Hey guys,
I thought that some of you may be interested in this. Last Saturday London hosted Worldpride 2012, and I was there (on the other side from where I would have been!) My boss asked me to write about it, so I did. I used the slogan of TOL as a starting point (I hope you don't mind knight!)
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Open Rebuke Is Better Than Love Carefully Concealed – Report on Worldpride 2012</center></center>
On Saturday 7th July, London held the Worldpride gay pride festival. After doubts over the event due to financial problems, a reduced event took place with floats and street parties banned.
I headed down to the parade start for about 10am to take a look around. Since leaving the homosexual lifestyle several years ago, this was the first time I had seen a gay pride parade from the other side. In the past, I was one of the ones walking in the parade.
The first thing that struck me was how the event seemed to be so focused on sex. The homosexual community has spent a lot of time and effort trying to convince others that homosexuality isn’t about sex, but seeing an event like this certainly shows that their efforts in this regard are in vain. I saw some pretty strange behaviour, such as men in dog masks on leads crawling through the parade with other men in leather sexual bondage gear as their ‘masters’. I found this shocking to say the least – especially at an event which is considered to be ‘family friendly’. At what point did such a display of perversion become the accepted norm? At what point were displays like this thought to be ‘family friendly?’
Looking around, I saw many hundreds of men dressed up as women. Stonewall’s arrogant slogan ‘some people are gay, get over it’ was to be seen everywhere. They have also now come up with two new slogans, ‘some guys marry guys, get over it’ and ‘some girls marry girls, get over it’, displaying the same level of arrogance towards people who consider homosexual ‘marriage’ to be wrong.
As I walked around the parade start and saw what was happening, I began to reflect upon the name of the event itself. ‘Gay Pride’, which implies that the people involved are proud of their homosexuality. Looking at the people involved in this event, their pride in their sin was evident all around me. As I reflected on this, Psalm 10:4 came to my mind, ‘The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.’ Pride actually separates man from God. Someone who is proud of their sin will not acknowledge that they are doing wrong and need to repent. They will not see the error in their ways.
I prayed constantly throughout the event from the moment I got there, and I also met with a friend of mine who is a former homosexual like myself so that we could share the gospel with all who would listen. As the parade procession moved slowly through the streets of London, both he and I gave out gospel tracts and had a number of conversations with people from both the parade itself and others who were watching from the side. The most common reponses that we got were things like, ‘isn’t God about love? He said we shouldn’t judge, so it’s you who is sinning by judging homosexuals.’ Another common accusation is that we were there to ‘spread a message of hatred and judgement.’
Hearing so many comments about judging others reminded me of just how prevalent the new ‘cult’ of ‘do not judge’ has become in our society, both inside and outside of the Church. Hence I chose the title for this article ‘open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed.’ Indeed Jesus did say in Matthew 7:1-2, ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.’ However, this is not a command not to judge others, for in John 7:24 it says, ‘Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.’ The issue of judging others seems to be one of the most misunderstood in the Church today. The Lord clearly wouldn’t contradict himself. What he is actually saying in the scriptures is that we should not judge others for something that we ourselves are doing. If I was still involved in the homosexual lifestyle for example, and then told other homosexuals that their behaviour is wrong whilst engaging in that same behaviour myself, that would be hypocrisy. This is what the Lord is speaking against in Matthew 7:1-2. We are clearly allowed to call sinful behaviour exactly what it is – sin!
Something else that I noticed is just how few people really understand the message of the gospel, salvation and repentance. They seem to think that God is love so that gives them a license to go out and do pretty much what they want without having to worry about potential consequences. Yes, God is love – the Bible says that, but God is also just. He is so holy, so perfect that he cannot let sin go unpunished. People die and go to hell every day because they are so proud of their own sin that they refuse to acknowledge their need of a saviour, their need to repent.
People think that it is hateful to point out someone’s sin. What they don’t realise is that it is loving to warn someone of the eternal consequences of their actions. We must warn people before it is too late! Is it more loving to sit back and say to people, ‘it’s ok, do what makes you happy’, or to say, ‘we are all sinners, homosexuals included, and unless you come to Jesus and repent you will go to hell’? Indeed, my conclusion is that open rebuke is truly better than love carefully concealed.
