Gospel Raid at Atlanta Pride
By Levi Gray

November 1st, 2009 was a bittersweet morning for me.  At 5:30 AM, I piled into a van with eleven other passengers, a sound system, and signs.  I was thrilled to be spending the day with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.  We were going to be preaching the Gospel to thousands of homosexuals lost in their sin.  I knew that we were going to a place of crippling rebellion and pride, where the name of God would be mocked, where false messages of hope and peace would be preached, and where few people would hear the Word of God and repent.

We were going to Atlanta Pride, one of the largest gay pride events of this region, if not this nation.  I had been to several of these events before, but nothing of this proportion.  Countless people of all races, religions, genders and “sexual orientations” gathered to celebrate a freedom in America - the freedom to be proud of sin.  These people weren’t simply parading their homosexuality, they used this event to bring all of their sin out of the closet and into the public to proclaim, “We are our own God!”  If it was listed in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, I can assure you it was openly and shamelessly committed in the streets of Atlanta, Georgia .

There was no doubt as to what our responsibilities were in this place.  As we were driving up to Atlanta , Georgia, I was reading Ezekiel in my Bible.  I was reading the first three chapters, in which Ezekiel experiences visions from God, and then receives a commission to begin his prophetic ministry to the rebellious sons of Israel .  One verse that stuck out to me was 2:6-7: “And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words.  Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions.  Do not be afraid of what they say or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house.  You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious.” From these verses it became clear to me that just as Ezekiel would be mocked and scorned and hated, just as the people of Israel would not heed his warnings, we would have the same response from the homosexual community.  However, as my good friend Destiny Thomas pointed out to me, God does not expect results, only obedience.

As we stepped onto the sidewalks donning our bright red Jesus Is the Standard T-Shirts and our poster sized signs proclaiming the truth about homosexuality, the air around us became thick and burdensome.  The looks we received from the gay community were less than friendly, and the comments were far from hospitable.  As we turned up the sound system and preached the truth in love to these people, and went out into the midst of them in hopes of sharing the gospel individually, it became obvious we were not welcome.  We became the target of projectile paraphernalia, absurd screaming, mockery, cursing and threats.

At one point during the event, I was with Flip while he was open air preaching on the sidewalk.  Destiny was filming.  Next thing we know, here comes Craig Gross, who is the co-founder of several “ministries” such as JesusLovesYou.net and XXXChurch.  He is heavily connected with the Emergent Church , and his only goal, as he explained on his website, was to “apologize to the gay community for the way many Christians, Evangelicals, and Fundamentalists have made the gay community their punching bag over the last three decades.”  He begins arguing with Flip about the sin of over-eating being just as serious as the sin of homosexuality.  To make a long story short, Craig showed his Christian love towards Flip by emptying a water bottle all over his shirt.  On the bottle were the words, “Jesus Loves You .com.”  How considerate of Craig!

Here is a portion of Craig Gross’ blog regarding what took place at Atlanta Pride from his demented perspective.  Adam Tennant, whose report of Atlanta Pride you will read below, said that Ezekiel 13:22-23 most correctly represents this false prophet:  “Because you disheartened the righteous with your lies, when I had brought them no grief, and because you encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil ways and so save their lives, therefore you will no longer see false visions or practice divination.  I will save my people from your hands.  And then you will know that I am the Lord.”

We had a great team of people show up for Atlanta Gay Pride Event. We are going to post stories and recaps here...Stay tuned:

Standing in our vendor booth at the Atlanta Gay Pride Festival caused a commotion of compassion.  Rarely, was there a minute that went by that we were not able to give a white bracelet to the attenders that simply said, "We're Sorry" and pink bracelets that said, "It's True, He does."   The first, begged the question, "Sorry for what?"  For Craig and I, this last stop on the Jesus Loves You This I Know book tour, offered us an opportunity to apologize to the gay community for the way many Christians, Evangelicals, and Fundamentalist have made the gay community their punching bag over the last three decades.  The second reiterated the truth that we have shared is more than a cliche, "Jesus Loves You."
 
Beyond the vendor area and along the parade route, we were able to hand out more than 1000 bottles of water wrapped with the aged old truth, Jesus Loves You This I Know.  In the midst of such a diverse culture, we realized that the traction our book has found created the opportunity for a new conversation that starts with spirituality rather than sexuality.
 
The book is an easy read to take back the message of Jesus that has been high-jacked by zealots and hate mongers who claim to be God's spoke persons.  At Atlanta Pride, we had hundreds of conversations, one person at a time, that helped close the gap that has created polarizing propaganda on both sides.  For us, its simple, Jesus' love is available for anyone. 

When the Church takes a stand, it is no doubt going to face opposition, and many who will oppose us will be of the religious persuasion, or at least those who "claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.”  Prophets and priests exist today, just as they did in Israel long ago, who prophesy "Peace" when there is no peace, and preach words of comfort to itching ears, soothing them with a "luving" message that sends them straight to hell.  We showed true love to these people when we exposed their sins in the light of Christ, in hopes that they would repent and escape God's wrath.  For our love, we were mocked and hated, but we remember to rejoice that we participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that we may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.    1 Peter 4:13.

The sun started to rise as we traveled in Tom Cook's Denali on our way to meet twenty other saints to bring the truth to the 2009 Atlanta Pride Parade.  The four of us, (Tom Cook, Jason Dellinger, Dion Woolfolk and myself), decided to read some Scripture.  Jason had to catch up in his Bible reading schedule so we read from Saturday's reading.  We quickly realized that it was no accident that we read these particular chapters.  No.  In preparation for the grueling day we faced, God had a specific word for us straight out of Ezekiel, chapters two and three.

Before I get to the exact scripture that stuck out to us so much, let me first set it up with another passage from the same book.  In Ezekiel chapter eight, the Spirit took Ezekiel to the temple to see, for himself, the detestable things that were taking place.  Ezekiel's eyes were opened to the wicked and detestable things that were taking place in the temple of the Lord.  The house of Israel were doing horrible things, but they were being led by the ruling seventy elders (the Sanhedrin).  Ezekiel was blown away by the things he saw, but the Spirit kept telling him that he would see things that are "even more detestable."

You might wonder what this passage has to do with the 2009 Atlanta Pride Parade.  Ezekiel was a prophet called to deliver God's mail to the house of Israel .  But, before he could go amongst them and proclaim His word, his eyes had to be opened.  Likewise, today, the church of Jesus Christ has been called to be watchmen. Therefore, we need to be able to see.

Hopefully, after reading this, you will get a glimpse of what goes on at these detestable events.  When a Christian hears what we do at these parades, the most popular response is, "Don't you think you should be more loving?"  There are many problems with that question.  But, instead of addressing all of them, let me just say that if they had eyes to see, they would not say such things.  And I also have to say that they obviously don't fully grasp the biblical concept of love (See Leviticus 19:17).

That gets us back to the scripture that stuck out to us on our ride down.  There were several key words and phrases that stuck out to us.  The word, "rebellious" was mentioned eight times in Ezekiel chapters two and three.  God was also adamant in these two chapters that Ezekiel speak His words to the people.  He also, repeatedly, told him not to be afraid of the people he would be delivering God's mail to.  All of those things were very applicable to our trip to Atlanta .  But, more than anything, verse seven of chapter two really spoke to us.  "You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious."

Beloved, we had been to this particular event in years past and we knew what to expect.  We were going to be speaking the word of God to a people that, for the most part, would not listen to the things we had to say.  Now most of the church would say that we must not be going about things the right way.  But, remember this, it's not about success.  It's about faithfulness.  We must speak the word of God to all the world, regardless of whether they listen or not.  And trust me, for the most part, our message fell on deaf ears this year.  Oh, they heard it. They just hated what we had to say.

Don't get me wrong.  When we broke up into pairs of two at this event, we ran into one divine appointment after another.  When having these one-on-one conversations, it's amazing to see the Holy Spirit breaking through the pride of individuals.  Those conversations are fun and are very necessary in ministering at these kinds of events.
But, there is another message that must be brought: the public proclamation – the Kerygma!  And that's where we get the message from the church, that we are not doing things right.  But make no mistake about it, this message must be brought.  While one-on-one witnessing is vitally important, so is this.  We cannot allow hundreds of thousands of homosexuals to parade their sin like Sodom in the streets of our cities without boldly and sternly confronting them in their sin.  Will you win many converts this way?  Perhaps not.  Not right off the bat anyway.  But that's what the one-on-one witnessing is for.

When you are witnessing to a homosexual, you don't want to start off by dealing with his sexual perversion.  No. You want to make a connection and swing it to the spiritual.  If the conversation goes well, the Holy Spirit will open a door to deal with the specific sin of homosexuality (usually while you are going through God's Law). Then you will have a wonderful opportunity to talk to him about his childhood, his sin and, our Savior.

But when you are making a public proclamation, confronting the sin of homosexuality, you need to bring it down hard.  Why?  Because many believe that they can practice homosexuality and love Jesus at the same time. And what might that be called? A false religion.  So, when Christians say that Jesus would never do it the way we do it, they simply don't understand the Jesus of the Bible. 

It was Jesus who nailed the religious hypocrites of His day, by calling them hypocrites, vipers, whitewashed tombs, etc.  Jesus didn't pull any punches and neither should we.  Especially, when you have churches participating IN the parade.  That's right!  There are always a number of churches that actually march in the parade.  Where did you think they were getting their affirmation from?  None other than wolves in sheep's clothing.  And when you deal with these guys (and gals), you don't start by setting up a friendly dialog.  No. You bust them!  “A truthful witness saves lives, but a false witness is deceitful.” Proverbs 14:25.

Now, just to warn you, when you run with this message, you will not go without great opposition.  I am making no exaggerations when I say this, but had the SWAT team not surrounded us, I would not be writing this article today.  I would be dead (probably after being brutally mutilated by this blood-thirsty mob).  You can hardly believe the hatred spewing from their lips.  What's so odd about it is that, on many occasions, someone would be screaming obscenities, with spit flying all over the place, shouting, "God is love! You are full of hate!"  I'm not joking.  Then, Craig Gross, the founder of XXX Church decided to lecture Flip on how to be more loving in his approach.  Craig Gross, aka the Porn Pastor, designed his emergent ministry to make the gospel more suitable for porn stars, porn addicts, homosexuals, etc.  By the end of the conversation, he made a wonderful display of this "luv" by pouring his water on Flip's head (Flip had all kinds of stuff dumped on his head).

But the attacks got worse.  In years past, we have been physically attacked, but one thing really got to me this year.  A young lady that came with us was threatened by two girls.  The threat?  One of them held an object in her hand and threatened that they would rape her.  But these same girls were also shouting about how WE were so unloving.

There are so many detestable things that take place at these events.  But why should I go on and on when you can come to see for yourself?  And don't say it's not your calling.  We are all called to confront sin.  When we make that commitment to Christ, we aren't just gaining heaven, we are losing our lives.  That's right.  Our lives do not belong to ourselves.  And God is calling us to be the salt of the earth; to be watchmen over this once godly nation.  Will it cost you something?  Yes.  And it might even cost you your life one day.  I have no doubt we would have lost ours had the SWAT team not protected us this year.  But, remember, my life does not belong to me and neither does your life belong to you.