Text: Romans 1:21-27
Aim: to explain the spiritual implications of the political push for “gay marriage.”
Thesis: “gay marriage” isn’t – it isn’t “gay” and it isn’t “marriage.”
Introduction:
READ TEXT. When you work closely with people, whether in ministry or in therapy, you quickly learn two related realities: first, human beings are complicated creatures, and consequently their struggles have complicated causes. But second, there is a difference between explaining sin and excusing it.
For example, a couple of years ago I visited a young man who was incarcerated in our local lockup for misbehavior associated with public drunkenness. Now, I will freely admit to plenty of temptations, but that particular sin is not one of them: I don’t drink – never have – never even wanted to. This young man had a temptation to which I cannot relate – so consequently it would be have been easy for me to judge him harshly.
In the course of our conversation I asked my young friend how long he has been an alcoholic. He promptly answered, “Since I was a baby.” I thought perhaps he misunderstood my question, so I rephrased it: “No, what I mean is, how long have you had a problem with alcohol?”
“Since I was a baby.” Then he explained: “Brother Dan, my parents were alcoholics, and they thought it was funny to put beer in my bottle and watch me get drunk.”
Here was a young man who had been conditioned by his upbringing, on a very deep level – and, because his parents were alcoholics, it is very possible that he also has a genetic predisposition towards addiction. Does that explain his temptation? It did to me. He had been literally weaned on beer – once I heard his story and realized that HE had not originally chosen alcohol, but it had been chosen FOR him when he was an infant, it was easier for me to have compassion on him.
That explained his temptation; does it excuse his behavior? Knowing what I now knew, did I say, “Son, you don’t have a chance, so just drink up”?
No, of course not – that would only encourage him to even greater self-destruction. What I did say was, “Son, you’re going to have a harder time licking this addiction than most folks, and that’s why I hope you’ll be in our recovery program at church, and also in A.A. You’re going to need all the help you can get.” A broken background doesn’t make alcoholism any less damaging, and a genetic predisposition doesn’t make drunken behavior any less wrong.
It is easier for me to have compassion on individuals who struggle with temptations that I don’t have once I’ve learned their history, and over the years I have learned to have compassion on men and women who struggle with same-sex temptations. I have counseled with these individuals and have learned first-hand the brokenness in their backgrounds. When I did I discovered so many people have been used and abused, have been assaulted in body and soul – I have talked with women who experienced such mistreatment from men that they felt it safer to seek fulfillment with another woman – have counseled with young men who experienced traumas that disturbed and distorted their experience of masculinity.
I have learned that, just as some people seek to self-medicate their misery by drowning their sorrows in alcohol, or by numbing their emotional pain with drugs, others attempt to fill the broken places in their life with immoral relationships, and some of those immoral relationships are with individuals of the same gender.
I said I can have compassion on them because I better understand their background – and it is precisely because I have compassion on them that I will warn them that an escape into homosexual behavior is not the solution to the past pains they have experienced. When they do, Satan uses their brokenness to keep them enslaved in a spiritually unhealthy, ultimately destructive situation.
The Bible’s evaluation of same-sex physical relationships is no mystery: both the Old and the New Testament contain clear and repeated prohibitions.
Many of the inspired authors of Scripture refer to the awful example of Sodom, including Jesus (see Matthew 10:15 and 11:23-24; Jude 7; 2 Peter 2:6-10; Revelation 11:8).
In our text today, Romans 1 says that homosexual behavior is a symptom of a larger problem: of a society’s failure to glorify God, and of its consequent deterioration into moral darkness. Verses 26-27 describe same-sex physical relationships with such terms as “unnatural”…. “indecent”….and “perversion.” There is nothing ambiguous about those descriptions.
Given these clear statements of Scripture, Jews, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, a majority of Protestants, the Roman Catholic Church – everyone from Mormons to Muslims – in fact, every major world religion, has, for thousands of years, defined homosexual behavior as inappropriate, unhealthy, out of bounds, sinful.
Now a small handful of liberal activists are succeeding, in the space of only a generation, to turn that received wisdom on its head – they want same-sex unions to not only be tolerated, but celebrated, sanctified, and if these activists have their way, legalized with the full weight of the federal government to compel the rest of us to recognize and accept them. In fact, those of us who dare to teach the Biblical truth about this subject are now loudly castigated as hate-filled bigots, and I fear that situation will only get worse.
President Obama made a big splash recently by becoming the first sitting president to promote gay marriage. But he is a politician, and he knows how to read survey data.
What he learns from those surveys is that the younger generation is much more accepting of the concept of gay marriage than their parents. That should come as no surprise, because today’s young adults were the targets of one of the most sustained propaganda campaigns in history. For over a generation the homosexual lobby has used the most powerful and pervasive “pulpit” in the nation: the television screen.
My generation grew up on Andy Griffith, Leave It To Beaver, or the Brady Bunch. Today’s young adults grew up watching Will and Grace, which ran from 1998 to 2006, received high ratings, and featured an attractive homosexual couple.
And today one of the most popular shows among young people is Glee, and one of the most talked-about moments on this year’s program was when Blaine declares his love for Kurt and then the two young men kiss. Do you think this has an effect on young people?
NPR does. It recently explained that: “In five separate studies, professor Edward Schiappa and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota have found that the presence of gay characters on television programs decreases prejudices among viewers.
Today the most popular TV show in the U.S. is Modern Family, which not only features a gay couple, but this couple is in the process of adopting a second child. Schiappa says the idea of a gay couple with children is much more mainstream now.
More and more gay married couples are showing up on TV these days — like Grey’s Anatomy, for example — making something of a trend. NBC plans to roll out more programs with gay married couples next season.”
Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/12/152578740/how-tv-brought-gay-people-into-our-homes
The year before Will and Grace began, it was Oprah Winfrey herself, the high priestess of pop culture, who opened the door for the media to promote homosexuality by bringing Ellen DeGeneres on her show so that Ellen could announce that she was a lesbian. And then, to make sure that even the slowest, most dull-witted of viewers got the message, Oprah appeared on the Ellen comedy show to play the role of a therapist who gave her blessing to the fictional character Ellen as she also came out as a lesbian. Talk about a full-court press!
In fact, let me share a few examples of just how relentless, and comprehensive, this propaganda campaign has been: it has even been conducted in the comics our young people read. Do any of you remember the “Archie” series of comic books, with the wholesome, all-American cast of teens: Archie, Betty, Veronica, and of course, Jughead? Earlier this year, Archie Comics featured Kevin Keller – the fictional Riverdale’s first openly gay character who is also an active U.S. military officer – tying the knot with his boyfriend Clay Walker.
Two weeks ago D.C. Comics (the publishers of Superman and Batman comics) announced that one of their superheroes was going to come out of the closet as gay. Last Friday (June 1) they revealed it is The Green Lantern.
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And just this past week, in the El Dorado News-Times, the “Doonesbury” comic strip continued a long-running story line about a lesbian Army sergeant who came out of the closet after President Obama repealed “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
After the phenomenally popular Harry Potter series was completed, J.K. Rowling, the author, announced that Albus Dumbledore is gay and had fallen in love with fellow wizard and friend, Gellert Grindelwald. Friends, “Dumbledore” is a fictional character – the series is complete – and this was not essential to the original storyline in any way. Rowling’s statement served no purpose whatsoever except to promote a homosexual agenda among her young readers.
I had originally intended to preach this sermon in tonight’s service, but when our shepherds learned what I was planning, they urged me to present it on a Sunday morning, because, they said, “Our young people are being flooded with false information, and we want them to hear the truth.” Upon reflection, I realized they are right.
Gay marriage is being imposed on the American people from the top down, by the judicial and legislative branches. Even non-religious people instinctively know there is something wrong with this picture, because the people have been given a chance to vote on it 32 times in state elections, and the people have voted it down 32 times. But now that gay marriage has been introduced by a politician running for federal office, my fear is that this fall’s election will be seen as a referendum on the issue, and if it succeeds we will have gone irrevocably over a moral cliff.
I said last week that I am emphatically against entangling the church in partisan politics, and I have not changed my position. But one of the reasons the church needs to stay out of politics is so that it can exercise a prophetic voice at those times when culture goes crazy.
This is one of those times. If I take the truth of Scripture seriously, I must conclude that “gay marriage” is based on a lie – in fact, it is based on FOUR lies.
Based on a lie about the Bible: One of the things that makes my heart sink when Christians, under the influence of their culture and politics, support same sex marriage is that they are giving aid and comfort to those who are attacking the book I hold sacred. I have read the comments that gay marriage supporters make about Christians and about God’s Word – their comments are caustic and they are vicious.
Based on a lie about marriage: Until now, there has never been a society in human history that has recognized the union of two people of the same sex as being a marriage. There are a lot of good reasons for that, but one is that marriage is about sustaining LIFE.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; MALE AND FEMALE he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘BE FRUITFUL AND INCREASE IN NUMBER; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:27-28)
Marriage is fundamentally about LIFE: the procreation, preservation, and protection of life. Children are biologically impossible without a male and a female. I Doesn’t it make sense that they need a dad and a mom when growing up? I will personally believe in gay marriage when someone will survey the more than 7 billion people now living on the face of the earth and find me just one who is the product of a same sex union.
Based on a lie about the law: Gays may have the legal right to do what they want in private, but they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.
Moreover, when we have a valid basis of comparison, we find that same sex unions have a much higher rate of breakups, and of domestic violence, than true marriage.1 “Marriage equality” assumes the two different kinds of unions are qualitatively equal – they are not.
Based on a lie about human nature: Homosexuality is intrinsically unhealthy, in part because it tends to foster promiscuity, but in part because it uses the human body in ways it was never intended to be used. There is a reason why Paul says “men committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own bodies and personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong doing” (Romans 1:27 Amplified).
After reviewing the evidence, here is MY conclusion: “Gay marriage ISN’T” – it isn’t “gay,” and it isn’t “marriage.”
Conclusion:
PLEASE TURN to 1 Corinthians 6. My sermon won’t be complete without offering four final observations:
First, there is a difference between temptation and behavior. Even Jesus was tempted (Hebrews 4:15). Any person who struggles with same-sex temptations, but who wishes, by the grace of God, to not act upon them will find welcome and support here at College Avenue.
Second, we saw in Romans 1 that homosexuality is a sin – but that same passage also lists such sins as envy, greed, and gossiping. The fact of the matter is, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and all of us are in need of God’s amazing grace.
Third, because we are all sinners, none of us has the right to treat any fellow human being with contempt or disgust, much less with mistreatment or violence. We absolutely repudiate the ungodly actions of people like the Westboro Baptist church who spew their vile hatred towards those who are trapped in homosexual behavior and who picket the funerals of slain soldiers.
Finally, are you in 1 Corinthians 6? READ Verses 9-10
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Christians cannot continue in these sorts of behaviors and expect to go to heaven! Paul makes that abundantly clear.
Verse 11. “That is what some of you WERE; but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.”
The church in Corinth had members who once lived in that lifestyle – but by the power of God they had left that life behind.
OFFER INVITATION.
Dan Williams
1817 North College Avenue
El Dorado, Arkansas 71730
