Your comment for this post has been forwarded to this “judgmental” blog’s new location here.

- The Pilgrim

I also believe that it takes a lot of falling down and having someone (inlcuding yourself) help you get back up in order to truly change your ways, behaviors, rid yourself of dysfunction, etc… I feel like we need to be the support group for those people and share with them our experiences, strength, and hope. Not the ones that run around yelling “you’re doing it all wrong!”

I sure don’t want to be the “clean needle of a society, preventing aids when the bigger problem is the intravenous drugs they shoot into their veins - and having that, well, at least they’re not spreading aids everywhenre mentality.” I want to be part of the solution to the bigger problem rather than treating the symptoms. And I guess that I see so much of the throwing bible verses around that it has jaded me.

I totally agree with your comment about Jesus rebuking the self-righteous and commanding them to repent. I just know from experience that it is very difficult to admit that we have problems. And then to take the next step - over and over. Forward 2 steps backwards 3, comitting the same sins and making the same mistakes due to our own imperfect nature.

I just don’t want us to fall into the trap of condemning EVERY group, organization, company that takes a different approach to being a part of the support group or trying to make Christianity more visible.

And I’ll go back and reread all the posts to see what I may have missed before.

Thanks for the open dialogue. It is refreshing to not be blasted for saying what I feel and being allowed to look at things from a different perspective and draw my own conclusions.

With most true evangelicals who desire to follow the way of our Servant Example, the Lord Jesus Christ, there was never an issue with praying for those who do not meet up to whatever standards we try to impose on others so that they can be just like us!

You are correct that “the lost, discarded, broken youth of today need a Savior.” However, the real matter at stake in this particular blog article is when the so-called “church” decides they need to dress like a prostitute, scam people like the tax collectors, etc. in order to reach people trapped in those sinful lifestyles.

Jesus Christ during His ministry made it very clear that He judged those who were self-righteous. He said that He did NOT come to bring the righteous to repentance but to bring sinners to repentance. Repentance means a change of heart AND life.

When a person becomes a true believer that Jesus Christ is God and that apart from the Saviour, he or she is bound for a Christ-less eternity in eternal hell, the Bible clearly shows us that our lives WILL CHANGE! We are to be in the world, but not of it!

If there is NO repentance, NO change of heart, NO desire to look and be more like Jesus Christ every day, then the Bible tells us THERE IS NO LIFE!

To conclude with the example of throwing the first stone, the Lord Jesus Christ told the woman to “go AND SIN NO MORE!” He did not accept her for what she was, tell her how she just needed her self-esteem built up, etc. HIS WAY demands a complete change.

2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

Saved FOR Holiness,
The Desert Pastor

I would have had trouble finding the message of the sweatshirt outside the context in which it was presented. Taken in its context as shown it fairly screams “Jezebel spirit!”

As Pastor Paul Washer has well said, “Clothes are meant to be a frame for ones face. If your clothes are anything other than a frame for your face then it’s likely that you are showcasing your body and are therefore being immodest and sinful in the flesh.” (paraprhased from memory)

Seems straightforward enough to me…

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=12908209345

Regards,
The Desert Pastor

A book I would HIGHLY recommend for every man desiring to be a godly man (apart from the Word of God) is one written by R. Kent Hughes entitled, “Disciplines of a Godly Man.”

In his second chapter on the “Discipline of Purity” he makes some of the following comments –

“The sticky steam of sensuality penetrates everything in our world!….And the church has not escaped, for many in today’s church have wilted under the heat!….Sensuality is easily the biggest obstacle to godliness among men today and is wreaking havoc in the church!….The contemporary evangelical church, broadly considered, is “Corinthian” to the core!”

May I again quote from the Word of God on the matter of morality as seen in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 —

3 “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;
5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:
6 That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.
7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
8 He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.”

R. Kent Hughes concludes about the church being “Corinthian to the core” that as the church is “being stewed in the molten juices of its own sensuality it no wonder that the Church —

A) Has lost its grip on holiness;
B) Is slow to discipline its members;
C) Is dismissed by the world as irrelevant;
D) Is rejected by many of its children;
E) Has lost its power in many places so much so that Islam and other false religions are making many converts.”

Grant and other readers, I would prefer to be able to come into the presence of my Holy and Righteous God, the Lord Jesus Christ, with a conscience that has not been seared by the sensuality of the world which is only designed with the intent of getting the eyes of true believers off of the Saviour, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season!

With this marketing campaign, this company has sinned against a Holy God. The model has sinned against a Holy God by allowing her body to be ogled by millions of men for the sake of a paycheck. The Church will continue to be in sin against God if we do not take a stand against such open rebellion of a Holy God.

My daughters and my sons should have much better role models to look up, and I am demeaned in their eyes if they see me enjoying the fruits the world has to offer. Those fruits may be sweet to the taste to begin with, but as James says “lust when it is finished brings forth DEATH!!!!!!!!!”

Tired of sensuality in the Church,
The Desert Pastor

Finally, you said, “If someone is saved because of these jeans, then that is a good thing.” I offer this challenge to you and everyone who reads this blog: Find me one person who has gotten saved (for real) because of a pair of jeans or a toothbrush. I want to meet that person.

He said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come!” - Jesus Christ (Luke 17:1)

Respectfully,
- The Pilgrim

Are you doing all of those things yourself, Grant? If so, wonderful, but if not… then why say all of that?

Grant