I Serve a Tolerant God
When Phil Robertson spoke out in an interview with GQ magazine about his views and what the Bible clearly says concerning homosexuality the LGBT community reared their intolerant, hypocritical, vitriolic ugly heads to complain about the intolerant personal views of a Christian and reality show television personality. The fallout led A&E (Arts &Entertainment Network) to suspend the Duck Dynasty patriarch from future production (I’m sure he’s crushed, being the fragile, delicate soul that he is).
So let me get this straight… The LGBT community can run around flaunting their lifestyle, behavior, opinion, and agenda and we must be tolerant. Which means we have to sit back and let them have their way without being allowed to share or advance our lifestyle, behavior, opinion or agenda. Do they honestly not see the hypocrisy and double standard of their intolerance?
Personally I am 1) a Christian, 2) an American, 3) a fiscal conservative, and 4) a social libertarian. How people want to live their lives is a God given matter of free moral agency. It always has been. My duty as a Christian is to fear God and keep His commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13). I must worry about my self, my life, and my own responsibilities (1 Timothy 4:16); I cannot control what anyone else says or does. But I do have a God given obligation to be a light to those around me (Matthew 5:14–16) and to preach and teach the Word of God to a lost and dying world (Matthew 28:18–20; 2 Timothy 4:2).
Now before I go any further let me stop you right there. Don’t give me that whole, “You can’t judge me” nonsense. Those who try to use Matthew 7:1 to silence any criticism simply show their ignorance of what the Bible really says concerning our making judgments. In fact, we are required to make righteous judgments (John7:24); we are to beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15), and we are to “mark” and “avoid” the divisive and the false teacher (Romans 16:17). No the “You can’t judge me” crowd doesn’t know the Bible any more than those who claim that there are “true Christians” who support and practice homosexuality.
What I will not do, what I cannot do (as Phil Robertson said), is condemn you! It is God’s job to condemn, not mine. Your salvation or condemnation is between you and Him! My job is to love you (Matthew 5:44) and to tell you the truth (Galatians 4:16). So here it is…I serve a tolerant God.
God tolerated the wickedness of man for years before mankind became so corrupt that He destroyed the earth with a flood (Genesis 6; 1 Peter 3:20). God tolerated the sin that defiled the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19). Paul posed the question in Romans 9:22–24, “What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?” And God is longsuffering with us “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
But God’s tolerance is not without righteous judgment and consequence. The wicked before the Flood were destroyed, but the righteous were saved (1 Peter 3:20). The wicked of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed while He promised to saved the cities is only ten righteous could be found. Nonetheless he saved the righteous (2 Peter 2:7). He cut off the sick branches of Israel, but he grafted in the healthy branches of the Gentiles (Romans 11).
One day Jesus is going to return and the final Judgment will commence! All men will be judged and go into eternity. The dead will be raised and “those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:29). Those are the words of Jesus and His words are what will judge us in that day (John12:48).
Yes, I serve a tolerant God. He calls all men to come but gives every one of us the choice to believe and obey or deny and rebel. He is a tolerant God but He is also a God of goodness and severity (Romans 11:22). He sent His Son to die for you (John 3:16) and die He did so that you and I might have the freedom to serve God and not sin. God loves you and wants you to be saved. Me too! That is why I will continue to serve a tolerant God and be just as tolerant as He is. But those who refuse to live in accordance with His Word will not silence me!