KNOWING AND DOING

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MIKE CUNNINGHAM

OCTOBER 8, 2006

I don’t know about you folks, but I wasn’t all that surprised to learn about the latest sex abuse scandal on Capital Hill involving a homosexual congressman hitting on young male pages. Knowing that there are such people in the Congress no Christian sitting on either side of the political isle who holds to the belief that the Scriptures are the divinely inspired Word of God should have been taken by surprise when another variation of the same sexual prevision comes to light.

The truth is that all homosexuals are perverts because homosexuality itself is a prevision. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting that every homosexual is a pedophile because nothing can be further from the truth. Furthermore I want to once again state that some of the nicest people I have ever met are homosexual. Apart from that particular grave sin these men and women often put many professed Christians to shame by compassion.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t pull any punches when He says that any kind of sexual activity between members of the same sex is a pervasion and an abomination in God’s eyes. On the authority of God’s holy Word I can say that unless the person repents and accepts the forgiveness offered by Jesus he or she will experience eternal separation from God and His people.

It’s true that many heterosexuals engage in perverted acts such as engaging in sex outside of marriage, adultery and the like, and unless they repent and accept Christ’s love they too will experience the same eternal consequences.

Although these kinds of sinful heterosexual behavior are viewed by God as being just as grave as homosexual behavior, the Bible doesn’t define a heterosexual person as being guilty of committing sin because he or she is a heterosexual. In other words, Scripture teaches that heterosexual is what we are and homosexual is what some of us become. To believe otherwise we would have to reject much of the teaching of the Bible which would enable Satan to take a giant step in destroying our faith.

Although I wasn’t surprised by the outcry over the scandal, I have to say that it’s that loud outrage saddens me. I’ll elaborate later, but first I would like to pick up where I left off in last weeks message concerning the homosexual issue in the Episcopal Church USA.  I said: “There are folks still attending this church that the devil has persuaded to close their eyes to truth and rationalize their decision not to flee. Their faith in their church is stronger than their faith is in God.

I concluded by asking: “If you and I were brought to trial to determine whether or not we were sincerely struggling to resist the devil in getting rid of sin, both those of commission and omission; would there be enough evidence to convict us? Are we living our lives to please God or ourselves?[1]

Luke 12:41-48 (ESV) ⁴¹ Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” ⁴² And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? ⁴³ Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. ⁴⁴ Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.

⁴⁵ But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, ⁴⁶ the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful. ⁴⁷ And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will will receive a severe beating. ⁴⁸ But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

John 13:1-5 (ESV) ¹ Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ² During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, ³ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, ⁴ rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. ⁵ Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

John 13:12-17 (ESV) ¹² When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. ¹⁴ If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. ¹⁶ Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷ If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

Once again Jesus told them what the right thing to do is. He communicated to them God’s desire.

⁴⁷ And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his [revealed] will, will receive a severe beating.

Likewise: “you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

The Apostle James reiterated this command. James 4:17 (ESV) ¹⁷ So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

It isn’t just certain things that we do which are sinful, but also those which we don’t do. I sometimes wonder which is worse.

Often folks who have lots of knowledge about the Bible are very quick to sing praises of His repeatedly blessing them. They know without a doubt that it is through Him alone from which each and every one of their blessings flow. They have been enlightened. They have tasted the heavenly gift. They have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God (Hebrews 6:4-5).

Nevertheless, these same people are apt to have become enslaved by their sensual appetites, the ones that are more animal-like, and still they won’t repent and struggle to do everything possible to stop. Listen to what Jesus once did about these kinds of folks.

Matthew 11:20 (ESV) ²⁰ Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.

Speaking of such people, Thomas Manton one of my favorite Puritans once observed: “Sins against knowledge have more of the marks of God’s vengeance upon them. In the reprobate they are punished with great despair and horror of conscience, or with a hardness of heart. Iron which is often heated and then which is often quenched grows harder.”

Proverbs 5:11-14 (ESV) ¹¹ and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, ¹² and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! ¹³ I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. ¹⁴ I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation.”

It’s perfectly just for God to punish contempt of the light which He has revealed with a spirit of pig-headedness.[2] The punishment for sin is to be allowed to continue sinning. Having the Scriptures to enlighten us as to what God would want us to do and then not doing it is treating Him with contempt.

All of which leads me back to something I said earlier. Although I wasn’t surprised by the outcry over the scandal concerning the homosexual congressman, I have to say that it’s that loud outrage which saddens me.

Allow me to explain and please don’t get me wrong on this point either. I’m not saying that the outcry isn’t justified. It’s just that I wish the same intense furor was being voiced today by “the faithful” still sitting in the pews of Roman Catholic Churches over the homosexual priests that continue to plague that institution.

Practicing Catholics can rationalize not protesting with everything they have, but the day may come when each of them will have to justify their silence. I believe these “sins of omission” are every bit as grave as the sins committed by pedophile priests that were allowed to infest the church.

Ever since I was a boy I have heard honest Roman Catholics acknowledge that various Father “So-and-so’s” didn’t seem “right.” In their hearts, many, many biblically anemic Catholics suspected these priests were homosexuals. And yet; their silence about their suspicion was deafening, as throughout the years innocent little boys were sacrificed on the homosexuals “alter of lust.”

Many Catholics either knew or suspected and yet deliberately chose to do and say nothing. They remained faithful to their church but were not obedient to God. To their credit many did leave the church but such folks are in the minority. Most wouldn’t make waves.

An important point to remember is that we must not loose sight of the fact that our struggle isn’t with flesh and blood homosexuals and their advocates. On the contrary, it’s with the Devil and his cohort demons that have successfully blinded them to the light of Scripture. Not to love these fellow human beings and to do everything possible to persuade them to repent and accept the love of Christ is a sin of omission.

Furthermore, not to do everything possible to persuade the leadership of the church we attend to remove homosexuals from the clergy is also a sin of omission. I hope I will stand corrected, but to the best of my knowledge the Roman Catholic Church is still infested with homosexual priests. For practicing Roman Catholics not to protest to church leaders to vigorously plead with the threat of excommunication those demonically deceived politicians who are supporters of gay marriage, as many members of the Southern Baptist Convention did with former President Clinton because of his support for gays in the military, is also a sin of omission.

On the Day of Judgment people will have to give an explanation as to the decision they made to remain in Christ dishonoring churches; churches that downplay, pervert, or don’t preach the “WHOLE WORD” of God. Are the sins of commission by abusive priests really greater than the sins of omission by folks who did and said very little by way of protest; folks content to “live and let live?”[3]

“Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins. In 1744 Louis XV of France was smitten with a malady which threatened to cut his days short. The historian Thomas Carlyle tells us that France was in terror, and Paris seemed like a city taken by storm. The churches responded with supplications and groans, and the prayers of priests and people were continually interrupted by their sobs.

This widespread manifestation of tender interest and deep affection for Louis XV brought him the surname of “Louis the Well Beloved.” The love of the people for their young king was not inspired by what he had done, but what they hoped he would do. For years the nation had been under the heel of a cruel tyrant, and they regarded the ascension of Louis XV as the dawn of a brighter and happier day. They loved him because in him rested all their hopes. That was in 1774.

Thirty years later, Louis XV again lay sick. But the churches did not resound with excessive groanings. Sobs did not now interrupt any prayers, for no prayers were offered. In fact, “Louis the Well Beloved” had become the most hated man in France. In 1774 he might have asked, “What have I done to be so loved?” and in 1774, “What have I done to be so hated?” The truth is, he had done nothing.”[4]

Can you imagine what it would be like on the Day of Judgment for someone to have millions of human beings who are witnesses for the prosecution, the very people who were butchered in their mothers womb or who were abused by pedophile priests; can you imagine what it would be like to be asked why, even though he or she knew, they did nothing?

Lord willing, in a couple of weeks we will look closely at a Biblical plan on how to resist the Devil and overcome the temptation not to commit sins of commission and also those of omission.

[2] A Commentary on James, Thomas Manton, The Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, Pa. 17013, p, 397.

[3] “WHATS YOUR HEART’S DESIRE?” MIKE CUNNINGHAM OCTOBER 01, 2006.

[4] James, © 1991 by R. Kent Hughes, Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois 60187, p, 208.