Coming Together Live 2023: Jesus and Wholistic Sexuality

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Coming Out Ministries

Ronald Woolsey

Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three

I think what we have seen in his testimony this evening is the power of compassion without compromise.

And we are living in an age of compromise in the world, in the church, and even in our own church.

Now I have not always been a pastor, I've not always been a Seventh-day Adventist, I've not always been a Christian.

For many years I lived in the world labeled even by Seventh-day Adventist pastors and counselors as unchangeable.

That kind can never change, they would say.

To my wife, just divorce this man, get on with your life, that kind can never change.

And in bitterness and anger against God, much like Rihanna, I left the church and became unreachable.

I wouldn't read anything, watch anything, listen to anything, talk to anybody, go anywhere that had anything to do with religion.

I just want to say tonight that our God specializes in reaching the unreachable and changing the unchangeable.

And I studied my way out of homosexuality 32 years ago, was when I was baptized, simply with the Bible and the spirit of prophecy.

I didn't start with the Bible, I tried to, but I just couldn't read my King James L.

So I sat down with a margarita in 1 hand and a cigarette in the other and opened the book of Steps to Christ, page 1.

And that's how I started my journey back.

I realized there was something wrong with that picture on page 1.

Lord, I didn't leave you over alcohol and cigarettes.

We'll come back to the margaritas and cigarettes later, okay?

And I just picture the Lord saying, okay, I'll meet you where you are.

I found myself putting out a perfectly good cigarette.

Some of you know what that is, a perfectly good 1.

I couldn't smoke and drink anymore while reading the Word of God.

But Anyway, you know, our mission is all about compassion and without compromise, a loving approach.

We are considered to be preaching from the position of hate speech anyway.

But you know, behind the scenes, I want to pull the curtain back tonight and look at what's really going on.

Our ministry does focus very much on loving, compassionate redemption.

But I want to be a bit straightforward this evening and see if I can, yeah, there we go, figure out how this works.

Which 1 do I press to get it to go forward?

Well, you have to hold your mouth just right, I guess, and I wasn't.

Anyway, what we are dealing with as Seventh-day Adventist Christians is spiritual warfare.

And I wanna talk about the warfare tonight.

I mean, we have our personal testimonies, which are so vital.

We overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

But Friends, we have to realize we are involved in spiritual warfare.

You notice testing 123I wanna talk about 3 tests tonight that we are facing as a church, as Seventh-day Adventists.

And test number 1 is about patriarchy and heterosexism.

Years ago I saw a video of a woman professor of religion from 1 of our universities, speaking at 1 of our churches during the time of Lent, and she opened her remarks extolling the benefits of Lent to us as Seventh-day Adventists.

And then the next thing she said was that it's time for us as Seventh-day Adventists to repent of the sins of patriarchy and heterosexism.

I said, wait a minute, I didn't create patriarchy.

And I don't think we need to ask God to repent either.

The head elder was a transgender, and he was also the Sabbath school teacher.

And it was very shocking to see that but I just think of the question could it be that Satan is presently conducting test runs for his final and full frontal assault on the moral law of God?

Are we witnessing today throughout the world and every echelon of society including the church, unprecedented spiritual warfare against the first institution created in Eden in preparation for the ultimate attack against the second 1.

So we can all picture it, day 6 of creation week, the newly created Adam is introduced to his beautiful wife-to-be, Eve.

I say wife-to-be because they weren't married immediately.

She, of course, was created to be a helpmate for him as an equal partner, but in differing a supporting role.

And we read in Genesis 2, 24, therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, God said, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be 1 flesh.

There we have, and just, it's amazing to me how God can be so profound with his definitions in 1 sentence.

There we have the introduction of marriage and the family and and sexuality, all of this very quickly and very succinctly there.

We read on that God created man in his own image, in the image of God created him.

Notice that God created him, male and female, Mankind, male and female.

And God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth, and subdue it.

And God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was what?

If God calls it very good, how foolish is it of us to try to change that?

And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

So there we see that the institution of marriage was created before the institution of Sabbath.

So we see from the very beginning God's plan for man and woman as the marriage institution was created on that day, that he was very pleased with what he had founded.

In his sacred institution, God established 2 very basic principles.

It's right there in that 1 that very first sentence.

I would be very fearful to say, God, you need to repent of that sin, right?

That to me sounds very presumptuous and even blasphemous.

1 important function of this institution of marriage was procreation.

Notice God created the first 2, and then he says, now let's work together, and we'll continue creation.

That's amazing that God gives us the ability to procreate.

I know that makes Satan very angry, especially when God even created bugs to procreate, if you think about it.

And Satan is a destroyer, he's not a creator.

Now, of course, they can't procreate like we do with the minds that can reason with God.

God says, come now, let us reason together.

But God created us in such a way that we could continue that creation process and the joy of creating more and more children.

When we have children, we can sense the joy and happiness that God the Father felt when he gave birth so to speak to Adam and Eve.

Now after the fall of man this marriage union became increasingly perverted as we know primarily due to focus on self gratification rather than pleasing the Creator and living in harmony with his ideal plan.

We know about the days of Noah, polygamy, bestiality, amalgamation, and homosexuality were a part of the problem when God said of Noah's generation Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually What was man's reasoning The same as today.

What difference does it make as long as it's love?

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Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three

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