Homosexuality

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Homosexuality as Sin Versus Toleration and Celebration

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name's Mike Abendroth, and in the news recently is Mr. McElpine of England, who was street preaching, and he was talking about a variety of different sins from adultery to drunkenness to fornication to homosexuality, and he was approached by a PCSO, a police community support officer, and he could be arrested, this particular officer said, for using racist or homophobic language.

There was a liaison officer there for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender group, and then McElpine said to that particular representative, it's still a sin. I find that quite interesting. I don't really care who you are, it's still sinful.

And so this reminds me back in the days where you say to the king, the king wants to get a divorce, the king is committing adultery with someone else, and since I'm the king, I can do whatever I want.

And then the people who are around the king say, well, you could do whatever you want, but it's still a sin. And of course, people don't like to be told something is a sin. Adulterers don't like to be told that.

Fornicators don't like to be told that. Homosexuals don't like to be told that. No one likes to be told that is a sin against God. Remember, the issue here is not necessarily a crime. You can have things that are not criminal.

According to different constitutions and law statutes, but still can be sinful. The Telegraph newspaper in London reported, three regular uniformed police officers arrived during the address, arrested Mr. Malcolpine, and put him in the back of a police van.

He was arrested under Britain's Public Order Act, which the paper reports, has been used to arrest religious people in a number of similar circumstances. And so they can determine those circumstances as they would like to subjectively, if they hear threatening, abusive, or insulting words or behavior.

So I guess if you say something is a sin, that's a threat. If you say something is a sin, then that is abusive. Or if you say someone is a sinner, that is insulting words. I don't know what the behavior would be, maybe a declarative voice, a tone of authority, standing on a pulpit.

But basically this man, Malcolpine, can stand up and say, in public, that homosexuality is a sin, and you can get arrested. Just like back in 2002 in England, where Harry Hammond holds up a sign and says, stop homosexuality, stop lesbianism, Jesus is Lord.

And then he gets arrested. Well, I'm not here to talk to you today about what I think of picket evangelism, sign protests, everything else. But I think it's fair to address on No Compromise Radio, what does the Bible say about homosexuality?

It's like the sin that you can't talk about. People know what the Bible says, but you're just not allowed to say it. So I guess I better say it now while it's still legal to say. So then when I say it illegally later, I can say it both ways.

I mean, we just have to tell people what the truth is. There's forgiveness for sin, and the big damning delusion that Satan has, that our own flesh has, is that what we do isn't sin. It's a syndrome, it's a disease, it's something we're born with, it's who knows what.

So today I'd like to talk about homosexuality from a biblical perspective, and try to weigh in a little bit regarding this whole issue. Do we tolerate homosexuality as Christians? Well, you should, we should tolerate.

We tolerate all kinds of sin. This is a sinful society, and if you're going to somehow not tolerate sin, I guess you want a theonomy here on earth without Jesus literally on earth, or you ought to go to some kind of monkestry or monastery someplace.

We are going to deal with sinners of all shapes, sizes, kinds, and degree. But what I will not do is I will not celebrate something. Really, people don't want toleration, they want celebration. They want to be affirmed and confirmed in whatever sin they do.

And again, whether it's fornication, adultery, homosexuality, or whatever it is, people that commit these kinds of sins, they don't just want toleration. Friends, they already are tolerated, and they have been tolerated since the beginning of sin.

There has been a toleration of sinners in America of all places. We tolerate sin. Now, sometimes when the sin goes against other people, there has to be a law, and people get thrown into jail, et cetera.

But toleration, I don't have any problem with that. We tolerate. I have a problem with being forced to celebrate something as good, righteous, and proper if the Bible calls it sinful and corrupt. I can't do it, and I won't do it, and neither should you.

This does not mean we have to be angry and mean and shout and somehow think that homosexuals are our enemies. That isn't the case at all. So what we want to talk about today is loving people who are homosexual.

And I mean kindness, of course, but love in the agape sense means to want what's best for them, to want what's best for them. And so I think the thing that we have to do is we have to ask ourselves the question, what does the Bible say?

And you'll notice very quickly that when the Bible gives sin restrainers like the government, the family, and the church, I wonder what three things Satan attacks, the government, the family, and the church.

And so today we're going to deal with this whole issue of homosexuality, and is it condemned in the scriptures? What does the Bible say about it so we can understand this properly? In some states, including this one, Massachusetts, you can have a gay marriage, and certainly you can call that whatever you want, and we will deal with gay marriage on another show, but we want to just simply say and ask the question, what does the Bible say?

Now, people are going to say, well, you're homophobic. I have no fear of homosexuality. I have no fear of gay people. I have no fear of those who aren't that way. Matter of fact, God has used me in a number of cases to minister to people who are homosexual.

I remember a time in Nebraska where a homosexual man lost his partner, and I knew that particular man, and he asked me to do his funeral, his partner's funeral, and I said, now remember, I'm a minister of the gospel of Christ Jesus, and that means I will minister the gospel at the funeral, but it'd be a pleasure for me to do the funeral.

And so I preached on John 3 about how people must be born again, and Jesus did not come to judge the world but to save the world, and so the issue is not, I'm afraid of people. I walked up to the man who was grieving.

What would you do if you saw someone who was grieving over someone they loved and they had lost, a death in the family? I don't care if the person is a tattoo artist, a homosexual, a criminal. I mean, I'm not putting all three of those in the same category, just something that our society today, at least kind of white bread society, might frown upon, and I went up and I hugged him.

I hugged him and said, I'm sorry for your loss. I was sorry for his loss, and so we don't have to run around treating people like less than human beings, like less than image bearers. I have other friends who I regularly say to them, I see them probably once a week, homosexual ladies, and I will see them and I'll give them a kiss on the cheek and say, I love you.

So this whole kind of canard that is, well, homophobic and afraid of that, that's exactly what it is. It's a false canard. So what do we do? How do we look at society that has become so permissive? It's not just necessarily permissive society, it is a transgressive society.

What do we do about the Bible? And frankly, I don't care if you are born gay. People, you know, years ago, it was 20 years ago where the gay gene came out and it was a homosexual scientist with about 20 homosexual people for the study and people are born gay.

Even if that would be true, it doesn't change any of my theology because I was a born fornicator. I was a born adulterer. The sin has corrupted me and I have corrupted myself and I am a born sinner. So if somebody is born a certain way, then that doesn't solve anybody's argument.

That doesn't win anybody's argument. If you say God, before the fall, created men less than upright, well, then you might win the argument and eventually you would win the argument that there's no God and there's no morality.

But God made Adam and Eve perfect. If he made them fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals, if he made them that way before the fall, you might have a point. But since he didn't do that and the scripture states that clearly, then whether you're born a bank robber, you're born a thief, you're born a covetor, certainly you can't say to God, well, you know what, God? Kings X because I have murdered somebody but I was born a murderer.

And we would never use that logic elsewhere. You can't say, well, you can't arrest me because I've stolen a bunch of somebody else's property because I was born a thief. We would never do that. So if you're born a certain way, join the club, you're born a sinner and you either have a propensity, most people do at least, there are some who are celibate, there are some who are not concerned about sexual activity.

You're either born a fornicator, you're born an adulterer or you're born a homosexual. If you wanna talk in language like that, I may disagree that you're born with some kind of proclivity but it doesn't matter at the end of the day because sin is sin.

That is why Jesus came to redeem sinners. He came to seek and save those who are lost. And so I think in evangelical churches today for the most part, people are homophobic. They are afraid of gay people.

They are afraid of homosexual agendas. They are afraid of sodomy, sodomites. They're afraid of folks who aren't kind of the way they think sinners should be. They don't mind grandma sinners who aren't born again but they live behind the white picket fence.

But this kind of particular sin, I think it rubs Christians especially the wrong way. And I don't mind being rubbed the wrong way as long as I'm thinking biblically. And I think what people do immediately is they try to go to Leviticus to prove the point that the Bible condemns homosexuality.

I shall not lie with man as with woman. It is abomination, Leviticus 18, 12. Leviticus 20, verse 13. In the King James, if a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.

They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. I would not use Leviticus to try to somehow prove that homosexuality is a sin because there's all kinds of other issues that God gave specifically to Israel that they were not to do.

And so if you want to try to make this, well, this is some kind of moral law that transcends a particular civil government laws that Moses and Israel were under, I guess you could probably try to do that.

What about the mixing of fiber and the tattoo passage and stuff like that? So I would just rather have you go straight to the New Testament. What does the New Testament say? And these days, people don't even like what the New Testament says, but I have no other Bible to go on.

And so since I consider myself a Christian, I'm under the authority of the New Testament. If you are a Christian, you have to believe what the Bible teaches. Now you can begin to attack the Bible. You can say that it can't be trusted.

It's not reliable. It didn't deal with the issues of our day. How can two loving people do things that doesn't hurt anybody else and still you have a problem with that? You're wound too tightly. There are problems already in regular marriages and adultery, so why do you have to point the finger someplace else?

And there's a variety of ways that people can kind of run that kind of detract you from this issue, but the issue is the issue. And so if I were you, I would go to 1 Corinthians 6 and Romans 1 to find out what the Bible teaches.

It's as simple as that. And you don't need to hate your homosexual friends. You need to evangelize them, similarly with people who commit adultery. So let's take a look at Romans 1 and just walk through the text.

You can try to say this is trajectory theology and we will trend, there'll be some kind of hypothesis that extends out past the New Testament time. And if the New Testament was written 500 years later, it would affirm it.

This is all nonsensical. This is all cut and paste duck and jive to try to get around the issue. That the Bible teaches homosexuality is a sin. And by the way, it is a forgivable sin. It is a sin that should make you, if you're a heterosexual, not cause you to treat other people with some kind of pariah-like attitude.

You ought to love sinners. And I believe that if Jesus came back today and he acted the same way he did in his first coming as he would in this kind of hypothesized theoretical coming, now you would find him dealing with people who are sinners.

Tax gatherers, homosexuals, that's who you'd see him with. And he would not be celebrating, but he would be there talking to these people who knew they weren't righteous, that they didn't have a righteousness of their own.

And Jesus was a friend to those kind of sinners. So Romans 1 .18 says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

And so God is condemning mankind because they hold the truth, they hold the truth of the creator underwater, as it were, except it's not underwater, it's in unrighteousness. And so verse 19 says, because that which is known about them is evident within them.

Man has been given the truth. He knows there's a God in his conscience, for God made it evident to them. Well, here's a way God has made it evident to them, both internally and now externally. Verse 20, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his external power and divine nature have been clearly seen, clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse.

There's no excuse for anyone who is alive. They are alive and they understand the way the world works, creation, and they are made without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened.

There's a consequence to rejecting God, and that is your heart becomes darker and darker. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. This is not stupid person, this is a morally repugnant person.

Professing to be wise, Romans 1, they became fools. What do fools do? And exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

They do this now deliberately. Darkened, yes, but this is what they do. The problem on the inside of men shows itself now on the outside of what they do. Often, God judges sin with more sin. It's like Acts 14, generations have gone and he's permitted them to go their own way.

And so that's the cause of the society's downfall. What happens next? The consequences and men's hearts get hardened by divine abandonment. Therefore, because of all this, everyone listening today, you know there's a God.

You're a monotheist, even though you try to say you're atheist, you're agnostic, you're an evolutionist, you're this, that, or the other. You're a monotheist and you know that, but you with unrighteous deeds are trying to suppress that truth because you've got to live with yourself and you've got your own conscience that you have to deal with.

So you use sex as a pacifier, you use alcohol, you use drugs, you use entertainment, you use busyness, you use work, you use your family, some kind of idol to keep yourself busy. Because if you sit and think for a while and ponder eternity and life and death and what happens after that, it'll drive you crazy if you have no forgiveness.

Romans 1 .24, therefore God gave them over in their lust of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. God abandons them. He gives them over judicially. He says, okay, you don't want me?

Then just, here you go. If you want to have all this lust, then let's turn the lust factor up. And he can do this either directly by divine judgment and punishment, or here it seems more indirect where he just allows sin to run its course and he doesn't restrain it like he used to.

This is what America does. This is what people do. This is what unbelievers do. And he gives them over to uncleanness of, it's used of decaying matter. It's used for what you find in a grave if you dig up a grave, sexual impurity.

Charles Hodge says, God often punishes one sin by abandoning the sinner to the commission of others. Paul repeats this idea three times. Gave them over, gave them over, gave them over. And now instead of sin being something that interrupts life, this is uninterrupted sin and its results.

What do they do? Verse 25, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature. How gross, rather than the creator who was blessed forever. Amen. The new age theme perfectly fits with all this because they created God that's just perfect for them.

For this reason, verse 26, God gave them over to degrading passions, vile affections, filthy, dirty, evil, dishonorable. That's the Greek word, atymia. For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.

And Paul is showing here women, they're doing this as well. This is pretty debauched when the women who hold society together for the most part are the first to go. And in the same way, also men abandoning the natural function of the woman.

Doesn't take you very much anatomy to put a man's woman and a man's body and a woman's body next to each other and anatomically to figure out, do they go together or do two men go together? And they burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved, worthless mind to do those things which are not proper, things that are not fitting, things that ought not to be done.

God gave them over. They try to get God out of their mind, but they can't. And then what does the text say in verse 29, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceitful malice, they are gossip, slanders, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.

And so once you start doing things in a culture, there's a spiraling effect down. Now, the things that you just read in verses 29 through 31, it's not saying that's what homosexuals are, but show me someone who doesn't acknowledge God any longer, God gives them over to a depraved mind, and they do things that aren't proper.

Some of those are homosexual, and some of those are heterosexual. But for both categories of sinners, verse 32 is true. And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but give hearty approval to those who practice them.

And so they encourage other people to do these things, because then there's somehow strength in numbers. There's a conscience-savving balm with lots of other people doing it. You like Jerry Springer because there are people who are wilder than you are, more sinful than you are, crazier than you are.

And it's just like people today who think they're good, they find a Hitler or Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, and they think, well, relatively, I'm good. But relatively, good does not earn heaven. Jesus said perfection earns heaven.

And if you'd like to go to heaven, there's one way to be perfect. That's not your own way, that's not your own works, your own baptism, your own denial of what God requires. That is to throw yourself on the mercy of the court.

The court, the Father, Son, and the Spirit, who in divine love sent the Son, Christ Jesus, to call out to people, to lay down your arms, clemency for those who kiss Christ Jesus through faith, believing in his death, burial, resurrection, and soon return, trusting not in themselves, repenting of their sins, changing their minds, and following Christ Jesus.

So there's hope for you. There's hope for anyone listening today. Heterosexual or homosexual. Born sinfully with propensity towards fornication or born sinfully with a propensity toward homosexuality.

They may put people in jail for saying homosexuality is a sin, but when you admit that it is, there's forgiveness for you, and you will be out of eternal jail forever. You, the one who trusts in Christ Jesus.

The Gospel Offer of Forgiveness to Sinners

Part two next time.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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