God's View of Homosexuality, Part 1

The unrighteous who don't inherit God's kingdom are characterized as fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate homosexual. Steve's covetous drunkards revile ours and swindlers. So if you're one of those kinds of people you don't go into God's kingdom.

That's a bit of good news. Those kind of people can be washed can be justified, gender identity and related issues in entertainment in schools and government.

It's crucial to answer the question, what does the Bible say John is going to show you in the series. He launches today called homosexuality and the Bible you know John, we put the series on the radio a few times before, and in the years between each time we aerate it's fair to say that the views of society change and continue to change with regard to homosexuality.

Of course the one thing that never changes is what Scripture has to say about the subject.

Yes, it hits an obvious thing fill that there was some discussion about the homosexuality.

Maybe 20 years ago 15 years ago, but in the penny here since then. It is now become at least perceivable he the number one agenda in American culture right, it dominates absolutely everything, and in fact it is it is homosexuality that is determining the laws in our country everything that's being designed in Washington seems to have as its first purpose to protect homosexuals in all forms, including transgender and whatever other deviant forms. It comes in. It's as if homosexuality has literally taken over this entire culture the president is proud to be placing homosexuals, and transgender people in positions of power in the government there making all kinds of laws and executive orders to protect the homosexual people from any kind of negative conversation or any kind of hate speech as it's called it. It's just it. It has always been around, and it's been escalating, but it's now reached the apex point where homosexuality seems to be the first thing that the leadership of this nation's concern to protect that shows how far away from God's design. This culture has become of this study on homosexuality and the Bible is very important right now homosexuality is king. This aberrant abomination before God is not something that believers can tolerate. It is something that catapults people into eternal hell it's it's not a sin that damns them more than other sins but it just happens to be the sin apparently most protected by this culture, answer all these kinds of things as we go to the word of God and look at what it says about God's view of homosexuality and friend as you face increasing pressure from society to compromise on these issues.

Make sure you know what Scripture says and how to stand firm. John's going to help you with that this week. Now here's John MacArthur to begin his study called homosexuality and the Bible.

The subject is the subject of the divine perspective of the divine view of homosexuality. We want to look at this particular issue from the eyes of God and thus through the word of God. I suppose there should be some justification for isolating a sin like this and preaching on it when there are so many sins which are equally heinous to God. The answer to those who might wonder why we would isolate this one should be apparent but just in case it isn't. This sin has taken on unique properties in our culture is been declassified as a sin and turned into a sort of civil rights group is at this particular point.

A political issue and not a moral one. An issue of freedom and not a moral one or a spiritual one. The fact that it is being advocated not only in the private sector, but in the public sector in public schools and in government, political parties and conventions and that it is being ruled on imports and decided on and legislatures and dealt with by governors and presidents and mayors and so forth has taken this sentence sort of extracted it out of the general plurality of sins, and given an identity all its own. Consequently, because of its prominence in our culture it needs to be addressed. I want to begin by reading a very pertinent Scripture and I want you to turn to in first Corinthians chapter 6, first Corinthians chapter 6, three versus stand out with regard to this issue versus nine, 10 and 11 first Corinthians chapter 6 and verse nine or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revile her's, nor swindlers shall inherit the kingdom of God and such were some of you but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. This is one of those bad news, good news passages. The bad news is the unrighteous don't inherit God's kingdom, the unrighteous who don't inherit God's kingdom are characterized as fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate homosexual. Steve's covetous drunkards revile ours and swindlers. Those are the kind of people who do not go into God's kingdom. So if you're one of those kinds of people you don't go into God's kingdom.

That's the bad news, but the good news is in verse 11. Those kind of people can be washed those kind of people can be sanctified in those kind of people can be justified and they have been and they are being so that he can say to the Corinthian church. Such were some of you. You used to be fornicators in idolaters and adulterers and effeminate, and homosexuals used to be thieves and comforters and drunkards in revile ours and swindlers but you aren't anymore because you've been washed from those sins, and you've been sanctified and you have been justified.

That's good news. I'm here to say God is good news for homosexuals.

They are redeemable, they can be saved.

They can be delivered from that sin, they can be washed from its stains. They can be set on a road of godly holy, pure living, called sanctification, and that happened in the Corinthian church when Paul wrote earlier to the Corinthians in the first part of his letter. He said not many of you are noble, not many of you are mighty, but God has chosen the base things, the kind found the noble and the mighty you are a base ignoble humble people you want to know how base they were the Corinthian church was full of X fornicators X idolaters X adulterers X effeminate sex thieves X comforters X drunkards X, slanderers, X, extortioners, and even X homosexual but they were washed clean and they were sanctified, that is separated from a life pattern of sin and they were justified. That is declared righteous by God on the basis of the merits of Christ.

Such were some of us, but we've been washed and we've been sanctified and we've been justified because God has said his saving live on sinners and forgiving them.

I've stood on many occasions and to baptize many who have been delivered from a life of homosexual sin, a life of sodomy by God's grace and through his saving live homosexual sinners are redeemable they are recoverable they can be washed. They can be separated from that sin and they can live a pure life. They can be given a new heart and made fit for heaven some months ago I was standing in my office and I was looking at the little spindle that contains the messages that come in by phone and I noticed one that said young man is called and asked that you come to the hospital to see him. He is dying. So I decided to go immediately and I went to the small hospital located there and went in the door and asked the person at the desk. What room he was in and I walked down the hall and turned in the room and took a look at this man in bed, a man I didn't know I could take one look at him until he was dying of AIDS. He was just about skin and bones gaunt with hollow eyes and sunken cheeks almost lifeless as I saw him my attention moved to another man who was lying kind of casually across a small sofa that was in the hospital room and I said to him, my name is John MacArthur at which point this man hastily exited the room and said I'll leave you alone walked over to the bedside. Knowing what I was about to hear. I took hold of his hand and he said to me I'm dying. I have not long to live. I have AIDS cancers eating my body at a rapid rate, and then he burst into tears and said, but I'm afraid to die because I know I'm gonna go to hell. He said I lived a sinful sort of homosexual life. Think 26 years. Then he went on to tell me. I said tell me about yourself and he told me about a Christian mother and a Christian father. He told me about being raised in a Christian home, he told me about tending to years of Bible college. He told me about all the rebellion in his heart, and the beginnings of that homosexual sin and how eventually it blue and right out of the Bible college in the 26 years of the most gross kind of living in the mainstream of the rabbit homosexual community said now I'm dying and I know I'm going to go to hell. I said tell me about homosexuality. Tell me about it. Tell me how you view it. Tell me what you think of it, and as he sobbed and cried. He said it is sin. I've always known it sin. I hated God hates it and it damns men and he said it over and over about I suppose 1/2 a dozen ways. Just as a cathartic to his own soul. The confession felt good and I said David do you understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. The saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. He said yes I said tell me the gospel and he reiterated to me unhesitatingly how Christ was God incarnate, warning died and rose again for our salvation and the efficacy of his death on the cross as a substitute for sinners and he knew it well and he understood that salvation was by grace through faith. And only God could save out of his own mercy.

The one who willingly believed and was eager to turn from his sin. I said are you willing to turn from your sin, to repent, cry out for God and ask him for salvation.

He said yes yes yes.

So I said will. Salvation is a gift that only God can give. Let me pray for you and ask God to give it to you and so I began to pour out my heart and as I was holding his hand, praying he was squeezing my hand tightly that the emotion of his heart coming out through the hand and I pleaded with the Lord to be gracious and save them and forgive them all this life of horrendous iniquity, and deliver him and I prayed for quite a long time after which he burst in the prayer is sobbing kind of prayer, and confess to sin again. Probably half a dozen times to the Lord and pleaded with the Lord to be merciful and to forgive him for the way in which it blasphemed his name and rejected the gospel and lived in sin.

This man is by all intents and purposes and absolutely inveterate homosexual was sinned in ways that are beyond description.

And he's crying out for mercy after his prayer was over.

There was a piece in a comet came over his heart within five days from the day that I had prayed with him.

He was gone dead but I said to him that day. By the bed. I said now now that you become a Christian.

What's going to be different. He said my whole life is going to be different. He said the first thing is my whole life is filled with people who live in the homosexual world, the fellow who was inner when you came in is my lover, my male nurse here is homosexual and the AIDS Association has sent me an AIDS worker to be with me in these days is also homosexual. Everybody in my life is homosexual.

So now I have the responsibility to tell them all of the sin that they're engaged in and call them all to come to Christ. Given five days to do that and he was gone.

We tell you something.

One of the supreme tragedies of our time is the D classification of homosexuality is a sin because when you D classify it as a sin, you cut them off from their salvation. Source is a damning declassification. You're not being nice to homosexuals. The call it an optional lifestyle a sexual preference.

You're not nice to them to do that. That is an kind that isn't thoughtful, that is it loving that is damning. The kindest thing you could ever say to someone engaged in homosexual sin is it is a sin that will damn you and it will exclude you from the kingdom of God forever.

That's the kindest thing you can say a proper diagnosis is absolutely crucial. This is not a preferred sexual orientation. This is not an alternate lifestyle. This is not a genetic thing.

This is sin and perversion.

The dams men's and women's souls. The massive movement to appease the guilt and to release last unchecked to free up homosexuals to live any way they want and to feel good about it. By defining their blasphemous sexual conduct is nothing more than an alternative lifestyle is a damning thing is we shall see later, those who advocate homosexual rights will have the blood of dead homosexuals on their hands. Homosexuality is an insatiable lust is a drive that goes beyond anything that heterosexual people experience and these people are not only trying to justify their own last there unchecked unbridled, insatiable desires, but they are trying to sell it to everybody else because then that becomes even a greater justification, the more they can normalize it. So they're selling it to your children massive propaganda campaign is geared to make society and the church believe that homosexual practice is normal moral and proper for some people. For many people, maybe for you homosexuals they say are just another minority and they should enjoy every human right in every human freedom, and they should be allowed to express their sexual acts as any minority has the right to freely express its cultural heritage course. This is ridiculous. They are not a race of people. This is not a racial issue.

This is not a cultural issue. They are deviants they have a perverted view of sex and they want to identify it as if it were a racial minority, allowing them to express their preference in the way we have has become the cause of the most devastating public health epidemic in the history of this nation allowing them to express their preference has become the cause of what will be the most devastating financial eruption.

The field of medical health has ever known, and threatens to bankrupt the whole of America as we try to pay for the AIDS epidemic, allowing them to express their preference is going to lead tens of thousands if not millions of children and young people into the pit of perversion. All of the tolerance of the state in the direction of the Board of Education June in Los Angeles in the public schools was Gay pride month and it will be every June. From now on. This kind of behavior is simply the expression of sexual lust twisted and uncontained, and when I say it is sexual lust twisted and uncontained. I mean exactly that.

I understand the fornication is a sin, and I understand that adultery is a sin in the sexual area but there are proportions to homosexual sin that catapulted beyond what I can understand. I could go on and on with a litany of statistics but it's not necessary. Just a few will suffice to give you the sense of what's the uncontained character of this last, the average homosexual, the average homosexual is had relationships with more than 500 different sexual partners in LA which is above the average. The average homosexual is 300 sex partners a year, almost One-A-Day and that's different people. 30% of them had over 1000 sexual partners, and many of them have what had over 1500.

They stopped counting when they reached 1600 partners.

The conduct of the acts that they do has no bounds. It's not some kind of heredity is unbridled, twisted uncontained lust.

I could give you more statistics but I think you have enough to understand it is not to help to discuss the problem anymore were very much aware of what I'm here to say is this, this vile, wretched, wicked sin, like every other vile, wretched, wicked sin is forgivable by the grace of God. That's what I want to announce Jesus Christ died on the cross and in his body. He bore the sins of homosexuality.

He bore in his own body our sins on the cross and if you ever thought about it like that but think of the horror of what he bore and he did that he might redeem homosexuals but to receive that forgiveness the sinner has to see what he's doing as a sin and as long as we cover up the wretchedness and the sinfulness that we are aiding and abetting the damnation and that's why there is blood deal venous and I believe that we bear the blood gilding us for the execution of homosexuals that's going to come at the hands of Almighty God and is already coming through AIDS because those who have advocated that as an alternative lifestyle or a civil right where some of the guilt. There is an almost tireless effort on the part of homosexuals there on with their vicious and their violent in trying to prove that this is a normal kind of life for them because they have to deal with such unbearable guilt try to prove it's genetic. It's hereditary it somehow in the genes of the chromosomes. Let me sum it all up by saying this. I have read a myriad of things about this. The bottom line is this, there is absolutely no proof in any scientific realm that this is genetic. There is no physiological difference verifiable between a homosexual and heterosexual, and you might also want to know that the vast majority of homosexuals also have sexual relationships with the opposite sex is a choice is seen, it is not just some kind of hereditary orientation. Now let's go back to first Corinthians 6 and look specifically to words in verse nine, is the word effeminate, followed by the word homosexuals is a two kind of people that do not enter the kingdom of God. Effeminate is Malik class word means soft it came to mean feminine or effeminate, a man who acts like a woman who is soft, feminine.

It also became a technical term for the passive partner in homosexual relationships.

The one who takes the female role, Martin Gingrich, one of the classic lexicons says the word also included men and boys who allowed themselves to become male prostitutes for homosexual. You see, there are men and boys who aren't really desirous of homosexuality as much is there desirous of money so they prostitute themselves for homosexuals.

They don't maybe have that same passion that same consuming perverted drive that the homosexuals have, but they will sell themselves to them, that word would encompass them male prostitutes who are the passive partners to service the aggressive homosexuals or passive partners who are homosexual to take the female role. The effeminate's and then the word homosexual Arsenal court case it just means that someone has a relationship with a same-sex namely a man who has relations with a man. Paul says those kind of people don't enter the kingdom and he's really covered the ground. The active, aggressive homosexual the passive accepting soft effeminate homosexual, the one who aggressively engages in that the one who is the passive partner.

The macho kind of homosexual and the soft effeminate homosexual.

All of them are excluded from the kingdom.

They don't inherit why because that kind of pattern of sin is exclusive of God's kingdom.

They will never belong to God's kingdom with all its blessing in all its glory. The church then has to tell people that the door to the kingdom a shot if you live like that. If that's your choice and you're not willing to recognize it is sin, and repent of it and bow the knee and accept the forgiveness of Christ. You can you be shut out of God's kingdom.

The church must, as the gatekeeper announce that we have to say to homosexuals. If you continue that life pattern, and you choose to live that way you have the door to the kingdom of God shut. If you're willing to repent, come to Christ for forgiveness and be washed and cleansed the door to the kingdom is open is the gatekeeper is the one sold the keys to the kingdom is the one to open and close the church and its leaders must give that message. This is grace to you with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. John is Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary and he's titled our current series, homosexuality and the Bible you know as society tries to pressure you to accept un-biblical standards for social relationships. The best way to counteract that is through a steady intake of God's word so let me encourage you to pick up the MacArthur study Bible with 25,000 detailed notes from John that make the meaning of Scripture clear passage by passage to place your order.

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