My Thoughts

Monday, August 3, 2015

Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided that two people of the same sex could marry, there have been several articles using the Bible to defend homosexuality.

One person cites Genesis 19 where Sodom is destroyed.  The person does not deny that the city was homosexual, but states that the practice is not why it was condemned.  She claims the city was destroyed due to the population’s desire to gang rape the angels.  She adds Ezekiel 16:49, saying their refusal to “help the poor and needy” was another reason for their destruction, not homosexuality.

God knew the two cities were made up of a homosexual majority.  Prior to the angels visiting Abraham and then going to see Lot, He said, “Now the men of Sodom were WICKED and were SINNING GREATLY against the LORD” (Genesis 13:13).  Notice, no future gang rape is mentioned as being the reason for this statement.  Before leaving Abraham the angels told him, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is SO GREAT and THEIR SIN SO GRIEVOUS” (Genesis 18:20-21).  Again, notice that gang rape is not mentioned as being the reason for this statement.  Abraham tried to bargain with God to spare the city IF ten righteous people could be found.  If homosexuality is not what is being described as “wicked,” “sinning greatly,” or “sin so grievous” then there would have been at least ten righteous people in Sodom.   According to Genesis 19:13, the angels were sent to destroy the city before the incident at Lot’s door.  The men of Gomorrah were not present at Lot’s door, but they too were destroyed along with the “entire plain” (Genesis 19:25).  Homosexuality was to be punished with death, according to Leviticus 20:13.  If that was so under the Law of Moses, one may see the reason for their destruction prior to that law.

What is interesting about the quote offered from Ezekiel 16:49 is that the individual left out the full context there as she did in Genesis 19.   The prophet stated in verse 50, “They were haughty and DID DETESTABLE THINGS BEFORE ME. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen” (Ezekiel 16:50).  When all the biblical evidence is in, the suggested gang rape is not the motivation for God’s judgment.  The fact that men were lying with men was the GRIEVOUS, DETESTABLE sin.

The person refers to the following passage in defense of homosexuality.  “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable (abomination, KJV)” (Leviticus 18:22) and “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable (an abomination, KJV). They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads” (Leviticus 20:13).  The person’s argument from these two is that homosexuality isn’t any worse than “eating pork, shellfish, or charging interest on loans.”

It is surprising that she admits that the two passages teach that “homosexual behavior is an abomination.”  How can homosexual behavior be an “abomination” to God in one event but not in another?  Her basic argument here is that “Christians eat meat, use credit cards, wear makeup, and support equality for women” because we are no longer under the Law of Moses.  Since Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are in that law, and Romans 10:4 shows Christ is the END of it, the abomination classification no longer applies just as the restrictions on eating pork do not.

She states that Romans 1:18-32 doesn’t condemn sexual acts between two men or two women who love and commit to one another in a faithful, lifetime relationship, but rather is against those where these sexual acts are between adult married men and adolescent boy prostitutes.  By her statement she tends to make homosexual practices a cultural rather than a moral issue.  In other words, culture determines what is moral or immoral, not God.

If there is no Divine Deity, the Bible is just another book based upon man’s imagination.  Therefore, what is moral or immortal is determined by what the majority accepts or rejects.  Therefore man may define marriage, not God.  IF, however, God is and the Bible account of creation is true, God created them male and female, male and male (Genesis 26-27; 2:18, 22-24)!

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).”  Notice the “one flesh” is man and wife.  The “wife” is described as “woman” in verse 23.  It is only AFTER man sins in Genesis 3 that you find “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).  This continual wickedness is seen in part in Sodom’s “grievous, detestable sin” (Genesis 13:13; 18:20-21).

It is true that Paul stated, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,” but sexual immoral acts under one system are not made righteous under another.  For example, in Leviticus 18 and 20 homosexuality is not the only sexual sin condemned.  If practicing homosexual acts is no longer a sin, then neither are the following:

Having sex with an uncle, aunt, niece, nephew, or cousin.
Having sex with your mother or father.
Having sex with your son or daughter, or your grandchildren.
Having sex with your brother or sister.
Having sex with your daughter-in-law or your son-in-law.
Having sex with your neighbor’s wife.
Sacrificing your children to an idol.
Having sex with an animal.
(Leviticus 18:6-24; 20:6-22)

Neither the Old nor New Testament condone adultery, fornication, prostitution, rape, incest, or homosexuality.  All are sin in God’s sight under both Old and New Covenant systems!

Does God love the homosexual? Yes, just as he loves the murderer, the abuser, the adulterer, the fornicator, the liar, the atheists, the pagan, the dishonest, the false teacher, the hater, the one who refuses to forgive, and a host of other sinners.  Does He want His creation to remain in our sins?  No, it dishonors Him.  He wants all to believe, repent and die to the old man of sin (John 3:16-18; Luke 13:3,5; Matthew 28:19-20; Romans 6:3-6).  God wants every sinner to be a saved one!