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This thread reminds me of something I experienced a few years ago. It wasn't very long after I had left the ultra conservative church I had been attending for several years. I ended up going to a UPC church in Terre Haute, IN, pastored by Simeon Young Sr. and Jr. Anyway, I had been going to this new church for a few months and had yet to hear either pastor preach a message dealing specifically with sin. Well, Pastor Young, Sr. got up one night and preached on sin. What happened, as a result of that message, forever changed the way I look at preaching against sin.
Anyway, Brother Young preached his message on sin using several scriptures. Being used to the preacher specifically naming sin "A" or sin "B" I was waiting for him to take that extra step of informing us of what sin he was actually preaching against. Needless to say I was very disappointed when nothing specific came from him.
I got home, still thinking about how the service had gone, and how disappointed I was in how it ended. Before going to sleep that night I prayed about the message I had heard, which was my custom at the time, and an interesting thing happened. The Lord added the missing piece I thought should have come from the pastor during his preaching! He showed me Himself what it was I needed to repent of and change in my life! For the first time I got a glimpse of how the ministry, the Holy Ghost, and the willing heart of a saint are supposed to work together to accomplish what God sets out to do when He lays a message on the heart of a preacher.
As I said, it has forever changed how I look at preachers preaching against sin. Preachers don't have to name it and then preach against it for their preaching to be effective. I am not saying that there's never a time when it's appropriate for a preacher to name sin specifically from the pulpit, but I have seen where it isn't necessary all the time. We don't have to have every little detail spelled out for us for this thing to work. We just need to lean on Jesus and His ability to finish what He starts.
I said all that to say this-No, I don't think it's necessary for preachers to get specific in their preaching against sin. God is more than able to show us the sin in our lives, without the preacher having to get specific from the pulpit. So, it really shouldn't matter if laws get passed against preaching against homosexuality. The church is gonna go forward regardless.
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