Christianity, Homosexuality, And Gay Marriage

Christianity, Homosexuality, and Gay Marriage – What Do We Do With the Bible? One of the wonderful things about America is that we have gotten to be smarter than God (hope you recognize satire when you read it). We are now wiser than he is, we know better than he does how to love our fellowman and what is inherently right, and we no longer need his word as any kind of a guide to life. God if you will just take a seat over here to our left behind us and let us handle this we will take care of it. Yes, maybe you had it right once but you have grown old and we are young and our intellects are sharp and it is a new day. We are so arrogant that sometimes it is hard to believe. Maybe we ought to call this the Age of Arrogance. We would prefer to call it something like the Age of Enlightenment but if memory serves me correct that appellation has already been taken. Oh, well, maybe we can find another that will flatter us just as well. The subject of this little piece is Christianity, homosexuality, and gay marriage and what we are going to do with what the Bible has to say about it all. There is really no need to discuss it for it is becoming more obvious what we are going to do with it every day. We are going to use the Bible as a football and give it a big swift kick, one so hard that it will get it so far away from us we will never have to see it again. At least when one kicks a football he can go get it again and bring it back but it is not quite so easy getting the Bible back after you kick it away. There has to be a desire to go get it and with the Bible the desire, once it is kicked away, is seldom if ever found to retrieve it. We now have, I believe it is as of the time I am writing this (May 2009), 5 states that have gay marriage as law. I think most of us feel certain that number will continue to grow and if the legislatures do not make it law the courts will legislate for them (and for us). Does this mean we will be another Sodom and Gomorrah? God will decide that. What it does mean is that we approve of the homosexual life. When Lot settled in the area of Sodom the Bible says, “the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.” (Gen. 13:13 ESV) We know, because we are told, that Sodom would have been spared destruction had God been able to find as few as 10 righteous men there (Gen. 18:32). He could not do it. Well, what was their sin? No one doubts it was sexual immorality for that is the only sin we read about in connection with Sodom. When the two angels came to Lot’s house the Bible says, “the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.’” (Gen. 19:4-5 ESV) Yes, other sins were involved here (had they gotten their way) aside from homosexuality – fornication and rape to name two – but there is no doubt that homosexuality was one of the sexual sins. It is obvious that the men of this city practiced homosexuality. God made Sodom and

Gomorrah an example for us. “If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.” (2 Peter 2:6 ESV) As was said earlier “the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners.” (Gen. 13:13 ESV) We know what their ungodliness consisted of. The Bible speaks of God rescuing “righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked.” (2 Peter 2:7 ESV) When the law of Moses came many years later God still had not changed his mind with regards to the sin of homosexuality. “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” (Lev. 20:13 ESV) Well, how about today? Paul says, “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.” (1 Cor. 6:9 ESV) Yes, I know there are today some churches that consider themselves to be Christian that accept practicing homosexuals into full fellowship and some who have even elevated the same to positions of authority within the church. Can we say these churches are faithful to the Bible? Can we say they believe the Bible? They are in effect saying a practicing homosexual can inherit the kingdom of God and thus claim to know more about it than the Holy Spirit himself as he spoke through Paul. In 1 Tim. 1 Paul talks about some who wanted to be teachers of law and he says this, “the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane” and then lists among others “men who practice homosexuality.” (1 Tim. 1:9-10 ESV) He wraps up this section by saying “and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the glorious gospel.” (1 Tim. 1:10-11 ESV) Thus homosexuality is lawlessness, disobedience, ungodliness, unholy, profane, and contrary to sound doctrine in accordance with the gospel. In Rom. 1 Paul speaks of history, of years gone by, and says of those who did not honor God as God but went off into idolatry that, “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.” (Rom. 1:24 ESV) He goes on, “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” (Rom. 1:26-27 ESV) I would like to ask a question here. God’s stand against homosexuality could not be any clearer. When one takes a stand for gay marriage it is obvious he is taking a stand for, in favor of, homosexuality. How would you like to be that man in the Day of Judgment? Now understand I am speaking of every legislator who votes in favor of such, every judge that gives his blessing to it, every person who knowingly votes into office those who favor the same. Is no one to be held

accountable? Yes, I think even us lowly voters will be held accountable for the way we vote when we know ahead what is likely to be the position taken by the candidate once he/she is in office. It is not just the practicing homosexuals who will be held accountable but any who support those who have helped to promote it. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!” (Isa. 5:20-21 ESV) Does that not describe what is going on in our country today? We are wise in our own eyes, loving and tolerant, in allowing what God disallows. We are sweeter than he is, kinder, more gracious, more loving. We will call darkness light and that will make it so. Does no one in this country fear God? Let someone say that God will punish this country for its evil and he is ostracized. Why? Because we consider ourselves godly, too good for punishment, not deserving, all the while we spit in the face of God’s own word. Perhaps you have learned this already, you probably have. Words no longer have any meaning. We make them mean whatever we want them to. It is now 2009. It has been approximately 2,000 years since Christ was on earth. In that 2,000 year period of time who would ever in their wildest imagination thought of marriage as a union of a homosexual couple? The answer is absolutely no one until just recently. The consensus through history was that homosexual unions were sin. Now it is blessed matrimony. I wonder what the response of my grandparents who have now been gone approximately 50 years would have been in my youth had I asked them if they had heard that Johnnie and Dick were getting married? They would have looked on me with bewilderment thinking my mother and dad needed to take me aside and have a little talk. What we have now was unknown, unheard of, beyond anyone’s imagination just a few decades ago. Jesus said, “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 they shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh.” (Matt. 19:4-6 ESV) I am too stupid to know so I need someone to tell me who is the wife in these homosexual marriages? Can you have a marriage without a wife (I guess today you can have anything you want)? While you are answering that one maybe you can tell me why God made them male and female in the beginning versus male and male or female and female? I would also be very interested if you could give me one example from the Bible of a same sex marriage. If you could that would be one of the greatest discoveries of the twenty first century rivaling anything science might come up with.

Where are we headed? I have but little doubt that it is just a matter of time until same sex marriage is instituted all across America whether by hook or crook. When that day comes we will essentially be where Sodom and Gomorrah were in the sense we will have given full approval as a nation of homosexuality having endorsed and made into law a thing that is clearly sin. But, remember we are a godly nation too good to ever be punished by God. We are the best God has on earth – that is the way we think. He ought to be glad we are as good as we are, so we think, because we are pretty good. We are even better than he is and that is good. The final step then will be to regulate freedom of speech and the freedom of churches to act. How do you like the term “hate speech?” Would you like to see speech regulated? I am not sure it is that far away nor am I sure that Christians are going to remain free in the United States to freely and openly practice their religion. Many there are already among us who have absolutely no respect for the Bible and consider it intolerant and unloving. To them it is “hate speech.” Are we headed back to the persecutions of the first century? Homosexuality is no more damning than any other sin and one can certainly be forgiven of it. It is no different than fornication between a man and a woman. I think no less of a man who is a homosexual than I do a man caught up in any other sin. Anyone involved in any sin needs to repent and that includes me when I am doing something I ought not to be doing. But, my thesis in this article is that the Bible clearly teaches that homosexuality is a sin and I have a great beef with those who want to call it blessed. When people want to stick God’s word in the mud and then stomp on it that upsets me. David said, “I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked.” (Psalm 26:5 ESV) “You who love the Lord, hate evil!” (Psalm 97:10 ESV) It is evil to disregard God’s word. We ought not to sit with those who want to impose wickedness upon us.