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I want to show you an image, and this is a real image I was sent in 2015. Now, remember the voluntary, non-binding, postal survey that we had was in 2017, so this is two years before that. This is actually illegal. This is a flyer that was sent home to all students from Burwood Girls, just down the road from where I was ministering in Sydney.

Particularly if you are in education, you’ll see the problem with this flyer more quickly than most. It says all students will attend a special screening of the feature-length documentary Gaybie Baby. This is in support of gay marriage, at Burwood Girls High School Hall, on Friday the twenty-eighth of August 2015 during periods two and three.

This is getting close to the HSC, but all students — all classes — are cancelled for the morning so they can go to this. They will be followed by purple cupcakes and a fashion parade at lunchtime under the rainbow flag. And, “Please wear purple shoes, hats, scarves, tops, jumpers, pants, socks, jewellery, skirts.” Now, the biggest problem with this is there is no opt-out. That is illegal in New South Wales.

This was an opportunity that God gave me, which I sent to the major newspapers in Sydney, and it literally became the front-page news of The Daily Telegraph a day or so later. What was incredible about this is that when we asked the school — we approached the Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli at the time — he was very reluctant to do anything.

So we prayed for his removal, and a couple of months later he was gone. But at the time, he banned the film rather than deal with it. So the principal showed the film on a Friday afternoon so that the students could still watch it, and the police turned up in their beautiful, bespoke purple uniforms.

So what is that saying to every child at the time? It was against the law to show it. It was actually against the law to change the law, because they wanted to change it. It was not legal to be married to a person of the same sex, and they were saying that if you oppose this, you will have the full weight of the law coming down on you.

Now, at the time, I remember saying to the school — and this school is very progressive — the assistant principal or deputy principal ran a lunchtime lesbian lunchtime group for the students. Imagine doing that in churches. But how is that not sexualising children? I do not know. I am not accusing her of wrongdoing, but I am flabbergasted that that was occurring.

Their defence to me at the school was this: “Well, it is part of the Safe Schools Coalition.”

Can I just say, in the providence of God, no one knew what the Safe Schools Coalition was until this moment. And as we looked into it and thought, “What is this program they are talking about?” we looked into it and went, “Oh my goodness. This is bad.”

I will give you an example of how bad. They were teaching teenage girls how to bind their breasts so their breasts would not develop. Now, you might think, “That is pretty gross.” The Safe Schools program was saying, “You have to do this correctly, because if done incorrectly, you could restrict your blood flow and it could be lethal.”

And that was not even the half of it. The rest of the material and its associated links — when we tried to get the politicians in Canberra to look at them — the politicians were saying, “Look, we are really concerned about your concerns, but we cannot access it, because the parliamentary servers are blocking it as porn.”

So when you get these Orwellian statements of safe schools, respectful relationships, anti-bullying — there is no bullying about kids at school about their sexuality, because they are kids. Race, marks, looks — some of us are better looking than others. They are the things you get bullied about, but not your sexuality until you make it an issue you want to bully kids about.

I use this as an example to show just what one flyer from a school — and being willing to forward it on — can do. That changed the national conversation. Now, I did not do it. That was just the providence of God. But if you are willing to step out in faith with the opportunities God gives you, here is what I have learnt, friends: God uses the faithfulness of a few. That is always the way. You do not have to have a mass movement, although that would be good. Just be faithful with what God has given you.

There are a few other things I want to pick up, because I think Steve gave us such an excellent approach to understanding this historical development. What you have to understand about people like Michel Foucault — and if you have gone to uni you will pick up on this — is the deconstruction of language and all the rest of it.

The level of degeneracy is often not mentioned in polite society. At some point, to expose the deeds of darkness, you must actually reveal what some of these people are involved in. Foucault — who is really the godfather of the homosexual movement, I think, in many ways — he is not alone, but he gave it the intellectual chops, and so many on the academic Left today take their cues from him.

By the end of his life, when he was giving lectures, he had to wear a nappy because he was faecally incontinent. Why he was faecally incontinent, I will leave to your imagination. But he was also accused — and this has come out since — of having sex with Algerian children in graveyards.

When I say the level of degeneracy of these people is massive, we are not kidding. One of the red-pill moments for me was when I was in the ADF — in Wee Waa — and if you are old enough to remember this, you will remember that ACL was in the news because Jim Wallace, who was the director at the time, had said that the homosexual lifestyle was as dangerous for you as smoking.

Do you remember that? Everybody was up in arms. How could you say such a thing? That the homosexual lifestyle — even though it is well documented that domestic violence amongst homosexual couples is far greater than amongst heterosexual couples. So it cannot be simply because of the patriarchy.

Lesbians are not men. Anyway, the point being, I actually rang ACL at that time and said, “How are you guys — why are you guys saying this?” And they said, “Well, let me just tell you, we’re quoting a homosexual health submission from Canada that says, ‘We need more funding for our lifestyle because our lifestyle is more dangerous than smoking.’” It was a submission to the Canadian government that they were basing that on, from the homosexual lobby itself.

The other thing is — and Steve has really picked up on something that is very important — this whole idea of the self-harm ideology: “Better to have a live son than a dead daughter.” That itself is actually what is the cause of suicide — what they call in academic circles “suicide ideation.” You are putting that idea into their head.

You are infantilising people by saying the only way out of this is if you kill yourself. Friends, there is no other word for this, and that is demonic. The thief comes only to lie, to steal, to kill, and destroy. Jesus has come that we might have life and have it abundantly.

One more thing I want to say is that we live in an era of what I call “weaponised compassion,” or what Steve called “the tyranny of empathy.” It is basically that the first to claim victimhood in any setting is therefore untouchable.

You know, “Believe all women.” It did not really work out for Brittany Higgins lately, but that is the sort of idea when taken to its nth degree. But here is what I want to say to us today, and I want to say this carefully. If you would open your Bibles, please, to One Corinthians chapter fourteen.

I just want to read you a couple of verses — One Corinthians 14:24–25.

It says, “But if all prophesy,” that is, I think, if all speak God’s word, right? “And an unbeliever or an outsider enters while you are at church, he is convicted by all, and he is called to account by all. The secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.”

Now, do you know what that is saying? I hope that this is everyone’s experience who comes to your church or when you go to church, or even your experience today — that you have an encounter with the true and living God. The God who is not silent, but the God who speaks to us through his word.

And can I be a little more provocative? It is not safe to be in the presence of the living God, and to hear him speak to you through his word is the most earth-shattering experience you can ever have.

And I hope it is your experience today. So before we look at God’s word together, let us pray again and ask for his grace.

Father, we thank you. We are just so overjoyed that we can meet together to sharpen one another, to be with brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord, you are the true and living God. All hearts are exposed and open before you. Pour out your Holy Spirit from heaven now that we might know you, the true and living God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, for in that is eternal life.

Father, we pray that you would give us ears to hear, and we pray that you would be with me — that I would speak in a way that glorifies your name and builds up all of us. Lord, we commit this time to you. We pray for your blessing, for we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I have been a pastor now for over twenty-five years, and I have to say that the local church has been one of the greatest blessings in my life. I have met so many amazing people over that time, and without doubt, my life is richer for it because that is what Jesus has saved me into and to be.

The greatest relationship in my life, outside of my relationship with my wife Angie and our children — we have six of them, and two grandchildren — is my relationship with God through Jesus. But it is the local church in which that is manifested.

There is a verse in Mark chapter ten where Jesus says, “I tell you the truth: no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age — homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields, and with them persecutions — and in the age to come, eternal life.”

Now, can I just say what makes this passage so wonderful is Jesus’ promise that whatever we give up for him, we will receive a hundred times as much in this life, and in the age to come, eternal life. It is not all beer and skittles though, as they say, because he says we will also be persecuted.

In fact, the apostle Paul says it, does he not? “If anyone wishes to lead a godly life in Christ Jesus, he will be persecuted.” It is not a matter of if, but when.

One of the main reasons, I think, why people decide not to follow Jesus is because of the risk to their relationships with other people or possibly things.

Other things or other people are more important than Jesus. They love them more than they love him. It could be their mother or father or husband or wife or one of their siblings, or even one of their children, who might think, “I cannot come to church, sorry — the missus would not be pleased. I cannot come to church, sorry — spending time with the grandkids.”

It could also be because putting their hope in this world means trying to find their identity in their wealth or their farms or their careers. It is one of the greatest idols of our age, is it not? The amazing thing about Jesus is this: he says whatever we are willing to give up to him, he will give back to us a hundredfold — fathers, mothers, siblings, children, and even fields.

Now, I have to immediately qualify what I mean by that, because I do not think Jesus promises to make us prosperous in the worldly sense of the term, okay? Of having more wealth than everyone else and never getting sick. I think that is just another form of sanctified greed.

Over my many years as a pastor, I have seen a lot of godly saints go to be with the Lord before the age of seventy, before three score and ten. And I must say they are some of the people of the most model faith, who die in Christ well. Instead, I think the riches Jesus is promising here — did you notice this? — are primarily relational.

Fathers, mothers, siblings, and children.

In every church I have served in, there have been single women who would desperately love to be married and to have children — desperately. And in every church, unfortunately, there has been one or two who have given that birthright up in Christ for a bowl of red stew. In other words, the non-Christian boyfriend, the non-Christian wife.

And yet, in the sovereign providence of God, in every church I have served in, there have been faithful men and women — for instance, in this case, single — who have stayed single. Now, can I ask, friends: has God failed them? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

As it says in Psalm 68:6, God sets the lonely in families.

One of the godliest women I know lives a couple of doors down from me, and she is a deacon in our church — a deaconess. She is forty now, going on forty-one. Single. Would love to be married. Head of nursing at the Royal. And she just spends her life cooking meals for people. That is her verse. She said to me the other day, “God sets the lonely in families.” She said, “I am so glad you and your wife and your family moved to Hobart.”

In other words, the Lord gives us these relationships in a way where we can enjoy them without holding onto them.

And the same kind of thing — can I just say — occurs with our wealth. I have been so blessed over the years by sharing the material blessings of other believers. I have had experiences and done things I am certain I never would have had if I had lived for myself. When I was living in Wee Waa, one of the elders had a helicopter, and he would take me on helicopter rides just to shoot pigs and stuff. How blessed is that?

Truly, there is a richness in serving and following Jesus.

But with that said, there are times when it is also incredibly difficult, is it not? When those closest to us in the church can hurt us so incredibly deeply that we feel like chucking it all in. Some of us carry the scars of those terrible encounters for the rest of our lives. This is where, I think, friends, the true test of Christian discipleship lies, since it is only because of the gospel that we can truly love and forgive — and most of all, love.

That is something I would like to come back to at the end of this talk.

But my topic that I have been given is this: dealing with difficult topics in church. And there are four main points I want to make.

The first is that we have to have the courage to speak. Now, this is something I have really been convicted of lately. So would you please turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 56 for a minute, and I would like to share with you one particular verse.

Isaiah 56. It is what the Lord says in verse 10 that has especially challenged me. He says:

Israel’s watchmen are blind;
they all lack knowledge;
they are all mute dogs,
they cannot bark;
they lie around and dream;
they love to sleep.

I feel this pretty much sums up, unfortunately, a lot of Christian leaders in the church today. Like the church of Sardis in Revelation 3, we have a reputation for being alive, but we are asleep. Its leaders are like mute dogs who, for whatever reason, refuse to bark — and so have become mute. They do not even raise a growl.

Have you ever had an animal like that? They are just so sleepy or dopey that they will not do anything at all except maybe go catch a ball — that would be fun.

There is a cowardice, though, which has crept into the church today that is truly alarming, where Christian leaders will never speak on the truly important moral and spiritual issues of the day — except if it is walking across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of terrorists. That way everyone can see how righteous they are in supposedly supporting the needs of children when, can I just say, five times the number of children are killed in our country every year.

It is fine if you want to cross the bridge in support of all of the children who have died. Just do not say you are going to do it and then refuse to walk for abortion. You will never hear those leaders say anything about that.

Because we do not want to get political — except when you are politically walking across a bridge in favour of Palestine. I was at a Heads of Churches meeting earlier this week, and we discussed what we might do together in Hobart on the topic of abortion.

I have simply come to the conclusion that enough is enough. In Queensland, did you know that for the last generation, twenty-eight percent of all pregnancies have ended in abortion? It is over a quarter, getting close to a third.

Now, while we were discussing this, the majority were in favour, but it was almost immediately met with questioning as to whether this was the most important question we should be addressing. Really? How much more important a subject can you get than the murder of eighty-nine thousand babies every year in this country alone? People get upset when you say this, but it is only because it is true. There is a literal holocaust occurring right before our eyes.

And it is happening every single year. There is a famous, tragic situation in Nazi Germany when there was a church — a German church — right by the railway tracks. And every week, when the Jews were being hauled away, do you know what the Christian congregation did? They did not go out and try to stop it.

They sang louder. They sang louder so they would not hear the cries of the people who were in the carriages being taken away. The Lord’s people, and especially those who are His leaders, are called to be watchmen.

And that means speaking when it is time to speak, just as a guard dog is supposed to bark when he notices an intruder. The first point, then, when it comes to dealing with difficult topics, is that we have to be prepared to actually deal with difficult topics. It is what we have to do.

We have to be prepared to bark — I mean speak. The second point is something of a corrective to this, and that is that we have to do this in a wise and discerning way. So point one: we need to have the courage to speak.

Thanks. Point two: you need to do it in a wise, discerning way. A guard dog that barks all the time is just annoying, is it not? And it is the same with preachers who are constantly banging on about the latest controversy.

Being courageous, then, needs to be balanced and tempered with being wise and discerning. So let me give you a controversial case in point. During COVID, I think the church across the world — and especially in Australia — lost its collective mind.

There were a number of ministers who promoted mandatory vaccination in such a way that they said you were sinning if you were not vaccinated. That is wrong. What is more, they seemed to delight in having all of these restrictions placed upon them, even after the Black Lives Matter protests, sporting competitions, and even brothels were allowed to function.

Some of my own family members lost their jobs because they refused to be vaccinated, and they were even prevented from serving freely in their church. At the time, people were so preoccupied with Romans 13 about submitting to the state — rightly — that they failed to keep on reading into chapter 14, where Paul talks about liberty of conscience. Now, I know we did not really know what we were dealing with, especially at first, but I think COVID-19 really exposed a lack of spiritual discernment and courage in the church.

Now, with that said, I have also observed how people who were never vaccinated almost take self-righteous delight whenever someone is sick and suggest that it is almost definitely the vaccine. That is not loving. In my own church in Hobart, we had many people who did not want to come to church unless, for instance, people wore a mask.

Do I personally think that masks were effective? No, I actually do not — especially if you touch your eyes and your face, you just spread it around. But can I just say: if it was going to cause my brother or sister in Christ to stumble, then that was an inconvenience I was prepared to accept. And I say all this, by the way, as somebody who got vaccinated.

I will put my cards on the table. This is a difficult topic, friends, and I have probably offended most of you in what I have said — or have not said. But here is the thing.

We need to exercise grace and wisdom and, above all, discernment — but most of all, love. Love. While these are tricky topics, they provide a profound opportunity in God’s providence to prove the maturity — or perhaps the lack thereof — of our faith.

Now, that leads me to my third point, which is that we need to have the grace to disagree. I have to go quickly here; I have only got a couple of minutes.

During the height of all of our difficulties at church, one of the elders — after searching the Scriptures (we lost probably a third of our church during COVID) — said in a key session meeting, “We need to be prepared to bear with one another in love.” And a third of our church said, “Nah. We will go with what we think.”

“My convictions are more important than your fellowship.” From the very beginning of COVID-19, I thought that the biggest danger of all was not the disease but the division the devil could create in the body of Christ — and boy, did he drive division. That was by far and away the greatest danger we faced, and unfortunately, too many of us championed the convictions of our own conscience over the well-being of our fellowship within the broader body of Christ.

Can I just say this, friends? When it comes to dealing with difficult topics, the biggest mistake we can make is to win the point and lose the person — and can I say, that is always going to be a loss. Why not lose the point and win the person for whom Christ died? Once again, I’m not saying that you should not share your concerns with each other or strongly held beliefs or opinions with one another.

I’m definitely not saying that. As I said before, we need to have the courage to speak, and sometimes this means talking to those who are closest to us, and it means patiently listening to their point of view when we instinctively and immediately want to recoil and maybe even run away. It is too hard.

One of the beautiful things about church is that people are not like us. Spurgeon used to say that the church is like Noah’s Ark — if it were not for the danger of the flood on the outside, you would not be able to stand the stench of all the animals on the inside.

And let us face it, there are a fair few porcupines as well as koala bears. The beauty of the church, then, is that in the wisdom of God, we have been brought into relationship with all kinds of people. And while this is uncomfortable, it is profoundly good for us, because the way people know that we are Christians is through our love.

Sometimes, something that I have come to appreciate more and more is how the blood of Jesus unites us even when we continue to disagree on all kinds of secondary issues. I cannot think of any human organisation or group on earth that is like this. As we open the Word of God together and focus on Jesus, our Saviour and Lord, it is amazing how incredibly complex issues and disagreements are resolved.

The key, though, is to focus on Jesus and let nothing else take central place. Now, can I just say very quickly, this all leads me to my fourth, and I think my most important point, and that is — here is the challenge, right? Here is Christ’s word to us: forgive.

I said at the start of the talk that the church was the greatest blessing in my life. I hope that you know deeply in your own experience what I mean by that. But it does not mean that we are immune to hurting one another in all kinds of horrible and even spiteful ways.

I would not at all be surprised if there were more than a few people here this afternoon who are still suffering in one way or another. Maybe you are even on the verge of giving up on your church because the pain is just too great. But can I just say, remember Jesus’ parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18? You and I have been forgiven a debt we could never in a trillion years repay. And yet God, in His incredible and undeserved mercy, has forgiven us everything, has He not? Has He not? So much of dealing with difficult topics at church, then, is dealing with the difficulties in us.

Let me give you an illustration in conclusion. Imagine if, for a moment, I had a water bottle. If I shake the water bottle, what happens? It is an important question — a trick question. You might say, well, water is going to come out of the bottle.

The answer is obvious — you shook the bottle, water is going to come out. That is not really the issue. The reason water comes out of the bottle is because there is water in the bottle in the first place.

If the bottle were empty or full of fairy dust, you would have a completely different result — you would be covered in fairy dust. Can I just say, it is the same when difficulties arise at church. Please do not ever say, “So-and-so makes me angry.”

You are angry, or you are impatient, or you are harsh because all of those things are already inside you. It just took the opportunity to bring them out. The difficult person or the effect of being shaken merely exposed what was within you the whole time — do you see? The Lord Jesus says in Matthew 15:

“Listen and understand. What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him unclean, but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him unclean.”

In the same way, friends, when difficult situations arise, it is a wonderful opportunity to search your own heart. Why am I angry? Why am I impatient? Why am I harsh? Because I am a sinner. And as Stephen said before, that is good.

Yes, it is not safe to be exposed to the light. Yes, it is like little cockroaches — we want to sinfully run away and scurry into the corners. But the blood of Jesus washes away all guilt and sin and condemnation.

Can I just say, there is so much more to say. We might leave it there. Let us pray.

Father, we want to thank You for Your Word this afternoon, and we pray that You would give us the grace to forgive just as we have been forgiven. Lord, we thank You that You are so loving, and You are so patient with us. Lord, heal us, transform us, and renew us.

May we be filled with Your Holy Spirit, and may we know Your joy, unspeakable, overflowing in our heart. And may our love overflow into all of our relationships and our fellowship. Bless and renew our relationships, particularly at church, and those whom we are struggling to forgive.

May You empower us to do so. And we ask all of this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Episode 7: Handling Difficult Topics in the Church

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More Episodes

Episode 7: Handling Difficult Topics in the Church

Manuscript

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