There Is No Gospel In Homosexual Marriage - [Ephesians 5:22-33]

Bethlehem Bible Church iconBethlehem Bible Church

0 views

0 comments

00:00
I would invite you to open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 5. I'm sure you're aware by now, you know, the homosexual marriage talk has been all the rage here in the
00:12
United States, but this week the United Kingdom won us one better. Not only did they arrest my buddy last week, but this week the
00:20
Queen of England signed a bill that was approved by both the House of Commons and the
00:26
House of Lords. And under the new law, homosexuals will be able to join together in civil ceremonies or listen or in church services.
00:39
Same -sex couples are preparing or are already preparing their unions for this summer. The Prime Minister backed the bill to the consternation of many in his party, but Mr.
00:51
Cameron took a big political hit and some say his liberal leanings on the issue won't serve him well at the next election, well that'll be too bad.
01:00
The culture minister, who knew that they had a culture secretary anyway, she said of the bill, the title of this bill might be marriage, but its fabric is about freedom and respect.
01:14
Freedom to marry regardless of sexuality or gender, but also freedom to believe that marriage should be of one man and one woman and not be marginalized.
01:25
In other words, you can believe whatever you want about marriage. It's okay if you think you can marry whomever you want and it's also okay if you don't think that you can marry whomever you want.
01:36
We're going to play both sides of the fence. But prior to the law being passed, England allowed civil partnerships for homosexuals, but activists of the homosexual community said that's not enough.
01:51
And it created this idea that you can only have a civil partnership, created the image that gays, homosexuals,
01:58
I hate saying gays, you know why I hate saying gays? Because there's nothing happy about homosexuality.
02:04
And that's what that word means. It doesn't mean what they've turned it into, but anyway, the idea being that this bill or prior to this bill that somehow gays, homosexuals were inferior to heterosexuals.
02:18
Now ask yourself this, is it really about freedom? Will the people of England be free to believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman?
02:31
I don't think so. Eventually they won't be. Just like my friend Tony was on the street preaching the gospel and got arrested.
02:38
Now some of you may remember that I said last Sunday morning that Christians can't run around trying to put out every brush fire for every cultural issue.
02:48
And I meant that. But this evening, I hope you'll come to see that homosexual marriage is more than just some social ill.
02:57
It's more than just kind of the crisis of the day. It is more than a sin.
03:04
The sin is homosexuality. Homosexual marriage is a step further and it is an attempt,
03:11
I think, to make a mockery of the gospel. And again,
03:17
I'm going to try not to say gay marriage because there's no such thing. First of all, gay means a happy state of mind.
03:25
Homosexuality is a sin. It is as degrading and addictive a sin as there is.
03:31
It is so difficult for people that are in it to get out of it. There's nothing happy about it.
03:37
Slavery is not happiness and they are slaves to sin. Now to just kind of set us up a little bit,
03:44
I'm not going to spend too much time on this, but Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians, what we call the
03:50
Ephesians. Really it was a circular letter. It was sent out to the churches in the area and it was meant to be passed around.
03:58
It was like I send a letter to Bruce and I say, feel free to send it to your neighbors or to pass it around the neighborhood.
04:04
And it was that kind of thing. And it wasn't, I won't say it was a newsletter, obviously it's filled with doctrine.
04:10
The first three chapters are doctrine. And then the second three chapters are, okay, this is who we are in Christ, chapters one to three.
04:18
Now what do we do with that? How do we live out our lives? And so that's where we are. We're in the second half of it.
04:24
So this is practical application of the truths put forth in the first three chapters.
04:30
Well, let's go to the text. It's Ephesians chapter five, verses 22 to the end of the chapter.
04:38
I'm going to be looking for a water bottle here. We're all friends. So Ephesians chapter five, verses 22 to the end of the chapter, wives submit to your own husbands as to the
04:53
Lord for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior.
05:04
Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present to the church or the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.
05:41
In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
05:48
He who loves his wife loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it, cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body.
06:03
Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
06:13
This mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
06:19
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
06:28
Now tonight, this evening, I want to show you five pictures drawn from our text that illustrate what the relationship of Christ to the church is supposed to look like in a marriage.
06:41
And you'll see that the gospel is both featured in this passage and under assault by our culture.
06:49
The gospel? Yes, the gospel is under attack and we'll see that tonight. Our first picture is a picture of submission, a picture of submission.
07:00
Look again at the text. Wives submit to your own husbands as to the
07:07
Lord. Now, as Christian women, as those who are followers of Christ and female, you already submit to your master to Jesus.
07:18
And so he's saying in the same way that you would submit to Christ, you should submit to your husband.
07:24
Paul's just commanding what should be pretty obvious. If you're going to submit to Jesus, then you need to submit to his word and you need to submit to your husband.
07:35
Paul wants wives to put themselves under the authority of their own husband. No one else's.
07:41
If Mark tells Janet what to do, she doesn't have to do it. If I tell Anita what to do, she doesn't have to do it.
07:47
It's your own wife and your own husband. Now, the verb submit, interestingly, it's in the middle voice, which means that it's something that the wife needs to do.
08:00
She needs to corral her emotions, her feelings, and she needs to make herself submit.
08:07
It's kind of the idea. I'm going to, because I know it's the right thing to do, even though it's hard,
08:13
I'm going to get myself, my head wrapped around it, and I'm going to submit to my husband.
08:19
She has to fight her natural instinct, which is to do what? It's to rebel.
08:25
It's to take authority from her husband, just as Eve did in the
08:31
Garden of Eden. It is voluntary, but commanded.
08:38
Is there a contradiction there? No. God commands it, but if you don't have the right mindset, you won't do it.
08:45
You just won't. And this is exactly the sort of language, the same verbs and everything that we would see in describing the submission of the
08:55
Son, Jesus, to do the Father's will. He was essentially sent out by the
09:04
Father, but he willingly did it, and it's the same picture here. So as Christian wives, again, as they submit to Christ, as they submit to his lordship, as they obey him, in that same way they are to submit to their husbands.
09:19
Now, why? I love to do this at Christian weddings. Why? Because the ladies,
09:26
I remember one wedding I did where the ladies were like, I thought they were real close to charging me. It was pretty close.
09:33
They were getting that kind of mob look in their eyes. And I said, well, wait a minute. It's going to get better for you when you hear what it talks about for the husband.
09:42
But why? Why is this command even there? Is the wife less important than the husband? No. Look at verse 23.
09:52
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. His body is himself its savior.
10:01
Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. It's not because the wife is less important that she is to submit, but because God has determined a few things.
10:13
First of all, he's determined that there shouldn't be chaos in the home. If nobody's in charge, then what do you have?
10:21
Everybody doing their own thing. And it's the same way for the church. Imagine that the church were not submissive to the
10:29
Lord, then we would see chaos. Just like I have to tell you, this church where the wedding was at yesterday, we were looking for a wastebasket.
10:38
This has nothing to do with anything. This is Pastor Mike, a little vacation thinger.
10:47
So I walk into their library, because we're looking for a trash can, and Janitor says there's one in there. So I walk into their library, and I thought, well,
10:53
I'm just going to look around and see what books they have. The only book I could see where the gospel was presented was a book
11:00
I read. It was a biography called Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and it's about a
11:06
World War II pilot who gets shot down. And the only way that the gospel gets presented, because I don't think she's a
11:11
Christian author, is at the end of the book when the pilot goes to a Billy Graham crusade.
11:18
That was it. You know what I'm just like, in this whole library filled with books. Anyway, that's just a picture of an unsubmissive church.
11:27
And I save Steve. They're not submitting to the Lord. They're not equipping the saints for the work of ministry.
11:33
They're not doing that. They're not teaching the Bible. But that's that submissive language emphasizing the need of the wife.
11:42
It's the same thing for the church. But then again, look again at verse 23.
11:49
We're talking about determined that a home cannot be chaotic. Everybody can't be equally responsible.
11:55
Ultimately, the husband is accountable. He's the head. He's the one who's going to give an accounting for what happens.
12:02
Now, it's funny, because ladies get sometimes upset about this. But no one would have a problem understanding that children should submit to their parents.
12:11
Why? Aren't they equally image bearers of God? Aren't they equally valuable as individuals?
12:20
Yes. So why do they have to submit to their parents? Because that's the order of things.
12:30
There has to be an order. And when we're talking about marriage, if we go back, we're not going to go to Genesis.
12:36
But if we think about Genesis, what happened? God formed Adam. And then what? Adam was alone.
12:42
He looked around at all the different animals, brought them to him and everything. There was no suitable helper found. So God created
12:49
Eve. She was designed, women are designed to be helpers to men.
12:59
But Eve rebelled, as we recall. And what did she do? Well, I mean, a lot of people say she took the apple.
13:09
Whatever that was. The fruit, right? She believed Satan. In fact, she joined in Satan's distorting of the word of God.
13:20
But ultimately, what didn't she do? Let's put it that way. What didn't Eve do? She made a major life change, and she didn't do what?
13:30
She didn't submit to her husband. She was taking action, and she never even asked him.
13:36
She went out and bought a house on her own authority. Now, you can't have that.
13:45
There has to be order. There has to be structure in the home, just as there has to be structure in the church. Now, notice he also determined that Christ should be the head of the church.
13:54
You can read lots of liberals. They won't argue against this. But if it's offensive for wives to have to submit to their own husbands, then why not object to Christ or the church submitting to Christ?
14:05
He is the head. He is the leader. He is the authority. We are his body.
14:11
Now, just imagine for a moment a body rejecting orders from its head. I mean, my body will reject some, like, you know, jump six feet.
14:22
I can't do that. But the idea that a body and the head would be at war is not something that we would grasp, because that's not what's supposed to happen, at least in a healthy body.
14:37
I mean, can you imagine the body saying, Sorry, we're not going to let you tell us what to do, and that's what a lot of wives do, right? Sorry, I'm not going to listen to you.
14:43
I'm not going to take orders from you. Who are you? And I don't mean that guys should give orders. I just mean that wives need to learn to submit.
14:51
Why? Because the Bible says that. Listen to what O 'Brien says. He says,
15:19
Now, is she going to be in awe of her husband? Probably not. That's not the point.
15:24
The point is she's to be submissive to him. She's to look to him for leadership.
15:33
God also determined that Christ would save the church. Look again at verse 23. Even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior.
15:43
Now, the Holy Spirit could have used a different metaphor to explain marriage other than Christ being the head and the body being the church, and then the husband being the head and the wife being submissive to him.
15:57
But he didn't. Jesus is the perfect leader of the church. After all, he saved her.
16:03
But we're going to talk more about that in a minute. But the picture is Jesus is perfect, yes.
16:09
Your husband is not perfect. That's true. But the picture still holds. The church isn't perfect, and neither is the wife.
16:18
But the design is there. God also determined that the church would submit to Christ.
16:27
The one who saved the church is her head. She can no more rebel against him than a wife should rebel against her husband.
16:33
God also determined that wives should submit to their husbands in all things.
16:38
Again, that's in the text. In all things. The emphasis is on submission.
16:44
There's no area of life for a believer where Jesus is not
16:49
Lord, where we don't have to submit to him. And similarly, there's no area of life where a
16:56
Christian wife should fail to submit to her husband unless he commands her to do what? To sin.
17:02
Unless he, you know, wants her to sin. Our second picture is a picture of sacrificial action.
17:09
Look at verse 25, and this is where, you know, sometimes the ladies get a little happier with me.
17:17
Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Now, I usually, like I said,
17:25
I usually ask the ladies to give me just a minute to explain why submission, while difficult, is not really as crazy as it sounds.
17:31
If your husband loves you sacrificially, if he's willing to put your needs in front of his own, submission becomes easier.
17:42
I didn't say easy, I said easier. It's never easy. I think submission of a wife to a sinful husband is probably one of the hardest commands in all of Scripture.
17:54
And this is both the example, this verse here is both the example, in other words,
18:01
Jesus loving the church is the example, and the basis for the husband to act.
18:08
Why? Because he looks at Christ and the church and thinks, I'm in the church, I need to love my wife the way
18:14
Christ loved me. And how do you love me?
18:19
He laid down his life for me. He must remember the love of Christ for him and for his wife.
18:28
If we focus on the love of Christ for us, shown by his death on our behalf, does that motivate us?
18:36
I think it does. If we think of all the sins that we've committed and then we think of Jesus dying a death that we deserve,
18:43
I think that's motivation. Now, will we fail? Will we fail as husbands to love our wives like Christ loved the church?
18:51
Yes. Will wives fail to submit to their husbands 100 % of the time?
18:58
Yes. But Jesus died to redeem us from all of our sins, every failure, even the times where we failed to love our wives or we failed to submit to our husbands.
19:13
Now, husbands are to emulate, that is, they are to follow the sacrificial mindset of Jesus on behalf of the church.
19:21
No one forced Jesus to go to the cross. He went willingly, like what?
19:27
A sheep, like a lamb to its shearers, however,
19:33
Isaiah 53, all the language there. But he did it, why? Because of his love for the
19:38
Father, his desire to obey him, and yes, his love for whom? For us, for his own, for his sheep.
19:45
He laid down his life for his sheep. But just as no one can force a wife to submit, no one can force a husband to love sacrificially.
19:56
No one can force that. That's something where we have to think, in light of Jesus loving me,
20:02
I need to love my wife. So we've seen a picture of submission, a picture of sacrificial action, and I'm going kind of fast because I want to get to the really juicy stuff at the end that I jammed at the end.
20:14
Picture number three, a picture of sanctification, verse 26. That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
20:32
Now remember, this is an example of Paul, what he's really trying to do is he's trying to get us to think back to Ephesians chapters 1, 2, and 3, and to think of all that is ours in Christ Jesus.
20:50
And he says, what he's really trying to do here is turn the one another's in the church, or he's gone from the one another's in chapters 4, into what a
21:02
Christian home ought to look like in light of what God has done for us. Now in thinking of homosexual marriage, this point
21:11
I think is just super offensive. Why did
21:17
Jesus lay down his life for the church? To sanctify her, to cleanse her, to make her holy.
21:25
By washing of water with the word, by the way that doesn't have to do with baptism, it just gives us a word picture of the cleansing of what happened, all our sins being washed away by the blood of Christ.
21:42
And the word refers to the gospel or the word of God. But think about it this way, there is nothing sacred, holy, or sanctified.
21:53
All the things that Jesus did for the church, he washed her, made her holy, sanctified, clean.
22:00
There's nothing about those words that attaches to homosexuality.
22:07
Marriage is honorable. It is ordained by God to combine sin with it.
22:15
How do you combine abomination and marriage? Something honorable with something dishonorable.
22:22
Something that God has ordained with something God condemns. You can't. It's abomination squared.
22:31
It doesn't work. Jesus spoke of himself as the bridegroom in one of the gospels.
22:42
I think it was Matthew. The church is his bride. He died for her. Why? That she might have splendor.
22:51
All the language there is to describe the condition of the church where? Where are we going to be without spot, without wrinkle, without blemish, all those things?
22:59
And I say we corporately, the church, his bride. Where is that going to be?
23:05
It's in heaven. And it's nothing short of blasphemy to say that those practicing sin are going to enter into this covenant of marriage, which is pictured by Jesus, sanctifying, cleansing, making pure, preparing for heaven, the church.
23:25
God's covenant with the church is the basis of his work and his words redeem us to remove all of our sin and then to present us to himself.
23:35
And that's the image that Paul is using in this marital language here. Our fourth picture is a picture of sacrificial attitude.
23:45
Look at verse 28. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
23:54
He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body.
24:06
Now, as a married couple, as I said yesterday to Taylor and Laura, what? Two people become not one person, but one flesh.
24:19
Since no man has ever hated his own body, he's actually he's commanded to love his wife for what she actually is, which is an inseparable part of him.
24:28
They've become one flesh. And God says no one should separate that. Right. He is called to nourish and cherish his wife just in the same way that Jesus does the church.
24:40
Now, those are verbs, nourish and cherish. When you think about those, we think about nourishing, cherishing something.
24:46
I mean, I might think of my brother in this little FFA calf or whatever, you know, nourishing, cherishing, cherishing.
24:53
Or you might think of a child. But the bigger picture is it's really just about doting and caring and loving and wanting the very best for them.
25:04
And that's the kind of care that Jesus lavishes on the church. And that's how husbands are to care for their wives.
25:15
Now, does this sound like the stereotypical, you know, Bible believing man? You know, what's the stereotype?
25:21
An unbeliever will throw at you. Well, you just think you can boss her around and drag her around and do whatever you want. You know, you,
25:27
Tarzan, me, Jane. And that's not it. This is the very opposite of that language.
25:34
This is the very opposite of being abusive. Those ideas, you know, the whole kind of, well, you just want to treat women like they're second class citizens.
25:46
It really is sick. It's the very opposite of what Paul is declaring.
25:51
The word to put her first. Husbands behave like Christ. Love like Christ.
25:59
Lead like Christ. Nourish like Christ. Cherish like Christ. So it's first picture, a picture of submission.
26:08
Second, a picture of sacrificial action. Third, a picture of sanctification. Fourth, a picture of sacrificial attitude.
26:16
And fifth, a picture of synthesis. I had to work a little bit to come up with that one. Okay. You know, what is synthesis?
26:24
That's bringing two things together. The combining of the, well, I'll give you the precise definition.
26:29
The combining of the constituent elements of separate material or abstract entities into a single or unified entity.
26:36
That edified. Just means you bring two things that are different and you bring them together.
26:41
You mix them together. Now, I've never used the word synthesis at a wedding.
26:47
But it's a useful word. Two different persons combined into a single entity.
26:53
Into one flesh. Look at verse 31. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.
27:01
And the two shall become one flesh. I was at Jonathan Megan Newton's wedding.
27:09
Janet was with me. I don't want to leave her out. We were there a few weeks ago. And Harry said something I hadn't heard before.
27:14
He said the Septuagint, Genesis 2 .24, where it says leaving.
27:20
The Septuagint, the Greek translation of that, uses the verb for abandon. And I thought, there's a good picture.
27:27
Abandon your old family. You're just, you know, you need to separate yourself. Now, does that mean necessarily physical?
27:35
No. Because you can still be in the same household, and you can establish your own entity, your own family, as it were.
27:47
The wife, simply put, the wife is no longer under her father's authority. Separate yourselves emotionally and in terms of authority, even if for a time you have to live at home.
27:57
But synthesis is representative of the relationship Christ has with the church.
28:03
Look again at the text. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. He's talking about marriage, but just think about this.
28:12
Christ brought himself, perfect, holy, spotless, lamb, fully
28:18
God and fully man, together with us. Sinful.
28:28
And it never could have happened, the synthesis could have never happened, had he not lived a perfect life in our place. It never could have happened had he not been raised from the dead.
28:36
It never could have happened if he didn't die in our place. It could never have happened if he didn't reconcile us to God.
28:43
Only the one who is both fully God and fully man could bring together the perfectly righteous and those reckoned righteous, those counted righteous.
28:55
But the mystery is how the relationship of Christ and the church is a type or an illustration of marriage.
29:02
How is that? Well, ideally, a husband is so loving, so sacrificial in his actions and attitudes towards his wife as to emulate the love of Christ for the church.
29:16
Ideally, the wife is submissive in everything, just as the true church is to her
29:21
Lord. That's what marriage is supposed to look like. Now, again, consider in light of this, in light of this scriptural truth, how twisted the notion of homosexual marriage is, or for that matter, polygamy or any other aberrant form of marriage.
29:41
One entity, one synthesized body, but they have two roles.
29:49
Look at verse 33. However, let each of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
29:57
This is just a summary, kind of a recap of everything he's been saying. Don't forget, husbands, love your wives.
30:05
Wives, respect, submit to your husband. Now, I entitled this,
30:15
There is No Gospel in Homosexual Marriage. Again, that whole picture of Christ and the church is destroyed in homosexual marriage.
30:25
Homosexual marriage kind of wears a mask of respectability these days. Its proponents say it's about equal rights.
30:33
They should be free to choose to marry whomever they want, right? But biblically, it is nothing less than a frontal assault on the gospel itself.
30:42
The goal is to negate or even erase the image of Christ dying on behalf of the church.
30:49
If the definition of marriage set by our Creator can be changed, not only is it a shame to us as a nation, it is a slap in the face to our
30:59
Lord. He sacrificed himself for his bride, and these laws ignore and pretend as if all that matters is what sinful men and women want, just like Bruce was reading in Genesis 19.
31:13
That's all that really matters is their cravings, their desires. Now you might think, well, why is this such a big deal?
31:20
Well, we could argue about the constitutionality of this or that, but as Hebrew national hot dogs say, we're called to a higher authority.
31:31
And what do we know? We know that 2 Corinthians 10 .4, I believe it is, talks about Satan.
31:38
You know, these false ideas are brought up against the Word of God.
31:43
You think that Satan doesn't want to cancel out the purposes of God? I know he does.
31:50
And I'm convinced that his most successful attacks against the Word of God or are against the
31:57
Word of God. From the Garden of Eden forth, Satan has convinced men of a distorted understanding of what
32:03
God has said. I mean, now, I was just looking here this afternoon, there's a book on Amazon .com
32:09
that says, you know, homosexual marriage is fully compatible with the
32:14
Bible. So, I mean, you can get anybody to say anything, I guess, if they can make money on it. But the picture is of Jesus sacrificially dying on behalf of the church.
32:24
It is an essential part of the gospel, right? You can't preach the gospel to people without saying, look, I have bad news for you.
32:31
The bad news is what? You're a sinner. And then I have good news for you. Well, the rest of the bad news is you stand condemned before God, etc.,
32:39
etc., etc. The good news is Jesus died for people just like you.
32:47
And in this text, Paul says, look, that good news is a picture of what marriage is supposed to be like.
32:55
And that all goes out the window with this. What does the death of our
33:01
Lord signify within the confines of homosexual marriage? It doesn't. And I think this is by design.
33:09
Those who rejoice in evil are out to destroy every last vestige of the gospel.
33:15
Now, as pastors and elders, we say that God recognizes civil weddings.
33:21
In other words, if somebody comes to us and says, hey, pastor, we were married by justice of the peace, but we want you to marry us because we want to be really married.
33:29
We want to be married in a church. What do we say? We say it doesn't matter.
33:35
If a justice of the peace married you, then you are no less married than if you were married right here. If John MacArthur flew in for the wedding and did it right here, it would be the same, legally, morally, in the eyes of God.
33:51
But now, homosexuals are getting married by justice of the peace. Is that also a valid marriage?
33:58
The answer is no. Look at, turn your Bibles to Matthew 19. And recognizing that this is in the context of Jesus talking to the
34:13
Pharisees about divorce, but he does describe marriage, and let's see what it says here.
34:20
Matthew 19, verse 2. And large crowds followed him, being Jesus, and he healed them there.
34:27
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him, that's what they did, by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?
34:35
He answered, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
34:49
Again, Genesis 2, 24. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Wherefore, what therefore
34:56
God has joined together, let not man separate. Now, God does not join together, and that word is literally yoked together.
35:05
It has the idea of a couple of domestic animals being yoked together for work, because really that's what marriage is, right?
35:14
It's so you can better serve within the body. But God does not join together, yoke together, two men or two women, or multiple wives or husbands, or whatever is coming next down the highway here.
35:29
Not only would that make God the author of sin, imagine if he did bring together two men or two women for marriage.
35:38
That would make him the author of sin, and he isn't. It would also have him working against his own created order, against his word.
35:49
He made them feel male and female with a specific purpose and plan. He cannot frustrate his own plan or his own design.
36:00
That the government puts its seal of approval on what God says is contrary to his creation, pretending that two people of the same sex can be married, is nothing more than giving hearty approval of an abominable activity for which the end, like the end with all sin, is hell.
36:22
So now this next question is kind of easy. Can Christians be neutral or even support homosexual marriage?
36:31
Can they? I don't think so. We're to love what
36:37
God loves and hate what God hates. Now we love people, we want to give them the gospel, but homosexual marriage is another step here altogether.
36:49
So what about going to a homosexual wedding? Maybe you have a family member or a friend.
36:57
I don't know how you can. Part and parcel of the wedding is a mockery of the death of Christ.
37:05
If Paul says, this is a picture of marriage. Husbands, love your wives this way, just like Christ died for the church.
37:14
And you go to a wedding where it's two guys or two women. That's no marriage.
37:22
Think about 1 Corinthians 11, which we read often when we do the Lord's Table. We are to declare the
37:28
Lord's death until what? He returns. How can we then go and really join in mocking the death of our
37:38
Savior? The world approves of sin. We can't do it.
37:45
Romans 1 32. You know this well, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.
37:53
They not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. It's just contrary to the word of God.
38:01
We can't, as people of God, we can't just go, you know what? I have no problem with homosexual marriage.
38:08
I think homosexual marriage is fine. I support it. Why don't we have it in our church? Can't do it.
38:15
It's not just because homosexuality is a sin, but because it really is defaming to Christ.
38:24
1 John 1 9 says that we're to confess our own personal sins.
38:29
And when we say confess, what does that mean? It doesn't mean we go to a confession booth. It means that we agree with God that something's sinful.
38:38
So we're to confess, we're to agree with God about our own personal sins, but when we look at the sins of other people, we're to go, that's okay.
38:46
They can get married. No, we can't. Now, what is coming next?
38:56
What's next on the menu? Well, first of all, I think we can look for more persecution. I think Bruce kind of intimated that.
39:03
There are already lawsuits in several states against business owners who didn't want to participate in a homosexual marriage, but either by banking something or by selling flowers or whatever, they knew it was a homosexual marriage and they didn't want to be involved, so they're being sued.
39:18
I think we'll see persecution of churches. Think about this. I don't know how many of you read the
39:24
DOMA case, the rationale behind it, but basically what the court held, the
39:31
United States Supreme Court, was that the intent behind DOMA, signed by President Clinton, voted for by many
39:39
Democrats and Republicans, the court said that their intent was to discriminate, to put down homosexuals, to insult them.
39:51
So let me ask you this. If a church, let's say Bethlehem Bible Church, won't do homosexual marriages because we think it's sinful,
40:03
I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that a court could say, you know what, their intent is to discriminate.
40:11
Their intent is to make homosexuals feel like second -class citizens. Therefore, what?
40:19
Well, the best -case scenario would be we lose our tax -exempt status. That'd be fine. Worst -case scenario is discrimination is outlawed, and the government says either you marry homosexuals and afford them all the rights and privileges of your heterosexual members, or you go to jail.
40:39
What else might be coming? Well, we know that Romans 1, I just read the last verse, but we know that it describes what?
40:46
The descent of man as a society, as a culture, goes from one sin,
40:52
God says, fine, you want that, I'll give you more, and on and on it goes, right down as they just climb the ladder, they go down.
41:00
Well, let me tell you. In 1974, homosexuality was defined by the
41:07
American Psychiatric Society, not the American Bible Society, the American Psychiatric Society, as a mental illness.
41:16
That's less than 40 years ago. And now not only is it legal and normal, it's also the grounds for marriage in a growing number of states.
41:28
It was against the law, then it was a mental illness, now it's not only legal, but normal and worthy of marriage.
41:40
Can we doubt that what is now considered sick, twisted, a mental illness, may well be lawful and even celebrated in our children's lifetimes, if not sooner?
41:52
And I'll just put it this way. Let me just give you an example of something that is now considered a mental illness.
41:57
Pedophilia is considered a mental illness. What's it going to look like in 40 years?
42:08
So what do we do? Well, we're not going to hold protests. But we cannot be silent about the murder that is abortion.
42:19
Abortion is murder. And we cannot be silent about this mockery of our Lord's death. This isn't an emotional debate in the sense of defending the honor of my father or the honor of my wife or something like that.
42:34
This is really reason versus madness. You say, what do you mean, reason versus madness?
42:40
I mean, we look at things and we go, well, there's a created order. Men and women are different, and they serve different functions, and God loves them both and created them both equally, but they're different.
42:52
The world says, well, no, they're not. They're the same. This is observation, just us, just common sense versus suppression.
43:04
They're holding down the truth and unrighteousness. This is truth versus error. And the more truth we declare, the more angry our opponents will become.
43:16
Listen to what Jesus said to his disciples, a couple of different passages, John 15, 18, if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
43:25
They're not really loving us. I've been amazed at the level of vitriol, of really just the attacks that have increased against Christians here over the last few years.
43:38
Matthew 10, verses 25 to 28. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master.
43:46
If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household?
43:53
We're of the household of Christ. We are in his family, as it were. So have no fear of them for nothing is covered that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known.
44:03
What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the rooftops and do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
44:12
Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
44:19
We need to fear the Lord and do what he says. What else can we do? We need to pray for those in authority.
44:26
And you know what? In light of this passage, here's what I would say. Live out the gospel in your marriage.
44:33
Husbands, love your wives like Christ loved the church. Wives, submit to your husbands.
44:39
Blow the world away with the way you model the gospel in your marriage.
44:47
And then prepare for persecution because it's coming. And I often think this, and I think this should be just on not just something we think about but something that we really say and that we anticipate.
45:01
Even so, come Lord Jesus. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we confess that we are unclean in the sense that we're not as clean as we will be one day.
45:17
We sin. We fall short of the glory of God. We don't love our wives as we should.
45:25
And the wives here probably don't submit to their husbands as they should. Father, would you just grant us grace, commensurate with the command.
45:39
Lord, grant us a love not just for homosexuals but for people who just are enthralled with homosexual marriage, with every aberrant theory of sexual relations coming down the road.
45:57
We live in a world that is sick and getting sicker and loving every single second of it.
46:08
Father, would you grant us the boldness to declare your truth that these things are sinful, that they're wrong, that they're an abomination, that homosexual marriage is a non -sequitur.
46:22
Those two things don't go together. They don't match. They fail in this basic picture that Paul constructs for us of what a marriage is to be.
46:35
And they deny the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, would you give us a sense of urgency about the souls of those around us, those that we come in contact with in social media, every manner of communication that we have.
46:56
We don't know how short the days are, but they seem to be getting very short. And Lord, I pray that you would just prepare us for what is coming.
47:06
Give us hearts that just look forward. Give us minds that are steeled against the errors of this world, knowing that Satan, demons are in so many ways in control of the governing principles, the people who run things, the people who make decisions.
47:33
But let us not shrink from what you have called us to do, that is to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ.