Clough Genesis Lesson 57

Homosexuality is sin

Before we continue our study as we’ve been doing in the book of Genesis in chapters 18-19 over the Sodom and Gomorrah incident in history, I want to take a few minutes to respond to some of the feedback cards that you have handed in asking questions about why we’ve said some of the things we’ve said. The first on is: If Lot was so out of it why does Peter repeat in 2 Peter 2:7 that “a just lot was delivered?” Also, if Lot was carnal why was he vexed with the filthy manner of life of the wicked, as it says? Is it the doctrine that God has built up in his soul? When I’m in carnality I’m not vexed with a manner of life often of the wicked but I enjoy it, at least my sin nature enjoys it. There’s a candid question, the point there being that Lot is described as “just” in the New Testament because positionally he was “in Christ,” that was his position. He was a justified believer, no question about it. The point though is that he was pictured in Genesis 18 and 19 as carnal and this carnality is what set him in such unhappiness; it was the carnality that God was constantly disciplining that produced a vexation. The point being that the believer can never really be satisfied and happy in the in-between zone, the so to speak twilight zone. And Lot always appeared to be living in the twilight zone.

Another question: Considering the importance of training strong arrows for the warfare ahead, please incorporate into your current teaching or have a special series on biblical child discipline and child raising. Many of the Lubbock Bible Church young families either were not at LBC or had no children at the time that many wisdom principles were taught during the Proverbs series. We’ll try to weave some of these child-rearing principles into Genesis. As we come on past the Lot incident it will be very much amenable to this, but please remember that I can’t do in Genesis what I did in Proverbs because Proverbs is just more suited to that. If you have questions just consult the tape catalogue and you’ll see the sections in Proverbs tapes that cover that topic.

We have two questions that are related and one of them reads: Would God have judged the righteous with the wicked if Abraham had not prayed? His judgment is always perfectly discriminating. The other question: Since God is all-knowing, why does He have even a second thought about what to do in the matter of Abraham and Sodom and Gomorrah? Both of these questions reflect the tendency to fatalism that I warn you against. Be careful! Here’s the difference. Fatalism means what’s going to happen is going to happen regardless of me. Biblical sovereignty says what’s going to happen will certainly happen but it will be by means of God’s ordained processes. And the processes of guarding and protecting a population against judgment is always intercessory prayer. So in response to the first question, what would God have done with the righteous if Abraham had not interceded, perhaps someone else would have interceded. Intercession is needed; somebody has got to do the interceding, always, the form all through the Scriptures. So be careful; don’t think just because, like for example God knows something, therefore that doesn’t require a response on our part.

If you have trouble with this here are four references in the Bible that I refer you to; four references that I think you ought to look at if you have a tendency to view God as an omnipotent computer that kind of sits in heaven and just blinks at you, the idea there’s no personal interaction between Him and a creature down in space/time history. One is Genesis 6:5-7, in that passage God responds to wickedness and changes His mind. Exodus 32:9-14, again God changes His mind. Another one where God responds very vividly is Deuteronomy 7:9-10. Another verse is Psalm 2:4. Just read those verses over and over again until you pick up the flavor of the Scriptures, the way they picture God as, shall we say, talk-able, He’s discuss-able. The will of God isn’t automatic, it involves human agency.

We’ve spent the last two Sunday mornings in the Sodom and Gomorrah episode of Genesis 18-19. This is one of the most famous episodes of ancient history. It was remembered down through the centuries, in fact all the way down into the New Testament. The last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation also mentions Sodom and Gomorrah so we know that God intended this event be remembered and remembered vividly. Here are the reasons. Remember we said that Sodom and Gomorrah, God’s judgment upon the world system, it’s a monument; it’s a monument to believers, according to Genesis 18, a monument and a memorial to believers, for our benefit, that we might understand the wrath of God, that God is not content to let human society just drift autonomously. God is an interfering, God is a judging God. Another thing is that it’s a monument, not just to the believer, it is a monument to the unbeliever; it’s a warning; 2 Peter 2:6 tells us this. Sodom and Gomorrah is a warning saying look, look carefully folks, because I’m not talking to you in abstract terminology; I’ve given you a three dimensional audio visual example, the massive devastation on Sodom and Gomorrah.

So Sodom and Gomorrah is extremely important; so important it is that we’re going to pause today to take up a topical study rather than what we’ve been doing Sunday mornings, exegetical verse by verse study, and we’ll go on next Sunday to a continued verse by verse approach. We’re going to deal with a topic and the topic has to do with an insert that you have in your bulletins which is: We are at war. This is October, 1978, this is basically when it started although right now we’re in November, and we won’t have time to sit and read through that insert, I’m just pointing your attention to it so you’ll know what I’m talking about and why I’m going to say what I’m going to say today.

A hundred years ago to the month, October, 1878, was the first time that the fundamentalists, coming out of many different denominations assembled in New York City for a vital conference to deal with the rise of liberalism and unbelief in the Scripture. And the fundamentalists decided 100 years ago to the month to begin a movement in American church history; a movement that’s been vilified, a movement that’s been ridiculed but a movement that has never been ignored. Fundamentalism has made its name and fundamentalism in the last few years, the last 10-15 years has gradually come of age in that the fundamentalists have articulate spokesmen, men of the doctorate level, men who are in various professions speaking out. And of course one of the worst things in the eyes of the state that the fundamentalists have done is take their children out of the public school system and put them into private schools and do this at such a rate that by the year 2000, if trends continue, less than 50% of American students will ever set foot in a public school at any point in their career; that is how rapid the leakage is out of the public system over the private schools in our day. And because this leakage has so alarmed the other side they’re now fighting back. And this is why we are now at war.

For the first time in American history, and this is a first, for the first time in American history the machinery of the state at the federal and state level has now been directed to wipe out the Christian movement. And it’s being done so in various modes. This is the first time I’d say in church history that we’ve ever had a monolithic humanist state try to do this apart from perhaps in the modern world, maybe you can say in 1789 the French Revolution was one attempt, and the communist attempt in Russia in 1917. But in our own country this is a rarity. We’ve had religious persecutions of one religion against another. We have had in England during the reign of Bloody Mary the Catholics trying to dominate the Protestants, and then later the Protestants trying to dominate the Catholics. We have had wars in Latin America, in Columbia, where the Catholic priests have tried to destroy, even murder, Protestant missionaries. We have had that go on down through the ages but this is the first time we’ve ever seen the state come up against the Christian church in the name of politics and social good.

And it reminds us, for those who saw the Frances Schaeffer film, it reminds us of the second and third centuries of the Christian church, for the discussion back then that ultimately led to the Christians going the coliseums was apparently in their generation not a religious argument at all, it was a political discussion. And the argument went this way: what is the matter with those Christians, here they are, if they would just simply acknowledge Caesar’s authority in every area we’d let them be Christians, we’d let them have their churches, we wouldn’t interfere with their worship services; all we ask of the Christian is that you declare your allegiance to Caesar as lord; that’s all. And those stubborn Christians refused, they said no, this would jeopardize our lives, our property or anything else; we refuse total allegiance to the state, it will be Christ as Lord, not Caesar. It will be Christ first and under Christ then Caesar. But the Romans said you can’t do that, you’ve got to have social unity, you Christians threaten to break the unity of our whole community here, and we can’t get any kind of common loyalty unless we all agree on a common loyalty, so let’s all get together and make our common loyalty allegiance to Caesar. And the Christians said no, we’re sorry, we cannot do that. All we can do is declare our total allegiance to Christ and if it fractures the society, too bad. And thus the Christians returned to the coliseum.

Then we also have in earlier history what we studied in the book of Daniel; the time of the Maccabean War. Antiochus Epiphanes arises in the Middle East and he has a similar program to the Romans. All Antiochus Epiphanes was trying to do, charitable man, a very nice man, he didn’t have horns, he didn’t have a pitchfork, Antiochus Epiphanes was a well-liked man, young, brilliant, Hellenist. And what he wanted to do was simply encourage Hellenism as a culture across all the Levant, the whole eastern end of the Mediterranean. And there was just one group of people that wouldn’t go along with them and that was the Jews and the Jews said no, we’re going to practice circumcision on our young men, we are going to teach the Torah in our Jewish homes and we are going to demand allegiance to Jehovah first and then to the state. And Antiochus said no, you’re not going to do that, and it started a war that led to the Maccabean revolt. And of course Christians who are knowledgeable know who Antiochus Epiphanes stands for; he stands for the beast, the future coming antichrist.

So we are in a very, very serious juncture and this issue has come up in a number of places, feminism and the ERA is one place; the public education is another place, but now we are threatened with a third front that has been opened up against us, and that is the legitimacy of homosexuality. Proposition Six was defeated by a two to one margin in the state of California last week; the so-called Briggs Initiative. What this Briggs initiative would have done was to permit local school boards to dismiss practicing homosexual teachers from the public school system of California. It was voted down two to one. Why was the Briggs initiative given? This has to do, and I’m going to work this in to show you why we’re stopping right here with the Sodom and Gomorrah incident in a moment.

The Briggs incident is a result of several developments. Here they are: The city of Berkley earlier in the year passed a gay rights ordinance which meant that within the confines of the city of Berkley, California, even a Christian school could be forced to hire practicing homosexuals for its staff. That was the law of the city of Berkley. The second incident: The San Francisco Board of education voted seven to nothing to revise sex education courses in the high schools to eliminate negative references to homosexuality. Seven to nothing it passes in the school board. The third incident: The gay community services center in Hollywood, California has an educational outreach program which puts on efforts to publicize their position in the public high schools; as of last count they had visited 127 California schools advocating teenage acceptance of homosexuality and perversion. Interestingly, in none of the 127 schools were the creationists allowed to make similar presentations. So by the morals and standards of the world system creationism is more obscene than homosexuality.

So these are the incidents that gave rise to the Briggs initiative and I don’t think there’s a person here that doesn’t see a very strong problem that we’ve got here. What did the Christians do after the Briggs initiative was created? Sat home, went to prophecy conferences, went to their deeper life groups and lost the election two to one. You see, it’s hard to motive people who have been Christians back in the 1940s and 1950s, and early 60s to imagine we’re now in a new world. Now it’s war, now it’s going to be fought out in the streets; now it’s going to be fought in the courts because fundamentalists will not yield and the humanists will not yield and given that situation as state of affairs there’s only one thing and that is a massive war between the two sides.

So I’m going to give you some principles this morning, based on our text, based on the flow of Biblical revelation, that will speak to this particular problem. I hope I’ll try to equip you with perspectives and I hope you’ll pay very close attention. You, as individuals, may find yourselves in steering committees of various groups, you may find yourselves on various counsels, you may find yourselves in positions where you are going to be asked for your opinion and if you are going to be an ambassador of Christ then you must be prepared to present a biblical position. I hope to present that biblical position now.

I’ll introduce it by making one further statement; our objection is not to homosexuality as a bigger sin than other sins; that’s not what we’re saying. What we’re objecting to is the legitimatization of homosexuality. In other words, there always have been thieves; there always have been adulterers, there always have been homosexuals but never before have we had adultery and thievery elevated to the point of a moral act. But that’s what’s happening here in the case of the modern homosexual legitimacy movement. Here, for example, is Gay Bob, the world’s first homosexual doll; he comes in a box that has a closet so he comes out of the closet. Bob wears one earring and a custom made flannel cowboy shirt and is anatomically correct, says the advertisement. More than 10,000 dolls have been already sold at $16.00 a piece. Amusing until you consider that these dolls are presumably being bought for children whose sexual self-images are only now partially being formed and we use toys as models of adult society.

This is why we are at war and it’s going to demand something on the part of Christian individuals other than just sitting on one’s rear end in a chair taking notes. So therefore today let’s start there and get some good notes and principles that we can then go out and apply in our spheres of influence. Let’s start by turning back to the origin of the kingdom of man, Genesis 10. The battle is not just the homosexual legitimacy movement. The battle is bigger than that, and so we have to go back to where it began in history. In its modern form it began with the first use of the word “kingdom” in the Bible, Genesis 10:10. You remember when we taught there, we mentioned the man Nimrod, who’s been remembered in history under various names; Nimrod was the man who got the first world community started. He’s the man who thought he could bring all the tribes of the earth together and he used the power of the state to coerce a pseudo unity. In other words, we have a lot of sinners running around, each in our own little way and we bump into each other and somebody comes along and says hey, we need law and order here, so we’re going to impose law and order. And we’re going to impose it multi-nationally, across the board. And the kingdom movement began in Genesis 10-11 and led to a first attempt at a United Nations world government, the tower of Babel. And the movement was to bring all the world’s communities under a so-called world law, to which God responded by fracturing the human language and preventing this kind of thing from happening again.

Is God against kingdoms? No, because God is going to bring in the kingdom, the kingdom of God we call it, the kingdom of His Christ. So we know God isn’t against the kingdom. What God is against is man trying to accomplish it himself; that’s what God is against. God realizes that our problem is so deep and cuts all the way to the core of our souls that we cannot deal with the spiritual factors involved in producing such a kingdom. Therefore, He will do it, and thus with the call of Abraham that we’ve been studying, Abraham is called out of the world system to be the forerunner and the founder of the kingdom of God on earth.

Now we have this Sodom and Gomorrah incident happen; as God begins to work Abraham, Abraham is called out to a new program; we’ll call that the kingdom of God. But no sooner does Abraham get called out to be the founder of the kingdom of God than God says come here Abraham, I want to show you something. See where your uncle is, down in Sodom and Gomorrah; I’m going to judge that place. Oh God, you can’t judge that, there are some good people there, and God allows Abraham to bargain with Him. And finally, you remember, the terms of the agreement was that if God could find ten righteous He said He would forego judgment, just a remnant of ten, that’s all. But God, in Genesis 19, destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah so we come to the conclusion there were only three, not ten righteous people in the city. That incident is an example of God’s attitude on the other movement in history started by Nimrod, the kingdom of man. Sodom and Gomorrah represent, as well as the tower of Babel, an attitude on the part of the Creator toward this spurious counterfeit kingdom.

Turn to Revelation 18 and you’ll see that in the final, final chapter of history God has dealt, as He predicted He would, with this world-wide kingdom, Revelation 18:19. Because this kingdom of man effort, this grand global social design, was begun near a city called Babylon, forever afterward in history it is known as Babylon; Babylon stands, therefore, not just for a city but for an entire system, an economic political unity that ignores distinction. And in Revelation 18:19 we read the response on the part of the world when Jesus Christ comes back again and He destroys Babylon. “And they cast dust on their heads,” which is a sign in the Orient of mourning, “and they cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, the great city, in which were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness!” in other words, economic factors, “For in one hour she is made desolate. [20] Rejoice,” and then the Word of God comes in, verse 19 is an observation of the people standing by the vision and they watch the city destroyed, and then a voice from heaven comes in in verse 20 and says, “Rejoice over her, heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God has avenged you on her.” The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction of Babylon, all part of the same program—God’s wrath upon men in their rebellion.

In the Sodom and Gomorrah incident, however, there’s one detail we must deal with. Why is it that Sodom and Gomorrah has forever in history been associated with homosexuality? And if that’s the case, is there some indicator, the rise of the legitimacy attempt against homosexuality, does this have something to do with the movements of history. I’m going to make three propositions and each of these propositions are very unpopular. They are unpopular with some of my fellow Christians, and they are surely unpopular with society at large. But pay attention to my arguments because I’m trying to justify a very unpopular position, a position that was voted down two to one in California, one that is obviously not a majority position. So I’d like you to pay attention to my reasons for each of these three propositions. This will be, again, unusually because usually our morning service is exegetical; this morning it’s going to be different, it will be topical.

The first proposition is that homosexuality is a sin by God’s Word. Now you can say well, I always thought it was in the Scriptures. Yes, but today that Scripture itself is being challenged by the so-called Christian homosexual movement. So I’m going to give you reasons why homosexuality is a sin; I’m going to tip you off to the counter arguments that are being waged against it and are counters to the counter arguments. It’s important that you understand this material; undoubtedly in some of you at least before the next few months are over you will find this kind of issue arising in your own social group or wherever you happen to be. You ought to be informed.

The first proposition: homosexuality is a life-dominating sin. Let’s start with Genesis 1, the first reason. Genesis 1:27-28. We’re trying to not sit in Pharisaical self-righteousness upon the homosexual, that’s not what we’re trying to do. I want that understood from the very beginning. We’re not arguing that homosexuality is worse than other sins; all we’re trying to hold is that it is a sin and it can’t be made legitimate, whether you sell Gay Bob dolls in your local toy store or not, it still is not a legitimate thing. The first reason: Genesis 1:27-28, it says, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. [28] And God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth….” Now I submit to you that the very created structure of mankind is against homosexuality. God made two sexes, not three and a half. God made the sexes, He defined the sexual differences and the first verb of the mandate to man in is “be fruitful and multiply.” You can’t do that with a homosexual lifestyle.

So the first reason is that homosexuality flies in the face of the very created order of mankind itself. It is abnormal by God’s creation design. What is at issue at this point and it’s a profound thing, is that the homosexual intellectuals are arguing that they will define human nature the way they want to define it and we say that the human nature will be defined the way God defines it. So it is one or the other; either man is the one who arbitrarily defines sexual nature or God is the One who defines sexual nature: I vote for God.

The second reason why homosexuality is a sin is found in the text before us that we’ve been studying, the Sodom and Gomorrah incident. Sodom and Gomorrah are judged and this shows the wrath of God against sin, but at least against homosexuality. Now there’s a counterpoint to this and here’s the homosexual defense against that second point. Turn to Ezekiel 16:49, Ezekiel is one of those books that aren’t too familiar. Here is one of the references the modern homosexual Christian movement is using to try to nullify the effect of the Sodom and Gomorrah story. They say if we go to Ezekiel 16:49-50, they say look at it, homosexuality isn’t mentioned once in verse 49-50, they say look, “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister, Sodom: pride,” that’s not homosexuality, “fullness of bread,” that’s wealth, that’s not homosexuality, “and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters,” that’s not homosexuality, “neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy,” lack of charity, that’s not homosexuality. [50] “And they were haughty, and committed abomination before Me; therefore, I took them away as I saw good.” Now obviously other sins other than homosexuality are mentioned; yes, but the last one includes homosexuality, the word “abomination,” check it for yourself in any Bible dictionary. So homosexuality is included in these passages.

The point though is the other sins are there too; it’s not just homosexuality, we would agree, but notice again in verse 49, two elements in particular that are remarkably correlated to the rise of homosexuality in our society in 20^th century America. Do you notice the two—“fullness of bread” and “abundance of idleness,” that means economic wealth and idleness, and idle hands always get in trouble. This is why it’s a curse; God said for man, from now on, after the curse, you only with the sweat of your brow eat your bread. Why? Because it was too easy to make bread before the fall and if God allowed it that easy to make bread after the fall He knew man, with a sin nature, would use his leisure to devise new and sophisticated forms of depravity. Idleness always at large, in society at large, produces this sort of thing.

So much for this particular text; another one that is used by the Christian homosexual movement to try to defend against our assertion is 2 Peter 2:8. The way to answer that is from Jude 6-7, which is another New Testament epistle that shows very clearly that homosexuality was the issue at Sodom and Gomorrah. So now we’ve got two reasons why we say homosexuality is a sin: one because of the created order, the second divine institution in other words. The second reason is because of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now the third reason: turn to the Mosaic Law, Leviticus 18:22, again reasons why we cannot permit homosexuality to be declared moral if we’re going to start with God. The Mosaic stipulations brand it as a sin. “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.” There’s your word “abomination,” usually when that word is used in the Mosaic code it’s the Hebrew word for confusion; it’s a Hebrew word that means that you have a defined order that is there by virtue of creation and you mess it up. It’s a misshapen word and so “abomination” has that flavor to it when you see it used in the Mosaic Law. A parallel to Leviticus 18:22 is Leviticus 20:13 and both of these places in the general criminal code, remember this is a general criminal code of the state of Israel in the ancient times, it was declared as a public crime. A parallel reference is Deuteronomy 22:5, it also counts as a criminal act, transvestism, which is using the clothes of the other sex. We saw in the paper last night some clown walking around with skirts on, a 35 year old ex-construction worker, I think a hammer must have fallen on his head somewhere on a construction job and he’s walking around with skirts on, even the girls don’t wear skirts, they wear jeans today. So here this guy is engaging in transvestism that would have been declared a crime. Why? Is God interested in furthering the tailor industry? No, it’s God wants to preserve the created order.

Now there are two counter arguments to this. I’m trying to give you the information; I’m also trying to tip you off that if you just drop this information out and you’re going to get challenged, and I’m giving you the challenge, I’ve tried to read every depraved thing I could find to find all of the counter arguments that are brought up. The first counter argument to this passage in Leviticus is that it’s Old Testament and the Old Testament law was done away with, so ha-ha. Well, ha-ha to you because homosexuality is repeated three times in the New Testament as a sin and the three references are: Romans 1:24; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10. So therefore the argument that this is of the Old Testament only does not hold, it is also of the New Testament.

Another counter argument is that this was intended only against what they call “cultic” homosexuality; by that we mean the cults, the religious cults, the Baalists, the Canaanites, around about Israel did use homosexualism in their religious rituals and what the main force of Leviticus is that it’s simply telling us separate from Canaanite homosexuality. Well, but in another place in the Mosaic Code, in Deuteronomy 23:17, that’s where cultic homosexuality is dealt with. The Mosaic Law already spoke to the problem of cultic homosexuality. “There shall be nor whore [harlot] of the daughters of Israel,” and the word “whore” there isn’t the word for common prostitute, the word “whore” means a priestess and it says, “now a sodomite of the sons of Israel. [18] You will not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for a vow,” see, there’s a religious thing going on there, and so that’s where religious homosexuality is knocked out.

So therefore we again answer the charge and answer the counter, no, the Mosaic Law Code gives us a third reason for saying homosexuality is a sin. So we now have three reasons: the order of creation from Genesis 1; we have the Sodom and Gomorrah judgment; we have the Mosaic stipulations.

Now let’s come over into the New Testament, Romans 1:24, we read: “Wherefore God has given them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, [25] Who exchanged the truth of God into a lie….” Verse 26, “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections; for even their women did change the natural use for that which is against nature,” that is against the created order. [27] Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men [working that which is unseemly]….”

There’s a counterargument against that. The counterargument against this by the Christian homosexual movement is that that’s talking about unloving homosexuality; that’s not talking about a moral type of homosexuality, that’s just pagan homosexuality, it’s not Christian homosexuality. Let’s use that logic and continue reading the passage; we’re distinguishing now between Christian’s sins and non-Christian sins. Now we come down to Rom 1:29 and it says, “Being filled with unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate [strife], deceit…” etc. etc. etc. You mean to tell me that those are only referring to pagan lifestyles? That a Christian can maliciously debate, that he can lovingly murder, he can be lovingly full of envy, he can be lovingly a hater of God, lovingly proud, lovingly a boaster? No, obviously it doesn’t work down there, why does it work in the verses before it? Because it doesn’t work period, that’s why.

So we have four reasons why homosexuality in the Scripture is a sin. And we have now way of escaping that, it’s not because we wrote the Bible, it may not provoke a reaction in us, there may be those of us who it does provoke a reaction. That depends on your own sin style but the point is the Word is the Word and so we conclude our first proposition by saying the Bible unambiguously presents homosexuality as a sin for men, not just Christians, all men. This is part of the divine institution number two operating in society; divine institution number two is marriage and the sexual distinctions that God has made.

That’s the first proposition. Basically you can sum the first proposition up with one simple statement: Either God or man defines what is right; either God or man, or society, defines what is right. And we as Bible-believing Christians have to hold that God defines what is right. Sorry, I don’t care if 51%, I don’t care if 66 and two thirds percent vote against us, God has said it is wrong and that’s the way I am locked into that particular proposition.

The second proposition, if you thought the first one was controversial the second one will jar your teeth. The second proposition is that homosexuality ought to be legislated against as a crime against the state. It ought not to be left alone; it ought to be the object of law and prosecution, criminal prosecution. Now there are many Christians that react to this one; look, why don’t you just let them alone, do their thing, why do you have to get the state into this matter. Here’s why? And this represents very, very fuzzy thinking on the part of a lot of sick Christians.

Here is why the state ought to become involved. Let’s define two kinds of rights; let’s talk about freedom rights and non-discrimination rights. Let me give you an example so we know what we’re talking about. A freedom right is the right to assemble peacefully. A freedom right is the right of free speech; a freedom right means that you have the right to engage in that behavior pattern, period, wherever you are in society any where. That’s a freedom right. A nondiscriminatory right is that no one else has the right to discriminate against you because you do a certain thing or you are a certain kind of person; when they hire you, when they fire you, when they associate with you socially in housing, etc. etc. etc. a nondiscriminatory right. For example, in this country rightfully it is wrong to discriminate against somebody just because he’s a different color than you are. And that is a nondiscriminatory right.

Now observe these two rights; if something is wrong here, if something does not have a freedom right, in other words, murder does not have a freedom right; you’re not free to murder any time you feel like it. If you say you had the right to murder then conceivably somebody could pass another piece of law that says I can’t discriminate against you when I rent my property to you even if I know you’re a murderer; that’s discrimination. So you see, in order for the nondiscriminatory right to hold the freedom right has also to hold. If you are not free to murder I can’t pass legislation for you saying it’s wrong to discriminate against you; by golly if it’s wrong to murder your darn right I’m going to discriminate against you. So the more basic right is the freedom right; the secondary and derivative right is the nondiscriminatory right. Now let’s look at the nondiscriminatory right first.

My proof, proposition two, is that homosexuality is a criminal wrong in society and possesses neither of these rights. Here’s my proof; it does not possess the right of being nondiscriminated towards, nondiscrimination, for this reason, that if homosexuality is given the right of nondiscrimination Christianity is destroyed. If homosexuals cannot be discriminated against then Christianity is immediately destroyed legislatively with one signing of a document by the pen of whoever is writing the law. Here’s why: Every Christian organization is outlawed as discriminatory; every organization that does discriminate against homosexuals becomes illegal by the passage of a law that makes it illegal to discriminate against homosexuals. See, you cannot have legislation allowing nondiscrimination toward homosexuals without at the same time declaring illegal all Christian organizations. If a Christian organization has a Christian school they’re not going to hire a homosexual, even if he’s a Christian, to be a teacher of the children, and so on. Christian organizations must, because they’re under the Word, they must discriminate against homosexuals. Therefore if you’re going to pass a law that says no one in society can discriminate against homosexuals you’ve thereby destroyed Christianity.

Another example of this: if it is wrong to discriminate against homosexuals, then say Charlie Clough goes on the radio or the TV and he has a program and on the program he’s teaching Romans 1; now under the FCC fairness doctrine, and moreover under the doctrine of nondiscrimination applied to the FCC and to the media transmission, my program must be outlawed, simply because I have taught discrimination on the radio program as I have taught the Word of God. So not only are Christian organizations destroyed by nondiscriminatory legislation, but also Christian radio programs and all evangelism is destroyed thereby also. Acts 4:23 and following give the biblical answer to this kind of thing. In Acts 4 the political authorities declared evangelism illegal and Acts 4 gives the biblical answer to authorities that declare evangelism illegal. Acts 4:23 begins… this is when Peter and John come back and the church gets together in their prayer meeting, they lift up their voices in one accord to God, and then their petition, Acts 4:29-30, that’s the biblical answer. “And now, Lord, behold their threatenings; and grant unto thy servants,” that is the public teachers and the public evangelists that are in the media, “grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they keep on speaking thy word,” even if it’s illegal, defy the state. [30] “By stretching forth thine hand to heal….” So that’s the answer. If homosexual nondiscriminatory legislation is passed Christian organizations are destroyed; Christian programs are destroyed, Christian education and parental… marriages and families are destroyed because in Ephesians 6:1 it says parents are mandated to bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Now how are you going to do that if the school system is officially indoctrinating your child that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle? You can’t go along with that; you’re going to oppose that. So therefore it invades your home in the area of your children; besides the church… you say well I don’t attend church any more, so what, I never did anyway. Okay, stay at home, you’ve still got a problem; who controls your children?

Now another right: In Romans 16:17 it says that Christians have the right to discriminate against those that defy the faith, Romans 16:17, that Christians have the right to defy those who downgrade Bible doctrine, they have the right of separation. But if I can’t discriminate against homosexuals then I have to rent my property to them, I have to live next to them, I have to socialize with them and all the rest. How, then, do I practice Romans 16:17?

So quite obviously once nondiscrimination is granted to homosexuals as homosexuals then… and here’s the important thing, they have imposed their religion on us. Don’t ever forget that; it’s not the case of let’s all be neutral and give everybody a chance. Huh-un, sorry, that’s not the way it is. The issue is that you’ve got two competing ethical systems; one says homosexuality is right, the other says homosexuality is wrong and you’ve got them in collision and there “ain’t no neutrality!” No SALT agreement can be worked out, there is nothing that can go on to end this battle; one or the other must triumph. Either the homosexual will be discriminated against or the Christian will be discriminated against, one or the other but one of them will be discriminated against; you can’t help it, you cannot work out any other solution.

So therefore we’ve argued that homosexuality does not have the right of nondiscrimination for to do so means for Christians to sign their death warrant; death warrant in Christian organizations, programs, education and home.

Therefore we can progress, does homosexuality have some freedom rights. The freedom rights argue this way: look, let’s just let them do their thing, so let’s just let them alone, they’re not bothering us, we won’t pass any nondiscriminatory legislation and let’s stop bothering with them, they’ll do their own thing, leave them alone, because after all, what they’re doing won’t hurt anybody, they do it by themselves. Well this argument, ethically, goes back to John Stuart Mill, called utilitarian ethics and it holds that anything is right as long as it doesn’t hurt someone. It sounds very nice; there’s only one problem. How do I tell whether it doesn’t hurt someone? If homosexuality is a disruption of the created order, if homosexuality is legislated against in the Mosaic Law, I rather suspect God has legislated against it because it does hurt society or He wouldn’t have legislated against it. So therefore even accepting the dictum of we still wind up with the fact that the Christian must be against all legitimacy of homosexuality. Homosexuality is dangerous to the society at large. So we said, therefore, my claim is that homosexuality does not even have a freedom right and therefore ought to be legislated against and prosecuted as a criminal, crime.

Now three things that we have not said in this second proposition; we have not imposed Christianity on the homosexuals; we have not asked them to attend church, we’ve not made baptism compulsory, we have not forced them to study the Word of God. So there has been no religious, per se, argument against the homosexuals as homosexuals. All we have done is we have made one statement about what is general morality.

Another thing we haven’t done to defend ourselves against Christians who always want to stay at home and not get involved; well that’s salvation by works, you’re trying to get salvation by works, by promoting a law system into society so you can be saved thereby. No! That’s not what we’re doing; all we’re doing is preserving the functioning of divine institutions. So we have not said you’re going to be saved; we’ve not made the claim that any homosexual is saved because of this legislation; all we’ve said is the legislation is necessary to preserve society so that then they can be saved. You can’t save somebody that’s dead. So you’ve got to have rules that preserve man unto redemption. You’ve got to preserve him or you can never preach the gospel to him. Therefore the Christian citizen is obligated to do this. There are a number of other things but in the interest of time we’ll continue.

The third proposition; the third proposition is what ought the Church and Christians to do personally, on a personal church level, not in the state, we’ve already talked about that, not as individuals, we’ve already talked about that. We’ve said that Christians as individuals must condemn homosexuality as a sin. We’ve talked about the fact that Christians as citizens must urge the state to prosecute it. But now what does a Christian do as a Christian? One thing you can do is not raise homosexuals in the home. A Christian doctor, MD and psychiatrist, has given us a set of rules on how to raise homosexual children, tongue in cheek of course. But here are some of them, I thought some parents might be interested in these rules.

The first rule is to start out by using the ten easy steps followed by the alcoholic’s motto. So the ten easy steps on how to raise an alcoholic child: (1) Spoil him, give him everything he wants if you can afford it. (2) When he does wrong, nag him but never spank him. (3) Foster his dependence upon you so drugs and alcohol can replace you when he’s older. (4) Protect him from your husband and from all those mean teachers who threaten to spank him from time to time, even sue them. (5) Make all of his decisions for him, since you are a lot older and wiser than he is; he might make mistakes and learn from them if you don’t. (6) Criticize his father openly so your son can lose his own self-respect. (7) Always bail him out of trouble so he will like you; besides, he might harm your reputation if he gets a police record. Never let him suffer the consequences of his own behavior. (8) Always step in and solve his problems for him so he can depend on you and run to you when the going gets tough, and then when he’s older and still hasn’t learned how to solve his own problems he can continue to run to them through heroin or alcohol. (9) Just to play it safe, be sure to dominate your husband and drive him to drink too if you can. (10) Take lots of prescription drugs yourself so that taking non-prescription won’t be a major step for him.

Now those are ten rules but those won’t be quite enough to raise homosexual children. So number two are the homosexual rules. (1) Show your love for your son by protecting him very carefully; don’t let him play football or baseball with the other boys; he might get hurt. (2) Don’t let him be a newspaper boy or patrol boy, he might catch pneumonia out in the bad weather. (3) Be sure he spends lots of time with you and very little with his father or any other adult male. (4) Teach him how to sew and cook and how to knit; after all, such attitudes about chores are of date now days. (5) Walk him to and from school so none of the bullies will beat little Johnnie up. (6) Let him play consistently with the little neighborhood girls, or his sisters or their friends; there just aren’t any boys his age in the neighborhood that you would want him to play with. (7) Joke with him about the feminine name you gave him and tell him what a cute girl he would have been. Tell him that you really wanted a girl and dress him up in his big sister’s clothes when he was little; that way when he reaches puberty and his contemporaries start falling in love with the opposite sex he can too, with boys, since he thinks of himself basically as a girl.

Now that’s one thing that you can do, is not raise homosexuals in your own family. A second thing; turn to 1 Corinthians 6 for a dismembering of one of the great myths attending this problem. One of the great tragedies of our time, one of the great hurts that the Christian church and particular the counseling portion of the Christian, and particularly the Christian psychologists and psychiatrists, one of the great injustices they have done toward the homosexual has been to tell the homosexual, you know, we have to agree with you, that your problem cannot be licked, that once you’re a homosexual you’ll always be a homosexual, there is absolutely no help, no hope for you. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. In verse 9 we list various sins including the “effeminate and the abusers of themselves with mankind,” that is clearly homosexuality. What does it says in verse 11, “And such were some of you,” meaning you are no longer, which must mean, therefore, that in the first century the Christian church dealt successfully with homosexuals and I add this is in Greek and if you really want to see the place of homosexualism you read Greek literature. Things have gotten bad in the United States but not that bad. And there in Corinth, the early Christian church, without even a complete New Testament, was competently, successfully converting homosexuals, reaching out to them, not in a spirit of condemnation, not saying we’re pious and more right than you are, but simply saying it is sin and you change like I can change. I’ve got sin patterns and you’ve got… so don’t you come to me and tell me your sin is harder for you than my sin is for me. Bull! I have just as a hard time with my sin nature as you do with yours; that’s the message the first Christians gave them. So don’t try to make an excuse for your problem because if you make an excuse for your sins I’m going to turn right around, I’m going to make an excuse for my sins; two can play that cute little game. And 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 is a major passage that is a testimony to the fact that homosexuality can be cured.

Another point that is often made; Romans 1. It is often said today that the real problem in homosexuality is constitutional homosexuality, that it’s the attitude, the predisposition and not the overt act, that one can have these predispositions and never commit an overt act of homosexuality, latent homosexuality. And the distinguishment is made that the overt homosexuality, yes, that’s a sin, but the latent homosexuality is not a sin. Wrong again, sorry, Romans 1:27 mentions both. What does it say? “Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another,” there’s the propensity, and then, “men with men working that which is unseemly,” there’s the overt activity. So once again the New Testament prohibits both, it labels both as a sin.

What can be done? Many things can be done. Among those that can be done within a Christian framework, of course, is to start out by winning the homosexual to Christ and that can’t be done if you’re going to take a holier than thou attitude. You’ve got to associate with them [can’t understand words]. You’ve got to learn to talk with them, and you’ve got to learn to work with them and not be shocked. Otherwise you’ll never lead them to Christ and if you can’t lead them to Christ you’re never going to help them.

Secondly, if they are Christians they’ve got to go back to the Romans 12:1 principle and a rededication of their life in the sense that they’ve got to go back to the basics; who is going to run your life; whose life is it that you have? Yours or Christ’s; now let’s get down to the basics, don’t sit there and tell God that you’re made a certain way when He says you’re not made that way, that’s lying to God, you’re defying His Word. So who’s going to have the final say in this matter?

Another thing; widespread discipline, 1 Corinthians 14:4, “let everything be done decently and in order” is the principle, and you will find often in the pattern of homosexuality a complete chaos of the life, they have a hard time breathing and walking at the same time; total chaos, total confusion. And you’ve got to restore order, all over the board, in every single area, under the works and laws and discipline of God.

Another thing that comes up with homosexuality in marriage, 1 Corinthians 7; it talks about the sexual partners in a marriage and it very clearly says it’s not the issue of what you get out of the sex, it is what you give to your partner. And so when the homosexual makes the objection, well, it doesn’t turn me on, that’s not what 1 Corinthians says; so what if you’re not turned on, the point in 1 Corinthians 7 is what about your mate, start thinking about somebody else for once in your life. And this deals with selfishness. See, it’s not really homosexuality, it’s just selfishness that’s the point.

Daily prayer and daily Bible study, 1 Peter 2:2, can help to have a strong faith, and it’s a battle, don’t let me ever downgrade…it’s an awful battle, homosexuality is, it’s like alcoholism, it’s like 1001 other sins we can get ourselves into, it’s an awful thing, extremely difficult to break but God’s grace still says it is sufficient, but it’s not going t be if you don’t have a disciplined intake of the Word of God.

Another thing that can be done in this case by 1 Corinthians 15:33 is breaking off immediately all contact with homosexual partners; all social contact has to be broken. It must be broken and it must be broken terminally.

But then finally, there’s one other thing, and the corollary falls very, very hard on the local church, and particularly it falls very hard on people who are just oftentimes the strongest Christians are weakest here and that is if you expect the homosexual to make his social break you must provide an alternate community for him, and that is other Christians, Christians who are prepared to surround him with care and concern, who will accept the person and not run him off. And that’s the other side of the coin, and the church is obligated to do this, looking upon them as no worse sinners than you are. Don’t ever pick homosexuality out as a worse sin; it isn’t, it’s just like anything else. The only reason we bring it up in the Sodom and Gomorrah incident, and why God seems to bring it up in the Romans 1 passage is that it represents on a personal level about as chaotic as you can get. On a personal plain homosexuality corresponds to what totalitarianism and anarchy correspond to as the fourth divine institution level of the state. It represents the end program of progressive rebellion against God and against His law order.

That is what the battle is all about; it’s about more, there are more than just homosexual problems involved in this war we’re talking about but this morning I hope I’ve given you three propositions, that homosexuality is a sin, that it ought to be prosecuted as a crime, and that the church ought to be winning homosexuals. These three propositions represent biblical content and we as ambassadors for Christ are thereby obligated to this; we may not like it. We may have friends that are going to get hurt by it, but finally I’ve got to choose whether I’m going to hurt my friends or hurt Christ, and that’s the issue. Are we or are we not going to let their ethics rule us or is our ethic going to rule them. Are homosexuals going to be discriminated against or are Christ honoring people going to be discriminated against? It is one of the other.

Thus we close our service by singing…..