What Goes Before Destruction?

Sovereign Grace Family Church

1 view

June 3, 2021

00:00: Good morning, gentlemen.
00:04: I want you to take out your Bibles and turn to Proverbs 16.
00:11: Proverbs 16.
00:18: Good morning.
00:44: We are going to do something different today.
00:48: This is a message that I think is important.
00:51: It's important for not only you guys, but it's important for the church as a whole.
01:00: Because it deals with a very relevant social issue.
01:08: And as Christians, we are called not only to be proclaimers of the truth, but we are also to give a defense for the hope that is within us.
01:23: And sometimes that means that we are to defend what we believe, but also to speak out against things that are untrue.
01:33: And so we are going to talk today about a very controversial thing.
01:40: And I want to make a point.
01:42: One, if you don't know me, I normally teach the systematic theology lessons.
01:49: And last week I had a special guest come in with me.
01:51: You remember Mr.
01:53: Rich came and we had a back and forth on the subject of atheism.
01:57: Because I had a guest in town speaking at our church, so he came and spoke here.
02:01: And so I give a 12 week theology course here.
02:05: But every once in a while, as the Lord allows, I will throw in something additional, something different.
02:12: Somewhat break up the monotony, but also because sometimes I think it is necessary.
02:18: And what we are going to talk about today, is we are going to talk about the subject of Pride Month and homosexuality.
02:26: So it's a very serious subject.
02:28: And I am going to encourage you in a couple of ways before I get started.
02:32: Number one, this is a subject that is very sensitive and emotional.
02:42: So I want to encourage you to keep yourself in check.
02:45: If I say something that offends you or upsets you, understand that is never my intention.
02:50: I don't come here to throw bombs and leave.
02:52: I come here to try to preach the truth.
02:55: But I also want you to understand that if you ask me a question and I answer it, and you don't like my answer, that's okay.
03:05: I am not here to satisfy you.
03:08: So if you ask me a question and I answer it, and you disagree with me, that's fine.
03:12: But we are not going to argue.
03:14: I don't come here to argue.
03:16: I have been teaching for a long time.
03:19: I give the best answers I can, but I don't claim infallibility.
03:24: So understand that.
03:26: We are not going to do a tit-for-tat on anything.
03:30: Are we cool with that? You guys get what I am saying? Okay, just sort of laying my parameters out.
03:35: At Christmas time, oftentimes I will deal with some controversial subjects about how people attack the virgin birth.
03:47: And then around Easter I deal with controversies around the resurrection.
03:51: You know, I try to do these things because these are relevant to, you know, if you turn your television on, and I know here, hey, you don't get TV a lot, but when you go out into the world and you turn your television on, you are going to see these things.
04:05: And what happens? You have to deal with it.
04:09: And what do we deal with in the month of June? It's called Pride Month.
04:15: If you go into Target or Walmart, you're going to see rainbows.
04:22: And the rainbows are what? A celebration of the LGBTQIA+.
04:31: That's where we're at now.
04:33: Because it's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, and they're always adding because there's an ever-growing spectrum of sexual identity which is happening in our world.
04:48: And so that's what the rainbow is meant to represent, by the way.
04:52: It's meant to represent the different types of people.
04:55: Just like there's different colors in a rainbow, there's supposed to be different types of people.
04:59: So you understand.
05:00: But the most ironic thing, though, is that the rainbow in the Bible represents what? Represents the promise of God not judging the world by water.
05:10: It's a promise of the Noahic Covenant.
05:12: So that picture God gave has been absconded with and used for something else.
05:20: But I use Proverbs 16 and 18 simply to ask this question.
05:24: What goes before destruction and what is it? Pride.
05:36: So when we say this is Pride Month, we have to deal with the issue of, well, is pride a good thing? Well, we have to consider meanings.
05:48: Because if I said, I'm proud of my son.
05:52: You know, he's serving in the Air Force right now.
05:54: He's over in Germany.
05:55: If I said, I'm proud of my son, you wouldn't say that's a sin, right? You would say, it's right.
06:01: A father being proud of his son is not sinful.
06:05: Or if you said to me, you know, I got my GED, or I got my diploma, or I got my college certificate, my degree.
06:15: And you said, Pastor Keith, here, I got this thing.
06:18: You know, I would say, I'm proud of you.
06:20: That's not a sin, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.
06:24: So we have to be fair when we deal with the use of language.
06:31: And what the Pride Month conversation is saying, it's saying that they are proud to be who they are.
06:43: They are proud to be who they are.
06:46: And in regard to that, it becomes the issue of, well, okay, why is that the term? Well, because they argue, when I say they, I'm speaking of the community that identifies itself with that LGBTQ community, would say, well, forever we were pushed into the shadows, forever we were pushed into the corner, and we don't want to be, we want to be out, and we want to be free, and we want to show that we're not going to be put aside anymore.
07:21: We're proud of who we are, right? And for a basic, and again, I'm trying to be really fair here, from a basic standpoint, we would say that we understand that.
07:33: You know, if you came to me and you said, I'm not going to let anybody make me feel bad for being a white man, or I'm not going to let anybody make me feel bad for being a black man, or I'm not going to let anybody make me feel bad for having a long beard, you know, you'd say, I'm not going to let anybody make me feel bad for who I am, right? And so the concept of pride in that regard is the idea that they want to be who they are and not have to be ashamed.
07:56: And so I'm trying to be very fair in coming at it from that perspective.
08:02: Okay, the Bible says pride goes before the fall, and they're celebrating pride, right away a question comes up, well, why are they celebrating pride? And the argument is they want to be proud of who they are.
08:15: And my initial response to that is, okay, but is this something that should be exalted? Or is this something that should be considered not good? Or something that should be considered wrong? And from that, we have to address it from a biblical perspective.
08:39: That's where we have to go.
08:41: Because if I said I was proud, and I'm not making an equivalent here, but if I said I was proud because every night I beat my dog, you would say, that's nuts, because you're crazy.
08:53: I say, but I'm proud of it, because that's who I am.
08:55: You say, but it's wrong.
08:57: And again, I'm not making an equivalent there.
08:59: I'm just simply saying if I came and said I'm proud of something that was not good, you would say, well, that's not something to be proud of.
09:08: You would say that's not good.
09:10: So the question then becomes, is this something that should be exalted? Or is this something that the Bible says should not be exalted? So that's the question.
09:22: And I want to read to you a couple of passages today from a book.
09:28: This is actually the title of the book, and don't get offended by it.
09:38: The title of the book is A Queer Thing Happened to America.
09:42: And, of course, it's a play on words.
09:44: The word queer is often used to reference homosexuality, and it's a word that is used in the LGBTQ.
09:50: Q stands for queer.
09:51: Queer simply means to be different or to be outside of the norm.
09:57: That's what queer means.
09:59: And it was a more common word before it began to be used for homosexuality.
10:04: In fact, if you read something like Tom Sawyer and stuff like that, you'll hear the word queer come up as a reference to somebody who is just different.
10:12: They'll say that person is acting very queer today, and it would reference simply the difference.
10:17: And the book, A Queer Thing Happened to America, was written by Michael Brown.
10:22: He's a charismatic theologian.
10:24: I don't really care for a lot of his theology, but he's a good scholar, and he does a lot of good writing, and he basically documents the history of the homosexual movement in the United States.
10:35: And I want to read to you what he writes in the preface of his book.
10:40: He's talking about the changes that have happened in our society.
10:44: Now, this book was written about ten years ago.
10:46: I read it about ten years ago.
10:48: So this is what he saw then, and you can imagine, fast forward to today, where we are today.
10:55: I mean, we're much further down the line than we were ten years ago.
10:59: Everybody agree with that, right? All right, so this is Dr.
11:03: Brown, and he's writing in the preface of the book, and he says, In October 2006, New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority legalized the use of ladies' bathrooms for men who identified as women and vice versa.
11:18: With one article running the headline, Be careful, ladies, it's his bathroom too.
11:23: In San Francisco schools, a boy who identifies as a girl can use a girl's bathroom in a locker room, while the New York Times reported in December 2006 that the Park Day School in Oakland, California, quote, Teachers are taught a gender-neutral vocabulary and are urged to line up students by sneaker color rather than by gender.
11:43: In Charlotte, North Carolina, a little closer to home, a preschool teacher shared with me that she was not allowed to address the children as boys and girls, since that would be making a gender distinction.
11:55: Instead, she had to call them friends.
11:57: On August 16, 2010, Newsweek asked the question, Are we facing a genderless future? One year earlier, Newsweek featured a major article on relationships with multiple mutually consenting partners.
12:13: The article was entitled, Polyamory, the next sexual revolution.
12:17: How many of you have ever heard of polyamory? What is polyamory? Hand up.
12:21: I only saw one hand up, so what is it? Not quite.
12:27: You're thinking of pansexual, but it's close.
12:30: Very close.
12:31: Polyamory.
12:32: Poly means many.
12:33: Amory means love.
12:34: It simply means to have more than one partner at a time.
12:37: So a person who may have two or three girlfriends at once, that's called polyamorous.
12:43: And it's, you know, a person who tries to have that relationship going on with multiple partners.
12:50: So it's a little different than pansexual.
12:52: Pansexualism.
12:53: Yeah, polygamy would be somebody married to multiple people, right? Okay.
12:58: Yeah, so polyamory tries to avoid the marriage part.
13:02: It's just like if you had three girlfriends and all of them knew about each other, and you all related with one another, that would be polyamory.
13:08: It's different than, you know, it's sort of a newer term, and it's being popularized.
13:14: It's very popular now, actually.
13:16: Where do they find the time? Where do they find the time? I'll say, yeah.
13:22: Okay, so moving on.
13:24: I'm sorry.
13:25: I stopped just to make sure I understood the term.
13:28: The article entitled Polyamory, the Next Sexual Revolution, stated it's enough to make any monogamist's head spin, but the traditionalist had better get used to it.
13:38: Just two years before in 2007, Time Magazine raised the question, should incest be legal? And in December 2010, when Columbia University professor David Epstein was arrested for a three-year consensual affair with his adult daughter, his attorney noted, well, it's okay for homosexuals to do what they want in their own home.
13:59: How is he any different? We have to figure out why some behavior is tolerated and some is not.
14:08: Not surprisingly, some Columbia students asked why any sexual acts committed by consenting adults should be considered a crime.
14:16: In September 2004, the convocation addressed for the 150th anniversary of the Chicago Theological Seminary was delivered by a gay professor and focused on a, quote, queer reading of the Bible.
14:30: In 2006, the 859-page Queer Bible Commentary was published, while gay Reformed Jews now have a prayer book featuring a blessing to be recited after an anonymous sexual encounter.
14:44: And the list goes on and on.
14:46: It's kind of an interesting reality.
14:50: Now, I want to, for a moment, read just one other portion.
14:54: And this is from Verizon Wireless.
14:59: You guys know Verizon Wireless? Now, this was in 2002.
15:04: How long ago was 2002? Right around 20 years? 19 and a half years? Okay.
15:14: It got me.
15:16: You got me.
15:17: You're right.
15:21: So we got almost 20 years ago, 19 and a half years ago.
15:24: But listen to this.
15:25: Verizon Wireless distributed a handout.
15:29: 101 Ways to Make Your Workplace More Inclusive.
15:34: Inclusive.
15:35: More inclusive.
15:37: 101 Ways to Make Your Workplace More Inclusive.
15:41: To be included.
15:42: To include people.
15:43: To include people.
15:45: At the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, the GenderPAC annual conference, these were among the 101 ways.
15:55: Number one.
15:57: Well, not number one, but among them.
15:59: Use examples of same-sex couples in business exercises and training role plays.
16:04: So we see this happening.
16:06: We see commercials now prominently displaying same-sex couples.
16:11: If you watch television, movies, there's a lot more inclusion of same-sex couples.
16:20: Make gay and lesbian employees visible in your organization's newsletter and other communications.
16:25: So when you put out the newsletter, make sure you highlight those who are gay and lesbian.
16:33: Order and display gay publications like 10% The Advocate, Out, or Victory where other magazines are displayed.
16:40: Those are particularly homosexual magazines.
16:43: So they say, order these and put them with your other magazines.
16:47: Bring gay, lesbian, and bisexual speakers into the workplace.
16:51: Seek out opportunities to learn from transgender people.
16:55: On Gay Pride Day and National Coming Out Day, fly the rainbow flag at work locations.
16:59: That's become almost ubiquitous.
17:01: Everywhere you go, the rainbow flag is flying.
17:05: Even over the White House just a few years ago, we saw the rainbow lights lit up the White House to where it was turned into a rainbow flag.
17:16: Sponsor a booth at a gay pride event.
17:18: Give your gay employees time off to attend funerals of close friends.
17:24: When putting together information packages for out-of-town guests, include information on gay, lesbian, and bisexual places of interest.
17:32: Include a copy of your local gay paper.
17:34: Now again, I didn't write any of this.
17:36: I'm just reading from Verizon's own statements.
17:40: But you see the change that's happened.
17:43: We have seen in the last generation a change where homosexuality was generally and almost universally understood to be wrong to now it's generally and almost universally among secular people and even within the church being considered to be right.
18:05: And we say, well, how did that happen? How did that change occur? And is it right? Because any group, I want to say this, any group who disagrees with the homosexual revolution, including the church, is considered to be out of step with the culture and on the wrong side of history.
18:30: In fact, it has even, hello, it has even led to some arrests of pastors who have spoken out.
18:35: And if you think I'm exaggerating, I absolutely am not.
18:38: A 71-year-old pastor in North London was arrested on April 23rd under the United Kingdom's Public Order Act for allegedly making homophobic comments.
18:48: He was preaching outdoors.
18:51: And he was preaching on the sanctity of marriage.
18:54: Marriage is between one man and one woman.
18:57: And during that public sermon, I've seen the video, he was arrested, handcuffed, and drug away.
19:03: Not because he was saying anything that was hateful or he wasn't calling for anyone's death or torture or dismemberment.
19:13: He was simply proclaiming the sanctity of marriage and he was arrested.
19:21: And why? Here's a buzzword.
19:25: Because what has been stated is that anyone who gives a biblical view of marriage is preaching this.
19:37: Hate.
19:42: And that is often how the conversation goes.
19:45: And of course, I am not immune from this.
19:48: Over the years, I have been willing to preach on this issue, willing to teach on this issue, and have received emails, have received messages on our Facebook page, on our YouTube page, from people who have said that I am a hate preacher, that I am a provocateur.
20:05: Hate monger.
20:09: And I want to stress very clearly, I hope that I have demonstrated today that I'm trying to be very fair.
20:17: I'm trying to show love and deference to people who are made in the image of God.
20:21: That has to be understood.
20:23: When we talk about someone who is a homosexual, we're talking about someone who is made in God's image.
20:29: And so there is no animosity towards individuals.
20:34: My concern is that we have moved the bar.
20:42: Because the bar for what constitutes biblical sexuality, righteous sexuality, has been moved.
20:50: And when the bar is moved, and the Bible doesn't allow for it, then what has happened is society has decided that it knows better than God.
20:59: And it determines what is right and wrong versus God determining it.
21:04: And by even saying those words, I know that I am outside of what society has deemed as the right side of this issue.
21:20: So, I want to express it like this.
21:23: Often, the issue comes up, this is how the question is often asked.
21:27: Does the Bible condemn homosexuality? But I want to approach it from a different way.
21:31: Rather than asking the question, does the Bible condemn homosexuality? I want to ask this question.
21:37: What is the biblical teaching on righteous sexuality? Before you answer, let's make sure we understand the question.
21:52: We're saying that the Bible is the source of our standard.
21:58: Because I said, what's the biblical teaching? So that in itself assumes a certain standard.
22:03: I want to know what the Bible says.
22:04: Number two, I'm saying that there is a righteous form of sexuality, which would indicate what? There is an unrighteous.
22:13: If there is a righteous, then there is an unrighteous.
22:16: So, we're going to begin, we're going to go through the Bible, and we're going to look at the Bible's position on righteous sexuality very quickly because I have three major points I want to make today.
22:29: One, we're going to consider the Bible's position on righteous sexuality.
22:33: That's number one.
22:34: Number two, we're going to consider the claim that the Bible is unclear on homosexuality because that is raised.
22:41: And then finally, and thirdly, we're going to deal with the question of, well, Jesus never addressed homosexuals.
22:47: That's the third argument that we're going to look at today.
22:50: But let's look first at the Bible's position on righteous sexuality.
22:54: Go to Genesis 2.
22:57: Genesis 2.
23:09: Now, I want to make a statement as I'm going here.
23:13: I affirm the biblical account of creation.
23:20: Now, that right away puts me on a certain side because by affirming the Bible's account of creation, I'm saying that I believe what the Bible says about where I came from is true and where you came from is true.
23:34: Right away, that puts me on the outside of norm.
23:37: You go to any college campus and you say, I believe in Genesis 1 and 2, they think you're crazy.
23:43: You go into a lot of churches and you say, I believe in Genesis 1 and 2.
23:48: And they'll say, oh, no, it's allegorical.
23:51: You've got to understand the framework hypothesis and you have to understand the distinctions of literary genre and how the Bible was put together and it was not meant to be a textbook of how it happened, but just that it happened.
24:05: And this is a poetic framework.
24:08: This is not really how it happened.
24:12: We know how it happened.
24:14: Charles Darwin taught us how it happened.
24:16: We all came from the same ancestors, the bonobos and the chimpanzees and all that.
24:23: We're all part of the same family of erect hominids.
24:32: So that's what the world would say.
24:35: So I tip my hand to you and I say, I believe Genesis.
24:39: So by saying that, when I go to Genesis 2, your immediate thought would be, well, I don't believe in Genesis.
24:44: Okay, that's fine, but I'm here to teach the Bible.
24:48: And so I want to tell you what the Bible says.
24:51: The Bible says, verse 5, When there was no bush in the field, and yet in the land, no small plant in the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land.
24:59: And there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground.
25:05: Then the Lord formed the man of dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became...
25:13: The ESV says a living creature.
25:14: The Hebrew is nefesh.
25:16: It means a living soul.
25:17: The living soul.
25:19: So right away, what do we have? I'm going to erase this.
25:23: What do we have from God's perspective on the role of sexuality? And you say, well, this isn't about sex.
25:31: Well, it's not about sex, but it teaches us something about sex.
25:34: What does it tell us? It tells us God created a man.
25:39: He did not create a ubiquitous form of protoplasmic mass.
25:43: He created a man who had a body, and I'm pretty sure he had a penis.
25:52: A mass of protoplasmic...
25:54: I don't remember what I said.
25:56: Sometimes I get...
25:58: Sometimes I get...
25:59: He didn't just create a blob.
26:02: There we go.
26:03: That's better.
26:04: He created a man, and that man was man-formed.
26:08: He had a body, arms, legs, fingers, toes, eyes, and a man, a male sexual organ.
26:16: So he was a man.
26:19: The story goes on.
26:22: It talks about God making the trees to spring up.
26:25: It talks about God bringing water into the garden.
26:28: And it says something very weird in verse 18.
26:32: In fact, in verse 18, we have the very first time where God expresses something in the negative.
26:38: Everything up until now has been positive.
26:41: He makes the light, and it's very good.
26:42: He makes the earth, and it's very good.
26:46: He makes all these things, and they're very good.
26:47: And He rests on the seventh day, and it's all good.
26:50: But here it's the first time it says, but there's something that's not good.
26:54: It says, the Lord God said it is not good that man should be alone.
26:59: I will make a helper fit for him.
27:04: So now here's the really weird part.
27:07: Verse 19, Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field, every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.
27:14: And whatever man called the living creature, that was its name.
27:16: The man gave names to all the livestock and all the birds of the heavens and every beast of the field.
27:20: But for Adam, there was not a helper found fit for him.
27:23: So what does that mean? Well, God brings all the animals to Adam, and He sort of parades them by, and He allows them to proclaim a name upon them.
27:31: And by the way, this is actually in the ancient Near East.
27:35: This was a way of demonstrating authority over something.
27:38: By proclaiming a name, you were proclaiming authority.
27:42: And what is Adam? He is the vice-regent of God.
27:44: He is called by God to have dominion over the world.
27:47: God allows him to name the animals.
27:48: Remember when Nebuchadnezzar stole Daniel and took him to his homeland and took him away from Israel? What was the first thing they did? Change their names.
28:00: Show authority, right? Giving something a name was a way of demonstrating authority over something.
28:06: Well, here we see that.
28:07: Adam is shown to have authority over the animals.
28:09: He's given them their names.
28:10: But it says among the animals, none of them was fit to be his helper, his helpmate.
28:19: Not one of them was fit for him.
28:24: Aren't you glad? Yeah.
28:28: That there wasn't a...
28:32: of the beasts.
28:33: Again, not trying to be weird.
28:35: But that's not...
28:37: And you have to think for a moment.
28:41: Adam is alone.
28:42: It's not good that he's alone.
28:43: He has to understand some sense of his own singularity, of his own aloneness.
28:50: And God provides all the animals to parade by and he doesn't see anyone that is fit for him.
28:56: There's not another one like him.
28:58: So God...
28:59: Verse 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.
29:04: And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and he closed up its place with flesh.
29:08: And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, He made into second sexual reference a woman and brought her to the man.
29:27: And the man...
29:28: By the way, this is the first song in the Bible.
29:31: If you notice, if you have an ESV translation, it's offset from the rest of the text as a poetic statement.
29:38: He says, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
29:44: She shall be called woman because she's taken out of man.
29:48: It's an expression of delight.
29:50: Adam is delighted in what has to have been the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen.
29:56: You all know that there is a certain distinction between men and women in their look.
30:05: In fact, the Bible expresses the difference in the masculine and the feminine.
30:12: And this is Adam's first experience with the feminine physique.
30:17: And he is excited.
30:19: And after this, God performs the first marriage ceremony.
30:24: Verse 24.
30:26: It says, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother.
30:29: By the way, this can't apply to Adam alone because Adam didn't have a mother or father.
30:33: Adam was created by God.
30:35: So this is not about Adam.
30:37: This is about the generations that would flow out of Adam.
30:40: Listen to what it says.
30:41: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become, get this, one flesh.
30:59: They shall become one flesh.
31:03: And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
31:08: Now, I do not have the time.
31:09: I really wish I did.
31:11: I do not have the time to express the depth of the importance of that statement because prior to the fall, Adam and Eve experienced a level of intimacy and a level of commonality that was not interrupted by sin that would never be enjoyed again until the new creation.
31:35: And their ability, when it says they were naked and unashamed, that doesn't just mean they were physically naked, which they were physically naked, but it refers to their relationship.
31:45: They were together without any walls or barriers.
31:50: They didn't have anything hiding themselves from one another.
31:55: Praise God.
31:56: They had a perfect union which was placed by God.
32:05: So you say, well, what do we have here in Genesis 2? We have what we call a creation ordinance.
32:13: A creation ordinance.
32:15: Now, what is an ordinance? Let me finish with this thought and then I'll answer your question.
32:19: An ordinance is a law.
32:20: And it's one of the few laws that we have that go all the way back to creation.
32:25: The law of marriage.
32:27: And the law of marriage is that a man will leave his father and mother, he'll hold fast to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
32:35: You guys got to go.
32:37: Sorry, brother.
32:43: So, marriage is established by God and it is designed by God for His purposes.
32:52: Excuse me, I'm sorry.
32:53: No, you're fine, brother.
32:53: You go ahead.
32:54: Have a good day.
32:55: Miss seeing you.
32:58: And I'm spending a lot of time on this because before we even get to the arguments about homosexuality, we need to understand what the Bible's model of sexuality is.
33:09: And the model of sexuality is that a man leaves his family and holds his wife, and the two of them become a new family.
33:21: That is supposed to happen prior to sexual intimacy.
33:24: Boy, isn't that destructive? Haven't we seen our world has just thrown that away? Because if I say to a group of young people, hey, you know what? You should wait until you get married to have sex.
33:39: They say, oh, ha, ha, ha.
33:41: You're so old-fashioned.
33:43: You're old prude.
33:44: You're old puritan.
33:46: You don't know nothing.
33:47: You're over 40.
33:48: You don't know anything.
33:53: You think I'm exaggerating.
33:55: Only a little.
33:56: I talk to young people.
33:58: I used to work at a high school.
33:59: I was a substitute teacher for eight years.
34:02: I'd have conversations, not real in-depth because I had to let the students talk to me.
34:11: It was hard to engage them, especially if you don't want to talk to teenagers about sex, but to talk about just the concept of marriage.
34:20: Sex is supposed to be held within the bonds of marriage.
34:25: And how do we know this? Well, we know this because the Bible uses a term that is very important, and it is the term fornication.
34:41: I would like for...
34:43: Oh, wait.
34:44: Brother, you had a question, and I ran right by it, so let me go back.
34:46: What was your question? So you would think that before they ate the apple, that Adam and Eve were created perfect? Yes.
34:57: Without sin and everything? Yes.
34:59: The Bible says that they had no sin prior to the eating of the fruit of the tree.
35:03: Yes.
35:03: And we don't know if it was an apple, but the fall is eating the fruit because that was the only prohibition.
35:14: That was the only command, do not eat.
35:16: And so that brought sin into the world.
35:18: The Bible says in Romans 5.12 that sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and death spread to all men because of all sin.
35:26: So that tells us sin entered the world through Adam and his action.
35:31: Okay? Yes, sir.
35:32: What was the word they say? Well, that's not a...
35:42: The Adam's apple is a human anatomy thing.
35:47: Interestingly, I don't know where the name comes from.
35:51: I don't know where the term Adam's apple comes from, and if it has anything to do with the forbidden fruit, I don't know.
35:56: I know a lot of people believe it was an apple.
35:59: I don't know.
36:01: I'm a big fan of watermelon, so it could have been a watermelon.
36:05: A little more awkward, but if she was carrying it back like this, look what I got.
36:10: And they don't grow on trees, they grow on vines, so probably not a watermelon.
36:15: But yeah, it could have been an apple, it could have been anything that grows on a tree.
36:20: Yes, sir.
36:22: Wasn't it symbolic of her having sex with the snake? No.
36:26: There's nothing biblical to substantiate that.
36:28: I've heard that, but that is not true.
36:30: There's nothing biblical to substantiate what you're saying.
36:32: What does beguiled mean? It doesn't mean what you think it means.
36:38: Beguiled means to be deceived.
36:41: No, it doesn't.
36:44: Okay.
36:44: Okay.
36:45: What did I say earlier about arguing? Oh, no, no, no.
36:48: Okay.
36:49: Okay.
36:49: Alright.
36:51: I mean, the term simply means to be deceived.
36:55: Alright.
36:56: So, we move on.
36:58: We look at Genesis 2.
37:00: What does it tell us? It tells us God made one man, God made one woman.
37:04: He made them to be one flesh.
37:06: And then later in Scripture, we have a word that comes up over and over and over, and it is the word fornication.
37:12: Now, what does the word fornication mean? Sex before marriage.
37:21: Okay.
37:22: We usually say sex before marriage, right? It means immorality, sexual immorality.
37:29: The word in the Greek is porneia, or pornea.
37:34: Yeah.
37:35: If you think of, what do we call, what is pornography? Pornography is the word pornea combined with the word graphe, which means, well, it actually means writing, but it can mean a scripture.
37:52: So, pornography means, it means a picture, or it can even mean words that are sexually, of a sexual nature, particularly of an illicit sexual nature.
38:05: Billion dollar industry.
38:06: Well, certainly, yeah, absolutely a billion dollar industry.
38:10: So, you have fornication, which is the word pornea, pornea, and the ESV translates it simply as sexual immorality.
38:19: Well, how do you define that? How do you define something that's sexually immoral? Well, you have to define it from the positive.
38:25: What's the positive? The positive is what is sexually righteous.
38:31: Right? The way that you define something is wrong is you have to define it over and against the standard.
38:37: Right? If you have a wall that's unlevel, how do you determine whether it's unlevel or not? You put a level on it, right? Because you've got to have a standard, right? The standard is the level, and if you put the level on the wall and the bubble go, whoop, over to the side, that lets you know the wall's unlevel because the standard says it's unlevel.
38:57: So, what's the standard? Man shall leave his father and mother, shall hold fast to his wife, the two shall become one flesh.
39:03: That's the standard.
39:04: If you go to Hebrews 13, it tells you the marriage bed is undefiled.
39:09: Undefiled.
39:11: Right? So, we have a standard for sexuality, and it is the standard of the marriage relationship.
39:18: So, what does pornaya then refer to? It refers to anything that's outside the standard.
39:24: So, a lot of times, especially young people, I used to be a youth leader as well as working at the high school, a lot of times young people will try to push the envelope.
39:32: Well, pastor, what if me and my girlfriend just make out, but we don't have sex? Or, pastor, what if we just, you know, we do a little touching, a little heavy petting, but we don't move forward? Now, I'm going to say something a little gross, but I don't mean it to be gross, but even the question of, well, we didn't penetrate.
39:59: It was just oral pleasure, right? Or mutual manual stimulation, which is a physical using of the hands.
40:12: Oh, we're good.
40:13: He's good with me.
40:14: I'm good with him.
40:15: So, we have these terms, right? And the question is, well, is that pornaya? Is that sexual immorality? And honestly, oftentimes, I use the daughter standard.
40:30: I say, if you do it to my daughter, it's wrong.
40:35: So, don't touch my daughter.
40:36: Keep your hands off.
40:37: Keep your lips off.
40:37: Keep everything off.
40:39: You know, you shake hands at the end of the night.
40:42: And by the way, I'll be there because you're not going on a date without me.
40:46: Amen.
40:47: In fact, my oldest daughter, when my son used to be here, he's in Germany now, my oldest daughter, when on a date, I'd send my son with him.
40:54: It was worse than sending me.
40:57: Because he was the informer.
41:01: She knew he was going to come back and tell me everything.
41:04: But anyway, long story short.
41:09: I think he said something about apple porn.
41:11: Maybe.
41:14: Well, again, though, there's righteous sexuality, there's unrighteous sexuality, and the Bible defines righteous sexuality as that which is held within the bond of marriage.
41:24: So right away, what does that tell us? If we are going to discuss the subject of homosexuality, up until just a few years ago, it wasn't even an option.
41:37: Because even the world, as sinful as it is, did not recognize any form of homosexual marriage.
41:46: Well, yes, we could go back a few years and we could talk about unions.
41:52: But before that, they had what they called same-sex partnerships, same-sex unions, but they weren't on the level of marriage.
42:00: I'm just saying that it was the Obergefell decision with the Supreme Court that created a universal demand that all states had to accept homosexual marriage.
42:12: In fact, that's why in the courthouse in Duval County, you can no longer get married.
42:17: Which, it was only used for a political reason.
42:21: What's that? I believe that they...
42:25: My point is simply to say they didn't want to be forced to do homosexual weddings, so they just stopped doing all weddings.
42:34: Period.
42:36: That was it.
42:36: I mean, there might be more to it than that.
42:38: I have not looked into it, but...
42:39: They put an envelope on whenever they brought in a new wife.
42:41: Well, sure.
42:42: Yeah, absolutely.
42:44: So, if we simply take a basic view of sexuality, it is this.
42:50: Sex is to be held within the bond of marriage.
42:53: Now, before we even go on to talk about homosexuality, let me say, you may disagree with that.
42:58: You may say, you know what, Pastor? I think people can live it up, have sex, whatever.
43:03: You would be saying that on your own authority, not on the authority of Scripture.
43:09: I've had people say that to me.
43:10: I've had people in our own church who have gotten caught up in sexual sin and said things like, well, I'm happy.
43:17: Don't God want me to be happy? I say, God is not as concerned with your happiness as He is with your holiness.
43:24: God is not as concerned with your happiness.
43:26: Because I've had people say, well, God wouldn't want me to be unhappy.
43:28: I say, show me that in the Bible.
43:30: Show me in the Bible where God doesn't want you to be unhappy.
43:34: The Bible never says, be happy as I'm happy, but it does say, be holy as I'm holy.
43:37: It says, does God want me to be miserable? The Bible says, the present sufferings we now experience are not to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
43:45: I know people who live lives that are difficult because they live for Christ.
43:51: But it's the most blessed life of all because they're living for Christ.
43:55: William Tyndale ran from danger at every turn because he was willing to translate the Bible into English.
44:03: You are indebted to him because he was one of the first to translate the Bible into English.
44:08: And he ran from the authorities.
44:09: He ran from those who wanted to kill him.
44:11: And he ended up being burned at the stake because of his faith.
44:15: Was his life in vain? No.
44:18: But was his life a happy life? Well, it was a blessed life, but he was always on the run.
44:25: So don't come to me with your concerns about happiness.
44:30: I mean, I don't want you to be unhappy, but at the same time, the more important thing is that we be holy and not so concerned about being happy.
44:39: The Bible says if we understand who Christ is, we'll be satisfied in Him.
44:44: God is most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in Him.
44:48: Paul says, I have learned to be content in every situation, whether I have a lot or whether I have a lack, whether I'm hurting or whether I'm not hurting.
44:59: I've learned to be content.
45:02: Yep.
45:03: God's grace is sufficient.
45:04: Absolutely.
45:05: So let's look at the second thing I noted.
45:08: First was the Bible's position on righteous sexuality.
45:11: The second is the claim that the Bible is unclear about homosexuality.
45:18: There are people who will say, and this has become very popular among a very fringe group of scholars.
45:27: And I say fringe, meaning they are...
45:29: fringe means to be on the outside.
45:30: They are not your typical evangelical scholars.
45:34: They are on the outside, men like Brownson and others who have written books on this subject who argue that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality.
45:47: They say the Bible only condemns certain types of sexual behavior and they focus primarily on the homosexual behavior between men and boys, which was very common in 1st century Rome.
46:04: There was a lot of what we would today call pedophilia.
46:10: And so that was happening at the time.
46:13: And there are other sexual perversions that they would say refers to things like temple prostitution and male prostitution.
46:25: And they would say that the Bible condemns those things, but that the Bible does not condemn a committed homosexual partnership.
46:37: That's the argument.
46:38: That's the argument of Matthew Bynes and Brownson and others.
46:42: They argue God is not opposed to committed homosexual relationships.
46:46: And here's my response to that.
46:49: The Bible does not ever give anything to say.
46:56: The Bible never says anything about committed homosexual relationships.
47:01: It doesn't say anything about that in the positive.
47:06: Let me finish my thought and I'll get to your question.
47:08: Because here's the thing.
47:11: I've already told you what the biblical standard of sexuality is, right? One man, one woman.
47:16: They are made for one another.
47:18: They're made to be with one another.
47:21: And so the idea that there is a positive expression of homosexual union, it's not found in the Scripture anywhere.
47:30: Go ahead.
47:32: Well, we're going to talk about that in a moment.
47:34: We will get to Sodom and Gomorrah.
47:36: And I do think it's relevant, but I'm trying to come in at a different angle than to go there.
47:44: Because I do want to look at one specific passage that is often used by Christians and I want to make sure we understand it.
47:53: And it's in Leviticus.
47:55: So turn to Leviticus 18.
48:02: Leviticus 18, verse 22.
48:11: Yes, sir.
48:24: Okay.
48:25: Leviticus 18, 22.
48:26: Now, how many of you have ever heard of Ian McClellan? He played Magneto in all the...
48:34: He played Gandalf.
48:35: He is a very outspoken homosexual.
48:38: I don't know if you know that.
48:41: Yes, he is a very outspoken homosexual.
48:44: And he has stated publicly, and this is not something I'm making up, he has stated publicly that when he visits hotel rooms and there's a Bible in the hotel room, he will take the Bible and tear out Leviticus 18, 22.
48:57: Now, I didn't make that up.
48:58: That's just something he said.
49:00: Because this passage is probably one of the most used attacks against homosexuals because of its clarity.
49:09: And so he says, I don't want to hear it.
49:10: I don't even want to be in the same room where it's at.
49:12: So he tears it out and discards it.
49:15: But notice what it says.
49:17: It says, You shall not lie with a male as with a woman.
49:21: It is an abomination.
49:24: So for a moment, let's just kind of break that down.
49:26: You shall not lie with a man as with a woman.
49:29: How does a man lie with a woman? Sexually.
49:32: So the statement here is a sexual encounter.
49:35: I mean, it's not ambiguous.
49:36: It's not like, oh, well, that's your interpretation.
49:38: No, that's what it says.
49:39: It says you shall not lie with a man as with a woman.
49:41: And then it says it is an abomination.
49:43: Now, the word abomination simply means something that is something that is heinous or detestable, something that typically the word is used for something that smells bad because if you think of the word aroma, a sweet aroma, the Bible talks about a sweet aroma which goes up to the Lord, you know, when we burn incense.
50:03: In the temple, they burn incense and it says God smelled a sweet aroma.
50:07: That's the distinction of abomination.
50:10: Abomination is a detestable or a bitter aroma, something that doesn't smell.
50:16: You remember the abominable snowman? You ever heard the phrase abominable snowman? Well, the reason they called him the abominable snowman is because everywhere they would find these tracks where they thought were the Yeti tracks, it would often be accompanied by a smell, a very, very bad odor so that he was not just the snowman or the Yeti, he was the abominable or the smelly snowman.
50:39: And so the idea of abomination is something that simply is sickening.
50:45: But notice that it's couched between two other verses.
50:48: Verse 21, You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God, I am the Lord.
50:56: Who was Molech? Molech was a God that people would offer their children to as sacrifice.
51:01: There was a...
51:04: What's that? I'm sorry.
51:09: Molech was a statue.
51:11: Inside the statue there was a burning oven and people would come and lay their children on that and they would sacrifice to Molech.
51:20: So the Bible is saying, don't offer your children to Molech.
51:22: Let me ask you a question.
51:24: Is that good or bad? It's horrible, right? And so we understand verse 21 is absolutely clear.
51:31: We don't do that.
51:33: Verse 23, And you shall not lie with any animal or make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it.
51:39: It is a perversion.
51:41: Is that good or bad? That's bad.
51:43: It's called bestiality.
51:44: So we have...
51:45: This verse is couched between two other verses.
51:48: The first verse is about child sacrifice.
51:52: The second verse is about bestiality, have sex with animals.
51:56: Right in the middle of that is this passage about homosexuality.
52:02: So this is why a lot of people use this passage because it is...
52:05: Not only is it clear in what it says, but it's couched in the midst of other verses that are about heinous things.
52:11: Now, a lot of people will say, well, we don't have to believe that and we don't have to apply that because it's Old Testament Scripture.
52:20: And in one sense, I would say, okay, because the Old Testament Scriptures do give way to the New Testament.
52:30: And the Old Testament Scriptures are...
52:34: Understand what I'm about to say.
52:36: They are superseded by the New Testament according to the book of Hebrews.
52:39: The book of Hebrews says when the new covenant comes, it makes the old covenant obsolete because we are now not under law, but under grace.
52:46: We are in Christ.
52:47: But that does not mean those Old Covenant Scriptures don't have any value.
52:51: It simply means we're not part of that covenant.
52:54: I'm not part of the Mosaic Covenant.
52:56: I'm part of the New Covenant in Christ.
52:58: Understanding covenantal structure in Scripture is very important.
53:02: And there are Old Testament passages which are abrogated.
53:05: For instance, you guys eat pork sandwiches? Well, under the Old Covenant, you can't eat a pork sandwich.
53:11: There are certain passages...
53:13: You guys go for a walk on a Saturday? That's the Sabbath, right? Maybe not go for a walk, but go to work.
53:22: Maybe would be a better term.
53:23: Go to work on a Saturday.
53:24: And so the argument is that there are certain passages that are abrogated in the New Covenant.
53:32: Why not this one? Why do we have to obey this one? Why do we have to believe this one? And so what I like to remind people is there is something that we call transcendental law.
53:42: Transcendental is a big word.
53:44: Transcendental simply means it is over all.
53:47: Transcendental means it rises above.
53:49: To transcend.
53:50: And so we have the Mosaic Covenant.
53:54: We have the New Covenant.
53:56: And then we have what came before the Mosaic Covenant.
53:59: What came before the Mosaic Covenant? A bunch of stuff, right? Adam, Abram, Noah, right? So we can say there's a lot of people who lived prior to the Mosaic Covenant.
54:11: Let me ask you a question.
54:13: Was murder wrong before Moses received the Ten Commandments? Yes.
54:18: Yes, it was.
54:19: Because when Cain killed Abel, it was wrong, right? So we would say that murder is what? It is transcendental.
54:31: It transcends the Covenant.
54:33: It is not only part of the Mosaic Covenant.
54:36: It is part of the law of God which transcends all covenants.
54:40: That's why it's still wrong to murder today.
54:43: What about lying? Was it wrong when Jacob lied to his father and put the stuff on his arm to make his father think that he was Esau? Was it wrong when he lied to his father? Yes.
54:57: But had it been written yet that thou shalt not bear false witness? No.
55:00: The law came later, but the standards still apply.
55:05: There was a transcendent law, right? So lying was always wrong regardless.
55:10: So the question is, is homosexuality only a sin under the Mosaic Covenant? No.
55:17: Or is homosexuality a sin that is transcendental, meaning it transcends the Covenant? Absolutely.
55:23: I would argue that it is for two reasons, and I'm going to go with what you said, brother, because you mentioned Sodom.
55:31: Sodom is a good example of something that occurs prior to the Mosaic Covenant because when was Sodom destroyed? During the life of Abram.
55:42: Remember, Abram is there with God and they're looking out on the city, and he says, God, if there are 50 righteous, would You save some? If there are 40 righteous, would You save? If there are 10 righteous, and he keeps bringing the number down, and God, if You'll let me speak just one more time.
55:59: Who was righteous? Lot.
56:02: Lot.
56:02: Only one, right? And so God saved him and his family, him and his daughters because his wife turned to a pillar of salt.
56:07: But the concept here, though, is why did God destroy Sodom? Now, some people say, well, we don't know why God destroyed Sodom.
56:15: It could be that Sodom was simply a terribly horrible place that was full of all kinds of sin.
56:21: I agree.
56:22: But let me finish.
56:23: I agree it was probably filled with all kinds of sin.
56:27: It really was because if we go to later books of the Old Testament, they actually refer to Sodom, and they refer to their mistreatment of the poor.
56:35: They refer to their oppression.
56:39: And so there are places in the Old Testament that talk about Sodom's sins.
56:44: But when we go to Genesis, where the story actually takes place, what happens when the two angels who look like men go into Sodom? They wanted...
57:01: Yes, and here's the thing.
57:03: Some people argue, well, we don't know what they wanted.
57:05: It simply says they wanted to know them.
57:07: But the biblical word, the word know, does have the context of having a sexual relationship.
57:15: And here's how we know that.
57:16: Because Lot offered his daughters in their place.
57:20: Lot offers the daughters in their place.
57:23: He says, here, have them.
57:25: Which, by the way, wow.
57:28: I mean, two guys he doesn't know versus his daughters.
57:33: It kind of gives a reason maybe for the later.
57:36: Remember, they take advantage of him, get him drunk, have children.
57:39: Things get really weird in the life of Lot after Sodom.
57:47: But the men of the city wanted to have intercourse with the angels that look like men.
58:00: And they were mad that they didn't get it.
58:03: So is that an explanation of why God destroyed it? It certainly fits within the parameters of the destruction.
58:10: God destroys for sin.
58:13: Is that a sin? It fits within the parameters.
58:16: Again, my argument is simply to point out that this is a transcendent sin.
58:19: Prior to Moses writing Leviticus 18.22, there is an example of homosexuality being a sin.
58:26: But what about after? What about the New Testament? Does the New Testament say anything about homosexuality? I would argue that it does.
58:37: And here is one passage.
58:41: And I want to break it down.
58:43: I know I'm almost out of time.
58:44: I'm out of time, so I need to make this quick.
58:47: If you want to turn to 1 Corinthians 6.
58:57: Verse 9.
59:00: I used to highlight that verse in the Bible.
59:03: Well, just remember, there's a lot of other things on the list.
59:06: The very first thing on the list is not homosexuality.
59:10: The very first thing on the list is porneia.
59:13: Because it refers to sexual sin first.
59:16: And that's the sexual sin that we might refer to as the kind that men have with women.
59:24: Because it says this, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
59:41: And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
59:50: So, very clearly the text says such were some of you.
59:54: Not such are some of you, but such were.
59:56: Some of you were swindlers.
59:58: Some of you were greedy.
01:00:00: Some of you were sexually immoral.
01:00:01: In fact, some of you were even practicing homosexuality.
01:00:06: Yes.
01:00:06: So that means a change of ways, right? Yeah, well the call is the call to repentance.
01:00:11: Yeah, such were some of you.
01:00:13: But let me just say, let me say this though.
01:00:16: Here's the key.
01:00:17: When we get to this passage, you will hear people say, they will say this is not referring to two consenting men having homosexual relationships.
01:00:27: This refers to male prostitutes or it refers to men having sex with boys which we all would agree is wrong.
01:00:36: Here's the problem with that.
01:00:39: One, that very awkward interpretation has only been offered up in the last generation.
01:00:46: So we went 2,000 years clearly understanding what this meant and only within the last generation where there has been an attempt to try to normalize homosexuality has this verse been reinterpreted.
01:00:58: And two, if you understand the Greek language and you understand Leviticus 18 and the Septuagint, you understand that that just doesn't hold water.
01:01:07: Because the words that are used here, and I'm going to get a little bit of linguistics here so don't get weird on me.
01:01:15: But the words that are used here are two.
01:01:20: In the ESV it simply says men who practice homosexuality.
01:01:23: But in the King James Version it says the effeminate and those who, I forget exactly that word.
01:01:30: If anybody's got a King James they can tell me.
01:01:31: But I think it says those who abuse themselves.
01:01:34: Because they didn't have the word homosexual it wasn't a normal word in the 1600s.
01:01:37: So they said men who abuse themselves.
01:01:39: So here's the terms.
01:01:40: Malakoi and arsenikoitos.
01:01:52: That is the two words that are used in the Greek.
01:01:55: The word malakoi literally means in the simplest form it means soft.
01:02:02: It's used in other Bible verses to refer to things that are soft.
01:02:06: If you were to go to Matthew 11 it talks about men that are dressed in soft clothing.
01:02:11: That's the word malakoi.
01:02:12: If you go to Luke 7 25 it's the same thing.
01:02:15: Men are dressed in soft clothing.
01:02:16: That is soft.
01:02:18: But when it refers to a man who is soft it doesn't mean that he is soft like not strong.
01:02:25: But it means that he is effeminate.
01:02:33: Or we might say he is passive.
01:02:40: You say well how does passive relate? I'll explain it in a moment because arsenikoitos is the more important phrase.
01:02:47: Arsenikoitos actually helps us define malakoi because they are used together.
01:02:51: Arsenikoitos comes it's actually a combination word and there is a good chance Paul invented this word.
01:02:58: We don't see it outside.
01:03:00: Arsenikoitos.
01:03:01: Arsenos means male.
01:03:05: Koitos which you may be familiar with the word koitos it's a scientific word used to mean sex.
01:03:14: It actually means to bed.
01:03:17: But that is euphemistic for sex.
01:03:20: So literally arsenikoitos means male sex or sex with a male.
01:03:27: And so we see here the malakoi who is the effeminate or the passive and we see arsenikoitos which is the active the one who is having sex the one who is doing the sex and the passive then would be the one who is receiving.
01:03:49: So we would say this is the active and passive participant in a homosexual exchange.
01:03:56: Now I hope I don't have to draw a picture to understand what I'm saying.
01:04:01: But there are two people involved in a homosexual encounter.
01:04:04: There is the one who gives and the one who receives.
01:04:07: Thank you.
01:04:10: That's that's I mean for lack of a better term and in that sense we have both.
01:04:17: Yes.
01:04:22: Yes but Well we can look at that but I want to demonstrate how this connects to Leviticus 18.
01:04:31: It says that those of no understanding take and twist the word to Paul.
01:04:36: Oh sure yeah absolutely absolutely.
01:04:38: So but the word arsenikoitos actually does come up in 1st Timothy as well.
01:04:43: We see it in 1st Timothy 1.10 when he is giving a list of sins.
01:04:47: He also includes that word there too.
01:04:49: So he uses the word twice but both times the word means the same thing.
01:04:53: But here is my point.
01:04:53: What I wanted to get to remember Leviticus 18? What did Leviticus 18.22 say? Yep.
01:05:05: Man shall not lie with a male as a woman.
01:05:08: Right? Now what language is Leviticus written in? Hebrew.
01:05:15: Hebrew.
01:05:17: So Paul is actually connecting his argument in 1st Corinthians 6 to Leviticus 18 but he is doing it through the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint.
01:05:33: And if you are not familiar with the Septuagint the Septuagint was written about 200 years before Christ when the Greek language was taking over the world and Alexander the Great had essentially conquered the known world for Greece and the Greek language and Greek culture was spreading throughout the world.
01:05:47: There was a group of scholars who came together the 70 that is what Septuagint the 70 scholars who came together they translated the Old Testament Hebrew Bible into a Greek Bible so that they could read it because many of them were learning Greek and some of them that was their only language.
01:06:04: Remember the Hellenists in Acts 6? They were called Hellenists because they were Greek speaking Jews.
01:06:09: They didn't speak Hebrew.
01:06:10: They spoke Greek and so there was a Bible that was written in their language.
01:06:15: The Greek Bible was called the Septuagint and many of the New Testament writers cite the Septuagint when they are citing the Old Testament.
01:06:23: We know that because they specifically use Septuagintal language when they make their citations.
01:06:31: So here is the point.
01:06:32: When Paul uses the word arsenokoites these two words arsenos and koitos are both taken from Leviticus 18.22 The Greek translation of Leviticus 18.22 when it says a man shall not lie with a man as with a woman he is using the phrase arsenos for male and koitos for lying together.
01:06:59: And so Paul is taking the language of Leviticus 18.22 which specifically refers to a homosexual encounter a man lying with another man as with a woman and he is using it to produce this word which identifies the sin that he is referring to.
01:07:21: So the argument that the Bible is unclear is not true.
01:07:26: The Bible is clear.
01:07:27: Homosexuality was a sin before Moses.
01:07:30: It was a sin during the law of Moses and it is a sin now.
01:07:33: And this is why Paul says when God gives people over to a depraved mind one of the things that happens is they leave the natural affections of the opposite sex and they burn with passion for their own sex.
01:07:47: That's Romans chapter 1.
01:07:49: Yes sir.
01:07:56: Yeah.
01:07:57: Which translation do you have? Yeah, so it's making it simple, right? Yeah.
01:08:04: So, here's how I want to close this out.
01:08:08: And if you're upset with me, if you disagree with me, if you're mad at me, understand that's not my purpose.
01:08:14: I didn't come here today to kick anybody in the teeth and I want you to know I love you.
01:08:18: I love everybody.
01:08:19: I don't come here because I hate you.
01:08:21: I give my time, you know, guys who come here, we do this because we want to be used of God in your life.
01:08:30: But here's something to consider.
01:08:32: God calls us to love people who are homosexuals.
01:08:38: But he does not call us to affirm sin.
01:08:42: The world says the only way we can love the homosexual is by affirming their sin.
01:08:47: Which means we cannot love them the way the world says.
01:08:54: Let me say that again.
01:08:56: We love homosexuals, but we cannot affirm their sin.
01:08:58: The world says the only way you can love them is by affirming their sin.
01:09:01: Which means we cannot love them the way the world says.
01:09:06: So what can we do? Here's what we can do.
01:09:09: Hear this now.
01:09:10: I know you guys have to go.
01:09:10: God bless you.
01:09:12: Number one, we can lovingly call people who are homosexuals, we can lovingly call them to repent of their sin the same way we would do any sin.
01:09:21: If you came to me and you said, brother, I'm a thief.
01:09:24: I would say, brother, you need to repent of your thievery.
01:09:26: If you came to me and said I'm a drunk, I would say, brother, you need to repent of your drunkenness.
01:09:30: Right? Well, why would I say anything different to a homosexual? Understand that to turn away from sin involves struggle.
01:09:41: I have to understand that.
01:09:42: If I call you to repentance of being a drunk, that may be something that you struggle with, brother.
01:09:46: And I have to try to help you and walk with you and love you.
01:09:49: We had a lady come to our church one time.
01:09:50: She came to my office with my wife and me.
01:09:52: And she said, I want you to know I'm a homosexual and I struggle with this.
01:09:57: I said, well, I love you and I want to help you and I want to pray for you and I want to walk with you.
01:10:01: But I am telling you that is a sin and my heart for you is that you understand the call of God to repent.
01:10:08: And for me to say anything different would not be love.
01:10:12: Understand this.
01:10:13: Truth without love is monstrous, but love without truth is meaningless.
01:10:18: I'll say it again.
01:10:21: Truth without love is monstrous.
01:10:23: If all I did was go around spouting the truth and I didn't love anybody, that would be monstrous.
01:10:27: But love without truth is meaningless.
01:10:32: If there's no truth in our love, then there's no meaning in our love.
01:10:38: So my goal is to pray earnestly that God would give them a heart of repentance.
01:10:43: And here's the thing He does.
01:10:45: I'll give you a quick story.
01:10:47: There was a lady named Rosaria Butterfield.
01:10:49: Have you ever heard of her? Rosaria Butterfield was a professor.
01:10:55: I believe she was a professor of English at a university.
01:10:59: She was a very brilliant woman and she was a lesbian.
01:11:04: She was outspoken in her lesbianism.
01:11:08: She was, quote-unquote, I believe, married to her sexual partner.
01:11:13: And they had a huge community of homosexuals that they ministered to within their community of their homosexual community.
01:11:25: God saved Rosaria Butterfield and God changed not only her heart, but He changed her life.
01:11:33: She is now the wife of a pastor.
01:11:37: She is a mother and she is a changed life.
01:11:43: God can change a heart.
01:11:47: So my prayer is God would change hearts.
01:11:51: And as He is working, I want to minister in love and minister in truth.
01:11:59: So my prayer is that would be your attitude as well.
01:12:02: But never sacrifice truth on the altar of worldly love because that's not what we're called to do.
01:12:11: Let's pray.
01:12:12: Father, I thank You for Your Word.
01:12:13: I thank You for Your truth.
01:12:15: Thank You for this short bit of time I've had to speak with these men.
01:12:19: God, I pray that You would use it in some way, shape, or form to move among these men and help them to understand better what Your Word has to say.
01:12:28: Lord, if I have brought an offense by my words, Lord, may it be forgiven.
01:12:33: But if I have brought an offense by Your Word, Lord, may that offense cut the heart and may hearts be changed.
01:12:40: In Christ's name, amen.