Homosexuality is SIN—a pernicious evil

Recommended: the CD “How to Think Like a Christian.” This CD is or should be a reminder to all Christians!

I suggest you check out the following website if you are a policy holder of Farmers Insurance Group or thinking about having them insure you in any capacity: http://www.farmersinsurancegroupsucks.com/


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https://affiliates.visionforum.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=367


The above link is for a company—Vision Forum—that provides unique products for the family. I am an affiliate for the company and receive a small commission whenever someone uses this link and then makes an unreturned purchase while using the link. Check it out. I think you might like the products offered. I do. See my more complete explanation on my post of February 1, 2008 entitled “Affiliate program with Vision Forum.”

Based upon past historical data: 3,287+ UNBORN BABY MURDERS have occurred in the last 24 hours in the United States. See my post “BABY HOLOCAUST” posted January 22, 2008.

I’ve been involved in a problem one of my clients has with Farmers Insurance Group. My previous posts in relation to this problem were:

September 10, 2007 post: “Beware of Farmers Insurance Group”
September 11, 2007 post: “Farmers Insurance Group’s response”
September 18, 2007 post: “Farmers Insurance Company received the requested list”
September 19, 2007 post: “Farmers Insurance Company’s response to the list”
October 16, 2007 post: “Farmers Insurance Group and my request for information”
November 27, 2007 post: “Farmers Insurance Group does not respond to my request”
January 11, 2008 post: “Farmers Insurance Group latest stall”
January 12, 2008 post: “Farmers Insurance Group is sent a response”
January 14, 2008 post: “Farmers Insurance Group pays some money”
January 19, 2008 post: “Farmers Insurance Group continues to be obstinate”
January 26, 2008 post: “Farmers Insurance Group receives another request”
February 11, 2008 post: “Farmers Insurance Group shows how low they will go?”
February 12, 2008 post: “Farmers Insurance Group: If I were going to respond to the final letter”

I will not be continuing my Creationism posts today. I do plan to return to them soon.

Then, I plan to answer the response about Iraq. I am sorry for the change in plans. Plans, in reality, often are altered for one reason or another. “The best laid plans … often go astray.” Thank you for your understanding and patience.

How many unborn toddlers were murdered today because of the humanistic, paganish, barbaric decisions of the United States Supreme Court?

Stop the
Murder of
Unborn
Toddlers

“Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” James 4: 17 (NIV)

http://www.farmersinsurancegroupsucks.com/

http://www.childpredators.com/

http://www.lifedynamics.com/

http://www.libertylegal.org/

http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/

http://www.searchtv.org/

The Vision Forum book sale:

“Normally, each smythe-sewn, hardback book in the Ballantyne Christian Adventure Library retails for $22. If you were to purchase each of these books individually, the total price would be $440. However, for one week only during this one-week special offer, Vision Forum is offering the entire twenty-volume set for $220, plus shipping. That’s just $11 apiece for these beautifully bound, substantial, hardback, collectible books.

Also available are the ten titles just released this month, the Ballantyne Adventure Library—Set 2, available for a 35% savings, at a price of $143. Offers expire at midnight on Tuesday, May 20 (CDT), and are good only while supplies last.”

“Two Erroneous Impressions
I Corinthians 4: 1-5

Oh say friend, it’s so good to have you join us for our Bible study In Search of the Lord’s Way to become a Christian and to be a Christian. I’m sure you know that by just remaining silent a person or even a church can be misunderstood to be in agreement with what is being said or done. Therefore, it’s sometimes necessary to speak up. Their integrity could be questioned if they didn’t. That is our program today. It should not be interpreted as an apology for our faith about these two items, but a statement of belief about them.

Thank you—thank you for inviting us into your home by television or radio to study the word of God. We love you for it and we pray God will bless our study together. We are interrupting our announced schedule again this week to study about some immediate and pressing matters. There are very few people who dislike controversy more than I do. However, all of us sometimes find it necessary in order to ‘be faithful’ to our Lord and to His calling to say something. It’s been said, ‘Silence is Golden.’ But sometimes it is just plain ‘yellow.’

First, I must mention a disclaimer of any relation to the United Church of Christ that you are hearing so much about in the news these days. They have a member who is a candidate for the presidency of the United States. Now, we are not that church! They are a 1957 merger of two denominations: the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches. Their congregations are more in the Northeast part of the U.S. Churches of Christ of which we are a part are more scattered throughout the nation and the world. Although we are similar in name, we’re vastly different theologically.

Our second ‘concern’ today is about homosexuality. An Oklahoma state legislator, a former school teacher and the wife of a Baptist minister, has outraged the homosexual community far and wide with the statement that: ‘Homosexual agenda is destroying this nation, ok,’ she said, ‘it’s just a fact...Studies show no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted, you know, more than a few decades.’ Well, she is right about that.

Having said that, her ‘office received more than 23,000 e-mails in less than a week mostly condemning her views, and thousands more [went] to her home computer.’ You may be thinking, ‘Well, so what? Preacher, you don’t have to get involved in that controversy.’ Oh, but I do. You see, my silence could easily, and probably would, be interpreted by many as approval of the protest. Furthermore, God loves the homosexual. And God, who called me to preach His word to every creature, meant that as I have opportunity, I must preach to them also. God expects me to be faithful to my charge. It’s as David said in the thirty-first Psalm, verse eight, He ‘has set my feet in a large room.’
So, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel to all who are in this ‘large room.’ My charge is to preach the truth of God’s word, when it’s convenient and when it isn’t convenient. (II Timothy chapter 4, verse 1)

If you think you will want—or need—a free CD, audio cassette tape, or printed copy of it, please address your request to In Search of the Lord’s Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083; or you may use our toll free telephone number, 1-800-321-8633. Our e-mail address is searchtv@searchtv.org. After Ken Helterbrand leads us in a hymn, we’ll be back for Bible reading and prayer.

Our scripture reading today is from the 4th chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians. We will begin at verse one and read through verse 5. ‘Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I know nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts; and then each one’s praise will come from God.’ And now let’s go to God in prayer. Holy Father, we dare come into Your presence as sinful men—only in the name of Jesus Christ, our mediator. And we pray You in His name to listen to our prayers and grant our petitions. We ask Your forgiveness; we ask Your help in living the Christian life. We realize our sinfulness; we realize that we do things and say things that not ought to be; and we pray that You give us and provide us the strength and the courage and the boldness to live uprightly before You—following all of Your teaching. Amen!

My friend, I must begin by telling you I am not speaking ‘officially’ for all churches of Christ. Neither I nor any other person, or congregation or group of congregations, no university or no publication can do that. Just as they were in New Testament days, these congregations are completely autonomous or self-determining. I mean by that, that churches of Christ are not bound together by a human creed or catechism or confession of faith or any kind of ecclesiastical hierarchy, such as a convention or conference who speaks officially for all of them. We do share a common faith and a common love for God and His divinely inspired word. And, I’m here today to study that Word with you.

According to the word of God in 1Timothy chapter 3, verse 15, Christ’s church is the pillar and the ground, or the support, of the truth—moral truth as well as doctrinal truth. Therefore, God’s people must never give approval, verbally or by mere silence, to the practice of any form of immorality as defined in the Scriptures. The person who denies truth in pursuit of freedom, is living in a fantasy world, friend. No person is ever free when he denies the reality of truth. The same is true with society.

Jesus’ statement about truth and freedom is universally accepted. He said, ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ (John 8: 32) He also defined that truth in His prayer to God. He said, ‘Your word is truth.’ (John 17: 17) Therefore, where there is no truth—where the word of God is not known, there is no truth and where it is not respected, there is no freedom. The measure of our freedom is commensurate also with our measure of truth.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 Bowers vs. Hardwick decision refused to allow homosexuality protection by the law. Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote: ‘To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.’

We Americans have made an idol of sexual pleasure and it’s wrought havoc in our society in the form of illegitimacy, kids giving birth to babies, abortions, sexual perversions such as homosexuality and lesbianism, sexually transmitted diseases, including the killer AIDS, child molestations, broken families, homeless children, overflowing prisons and a general state of fear and anxiety. The idea that our sexual pleasures must be served and it is nobody’s business how we do it, has resulted in the collapse of our moral structure. Deviant behavior of any kind is everyone’s concern.

Homosexual behavior can be tolerated if it must be, just as fornication and adultery and drunkenness and dishonesty and a host of other evils, but it must not have our approval. We must not sit idly by and quietly by and permit our youth of our nation to be forced into ‘sensitivity training classes’ as they are in some public school situations, in which they are brainwashed into accepting this pernicious evil, for in so doing then their consciences—that is their moral immune systems, will be so weakened that they will be susceptible to every form of evil, resulting eventually in the breakdown of the social structure.

What does the Bible say about homosexuality? Let’s just see, what do you say? In the Genesis story of the creation of the human family in Genesis 1: 27-28, it says, ‘God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful, and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it ….’

The creation of the human family male and female was a deliberate act of God in which, number one: He designed that by the merging of the two sexes into one (Genesis 2: 24) each would find completeness of itself in the other. And secondly by creating humankind male and female He would, through biological reproduction, replenish the earth. So, you can see God has something of greater importance and consequence in mind for sexual intercourse than ‘the fun of it.’ And His plan makes no provision, leaves no room for, sexual involvement with those of the same sex. We may say without apology—or animosity that homosexual relationships constitute a perversion of God’s creative purposes.

The next reference is probably the most familiar incident of homosexuality in the Bible. It is the city of Sodom. In Genesis 13: 13, ‘But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord.’ Why would the Lord make such a statement about these people? They are singled out as being exceedingly wicked and sinful. What was their sin that would call forth such a judgment of the eternal God? Certainly, we would not argue that homosexuality was the only sin of Sodom, but homosexual advances were made by the men of the city to the angels in Lot’s house is indisputable, friend. And, that this was a characteristic fault of the men there is undeniable.

When God gave His moral code (the law) to Israel, He spoke unmistakably clear on this subject. He said, ‘You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. (Whew! That is strong language.) Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion’ (Leviticus 18: 21-22). Then in Leviticus chapter 20, verse 13, He said, ‘If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood be upon them.’ Now from that we learn five things: (1) Homosexuality is forbidden of God. (2) It is ‘abomination’ (meaning disgusting and obscene) before God. (3) It is catalogued with the very ugliest and basest kind of human behavior and perversion, bestiality. (4) It is so detestable as to be punishable by death. And (5) the blood of the homosexual is upon him. God holds him accountable for his deeds.

Well, for a Christian perspective, we must look to the New Testament, of course. And there are several passages in the New Testament that speak of homosexuality. As with the Old Testament, we’ll not be able in the time that we have to examine all of them, but they are all in agreement, of course, and so we will look at a few of them. In Romans chapter 1, verses 26 and 27 the Bible says, ‘For this reason (and the reason being they had rejected God and refused to have Him in their knowledge. Well for this reason then) God gave them over to vile passions (the King James says ‘degrading passions’). For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise the men, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.’ My friend, we don’t have any trouble understanding that, do we?

And then in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verses 8 to 11 the Holy Spirit says, ‘We know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for the sinners, and for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.’

Well, finally, but only because of the limits on our time, we are going to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and look at verses 9 to 11: ‘Do you not know (the scripture says—do you not know) that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.’ Well, that is pretty plain, isn’t it?

But interestingly, very interestingly, this passage that passes divine judgment on all such evil, is good news for the homosexual and for others for some very good reasons: First, his sin is mentioned along with a lot of others, indicating it is no different in the sight of God than the others insofar as their guilt is concerned, and judgment is concerned. God will treat it as He does all other sins. It’s good news for the homosexual, too, because it says he can change. Verse 11 says, (Listen) ‘And such were some of you,’ which indicates some of the Corinthians had been living that lifestyle, but they had changed. The gospel is more good news yet because it says, ‘But you (and some of them homosexuals) but you were washed, but you were sanctified (sainted), but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.’ Oh say, friend! There is no more forceful way of saying, they were forgiven, washed and cleansed by the blood of the Lamb of God! My homosexual friend, don’t let anybody tell you, you can’t change your sexual behavior or lifestyle. The Bible says these folks had changed. And some of our regular viewers, who were once practicing homosexuals, have changed. They have written, some of them, and others have called us to tell us so. Those who work with homosexuals to help them change, tell us that there are one-half as many former homosexuals as there are current practicing homosexuals. What great news that is! Oh say, friend! That means that homosexuals today can repent and be baptized into Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, and they can be saved, too. Oh yes! The homosexual finds good news in the Bible because it promises help—and it promises the hope of heaven in the homosexuals’ acceptance of Jesus Christ and his obedience to Him. Do it today, will you? Stay tuned for my final thought after the hymn. Let us pray. Thank You, Lord, for Your message about how we can change our lives by accepting the Savior that You sent—the provision that You made because You love us. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

My homosexual friend, you are no different than the rest of us. ‘We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God’ according to Romans 3: 23. Our sins may have been different. Some of us in the church were once liars or thieves or adulterers or fornicators or alcoholics or murderers serving a life sentence maybe. No, no, now, we were not born liars or thieves or adulterers or fornicators or alcoholics or murderers, any more than you were born homosexual. For your sake, I beg you, please don’t buy that line. I hope you’ll face up to your responsibility to God for your choice of your behavior, and do as other sinners either have done or must do in order to be saved. Surely you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, or you wouldn’t still be with me this far into this program. Then, do as people in the New Testament were told to do—‘repent (I mean turn from your sin) and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission (or the forgiveness) of your sin.’ (Acts chapter 2, verse 38)

Having died to the old life of sin, being buried with Christ in the waters of baptism, rise with Him to newness of life just as you read in your own Bible in Romans 6: 3 and 4. There is no sin that the blood of Christ cannot wash away, if the sinner will just humbly repent and be baptized (Acts 22: 16; Revelation 1 and 5). Do it today; will you? Then call us and tell us about. The toll-free telephone number is 1(800) 321-8633. God bless you, my friend. I hope you will.

If you would like a free CD of this program so you can hear it again, or to read it or whatever, just write and request it. It you prefer a printed copy so you can read it over and over; if you could better use an audio cassette tape of it—any of it’s free—our address is In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Our e-mail address is searchtv@searchtv.org. As I said, our toll-free telephone number is 1-800-321-8633. We would be happy to hear from you. I hope you have been blessed by this study today. That is the meaning that we had in presenting it. We had hoped that we might be a blessing to you. I hope you will join us next time, will you? God bless you. We love you.