Long before I ever visited Texas for the first time I heard about “Texas pride”. And after moving here I came to love Houston. Those of you born and raised here love it no doubt. Houston is your city–you endure the heat and humidity, brave the hurricanes, and root for your teams even when they are terrible. You are not “fair-weather” fans. You stick to your guns and love your city through thick or thin. You have to admire people like that. But things have changed.

While Houston has always had its problems it has now reached an all time low! Even our love for the city shouldn’t prevent us from feeling the shame–on a number of counts, but we have now hit the bottom of the barrel! Here’s the news headline that is being talked about all across America–“Houston demands pastors turn over sermons“. And here is a brief quote describing what is happening:
“The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor. And those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court.”

This has to be the saddest day in Houston’s history. If you don’t see the wrong in this and the danger of it, you are in bad shape. You are part of the problem. If we don’t stand up and speak out now we never will, at least not until it is too late. When I first read of this on Facebook I responded by saying, “I publicly dare her to attend our service and I will make sure she hears what the Bible says about her sin. I don’t normally target people with my messages, but I will make an exception in her case.” If that offends you, you need to be offended. I make no apology from proclaiming what the Word of God declares. This is America, you can take it or leave, you are free to believe as you please, but you are not free to force me to remain silent. When you try to hush Christians from denouncing your sins, you not only violate their first amendment rights, you intrude in area where you have no business— separation of church and state.

I would hope that the good citizens of Houston would stand against this nonsense, but I have my doubts. Any city that would elect a lesbian mayor in the first place isn’t likely to care much about the violation of our constitutional rights. But be ye warned, if they get by with this they won’t stop here. They will cram their perverted ideology down your throat and force you to conform to their warped way of thinking. Those in Nazi-Germany failed to see the danger and refused to speak out until it was too late. We all know how that ended. Will we let history repeat itself? Time will tell.

The line in the sand has been drawn–where will you stand? Regardless of what the majority does or what the courts demand, as Christians we must stand our ground, and let the chips fall where they may. I for one will not be bullied into submission. I refuse to be silenced by the threats of a godless government. I will take my stand with Joshua who, in a similar sinful time, said, “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve ; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell : but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Josh. 24:15). Think about it!

Have you ever noticed, if we maintain a sweet spirit when those with a sour spirit leave, God adds those with a better spirit to replace those with a bitter spirit. So,we are foolish to let their failure lead to our fall. When we focus on their faults it causes us to fail. We need to remember the words of 1 John 2:19, ” They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us….”. Think about it this way—If those with us are not of us they will be a hindrance rather than a help.

As a young pastor I had a problem with letting the Sunday School attendance determine whether I was happy or not. Back then we had a record board showing the number in attendance, the size of the offering, etc. If the numbers were up I was up. If they were down I was down. Life was like a yo-yo, up and down, depending on the numbers. Another problem I had was that of losing members. I always felt that I must have failed in some way and that I needed to do everything possible to get them back. It took a long time before I realized that some people are more of a blessing going than coming. I also learned that one of the quickest ways to discourage the church is to continually complain about those who have left. My attitude did more harm than their absence.

We tend to worry too much about the number in attendance. While we should rejoice when God adds to the church, we should not lose our joy just because disgruntled  members leave. Although  it hurts to see people become casualties it is better to see them leave than to have them stay and become a spiritual cancer to the church. Begging such people to stay only invites disaster. Indeed we should pray for their recovery and do what we can to restore them, but that doesn’t mean we should compromise to please those who are only interested in being pleased. Rather than focus on the faults of those who leave, we need to thank God for the faithfulness of those who remain. If we stay, “stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58) the Lord will add to the church those of His choosing and things will work out for the best. We ought to rejoice in the Lord regardless of what happens. No one can take your joy from you. It has to be surrendered. And that would be foolish. Your joy should never depend on what do or don’t do. Think about it!

I recently watched a Dr. Phil show about “Catfish” and was floored by what I saw. A “Catfish” is someone who pretends to be someone they’re not. They create a false identity to extort money or goods from others. They find their victims by searching the internet for someone looking to find romance online. And evidently they are very successful– each year unsuspecting victims send millions of dollars to these people. I was astonished that anyone could be so stupid as to fall for such a scam, but they do. Some of the stories are unbelievable!

During the show they took a poll on Twitter seeing how many would ever send money to someone they’ve never met. 90% said “No” and 10% said “Yes”. Naturally it is those in that 10% group that these people are looking for, and with enough effort they find them! These “con-men” succeed by deceiving people and the “good” ones are very successful. They know that a large portion of the population is gullible and they keep searching until they find someone foolish enough to buy into their scam. They succeed for the same reason that the “Televangelist” bilk people out of millions, enabling them to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous. As I’ve said many times, it is easy to get a following. You can go to any street corner in America and stand on a soap box preaching anything, and if you do it loud enough and long enough you will finally get some people to follow you. It happens all the time. Beware of “Christian catfish”

Anyone with a charming personality, the gift of gab, an emotional presentation and patience can get a following of loyal supporters if they say what the people want to hear. And such people exist all across America. We live in dangerous times and what we see is exactly what Paul describes in 2 Tim. 3, especially vs 13, ” But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” That makes it more important than ever that we search the scriptures and build our lives on the firm foundation of God’s Word. Guessing isn’t good enough, tradition can be a trap, and those with charismatic personalities can be purveyors of poison. It is one thing to be hood-winked by a “catfish” and lose all your money, it is another thing to lose your soul. The worse case of identity theft in the world is the person who claims to be a Christian who isn’t and uses his influence to lead people into a Christ-less eternity. That’s as bad as it gets.