Gay people ‘probably’ born that way and can’t be ‘cured’, says new DUP leader Poots.
See Belfast Telegraph article: Poots says gay people probably born that way
When you endeavour to be morally and politically ‘all things to all men’ in order to gain their support, you must invariably dismiss God’s truth and seriously trip yourself up!
It did not take too long for Mr Edwin Poots to land flat on his face as he sought to paint himself as ‘Mr. Politically Correct’!
In a conversation with BBC broadcaster Stephen Nolan, the incoming DUP leader, Edwin Poots, said that he thinks gay people are born that way and added he did not believe “you can fix or cure” people of their sexuality.
This statement comes a short time after it was reported in the press that Mr Poots declared that his ‘Christian beliefs are actually mainstream.’ (Belfast Telegraph 18/5/21).
If by mainstream he means ‘orthodox and Bible-based’, then he has taken a step off the path of Bible truth with this declaration regarding sodomy!
I do not use the term ‘cured’ but I do believe that a sodomite may be ‘saved’ by the grace of God and cleansed from the evils of their lifestyle by the redeeming power of Christ. Paul gives an account of just such a thing happening to a number of the members of the Church at Corinth. “ 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. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God,” 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.
For the true Christian that settles the matter of whether or not a sodomite can be delivered from their wicked lifestyle and also settles whether Mr Poots is departing from the teaching of God’s Word, and the standards of the Free Presbyterian Church to which he belongs!
The other point he makes on this subject appears to be equally in error. He said: “I don’t believe that you can fix or cure people of their sexuality. People’s sexuality is their sexuality.” When asked if he thought gay people were born that way, Mr Poots replied “I probably do, yes.”
Those who say that sodomites are ‘born that way’ usually are inferring that these individuals could not help their sinful behaviour since that was how they were born.
That is a deception and a deceitful attempt to justify sodomy.
The Bible teaches us that, like David, we are all: “shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me,” Psalm 51:5. The depths of man’s depravity is deep indeed. “The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9. The Lord Jesus explains the matter even further. “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies,” Matthew 15:19.
There is no sin that the heart cannot give rise to. However, when a man steals, will a court accept his plea: ‘I was born that way and I can’t help it,’ and set him free?
I think not!
Likewise it is so with murders, adulteries, fornications (which include the perversions of today which go under the acronym ‘LGBT’), lying and blasphemy.
The act of murder etc is the result of a conscious, deliberate and rational decision. So it is with sodomy. While the depraved nature of the human being is capable of all these sins, guilt is incurred whenever a decision is made to embark down that path!
That decision cannot be excused by claiming ‘I was born that way’! Rather, it is a decision for which God will hold the person making it guilty of sin and bar them from eternal life!
There is no sin that cannot be forgiven or that the blood of Christ cannot cleanse except the sin of totally rejecting the mercy of God offered in the gospel.
Mr Poots, sadly, has made a statement with which he will have to live in the future for his enemies will never let him forget it, and he is only days into the office of DUP leader. He has embraced the lie of the devil and in doing so rejected the truth of God on this solemn matter.
Furthermore, what Mr Poots has said will have a most detrimental impact upon the thinking of many, already influenced by those who would have Christians reject God’s view of this wickedness. The Lord denounces it as an ‘abominable, disgusting thing’, Leviticus 18:22, for which he damned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, 2 Peter 2:6-7.
The future does not and cannot look bright for him and those who believed that he was the ‘great hope’ of the party who would reverse its decline!!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
20th May 2021.