(We opened with a youtube video of a newscast that was aired shortly after Phil Robertson was suspended from Duck Dynasty for comments about homosexuality he made for GQ Magazine. May of the phrases used in that newscast were integrated into this sermon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXy9ekjUY48Through 2:42)
OPEN: As you may recall, about 6 months ago, Phil Robertson was suspended from Duck Dynasty for about 3 weeks. But then A&E realized the family wouldn’t continue the program without him, and that would kill a cash cow for the network. So they quietly suspended his suspension.
Now for that period of time there was a firestorm of protest and discussion. All across the media and internet people either denounced or defended Robertson.
A&E proclaimed it was “extremely disappointed” by what Robertson said.
The “Gay Community” was said to be offended.
And GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) called his comments “vile & extreme”
Those who were offended by Phil Robertson’s comments declared that:
• He was homophobic
• He was intolerant
• He was unloving
• And he was judgmental
And there was a lot of talk about people being born Homosexual and questioning the very idea of condemning folks who was born that way.
So, let’s take this one step at a time:
1st Phil Robertson was absolutely correct.
• Homosexuality is not logical
• It’s not normal
• It IS sin.
• And anyone who is a homosexual will not get into heaven.
How do we know that? Because that’s what the Bible says
In Leviticus 18:22 God says “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”
Leviticus 20:13says "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
Romans 1:25-27 says that “(evil people) exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator— who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”
Jude warns Christians“…Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.” Jude 7
And, of course there’s our text this morning says: “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” I Corinthians 6:9-10
Now, there have been many in the religious community who’ve made a concerted effort to say that these verses have been “mistranslated”, “misunderstood”, or that they need to be understood in the culture in which these verses were written.
Let me be very clear on this:
These people are liars. They are heretics who have attempted to warp God’s Word to meet their personal agendas and preferences.
So, 1st – Phil Robertson was absolutely correct.
Homosexuality is a sinful lifestyle.
2ndly – Homosexuals are not “born that way”
There are NO legitimate studies that prove that Homosexuals are wired that way.
And for Christians, that should be a no brainer.
God says it is a sin, and if it is a sin and God says you can’t make it into heaven if you are a homosexual - then nobody is born that way!!!
It’s irrational to think God would condemn a lifestyle that you couldn’t help living.
But God does condemn it!
You name the sin, and there will be people caught up in that sin who will say “I can’t help myself”.
• A woman is caught in adultery and says “I couldn’t help myself. I just fell in love with this man. We were destined to be together.”
Could She Help Herself?
Was she destined to commit adultery?
• The man with child pornography on his computer said “I couldn’t help myself. That’s just the way I’m wired.”
Could He Help Himself?
Was that the way he was wired?
• And the homosexual says “I can’t help myself, I was just born that way.”
But this kind of thinking – that people are “born this way” appeals to many people in the psychological and sociological fields. Not so long ago I read about a small group of researchers (http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/14/local/la-me-pedophiles-20130115) who were proposing that child molesters couldn’t help themselves. That they were born with that behavior built into them.
Now, it’s true that once a person gets caught up in a sin, they can get trapped by it. It happens with folks who get caught in drugs or alcohol or tobacco.
Once you get tied into a certain behavior it can be hard to get out.
But they can “get out of it.”
But there are people these days who falsely believe that there are people who are born gay. And it has taken such deep roots in our culture that there are religious groups who even try to argue that you can be gay and a Christian.
There’s been a book making the rounds lately called:
“God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships.” by Matthew Vine.
Now aside from the fact that Matthew Vine’s “Biblical Case” for homosexuality is a lie, he has become popular for presenting the idea that people can be both Christian and homosexuals.
Well if you can have a “Christian who’s gay” can you have:
• A Christian who sleeps around?
• A Christian who is a rip-off artist?
• A Christian who worships idols of pagan gods?
• A Christian who makes their living on the side as a prostitute?
Of course not.
And yet those are the very sins that I Corinthians says will keep you out of heaven.
They’re all in the same list.
So… let’s revue
• Homosexuals are NOT born that way
• Homosexuality IS a sin
• It will keep people out of heaven
• And you can’t be a homosexual and claim to be a Christian.
Now, let’s ask this question: Does Jesus want homosexuals to be in this church?
How many of you think Jesus would want gays to come to church here? (Show of Hands)
How many of you think Jesus would NOT want gays here?
How many of you would be uncomfortable if you knew there were gays worshipping here?
That’s a hard one isn’t it?
And I think the reason it is hard for some folks has to do with something I call the “yuck” factor.
ILLUS: I was talking with one preacher who had been at a men’s conference and who shared a bed in the hotel with another man who’d been there. They were both big men and the bed was just big enough for both of them.
Jokingly, the other man said to my friend “Don’t you think you’d be more comfortable sleeping on the floor?”
My friend laughed and said “No. I’m quite comfortable here.”
And my friend settled in to sleep. He was about asleep, he felt a hand running lightly up and down his stomach… and he leaped out of bed, dragged his blanket with him and laid down on the floor.
The other man spread out comfortably on the bed and said “See, I thought you’d feel more comfortable on the floor.”
Now that other man wasn’t a homosexual. He was just having a little fun at my friend’s expense. But the very thought of possibly sharing a bed with that man made my friend very uncomfortable. There’s just something about homosexuality that weirds some of us out.
In fact some folks are so weirded out about homosexuals that they make fun of them.They call them fags, or fairies or queers… and sometimes even worse.
The Westboro Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas gained national attention by protesting homosexuality with signs like these (we showed a picture on the screen):
“God Hates You” & “You’re Going To Hell”
(pause) That’s what a lot of people think of homosexuals
But what does God think about sodomy?
What I find interesting here in I Corinthians is that homosexuality doesn’t top the list of sins.
“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
There are ten sins listed here… and homosexuality is about ½ way down. It is NOT at the top of this list. Scripture has more to say about adultery than it says about sodomy.
So what does this tell us?
It tells us that God doesn’t “rate sin”.
All sins are bad, because any sin that sends you to hell is a bad sin.
And God so hates what sin does to us that “He gave His only begotten son that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Jesus said He came to seek and save that which was lost.
Are homosexuals lost?
Of course they are
And so is everybody else in that list in I Corinthians.
As Christians we should not hate homosexuals. We should hate what homosexuality does to homosexuals:
• Back in 1993, 85% of victims of AIDS were homosexuals or drug users.
• According to Thomas E. Schmidt, (“Straight & Narrow? Compassion and Clarity in the Homosexual Debate”, p. 118) 75% of homosexuals are carrying diseases in their bodies. and more than 75% have had at least one STD (Gonorrhea, Syphilis, HIV etc.) in their lifetime. And at least 40% get sick every year because of their lifestyle.
• Another study noted that homosexual men live on average to the age 41. Whereas the average lifespan of Heterosexual men was 82.
Why would we want anybody to suffer this way?
God doesn’t.
And that’s part of the reason He condemns it
ILLUS: Benjamin Franklin once said: "Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, it is forbidden because it is hurtful."
Someone else noted: “We are not punished for our sins, but by them." Leon Harrison
And that is exactly what is happening to those in the homosexual community.
They are a people stalked by disease and death.
But as bad as these can be for those who live with homosexuality… the worse fate is to spend eternity in Hell.
Phil Robertson has noted that “Our culture has accepted two huge lies.
The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them.
The 2nd is that to love someone you must agree with everything they believe or do.
Both are nonsense.”
But there’s an even greater lie.
A lie we must resist at all costs.
It is the lie that we should just keep our mouths shut about homosexuality.
If that’s the way they want to live… just let them.
What business is it of ours how they live?
You know what we’d be saying if we said that?
We’d be saying “Let them go to hell.”
ILLUS: Let’s say you’re driving down the road and you notice black smoke coming out an upstairs window of a home.
What do you do?
Let’s say the owner comes to the door and says “Go away. You’re crazy”
Do you just walk away?
You wouldn’t just walk away would you? You’d keep on doing what you could do until this man understood his house was on fire.
We know from Scripture that gays (and those who engage in the other sins in I Corinthians 6) will not go to heaven. Their house is literally on fire… they’re going to hell.
Are you comfortable with that?
Are you happy with that?
Do you really want them to go to hell?
God’s not.
You see, God is in the business of changing people.
Just after I Corinthians 6 tells us this list of people who will not make it to heaven, it says this:
“And 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 by the Spirit of our God.” 1 Corinthians 6:11
They HAD BEEN homosexuals, adulterers, idolaters, thieves, prostitutes etc.
That’s a repeated theme throughout Scripture.
God changes sinners… ALL SINNERS
II Corinthians 5 says “… if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation…” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Colossians 1:13-14 declares “(God) has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
And one of the final declarations of God in Revelation 21:5 is this: "Behold, I make all things new."
CLOSE: Jesus changed the lives of all kinds of sinners in Corinth. Adulterers, Idolaters, Homosexuals, Prostitutes, Thieves, and Slanderers. They were changed because they were exposed to the Good News… that Jesus died for THEM
The Bible tells us that we change when we become Christians.
Romans 6:4-6 says “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.”
ILLUS: I read this true story some time back about a girl name Molly who came to a certain church. The preacher said she came to him after church one Sunday and asked: “Before I get my heart all set on falling in love with this place and these incredible people, answer me this: Do you allow gays here?”
He said “I wasn’t ready for that question. I had been raised in a tradition where the “don’t do’s” far outnumbered the “can do’s.”
He finally said “I guess that all depends on what your motive for attending is. If you desire to learn more about a loving God and His ways, and are willing to let God have control of your life, you’re welcome to stay.”
Then he added, “But if your reason for attending has changed from learning to dividing, proselytizing, justifying, or shocking and shaming the church, I reserve the right to ask you to leave. Is that understood?”
She promised him it was and they had many heart-to-hearts in the months and years to follow. Eventually she became a Christian. and her life changed at a rapid pace… and that drew others to ask questions and investigate why she was changing.
Soon she said God had placed a burden on her heart to “return to her people” and share what God had done for her. She asked if several people in the church would tag along with her to a gay bar she used to frequent. Several from the church went with her and hung out or drank coffee or made small talk.
Molly explained that gays had been rejected by the church for so long that expecting them to come to the church looking for answers was unrealistic. She thought that if the gospel was powerful enough to save her it would be powerful enough to protect her while she ministered in the bar.
And she was right. People not only started asking questions, but they also began coming with her to church. Most stopped short of a total surrender to Christ, but they ventured in far enough to witness God’s love through a small but sincere group of Christians.
(Tim E. Wood of Tacoma Open Bible Church in “Leadership”, Spring 95 p. 49)
Phil Robertson “My mission today is to go forth and tell people why I follow Christ.
