If you have a Bible, go ahead and open it up to Genesis chapter 19. If you don't have a Bible, that's okay. The passage is on the sermon handout.
That was within the bulletin that you got on the way in. This morning, I want to share a message that could become illegal someday here in America.
Right now, this very day, if I were to preach this message on the streets of London or Manchester, I would probably be arrested. Dozens of Christians have already been arrested, jailed, and fined for sharing this message, for speaking these words.
These are words that are increasingly becoming illegal in Canada. There are laws on the books in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and I'm sure there are other places as well.
The truth that I want to preach this morning is that the Bible teaches clearly unequivocally that homosexuality is a sin. The Bible says that it is morally wrong and God hates it. The Bible says that it is an abomination to God.
The very same Bible that Jesus used, the very same Bible that Jesus treated as the literal words of God, says that it is an abomination to God.
As we'll see in our passage this morning, the Bible is so serious and so offensive to God that it produced one of the greatest displays of divine wrath in human history. Talking about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This morning, I want to help you understand what God is saying to us through His word. That's my goal for every sermon. I have a lot of ideas, I have a lot of opinions, I have a lot of things that I'm passionate about, but that's not my job.
My job as a pastor, as a preacher, is to teach the truth of God's word, whatever it says, whether I like it or not, to teach the truth of God's word in a way that makes a real impact in your heart and in your mind, and hopefully in your life.
And there's plenty of truth in God's word that is uncomfortable. This is one of those truths. It's uncomfortable, it's offensive to modern people.
But I want to make sure that everybody understands there is no way to be a faithful Christian and affirm people in this sin. There's no way to be a legitimate follower of Jesus and affirm people in this sin.
We shouldn't affirm people in any sin, but not all sin is the same. And we're going to talk about that. Not all sin gets its own month on our calendars every year for people to celebrate it, right?
Not all sin has a flag that is flown by churches that say that they're Christian churches. I'm going to be especially clear and especially, I don't want to say harsh, but it might sound harsh to a lot of people.
And we're going to belabor this message carefully and thoroughly because this is a unique problem in our culture, a unique temptation in our times. Like I said, not every sin has its own month, where the whole world demands that we celebrate it.
Not every sin is like this. And so we're going to talk about what the Bible says. We're going to be very clear about it.
So and I also think it's especially important, not just because the state of our culture, but also the state of the legal system. Because it legitimately may become illegal to talk about this in America in the next generation or two.
Just think about if they were to take a vote right now, and they just took a vote in the Bay Area, and the vote was, should we outlaw hate speech against the LGBTQ plus community? Do you think it would pass?
I guarantee you it would pass with flying colors. That's the state of our culture today. And so we need to speak the truth while we're still allowed to.
Just look at England, just look at Canada. We need to speak the truth while we still can. Please stand for the reading of God's Word.
I'll read the text for us. Genesis 19 verses 1 through 29. It's a long passage, so if you feel like you need to sit down at some point during the passage, don't worry, God understands.
He's a kind God. You can sit down if you need to. The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom.
When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth, and said, My Lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.
They said, No, we'll spend the night in the town square. But he pressed them strongly. So they turned aside to him and entered his house, and he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them.
Lot went out to meet at the entrance, to the man at the entrance, shut the door after him and said, I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man.
Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof. But they said, stand back.
And they said, this fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them. Then they pressed hard against the man, Lot, and drew near to break the door down.
But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.
Then the men said to Lot, Have you anyone else here?
Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place, for we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.
So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters, Up, get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city. But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.
As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city. But he lingered.
So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him. And they brought him out and set him outside the city. And as they brought him out, one said, Escape for your life.
Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away. And Lot said to them, Oh no, my lords.
Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die.
Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there. Is it not a little one?
And my life will be saved. He said to him, Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.
Therefore, the name of the city was called Zohar. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zohar. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah, sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
And he overthrew those cities and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot's wife behind him looked back, and she became a pillar of salts.
And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley.
And he looked, and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.
So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. This is the word of the Lord.
Please be seated and join me as I pray for us. God, I pray that you would help us to understand and believe your word. Help us to accept the truth about sin, about our own sin, and about what your son Jesus came to do to save us from sin and death.
Pray that we would cling to him and the hope that we have in him. Pray that our understanding of sin would just serve to highlight the glorious goodness of what Jesus did to save us from it.
Pray that our understanding of sin would just make us excited to share the gospel with people. Make us passionate, Lord, to see people saved. We pray in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
10:38
Godʼs Justice
Now, we have to understand the background for this story here. And let me remind you, it is a true story. This really happened.
The Bible is not filled with a bunch of fairy tales to teach us moral lessons. The Bible is clearly a book of history verified by archaeological evidence. The backdrop here is the life of Abraham and God's covenant promises that he made to Abraham.
Because of those promises, God has warned Abraham that he is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. He warns Abraham because some of Abraham's family lives there. He promises to bless Abraham.
He makes this agreement with Abraham to bless him and to bless his descendants and some of Abraham's family's living there.
And so because of the covenant, he tells him, he tells him what he's about to do and Abraham's nephew Lot is, is granted the opportunity to escape with his wife and two daughters.
But as we saw in Genesis 18, when Abraham hears about this upcoming destruction, he is very disturbed. God tells him what's going to happen. All these people are going to be wiped out.
And historians tell us that there were anywhere from 50 to 100,000 people living there. Abraham doesn't want all those people to die. So he objects, he challenges God, he really wipes out innocent people along with the wicked.
And in the end, what we see is that God is happy to agree that he will not destroy the cities if there are even 10 righteous people there. We see in Genesis 18 that it takes no persuading at all to get God to agree to spare all those people.
If there are even 10 righteous people there, the Bible says that God takes no delight in the destruction of the wicked. The Bible says that God loves everybody, that God is patient in giving everybody a chance to repent, to turn from their sin.
But in the end, he is just. In this situation, he's like, if there are even 10 righteous people there, I won't punish anybody. And you have to think about what this means.
Think about the numbers. This means that if 99.99% of the people are totally wicked, but there are just 10 righteous people, God will spare everybody. That is how kind and gracious God is.
That is how kind and loving and gracious God is. You would think this is one of those passages that proves that the God of the Old Testament is just this absolute monster.
One of those passages that proves that the Bible is just mean and angry, and no, no, no, it proves how kind and gracious God is.
He's willing to spare everybody if there are even 10 righteous, but sadly, it turns out there are not even 10 righteous people there. There was barely one. The Bible says that Lot was righteous, but as you see in the text, that's pretty generous.
The Bible calls him righteous because he tried to protect the angels from the men of Sodom, but he was obviously far, far from perfect. Chapter 19 records the events leading up to God's judgment and the judgment itself.
And I want to show you how everything that happens proves over and over again that God is good, that God is just, because isn't that the whole question here? We're talking about God killing tens of thousands of men, women, and children.
We're talking about God killing thousands of men because they slept with other men, and our culture says, well, who cares? If two consenting adults want to be together, why should that bother anybody? Isn't that what our culture says?
And the reality is, so many Christians are tempted to give in because they don't want people to call them a bigot.
So many Christians are tempted to give in and to agree because they think, well, yeah, the Bible was written a really long time ago, and we've learned a lot since then, and things have evolved, and I just don't see how a loving God could punish
people who were two consenting adults who love each other. We're tempted to give in. We think, why should that bother God? They were born that way.
Love is love. So many Christians have become convinced. If we want to believe in a loving God, if we want to be loving people, we have to change our views.
We have to accept LGBTQ plus people just as they are. Otherwise, we're not loving, and neither is God. But what I want you to see is that despite the fact that God kills tens of thousands of people for the sin of homosexuality, God is loving.
God is good. Who cares what they say about us? What matters is what they say and think about God.
God is just. God wants to erase all doubt. He wants to prove completely so that we can know with certainty that as he declared to Moses, as he repeatedly says about himself throughout the Old Testament, this is the essence of God, who he is.
He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity in transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. That's who God is.
16:43
Sodomʼs Sin
Now, let me show you the proof. Look at verse 3. The two men who came to visit Lot are angels in human disguise, and they show up at Lot's house to get him out of the city before God destroys it.
Their plan is to stay the night in the town square. But notice how Lot reacts to that in verse 3. It's kind of curious.
They tell him they're going to stay the night in the town square, but he presses them strongly. He begs them. He implores them.
Do not stay in the town square. Why does he do that? Because he knows what will happen to them.
He knows the people there. He lives there. That's how evil those people are.
God is just. He's not punishing innocent people. He's punishing evil people.
In their culture, in a normal city, a traveler would be perfectly safe staying in a town square. That was their custom. Because people had some decency.
If you have visitors to your town, you should treat them well. They had a sense of hospitality and respect and kindness, but not in Sodom and Gomorrah. The people there had no decency.
They demanded complete freedom to do whatever they desired. Sound familiar? They demanded complete freedom to do whatever they desired.
We see just how indecent they are starting in verses 4 and 5. The people of the city hear about these visitors, and they all show up to Lot's house to rape these men. There's no other way to say it.
That's what they are there to do. And you might think it's just a few bad apples, right? Every city has some evil people in it, but that's not what the text says.
Look again at verse 4. The men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man surrounded the house.
The author is emphasizing that every single one of them were filled with this homosexual, rapacious lust to the point that they were going to rape these visitors, proving again that God is not unjust. These people deserved to be punished.
Every single one of them were filled with violent lust. They were absolutely relentless. In verse 9, they're literally trying to break down the door to get into the house to rape these men.
And then we see that the angels strike them with blindness, but still they don't give up. They wear themselves out, groping for the door. And some people try to argue that that is the real sin here.
They will say, well, the Bible does not actually condemn homosexuality. It is really condemning homosexual rape. That's what this story is about, isn't it?
These people will say that in ancient times, they didn't have loving, monogamous, homosexual relationships that we have today. And if they did, the authors of the Bible would have understood and approved, because love is love.
All those wonderful, loving, lesbian relationships that we hear about, and all those beautiful gay couples that just love each other so much, and they get married, and they've been together for decades.
There wasn't any of that back then, and that's why the Bible condemns it. But if they had had those kinds of relationships, the Bible would have said, yes, thumbs up. That's God is good with that.
But is that true? People make that argument, but is it actually true? Can we as Christians today accept and affirm LGBTQ plus communities because of these differences between our culture and the culture of the Bible?
We cannot because the differences are completely made up. They are completely fabricated. The ancient world was actually filled with loving monogamous homosexual relationships.
Like Nero, the Emperor of Rome, for example. The Emperor of Rome who reigned during the time of the Apostle Paul, he had a public wedding to a man.
In fact, he had two public weddings to two different men, and one of them he was the groom, and in the other he dressed up as the bride. There are many examples like this in the ancient world, but the Bible still calls it a sin.
God, speaking through his chosen representatives, who wrote the scriptures, these men inspired, carried along by the Holy Spirit, penned inspired words from God, calling it a sin.
21:45
Warning Against Deception
And let me warn you, this is such an important point for Christians today, especially Christians living in the culture that we live in. God hates it when we tell people that they're fine when they're not.
God hates it when we pretend like sin isn't sin. It'd be like a doctor who has somebody who's sick coming into their office, and the doctor says, well, you know, I don't want to bum them out.
They're sick, they're going to die, but if I tell them, they're going to be really bummed, and it's just going to ruin their week, and they're going to feel, you know, they're going to, I'm just not going to tell them that they're sick.
I just want them to be happy and live their lives. If somebody's sick, you have to tell them. This was a big problem during the days of the prophet Jeremiah.
God sent Jeremiah to warn Israel about their sin, but there were other so-called prophets at the time who kept telling Israel to not listen to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah had these messages of warning to the people of Israel, saying, you guys are committing these sins, and God is angry, and he's commanding you to stop, or else he's gonna destroy you.
But there were these other prophets who came along who said, don't listen to Jeremiah. You're fine. No, no, no.
God loves you just as you are. God's not angry at you. They lied to the people to make the people feel better.
And this is what God said to those liars. Jeremiah 23 verses 39 and 40. Therefore, behold, I will surely lift you up and cast you away from my presence, you and the city that I gave to you and your fathers.
And I will bring upon you everlasting reproach and perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten. God pronounced a severe judgment upon them. So let me say this clearly.
There is a severe judgment coming for all those churches flying rainbow flags out front. God hates it when we lie to people about sin. As Jesus said in Matthew 18, 6, and in this passage, I just want to clarify, he's not only talking about children.
He uses the words little ones, but he's not only talking about children.
Matthew 18, 6, Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
That's what we're doing when we tell people that homosexuality is not a sin, or if we tell people that gossip is not a sin, or greed is not a sin, or lust is not a sin. It doesn't matter what the sin is.
When we tell people that sin is not sin, when we try to tell it's okay, don't worry about it. God loves you no matter what. You're fine.
You don't need to change. You're perfect just the way you are. Jesus says of people who say things like that, it would be better if a great millstone was hung around their neck, and they were drowned in the depth of the sea.
We must speak the truth because we love people and want them to be saved. If somebody's sick, telling them that they're sick is a loving thing to do. But we should know it's probably not going to go very well.
I want you to notice the responses in our text. Lot tries to stop them in verse 9, these men who have come to rape the visitors. Lot tries to stop them in verse 9, and look at what they say to him.
They say, this fellow came to Sojourn. That means like he was a foreigner. He wasn't from those parts.
He was a visitor. This fellow came to Sojourn and he has become the judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them.
You see, they're offended. They're angry. They are demeaning and threatening.
Who are you to judge? How dare you judge us? And we can of course expect the same responses today.
We can also expect responses like verse 14. Lot warns his sons-in-law about the coming judgment, and they think he's joking. This idea that God would punish people for their sin, that God would punish people for their sexual preferences.
How silly, how ridiculous. They scoff, they think he's jesting. But God is not joking.
In 2 Peter chapter 2, the apostle Peter highlights a few things we can learn from God's judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah.
As New Testament Christians, this is what we can learn from these events, according to one of Jesus' best friends and closest followers, pillar of the early church, the apostle Peter. This is what he says.
If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.
And if he rescued righteous lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard.
Notice the two big applications there. Peter's telling us that God's past judgment is an example of what he's going to do in the future. They all scoffed, they laughed, they thought it was a joke.
People today scoff and laugh. They think the judgment of God is a joke, but it's going to happen again. It's going to happen again.
God will destroy the wicked. And we're all wicked, unless we put our trust in Jesus, and he saves us from our sins. And even then we're still wicked, but by God's grace, because of the blood of Jesus, we can be forgiven despite our wickedness.
28:24
Lotʼs Deliverance
The other big application that Peter draws from this event here in Genesis 19 is that God will deliver the righteous. Verse 7, by God's grace, by God's grace, do you know what grace means? It means unmerited favor, undeserved kindness.
This is one of the big things that everybody gets wrong about Christianity and Christians, especially Christians who are willing to speak the truth about issues like this. They think, oh, they're so holier than now. They're so self-righteous.
There's no such thing as a self-righteous Christian. Our righteousness comes from Christ and Christ alone. Grace is unmerited, not merited.
It is unearned, not earned. Verse 7, by God's grace, by the skin of our teeth, that is how we are saved. Those who trust in Jesus will escape his wrath by no virtue of our own.
We see this escape with Lot and his wife, and talk about barely making it. Ultimately, Lot's wife doesn't make it. And let me just comment on that really quick.
It's a famous incident in the Bible. She gets turned into a pillar of salt, and everybody envisions God zapping her with his finger, and she becomes table salt in a shaker out in the desert. That's not what happened.
That's not what the passage is saying. In fact, if you go to this area today, where Sodom and Gomorrah used to be, there are these pillars out in the desert, these rock formations made of sulfurous rock, salty rock. There are pillars out there.
And ultimately, if you look at the geology of that area, there's all kinds of tar pits and sulfur, and we see in the destruction that God rains like sulfur down from heaven.
What it's saying is not that God zapped her with his magic wand and she became a shaker of salt.
What it's saying is that she looked back, she lingered, she stayed way far behind because she didn't want to leave, and she got caught up in the destruction and buried under the fire and sulfur that rained down from heaven, and became essentially one
of those pillars of salt that still stand in that desert today. So Lot's wife, despite all the opportunity in the world, does not escape from the wrath of God. She does not make it out.
Lot does make it out, but he barely makes it by the skin of his teeth. He did not deserve it. And I love this part because I feel like we can see so much of our own salvation in Lot's salvation here.
Looking again at verse 15. The angels are speaking with great urgency, like take your family and get out of here. But then we read this in verse 16.
He lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him and they brought him out and set him outside of the city. The picture you get in this passage of Lot is this man is a fool.
He cannot escape the judgment of God on his own. Does that sound familiar? That sounds a lot like me.
All of us are fools. None of us can escape the judgment of God on our own. As the Bible says, we are dead in our sins and trespasses.
But God, in his great mercy, makes us alive in Christ. Just like these angels grab a hold of Lot and drag him to safety, God does the same for us. He snatches us from sin and darkness and spiritual death and gives us life.
No matter what our sin is, no matter where we come from, no matter what our background is, whether we come from a life of homosexuality or just heterosexual, sexual immorality, whether we come from a life of greed or drunkenness, or gossip and
slander and whatever it is, God by his grace snatches us from sin and darkness and spiritual death and gives us life. I love that note in verse 16, the Lord being merciful to him. That is the essence of salvation. The Lord is merciful.
Grace means undeserved favor, and mercy means escaping punishment when you deserve it. It's important to remember these things when we're talking about other people's sin. Because the last thing we want to do is be self-righteous.
As I said, to be self-righteous is to be a non-Christian. It is impossible for a Christian to be self-righteous.
We need to remember that if we are saved, if we are rescued from the wrath of God, it will be by His mercy, by His power, by the skin of our teeth.
Now, the more we understand the severity and the reality of the wrath of God, the more grateful we will be for our own salvation. The more we understand the severity and the reality of the wrath of God, the more motivated we will be to warn others.
I think a lot of Christians never share the gospel with people because they don't really believe in hell.
They don't really believe in the wrath of God, but you cannot read the Bible and believe the Bible without believing in hell, without believing in the wrath of God. It is on full display over and over again.
Many Christians are not willing to take a stand for truth like this because we don't really believe in the wrath of God. If you know people who are destined for this faith, fate, the most hateful thing you can do is fail to warn them.
Our world has it completely backwards as they always do. The world says, the media says, our friends and family and co-workers say that true love, if you really love somebody and they happen to be gay, you will affirm them however they are.
True love affirms gay people, true love affirms transgender people, but that's not true love. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us what true love is. In verse 6, it says this, love does not rejoice at wrongdoing.
Love does not go to parades that celebrate wrongdoing. Love does not fly flags that celebrate wrongdoing. Love, the apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, rejoices with the truth.
And the truth is that God utterly annihilated Sodom and Gomorrah for the sin of homosexuality. There were other sins too. They were noted for their injustice toward the poor.
They were noted for being oppressive of those who are beneath them socially or economically. That was part of it. But the Bible makes clear over and over again, the main thing was the sin of homosexuality.
And God's response is this, verse 24. The Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground.
He, that is, God, was so completely enraged by this sin that he wiped out every man, woman, child, and animal. Even the vegetation was scorched from the earth.
And that is the same wrath from the same God that is in store for those practicing this sin today.
37:01
Biblical Condemnation
Now, I want to share a little bit more of what the Bible says about this sin. Because as I said earlier, my hope is that everybody in this room will be able to see with total clarity that it is wrong. It is clearly wrong.
It is seriously wrong. And you cannot be a faithful Christian and affirm people in their sin. This isn't mentioned once or twice in Scripture.
This isn't mentioned vaguely. This isn't mentioned in such a way that you can see it really only applied to that culture at that time and that place, but things are different now. No, this is universally declared repeatedly, like Leviticus 18 22.
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. And that word abomination is there to tell us how God feels about this sin.
It means that God abhors it. He loathes the sin of homosexuality. He detests it.
It means that it is profoundly offensive to him. It is morally repulsive to him. You can tell that he feels this way by what happens to Sodom and Gomorrah.
We can put two and two together. We can look at what God did in response, and it gives us a picture of how he feels.
You can also tell by the penalty for it in the law of Moses, Leviticus 20 verse 13, if a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them.
Not all sins are punished by death in the Mosaic law, but this sin is. I also want to highlight Romans chapter one. Romans chapter one, the Apostle Paul, writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is laying out God's plan of salvation.
And in Romans one, he kind of goes back to the very beginning, to like the core of what sin is. And this is what he writes.
He says, Therefore, as a result of people refusing to acknowledge God and worship him, Romans one, if you haven't read it, is a just incredibly interesting passage. And at one point, he says that everybody knows that God exists.
Deep down, everybody can see clearly, just looking at the world around us, everybody can see this didn't come from nothing. They know that God made the world. Everybody knows what some people deny it.
As Paul says, they suppress the truth in their unrighteousness. They refuse to acknowledge God and give him the honor that he deserves.
And when people do that, he says, as a result of that, he says, verse 24, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and
worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. That, he says, is the immediate result of us refusing to worship God the way that he deserves to be worshiped.
We worship and serve the creature rather than the creator. And that is such a powerful description of where our world is today. When people don't worship God, what do they worship?
Themselves. They make it all about them and their happiness and what they deserve. He goes on in verse 26, he says, For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions, dishonorable desires, dishonorable lusts.
For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.
Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. That due penalty, he says, or the due penalty that he alludes to would be STDs.
And we've seen this biologically, we've seen this statistically, the average lifespan of a homosexual man in America today is vastly shorter than a heterosexual man.
The numbers, the exact numbers are in dispute, but we know that the lifespan is vastly shorter. And that is even with treatment for AIDS, before treatment for AIDS became widely available, it was much, much worse.
This is a sin that has immediate consequences.
And I also want you to notice in Romans 1, Paul is telling kind of the big story of sin, the big picture of sin, and homosexuality is the first sin that he mentions as a result of humanity's rebellion against God, humanity's refusal to acknowledge
God. Couple more texts for you real quick. Jude, chapter one, verse seven, Jude was a half brother of Jesus.
And he wrote this, he wrote, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
He highlights Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of God's judgment against sin, and specifically the sin of homosexuality, which he calls unnatural desire, unnatural desire. God did not design men to have sexual desires for men.
God did not design women to have sexual desires for women. And so it's not just the action that is sinful, it is the desire as well, or the desire itself is at least unnatural. But here's the reality.
We are all born with desires that are unnatural, that are not desires that God designed us to have. I've been born with a lot of selfish desires, to seek my happiness and my pleasure above that of other people. People are born with greedy desires.
People are born with desires to make a name for themselves and to become great and have everybody look to them and admire them. We're all born with desires that God does not desires to have.
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus doesn't just change your behavior, he changes your desires.
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus came to save us from sin and death and he saves us so completely, that he transforms us from the inside out. First Corinthians chapter 6 speaks to that transformation.
This is the Apostle Paul writing to the Christians in Corinth, verses 9 through 11. He says, Do you not know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived.
Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed.
You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. I love that.
And such were some of you. But you were washed. You were sanctified.
The greedy, the drunkards, the thieves, they were cleansed by the atoning blood of Jesus. They were made holy and right with God. But not just the greedy, not just the drunkards, not just the thieves, the homosexuals, too.
When you come into the kingdom of God, everybody comes in the same door. Come in by grace through faith in Jesus. And we leave our sin behind.
And we're all equal, sinners saved by grace. As Christians, there are two ways to respond to what the Bible says about this sin. The first way is to try to change it.
You can try to pretend like those verses aren't there. You can try to pretend like the Bible is not the inspired Word of God. You can try to pretend like it only applied to that culture at that time, at that place, but it's all pretending.
It's all manipulating and twisting the Word of God because you believe that you know better than God. Isn't that what this comes down to? God says it's wrong, but we know better now.
We know better than God. God says it's wrong, but I'm just, I guess I'm a little more tolerant and loving than God is. Little tolerant, more tolerant and loving than Jesus was.
You cannot manipulate and twist the Word of God to say what it doesn't say. There's a famous historian at Oxford. His name is Professor McCullough.
And I got this from Johnny Artivanis, by the way. Johnny Artivanis is a preacher in Tennessee, an absolutely amazing preacher, and he did a sermon on this topic a few weeks ago, and it is a much better sermon than this one.
I'll just tell you right now. So, if you want to hear an even better sermon on this, or a much better sermon on this, go find that one. And he mentions Professor McCullough in that sermon.
He mentions that Professor McCullough is openly gay, and he used to be a Christian, but he left the church because he could not ignore the clear teaching of the Bible about homosexuality. And this is a man who understands the teachings of the Bible.
This is an eminent, universally respected historian who knows the culture of the Bible.
But even he admits, he says clearly, that modern attempts to say that the Bible is okay with homosexuality are just theological gymnastics, just bending and twisting and trying to escape the truth. You cannot escape the clear meaning of the text.
So what can you do as a Christian? Well, you can love people by telling them about the hope that we have in Jesus. Yes, you are a sinner.
Homosexuality is a sin, but Jesus saves sinners. That's the good news of the gospel.