God's View of Homosexuality, Part 2
- From: Lameo Nameo <lameonameo0@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:17:55 -0700 (PDT)
Unleashing God's Truth One Verse at a Time
God's View of Homosexuality, Part 2
God's View of Homosexuality, Part 2
Selected Scriptures
I would invite you to begin tonight to turn to Genesis chapter 1. I
just want to touch lightly on a text there that you should have in
mind and then we'll move to the nineteenth chapter of Genesis.
Genesis chapter 1 and verse 27 says, "And God created man in His own
image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created
them."
There you have in very simple and direct indication that the reference
to God's creative purpose. God created male, He created female. In
chapter 2 and verse 23, the man said, "Now this bone of my bones and
flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out
of man, for this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother and
shall cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh." God made
male, zakar in Hebrew. God made female, neqebah in Hebrew and they
were to come together to complete each other making one flesh. That
is God's unalterable creative design. One man for one woman for life.
Now there are a number of ways that such a marital relationship in
God's design can be convoluted and confused and perverted. It isn't
very long actually in the book of Genesis until perversions of all
kinds begin to manifest themselves. You have a relationship that
surfaces in the sixth chapter of Genesis which appears to be a
relationship in which fallen angels or demons cohabitate with woman
and produce some kind of strange offspring, Satan's attempt to bring
about some kind of perverted sexual relationship to produce an
unredeemable race.
You move ahead from the fornication of chapter 6, a bizarre kind, to
chapter 19 in Genesis and you have an indication of incest. It says
in verse 36, "Both the daughters of Lot were with child by their
father." Adding to fornication and incest, if you come over to
chapter 34 you find here rape. "Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she
had born to Jacob went out to visit the daughters of the land. And
when Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land saw
her, he took her and lay with her by force. He was deeply attracted
to Dinah the daughter of Jacob. He loved the girl and spoke tenderly
to her," and the story goes on. Here is an incident of outright
rape. We won't take the time to look in detail.
Go to chapter 38 and in chapter 38 you have another perversion and
this one is prostitution. It mentions in verse 15, "When Judah saw
her he thought she was a harlot, for she had covered her face."
Already harlotry exists, prostitution exists. There is an occasion
other than the ones that I've read you about polygamy in the book of
Genesis. So it isn't long after God has ordained one man for one
woman for life that all kinds of perversions occur...fornications,
adultery, incest, rape, prostitution, polygamy.
And you can add to that the sin of homosexuality. For that you go to
chapter 19 of Genesis. And I do want to spend some time in the
details of this because it is our subject. Satan obviously is trying
to pervert and confuse God's order. He has brought into human society
all these other matters and now he introduces homosexuality.
Apparently it became very widespread very rapidly, as did adultery,
fornication, incest, rape and prostitution. And, of course, they're
still rampant in the world today.
But apparently the city of Sodom was filled with all kinds of
iniquity. If you can just make a note to read Ezekiel 16, you read in
Ezekiel 16 a little bit of a listing of some of the sins
characteristic of Sodom. The one sin that isn't mentioned in Ezekiel
16, but the one that is carefully detailed here and thus doesn't
require a further mention is the sin of homosexuality. There were all
kinds of iniquities characteristic of this particular city, but none
of them was more shocking than homosexuality. Adultery and
fornication and polygamy and incest and rape and prostitution are
already present in the world by the time you get very far into human
civilization and with them this sin of homosexuality, of course, rears
its ugly head.
We have in this nineteenth chapter a fairly careful record of the kind
of thing that was going on in Sodom and it gives us a good
understanding. So we want to take it rather carefully. Look at verse
1. "Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening." These were two
angels who were, by the way, along with the presence of God perhaps in
a preincarnate appearance of Jesus Christ had visited Abraham and
Sarah. The two angels came to Sodom in the evening. As Lot was
sitting, the brother of Abraham, sitting in the gate of Sodom. "When
Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed down with his face to the
ground."
Now we know that angels can take on human bodies and take on human
form. You will note that I just mentioned to you that two angels
along with perhaps a preincarnate appearance of Christ, at least we
know that God was present there in some way, had appeared to Abraham.
We know that the writer of Hebrews alludes to this when he mentions
that some people have entertained angels unawares. To entertain an
angel unaware would mean that the angel had to appear in some form
which was normal. And so angels occasionally do appear in a human
form. And certainly holy angels can occasionally when it fits the
purposes of God take on some kind of form which is or appears to be
human. Two angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in
the gate of Sodom. He recognized the magnificence of these beings and
he bowed down with his face to the ground.
"And he said to them, 'Now behold my lords, please turn aside into
your servant's house.'" That's my house. "'And spend the night and
wash your feet.'" That was not a derogatory statement about the
condition of their feet, that was a common courtesy because
everybody's feet were either dusty or muddy. That was simply a way of
saying to come in and cleanse yourselves, take care of your physical
needs. "That then you may arise early and go on your way." What he
means to say to them is you better get out of town fast and you don't
want to linger in the public square or anywhere where you can be
observed. Here they were approaching the gate of the city and Lot
runs, as it were, to them and says, "Hold it, you've got to come
immediately to my house and you've got to be cared for there, spend
the night and be fast on your way, early in the morning before anyone
can notice you."
"They said, however, no. We'll just spend the night in the square."
That's not a good idea. "He urged them strongly, so they turned aside
to him and entered his house and he prepared a feast for them and
baked unleavened bread and they ate." Just as Abraham had
demonstrated kindness in chapter 17 to his angelic visitors, so does
Lot. He's very kind to them. He must have known who they were. Must
have recognized the magnificence of them.
In verse 4 before they lay down, before these two angels could lay
down, and it's interesting, isn't it, to think about the fact that
these angels who take on human form have the need to sleep? I'm not
sure I can explain all of this. I don't understand it all. But
nonetheless the plan was that they would sleep which shouldn't
surprise you since they had just eaten also. Angels apparently then
did take on an actual human form which could eat and needed to sleep.
"But before they could lay down, the men of the city, the men of
Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from
every quarter," every section of town. What's going on here? Verse 5
says, "They called to Lot and said to him, 'Where are the men who came
into you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations
with them.'" Not very subtle, are they?
Here are the most magnificent objects for their perverted lust that
they had ever laid eyes on. A new flesh, as it were, to pander to
their insatiable wickedness, "Where are the men who came to you
tonight? We saw them. Bring them out that we may have relations with
them." That we may have actually intercourse with them. That's how
perverted that city was. People came from all over town. This isn't
a little group. This is people from all over town from every quarter,
all the people both young and old. Homosexuality had run the gamut of
age throughout the whole city. That we may have relations with
them...takes a Hebrew word jada which implies sexual knowledge. Some
versions might translate it "that we may know them," but it is not
just a welcome committee.
"But Lot went out to them at the doorway and shut the door behind
him." He went out to speak to them and closed the door behind him
because he knew of the passion, the viciousness, the insatiable lust
that would drive past him and through the door if given the
opportunity. He said, "Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly."
They wanted to act wickedly. A man named Bailey has written a book
called Homosexuality and Modern Christian Thought in which he says,
"The sin of Sodom was a lack of hospitality." And that's why God
destroyed them? No. It wasn't a lack of hospitality, it was the fact
that they wanted to do wickedly. They wanted to attack those angels
and sodomize them.
Verse 8 says, "And now behold, I have two daughters who have not had
relations with man." Two virgin daughters. "Please, let me bring
them out to you and do to them whatever you like, only do nothing to
these men inasmuch as they've come under the shelter of my roof."
This is strange, isn't it? What is he doing here? He is saying,
"Look, rather than defile these angelic visitors, I'd rather give you
my two virgin daughters." You don't give up your two virgin daughters
to people just because they lack hospitality and you're trying to
appease them. He was saying, "Can I substitute my own virgin
daughters? Would you please do to them what your lust desires rather
than to these two angelic visitors?" Frankly, I think it's a pretty
stupid thing for Lot to do, or to offer to do. But admittedly he's in
a tough spot. He certainly doesn't want to have two angelic visitors
who sought shelter in his home and who are sodomized while under, as
it were, his roof and protection. The dilemma was hard but the
solution was pretty dumb. On the other hand, he may have felt safe
knowing that they were all homosexuals.
Verse 9, they said, "Stand aside, get out of the way." Furthermore
they said, "This one came in as an alien and already he's acting like
a judge. Who is this Lot? He comes into our town, he's an alien,
he's a stranger, he doesn't even belong here and now he's sitting in
judgment on our behavior? Now we will treat you worse than them."
Which may have been a promise that they're going to rape him. A crowd
of people raping two angels and then a crowd of people raping Lot. So
they pressed hard against Lot and came near to break the door.
This ought to tell you something about the uncontrollable lust of
homosexuals. "But the men reached out their hands and pulled Lot into
the house, the angels with them, and shut the door. And they struck
the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness both small
and great." With divine power, they just instantly made them blind.
After rescuing Lot, amazingly they blinded these homosexuals. But
would you notice this? "Having been blinded," it says, "they wearied
themselves finding the doorway." You would think if you had just been
struck blind, you would accept your fate and get out of there and
bemoan your blindness, wouldn't you? If...I would think to myself if
I got that close and I had just been made stone blind, I would be so
horrified at my blindness that I would be running away in sheer
terror. But the passion and the lust was so strong and so insatiable
and so unbreakable was all it did was make it harder for them to find
the doorway. Here they are blind and driven by their lust groping in
their blindness to get in the door. The lust of homosexuality is
compelling, isn't it? So wicked and so vile was this city with its
homosexuals that God burned the whole place to a crisp.
In verse 12, "Then the men said to Lot, 'Whom else have you here? A
son-in-law and your sons and your daughters and whomever you have in
the city, bring them out of the place for we're about to destroy this
place because their outcry has become so great before the Lord that
the Lord has set us to destroy it.'" And I remind you that
homosexuality, this insatiable driving lust can take over a whole city
which then is obviously a city to be destroyed by God.
Down in verse 24, "The Lord rained on Sodom and its sister city
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven and He
overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of
the cities and what grew on the ground." In fact, archaeologists
can't even find the place. When I say it was incinerated, that's
exactly what happened. They don't even know where it is. God burned
it to a crisp.
It was there that the term sodomy was originated. There the term
sodomy had its origin. The term sodomy appears in 1 Kings 14:24, in
Deuteronomy 23:17 and 18, and it means homosexuality. It is the term
for homosexuality. Homosexual is a sodomite who gets his
characterization from that city. Clearly the term sodomy wouldn't
refer to homosexuality if the sin of Sodom wasn't homosexuality.
To see something more of the characterization of that sin and that
city, look at Jude verse 6. And I think this is a very, very
important text to sort of solidify our thinking. In verse 6 Jude
talks about angels who did not keep their own domain or habitation,
but abandoned their proper abode. I take it that that refers to
Genesis 6 where you have those fallen angels who did not stay in the
angelic community but abandoned their proper abode and cohabitated
with human women and God has kept them in eternal chains under
darkness for the judgment of the great day. They were angels who went
out of their normal relationships. And verse 7 says, "Just as Sodom
and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as
these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh."
They're exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of
eternal fire. The sin of Sodom was going after strange flesh. And
the rest of the cities on the plain there were drown in fire and
brimstone and burned to a crisp. A Sodomite then is a homosexual.
And frankly, that's the best term to use. I use the term homosexual
this morning and I've used it again tonight because up to this point
we haven't gotten to this text. I don't prefer the term. Homosexual
is clinical. Homo-sexual, just identifying same sex. The term that
they like to use the term "gay" is absolutely ridiculous. They are
anything but gay. The biblical term really is Sodomite, if you take
the illustration of Genesis 19. Although as we noted this morning,
the term homosexual in the Greek is used. I think it's a good
reminder to them when you identify them to call them Sodomites because
that's the best and most graphic illustration of that lust in its
perversion.
Before we go to the New Testament, I want you to look at Isaiah
chapter 3...Isaiah chapter 3 and verse 9. Here Isaiah is pronouncing
judgment on Jerusalem and Judah. The prophet says Jerusalem is ruined
and Judah is fallen. He says they're against the Lord and they're
provoking the Lord. In verse 9 of Isaiah 3 indicts them because they
display their sin like Sodom. Not only do they sin but they're
blatant. They do not even conceal it. "Woe to them for they have
brought evil on themselves. Say to the righteous that it will go well
with them, for they will eat the fruit of their actions. Woe to the
wicked, it will go badly with them but what he deserves will be done
to him. O, my people, their oppressors are children and women rule
over them. O, my people, those who guide you lead you astray and
confuse the direction of your paths."
Here is an indictment between Judah and Jerusalem for parading their
sin like Sodom. This is a flagrant rebellion against God and no doubt
encompass sins of homosexuality. This shouldn't be surprising because
homosexuality was rampant in the life of Assyria and Babylon and
Egypt. It took 150 years but finally these same sins that were all
around Israel because a part of Israel's life and culture and led to
divine judgment. What destroyed Sodom, what would destroy eventually
Greece and Rome destroyed Israel. It is a deadly destructive sin.
And Isaiah says when the judgment of God falls, it's going to fall
because you have displayed your sin like Sodom.
As we said this morning, it is a destructive and damning and
destroying sin. It has destroyed millions throughout history. It is
still destroying millions today. God hasn't changed His view of it at
all. It may well be the most damning sin in terms of the public
acceptance in the future of our country and our world since it is
being advocated in TV and books and films and papers worldwide. And
we said this morning that our society needs to see it for what it is
and that is sin. And as long as we don't, then the people who are
engaged in it don't recognize their true condition.
What does society say about homosexuality? Well in 1881 there was a
born a man who left an immense impact on human history, his name was
Sigmund Freud. Among many human behaviors which were curiosities to
him was the behavior of sodomy. He became very interested in dealing
with sodomites and in understanding them. He determined after some
supposed research that sodomy was a psychological disorder and that it
was directly related to a domineering mother. By the way, that
viewpoint still hangs around today and you hear people articulate it.
He said basically, "It's just a disorder that comes because you were
dominated by your mother and you grow up then hating the one who
dominated you. And since the one who dominated you was a woman, you
hate women and so you attach your sexual fantasy to men." That's been
a very popular viewpoint.
In the 1930's there came a man by the name of Havelock Ellis.
Havelock Ellis published a manual, a sex book and in that sex book he
brought sodomy into the open. This is the 1930's. And he pointed
out, supposedly, some famous sodomites. He concluded that there were
great men among the sodomites and that they accomplished what they did
because there was an unusual genius associated with sodomy.
He said, "Frankly, Freud is wrong. It is not a psychological disorder
generated by a domineering mother, it is hereditary, it is genetic and
it is a higher level of genius than just normal folks possess." He
wrote about Erasmus, the Dutch humanist sixteenth century, and said he
was homosexual. He said Christopher Marlowe, the English poet, was
homosexual. Michael Angelo, the Italian genius, painter, architect
was a homosexual, Lord Byron, Francis Bacon, Oscar Wilde, Walt
Whitman, some of them were, by the way, history does indicate that.
I'll never forget reading the autobiography of Oscar Wilde who said at
the end of his life to his horror and shame that what he was in secret
all his life he had to finally shout from the housetop. But he said,
"Look at all these geniuses," and he picked the selective list of
people out of the run-of-the-mill sodomites and made it appear as if
it was a higher level of genius to which some people were born.
So since Freud and Ellis and others who have embellished both
viewpoints, you can take your pick. Did your mother do it to you
because she was nasty and domineering? Or did your mother and father
do it to you genetically? And there's still debate. The reason there
is still debate is because no one can prove it's hereditary.
Furthermore, no one can prove that homosexuals have in common a
domineering mother.
Then along came a real fraud by the name of Albert Kinsey with a
famous Kinsey Report. In the 1940's and the 1950's he published the
famous Kinsey Reports on Sexuality. He was a sexual pervert himself
and so he was trying to prove a point before he even did his
research. He wanted to justify adultery, fornication, homosexuality,
and any other kind of deviant sex so he fabricated his figures,
fabricated his research. I spent this week reading a very interesting
book called Kinsey Sex and Fraud. It debunks the entire Kinsey report
and shows how fraudulent the figures were. It was he, you remember,
who said that in the result of his research was that one out of ten
people were sodomites. And this normalized it. One out of ten were
sodomites. That is not true, has never been true, may some day in the
future be true if their media campaign is continuingly successful. He
tilted and twisted and fabricated the statistics to make it look like
everyone was an adulterer, everyone was a fornicator, everyone was
having affairs illicitly out of their marriage and one out of ten
people were sodomites.
This was followed up by the American Psychiatric Association which
declassified sodomy as a mental sickness and removed it from its lists
of standard diagnostic diseases and illnesses. And the American
Psychiatric Association decided to buy into Havelock Ellis and say it
was hereditary. And once Kinsey kicked in the door with his false
figures and everybody thought homosexuality was just normal and one
out of ten people were homosexuals, that, by the way, is why in the
L.A. public school system the homosexual awareness and the homosexual
advocacy lobby is called Project Ten. That comes from the Kinsey
Report, the one out of ten and that has led to the epidemic of today.
And then you take all the talk-show hosts from Phil Donahue on through
and what they do is create a platform which further normalizes this
kind of deviant behavior. There is no evidence...there is no evidence
that homosexuality is a result of a domineering mother. There is no
evidence that homosexuality is a result of genetics. There is plenty
of evidence that homosexuality is a choice...a choice like all sin,
it's a choice. You may have certain susceptibility to it. There may
be some people who are more tempted in that area. But it primarily
has to do with choice.
And if you read the literature of those that are trying to help people
come out of homosexual sodomite sin, they will tell you that what
leads people into these choices, what leads them to live like this is
just a simple little list of things. One, early homosexual
experience, when they're young, somebody engages them, some other boy
maybe in their youth or even late childhood, adolescence engages them
in some kind of homosexual play that stimulates them.
Another component in the leading people into these kinds of choices is
the need for intimacy and some homosexual supplies it. Some young boy
meets a man and it has been known to happen in the church with some
Sunday School teachers of young boys, and it happens in the schools
all the time and you read about it in the newspapers, and this teacher
becomes sort of like a father figure to the boy and the boy needs
intimacy and he finds warmth and he finds a listening ear and pretty
soon he finds himself being stimulated in a physical way by this man
and it's fun and he likes the man and that makes him feel comfortable
about it and becomes a lifestyle.
Another one of the little components that lead this way is sub-culture
acceptance. Some boys particularly, or even girls who become
lesbians, can't find their way to acceptance in the normal culture and
so they find a sub-culture that will accept them. And homosexuals are
always looking for new flesh. Sometimes it happens to men because
they're rejected by women and because they can't find an outlet for
their physical desires among women because women won't have them, or
they fell unattractive to women or they've been rebuffed, they'll
slide into the circle where they can find gratification.
There are factors in life that lay out the path of temptation but it's
still the series of choices. I can remember as a boy, just a young
boy in my early years of junior high being approached in a restroom by
a man who now I knew, and it was a few years before I understood,
that had homosexual intentions toward me. And I didn't understand
that until I looked back on that and I was so frightened, I went out
of there. And I can look back and imagine that some boy in that kind
of circumstance with a man he knew and trusted would have given
himself to that, found some kind of thrill in that and be on his way
to a life of that. When I went away to college in my first year at a
Christian school, I had a roommate in my own room attack me in the
middle of the night. And I remember it so absolutely vividly, I was
first of all shocked and all I remember was rising out of bed and
throwing a punch and...(applause)...I mean, this is a fairly normal
instinct for me, not to he commended, but expected...and seeing him
fly across the room into a corner and then confronted, "What is going
on?" This is some years ago at a Christian school in my lifetime,
it's wholesale everywhere now and the rampage is on for new flesh, and
the rampage is on to elicit the involvement of young lives. And where
you have kids that are rejected by women, who are looking for a sub-
culture of acceptance, who have a need for intimacy, who get lured
into this kind of thing, you have some choices that lead to other
choices, that lead to other choices and it becomes lust out of
control.
So, when we look at this situation, we have to see it for what the
Bible sees it for. It is a sin that brings about the judgment of
God. But as we saw this morning, it is a sin that is forgivable.
One other text and that's Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1 verse
18, very familiar text which gives us a good look at the fallenness of
man and God's reaction. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the
truth in unrighteousness." In other words, God's wrath is revealed
against the whole human race because they have the truth and they
suppress it. They reject it. "That which is known about God is
evident within them." God has planted it in their hearts. God has
made it evident to them. Verse 20, "Since the creation of the world,
His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have
been clearly seen, being understood through what is made so that
they're without excuse." You have the internal moral law of God, you
have the external creation and evidence of God and His morality. The
evidence is there, the truth is there and men reject it. Verse 21,
"Even when they knew God innately from the internal witness and
externally from the creation, they didn't honor Him as God, they
didn't give thanks, they became futile in their speculations and their
foolish heart was darkened, professing to be wise they became fools
and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the
form of corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and crawling
creatures. They rejected God, thus rejecting truth. They created
their own gods like animals and men and failed to worship the true
God, and that's why God's wrath is poured out upon them.
There you have the characterization of the fallen world. God has
given the knowledge of Himself internally and externally. Men reject
it and instead of seeing God as revealed, they turn their backs on
God, they invent their own gods and bring about the wrath of God upon
them.
Now the wrath of God comes in this form, verse 24, "Therefore, God
gave them over...God gave them over." What a statement. "He gave them
over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity that their bodies might
be dishonored among them." Look at verse 26, "For this reason God
gave them over....there it is again...to degrading passions." Verse
28, "And just as they didn't see fit to acknowledge God any longer,
God gave them over to a depraved mind." Verse 24, He gave them over
that their bodies would be dishonored. Verse 26, He gave them over to
degrading passions in their heart. Verse 28, He gave them over to a
depraved mind. Body, heart, mind, all given over and what...what
became of that when God took His hand off and God let man go his own
way? What came of it? Sexual perversion. What you see today is
already the evidence of God's judgment on man as He lets him go.
Verse 24, "God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity
that their bodies might be dishonored among them. They exchanged the
truth of God for a lie. They worshiped and served the creature rather
than the Creator who is blessed forever, amen." Then verse 26, "For
this reason God gave them over to degrading passions." What kind?
"For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is
unnatural." They were given over, verse 24 says, to epithumia,
uncleanness, reaching out after forbidden pleasure. The Stoics called
it grasping for pleasure which defies all reason. Lust gone wild.
That's what verse 24 is talking about. Desires that make people do
shameless things and nameless things. And they dishonored their
bodies.
How did they dishonor their bodies? They did what was against
nature. They did what was unnatural. In verse 26 women exchanged the
natural function for that which is unnatural. What you have in
homosexuality then is a very clear illustration of depravity, of
people given over to their lusts without any restraint on God's part.
He just let them go. Women, we call them lesbians. Somewhere around
20 to 25 million of them, we hear in America now. They have chosen to
live godlessly and God gives them over to the results of their
choices. Verse 27, "And in the same way also, the men abandoned the
natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one
another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their
own persons the due penalty of their error." They burn in their lust,
that phrase, "burned in their desire toward one another," literally to
burn out, ekkaio, to burn out, they were consumed with lust. It's the
consuming rage of it. As I told you this morning, the average
homosexual in San Francisco, three nights in the bath house, ten to
thirty different sexual encounters in one night. Sadomasochism,
flagellation, dungeons, torture, orgies, their jealousies among
themselves, their neurotic acts are more perverse than heterosexual
people. When they have their Gay Parade, you can't even look at it.
You can't even watch it. Anybody else who did anything like that
would be arrested and put in jail. Homosexuals Kerney and Hill of San
Bernardino killed an estimated 40 victims. According to the "New York
Times," quote: "The man who knows more about violent death than anyone
else in the country is Dr. Milton Helpurn(?), formerly chief medical
examiner of New York City." In his biography titled Where Death
Delights, Helpurn...not a Christian...wrote this, "It's not my role to
condemn homosexuality as such, and I leave it to the psychiatrists and
psychologists to try to figure out why people practice
homosexuality." He said, "I'm not to judge it. But having performed
sixty thousand autopsies, it is high time that those who deviate from
the norms should understand the risks. I don't know why it is so but
it seems that the violent explosions of jealousy among homosexuals far
exceed those of the jealousy of a man for a woman, or a woman for a
man. The pent-up charges and energy of the homosexual relationship
simply cannot be contained. When the explosive point is reached, the
result is brutally violent." Helpurn goes on, "But this is the normal
pattern of these homosexual attacks, multiple stabbings, the senseless
beatings that obviously must continue long after the victim dies.
When we see these brutal multiple wound cases in a single victim, we
automatically assume that we are dealing with a homosexual victim and
a homosexual attacker," end quote. Why? Because there is a burning
lust that is out of control. They burn in their desires. He went on
to say in his book that in ten seconds they can look at a dead body
and tell you whether it was killed by a homosexual because of the
mutilations and the multiple stabbings or multiple blows. There is a
gnawing unsatisfied gripping lust that is evidence of their depravity
and evidence of the fact that God has given them over, let them go.
And they are burning in their desire, women exchanging the natural
function for what is unnatural, and men with men committing indecent
acts and receiving in their persons the due penalty of their error.
How in the world can the Presbyterian General Assembly say, "The task
force on homosexuality created by the General Assembly is completing
its two year study and ready to finalize its recommendations to the
General Assembly?" What is there to study? The Word of God is so
clear. Verse 28, they didn't want to acknowledge God so God just gave
them over to a depraved mind to do the things which aren't proper,
things which make no sense. That's part of God's judgment.
Now in verse 32, after chronicling a whole list of sins that are the
result of God giving people over, it says, "The people who practice
these things are worthy of death and they still do them and then they
give hearty approval to those who practice them." They advocate
them. They know the ordinance of God that those who practice such
things are worthy of death. That's in the Bible, that's clear. But
they still do them and they give hearty approval to others who
practice them. All of life becomes totally disoriented.
There's a species of ants that lives in some parts of Africa. By the
way, the ants in Africa, as I noted in my trip this summer, are
astoundingly productive. They can build massive anthills, some of
them twenty feet high. And they live in subterranean tunnels that go
way down into the earth where the young are sheltered. And down in
these subterranean tunnels where the ants move, there's a special
shelter for the queen. The workers go on foraging trips to distant
places, returning to the nest with food for the colony and
particularly for the queen. It is said by those who study them that
if when they are away their queen is molested, the workers even far
away become nervous and uncoordinated. If she's killed, they become
frantic, they rush around aimlessly and eventually die in the field
without ever finding their way back. It's thought that the worker
ants in the normal situation are constantly oriented to the queen by
some radar-like device. If she is killed, all orientation ceases,
frenzy ensues, a frenzy that ends in death. What a parable of man,
huh? What a parable of man, cut off from God, he lives in a
disoriented frenzy until his death, the frenzy of being disconnected
from God. Such is the condition of fallen man, of homosexual
sodomites.
But again, we need to end where we began. This sin is forgivable.
Such were some of you, but you are washed, you are sanctified, you are
justified and all of this through the Lord Jesus Christ and in the
Spirit of our God. It is sin, but there is forgiveness.
Some Sunday nights back, a young man named Robert was baptized in the
water here. And he came into the water and he told a wonderful
testimony. He said, "I have AIDS," and he said, "I've been a
homosexual for years and I said to someone I want deliverance from
this life. Where can I go? Where can I go and find help?" And he
said, "Someone told me to go to Grace Community Church and I could
find help there. He said, "I walked into this church on a Sunday
morning. I had never been here," he sat right out over there. And he
said, "I was desperate, I wanted deliverance from my sin and its
consequence, death." And he said, "John got up, as he does every
Sunday, and read a Psalm." And he said, "This is what he read." And
he recited it, Psalm 107, "They wandered in the wilderness in a desert
region. They didn't find a way to an inhabited city. They were
hungry and thirsty. Their soul fainted within them. Then they cried
out to the Lord in their trouble, He delivered them out of their
distresses. He led them also by a straight way to go to an inhabited
city. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness, and
for His wonders to the sons of men! For He has satisfied the thirsty
soul, and the hungry soul He has filled with what is good. There were
those who dwelt in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in
misery and chains, because they had rebelled against the words of God,
and spurned the counsel of the Most High. Therefore He humbled their
heart with labor; they stumbled and there was none to help. Then they
cried out to the Lord in their trouble; He saved them out of their
distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
and broke their chains apart. Let them give thanks to the Lord for
His lovingkindness and for his wonders to the sons of men."
He stood in these waters and recited that verbatim. And he said,
"When I heard you read that, I knew I had come to the right place and
that my chains could be broken and I could be set free." And that
morning, that first Sunday, that first time he had ever come here, he
gave his life to Jesus Christ and was wonderfully saved and later
entered the waters of baptism to confess that sin and that
transformation to you. And I said to him privately, "What are you
going to do with the days of life that God gives you?" Well he told
me, he said, "The Gay Pride Parade is coming down the street near
where I live, I've been in the mainstream of this whole thing." And
he said, "All of my former friends are going to be stopping by to
greet me because they know I'm so ill and I'm going to give everyone
of them the gospel of Christ." And I know he did and he's dying and
yet he's ready because he knows he's going to meet Christ. That's the
good news, isn't it?
Father, we thank You for the grace that is granted to sinners of any
kind and every kind. We thank You that You forgive the deepest
darkest sin, that You break the strongest chains, that You give grace
to the vilest sinner for You have done it for us. And we pray for
people who are trapped in this terrible lifestyle with its
inexplicable passions. We pray, O God, that You would deliver many,
be gracious to them and save them for Your glory. What a testimony,
Lord, it would be if many were saved out of that sin and gave
testimony to Your grace and became rescuers of others in those
chains. Thank You for setting so many free, even here in our church.
We pray that You'll set more free, that Your grace may be displayed
and Your love for sinners. We pray also, Lord, for those who come out
of that lifestyle and come to You and are still tempted, whose
memories are vivid with the ugly things of the past. We pray, Lord,
that You'll wash those memories away, that You'll fix them on holy
things, on right relationships. Clean out their minds and give them
pure thoughts and triumph over temptation. Give us all, Lord,
opportunity to speak to those that we might meet that are caught in
that sin and to know that the most compassionate thing we can do is
not accept them but warn them for if they don't understand the sin,
they can't see the Savior. And, Lord, this is but one sin among
many. We pray that You would save sinners of all kinds and make them
holy, sanctified for Your glory, that many may sing Your praise in
time and throughout eternity. In our Savior's name we ask. Amen.
Available online at: http://www.gty.org/Resources/transcripts/90-70
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