One of the things that a pastor has to do, I think almost as much as the positive things, is deal with the negative. The apostle Paul, in Acts, chapter 20, talked about the fact that he not only taught the Scripture, and preached the word from house to house, but he also warned the flock constantly; and this is part of it. We wish that it was so simple as just proclaiming the word of God, but from time to time, we have stop in our proclamation and warn you about some things.

We’ve done that last Lord’s Day and this morning, and we’ve warned you about what is happening in the current picture of homosexuality, in our country and around the world. And what is concerning to me is that this thing has invaded the church. There are, as we mentioned last time, lesbian priests, and homosexual priests, and homosexual groups, and even homosexual churches, which may seem incredible. We have Christian gays, quote unquote, and the facts of the matter is they’re neither Christian nor gay.

They’re most cases very lonely, very miserable, very unhappy, very guilty, and they are dealing with something that is apostate and untrue; so, consequently, it’d be very difficult for me to imagine them as really Christians. But this kind of thing is encroaching on the church, and now, homosexuality has become so tolerable that it can have its own church. And they’re saying that God says it’s fine; that it’s perfectly all right in the Bible to be a homosexual, and that they ought to have their own church.

I couldn’t help but think this week that if that’s true, then all those that are listed in 1 Corinthians 6 ought also to have their own church, and 1 Corinthians 6 lists quite an interesting group of people. It says these are the people who will not inherit the Kingdom of God: fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners.” And if - maybe we ought to just allow all of them to have a church.

We could have a church for fornicators who don’t want to give that up, a church for idolaters who want to worship idols, a church for people who want to continue to commit adultery, a church for constant thieves, a church for people who want to covet all the time, for people who want to stay drunk all the time, for those who want to slander, and those who are extortioners. It makes just as much sense as having a church for people who are homosexual. You say, “That’s a little facetious.” Not really, because that’s what they’re claiming.

And Christianity today, I think we have to protect ourselves. We have to protect ourselves because we’re drowning in an invasion of homosexual tolerance. It’s just incredible. And so, we’ve taken last Sunday morning and this Sunday morning to discuss the subject, and this morning I want to take off from where I left last time, and I want to discuss with you the Bible and homosexuality. What does the Bible say about this? Last week, we talked about what does God think of homosexuals, and we said God loves them, just like He loves anybody else.

And He saves them, and He brings them into His church, and He gives them eternal life if they repent. But what does He think about the sin? What does the Bible say about the sin of homosexuality? Well, that’s what we want to look at. Now, the Bible talks a lot about this, and we’re going to have to hurry to cover all the ground, but I don’t want to deal with this another week. I can’t stand it even this week. I literally despise the fact that I have to do this. I got so angry this week thinking that I had to defend God against this stuff, and so I’m going to hurry with this thing and get it over with.

It’s not even good to talk about it, and you know, the thing that is so sad, so tragic, is that you have to defend the Bible, because they are now using the Bible to defend their sodomy. And I’ll show you how they do that. But let’s begin with what the Bible says about it. Take your Bible and look at Deuteronomy, chapter 22. Now, there are many, many related things tied into sodomy. Now, I use the word sodomy instead of homosexual. I don’t like the word gay, because that isn’t true; they’re not gay.

I don’t like the word homosexual because it’s too clinical. I like the word sodomy, because it implies the judgment of God on the sin. and it is the Biblical word. But there are related things to it. Today, there are pretty well-defined types of homosexual behavior, such as just the general homosexual, and then there is the transvestite, and the transsexual. The transvestite, and the transsexual, and the homosexual pretty much make up what is involved in homosexual behavior, and the Bible talks about all three.

First of all, the transvestite, in Deuteronomy 22:5; and you say, “What is a transvestite?” Well, that is an English word that means a person who exchanges his clothes or her clothes for the clothes of the opposite sex. In other words, they wear clothing of the opposite sex. They get a certain sexual fulfillment or a certain kind of response, a certain kind of thrill, a certain kind of fulfillment, by wearing the clothes of the opposite sex. The Bible speaks of that in Deuteronomy 22:5. “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment.”

You know, it even bothers me when people do that at Halloween, and things like that? It bothers me - or when they do it on television. I’m a literalist, I guess. But it says, “For all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.” And I’ll stop with that verse. It is an abomination to God for someone to wear the clothes of the opposite sex. It is abominable to God. But I want to show you something very interesting here: “that which pertaineth to a man,” and the term garments. As I looked those up in the Hebrew, I found some most interesting things.

“That which pertaineth” is more than clothes in the Hebrew. The word means anything pertaining to the opposite sex, and the lexicon says such as clothes, implements, tools, weapons, utensils, ornaments, or jewelry. How interesting. In other words, anything that tends to obliterate or rub out the distinction that is in the design of God is an abomination to Him. Now, this is not trying to teach that women shouldn’t wear pants. Women should wear pants meant for women. People say, “Well, women should never wear pants.”

No, no, you see, in this time, when this verse was written, the men wore skirts. That argument doesn’t make it. The point here is, if you’re going to wear pants, wear women’s pants. If you’re going to wear pants as a man, wear a man’s. And if you’re going to be a - if you’re a man, then be a man in every way you manifest yourself, and if you’re a woman, then be a woman, even to the point that you don’t use the utensils, the implements, the tools, and the weapons, and the ornaments that pertain to a man. How interesting.

You say, “Well, why is it so picky here?” Simply because God wants to keep a very visible, obvious distinction, because He knows that Satan will try to undo that distinction, because it’s a part of abominating God. You see, when God made humanity, He made male and female. He created them and said, “They two are to become one flesh.” And Satan will forever try to rub out the uniqueness of man and woman in the blending of paganism; and I’ll show you in a minute how that happens. Satan has always tried to rub out that distinction.

For example, Maimonides mentions - he’s an ancient writer - that a man dressed in fancy women’s clothes would come often to honor Venus and Ashtoreth, and that a woman dressed in man’s armor would come to worship Mars, the god Mars. Philochorus, another ancient writer, says the people who worship Ashtoreth often exchanged male and female dresses. Now, if you study some of the ancient religions, the Babylonian religions, religions around the Greek and the Roman time, you will find that many of them exchanged the clothes of the opposite sex.

Why? Because this rubbing out of God’s distinction has always gone along with apostate religion. It’s another interesting thing to note, too, that idolaters have always confounded the sexes of their gods. And as you read in ancient religion, you find that sometimes this god is a man, and at other times, it’s a female, and consequently, the worshipers are involved in such an exchange. This just goes together with paganism. If God makes male and female, then Satan will want to obliterate divine distinction.

And there is to be that distinction, and this particular wearing of opposite apparel was indecent, it was outrageous, and it was a defiance of God’s creation. It fostered softness and effeminacy in the man, and impudence and boldness in the woman, to have that which appertained to a man. Now, that has some ramifications, not only in the way women dress, but in the jobs women do, I think. So transvestism is an abomination to God. It was interesting to me that I was reading this week that the number one new area in cosmetics is male cosmetics.

Have you read about that? Eye shadow, mascara, lipstick, pancake stuff. Have you ever seen a sodomite who has that on? I have many times. I’ll never forget one night when I went with the Honolulu police. I got in a Honolulu police car when I was over there, and wanted, he wanted to give me a tour of the city, so I could see how people live in Honolulu; and I couldn’t believe the things I saw. He took me to one particular area where there was a whole group of people who were men dressed up in bikinis, with thick, heavy, female makeup on.

That was their thing. That’s just another way for Satan to try to obliterate the distinction, try to make less of womanhood, and less of manhood, and blend it all into nothingness. And we see that even in the women’s lib movement, where everybody wants to be the same; but God never designed it that way. Also, I would add that the biggest boom in the jewelry business is male jewelry. Did you know that? Male earrings are coming fast. You say, “Not for my husband.” I hope so.

Transvestism. Look at chapter 23, verse 1, and let’s go to another aberration in sexual behavior, and that is transsexualism. Transsexualism is the situation where an individual is a man or a woman, and feels that they need to have an operation to make them into the opposite sex. So, you have an individual who’s a man who wants to go get surgery to become a woman, or you have a woman who wants to get some kind of surgery to live like a man. That really can’t be done, but you’d be amazed at what they attempt to do.

This is transsexualism; and people like this will inevitably say that they are a man trapped in a woman’s body, or they are a woman trapped in a man’s body. Well, clinically speaking, medically speaking, no such thing is true. That is not true. But people will go and have this surgery done, and in fact, one of the places where it’s done most extensively is at UCLA. What does the Bible have to say? Well, it’s very straightforward. Deuteronomy 23:1: “He who is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter the congregation of the Lord.”

That’s pretty clear. I am not about to do an exposition on that verse. I hardly had enough nerve to read it. But the point is - the point is this has spiritual ramifications, and a person who engaged in this for any reason, even - it was common in that time for this to be done in connection with people identifying with false religious systems as eunuchs. Today we have a similar situation, which has gone on for years in the Roman Catholic church, where, without going through that actual act, people have set themselves apart from women to live as priests, or women have set themselves apart from men to live as nuns, and this, in effect, is kind of doing that spiritually.

Well, that doesn’t come out of Christianity. That comes out of paganism, where this was a very common thing, for people to go through a castration as an act of service to a god. In fact, parents, before their child reached the age of ten, would often do this to the child, and then give him to the temple as a permanent eunuch. So, that was really very common in paganism, and God wanted nothing to do with that in Israel, because that is to tamper with and defile the image of God; and so such a person couldn’t enter the congregation of the Lord.

Now, most commentators say that that has two meanings. One, if it was referring to a Jew, he could have no place of service within the framework of official Judaism. And number two, if it was referring to a foreigner or an outsider, he could not enter into the rights and privileges of the nation Israel, either by circumcision, obviously, or by marriage. So, they were restricted from having the privileges and rights of citizenship among God’s people, and the reason is because they had defiled the image of God.

You say, “Well, what happens to a person if this has been done? Is there any way they can be forgiven? Is there any grace to provide for this?” Yes. Even though here is a very hard line - “shall not enter the congregation of the Lord” - where there was repentance, and a contrite heart and conversion, God was gracious. To show you that, look at Isaiah, chapter 56 and verse 3; Isaiah chapter 56. And here we have a reflection of this principle that is given in Deuteronomy 23. “Thus saith the Lord” - verse 1 says – “‘Keep justice, do righteousness” - and so forth.

“Blessed is the man that does it.” And you say, “Well, what about the guy who doesn’t? I mean the guy’s already blown it. He’s a eunuch, or he’s done this for some other reason, like even some in church history have done; people today having transsexual surgery. What if it already happened, and you obviously can’t reverse it?” Well, verse 3: “Neither let the son of a foreigner, that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, ‘The Lord has utterly separated me from His people:’ neither let the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I’m a dry tree.’”

In other words, “There’s no way I can ever have the life of God in me. There’s no way I can ever have the resources of God. I’m finished.” Let him not say that. “For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs that keep My sabbaths, that choose the things that please Me, and take hold of My covenant; even to them will I give in My house and within My walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” See the little play on words there? The physical, maybe, but the spiritual, no.

God says, “There is forgiveness and there is grace for the one who repents, for the one who comes to Me, for the one who turns from this thing and obeys My commandments.” I had this very thing happen in our church. A person came here living as a woman, who was a man who had had this surgery. In fact, I baptized this individual as a woman, not knowing at the time. Later on, we found out what was happening. The individual was, in fact, a man, who had had this kind of surgery, claimed to have come to Jesus Christ, and made a commitment to Christ.

In the judgment of the elders of this church, if that was the case, following Isaiah 56, they would’ve immediately repented of such a sin, repented of such a thing would’ve meant that they go back to living like a man, because that’s what he was created as. And even though he would be a man who had been mutilated, and a man who could not fulfill maleness in the God-intended design, nevertheless, that act did not make that individual a woman; not at all. Still a man, our judgment was that in obedience to God, he should live as a man, and not continue to carry on the hoax that he was a woman.

I’m sad to say that that would not meet with his approval, and so he went on living like a woman, and was dismissed from the church. But where there was true repentance, I hope - and I question whether the salvation was true, I guess. I hope, and if it was true, there will be repentance somewhere along the line soon. But I question the legitimacy of such a decision, when you don’t have repentance for such a gross evil. So, God did offer forgiveness for this, but one who continued in it was an abomination, outside the congregation of the Lord.

Now, let’s go on, then, from talking about those peripheral things of transvestites and transsexuals, to talk about homosexuality itself. Now, today we have these so-called Christian gays, at the Metropolitan Community Church and so forth, who are telling us that this is a wonderful thing; that God really blesses this. That to be homosexual is a gift from God, and this is a wonderful thing.

And in fact, an article that I read this week by one of those sodomites, Robert Sirico, who is associate pastor down here at the Metropolitan Community Church, says that their greatest evidence for the - for God’s blessing on homosexuality is the fact that God blessed the homosexual relationship of David and Jonathan. And he has written an article, and I’ll just share with you briefly - and I can’t read it all, because I wouldn’t lower myself to read some of the unbelievable - it’s literal pornography that is written about David and Jonathan here, and supposedly in the name of the blessing of God.

But he says, “The Bible shows” - quoting Sirico – “that the blessing of the Lord can rest on a homosexual by giving us the example of David, who was a man after God’s own heart. Notice the following points concerning David, the king. (a) He never had a successful ongoing relationship with a woman.” That’s quite a statement. “(b) He loved Jonathan as his own soul. (c) Jonathan stripped himself and kissed David. David, at this point, acceded” - and then what they say about this, I won’t even read.

“(e) David stated he loved Jonathan more than he could love a woman.” Now, they take all of those twistings of the story of David and Jonathan, and they conclude were homosexuals; and you know something? Everybody in their church believes it. You know why? Because there are a whole lot of homosexuals there looking for justification. And one of the easiest ways that a sinner has to get over his guilt is to find somebody who will tell him that the Bible justifies his sin.

And so they’re happy to believe it, and believe me, their church is growing and proliferating all over America, because there’s a lot of other people who would like to get out from under guilt by having somebody tell them God is in favor of what they’re doing. You say, “Well, how do they get that out of the story?” Let’s go to 1 Samuel 18 to find out; 1 Samuel 18. You know, it’s awful that we have to do this; that we have to even look at this story and defend it, because it throws a color on it that it should never have.

It just - it sickens me to think that they’d do this to David and Jonathan. It’s sickening, because it makes us have to even think that that could be true; that we should ever introduce such a thought into such a beautiful story. You know, I don’t care - if they want to do that, and that’s their thing, and they turn their back on Christ’s forgiveness and repentance, then all I can say to them is what God said: “I give you over to that thing.” But why, in heaven’s name, do you have to drag the Bible into it? God’s pure Word.

Anyway, I’ll get to really flop - flailing around here if I don’t look at this. 1 Samuel 18, verse 1. “It came to pass, when he had ceased speaking” - this is David has killed Goliath, and now he’s been brought in to talk to Saul. And David is talking here, and all of a sudden, there’s just something between David and Jonathan that clicks; there’s just an instant friendship here. And it says that “Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” And verse 3 says, “Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.”

And now, they’ll say, “Well, you see, here it is. There was this really far-out love relationship, very unusual,” and the sodomites tell us that it was a homosexual relationship. Wanna know something? That has nothing to do with this. This is the kind of relationship that every person here in this congregation should have with every other person. Wanna know why? It says David loved him as his own soul, and Jonathan loved David as his own soul. That’s just God’s norm. Do you know that? Because God said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as” - what? – “yourself.”

We ought to love everybody as we love our own soul. There’s nothing sodomite about this. This is just the standard of God. Here are two people who fulfill the magnificence of God’s standards, and these people make them into sinners; what perversion. That’s simply because they couldn’t know this kind of love in any relationship. The only thing they can do is twist it. It’s beyond the capacity of a sinner to experience, and so the sinner drags it down to his own level. And then, in verse 4: “And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David.”

To show his friendship, the beauty of what Jonathan does is give him his robe, and they make this into the first homosexual act. People, I’m telling you, this is really a vile treatment of the Word of God. Be warned. Chapter 19, verse 2, and we go on with the story of David and Jonathan. They became beloved friends, and they say in verse 2, “But Jonathan Saul’s son delighted much in David,” and they say, “There’s a word again that implies sex relations.” The word delighted? Oh my. Not in the Hebrew, it doesn’t.

But you see, that doesn’t matter, because you don’t worry about what the original text says. You don’t worry about anything, or what anything means. If somebody will tell you what you’re doing is okay, then that’s all you need to hear, see? Ridiculous. You take the word delighted throughout the whole Bible, and it never refers to that. It refers to the heart, the joy of the heart in a relationship of love. Jonathan was so pleased with the young David. He so honored him, respected him.

Chapter 20, verse 3, says, “And David swore moreover, and said, ‘Thy father certainly knows that I have found grace in your eyes.’” And they say, “This is David saying, ‘Your father knows that we’re homosexuals.’” They take the word grace to refer to that. Can you believe that? The sinner trying to justify his sin. The word grace, they say, has sexual implications; and I’m just giving you their argument from what I read. In 1 Samuel 20, verse 30, they say, “‘And Saul’s anger was kindled against Jonathan,’ and you know why he was angry?

Because Saul was an ungodly man, and since he was an ungodly man, he looked down on homosexuality. And so he got mad at Jonathan, and he says, “You son of a perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own shame?” You have chosen David, and you’ve become homosexuals, “and this is to the shame of your mother’s nakedness.” That is, his mother was naked in conceiving him and in bearing him. “And you are a shame to your mother who conceived you and bore you, because you’ve turned out to be a homosexual.”

And they say, “You see? This is Saul admitting that they did, and of course, from his viewpoint, because he’s such an ungodly ruler, he sees it as a sin.” You see how they twisted it? What it’s saying is this: “Jonathan, you are a traitor to the royal family. You have befriended this one who is going to take the throne. You have befriended one outside the royal family; you traitor to your mother.” That’s all. There’s no homosexuality there.

And in verse 41: ”And as soon as the lad was gone, David rose out of a place toward the south, and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times: and they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David got himself under control.” Jonathan and David kissed, as the normal manner in the east was. It was just cheek to cheek. He just embraced. That was very normal. Everybody did it. It wasn’t any big thing. And they say what you have here is a homosexual activity, and I can’t interpret the verse the way they do, because I wouldn’t lower myself to do it.

It’s literally pornographic, what they do with the words here. Listen, when they kissed, that’s the normal thing. They were weeping with one another. They were - there was - there was sorrow, and there was yet love and affection between these two as David was about to run away and leave. Jonathan wept, embraced him in affection. If you want to make a sex act here, what are you going to do in Acts, chapter 20, where the elders from Miletus came and kissed Paul, and wept together. Was that an orgy? You see the sickness of such a thing?

But isn’t it always the way, something beautiful that God makes, something wonderful that God makes, and sinners will twist it and pervert it and turn it around. Second Samuel 1:26, it says, David says, “I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant has thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” He says, “Jonathan, the relationship I had with you was something beyond anything a man could have with a woman.” You know, there is a relationship that a man can have with a man that is something other than what a man has with a woman, but that isn’t to say it’s better.

It’s just unique. There’s just something there in the bond of real friendship, when two men or two women can love each other as they love their own souls. That’s possible. That’s God’s design. But there’s no need to think that that’s homosexuality. You see, in that society, that kind of a man-to-man and woman-to-woman relationship was maybe even more common than today, because men in that day put the women in kind of a back place. That wasn’t right, but that was the custom, and a man made his friends among men, and a woman made her friends among women, because there wasn’t that kind of social interaction.

David is extolling the depth and the beauty of that friendship. He’s not comparing it to the sex act between a man and a woman. To give you an idea of how David looked upon anybody who was in any way homosexual, let me show you a verse where David makes his own comment, 2 Samuel, chapter 3, verse 29. By the way, they don’t discuss this verse. David pronounces a curse on Joab and his house. Verse 29: “Let it rest on the head of Joab, and all his father’s house” - Joab murdered Abner, who was important to David.

“Let it rest on the head of Joab, and all his father’s house; and let there never cease from the house of Joab.” All right, your progeny, your children, your offspring are going to be cursed, so that you never cease from having those - “who have an issue” - people with a disease – “or a leper” - people with leprosy - now, watch this – “or who leans on a staff, or who falls on the sword” - kills himself, suicides – “and who lacks bread.” Your children are going to be diseased, they’re going to be leprous, they’re going to be suicidal, and they’re going to starve.

And one other: the one who leans on a staff, the Hebrew who holds a spindle, and he’s saying, “I curse you in that your sons will hold spindles,” and what the Hebrew is saying here is they will be effeminate. They will do the work that women do. When David pronounces a curse, it implies the effeminate, the one who holds a spindle. That’s a possible interpretation; seems to be the emphasis David is making. And so, it’s no question in David’s mind as to what he thought of people who took up the place of a woman.

That was part of a curse, not something blessed by God. Incidentally, the argument from silence is enough to solve the problem. The Bible nowhere, no time ever, ever, ever suggests that any homosexual relationship is at all tolerable to God; and yet, a relationship between a man and a woman is extolled from Genesis to Revelation. Let’s look at the Scripture, and see exactly what it does say. Genesis 1:27 – got to start where it starts. “So God created man in His own image” - just listen now, ‘cause this is a short verse.

“God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male” – zakar – “and female” – neqebah - “created He them.” Now, God only made two types - no, not a third type. And God made those two with a biological difference. This is not a cultural condition, this is a divine creation. God made a male, and God made a female; and the Hebrew words here are to point up the biological difference. A male and a female, and God designed - now watch this - that they two become what? One flesh.

Now, the ultimate intention of that statement is that those two, in coming together, would produce one flesh. Now, how is that done? That is done in a child, isn’t it? Where do two become one? In a child; in a child. They come together, and the act here is, this is the sexual act that’s referred to in the text when it says, “They two become one.” They become one in the creation of that one life, that is the composite of those two. Oh, yes, there’s a mystical oneness; but the real oneness is in the offspring.

Now, that is something that God designed to come out of this, that can’t happen in a homosexual relationship, and so it’s off-base at the very beginning. Plus, God intended a male and a female to make completeness. Two males or two females cannot make completeness. There’s no complement. The way they’re made biologically, there’s no complement. They are defying the standard of God. So, God made it this way. So, you know what happens? From the very beginning, Satan tries to counter this. Satan wants to destroy this.

So the first thing that Satan introduces to foul up the two becoming one flesh is adultery, which introduces a third party - or a fourth or a fifth or a sixth or however many. And so, immediately after God lays down His principles of marriage, we are introduced to adultery. In Genesis, chapter 12, verse 17, Abram allows his wife, Sarah, to commit adultery in Pharaoh’s house. “And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues, because of Sarah, Abram’s wife,” it says in Genesis 12:17.

So, the first thing that threatened the unique polarity that God designed for male and female is adultery. It wasn’t long after that till Satan introduced his second effort, and his second effort was incest. And in chapter 19, verse 36, it says – it’s shocking verse: “Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.” Lot committed incest with both his daughters; a second way Satan attempted to defile what God had designed. So, you have adultery and incest. The third one was rape.

Chapter 34, verse 2: “And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, lay with her, and defiled her.” There’s the first rape in the Bible. God makes this beautiful design, two people come together in one union. Adultery defiles it, incest defiles it, rape defiles it, and the next one is prostitution. The oldest trade in the world appears at least by the 38th chapter of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, verse 15, “Judah saw her, and he thought she was a harlot.”

Already by then, harlots were plying their trade. So, adultery, incest, rape, and prostitution began to be those things designed by Satan to attack God’s creation. Then there was one other, homosexuality, and that appeared earlier than the rest, except for adultery, and that is in chapter 19, homosexuality. It was the second one that appeared on the scene; and, naturally, since man is evil, since his heart is rotten and wicked, he will create devices in which to sin and manifest that rebellion; and Satan will help him and assist him.

And so, we could be sure that if God designed a man and a woman to come together, Satan would design two men to come together, or two women to come together, to defile God’s creation. That’s exactly what happens in homosexuality, sodomy. And in verse 1 of chapter 19, “There came two angels to Sodom at evening” - these are angels in the bodies of men, and they, incidentally, could function as men, as we saw in earlier studies of Genesis 6. They were literally in human bodies, with all the faculties that human bodies can have, and of course, they would be beautiful.

They would be magnificent. They would be incredibly good looking men. They came, and they came into Lot’s house in the evening, and he invited them to stay, and they said, “No, we’ll just stay in the street.” And Lot said, “No, you’d better not stay in the street, and he pressed them greatly, verse 3 says, and they came into his house. Before they could lay down, after they had eaten, verse 4 says, “the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house around, both old and young, all the people from every quarter.” The whole city gathers around.

Here’s a new homosexual treat, two strangers, and, boy, are they good looking. Let’s get them. And they called to Lot, and said, “Where are the men who came in to thee this night? Bring them out, that we may know them.” And the word yada, in the Hebrew, to know, implies the sexual knowledge, just as when it says, “Came to his wife, and she bore a son.” Know implies the sexual relationship. “And Lot went out at the door to them, and shut the door after him, and said, ‘I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.’”

They were wicked. You know what the, you know what Bailey says in his book, Homosexuality in Modern Christian Thought, or Western Christian Thought? He says, “The sin of Sodom was a lack of hospitality.” He says that the reason God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, because they didn’t show any hospitality to these two men. A lack of hospitality, my eye. Here, Lot says, “I know you want to do wickedly.” And then he offers them his two daughters. Well, you don’t give your two daughters to some people out there because you want them to show hospitality.

“I have two virgin daughters. Take them.” You say, “Lot, you’re a fool.” Yeah, well, he’s kinda caught between a rock and a hard place. You let them have, have those two angels, and you’re in a lot of trouble. So he was really trapped. He did a stupid thing. I can understand his dilemma, but his solution was idiotic. He was safe on one ground: he knew they were so perverted, they wouldn’t have anything to do with women.

And I’ve heard psychologists say that once a person has had homosexual activity, a sinful person, because of the perversion of that activity and the innate evil of man’s nature, relishing the perversion, no longer is that person able to go back and be comfortable with just a heterosexual relationship. Because there is a fulfillment of the sin nature in the perversion, and the worse the perversion is, the more of a sinful thrill is accommodating it. And so, they said, “We don’t want them,” and so, finally, you know what had to happen.

They tried to break the door down, and the angels made them blind, and then you know what their problem was? They were so blind, they had a hard time finding the door. What’s incredible to me is, that even after they were blind, they were still trying to find the door. That’ll show you how their lust burned. And God finally drowned the whole city in fire and brimstone, wiped them out, and it was not for a lack of hospitality. Now, other Christian - quote Christian - sodomites have said that they were judged for the sin of rape, because they were going to rape those two angels.

But if they’d just have had a nice, wonderful, warm relationship, you see - they teach that you can either marry another of the same sex, or you can have many coming and going relationships, as long as you have a real, true friendship. And they say this was pure rape, and that’s why God destroyed the city, for their desire to rape these angels. Well, that’s what they say; that’s not what the Bible says. And as I say, they can find a lot of people who want to believe them, and so they do. Incidentally, the term sodomite or sodomy became synonymous with homosexuality.

It was coined that way. It appears in 1 Kings 14:24, and it appears in Deuteronomy 23:17 and 18, and in both of those places, a sodomite is a - is a homosexual. Just that simple. The sin was homosexuality. We know that. You look up any dictionary there is, and it’ll say that. It’s always meant that, from the Book of Genesis on, it’s meant that. In the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy 23, in the Kings, 1 Kings 14, it’s always meant that. Sodomites, homosexuals. So, Satan introduces all this perversion, all this filth, all this garbage into the beautiful design of God.

You say, “Well, does God ever get real specific about this?” Yes, look at Leviticus 18; Leviticus 18:22. Now, here God lays down some principles relative to - to evil desire, and lust, and sex, and all that, and one of the principles appears in verse 22. “Thou shalt not lie with mankind” - Leviticus 18:22 – “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast” - or an animal – “to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it’s confusion.

“Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. You shall therefore keep My statutes and Mine ordinances, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourns among you.” In other words, look at the nations. They were sodomites, verse 22.

They were lying down with the same kind; and, because of it, they were defiled and the land vomited them out, and they fell into judgment; “and I’ll do the same to you if you do the same thing.” God says, “No, you can’t do this.” God forbids it. In fact, there was a penalty for it in the - in the 20th chapter of Leviticus, in the 13th verse. “If a man lies with mankind, as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be” - what? – “put to death; and their blood shall be on them.”

In other words, they’re responsible themselves. The penalty was death. You find anybody doing that, kill them on the spot. Now, that’s serious. You say, “Well my, John, that’s pretty straight stuff.” Right. You say, “How do the sodomites get around that today?” Oh, they say Jesus came and abolished the law. They say in Matthew 5, that Jesus came and said, “I am the end of the law. That’s it for the law.” You think they really believe that? If Jesus was the end of the law and abolished all the law, then anything goes.

I mean we could walk up and kill each other. I can go down there to their - to their place where they collect the offering, and I can walk up and take it all away; say, “Well, I’m going to take this money.” “Well, that’s - you can’t do that.” “No, I can. The law’s abolished.” I can even go down and shoot them. The law’s abolished. No. You see, when it says telos - Christ said, “I am the end of the law,” He said telos. The Greek word telos means He is the payment, you see. He is the payment of the legal debt.

He is not the negation of the legal principle, you see. He says, “I am the one who pays the legal debt, and I am the consequence of disobedience to the law. I’m not coming here to tell you there’s no more law.” Foolish. God’s morality hasn’t changed. Did all of a sudden, God say, “Oh, I don’t feel that way about My morals. I’m going to change all My morals now that it’s the New Testament.” God hasn’t changed. God is immutable. One of the characteristics of God’s nature is He never changes.

He hates today just what He hated 10,000 years ago. Never change. It is sin. It is serious. It was punishable by death. It is not hereditary. It is not sickness. It is not a wrong gender domination. It is not your mother’s fault. It is not hormonal imbalance. It is sin, period. And God says it’s so serious that it’s abominable, and if anybody does it, kill them. Now you say, “Well, should we go around killing them now, if it’s just as serious?” What was physical in the Old Testament becomes spiritual in the New.

And the New Testament puts it this way: “If any man does this, he shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” The death is no more physical, it is what? Spiritual. But we ought to announce to them that they are dead, and they’re headed for an eternal death. You see, what under the old law was a very physical way to deal with sin, in the new covenant is a very spiritual. Homosexuality today, continued in by somebody, I don’t care what they claim - I don’t care if they claim to be a Christian or not - they can’t be a true Christian and continue in that.

That’s according to 1 Corinthians 6. If they do, we can say to them - we don’t have to execute the death penalty - we can say to them, “You are spiritually dead, and you will die the eternal death.” ’Cause what was physical in the old becomes spiritual in the new, in terms of God’s judgment. Now, let’s look at the New Testament, very quickly, Romans 1, I’m going to finish in a minute. Romans 1:18: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.”

We’ll just take that phrase. God’s wrath is revealed against unrighteousness, and the rest of the verses in this marvelous chapter talk about the fact that God has revealed Himself in the heart of a man, verse 19. God has revealed Himself in conscience, is what that verse is saying. God has revealed Himself in creation, in verse 20, “the invisible things of Him are known from the creation.” And man should know. In verse 21, they did know God. “But they glorified Him not as God,” and this is what’s happened to man.

Man turned his back on God, went his own way, “changed the glory” - verse 23 – “of the incorruptible God into an image” - and he began to worship idols, and birds, and beasts, and snakes, and what did God do? “God gave them up.” God said, “All right, you want to go that way, go ahead.” And what did they do? “They began to function on the lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their bodies between themselves. The exchanged the truth of God for the lie. They worshiped and served the Creator - or the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”

In other words, they began to worship self. They began to worship lust. They began to worship physical satisfaction, physical gratification; and here’s where it went. It would never stay true. It would always go perverted. And so, “When they were given over to vile affections: immediately the women did exchange the natural use for that which is against nature: And 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, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was fitting.”

Women with women and men with men is an evidence of man turning his back on God, not the blessing of God. “Abandoned the natural,” see. Exchange the - the phusikos chrēsis, the natural relation, the God-designed, God-created thing. You say, “You know,” you say, “Well, what did they do with this one?” Oh, here’s what they do with this one. They say, “If you are a homosexual, that’s your natural thing, and if you violate that - violate that, you’re sinning.” Where do you find that? It doesn’t say in Genesis 1 that He made them male and male, and said, “Let those two be one flesh.”

And it - they say, “It’s your natural use,” but it doesn’t say that. It says, “They exchanged the natural use.” There’s only one. It’s the one that God designed. And likewise, “The men leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust, men with men, working that which is unseemly.” That’s a terrible translation. The word means that which is shameful, the Greek - shameful. But do you notice something, people? Now, watch. You see, first they apostate, they became apostate. That is, they departed from God.

And once they departed from God, they behaved like that. Listen, apostasy and homosexuality, like all other vices, go together. And that’s why, where you had a pagan temple, you’d have homosexuality. That’s why where you had Baal worship, you have the eunuchs. That’s why you have the worship of false gods in Greek and Roman times, you’d have eunuchs and perversion. Because this kind of sexual perversion goes together with apostasy. Both are spawned by Satan.

To say that someone is a Christian homosexual is a contradiction, because homosexual behavior is manifestation of apostate doctrine, and he is an apostate, and that is one who has departed from the truth, no matter what his claim is. You say, “Well, can a Christian once in a while fall into this temptation and sin?” Yes, but Paul is saying it won’t be his manner of life, and he certainly won’t defend it as honored by God. Believe me, if the true - if you’re a true Christian, the Holy Spirit’ll convict of that sin, and a true believer, according to 1 John 1:9, is constantly confessing his sin.

He is the one being forgiven. It’s unnatural, according to Romans 1. It’s unregenerate. It’s perverted, and I’ll go a step further. First Timothy 1:10 - this is the last verse I’m going to read you - 1 Timothy 1:10: “For fornicators, for sodomites” – “for fornicators, for sodomites” - that’s the next one, “them that defile themselves with mankind” – “for kidnappers, for liars, for perjured persons, and” - watch this – “if there be any other thing that is contrary to” - what? – “sound doctrine.” You see, it’s contrary to the doctrine of the Word of God.

“It is contrary to sound doctrine; according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.” Paul says, “I don’t know anything about this stuff. It doesn’t have any part in true doctrine.” It’s inconceivable to me that somebody could possibly, possibly believe this, and say, “I’m a Christian.” It is a twisting and a perverting. Can you imagine a church in the name of Jesus Christ, saying they present the Gospel of Jesus Christ, where everybody says that the only way to live is in constant incest?

Well, that’s the same thing, just a different perversion. And as I told you last week, we can’t accept it, people. We can’t, and I’m intolerant of it, for two reasons. One, it’s dishonoring to God, and it’s adulterating His Word, and two, listen: you’re not going to help those people by overlooking that. Because if you don’t tell them it’s a sin, then you don’t give them the opportunity to change; and only God can change them. You say, “But can He even change it?” Oh, yes. 1 Corinthians 6: “And such” - what? – “were some of you.”

That’s right. Fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals, liars, effeminates, extortioners, slanderers – “such were some of you: but now you’re washed, now you’re sanctified, now you’re justified, through Jesus Christ.” They’re sinful, and they’re guilty, and they’re estranged from God, and they’re on their way to hell; and they need to be told that in love, so that they can find the cure. You say, “What should I do, John?” Well, first of all, fight the invasion, will you? If you have to, write your congressman. Write the newspaper.

Don’t let it creep in and take over our society. Secondly, teach your children God’s standards and God’s principles. And thirdly, when you see somebody like that, love them and lead them to Christ. I couldn’t think of anything greater than have a whole church full of ex-sodomites, to join the rest of us ex-whatever we are – sinners - be great. And fourthly, when you find a Christian who’s got that kind of a problem, help him with his temptation, will you? Help her with her temptation. And let’s pray that God’ll somehow use us to bring some of these people to the knowledge of the truth.

And remember, we’ve all been there. We were all there once, without Christ, weren’t we? And we were all sinners, and Jesus put it pretty sharply when He said, “Let him that is without sin” - what? – “cast the first stone.” We’ve all been there. We’re all forgiven. We were so anxious to receive God’s pity and His love and His grace, let’s be just as anxious to give it to those who desperately need it. Let’s pray. Father, I guess we’ve all sometime, someplace, some way, abused our God-given sexuality.

Maybe not to the degree and the extent that these people have, but we all know how that temptation has come in our lives. We all know that we’re just sinners, saved by Your love and grace. Help us to be an extension of that love, extension of that mercy, extension of that grace, to those who desperately need You, who are trapped in this ugly, vile, abominating sin. May we never, ever be tolerant of the sin. May we ever, ever be loving of the sinner. In Jesus’ name. Amen.