WHEN SIN WAXES BOLD: THE PERSISTENT INSINUATION OF THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA

WHEN SIN WAXES BOLD: THE PERSISTENT INSINUATION OF THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA Jeremiah 8:12 Romans 1:18-27 With grateful acknowledgement of these sources of direction and inspiration: the Holy Spirit; the Word of God; William Bennett, The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family and Our Sacred Honor; Chuck Colson, recent articles from his Breakpoint web journal; Stanley Kurtz, "The End of Marriage in Scandinavia," Weekly Standard, 2 February 2004; Tom Minnery, Why You Can't Stay Silent October 31, 2004 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory It's Halloween weekend, and the children, dressed up as fairy tale characters, superheroes, witches and goblins are bringing their sweet faces and empty bags to our doors with the words "trick or treat!" on their lips. You know, maybe it's because I'm not a child anymore, but it just seems like Halloween isn't as spooky as it was in days past. I'm sure that's a good thing-we don't need to exalt evil and darkness, because there's plenty of it to go around. I'd like to talk with you for a few minutes about something really scary-a prospect that has the potential of changing the very nature of human culture for the worse-much worse. Actually, I'm on my way to bringing some biblical perspective on the issue of homosexual (so-called) marriage. On the way there, though, I want to review briefly Christian teaching on homosexuality and the nature of sin. In a nutshell, unrestrained sin always waxes bolder. Reviewing God's Opinion of Homosexual Behavior Romans 1:18-27 "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for ../../images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." Three observations: one, homosexual behavior is categorically wrong, and two, it is biblically a very advanced depth of wrong-more debased and reprehensible than other sinful behaviors. Unrestrained sin always waxes bolder. Or another way of saying it is, sin that is not reined in by law and decency keeps getting worse and worse. Romans 1 teaches us that homosexual behavior is wrong, and very wrong. And thirdly, homosexual behavior is so wrong that it is depicted biblically as evidence of a reprobate culture, standing on the bottom rung of descending humanity. Summary of an Unrestrained Sin Waxing Bolder In the past 50 years homosexuality has steadily grown in openness, brazenness and militancy. In the mid-twentieth century it was perversity engaged in by small groups of people in quiet corners of the culture, out of view. Then its proponents began to "come out of the closet" with declarations of having a valid, alternative lifestyle. Jumping on the sociological bandwagon of "tolerance," the gay and lesbian promoters started making even more noise about how they should not only be tolerated but actually respected. From there it was a short step to "gay pride" and an almost unbelievable pressure on the media for acceptance and ratification. Suddenly the homosexual theme is all over the sitcoms and stage plays and movies. In fact, to not include the gay theme was to be bigoted and intolerant. Soon momentum built to the point of being a political force, and the alternative lifestyle clan started insisting on legal recognition and special rites, all the while playing on the sympathies of a culture that was increasingly sympathetic toward the AIDS epidemic. Gay pride week with openly ribald behavior and sickening, concupiscent activities on the streets of the major cities. (Had the news agencies actually be able to air the stuff that goes on in those settings, there would have been such public outrage that the whole movement would be stultified.) And the persistent insinuation of the homosexual agenda continues to push society toward more and more acceptance. Meanwhile other sexually explicit public behavior invades the airwaves and the streets, homosexual, heterosexual and "omni sexual." Unrestrained sin always waxes bolder. It gets to the point of complete reprobation where, to borrow the language of Jeremiah the prophet, "they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush" anymore. (Jeremiah 8:12) In Key West, FL, last week the annual "Fantasy Fest" was celebrated. It has gotten so raunchy there that the city council had to ask ("ask"!) the gay bar owners to not allow naked body-painting and sex acts to go on out front of their establishments. The reaction to that advice? A web site that touts itself as "the gay information source for key West" responded with these words, "Good God, this is turning into a Republican town." By the way, the name of the web site: "the Pistol and Enema web site." …"they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush" anymore… …unrestrained sin always waxes bolder… The fact is that a less-than-four-percent minority class got public tolerance, social approval, legal endorsement, privilege and preference in the media and the courts, and now is trying to inculcate in the youth of America that hetero sexuality and homo sexuality are equally valid lifestyles, and to vigorously propagate that message with impunity through the boy scouts, the public schools and even the church. On top of that, the morally-spineless public has been duped into believing that any criticism of homosexuality is the equivalent of racism, and those who do so are routinely portrayed as bigoted, ignorant, intolerant, self-righteous and homophobic. The result of such an incredible paradigm shift is that even the 70+ percent of Americans who oppose the homosexual agenda are intimidated into silence. A kind of political correctness is in place that protects homosexuality with a protective suit of silence. The next step, it appears, is full acquiescence. Writing about false teachers who have left the faith and gone off into sinful, lascivious lifestyles, the apostle Peter wrote: "These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity-for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred commandment that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud." 2 Peter 2:17-22 The scripture warns that there is a righteousness revealed from heaven that stands against the wily lusts of the flesh. And the Word of God is clear that homosexual behavior is an affront to the holy God. Now we are actually facing the unthinkable proposition of whether we should legitimize it further by legalizing it into a civil marriage union. …"they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush" anymore… …unrestrained sin always waxes bolder… A Most Important Principle When the scripture addresses homosexuality it is never in a way that demeans the intrinsic personhood or value of any human being. The Bible is clear-we are all made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). And the Bible is equally clear that we are all sinners (Romans 3:20-23). So when we speak about the sin of homosexuality we must always do so in humility and in open acknowledgement that our sins are as damning to us and as offensive to God as anyone else's. We human beings owe a debt of respect and mutual concern for each other as created beings under God. The Bible speaks of each of us fondly as someone for whom Christ died. We have relatives and friends, colleagues and co-workers who may claim to be gay or lesbian. To every one of them we owe civility and decency, as we deal with them privately and in our public discourse. This does not mean, though, that we must give up the righteous fight for the principles on which our faith and civilization itself stands. We must not yield to those who would undermine our Christian moral creed. We must be a tolerant and loving people and a people of deep convictions, jealous for civil freedom and moral uprightness. We must love the sinner deeply and identify the sin clearly. Deep moral convictions are not antithetical to the American spirit of tolerance (if tolerance is rightly understood). Tolerance means treating others with respect and without extreme prejudice or hatred (or fear). But true tolerance does not require us to relinquish our commitment to holiness and righteousness. It is not the person God despises, but the sin. It is not the homosexual whom God rejects, but homosexual behavior. It is, biblically speaking, an abomination to Him. And no amount of interpretive acrobatics can get around the plain truth of scripture-homosexual behavior is sin, and sin of the basest sort according to Romans 1. What is Wrong With Homosexual Marriage? 1. It is wrong by definition - The very word "marriage" means, and has historically meant, the union of a man and a woman. "Male and female" He created them, and He told them to be fruitful and multiply, and He said, "A man will leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh." You can't therefore change the inherent nature of that union by simply asserting that two men or two women can likewise be married. It begs the definition. The human brain is made up of two hemispheres, the left and the right. Though the two halves share a great deal of responsibility, each half brings much in terms of uniqueness and critical contribution to the whole. Generally speaking, the left side brings reason and logic, systematic thought and analytical skill. The right hemisphere provides recognition, creativity, synthesis and intuitions. One side could not survive and effectively direct the nervous system of the body by itself. Thus, for its intended purposes, neither would it work to have two left hemispheres joined together. You couldn't call that a brain. A brain is the joint juxtaposition of a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. That's a brain by definition. A marriage is a man and a woman juxtaposed in a committed relationship, each one bringing to the union a uniqueness that God intended to complement (and sometimes aggravate) the other half of the relationship. A zygote is a human egg joined and fertilized by a human sperm. If you only have an egg or you only have a sperm, you may have something, but you don't have a zygote. Water is made up of hydrogen (2 parts) and oxygen (1 part) brought together into a union. If you have two parts of hydrogen, but no oxygen, you have a chemical, but you don't have water. Water, by definition, is the union of both chemicals. God said, and every civilization in history has confirmed, marriage = 1 man + 1 woman. 2. It is wrong because it cannot fulfill the procreative purpose of marriage. If marriage is redefined to accommodate same-sex couples who cannot procreate life after God's intended plan, the gulf between marriage and parenthood, which is already seriously threatened, is widened to the extreme detriment of the society. God's plan is clear to anyone with even a shred of common sense-a man and a woman, covenanted together in a marriage for each other's benefit and the benefit of their offspring is the ideal nest for raising children. It has been for all of human history. Now, suddenly, in the 21st century, we're so smart that we know better? Chuck Colson: "When we defend traditional marriage, we're upholding far more than just the Christian definition of matrimony. Since the beginning of recorded history, every society and every major religion has revered and protected… marriage. It's the institution that nurtures, protects, and civilizes children. Marriage forms the framework of society's most basic institution: the family". "If supporters of same-sex marriage succeed, marriage would be reduced to nothing more than a legal contract between any two people based solely on feelings. True marriage would be abolished, and the damage to our society would be irreparable." Tony Campolo, renowned sociologist and Baptist minister said in an interview in Leadership magazine, "The church has unanimously, for 2,000 years, rejected same-sex marriage. I'm not arrogant enough to call them wrong." We don't have to guess at the consequences of such a change. We have living examples. In 1993 Norway, the most conservative Scandinavian country, imposed legalized "same-sex marriage" through the courts (sounds familiar). In 1993 Norway had a low out-of-wedlock birth rate. But once same-sex marriage became legal, their out-of-wedlock birth rate shot up radically. Why? The link between marriage and parenting was fractured, cohabitation without marriage became normal. Marriage lost any real meaning. According to Henning Beck and Rune Halvorsen, Danish and Norwegian sociologists, "The goal of the gay marriage movement in both countries was not marriage but social approval for homosexuality." Who are the victims? Children. Stanley Kurtz of the Hoover institution, wrote, "If, as in Norway, gay marriage were imposed here by a socially liberal cultural elite, it would likely speed us on the way toward the classic Nordic pattern of less frequent marriage, more frequent out-of-wedlock birth, and skyrocketing family dissolution." This would be a disaster-more broken families, more crime. Marriage itself would suffer by stretching its definition so far. But so would the children who are already being barely nurtured in steadily rising numbers of single parent households and environments of "alternative lifestyles." There are hundreds of reasons that our nation should not allow marriage to be reduced to something so meaningless as a convenient means of legal relationship. It's simple, really. The family is God's foundational creation. And he designed it to be populated by a man and a woman and their biological children. And He started it all with Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. 3. It's Wrong Because it Won't Stop There - if we expand the meaning of marriage to include same-sex unions, on what grounds could we legitimately oppose marriages between, say, three or more people, or weddings between siblings? If the push for homosexual marriage is just about equal rights, then watch out, because standing right outside the door are an estimated 30,000 polygamists who are already considering banning together to "get their rights legalized". What next? Incestuous relationships? Suppose a man and his daughter decide to marry-what will stop them? How about a gay man and a young boy? There is already a highly organized and politically militant gay group called NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association), whose openly stated goal is "to end the extreme oppression of man and boys in mutually consensual relationships." How about two male brothers? What about three women (how can the courts unreasonably restrict loving relationships to only a twosome?) or four men, or what about two men and six women and a dozen or so teenagers living in a shared, sexually active domicile? My point is this-there is a Pandora 's Box that a minority of people are trying to open. Why would we open the door to something that will spread to hideous proportions? A woman called the police to report that there was a skunk in her basement. What should she do? Leave a trail of bread crumbs from the basement up the steps to the outside door and prop the door open. She called back the next day - "Thanks a lot; now I have two skunks in my basement!" …unrestrained sin always waxes bolder… "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people." Proverbs 14:34 Conclusion How can America protect itself against the persistent insinuation of the homosexual agenda and stem the tide of destruction to the family? What can concerned American Christians do? 1. Live Worthy of the Calling You Have Received (Ephesians 4:1) - It won't do a lot of good to stand up for God's standards if our Christian lives are poor examples of godly living. Build strong marriages, raise wise and God-fearing children, and set good examples for onlookers. That is nothing different from the calling we have as Christians anyway. Philippians 2:15-16 "…blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe, as you hold out the word of life…" 2. Pray for our Nation's Leaders and Direction. Again this is nothing different from what we are taught in the scriptures, that "first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone-for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:1-4) 3. Publish Your Majority Opinion (Your Christian Principles) - A month or two ago, the Federal Marriage Amendment bill got a 227-to-186 vote; that's 55% for and 45% against the amendment. A simple majority, but a constitutional amendment requires two-thirds majority. It will come up for another try. You can make a difference with a couple of phone calls, letters, emails. Get your opinion before those who represent you (the minority opposition is excelling at this-their motto is "desensitize, jam and convert"). Particularly stress the importance of the Marriage Amendment. Frankly, things have moved too far too quickly to do anything else. The best alternative right now is a federal marriage amendment which will stop the courts from usurping legislative authority and will mandate the lower courts to get in line. Close in prayer and ministry. [Back to Top]