My family and I saved our spare change and recently returned from a wonderful vacation, sailing on a Carnival cruise ship, which traveled to Central America and back. While docked in Belize, we decided to go ashore and have a look around at the shops and sights. To get to shore those of us on the ship had to take a water taxi to the local dock, which made hourly runs back and forth to the ship until it was time to set sail again that evening.
The taxi could hold about 60 people. It was covered with plastic sheeting ‘walls’ that could be rolled up to allow fresh ventilation and the passengers sat on rows of benches, facing each other. After a hot day walking around, we boarded the taxi back to the ship, carrying a couple of souvenirs we had purchased.
On the ride back, which took about 25 minutes a gentleman sitting close to us struck up a conversation. He was alone at the time and described his experience with the street vendors he encountered when he ventured into town, beyond the shops located on the dock. Apparently, these guys were obnoxiously rude and pushy, to the point of actually holding on to his arm and following him for a couple of blocks before giving up.
Despite that annoyance, he was pleased to tell us about the great bargains he’d gotten on a couple of locally handmade, little girl’s dresses with matching doll outfits. He said they were for his daughters, and couldn’t wait to get back to the ship to give them his gifts. He went on to tell us ‘we’ have five children, ranging from age three to fourteen; two girls and three boys, and beamed with pride as he related little stories about them.
I began to notice he never said the phrase ‘my wife and I’ while talking about his family, despite wearing a beautiful wedding ring. Then it hit me; his very open, friendly personality; the effeminate lisp in his speech; his meticulous attention to personal grooming. I mean, duh—it was obvious he was homosexual, and ‘married’ to his partner. I would guess they were foster parents or had adopted the children living with them.
And my heart broke into a million pieces.
I bet that surprises you, especially with all I’ve written against homosexuality and the simple fact that, no matter how you dress it up or try to force society to accept it as ‘normal,’ the Bible is very clear what God thinks about it. In His eyes, it’s an abomination and God doesn’t change His mind.
I studied this man as he talked to my husband and son. As is commonly the case with gay men, he was very handsome, which causes much consternation to the single ladies in the world! He was about 37 years old, tanned and in good shape with pretty blue eyes and a dazzling white smile. But what struck me most was his wide open demeanor; his obvious desire to make friendly contact with others and be treated like any other person.
I’ve noticed that with the vast majority of homosexual men I’ve encountered, they tend to unconsciously project a hunger for acceptance and love, even from total strangers. They go out of their way to start a conversation and are wide open in their speech and body language. It’s like they’re begging, ‘Please like me. Please be my friend!’ Again, my heart just broke, and I literally had to look away because of the tears in my eyes.
From what this man said, he and his ‘family’ were well traveled, and enjoyed taking their children to show them the world. I don’t know what he did for a living but he was well spoken and obviously intelligent. I have no doubt that the household he and his ‘partner’ provide for those children is lighthearted, yet mixed with common parental concern and discipline.
He spoke of trying to balance curfews for the older kids with early bedtimes for the ‘little ones,’ and having to decide what time to go to the dining room so the younger ones could have a good meal before they went to bed for the night. He laughed about trying to coordinate nap times with shore excursions, and how grateful they were that “grandma” was traveling with them.
He sounded like a normal Dad. Except he’s not. And the home he and his gay lover are giving those kids is not a normal home with a Mommy and a Daddy, the way God designed a family to be. Would those kids be better off, living in an orphanage, hustled around between foster families, or living in an unnatural situation with two homosexuals? I honestly don’t know the answer to that.
The reason my heart broke for this man was because he looked so happy. He was beaming with pride and thoroughly enjoyed telling us about his kids and the things they were enjoying on their cruise. Yes, he looked happy. But he’s headed straight for hell.
I wanted so much to sit with him and explain how his life was off course and wrong in God’s eyes. I wanted to shake him and urgently warn him of the judgment that’s soon to hit this earth and people just like him, who are thumbing their noses at a Holy God and His statutes.
I wanted to explain to him just how much that same God loves him, and so desperately wanted to keep him from being condemned to hell, that he laid down His very life and spilled His perfect, precious, priceless blood to buy his redemption. I wanted him to know it was obvious to me that he was a good person; a person with a huge, loving, giving heart, but that’s not enough to save him from an eternity in darkness, separated from God.
But that wasn’t the place or the time for a conversation like that, and it was obvious he was SO well entrenched in his life choices, I have no doubt he wouldn’t have been open to being told the way he was conducting his life was wrong. Again, in his eyes, he and his partner are a smashing success. They’ve established a home together in which they are providing and caring for five children.
In the eyes of the world, what’s to knock about that? What’s so wrong with two people joining together and giving a happy, stable home to kids, even if the ‘parents’ are the same sex? We’ve been relentlessly pounded upside the head for so long with militant demands that we accept this as just another type of family, that I can understand why few people still object. It sometimes seems petty and a waste of perfectly good ‘love’ to continue to speak out against homosexuality.
And yet we as Christians must! We cannot weaken and give in to the emotional fatigue and spiritual bruising we’ve suffered for standing firm against what God has clearly stated is unacceptable in His sight.
We cannot begin to give a little here and a little there when confronting adultery or unmarried couples living together. We can’t turn away and not say something when we know there are those among us who indulge in substance abuse or porn or gambling or any other sins that relentlessly chase us around.
I don’t know about you, but I get weary of being the ‘bigoted, homophobic, evangelical, Bible-thumping freak.’ It would be SO much easier and more pleasant to give in to the ways of this crumbling society, and keep my mouth shut about the flagrant sin that’s shoved in my face every day, especially in the churches!
But I can’t. I HAVE to keep speaking out and warning others that the time to repent and get right with God is growing perilously short. And no, I’m not perfect either. I have to repent every single day for the stupid things I say and do, and even the stuff I’m not aware of that offends God. Heaven knows I need the cross!
I saw the gay guy and his ‘partner’, along with grandma and the five kids, as they disembarked from the ship. They were all excited, talking at the same time while trying to get their paperwork together to go through customs. And I had to shake my head. They are so lost, and they don’t even know it.
People, God loves you so much! He’s gone to the ends of the universe and given everything He could to open the way for you to live with Him forever in His kingdom. The Bible tells us very clearly in 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10 “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? You know, in my weak, emotional, sinful nature I have to admit I wish God didn’t decree that homosexuality is wrong. I can understand the arguments from gays that they love as much as heterosexuals do, just in a different way. I can see why they’d want to marry and raise families and be accepted in society as normal.
And, if there comes a day I become omniscient and sovereign and design and create my own universe, maybe I’ll change that. But that’s never gonna happen because I’m only dust and under the authority of the Almighty God who made me, just like everyone else. Therefore, because I DO care for people like the gay guy in the water taxi, I HAVE to keep warning the lost that their chance to escape the wrath of God is about to end.
The door to the proverbial ark is about to close and unless they repent, turn away from their sin, and embrace the salvation Christ purchased for them, they will suffer horribly as a result. The God that loves them is also a God of Holy justice and He’s just about had enough of mankind giving Him the finger.
I pray for that gay guy and his partner. I pray their eyes will be opened to the truth of their situation, and the peril they are facing. I pray for all those who are lost, who live their lives oblivious to the judgment that’s coming soon on the whole earth.
Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus!
author: bensmomi99@gmail.com