Category — Study and research

You should be aware that homosexuals use many subtle and not so subtle tactics to overlay their sexual behaviors with credibility. With the  advent of gay marriage and its cottage industry of religious and political support, homosexuals have been largely successful at obscuring the truth about their sexual behavior with some rather domesticated terminology. As a precursor to gay marriage, homosexuals begin adding the identifier “long term” to their relationship statuses.  For instance, media might report: “John Q. Private and his long term partner John E. Public attended a play”.  After some time an additional identifier was added to the mix:  committed. These intentionally undefined identifiers sent messages to the public that homosexual relationships were not the highly promiscuous, anonymous sex romps critics claimed they were. More importantly, it conveyed that homosexual relationships embodied longevity just like heterosexual relationships. And basically the only “proof” we have of the alleged longevity is the words of the gay couples. There is no external independent source to verify any of the claims.

While long term gay relationships may be an admirable trait in the human context of reasoning, does longevity make homosexual relationship good in God’s eyes?

Liberty Christian Ministries takes an indepth look at how apologetic arguments supporting the ideology just doesn’t add up.

“The argument that gay relationships are morally justifiable because some last long enough can itself be challenged by consequentialist anecdote.  The founder of Liberty Ministries, Christopher Keane, wrote his testimony in a book called ‘Choices’, and in it, he talks about the phantom of long-term committed gay relationships.  Chris lived in the gay community for about 30 years, but found that the long-term relationships were a myth: “One of the popular beliefs in the gay culture was that of the faithful, long-term relationship.  It was portrayed as being exactly the same as heterosexual marriage except it was [just] with a person of the same-sex.  But where were these faithful and happy relationships?  I certainly hadn’t experienced any, and I was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the promiscuity that, in my experience, was an integral part of the homosexual community” (‘Choices: One Person’s Journey out of Homosexuality, Acorn Press: Brunswick East, Victoria, p. 30).  He continues: “Although [my gay partner and I] had each spent about 15 years as active homosexuals, we couldn’t think of any couple we knew who was in a faithful relationship.  In fact, we could think of very few – including ourselves – who were even happy.  The couples we knew had sex with others as well as their partners.  Often the partners knew about the infidelity, but sometimes they didn’t.  Some of these couples had group sex or anonymous sex … We knew of no one who was in a faithful relationship … We all seemed to be on a merry-go-round of alcohol, drugs, and promiscuous sex, waiting for Mr Wonderful to come along and rescue us … I came to the conclusion [one] afternoon that between us we had spent 30 years chasing something that just did not exist” (pp. 30-31, emphasis that of the author). There is much to be said about this, particularly the faulty assumption that gay relationships are equally the same as heterosexual ones.”

Its clear from recent polls and studies that homosexuals have  a vastly different view of  how fidelity in marriage is lived out. Many hold disdain for the “heterosexist ” model but yet demand their convoluted version of it be called by the same name. Thus, without foundational moral restrictions in relationships (such as the 7th commandment found in Ex 20:14), homosexuals are free to redefine literally everything about marriage and relationships again while co-opting the common terminology. Review the Family Research Council’s report Comparing the lifestyles of homosexual couples to married couples.

LCM used a parable of  Jesus which teaches about the issue of sin and its consequences, in Luke 16:19-31 to highlight that believers should view sin and its fruit as from God’s perspective.  Three important points:

1) The rich man, who ends up in hell, seemed to be- in this life- a good man.  Everything went well for him: he was rich, wore robes of purple (which means loaded with wealth in the ancient world).  Looking at his life from a consequentialist perspective, he looked like he had it all together.  He was influential and denied himself nothing.  The poor man, on the other hand, was probably looked at as accursed because his life was lived in sickening poverty: as a modern American would say, he deserved what he got because he didn’t ‘make the most’ of his ‘opportunities’;

2) Despite what lives they seemed to have in their earthly lives, the rich ends up in hell and the poor ends up in heaven.  Why?  Because the poor man listened to his maker and had a relationship with God.  The rich man was self-sufficient, self-focused, secure in self, and had no room in his heart for God or anyone else.  That sounds identical to the world we live in today, where people spend more money on their plasma screen TVs than they do on loving the poor and giving their lives to Jesus.  But notice where the two men end up.

3) The rich man, as altruistic as he seems of having his brothers saved from hell, demands a miracle to convince them of the need for salvation.  ”Send Lazarus (a man in heaven) so that my brothers won’t be in torment”, he barks to heaven from the confines of hell.  This rich man wants to warn the brothers with an argument of consequences: trust God and you’ll be in heaven.  But Abraham’s answer to him is telling:

‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them … If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead”

The brothers already have enough information.  They know that it is wrong and why it is wrong and where it will lead them.  The verbs in these verses say it all:  let them listen to them.  The problem is not the scarcity of information, it is the lack of listening.  It’s disobedience.  It is their desire to carve a life out of their own regardless of who they hurt and how much they anger God with no sign of deep-seeded sorrow at their sin, not information.

What does this say about long-term gay relationships?

It has everything to do with it!  Essentially, it does not matter if someone has managed to stay in a long-term gay relationship or if the feel as if they are born that way.  Those things are really beside the point.  Sin is sin not because of the consequences so much- although they do play a part- but because God has not made people to live that way, and by living contrary to how God has made us (and decreed in His goodness) we are actually attracting His righteous anger.  For every person happily living in a ‘long-term gay relationship’, I can find an equal number who are not: and all we’re left to is a flimsy argument about morality based on a numbers game (which would be interesting to do if you are talking about 1930′s Germany or South African apartheid).  Sin is wrong because it is wrong.

The continuation of an exclusive and extensive  GCM Watch interview with Pastor Joe Schimmel of Blessed Hope Chapel in Simi Valley, CA exposing the roots of the homosexual agenda and its fellowship with leaders of the satanic religion.  Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Shofarsound: How did Crowley come up with his doctrine?

Pastor Joe: Crowley claims that he came up with his doctrine, as he dictated the “Book of the Law,” which he claims was channeled through his wife a demonic spirit entity, he identified as Aiwass.  In his later publications he identifies Aiwass with Satan himself.  I have no reason to doubt him.  Seeing the magnitude of his influence, I have no doubt that he was in the very least, being used by some very powerful and high ranking demonic entities, if not Satan himself!

Shofarsound: Can you explain Aleister Crowley’s relationship with the founder of the modern day gay rights movement Harry Hay?

Pastor Joe: Harry Hay, was not only a member of Crowley’s cult known as the O.T.O (Order of the Temple of the Orient (O.T.O), but was a practitioner of Crowley’s sex magick and the founder of the “Gay Liberation Movement”.

Shofarsound: So he co-0pted Crowley’s satanism for the gay movement?

Pastor Joe: Harry Hay was called the oldest hippie in the counter culture revolution of the 1960s and he played a decisive role in altering the views of the young regarding human sexuality.  He grew his hair long and wore hippy beads, all in a quest to carry out Crowley’s satanically inspired “Book of the Law.” He helped fulfill Crowley’s request that his teachings be circulated among the young. The fact that he became the leader of the modern day homosexual movement says a lot in that regard.

Shofarsound:  Its disturbing at the least, but Hay was a strong defender and participant with the pedophile organization NAMBLA, wasn’t he?

Pastor Joe: Hay was a lifetime advocate of North American Man-Boy Love Association and even marched with NAMBLA in gay-pride parades. As a disciple of Aleister Crowley’s, Hay went so far as to march with the man boy sex association with a “NAMBLA” placard emblazoned over his body. In 1994, Hay refused to march in a gay-parade in New York, because they forbad NAMBLA to march with them. Hay joined another gay parade that year because they allowed NAMBLA’s participation.

Crowley taught that when the age of Horus would finally emerge, the whole concept of immorality and sin would be engulfed in the flames of the New Aeon.  His desire to legally have sex with children would finally be acceptable.  Hay, as a disciple of Crowley’s teachings, and as member of his O.T.O, would have loved to see pedophilia decriminalized.

Shofarsound:  Attitudes about sex in America underwent drastic change because of a researcher named Alfred Kinsey. You say he was also influenced by Aleister Crowley?

Pastor Joe: According to Wardell Pomeroy, who was the coauthor of Kinsey’s sex reports, Kinsey not only loved Crowley’s perverse homosexual writings, but also went to Crowley’s former sex temple in Italy, called the Abbey of Thelema, to obtain Crowley’s sex diaries.  We reveal in our video The Kinsey Syndrome, that Crowley had been working with a number of pedophiles, who he instructed to keep sex diaries, documenting the details about how children were reacting to being molested.  This is how Kinsey was able to record data in his sex reports with children and babies as young as a few months old.  Whether Kinsey had employed Crowley, who was struggling financially in his latter years, to record a sex diary for him, or Kinsey just happened to know he had a sex diary, and where to find it, is unknown.  Either way, such behavior is unbelievably wicked, and is one of the reasons Crowley was called by the press of his day, “The Wickedest Man on Earth.”

Pomeroy, Kinsey’s closest colleague at the time, writes that Kinsey was not only able to procure Crowley’s sex diaries, but that he and Satanist Kenneth Anger removed the paint off the walls of Crowley’s sex temple, that the Italian government had used to cover Crowley’s obscene pedophilic pornography, and discovered the obscene orgies involving children. Pomeroy writes in his book, Dr. Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research:

“The Great Beast and his followers were against any kind of religion, in any form, except their own. They held group orgies as a part of their ritual, and included in them the small children….The walls inside were still painted in British Oriental colors, and were covered with the ‘most open’ (as Kinsey put it) sexual action pictures….The remainder of the paintings were life-size representations of sexual activity, both homosexual and heterosexual, singly, doubly and in groups, including children” (Wardell B. Pomeroy, Dr. Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research, p. 413-414).

Shofarsound: The gay rights movements hails  Kenneth Anger as an “important” figure in American filmmaking. But would you say his films were fundamentally homosexual propaganda?

Pastor Joe: Kenneth Anger was making films promoting homosexuality long before Hollywood followed suit. Most of his movies push homosexuality, Satanism/occultism or both.  He is a follower of the teachings of Aleister Crowley, and like Harry Hay, a member of the O.T.O.  In his movie Lucifer Rising, Anger cast his live-in boyfriend, Robert Beausoleil, who would end up committing the first documented murder for Charles Manson, as Lucifer.  The objective of the film was to show the influence of Crowley’s magick, causing the dark forces of Lucifer to rise. Kenneth Anger was also a cofounder of Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, and he sports a huge tattoo that reads “LUCIFER” across his chest. Anger also wrote forewords for two of LaVey’s books, The Devil’s Notebook (1992) and Satan Speaks! (1998).  Anger was also a confidant of Alfred Kinsey’s and journeyed with him to Crowley’s sex temple in Italy to aquire Crowley’s sex diaries.  We show a picture of Anger and Kinsey in a staged photo beneath a large photo of Aleister Crowley.

To get an idea of just who Kenneth Anger has influenced, we need only look to Bono of U2.  Bono, who many emergent’s view as the unofficial leader of the Emerging Church, has said in the past that he wants to turn America on to Anger’s movies.

Bill Flanagan, a close personal friend of Bono, stated in his biography authorized by Bono, that Bono and U2 were seriously considering starting a new TV network called the Zoo TV Network, to turn the world on to the movies of Kenneth Anger and Wim Wender. In an Interview with Details magazine Bono said that, “Part of America’s dilemma is its TV, because as a mirror it’s a pretty distorted one. I mean, where can you see a Kenneth Anger film in the United States?”(Turning Money Into Light, Details, February 01, 1994)

Christians need to wake up to the fact that we are living in perilous times and we need to take Jesus’ words about watching out for false prophets who come in sheep’s clothing more seriously!

Shofarsound:  In the movie “Lucifer Rising”, Anger used an upside down rainbow triangle. What significance does that have and where is it used now?

Pastor Joe: That’s a great question. Inverted triangles of various colors were used by the Nazi’s to designate various groups i.e., orange for gypsies, blue for communists, pink for effeminate homosexuals.  Many of the Nazi’s were gay, but they persecuted homosexuals who were known to be effeminate. Some homosexuals have used pink or rainbow triangles as a celebration of homosexuality. Kenneth Anger uses it to make a statement about both Homosexuality and Satanism. When Kenneth Anger uses it in the introduction of Lucifer Rising, it appears right side up.  By the end of the movie it appears again, but is inverted.  I believe for Kenneth Anger, it is a symbol for the satanic inversion of society and biblical morals, as a result of the rise of Lucifer and the Crowleyan age of Horus.  Satanists have long pointed out that Satanism is in many ways, an inversion of Christianity.  Anton LaVey pointed out in the Satanic Bible, that the word “Live” is “Evil” backwards.  We also see that many Satanists have used the upside down cross.

It is interesting that in one of Lady Gaga’s latest videos entitled “Born This Way,” she copies Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising, in that she begins the video with a right-side-up triangle, and at the end of the video, she inverts it.

In the song she confuses what God reveals to be unnatural and immoral behavior with race and sings, “No matter gay, straight or bi/lesbian trans-gendered life/I’m on the right track, baby…. You were born this way….” All such behaviors are an inversion of the natural order God has ordained.

Part 2 of an exclusive interview with Pastor Joe Schimmel of Blessed Hope Chapel in Simi Valley, CA

Shofarsound: There’s hardly a TV show now that doesnt have a “well adjusted” homosexual character. Is this intentional?

Pastor Joe: That’s a great question. Tragically, almost anything that is treated favorably by Hollywood and mass media becomes infectious and catches on, even if it is deadly.  Humans are very impressionable and easily led by the liberal media. Television shows and movies have been a powerful weapon in Satan’s arsenal to erode godly morals among the American populace.

Oprah Winfrey, who influences millions, promoted homosexuality when she made a cameo appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ “Coming Out” Episode.  Since Oprah claims to be a Christian when in fact she is a new ager, she has duped God only knows how many biblically uninformed Christians on the issue.

Television shows that promote homosexuality are too numerous to list, but in the last couple of years shows like “Degrassi,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Pretty Little Liars,” and “Glee” are at the top of the list, when it comes to glamorizing the sin of homosexuality. Many of these TV shows receive awards from the homosexual organization GLAAD for their promotion of homosexual lifestyles. Wise parents will protect their children from being enticed by programming that is intended to program their little ones with gay propaganda.

In “The Overhauling of Straight America,” authors Kirk and Erastes Pill, advocate this strategy to propagate the gay agenda:

“Where we talk is important. The visual media, film and television, are plainly the most powerful image-makers in Western civilization. The average American household watches over seven hours of TV daily. Those hours open up a gateway into the private world of straights, through which a Trojan horse might be passed … So far, gay Hollywood has provided our best covert weapon in the battle to desensitize the mainstream” (Marshall K. Kirk and Erastes Pill, “The Overhauling of Straight America.” Guide Magazine, October and November 1987 [emphasis added].

Consider the following revealing stratagem from a popular manual, advocating homosexual propaganda, by Harvard trained gay activists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen:

“… Famous historical figures are especially useful to us for two reasons: first, they are invariably dead as a doornail, hence in no position to deny the truth and sue for libel. Second, and more serious, the virtues and accomplishments that make these historic gay figures admirable cannot be gainsaid or dismissed by the public, since high school history textbooks have already set them in incontrovertible cement. By casting its violet spotlight on such revered heroes, in no time a skillful media campaign could have the gay community looking like the veritable fairy godmother to Western civilization” (Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, After the Ball).

We can look at just two of the top movies that came out in the month of June 2011 to see how this propaganda works. The latest X-Men movie (X-Men: First Class) was number one at the box office and very few of the millions who viewed it, knew that they were being indoctrinated by a subversive gay propaganda film.

X-men films develop the theme of various X-men discovering their superpowers, as they struggle with their various mutations and societies reluctance to accept their “coming out,” with their superpowers.  Unbelievably, some behind the X-Men movies want their audience to see X-Men as superheroes “coming out,” as analogous to gays coming out of the closet, and their superpowers, as analogous to homosexual lifestyles.

Gay X-Men screenwriter Dan Harris, who wrote the screenplay for X2 with gay screenwriter Michael Dougherty, admitted that he sees X-Men mutancy, and the X-Men’s struggle for acceptance in society, as corresponding to homosexuality:

“…. it’s become more a metaphor for sexual identity and orientation because it’s more appropriate to look at a person and have to say, ‘Are you a mutant?’…. you can’t always look at a person and know that they’re a mutant just like you can’t look at a person and know that they’re gay” (Filmfreakcentral.net critic Walter Chaw, X2).

Openly gay X-Men Director, Bryan Singer, has not only directed most of the X-Men movies but recruited openly gay activist actor Ian McKellen, to star as Magneto, by convincing him that mutants were comparable to struggling gays. McKellen stated “I think he expected that I was going to consider it a not posh-enough job,” but revealed that he was told that X-Men is really about Lesbain, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people. “I thought he was right,” says McKellen. “It’s not just a fantasy story. It’s a parable.” McKellen is a co-founder of the LGBT gay activist group Stonewall.

McKellen further stated “[The producers] will tell you one of the demographics that X-Men appeals to is young gays…. There are enough people in this world who think that the answer to the ‘problem’ of being gay is to be ‘cured’ of your abnormality.” Thus in McKellen’s mind, rather than view sex between two men as immoral behavior, why not portray it as positive genetic mutation, on the level of the fantastic powers of a superhero?

Homosexual William Earnest in his article “Making Gay Sense of X-Men,” admitted “Singer and his screenwriters equipped X-Men and X2 with the rhetorical stealth needed to fly below the gaydar of many critics and audience members.” [source]

In the latest X-Men installment, when an X-Men who works for the US military is asked how he got away with being discovered through the years, he replies “Well, they didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell.” An obvious reference to the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuality in the U.S. military.  Thus the line is drawn from this X-men’s superpower to homosexuality, and Hollywood has gone a step further than simply legitimizing what billions of people deem to be sinful and destructive behavior, to glorifying it as something to be coveted like a
cool superpower.

When we turn to Pirates of the Caribbean, which like X-Men, has been one of the most successful series of movies ever released, we see similar brainwashing. Johnny Depp admits that he read the book “Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition,” to prepare for his staring role as Captain Jack Sparrow.

Famous Film Reviewer, Robert Ebert wrote: “Depp seems to be channeling a drunken drag queen with his eyeliner and the way he minces ashore and slurs his dialogue ever so insouciantly.” When Rolling Stone asked Depp about the “certain gay undercurrent” so obvious in his Jack Sparrow’s character, Depp responded:

“Well, there was a great book I read…. ‘Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition.’ A very interesting book. I wasn’t exactly going for that with the character. And Keith [Richards] is not flamboyant in his actions. Keith is pretty stealth. But with Jack, it was more that I liked the idea of being ambiguous, of taking this character and making everything a little bit…. questionable. Because women were thought to be bad luck on ships. And these pirates would go out for years at a time. So, you know, there is the possibility that one thing might lead to another. You’re lonely. You have an extra ration of rum. ‘Cabin boy!’” (Rolling Stone, July 2006, p. 50).

Sadly, millions of parents had no idea that Depp had inculcated aspects of a homosexual pirate into his character. Children who are enticed by this character, are led to believe that since Captain Jack is portrayed as a hero, that wearing eye shadow and acting effeminate is the stuff heroes are made of today, unable to always discern the difference between fact and fiction. Gay activist Darrell Risk, in his article “Are Homosexual’s Born That Way?” acknowledges the infectious nature of homosexuality, when young people are exposed to it:

“I have found that even many of my most unbiased straight friends grow skittish with my homosexual candor—say, kissing my mate—when their children are around. Underneath it all, they too understand that sexually free ideas are infectious and that, once introduced to the suggestion of same sex love, their kids might just try it and like it” (Darrell Risk, ‘Born?’ p. 424).

In light of Darrell Risk’s admission that his own public sexual expression has the power to “infect” children who witness it, how much more are the purposely-seductive characters of Jack Sparrow, the X-Men and other Hollywood caricatures and story lines, enticing and infecting millions of our children?  Harry Hay, the founder of the gay liberation movement stated, Everyone, even heterosexual people, all have the potential to have that fairy spirit.”

Perhaps no movie has been quite as successful in propagating homosexuality as natural and normative as Brokeback Mountain. To get an understanding of how this movie manipulated the public we can look at a piece of propaganda created out of thin air by the father of the sexual revolution here in America, Alfred Kinsey. Kinsey was exposed for fabricating bogus numbers, when he claimed that 10 percent of Americans are homosexual.  Subsequent studies revealed that the truth ended up being between two and three percent. Kinsey was found to have inflated his statistics by interviewing large numbers of prison inmates and prostitutes.

Kinsey also made bogus claim that a disproportionate number of cowboys, who ride their horses in the open range, are in fact gay and hook up with each other to have homosexual encounters. Kinsey never showed any study that would suggest such was the case.  I mention this because Kinsey was trying to get America away from the effeminate stereotype of homosexuals that repulsed so many people.  Kinsey sought to cast homosexuals as real men.  What Kinsey may have done though, was take a page from a Marlboro cigarettes advertising campaign that popularized Marlboro among men just a few years earlier than Kinsey’s wild assertion.

Since 1924, Marlboro was marketed to women, as they were originally designed with a red band around the filter to hide lipstick and advertised as “Mild As May.” In the 1950’s, after cigarettes were proven to cause cancer, Phillip Morris wanted to attract men to his filtered cigarettes, men who would never use filters in the past.  How could he get men to smoke what was previously billed a women’s cigarette? Simple: reposition Marlboro as a man’s cigarette by placing it in the mouth of a rugged cowboy.  This cowboy, depicted on thousands of billboards nation wide, came to be known as the Marlboro Man. In a matter of months Marlboro went from a market share of less than less one percent to one of the best selling brands in the United States!

Ironically, even though homosexuality is often more deadly than smoking, Hollywood, like Kinsey, sought to make homosexuality acceptable by using a page out of Phillip Morris’ playbook.  The licentious movie Brokeback Mountain, recast homosexuality as a lifestyle akin to a healthy masculine cowboy. Kinsey would have been proud!

Shofarsound: Can you give a little more detail on Michael Swift’s comments in the Gay Community News that you mention in your CD expose’ Satanism and Homosexual Agenda?

Pastor Joe: Homosexual activist Michael Swift flaunted gay aspirations in the Gay Community News piece entitled “Gay Revolutionary” as he envisioned a gay utopia:

“We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools…. in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms…wherever men are men together. Your sons will become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us” [Michael Swift, Gay Community News, 15 February 1987].

What I find chilling, is that while some of Swift’s statements in the piece are somewhat satirical and inflammatory, is that many of the things he articulates as gay aspirations, with regard to our children, are already happening in our “youth groups…. movie theater’s [and] bathrooms” every day.

GCMW Note: Homosexual activists claim the Swift peice was only intended to be taken as “satire”.

Shofarsound: So can we assume that Swift’s revisioning of America under a homosexual rule is coming true?

Pastor Joe: My comments on the question you asked earlier about the media and Hollywood, reveal that they are indeed seeking to “recast” our children in their “image,” as Swift states. Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen detail a three-stage plan to homosexualize America in their book, After the Ball.  They describe the plan to further the gay agenda and homosexualize America as a threefold plan, “desensitize, jam, and convert.”

The first stage is to desensitize by inundating the public with a “continuous flood of gay-related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion possible.” They go on to say, “The main thing is to talk about gayness until the issue becomes thoroughly tiresome . . . If you can get [straights] to think [homosexuality] is just another thing—meriting no more than a shrug of the shoulders—then your battle for legal and societal rights is virtually won.” The second stage, “Jamming,” is described as “psychological terrorism meant to silence expression or even support for dissenting opinion.” The third stage is “Conversion” and they define it as the “conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media” (Selling Homosexuality to America,” Regent Law Review, Volume 14, Number 2, Spring, 2002, available at www.regent.edu)

In this case, queer is never a good thing.

Charlotte based Coalition of Conscience founder Dr. Michael Brown appeared on Sid Roth’s television program, “It’s Supernatural” to talk about his  new book  “A Queer Thing Happened to America.”  During the interview Brown revealed that no Christian publisher wanted to touch his book because of the fear that the homosexual community would come down on them hard and virtually cause them economic loss. One literary agent told him to change the title of the book because a publisher believed the title was to controversial. This eventually caused Brown to self- publish the book.  It has been one of amazon.com’s top selling…and most controversial. Based on some of the comments from the customer review section this book definitely has edge.

In the interview, Dr. Brown touches on the subject that the homosexual agenda has impacted all facets of America life and driving American society more tolerant and accepting to homosexuality. Sadly, the church is following the lead of culture and not the Word of God.

In April, just a month after Dr. Brown interviewed with Sid Roth, the California Senate passed  Senate Bill 58.  This legislation would require California public schools to add gay history to its already overcrowded curriculm.   This  bill is now waiting to be approved by the California  State Assembly.   A Queer Thing is Always Happening in California that is for sure ( here, here, here).  This is further confirmation of what Dr. Michael Brown has spoken in his interview and written about in his book.  Please take out the time and view Dr. Michael Brown’s interview with Sid Roth.

One of my favorite dispensational authors and bible teachers Clarence Larkin has an awesome and detailed chapter on the church and kingdom in his book Rightly Dividing the Word. If you can get your hands on a copy, do it and value it as the teaching is golden.

Now, in this third segment of our series on understanding church and kingdom, we want to look at the sameness of the two. We previously explored differences, noted paradoxes and then  issued admonitions on ignoring  or diverging from the will of God, the King.

And let me just say parenthetically that  the Bishop Eddie Long case, has coughed up multiple layers of confusion.  Many people are conflicted about what they see and hear and what God intended. These posts are to help clear up that confusion. Do not be deceived, this will happen again, so let us understand God’s will and receive saving knowledge, enabling us to stand strong when tumultuous storms hit again.

To be perfectly clear, I am not anti-church. I am however very much against the commercialized, Jesus-deficient, capitalistic, mausoleum-building empires of men masquerading as the church. I am against any religious organization that does not live out God’s stated purpose for it. The church was never intended to be a den of thieves, but a house of prayer. In fact, notice in Luke 19:46, Jesus says it was man who changed the will of God.

“It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

The implication is that what God intended has been forcibly changed to satisfy the lust of wicked men. The result: thieves of all stripes are now comfortable in the house to God. That includes sex thieves, money thieves and power thieves. Theives should never be tolerated in the house of God because they have only one goal: to steal and destroy the sanctity and integrity of the Body (reference John 10:10). If we are to take Jesus’s example, we should drive them out. If you do not drive them out, they will only regroup, recruit and steal again.

But the church as a house of prayer is to birth souls into the kingdom. That’s the only “hospital” analogy I can agree with. Its a birthing room. Sadly, we are seeing less and less of that today and more membership drives.

Major parallels of the church and kingdom

1. Both the kingdom and the church are comprised of saints – Kingdom (Colossians 1:13) – Church (Colossians 1:2). Understand that saints are people who have been “set apart” for a holy purpose. Nothing more, nothing less. Saints are not perfect, they are people being perfected by the will of God. Saints are not ” just sinners who fell down”, saints are called out to live out the purpose of the kingdom of God in the earth. That’s why we must guard against and reject the doctrine of perfectionism. Such a doctrine is false and built of a presumptive self righteousness, rather than grace, mercy and repentance.  The Apostle John shot down the doctrine of perfectionism in 1 John 1:8. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Its just that simple. Saints do commit sin, but that does not make them sinners. The bible acknowledges this (1 John 1:8) and consequently provides one corrective response: repentance (1 John 1:9). Its not hypocrisy to call yourself a saint even if you have sinned as a saint.  Sinners are those unredeemed who practice sin as a lifestyle. 

2. Both the kingdom and the church was purchased with innocent blood – Kingdom – (Revelation 5:9-10) – Church (Acts 20:28). In order for the “purchase” to be authentic, eternal and secure, it had to be by the blood of an innocent man. That man was Jesus Christ. The blood of Christ became the currency, untainted by sin, which paid the price for our sins thus satisfying what God required once and for all. Just like a natural family, it is the blood that is foundational for relationship in the kingdom.

3. Both the kingdom and the church are comprised of priests – Kingdom (Revelation 1:6,9) – Church (1 Peter 2:5). The old system of a selected tribe of men, gave way to a new covenant where every believer is now a priest. We are now a kingdom of levites. This does not conflict with Ephesians 4:11-16. We are all equal in our relationship and standing before God although some from among us have been selected and gifted to edify and equip us for the work of ministry. That is not a license for prophets, pastors, teachers, apostles or evangelists to lord over God’s people. They are to instruct on how to weather the storms and become mature, productive citizens of the kingdom of God. Sidebar: I’m doing that right now!

4. Terms of entrance to both the church and the kingdom are the same. But we should note it is man, not God, who has circumvented those very important requirements with the membership system. – Kingdom (John 3:5) – Church (Ephesians 5:26, Tit. 3:5). Membership does not facilitate discipleship, nor is it in congruence with the Great Commission. As we explained before, one can be a “good” member of a church and never be in relationship with the Lord Jesus.

5. Both the church and the kingdom will experience divine glory and exaltation – Kingdom (Isaiah 2:2-3) – Church (Ephesians 3:21). Both the kingdom and the church will receive glory and honor in the last days. Now, is not the season for our glory. We are to be humble servant exalting God and his Christ for the sake of his will being done on earth.  In time, he will glorify us his church and the people of his kingdom. Too many churches are not caught up in marketing themselves in order to attract members. I suspect that is to feed the god of mammon. More members=more money=bigger buildings=more members=more money…ad infinitum. Its a dangerous and rebellious trap to fall into, but some church pastors are driving full steam ahead to glorify themselves using their own devices.  Again, I am not suggesting that money and people are irrelevant, just that our priority should always be the glory of the Father and the Son (ref Matt 6:33).

6. Both the church and the kingdom have the same owner.  Kingdom (John 18:36) – Church (Matthew 16:18). The head of the kingdom is God who is in Christ.  Its obvious who the owner is. Or is it? Some act as if they are the owners: “my church, my people”. Its an arrogant statement to make, yet those who were intended to be managers (undershepherds) are claiming ownership of something, they could never even remotely be qualified to purchase (see #2). The usurping of the Christ’s authority in the church by hirelings and pulpit thieves is partly the blame for the sordid abuses we see happening right now. The other part of the blame is to be laid on those who have passively allowed such people to remain in place (for solutions see Luke 19:46).

Whenever you are confused about something, go back to the beginning. The genesis will give you the blueprint for the Creator’s intent. We are in just one of the many storms of our times which will only worsen as the Lord’s return nears. I encourage you to examine yourself and see if you have been in a spiritually infantile state  for too long. Whether you are currently under a leader who keeps you on a pacifier and a bottle of sugar milk or you have resisted the training of the Holy Spirit, get up and move forward. Earnestly study God’s word, pray fervently and be faithful to the will of God. In doing so, you will mature and bring forth fruit that pleases our Father.

Proverbs 4:7 strongly encourages us to get an understanding in all that we do. And it can be said that much of our problems stem from a lack of understanding. Sometimes that understanding is because we just havent walked into yet, sometimes it is because we reject it when it comes. Thus, this post on understanding the Church and the Kingdom. I will try to keep it as simple as possible. Hopefully, it can clear up some misunderstandings you have had, if at all and consequently help you better understand certain situations and circumstances happening around us. Many times we question how can these things happen in the church? It is confusing and distressing. Why? Because we do not have a proper biblical perspective of church and kingdom.

There are a lot of religious people who are employing the word “kingdom” as a new buzzword of sorts. It gives the appearance that such people are in tune with God, but on closer examination some are simply playing a word shell game. To the unsuspecting, it can be a deadly one, both spiritually and naturally.

One very important distinction to remember is that Jesus said the kingdom of God ( per Romans 14:17 love, joy and peace in the Holy Ghost) is within you and eternal. Conversely, the kingdom of man (buildings, money, fame, positions, sexual desires) is external and temporal. Most people see the church as a building ( i.e. New Joy Church 1500 West Adams Street). A building can be called a church but it is not the church.  The reason is because buildings can be destroyed and/or used for altogether different purposes, even evil. Changing your thinking paradigm about the church versus a church will significantly enhance your ability to endure when the sinful excesses in the building conflict with the purity of the kingdom of God.

While the terms “church” and “kingdom” are generally used  interchangeably by people,  in scripture there are distinct differences in the two. Both are present expressions of The Lord Jesus Christ, yet one has not reached its perfection. (Eph 4:11-15).

Let’s deal with the kingdom first. In simple terms a kingdom is the domain or residence under authority of a king. When applied to God, David said it best in Psalms 24:1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. Thus it is clear that God’s kingdom comprises both heaven and earth. Heaven is under control, but earth is still in transition. As Jesus prayed:  “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.

One theologian described the kingdom of God like this:

In today’s parlance the equivalent of the Kingdom of God would be something like the Presidency of God rather than the Nation-State of God; or the Episcopacy of God rather than the Diocese of God. This Divine Regime or Presidency which operates by gracious mercy (because of God’s love) and righteous justice (because of God’s holiness) is unlimited, eternal, spiritual, and sovereign over all. Since Christ came in grace and in the flesh and began His earthly ministry, the inward earnest of the Kingdom life became accessible as a present mediatory EXPERIENCE for whosoever believes in Christ. The full outward manifestation of the Kingdom is a future vindicatory EXPECTATION when Christ comes again in judgment (Eph 1:7-14).

The Kingdom (of God, of Heaven) are also used interchangeably in scripture. Jesus did in several places but there are differences that should be noted. Both the “kingdoms” are ruled by God. The main difference is time. The kingdom of God is within us now, while the kingdom of heaven has not yet come.   (Matthew 16:19,Luke 17:20,21)

The Kingdom of God is physically represented by the earthly Church of Christ (this is not the denomination of the same name).

The tale of two churches

As with many situations in the bible paradoxes exist and quite frankly appear to the undiscerning eye to be contradictory. Such is the case with what I will call the church triumphant and the church universal.

The church triumphant is triumphant (victorious) both now and forever. It has both corporate and individual applications. I take that from 1 Cor 2:14. The CT isnt defined as a denomination. Nor is it a nondenominational, interdenominational or independent religious body.  It is understood to be comprised of those out of every kindred and nation, every tongue and tribe, who have been washed in the blood of the lamb and whose names are written in the lamb’s book of life. The church triumphant has formed and is forming daily as the Lord adds to the church. It is the church which, according to Matthew 16:18, is indestructible, built on the Rock. It is this church-bride which will be presented in that day: pure, holy, blameless, faultless before the presence of God (Jude 24,25). While the church triumphant is universal, the church universal is not necessarily triumphant.

The church universal is universal because it worldwide in terms of its logistical placement and membership. Thus, it is comprised of those who are joined to the physical church of Christ. It is a consortium of the denominations, nondenominations, interdenominations, et al. The church universal includes the wheat and the tare, the hypocrite and the saint, the open homosexual and the downlow choir leader, the sheep and the goats. It is from this church which will come those who find out that their good works are useless because they feigned relationship with Christ or had none at all. They will discover that they will be rejected because they added or detracted from the words of the Lord causing others to be lost. The church universal is in essence a snapshot of the doctrine of inclusion pre-judgment day. All are included, but the day of separation has not come (see Matt 25:31-46).

The church has “membership” rolls and on any given Sunday whether  a person is redeemed or not, they can step out into the aisle, walk up front, shake the pastor’s hand and become a member. Even if they never confess Christ and are never born again and filled with the Spirit, they can remain “members” of the church. Even become “leaders”.

But not so in the kingdom of God.

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders ¹⁰nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Cor 6:9-11

The entrance requirements are set not by the will of man, but by God. Only those who are redeemed, washed in the blood of the Lamb and sanctified by the spirit of Christ will come in. There’s no hand to shake , no secretary to see, no new members class to attend, no St Peter at the gate, just a change of heart and lifestyle. That’s not the gospel of inclusion, its the gospel of exclusion. And its 100% the will of God.