A Brief Response to Last Sunday's Election Sermon by Dr. Neil Stewart

 

A Short Response to Last Sunday’s Election Sermon by Dr. Neil Stewart

 

Sermon Text:  Romans 13:1-7 ESV.  1 Timothy 2:1-6 ESV

 

This post is about First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina.  The current pastor is Dr. Neil Stewart, who is an Irishman who testifies that he was converted in northern Ireland under the ministry of Dr. Derek Thomas. 

Although this sermon was overall very good and to the point, there were a few objectionable portions which I would like to address.  In the spirit of fairness, therefore, I will give a commentary on the video which is posted on YouTube with appropriate minute marks.  To give brevity to this article I will only comment on the objectionable portions.  The reader is invited to listen to the entire video in context here:  November 3^rd, 2024.

In this sermon, Dr. Stewart addresses the comparison of theonomy with the enduring moral law.  He also addresses the issue of woke ideology and the Frankfort school of Marxism.  Modern day Marxists have applied Marxist ideology to racial inequality and sexual orientation.  Unfortunately, Dr. Stewart was not clear on where he lands on these issues.  His sermon is mostly descriptive, not a defense of the biblical view of these things.  The most telling prevarication in the sermon is when he gets into the issue of gay marriage.  At around the 1:21:30 minute mark, Dr. Stewart makes the following remark verbatim:

“So gay marriage for example—now if you’re homosexual, hetero, uh, uh, or same sex attracted,  you are welcome in this church.  Your sins are no dirtier than mine.  We both need the same Savior.”

On the surface these seem like benign remarks.  It was an extempore remark in the middle of a sermon.  However, knowing the theological commitments of mainstream Evangelical Presbyterianism, I can tell you that the doctrine of common grace lies beneath this compromise.  The idea that evangelism and mission is more important than biblical exegesis, systematic theology, and the Reformed confessional standards is the reason that large denominations go liberal. 

The problem here is that Dr. Stewart indirectly acknowledges that same sex attraction is due to some sort of inborn biological or genetic predisposition.  The ideology of sexual orientation was in fact invented by socialists who were pushing the sexual revolution in order to radically redefine western culture.  Dr. Stewart does touch on this in his description of woke ideology.  The problem is that he never gives the biblical answer to the problem.  The Bible teaches that sin comes from the fall of Adam and original sin.  The doctrine of total depravity or total inability means that a homosexual person is unable to repent unless and until God Himself regenerates that person and makes him or her free from their slavery to sexual immorality.

 

The late Dr. Gordon H. Clark, an expert in philosophy and apologetics, rebutted the argument that there is a biological predisposition to sin in his commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 9, Of Free Will.  The confession says:

 

I. God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined, to good or evil.a

 

a.      Deut 30:19; Mat 17:12; James 1:14.  [See:  Chapter IX, Of Free Will]

 

If you will read the chapter carefully, you will see that paragraph I is talking about Adam’s will prior to the fall.  The other paragraphs talk about man’s condition after the fall.  And in paragraphs III and IV the natural man under natural bondage is a reference to the total and complete corruption of fallen man’s human nature.  The image of God has not been eradicated because man is a rational creature.  But the image of God is so thoroughly corrupted that he is unable to think only good thoughts anymore.  He is unable to free himself from sin.  But the problem is a spiritual problem of the soul, not a biological problem:

What then does the Confession mean by the natural liberty of the will?  The remainder of the section quoted answers this question as well as two lines can.  Man’s will “is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined . . .”  These words were written to repudiate those philosophies which explain human conduct in terms of physico-chemical law.  Although the Westminster divines did not know twentieth century behaviorism, nor even Spinoza, they very probably knew Thomas Hobbes, and they certainly knew earlier materialistic theories.  That man’s conduct is determined by inanimate forces is what the Confession denies.  Man is not a machine; his motions cannot be described by mathematical equations as can the motions of the planets.  His hopes, plans and activities are not controlled by physical conditions.  He is not determined by any absolute necessity of nature.  

Dr. Gordon H. Clark.  What Do Presbyterians Believe?  The Westminster Confession of Faith Yesterday and Today.  1965.  Second edition.  John Robbins, ed.  (The Trinity Foundation:  Unicoi, 2001).  P. 106.

Furthermore, Dr. Stewart’s remark that homosexual sins are no dirtier than his sin is flat wrong.  How do I know this?  I know because the Westminster Larger Catechism says so without any equivocation whatsoever.  Some sins are more egregiously evil than other sins.  Even our criminial justice system shows this.  The Marxist ideology wants to make all crime the same and to make the criminal the victim of an unjust and racist system.  They want to make the homosexual a victim instead of a pervert who has violated the moral law of God.  To his credit, Dr. Stewart does mention some of this in his summary of woke ideology.  But to say that all sins are equal in the eyes of God, as he implied, is a direct contradiction of the Bible and the Westminster Larger Catechism with proof texts. 

Dr. Stewart correctly distinguishes between the moral law, the civil law of Old Testament Israel, and the ceremonial and sacrificial laws of the Old Testament.  He rejects theonomy on steroids and correctly says that the civil laws of Israel passed away with that nation.  However, he correctly says that the moral law is forever binding on both unbelievers and believers.  The Westminster Standards deals with this in the Confession and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms.  Due to the brevity of this article I will not cite or quote those sections here.

To show that Dr. Stewart incorrectly equated homosexual sins with heterosexual sins and other sins, you can read the WLC questions and answers below:

 

Q. 150. Are all transgressions of the law of God equally heinous in themselves, and in the sight of God?

A. All transgressions of the law of God are not equally heinous; but some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.

 

John 19:11; Ezek. 8:6, 13, 15; 1 John 5:16; Ps. 78:17, 32, 56.

 

Q. 151. What are those aggravations that make some sins more heinous than others?

A. Sins receive their aggravations,

 

1. From the persons offending: if they be of riper age, greater experience or grace, eminent for profession, gifts, place, office, guides to others, and whose example is likely to be followed by others.

 

2. From the parties offended: if immediately against God, his attributes, and worship; against Christ, and his grace; the Holy Spirit, his witness, and workings; against superiors, men of eminency, and such as we stand especially related and engaged unto; against any of the saints, particularly weak brethren, the souls of them or any other, and the common good of all or many.

 

3. From the nature and quality of the offence: if it be against the express letter of the law, break many commandments, contain in it many sins: if not only conceived in the heart, but break forth in words and actions, scandalize others, and admit of no reparation: if against means, mercies, judgments, light of nature, conviction of conscience, public or private admonition, censures of the church, civil punishments; and our prayers, purposes, promises, vows, covenants, and engagements to God or men: if done deliberately, wilfully, presumptuously, impudently, boastingly, maliciously, frequently, obstinately, with delight, continuance, or relapsing after repentance.

 

4. From circumstances of time and place: if on the Lord’s day, or other times of divine worship; or immediately before or after these, or other helps to prevent or remedy such miscarriages: if in publick, or in the presence of others, who are thereby likely to be provoked or defiled.

 

Jer. 2:8; Job 32:7, 9; Ecc. 4:13; 1 Kings 11:4, 9; 2 Sam. 12:14; 1 Cor. 5:1; Jas. 4:17; Luke 12:47-48; Jer. 5:4-5; 2 Sam. 12:7-9; Ezek. 8:11-12; Rom. 2:17-24; Gal. 2:11-14; Matt. 21:38-39; 1 Sam. 2:25; Acts 5:4; Ps. 51:4; Rom. 2:4; Mal. 1:8, 14; Heb. 2:2-3; Heb. 12:25; Heb. 10:29; Matt. 12:31-32; Eph. 4:30; Heb. 6:4-6; Jude 1:8; Num. 12:8-9; Isa. 3:5; Prov. 30:17; 2 Cor. 12:15; Ps. 55:12-15; Zeph. 2:8, 10-11; Matt. 18:6; 1 Cor. 6:8; Rev. 17:6; 1 Cor. 8:11-12; Rom. 14:13, 15, 21; Ezek. 13:19; 1 Cor. 8:12; Rev. 18:12-13; Matt. 23:15; 1 Thess. 2:15-16; Josh. 22:20; Prov. 6:30-33; Ezra 9:10-12; 1 Kings 11:9-10; Col. 3:5; 1 Tim. 6:10; Prov. 5:8-12; Prov. 6:32-33; Josh. 7:21; Jas. 1:14-15; Matt. 5:22; Mic. 2:1; Matt. 18:7; Rom. 2:23-24; Deut. 22:22, 28-29; Prov. 6:32-35; Matt. 11:21-24; John 15:22; Isa. 1:3; Deut. 32:6; Amos 4:8-11; Jer. 5:3; Rom. 1:26-27; Rom. 1:32; Dan. 5:22; Titus 3:10-11; Prov. 29:1; Titus 3:10; Matt. 18:17; Prov. 27:22: Prov. 23:35; Ps. 78:34-37; Jer. 2:20; Jer. 42:5-6, 20, 21; Ecc. 5:4-6; Prov. 20:25; Lev. 26:25; Prov. 2:17; Ezek. 17:18-19; Ps. 36:4; Jer. 6:16; Num. 15:30; Ex. 21:14; Jer. 3:3; Prov. 7:13; Ps. 52:1; 3 John 1:10; Num. 14:22; Zech. 7:11-12; Prov. 2:14; Isa. 57:17; Jer. 34:8-11; 2 Pet. 2:20-22; 2 Kings 5:26; Jer. 7:10; Isa. 26:10; Ezek. 23:37-39; Isa. 58:3-5; Num. 25:6-7; 1 Cor. 11:20-21; Jer. 7:8-10; Prov. 7:14-15; John 13:27, 30; Ezra 9:13-14; 2 Sam. 16:22; 1 Sam. 2:22-24.

 

Q. 152. What doth every sin deserve at the hands of God?

A. Every sin, even the least, being against the sovereignty, goodness, and holiness of God, and against his righteous law, deserveth his wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come; and cannot be expiated but by the blood of Christ.

 

Jas. 2:10-11; Ex. 20:1-2; Hab. 1:13; Lev. 10:3; Lev. 11:44-45; 1 John 3:4; Rom. 7:12; Eph. 5:6; Gal. 3:10; Lam. 3:39; Deut. 28:15-68; Matt. 25:41; Heb. 9:22; 1 Pet. 1:18-19.

 

Q. 153. What doth God require of us, that we may escape his wrath and curse due to us by reason of the transgression of the law?

A. That we may escape the wrath and curse of God due to us by reason of the transgression of the law, he requireth of us repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, and the diligent use of the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation.

 

Acts 20:21; Matt. 3:7-8; Luke 13:3, 5; Acts 16:30-31; John 3:16, 18; Prov. 2:1-5; Prov. 8:33-36.

 

[See:  The Westminster Larger Catechism 150-153.]

 

 

 

 

 

Is There a Universally Recognized Human Right to Homosexual Immorality and Same Sex Marriage?

It is quite frustrating to see Evangelical theologians missing the whole point in their comments about homosexuality, transgenderism, and same sex marriage.  The vast majority of them are trying to find common ground with secular humanists who have invented their own facade which they call "human rights."  [See:  Is Same Sex Marriage a "Human Right"?]  The real question is who decides what these human rights are and how is the deduction made?  Is there an objective standard for determining morality?

This where I am strongly an advocate of the late Dr. Gordon H. Clark's presuppositionalism.  According to Dr. Clark's apologetics, everyone starts with undemonstrable and unprovable axioms or starting points.  This is clearly true of empirical science as well since empiricism is really based on logical positivism of one degree or another.  In fact, Dr. Clark went so far  as to say that empirical science is based on the fallacy of affirming the consequent.  Basically, a theory is a presupposition and the scientist finds every inductive evidence he or she can to affirm the theory.  So why is it that two scientists can examine the same inductive evidence with two different theories and come up with affirming conclusions for two different presupposed theories from the same evidence?  Even scientists are fideists.  [See:  Science and Truth].

The answer, of course, is that they have affirmed the conclusion beforehand.  If it is raining, the streets are wet.  The streets are wet, therefore it is raining.   If A, then B.  B, therefore A.  Of course there could many other factors involved that could cause the streets to be wet.

Logical positivism is self refuting because it says that only what can be learned from the five senses is legimately knowledge.  But the beginning premise is itself not capable of observation since it is an abstract proposition that can only be thought with the mind.  Do animals understand the proposition that 2 + 2 = 4?

To cut the argument short I would ask the question that if everyone--including scientists--begins with presupposed axioms, why would the world at large fault the Christian for beginning with the axiom of Scripture?  All knowledge for the Christian worldview begins with Scripture as the axiom.  Scripture is the God-breathed Word of God.  Every single word is fully inspired by God.  (2 Timothy 3:16; Matthew 4:4; 2 Peter 1:19-21; Psalm 119:89).

I keep repeating this point but it is worth repeating again.  Is the human mind just a product of chemistry in a body, a brain of grey matter?  Or is the human mind really a soul created by God through providence and natural generation?  Philosophers of science have yet to solve the mind/body problem.  Exactly how does the brain produce a thinking and sentient soul in the first place?  Yet we have psychologists and psychiatrists pronouncing yet another fallacy of affirming the consequent.  If there are genetic and biological predetermining factors that could cause homosexuality and transgender dysphoria, then there will be homosexuals and persons with transgender dysphoria.  There are actually homosexuals and transgender confused persons, therefore homosexuality and transgender dysphoria must be caused by genetic and biological predispositions of the human body.  But presupposing this is again affirming the consequent.  If A, then B.  B, therefore A.

The fact that no empirical scientist can demonstrate how a brain can manifest a thinking and sentient soul should raise questions about the logical fallacy of presupposing a confused individual was born with a man's body and a woman's mind or vice versa.  Just because a person has same sex attractions, does that prove that the person was biologically or genetically predetermined to that lifestyle or attraction?  The cause could be psychological disorders rather than genetics or biology.  Presupposing that the streets are wet because it is raining ignores the fact that the street could be wet because a water line broke some other place and flooded the area.   The same is true of presupposing the consequent and finding causes to support the consequent.  There could be any number of other causes underlying homosexuality and transgenderism.

Finally, do we know that there is some set of human rights that everyone universally is entitled to?  According to secular humanism these rights are "universally recognized."  But is that statement itself true?  Obviously not since every culture has different customs.  In ancient Greek and Roman societies sexual promiscuity and homosexuality and even pedophilia were commonly accepted practices.  In Christian societies these are taboos.  In short, presupposing a set of human rights based on popular opinion is a contradiction because there is no universally recognizable authority for developing a set of human rights.  Popular vote does not determine morality per se because morality is maleable and relative to each society.  Unless there is a deontological basis for morality there can be only a totalitarian determination of morality by the state.  For Christianity there is a higher authority than human opinions.  That authority is the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures.  We ought to obey the governing authorities and the civil authority.  (Romans 13:1-14).  But when the government commands Christians to accept homosexual marriage, transgenderism, and the murder of unborn babies, the Christian has a higher obligation to obey God rather than man.  (Acts 4:19, 5:29).  In recent comments President Obama said that Christians must accept the dogma of secular humanism and change the teaching of the Scriptures.  [See:  Christian Churches 'Must be Made to Affirm Homosexuality'].  The dogma of homosexual marriage and transgenderism is soon to be a legally enforced doctrine of the socialist state.  The same thing has been said by Hillary Clinton in regards to abortion.  Christians must accept the dehumanization of human babies or face legal sanctions, according to Clinton.  [See: Hillary Clinton: Force Christians to Change Their Religious Views to Support Abortion].

[Cf. Leviticus 18:22-23; Romans 1:27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Genesis 19:5; Judges 19:22; Deuteronomy 22:5; Leviticus 19:28; 1 Kings 18:28]

I will ask this question again.  Which god is it that gives human beings the right to murder infants and practice perversions like homosexuality and mutilate their bodies to look like the opposite biological sex?  (2 Corinthians 4:3-6).  

Is Donald Trump any better?  No.  Trump is for using tax dollars to fund Planned Parenthood, which exists solely for women's health issues.   Of course, the term "women's health" in liberal jargon means the right to murder an infant in the womb at any stage of development from conception up to just prior to a normal birth at nine months.  Viability is not the determining factor but sheer dehumanization of a human person.  Even Hillary Clinton acknowledged that an unborn child is a person in a rare slip of the tongue:   [Hillary Clinton Admits That Abortion Kills a ‘Person’].   Donald Trump is a relativist in regards to morality as his affirmation of the LGBTQ lobby clearly shows.  Trump is no friend of Evangelical Christianity and to affirm his candidacy is the same as attacking Christianity since he would uphold totalitarian laws restricting religious freedom and theological dissent from the dogmas of the secular humanism state.

For the Christian the final authority in all matters of morality, faith, and practice is not the secularist state or socialism.  Instead the Christian is obligated to obey God when there is a conflict between state dogma and biblical deontological morality.  The Christian cannot in good conscience obey laws that command him or her to recognize a perversion as "marriage" or obey laws that command them to recognize a woman's right to murder her unborn baby at any stage after conception up to and including just prior to a normal birth.  The sixth commandment says, "Thou shalt not murder."   (Exodus 20:13).  The Bible is a book that is logical and propositional in nature and it is perfectly legitimate to logically deduce civil and judicial laws based on the morality revealed in the general principles of the Decalogue and the other moral laws revealed in Holy Scripture.  [See Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1:6].

 6.      The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men. (2 Tim. 3:15–17, Gal. 1:8–9, 2 Thess. 2:2) Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word: (John 6:45, 1 Cor 2:9–12) and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed. (1 Cor. 11:13–14, 1 Cor. 14:26, 40).   WCF 1:6.

In short, true Christians are at this time a small minority or remnant in the United States of America and around the world.  Most of the western countries are now openly socialist, materialistic, and hostile to biblical Christianity.  Persecution is just around the corner.  How much longer will the liberal media and the totalitarian state be content with religious freedom?  They are already willing to take away the second amendment right to bear arms.  The freedom of speech and freedom of religion is also on their hit list as relative to the socialist and secular humanist agenda to stamp out the archaic religions of the past and replace them with theological relativism and secular atheism.  Those who are supporting Trump are not offering a legitimate alternate but simply affirming the same result but with a different leader.  Trump is willing to equivocate and dissimulate to win the Evangelical vote.  But in the end Trump's agenda is no different from the agenda of the far left.  His only points of difference with them is on the issue of open borders and free trade or the Transpacific Partnership.  Other than that Trump is still a socially progressive liberal.  But the question is how is it progress when America is regressing to atheism and paganism rather than staying true to the Christian values deduced from the Bible?  It is the rule of law that is deduced logically from the Scriptures that has made our nation great and that has caused western civilization to advance peace around the world.  Instead the secularists want to exalt an intolerant pluralism that does not include the right to believe the Bible literally as it is logically and propositionally revealed from God himself.  The best summary of the system of propositional truth in the Holy Scriptures is the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Humans alone are created in the image of God.  Since God is a spiritual being with no body, it logically follows that the image of God cannot be a material body.   (John 4:24).  It is man's soul which is spiritual and immaterial and it is this spiritual and immaterial soul that is the image of God.  God, being Logic (John 1:1), enlightens every man with the ability to think.  (John 1:9).  Man is not a tabula rasa at birth but is innately endowed with the ability to reason, think logically, keep time, remember the past, and examine contingencies to predict various outcomes for future events.   [See:  The Image of God in Man, by Dr. Gordon H. Clark].  If morality is relative to culture, then morality changes with culture.  The basic premise of secular humanism is that deontological ethics deduced from the archaic Scriptures of Christianity is subject to revision.   Tomorrow it might be perfectly fine to eliminate subhuman homeless persons who have nothing to contribute to society.  Unborn babies are merely a source of human body parts used to enhance the lives of those better able to pay for this service and who have something more significant to contribute to a socialist utopia.  Any political or theological dissent based on an objective standard of morality is intolerable to the secularists.  Although they pretend to be tolerant the one thing they cannot tolerate is legislating morality.  Instead they prefer to legislate immorality and outlaw religious dissent based on the proposition that the Bible is the plenary and verbally inspired words of God and without error in every proposition recorded therein.

Thinking Christians need to stand for the truth and make it known that relativism and progressivism is not an option and that they are willing to suffer persecution if necessary.   Those so-called Evangelical  churches that are more concerned with not losing their tax exempt status--read state licensed or state controlled churches--are not faithful to the Scriptures but to the state.  This distinction will become even more evident as time goes on.

Some so-called Scripturalists are libertarians or libertines.  They believe the axiom that nothing is wrong except what harms another person.  But the Decalogue and the Scriptures disagree.  Leaving out the first table of the Ten Commandments is unconscionable.  Belief in the God of the Bible is the very bedrock of a democratic and constitutional Republic.  Without the Bible the rule of law means nothing.  I end with the question,  "How do you deduce a libertarian political philosophy from the logical and propositional system revealed in the Bible by good and necessary consequence?"

Charlie J. Ray, M.Div.