Homosexuality

Romans 1:18-32. Pg. 939

Introduction

I want to warn you that the sermon I have prepared to preach this morning will be filled to the brim with sacrilege and blasphemy

Not blasphemy against the true God, of course, blasphemy against the gods of our new pagan religion

The gods of secular humanism and sexual essentialism

Todays sermon is particularly sacrilegious because it is a denial of the most sacred doctrines of secular humanism during the holiest season of the year, pride month.

Resisting the Flow of the Culture

Normally, in this church, when we preach, we focus in on the message of one particular passage of scripture

But this morning, in keeping with this festive season, I too want the talk about homosexuality.

For several reasons. First, it is so continually jammed down our throats that it is important to be reminded of what is right.

Second, I want you all to know you’re not crazy, you’re not alone, and you’re not wrong.

Third, I want to tell the truth in a world of lies.

Social Pressure

Fourth, I want us, as a church, to push back against the immense pressure to cave on this issue.

And there is a concerted and largely effective effort to pressure churches, governments, institutions into accepting the lies of the sexual revolution.

One by one over the past generation, we have seen institutions cave to the pressure.

Up until 1973, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a mental disorder.

But due to the work of homosexual activists, they changed it to a ‘sexual orientation disturbance.’ By 2015 the APA designated homosexuality as a ‘normal expression of human sexuality.’

This change took place, not because of any scientific or medical breakthrough, but merely because of social pressure.

The wind has been blowing this direction for a long time and it has blown over just about everything that has stood against it.

In a 2016 article for Religion News Service, one writer urged conservative Christians to consider voluntarily changing their traditional views on marriage and homosexuality.

The implication being, of course, that if it is not done voluntarily, it will be done involuntarily.

Before we decide to change our position on this important issue, let see what God has to say about it.

Read Romans 1:18-32.

Thesis: Homosexuality is unnatural, it is dishonorable, it is shameless, it is rooted in false religion.

A New National Religion

It would be a mistake to completely separate the LGBTQ issue from the broader movement of sexual liberation

Free love, feminism, LGBTQism, and sexual liberation are all interconnected and flow from the same religious presuppositions

Salvation is achieved through sex.

Indeed, the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, one of the architects of the sexual revolution, wrote a book titled, Salvation Through Sex.

Meaning, purpose, wholeness can only be achieved when one throws off the shackles that religion or society or family has placed on one’s sexual expression.

Any limits on one’s sexual desires is either self repression or suppression and can only result in harm

Therefore, society must be changed so that the individual is free to express his own sexuality in any way he desires

Salvation is achieved through sex.

“Through sex, mankind may attain the great spiritual illumination which will transform the world, which will light up the only path to an earthly paradise.” -Margaret Sanger

Sexuality is the New Soul

In vol. I of his work, The History of Sexuality, the postmodern philosopher, Michel Foucault asserted that sexuality has replaced the idea of the soul in our collective consciousness.

Whereas the soul gave a human being dignity and value and even in some sense, individuality, in the Western Tradition, now one’s sexuality provides that function.

One’s self, one’s sexual orientation and desires and identity are the most essential part of an individual.

This is what has come to be known as sexual essentialism. That is , one’s sexual orientation and desires and identity make up who that person is in his essence. The core of his being is his sexual self-identity.

“Denial of one’s “sexuality” is akin to denial of “oneself” and so also one’s basic “identity.” It is, therefore, easy to understand why more and more people believe that it is wrong to deny a sexual relation to oneself or to anyone else simply on the basis of marital status, sexual orientation, or gender identification. To do so is tantamount to denial of one’s sexuality and so oneself. A denial of the self’s basic needs is in turn both harmful and an infringement of each persons right to pursue a full and whole life.”

It is for this reason that sexual liberation is so vital.

It is not merely a matter of one being free to do what they want, it is a matter of one being free to be who they are in the deepest sense.

Sexual suppression is violence toward a person’s inward being.

Denying a person’s sexuality is akin to denying their existence.

This is why refusing to call a transgender woman an actual woman is so offensive to the sexual revolutionaries.

Better to let the man into the women’s locker room than to deny that they exist.

So goes the logic.

Disagreement with one’s self-perception is a denial of who they are in the deepest sense and therefore is a denial of their existence. Which in their minds is far worse than any physical violence perpetrated against them.

Do you sense the deeply religious nature of the sexual revolution?

Evangelism

As Christians are fanatically concerned about the salvation of souls, so the sexual revolutionaries are concerned about the salvation of sexualities.

As we evangelize to see people redeemed, so they evangelize to see themselves and others ‘liberated’

San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir

Some of you may remember back in July of 2021 when the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir came out with their YouTube hit, “A Message from the Gay Community”

“We’ll convert your children – happens bit by bit, quietly and subtly and you will barely notice it…”

Of course, they claimed it was irony and that they were merely trying to make fun of the religious right who had so unfairly demonized this victimized community

But the actions of the LGBT mafia have demonstrated that these lyrics are no joke at all and that there is a serious effort underway to convert our children.

Obviously, gays cannot have their own children, so if they are going to have any future, they must have yours

Family Gay Pride Events

For instance, this last week the city of Chicago hosted the Queer Fam Pride Jam

The Mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, welcomed guests, children’s content YouTube star, Ms. Rachel performed along with Drag queens like Fabulous Freddie who danced provocatively, periodically accepting dollar bills proffered by toddlers

One journalist reported that the majority of the attendees were 40 year old men and 4 year olds.

Disney

You’ll remember two years ago when Disney executives talked about “Our not so secret gay agenda” to insert queerness into animated Children’s content.

Our children have been consuming a diet of subtle and not so subtle gay content from their studios for over a decade now.

Drag Queen Story Hour

We’re well familiar with this initiative in which perverted men, dressed as women, seek an audience with young children in order to teach them that a sexually deviant lifestyle is completely normal and healthy.

What could go wrong?

All the while, the American Library Association has sought to stop Christian groups from meeting in like manner because they might marginalize the LGBT community

Public Schools

We could go on to talk about how the religion of sexual liberation and homosexuality is preached in our public schools, on social media, by psychiatrists, sociologists, therapists, in the news media

By our government, whose buildings are lit up in rainbow colors.

By our Armed forces who, according to their social media accounts, seem to be as eager to fly the Pride/Progress flag as they are to fly our nation’s flag

These are just a small sample of the ways in which the sexual revolutionaries proselytize on behalf of their religion, seeking new converts

Blasphemy Laws

As our new state religion, it is not merely concerned with evangelism, but also with blasphemy.

As a result, blasphemy laws are enforced, if not by the government, by their colleagues in corporate America, News Media, Human Resources, social Media and Hollywood.

By now we know the drill all too well

A Public person says something slightly heterodox concerning the LGBTQ community

He receives a barrage of criticism, his contracts are threatened, and a few days later he is apologizing for his ignorance and callousness. He’s “on a journey” and will do better.

Many here would face serious ramifications in their career if they were to openly criticize the alphabet mafia on social media.

You might lose your job for saying something as benign as, ‘men should not marry other men.”

When Harry Became Sally

In 2018, Ryan Anderson published his book, When Harry became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement

It was a rational, level headed critique of transgender ideology, drawing from philosophy, biology, and psychology

Shortly after his book was published, Amazon came under immense pressure from the alphabet mafia to remove it

Amazon obliged, publicly stating that they would no longer sell any books that labeled LGBTQ identity as a mental illness

Criticizing the transgender movement, having enough compassion on transgender people to tell them they are harming themselves, and warning others to not travel the same path is considered by Amazon to be a thought crime which will get your books banned.

But, to this day one can still purchase Mein Kampf, the works of Mao and Stalin, even the Manifesto of the Unabomber on Amazon.

Anderson’s crime’s are more serious in the minds of the executives at Amazon than the Unabomber’s because whereas the Unabomber merely engaged in acts of murder and terrorism, Anderson blasphemed our gods, the gods of the sexual self sexual expression

Sacrament

Finally, this new religion comes complete with its own sacrament; no less than the human sacrifice of the unborn.

Consider the logic

I am god, my sexual expression is my essential self

The unwanted child threatens my sexual expression

Therefore, to appease the god of the sexual self, I must offer the child as a sacrifice

And so we have murdered millions of our own to slake our new gods’ thirst for infant blood.

But they will never be satisfied.

LGBTQism is a Religion

It holds immense power in our society, and has captured most of our cultural, political, and governmental institutions.

There is no question as to whether we will be a religious nation, the question is which religion will we have?

Thus far, we’ve chosen the gay religion.

Homosexuality is Unnatural and Harmful

The LGBTQ movement at every point runs contrary to the reality of the natural world

The Nietzschean notion that the individual can, by brute force, impose his will and desire upon this malleable world

I am my sexual desires. I am my sexual orientation. I am my sexual identity. Therefore, any part of this world which does not recognize who I am can and must be changed.

in our new religion, Psychology trumps biology, philosophy, sociology. Psychology trumps reality.

Psychology Cannot Change Reality

Try as we might we will never change God’s creation to fit our unnatural desires.

It doesn’t matter how many contrary voices you silence, it doesn’t matter how many surgeries you undergo, it doesn’t matter how many hormones you take, it doesn’t matter how many credentialed and politically motivated experts you get to agree with you,

You must conform to reality, you cannot make reality conform to you.

And as long as we try to force our psychoses on reality, we will only damage ourselves.

Denying the Law of Nature

In Romans 1 Paul says that homosexuality is contrary to nature.

Going against the laws of nature never ends well.

Like living as if the Law of Gravity did not exist

Biological Incompatibility

The first tell that homosexuality is unnatural is the most obvious.

Human biology does not work that way. It is not juvenile to point that out.

Two men cannot produce offspring. Nor can two women

The male apparatus works with the female apparatus.

This is natural law

Health Risks

The risk of contracting an STD alone is illustrative of the harm homosexuality poses

Homosexual men are 9 times more likely to contract AIDS and their risk of anal cancer is increased 37 fold

Those who identify as LGBTQ are far more likely to experience sexual violence and are far more likely to experience depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and suicidal ideation

It is not for nothing that Paul says that they received in themselves the due penalty for their error

Homosexuality leads to misery on the individual level because it is unnatural

Social Damage

Sexual expressionism does more than pose danger and harm to the individual, but also to society as a whole.

Homosexuality erodes the very fabric of society by radically redefining marriage and therefore the family.

No society can exist in peace and safety without strong and functioning families.

And the family begins in the union of one man and one woman who parent future generations, passing on to them the wisdom of the ages, training them how to be responsible and functioning citizens of their community.

The child receiving from his parents the unique gift of fathering and the unique gift of mothering which are so vital for young ones to grow into healthy, mature adults.

The Sexual Revolution has sought the weakening and the overthrow of the family unit.

From the earliest days of first wave feminism to the contemporary insistence that gender is meaningless and fluid, our new religion has seen broad scale success in their war on the family.

A society given to homosexuality will struggle to reproduce itself, thus destroying its own future because a man and a woman are required to produce future generations

We act as though surrogacy, adoption and reproductive technologies fix this problem, but they do not.

A child raised by two mommies or two daddies will struggle. Studies have shown that children raised by same sex parents struggle to achieve success in life when compared to those raised by their biological parents

According to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health children raised in same sex homes are far more likely to be obese, to consider suicide, to be doped up on psychotropic drugs, be depressed as adults.

And the National Health Interview Study showed that these children are far more likely to have learning disabilities.

The More we try to force that which is unnatural upon nature, the more harm we will incur

Like smashing our bodies into a boulder rather than walking around it.

Psychology does not trump reality.

Homosexuality is an Abomination

God has spoken to us through nature concerning homosexuality, But He has even more clearly spoken on the issue through His Word.

Modern Revisionism within the Church

Unfortunately, at this late date, it is not only those outside the church who are pushing Christians to convert to the new religion of sexual essentialism.

Many leaders within the church, in the name of love and tolerance, are encouraging their brothers and sisters to accept homosexuality as normative, healthy, and beautiful.

Immense external pressure has been exerted on the church to get it to conform to the religion of sexual essentialism

Unfortunately, that external pressure has been successful in some arenas and has caused much internal pressure as well. Some within the church are now calling on their brothers and sisters to accept the new sexual religion

“It isn’t gay Christians who are sinning against God by entering into monogamous, loving relationships. It is the church that is sinning against them by rejecting their intimate relationships.” -Matthew Vines (pg. 162)

The claim of these sexual revisionists is that the Bible nowhere condemns monogamous homosexual relationships, it only condemns homosexual fornication, rape, and adultery

So we must be reminded what God actually says about the sin of homosexuality in order to steel ourselves against attacks from without and within.

In short, God calls homosexuality an abomination

We see this from the first pages of Scripture.

Creational Reality (Gen. 1-2)

Heterosexuality was God’s plan in the beginning

Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

There is a complementarity of maleness and femaleness in the human race. They are two parts of one whole, completing one another.

There is no spectrum of genders, there are two. And these two together become the bedrock for all civilization, society and culture.

Genesis 2:24 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

The union of one man and one woman was God’s design from the beginning.

There is a complementarity of maleness and femaleness in the human race. They are two parts of one whole, completing one another.

Man was created for woman and woman was created for man. From them flows children, and families, and nations, and cultures.

Homosexuality was not a part of God’s design for creation or the human race.

OT Condemnation

But we are given more than implications in scripture. In both Old and New Testaments contain prohibitions and warnings regarding homosexuality.

Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:1-11.)

Jon read the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah already this morning

The implication is that the great sin, though not the only sin, of Sodom is Sodomy

Jude makes this clear in the NT when he says in Jude 7

“just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

Homosexuality is abhorrent in the eyes of God

Levitical Law

Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Leviticus 20:13 “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.”

Many Christians Claim this doesn’t count because it is Leviticus

The Old Testament laws don’t apply to us today

We eat shrimp today, we wear clothes with mixed fabric, even though Leviticus forbids such things

The answer is not to jettison the whole of the OT or the whole of Leviticus, the answer is to understand Leviticus within its context

Some laws in Leviticus are applicable today, and some are not. And it is not being arbitrary or cherry picking to say so. But we don’t have time to get into that discussion this morning

But at the very least we can say that those laws given in the OT which are repeated in the NT are still binding.

And that is exactly what we see with the prohibitions given in Lev. 18 and 20

NT Condemnation

Homosexuality as a Judgement

We began this morning reading Romans 1 which says

Romans 1:24–27 “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 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.”

Here we read a clear condemnation of homosexuality

It is called a shameless act, impurity, a dishonoring of one’s body, dishonorable passion, error

It is not only sin, but it is contrary to nature. (παρα φυσις)

Men and women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

I have, this morning, held together two distinct but inseparable ideologies, that of secular humanism and that of sexual essentialism

The one flows from the other, and given Paul’s words in Romans 1 this should not be surprising

Romans 1:22–23 “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

When the worship of the Creator is replaced by the worship of creation, in our case, the worship of the sexual self, the judgment of God follows

We worship creatures rather than the Creator and as judgment are given over to the dishonorable and unnatural passions of homosexuality

Homosexuality is not merely sin, it is judgment and it is clear that we are currently under God’s judgment

Homosexuality Incompatible with Righteous Living

If this wasn’t enough to know what God thinks about homosexuality, He gives us more insight

1 Timothy 1:8–11 “Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that 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, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.”

Homosexual practice is here described as ungodly, unholy, profane.

It is associated with other sins such as sexual immorality, lying, perjury, parental abuse, and man stealing/slavery.

It is contrary to sound doctrine, it is not in accordance with the gospel.

Homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 “Or 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. 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.”

Here, as in 1 Tim., the condemnation of homosexual acts in Leviticus is affirmed and validated in the NT.

The phrase, ‘men who practice homosexuality’ is actually two words in the Greek

Malakoi

Effeminate, soft, the passive partner in the homosexual act

Arsenekoites

Literally a man bedder. The active partner

That is, both men are condemned as unrighteous.

Importantly, neither can enter the Kingdom of God. That is, it is damnable sin

Not too long ago, the president of the SBC, J.D. Greear erroneously stated in a sermon that homosexuality doesn’t send anyone to hell.

He said, “do you know how I know? Because heterosexuality doesn’t send anyone to heaven.”

Do they teach logic in these schools?

What a horrible thing to say to a gay person. They are walking into their own destruction and you would not warn them?

God is not silent on the issue of homosexuality

Far from being silent or ambiguous on the issue of homosexuality

He has spoken very clearly in the Scriptures calling it an abomination, unnatural, an error, a dishonoring of the body, a judgment

It is heinous sin

In the 1940’s gender theorist and philosopher Simone De Beauvoir said that no one becomes a woman, but rather, one becomes a woman, thus denying the importance of ones unchanging biology, and emphasizing the ultimacy of ever shifting society and the instability of one’s own internal psychology.

“Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. Persons of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities shall enjoy legal capacity in all aspects of life. Each person's self-defined sexual orientation and gender identity is integral to their personality and is one of the most basic aspects of self-determination, dignity and freedom.” - The Yogyakarta Principles, Principle 3

The Nietzschean notion that the individual has the brute force to impose his will and desire upon this malleable world

Homosexuality Can be Forgiven

Clearly, God abominates the sin of homosexuality.

Clearly, homosexuality is harmful and unnatural.

But actually, the most important message this morning is not that homosexuality is sin.

The most important message this morning is that God saves sinners.

Perhaps you’re here this morning and you are openly gay. Perhaps you are closeted. Perhaps you’re someone who identifies as a Christian but but harbor deep seated same sex attraction.

God saves gays. But He does not leave them in their sin.

God saves sinners

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 “Or 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. 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.”

You do not need to be this way. There is a way out.

This is not who you are, this is what you have chosen to do. And what you have chosen to do has brought great guilt and misery upon yourself.

You were not born this way, there is no such thing as a gay gene, past trauma did not force this upon you, this is not an immutable characteristic.

Your gayness is quite simply the lust of the flesh.

It has made you unfit for the kingdom of God.

But there is hope. Paul says in 1 Cor. that some Christians were homosexuals, but then they were washed, sanctified, and justified. They were made clean and holy and had all of their sins forgiven in Christ.

This can be you.

Not because you try really hard to not be gay

Because God is a God of love and mercy and grace.

He freely forgives all who humbly come before Him seeking pardon

Not trusting in their own works, but trusting in the work of Christ on their behalf

Like the apostle Paul, a murderer, you can find forgiveness and be transformed, the kingdom can be yours.

Like Mary Magdalene, the prostitute, you can fall at Jesus’ feet and worship Him, you can receive His love and freedom from past trauma and sin and abuse

Like King David, a murderer and adulterer, you can be forgiven and healed and restored.

But it will not happen without repentance. It will not happen unless you name your sins for what they are and forsake them and call out to Jesus for salvation.

This is true for all of us. homosexuals, Sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers, none of us will inherit the kingdom unless we trust in our king to save us from our sin.

None of are fit for the kingdom, all of us have been disqualified due to our sin against God.

Such we were. But Christ has washed us, sanctified us, and made us righteous. He has, despite our sins, granted us the kingdom and life forever.