TPW #21 | The Bible, Marriage, and Homosexuality

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Paul warns that evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving one another and being deceived.
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The reason Paul told Timothy that was because he needed to be ready to spend the balance of his life in uninterrupted warfare for the truth.
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The most dangerous people alive today are always, always, always ordained ministers.
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They're the most dangerous people in the world, especially the ones that people think are Christians, who will sell you theological poison to the damnation of your soul.
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Folks, I just want to warn you about something. Every heretic in the entire history of the church, without exception, has taught their heresy in the name of being faithful to Scripture.
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What happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross? That was the day of wrath.
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That was the day of judgment. That is the day of final salvation, brought back in time and applied to us once for all at the moment of our effectual calling when we repent and believe in our
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United Christ. We're at Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee.
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And today I would like to play a sermon that's the first of a three -part series
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I did on homosexuality in the Bible. And I think that this issue is just going to keep coming up over and over and over again out there in the church as the people who are engaged in this kind of behavior continue to try to push this into the mainstream.
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And I'm noticing that there's not a whole lot being said about this. And it's another,
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I think it's a gap that needs to be addressed biblically and clearly so that we can be a loving presence in the lives of individuals who are struggling with this kind of sin or who are not struggling but just are engaged in this kind of sin.
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So I hope that this will be helpful to you. This was a sermon I preached a while back when
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Matthew Vines' book first came out. I just did a kind of a high -level introduction of the Bible and the issue of marriage and homosexuality.
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And then I did two more sermons, both responding directly to Matthew Vines' book, God and the Gay Christian, the biblical case in favor of same -sex relationships.
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And I would encourage you to listen to those when I post them later. But I hope that this is helpful to you.
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Thanks for listening. Well, good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here. Now please turn your
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Bible to Matthew 5, verse 31. Matthew 5, verse 31 and 32 is our text for this evening.
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But this evening is really going to be an introduction to the topic of marriage and the issue of homosexuality and the issue of our day, the idea of homosexual marriage.
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Matthew 5, 31 and 32. This is
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God's Word. Furthermore, it has been said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.
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But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery.
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And whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery. Thus far, the reading of God's Word.
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Let's pray, please. Our Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening with hearts that are troubled and burdened at the state of things in our country.
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And yet, Lord, we are still so very blessed. There still are so many benefits that we have because of the
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Christian roots that our republic had. And we're thankful for those things, for those blessings.
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Lord, let us not drift further away from the roots of Scripture.
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And we pray, Father, that you would graciously grant repentance to compromisers in the church on this particular topic and issue.
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Help us to see afresh the positive and beautiful biblical teaching on what marriage is.
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And that you, God, as the creator, are the one who defines what marriage is and what it means.
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Help us to recognize that such basic things are not in our power to redefine or change.
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But that not only your Word, but the created order itself speaks to the way you've designed things.
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Help us to see that this evening. That we might be ready to give an answer and love to those that would challenge this basic teaching.
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That they might be brought to their senses and brought to repentance. We ask in Christ's name. Amen. Marriage is a biblical concept which is very basic.
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There are some doctrines in the Word of God that are more difficult than others. Such as, for example, the multifaceted doctrine of the love of God.
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In fact, a New Testament scholar, one of the greatest New Testament scholars of our generation, Dr. D .A. Carson, wrote a book called
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The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. Because you have to take into consideration
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God certainly has a general benevolence towards all mankind. But he has a special redemptive love for his elect, for his church.
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And that makes the doctrine of the love of God a little more complicated and somewhat harder to understand.
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You will not, however, find a book anywhere called The Difficult Doctrine of Marriage. There are varied perspectives on the issue of divorce and remarriage, to be sure.
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But as far as what marriage in and of itself is, no biblical teaching could be more straightforward and simple in God's Word.
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And also by simply observing the created order itself. And yet, that which is so simple, so straightforward, so clear in the biblical text, and that which is attested to so beautifully by the creation order design itself is being challenged and denied in our day.
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This should not, of course, surprise us. The battle against unbelief and biblical clarity and authority is always raging in the world, and sadly, now, even in the church.
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Satan continues to do his work of causing unsuspecting people to ask the age -old question that he posed to Eve in the
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Garden of Eden so long ago. Has God really said? When soldiers are called upon to defend something, they will build their defenses in the places which are most vulnerable to attack, or they will come to the defense of that which is presently being attacked.
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The attack, and that's what it is, a frontal assault on our culture's part, on marriage and family, as defined by God in scripture and in creation itself, is raging hotter and hotter in our time.
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I shudder to consider what my children and grandchildren may face, or what we may even face.
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It is unbelievable to see the number of books that have been published in the last ten years on this topic.
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It is unbelievable to hear the number of sermons, talks, conferences, lectures, seminars, which are being pumped into the mainstream media outlets, trying to normalize what is clearly identified in the
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Word of God using the strongest Hebrew word that could possibly be used, the word Toeva, which means abomination.
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And what is even more unbelievable is that these efforts are working. They are working.
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They're making converts. They're pushing their ways even into conservative churches. I want to begin this evening by simply pointing out what we're going to talk about now is the positive biblical teaching on the concept of marriage.
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And I want to make this statement to you. I hope that you will hear this. And I hope that after this sermon is uploaded to Sermon Audio, that you will post a link to it on every
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Christian web board that you know of in town, every homeschool web board. I want everyone to hear this, because this is clearly not being heard very much, and it needs to be heard.
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The Bible is a comprehensively heterosexual, monogamous book.
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From front to back, it is a comprehensively heterosexual, monogamous book.
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I recently obtained a book by a young man named Matthew Bynes called God and the
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Gay Christian, The Biblical Case in Support of Same -Sex Relationships.
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He also put out a YouTube video presentation of 67 minutes long that is viral.
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It has gone all over the place. And I would encourage you to watch it. I would encourage you to watch
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Matthew Bynes' presentation in some liberal church somewhere in which he summarizes his case.
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Now, in Mr. Bynes' presentation, we're told over and over and over again that in the entire
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Bible, that of the 31 ,173 verses, there's only six little verses that deal with this issue.
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Just six little verses that prohibit homosexual behavior. All of them are negative. And that seems to be the tactical approach of many from this perspective.
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Their rhetoric and the things that they're pushing out are saying this, that in this gigantic Bible with all this material, there's just these tiny little passages that speak to this issue.
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And we've got an answer for all six of them. And we can tell you why everyone's got 2 ,000 years worth of reflection have misunderstood what they really mean.
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This is the way in which persuasion works on American minds today. Please hear me. You offer surface -level, facile arguments.
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You shut down the other side by calling them closed -minded, judgmental bigots when they try to refute those arguments.
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And then you cement your case with subjective personal testimonies and emotion.
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And you know what? Congregation, it's working. And that's why the Scriptures over and over again tell us to be sober -minded.
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To be watchful. Watch out for the smooth words of deception. The smooth words of flattery.
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I would encourage you, read the tail end of the book of Romans. Romans 16, the second half of that chapter, has some really good material in it about watching out for these kinds of smooth presentations.
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It's really remarkable, when you listen to heretics and false teachers, just how smooth false doctrine can be made to sound.
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In response to this approach, we need to say, yes, indeed, there are six explicit mentions of the sin of homosexuality in the
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Bible. But to say that that's all that the Bible says on the subject of marriage or sexuality is very misleading.
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As I said, the entire Bible is comprehensively heterosexual and monogamous when it comes to sexuality and marriage.
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There is much positive teaching in Scripture, which men like Matthew Vines have either missed or chosen to ignore in their understanding of this issue.
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What is frightening to see is that the arguments being used by Matthew Vines, none of which are new, they're just old arguments being recycled, that those arguments are working.
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There is a Southern Baptist Convention pastor named Danny Cortez who has preached a sermon. It's out there on the Internet, you can listen to it.
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Using, basically, everything in Vines' book to try to sell his church on this issue.
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A Southern Baptist Convention pastor. But what
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I'd like you to see this evening from this and other texts of God's word is this. Simply one thing.
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What the Bible says about marriage. And remarkably, this has a lot of parallels as I was writing this sermon.
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A lot of parallels to the sermon I preached to you on the meaning of the word day in Genesis 1. If you could step into a time machine and go 200 years into the past and bring some people and sit them down here, they would sit here and scratch their heads wondering, why would you take a sermon to talk about what marriage is?
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Isn't it rather basic? Doesn't everybody know this? Well, for most of human history, yeah.
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Until now. And so we have to do this. We have to look at these issues and make sure that we're equipped to answer the objections, to answer the issues, answer the arguments that are coming forward from the other side.
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So let's look at the Bible's positive teaching on marriage. It's critical to understand that for proponents of same -sex marriage, and there are many, and they're growing in our culture, to try to make their biblical case, the ones that are doing this from inside the walls of churches, all that they can do is try to diffuse the passages which prohibit homosexual behavior.
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And then we're not going to look at those passages this evening. There are, as Matthew Bynes says, there's six of them. If you want to write the references down,
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I'll give them to you right now. Genesis 19 is the first one. Genesis 19, obviously, the story of Solomon Gomorrah.
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Genesis 19, that whole chapter. And then you have in the Holiness Codes, in Leviticus, Leviticus 18 .22.
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Leviticus 18 .22. Leviticus 20 .13. Leviticus 20 .13.
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1 Corinthians 6, 9 -11. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 -11.
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1 Timothy 1 .10. 1 Timothy 1 .10.
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And Romans 1 .24 -27. Romans 1 .24 -27.
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So real quick, again, Genesis 19, that whole chapter. Leviticus 18 .22.
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Leviticus 20 .13. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 -11. 1 Timothy 1 .10.
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And Romans 1 .24 -27. Now, having listed for you the texts which prohibit homosexual behavior,
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I want to point this out to you. There is absolute silence in Scripture regarding same -sex marriage.
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Because the idea is entirely oxymoronic. The phrase, same -sex marriage, makes about as much biblical sense as talking about married bachelors.
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Marriage, by definition and by the nature of the created order itself, is always and only heterosexual.
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Think about it. How could a homosexual couple, in principle, fulfill the creation mandate, be fruitful and multiply?
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What does that assume as foundational to human society and to marriage itself?
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Be fruitful and multiply is that, at least in principle, children are a possibility.
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How can one man in a homosexual marriage obey the command to all husbands everywhere,
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Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church, Ephesians 5 .25.
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That's a commandment to all husbands everywhere. There are no husbands who have husbands because it makes no sense at all to say it that way.
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How could a man married to another man meet, in principle, the elder qualifications of being the husband of one wife?
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And there, that term wife, gune, means a woman or wife. The word gune can never, ever refer to anything but a woman.
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Or having his children in submission. I would point out to you, where children, in principle, are impossible, there's no marriage.
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Biblically speaking, it's not marriage if, in principle, children are not possible. Now, they'll respond with, are you saying that married people, men and women who are unable to have children, they're not really married because they can't have children?
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No, no. Notice I said, in principle. Where children are, in principle, impossible, there is no marriage.
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In principle, how can a gay couple be fruitful and multiply? In principle, how can one male in a man -to -man marriage have his children in submission?
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In no case can a man in a man produce a baby. In no case can a woman in a woman produce life.
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Marriage in the Bible assumes, in principle, the presence of husband and wife who have the potential to become father and mother.
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Where there is no husband and wife, there is no marriage, in principle. Where there is, in principle, no potential for multiplication, there is no marriage.
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These people are really wanting to redefine the meaning of the word marriage to mean nothing more than a union of any two living creatures.
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That really is what they're pushing for. Of course, if you dig around on the Internet, which is not an overly edifying thing to do on this topic, you can find court cases, and I've seen them, of people wanting to marry their computers.
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People wanting to marry their siblings, their pets. And I even saw an article about a woman who actually had a ceremony to marry herself.
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Another very important point. Please hear this. You've got to get this. Do not buy the rhetoric of our society today about marriage equality.
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No one crying for marriage equality really wants marriage equality. What they want is very simple, and I hope that you'll write this down or memorize it or something.
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What they want is control of the definition of the word marriage. That's what they're after.
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Marriage equality. No one who is a proponent of same -sex marriage wants marriage equality. No one.
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Because what that would mean is we can marry anything we want. I can marry that piano. I can marry my computer.
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I can marry my dog, my horse, my goat. I can marry anything I want. No one arguing for same -sex marriage really wants marriage equality.
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That is a lie. What they want is control of the word.
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And as R .J. Rushdune said, he who defines the meaning of words wins. And our counterparts in the world have always known that.
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That's what they want. Control of the word marriage. And no proponents of same -sex marriage are going to come right out and tell you that that's what they're attempting to do is to hijack that word's definition.
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They deceptively, smoothly try to couch it in terms of a human rights issue.
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Often equating it to racial discrimination. And then cement their case with emotion.
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And as I said, it's working. The saying that I've heard many, many, many, many, many times.
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Jesus never says a word about homosexuality. That's almost become a mantra in the contemporary debate on this issue.
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This is, of course, irrelevant. Because the Lord Jesus taught us that his apostles carried his authority.
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In Luke 10 .16, he said to his disciples, He who listens to you, listens to me.
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He who rejects you, rejects me. And he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me. Furthermore, Jesus validated every jot and tittle of the
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Old Testament, including those passages I just gave you. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets.
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I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
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It is just one of the strangest phenomenon. Well, I'm just a red letter Christian. I'm a red letter
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Christian. You hear that very often. Jesus never talked about this issue. Well, we're going to see
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Jesus did address very clearly the nature of marriage in Matthew chapter 19. We'll see that here in a little bit. But Jesus also attached his own authority to the writings of the apostles.
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He who hears them, hears me, he said. And so what Paul wrote in Romans 1, 24 to 27, carries
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Christ's authority with it. It might as well be red letters too, is what he's saying. And yet Jesus does give clear teaching on the nature of marriage.
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And thus while this passage, Matthew 5, 31 and 32 that we just read, is not addressing the sin of homosexuality, it is very relevant to the debate about whether or not
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God blesses same -sex relationships or same -sex marriage. I'd like to walk you through, starting at the beginning of Scripture, what the
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Scriptures positively teach about marriage. And I'd like to upload this manuscript to our website so you can walk through these passages and have access to this yourself.
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But just listen to this. Keep in mind what I told you at the beginning. The Bible is comprehensively a heterosexual document from front to back.
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Genesis 2, 24. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.
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And they shall become one flesh. There the Hebrew word ish, man, and then woman, ishah.
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There is never an ish with an ish or an ishah with an ishah. It is ish and ishah, the man and his wife.
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That is the charter for marriage for all time. A man, singular, is joined to his wife, singular.
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The man and the woman. The prohibition against adultery assumes a man and a woman.
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Even the laws concerning divorce assume a man and a woman only in that relationship.
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In Exodus 20, verse 12 -14. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the
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Lord your God has given you. Please hear me. No one ever has a father and a father.
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Adam and Eve were the only two people in the history of mankind and Christ who did not have a physical, biological father and mother.
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Every human being on earth has a mom and a dad. And we are to honor our father and mother.
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The idea that Heather has two mommies or Johnny has two daddies. No one has two daddies or two mommies.
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No one does. In principle, that is impossible. Deuteronomy 5, 18.
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You shall not commit adultery. There the Ten Commandments are repeated again. Address only to a marriage consisting of a man and a woman.
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And as I said, the command there assumes the creation order mandate. A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.
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That's what the nature of marriage is. And brothers and sisters, I want to encourage you. Remember that R .J.
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Rushtuni quote. He who defines the word, wins. Whoever has control of what it means, wins.
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And God's word defines what marriage is. You cannot let them hijack that word.
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And use it in a way that profanes what marriage is by God's own decree.
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And by creation itself. Malachi 2, 14. Yet you say, for what reason?
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Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth. With whom you have dealt treacherously.
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Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But did he not make them one having a remnant of the spirit?
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And why one? He seeks the godly offspring. There you hear it again. Therefore, take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.
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For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce. For it covers one's garment with violence, says the
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Lord of hosts. Therefore, take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously. Notice. No such rebukes are ever found to men committing treachery against the husband of their youth.
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Or to a woman. To the wife of her youth. And why does God make them one?
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He desires a godly offspring. Where multiplication and children are in principle impossible.
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There's no marriage. Biblically speaking. The marriage covenant by God's design and decree is limited solely and only to one man and one woman by nature and design that is the case.
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In Paul's instructions in Ephesians 5, beginning at verse 22, wives submit to your own husbands as to the
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Lord. Notice when the Scriptures address the internal workings and the roles of the family, it's always a husband and a wife.
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Here's the wife. Her role. Here's the husband. His role. Where are the directions on how to conduct a same -sex marriage?
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Who does what role when there's two men that are married or two women that are married? It's not a biblical category.
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It totally guts the word marriage of its meaning by nature, by creation, and by definition in God's Word.
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For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church, and He is the Savior of the body.
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Just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands and everything.
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Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the
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Word. As I said, you find no such instructions regarding the roles of husband and husband or of wife and wife.
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And in every passage of the Word of God which addresses married people, the word husband, the
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Greek word andros, and the word wife, gune, the husband is always a man and the wife is always a female.
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There is no substitution of genders for those words. Look them up in any lexicon that exists in the
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English language. Andros is a man. Gune is a woman. That's what marriage is.
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I have a question. Wouldn't you think that if the
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Bible actually blessed the idea of same -sex marriage as something pleasing to God, and that all the explicit prohibitions against homosexual behavior, they really aren't condemning this monogamous, loving, committed homosexual relationship that Matthew Vines and others are pushing for.
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Wouldn't you think if that's really true that there would be some mention of it in the Bible? Don't you think
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God would have thrown them just a little bone somewhere? Wouldn't we find at least something?
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Another question. For 2 ,000 years a Christian church has stood clearly opposed to homosexuality for the sin that it is.
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I have a question for you. Do you think that it's a coincidence in light of our cultural apostasy and the collapse of marriage, family, and sexual morality that all of a sudden
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Christians are seeing things in the Bible which no Christian person ever saw for 2 ,000 years?
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Do you think it's a coincidence that's happening today? No. Why are people all of a sudden seeing things no one's ever seen before in the
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Bible? It's because of the collapse. The moral collapse of this culture.
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That's why all of a sudden these prohibitions really aren't prohibitions anymore. Ephesians 5 .31.
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Paul reiterates just in passing, quoting, giving the Ephesians instructions. He quotes from Genesis 2 .24
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and Ephesians 5 .31. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
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You hear it from beginning to end. It is a heterosexual document. Hebrews 13 .4.
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Marriage is honorable among all, in the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
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What's an adulterer? Someone who betrays that marriage covenant. Now Jesus, in red letters,
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Matthew 19 .3 -9. Hear this. The Pharisees also came to him testing him and saying to him,
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Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? And he answered and said to them, Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female?
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And said, for this reason, here again Jesus is quoting Genesis 2 .24, the marriage charter.
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For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two but one flesh.
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Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate. Pointing out it was intended to be a lifelong covenant.
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That's what it was intended to be. One man, one woman for life. Then they said to him,
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Why then did Moses command a certificate of divorce and to put her away? He said to them,
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Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it was not so.
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And I say to you, Whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery.
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And whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery. What is the only category for marriage in this entire discussion and debate?
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A man and a woman being married. That is the assumption all the way through the entire Bible. Romans chapter 7 verse 2
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For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives.
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But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. If same sex marriage is actually approved of by God, where are the instructions for the man whose husband dies in the
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Word? Where are the instructions for the woman whose wife dies? Why doesn't God address that anywhere in the
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Scriptures? Because the word marriage cannot bear that meaning. It is defined at the very beginning in the second chapter, and that is all the way through the
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Scriptures, all the way through biblical history, all the way down to right now. That's what marriage is. 1
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Corinthians 7 verse 39 A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives.
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But if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the
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Lord. Again, what is the natural creation order biblical assumption here?
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Marriage by definition is one man married to one woman. Deuteronomy chapter 24 gives rather detailed instructions about adultery or sexual impurity which you discovered before the marriage is formally consummated.
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Of course, engagements back then were almost identical to marriages as we consider them today. Please hear these four verses.
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Deuteronomy 24, 1 -4 When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, when she has departed from his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, then the former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled.
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For that is an abomination before the Lord, and you should not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.
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Again, with such specific and detailed laws about such things regarding marriages between a man and a woman, where are the instructions about man -to -man or woman -to -woman marriages where sexual impurity is detected after they become married?
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What about those situations? They're not addressed because that's not marriage. You see what
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I'm saying here? You see how the Bible is so consistent? This is not a category to the biblical mind at all, to God's mind.
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As we will see next Sunday night when we look more specifically at other passages, and we're also going to take up briefly the issue of divorce because it's addressed by Christ there, even the biblical teaching on the nature of divorce assumes what the
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Bible has always meant and what Christians have always taught concerning the nature of marriage.
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That is, one man and one woman committed to one another for life. And so in conclusion, again, the
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Bible is a comprehensively heterosexual monogamous book. And I would say this to anyone who's struggling with this issue, anyone who actually thinks that this is okay or God blesses this idea, no man can be or ever has been married to another man.
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They go through ceremonies, exchange rings, and go through these kinds of things and do this in various states in this nation, but none of those marriages, quote unquote, are recognized by God, none of them are.
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Only a man and a woman can be married. God defines the word. I'm not being a bigot or being nasty by saying that.
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I'm doing the most loving thing possible by pointing out you do not have control over that word. You don't have control over what it means.
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God does. And we do not have the right to take that which God created as a foundational principle of society, a building block of society, and turn it into something that is what his word says, is toibah, an abomination before him.
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Everything we've just now covered from God's word is left entirely out of Matthew Bynes' 67 -minute long presentation.
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Everything I just covered is not part of that presentation in that viral
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YouTube video called The Bible and Homosexuality. In light of what we read through and looked at concerning marriage throughout the entire
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Bible, from the law in the Old Testament to the words of Christ, the words of the apostles, let us now hear those six passages that are listed on page 11 of Matthew Bynes' book,
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God and the Gay Christian. Now, he doesn't cite their full context, and you're going to see why when we go through these.
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But here's the verses that he actually cites in his own book on page 11. Genesis 19, 5 says,
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And they called to Lot and said to him, Where are the men who came tonight? Bring them out that we may know them carnally.
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Leviticus 18, 22 says, You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.
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Leviticus 20, 13 If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.
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They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. Romans 1, 26 and 27. Again, Matthew Bynes cites this.
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For this reason God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.
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Likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lusts for one another, men with men, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
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And then 1 Timothy 1, verse 10, Paul speaking in a long list of sins, lists fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, etc.
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The word sodomite is used there. Now, there are more passages in Scripture on this issue.
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These aren't the only ones. We'll look at some more of those in coming Sunday evenings. And the citations that Matthew Bynes gives are not complete.
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For example, he only quotes Romans 1, 26 and 27, but to understand those two verses, you really need to read the two verses before it, which read,
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Romans 1, 24 and 25 says, Therefore God gave them up to uncleanness, in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever.
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Amen. And then you have the citations from Romans 1, For this reason God gave them up to vile passions.
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Even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. That's a very important phrase.
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Against nature. Against. Parah and nature. Fusen. Parah, Fusen. Against nature.
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Likewise their men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another. Men with men, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error.
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You see, what is described in verses 26 and 27, is perhaps the greatest and most defiant example of human rebellion against God.
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The dishonoring of all bodies. God says, that because of the unrighteousness of men and the wickedness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness,
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He gives them over to the dishonoring of their bodies. They even do what is against nature.
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The text says. It is one of the greatest examples of the degradation and dishonoring of the human body.
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Spoken of by Paul there. I think you will find fascinating the ways in which these passages are addressed in this book.
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In light of what we saw in the positive biblical teaching about the nature of marriage and the rules governing the marriage relationship.
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Really simple, straightforward, basic, clear. Along with the six passages, Matthew Bynes himself quotes in his book as the only passages in the whole
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Bible which address the issue of homosexuality. I want to ask a simple question. How is it possible that any dispassionate person could know what the scripture says over and over and over again concerning the nature of marriage and what it says concerning God's stance toward homosexual behavior?
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How could anyone reading that book, the Bible, actually believe that God blesses same -sex relationships?
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There is only one conclusion. Such individuals are spiritually dead and blind, unregenerate and unable to discern truth from error, right from wrong, righteousness from wickedness.
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What can we say then to the person who can stare into the face of the law, God, and boldly contradict what it says plainly and repeatedly?
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I'd like to quote to you the tail end of Matthew Bynes' presentation, that 67 -minute long presentation
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I did stop, start, stop, start on that YouTube video and transcribed this exactly as he said it. And I want you to feel the emotion here.
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This presentation that he has given has won over many people to this position. That it's okay for gay
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Christians I mean, again, there are so many category errors in this statement I just want to warn you ahead of time.
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This is what's working. This is what is actually persuading people. You need to hear this, because this is coming.
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And we need to be ready to respond to this. Here's what Matthew Bynes said in the last section of his presentation.
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And I quote, Gay people are just as much children of God and just as much part of His creation as everyone else.
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And there is something terribly unseemly about straight Christians insisting that gay
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Christians are somehow inferior to them or broken. Or that gay people only exist because of the fall.
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And that God really intended to make everyone straight like them. But you know, I'm a part of creation too.
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Including my sexual orientation. I'm a part of God's design. That's the first thing
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I learned growing up in Sunday school. That God created me. That God loves me. That I am a beloved child of God.
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No more or no less valuable than anyone else. I love God. And I love
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Jesus. I really do. But that doesn't mean that I need to hate myself.
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Or somehow wallow in self -pity, misery, and loathing for the rest of my life. That's not what
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God created me to do. Jesus placed a particular focus on those others overlooked.
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On those who are outcasts. On mistreated and marginalized minorities. Hebrews 13 .3
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says, Remember those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. How fully have you absorbed not just the existence of gay and lesbian
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Christians, but the depth of pain and the hurt that their own brothers and sisters have inflicted on them.
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Does that pain grieve you as if it were your own? It's so commonplace for straight
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Christians to say, Yes, I believe homosexuality is a sin. But don't blame me. I'm just reading the Bible.
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That's just what it says. But no, you're not just reading the Bible. You're taking a few verses out of context and extracting from them an absolute condemnation that was never intended.
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But you are also striking to the very core of another human being and gutting them of their sense of dignity and self -worth.
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You are reinforcing the message that gay people have heard for centuries. You will always be alone.
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You come from a family, but you'll never have one of your own. You are uniquely unworthy of loving and being loved by another person.
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And all because you're different. Because you're gay. Being different is no crime.
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Being gay is not a sin. And for a gay person to desire and pursue love and marriage and family is no more selfish or sinful than when a straight person desires and pursues the very same things.
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The Song of Solomon tells us that King Solomon's wedding day was the day his heart rejoiced.
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To deny to a small minority of people not just a wedding day, but a lifetime of love and commitment and family is to inflict on them a devastating level of hurt and anguish.
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There is nothing in the Bible that indicates that Christians are called to perpetuate that kind of pain in other people's lives.
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Rather, we are to work to alleviate it. The Bible is not opposed to the acceptance of gay
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Christians. If you are dead set against the idea of two men or two women being in love, then
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I'm asking you to try to see things differently. Even if it makes you uncomfortable. I'm asking you to ask yourself this.
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How deeply do you care for your family? How deeply do you love your spouse? And how tenaciously would you fight for them if they were ever in danger or in harm's way?
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That is how deeply you should care. And that is how tenaciously you should fight for the very same things for my life.
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Because they matter just as much to me. Gay people should be treated as a treasured part of our communities and families.
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And the truly Christian response to them is acceptance, support, and love.
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End quote. There is so much that could be said in response to what
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I just read to you. But put yourself in the position of people who are in churches.
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They're not regularly hearing verse by verse exposition of the Bible. They're not trained in how to think biblically or do biblical apologetics or how to answer, how to be sober minded and think.
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Instead of being fed meat and potatoes and good solid stuff consistently, they've grown up on a lot of fluff, a lot of gimmicks, a lot of shallow stuff.
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They're no match for this. On the coming Sunday nights, we're going to analyze
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Vines' arguments from Scripture in his book, and we're going to respond to them, each one. But in closing, in light of Matthew Vines' emotive closing statements,
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I'd like us to consider these three verses from the Word of God. Please turn in your Bible to 1 John 2, verse 3.
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I want you to walk through these three verses with me. 1 John 2, verses 3 through 5. This passage is the answer to what we just heard from Matthew Vines.
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1 John 2, verses 3 through 5. 1 John 2, beginning of verse 3.
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God's Word says here, 1 John 2, verse 3. Now by this we know that we know
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Him if we keep His commandments. He who says,
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I know Him and does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in Him.
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Okay, stop right there. Clearly, the Apostle John was implying that there were in his day and that there have been in every day of human history, many many people who say,
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I know Him. I mean, did you hear the emotion in that? I love God and I love
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Jesus. You've got to see the video. I really do, he says. The person who says,
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I know Him and does not keep His commandments is a liar. And the truth is not in Him.
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Verse 5. But whoever keeps His Word, truly the love of God is perfected in Him.
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By this we know that we are in Him. One of the most important words in the entire
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New Testament is the Greek verb hamalagao which means to confess.
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If you break down the meaning of the word hamalagao in Greek, what it means is to say the same thing.
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To speak the same thing. In other words, the Scriptures tell me this is wrong. You are sinning and I confess.
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I speak the same thing. Yes. That is right. You see, for Matthew Vines and people like him, their basic attitude is this.
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I am gay. Okay, now let's go to the Bible and see what it has to say. Rather than you created me, you tell me who
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I am. That's the difference. The person who says I know
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Him and will not hear His commandments and does not keep them is a liar.
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And the truth is not in Him. By this we know that we are in Him.
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We keep His Word. And so I hope that you'll come out here on Sunday nights, the next few
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Sunday nights as we go through the passages. We have to be equipped and ready to respond in love so that we can call people like Matthew Vines to repentance.
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Wouldn't He be a remarkable trophy of God's grace if God were to bring Him out of that and bring Him to repentance and liberate
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Him from that great evil? And so let's pray to that end. Let's go to prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank
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You for giving us Your law. And Lord, all of us want to confess our sins to You and confess where our lives fall short.
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All of us want to go to the text of the Word of God on our knees, ready to hear what it says, the condemnations it brings against us, and admit and say the very same things that You say.
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And when You condemn a behavior in our lives, even if it's a cherished behavior, even if it's something that we really, really desire, we want to confess that You are right and we are wrong, and that we need to change.
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We need to conform to Your law, not that You should conform to our desires.
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Lord, we pray for Matthew Vines. We pray for the many, many other people, the many professing
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Christians who are being thoroughly confused by these kinds of argumentations and these kinds of emotional pulls.
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We pray, Father, that You would help Your church to be sober -minded and alert and be able to respond biblically accurately in love and to stand their ground without compromise for the sake of Your glory and for the sake of the souls of people.