marriage bill last Friday, there are many voices crying out.
Some in the secular world—and even in the church—are celebrating. Others, like Dr. Michael Youssef, are weeping.
Although many are blaming Republicans, Youssef
is pointing a bold finger directly at the church of Jesus Christ. As he sees
it, the church allowed this abomination to rise up and the church is the only body
on earth working to restore God’s righteousness to the land.
Charisma News caught up with Youssef,
founder and president of Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef, a worldwide
television ministry, and senior pastor of The Church of the Apostles in
Atlanta, to discuss his thoughts on the gay marriage campaigns across the
country and how the church should respond now.
Charisma
News: What are some of your thoughts on this gay
marriage law passing in New York?
Youssef:
Here is another one that goes down the tubes. The
stats say one in nine Americans are living in states where gay marriage is
legal and it’s not going to stop there.
Let’s go to the beginning. When we begin to
be immoral people we will cease to be blessed people. God blessed us as a
nation through the years because of the faithfulness of the Founding Fathers to
God’s Word. It might not be explicit but implicit in every action of their
deliberation. Now we come to a time where we are removing the boundaries of our
forefathers and as we remove these boundaries we are removing ourselves from
the hand of God’s blessing and protection.
It is very disturbing to see the greatest
nation leading the world in this abomination. It is very, very sad. This is a
group of Republicans that made this happen. This is not a Republican-Democrat
issue anymore. It is a moral issue. Those who love the Scripture and God’s
ideal for our society must be very repulsed and speak against it. We need to
examine every candidate for office from now on—to check not how he is going to
help the economy, but how he is going to uphold God’s moral standard.
Charisma
News: You are right. With 2012 coming up, we have
an opportunity and I hope we take that opportunity very seriously. I have seen
many people coming out against the Republican Party in outrage.
Youssef:
It is not really about the Republican Party. I have
said this all along. Many of us who were in the party loved Reagan and Bush. The
Republican Party hasn’t been able to do anything. They haven’t been able to
make decisions or to lead. They have made speeches but I think it has to be a grassroots
movement from the bottom up.
These are not social issues that so many
folks in the media are telling people to lighten up on if they want to get
elected. They are moral issues and we have got to make a decision as a nation
whether we are going to be a moral nation or we aren’t going to be. Younger
evangelicals have been sucked in by false teaching and are now walking away and
turning their backs on biblical morality. The only morality they look at is
taking care of the poor by the government—not by us but by the government. That
is very dangerous.
The problem is that we are not taking the
warnings that God has gently been giving us, from tornadoes and floods. God
keeps sending us these gentle warnings to wake us up, but we are not waking up
at all. We just keep saying we can overcome and keep putting our hopes in
ourselves.
Charisma
News: What is it going to take then? Is the Church
doing its job? Are we doing enough? Praying enough?
Youssef:
This problem started in the church. The society did
not begin to collapse on its own, morally, when churches started to reject the
authority of the word of God. The debate about homosexuality started in the church
and not politics. The Episcopal Church started the whole thing by ordaining
gays and blessing gay marriages. That came from the church pulpit into society.
Then the Presbyterians followed and now many evangelicals don’t want to talk
about it. The main issue is rejecting God’s word as authoritative over us as
individuals and as a church. As goes the church so goes society. The church is
the one that needs to repent first. It is my call to the church through my blog
and writing to call the church to repentance. Until that happens society is
going to continue going in a downward spiral.
Charisma
News: It seems like that is a message many people
don’t want to hear: repent.
Youssef:
I saw this program the other day with Ken Ham with
his theme park about creationism in Oklahoma. Guess who is opposing him?
Pastors in the area. One pastor came on PBS and said they believe in evolution
and not this stuff and they are going to fight him. These are pastors in
Oklahoma. We have to clean house before we point fingers. They will point the
finger back and say we as believers need to cry to the Lord in the Spirit of
repentance.
Charisma
News: That is the bottom line.
Youssef:
I was given the keynote address to NRB three years
ago. It was almost prophetic that I was quoting Jeremiah Chapter 9 where he was
saying “I want to weep over my people.” You look at the condition of the church
and we need to be weeping, not celebrating. We need to be weeping because the
condition of the church is so dire. As we weaken we have all these massive
churches and they are all preaching self help and we have selfed ourselves to
death.
Charisma
News: What will it take to get the church to
repent?
Youssef:
It is a combination of the faithful to keep crying
to the Lord. I have a personal view that isn’t from Scripture that we are in
for a big catastrophe. Why America? Because we should know better. Why not
China? Because they are pagan. How are they to know better? We do. They don’t
have the biblical foundation we do. God judged Israel into exile. Why Israel?
Because they should have known better. They got into idolatry and did not
repent. Prophet after prophet would call them to repent and they wouldn’t. God had
enough and sent them into Babylon. This is the way God works and this is His
character. This is what is going to happen sooner than we realize.
Charisma
News: People don’t want to hear the truth. It is
good that you are saying these things. If it does happen at least we will
remember we were warned.
Youssef:
It will serve as a witness. But when you read Revelation
and there are catastrophes that literally come and wipe out one-third of the
population and do you think their hearts would repent? No. God is not going to
be mocked and He is going to justify and vindicate His own name.
