Apostasy Alert: T.D. Jakes’ “Grapples” With Calling Homosexuality A Sin

In just the lat­est sign of his descent into the com­pro­mised apos­tate church, mega-star Prosperity Gospel preach­er T.D. Jakes very art­ful­ly evad­ed call­ing a homo­sex­u­al­i­ty a sin when pressed on the issue in an inter­view with the Huffington Post. Taking a page from the play­book of Joel Osteen, Jakes made sure not to say any­thing Biblical in the main­stream media inter­view and then took a stronger stance once the ques­tions from the Christian com­mu­ni­ty fol­lowed. Jakes’ com­ments reflect the Apostasy – the proph­e­sied falling away in the church from Biblical Christianity.

“It’s A Complex Issue”

Here is the video of Jakes with Huffington Post con­trib­u­tor Marcus Lamont Hill as it turned to the sub­ject of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty in the church:

Hill rephrased the first lis­ten­er ques­tion by ask­ing Jakes “how should the church get along [with homo­sex­u­als who want to attend and join]?” This was a ques­tion that a pas­tor who believes in sound, Biblical doc­trine could eas­i­ly answer. The church should get along with mem­bers of the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty like it does with all oth­er peo­ple – shar­ing the Biblical Gospel mes­sage that we are all sin­ners who deserve hell but can receive grace thanks to the sac­ri­fice of Jesus Christ on the cross for the for­give­ness of sin. But instead of stat­ing Biblical truth, Jakes opt­ed for a non-answer:

“Absolutely… I think it is going to be diverse from church to church. Every church has a dif­fer­ent opin­ion on the issue and every gay per­son is dif­fer­ent,” he replied. “And I think that to speak that the church — the black church, the white church or any kind of church you wan­na call it — are all the same, is total­ly not true.”

Of course this response did not answer the ques­tion at all. When fur­ther pressed on the issue Jakes gave a ring­ing endorse­ment to “gay friend­ly” or gay-affirm­ing church­es: “LGBT’s of dif­fer­ent types and sorts have to find a place of wor­ship that reflects what your views are and what you believe like any­one else,” he outlined.
“The church should have the right to have its own con­vic­tions and val­ues; if you don’t like those con­vic­tions and val­ues [and] you total­ly dis­agree with it, don’t try to change my house, move into your own … and find some­body who gets what you get about faith.”

Jakes’ advised gay peo­ple who believe homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is not a sin to seek out church­es that “reflect their views.” This is basi­cal­ly encour­ag­ing peo­ple to believe a false Gospel. In the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul gave a farewell exhor­ta­tion to a group of his dis­ci­ples know­ing he would like­ly nev­er see them again. In it he said:

“Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the coun­sel of God. Take heed there­fore unto your­selves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you over­seers, to feed the church of God, which he hath pur­chased with his own blood.” (Acts 20:26 – 28).

Paul said his hands were clean from being respon­si­ble for anyone’s life because he preached “all the coun­sel of God.” In oth­er words, the Apostle did not pick and choose to preach only the por­tions of the Bible that were pleas­ant to all peo­ple and tick­led the ears. He preached God’s entire Word, regard­less of how dire or stern it may have seemed to his audi­ence. This is because it is essen­tial for all peo­ple to real­ize their sin before God. All peo­ple (this author includ­ed) are sin­ners – the Bible makes this clear: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glo­ry of God..” (Romans 3:23). Conviction of that sin is what can lead a per­son to under­stand that they need a Savior. And that Savior is The Lord Jesus Christ.

If a per­son lives their lives vio­lat­ing God’s Word and hav­ing no remorse or repen­tance for that sin, then they could nev­er feel a need for for­give­ness. And thus their hearts reject God’s mes­sage. And this is pre­cise­ly what Jakes was pro­mot­ing by encour­ag­ing those in the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty to attend church­es that affirm their world­view. This is the clear sign of a heretic and false teacher. In the same pas­sage of Acts 20 where Paul admon­ish­es his dis­ci­ples to preach “all the coun­sel of God” he fol­lowed that up with a grave warn­ing:“For I know this, that after my depart­ing shall griev­ous wolves enter in among you, not spar­ing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speak­ing per­verse things, to draw away dis­ci­ples after them. Therefore watch, and remem­ber, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.” (Acts 20:29 – 31). The “wolves” in ques­tion were false teach­ers pre­sent­ing them­selves as “strong Christian preach­ers” but who in fact were teach­ing hereti­cal, unbib­li­cal doc­trines, like Jakes.
Beginning and End has already exam­ined the wild­ly unbib­li­cal Prosperity Gospel doc­trine of Jakes as well as his New Age teach­ing series he led with Oprah Winfrey. So it is of lit­tle sur­prise that when pressed on the issue of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty (some­thing you will nev­er hear Jakes or any mega-church tele­vi­sion pas­tor preach on), he offered up such a sin­ful response.

The Bible and Homosexuality

And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the begin­ning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and moth­er, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What there­fore God hath joined togeth­er, let not man put asun­der. – The Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 19:3 – 6.

The Word of God is clear that homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is a sin. God’s order for inti­mate rela­tion­ships is for a man to be mar­ried to one woman for life. And what this means for a gay per­son enter­ing the church is that like every­one else who is attend­ing, they have to be ready to put God’s Word and desires before their own. The Christian life is one of sur­ren­der. It is a sub­mis­sion to God’s Holy and per­fect will, even if we do not ful­ly com­pre­hend it.

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked for­sake his way, and the unright­eous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mer­cy upon him; and to our God, for he will abun­dant­ly par­don. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nei­ther are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heav­ens are high­er than the earth, so are my ways high­er than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:6 – 9.

The Lord’s think­ing and plans are well beyond those of cor­rupt human­i­ty. So while it may seem hard to under­stand the rea­son­ing behind some of the Bible, it does not negate its truth. What helps a per­son under­stand the Bible and God bet­ter is receiv­ing the Spirit of God. This is what occurs when a per­son believes in Jesus Christ’s sac­ri­fice for the for­give­ness of their sins. Their old spir­it, cor­rupt­ed with the sin nature all peo­ple pos­sess, dies. And it is replaced by a new spir­it, giv­en from God, that seeks to please The Lord. At the same time, that new­ly regen­er­at­ed Christian is still liv­ing in the flesh body we are all born with. And that body still con­tains the sin nature. And thus a Christians spir­it is con­stant­ly at war with the flesh. The Lord Jesus Christ said: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temp­ta­tion: the spir­it indeed is will­ing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41).

So the chal­lenge for a per­son in any kind of sex­u­al sin is sim­ple: are you will­ing to give up your own desires and seek to obey The Lord? This is what a true, Christian pas­tor should be advis­ing with respect to how any group can “get along” with the church. The book of Galatians describes this chal­lenge in the Christian life:

I am cru­ci­fied with Christ: nev­er­the­less I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave him­self for me… This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not ful­fil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lus­teth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are con­trary the one to the oth­er: so that ye can­not do the things that ye would. – Galatians 2:20; 5:16 – 17.

Note that T.D. Jakes says noth­ing about this. He does not even quote the Scriptures at all in answer­ing this ques­tion. Instead he offered answers that dis­tract­ed from the very direct ques­tions being asked to him. Jakes then fur­ther showed his apos­ta­sy by say­ing the issue of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty should be addressed “behind closed doors” and that the issue of “sex­u­al­i­ty ver­sus spir­i­tu­al­i­ty” was com­plex “in the Bible days.” Jakes accused the Apostle Paul of strug­gling with issues of sex­u­al­i­ty and bases this on a ref­er­ence to 1 Corinthians 11 and the admo­ni­tion for women to have a “cov­er­ing” on their heads – a ref­er­ence to both the lit­er­al veils women wore at that time in pub­lic and the metaphor­i­cal “cov­er” that a man has as an author­i­ty fig­ure over a woman. This pas­sage has noth­ing to do what­so­ev­er with sex­u­al­i­ty. And nowhere is there any indi­ca­tion that the Apostle Paul “strug­gled” to write this pas­sage. 2 Timothy 3:16 says:

All scrip­ture is giv­en by inspi­ra­tion of God, and is prof­itable for doc­trine, for reproof, for cor­rec­tion, for instruc­tion in right­eous­ness: That the man of God may be per­fect, thor­ough­ly fur­nished unto all good works. – 2 Timothy 3:16 – 17.

To say Paul “strug­gled” with his writ­ing is to imply that the Scriptures were not divine­ly inspired. Jakes con­tin­ued his incor­rect inter­pre­ta­tion of the Bible by say­ing Paul “grap­pled” with these issues and we are “grap­pling with them now.” This is what the Apostle Paul, by inspi­ra­tion of the Holy Spirit, wrote about homosexuality:

Wherefore God also gave them up to unclean­ness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dis­hon­our their own bod­ies between them­selves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and wor­shipped and served the crea­ture more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affec­tions: for even their women did change the nat­ur­al use into that which is against nature: And like­wise also the men, leav­ing the nat­ur­al use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward anoth­er; men with men work­ing that which is unseem­ly, and receiv­ing in them­selves that rec­om­pence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowl­edge, God gave them over to a repro­bate mind, to do those things which are not con­ve­nient; – Romans 1:24 – 28.

There is no grap­pling or strug­gle with the issues. Paul calls gay inti­ma­cy “against nature” and the prod­uct of rebel­lion against God. For Jakes to incor­rect­ly char­ac­ter­ize Paul’s words demon­strates that he either does not under­stand the Bible or is will­ing to spout all man­ner of heresy just to avoid hav­ing to say that homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is a sin.
The inter­view­er was clear­ly not sat­is­fied with Jakes’ attempts at deflec­tion and invit­ed him to come back again for anoth­er sit down to dis­cuss the issue fur­ther. It was quite appar­ent that Jakes was not going to answer the real ques­tion being posed: Was he ready to declare that homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is no longer a sin?

The “Joel Osteen Backtrack”

Soon after the inter­view Jakes received crit­i­cism from Christian blogs for his state­ments. And Jakes issued a post on Facebook to “clar­i­fy” his remarks.

Read more here :http://begin​ningan​dend​.com/​a​p​o​s​t​a​s​y​-​a​l​e​r​t​-​t​-​d​-​j​a​k​e​s​-​g​r​a​p​p​l​e​s​-​w​i​t​h​-​c​a​l​l​i​n​g​-​h​o​m​o​s​e​x​u​a​l​i​t​y​-​a​-​s​in/