Ask Sam: 20 Years of Gay Marriage
May 31, 2024
Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett
Co-host: Hon. Sam Rohrer
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program originally aired on May 31, 2024. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning this dialogue.
Isaac Crockett: Hello, and thank you for listening to our program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and my co-host today is the regular host of this program, the Honorable Sam Rohr, the president of the American Pastors Network. And Sam, as you and I both know, we are getting ready for the month of June and that is an interesting time for a lot of Americans as all kinds of businesses and things start promoting Gay Pride month. And there’s all kinds of things about that, although it has been interesting this year to see some stores and department stores and such that are actually scaling back their celebration of gay pride because last year there were so many people boycotting how far they took it. But before we even get into that month, there is something that’s interesting that I came across this month of May and that is that this is the 20th anniversary of when a gay marriage or same-sex marriage was officially sanctioned, legalized, as they call it, by a state, although it was really a court decision in Massachusetts. And so I want to ask you some questions about that. But before I go into asking you questions, I just want to listen to a little clip from WWLP 22 News out of Massachusetts. So Tim, could you go ahead and play that clip reminding us that this is the 20th anniversary of gay marriage,
Speaker 2: Also new this morning. Today marks two decades since same-sex marriage was legalized here in Massachusetts. The Goodridge versus Department of Public Health ruling was a historic moment. Some of the plaintiffs in that case were from western Massachusetts. Heidi and Gina Norton Smith from North Hampton were one of seven couples who sued the saint back in 2001. Nationwide, same-sex marriage was legalized in 2016.
Isaac Crockett: So Sam, we think about 2016 being when same-sex marriages were officially allowed right under still at the end of Obama era. But I remember 2004 pretty well because even though it’s 20 years ago, that’s the year the summer that I got married. And so there were several things going on even that year, even before Massachusetts. There was a city in California and I don’t think it would surprise anybody that the city was San Francisco. San Francisco had a mayor, a very liberal slash progressive mayor trying to kind of prove himself and get in the spotlight, in my opinion. And he told the clerks there to allow gay marriages to be signed there in San Francisco all the way back in February of 2004. That mayor wanting to be in the spotlight is none other than Gavin Newsom, the infamous Gavin Newsom governor of California. And then of course Massachusetts, the state judiciary weighed in on this court case that we just heard mentioned in that clip and they said that it had to be allowed that these weddings or marriage certificates had to be.
Isaac Crockett: So Sam, before we get into more specifics and look at 20 years later what has happened, what has not happened, maybe I just want to kind of take this time machine with you and go back to a 20 years younger Sam Rohr in office in Pennsylvania. I’m curious what your reaction was back in 2004, but then there have been a number of people, even professing Christians or conservatives, that they’ve changed their tune, they’ve changed their mind in the last 20 years. So I’d just be kind of curious, what was your mindset 20 years ago and has that changed at all since then?
Sam Rohrer: Well, Isaac, 20 years ago, well not 20 years ago, but in 2004 for me, I had been in office at that point 12 years. I can recall 2004 because it was a significant event, alright, in regard to marriage. But as on that clip you just displayed, they referred to it as an historic event At that point, I can tell you I did not respond to it as an historic event, as in an historically good event. I did recognize that as another step in the systematic dismantling, I’m going to put it that way of marriage because when I was in the Pennsylvania House in the nineties, we were beginning to talk about a number of issues relative to marriage itself. And as you and I talked about a little before in the program, we have been witnessing as a culture, a systematic slow. I think it sped up dismantling of the institution of marriage.
Sam Rohrer: The first thing I got involved in was this whole issue of what we called no fault divorce. That seemed like a very old thing, but it was 1969 again in California that then Governor Reagan signed the law permitting no fault divorce. And it had to do with because of his wife, Jane Wyman, his first wife. And that’s the one thing that President Reagan then looked back on and said was his worst political mistake he ever made because that opened up the door for a way that marriage could be dissolved for what effectively became any reason. Then it has moved over time to this time in 2004 in Massachusetts where now, alright, we’re going to begin to redefine marriage and then that has only changed as we’ve gone along. So as I look back, I look back over to continuum of time, that marriage, what it was once at one point began to change, let people out of the commitment, change the commitment and then change the commitment for no reason at all for any reason. You can dissolve to now redefining marriage and ultimately bringing it up to the date where today we’re only actually a very small percentage of people 25 years at age, so are even getting married, period.
Isaac Crockett: Same. I think it’s really interesting because something we do a lot on here is look back at definitions and if we can change the definition then we can change the outcome of what we’re arguing about. So how important is it that we understand what marriage is and maybe just biblically what is marriage? Is it even up to the state to decide that definition?
Sam Rohrer: I think it’s a great place to go. Now again, we’re talking about this issue, Isaac and those who are watching listening, no, we do it from a biblical worldview perspective. Alright, why do we do that? Well, because if we look at this matter of marriage and start at the beginning in creation, you got to go all the way back to where God said a man leaves his wife, family cleaves unto his wife, they become a union. That was the creation of male, female, husband, wife at marriage circumstance. Now obviously there are different marriage customs throughout time, but the idea of man, woman, and from them children, that’s what God established at the beginning. And he only through time and through all of scripture reinforced never changed that. And so that’s where we start nations around the world, generally speaking, for wealthy throughout history, recognized male and female and as a marriage, so civil society, those that had any fear of God, our miracle was that one of them said, if we want to be blessed as a nation, we’re basically going to mirror in our laws, God’s moral laws. So what we had in this country forever up until these years back in 69 and then beyond that was always the way God defined it. When he define something other than what God defines, you get into big trouble.
Isaac Crockett: Well, that’s a great point Sam, and I want to get right into that point. When we come back, we’re going to take a timeout, listen to some of our partners, and we’re going to come back and say, can the Bible direct us on this topic? Because there are many people, including even some famous pastors and things that say the Bible speaks very softly about these sort of things or not at all when it comes to homosexual or same-sex marriage. So we’re going to take a quick time out. We’re going to be right back on staying in the gap today. Welcome back to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett, joined by the Honorable Sam Rohr, my co-host today. And we’ve been looking back 20 years ago, May, 2004, Massachusetts became the first state by order of the court to start allowing marriage licenses for same-sex couples. And as Sam you point out, they redefined marriage at that point.
Isaac Crockett: In fact, you said that there were other things all the way back to 1969 in California that helped redefine marriage and that was no fault. Divorce for example was an early thing that really was detrimental to it. But there have been a number of, well-known pastors, televangelists ministry leaders that have come out and they’ve said, well, I don’t want to talk about homosexuality or homosexual marriage, or they’ve come out saying, it’s okay, these two people love each other, love is love and this is good. At least they’re getting married and being faithful to one another. And many of them claim that, well, if the Bible talks about homosexuality, it’s in the Old Testament laws, we’re in the New Testament and things are different now. In fact, many of them will say that the New Testament really doesn’t talk about or talks very little about homosexuality, including one of the most common, as I would put accusations against the New Testaments.
Isaac Crockett: They said, well, Jesus never condemned homosexuality or Jesus didn’t say you couldn’t have homosexual marriage and so therefore I will not condemn it either. And so there are many pastors that say that and try to skirt this or don’t talk about it. But I am thankful for many Bible preaching pastors that say, no, wait, wait a minute here. The Bible does talk about this and one of the ones who often gets into this debate is Vodi Bachman. And in fact, I just want to play about a minute long clip here of him talking about this because he often preaches, he addresses this, talks about why it is important for us as Christians to understand what the Bible is saying about this. So Tim, could you go ahead and play the Vodi Bachman clip that we have on this topic?
Speaker 4: We just don’t know what to say, right? Well, here’s what you say. Number one, Jesus did address homosexuality. He addressed it in Matthew chapter five and in Matthew chapter 19 because in Matthew chapter five, in Matthew chapter 19, he addressed the issue of marriage. He rooted his understanding of marriage and the teaching in Genesis chapter two, the teaching in Genesis chapter two that gave us marriage between a man and a woman for the purposes of procreation, illustration and sanctification. He also made it very clear that what together God has joined together man cannot separate. In other words, God is the author of marriage, not man, therefore God is the one who defines marriage, not man. Therefore man does not have the right to introduce the concept of marriage number one, because by definition it’s not marriage, it’s another thing. And number two, because by definition it goes against what was created in Genesis chapter two. So Jesus did address homosexuality.
Isaac Crockett: All right, so Sam Vodi going back to Genesis like you did and showing that in Matthew five and in Matthew 19, Jesus took that genesis teaching very seriously, very literally. If Jesus took that literally it’s saying man and woman, male and female, husband and wife. So I guess my question to you is that instruction, do you think that this is enough for us to say no? Jesus was giving us an instruction about marriage or against gay marriage, and maybe you could explain going into some details of how that is a foundation to your belief on
Sam Rohrer: It. I can Isaac and I think actually Vadi did a great job listening to his whole presentation would be very instructive for our listeners, but but he did what I did and what we’ve talked about and what we talk about regularly when we have folks on from answers and genesis and then we say with a biblical worldview, if you have biblical worldview, then you have to go back to Genesis. And as he said, that is a presupposition, a biblical worldview. If a person says, I am a Christian, and therefore what the Bible says is important, and therefore what Jesus said is important, that’s all. If somebody is an atheist or an agnostic or a communist, they don’t care what the Bible says. They don’t care what Jesus says. But I do have a real problem with those who stand up and say, I am a Christian, but Jesus didn’t say what the Bible says.
Sam Rohrer: That’s a problem of a big of sort. So you go back to Genesis, it establishes it. God established that institution of marriage and as he said, so clearly God defined that institution of marriage, male, female, father, mother, purpose, children. Example of later we find out in scripture the church and Christ relationship and then instruction so that, and God says, you do what I do what I say, I’m going to bless you. So we know from empirical evidence throughout history that any nation that has intact families according to how God defines them, is always a stronger nation. And those who have weak families, have weak children, and you have therefore a weak nation that’s empirical, that’s historical. You can prove that even separate from what the Bible says. But when I go to this section of Matthew chapter five, and I’ve heard so many people say, well, Jesus did not say in there.
Sam Rohrer: When I read that over again, I go to Matthew chapter five 17 and I look and say, what does Jesus say? Well, Jesus said there do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets may mean the whole council of God, all of the contextual of the Old Testament. At that point, I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill or commit. And then I think what’s so interesting is that Jesus, in that sermon on the mound, Matthew five, he not only didn’t alter at all the Old Testament moral law or the creation model in my opinion as I read that he actually tightened the requirements by moving it from actions, which the 10 commandments were the limiting of the actions. If you violate these certain things, you steal somebody’s property, you murder some innocent person, civil government, civil authority was then to act upon that and carry out a just punishment.
Sam Rohrer: But Jesus in this passage went way beyond in verses 27 and 28 of that chapter. He said this in regard to this matter of marriage or relationship between male and female, he said, you have heard it said that you shall not commit adultery. Okay, now the people knew that’s man in a woman violating their marriage relationship. And then it expanded beyond unmarried people having sexual relations. But he said, but I say to you that everyone that looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. But then he also said the same thing, you may not be guilty of murder, but if you’re angry with somebody wrongly, you’re guilty of murder. He tightened the requirements of all of the 10 commandments. So one could say, well now, because Jesus did not say there that well a man because he didn’t say a man lusting after another man or a woman lusting after another woman or an adult lusting after multiple women or multiple men or lusting after a child.
Sam Rohrer: That whole adultery portion tightens up all of that you could say then, well, Jesus therefore was condoning polygamy because he didn’t talk about it there or he was condoning homosexuality because he didn’t mention it. He just said lusting, man, lusting after a women, or he was condoning bestiality because he didn’t mention it there. Or he was condoning adult abuse of children sexually because he didn’t mention that. But that would be so horrifically wrong that you could redefine anything in scripture, but Jesus covered the bases even tighter. That’s where I would go and say, yeah, we have less flexibility than more flexibility based on what Jesus said there.
Isaac Crockett: That’s a really good point. Well, we’ve had a number of folks in our program. I’m thinking of an associate pastor. We’ve had on and of our friend George Carneal, who’s written the book from Queer to Christ, and they used to be in the homosexual lifestyle, the LGBT movement, but they’ve rejected it and now they’re speaking out against it. And that reminds me of another New Testament passage. Paul writes to the Corinthians, this is the church at Corinth where there was a lot of things going on. Chapter one Corinthians six, starting verse nine. He says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers. So he’s going into some of these sexual sins that you were saying that Jesus was even addressing. Then he names two different things. He says, nor homosexuals nor sodomites.
Isaac Crockett: Now I’m reading from the new King James version. Some versions will lump that just into one word, homosexuals or something like that. But this is two separate words for different types of homosexual acts. One more passive, one more active, and then he goes on thieves, covet, just drunkard, revilers. Extortionists will not inherit the kingdom of God. But verse 11, he says, such were some of you now. It’s different. You’re washed, you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And by the spirit of God, that’s what rescues all of us from any of these sins, whether it’s idolatry or extortion or our pride, all of these things thinking that we can be God, that we don’t need God to have salvation. We need to be washed, sanctified, and justified through Lord Jesus Christ, the spirit of our God. But we’re almost out of time here. So Sam, just based on that, what do we say to people that we might know who are struggling with sins like homosexuality or pushing something like that? How do we address those people? Is there a possibility that they could ever come to know Christ?
Sam Rohrer: Well, there’s an absolute possibility that they come to know Christ because the verse you read makes us so clear. Some were some of you the power of Jesus to save a person from their sins, all of us who are sinners, and that was Jesus’s text or purpose in laying out the sermon of the mountain. He’s basically saying, you might be able to control your outside behaviors and do it actually pretty well, but I’m telling you, you’re still a sinner because you’ve thought these things in your heart. That was the point. But then Jesus said, regardless of how you’ve acted it out or you’ve thought in your heart coming in, confession, repentance of sin, Jesus can save that person. That’s the great hope.
Isaac Crockett: Amen. That is our hope. But for all of us, that is our hope through Jesus Christ, in Christ, Lord. Well, when we come back from this next break, I want to talk to Sam about some of the warnings that were issued 20 years ago. Pastors and others were making warnings. Now we have 20 years to see what has happened since then. So I think it’ll be interesting just to look back over those 20 years, see what has happened, what maybe has not happened. We’re going to be right back on it. Stand in the gap. Welcome back to our program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’m on with my co-host today, the Honorable Sam Rohr. We have been talking about looking back 20 years ago to May of 2004 when Massachusetts became the first state of the United States to legally issue marriage licenses for same sex marriages.
Isaac Crockett: And so we’ve been talking about that. But before we go back into questions and this Ask Sam Friday edition, I just want to highlight that if you enjoy listening to our program, maybe you listen on podcasts, a lot of you listening, maybe in your car, on the radio, however you listen to us, you can also watch Stand in the Gap. We have Stand in the Gap tv, which is on once a week, and it’s Sam and I as the co-host. And you can access all of that, even if you don’t even have a tv, you can get it through our app. All of this radio and TV is on our app Stand in the Gap app. Or you could go to our website and on our website you can find our YouTube channel. You can even go to YouTube and just look up Stand In the Gap Media, something like that.
Isaac Crockett: And you can find our YouTube channel. On our YouTube channel. We’ve had at least four conversations with George Carne. I referenced him in the last section segment of our program. And George grew up in a Christian home, a pastor’s home, and became very involved for about 25 years in the homosexual lifestyle. He authored the book from Queer to Christ and talks about his transformation and his salvation. And so I think those would be some very eye-opening. Very interesting TV programs for you to watch. Many other ones, and you can look at all, I think we’re over five years worth of television programs that have been done that you could watch on our YouTube channel, on our website, on our app, all of that, A lot of helpful places. Well, we’ve been talking about this idea of homosexual marriage, and Sam, you took us to Matthew chapter five and explained how Jesus takes us to the Old Testament law and says, it’s not just the actions that we were looking at in the Old Testament.
Isaac Crockett: It’s the heart. It’s the reason of why we do what we do. And later in that same sermon, he was preaching that in what we call the Sermon on the Mount. Later in that sermon, we get to Matthew chapter six, and Jesus teaches us that everything we do, we are to seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness of God. And when we do that, then we can thrive, then we can flourish as people say, because we’re doing things God’s way. We choose God. We recognize that we need Jesus Christ as our savior. We turn from our sins, we call that repentance, confessing our sins, accepting Jesus Christ. And we put first in our life the kingdom of God first in our life, trying to be righteous like Jesus Christ. And then we can flourish. Well, one of these areas that God tells us how to flourish is when it comes to our own bodies, how we do our bodies, we submit ourselves to him.
Isaac Crockett: And this, whether it’s marriage or any of the sexual sins that we’re tempted into, God tells us not to do that, but rather to seek his righteousness in order that we can flourish, that we can thrive. And so when people start trying to weaken marriage, as you talked about the very beginning, even from no fault divorce on down to redefining what it means, man and woman now means whatever. And so 20 years ago when these debates were raging, you went through this in the Pennsylvania State House and there were things done to try to define marriages between man and woman. And then eventually in 2016, those were overthrown too. But there were some warnings going on by pastors and Christians like yourself. And I think two of the main kind of groups of warnings that there were, one is that this LGBT movement is just getting started.
Isaac Crockett: They’re going to continue to want more and more and more. They want this marriage to be for them rather than just same-sex unions or something like that. They want marriage, but then they’re going to want something else. And then the second thing was you and many others were warning is that families would be weakened. It’s going to redefine what marriage is, therefore it will weaken marriage and weaken our families. So just fast forwarding now 20 years and looking back at that, I want to ask you some questions. But first I want to actually look at an article written by our friend, Ken Ham. You’ve been taking us back to Genesis already in this program and Ken Ham, president of Answers and Genesis, he discussed this in an article not too long ago. He calls, the title of it is not Just Acceptance, but coercion. Christians now being told to embrace gay marriage or else, and I’m just quoting from the beginning of his article, but he says that this tolerance in the name of tolerance, a growing number of Americans, including professing Christians have accepted gay marriage.
Isaac Crockett: And he goes on and he talks about they’re twisting these things. He legalizing these things forcing. He says now they want to force Bible believing Christians to accept such unions and reject their consciences, threatening punitive consequences. Some anti-Christian are demanding that believers not only acknowledge gay marriages as legitimate, but embrace them and celebrate them. And he goes on to really bemoan the fact that we’re losing First Amendment religious exercise as a result of this tolerance towards gay marriage. And he lists a lot of ways in that article that we’re being forced to celebrate gay marriages. So Sam, from what you are seeing as a working with the Pastor American Pastors Network and what you see in the media in our country is this a legitimate concern, are these legitimate observations that our friend Ken is pointing out about where we have been sliding because of gay marriage?
Sam Rohrer: He’s saying exactly what it is. And I think all of our, of us listening and watching to us right now know that that’s the case too. We’ve seen it anybody who, if you’re young in your twenties or in your teenage years, perhaps you wouldn’t have anything to compare against. But for those of us who are boomer age or in the forties and fifties, we have seen the changes. And it’s an interesting thing, Isaac, because from a biblical perspective, we know because we believe what God says that he says that if you do what I say the way I say it, God’s will, God’s way according to God’s word, the result will be blessing. But if you come up with another way, the result will be in our modern terms, dysfunction, and there are consequences to them. It’s interesting, I was looking at some articles here even going way back to the days of the no fault way back.
Sam Rohrer: There were those then I was reading some who were saying that, well, you know what, this is going not going to be so good. It’s going to open the floodgates. Well, were they right? 100%. And even some back in that. And after some of the years when things were beginning to change and coming up to the point where you have the different gay marriage part come into it, there were concerned then by people are saying, wait a minute, young children need firm adult leadership, particularly young men. There’s one quote I was reading, and they’re very right. Boys need good, strong male leadership. Well, if you don’t have a father in the home because he just jumped out and they got divorced because there was no reason to it or who knows what they say, oh, well, the experts back then said, oh, well those young children, they’re resilient.
Sam Rohrer: Children are always resilient. Those young boys, they will find another good male leader even though it’s not their dad in the home. Well, now we know, and Isaac, you’ve worked in the schools, you know that what they thought was a problem would be true. We have dysfunctional families. We now have to the point where 23, actually 23% of 25 5-year-old young women right now, 23% have never married. 25% of males that age have never married. If you compare that to years ago, it’s like half the number. But you’re moving up to the point where now those who actually engage in marriage, those numbers are way down. So the institution of marriage being weakened, those who way back when said, you opened the door, you’re going to have a problem. And they were ridiculed because they’re saying, nah, it’s not possible. Not in America, not with all these intact families, we have, nah.
Sam Rohrer: Well, now we’re looking back and saying these numbers and the indications of our children, frankly Isaac, even our birth rate, I read an article just the other day that the birth rate is now so far below replenishment level that western nations including here in the United States, if something does not change in regard to that will ultimately collapse because we cannot support ourself. The point being consequences of doing something, anything other than what God says is the alignment and the shape of marriage, male, female, husband, wife, committed to each other, children under them, raising them appropriately. Any change to that whatsoever, it moves from first functioning to dysfunctioning. And then it moves to what Ken Ham said where the culture actually says, wait a minute, you folks out there who believe the Bible and believe that God has a way that’s not acceptable anymore. You have to encourage and sanction anything that takes place. And that’s the point that he was making. And it is sad, but I think that’s where we truly are now.
Isaac Crockett: And so this is interesting now that we can look back. At the time people said, oh, love is love. Just let them get married. This will strengthen marriage because you have more people entering into marriage. You had a number of especially famous celebrities that said they were living together with a girlfriend or a boyfriend. They said, well, we’ll get married when everybody’s allowed to get married. So along comes 2004, Massachusetts allows that 2016, it’s federally allowed. And yet we see every year that overall the decline is continuing steadily less people getting married. Now you’re seeing less people having babies even. And so we’ve seen a decline. We have not seen an increase. We’ve seen a decline over the year. And yet that’s exactly what you and other people were worried about and warning about everybody from those in office to those in the pulpits warned about this, we are seeing much of this happening and we are seeing a lack of fatherly help in the homes.
Isaac Crockett: And it’s not just gay marriage. I think you’ve made that clear in this program, Sam. There are many things attacking the family, many things hitting the foundation of marriage, but this is one of the things that it has not helped it. So we’re going to take a brief time out, we want to come back for our final segment, wrap some things up and look at how we can be biblically loving towards all people, even those in the LGBT community, but biblically standing strong and affirming the truth no matter what. How do we do that? And we want to look at a couple of ways that maybe we can talk about that when we come back for our final segment on Stand in the Gap today. Welcome back. We’ve been asking Sam questions about really 20 years of seeing the first state recognize same-sex marriages, the state of Massachusetts 20 years ago, may of 2004.
Isaac Crockett: And Sam, I’ve mentioned on our program a guest that we’ve had on a number of times, radio and tv. George Carneal who grew up in a pastor’s home, went off into the homosexual lifestyle for about 25 years and came back to the Lord, got saved and is now speaking out about a lot of it. And he talks about differences. He talks about people who go out there just hating anybody in the homosexual community versus people like in his family who they loved him, but they never affirmed that what he was doing was right. They always affirmed the truth. They told him, we hate what you’re doing to yourself. You’re hurting yourself. You’re killing yourself. It’s a death style. It’s not a lifestyle. And we are going to love you enough to tell you the truth. And so Sam, there might be people listening right now, I’m sure we’re talking to somebody who has a child, a grandchild, a nephew, a niece who they’ve come out to them in this lifestyle or some other form of lifestyle that’s other than what the Bible teaches. Sam, how would you encourage Christians with a biblical worldview to respond in truth where we, I’m not going to lie about this. I’m not going to affirm something the Bible calls sin, but at the same time, to love that person that they know that’s in this lifestyle.
Sam Rohrer: Isaac, I think you just summed it up when it comes to what we’re talking about or any aspect of life, I’m going to broaden that to any aspect of life because the Bible speaks to all issues of life. We talk about that regularly now. We’re talking about family today, the institution of marriage created there in Genesis two, God’s pattern, male female marriage, children. Well then God gives a pattern for how to train up the children in the ways of God. And he said, now, if you do this, then these are the things that will happen. Blessings will come your way. And he also told children along the way, honor your parents and your life will be long on the earth. And he gave these fences, these guidelines, not to harm us, but to help us. And not to bring judgment, but to counter it, bring life in Deuteronomy, we’ve talked many times, but these things of which the concept of marriage and the concept of duty in responsibility and faithfulness of husband to wife and father in the home to understand he’s the child’s first view of God himself.
Sam Rohrer: And the way that the wife puts herself under authority, though equal and standing before God, but under authority to the husband, is the picture of Christ and the church and the concept of love and sacrifice. All of these things which are so necessary. And everybody listening to me right now, you know what I’m talking about. We want love. We know that it doesn’t just happen. We know that we have to work at these things. But what is the model? God’s model, Isaac? And I think what’s our response in all of these things is that has a way prescribed for all of living for the individual and how we should live for the family and how they should live for the Father and how he should treat his wife and his children for the mom and how she and the children. But it also is for the church and how those in church should function.
Sam Rohrer: And God also has the requirements for government, the institutions that he has created. God never didn’t put us out here with no direction. He gave us a roadmap for all of these. If we do what he says, even though sometimes we do not understand it, it will always produce the results that God set. Now, in the case of what we’re talking about here, those in this culture that says, well, male can love male and female, can love female, and we can turn upside down, don’t have to have marriage. Alright, how do we deal with that? Well, if we understand what God says, we must never deter from the standards that God has laid out. That’s number one. No compromise is allowable on what God has clearly defined. That’s number one. Number two, we can never sanction or endorse any action of anybody regardless of who they are, child, neighbor, anybody, if it is contrary to what God says.
Sam Rohrer: But underneath all of this, to understand that we live in a sinful world and people sinned because they’re sinners. But that’s what Jesus Christ came to correct. God so loved the world, he said His only begotten son, Jesus Christ, salvation through faith. And that can, if a person responds and says, God’s way is better, my way does not work. I agree with God, with what he says about heaven, about hell, about life, eternal. When that happens, Isaac, then things change. So that’s what George Carne described about his father. His father was always very clear, George, this is what the Bible says, and this is how I must act because I believe the Bible. I want the best for you. But he was always ready to receive him into his home, ready to talk with him. George, how’s it going? Have you hit bottom yet? Have you found? And that’s ultimately what George says. He had to hit the bottom, but it was the love of his father who was willing to welcome him home, but always never moving and taking him back to the truth of the gospel. That’s when the change came. That’s really our model
Isaac Crockett: Reminds me of the prodigal son and the father who kept looking for him. Well, Sam, we’ve got less than three minutes left. And I do want to have you close this time in prayer, but I dunno if you have time before we close a prayer for any final or maybe even just people are saying, well, you’re old fashioned. The Bible’s too old fashioned. How would you answer that?
Sam Rohrer: Well, for those who say old fashioned, I would say, well, you got to define old fashioned. If God is old fashioned, I’m so proud to be old fashioned. God exists outside time, so old, which is a part of time, doesn’t apply to God. He’s ever new. He never had a beginning. He doesn’t have an end. And so what he laid out in scripture is never old. It’s always new. And he always offers new beginnings for those who are willing to come back to him in agreement with what God says. That’s the great thing about salvation. New beginnings are able and are there for those who are willing to do what the Bible says. That’s where I’ve been. I just discard those old comments because they mean nothing to me, and that’s not what Bible is. So anyways, lemme go ahead and pray here for us.
Sam Rohrer: Heavenly Father. Lord, I’m thankful that we could embark upon this discussion today. Thank you for you providing in your word everything we need. And we’ve just only touched the surface of this entire subject, Lord. But whether it is our individual lives, how to live as families or live as husbands, live as wives, live as men, live as women, live as children, live as grandfathers, as grandmothers, or as someone in the church or somebody in office. Lord, all of these positions are all functions of living. You’ve designed them all and you’ve laid out the pathway that if we walk in it, we will be blessed. And if we don’t, then we reap consequences. Lord, as we look about our country, we have walked away from your standards and we are reaping consequences that are just destroying our families, destroying our children, our marriages, Lord. But it does not have to be, and we can come back to you. I pray that those who are listening and watching now would if they’ve walked away, would come back. You’ll receive them. And Lord, for those who may be watching and listening, who maybe some of this is new, that they would commit to going into your word and finding the truth, which is so clearly written there. For our purposes, we commit this to you now. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Isaac Crockett: Amen. Amen. Thank you, Sam, and thank you for listening. I love Friday editions when Sam and I could just kind of have conversations and bring up these questions. If you have some questions or topics that you would like us to discuss, perhaps on a Friday program or another program, go to our website. Let us hear from you. Call us, send a letter, go to our Facebook page and let us know some of those things. But thank you for listening and be praying, being praying for our nation, for our pastors, for one another, and for us here at Stand In the Gap Media. We need your prayers. Until next time, I hope that you will pray that you will stand strong in the Lord, in the truth wherever you are today.
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