is a miracle. I’ve lived in Ireland for fifty-five years and can’t ever
recall coming across anything quite like it …never have I opened a volume of
Catholic testimonies commended with such warmth and respect by Protestants…I
feel greatly honoured to write this Foreword because many of the contributors
are my personal friends. We have worked together for years on projects of an
evangelical, charismatic and ecumenical nature. We know each other well. But
the miracle is deeper than friendship. We have discovered each other as
brothers and sisters in Christ. We feel that we belong to each other…the Holy
Spirit has only one temple and we are all stones in its structure’.
This
was part of what Trevor Morrow wrote – ‘For
Presbyterians like myself who still hold to the principle of the Reformation –
of justification by faith alone, the implications are straightforward. If these
testimonies are evidence of real faith in Christ, then whatever our theological
differences, these Roman Catholic believers are justified by faith alone and so
are our brothers and sisters in Christ…It is therefore, on the material
principle [Cecil – this
‘material principle’ includes Christ’s righteousness
being “imputed” to a true believer and in our website article on ‘Father’ Paul Symonds, referred to
below, you can see and hear ‘Father’ Symonds publicly rejecting this glorious
aspect of the ‘material principle’] of the Reformation, that a person is
justified by faith alone, [Cecil
– also something that Rome officially denies – see Dr James Butler’s Catechism:
Lesson X: Q&A 7 on page 26] that I, as a Presbyterian, unequivocally
accept and affirm with joy and enthusiasm these Roman Catholic believers as my
brothers and sisters in Christ’.
Well, the
Jesuitical ‘eggs’ of the so-called testimonies that were laid in this book are
now really beginning to hatch as we have shown, not only in this article but
also in another article on our website [http://www.takeheed.net/PaulSymondsJesuit.htm]
that concerns [former?] Jesuit,
Paul Symonds whose ‘testimony’ also appeared in this book.
I think
it would be profitable for Ken Newell and Trevor
Morrow to take time to revisit and perhaps
reconsider their affirmations of these men as being their ‘brothers in
Christ’ in the light of what we have published in our
articles, but in truth, I do not expect that to happen and I fully expect Mr
Newell and Mr Morrow to continue on the paths they tread and are leading others
along and I fear that they and their followers will end up in a ditch similar
to those of Matthew 15:14 and Luke 6:39.
Cecil Andrews – ‘Take Heed’ Ministries – 4 May 2007