Tuesday, May 15, 2018

The United Methodist Church Has Much More to Be Concerned About Than a Way Forward!

NOTE: The following was posted on the UM Clergy group of which I am a member, my timeline at Facebook and has been sent to the bishop and the ten superintendents of the W. PA Annual Conference. It is also being posted here at my blog, Musings of a Maverick. As might be expected, a lot of flak came by way of response in the UM Clergy group! Got to admit that those people know how to load, lock and quickly fire! In United Methodist circles these days you will find just about anything by way of "belief" -- the practices of sodomy and lesbianism are morally acceptable and actually a very good thing! There is no God of wrath and judgment, no Satan, no Hell and because "we are all the children of God," everyone is going to Heaven!

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As we prattle on about the Way Forward debacle, the greater tragedy beyond this is massive failure to recognize that our republic is perched on the very threshold of God’s undiluted wrath being poured out on us in well-deserved judgment! There are some solid reasons for this as we have chosen to travel the same road to disaster as did the Israelites in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

Our widespread shedding of innocent blood as a result of the intentional homicides of over 60 million unborn children alone qualifies us to be recipients of God’s judgmental wrath! The UMC and its leadership have chosen to be rather silent about this abomination.

Our culture with enthusiastic support from a number of denominations has given God the infamous obscene gesture in response to His clearly revealed and defined boundaries regarding human sexuality. The prominent philosophy for some time has been, “Sex is fun with anyone or more than one anyone at the same time, anywhere and at any time!” The reality of this is demonstrated by an international pornography industry growing faster than a raging cancer out of control!

Given the acceptance of sexual immorality and abominations that have taken place in recent years the time may not be all that far off when John Doe will approach a member of the clergy with marriage license in hand and ask that the pastor marry him and his Holstein heifer, Petunia. Think not? How can we object when John says they are committed to each other, love each other and have been monogamous since they first met! Isn’t that the reasoning that has been used for years, even in heterosexual and same-sex relationships? Some of us never believed a few years ago that the day would come when two sodomites or two lesbians would approach a pastor with marriage license in hand and request that he/she do their wedding!

We have become a culture that is polluted with idolatry and driven with the pursuit of pleasures of every possible kind. Less than half our population of over 323 million people can find its way into a place of worship on Sunday. That qualifies us to be a nation of heathen rather than a nation where the vast majority fear and seek to be obedient to the living God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ!

It is not a matter of whether Almighty God is going to bring judgment on the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” but how soon it will happen! And when it happens the dominant question will be about the same as in the days of the ancient Israelites when judgment was about to take place as recorded in the book of Jeremiah. “And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?” [Jeremiah 16:10 (KJV)].

“To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.” [Jeremiah 6:10 (KJV)].

“And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord GOD.” [Ezekiel 22:30-31 (KJV)].

BY Clayton D. Harriger, ordained elder, W. PA Annual Conference
The United Methodist Church
May 12, 2018 Belsano PA