OPEN: A man went to see a psychiatrist, and told him, "I’ve been doing some bad things, Doc, and my conscience is troubling me."
The psychiatrist thought about that and then said: "And you want something that will STRENGTHEN your will power?"
But the man replied, "Well, no. I was thinking of something that might weaken my conscience."
Jerusalem was a city with a weakened conscience. They had sinned so terribly that God said that even Sodom and Samaria hadn’t done half of the evils that Judah had done. God declared: “Not only did you walk in their ways and do according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways.” Ezekiel 16:47
In Scripture, Sodom is a by-word of evil. Deuteronomy 32:32-33 (talking to Israel about their forefathers’ disobedience): “For their vine (the disobedience in Israel) comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison; their clusters are bitter; their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps.”
Essentially Sodom was the benchmark against which all evil was measured. And at the heart of Sodom’s sin was (PAUSE) AN ABOMINATION. Jerusalem is told by God: “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and DID AN ABOMINATION BEFORE ME. So I removed them, when I saw it.” Ezekiel 16:49-50
In other words… there were SIX sins Sodom was guilty of. But the last was an abomination, and when God saw that ABOMINATION He “removed them.” But what exactly was this abomination Ezekiel was talking about? Well Genesis 19:1, 3-11 tells us: “The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth…. They turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, THE MEN OF SODOM, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, THAT WE MAY KNOW THEM.’…
Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down. But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.”
The book of Genesis does not mention any OTHER sin Sodom committed. The only sin that Sodom is known for in Genesis is “sodomy” – what we call homosexuality. All the men of the city were guilty of that. They were ALL trying to break down Lot’s door so that they might have sex with Lot’s male visitors (angels). As you can imagine, that didn’t work real well for the Sodomites.
That kind of activity is called an ABOMINATION in Scripture. Leviticus 18:22 warns Israel: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an ABOMINATION.”
In case you didn’t catch how serious this was, God drives the point home in later in Jude 1:7 “…Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities… likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire (and) serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”
In our text this morning in Ezekiel 16 God was essentially saying that Sodom was guilty of 6 different sins - but it their blatant endorsement of homosexuality that was like the icing on the cake. God declared “I removed them, when I saw it.” Ezekiel 16:50
Now, homosexuality is not the only sexual sin that’s called an abomination. Leviticus 18 has a whole list of sexual sins that God detests and calls ABOMINATIONS: “You are not to come near any close relative for sexual intercourse; I am the LORD. You are not to shame your father by having sex with your mother. She is your mother; you must not have sexual intercourse with her. You are not to have sex with your father’s wife; it will shame your father. You are not to have sexual intercourse with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s, whether born at home or born elsewhere…” Leviticus 18:6-9 (HCSB Version)
And the list goes on and on and on. We’re not going to read the whole thing because some of it just plain embarrassing. Ephesians 5:12 “it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret”
But amongst those sins in Leviticus 18 is God’s statement that homosexuality is an ABOMINATION.
Then God closes out this chapter from Leviticus by saying: “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, AND THE LAND VOMITED OUT ITS INHABITANTS. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you - for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, SO THAT THE LAND BECAME UNCLEAN - lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. So keep my charge NEVER to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God.” Leviticus 18:24-30
THE LAND BECAME UNCLEAN! The endorsement of these abominations by the nations who preceded Israel in the Promised Land had caused the land to VOMIT them out of their homes.
Hmmm.
How many of you have heard that President Trump is picking a new Supreme Court Justice this month? Yeah. How could you miss hearing about that – everyone is speculating about who it will be? And the reason they’re picking a new Supreme Court Justice is because Anthony Kennedy has announced his retirement. As I was listening to several of the commentators talk about his career, many of them referred to him as a “conservative judge.” And in many ways he was. But he wasn’t a good judge. He wasn’t a righteous man. It was his evil influence that made homosexual marriage law of land. He betrayed our nation and made our people to be a stench in God’s presence. We should be glad that he has resigned and we need to pray that he’s not replaced by someone who was like him.
In California, a bill was passed this past Spring that (according to language from that bill) “intends to make clear that sexual orientation change efforts (helping homosexuals leave that lifestyle) are an unlawful practice under California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act”. In other words: you can be arrested and/or fined for helping a homosexual leave that way of life.
ILLUS: A local preacher’s daughter came home from college a couple years back and she was in tears. When he asked her what was wrong, she said that she’d been in Sociology class and it was mentioned that preachers like him could one day go to jail for what they stood for. He smiled gently and said “Honey, I’ve been telling you that for years.”
Another oddity: All across the nation, CHURCHES have been endorsing and embracing the homosexual lifestyle. CHURCHES? “Christian” gatherings that would endorse homosexuality? Sadly, yeah. But how do they get around verses like the ones we just looked at? WELL… they have their own Bible. It’s called (I kid you not) the “Queen James Version”. Much like the Jehovah Witness Bibles that have been around for decades, the Queen James Version changes verses they don’t agree with. It’s dishonest and deceptive… but they don’t care – as long as the Bible says what they want to hear. As I researched this topic on the Internet I was surprised at great lengths the homosexual community will go to “reinterpret” Bible verses that clearly say their lifestyle is wrong.
Now I could go on and on about this kind of thing. I could focus on politicians and judges and homosexual churches for hours. But my objective this morning is not to tell you what THOSE folks should know (they probably wouldn’t listen to me anyway). My objective is to tell YOU what YOU and I need to know, because in our present culture there are people who are going to try to shame you and insult you (whatever they have to do) into abandoning God’s Word on this topic. In the face of that kind of opposition we NEED to know certain things. But what is it that we need to know?
1st we need to realize that Homosexuality is a sin. It’s an abomination. It’s a lifestyle that will send people to hell. Anyone who is honest with Scripture will know that and will not back off on that truth.
There are a lot of people these days who DON’T LIKE what the Bible says about homosexuality or any other kind of sin. They can be a lot like the guy who was reading the Bible and slammed it shut. He said: “I don't know what it means, but it doesn't mean what it says!"
But IF you’re a Christian and IF you’re going to be honest with Scripture you’ve got to understand that God condemns this kind of lifestyle.
2nd thing you need to know is that our culture goes to great lengths to excuse this lifestyle. They call it an “orientation” – which is a code word for their belief that “that’s just how homosexuals are. That’s how they’re wired. They can’t help being who they are.”
One argument is that they were “BORN” that way. It’s in their DNA
Let’s be clear: That’s a lie. It’s a prevarication. It’s a falsehood. It’s wrong! There is NO scientific research that proves that homosexuals are born that way. In fact - research proves exactly the opposite.
ILLUS: A landmark study was published in “The Journal – The New Atlantis, (8/23/16).” They analyzed the scientific evidence of LGBT issues that had been published up to that date in scientific journals found that “The belief that sexual orientation is an innate, biologically fixed human property – that people are ‘born that way’ – is not supported by scientific evidence.”
(https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/deceit-and-lies-we-have-been-told-on-homosexuality?utm_content=buffer04d7b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=defendmarriage%2Bfacebook&utm_campaign=buffer)
ILLUS: A few years back, there was a massive study of IDENTICAL twins where one of the twins was a homosexual. If they were “Identical” you would expect that they’d be “identical” on just about everything – including being homosexual. So, you would expect a high percentage of these gay twins to BOTH be gay.
NOPE. Really? Why not? Because there is no scientific basis for the idea that homosexuals were BORN that way. (http://amazinghealth.com/13.06.24-identical-twin-studies-prove-homosexuality-is-not-genetic).
IT IS A LIE!
IT IS A DECEPTION!
IT IS NOT TRUE!!!!
The 3rd thing you need to know – the GAY lifestyle isn’t really all that gay.
The lifespan of the average homosexual man is 41 years. The comparative lifespan of heterosexual men – 82.
Homosexual men life ½ as long as straight men? Why would that be? Well, it is true, because the homosexual lifestyle is EXTREMELY unhealthy. They do things in their “relationships” God never designed us to do and as a result gays are decimated by gonorrhea, syphilis, AIDS, certain cancers.
In addition, according to The Journal – the New Atlantis article: “(Homosexual) and transgender people have higher rates of mental health problems (anxiety, depression, suicide), as well as behavioral and social problems
(substance abuse, intimate partner violence), than the general population.” They also have much higher levels of suicide. “Discrimination alone does not account for the entire disparity.”
And yet, there are people who will proudly declare that gays that it’s OK to live like that. They can love who they want to love. And that’s true. They can love who they wish… but there are consequences to those choices and this world does the homosexual community no favors by lying to them.
But Christians ALSO have certain lies that they believe.
1st – there are Christians who believe that homosexuality is the worst sin EVER. How many of you believe that homosexuality is NOT the worst sin ever? You’d be right. There are worse sins than that of being “gay”.
1st – there’s a sin that is unforgiveable. Do you know what that sin is? That’s right – the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. That’s where people basically tell God to go take a hike. They shut down on God’s Spirit convicting them of their sins and thus never repent. And since they never repent – they can’t be forgiven.
But Homosexuality is not an unforgivable sin.
2nd - when God condemned Jerusalem in Ezekiel 16 He told them: “Not only did you walk in their ways (the ways of Sodom and Samaria) and do according to their abominations; within a very little time you were MORE CORRUPT than they in all your ways.” Ezekiel 16:47
Sodom was destroyed for its abomination of homosexuality… but their sin paled in comparison to what Jerusalem was guilty of. There were worse sins than what Sodom had done.
3rd - in Leviticus 18, God talks about all kinds of sexual sins that are abominations… and homosexuality is just ONE of those sins. Any one of those sins would have brought about the judgment of God on a nation.
So, the first lie Christians can believe is that homosexuality is the worst sin EVER. The 2nd lie churches can be deceived by is that - homosexuals are never going to change. They’re just like the world in this except the world uses that lie to embrace the homosexual sin. Churches use that lie to pass judgment and demonize gays. There are some churches that would never allow homosexual to enter their building – even if they’d left the lifestyle years before. For these churches, there’s no sense even talking to them about Christ - they’ll always be “homosexual”.
A similar lie is that somehow the gay stuff will rub off on us and we’ll become somehow unclean because they “touched us”. I had a man who regularly cut my hair in the last community who was gay. He never made me feel uncomfortable or uneasy. He was actually a very nice guy.
I Corinthians 6:9-11 tells us “do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor MEN WHO PRACTICE HOMOSEXUALITY, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
BUT THEN IT SAYS
“And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
Gays CAN change. They’ve done it for centuries.
ILLUS: Years ago we had a man visit our congregation who was an avowed homosexual. Everybody in church knew who he was because – at one time – he’d been a preacher in our brotherhood and had been instrumental in turning around a church just south of Indianapolis. But then he got caught in a homosexual relationship. He quit the pulpit, he quit the church and he quit Jesus. By the time he reached our fair city, he was a bitter man who had nothing to say that was good about Jesus, His church or the Christian faith.
But here he was, sitting in church for the first time in about a decade. No one here shunned him or avoided him. During greeting time he was welcomed and he kept coming back week after week. Finally, after about 3 months of attendance, he came to me and asked if he could speak to the Elders. Shortly after he was in a classroom with myself and the Elders and he said “You know who I am and what I’ve done. I don’t want to be like that anymore. Would you help me and would you forgive me.”
To their credit, the Elders told “That’s what we’re in the business of doing.” And they prayed for him, welcomed him into the congregation and eventually he was giving regular communion meditations. And he left his lifestyle, burned his pornography and was a faithful follower of Christ from that day forward.
CLOSE: A few years ago, a man named Michael Glatze was a rising star in "gay rights" movement (We showed a cover of Time magazine featuring him with the title: The Battle Over Gay Teens)
(https://rbooksinternational.ecrater.co.uk/p/14873922/time-magazine-october-15-2005-the-battle-over)
Glatze said he became aware of homosexual feelings at about the age of 14 and publicly declared himself "gay" at age 20. He became a spokesman for the gay movement and an editor of a Young Gay Men’s magazine. But after a decade of leadership role as a homosexual activist– he found himself caught up in a mysterious inner conflict". It so troubled him that he eventually left the gay lifestyle behind.
In a column he wrote Glatze called homosexual sex purely "lust-based," (did you remember what I said the man did who came to our church – he burned his pornography – it was part of their sexual activity) meaning it can never fully satisfy. "It's a neurotic process rather than a natural, normal one. Normal is normal – and has been called normal for a reason."
"Knowing no one who I could approach with my questions and my doubts, I turned to God. I'd developed a growing relationship with God..."
But "Coming out" from beneath the influence of the homosexual "mindset," Glatze said was a fearful thing because he thought opponents of homosexualism were "mean and crazy, and they wanted to hurt me." "I thought they were out to get me," he said. "They made me really, really mad – and scared, I wanted them to go away."
But the one Christians who had the deepest influence on him was his aunt. He says he now has deep respect for a Christian aunt who DISAPPROVED OF HIS LIFESTYLE. But he noted: she "was never judgmental, but always firm.” (Art Moore © 2007 WorldNetDaily.com)
My point is this: We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. None of us deserve to go to heaven. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Our sins are simply different than the sins of the gays and others. Their sins may seem “yuckier” to us than our own, but they are as forgivable for their sins as we are for ours. And if we (who love Jesus) don’t share God’s forgiveness with them… they’ll go to hell.
But if we care for them and – without showing acceptance of the lifestyle – show that we care about them as individuals… we can change the course of their lives for eternity.
INVITATION
