Is Homosexuality Consistent with New Testament Obedience?

Opening Welcome, Church Hospitality, and Debate Purpose

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to take a moment to welcome you this evening. My name is Joseph Smith and I'm the pastor of this church and on behalf of Switzerland Community Church and we'd like to welcome everybody to what we consider to be a great event tonight.

We're actually really excited to host this event and I pray that you'll feel love, that everyone who's here will feel the love and hospitality of our church and so we want to thank you very much for being here.

We're a non-denominational church, community church, and we felt that because of our position in the community that we had the opportunity to open the doors of this place and be a place where we can elevate the Word of God above all human opinion and those who would profess Christ would hear and allow the Holy Spirit to instruct them.

In our congregation we have a wide breadth of theological range. We've got Calvinists, those who parked in the parking lot tonight were ordained to do so. Those of you who parked in the grass, well, I mean that's what it is.

We've got some charismatics in our congregation and they've been fervently rebuking Floyd or Florence or whatever his name is, the hurricane, Florence out there, so that we could have this event tonight and we've got a wide range in between but because we're a non-denominational church it doesn't mean we're actually neutral on the topic that is here tonight.

We do have a stance and it's appropriate for us to state our belief statement which can be found on our website. Our statement of faith says that marriage is God's designed foundation for the family unit as a central theme in the creation narrative.

The marriage covenant is described as one genetic male and one genetic female as one flesh, serving as the paradigm set forth to bear the image of God which is upheld by the teaching of Jesus and attested to by the church.

We also believe that the sole rule of faith and practice for the church is God breathed scripture and we hope that you will hear tonight the scriptures, the Word of God and that as it's examined from two opposing sides, two different sides, that you would be the ones who benefit from the glorification of God's Word and that you would hear it clearly tonight.

We also hope that those who disagree with us would still sit with us shoulder-to-shoulder and love one another as we pursue the truth of God together. So can we begin at that starting point tonight that we're here to pursue the truth of the revealed Word of God.

We thank everybody for joining us and for being here with us and I'd like to take a moment to bow our heads and ask the Lord to bless this evening. Father you are God. There is no other God but you. Tonight we are humbled before you no matter where we stand philosophically, no matter where we stand in our theology.

Lord we we humble ourselves before you and we elevate your word before us today and we ask that your spirit be here. We ask that your presence be among us, that you lead us in your wisdom and that in our hearts we would come to know truth even tonight with you.

We thank you for those who are here with us, who are giving their time and their viewpoints and are going to take part in this debate. Lord I pray for your wisdom, for your community even in this debate that we would be elevated together in love and grace.

And so Father we ask tonight for you to guide us and that this discussion honor you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for being here. I'd like to take a moment to introduce Chris Arnzen, one of the key pieces to this night's.

Opening Introductions and Sponsor Thanks

Event. Good evening everybody. I don't even think I said a word just then. Good evening I think I said. Obviously we are broadcasting live from Mount Fuji Japanese restaurant over here. But it is a joy to be here.

I want to thank Pastor Joseph Smith. I never thought those words would ever come out of my mouth. And I also want to thank of course Executive Pastor Jake Korn who is very instrumental in this event taking place tonight.

I want to thank my friend for many years going back to the 1980s, Richie Saxon, who actually started the ball rolling to get these events, last night's events and tonight's event established. He contacted me and asked me if I could get Dr. James R. White and Dr. Michael Brown to cooperate with us and participate in this event.

So I am so delighted that I've also gotten the opportunity to fellowship with my dear friend that I haven't seen probably since 1991 or something like that. A dear brother and his lovely wife here. I also want to thank my friend Pastor Keith Foskey for taking me around the town here and feeding me and so on.

He is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church here in Jacksonville and he and his lovely wife have been a blessing to me as well. I want to give a shout out to LP and my adopted family in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the Hopkins Richardson Ignacio family who have been a blessing to me after moving from New York to Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

And even though I am on the opposite side from the people I'm going to thank now, I am on the conservative side of this debate, but I really have to thank very, very much not only the Reverend Rochelle Brown, who is the moderator of the Metropolitan Community Church denomination, who recommended very highly that I contact Reverend Ruth Jensen-Forbel.

And also I want to thank Reverend Ruth for accepting the invitation and Pastor Dwayne J. Robinson for accepting the invitation to be a part of this. They will be more formally introduced in a moment, but it is very hard.

I've been arranging debates since 1996, especially with Dr. James R. White, and as he will attest to, it is very hard these days. It's getting increasingly more difficult to get people who are willing to participate in scholarly debates where there is no hatred or fomenting or mockery or what have you.

And I am so glad that these two individuals have eagerly accepted the invitation to participate, and I hope that this continues to send a message that disagreement does not equal hate. Even if you disagree with somebody and you're on the polar opposite of what they're saying, and you adamantly oppose what they're saying or believing or teaching, it doesn't mean you hate them.

In fact, disagreeing with someone and telling them that you disagree can be the highest act of love when you are trying to bring correction and safety and well-being to their lives. So I just wanted to make it clear that hatred has nothing to do with what we are doing.

It's the love of God, the love for his word, the love for those who disagree with us, and also the love for everyone who witnesses this, either who is in the audience today or watches this later on on a DVD or on the internet.

And I just want to say that I am delighted to be instrumental in being the arranger of only the second debate where these two gentlemen are actually on the same side, am I correct? These two gentlemen are usually debating each other, and this is only the second time that they are on the same side in a debate.

But now it's time for me to hand the mic over to the executive pastor here at Switzerland Community Church, Pastor Jake Korn. Thank you very much. Oh, and one more thing real quickly, I'm sorry. I am manning a booth in the lobby for my radio show, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I hope that you all begin listening to the program regularly.

You can hear it anywhere in the world at IronSharpensIronRadio .com. If you visit me during a break at the booth and you promise to hang a flyer in your in your church somewhere, you will get a free New American Standard Bible, and I want to thank the publishers of the New American Standard Bible for providing us with these free Bibles.

And they sponsor my radio program, and they have been a huge blessing in my life throughout my broadcasting career. And also I want to thank my friend Sal D 'Antona of Linbrook Baptist Church on Long Island and BatteryDepot .com, who sponsors my program as well and enables me to attend events just like this.

Well, thank you very much. I'm sorry for the false alarm there. Thanks, Chris. Thank.

You again, Rich Saxon. This was all his baby. I just want to say a quick thing. I started seminary as a charismatic, and I came out as a Calvinist, and it was because of coming to the Word of God and honestly challenging my presuppositions and courageously reading it for what it is.

And tonight we're not going to declare a winner. We're not going to tell you what to think when you leave. Our prayer is that you hear what the Word of God says. Hey, we want to welcome and thank these four who have courageously come to do this important work.

So I want to introduce them to you. I'm so excited that they're here. So first is Dr. Michael Brown. He is the author of Answers, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, president of Fire School of Ministry.

His radio show, Line of Fire, is phenomenal. I hope you check it out. Follow them on social media. He comes to us, and we are so excited to have him here. Dr. James White. I think, Dr. James White, it's The People Drove the Longest to See You.

Who's here from Chicago? Okay. Dr. James White is the author of The King James Only Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, my favorite, The Potter's Freedom. Everyone go buy The Potter's Freedom. And director of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

Please check them out. Reverend Ruth, we're so excited to have you here. She's a native of Jacksonville. Both of these guys are residents here in Jacksonville, so we thank you for coming. Reverend Ruth Jensen-Florbel, founded First Coast Metropolitan Community Churches.

We're really excited. She's led the effort, the Community Aids Coalition of St. Augustine, and she's working back down in St. Augustine, doing great work down there. And Pastor Dwayne Robinson, he is from Called Out Believers in Christ Fellowship.

Is that correct? Excellent. He leads workshops on worship, conferences on the grace of God, and healing from church hurt. And thank you so much for being available to us. I wanted to take just a quick moment to thank our favorite sponsors.

They're in your bulletin. Pets Are Family Veterinary Clinic. I got to be honest, they've been taking care of my pets. They are phenomenal. And C12, led by Bob Shallow here in Northeast Florida. I don't know if you noticed from our parking lot, we are a tiny church.

We are way out of our depth to be able to afford such an awesome event. So in order to love these guests well, would you please consider sharing some of what you've brought tonight, to just give them a gift to say thank you for tonight.

If my ushers would come up front, let me pray for this, and we're gonna get on with our evening. If you're making out a check, or if you're going online, if you just note, apologetics event. We're not keeping a dime.

This is just to take care of everybody and say thank you for their time, all right? Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your time, for setting aside this time and place for this to happen. Lord, would you bless this gift that we can thank our guests for coming, that you would be glorified in what happens here tonight.

In the name of Jesus, amen. And now I'll introduce our.

Debate Rules, Topic, and Opening Logistics

Moderator, Matthew Hinson. Well, good evening. It's good to be with you all.

This evening. My name is Matthew Hinson. I will be your moderator tonight. My job is twofold, to ensure quality debate and to be relentlessly neutral. So, that is exactly what you will see out of me. This issue does often cause passionate debate, which we welcome, provided that that passion is directed towards ideas and not people.

With that in mind, we're going to have to work together, audience, participants, moderator, and everyone, to ensure a good evening. So, from our participants, we have been emailing ad nauseum for the past couple of months, hammering out some rules.

I'm going to give those in brief now that our four participants have agreed to. During their allotted time, you'll notice this is a two-on-two debate, and so there's some questions about who goes when, but during their allotted time, the affirmative or the negative side may have either participant speak here at the podium.

They're permitted to tag-team, but of course, this doesn't change anything about their allotted time. The thesis of this debate, or rather the question is, is homosexuality compatible with New Testament obedience?

And if we were to turn that into a statement, it would be homosexuality is compatible with New Testament obedience. You can choose to affirm that statement or to try and negate it. That's where we get our affirmative and our negative side.

So, the negative side on my right, your left, and the affirmative side on my left, your right. The length of each individual segment has been pre-agreed to, and our time enforcement will be consistent.

If a participant chooses to ignore the time expired notice, any time that that participant goes over will be deducted from the 10-minute closing statement. If a participant excessively violates time allotment, the moderator may choose to verbally intervene, but I don't anticipate that that will occur.

If technical difficulties are encountered, the clock will stop until those are resolved. We will have an audience question time at the end, and we'll go over more about how to submit questions and how all that works at that time.

That'll be via index card. Our participants, for their opening statements, and really for everything except for the cross-examination period, will be addressing you from here, but during the cross-exam, we will pull the podium back and allow them to directly address one another.

So I thank you all for being here, and at this time I'd like to call the affirmative side for their.

20-minute opening statement. Thank you. One more point of order that I did.

Neglect to mention is that we appreciate enthusiasm on this topic, but the only sound we would like to hear from our audience is the sound of pages turning and flipping as you look up biblical references.

If you are a bit more exuberant and choose to verbally express that, we appreciate that, but we may ask you to observe the rest of the proceedings from another venue. Thank you. A 20-minute opening statement for the affirmative side begins now.

And is that the time? The clock will be behind me up on the wall. This one will count down the final five minutes, but they will be in sync once the five.

Minute time hits. All right, thank you. Yes, ma 'am. So you see my information in your bulletins. I did want to add a couple of things. First of all, thank you for this opportunity. If you said courageous one more time, I was going to be very, very nervous and let you know that I've never, ever debated anyone.

I'm not a debater. I'm not trained as a debater. So I'm here to learn from evidently experts. So thank you very much. I also want to say that what it might not be, it is not in your bio of me. I am so happy to have my wife here.

We've been married for 30 years, married before God because that was the only choice we had. And then when it became legal, we did become legally married in 2005. So we're celebrating 30 years together this year.

And I'm so happy that she's able to be here with me. When I was looking at this, and actually Duane and I discussed this, I looked up obedience because it's not a word that I have come to use regularly in sermons or any kind of teaching.

And when I found out what it meant, I said, oh, well, sure. Obeying the word. And for me, as a Christian, my word comes from Jesus. And so when I think about consistency, is it consistent? This is the part that really confuses me just a little.

And so I want to tell you where I'm coming from, especially my debaters over here. Consistency says to me that you do obedience the way you understand it. And as I said, for me, that is the word of Jesus Christ as a Christian.

I believe that I serve a God who unconditionally loves all of creation, and I serve Jesus Christ. So to me, being consistent is to never, ever not serve Jesus Christ. I know I'm a sinner, fall short of the glory of God, and praise God for that, because that's why Jesus died on the cross for me.

So that's where I'm coming from. And I also try to keep Jesus' commands. And part of what I've done as an ordained minister is promised God to do whatever God calls me to do. Now, I do want to warn any of you who might be looking toward ordination, perhaps you're already there, when you make a commitment like that, it can be very dangerous.

Because here's what's happened to me. I had a plan for my life. I thought I was on the right road, I was serving God, and then God said, no, that's not where I want you to be. And I was kind of enjoying being where I thought it should be, but God said, we need to have a church in St. Augustine, and you are the person I've chosen for that.

And I said, well, okay. So I said, I can do that, and I can still teach. I was a teacher, I enjoyed being a teacher, I was an educational media specialist. If you all know what that is, and I hope some of you do, we're the librarians in schools, but it sounds so much better to say educational media specialist, doesn't it?

So I thought, I can do that, I can go start this church, everything's fine. And then God said, now, you know you can't be doing both these jobs. And then a colleague of mine said, you will feel like you're on vacation if you quit your job and devote your life to God.

And she was right. She was absolutely right. And so I worked lots harder for lots less money, but I felt so wonderful about it. So I founded First Coast Metropolitan Community Church, part of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.

I started that, and I was happy to start it. And when I got to retirement age, actually a little past, I was so happy to retire. And if you are not retired yet, you know, be happy about it for as long as it lasts.

Because I'm 72 years old, I retired at age 70, and I thought, for three months I enjoyed it so much. For three months I kind of got to sleep in and didn't have a schedule and didn't have to look at the calendar every minute of the day.

And then God spoke through Metropolitan Community Churches. When I received a call about a congregation in need of an interim pastor, and I am a trained interim pastor, in Mobile, Alabama. Now that's a straight shot over on I -10, if you know that.

It's a six-hour drive, with a time change when you get there, and time change when you come back. And so I spent the last year and a half at Mobile, helping them heal, helping them re-energize, and I was pleased to participate in the installation of their brand-new pastor.

Through all of this, I say, I found out that the love of God can do anything. In fact, God can do anything, and I know it, I believe it, I've witnessed it. And for me, this whole topic comes down to Jesus.

And Jesus said in John 14, 15, if you love me, keep my commands. And Jesus made it so wonderful for us as Christians, because if you know anything about Judaism, if you know anything about the Holiness Code, there are over 600 rules and regulations.

And when Jesus came, Jesus said, I come to fulfill the law. And when asked for the greatest commandment, he could have said anything, but he said, here's what the greatest commandment is, that you love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.

But he did not stop there. He said, the second is just like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. There was something in common in these commands from Jesus, and the word was love. And so for me, it's all about love.

It's all about loving people, and I have to say this, our young people today don't need rules, don't need judgments, they need love. They have to know that they are loved exactly the way they are. They have to be loved through the decisions and problems that come against them.

They have to be loved through the assault of the evil one. They have to be loved through finding out who they are as a child of God. And I believe we are all children of God, and I believe our bottom line has to be love.

Thank you.

As was stated before, I am Dwayne J. Robinson of the Called Out Believers in Christ Fellowship, and I'm very pleased to be on this distinguished panel with these wonderful doctors, and very grateful to have been invited by your wonderful pastor.

And I come from a culture, I'm a black man, and I come from a culture where we appreciate our pastors. And so I was taken aback just a little bit when the pastor said, I am the pastor. I wanted to turn the table over, but you all were sitting there very calmly.

So I want to say that I just do appreciate the pastor of this church for inviting us, and the leadership, and the forward thinking that he has to bring these kinds of issues to us, to make us think, to not box us in, so that we are able to give account in that last day about the word of God that is in us.

I am not here to defend anything. I am here to affirm God's love for his people, an undying love, a never-ending love, a love that has come to snatch us out of the bowels of hell, a love that has come to make a way for us when there was no way for us.

And so my position about this particular subject, having lived through it, but even before I lived through it, my position about this, like Reverend Ruth's position, is it has to be rooted in love. And so there are many things that I can assume, because I've viewed these kinds of debates before, sat in the audience.

I too have not debated before an audience before, but we have a panel every year at our church, every other year at our church, where we invite people in, and our audience of people are people who are LGBT.

That's a word you're going to hear that you might not be familiar with. That's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Or same-gender loving, that's another word that you'll hear me say. Not out of fear of the word homosexual, but to take the notion that homosexuality is merely about sex.

In the same way that your marriages, heterosexual marriages, are not merely about sex. If that is what your relationships are merely about, they will not last long, because as we age, amen. And so I want to use those terms, not that I'm afraid of the other terms, and our debaters may use those and not feel offended.

The other thing I want to say is, I don't want anybody in this room... There was a very gracious and hospitable atmosphere as we came in, but I also saw that there was a leaning towards trying to make us feel more comfortable than other people.

And again, as a black man, I've experienced that too, where when I walk in the room, the temperature of the room might change simply because I'm black. I'm a human being, and we are all human beings being loved and judged by the word of God at the same time.

These things occur, they're co-occurring at the same time. And so we want to get it right when it comes to the word of God. We don't want to play games with the word of God. We don't want to wake up one day and end up in hell.

Amen. And so that's why I'm here. So I'm here to talk about the love that covers a multitude of sin and brings us into a consciousness and an awareness of sin and what sin is. And our debaters will talk, I'm sure, a little more about that as well.

My take on that is the harmatia. It is that part of God's grace that causes any and every one of us who are missing the mark. The word sin there means to miss the mark. Any and every one of us who are missing the mark, the mark of the high prize that is in Christ Jesus.

That grace comes like a wind underneath any of us to carry us to that place that not one of us is worthy of. And so I want to talk about that kind of love. I don't want to skirt the issues of the Old Testament talking specifically about homosexuality being an abomination to God.

I understand that. I've lived through that kind of condemnation that was put on. But the word of God comes through that same Paul who is going to be quoted in just a few minutes to say, there is now therefore no condemnation to those of us who are in Christ Jesus, whether we are bond or free, whether we are Jew or Gentile, whether we are male or female.

And we might get away with the whole Jew or Gentile argument. We might get away with the bond or free argument, but you won't get away with the male or female argument. There is now therefore no condemnation.

And so when I talk more about this later after some things have been introduced, which I highly expect will be introduced, then we'll come back and we'll apply these principles that we've talked about on today to those principles that I highly expect will be brought up.

But again, I want to say I've felt nothing but love, probably over love, in the room as I know that people want to make sure that we feel welcome and we do not feel in any way hated, in any way, shape, or form.

There's nothing but love in this. But that's what Christianity does. That's what Christ does. And so we don't want you to think by any stretch of the imagination that you got to go light on us. Let loose.

Because at the end of the day, the Bible says, let God be true and every, not some, every man a liar. Amen.

To our affirmative side, you have an additional seven minutes. Do you wish to address the podium further? No? Okay. We now call our negative side to the podium for their 20-minute opening statement.

Well, thanks so much, everyone, for being here, everyone who put things together, and especially our debating opponents, but many years of doing ministry work. So, and fear not, we will let loose. Because that's what love does, because love tells the truth.

In fact, amazingly, in Leviticus 19, where it says, love your neighbors yourself, it also says, you must rebuke, you must tell the truth in the very same context. I want to present to you tonight Jesus, the only Savior and the only Lord, Jesus who shed the same blood for heterosexual and homosexual, and Jesus who came to seek and save that which was lost, and Jesus went after the marginalized, the outcast, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the sinners, but he did not affirm them where they were.

He did not practice affirmational inclusion. He practiced transformational inclusion. He reaches out to where we are and changes us by his love. So, amen. We're here to speak about the love of God, and Jesus came full of grace and truth.

Not grace or truth, but grace and truth. And often, the church, when it comes to LGBT issues, has been very strong on truth, but often lacking in love. And sometimes, we've given the impression that if a gay man comes into our congregation, we're all going to get AIDS, or they're all sexual predators.

And for that, from the heart, I apologize because often, we've not recognized the rejection that folks have lived through, that was alluded to earlier, some of the obstacles that have to be overcome. But here's the tragic mistake that we're going to work against tonight because we love people.

Someone's growing up, maybe they're growing up in the church, they discover, to their surprise, they're same-sex attracted. They pray, they fast, they get counseling. People try to drive demons out of them, and then they don't know what to do.

They get online, they find out about, quote, gay Christians, and they begin to look into things. And they see, I've read books for it, I've read books against it, I'm not sure. But they say, I know God made me gay, I'm sure of that.

And then they go to the Bible through that lens. In other words, they interpret the Bible through the lens of their sexuality, rather than interpreting their sexuality through the lens of the scripture.

And that's why there's so much confusion. And once someone puts gay, lesbian as part of their identity, they have now identified in a way contrary to the way God sees us. He sees us as human beings who have sinned and fallen short, all of whom need the grace of God to forgive and transform.

Now, we're focusing on New Testament obedience, but I want to underscore the essential harmony of Old and New Testament when it comes to these foundational issues. We know in Genesis, the first chapter, God creates the human race, male and female.

And then in Genesis, the second chapter, we see that there's no suitable companion or helper for Adam. It says, Adam, it's not good for the man to be alone. But notice, God does not just say, I'll give him a suitable companion, but a suitable helper.

Now, in God's sight, men and women are equal. In what sense is the woman a helper? The man cannot fulfill his destiny to be fruitful and multiply unless there is union. God's intent from the beginning is one man, one woman joined together for life.

Jesus himself affirms that in Matthew 19, 4 through 6, says, this is the way God established it in the beginning. And it's not polygamy either. It's not Adam and Eve and Yvette and Yvonne. That's not there either.

So God establishes one man, one woman. And when Adam sees the woman, he calls her Esha. Why? Because she was taken out of the Esh. He calls her woman because she was taken out of the man and says, you are now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.

And the two come together and become one. Only male plus female can become one. Because there is a complementarity biologically, emotionally, and spiritually. The woman came out of the man. And that's why when they joined together in marriage, the two complementary halves become one once again.

Now you might say, yeah, but if this is such a big issue, how come the Bible doesn't mention it that much? Let me give you an analogy that a friend of mine uses. Let's say I put together a recipe book, healthy dessert recipes.

And you read in the beginning, because we don't believe in sugar, we think it's unhealthy. You won't find sugar in any of the recipes. In fact, every single recipe here is sugar-free. And you notice, I use the word sugar just three or four times in the book, because of which you conclude sugar's not a big issue.

No, it's such a big issue, it's excluded from every other recipe in the book. Every recipe in the Bible for marriage, for family, is male, female only. Honor your father and mother, reinforced in the New Testament.

Husbands, love your wives. Wives, respect your husbands. There is no other pattern given anywhere in the Bible. Every reference to homosexual practice is explicitly condemned. Every reference to marriage, to family, to mother's, father's, it is all heterosexual.

And that means, and I don't mean this in any demeaning way, and I don't doubt the devotion that these couples have for each other. But if you're reading Scripture, and now we're reading Paul, it's New Testament.

Husbands, love your wives. Wives, love your husband. Who's the husband? Who's the wife in a same-sex relationship? The pattern simply doesn't fit. Let's take this one step further. We talk about Leviticus 18 .22.

We know the verse. We can go through it very carefully in Hebrew if we need to. I'm happy to. And it says plainly that for a man to lie with a woman, it's literally the way a man lies with a woman, that that is abomination.

There's something detestable in God's sight. You say, yeah, but God gave lots of laws in the Old Testament, like the food laws, and certain kind of garments, and so on. Aha, God gave certain laws to Israel to keep them separate from the nations, like the dietary laws, which he never commands the nations to keep, like certain types of garments, which he never commands everyone else to keep.

And then there are other laws based on universal moral principles, like don't murder, or don't commit adultery. How do you know which is which? Well, the Bible tells us which is which, plus those that are universal are reinforced in the New Testament.

So when it comes to homosexual practice, not only is it explicitly forbidden in the Old Testament, that prohibition is repeated in the New. And the book of Leviticus tells us also this is not just for Israel.

This is not just part of a separation code. This is a universal moral principle. Read the end of Leviticus 18. Read it carefully for yourself. God judged the Canaanite nations for practicing these very sins.

If he judged the Canaanites and it was wrong for them, it is wrong for all people. This is a universal moral prohibition. And I say this with all respect, if God says something is detestable, it's no less detestable if you do it with someone you love, and it's no less detestable if you do it repeatedly with the person you love.

It doesn't change the fact it's contrary to God's sacred and holy order, which is then reinforced in the New Testament. And that's why Jesus says in Matthew 5, 17 to 20, he didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill.

When it comes to the sexual moral standards of the Torah, like adultery, what does Jesus do? He takes it to a higher level. Not just adultery of the act, but now adultery of the heart. When it comes to hatred, when it comes to murder, when it comes to other sins that are proscribed in the Torah, Jesus takes them to a higher level.

And in Matthew 15, Jesus himself teaches that it's not that which goes into the mouth, so the dietary things, those laws, that's not what defiles, but what comes out of the heart. And then he lists there sexual immorality.

And as we have it in the New Testament, it's the Greek word pornea in the plural, which means all sexual acts outside of marriage. And Jesus has described marriage for us as the union of one man, one woman in Matthew 19.

What's so sad to see is that there's been universal agreement on these passages for centuries, really for almost two millennia. And before that in Judaism, these were clearly understood. It's only in the aftermath of the sexual revolution and the declining of our culture and the loss of our moral bearings that we've gotten spiritual confusion.