More FAQ with God
Last week this column proposed that a website as sponsored by God would give people a chance to ask God some questions that they otherwise would feel uncomfortable in expressing in their religious settings of church services, Bible studies, and Sunday School. Following are some more questions along this line.
FAQ: What’s your take on our culture’s recent sea change regarding homosexuals. It seems that this behavior/lifestyle once widely disapproved is now quite acceptable. Your own Bible is quite clear that homosexual behavior is immoral/sinful. How does a believer deal with this set of people without being unloving?
Answer: First of all, I have made it explicitly clear that all sexual activity outside of marriage (which I have defined as one man and one woman) – is sin. I make no distinction between adultery, fornication, or homosexual acts: those that practice these behaviors on a lifelong basis without repentance have, in effect, rejected Me in this life and therefore I will not subject them to live with Me in eternity. I stand ready to receive and forgive the sexual sinner and all repentant sinners until their last breath!
Secondly, you deal with them the same way I deal with them: You love them. You are always kind to them and stand ready to show them a better way if they ask. .I have an immutable nature that impels me to love everyone, be it Mother Teresa or Adolph Hitler, whether they love and obey Me or not. This is very similar to the love that parents have for their children: ideally it is unconditional, that even though the child is rebellious and engages in destructive behavior, the parents’ love remains, hoping and praying for the child to come back to its senses. I grieve in the very same way as loving parents do for each and every human being that has rejected my love and is on a path to destruction and misery. I desire that not one perish, but all come to repentance.
FAQ: The media describes Islam as one of the “Great” religions. What is your take on this?
Answer: If “great” means “large in size”, it is true. If the word means having excellent precepts such as forgiveness, truth, justice, love, mercy, righteousness, kindness, peace, patience, goodness, temperance, faithfulness, and joy – then Islam is profoundly lacking in “greatness”. One example of an Islamic precept that is totally corrupt is the idea of rewarding a suicide bomber who kills and mains hundreds of bystanders in the name of Allah and then is rewarded a place in Paradise and given the company of seventy virgins! You think!
This example is only the tip of an ugly immoral spiritual iceberg. The Koran, their holy book, is a corruption of the Old and New Testament which dismisses God the Son Jesus as just another prophet, denying his deity and His sacrifice on the Cross that give all men the only provision to receive God’s forgiveness, mercy, and fellowship in this life and the next.
Muslims are loved by me and I grieve over their lostness and their being so deceived. It is my desire that they hear and receive the message of My love for them so that they can have peace in this life and joy in he next.
FAQ: What about other religions and other belief systems? Do they offer any hope?
Answer: Any religion or belief system that does not agree that there is only one path to reconciliation with Me, namely through the sacrifice of My Son Jesus on the cross some two thousand years ago, is futile.
Let Me explain: First of all, there is only one God and it is Me, Jehovah, Creator of the everything. I have always existed. I am the uncaused Cause. I am perfectly Holy, loving, just, and merciful. My intention toward mankind is that they be blessed with my love and goodness. I can do no wrong.
I also know that mankind is not capable of being fully righteous and that there is not without sin. I therefore, out of my love and grace for all people, paid the price for their sins with the blood of My son Jesus. No man can with all his good works and good intentions can bridge the gulf between a Holy God (Me) and sinful man (you).