YP Talk—Greg Smith
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Get started with the Word of prayer.
God and Father, we give thanks for above all, for our Savior, the Lord Jesus. We give thanks that He is the reason we are here, not just in this room at this place to think about Him and to go seek to glorify Him in our lives. But He's the reason why this earth exists at all, the one by whom all things consistent. We just do pray that the words we have now and throughout the rest of our time here at Carrollton would be toward His honor and glory.
Ask for special help for the meeting to follow and again for our, uh, conversations and so on. Uh, we give thanks for your love to us and we pray this now, Father, in the name of your own beloved Son, the Lord Jesus.
Amen.
All right, so, umm, some of you may be wondering, uh, who I am, umm, you know Steven, uh, who had the meeting last uh, night And umm, I would just say that I grew up here in Cuyahoga Falls and grew up coming to Carrollton. Umm, but the last time I was here before this year was 22 years ago. So it's been a little while, uh, for me. Umm, I live in Michigan now, although I still think of myself as, uh, as an Ohioan, but I don't think we need to.
To get into that, uh, at this point, but I also teach, umm, history and I mentioned that now because it may seem like I'm talking like a history teacher a little bit, uh, as we, uh, have the meeting today. And if so, umm, that's, that's just the way it is. It turns out that the subject I have in my heart is a little different maybe from the ones that, uh, that we usually have at conferences and young people. And I really do. The reason I mentioned being a teacher, uh, a history professor actually is that I do want to think of this as a kind of class. Uh, that is in the sense that I, I hope this will be open for questions and answers. In fact, I hope to leave time if not.
I always go longer than I mean to. So if not in this meeting, then in the second meeting at at least at the end or maybe at other times throughout the day. Uh, I'm really am interested in questions that you may have, uh, questions and answers and more, uh, open discussion of some of the very important issues that the Lord has laid on my heart today. Well, Speaking of the issues, uh, I want to begin with First Samuel 18.
The beginning and the end of one of the most beautiful relationships in the Bible.
For Samuel 18, this is the beginning chapter.
18 and verse one. We'll read the first few verses here.
And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David.
And Jonathan loved him as his own soul, And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul. And we could go on. The next verse is important to Jonathan stripped himself of the road that was upon him, and gave it to David and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.
The end of the relationship, uh, I hope I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Uh, Jonathan and his father die in battle at the end of first Samuel, uh, in a sad story, but umm, also very sad, uh, and moving is second Samuel chapter one, David's song of mourning, uh, and celebration, if you like, of Saul and Jonathan. So David says this at the end of second Samuel chapter one.
He says, can people hear me? By the way, I'm not sure if this is working. Uh, I can talk more loudly. No, it's not working. Very loud back there. Speak up. OK, I will.
Umm.
Second Samuel 123 This is David speaking. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death. They were not divided. They were swifter than Eagles, they were stronger than lion. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet with other delights? Who put it on ornaments of gold upon your apparel? How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle? And here's the part I was really thinking about. Oh, Jonathan said, David, thou was slain in thine high places.
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan.
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me. Thy love to me was wonderful. Passing the love of women.
How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished?
150 years ago. Umm this.
Story would have been read, I think a little bit differently or maybe a lot differently than it's read today, even by Christians, because I suspect, uh, that some people are wondering why are we reading about this and maybe even squirming a little bit. I can tell you, even if it's not true of you, that Christians, some Christians at least read these verses now and think, wait a minute here we have two men and their souls are knit together and love and they made a covenant. And at the end, David says this thing, uh, about Jonathan that your love was to me.
00:05:16
Even more than the love of women.
Even when I was growing up 20 years ago, things were different, but I remember thinking, well, that's, that's kind of strange. I'm not sure exactly what to, what to think of that. But here we know about Dave and Jonathan, two godly men. Umm, nowadays, I suspect, and I can't put myself into your position exactly, but I suspect there's a little bit of squirming going on. This seems a little strange, uh, nowadays. Well, that's because of something that happened in the 19th century. I told you I'm a history teacher, Umm, and I may go into some things that happened starting in the 1860s with the way we think about relationships between.
Human beings between men and women, between women and women, men and men and so on. But also especially, I don't think it's any secret that in the last really 10 years, five years, things have massively changed in this country about in the way we think of human relationships and especially, uh, human sexuality, physical intimacy between human beings. Uh, I don't think there's ever been a change so fast. Uh, the pollsters tell us there's never been a change in public opinion on a major issue in America as fast as the recent, uh, trends in what's called marriage equality, gay marriage, and so on. So I have the subject on my heart not to get to the bottom of it and to just provide us all with a lot of good arguments so that we can go out.
And, and, and fight the fight, umm, I do hope to talk about the scriptures, uh, that the, that we have in the Bible that tell us exactly, umm, what, how God sees these things, how we ought to react to them. But I think even more importantly, umm, there are some ways in which we Christians have accidentally absorbed some of the ways the world has, uh, been thinking about, umm, relationships, human relationships and especially intimate ones, physically intimate ones, uh, and marriage and so on. Umm, and I think it's important for us to see things in terms of God's categories and not in terms of the world. So even if we're still, umm, fighting the good fight, if we have the right biblical answers about what is sinful and what is not, and I suspect most people here do, although we're going to talk about just why we.
Where those answers are in the scripture, Umm, I think it's also possible for us to absorb ways of thinking from the world that are not right. And that, umm, maybe have distorted the way we think about, uh, we think about human relationships. So that's my subject. I told you it's going to be a little different, uh, from ones, perhaps you hear in most, uh, young people's meetings. Umm, that's why I want to think of this in a, in a little different way from a, from a typical meeting and more of, as a class where we talk about, we look about some verses, kind of wrestle with them together, uh, and, and have some, some time for questions and answers.
That's because.
Things have changed for you guys compared to when I was a kid, and I think they're going to be even more different from your children if the Lord leaves us here. When I grew up, when my parents grew up, we could take a lot of things for granted that we shared with the world. We shared with the world. Umm, basically the idea that, umm, same sex relationships were kind of just sort of icky. That's what it was. I'm going to call this the icky factor. In fact, growing up in, in school, umm, everybody, it didn't matter if you were a Christian or not. We just thought that was kind of strange.
Right, So, umm, people who are involved in a relationship with somebody of the same sex were either secret about it, you know, in the closet, as we say, or they lived out in really strange places like San Francisco, uh, or Provincetown on the, so that's the left coast, San Francisco and then on the East Coast province and some strange places. And, and they were weird, right? And on purpose, right to, to, you know, proud and, and all these other kinds of things, things, as you know, have changed greatly, but we could take things for granted in those days.
Umm, that we shared or thought we shared with the world that everybody felt a kind of natural distaste except for a few strange people. Uh, and I think to some extent we relied on those feelings. I never would have thought I'd have to have or that we'd have a meeting, uh, on something like this because things have changed radically even in the last 1015 years, right? The Defense of Marriage Act was passed when was in 1997. I think, uh, that's now basically been been overturned. So, uh, one of the reasons for having a meeting like this is because things are changing quickly in.
Our world, but again, I don't want this meeting to be just a, a, you know, where you get loaded up with a lot of ammunition so that we can go, uh, fight against the current fight. So that, that are out there. I want this to be a meeting where we look at the Bible, where we see what Jesus, uh, what God has to say in the scripture about these things and how that should guide our responses.
So I have, I think it's fair to say, umm, three goals and I'll get to those in a moment. But first I just want to stress the point I just made 20 years ago when I was growing up, as I said, we could rely on feelings, or at least it seemed like we could, that everybody just felt a sort of natural distaste for these. I want to say that's the wrong move. Yes, we do have consciences. Yes, I think there is a certain natural, uh, distaste for lots of sins. Many of the, many of us feel that for some obvious sins, murder and, and the big ones, umm.
00:10:19
And even people in the world share our distaste for things, umm, when it comes to the sorts of things I'm talking about today and you know, uh, minor children or lots of, there are lots of things where everybody in the world just feels, uh, a natural distaste. But let's not rely on that. We are all broken. Even we Christians, we have God's word to guide us. Uh, we have the Spirit of God to guide us, but our feelings will mislead us. If there's anything the last 10 years have taught us, it's that because it turns out that, uh, these feelings that seem like natural, umm, distaste or revulsion, they are determined by culture to some extent, they can be explained away. You guys are the subjects of an intense campaign to make sure you don't feel.
Revulsion and discussed about sinful things, right? Umm, some of us were just talking at breakfast about the latest, uh, big Disney movie, uh, Frozen, where one of the big songs for two minutes or so is just preaching this message of acceptance and tolerance. Umm, And this makes it an important issue for Christians, right? If not for you, even if you're clear about it, perhaps for your children if the Lord leaves us here.
One more reason for talking about this subject is this. I think it's a matter of, uh, very important for Christians when it comes to apologetics. And you know what apologetics means, just means defending, defending our faith. We have verses that say, umm, always be ready to give an answer, uh, for the hope that is in you, right? So we need to be ready to defend, not that we're going out there necessarily to debate people and so on, umm, but we need to be ready with answers. So it's a matter of apologetics and also of evangelism because the kinds of questions that are coming up now that I didn't hear when I was a kid, but now I'm hearing are things like, umm.
Why does God hate gay people?
Now there are answers for this by the way, umm, God does not hate gay people in case, uh, the meeting ends Now for some reason, umm, I want you to that, that that's a take away point. That is not the case at all. And we're going to look at the scriptures that show that to be the case. But this is how the world is presenting the world as you know, even better than I've been presenting this as, as, as a matter almost of civil rights. So that it's almost like racism was in the 60s or the 19th century and slavery and so on. And this makes it hard if we accept the way the world has framed this question.
This makes it hard to defend. Just imagine for a moment, umm, what I call in my history class is a counterfactual. That is, this is something that's not true, but it helps us to think with it. What if the Bible preached or there were some verses that supported white supremacy and it was in the Bible and it said white people are better and smarter and just inherently superior to any other people in the world, to people of color.
That would be kind of awkward. It would be hard, wouldn't, given what we know and so on. I don't want to go too far with this counterfactual because it's a horrible thing to think about and it's, of course it's not in there. Racism is not in the Bible. In fact, completely the contrary. The New Testament says in Christ Jesus there is neither slave nor free, uh, male nor female, Jew nor Greek. I mean, it erases those kinds of definitions.
The people who, umm, campaigned against modern slavery were Christians above all. It was evangelicals who, uh, you know, who ended the slave trade first in England, uh, and then in America. So this is not the case. But imagine if it did. Because now that the world has cast this current debate we're having about sexuality and same sex relationships as something kind of like black people and white people or white supremacy. And so all these issues of racism, umm, it makes it hard to defend what the Bible really does say because unlike the issue of race, umm, which is really not even much of A category in the Bible, umm.
Sexual sin very much appears in the Bible, right? This is a very important issue and also not just sexual sin, but the right place of, uh, physical intimacy between human beings. This is an issue that's in the Bible. And so we need to see all the ways in which this is not like civil rights. That's one way to think about it. OK, So in order if your kids have questions, if you guys have questions, I think we need to have answers that are from scripture, uh, about this, both in terms of defending our faith to the world, but also for new Christians or for Christians who are young, who are growing up and seeing.
You know, I see that couple and yes, it's that my, you know, a kid in my class has two daddies, but they seem to be a happy family. Umm, I thought, you know, they were all supposed to be unhappy and horrible. And actually they seem a lot like us. There are people for whom this is now a challenge to their face because it seems like relying on our feelings and now seems like they're happy and they're just like us. Well, what we have to do to untangle this whole mess, and I'll stop introducing this in a minute, is to look at what the scripture actually says about these issues.
00:15:10
OK. All right.
Let's move on. If, uh, you're wondering, I, I have more notes than I usually would, uh, in a meeting like this. Umm, but that's because it's a kind of a hard topic and I want to make sure it's delicate. I want to make sure we get to, uh, a lot of the key points, umm, and I, and also to leave some time for, for questions. But above all, I do want to look at the scriptures, uh, and what the Bible actually says about this.
I think as I've said, we need to think in God's categories, not the world. So are there 2?
Outcomes that I hope, uh, result from this meeting in the next is going to kind of spill into the next meeting. One is practical help and advice, right? What are the scriptures that talk about this issue? Uh, and, and we'll get them. There are five, basically two in the Old Testament and three in the new that explicitly addressed this. And so you can write those down, memorize them if you like. Umm, but then also the practical questions to what happens if I have a friend at school who confides in me and says, you know, umm, uh, they're gay or something like that? Or what if, when you get older and you're, umm, at work and so on, What if you get invited to a wedding?
Right. And it's not the kind of traditional wedding that we're used to. There are lots of practical questions that I hope we might talk about and have answers to. At least the verses that we read and the things we talked about will help you have answers too. Umm, but then also there's this kind of broader, what I might call. So that's the practical side, but also the principles. And I think the principles are the most important because the practical issues are going to change. When I was growing up, there were different practical issues. There were people just living together, men and women mostly who were openly living together. And we had to learn how to wrestle and talk about that.
Now we have gay marriage is the big issue of the day. That's probably going to change. You can already see that it's changing toward we're hearing lots about other, you know, problems in the world. And so this is not a. My point is not to catalog all of the sins in the world and give us answers to them, but to see what the Bible says in terms of bedrock principles that we can use that will continue being true no matter what Satan brings up next. Yeah. And I think that's the, one of the most important things, uh, reasons why the Lord laid this on my heart.
All right.
The organization of what I want to talk about then is briefly this and most of this first meeting. Umm, so my bigger subject is actually physical intimacy, human relationships as a whole and especially intimate ones, but not just physically intimate ones, right? In other words, not just ones that involves sex. Umm, I want to talk about this problem of same sex relationships because it's out there, as I've mentioned, but also our view of marriage and God's view of marriage and the right place for all of this and how it works into the world in which we live now.
Uh, that would probably be the set of the, the, the, umm, subject of the second meeting of the Lord leaves us here. But then a third topic I think is just as important. And I hope it's going to be kind of interwoven in both of these. Umm, So first sort of same sex, uh, issues. Next, the way it should be marriage and God's idea, but also just as important singleness.
Being single, therefore being celibate is.
A valid option in the Bible, right? I think we all know that Paul talked about this in first Corinthians. Umm, it's OK. In fact, he says, I wish everybody were like I am and Paul was single. Umm, but I think this is thing something we don't talk enough about nowadays. Umm, possibly. Well, there are lots of reasons for this, but I want to talk about, umm, the, the possibility of having a fulfilled human life in relationship with God first and then with everybody else on earth. Umm, even if you're not married, right? Even if you never experience the kinds of, of things that we're going to be talking about, the Bible says not only is that OK.
It may in some cases even be better and you can have every bit as fulfilling a life, uh, on this earth and in anticipation of the next life as people who are married have children and so on. Singleness and celibacy, a very important theme in the New Testament, uh, not in the Old Testament so much, by the way, there really isn't much place for it. The reason that it's now, uh, if we like, not only a valid option, but when, uh, something that, that, uh, the Spirit of God speaking through Paul says is fine, if you're not married, don't get married. He says that we're going to read that in first Corinthians 7. Umm, he says if you are married, stay married. The reason is we have a New Hope.
We have a hope that the Jews didn't really know about. They've glimpse it dimly, you know, so Abraham looked for a city and so on. We have a hope and that is the hope of, uh, the return of the Lord Jesus Christ for us and also, uh, above all the time when God is going to make everything right. So we are living our lives in light of a hope, not in light of this world and it's passing joys and sorrows as we know, but in light of the next. And that changes everything. OK, so 3 subjects, but let's start now with.
00:20:11
What the Bible says.
Are you ready? 5 passages. These really are. Now, some of you may be able to find some more passages, uh, that aren't in my list, but I think these really are the five passages in the Bible that explicitly address the problem of same sex relationships, especially physical, physically intimate ones. And by the way, I meant to say it's about David and Jonathan. We don't need to squirm. It is in fact, one of the most beautiful relationships in the Bible. There's no hint that there's anything, uh, uh, uh, unseemly going on. It may, it seems like I saw Jonathan's father thought so, but he was just swinging insults. And we all know that Saul is not a very reliable person.
Uh, for this, uh, for this, in fact, uh, if you know, if it weren't for the last 150 years or so, I think we'd much be able, umm, much better to appreciate the beauty of this relationship between two godly men. It's possible, right? For the souls of two men who love the Lord, first of all, for their souls to be knit, knit together and not to have any of these sort of, you know, the world now assumes that anything like that has to involve, uh, you know, physical intimacy and other things. It's not true.
And the only reason that we think it's true, umm, is because of what some people have said in the last, you know, 100 years or so. And I fear that even some Christians have slipped into thinking that the only, truly the only way to have a truly close and intimate relationship with a person is also for it to, you know, be, be consummated in physical intimacy. Not the case at all. The Bible shows us that. So we're going to come back, I hope, to David and Jonathan at the very end. OK, so all the verses, Leviticus 18.
Is the 1St and then Leviticus 20 and I'm just going to look at these very quickly and then say something about all 5.
All right.
Leviticus 18. And really, if we were going to read, uh, the context is important and I don't want to read the whole thing, but it starts in verse six and starts to talk about, umm, the kinds of people it's, uh, and it talks a lot about not uncovering another's nakedness. In other words, this is referring to, as I think we all know, physical intimacy, umm, in short, sex. But if we go down, there's a whole list of things we could keep. Uh, you could keep reading from verse 6, go on and on. And we're still in verse 17 and we're not done yet. We're, uh, verse 18.
Verse 1920, there's your neighbor's wife adultery, Is there Verse 21, a little bit different. You're not supposed to sacrifice your children to, uh, Molech, a very, uh, common sin among the Canaanites. Finally, verse 22, here's the first reference in the Bible, Thou shalt lot, thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, it is abomination. So if you hear Christians, uh, and they're out there, even sometimes well meaning Christians saying, oh really, it's OK is just to kind of, as long as people love each other, it's OK.
It is abomination. Thou shalt not all right, we have a thou shalt not hear. And it's very, very clear. Let's look at the next example, Leviticus 20.
A similar, slightly different list.
Again, we have a long list starting with verse 10, a man that committeth adultery and so on with another man's wife, his neighbor's wife. The penalty, by the way, for this is death. Then we have, uh, uh, relative and what's commonly known as incest and so on, uh, a number of, umm, a number of prohibitions. And finally, uh, if we keep on moving, we have, let's see, verse 21.
Umm sorry, now I've missed the the actual umm.
13 Thank you guys. Umm if a man also lie with mankind as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. Other things are listed here umm, as well. I wanted you to notice one thing it doesn't say in Leviticus or in the Old Testament, or indeed the whole Bible. It does not say.
Don't be gay. I'm going to have to be really careful about this because I'm not saying being gay is OK. What I'm saying is the Bible doesn't even think in those categories. The Bible says don't do this thing. Actresses don't do a lot of things, right? Umm, and this is a long list. That's one of the points. It does not say don't be gay. And I'm going to come back to that because you couldn't even say that in English or indeed in any other modern language until the 1860s. People didn't even have a concept of being gay or being a homosexual. And I'll come back to that. And it's very important. We Christians should not have that concept either. I don't think It's not in the Bible. It was invented in the 1860s, Uh, and it's only been strengthened since.
00:25:07
So keep your finger on that, umm, and, and I hope, uh, the recording doesn't accidentally stop now because I could be in trouble. Umm, you know, telling people that the Bible doesn't say that. But let's see what the Bible actually does say first. Umm, does anybody know, umm, what Jesus had to say about homosexuality?
Good answer, perfect.
Said that he talked about adultery a number of times as we know, and fornication. And fornication, by the way, is the Bible's word, especially in the New Testament for all sins of this nature outside of marriage. It's a general catch all word. It doesn't just mean, you know, before marriage, it means outside. OK, Umm, Jesus didn't say anything about it, which umm.
Just something I want to to stress at this point because he does talk about, uh, other problems in other sense. But where we do get it next is Romans chapter one, perhaps the single most important place in the Bible, umm, to talk about this. And I'll just mention it briefly. And then what I want to do is.
Look at it quickly and then we're going to come back because that really is the subject. That's, that's the passage I want to close on and look more closely, uh, at today.
Romans 1.
Says verse 26 for this cause, and we'll come back to what the cause was later. God gave them up into vile affections for even their women did change their natural use into that which is against nature. By the way, that's the only reference in the Bible to this kind of sin among women. Umm, but it's there. So that's, uh, that there's, there's no exception.
Uh, even though it talks more about men and likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the women burned in their last one toward another men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meat.
Now, this isn't part of a list in quite the same way as it is in Leviticus, just a kind of laundry list of, and I don't mean to make it flippant laundry. That's much more important than a laundry list. It's a very important list. This isn't part of a list right here. But if you look on, umm, to verse 29, we see that actually it is. It begins a list. And this is a very important passage that shows what happens to people when they stop worshipping God as God. These are all consequences of idolatry, all right. These are consequences of what I think we could call original sin, the fundamental human failure to recognize.
Who God is, even though we all have an idea of it in our hearts. What happens? A whole bunch of things. First he lists the sins, umm, in verse 26 and 27, which I've just stated. But then we have unrighteousness in verse 29. Fornication. There's that catch all word again, umm, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, debate, deceit and so on and so on. So there's a list here too. It's just part of the list. Next one, First Corinthians. So, umm, you're keeping these Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, Romans 1.
1St Corinthians 6 and we're almost done with the list.
1St Corinthians 6 And by the way, when I talk about this list, and I say there are only 5, what I mean is our direct and obvious references to this thing. There are implications, many of you know, about Sodom and Gomorrah and what the men of Sodom, you know, they said bring out the men that we may know them and so on. So they're pretty obvious allusions to other things going on. But these are actual direct and explicit references in Scripture in which it's clearly listed as a sin and prohibited by God. That's what I mean by this list. There are other, umm, kind of implied ones in the Scripture that we won't get to today, although they're there. First Corinthians 6.
Verse 9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the Kingdom of God. So, umm, I don't think I have to tell you what the words are there. The two words effeminate and abusers of themselves with mankind both refer to.
Uh, uh, same sex relations between men. OK. And actually, what they much more accurately reflect are the divisions that the ancient world made. Nowadays, we make a division between, umm, what's usually called homosexuals and heterosexuals, gay and straight. You know these words, umm, we hear them almost every day. Umm, a laugh. There is no such categorization in the ancient world, whether in the Old Testament. I know more about the Greeks and the Romans because I study them. And even though the Greeks and the Romans were famous for these kinds of sins, they did not divide.
Uh, they did not say that person is gay and that person is not. They divided the world in this way into active and passive. All right. Umm, and that's what these two words mean. The first one just means passive and the next one means active. Umm, I won't go into all the details of what that means. The point is this, these categories are shifting and fluid. Umm, I think Satan has introduced all kinds of categories throughout history. Now we have a new set of categories. Uh, that's multiplying by the way. Umm, there are lots of initials you have to keep track of LGBTQ and it seems like you just keep adding.
00:30:22
Uh, to them, these are not God's categories, all right? Even though they're, uh, mentioned here. Umm, Paul just wants to state the basic problem, so he refers, uh, again, though, this is part of the list of things that are not, umm, associated with those who will inherit the Kingdom of God. OK, last one, First Timothy.
I have my.
Uh, second Timothy is where I was, right? OK. Umm, first Timothy verse eight, chapter one, verse eight. We know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully. This is a really important passage because there's a, there's a sense in which it, it highlights, umm, those parts of the Old Testament law, maybe even the 10 commandments that are, uh, important and still, uh, have forced, I mean, all of them have force in a certain sense. Uh, but in a way, I think this looks back to the law, uh, and tells us some important things that remain important in God's eyes.
Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for man players, for ************ for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men, stealers, for liars, for perjured persons. And if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. So here's the other thing. The department that depiled themselves with mankind. That's it. 5 references in the Bible that show clearly, unambiguously, you don't need to have debates about this. Uh, it's in the Bible that this is not part of God's order in fact, and in short, it's a sin.
OK, umm.
I want you to notice though, something about these verses, these verses all refer to actions. A sin is an action. A sin is not, umm, a temptation. A sin is not an orientation. You know, that's a word we hear a lot nowadays. What is your orientation? We don't discriminate on the basis of, of race, gender, religion, uh, and then now sexual orientation. The Bible does not condemn anyone as being sinful, uh, because of their initial.
Inclinations, OK, just like the Bible doesn't say you're a liar if you're tempted to lie, does it, Uh, if you're tempted to lie, uh, and you don't, are you a liar? No, of course not. You're a liar if you lie. It's very simple. But, but because of the way we now think of the category of, of, of homosexual and gay is, is referring to, uh, the tendency, regardless of what, of any actions that are taken, I think we've lost sight of it. It's exactly the same.
With the kinds of sins that we're talking about here, Umm.
God, sin is a matter of action. Now what the New Testament shows us that was newly revealed, I think especially to Paul that's different from the Old Testament, is that sins actually do emerge from a deeper part of us. It emerges from our inherent sinfulness. We sin, as I always used to hear when I was a kid and sometimes I got annoyed at this, but it's a great thing and true. Umm, we are not sinners because we send. We send because we're sinners. You ever heard that before? People still say that, right? Umm, what that means is we have an inherent sin nature that causes us.
Uh, to sin and the New Testament is what brings that out. Uh, you know, if we didn't have Romans, I think we wouldn't really know this, uh, very clearly. And I don't know that it was known very clearly in the Old Testament as well, although there's a sense of it. I think David had a pretty clear sense of this, Umm, and, and they knew about the depravity of their own hearts, but sin does emerge from the depravity of our own hearts. Still, these five passages all referred to actions, not to states of being right, not to identities.
That may not make much sense yet, but let's carry on and we'll try and explain, uh, explain it a little better.
The other thing I want to say about these five passages is that same sex relationships, and especially sinful and physically intimate ones appear in each case as part of a much broader list of of sexual and and often other sins, not just exclusively these kinds of sins. Homosexuality, as we call it, is not actually singled out, umm, as the single worst one of them all or worthy of special condemnation. Yes, it's an abomination and called unnatural and so on.
00:35:18
But it's also unnatural to hate your parents or to even dislike your parents or to tell a lie, remember, and beings and murdered wickednesses. There are, uh, lots of other sins in these lists and those are all unnatural in the sense that they are not what we were created for. If you think about, uh, what we were created for, to enjoy fellowship and communion with God before the fall, we were not created for sin of any kind. James says if, if we, uh, if you offend in any part of the law, you're guilty of all, OK.
So these sins are parts of a list. Now, Romans one might seem to be an exception because it really does seem to single out both men and women, uh, as a special consequence of what happens when people turn away from God. And that's why I want to end with Romans one. I think it's the key, uh, for understanding the principles here that we need. Uh, but we'll come back to that in a moment. For now, just note that the Bible that, that homosexual sins are part of a broader category of sins. They're, they appear in the midst of a list.
Always in the context of other sins too, so it's not the only one.
And by the way, the other sexual sins that are noted, and there are a lot more of them noted. If you, if you looked at Leviticus 18, there all the verses, one tiny little verse about this and a whole bunch about sins that we would call heterosexual, right? That we would call sins of quote UN quote straight people. So, umm, we are all sinners. This is the perhaps the single one of the most important points of this meeting and of the Scripture. We are all broken. So let's not use the categorizations of the world.
Which I think to some extent, uh, I don't know if this is true among the gathered Saints, umm, but I know certainly among evangelical Christians recently as a whole have sort of taken on the mantle of, of heterosexuality is right and homosexuality is wrong.
Well, you can see a sense in which they that that might be true, but actually there are lots of problems with all of us. What did Jesus say? We're going to turn to this, umm, he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, have committed adultery with her in his heart. We're all broken. All right. I think that's the first should be the first response of our hearts in very practical matters. If you're confronted, if somebody asks you a question, what do you think about this gay marriage thing or, or are you judging my lifestyle? All the sorts of questions that might come up. Remember first whether or not you say it to the person.
We are all broken. God be merciful to me, a Sinner. That's the response that Jesus praises. Remember what the other guy said, the Pharisee. So Republicans said God be merciful to me, a Sinner. That's the right answer. Remember what the wrong answer was.
Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men, right? Umm, which one do you think has been the more default position of many Christians recently, including maybe me and all of us? Lord, we thank thee we're not as other men. Those ones that live in San Francisco. Uh, no, that's not the Bible's response. The Bible's response is God be merciful to me, a Sinner. Yeah. Very important to keep in mind or else we are going to have a problem with our witness. We are going to seem like, uh, we're just condemning one whole class of people, umm, for their temptation or for or for everything else? No, we.
The Bible condemns all of us and then it offers all of us salvation. All right, you know this already, but this is an issue. I think it's easy to lose sight of, uh, in this, in this particular subject.
So actions, not types.
As I said, and I, I would love to do a little more of this history because I'm just interested in the way that, uh, in the way ideas like this developed. You'll have to take my word for it and I can talk more about this, uh, question and answer some other time. The word homosexual was invented in the 1860s. Nobody, uh, had ever used such a word before. And you may wonder, well, wait a minute. Umm, we know there were sins like this before the 1860s. After all, they're in the Bible and we know the Greeks and the Romans were famous or infamous for them And, and umm, yeah, there were sins for it, but you know, the words that people used only referred to the actions.
This is true even in the laws that were passed in this country, uh, against these, these kinds of activities. They just said you're not allowed to do this. And the people who did, just like somebody who lies is called a liar or somebody who murders is called a murder. People who did these kinds of actions, uh, were called after, uh, after their actions. The usual word using the biblical word was, was sodomite. But don't worry about that. The point is nobody said. And there's a key difference between that and the invention of the word homosexual because homosexual, gay, all of these words refer to.
00:40:05
Uh, kind of fundamental aspect of identity. That's what the world wants you to think that this is core to who you are. It's just as important as whether or not you're male or female. Of course, they don't even want you to think that you're male or female. Umm, but they want this to be a core aspect of human identity. Nobody had ever thought like that until the 1860s. I think it's one of the greatest, umm, victories that Satan ever made is to turn this into an issue of core identity that doesn't just affect this one aspect of your life. A temptation to which you can assent or say no.
Which is how other temptations are for all of us. Umm, but actually says something about who you are and effects every single part of your, of your existence. Christians, I'm afraid, at least in some cases, have bought into this. And those of us who aren't subject to this temptation have thought, well, umm, at least I, I thank the Lord that I am not as other men. It's a temptation. I think something we need to tell our kids, to tell each other, uh, and to remind ourselves the 1St place we belong is what we started in the meeting with.
Last night on our face before God let him do the talking. Yeah. Umm. So.
The result of the invention of this term. And then there's one other major thing that happened in the 19th century, which I just have to mention because it's important. Some of you will have heard of Sigmund Freud. In fact, I think everybody has heard of Freud and Freudian. And another thing that the 19th and early 20th century did is make everything in the world about sex, right. It's, it's what you might call the, the sexualization of everything. Umm, you know, it's one of the reasons we can't read David and Jonathan, the beautiful story of David and Jonathan anymore without kind of squirming or thinking there must be something else going on. People didn't used to think like this. And actually, most people even in the world have discounted it. Freud and thought, you know, he's the one who invented, you know, issues in neuroses. And he also said that most of these things happen, you know, when you're a child or a baby and that, you know, everything we do for the rest of our life is somehow related to these, you know, twisted experiences we have when our kids.
He had no good basis for this, by the way. He just made it up, and most people in the world actually recognized this too. But these categories are still with us. That's why the world thinks we're being naive to read the story of David and Jonathan and not see what the real truth of it is. But that's a lie, guys. This is not the, uh, the highest and most important aspect of human existence. The Bible doesn't present it that way. In fact, quite the contrary. OK, so those are the two really big things that we as Christians, I think, have to be at least aware of. You don't have to go study Freud. In fact, I'd advise you don't.
Nor do you have to go study the history of the invention of the concept of homosexuality to know this. But we should know that these are categories that the world has invented and that we don't need to adopt. OK, Umm, they're not in the Bible.
All right.
So let me just, I've already stated, uh, kind of the basic position, umm, against the category why Christians should reject this binary category of gay and straight, homosexual and heterosexual on either side. Let me just be a little more systematic about the reasons, uh, why we should reject this category. First, it's not in the Bible.
Alright, that, that's, that's very important for us. This category of dividing the world into two, uh, between gay and straight according to the object of your orientation or your primary desires is not in the Bible. That's really enough. But there are some other reasons I think why we need to be careful of this into rejection. Uh, in fact, and this is number 2, it actually distorts the real biblical categories. The real binary on this issue of physical intimacy in the Bible is between people who are married.
A man and a woman who are married, let's say an unrelated man and woman who are married because the Bible, uh, well, uh, the Bible talks about that too. Umm, and everybody else, right? Those are the two kinds of sin there. There's uh, uh, sexual activity inside of marriage, which is fine. Good. The Bible calls it good. Umm, and then there's everything else. That's the biblical category. All right, keep that in mind. It's not between the way the world wants to divide things.
And within that, everything else, the Bible actually recognizes multiple sins, multiple distortions and perversions, uh, you know, and, and they're in there because we are broken people.
#3 The third reason we should reject this, I think, is that it actually simplifies a much more complicated reality. So it's not just that it simplifies the way the Bible presents it or the biblical rules, but actually it's true. And we know, umm, that people and their desires change all the time. I mean, even the world has started to recognize this, that actually this division of the world into two kind of black and white binary division, this doesn't work either. So this is another reason why we get a multiplication of, uh, letters, why it isn't just.
00:45:14
L&L&G anymore, but LGBTQ and so on. Umm.
You know, this, this is a, this is a fact of human existence. We are all broken in various ways. It's also known that people change over time. Umm, you know, adolescents experience things in a certain way and it may change later in life and so on. So this actually distorts the way people really are.
It's increasingly recognized by the world, uh, just as an example. In fact, some of you may may know that the, uh, current wife of the mayor of New York, the progressive kind of left wing mayor of New York, umm, used to be, uh, in a relationship with a woman, right? Umm, so things change. These are not categories. These categories that the world has, at least until recently, asked us to adopt are not real.
4th If we use this these categories of the world, I think we end up with a distorted emphasis on impulse and temptation instead of actions, on temptation instead of sin. Remember this, the Bible says Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin, it is not a sin to be tempted.
Right now, James gives us a very clear, umm, account of how temptation turns into sin. All right. In fact, maybe we should look at that in the first chapter of James.
Uh.
James one verse 13 says, let no man say when he attempted, I intended of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil. Uh, neither tempt to see any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. So there's clearly a process here. We are all broken people who have been redeemed. I hope if you've trusted in the Lord Jesus.
Uh, we're in the process of being sanctified. That is God is making us clean and whole, uh, again, but we still live in bodies of death. Umm, we are looking forward to, uh, a bright future, but we are all still tempted. The Bible says we are not, uh, you know that even none of us are without sin even now. So we are all still tempted, but there is deliverance, all right. So, uh, the sin happens when temptation has, uh, borne fruit, has conceived. There is a moment there when we can be delivered. And this is true of all sins, not just the sin that I'm talking about today.
OK, there is deliverance. The Bible teaches that very clearly. He has made a way of escape, as in Corinthians as well.
Do we call everyone, as I've said before, who's tempted to steal a thief regardless of whether or not, uh, he or she does? No, of course not. That's not what the Bible says. In fact, what Jesus said to the woman taking an adultery, remember what he said? Uh, neither do I condemn the condemnation there refers to a legal contact, I think, but he said go and send no more.
OK, umm, go and send no more now. Umm, he also then made it possible for us. He gave us the Spirit and then to the sacrifice of himself gave us the Spirit, a new life that makes it possible for us to overcome sin. It's not really, it's not possible for those who don't have the life giving power of the Spirit working in their own hearts, uh, in the same way to, uh, overcome these sins. And remember this other thing to, uh, even the plowing of the wicked is sin.
All right, so the, the, the, uh, people, even if they seem to overcome, uh, sins, even if non Christians do, if they're not doing it in faith and in relation to the God who created them.
Uh, even that is simple, so let's just keep this in perspective.
Another reason, and I really will finish this up and then we'll get to Romans one and we'll be done. Another reason for rejecting, uh, the binary is one that I've said, and that's the temptation to pride to thinking that, oh, just because I don't suffer from this temptation. I mean, there are a number of temptations that through no fault or glory of my own, I just am not tempted by, right? Umm, I am really not tempted by olives, all right. And I'm not sure how many people in the world are sinfully tempted by olives, but, umm, my wife might be one of them. She really likes olives, OK, but it's no glory for me that I don't actually like olives. Umm.
00:50:03
Uh, and so on, Some people have other temptations, uh, whether it's, uh, addictions, alcohol, any number of things. People are constitutionally, you know, umm, umm, tempted by them in ways that I may not be. I'm not tempted by gambling either, right? Or, umm, other things. I don't, I don't, I don't have the gene, but that doesn't mean that I'm better. I have, believe me, plenty. And in fact, as we heard last night, and I'm very glad that this point was brought out so, so well by Stephen in the meeting last night.
I don't even know my own heart. My heart is so broken and desperately wicked. You know, it says in the Scripture, who can know it? And the answer isn't only me and God. I think the answer is only God. We don't even know the depths of, uh, the temptations in, uh, in our own hearts. So God is the one who provides a way of escaping. So let's not go around being proud and just condemning all those.
Uh, uh, homosexuals. Think first. God been merciful to me, a Sinner, OK?
There's one other thing that I've mentioned, and that's the temptation to elevate even, umm, physical intimacy within marriage. Way to make it more important than I believe it really is. But I'm going to save that for the next, uh, for the next meeting. When we look at First Corinthians six and seven in God's view of the real place of physical intimacy and marriage with his within his overall scheme. So I'll just leave that one for, uh, for the moment. Now, let me just make a few caveats and I want to say first, in other words, things that, uh, I hope you don't take away from what I'm saying here.
1St, I'm not denying the Bible does not deny, I think that same sex desires are real. These are real temptations for people. Umm, and you know, I know there's been a tendency among Christians to to, you know, find easy answers and say it's only just people whose, you know, don't have a father in the home or whose father it's, it's probably not the case. All right, just like many of us are subject to many sins. Umm, these are real for some people. And it's also not true, by the way, that people choose these.
I know this is something that a lot of Christians say people choose to be, uh, homosexual. It's actually, when you think about it, it's, it's not a very logical choice. Uh, even nowadays it condemns you to, umm, you know, a life of, you know, some, some pain, umm, even as we're growing so more accepting and so on. It's not, it's not a happy way to be, umm, you know, you're limiting the pool of available partners actually pretty significantly. Umm, so these are real. I'm also not denying that these are very hard things to struggle against, even though I've never struggled against it personally and perhaps nobody here.
Actually have umm, but the most reliable numbers out there done by uh, uh, Christians and others suggest that in the case of men, perhaps 3234 percent of uh, of men report exclusively desires for other men. We're all broken, all right? There are, there are other problems to which many of us are subject to about the same numbers for women. So they seem to hold true across cultural, umm, and other kinds of umm, umm, other kinds of categories. So.
These things are real, and they're real among Christians, too. That's not pretend.
That they aren't all right, just like when you become a Christian, you don't instantly stop, uh, if you're an alcoholic, you don't instantly stop desiring drink, right? You don't instantly quit lying. Uh, or if you're a Christian and you've struggled with lust of the more traditional kind that doesn't instantly go away either. No, we are all subject to these problems. So this is a very, it's a real temptation. Uh, and I believe they're also hard to deal with like any number of others.
I'm also not denying that the Bible condemns these, and I hope that's been clear. The Bible clearly condemns these, uh, these sins in a very clear way. But what I want to say above all is that the Bible's categories are quite simple. I've already said that there's marriage and what's allowable in marriage, and then there's everything else that's just on the categorization of, of sexual sin and what's allowed and so on. But you know what the more important category is in the Bible? It's between sinners.
And one person, there's only one man, whoever lived who is not a Sinner, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus came to this earth as the new Adam, as the second Adam, he redefined what it means to be human.
OK, and he living after his example of perfection, even in the face of being attempted at all points like because we are yet without sin, he provides the example for us. But the Bible's category is basically Jesus and everyone else, and we are all sinners. Now within that big category of sinners, there are two more important categories. There are those who have been redeemed and justified and are in the process of being sanctified, of being made ready for, umm, our new bodies, for the Kingdom of God and for being with.
00:55:07
Christ as part of his bride. And then there's the world, those who are not yet saved. Those are the important categories, guys, not US versus them in terms of whatever the sin of the day is, right? Umm, that's what we, that's the message we should continually be preaching. We don't go out to the world and try and hound them to stop doing, you know, stop drinking and gambling or, and, uh, even lying and all those things. We tell them what we know ourselves and we begin with ourselves. We're all sinners.
All right, umm, that's the basic, uh, message of the Scripture. So to look at the big picture, let's just close with Romans chapter one, turn back to Romans.
Romans one, starting with verse 18 is the story of salvation, and we aren't going to have time to get into all the details. Perhaps we'll pick up, uh, with this in the next meeting, but I want to get started. It says the wrath of God in verse 18 of Romans one is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth and unrighteousness because that which may be known of God is manifest in them. For God has showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse. And here's when we get to the story. It's almost like.
Umm, this is a, how should I say, it's almost like a theological picture of the fall of man. It's not the sort of historical story that we get in Genesis, but this explains the kind of fall of the human heart. And, and, and in some ways the, it's, it's a way of thinking about, I think the original, uh, the original sin because that when they knew God, that's people, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
And change the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to a corruptible man and to birds and four footed beasts and creeping things. In other words, they started worshipping idols instead of the God whom they knew to be, uh, the one true God. And then that's when.
We got broken, uh, or, or, uh, we can see the, the results of that. Wherefore God also verse 24 also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves who changed the truth of God into a lie and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen For this 'cause God gave them up unto vile affection for even their women, uh, and so on. And then the men in the next, uh, verse. But then it doesn't stop there. Even though this kind of thing same sex scene was viewed by the Jews, uh, and would have been viewed by Paul is sort of the.
Paradigm sin of the Gentiles, right? Umm, this is what they when they thought about Greeks and Romans, and for pretty good reason, to be honest. This is the one they thought of because it was sort of like the headline Marquis and but what?
God, the Spirit of God is saying here, and what Paul is saying is not that this is the worst thing there is and all the rest of the things are OK. Umm, no. He goes on to specify all of the things that occur as a result of this fall. Uh, all unrighteousness starting in verse 29, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, uh, maliciousness, and so on. We get down to whispers back, fighters just being proud. All of these things are the result of the phone. If we were to continue reading in Romans here in this first chapter, I think Paul's really zeroing in on Gentile sins or what are stereotypically Gentile sins.
Then he gets to the Jews, and he's just as hard on the Jews too, right? Abraham what? What does Abraham learn? And we all know what the climax of these first three chapters are. Romans 323 someone.
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, fortunately, that's not the end. Fortunately, Romans also says this if we turn ahead to uh, chapter 6.
Actually, let's go to Chapter 8 because we're, we'll be, we'll be done. Uh, now, umm.
Well, no, I'm, I'm sorry. We'll get to that next time. Romans 7, chapter 24. O wretched man that I am, says Paul, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. It's hard guys. Umm, it was hard even for Paul. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Chapter 8. Therefore there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. And I think we all know the rest of that verse, to the rest of the verse doesn't belong there. There is therefore now no condemnation.
Whether or not this is a sin that you struggle with, that your friends struggle with, that you know other Christians that struggle with you are not your sin.
01:00:06
You are not your temptation. Don't let the world turn this into anti identity. It's a problem. There are many problems. It is not an identity that shapes everything else about you and who you are. If you don't suffer from this, then umm, but you suffer from another. You shouldn't be identified with that either. We are in Christ now. The struggle of making that real in our lives is a real one. And we get lots of practical instruction in the rest of scripture about how to live like the justified people that we are. And I hope to talk a little bit more about that, uh, in the next meeting when we'll also turn to, umm, God's view of marriage. This has been kind of negative, perhaps, umm.
But that's how the Bible is. It tears us down first because that we need to be on our face if we're going to learn anything, uh, from the God who speaks like he spoke to Abraham. That's right.
Our God and Father, we give thanks for clear instruction for, umm, your word, which gives us truth that ring true and are still just as true now, uh, 2000. And in many cases, well more than that years later, uh, than they were written. We just give thanks that they can speak to our hearts. And we pray for the young people in this new, uh, difficult world in which they're living, in which evil seems to be ever more apparent. We just pray that you give them, uh, wisdom, uh, strength and understanding from your word, uh.
And we just ask for a blessing upon your word as it goes forth and has gone forth this morning. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.