that in the last days men will be lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power (2 Tim 3:1, 4, 5);
and that there will be a time when men will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, will heap up for themselves teachers, turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables (2 Tim 4:3, 4).
One of the signs of an approaching apostasy, some believe, is the rising promotion of homosexuality within the church.
Dr Gene Robinson, the American bishop who caused so much trouble in the Anglican communion by leaving his wife and living openly in a homosexual relationship, was asked recently why he should be taken seriously as an advocate for his position when he had broken the vow he took with his former wife.
He said he takes marriage "unbelievably seriously." When it became clear, he said, that his marriage was unnatural for him and he and his wife divorced, he and his wife went directly to their church, read apologies and gave back the symbols of their vows, the rings they had exchanged at their wedding 17 years earlier, in order to honour those same vows.
When a man and a woman appear before God and make marriage vows, God makes them one flesh. Poor Bishop Robinson's problem there is that there is no mechanism to reverse the process.
Some homosexuals are more belligerent. It is a shame when something is promoted in the nominal Christian church of which God so clearly disapproves.
But there does need to be love in the church too - as I shall demonstrate in the next post on this blog.
