God's View of Homosexuality, Part 2 B

Sexual perversion is forgivable. Such were some of you, but you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified, and all of this through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is sin, but there is forgiveness. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Nature or nurture? It's an age-old question. Are you a product of your genes or your environment? Nowhere is that debate more heated than in the matter of homosexuality. How do people of the same sex end up desiring each other? Are they making a choice or are they born homosexual and simply following their true nature? Next on Grace to You, John MacArthur continues his series titled Homosexuality and the Bible. The lesson you're about to hear will prepare you for those delicate and maybe even intimidating conversations with friends and family members who support homosexuality or who may be trapped in that lifestyle themselves. A compelling message ahead, let's get to it now.

Here's John MacArthur. What does society say about homosexuality? Well, in 1881, there was born a man who left an immense impact on human history. His name was Sigmund Freud. Among many human behaviors, which were curiosities to him, was the behavior of sodomy. He became very interested in dealing with sodomites and in understanding them. He determined after some supposed research that sodomy was a psychological disorder and that it was directly related to a domineering mother. By the way, that viewpoint still hangs around today and you hear people articulate it. He said basically it's just a disorder that comes because you were dominated by your mother and you grow up then hating the one who dominated you and since the one who dominated you was a woman, you hate women and so you attach your sexual fantasy to men.

That's been a very popular viewpoint. In the 1930s, there came a man by the name of Harlock Ellis. Harlock Ellis published a manual, a sex book. And in that sex book, he brought sodomy into the open.

This is the 1930s. He said, frankly, Freud is wrong. It is not a psychological disorder generated by a domineering mother. It is hereditary.

It is genetic and it is a higher level of genius than just normal folks possess. So since Freud and Ellis and others who have embellished both viewpoints, you can take your pick. Did your mother do it to you because she was nasty and domineering? Or did your mother and father do it to you genetically? And there's still debate. And the reason there is still debate is because no one can prove it's hereditary. Furthermore, no one can prove that homosexuals have in common a domineering mother. Then along came a real fraud by the name of Albert Kinsey with the famous Kinsey Report. In the 1940s and the 1950s, he published the famous Kinsey Reports on sexuality. He was a sexual pervert himself and so he was trying to prove a point before he even did his research. He wanted to justify adultery, fornication, homosexuality and any other kind of deviant sex. So he fabricated his figures, fabricated his research.

I spent this week reading a very interesting book called Kinsey, Sex and Fraud. It debunks the entire Kinsey Report and shows how fraudulent the figures were. It was he, you remember, who said that the result of his research was that one out of ten people were sodomites. And this normalized it. One out of ten were sodomites.

That is not true, has never been true, may someday in the future be true if their media campaign is continuingly successful. He tilted and twisted and fabricated the statistics to make it look like everyone was an adulterer, everyone was a fornicator, everyone was having affairs illicitly out of their marriage and one out of ten people were sodomites. This was followed up by the American Psychiatric Association which declassified sodomy as a mental sickness and removed it from its list of standard diagnostic diseases and illnesses.

And the American Psychiatric Association decided to buy into Harlock Ellis and say it was hereditary. There is no evidence, there is no evidence that homosexuality is a result of a domineering mother. There is no evidence that homosexuality is a result of genetics. There is plenty of evidence that homosexuality is a choice. It's choice. Like all sin, it's choice.

You may have certain susceptibility to it. There may be some people who are more tempted in that area. But it primarily has to do with choice. And if you read the literature of those that are trying to help people come out of homosexual sodomite sin, they will tell you that what leads people into these choices, what leads them to live like this is just a simple little list of things. One, early homosexual experience. When they're young, somebody engages them.

Some other boy, maybe in their youth or even late childhood adolescence, engages them in some kind of homosexual play that stimulates them. Another component in leading people into these kinds of choices is the need for intimacy, and some homosexual supplies it. There are factors in life that lay out the path of temptation, but it's still the series of choices.

And where you have kids that are rejected by women who are looking for a subculture of acceptance, who have a need for intimacy, who get lured into this kind of thing, you have some choices that lead to other choices that lead to other choices, and it becomes lust out of control. Romans chapter 1, verse 18, very familiar text which gives us a good look at the fallenness of man and God's reaction. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. In other words, God's wrath is revealed against the whole human race because they have the truth and they suppress it.

They reject it. That which is known about God is evident within them. God has planted it in their hearts. God has made it evident to them. Verse 20, since the creation of the world is invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they're without excuse. You have the internal moral law of God.

You have the external creation and evidence of God and His morality. The evidence is there, the truth is there, and men reject it. Verse 21, even when they knew God innately from the internal witness and externally from the creation, they didn't honor Him as God. They didn't give thanks. They became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened, professing to be wise. They became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. They rejected God, thus rejecting truth. They created their own gods like animals and men and failed to worship the true God and that's why God's wrath is poured out upon them. There you have the characterization of the fallen world. God has given the knowledge of Himself internally and externally.

Men reject it. And instead of seeing God as revealed, they turn their back on God. They invent their own gods and bring about the wrath of God upon them.

Now, the wrath of God comes in this form, verse 24. Therefore, God gave them over. God gave them over.

What a statement. He gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity that their bodies might be dishonored among them. Look at verse 26. For this reason, God gave them over...there it is again...to degrading passions. Verse 28.

And just as they didn't see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind. Verse 24. He gave them over that their bodies would be dishonored. Verse 26. He gave them over to degrading passions in their heart. Verse 28. He gave them over to a depraved mind. Body, heart, mind, all given over. And what became of that when God took His hand off and God let man go His own way?

What came of it? Sexual perversion. What you see today is already the evidence of God's judgment on man as He lets him go. Verse 24. God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity that their bodies might be dishonored among them. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie. They worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. Then verse 26. For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions.

What kind? For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. They were given over, verse 24 says, to epithumia, uncleanness, reaching out after forbidden pleasure. The Stoics called it grasping for pleasure which defies all reason, lust gone wild.

That's what verse 24 is talking about. Desires that make people do shameless things and nameless things. And they dishonored their bodies. How did they dishonor their bodies? They did what was against nature.

They did what was unnatural. In verse 26, women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. What you have in homosexuality then is a very clear illustration of depravity, of people given over to their lusts without any restraint on God's part.

He just let them go. Women, we call them lesbians. They have chosen to live godlessly and God gives them over to the results of their choices. Verse 27. And in the same way also, the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another. Men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. They burn in their lust. That phrase, burned in their desire toward one another. Literally, to burn out, echiaio, to burn out, they were consumed with lust.

It's the consuming rage of it. According to the New York Times, quote, the man who knows more about violent death than anyone else in the country is Dr. Milton Helpern, formerly chief medical examiner of New York City. In his biography, titled Where Death Delights, Helpern, not a Christian, wrote this. It's not my role to condemn homosexuality as such and I leave it to the psychiatrists and psychologists to try to figure out why people practice homosexuality.

He said, I'm not to judge it, but having performed 60,000 autopsies, it is high time that those who deviate from the norms should understand the risks. I don't know why it is so, but it seems that the violent explosions of jealousy among homosexuals far exceed those of the jealousy of a man for a woman or a woman for a man. The pent-up charges and energy of the homosexual relationship simply cannot be contained.

When the explosive point is reached, the result is brutally violent. Helpern goes on. But this is the normal pattern of these homosexual attacks, multiple stabbings, the senseless beatings that obviously must continue long after the victim dies. When we see these brutal multiple wound cases in a single victim, we automatically assume that we are dealing with a homosexual victim and a homosexual attacker, end quote.

Why? Because there is a burning lust that is out of control. They burn in their desires.

He went on to say in his book that in 10 seconds, they can look at a dead body and tell you whether it was killed by a homosexual because of the mutilations and the multiple stabbings or multiple blows. There is annoying, unsatisfied, gripping lust that is evidence of their depravity and evidence of the fact that God has given them over. Let them go.

Let them go. They are burning in their desire, women exchanging the natural function for what is unnatural and men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their persons the due penalty of their error. Verse 28, they didn't want to acknowledge God, so God just gave them over to a depraved mind to do the things which aren't proper, things which make no sense. That's part of God's judgment. Down in verse 32, after chronicling a whole list of sins that are the result of God giving people over, it says, the people who practice these things are worthy of death and they still do them and then they give hearty approval to those who practice them. They advocate them. They know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death. That's in the Bible. That's clear. But they still do them and they give hearty approval to others who practice them.

All of life becomes totally disoriented. There's a species of ant that lives in some parts of Africa. By the way, the ants in Africa can build massive anthills, some of them 20 feet high. And they live in subterranean tunnels that go way down into the earth where the young are sheltered. And down in these subterranean tunnels where the ants move, there's a special shelter for the queen.

The workers go on foraging trips to distant places, returning to the nest with food for the colony and particularly for the queen. It is said by those who study them that if, when they are away, their queen is molested, the workers, even far away, become nervous and uncoordinated. If she's killed, they become frantic. They rush around aimlessly and eventually die in the field without ever finding their way back.

It's thought that the worker ants in the normal situation are constantly over-reacting and constantly oriented to the queen by some radar-like device. If she is killed, all orientation ceases. Frenzy ensues, a frenzy that ends in death. What a parable of man. What a parable of man, cut off from God. He lives in a disoriented frenzy until his death, the frenzy of being disconnected from God. Such is the condition of fallen men, of homosexuals, sodomites.

But again, we need to end where we began. This sin is forgivable. Such were some of you, but you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified. And all of this through the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

It is sin, but there is forgiveness. A young man named Robert was baptized and he came into the water and he told a wonderful testimony. He said, I have AIDS. And he said, I've been a homosexual for years. And I said to someone, I want deliverance from this life. Where can I go?

Where can I go and find help? And he said, someone told me to go to Grace Community Church and I could find help there. He said, I walked into this church on a Sunday morning.

I'd never been here. He sat right out over there. And he said, I was desperate. I wanted deliverance from my sin and its consequence, death. And he said, John got up, as he does every Sunday, and read a psalm.

And he said, this is what he read, and he recited it, Psalm 107. They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region. They didn't find a way to an inhabited city. They were hungry and thirsty. Their soul fainted within them. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. He delivered them out of their distresses.

He led them also by a straight way to go to an inhabited city. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His loving kindness and for His wonders to the sons of men, for He has satisfied the thirsty soul and the hungry soul He has filled with what is good. There were those who dwelled in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in misery and chains, because they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the counsel of the Most High. Therefore, He humbled their heart with labor.

They stumbled and there was none to help. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. He saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and broke their chains apart.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for His loving kindness and for His wonders to the sons of men. He stood in these waters and recited that verbatim. And He said, When I heard you read that, I knew I'd come to the right place and that my chains could be broken and I could be set free. And that morning, that first Sunday, that first time He'd ever come here, He gave His life to Jesus Christ and was wonderfully saved and later entered the waters of baptism to confess that sin and that transformation. And I said to Him privately, What are you going to do with the days of life that God gives you? Well, He told me, He said, The Gay Pride Parade is coming down the street near where I live. I've been in the mainstream of this whole thing. And He said, All of my former friends are going to be stopping by to greet me because they know I'm so ill and I'm going to give every one of them the gospel of Christ.

That's the good news, isn't it? Father, we thank You for the grace that is granted to sinners of any kind and every kind. We thank You that You forgive the deepest, darkest sin, that You break the strongest chains, that You give grace to the vilest sinner, for You have done it for us. And we pray for people who are trapped in this terrible lifestyle with its inexplicable passions. We pray, O God, that You would deliver many, be gracious to them and save them for Your glory. What a testimony, Lord, it would be if many were saved out of that sin and gave testimony to Your grace and became rescuers of others in those chains. Thank You for setting so many free that Your grace may be displayed and Your love for sinners. We pray also, Lord, for those who come out of that lifestyle and come to You and are still tempted, whose memories are vivid with the ugly things of the past, we pray, Lord, that You'll wash those memories away, that You'll fix them on holy things, on right relationships, clean out their minds, give them pure thoughts and triumph over temptation. Give us all, Lord, opportunity to speak to those that we might meet caught in that sin and to know that the most compassionate thing we can do is not accept them but warn them. For if they don't understand the sin, they can't see the Savior. And Lord, this is but one sin among many. We pray that You would save sinners of all kinds and make them holy, sanctified, sanctified for Your glory, that many may sing Your praise in time and throughout eternity.

In our Savior's name we ask, amen. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, with his current series on Grace to You, titled Homosexuality in the Bible. Now, John, at the start of this series, we acknowledge that the whole question of homosexuality is a kind of lightning rod issue. It's not politically correct. There are lots of people who don't even want to have the discussion.

What do you hope people who listen to these broadcasts will take away from this study? Yeah, well, it isn't politically correct to criticize homosexuality. The homosexual community has worked very hard to try to back people off from any criticism. I mean, it obviously is aberrant. On its face, it is aberrant. The Bible condemns it in no uncertain terms.

It is an abomination to God. But the people who are going to commit that sin have come out of the closet, become very, very bold, and they are demanding protection. They are demanding laws that allow for this and that prosecute people who condemn it. So that doesn't change our responsibility.

Our responsibility is the same. Even if they make laws against confronting homosexuality, criticizing homosexuality, we owe the person trapped in that sin the truth of the gospel, which is the only hope of deliverance from that sin and its consequence, eternal punishment in hell. So we have to confront homosexuality.

We have to do it boldly. We may have to do it, even though it's against the law to do it, so that we can graciously bring salvation to those who are caught in that terrible sin. It isn't just that tolerance is a virtue in our society.

It is that. But it seems as though tolerance of homosexuality is the most demanded thing, and that's going to make us have to take a stand that is going to be unpopular and maybe even illegal. But we have to be ready to do that. We have to proclaim the gospel to anyone trapped in sin. So we want you to know what the Bible says about homosexuality so you can confront the homosexual and bring him to the gospel or her to the gospel. We have this study available for you, two CDs, Homosexuality and the Bible, or you can download MP3 downloads from GTY.org. And by the way, be sure to request our new booklet called What the Bible Says About Homosexuality.

We'll send you a free copy. Yes, both of those resources will equip you to defend what Scripture says on this challenging issue and also help you compassionately engage people with biblical truth. To get John's series titled Homosexuality and the Bible, or to request a free copy of the booklet called What the Bible Says About Homosexuality, contact us today. Get the two-CD album by calling toll-free 800-55-GRACE, or visit our website GTY.org. You can also download both messages from Homosexuality and the Bible free of charge in MP3 or transcript format from the website GTY.org. And again, if you want a copy of John's new booklet, What the Bible Says About Homosexuality, just ask for it.

We'll send you a free copy. Call 800-55-GRACE or go to GTY.org. And when you get in touch, make sure to let us know how John's verse-by-verse teaching is strengthening and encouraging you and your family. Your feedback is more important than you may think. Also, let us know how you're listening, whether it's on your local radio station, online, or through the Grace To You app. Drop your note to letters at GTY.org or mail your letter to Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson inviting you back tomorrow when John unpacks one of Scripture's most important blueprints for how to confess your sins. It's a handy message you won't want to miss. So be here for another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.