Frank Turek and Christopher Yuan on Homosexual Desires and Christianity
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Jon examines the biblical teaching on homosexuality.
Sources:
Frank Turek: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uvvZvLafwQ8
Christopher Yan (36 min mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsSYn8ZynP0
Slideshow: https://www.patreon.com/posts/72037007
- 00:10
- Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host John Harris. Today to talk about LGBTQ Christianity, gay -affirming
- 00:18
- Christianity, same -sex attraction, whatever label you want to use. There are a bundle of teachings making their way into churches near you that threaten
- 00:28
- Orthodox teaching on gender and sexuality. And beyond that, they actually threaten our
- 00:33
- Christology, our pneumatology, and sometimes I would say our doctrine of salvation, our soteriology.
- 00:40
- And so I want to talk about this particular movement using two clips that are from some evangelical elites.
- 00:50
- They're very short. They were sent to me this week. One is from 2019. One is from very recently,
- 00:56
- I would assume, because it was recently posted on YouTube. And these particular clips are,
- 01:02
- I think, good examples of the popular -level teaching that most evangelicals are going to hear, because most of you aren't going to probably be hearing very complicated academic arguments for gay
- 01:16
- Christianity. You're just not. You're going to be hearing probably arguments or,
- 01:22
- I should say, speeches, sound bites, demonstrations that circumnavigate your intellect and appeal directly to your emotion.
- 01:31
- That's more often, I think, the tool that is utilized to convince people. And in these two particular clips we're going to play,
- 01:37
- I think these arguments or these particular tactics are verbalized probably better than in a lot of the other material that we've examined on this particular podcast.
- 01:51
- And so it's a good opportunity. When we examine material, we want to examine, if possible, the best examples of the opponent's arguments or tactics.
- 02:01
- We don't want to try to get the worst possible articulations from the other side and then knock them down like they're straw men.
- 02:11
- We don't want to do that. That's unfortunately something I see the left do an awful lot. They want to miscategorize, misunderstand purposefully in order to make their agenda work.
- 02:24
- So they throw spurious accusations often at theological conservatives by misrepresenting their positions.
- 02:30
- And that's not something we want to do. We want to take the best articulations we can. And I think on the popular level, the arguments that many of you are hearing, maybe even in your churches, to advocate for versions of gay
- 02:41
- Christianity or LGBT, gay affirming, same -sex attraction, whatever the term that you're hearing,
- 02:49
- I think that these particular clips just do a good job articulating probably what you're up against, what you're hearing on a
- 02:58
- Sunday morning, even out of the mouth of some of your pastors. So before we get to it, though,
- 03:03
- I want to just let you know about one thing that will help you. A tool, a useful analytical tool in the fight currently underway, regarding social justice.
- 03:12
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- 03:31
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- 03:37
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- 03:44
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- 03:56
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- 04:01
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- 04:09
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- 04:20
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- 04:27
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- 04:37
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- 04:44
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- 04:53
- this week, which is a really, really good deal. So check that out. You're also going to want to check out the book
- 05:00
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- 05:11
- And the same thing, same price. I also have some lightly used copies selling for much cheaper.
- 05:18
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- 05:26
- It says $15, but actually if you click on it, it'll say that this comes free with the purchase of the other two books.
- 05:32
- So my friend A .D. Robles wrote a book called Social Justice Pharisees. You can get it free. All you have to do is purchase
- 05:37
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- 05:45
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- 05:51
- So this is a pretty amazing deal going on only for six days. And I hope many of you will take the opportunity to take advantage of it because I like to get ahead of the holidays and so do probably many of you.
- 06:05
- All right, let's talk about this. Let's play the first clip here if we can.
- 06:11
- This is from an individual who many of you probably are familiar with to some extent.
- 06:20
- And it's apologetics. Actually, it's an apologetic ministry. The individual speaking here is
- 06:26
- Dr. Frank Turek, Dr. Frank Turek. And what has been described to me from people in the bubble, if you want to call it that, of the apologetics community is that the apologetics community is fairly insular.
- 06:39
- I just want to say this, make this observation off the bat. The apologetics community, the circuit, the college campuses, organizations that host speakers on campuses, all of the things that make this work are kind of part almost of the same industry.
- 07:00
- And what I've noticed, because I used to follow apologetics ministries a lot more closely, lately it's been less, but I still do keep an eye on things, is
- 07:08
- I think apologists really want to speak on college campuses. They really do. And part of the way to get on a college campus and speak is to talk about things like atheism, which are problems, but really to talk about things that were hot topics maybe 20 years ago.
- 07:28
- Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, those kinds of things, those arguments that were given at that time, to keep talking about that and to kind of sidestep the social justice stuff.
- 07:37
- I've been noticing it, okay? I haven't seen, in my opinion, the apologetics community as a whole has failed on this particular topic.
- 07:45
- One of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing, why I wrote the books that I wrote, it wasn't because I just really like talking about social justice.
- 07:51
- Believe me, I don't. It's because I needed to supplement what was out there because I didn't see people taking the stands they should.
- 07:58
- And I understand why, because man, you take some shots when you really take a stand against this. You're not going to take the same shots taking a stand against Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris or people who are atheists.
- 08:10
- So this, anyway, I wanted to just say that, and this is backed up by people, the connections
- 08:16
- I have within that particular community. And what I've been told, and I think this probably plays out in my own observations, but the apologetics community functions kind of like their own denomination in a way.
- 08:28
- And it's, they tend to share the same, apologists tend to share the same stages with one another.
- 08:35
- They're familiar with one another. There are, obviously there's apologists outside of this bubble that I'm talking about.
- 08:41
- For example, I think someone like a James White isn't really part of what I'm talking about when I talk about the apologetics community necessarily.
- 08:48
- If some of you don't know what I'm talking about, that's okay. But I would say Frank Turek is probably one of the big guys who would be part of the apologetics community.
- 08:58
- And when Frank Turek says something, I think it means more than just Frank Turek saying his opinion, voicing his opinion.
- 09:04
- It is, it's a signal, whether he is intending it for this or not, I don't think he intends it, but it's a signal to everyone else who's trying to make it in that world, who's trying to get platformed, that this is the acceptable way to deal with particular topics.
- 09:24
- And the particular topic that Frank Turek is asked about in this very short clip is homosexuality and whether or not it's a sin.
- 09:32
- And he's probably on a college campus, I would imagine, but here is his answer to the question. Check it out. Do you find homosexuality to be a sin?
- 09:39
- It doesn't matter what I find. Okay. Then what do you believe the Bible says? Homosexual behavior is a sin, not homosexual feelings.
- 09:48
- We all have attractions we ought not act on, right? There's a difference between attractions and actions.
- 09:54
- I have attractions I ought not act on. So, so to be attracted to, uh, someone of the same sex, if you act on that, it's a sin.
- 10:03
- That's what the Bible says. That's what Jesus says. You say, well, Jesus never talked about homosexuality.
- 10:09
- No, he talked about all sexual immorality because whenever he used the phrase sexual immorality, that meant any sexual activity outside of the marriage of a man and a woman, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, rape, incest, whatever it is.
- 10:22
- So you may say to yourself, John, why did you have this on the podcast? I mean, this is nothing, nothing wrong with that.
- 10:29
- That was really good. I mean, didn't he say that Jesus condemned porneia, which includes homosexuality? Yeah. Didn't he say that same sex, um, behavior.
- 10:38
- So if you're taking the physical manifestation of homosexuality to its conclusion, that that's wrong and a sin.
- 10:44
- And he did say that. So what could be wrong with this? Well, it's a subtle step in the wrong direction.
- 10:50
- And it's because he makes a distinction between attractions and feelings and then behavior, attractions and feelings, and then physical behavior, as if it's not a sin until you get physical with it.
- 11:00
- You can be a revoice going Christian who has a lisp as a male, practices effeminate behavior, dresses in a certain way, mannerisms, all the rest.
- 11:10
- But as long as you are not taking physical part in that particular lifestyle that's associated with that, then you are not in sin.
- 11:19
- You're okay with Jesus. In fact, you can have the feelings. You have feelings towards other men. You're not in sin. That would be the logical conclusion of what you just heard.
- 11:28
- And this is a slippery slope. This is a, there's a spectrum of teaching in error on this issue that goes all the way from what you just heard to Matthew Vines and the
- 11:36
- Reformation Project, which advocates basically same sex unions, marriages, as long as there's fidelity and there's monogamy, that it's perfectly acceptable before God.
- 11:47
- How do you get there? Well, it's not overnight. And these little subtle steps can get you there.
- 11:53
- And I think Orthodox believers sometimes take these steps incorrectly, and then they realize where they're going, and they do a 180.
- 12:00
- And that's what I'm hoping people do when they listen to this. This is a subtle step, but it is a wrong step, and it is a step that will lead to perdition.
- 12:08
- Here are some Bible verses. There's just two of them I put here on homosexuality, because I think this is the key issue. Is homosexuality a sin?
- 12:14
- That really is the key question in all of this. You might say, well, he said that it is a sin, but is it really to him?
- 12:24
- Is it really to Frank Turek? Or is it just the actions physically associated with it? So what is homosexuality?
- 12:31
- We're going to talk about this. We're going to talk about what it is. We're going to talk about whether or not it's condemned in Scripture. Let's start here, 1
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- Corinthians 6, 9. Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?
- 12:41
- Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who have sex with men. Some translations say homosexual.
- 12:48
- That's a term from psychology that has really, I think, served to normalize this behavior before they would have probably more likely used in both legal and religious usage the term sodomy.
- 12:59
- But you can look at the term gay and see how that used to mean happy, and now that is proven to, the usage of it has proven to normalize this particular behavior.
- 13:13
- And these all, not just behavior, not this,
- 13:18
- I don't want to, I don't want to make the same error that you just heard. It's not just the physical behavior, but this particular sin that gets down into the very mind of an individual.
- 13:27
- That has been normalized due to the usage of these other terms. But homosexuality condemned in Scripture.
- 13:36
- You also have 1 Corinthians 1, 8 through 10, but we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious.
- 13:47
- For the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers and mothers for murderers and immoral persons, and homosexuals, and kidnappers, and liars, and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching.
- 13:59
- So this is clearly condemned in Scripture along with other sins. Now, that being said, here's where the,
- 14:07
- I think, deception comes in. Can we make a distinction between attractions, feelings, desires, temptations, whatever you want to put, word you want to use, the internal homosexual urges versus the external action to consummate those urges somehow, to fulfill them?
- 14:27
- Can we make a distinction between these things? Well, I can't. I think we can make a distinction in the sense that we make distinction between other sins and their manifestations, but we don't create a category of sin and non -sin at that point.
- 14:39
- We don't say, if you are a thief and you covet something, that you are not in sin as long as you're coveting.
- 14:47
- It's only when you steal that you are in sin. No, we would say the coveting is also wrong.
- 14:53
- We wouldn't really do this with any other sin. Even Jesus, when he talks about adultery, says lusting after someone else, a woman that's not your wife, is also adultery.
- 15:03
- You're committing it, though, in your heart. You're just not committing it outwardly. So God looks at the heart. He doesn't see as man sees.
- 15:08
- So let's examine this a little deeper, and we're going to talk about this Greek word, epithemia, okay?
- 15:14
- So this Greek word is used throughout the New Testament, and it's translated as lust.
- 15:22
- It's covet, desire. It's something that you want fulfilled, okay?
- 15:30
- So it's a strong desire. And in Matthew 5, Jesus says you should not commit adultery. I say to you, though, everyone who looks at a woman with lust, that's epithemia, lust for her has already committed adultery in her heart, with her in your heart.
- 15:44
- You have the same word used in Romans 7. Paul says, you shall not covet. The term there, and this is a translation from the
- 15:52
- Old Testament, so he's going back to the Ten Commandments. He's pulling this out, and the word used here for covet is epithemia, and this is actually the verbal form, so it would be epithumeo.
- 16:05
- But then you have Romans 1. Romans 1 is going to be one of the big passages we're going to keep going back to, and I'm going to read the whole thing.
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- It says in verses 22 through 28, professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible
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- God for an image in the form of corruptible man, and of birds, and of forfeited animals, and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts, that word is epithemia, the lusts of their heart to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
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- For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.
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- 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 men abandoned the natural function of the women, and burned their desire towards one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
- 16:53
- And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, those things which are not proper.
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- So you have in this passage, and this passage is talking about homosexuality, you have this, before we even get there, the lusts of their hearts to impurity.
- 17:09
- God gave them over to the lusts of their hearts, the epithemia. So they have this internal thing that causes the external thing.
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- Colossians 3 .5 says, Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil, desire.
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- That word for desire there is epithemia. And greed, which amounts to idolatry. You have in John 8,
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- Jesus says to the Pharisees, You have your father the devil, and you want to do the desires, that's epithemia, of your father.
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- He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. So they didn't kill him yet, but he's saying, you're just like the murderer, your father the devil, he was a murderer, you're just like him.
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- Guess what? It's because you have the desires of your father. That's where sin starts.
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- You have 2 Timothy 2 .22, Now flee from youthful lusts, youthful lusts, the word there, epithemia, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace.
- 18:05
- Epithemia, again, Galatians 5 .24, Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
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- So desires for sinful things, which would include homosexuality, have been crucified on the cross of Jesus Christ.
- 18:23
- You have in Titus 2 .11 -12, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, epithemia.
- 18:34
- So we're supposed to deny these worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. Okay, so hopefully you're convinced now, if there are homosexual desires, those must be fought against.
- 18:46
- That would be, and the word that Frank Turk used is, he said, attractions and feelings.
- 18:52
- So if you have a desires, you have attractions, you have feelings that are not in accord with scripture, that are sinful, then you must make war on them, you must forsake them, you must deny them, scripture says.
- 19:07
- They have been crucified. So this is something that should not be debatable for Christians, shouldn't be an open question, but it seems like it is.
- 19:17
- It seems like it is an open question, like, well, you know, you can have these desires. Would Frank Turk say the same thing about pedophilia?
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- Would he say, well, you know, you can have feelings for pedophilia and attractions for pedophilia, as long as you don't physically manifest them, then you're not in sin.
- 19:33
- He wouldn't say that. Would he say the same thing about other sexual sins or even non -sexual sins?
- 19:39
- Would he say the same thing about lying or stealing? That, well, as long as you aren't actually committing the physical action, you can think about lying and desire lying all you want and still be fine with I'm telling you,
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- Jesus wouldn't have done that. So there's no way that that can be a non -sinful thing.
- 20:00
- Now here's another term we need to talk about, and this is, I think, going to be very helpful. This is the term pathos, and this would be a term that I would say could parallel in some way the concept of orientation.
- 20:12
- I say that with this caveat here, though. There is no biblical category for orientation in the psychological sense.
- 20:21
- That is a category from psychology. So when you hear someone talking about same -sex attraction as an orientation, and that that is something
- 20:30
- Christians should just accept as this non -moral category, you are not in a biblical framework at that point.
- 20:37
- And of course the Bible equips the man of God. That's the whole purpose. It fully equips the man of God, and it is sufficient for all things concerning faith and practice.
- 20:48
- And so if that is true, which I believe it is—I think the Bible teaches that about itself—then the categories we need to engage this issue are already in the
- 21:01
- Bible. We don't have to bring outside categories from psychology. And so I spurn this concept of orientation from the gate.
- 21:11
- But if we're going to come up with something that's at least close to it, similar in a certain respect—I'll highlight that in a moment, what respect that is—I think we use the term pathos.
- 21:22
- Because pathos is this term for passion. And it's used a handful of times in the New Testament.
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- It's used in Romans 1, which we just read. It's also used in Colossians 3, which we just read. And right alongside the term desire, epithemia.
- 21:37
- So we have to fight against these wrong desires, these lusts.
- 21:42
- But at the same time, we also have to fight against these degrading passions. That's what it says in Romans 1, 26.
- 21:49
- For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions, pathos. For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.
- 21:56
- So it started out with these passions, and then the text goes on to the physical manifestation.
- 22:02
- You have the word in Colossians 3, 15, in the vice list there. Immorality, impurity, passion, pathos.
- 22:09
- Evil desire, epithemia. And greed, which amounts to idolatry. So this is how pathos is used.
- 22:16
- Something to be fought against. Something that's negative when it's in these vice lists. And here's how it's defined in the
- 22:23
- Strong's Concordance. Let me read this for you, and I'll tell you why I see this as a helpful point to make in regards to the concept of orientation.
- 22:33
- Strong's Concordance says this about it. Short definition. That which befalls one, a passion, a suffering.
- 22:40
- Thayer's Greek lexicon says this about it. Whatever befalls one, whether it be sad or joyous, specifically a calamity, mishap, evil, affliction.
- 22:48
- Number two. A feeling which the mind suffers, an affection of the mind, emotion, passion, passionate desire, used by the
- 22:55
- Greeks in either a good or a bad sense. In the New Testament, in a bad sense. Depraved passions and vile passions, as we just saw in Colossians 3 and Romans 1.
- 23:06
- So this particular word has a connotation, or in its definition, is this concept of something that befalls oneself.
- 23:19
- A feeling that the mind suffers. Something that overcomes them. That's what a passion is, something that you are filled by, and it's just something you want to do.
- 23:30
- It's an emotion you have. It can be strong. It can pull you in directions that your mind, logically speaking, would not pull you, but it's something that you're motivated toward.
- 23:43
- Now, that would, I think, in some ways, parallel this concept of orientation. It's something that you're pulled towards.
- 23:49
- Something that you're attracted to this thing, right? But here's the deal. In the
- 23:55
- New Testament, when the term pathos is used in these two passages, the term is not used in an amoral way.
- 24:02
- It is used in a moral way. These are things that are negative. You should consider the members of your earthly body dead to passion, to pathos.
- 24:13
- Consider it dead to that. God gave them up to degrading passions, and right after that, for their women, exchange the natural function for that which is unnatural.
- 24:21
- That's homosexuality. Okay, so this orientation business that, well, if you're pulled in that direction, as long as you're not acting on it, it's okay.
- 24:31
- No. No. That's the very basis upon which God judges. That is, or that thing he uses to judge.
- 24:38
- That is the thing that we are supposed to consider our earthly bodies dead to. So there isn't this category that the psychologists have come up with of orientation that is amoral.
- 24:50
- That is part of who you are, the way you're constructed, or what you think about yourself that doesn't have a moral dimension.
- 24:59
- So what's the solution, ultimately, to homosexual cravings? Well, obviously, number one, 2
- 25:06
- Timothy 2 .22, flee from youthful lust. Pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call from the Lord from a pure heart.
- 25:11
- So flee it. Okay. Number two, I think realize that Jesus sympathizes, and it doesn't mean that he experienced same -sex attraction.
- 25:20
- I don't believe that at all, but he can sympathize in the sense that he has the temptations which are common to man.
- 25:29
- I'm not talking about degrading passions, as Romans 1 talks about, but the categories of sin that certainly homosexuality would be part of, porneia, the natural affections that one might have as a man on this world.
- 25:44
- Jesus would have had experience with that. Hebrews 4, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin.
- 25:53
- So I want to take a brief pause here and say, look, we've just gone over how desires are sinful desires, sin, okay?
- 26:01
- Not good. Run the other way. Crucify them. We just talked about how passions, sin, crucify them.
- 26:08
- Run the other way. There is a category for temptation, okay? Temptation, though, would be to, for Jesus in this context, would be things that are not sinful in and of themselves.
- 26:26
- Is it sinful for a man to desire a woman? No, it's not. That's not a sinful desire. Is it sinful for a man to lust after a woman?
- 26:34
- Yes, it is. To fantasize about it, to entertain those feelings, to...
- 26:44
- I think every man knows exactly what that is. They don't have to have it spelled out for them concretely.
- 26:49
- It's something that we all know when it slides into that. It's not sinful to look at another woman and think, oh, that woman's pretty, or something like that.
- 26:57
- It's going that extra step, that covetousness, that when that creeps in, that's when the lust is present.
- 27:04
- So anyway, back to Jesus. Jesus has been tempted in all things. I don't think it means
- 27:10
- Jesus was tempted in pedophilia. Jesus was tempted in bestiality. No, no, no, no. Jesus was tempted in all the categories of sin that are common to man.
- 27:18
- These... so sexual temptation, I would assume, would be part of this. That there would be a kind of attraction which is good and natural and not sinful that Jesus would have, but the temptation would be to exercise it in a way that God hasn't ordained.
- 27:38
- That would be the temptation, okay? Jesus was tempted with timing, you know? How many times did he say, my time has not yet come?
- 27:46
- Jesus was tempted with overpowering the... I mean, he could call a legion of angels and overpower all the
- 27:53
- Roman guards and everyone who was involved in taking him to the cross and just say no. I mean, the temptation was...
- 28:01
- the devil's temptation against him was to cast himself off the temple and demonstrate his power in ways that he was not supposed to be demonstrating at that point in his ministry.
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- And so that's... these are just some of the things. That's a window into the inner turmoil that Jesus experienced.
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- Remember in the garden, he's sweating drops of blood. Not my will, but thine. I mean, my goodness, have the people struggling with same -sex attraction fought sin to that point, where they're sweating drops of blood?
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- I think not. So this is the one we all worship, and he can sympathize, we can sympathize, we can relate to him, but he can sympathize with our weaknesses.
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- And I think that's helpful for anyone dealing with any kind of sexual sin or any other sin. They can look to Jesus and say, he overcame, we can overcome.
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- So there's inspiration in this. Number three, and this is, I think, a really important point. 1
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- Corinthians 7, 2 says this, but because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife and each woman is to have her own husband.
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- In other words, because of sexual temptation, God made a solution for this, get married.
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- Now, this is something that is controversial, and I don't want to get into the weeds on it, but should someone who considers themselves or thinks of themselves as homosexual, who's a
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- Christian, should they get married? And the answer is, number one, don't think of yourself as a homosexual.
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- Think of yourself in the terms that God has, the categories God has made that you fit into. You're a man.
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- If you're a man, then you are heterosexual, and your attraction ought to be for a woman.
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- If it's not for a woman, then that is something to fight. That is something to pray about. That is something to struggle with.
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- It is not something to just give up and say, well, I guess this is the way I am. And a temptation that takes advantage of attractions, feelings, and epithemia, pathos that are immoral, that are evil, that's not right.
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- That's evil. That's wrong. So we don't have a settling in with sin mentality about that.
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- We fight against it. So in fighting against it, though, that should be the prayer and the pursuit to get married.
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- It just should be. And I mean, what
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- I've heard and the concern I have from many in this organizations and this movement of same -sex attracted
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- Christianity is that so many of them want to somehow validate their quote -unquote orientation that they've really started preaching the doctrine of demons.
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- They've started forbidding marriage, started saying, well, we're eunuchs. Or for us, marriage isn't really an option because of how
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- God wired us or who we are. That is wrong. That's forbidding marriage. So yes, there is a gift of singleness,
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- I do believe. But experiencing sinful desires is not evidence that one has the gift of singleness.
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- That's the problem. We can't say, well, sinful desires must mean I have the gift of singleness. All right.
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- So hopefully that was helpful for all of you. And I'll put the link in the info section for the patrons who want to download those scriptures.
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- Now that we've seen that, let's get to this other clip and maybe apply what we've learned.
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- Now that we've gone through this, you can now take your discerning ears and compare what the Bible says in biblical teaching to what we are about to witness.
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- And that is a video from someone named Christopher Yuhan, who is a rising star in—I mean, you can go look up his name at the
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- Gospel Coalition. He's a rising star who's going to explain how
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- Christianity navigates the challenge of LGBT lifestyles, sin, etc.
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- So here we go. Here's Christopher Yuhan. Third, I realize that after abstaining from sex for a little while, that actually, my sexuality does not have to be, shouldn't be, the core of who
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- I am. I told myself before, God loves me unconditionally. And that's true, right?
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- But don't we as sinners, don't we like to add to God's truth? I add it, so therefore He doesn't want me to change.
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- I'm sure you hear this from your friends who say something similar, like, God loves me just the way I am, so leave me alone.
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- But after reading the Bible several times, I learned that unconditional love is not the same thing as unconditional approval of my behavior.
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- Let me say that again. Unconditional love is not the same thing as unconditional approval of my behavior.
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- My identity shouldn't be defined by my sexuality. My identity shouldn't be grounded in my sexual desires.
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- My identity is not gay, is not ex -gay, is not even heterosexual for that matter, because my identity as a child of the living
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- God must be in Jesus Christ alone. God says, be holy, for I am holy.
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- You know, before I had become a Christian, I had thought that if I were to become a Christian, that I would have to become a heterosexual, that somehow the more sexually attracted
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- I were to women, the more of a Christian man I would be. But I realized that even if I had opposite sex attractions,
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- I would still need to flee temptation. I would still need to put to death my sin nature. So heterosexuality is not the goal.
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- Besides, if you think about this, God never says, be heterosexual, for I am heterosexual.
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- But neither did God say, be homosexual, for I am homosexual. Rather, God said, be holy, for I am holy.
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- So therefore, therefore the opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality.
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- That is not the goal. But the opposite of homosexuality is holiness. As a matter of fact, the opposite of every sin struggle is holiness.
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- I don't need to focus upon whether I'm being tempted. Remember, Jesus Christ.
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- All right, let's stop there. And so much of this, again, is so good. That's why I wanted to pick this clip, because it's so subtle.
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- It's because it's so true, some of the things he's saying, right? He says in this particular clip that our homosexual desires don't define us, which is great.
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- I mean, yeah, amen to that, right? Sinful desires don't define us.
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- But what does he then do? He takes the whole category of sexuality.
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- So not just sinful sexual desires don't define us. He takes the whole category of sexuality and says none of that defines us.
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- So he appeals to this higher plane of spirituality to say that our identity is completely has its origin, its source, from this spiritual dimension.
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- I'm holy. I'm a child of God. But that doesn't filter into our sexual longings necessarily to the point that it creates order desires within us.
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- So he goes actually too far. So that's why
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- I think it sounds good at first, because we're like, he's willing to say what so many others aren't willing to say. He's willing to say that he's not a homosexual, even though he used to live that lifestyle, because he's washing the blood of the lamb.
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- And that's true. But then he goes farther to say that I'm not heterosexual either. I don't think of myself that way.
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- And that sexual temptation feelings, any of that, that whole category doesn't have anything to do with my actual identity.
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- And I would submit to you, it actually does. It actually does. The reason that we have wrong epithemia, wrong pathos, the reason that we have wrong sexual inclinations, desires, urges, temptations, etc.,
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- that are sinful and disordered, the reason that mankind is afflicted with that is because there's a standard to appeal to that is right.
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- There is an actual plan that God has for sexuality. He designed us that way.
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- It was his idea. It was his invention. And heterosexuality is the term that we often use to describe the monogamous heterosexual relationships, that plan.
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- But you don't have to use the word heterosexuality because for most of the existence of human beings, we haven't used those psychological terms.
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- We haven't even had to think in those terms because it was just an assumed thing that men are made for women and women are made for men.
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- And that's just the right standard. That's just the way that we're wired. That's just what
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- God intended. That's just the creation design. So if you have someone like Christopher Johannes saying that creation design in this area is not part of identity or doesn't matter when it comes to identity, then he is cutting himself off from, and those who are following his teaching are cutting themselves off from,
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- God's plan for a very important part of their life. And that's the concern that I have.
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- Your sexual life, your desires sexually, the way
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- God wired you sexually, are part of who you are. It's not like they're sitting over here in this physical...
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- I mean, if you want to get into Gnosticism, this almost sounds like this could lead you to that, where there's such a separation between physical and spiritual.
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- And there's a separation, but it's the denial of any spiritual element to that physical, that sexual, or that very important category of sexuality, that physical category.
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- But it denies Scripture's teaching even on sexuality because there's a mystery that happens in the marriage relationship.
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- Sexuality parallels the love that Christ has for the church somehow. And you can't join
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- Christ to a prostitute. So that's why the Corinthians were in trouble, because they were doing that kind of thing.
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- And that was Paul's correction to them. So there is something spiritual, there's a spiritual element to that. You can't just cut that off.
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- But the physical dimension is also important. That's part of God's created design. So that's the error that's being made here, and that error will take you down,
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- I think, a wrong path as well. Because people who have same -sex attraction, they don't think of themselves differently now.
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- Instead of thinking of themselves as, I'm a Christian now, therefore I need to think of myself the way
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- God has made me to be. I am heterosexual. I need to pray about that. I need to fight for that.
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- I need to pursue that with every tool available to me that's a non -sinful tool available to me.
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- They're not going to take those tools. They're not going to pursue that. They're more likely to just be like, well, you know, does this downplay sexuality as if it doesn't matter?
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- It does matter. It matters a whole lot. And this neutralizes the church in fighting the current
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- LGBT agenda to some extent, because what happens is, when that lobby comes knocking on your door, the tendency is, instead of very boldly proclaiming
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- Christ's Word and the created order and the design that God's given to creation, instead what you're going to do is you're going to just downplay the whole thing and be like, oh,
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- LGBT. I mean, look, we're not focused on that. We're focused on holiness here, not heterosexuality.
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- And it's like, well, isn't that part of holiness? There isn't a conflict between God's created design and His sanctification process in you, is there?
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- There shouldn't be. I mean, they should work in tandem, shouldn't they? Shouldn't they complement one another?
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- But you deny that complementarity when you end up going down the path that Christopher Yuhan's going down here.
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- So these are some very, I think, subtle shifts, but they're shifts I want you to be aware of, and I want you to hear them articulated very well, which
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- I think, to their credit, I think both of the individuals here articulated them well,
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- Frank Turek and Christopher Yuhan. So that's the show for today. I hope that was helpful for you.
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- And again, please take advantage of that sale. It's only lasting six days. You're going to want to buy gifts for friends for the holidays.
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- I'm not going to lower the price any more than I've lowered it for the holidays. I mean, this is the floor here.