THE ARMCHAIR JOURNALIST PODCAST
GAY 101: A TESTIMONY
Welcome to the Armchair Journalist Podcast. I'm your host, Thom Reaves.
I'm going to be very candid and make myself very vulnerable in this episode. I am going to get nitty and gritty, and I may make you uncomfortable with what I am about to say, or make you very angry, and in our current environment I may get cancelled, but I now know the truth and I'm going to tell it to you - no holds barred.
So, let me tell you about Gayness, in the words of someone who has lived it -me.
This is Gay 101.
I was raised as a Christian by my parents. I trusted in Jesus Christ while I was young. I was a good little boy, and I did all the right things. I was the perfect child, but at the age of about 7 I was exposed to pornography by a relative - a lot of it, and it ignited a spark that raged into a life with a burning forest of lust, sex, power and manipulation.
I moved to New York for college, and it was a candy store of people to use, people to get used by and every vice, hidden in the dark to be experienced. Now, I professed to be a Christian at this time, and I could do so because I led a double life, with Christian friends in one hand, and the whole world of gay culture and its captives in the other.
A deep-seated need for love and validation drove me to seek it from other men, so if sex was the mechanism by which to get that love and acceptance, that's what I used to get it. This led to years of indiscriminate sexual encounters and unhealthy, manipulative relationships. I admit, I did feel love in some of those relationships, but it was a "taking" kind of love; one grasping for attention to say I was beautiful because I felt ugly or loved because I felt unlovable and valid because I felt unworthy.
It took many years of riding this roller coaster that I realized the God whom I knew in my youth was still there beside me and he kept me from harm through many physical dangers - when I had gotten myself in many hazardous situations and involved with undesirable people. And the Lord protected me from the myriad of diseases which ran rampant through the gay community; the most feared at that time, AIDS.
Some people have an instant experience of God, where He comes into your life and changes it in an instant. God worked in my life through a slow burn, waiting for me, ever inviting me to follow Him the way I was taught, but I fought Him at every turn and went down my own roads.
One day, while working as a bouncer at a gay bar, I met a man with whom I would have an 18-year relationship. This relationship was one full of love and devoid of manipulation or jealousy, but it was soaked with the poison of alcohol, and I experienced all the unhealthy traits and toxic attachment one feels when trying to fix or change another person; one who is in pain and himself broken, who just wants to drown himself in a bottle. I stayed in that relationship because I didn't want to lose what I thought was the first real love I'd ever had with another person. And I did truly love him. Then he died.
Yes, I had a real love in that relationship, but it was a love which blossomed from my own brokenness. But even in this, over this long period of time, The God of creation was still directing my wayward paths to intersect the perfect paths he had planned for me.
So, let's talk about gay culture and the Gay Life. What is my experience such that I can make sweeping judgements about it? I lived in that life a long time and I had A LOT of experience, and from my experience, The gay life is empty, the gay life craves more and more with no satisfaction, the gay life uses others for personal gratification, and the gay life is death.
New York is a center for the gay life, but there is a hidden gay reality that many don't know, and it's not only in big cities, it's in your own backyard. There is a life lived out in the bars and clubs, where drugs and sex rage with music, then there is the life of the sex shops and bath houses, where single and many married men secretly frequent, and in public places there is sex in plain view but out of sight, that many engage in.
Though today in media gay life is touted in an attempt to make it normal, and for the most part it is considered normal now, it is the appeal to the sensual that underlies many things that are directed at gay audiences to draw them, though I concede that most media use sex as a draw.
Although there are many in relationships that would be called loving in gay culture, the quote "Gay life" is steeped in sensuality, manipulation, control and lust with people who are devoured by it, who are lost and don't know they are.
PRIDE
Let's talk about June, the month of Pride celebrations. Homosexuality is the one out of the list of sins in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 that people celebrate with its own holiday. It is a travesty of truth and a deception on a massive scale.
Let's get right down to the basics: Pride is about sex. Pride is based on sex. The branches of the tree stem from the roots. Pride at its roots, started when men who want to have sex with men, decided to be proud of this fact and to celebrate themselves and what they do. That's the underlying truth and that's how it started. Everything else was piled on afterwards and then became part of the whole celebration we have today: Lesbianism, Transsexualism, transvestism, bestiality, orgies, pedophilia, Sado-masochism, Bondage/Slavery and anything else that is considered "queerl is acceptable. Of course, not everyone who is involved with one are necessarily involved with the others, but in Pride it all comes together in one neat little package to be celebrated as being proud of whatever you get into, no matter what it is or how crazy it is. Even Drag, at its core, is based on sex and sexually provocative performances, which, these days, people are even taking their children to! What does a child have to do with anything sexual? I'm a prime example of what exposing a child to sex does. Pride - parades and such expose children and so, sexualize them; normalizing these things,; causing them to think these things are normal and that it's okay for anyone to participate in these activities. It is a reality-blinding deception.
Many parts of the church have given in and become lax in its views with this sin. Why? Because it is bigoted to say homosexuality is a sin? They want to be more diverse and inclusive? We don't need any more diversity and inclusion in the church - you know why? Because EVERYBODY in the church is a sinner! God wants us to surrender our sinful hearts and desires to Him, not bring our sin in the church to say, "My sin is right. Accept it and give up truth to make us happy." Enough with excuses. Call it what it is. It is not homphobic to say homosexuality is a sin. The Bible calls it sin, but it is our carnal nature that tries to say wrong is right and right is wrong. And peer pressure and cancel culture threatens to force you into submission to agree with them. The Lord told us since ancient times what right is and what wrong is. For centuries homosexuality was considered what it is - against God's plan for humanity - against God's plan for you - all sin is against God's plan. Now, all of a sudden within the last 60 years or so, homosexuality has gone from something called what it is - sin, to something celebrated to something actually being promoted!
We all are born with tendencies to sin, no matter what sin it is. It is part of us, so it doesn't matter if we are born with the attraction to others of the same sex, so in reality that point is moot. The Bible says we are born in sin.
Psalms 51:5 says, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me."
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What about those with a tendency to violence or alcoholism, or is there an inborn tendency to commit adultery? So, we do it because we're drawn to it, so that makes it okay? No, it doesn't.
WHAT MAKES YOU GAY?
There are 3 things: Feelings, Actions and Identity.
Homosexual feelings, or even attraction are just feelings - they are very strong, but they are still just feelings. In the Bible homosexuality is considered something you do, which makes you what you are. The feelings themselves do not make you homosexual. Homosexual Actions on the other hand, is more. Habitual actions make you a homosexual. Then further, "Gayness or being Gay" is an identity that one willfully adopts to give oneself to their feelings, their actions and the culture of homosexuality, and all that comes along with it.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if you are in Christ you are a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, all has become new."
Even if you come out to follow Jesus Christ out of homosexuality, some may say, "Well you're still gay," or "you still act gay." Even if the Lord doesn't take the feelings or the mannerisms away completely, don't allow anyone else to define who you are, for you are a new creation in Christ. You may be in the world, but you are no longer of the world. You are in Christ. You are now his possession, and he defines who you are, no one else - not your old friends and not gay culture.
RELATIONSHIPS
But what about love? What if I love my same sex partner? You may feel very strongly that you love your partner. As I said earlier, I was partnered with someone whom I loved desperately for 18 years, but as much as I tried, I knew deep inside that this relationship wasn't the Lord's will for my life. So, hoping to ease my guilt, I stopped all physical contact, making our relationship a close friendship. I felt that the Bible talks about men having sexual relations with other men was sin, so I stopped that, but our emotional tie was still very strong. I struggled, wondering if my relationship was now acceptable, but I did not break it off completely. Then a long illness came, and it would not have been right to leave him at that time, and I didn't want to leave. Then he died. Although terribly sad, I didn't have the relationship on my conscience anymore, dragging it down, for as long as I was in that relationship, it had the appearance of a physical, homosexual relationship and I could've always been called a hypocrite - being physical or not. I didn't feel strong enough to leave it, and I didn't until death came.
So what about love and the attachments of the heart?
Jeremiah 17:9 says. The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately sick. Who can understand it?"
Just because you love something or someone, it doesn't mean it's a love that is good for you. We many times love things that aren't good for us. In the matters of the heart, it takes much effort, but this is the place to trust that God knows best, whatever our feelings about it, and if he says something is wrong, he says so for a reason, even though we may never know why. It is in this case that I say my favorite Bible verse.
Proverbs 3: 4-5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths."
In my relationship situation I let my weakness rule over me. Don't you do what I did, Trust in the Lord.
THE APOSTLE PAUL AND JESUS
What about the Bible and Paul and Jesus? Some people say, "Paul created Christianity. He said homosexuality was wrong, not Jesus." Answer:
2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, "ALL Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correction and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
Even though we have red letter versions of the Bible, all the black ink on the page is just as inspired and authoritative as the red ink letters.
But what about Jesus? What did He say about homosexuality? Well, he said a lot when he said in Mathew 19:4,
"Have you not read in the Scriptures that He that created them in the beginning made them male and female, and for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?"
Jesus was affirming the pairing of man and woman in marriage and in so doing, excluding anything outside of that, this includes homosexual sex, sex outside of marriage, which is fornication, sex with someone other than your spouse, which is adultery, and sex with any non-human creature - meaning animals.
I was deceived. I was one of the ones who tried to pick apart the Bible and say, "Well, they didn't know what gayness was back then" or this is not what this meant, or look at David and Jonathan." The bible has said the same thing for thousands of years. It's not changing for you. Even though you may try to use it to justify your sin.
You must repent. Just as I had to repent. You don't know better than God. Even though you love someone dearly, God has let us know it is not his perfect plan for you. To be totally aligned with God's plan and will, a romantic, physical relationship with one of the same sex is not God-ordained and must be broken. Call it what it is. Don't be deceived - and it is self-deception to think it not so.
You say, "So, what do I do now, I say I'm a Christian and I'm in a homosexual relationship?" Let me be very clear, HOMOSEXUALITY AND JESUS CHRIST ARE NOT COMPATIBLE! And if you are living this way, you are living a lie. I said they were compatible for years, and for years I turned a deaf ear to my conscience and blind eye to what has been written down for thousands of years. It's been there the whole time, but in my rebellion, I didn't want to admit it.
WHERE YOU STAND
I'm trying to appeal to you with the protests that I had, which allowed me to live in that gay life while still professing to be a Christian. Those protests were me under deception, me deceiving myself and ultimately not wanting to accept the truth. It is not God's will that anyone live as a homosexual, just as it is not God's will that we live as a fornicator or adulterer, or drunkard, or murderer, for that matter. You might say, well, being gay is not as bad as murder. And I say to you,
Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and fall short of God's glory."
God doesn't judge one sin against another. He judges all sin against His glory and His holiness. So, in God's eyes, yes, one is just as bad as another. And the thing is, we are ALL under sin, and all that sin needs to be judged. It would be a crime if a drunk driver hit and killed someone with their car. The drunk driver needs to pay for that. It would not be just if a judge were to let that person go without paying the penalty for it. Our sins make us guilty before a righteous and holy God, and we deserve judgement, but because of what Jesus did we don't have to pay the penalty of our sins against Him. God is just. And God sent his son, Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for all of our sins by dying on the cross; whereby all of the judgement and wrath of God against our sins were placed on Jesus.
John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."
With that eternal life comes change; change from the inside by the Holy Spirit of God Himself. A change that will make you different than you have been, a change that will make you not want to do the things you did before. A change that will make you alive. The Bible says we are dead in trespasses and sins, but Christ makes us alive. And he offers us this life as a free gift.
Do you believe, "Once a homosexual, always a homosexual?" The answer is an emphatic, NO! Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, "Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor men who have sex with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were."
The optimal word here is "were." This statement proves that people back then who were now in Christ were no longer homosexual. There's proof. Been in the bible for 2000 years. Jesus changes us. Sometimes habits change immediately while some change over time, but in Christ we are brand new and God promises to conform us to the image of Christ Jesus.
What we have to do is earth-shattering for us and goes against every ounce of our pride; We have to repent. Repent of our attitudes, repent of our lusts, repent of our sinful thoughts and desires and humble ourselves before God and ask for his forgiveness.
1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Then what? We turn our lives over to Jesus. We submit ourselves under his lordship of our lives and we then allow him to direct our lives, to change us. And all those things we have been guilty of doing, he gives us the power, through the Holy Spirit, to turn away from them and he leads us down the right way - His way.
You don't have to be a homosexual. There is a way out, and that way is Jesus. Jesus says in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me." There's no other way. If you are a child of God, He has better plans for you than living in this carnal, empty life; plans for your joy and your fulfillment.
God says in Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
I say to you right now, Humble yourself before the Lord, my friend. So, you can have a real "coming out;" coming out of death and a life that will devour you and one that is not God's best for you.
If my words have spoken to you, today, and you in your heart want to be free of a homosexual life, God wants you to repent of this life before Him, Proverbs 28:13 says,
"He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will receive compassion."
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God wants to change you and make you alive in Jesus Christ. The Bible says in Romans 10:9, "If you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
Do you want God to change you? Humble yourself and pray with me, will you?
Oh God in heaven, I'm sorry. I have sinned against you. I have been involved in lust, in sex, In pornography. I have manipulated and used others and sought love, validation and acceptance from other people, not you. I have been prideful and selfish and condescending toward others and even let substances rule my life. God, I am sorry and before you right now, I repent of these things and the life I've led, Lord, I want to follow you now. I believe that you, Jesus, died on the cross for me to save me from my sins and God raised you back to life and that now you live to give us life. Please accept me, because of what you did on the cross and change me and make me new as you promise to in your word. Please lead me from now on, down the perfect path you have for me and help me when I am weak. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for what you've done and for accepting me as your child. Thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen.
If you believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ, you are now saved. You are a child of God, and you are a new creation. Continue to trust in the Lord. Follow him. Pray continually. Get yourself a Bible and start to read it. And find a church that follows the word of God, the Bible and grow in your faith.
Now, This is where it gets hard. That gay world will throw anything and everything at you to drag you back into that life, but God is faithful. Trust in him. And when you are tempted, remember this verse from 1 Corinthians 10:13
"No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it."
God is faithful, my friend. Trust in Him.
If you want a good resource with tips to help you in different situations, go to www.thomreaves.com/anything to download the free pdf "How to deal with anything" 9 tips to help you in any situation. It's made to help you remember that God is sovereign in your life, no matter what. That's www.thomreaves.com/anything For this free pdf.
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And now, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace.
Until next time.
Copyright 2023 Thom Reaves, The Armchair Journalist Podcast
