Why Is Homosexuality Wrong? #2

God wove monogamous heterosexual marriage into creation to ultimately picture the relationship between Christ, His Son, and the Church.

Beloved, when you understand things from this perspective, you are far down the road to understanding why homosexuality is wrong. Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm Bill Wright, and we're continuing the series this month called The Bible and Pride Month. Last time Don began showing you from Scripture how God designed true marriage in the beginning. He introduced the first of four points concerning marriage, namely that marriage is a permanent union.

Today, you'll get the other three points. But before we begin, Don's here with a little more to say about this current series. Friend, we've titled this message, Why Is Homosexuality Wrong?, and there's something really important that you need to understand. Homosexuality and what God thinks about it is not subject to the opinions of men that change from year to year and from season to season. God has spoken, and we need to understand that God is the authority on this issue. He is the one who created us, male and female, and set for us what sexuality was to be. And so, as you listen and hear things on the media, you need to come back again and again to the true authority of God's Word. That's what we're trying to do here today on The Truth Pulpit.

Let's join Don Green now as he continues in his ministry of teaching God's people God's Word from the truth pulpit. God assigned two distinct genders at creation to marry and engage in sexual union, one man and one woman, and that was the pattern for all time. Point number two, marriage is an exclusive union.

Marriage is an exclusive union. Go back to Genesis 1, if you would. We see that God designed marriage, God designed the genders, the two genders, to be an instrument for the propagation of humanity, a way that humanity would continue and thrive and multiply. And in Genesis 1, verse 26, God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. God created man in His own image.

In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them. And look at verse 28. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

So God established marriage in a way that required the men, commanded the man and the woman, blessed them, and said, You go and be fruitful, you go and be multiply, referring that they would go and engage in intimacy that would result in the production of children. And as you read on in Scripture, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, those five books as we have them in our English Bible are frequently called a single book in Scripture. The book of Moses, the book of the law of Moses, the law of Moses referred to in the singular.

We should see it as a comprehensive unit rather than seeing these as distinct books that have no relationship to one another. When you understand that unifying nature of things, it makes it more important to look at Exodus chapter 20 in light of what we were just seeing in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. So turn over to Exodus chapter 20, if you would, as we look at the Ten Commandments and we see a couple of things in the Ten Commandments that reinforce the exclusivity of marriage in ways that go beyond, even in the Ten Commandments, what you're probably used to seeing. And so God said, The man and woman shall join together, they'll leave, they'll become one flesh, speaking to exclusivity and permanence. And in the Ten Commandments, God said in Exodus 20 verse 14, You shall not commit adultery. You shall not engage in a union outside of your marriage. You shall not engage with a woman who is not your wife or vice versa with a man who is not your husband. He establishes a strict perimeter around marriage. He builds a fence around it and says, The permanence and the exclusivity which I have assigned to marriage you shall not violate. And so the Ten Commandments reinforce the exclusivity of marriage.

But notice this as you continue to read in context. Context is everything in biblical understanding. Look down at verse 17. Look at how much, even in the Old Testament, God assigned exclusivity not only of body but of soul, not only of acts of intimacy but of affections of the heart. In verse 17, He said, You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor. God, in assigning this exclusivity to marriage, said that not only shall you not engage the physical act, but your heart itself shall not covet that which is outside of marriage. And so you see that the exclusivity that God assigns to marriage is more than a physical one. It is a matter of emotional affection as well. It is a matter of the desires of the heart. Scripture condemns illicit desires as much as it does the illicit act.

This is very hard for people in our materialistic age to understand and embrace. Jesus reinforced this idea of purity. Go to Matthew chapter 5, if you would. Matthew chapter 5 in verse 27 and 28. This is really Bible basic 101 that we're talking about here. Matthew chapter 5 verses 27 and 28. Jesus said, You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery.

He's going to go on and add His commentary about the significance of what that command means. He says, But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And so Jesus says, and is basically reinforcing the command against coveting in Exodus chapter 20, and He says, Understand that those who would limit adultery simply to the physical act, I want you to understand this. That God, in commanding the physical separation, is also commanding you to separate your heart from that which is lustful, that which is internal.

Even if you never act upon it, if you are actively lusting after your neighbor's wife, you are guilty of the sin of adultery. That's how exclusive the relationship of marriage is called to be. And so, as we consider this matter of homosexuality, you start to realize how haywire it is.

To call it haywire is really not adequate because it's just so disconnected from reality. As God defines it, it is so messed up. Here God says, Marriage, man and woman, lifetime commitment, nothing else. To the point of such exclusivity that you don't even lust after another woman within the marriage relationship. By definition, man with man, woman with woman, utter violation from the start of creation. Utter rejection of God's authority from the start. But not only is it a violation of separate genders coming together, the whole culture revels in anonymous promiscuity.

Nothing could be more different and hostile to the intentions of God than what the reality of the homosexual culture is. It violates gender, it violates exclusivity. It can never be made right. There is no county clerk under compulsion from the governor or the Supreme Court giving a stamp of the government seal upon a marriage license that can make that legitimate.

In legal terms, the Latin term is void ab initio. It is illegitimate from the beginning. There is never a stroke of legitimacy to it.

Nothing can make it legitimate. From the president to the Supreme Court to the legislatures to everybody that's involved, all of it's going to be shown that they were acting without authority and it will all be exposed one day in the end. And there will be an accounting to those who have separated what God commanded not to be separated. It's frightful stepping another degree into marriage here. We said that marriage is a permanent union between a man and a woman.

It's an exclusive union. And point number three is this, is that marriage is an intimate union. It is an intimate union. Scripture, in what it has said, has made it plain that the sexual union must not be shared outside of marriage. That sexual expression outside of marriage is sinful. Whether it is by way of pornography or fornication or homosexuality or any other manner of sexual sin, sexual expression by God's design is limited to within the confines of marriage. Everything else outside of that is sinful. And I realize that the clarity of that is shocking to the modern ear, but you know what?

I don't care. We just want to be faithful to Scripture here. With that said about marriage, what we need to understand is that within the marriage relationship, that intimacy God commands to be shared. Look at 1 Corinthians 7. God intends the marriage relationship to be one of physical intimacy between a man and a woman.

And Paul speaks in the restrained tones of the Holy Spirit, so contrary to the profane spirit of our age. Without going into the full context of this passage, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 3, the husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Clearly speaking about sexual intimacy, especially in the context of the prior two verses.

And look at what he says. Verse 5, he says, stop depriving one another except by agreement for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. He says, don't deprive one another of your physical intimacy.

Oh, I'll make a little exception if you're going to set aside some time for prayer, but once you've done that, you come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. And so we see that within the marriage union, God commands that intimacy be expressed, and it is not appropriate for one spouse to withhold intimacy from the other. When you got married, you gave your body over to your spouse, and vice versa. And your spouse has a right to intimacy, a biblical right to intimacy, and vice versa.

That's probably all we need to say about that. But it's worth seeing that God's intention was for marriage to be intimate, and that even in the New Testament that intimacy is commanded as a part of marriage. And so we start to see the wonder of it all. We start to see the exalted nature of this institution that God has ordained. That tracing all the way back to creation before the fall of man into sin, God established this relationship between a man and a woman that would address their feelings of isolation and would be a support to the man that God appointed over the head of creation. And that there would be this wonderful union of coming together that would drive a man and a woman to leave their father and mother and come together and form their own unit together.

And that they would be exclusively devoted to one another, not just physically, but emotionally as well. And within that relationship of covenant promise established by God in the security of the permanence of that relationship, that there would be a free and loving expression of that in intimacy as well. What a beautiful institution God has made. And that's not all that makes this institution so sweet and sacred, something worth protecting. Come to point number four, marriage is a loving union.

It is a loving union. Marriage, Scripture teaches us, pictures the love that Christ has for his own people. Look over to Ephesians chapter five. Ephesians chapter five. Really as we're answering the question, why is homosexuality wrong? Really what you see is that question is answered by a proper theology of marriage.

That's all we're doing here. In Ephesians chapter five, I'm going to read this long familiar passage. Ephesians 5, 22 through 33.

Wives, his women, female members of the marriage relationship. Stunning that you have to be that specific in our day and age, but whatever it takes to be faithful to God's word, we'll do it. Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

Let's stop there for a moment. Paul is instructing people on how to conduct themselves in the marriage relationship based on a broader principle of what Christ and the church, how they relate together. Notice this, beloved. Paul takes the immediate problem of conflict within the marriage and places it in a bigger spiritual context, a bigger theological context, and connects it to transcendent issues rather than isolating it simply to the human issue at hand. That's how we must respond to homosexuality. It cannot be discussed apart from God's plan for marriage in the same way that marital conflict in Scripture cannot be separated from the way that Christ relates to his own church.

We must learn to connect things in our thinking and connect individual issues to the greater context in which they occur. Verse 25, Paul says, Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church. Verse 30, because we are members of his body. Verse 31, he appeals to Genesis. Just like we've done here today, I want you to see that what we're doing here is simply biblical. Paul appeals to that creation ordinance. Jesus appealed to the creation ordinance.

Apparently it's defining in its impact. Verse 31, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. In this passage, Paul points to marriage as a picture of the love that Christ has to his church, the care that Christ has for his church, the sacrificial love by which he laid down his life at the cross for sinners so that they would be reconciled to him, to put their interests ahead of his own, to make sure that their needs were satisfied, cared for, that they were protected, that no harm would come to them, that they would be conformed to the image of God.

That is an expression of the love that Christ has for the church, and Paul takes that and says that's a picture of the way that your marriage is supposed to be. Husbands, love your wives this way. Love them with a sacrificial, self-denying love.

Love them like you love your own body. Wives, you respect your husbands just like believers respect and honor Christ. Well, that has implications. Listen, in creation, marriage had a highly exalted place in God's order. In the New Testament, Jesus affirmed that place in its order. And then in the progressive revealing of God's Word, when Paul wrote Ephesians later on, we see that marriage pictures another wonderful reality, the relationship of a saving Lord to His people. The primacy, the importance that God places on marriage in His acts and in His words is surpassing. It is sacred.

It is holy. Men should be approaching it with a sense of reverence, taking their shoes off, because as we deal with marriage, we're on holy ground, and we are on ground that belongs to God alone. It's a lesser violation if a criminal breaks into your house and takes things that belong to you than what has happened to the institution of marriage over these past 10 or 15 years.

Men have broken into that which does not belong to them and rearranged and taken it and misappropriated it to their own use, to their own desires, that which was never to belong to them. It's shameful. It's wrong. It's sinful. It's criminal. It's treasonous. It's ransacking the picture of Christ in the church. It's assaulting the created order. And, beloved, I hang my head in shame at what people in the name of Christ are doing. The church is gladly hopping on the bandwagon to go along with it.

What is that? Now, enter homosexuality, man with man, woman with woman, in a promiscuous, violent, drunken culture, and calling that marriage. What a corruption of the purity of what God established, of the clean, honorable nature of what God has done, according to and for His own good pleasure.

Picture it. Some of you have had this happen to you. Someone breaking into your house and vandalizing it randomly, wantonly, totally disrespecting everything that you have worked for and treasured. You say, that's not right. This isn't yours to do this to. And you scandalize that which belongs to me.

You would be outraged. Where's the sense of outrage of what's happened to what belongs to God and God alone? God gave complementary genders to humanity for their good and as the means of divine companionship. He wove monogamous, heterosexual marriage into creation to ultimately picture the relationship between Christ, His Son, and the church. Beloved, when you understand things from this perspective, you are far down the road to understanding why homosexuality is wrong. Homosexuality rebels against God's design. It violates everything that God established for the blessing of man and to express His glory, to express that which is good in the church. God, as it were, said it's not good for man to be alone. And as it were, He stretched out His hand and gave the gift of a companion and gave the gift of marriage and says, do it this way. Homosexuality looks at that outstretched hand and flaps it away violently.

He says, we will not do it that way. We reject the creative hand. We will assert our own authority over something that never was theirs to begin with. It pursues its own fulfillment. It perverts the created order. It perverts the picture of Christ redeeming His church. Why is homosexuality wrong?

Start there. What does God think of it all? That's for the next session. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, with part two of a message titled, Why Homosexuality is Wrong, here on The Truth Pulpit. Next time, Don will move further into this broader series titled, The Bible and Pride Month. He'll begin tackling and refuting five myths on homosexuality.

So don't miss it. Right now, though, here again is Don with a closing word. Well, my friend, thank you for being with us today on The Truth Pulpit. You know, our biblical voice on these ethical matters is an increasingly minority opinion in culture today.

But I'm encouraged nonetheless. It may surprise you to know that our ministry reaches nearly all 50 states and over 40 countries on a consistent monthly basis. And so God's word is having an impact, and He will never allow it to return void. You know, friend, would you consider supporting our broadcast to enable these podcasts and airing over local radio stations to continue as we minister God's word? You can find the ability to give on our website, thetruthpulpit.com.

That's thetruthpulpit.com. Thank you so much, and God bless you. Thanks, Don. Friend, I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you again next time as Don continues to teach God's people God's word from The Truth Pulpit.