Homosexuality (Part 2)

No Compromise Radio Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author,

Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

Let's continue our series in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Please open your Bibles today. We don't want to excuse sin.

I also don't want my friends who are homosexuals to excuse sin either because if you excuse sin, who needs a

Savior? You need medicine, you need therapy, you need applause, you need confirmation.

No, we recognize our sin because there is a great Savior who sins. Why in Titus? Why in 1

Timothy? Why in 2 Timothy? Is God called God our Savior all the time? Because pastors need to know, churches need to know that there's a

God who saves. He could just be a creator, he could just be the judge, but he's a God who creates judges and then judges his son in our place.

This goes way back, blaming sin. Can you imagine Adam? God, the woman you gave me.

I went to bed single and I woke up married. Basically, that's what happened and then she made me sin.

You made me sin by giving me her. Whatever the excuse, homosexuals, along with every other sinner, sins willfully against the

God that they will answer to. Number four, is it easy to be tricked or deceived when thinking about this topic?

The answer is yes. You've got the constant media barrage, you've got your own heart, you probably know people who are homosexual.

You work with them, you go to school with them, they seem kind and nice and certainly they're image bearers and they can be kind and nice.

Family members, people on TV, and look at what verse 16 says.

This is an echo of 1 Corinthians chapter 6, isn't it? Don't be what? Deceived.

If you weren't going to be deceived, he wouldn't say it, but this is a thing that you could easily be deceived on.

Don't be deceived. There's kind of a sharpness and then he gives some tenderness to, my dear brothers, you can't blame

God, you can't blame Satan. Man is responsible. Don't make any mistake,

James is saying, about the origin of sin and evil. Proverbs 5, for a man's ways are in full view of the

Lord and he examines all his paths. The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him, the cords of his sin hold him fast.

The French have a little proverb and here's the proverb, sin makes ugly.

Sin makes ugly. And if I could add to that proverb, it would be, sin deceives the naive.

Sin deceives. I'd rather be with David, who after committing adultery, a forgivable sin, says, then

I acknowledge my sin to you. I didn't hide, I didn't run, I didn't blame, I didn't say, God by your providence you could have had

Bathsheba laying inside, being inside, clothed, and I walked outside and you put her right there before my view, you could have got me redirected someplace else, but in your providence

I went outside, there she was, then I sinned. No, David says in Psalm 32, a wonderful psalm, and if you've sinned, this is good medicine for you.

Then I acknowledge my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity, I said, I will confess my transgression to the

Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin. And then he says with five little letters,

S -E -L -A -H, what's that mean? S -E -L -A -H, selah. It means just stop and let that sink in.

How good it is of God. Could have killed David, should have killed

David, but God is merciful and gracious and David confessed his sin and God forgave

David. First Corinthians says the same thing, do not be deceived. It's possible to go astray.

You've got the church, you've got the media, you've got all kinds of people saying it's normal, it's regular, it's natural, born that way, be a

Christian, no, don't be deceived. Next question, question number five.

What if the government says calling homosexuality is a hate crime, then what do we do? What if the government says

I can't preach this sermon, then what do we do? Sadly, I think your generation will see pastors in America jailed for these kinds of sermons.

It's coming to you, it's coming to us. First they'll take away our tax exemption, then they'll fine us, and then they'll put us in jail.

Canada already, criminal code of Canada, 1990, two to 14 years.

Any section of the public distinguished by color, race, religion, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation.

It's a crime. Denmark, making statements that threaten, ridicule, or hold in contempt a group due to race, skin color, national or ethnic origin, faith, or sexual orientation.

France, origin, ethnicity, or lack thereof, nationality, race, specific religion, sex, sexual orientation, or handicap.

Iceland, article 233, same thing, ridiculing, slanderous, insulting, threatening, or any other manner publicly assaults a person or a group of people on the basis of their nationality, skin color, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

I won't read the rest, but I could read you Ireland's, the Netherlands, Norway's, Sweden's.

And not too long ago, President Obama signs into legislation, along with the $680 billion for the spending bill, the hate crimes law, against the law to assault someone based on their sexual orientation.

And guess what's coming next? Not physical assault, but verbal language against a group is going to require jail time.

If I was flippant about it, I'd probably have to ask you, will you visit me in jail? But then, next in line,

Pastor Steve, or Pastor Dave, and then Pradeep, and then the next, will just keep preaching the same message.

Let's turn to Acts chapter 5 so we can think through this a little bit. And again, we aren't going to run around like the idiotic, asinine, sinful people at Westboro Baptist Church who pickets the funerals of people.

That is shameful, repugnant, and I can't stand it. We want to be kind to people, and kindness doesn't just say, you're okay,

I accept you, we're good to go. You should say, I love you, serve you, we're friends, we're neighbors, we're comrades.

But real love will tell them the truth about how God died for sinners just like them.

Acts chapter 5 gives us a great little picture into what happens when the government tells us to do something that God's word says we ought not to do, or vice versa.

If they say pay taxes, Romans 13, do we pay taxes? They say if you keep talking about homosexuality as a sin, you have to pay extra taxes, we pay the taxes.

But once they say you've got to do something that is against God's word, then we fall on the floor and kind of make it hard for them to arrest us.

Operation rescue. No. We say, I'll go. Acts 5, 17.

Ananias and Sapphira have just gotten killed, lots of healings, lots of things going on here. And then 17, we pick it up, but the high priest rose up, and all who were with him, that is the party of the

Sadducees, and filled with jealousy, they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison.

No more headlines of these apostles healing people and casting out demons and everything else. We've got ourselves a problem.

And the problem is these Jesus followers. The apostles have gone far enough, and we've got to stop it.

We're tired of these disturbances. Let's throw them in the jail with murderers, thieves, and rapists, and everybody else.

Now this is great here. This may be the best. But during the night, an angel of the

Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, now by the way, remember a little bit of Bible knowledge.

What does the Bible say in Acts chapter 23 about the Sadducees who don't believe in supernatural things, nor do they believe in angels?

Sadducees, you're out there preaching, throw them in jail, and what they don't believe in lets the apostles out of jail.

How about that? An angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, this is a couple miracles here.

First letting them out and then blinding the eyes of the prisoners so they wouldn't see what was going on.

Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. I want you to go right back to the heart of everything.

Go to the steps of the White House and begin your message again. The words of life, salvation, forgiveness, atonement, redemption, forgiveness of sins,

God adding human flesh and dying in the place of sinners, being raised from the dead, eternal

God. Go preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the resurrected Messiah.

Words of life, not words of death and words of anger, but words of eternal life.

Here God supernaturally intervenes. And when they heard this verse 21, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach.

This is almost funny. It's almost got some kind of humor in here. Now when the high priest came, those who were with him, they called together the council and all the senate of the people of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought.

Get the Sanhedrin here. But interestingly, they're not around.

Let's have a quick hasty trial and get this over with. Verse 22, but when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison, and so they returned and reported.

We found the prison securely locked, the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside.

Egg on the face, embarrassment. Verse 25, it gets better. And someone came and told them, look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and what?

Doing exactly opposite of what you told them to do. They're teaching the people. Don't you love what the

Spirit of God does in the heart of a human man? Human men, human women. Here we have the apostles.

Peter is shrinking from denying Jesus in front of a girl. I don't even know the man.

And then all of a sudden, Pentecost comes, the Spirit of God indwells, and then now Peter, bold, confident.

This is not some minor thing. This is death is at stake, and so what happens?

Verse 27, look at the accusation. Acts 5, 27. And when they brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest questioned them.

I'll be in a semi -circle, the apostles in the middle. Now watch what happens. This guy can't even say the name of Jesus.

Contemptuously, he says, we strictly charge you not to teach in this name. Yet here you have filled

Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us. And here we come to our passage, verse 29, our text.

But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men.

The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging Him on a tree.

How about that? We are going to do whatever God says, and even back in Exodus, when the midwives were supposed to take the baby boys out of the womb as they would come out, what were they to do?

They were to kill those boys, and then Shepra and Puah said, you know what? We're not going to do it. We're going to obey

God rather than men, even if it costs us our life. And he starts just talking about the one in whom the other man wouldn't name, the high priest wouldn't name.

Here, verse 31. God exalted Him at His right hand as leader and Savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

It's almost Pentecost kind of sermon. It's gifts of God. Repentance is a gift of God.

Forgiveness is a gift of God. Salvation is from God. Later, John Knox, in the 16th century, the

Scottish reformer said, with God, man is always in the majority. I like that.

Verse 33, what's the response in Acts 5? When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill Him. But a

Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a man who trained Paul, teacher of the law, held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while.

We're going to have our little powwow here. And he said that the men of Israel, take care of what you're about to do with these men. For before these days,

Thutis rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about 400, joined him.

He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. Hey, if this is really nothing, it's going to die out.

It's going to die a quick death. For before these days, he said this happened, and now we don't hear from this guy at all.

And he gives another illustration, verse 37. After him, Judas the Galilean, this is a different Judas, rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him.

He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case,

I tell you, keep away from these men. Let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail.

But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God. So they took his advice.

It just gets better. By the way, I was telling the discipleship group this morning, talk about the drama of redemption in this book.

Talk about the unfolding of the nature of God, how He deals with people, how He saves them.

The drama found in this book. If you don't read your Bibles, you're missing it. And then to think right about now, some churches would say, now bring down the screen and let me give you a little video clip of Braveheart to really make that point hit home.

Who needs Braveheart when you have the Spirit of God and the Word of God in your hot little hands?

Our electronic version. Dave Copper. The iPads, I see them all around. Don't alt -tab to check your messages.

Ushers are watching you. By the way, in the old days of Puritan days in New England, they would have ushers walking.

And if you ever slept, they had this kind of long stick that could go right down the aisle and just give you a little whack.

If you're sleeping during this sermon, I don't know how to keep you awake. A, the topic, and B, here, Acts 5.

Spirit of God. It's not the acts of the apostles. This is the acts of the Spirit of God working. And when they call in the apostles, what do they do?

They beat them and charge them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. Triple strip of calves hide.

Two blows on the back, one on the chest. Why 39 lashes short of 40? Because three goes into 39 and not 40.

Lie down and flog the guy. Judge, put him down there, flog the guy in his presence.

Listen to what one man said about the flogging. Floggings were administered with the whip made of calf skin on the bare upper body of the offender.

One third of the lashes being given on the breast and the other two thirds on the back. The offender stood in a bowed position with the one administering the beating of a stone above him, and the blows were accompanied by the recital of admonitions and consolatory verses from Scripture.

For those parents who want to discipline their kids that way, this is not a good thing. This is not a prescription, this is a description.

Verse 41, then they left the presence of the council sad, downcast.

They just got a beating. It's like when your father said, I'm going to give you a beating you're never going to forget.

This is the beating. And what did they do? This is conjuring up 1 Peter chapter 4 about suffering for the name of Jesus.

This is conjuring up Matthew chapter 5 about rejoice when you suffer for the name of Jesus. And that's exactly what they did.

They left the presence of the council rejoicing. The day they put me in jail for speaking about this forgivable sin is the day you pray for me that I respond this exact way.

Well, how do they respond? They were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

Verse 42, and every day in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching

Jesus as the Christ. We have a mission.

And that mission is to teach the full counsel of God and to exalt Christ's great saving work for all unrighteous sins, yes?

Every week doesn't have to be against homosexuality. It rarely is. But when the text has it, we preach it.

We'll follow Isaac Watt's words by the grace of God. Am I a soldier of the cross and a follower of the lamb?

And shall I fear to own his cause, or blush to speak his name? Then the final question, we have to go quickly.

And I want to make sure I say this in this particular message, and we'll get to the rest next week. Can homosexuals ever change?

Can they be forgiven? Back to 1 Corinthians chapter 6. I've already alluded to it last week and this week, but I want to just make sure you know.

This is not the unforgivable sin. And for people who are enslaved to sin, they can be changed.

And that's what we want. We want the heavens to rejoice, the angels to proclaim the greatness of Jesus as he saves another sinner.

1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 11, I read it again, And such were some of you. When you become a

Christian and have the spirit of God living in you, you don't act the way you used to. You're different. It doesn't mean you don't struggle.

But look at what God does to all sinners whom he saves. Washed, cleansed, complete forgiveness because of Christ's perfect atonement.

Thorough scrubbing. Can you imagine, I've talked to the kids before, and you go to the sink in the garage and you've got some bite grease or something on your hands.

And you ever have that special soap that's got kind of grain in it? Kind of like sand, what's it called?

Lava soap. And you just rub and you rub and you think, how am I going to get this all off of me?

Sometimes I remember my father would put some kind of kerosene on his hands or some kind of turpentine or something.

And you've got to rub that thing off and just get it. As a matter of fact, I've got some bite grease on my hand right now.

I could use that. But you know what? Your conscience. How do you scrub your conscience with lava soap?

How do you get on the inside? Years later, you look back at your life and your sin and you think,

That is haunting. The skeletons are killing me. But then you say, no,

I'm looking in the wrong direction. I'm looking to the Lord who has forgiven me of these sins. Complete, full remission of sins.

And I have to take Him at His word that He died for those sins and will never bring them up in the Trinity. Never to the

Father, never to the Spirit. I'm washed. I'm clean on the inside. People who are slaves to sin, mark this.

They might come across on the outside, boisterously, confidently, speaking for these kind of advocate groups.

But on the inside, they know there's a God and their consciences are killing them. Some may be so seared they don't experience it anymore like they used to.

But the conscience given by God will haunt and haunt and haunt. And we get to offer them someone who cleanses and washes.

If you think homosexuality is a dirty, filthy sin, you're right.

Just like every sin you commit is dirty and filthy because it's against the thrice holy

God. We're probably worse than homosexuals.

Especially if we know saving grace and then look down our noses at people who are enslaved to sin like they're horrible.

Like they're nasty. Like they're the enemy. If you think that, then you're worse than a homosexual.

But if you think, but for the grace of God, there go I. But for the grace of God, there went

I. You could fill in all the blanks of your own sin and you just think, If God had mercy upon me, the sign of a

Christian is you want God to have mercy on other people, don't you? Do you want one person to go to hell?

Friends, if you saw how bad hell was, you wouldn't wish Hitler and Judas to be in there right now.

Sanctified. Justified. Standing before God as righteous because of Christ's perfect work.

Pardoned. Forgiven. Well, we'll look at some more questions next week.

Why don't we pray? Father, we ask today that you would give us an extra measure of grace as we in society have to walk circumspectly regarding this topic.

Regarding the issue. I pray for the whole congregation that you would give them someone this week to evangelize.

To tell them the good news. Jesus Christ saves sinners. Bad sinners. Enslaved sinners.

Because he saved people like us as trophies of his grace to show how great he is by saving the worst.

I pray that those who know homosexuals this week would have a wide open door to talk to them about the truth.

Kindly. Compassionately. Not hypocritically. And with love.

The kind of discussion that Jesus would have with those tax gatherers and sinners. Father, help us to love people.

And help us to love them enough to tell them the truth. Help our church, Father. I pray that there would be many, many homosexuals who would be saved from their sins.

Baptized and become members of Bethlehem Baptist Church. Bethlehem Bible Church. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. This program 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 6. 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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