Mysteries of Eternal Life

Not because we've done so much for you or for others. Not because we've refrained from doing other things that were selfish. Not because we've obeyed every last commandment we've been aware of. Save us because we could never do enough, merciful God, to deserve eternal life and unending blessings.

The Voice of the Holy Spirit Sang to Me in the Darkness

"Don't write about the Holy Spirit. Don't talk about him. He is too holy, too sacred, yes too dangerous, to even think about."

These words spoken long ago by some now-forgotten preacher still haunt me even five minutes ago as I prepared to start this post. For 20 years I had feared even saying the Holy Spirit's name lest he be offended in some way. Christ's warning about the finality of sinning against the Holy Spirit was taken to heart with a vengeance that amazes me now.

Six years ago this perplexing experience started to change. Let me share an experience that I have never heard anyone speak of before.

Out of boredom I started singing a Christian song I learned at 16 during a young people's weekend at Camp Berkshire in Wingdale, New York. I sang it both in Spanish and English as I walked my golden retriever, Callisto, on his long, long walks through concrete and green in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

It's important that I share the entire lyric as you will understand that it was the vehicle by which the Holy Spirit spoke to me and changed me almost against my will. I must state that I was bored out of my mind and had gotten bored with singing pop tunes on my long, long walks with Callisto. This song, however, sprang to life and wouldn't let go. It had a will of its own. I'd stop singing it and it reasserted itself.

It's a wonderful, wonderful life when you're with the Lord above./ It's a wonderful, wonderful life when you're saved by his love./ There's a joy that you never can tell and great peace with the Lord above./ As I walk with the Lord in my heart there's a song./ It's a wonderful, wonderful life. -- Author Unknown

Week after week prior to 2005 I had been singing this song out of habit. I'd sing other songs, secular songs, but no other spiritual songs at all. In late 2004 or early 2005 I noted something was happening or had already happened. Without explanation I had a new-found interest in rising early and spending 30 minutes reading a chapter or two of the gospels in the New Testament, e.g., Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I had no time to pray so I prayed on the way to work for 15-20 minutes.

After a few weeks of this I thought maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to attend church again. I hadn't attended church at all in over 15 years. For some mysterious reason I actually enjoyed going to church. More importantly I enjoyed reading the Bible, the writings of Ellen White and other Christan books. I played no Christian music CDs even though I probably had one or two in some bottom storage box--who knows where in my home. The new songs I sang in church, praise songs, were all I needed for my new phase.

Then it dawned on me that I had been touched by the Holy Spirit, almost without asking for it. I must share with you that I never stopped believing in God even though my impression of God was and still is imperfect and skewed by life's experiences. Out of guilt and to avoid psychological discomfort only, I  had continued for 20 long years to repeat the following words on most mornings as I drove to work:

If you then who are earthly know how to give good things to your children how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to you if you ask him. Luke 11:13

These words were the only contact I had with God and with the religion of my parents and I was not about to give it up just in case there really was something to the God experience, salvation, heaven, eternal life, etc. It was how I convinced myself that I still held onto the only lifeline I still had in case these were more than just pleasant words written 2,000 years ago.

Three months after this change started occurring in me I was awakened in my darkened room at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. by a voice singing inside my  head. It awakened me from a deep sleep with the clarity of its melody. I had not sang these words in over 25 years. The voice grew louder and  louder and the sweetness of the words almost moved me to tears. These are the words the voice sang [I am translating from Spanish as the voice was in the tongue of the first five years of my life:]

The Shepherd loves his sheep with a paternal love. The Shepherd loves his flock with a love that cannot compare. The Shepherd loves his other sheep that are scattered and lost. He looks for them with great concern wherever they may be be.

Down on my knees I found myself thanking God for the first and only time I had ever experienced such a phenomenon. I was actually hearing God's voice and in song. This time I knew something was happening, had happened, that had never happened before--at least not like this. This was the God experience and it took me decades of my life to fall into it. This was not some transitory emotion. This really grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. This was God taking me by the hand and  leading me very much like how I walked with my dear Callisto and led him on his daily walks.

Life has been full of temptations, disappointments and yes, shocks to my system, for six years now. But what else can I do?

When you have been touched by God it is for life. You just don't turn around and go anywhere else.

If you've never been touched by God, repeat the lyrics of my childhood song about how this is a wonderful, wonderful life. May God also touch you and never stop touching you throughout your life.

Evangelism and the Male Homosexual

First of all, you need to see yourself as that homosexual sinner that you are trying to bring to the cross of Jesus Christ. You cannot hope to reach him if you see yourself as superior to him in any way. You may have a lovely Christian home. You may have a wonderful Christian spouse. You may have children who love you dearly. None of this, however, carries any wait with the homosexual sinner you are looking to lead to the power of the cross of Jesus. Unless you identify with the homosexual or gay person, your efforts will fall short of the mark.

Only God can help you see yourself as God sees that person in need of the cross of Jesus Christ. God sees you both in the same light. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. AND all have been freely justified [considered fully forgiven and saved] by the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." Book of Romans. The only difference between you and the homosexual or gay person is no difference at all. You may say that you don't do the things he does. You don't go to the places he goes. What difference does that make in the final analysis? Both of you can only depend on the grace [loving kindness] of Jesus Christ. Were it not for that marvelous grace both of you would be eternally lost. So what is there, really, to boast about?

There are some matters to consider, however, when endeavoring to bring homosexuals or gays to Christ. First of all you have to realize that most, if not all of them, will never lose their attraction for their own sex in the same way that you will never lose your attraction for the opposite sex. The only difference is that you are either married or have the potential to get married someday. Few, if any, homosexuals or gays that come to Christ can have that guarantee. What then can a life in Christ offer them that would convince them that a sexless life with Christ is better than a sex-filled life without him?

You may speak of eternal glory, a home with the saints and other worn expressions that Christian evangelists have been using for decades. This will rarely appeal to the man (or woman) who may actually have a rather enjoyable and well-balanced life that includes a partner and a group of supporting friends. Why would such a person want to leave that all behind in order to come to Christ? Why would they want to suffer being ostracized in a congregation of mostly married church people with their children by their side? Why would they want to exchange feelings of self-confidence with feelings of self-doubt and of inferiority when they seek to compare their sexless and now-solitary life with the one that you enjoy with your spouse and children?

Some might say that there are no honest answers to these questions. Others might say that it is a matter of faith. If the newly repentant homosexual or gay person "looks to Jesus as the Son of God and believes in him ..." John 6, he will feel that nothing else matters because of the excellent reality that is that life of one who is hid in Christ.

Unfortunately, this is not always the panacea that many seem to think it is. What then can the Christian life offer the homosexual or gay person that he or she doesn't already have?

For one, it offers them freedom from potentially damaging multiple sexual relationships. In this regard the unconverted heterosexual and his/her homosexual counterpart are in the same situation. Both can suffer from the psychological wear and tear of going to bed night after night with different people in the belief that this will somehow relieve the burning desire to experience sex to its highest degree and to perhaps bask in the intimate afterglow that sometimes follows the heat of passion. Like anything carried to an excess, this constant nightly sex is as addictive as any drug or habit.

When Christ comes into the sinner's heart, be he homosexual or heterosexual, the non-stop need for sex and more sex and more post-coital intimacy when it does arrive briefly, then gradually ceases to assert itself in the person's life.

Some may point out that there are committed homosexual and heterosexual couples that do not live a life of "quiet desperation", Thoreau, and to these folks it is hard to present this argument. The problem presents itself differently in those cases. While it may be true that you can love only one other person and not be married to them, be they gay or heterosexual, since there are no matrimonial constraints, there is always the possibility that someone else may appeal more to the momentarily dissatisfied person and unless conscious of the slippery walk they have undertaken, they could very easily fall into the revolving door of nightly trysts in search of a replacement of the loved one that they were unfaithful to.

Needless to say, a legitimate marriage does not prevent either spouse from being unfaithful to each other, either. Sex and its temptations, whether in or outside of traditional marriages, is the great equalizer. For those who do not have the marriage contract, however, it is easier to dissolve the bonds that held them together. All cases, whether homosexual or heterosexual, have the potential to hurt those they love by the tragedy of sexual infidelity.

What then can the heterosexual Church member offer the justified homosexual or gay person that they did not have before, outside of the sheep fold of Christ? They need to be both friend and family member (or the next best thing to that ideal) to the now solitary and hurting person who gave up a caring partner and/or community of gay friends, in order to come to the fellowship of Christ. If the heterosexual Church--into which a newly converted homosexual or gay person has come seeking the saving balm of Christian fellowship--cannot offer the support, love and encouragement that he or she had in his or her previous life, then the evangelistic goals of that church are a sham and do not deserve to use the name of Christ when seeking to benefit those who are outside the church community.

Trembling Before G_d

My local library had this dvd on the shelf and I thought I'd give it a go to get insight into something a bit different for a change.

Trembling Before G_d is a documentary about Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are also gay and lesbian and married for the most part.

Instead of finding more celebration--as most films of this type seem to do--of sexuality and acceptance of what most people will tell you cannot be changed or cannot be changed often, this film was more about the pain that comes from family and fellow worshipers rejecting gays and lesbians. One Orthodox lesbian took the final solution to its extremes, poor woman, and ended her life rather than face the disapproval of her family.

There were some sympathetic rabbis--very few, really--but all of them either recommended therapy, change therapy, or celibacy. They did recommend that the supplicant continue coming to God because the "answers are in Judaism" and not outside of it.

If Adventists ever made such a film, who would see it? Most people don't even know Adventists exist. Others could care less. Perhaps it would be shown in universities, or perhaps on the Internet. Perhaps such a film already exists. Surely SDA Kinship must have attempted to film such a documentary, but finding funds for such a film would be problematic. Some would wish such a film would never be made. I'm sure it would have an audience, at least in film festivals if it were done in a unique way.

After seeing the film the thought came to mind of how those punishments for many sins, including same-sex relations, specified in the Torah, were not applied to the same-sex converts that Paul mentions in one of his letters to the Corinthians. Had they been applied, then most of the former Jewish or gentile adulterers, homosexuals, temple prostitutes, and a host of other sinners would never have gotten the chance to come to Christ and find salvation.

It appears to me that, at least in this regard, the Bible does change the way it presents the solution to a sinner's behavior. The New Testament provides forgiveness and a chance for the sexual sinner to live a new life. The Old Testament, on the other hand, recommends death to root out the evil from among the Israelites. I may be missing something here, or perhaps I've just seen the light, however dim it may be shining in this particular area.

Related sites or blogs:
Trembling Before G_d site
Trembling Before G_d blog