News-Record.com

While the Haggard story is tragic and sad, it is not new. Great spiritual personages have fallen to temptation throughout history. King David fell to the allures of Bathsheba, and numerous Hebrew Kings, priests and citizens fell to the deceptions of pagan religious practices; leading to the Babylonian Captivity among other judgments. In the New Testament, St. Paul was constantly dealing with Christains who had been deceived by false teaching, sexual immorality and idolatry. But then there were vast majority who were faithful (though I’m sure imperfect) Christians: work-a-day church members, apostles, teachers, pastors, etc. – as is the case today.

If God in any way retracted our free will in these matters, we would no long be created in His image and likeness. When a Christian falls to sin it is the exercise of this free will, even though God has provided the grace and power to resist it. The provisions of salvation do not quash our free will, but make a way of escape, if we choose to resist it. Ted chose not to avail himself of that way, or that power.
It is the unregenerate sinner that is in sore bondage and bereft of true freedom of the will, having only a residual or phantom will.

It was, and is, a dishonor to the name of Jesus the Messiah, for any Christian to choose sin and lust over the wonderful joys of righteousness. The unbeliever gloats over any fall as he places one more brick in his wall of separation between his soul and God, and some believers are weakened in their resolve and faith. Davids’ sin had far-reaching ramifications in Hebrew life and history. So, any way you slice it, sin is a wretched and destructive force in anyone’s or any nation’s, life; even more so in the case of one who has publicly advanced the cause of Christ while playing the hypocrite. But then, Jesus’ main battles were with the hypocrites of his day, and not the tax collectors and prostitutes – though they too had to repent and turn from their sins. The call of Jesus, and all the righteous saints is the call to humility, truth and honesty before God: the unbelieving sinner must humble himself and repent; likewise the hypocrite.

Contrary to Alston’s article, Ted Haggard, pedophile priests, Bill Clinton, Foley or anyone one else’s sin, does not change one iota the truth of God, or His explicit standards of righteousness. The Jewish hypocrites of Jesus’ time in no way altered the eternal truth of God’s Law, though they wrongly interpreted it and failed to see their own pride and legalism in regard to it. So today, Ted Haggard’s sin is just that – sin! Quite the opposite of justifying gay marriage, parenthood or anything perverse, it reiterates God’s disdain for homosexuality, adultery, or prostitution, and those who practice it. To try to twist the very words of Scripture to say that, just because Jesus cared for the oppressed and downtrodden, God now overlooks the sinful nature of gay sex is the height of spiritual delusion and biblical ignorance.

NOWHERE in Scripture does God “change His mind” about any sin, nor condone it. It remains something that we, as a culture and as a Church, should consistently oppose, just as we must oppose prostitution, bestiality, true injustice, abortion, oppression of the poor and weak, etc. All sin has the ultimate effect of undermining and destroying a society, no matter how the spin doctors of Hollywood and our lust/perversion-driven culture may seek to disguise it in the short run, and market it to a spiritually naïve public.

Although Ted Haggard, or anyone, must answer for his or her own transgression, the fact that we have outed all kinds of sexual lust, making it easily available on the internet and other media, has made the temptations much more acute and ubiquitous. I’ve heard of many ministers and other prominent citizens who became “hooked” on porn, whether of the video, Internet, or printed variety. Rather than in any way excusing and promoting the gay agenda, this incident should vastly increase the determination of committed Christians to resolutely oppose it.