Dan Wysong, the pastor of the Chico, California church who presided over the baptism of a lesbian ‘couple’ last year, preached his last sermon on October 20. According to sources in the North California Conference, Wysong is leaving the Chico Church.
During this final service, he also dedicated the baby son of Amber Machado, who will grow up with two mommies, as the ‘book’ says.
However, the Good Book says that a Godly family is at the center of God's purpose. There is a reason why God chose marriage between a man and a woman to portray the relationship He has with His people. It is primarily in the family that a Godly heritage is handed down from generation to generation. His will is that a man might leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and that the two become one flesh (Mark 10:6–9). In this union, sexuality finds its God-appointed meaning, whether in personal-physical unification, symbolic representation, or fruitful procreation.
For those who have forsaken God’s path of sexual fulfillment, and walked into homosexual disorder or heterosexual extramarital fornication or adultery, Jesus offers mercy.
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:11)
But on June 4, 2016, this salvation from sinful sexual acts was not embraced. Instead, there was institutionalized approval of the sin at the Chico SDA church.
The Bible is not silent about such decisions. Alongside its clearest explanation of the sin of homosexual intercourse (Romans 1:24–27) stands the indictment of the approval and institutionalization of it. Though people know intuitively that homosexual acts (along with gossip, slander, insolence, haughtiness, boasting, faithlessness, heartlessness, ruthlessness) are sin, “they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:29–32).
“Many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears . . . glory in their shame” (Philippians 3:18–19).
With Dan Wysong leaving the Chico Church, an opportunity now exists for them to right the wrong of granting an unrepentant married lesbian couple membership into the Church. This issue has caused great disturbance in the North California Conference.
And now there is a child involved, who—through no fault of his own—will grow up with a warped view of reality and sexuality.
My reason for writing is to help the church feel the sorrow of these days. And understand the magnitude of the assault on God and his image in man through the sins and distortions of homosexuality. My sense is that we do not realize what a calamity is happening around us.
Christians, more clearly than others, can see the tidal wave of pain that is on the way, for those who practice such things and those who approve of them. Sin brings its own misery: “Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (Romans 1:27).
And on top of sin’s self-destructive power comes, eventually, the final wrath of God: “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5–6).
The difference is: We weep over our sins. We don’t celebrate them. We don’t institutionalize them. We turn to Jesus for forgiveness and help “who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
It is our hope—and the hope of many in the Northern California Conference—that the Chico Church leadership and congregation will repent of their sin and remove this couple from church membership. Then they can lead them to a saving relationship with Jesus through genuine repentance. If not, then the Chico Church and the leadership of the NCC are out of compliance with the Word of God and with our Church’s teachings on biblical sexuality.
We cannot honor God by approving self-destructive rebellion to His created order.
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