The Love of God Looks Like Hatred to His Haters

Paul’s letter to the Editor to Helena’s The Queen City News (12/20/06):

Ann Wilsnack proposes we work together for a safe world for future generations, which, she opines, requires acceptance of homosexuality and abortion. My question: How can there be future generations if these are acceptable behaviors?

She asks us to consider how we would react if we had a homosexual child:

“Would your loving God want you to disown him or her? Not accept them as God made them?”

The “loving God” teaches us the right way and relationship in all things. That means He gives children who procreate to those who love Him:

“Therefore, know that Jehovah your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations” (Deuteronomy 7:9 MKJV).

The “loving God,” therefore, does not make homosexual children that do not create future generations. For those reaping this sin in their lives, because under the wrath of God as opposed to His blessing, know that if you turn to Him through the Lord Jesus Christ these things can be reversed:

“Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor covetous, nor thieves, nor drunkards, nor abusive people, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you! But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 EMTV).

Ann also lists outlawing abortion as a sin:

“Forcing a woman to have a child she cannot adequately care for is a sin.”

What does Ann make Jesus Christ out to be that she equates allowing abortion with His “peace, forgiveness, and love”? How can Christ be love if He would not provide for the life He creates in the womb? How can He give peace if one is forced to burden her conscience with murder because He cannot provide? And what need of forgiveness for that which one has no choice but to do?

The god of those promoting and justifying homosexuality and abortion carries its own seeds of destruction, eliminating future generations promoting the same.

Paul Cohen

Snail-mail letter received December 27, 2006:

Mr. Cohen:

Abortion and homosexuality do not bother me but hatred, ignorance, and intolerance do. And these are traits you exemplify in your letter printed in the Dec. 20 issue of the Queen City News. Do you really think that because you quote Scripture that makes you a good Christian? If so, then you’d better think again. It doesn’t even make you a decent human being.

Last time I checked, Christianity had something to do with kindness and mercy, forgiveness and compassion. Obviously, it has nothing to do with self-righteous judgment of others. Nor piously quoting Bible verses.

Sincerely,

Monty R. Nolan

Paul’s reply:

Hi Monty,

Your letter is one of presumptuous and invalid suppositions, based on evil surmisings, leading to false and hypocritical accusations. I will do for you what you have not done for me, which is to give you substance that proves what I am saying is true.

I can do this, not because I am a better or smarter human being than you, but because I am, by the grace of God, founded on the Truth, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who illuminates my way, and by Whom I am a Light for others to see as well. You, on the other hand, are in darkness, and choose your darkness over Light. That is why you condemn me, yet have no substance or proof of your arguments, which are wholly selfish and emotional reactions against the Light that shines on your sins, which you choose over the truth. The only way this can and will change is by the power of the Love of God, Jesus Christ, Who is the Word of Truth.

You say that I exemplify hatred, ignorance, and intolerance in my letter. How so? Is what I speak untrue and unjust, according to God and His Scriptures? Who do I hate? Of what am I ignorant? Of whom am I intolerant? You do not say, or provide any evidence whatsoever to verify your allegations. You simply throw out unsubstantiated, opinionated accusations. In this you show yourself to be all the things of which you accuse me: hateful, ignorant, and intolerant. This also makes you a hypocrite, unjustly foisting on another what you exemplify yourself. You condemn in me what is reflected of your own image. Instead of confessing your sins and faults, you reflect them back onto the one from whom the Light shines on you and exposes them, rejecting me to justify yourself.

You ask me if I “really think” quoting Scripture “makes me a good Christian.” I never thought that, much less said or implied it. If you have a problem with the Scriptures I quote, then say so, and show me how I am in error by using them. But if you cannot do this, and you cannot, then consider that it is not I that have a problem, but you because you are resisting and rejecting what God has said for your benefit.

You say I am self-righteously judging others. Again, how is this so? Jesus said to judge righteous judgment. How is mine unrighteous? Are you saying it is unrighteous because it identifies sin, the way of death and destruction, according to the Word of God? Then your dispute is with the Word of God, is it not, even against your own welfare and that of others? The Bible contains a record of the testimony of men of God against the sins of men, specifically and generally. It is the testimony of Jesus Christ:

“The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I say that what everyone does is evil” (John 7:7 GW).

So it is not really me, or even the Bible, but God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, Whom you condemn.

You say that Christianity is about “kindness and mercy, forgiveness and compassion.” You are willingly ignorant of the fact that none of those things are possible without the judgment of God. Kindness and mercy, forgiveness and compassion are inert and useless without the conviction of sin, repentance, and desire and commitment to do what is good and right in the sight of God. Otherwise, why does Jesus say this about His coming into the world by His Spirit?:

“Yet it is the truth that I am telling you--it is to your advantage that I go away. For unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world in respect of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:7-8 WNT).

God’s mercy brings eternal salvation, which comes by conviction of wrongness, of sin, and repentance, turning to Him:

“Surely His salvation is near those that fear Him, so that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Psalms 85:9-10 MKJV).

You, on the other hand, do not see His forgiveness, as you resist Him and insist on maintaining your own righteousness in your sins:

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, he will see God’s constant anger” (John 3:36 GW).

“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18 EMTV).

Why do you not believe me when I tell you the truth? Jesus also answered this:

“You come from your father, the devil, and you desire to do what your father wants you to do. The devil was a murderer from the beginning. He has never been truthful. He doesn’t know what the truth is. Whenever he tells a lie, he’s doing what comes naturally to him. He’s a liar and the father of lies. So you don’t believe me because I tell the truth” (John 8:44-45 GW).

Am I piously quoting Scriptures, or are you blasphemously rejecting them?

In the article you sent me, from ChristianGays.com, you highlighted two areas for my attention. Here is the first one:

“In what has been one of the Religious Rights greatest deceptions, they have made the words ‘values’ and ‘morality’ synonymous in political terms with homophobia and anti-abortion.”

I am not here to represent the “Religious Right,” whatever that is. I am sent by the Lord Jesus Christ and represent Him, telling men of their sins, particularly those of a presumptuous attitude against God; as, for example, yours in bearing false witness against me because I speak of His Laws. Anyone that has a problem with His Laws has a problem with Him, and, as I have told you and other defenders of sodomy, you destroy yourself in your sins and opposition to all that God has declared right and good.

The second highlighted quote:

“In the end, Jesus said little about sex, but a lot about how we treat the poor.”

Jesus said the greater part of what we need to know about sex in the following statement:

“And Jesus answered and said to them, In view of your hardheartedness he [Moses] wrote this commandment [divorcement] for you. But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife” (Mark 10:5-7 EMTV).

Sex is for a man and his wife. The Lord also said that fornication was not permissible (Matthew 19:9), and called the act of a man lying with another man an abomination, punishable by death (Leviticus 20:13). Yes, that was Jesus Christ speaking there, the Same Who gave the Law to Moses:

“I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that all our ancestors who left Egypt were under the cloud, and they all went through the sea. They were all united with Moses by baptism in the cloud and in the sea. All of them ate the same spiritual Food, and all of them drank the same spiritual Drink. They drank from the spiritual Rock that went with them, and that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:1-4 GW)

As for the poor, the author (Michael Piazza) is mistaken about whom the Lord was speaking. Jesus was not talking about the physically poor, but the spiritually poor:

“Then He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh” (Luke 6:20-21 EMTV).

The poor that the Lord was talking about are the saints that trust in Him rather than in themselves and man, as you and Michael do. You are both rich, full of yourselves. Anyone that comes against His commandments, brazenly contradicting Him, as you do, is rich, no matter what his or her economic status. While it is not an easy thing for the poor to suffer the contradiction of sinners who condemn and kill them, there is great reward in the faith of the saints:

“Blessed are you when men shall hate you, and when they shall exclude you, and shall revile you, and cast out your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For behold, your reward is great in heaven; for in like manner their fathers did to the prophets” (Luke 6:22-23 EMTV).

Yours and Piazza’s notion of Christianity is obviously from “another Jesus,” not the Lord Jesus Christ.

Piazza wonders why the issue of homosexuality is so divisive. It is only divisive to those that insist on sinning and flaunting their sin. Repent, Piazza. Repent, Monty, and you will not be found striving against your Maker and contending unrighteously with men.

I have shown you the mercy and kindness of God in telling you the truth. You will see it quite differently. I know that you will not come down from your throne yet, but I also know that your throne has been removed from under you, and that is a good and gracious thing.

Contending for the faith once delivered to the saints, putting away false gospels of grace without truth, and lawlessness masquerading as mercy,

Paul Cohen