Mythbusters part 5

If a denomination, business, (can you say “Chick-fil-a?) or individual don’t agree with this, they are immediately accused of being bigots, homophobes, haters, and the like.

The latest step in this direction is the insistence that same-sex marriages are not just to be tolerated, but celebrated as a beautiful thing.

Our own president placed his seal of approval on same-sex marriage in a nationally televised address.

Now, the KEY CLAIM of those promoting this agenda is that homosexuals are born this way, that their sexual preference is genetically caused—hence, they can’t help it, they must be who God created them to be.

This claim of a “gay gene” has changed the argument and given the homosexual community the edge in the minds of many.

How can we frown upon their lifestyle if indeed they are “born this way?”

In fact, we live in a day where genetics are being looked at as the cause of even all criminal behavior.

One criminologist recently wrote that “genetic factors could be a strong predictor of which path you end up on.”

This includes alcoholism, drug abuse, and other deviant behaviors.

So, as with so many other contemporary attacks against long held Christian convictions, it all comes down to what the Bible has to say about it.

Our source of truth is the Scriptures—not our feelings, not what “seems” right, not what society says is true, but what the eternal Word of God has to say about it.

The Word of God is the standard by which we measure all claims of truth or falsehood!

I want to take an honest look today into God’s Word, which is far from silent on this topic.

And let me say up front that I have no personal beef with anyone living this lifestyle.

I am not a hater, or a bigot, and I’m certainly not a homophobe—I have no “dread fear” of homosexuals, or of adulterers, thieves, murderers, or extortioners, or any other sinner, because I, too, am a sinner saved by God’s grace.

My prayer today is that we can see the truth as it is laid out in God’s Word, and then you can do with it what you please.

Let’s look at three angles to the homosexual, “same-sex marriage” issue:

First,

God’s Original Plan

Going back to the beginning in the book of Genesis, we find that there is a clear and evident design for relationships and sexuality.

It all began with God’s recognition of Adam’s aloneness.

Gen.2:18 “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.”

Adam was surrounded by a stupendous creation.

God had placed him in the middle of it all in the Garden of Eden “to tend and watch over it” (Gen.2:15).

God had also brought before him all of the animals that he might name them.

2:19-20 “He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals.”

“But still,” says the Bible, “there was no helper just right for him.”

So God took action:

“So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.”

Now keep in mind that every single thing God had created had passed before the eyes of Adam, yet not one of God’s creations had been a fit for him.

So God created a being perfectly suited and complementary to the man.

He called her woman.

“Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

So, when God saw the aloneness of the first man, He uniquely created a companion for him.

Nowhere else in all of creation did God create a living being the way He created woman.

All of creation had sprung from nothing—ex nihilo—by the spoken Word of God.

But human beings were different.

The man was “formed” from the dust of the ground.

And the woman was made from man’s rib.

Her closeness to the man could not have been more acute by the fact that God literally formed her out of the rib of man—that body part closest to his heart.

This was God’s plan, God’s ideal.

He looked at what he had done and said, “It is good!”

And God personally “brought her to the man.”

Moses, who wrote Genesis under the inspiration of God’s Spirit, comments in the very next verse:

2:24 “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”

So the plan and pattern of God for the human race is clearly laid out here.

God made woman for man.

She was made to be an equal partner that was a helper that complemented him – emotionally, spiritually…and most obviously, physically.

She was literally to be a rock of support for him.

THINK ABOUT IT: If God, the Almighty Creator, had seen that another man would have been best for Adam, that’s what He would have done!

Now, moving to the New Testament, Jesus clearly substantiates this truth.

In answer to a question about when a man could justifiably divorce his wife, Jesus replied:

“Haven’t you read the Scriptures? They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’ (Matt.19:4)

Now notice, their question to Jesus was about divorce, not gender.

Yet Jesus begins His answer by making a statement about the two genders.

“God made them,” said Jesus, “MALE and FEMALE.”

What is Jesus saying?

That marriage was designed by God for MALE and FEMALE.

Only after establishing the truth of the two genders does He launch into the subject of marriage by quoting Genesis,

“A man shall leave father and mother and be joined to his wife…”

So coming back to the issue of our day, did Jesus say anything about same sex marriage?

Yes!

He said something about it by pointing out that, from the beginning, marriage was designed for MALE and FEMALE!

So, now that we understand that marriage was originally designed by God to be between a male and female, and not two men or two women, what does the Bible tell us about a “gay gene?”

Let’s look at what scripture says about:

Where homosexuality begins

I wish I understood all of the deep complexities of same-sex attraction and the pull of the homosexual lifestyle.

I know that some people struggle mightily with that temptation, as do other people with the temptation to adultery, fornication, pedophilia, and other sexual vices.

But the few things I do know for sure I gather from the scriptures.

First, for the record, homosexuality is not as widespread as some would like you to believe.

For years now, homosexual organizations have been promoting that 10% or more of the population is gay.

But a study just published by the National Center for Health Statistics demonstrates that only 4% of men and women consider themselves to be homosexual or bisexual.

The figure of 10% is a myth that continues to be propagated with the intention to establish a sense of normalcy for the gay community.

SECOND, according to the most recent science there is no gay gene.

A “GENE” is the basic unit that transmits characteristics from one generation to the next.

Gene’s decide eye and hair color, height, race, and so on.

What we receive genetically is non-negotiable.

There is nothing we can do about our eye color, hair color, skin color, and so forth.

What we’re born with we get to keep.

So if there is a gay gene, it means that the person has no choice in the matter.

Or if there’s an “alcoholic” gene, or a “drug addict” gene, they, too, have no choice but to be what their genes have programmed them to be.

And this is exactly what is being claimed by the current homosexual movement in America.

This view became popular back in the early nineties when Newsweek ran the cover story, “Is This Child Gay?” (Feb. 24, 1992).

The story was based on research done by a man named Michael Bailey.

What is ironic about this (and sad) is that in 1999, Michael Bailey refuted his own findings by saying his earlier study was flawed.

But the damage had already been done, because within seven years the belief in a gay gene was ingrained into our culture.

Unfortunately, the media were more than happy to trumpet Bailey’s initial claims, but said little to nothing when he refuted them.

Columnist Ann Landers’ message to her readers sums it up when she writes emphatically, "homosexuals are born, not made."

But as of today there is no scientific evidence of a “gay gene.”

"Gay gene" researcher Dean Hamer was asked by the periodical Scientific American if homosexuality was rooted solely in biology. He replied:

"Absolutely not!”

The American Psychological Association wrote in 2009,

"…it is clear that efforts to 'prove' that homosexuality is simply a biological fait accompli have failed.”

Quoting further it says, "The activist researchers themselves have reluctantly reached that conclusion. There is no gay gene. There is no simple biological pathway to homosexuality."

And the Bible would agree!

In the most well-known and infamous New Testament passage on homosexuality, Romans 1, Paul writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit two different times that it is a choice:

1:24-27 “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who EXCHANGED the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women EXCHANGED the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”

The word “EXCHANGE” is a verb.

It means “to trade,” “to trade one thing for another.”

Their journey into homosexuality is not presented as something they were powerless to resist.

It was a conscious trade-off, not a genetic demand.

Think with me a moment:

If God actually created a person to do something He in turn expressly condemns in His Word, wouldn’t that make God a cruel monster?

Abraham said, “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?”

And another Biblical proof that homosexuality (and other sins) is a choice is found in:

1 Cor. 6:9-11 “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither FORNICATORS, nor IDOLATERS, nor ADULTERERS, nor HOMOSEXUALS, nor SODOMITES, 10 nor THIEVES, nor COVETOUS, nor DRUNKARDS, nor REVILERS, nor EXTORTIONERS will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”

Paul places homosexuality right in the middle of nine other sinful lifestyles—three of them sexual in nature—in the past tense!

They are no longer living in these sins!

“Such WERE some of you…”

MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION:

If homosexuality is genetic, how did these folks walk away from it?

ANSWER: The same way the drunkards, extortioners, thieves, adulterers, and others did—they turned to Christ, were born again, and by grace experienced deliverance!

So the message of a “gay gene” or an “alcoholic” gene or a “thief” gene is a myth.

What is true is that, in one sense, we were all indeed “born” to commit sin because we’re all fallen beings.

We were all born with a sin nature, “born in sin” said David, and “shaped in iniquity.

We have all broken God’s law because “all have sinned” and fallen short of God’s glory.

Scripture says “There is none righteous, no not one.”

So in that sense we were all “born this way.”

And what is God’s answer?

Be born again!

The Good News is that there is forgiveness in Christ at the foot of His cross!

PRAYER:

Related Media

Related Sermons