American Pastors Network Features Radio Guest Who Shares How Christ Freed Him from Sexual Bondage

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The American Pastors Network (APN) recently welcomed a guest to its popular daily, live, one-hour radio program, “Stand in the Gap Today,” who shared the true story of his experience in the gay lifestyle, the emotional ups and downs of his decision as an adolescent growing up in a Christian home with a Baptist pastor father, the realities and horrors of the sexual bondage he experienced in the homosexual lifestyle and the hope he ultimately found in a new life of spiritual freedom because of Jesus Christ.

APN President and radio host Sam Rohrer recently spoke with George Carneal, author of “From Queer to Christ: My Journey into the Light” on a “Stand in the Gap Today” program titled “From Sexual Bondage to Spiritual Freedom.”

“We were honored to hear and help share the gripping testimony and story of the hope of a man caught in the bondage of homosexuality and the gay lifestyle,” Rohrer said on the program.

Rohrer also pointed to studies that show Americans’ attitudes about homosexuality, same-sex marriage and gender are changing. According to Pew Research Center polling “in 2004, Americans opposed same-sex marriage by a margin of 60% to 31%. Support for same-sex marriage has steadily grown over the past 15 years. And today, support for same-sex marriage remains near its highest point since Pew Research Center began polling on this issue. Based on polling in 2019, a majority of Americans (61%) support same-sex marriage, while 31% oppose it.”

“The public push to also embrace transgenderism and the objectives of the LGBTQ lobby for the American culture to embrace as fully equal the homosexual and lesbian life style choices has divided our nation, driven public policy and even shaped the preaching on matters of marriage and human sexuality in the pulpits of America,” Rohrer said. “In reality, most people are afraid to discuss this very real issue, don’t know how to discuss this matter or the implications of it, or don’t understand it. Therefore, they are more driven by media interpretations than real life-experiences and what God says about sexuality and gender. We hope this program featuring George Carneal will give true hope and freedom to men and women caught up in the gay lifestyle.”

On the show, Rohrer and Carneal discussed that Carneal knew what the Bible says about God’s design for marriage and human sexuality in the framework of male and female. He, however, questioned God’s model and decided to leave home and enter the gay lifestyle. Ultimately, after 25 years—part of that time as a male

prostitute—Carneal discovered that the gay lifestyle is not the enlightened lifestyle that the media, Hollywood and the politically correct depict.

“The cultural pull into the gay lifestyle, the Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that marriage between two men or two women was equal to the marriage between one man and one woman, and the attempt to make American culture believe that there are not two genders—male and female, but a range of genders one could choose or rulings that one can change the gender on their birth certificate—has brought confusion at worst and great deception more likely into the minds of particularly young people and the supposed freedom and glamor of the gay lifestyle,” Rohrer said.

“This culture has seemed to pull out all the stops to promote the gay lifestyle and the full range of LGBTQ agenda goals,” he added. “This includes policies that seek a full equivalency and equal embracing of the homosexual agenda with God’s model for marriage and human sexuality, lawsuits being filed against businesses, schools and others who embrace God’s model, laws declaring it illegal for pastors to preach what the Bible says and for Christian counselors to counsel people caught in the gay lifestyle about how to come to freedom in Christ. Parents, grandparents, the public and even pastors are often caught with how to respond and what to say.”

Rohrer and Carneal also discussed what parents and grandparents can do if they have a child who has already engaged in a gay lifestyle, as well as how they can address the fact that young children are being subjected to the notion that it is not only possible but acceptable to choose one’s gender.

Listen to the “Stand in the Gap” program with guest George Carneal here or view a transcript here.

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American Pastors Network Focuses on Knowing—and Embracing—God’s View of the Environment

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At this week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York City, hundreds of world leaders will come together to focus on pressing global topics, and the environment and climate change will be key topics of discussion.

In fact, today at the UNGA, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres will convene a summit to address the “global climate emergency.” The Summit will seek to “spark the transformation that is urgently needed and propel action that will benefit everyone.”

The American Pastors Network (APN), the largest national network dedicated to equipping pastors to be a voice for truth in the public square, also discussed the environment and climate change earlier this summer on the APN television program, “Stand in the Gap,” which reaches millions of households on several networks.

For the program titled “Embracing the Environment—God’s Way,” APN President and host Sam Rohrer and co-host and millennial pastor Isaac Crockett focused on the overall issue of “the environment and our relationship to it,” while also addressing two core problems—that the contemporary view of the environment has become fatalistic and that God’s purpose and plan for the environment has been lost or rejected.

“God’s Word gives great clarity and direction on every issue we can possibly consider in our world today,” Rohrer said on the show. “It seems as though we’ve entered a ‘twilight zone’ in America, where the more outrageous the claims about God, life and the environment, the more attention one gets and the more enlightened one seems to be. But this is not necessarily new. In the 1800s, scientific thought leaders like Charles Darwin made popular the view that there is no God, no creation and no sacredness to life, therefore, no purpose in living—all accident and chance. Then around the same time, philosopher, cultural critic and thought leader Friedrich Nietzsche declared that we had killed God—at least in the minds of the people—therefore, there was no need to feel guilty or accountable to God. We could live as we wanted and do as we wished.

“Then came economist and socialist revolutionary thought leader Karl Marx, who said that we will dethrone God,” Rohrer continued. “Combining his atheistic view of God with the thoughts of Darwin, Nietzsche, Georg Hegel and Sigmund Freud put into motion an anti-God plan to collapse America and the Western world. By the mid-20th century, these combined thoughts devolved to the point where judicial thought leaders, including those on the U.S. Supreme Court, arrogantly declared that babies in the womb are not people with sacred lives and, therefore, were dispensable and legal to be murdered at will.”

Later, Rohrer added, came political opportunists such as Al Gore, who cited selected climate “experts” with worldviews similar to these previous thought leaders and predicted the polar ice caps would melt by 2013 due to global warming caused by burning fossil fuels, resulting in a threat to all civilization.

“Not to be outdone and building on this worldview espoused by these previous thought leaders, freshman New York politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went even further in declaring that the world will end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change—in effect, starting a countdown clock for life as we know it,” Rohrer continued. “Because certain enlightened individuals make outrageously false claims, they intentionally influenced our culture and our world—and not for the good. So what can we do? Is there a response? Is the godless view of life and the environment that produces nothing but fear to be believed? Or is there a better and truthful way?

“The Bible holds the answers for all issues of life and living,” Rohrer further stated. “God is a god of design and purpose—predictable, uniform and accountability-driven. Christians believe that God established the standards for truth and gave us the guidelines for how mankind should relate to all creation with a promise of blessing and freedom, but only if we follow His guidelines—and this includes the environment.”

According to Rohrer, the modern cultural view of the environment, which is largely fear-driven, leaves out God, His purposes and mankind’s duty toward the environment.

“When Al Gore screams global warming and population annihilation and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez goes further by declaring a moratorium on Earth in 12 years and that cows, planes and more should be banned, what is the logical outcome of these recommendations?” Rohrer added. “And what is the likely motivation of these statements? When the Gores and the AOCs make such statements, seeking to scare all who listen and citing ‘experts’ rather than truth as defined by God, total conflict is the result, with both sides rejecting each other. God’s view of the environment and his stewardship principles could actually address some of the fears of those environmentalists who either intentionally leave out God altogether or perhaps have never heard of God’s superior plan at all.”

Watch the full program here.

Today’s U.N. Climate Summit will center on the theme, “Climate Action Summit 2019: A Race We Can Win. A Race We Must Win.” According to the U.N., “The impacts of climate change are being felt everywhere and are having very real consequences on people’s lives. Climate change is disrupting national economies, costing us dearly today and even more tomorrow. But there is a growing recognition that affordable, scalable solutions are available now that will enable us all to leapfrog to cleaner, more resilient economies.” This past weekend, the UNGA also included a Youth Climate Summit.

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Has the Substance of the Constitution Been Lost?

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APN NEWS UPDATE:

Sept. 17, marks Constitution Day—a time when Americans should look back on the history of the founding document to the nation.

But many, have forgotten what the Constitution means to the fabric of America.

Last week on the daily and popular APN radio program, “Stand in the Gap Today,” heard on several hundred stations nationwide, APN President and host Sam Rohrer outlined the importance of knowing—and keeping—the Constitution.

“This Tuesday, we will mark 232 years since the U.S. Constitution was signed in Independence Hall in Philadelphia,” Rohrer said during the program. “This meeting of delegates was but one part of a miraculous birth of a new nation. Over time, the details, the substance of this gathering and the contents of this document, recognized by many as the most inspiring, enduring and life-changing document outside the Bible, have been lost, ignored or rewritten. Now the very essence of this document is under attack by every anti-God and anti-freedom ideology from Marxism, socialism, communism to Islam. All Americans must step back, focus on the essentials and reacquaint themselves with the history of our Constitution—and celebrate it.”

On September 17, 1787, a group of men gathered in a closed meeting room to sign the greatest vision of human freedom in history. Built upon the provisions and vision of divine rights from a Creator God and a submission to God as the Great Judge of the Universe in the Declaration of Independence, signed by 56 in 1776, it was Benjamin Franklin, who at 81 years old, made the motion to sign the guarantor of these rights in a document called the U.S. Constitution.

Rohrer informed radio listeners that George Washington presided over this convention, which featured many of the great minds of the day—Franklin, James Madison, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton and the most important regional leaders in the United States. Notably absent in this final signing meeting were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and John Hancock, among others. The group met to agree how the Constitution would be sent to the Confederation Congress to start the ratification process with the states.

According to James Madison’s notes, the Constitution was first read to the group, there was some debate, and Benjamin Franklin signed the document last, making it official. Upon adoption, the gathering declared a final sini die session, concluding its work and handing over the document to future generations with the obligation to protect, defend and support the provisions of this great guarantor of God-given rights and becoming the model to the world.

“In a letter to Charles Yancey, Thomas Jefferson wrote, ‘If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be,’” Rohrer noted. “This quote was in relation to the observation that no nation can remain free if the citizens don’t know the basis of freedom—and that true civil freedom comes from God. Last year, a survey of 2,000 adults found that most Americans lack basic knowledge of what rights are specifically protected in the Bill of Rights. As a matter of fact, just 26 percent even know how many amendments make up the Bill of Rights. Another astounding finding was that about half of those surveyed believed ‘liberty’ and the ‘pursuit of happiness’ are included in the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment; these are actually part of the Declaration of Independence.

 

“So based on these facts, we are not in a good position to keep our freedom in America,” Rohrer added. “We are ignorant. The U.S. Constitution did not automatically appear in one day, nor has it remained the same until this day. While under a Judeo-Christian worldview, truth is unchanging, comes from God, is totally embodied within the character and nature of God, and is manifested in Jesus Christ. The development of human laws has been a progression. The U.S. was, in reality, a ‘holy experiment in self-government under God,’ according to Pennsylvania’s William Penn and described in his Frame of Government of 1682.”

“There is hardly one framework of government in the world so poorly designed by its founders that, in good hands, would not function well enough, and the history of the Romans and Jewish states tells us that even with the best framework of government, that in bad hands can do nothing good or great,” Penn had said. That submission to God’s Divine law is necessary for both the citizens and those in authority for freedom to endure.

“It is the broad ignorance or rejection of these simple observations that so imperils freedom in America today,” Rohrer added. “Like all truth—be it divine moral law, as recorded in the Bible, or the highest civil law, our Constitutions, which are based on biblical principles—the documents themselves can neither force themselves on others or defend themselves. That responsibility to know and defend God’s truth and the corresponding civil truth is the duty of every person, regardless of their station in life. That duty to defend and use the truth of God’s Word, for example, is a choice of every person, every parent, every pastor, every politician. The duty to defend and advance the principles of freedom as it relates to our republic is the duty of every member of government, which is why the oath of office exists. But there is more. After the signing of the Constitution in Philadelphia on Sept. 17, 1787, Ben Franklin stated that future Americans had been given ‘a republic—if you can keep it.’ Every American must know what that means and how, indeed, we do ‘keep it.’”

For the program marking Constitution Day, “Stand in the Gap Today” hosts were joined by David New, constitutional attorney, author, speaker. Listen to the program here.

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Sam Rohrer Interviews with VCY America on Immigration

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A Christian Look at Immigration

On August 29, 2019, VCY host, Jim Schneider, interviewed APN President, Sam Rohrer, on the issue of immigration.

(Audio and copy below was originally posted on the VCY website HERE.)

Sam Rohrer is the president of American Pastors Network and the Pennsylvania Pastor’s Network.  He’s also host of ‘Stand in the Gap.’ Sam is a former state representative in the Pennsylvania Legislature as he sought to apply biblical principles in all areas of legislation.  He was often referred to as the ‘Conscience of the House’ because of his consistent stance for moral truth in public policy.

Why is immigration such a hot topic amid the current political climate?  Sam believes it’s only because we as a culture and nation have walked away from God’s simple understanding of what constitutes a nation, the purpose of government and government leaders (Romans 13).

Sam defined a nation as an area defined by a common language, worldview, and identifiable boundaries.  God defined those boundaries so they’ve been with us since the beginning of time.

God works through nations for the fulfillment of His plan of redemption.  America, on the other hand, appears to be walking away from God’s plan expressed in the biblical worldview.  So what used to be of no controversy now is controversial. In other words, look at how this nation views human sexuality or marriage.  Sam believes boundaries fall into that same category and hence, that subject is now controversial as well.

Is there a difference between how a government should respond to immigration compared to how the Christian should respond?  Sam referred to what he called the ‘jurisdictional approach.’ What is the purpose of government from God’s perspective? It’s to praise those who do well (protect those who follow God’s moral law) and to punish those who break God’s moral law and the law of the land.

You may wonder what borders have to do with government.  A government has leaders who have a responsibility to protect the lives of its citizens.  So you can’t define ‘citizen’ unless you have borders. This means the fundamental purpose of government is to maintain borders.

As ‘the church’ we are to carry the gospel to all people regardless of whether it’s our next door neighbor or someone in another nation.  However, as Sam noted, ‘…the church and the individual should never be in violation against the purposes that God has established for government which is to protect its people and its borders.’

What is the believers responsibility in all of this?  How should our nation proceed as we navigate this contentious issue?  Doesn’t the text at the Statue of Liberty demand open borders? Are spiritual and political leaders misapplying Scriptures such as Leviticus 19:34 and the story of the Good Samaritan when they try to apply them to the subject of illegal immigration?

These and other questions are examined, and callers weigh in as well, during this critical edition of Crosstalk. (Statue of Liberty – web photo by B. Barker)

‘One Generation Shall Commend Your Works to Another’—Reminding Grandparents of Their Biblical Duty to Pass Down God’s Word

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With National Grandparents Day celebrated this Sunday, Sept. 8, the American Pastors Network (APN) is reminding grandparents that the Bible speaks directly to them regarding how to instill biblical precepts to the next generations.

APN President Sam Rohrer, the grandfather to 14 grandchildren and the father of six, says he and his wife of 42 years have strived to be godly influences in their grandchildren’s lives.

“Psalm 145:4 tells us that ‘One generation shall commend your works to another,’” Rohrer said. “This is a clear charge to parents and grandparents to instill the Word of God, His promises, His creation, His good works and the saving grace through His Son, Jesus Christ, to the generations that come after us. If we see that more millennials are becoming ‘nones’ and not embracing any faith at all, that means those millennial parents are not raising their children in the church or with a faith in Jesus Christ. This is alarming for future generations, which also brings to light the need for grandparents to play an integral role in their grandchildren’s faith walk.”

Rohrer also pointed to recent research by Barna that found that a majority of Christians had their faith heritage passed down by a family member—and usually long before adulthood, by the age of 12.

“This study is another indicator of the importance of grandparents who are strong in their faith have in talking to their grandchildren about why it is crucial to keep Christ at the center of their life and to look to the Bible for guidance in every area of life,” Rohrer added.

National Grandparents Day was championed in the 1970s by Marian Lucille Herndon McQuade, who had 43 grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild. McQuade envisioned the holiday as a family affair, with generations coming together. While working to recognize the holiday on a local level, McQuade was elected Vice-Chair of the West Virginia Committee on Aging and appointed as a delegate to the White House Conference on Aging in 1971. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter proclaimed Grandparents Day would occur the Sunday after Labor Day each year. McQuade was married to her husband, Joseph, for 60 years before he died in 2001. Mrs. McQuade passed away in 2008.

According to LegacyProject.com, “On a societal level, National Grandparents Day gives us a chance to publicly affirm the identity and importance of grandparents, that they do play a vital role in families.”

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