Simple Faith

Guest (Male): Hello and welcome to Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry, coming to you from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Today we bring you Pastor Bill's weekly prophecy update. He'll be taking a look at current events and he's going to share how they relate to end times prophecy we read in the Bible. Obviously there's a lot going on in the world, so let's get right to it. Here's Pastor Bill.

Bill Henry: Well hello and welcome once again to Simple Faith Radio. What a blessing it is to be here with you today once again. So many things happening within the world. We have the Southern Baptist coming together this weekend to try and talk about women being pastors, which is completely unbiblical, and teaching over men on Sundays and other places within the church services and things. It’s just a really sad thing and I pray that they don't embrace that.

It's interesting that those who are embracing that and the women that are supporting it, they don't bring up biblical—they’ll say, "Oh, it's very biblical." I saw a billboard sign just today trying to get people there to vote for women being pastors, saying, "Oh, women were pastors and preaching in the Bible." I was like, no, not one place you can point to specifically in the New Testament and in the church which Jesus Christ founded. He is the rock, the solid rock, and no women teaching throughout the New Testament over men and asserting authority over men within the church. It's just not there.

I've looked top to bottom, sideways, deaconesses and prophetesses, and nothing except when people add on to the Word of God. "Well, of course, it meant this." No, we don't do that. We don't add on to the Word of God. And so again, we see that's part of the great falling away of the church. It's very simple to see as we firmly believe we're living in the last days as we look around. And I mean the last of the last days. Even if it's another 50 years, 100 years, which I don't think it's going to be that long, I think Jesus could come at any moment for the church.

Again, another sign, the rapture is going to be another sign of the second coming of Christ. And that will precede the coming of the seven-year tribulation. And we should always be watching, always be ready. And this week, some more wickedness coming in. We see as it was in the days of Noah, as it was in the days of Lot, just as Jesus said many times when He was talking about His second coming. Specifically, He says in Luke 17, "As it was in the days of Noah," and He goes on to say, "Likewise as also as it was in the days of Lot."

Now the main application there is that they're clueless. They were drinking, they were buying and selling and planting and building. And then when Lot went out of the city of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone and destroyed them all. So that's the main application, but also the other applications are clear to see. In the days of Noah, there was sexual debauchery, there was demonic activity and wickedness. Men and women just basically doing what was right in their own eyes. And then the same in the days of Lot. Sodom was an extremely wicked place.

Jude says this about it, "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire." And I say that because now we have the world once again celebrating Pride Month. Now it's not just Pride Day. It's a very wicked thing by the way, even to celebrate pride. The Bible is very clear, Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before the fall."

Now what's even worse to me is when professing Christians will say, "Hey, we should embrace this. We should because we're to be tolerant, we're to be loving, that's what Christianity is all about." Can I just say, if that's you and you're hearing this today, you're completely missing the boat. In other words, you're believing in a Christianity that's in your own mind or made up in somebody else's mind and you're just buying into it. We have to come back to the one place that doesn't change.

The one place that all mainline Christian denominations agree, all Christians agree that the Bible is the Word of God. And if you believe that, and you should if you're a Christian—if you don't believe that, I don't believe you can be a Christian. I truly don't because that's where faith comes by hearing and hearing what? By the Word of God. That is the divine revelation that we have today. Yes, nature declares the glory of God. Romans chapter 1 and even into chapter 2, it talks about the conscience that God has given us.

But He is in these last days, in Hebrews chapter 1, spoken to us through His Son. And that is given to us by His Word. These 66 books, breathed by God's Holy Spirit through some 40 authors. And what we call the Bible. And so when we look today at what's happening and we see the falling away of the church as we go more and more off into, "Well let's have women be pastors," and all these different things. Completely unbiblical. Again, what are we doing? We're ignoring the Word of God.

So too when the church embraces homosexuality. Well we're just trying to be nice and this and that. Well you're not called to be nice, we're called to be holy. And we're called to be real with people. It's not nice by the way to tell someone who is a homosexual, who is practicing homosexuality or transgenderism or some other ism, any of the LGBTQ on and on it goes. It's not nice to say, "Hey, it's okay, God loves you just as you are."

Yes, He loves them, but He loves them enough to not leave them where they are. He doesn't allow us to identify with our sin. And again, this whole pride thing as we're forced to celebrate this for a month. Another reason by the way to get your kids out of school, get them into home schools. If you don't know what to do, you know what? Contact us here at Simple Faith. We have a ministry that helps get people set up in home schools for free. In other words, how to do it, what do I do?

You can go to our website, simplefaith.org, and follow the links there and we'll get you some information on how to do that and to get set up because they're going to be exposed, our kids, our poor kids to this wickedness within the schools for—and by the way, it's never just a month. And the mayor of New York just said I think yesterday, "Oh, we need so much more than a month." And now remember, he's Muslim. And for him to say anything about homosexuals, "Oh, we need more than a month," we know something else is going on there.

Because if you go to any Muslim country that is practicing Islam, they take homosexuals and throw them off the roof. And it's wicked, it's terrible, and we're not for that in any way, shape, or form. It's a sin just like any other sin. But it's really sad because they call this Pride Month. And again, we know what the Bible says in Proverbs 16:18, as we said earlier, "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall." Homosexuality is not something to be prideful of, nor is watching pornography all the time, nor is getting drunk, nor outbursts of wrath.

Let's have an outburst of wrath month. Let's have a drunkard month. Let's have a pornography month. And on and on it goes. But that's the way the world is going and that's what God said would happen in the last days. But here's the thing, guys and gals, be extra careful not to embrace it. Remember, it's interesting again that they call it a Pride Month. And they even have the audacity to use the rainbow which, again, as it was in the days of Noah—have you ever put that together?

That all of a sudden they're embracing the rainbow as it was in the days of Noah, the rainbow promising God's promise from God that He wouldn't destroy the earth again with a flood. But again, what brought about that rainbow was debauchery, was sexual immorality, was demonic activity. Men and women just living as their own gods, basically. And it's a wicked, wicked thing. And we need to understand that God said that it would be like this in Luke chapter 17.

And we're not to embrace homosexuality in the world, in our culture, nor within the church. Look guys and gals, as I was talking about earlier, it's not nice, it's not loving to tell somebody, "Oh yes, it's fine. Just you stay in your homosexuality, you stay in your transgenderism and deceit and it's fine with God." It's not fine with God. As a matter of fact, it's called sin in the Bible, all throughout the Bible.

And I just wanted to clarify something too because you keep hearing, and I really do, I think it's inspired by doctrines of demons. I remember years ago, gosh, over 30 years ago now, basically having a debate with someone in the newspaper, a local newspaper asked me to write an article about homosexuality, what the Bible says. And some other lady came on and she was the pastor of another church. And again, that tells you right there that she's already in rebellion.

So she was also in rebellion to God's Word in what it says about homosexuality. And we need to understand the Bible's very clear. And she would say, "Well once you get down into the Greek, it actually is—it's not really homosexuality, it's some other thing." What are they saying today? "Well it's not really homosexuality, it's where they're talking about people who like little kids." And it's just lies after lies after lies and deception.

"Well, do you read the Greek?" Actually, yes I do. "Well, what about—do you know how to get into the apocrypha and all the different things?" And it's like, I don't go too much into the apocrypha, but sure. And they try to throw all these red herrings out instead of dealing with what the Bible says. And so we need to understand, guys and gals, it's even described in Romans chapter 1: "Therefore God gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies amongst themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed evermore, Amen."

"For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise the men, leaving the natural use of a woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which is due." So even here, it's interesting in Romans 1, it doesn't even use the word homosexual. It's sexual immorality and wickedness and unrighteousness.

But it doesn't use that specific word. Instead, it just describes what a homosexual is. It's a woman exchanging the natural use against its nature. It's a man leaving the natural use of a woman, burning in lust for one another, men committing what is shameful with men. So then you can go to 1 Corinthians chapter 6: "But you yourselves wrong and defraud, even your own brother." In verse 9 it says, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

The Bible's very clear about this, guys and gals. And especially as Christians, professing Christians, being Christians, disciples of Christ, we are to give people God's Word. And the beautiful thing is, yes, that is a sin. Homosexuality is a sin. Pride, by the way, is a sin. And so you see all these things coming together as wickedness and sinfulness. We cannot be part of that if we truly love people. If we truly love God first, we will not embrace sin, any sin.

Notice again even as it goes on to say there in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, that we won't embrace stealing, we won't embrace the greedy or adulterers or other sexual immorality or idolaters or the greedy or drunkards or revilers or swindlers, etc., liars. All these people, it says if you practice these things, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. And that includes those who practice homosexuality. So again, we cannot celebrate this. We should not celebrate this. And we tell the people the truth.

Now one other lie I've heard about homosexuality over the years is, "Well, they did not have the word homosexual in the Bibles until the 1940s and this and that." Well, duh. I mean, sincerely. But a lot of people go, "Oh, wow. So it was homophobia that did—" no. My goodness, no, no, no. There was no such word that existed. It didn't exist until the late 1880s. And even then it wasn't used in the national language in English until the 1930s and 1940s.

Homosexuality was put together by psychiatrists and psychologists as they came together in the late 1880s and they had to come up with a word for this mental disorder. And that's what they called it back then, a mental disorder. Again, it's interesting how all of a sudden, even with psychology back then, they'd start to describe sin as mental disorders, right? And so it would be this dysphoria. It's kind of what they say even with transgenderism.

And the Bible does say that a man is not to dress like a woman or a woman like a man. And that is not putting on pants for a woman or a guy putting on—it's about sex, that whole thing. And so if you're doing it for sexual gratification, you're not to dress like a man, like a woman if you're of the opposite. So again, the Bible's very clear about these things. And we're not to celebrate them. We're to give people the truth of the Word of God.

Why? Well, just to condemn them because we hate them because they're, that's just gross, you know. No, no, no, no, no. Look, and I know people who profess to be Christian and they'll call homosexuals all kinds of names. That is, to be honest, I think that's more wicked than someone who's committing homosexuality. I really do. If you in the name of Jesus Christ are calling people names that practice any sin, including homosexuality, you're calling them names, that kind of shows me that you probably don't have the Spirit of God living within you.

Because that's not what Jesus did, it's not what Paul did, it's not what Peter did, it's not what Moses did, none of them. Why? Because God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And you see He goes on to say that the Son didn't come to condemn the world because the world was already condemned. You see, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. If you look at other people, and in this context homosexuals, and you make fun of them, you are committing a very wicked sin. You are basically misrepresenting God.

We had a fellow come to our fellowship for a while and I never heard this from him, but other people told me that they thought he was homophobic because he would say things sometimes about homosexuals. And the same guy came out later and said, "Oh, our church used to teach this." And again, it's a complete lie. If anything, I always taught against this because we have to be careful. Yes, we speak up against the sin, but we are not their judge. God is their judge.

We tell them what God's Word says. We tell them what the result if they continue to practice their sin, if they do not repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ that He died on the cross for our sins. Believe that God raised Him from the dead on the third day. Believe in Jesus now to be the Lord and Savior of our lives and then born again of the Spirit of God. By grace through faith, then we will not inherit the kingdom of God. We remain in our sins. The Bible says the wrath of God still abides on us.

So I want to encourage you. It's interesting because Paul goes on here in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, he tells them flee sexual immorality, flee from it and every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. And do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit with whom you have from God? So this is talking to those who are Christians claiming to be Christians. We need to flee from sexual immorality, not embrace it.

So when people are around us are celebrating Pride Month this week, we should be in our prayer closets even more. We should be fasting even more. We should be speaking out the Word of God even more and letting people know, yes, this is a sin. This is what God says is sin. We cannot embrace it. But here's the beautiful thing: Jesus died for all of our sins upon the cross. All we need to do is turn away from them. The Bible calls that repentance. And to Jesus Christ.

Receive the free gift of God of salvation by grace through faith and be saved. And by the way, we are saved from our sin, not into our sin. We don't identify anymore as, "Well now I'm a Christian, I'm a homosexual Christian. I'm a drunkard Christian. I'm a fornicating Christian. I'm a pornography-watching Christian." No, you're a brand new creation in Jesus Christ. And remember that. You have been born again of the Spirit of God.

All those things gloriously left behind because remember all these sins, they are chains. They are weights. They hold us down. And Christ releases us, He sets us free from that old slave master of sin. How glorious it is that we don't have to commit these sins any longer. I just thank God that I've been freed from my sins. Now it doesn't mean I'll be perfect. We all still sin. Read 1 John chapter 1. Read Romans chapters 5 and 6 and 7. We all still sin.

But we should be sinning less and less because we are being conformed into the image of Jesus Christ as we're working out our salvation with fear and trembling and God is working in and through us for His good pleasure. Conforming us into the image of Jesus Christ. The Bible calls this sanctification. And the more that we're sanctified, we should sin less and less and less. And by the way, the more sanctified we get, the grosser our even small sins become to us.

Look, as we're getting ready to close again today, I just want to encourage you that as the world is celebrating Pride Month and homosexuality and all these other sins that go along with it, may we be those weeping for salvation. May we be those bold in our faith in Jesus Christ, speaking out seeking to bring as many as we can—just the gospel of Jesus Christ. And sometimes you'll just be watering, sometimes you'll be planting seed. You may get to partake of a harvest. Praise God for that.

But be the light, be the salt that we are. Don't hide your light, don't put it under a basket, but set it up on a hill that all may see and may come to saving faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Christians, don't back down. Don't be mean, don't be a jerk for Jesus, but let's be bold in our faith. And yes they will hate us. But even in the midst of their hate may we show love, grace, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding by the power of the Spirit of God.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, make His face shine upon you. And as I always like to say, we'll see you here, there, or in the air. God bless you.

Guest (Male): This has been Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Today we brought you Pastor Bill's weekend prophecy update. It's our sincere hope and prayer that you've been blessed by the words you heard from Pastor Bill today. If you'd like to hear today's message again, go to oneplace.com and search for Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry. We also have a large number of Pastor Bill's Sunday and Wednesday messages archived at simplefaith.org. That's our website. Just go there and click the media tab and you'll find a huge archive of Pastor Bill's past messages. And if you'd like to contact us, just click the contact tab at our website, again at simplefaith.org. And there's a tab at the top of the homepage where you can also send in a prayer request. And if you'd like to call us, our phone number is area code 833-BY-GRACE. That's 833-294-7223. And if you'd like to write us, we love hearing from you that way as well. Our mailing address is Post Office Box 55, Battle Ground, Washington, 98604. Here at Simple Faith Calvary Chapel, we have three services on Sunday morning at 8:00, 9:45, and 11:30. We also have a great time of study in God's Word on Wednesday night at 7:00. For more information and directions, go to simplefaith.org. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks for joining us today, be sure to join us next time here on Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry, brought to you by Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington.