God's Law and Homosexuality

We continue in our studies from the Old Testament and specifically in the

Law of Moses this evening back in the book of Leviticus.

Back in the book of Leviticus, we will be in chapters 18 and 20.

Leviticus chapters 18 and 20, once again, let's ask the

Lord to bless our time together. Our Heavenly Father, once again, as we seek to understand your truth and become servants who are able to give a clear message of your truth to the culture in which we live, we ask that you would be with us this evening, you would give us receptive minds, good memories to remember that which we study, that we might speak to others with clarity and handle your word of right.

We pray in Christ's name. Amen. When the world refers to the discrimination and bigotry of Christians, very frequently they are referring to specific verses from the

Bible. You may recall just a couple of years ago, in the United Kingdom, a shop owner was cited because he had a

Bible program displaying verses on a screen in his shop.

It would just display verses from the Bible, and a couple of the verses that it displayed included

Leviticus chapter 18, verse 22, or chapter 20, verse 13, or maybe

Romans chapter 1, whatever it might be. He was investigated by the police, and I believe he was cited for displaying publicly these words.

We know in Canada, for example, someone attempted to, well, someone did run an advertisement in a newspaper where they simply repeated these words, and they too got in trouble with the various human rights councils.

And so we know that these texts are considered an abomination by rebels against God's law.

But at the same time, they need to be understood on our part. We need to understand what these texts are saying.

You may recall that the last time we were together, we were looking at Leviticus chapter 18, and we were looking at the various sins that people had committed, that the peoples and the land had committed, that caused the land to spew them out.

And we specifically looked at verse 22, And we noted the term abomination, we looked at a number, not all, but a number of the uses of that particular term, and that term

I think you probably should keep track of, know, is the term toevah. Toevah, you will, if you encounter individuals who, and there are entire organizations in our nation today, dedicated to training people to subvert the biblical teaching on this subject.

I call them revisionists, there are entire books out there, you've all heard of Matthew Vines, you may not have heard of James Brownson, or some of the others, but Justin Lee, and the

Gay Christian Network, etc., etc. I cannot even hardly keep track of the books that are coming out now that are revisionist in their stance.

What do I mean by revisionist? Well, they're trying to revise what Christians have understood throughout the history of the church.

And they are doing so by offering various interpretations of these texts. The one thing that they will not give you is what

I would call a pan -canonical interpretation. That is, a wholly biblical, looking at the entirety of the can of scripture, what they want to do is they want to isolate each text and give you what sounds like a, or a group of, possibly plausible explanations of each text.

The idea of taking the entirety of what God has said together, not real big in their mindset and in their perspective.

Truly, there is, on their part, a fundamental denial of the sufficiency of scripture and the consistency of scripture on this issue.

But we looked at Toeva, and we noted that Toeva was a term that comes to be used not only of idolatrous idols, but of anyone that would choose an idolatrous idol.

Now, I think that's important. I think if you're taking notes, you might want to mention that whatever this abominable act is, what is abominable before God, one of the uses of this in the

Old Testament has to do with idolatry. And I think you'll see the significance of that as we move on.

But we didn't really get to finish our study at that particular point. And I wanted, as I mentioned this morning, to look at this text in tandem with the text in chapter 20, because I think it would be easier to look at both together than to separate them out.

And so, let's look at Leviticus chapter 20, and let's begin at verse 10.

Now, once again, I want you to test me, and then

I want to try to model for you the necessity of being consistent in applying the same standards as we exegete these texts as we did this morning in looking at other texts.

Because, honestly, one of the things that helps me greatly as I dialogue with people on this subject is that I have a confidence that I know that I am seeking to handle the

Word of God consistently. I'm not going, ah, no, I don't worry about that stuff over there. You know, I'm just focusing in on homosexuality.

I'm just focusing in this one area. No. If you are convinced in your own mind that you are seeking to handle the

Word of God aright, and to do so consistently, and to do so fairly, that will come out in the way you express yourself.

That will come out in the way that you present the material to others. And I think it really, really helps us to have a conviction on this particular point.

So, we need to see, are we being fair? So, what did we see in chapter 18? We saw that those, you shall not approach unto this person to uncover their nakedness, and that person had all the improper marital relations.

You had the offering of children to Moloch. You had bestiality. You had situations of incest.

And at the beginning and the end of that was the statement, this is what the nations did before you, and this is why the land has spewed them out.

So, there you have a statement of the general immorality of these behaviors in God's sight.

Now, is that what we have in chapter 20? Well, no, because once we get to chapter 20, now we have clear parallels between what we had in chapter 18.

But now, these are words given to Israel, not saying, don't do these things as the nations did, but now, if this happens in your midst, this is what you must do to cleanse the land.

This is what you must do to remain a holy people who has

God in their midst. Always keep in mind. Remember, we said this a number of weeks ago, but much of what we have in the book of Leviticus is

God is dwelling amongst His people. What do you need to do in light of that?

What is the appropriate methods of behavior in light of the fact that you have God dwelling amongst you?

You have the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. You have the tabernacle and God's presence is going to be there.

What must His people therefore be to, well, avoid some of the things that have already happened, where plagues have broken forth and thousands of people struck down because they violated

God's holiness. Well, that's what the law tells us. And so here, notice, let's begin in verse 10 of chapter 20.

If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

If there is a man who lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness. What does that sound like?

Remember, that goes straight back to Leviticus chapter 18. Both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them.

If there is a man who lies with his daughter -in -law, both of them shall surely be put to death. They have committed incest.

And that term there, actually, let me mention this in passing.

That is the term tevil. Tevil means a perversity, literally a confusion.

It is something that demonstrates a fundamental twisting and confusion of the created order itself.

It is used back in chapter 18, as I recall, in regards to bestiality. It is a perversion.

It is a confusion. It is a taking the order that God has placed within his own creation and twisting it.

That is what it says. It is a confusion. They have committed incest. Their blood guiltiness is upon them.

Verse 13. If there is a man who lies, they mail. As those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act.

And you can probably guess right now, guess what detestable act is? Toeva.

They have committed a toeva. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them.

If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality. Both he and they shall be burned with fire so that there will be no immorality in your midst.

If there is a man who lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death. You shall also kill the animal.

If there is a woman who approaches any animal to mate with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal. They shall surely be put to death.

Their blood guiltiness is upon them. Now, we've read the verses before and after verse 13.

And very clearly, what we have here is parallel to what we had in chapter 18.

And so, may I just simply suggest to you, on a very practical level of communicating with people around you, it is my experience that when you open up the

Bible and you want to talk to somebody about something, and maybe you somehow, by something you've said, or they just simply know your behavior at work or in the community or something, you have gotten yourself the opportunity to have a few moments to say something.

Don't just simply list verses. When you can explain how the verse was used, when you can demonstrate you know something about its context, something about its relationship to the rest of Scripture, my experience is that people will hear with much greater clarity and give you more time to speak than if you're just simply saying, well,

Leviticus chapter 18 says this and Leviticus chapter 20 says that. If you present it as, well, you know, in God's law, first of all,

He talked about why the land was spewing out the previous inhabitants, and this is one of the things that was done, and it's related to other things that, well, at least to this day, people still consider to be grave evils, such as bestiality and incest and things like this, and offering our children in sacrifice to Molech and all the rest of these things.

And then, when the law is given to the people of Israel in chapter 20, it parallels that, and it gives the very same things, and it discusses what's to happen amongst the children of Israel.

They might live wholly before God, and when people can see that you're serious about this, and you've given some thought to it, you will be given more opportunity to explain yourself than if you just simply, you know, flip to the back of your

Bible and go, uh, homosexuality, there it is, and quote two verses, because you're demonstrating that you take very seriously what these texts are saying.

And so, we've looked at the context, and there is a context here. It is the moral law that has already been given in chapter 18.

It's already been placed in the context of this is what caused these nations to be dispossessed and spewed out of the land, and God's judgment came upon them.

And now, we have the application to the people of Israel. Now, if these same things happen amongst you, what's going to happen?

And you'll notice that all the penalties are very, very severe, because to allow this kind, the very sins that allowed

God's wrath to come upon these nations so that they would be dispossessed and driven out, if those sins are then allowed to fester and to continue amongst the holy people of God in the land, then what's going to happen?

Well, the blessings and cursings, remember Deuteronomy 28 and 29, there's a whole lot more cursing than there is blessing, and those curses are going to come upon the people, and lo and behold, isn't that pretty much what the entire

Old Testament reveals to us, is despite God's long -suffering and the sending of prophets and brief revivals, eventually the people are spewed out of the land.

That's exactly what takes place in the judgment of the people of Israel, and so often that idolatry that was theirs was combined with these very sins.

And so we recognize the context, and so we come to verse 13. If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act, they surely shall be put to death, their blood guiltiness is upon them.

Now, let's hear what it says. We had mentioned before, last week, but I'll mention it again.

There is a direct connection between this text and the New Testament. There is a direct connection in language between this and the

New Testament. Make sure that you recognize that, because 99 % of the time, when revisionists and others attempt to blunt the force of this text, they do so in isolation from the apostolic interpretation of these words that you'll find in Romans 1, 1

Corinthians 6, and 1 Timothy 1. So make sure I will, Lord willing, if I don't forget, make the connection here in a moment for you.

But let's look at it in its context. Is there anything confusing about what is being said here?

I mean, the previous verse is talking about a man who lies with his daughter -in -law, both of them shall be put to death, they've committed incest.

Well, the text is about sexual sin. Pretty clear.

So, in that context, if there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, the clear reference here is to a form of sexual intercourse.

Both of them have committed a testable act. Please notice, not one of them. One of the great revisionist arguments is that, well, you know, a lot of what the

Bible says about homosexuality, it actually has to do with pederasty, it has to do with what was going on, say, in Rome, where you had the rich older man that buys little boy sex slaves, and that's really all it's about.

And since that has nothing to do with loving, committed, monogamous homosexual relationships, then the

Bible really isn't talking about us. You'll hear that like a drumbeat over and over and over again.

Well, maybe you won't, but I have to read those books. So, I hear it as a drumbeat over and over and over again.

But that's not what the text is referring to. That's not what the text is referring to. That would be immoral.

That's clearly a violation of selling someone into slavery, not on the appropriate grounds, so on and so forth, but it's certainly inappropriate sexual behavior, but that's not what this is talking about.

Who lies, the male, as those who lie with a woman. There's nothing here about rape.

There's nothing here about anything being forced. Both of them have committed a detestable act.

Now, so much of the revision today is, well, you see, it was shameful to be the submissive individual, and so that's really what the

Bible's talking about, is you shouldn't shame someone. But the law says, both of them.

Both of them have committed a detestable act. Both of them are guilty of to evah.

It doesn't matter whether they're the aggressor or the active or the passive. It doesn't matter.

Both have committed to evah, and they shall surely be put to death.

Their blood guiltiness is upon them. This is a capital crime in the theocratic state of Israel.

And it has, it does not leave any options open to us. It is specifically talking about male with male sexual activity, which is exactly what is being presented as a moral good that must be celebrated by the highest officials of the government of the

United States of America today. That's exactly what is being referred to there. You cannot avoid it. You cannot duck it.

You cannot skip past it. And if you say, well, but again, you know, it's all this

Old Testament stuff, and it would really be nice if there was some New Testament basis for this.

Well, as I said, there is. And I think everyone in this room, I don't care whether you read

Greek or not, you can take down a note and you can remember what I'm about to explain to you.

And that is in the Greek Septuagint. And again, if you weren't here with us the last time we spoke, let me just briefly mention it to you once again.

The Greek Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. And it was the

Bible of the early church. I mean, if you lived in Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Rome, whatever, and you were reading the

Old Testament scriptures, you probably weren't reading them in Hebrew, you were reading them in Greek, called the

Greek Septuagint. And in the Greek Septuagint, in Leviticus 20, verse 13, you have the phrase,

Meta arsenos koitain. Meta arsenos koitain.

To sleep, koimethe, meta, with a man. And it literally is what men do with men in bed.

And then it has the word woman afterwards. So, as we understand it, if a male, those who lie with a, lies they male as those who lie with a woman.

Now, why should you care about what the Greek Septuagint says? Because, as Christians, we do not interpret

Leviticus 20, verse 13 in a vacuum. We do interpret it in its context. And what it meant, and what it meant all the way to the days of Jesus, what it meant to every single

Jewish commentator in history, up to the days of Jesus and well afterwards, is well known.

And nobody argues it. Nobody argues it. It was fully understood to refer to any form of homosexual activity.

You will not find any Jewish people before the days of Christ, during the days of Christ, for hundreds of years after Christ, having any confusion about what is in view here.

This isn't just about temple prostitutes. This isn't just about cultic religion. Was there homosexuality in cultic religion that day?

Yes, there was. But this is not what is being spoken of here. The very verse before that is talking about incestuous relationship, which would have nothing to do with temple prostitution.

So, while there was temple prostitution, while there was a prostitution of males and females, heterosexual and homosexual, in the idolatrous religions of the peoples of Assyria and Babylon, and the

Canaanite religions, and so on and so forth, there's no limitation to verse 13 and what it's saying.

It's saying, in the nation that God calls his own, this is going to be the law.

This is God's revelation. And in the Greek translation of it, you have these terms, arsenos and coitain.

Now, why is that important? Well, I didn't really have a chance to go through this last time, but let's make sure that we know this.

Turn with me, please, to 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6.

Went through it rather quickly last time. But I think it's important that you see there is this connection, and we want to, and in fact what

I would do personally, here's another really practical suggestion to you here. I would use this as the bridge.

Only you can tell in a conversation with someone how much time you have. You can start telling when they're starting to wander, how much time you're really going to have to discuss something.

You want to get to a positive presentation of the gospel. I would use this as the bridge.

I would say, you know, it's very interesting that the Greek translation, which is what the early

Christians would have been reading, the Greek translation of Leviticus chapter 20, verse 13, seems to be where Paul got a very unique word.

Paul seems to have coined this very term, and he seems to have drawn it right here from Leviticus 20, verse 13.

And let me just show you what he says about that, and then you turn to 1 Corinthians 6.

And there you read in verses 9 and following, Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers.

And then we come to these phrase, this phrase, Uta malakoi, uta arsenokoitai.

Arsenokoitai is the term that Paul has taken directly from Leviticus chapter 20.

He's put the two terms together to describe homosexuals. And as I mentioned last time,

I think the ESV gets this right in seeing that while some of our translations say nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, the

ESV simply says nor men who practice homosexuality. I think what you've got in the original language is the active and passive partners in male homosexual relationships.

The effeminate, the passive, the active arsenokoitai.

So he's listing idolaters, adulterers, and isn't it interesting, what was

Toeva connected with so often in the prophets? Idolatry. What comes immediately before Leviticus 20 verse 13?

Adultery and incest. And so here you have fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Sounds like you'd have to have some understanding of God's moral law to figure out what

Paul's talking about here. And Paul can present it to the Corinthians as it's a given.

Do not be deceived. Do you not know? I mean that's being presented in a rhetorical fashion.

Of course you know this. I've taught you this. And then notice verse 11.

Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God. There's where, in almost any one of these conversations, my strong suggestion to you is you want to get here somehow.

If you can, you want to get here somehow. Because far too often, we are cut off only having given a negative rather than getting to the point where we can give the positive.

And I think this is one of the most important positive texts in the New Testament. But such were some of you.

Past tense, not such are some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified.

That's where you want to go. But the point is, we have here New Testament interpretation of that phrase in Leviticus chapter 20.

And that New Testament interpretation shines light upon it. And if we are correct that that phrase, that joining malakoi and arsenokoitai, effeminate and homosexuals together is a further and clearer description, then we have solid evidence that the

Apostle Paul interpreted Leviticus 20 the way we do. And I would always say to someone, you know, it's interesting.

I want to make sure I interpret the Old Testament Scriptures the way the

Apostles of Jesus Christ did. Because Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And that sort of gives him a little extra advantage.

Jesus Christ is the one who is the standard for interpretation. And his

Apostles have related to us his truth. And his

Apostles interpreted Leviticus chapter 20 verse 13 not in some limited fashion so it's out there some way, but in such a way that it was applicable outside the land of Israel.

It was applicable in such a way as to saying these are moral evils. And what follows from that is that there were some in the church in Corinth who had been converted out of that kind of behavior.

Such were some of you. Not such are. That is the demand that is being made of us today.

We have to change this text or you will be closed down by some future regime.

But it says such were some of you but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.

Now, there's a lot we could preach on from that text. My point was just simply this. Paul uses the same term in 1

Timothy chapter 1. So twice you have Paul taking this term and the sad thing is, my friends, even in scholarly biblical language works, the pressure of the world is being brought to bear.

When I was in Bible college and seminary, the standard Greek lexicon was the

Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich and Donker Greek lexicon 2nd edition, the big green monster. And what shocked me is when the 3rd edition came out, if you look up Arsinokoitai, Arsinokoites, the entry has tripled in size.

Tripled in size. Now, has there been all sorts of discoveries of papyri and stuff like that that has shed new light on the meaning of this term?

No. The reason it's tripled in size is because of all the revisionist articles that are now appearing in print.

And so, now you're having people saying, oh, it's such a difficult term to translate.

We really don't know what it means, folks. The reason there wasn't confusion for nearly 2 ,000 years since the writing of the

New Testament and for over a millennium before that is because there really isn't any confusion about it at all.

People are trying to create confusion today. And what you'll have is you'll have one revisionist who will write one thing and another revisionist will write another thing and this guy will quote both of them and then somebody will quote him and it just grows and snowball, snowball, snowball, but it's all a bunch of self -citation when you really get down to it.

But that's what's happening. There really isn't any question about what arsenikoites means.

The New Testament provides us with great insight into that, but let's look at one other text.

I'm not exegeting these. I just want to make sure that we understand what's going on here.

Let's look briefly at Romans 1 because it does shine some light upon this.

We know that Paul's talking here about the exchanging of the glory of the incorruptible

God for an image in the form of a corruptible man. We're talking about idolatry. Romans 1 is very, very clearly drawing from Genesis and talking about the creation account and what man has done in light of God's clear creation.

In verse 24 we read, Therefore God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.

For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions.

For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. And in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

Now, I'm not going to go through the whole thing this evening because this will take probably an entire Sunday to deal with all the revision of this because even honest homosexual scholars will admit there's no way around this.

But that means that the less honest ones have written entire books. And the number of variations of ways to try to get around this are amazing.

Truly amazing. But what I want to emphasize this evening is not so much that verse 26 is probably the only direct reference in Scripture to what is called today lesbianism.

But notice the connection in verse 27 and ask yourself the question, given

Paul's understanding of the law, is it even semi -possible that he did not have in his mind as he wrote these words the very words we're looking at in Leviticus chapter 20?

In the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman. What does it say in Leviticus 20 .13?

Lie with a male as what? One lies with a woman. That is the natural order of things.

That's how the species is continued. That's how God designed things. Well, here you have men abandoning the natural function of the woman.

And remember in Leviticus 20, they both are toevah. They both have committed toevah.

Notice it says, and burned in their desire toward one another men with men committing indecent acts.

So once again, there is no ground here for a division that says, well, the guilt is upon the aggressive party and not upon the passive party.

Or what Romans 1 is talking about is pederasty. It's not talking about loving, committed homosexuality.

No, no, no. This text is clearly talking about exactly what our culture is saying.

We must celebrate as a moral good. This is talking about men burning in their desire toward one another.

So it's mutual attraction and mutual sexual desire.

And that's exactly what we saw in Leviticus chapter 20 as well. They have both committed toevah.

Don't tell me that Paul is not commenting in his words drawing from Leviticus chapter 20 verse 13.

And if he draws that out in laying the very foundation of the sinfulness of man, that then we've been preaching through Romans, have we not?

Did not chapters 1, 2, and 3 lay the foundation that then we have all mankind brought before God guilty?

Every mouth is closed. Now we can talk about justification. Now we can talk about the cross, right?

And so in laying that foundation, Paul draws from Leviticus chapter 20 in his own thinking, and yet we have so many evangelicals that simply say, ah, it's

Old Testament. Don't have to worry about it. And we wonder why so much of the gospel preaching today is shallow fluff.

But at the same time, what does that tell us? This is a gospel issue.

Because if we cannot tell people what sin is, we cannot tell them what a sin bearer is and why they need to bow in repentance and faith to Him.

So this is a gospel issue. We are being told to abandon the foundations of the gospel proclamation itself by our culture today.

And if we do not with clarity respond by saying,

I will not abandon my faith in Christ Jesus and deny

Him, then we only have ourselves to blame. Now believe me, when you respond that way, you'll get the biggest eyes.

I'm not asking you to do that. Yes, you are, and here's why. We have to see in our own minds with clarity the connection between these things.

If the law cannot tell us what sin is, there was no need for the atonement. This is a gospel issue.

It's not shocking or surprising to me that when I look at these people who claim to be homosexual

Christians, I'm not talking about the people who say, I have same -sex attraction and I will not act upon it out of my faith in Jesus Christ because I know it's wrong.

I'm not talking about them because they don't call themselves homosexuals. They do not allow themselves to be defined by their sexual desires.

I'm talking about the ones who say, I have same -sex desires, I will act upon them, they were given to me by God, and you need to change the

Christian faith to allow me in, or you're a bad person. When I look at them, and there are many of them today, they may start off when they first come out with their book and they first come out and everybody celebrates them and all the rest of that stuff.

They may first come out and talk about how they believe the Bible is the word of God and so on and so forth.

But guess what happens rather quickly over time. There is a marked degradation, a marked collapse in their view of scripture and their view of the gospel itself.

How could it be any other way? There's no way they can consistently hold together that kind of inconsistency.

And so it is a gospel issue. And we do have the apostles interpreting

Leviticus chapter 20 in the New Testament consistently with what the

Jews had believed all the way to that time. You cannot make an argument that there was anybody in the days of Jesus and the apostles who claimed any fidelity to the

God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that had any other view on this subject. You just can't do it. It's just not there.

You have to come up with a complete revision and have to say everybody missed it. And that's what they're basically saying.

The argument today is, well, you know, okay, but back then they didn't understand about sexual orientation.

And our psychologists and psychiatrists have come to understand these things now. And what they're saying is the

God who wrote that didn't understand the creature he made. And that's why they cannot believe in scriptural sufficiency for any length of time or in any meaningful fashion.

So, what have we seen? We see Leviticus chapter 18 listing homosexual activity along with incest and bestiality and all sorts of other things as the reason why the

Canaanites were driven out of the land. God's wrath is upon them. Leviticus chapter 20 gives us the same list of sins, but now it is addressed to the people of Israel and it says, if this happens in your midst, this is what you must do because you are to be a people holy unto

God. And we have in the description in chapter 20, verse 13, the reality that this is a mutual relationship between these men, that it is descriptive of what takes place today, and that it is consistent with the language.

It was understood by the Jews in that way. It's consistent with the religious practices of the day.

Yes, they did those types of things, but that's not the only place where it was done, just as the other relationships were not only done in the religions of that day.

So, you can't just simply say, all that just had to do with temple prostitutes and things like that. That doesn't work.

We have attempted to be fair with the text, to hear what it's saying, and as biblical

Christians, we've allowed the light of the New Testament revelation to shine upon this, and we discover that Paul draws from this very text, takes the terminology, uses that term to refer to homosexual behavior, and twice makes reference to these things as those who will be excluded from the kingdom of God unless God has mercy upon them.

And then we've also seen that that same type of relationship is in his mind as he talks about laying the very foundation of human sinfulness and the need for redemption.

Now, you say, but I could never explain all that. Yes, you can.

Yes, you can. You're a redeemed child of God. You have the Holy Spirit, and you can. Now, you may have to review that information.

You may have to put it on some note cards and read through a few things, but my friends, we live in a land where people are losing their businesses and their livelihoods, and there are all sorts of people who want to write it into the laws of this land that we must celebrate that which

God says is completely opposed to His will. And may I just point out this is not what makes it wrong.

It's being opposed to God's will that makes it wrong. But may I just simply point out in passing, it is a self -destructive behavior.

You do not love someone when you celebrate their self -destruction. You do not love someone when you celebrate the fact that they are celebrating death.

Our world is perverse. It has become absolutely upside down and backwards on this issue.

And you and I both know, I don't care what your calling in life is. You, in all probability, within the next week, would have the opportunity of talking about this.

And so we must know what the Word of God says about it. And we must be consistent in how we handle, especially these texts in the

Old Testament. And I believe there is a way to do that that will actually assist you in then being able to transition directly into a gospel presentation.

And may the Lord bless us and give us opportunity as we seek to serve Him and to shine light in the great darkness of the land in which we now live.

Let's pray together. Once again, our gracious Heavenly Father, we ask that you would cause us to be a people of grace.

That even as we handle issues of law and we handle issues of sin, that we would always do so as people who recognize that we ourselves have been saved out of sin.

That we ourselves are sinners saved by grace. And so, Lord, as we have opportunity, may we shine the light of the gospel.

We know that there will be many who will fight against it, who will seek to extinguish it. But, Lord, we ask to be used by you.

We ask, first and foremost, to please you in our thoughts and our actions and to be prepared then to be instruments in your hand.

As we think about this, Lord, we do pray for those who experience temptation that they know is evil.

And we know that there are those who have said, though I experience this, I will not give in to it.

I will honor Christ. And we pray for those. Just as there are those who recognize that they experience temptation to anger and to lust, and yet they seek to serve

Christ and by the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh, we pray for them. But, Lord, we also pray for protection against those who are not repentant, but instead they revel in their sin.

They are amongst the churches. They are causing havoc amongst many false churches. And, Lord, we pray that you would silence them.

Lord, we pray that you would cause false teachers to be confused and to not be able to continue to sow discord and error.

Lord, let your truth be seen with clarity by this culture. Bring repentance, we pray.

Lord, we thank you for this place where we can gather. We thank you for the possession of the Word of God. We thank you for the peace that you have given to us.

May we remain focused upon your truth and serve you to the honor and glory of Jesus Christ.