Sooner or later every Christian—and certainly those in church leadership will be forced to answer the world regarding homosexuality and marriage. When that moment comes, and surely it will, those expressing the Bible’s teaching regarding the practice will find themselves censured, shouted down, mocked, and labeled as bigoted and intolerant. And that day, for many people, is coming sooner than they think.
It was on a Friday, June 24, 2011, that Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill allowing homosexual marriage in the state of New York. The Associated Press reported in gleeful terms the seminal moment in the state’s history: “Hundreds who gathered inside and outside the landmark bar erupted in celebration after the Republican-led state Senate cast the decisive vote.” Thoughtful people—and Christians in particular—should be concerned because the degradation of the nation is precipitously evolving.
Many years ago the “Prince of Preachers,” Charles Spurgeon, was told by his grandfather that “there are depths of sin which are deeper still.” What America is doing to itself proves that very axiom. If slaughtering millions of unborn children annually and leading the world in producing and distributing child pornography were not enough, yet another state has officially legalized the profanation of marriage, desecrating the world’s oldest divinely appointed institution by making New York the sixth and largest state to recognize same sex marriage
The arguments in favor of legalizing homosexuality—arguments which are by now familiar to us all—are bogus. For instance, there is the argument that homosexuals are made that way. However, there is to date no reliable medical or scientific evidence to substantiate that homosexual behavior is determined by a person’s genes. In fact, we have mapped the entire human genome and we can say with certainty there is no such thing as a “gay gene”. The evidence of nature is that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:27).
The argument is sometimes advanced that there is no harm in homosexual behavior. This, too, is utter nonsense. The reality is that homosexual activity is notoriously prone to disease. Homosexuality activity facilitates the transmission of anal herpes, hepatitis B, and intestinal parasites. One Canadian study conducted in the early 1990s found the life expectancy of homosexual men was 8-21 years less than the lifespan of other men.
Then there are homosexual advocates who pretend children reared in gay, lesbian, or transgendered homes are no different from children reared in heterosexual households. But even that concept is entirely untrue and impossible for a Christian to believe (which studies involving psychological evaluations have consistently demonstrated).
The Bible says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). At the very least, it is impossible to faithfully teach the Word of God to children while living contrary to what God has condemned.
No, children raised by homosexual couples are not similar in development, moral judgments, self concepts, social competence, and gender identity as children raised by heterosexual couples. Cross-dressers and transvestites in particular illustrate their uncertainty as to gender identity.
When openly condemned and challenged on their moral choices, homosexuals grow angry and declare that it is nobody else’s business what they do with their own bodies and in private practice (Yet, we can name a host of activities that are done in “private practice” that are still illegal). Indeed, this same line of reasoning paved the way for the murder of the unborn through abortion.
However, homosexual activity is the business of society, for every society has an invested interest into its own prolongation. And, it is the business of God who is our Designer and Creator and the Moral Judge of the universe. The foundation of every civilization is the family and when traditional marriage and the home are attacked the civilization will certainly collapse.
The fall of the Roman Empire and other seemingly unconquerable civilizations testifies to this reality. Upon scrutiny, the arguments for legalizing homosexual relationships cannot be justified. What can be justified is why God condemns homosexual behavior.
The apostle Paul sets forth the reasons why individuals engage in evil, which is behavior that is injurious to self and to others.
First, individuals engage in evil behavior because they do not like to retain God in their knowledge. They do not want to remember the Ten Commandments, which constitute the Moral Law of God and is the basis of every civilized society. “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (Rom. 1:28).
Second, individuals prefer evil to holiness because they are filled with an intense and insatiable lust pattern. “Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful” (Rom. 1:29.-31).
Third, the homosexual is simply defiant. Homosexuals long to be the captain of their own soul and the master of their own fate, even when they know their behavior will result in moral and spiritual shipwreck and the judgment of God. “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Rom. 1:30). When citizens of a nation are defiant of God the end result becomes predictable. God will give souls over to a reprobate mind. “God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Rom. 1:28).
Shortly before midnight, on June 24, 2011, God legally gave the people of New York over to a reprobate (literally, worthless) mind. America is surely a nation under divine judgment as we continue to blaspheme God’s commands and reject the need for gospel repentance. As Christians, then, we must pray! Pray that God will yet have mercy upon this wicked and morally bankrupt nation. America is not a nation coming under judgment. America is a nation that has been turned over by God to judgment and what we are witnessing by those whom God has placed in authority over us is testimony of His divine displeasure, and is the outworking of a divine judgment already passed.