The Marxist media is inflamed with outrage again and my inbox is littered with hate mail and death threats based on comments I made recently on Trunews Radio that the Bible treats homosexuality as a form of rebellion against God even worse (from God’s perspective) than mass murder. In the tradition of the timid modern church, this is the point at which I’m supposed to “walk-back” my comments and apologize for offending the enlightened sensibilities of the ruling elites.
But I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or any aspect of His Word, the Bible, which I hold to be literally true. I stand by my comments in the context in which I made them.
First, as always when I am talking about “homosexuality,” I’m talking about the voluntary practice of sodomy, which the Bible defines as “a man lying with a man as with a woman” (Leviticus 18:22), or a woman who “exchanges natural sexual relations for unnatural ones…in the same way that men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another” (Romans 1:26-27). In the above Leviticus passage, God calls this conduct toevah, an abomination, or detestable practice. That’s His determination to make, I’m just the messenger.
Second, nothing of what I say about homosexuality is intended to condone any form of hatred or violence against homosexuals. I am speaking to fellow Christians, who, like myself, are under the new covenant by which Christ has instituted an era of grace for those who belong to Him (John 1:17; Romans 11:25). In that grace, believers are freed from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2), instructed to love the lost, even our enemies (Matthew 5:44) and leave vengeance to Him (Romans 12:19). Our weapons are not physical, but spiritual (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). Every true Christian knows this, because the Spirit of God dwells in him (Romans 8:9). We want people to be healed, not harmed.
Under the old covenant God would sometimes use His people to execute punishment on His enemies (Deuteronomy 20:16-18), but under the new covenant it is Christ Himself who “judges and makes war” against the wicked (Revelation 19:11-16).
Those who are not members of the new covenant remain subject to the old, under which sodomy is punishable by death (Leviticus 20:13). However, it will never be Christians who carry out that sentence, nor do we applaud it! Our instruction from Christ is to lead sinners to Him (Matthew 28:19-20) so that they may be spared the terrible consequence of their sin — both in this life and in eternity — through the acceptance of His sacrifice on the cross (Romans 10:9-10). If they reject Christ their blood is upon their own heads but we have done our job (Ezekiel 3:18-19).
Jesus summarized the laws of the old covenant into two commands:
AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ “The second is this, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”
Humans tend to measure the gravity of sins based on the second commandment, and thus we think of murder, or perhaps genocide, as the worst of sins. From that human standpoint especially as related to public policy, mass murder is certainly worse than homosexuality. A serial abortionist, for example, is a far greater threat to humanity than a person who simply engages in sodomy. The comparison is not even close (unless you count those who intentionally or negligently spread AIDS or other deadly venereal diseases).
But from God’s perspective, the worst human sins are violations of the first commandment. “You shall have no other gods before me” tops the Decalogue, and its violation is certainly the greatest of all possible sins (a sobering thought for a society that has since the mid-20th century embraced the Antichrist doctrine of “religious pluralism” as its preeminent religious value).
Sexual perversion, especially homosexuality, violates both the first and second commandments simultaneously. The first because God created us “male and female” “in His image” (Genesis 1:27) and designed us to “cleave” together as “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24), thus homosexuality represents a defilement of His very image and an act of extreme rebellion both against His will and the order of His Creation. The second because each person in a illicit sexual act sins against himself (1 Corinthians 6:18), against the other party (Luke 17:1), and against the community (1 Corinthians 5:1-6).
This is why Sodom was incinerated by fire and brimstone — the only such incident of the Bible (Genesis 19, Jude 1:7), and why homosexuality alone is singled out in Romans 1:24-32 to exemplify the end-times culture of apostasy and the “reprobate mind.” The ancient scholars of Hebrew who wrote the Talmud blamed Noah’s Flood on “homosexual marriage” (Genesis Rabbah 26:5:4), stating expressly what Jesus Himself hinted at when He warned that in the time leading to His return, wicked people would be “marrying and giving in marriage” “like in the days of Noah” Matthew 24:38, when “every intent of the thoughts of [their] heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).
Indeed, from Genesis to Revelation homosexuality is uniquely identified in scripture a harbinger of God’s wrath.
So, is homosexuality worse than mass murder from God’s standpoint? Read it for yourself. God’s justification of the genocide of the Canaanites by the hand of the Hebrews is found in Leviticus 18. It is a list of sexual sins, including incest, bestiality and, of course, homosexuality (which — even in this context — is singled out as “an abomination”), ending with the admonition: “Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. ‘For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants.”
God Himself emplyed mass killing to punish sexual perversion. Very harsh in human estimation, but who are we to judge God? (Importantly, killings by God are not technically murder since He is always justified in His actions.)
Thank God for the covenant of grace that He delivered to us by His Son, Jesus Christ! But woe to those who remain under the penalty for their own sin.
The hard truths of the Bible send weak Christians scrambling for cover and embolden atheists to attack its credibility. But for those of us who believe the Bible is the Living Word of God, there is no retreat, no compromise and no embarrassment. These hard truths are what motivate us to continue working to warn the wicked from their sin.
To the world, religions are just beliefs that people choose like football teams. Faith is perceived as akin to brand loyalty, but in the end all the teams are pretty much the same. But true Christianity is not a religion. It is the indwelling of God in each person who belongs to Him through Christ (Romans 8:9). We know the truth and it/He has set us free from control or intimidation by those who hate Him and therefore us.
Yes, from God’s perspective as revealed in His Word, homosexuality is worse than mass murder.
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Note: The radio conversation which prompted this article regarded a new resource published by Defend the Family International, titled NOT Just Another Sin: A Biblical answer to the question of homosexuality and the rise of “gay theology” in today’s church. This succinct but thorough tri-fold brochure is designed for distribution to pastors and other Christian leaders and may be viewed here: http://www.scottlively.net/2014/08/19/an-open-letter-to-christian-leaders-in-america/
Limited quantities of this brochure are available for the cost of postage only by request to sdllaw@gmal.com.
