But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. ~2 Timothy 3:1-5
Before you read on, please listen to this beautiful song:
I feel like I am the last person in all of Christiandom that heard the announcement Ray Boltz made in 2008. Now if I really am not the last person and you do not know about his announcement, please stop and consider whether you really want to read on because this will change your perspective of the man and all the beautiful songs he wrote and sang, at least it has for me. In a way, I wish I had remained blissfully unaware, but now that I know, I know and I cannot make it unknown.
Last warning...stop reading right here!
Ray Boltz is a father of four children who was married for 33 years before his divorce became official in 2008. His reason for the divorce: he is gay. He decided that if that is the way God made him that he was just going to live that way and his former wife, Carol Boltz, is highly supportive of him and other Christian homosexuals, as she reveals on her blog.
Now this does bother me quite a bit, but I know that we all are sinners and we all must sin against God in some "little" ways throughout our day, as if there is ever a little way to sin. The truth is that anything we say, think, or do that is outside of God's will, a stray from His directives, can be a sin or at least the passing shadow of evil. Sin is not always something we do, it can be what we entertain in our hearts and minds.
With that in mind, I am a sinner and I have not met anyone who is not. I cannot even imagine how Jesus did it, how He lived a completely sinless life yet had human emotions—it is just impossible for me to understand! It seems my mind and heart are the battlegrounds between evil and good, world and kingdom, self and God. I would like to think I am doing it right, that I am pleasing God in all that I do, but I also know that I fall short constantly.
Like so many of us with our secret vices, Mr. Boltz must have been entertaining such a sin in his heart for a very long time. Now that he has paved the way, another Christian artist, Jennifer Knapp, has also made it known that she has been in a eight-year relationship with another woman. And, so it will go. There will be others, no doubt.
I don't know how I feel about these people exactly, or what I should feel. I am terribly sad, ready to forgive, but will I listen to their music now? I know we all are sinful. No sin is worse than another. However, the difference for me is that these people were not making confessions and repenting. Some of us struggle with sin everyday, but they have chosen to disregard their choices as sinful and continue in them. I always cry when I hear "Thank You" and "Watch the Lamb" and my very favorite "Feel the Nails" which I have sang for church services years ago, but now I will be crying with an added reason in my fore thoughts; in fact, it will be difficult for me to hear the words of those songs over this blaring knowledge.
However, the concept that causes me to churn with sadness, incredulity, anger, hopelessness, fear for the lost of morality, and more is that people have created sects under the name of the Christian religion that accept homosexuality as normal and not even sinful! If there ever was a sign pointing to what my Lord warned about the end times, this is definitely one...and there will be more! With each generation, Christianity will degrade more and more.
I could not believe such a thing when I was younger, even though I read the prophecies, but now I see how people will shape the church to suit themselves. That people are so far removed from God that they feel justified to make it up as they go, to make the Bible say what they want it to say, and all this really comes down to they want to make themselves like Jesus. Yes, I said "like Jesus." They want to make themselves sinless...by their own judgment.
Those of us holding on to more literal interpretations of the God's Word will be considered an embarrassment to the new Christianity. We will be the old that they will try to wipe out, because under it all we remind them just by what we believe, just by living our lives, that they are sinful after all. We will not have to be condemning, but some will be called to condemn them directly and I can only imagine how this will spur atrocities against Christians.
Yet, should the church be accepting of those who choose not to recognize sin as sin? This is my struggle with organized religion itself. I think of the years that Mr. Boltz must have wrestled with this sin in his mind and heart. From out of his tortured soul came these beautiful songs before he finally gave in to the deception: homosexuality is the way God made him because science says it is a fact...not that God said so, but science, the new religion tearing down the old in our own churches. As if with scientific research papers in hands, Mr. Boltz basically has throw it all back on God, instead of taking any personal responsibility. Worse, some sects of the Christianity have patted him on the back for it. I am so sad for him, for them, for all the world. How many more will he cause to stumble?
In closing I can only say, we cannot stop what is to be, we can only choose what we will do as it progresses.
I feel like I am the last person in all of Christiandom that heard the announcement Ray Boltz made in 2008. Now if I really am not the last person and you do not know about his announcement, please stop and consider whether you really want to read on because this will change your perspective of the man and all the beautiful songs he wrote and sang, at least it has for me. In a way, I wish I had remained blissfully unaware, but now that I know, I know and I cannot make it unknown.
Ray Boltz is a father of four children who was married for 33 years before his divorce became official in 2008. His reason for the divorce: he is gay. He decided that if that is the way God made him that he was just going to live that way and his former wife, Carol Boltz, is highly supportive of him and other Christian homosexuals, as she reveals on her blog.
Now this does bother me quite a bit, but I know that we all are sinners and we all must sin against God in some "little" ways throughout our day, as if there is ever a little way to sin. The truth is that anything we say, think, or do that is outside of God's will, a stray from His directives, can be a sin or at least the passing shadow of evil. Sin is not always something we do, it can be what we entertain in our hearts and minds.
With that in mind, I am a sinner and I have not met anyone who is not. I cannot even imagine how Jesus did it, how He lived a completely sinless life yet had human emotions—it is just impossible for me to understand! It seems my mind and heart are the battlegrounds between evil and good, world and kingdom, self and God. I would like to think I am doing it right, that I am pleasing God in all that I do, but I also know that I fall short constantly.
Like so many of us with our secret vices, Mr. Boltz must have been entertaining such a sin in his heart for a very long time. Now that he has paved the way, another Christian artist, Jennifer Knapp, has also made it known that she has been in a eight-year relationship with another woman. And, so it will go. There will be others, no doubt.
I don't know how I feel about these people exactly, or what I should feel. I am terribly sad, ready to forgive, but will I listen to their music now? I know we all are sinful. No sin is worse than another. However, the difference for me is that these people were not making confessions and repenting. Some of us struggle with sin everyday, but they have chosen to disregard their choices as sinful and continue in them. I always cry when I hear "Thank You" and "Watch the Lamb" and my very favorite "Feel the Nails" which I have sang for church services years ago, but now I will be crying with an added reason in my fore thoughts; in fact, it will be difficult for me to hear the words of those songs over this blaring knowledge.
However, the concept that causes me to churn with sadness, incredulity, anger, hopelessness, fear for the lost of morality, and more is that people have created sects under the name of the Christian religion that accept homosexuality as normal and not even sinful! If there ever was a sign pointing to what my Lord warned about the end times, this is definitely one...and there will be more! With each generation, Christianity will degrade more and more.
I could not believe such a thing when I was younger, even though I read the prophecies, but now I see how people will shape the church to suit themselves. That people are so far removed from God that they feel justified to make it up as they go, to make the Bible say what they want it to say, and all this really comes down to they want to make themselves like Jesus. Yes, I said "like Jesus." They want to make themselves sinless...by their own judgment.
Those of us holding on to more literal interpretations of the God's Word will be considered an embarrassment to the new Christianity. We will be the old that they will try to wipe out, because under it all we remind them just by what we believe, just by living our lives, that they are sinful after all. We will not have to be condemning, but some will be called to condemn them directly and I can only imagine how this will spur atrocities against Christians.
Yet, should the church be accepting of those who choose not to recognize sin as sin? This is my struggle with organized religion itself. I think of the years that Mr. Boltz must have wrestled with this sin in his mind and heart. From out of his tortured soul came these beautiful songs before he finally gave in to the deception: homosexuality is the way God made him because science says it is a fact...not that God said so, but science, the new religion tearing down the old in our own churches. As if with scientific research papers in hands, Mr. Boltz basically has throw it all back on God, instead of taking any personal responsibility. Worse, some sects of the Christianity have patted him on the back for it. I am so sad for him, for them, for all the world. How many more will he cause to stumble?
In closing I can only say, we cannot stop what is to be, we can only choose what we will do as it progresses.
My Lord, please make the people hear You above all.
