Homosexuality is a Sin but......
Before I go further let me share an experience I had when I was 18 years old. It was 1968 and I was traveling to my first duty station, the USS Kitty Hawk, and had to stay overnight at an Air Force base in California. I checked in and one of the sergeants that checked me in told the other that he was going to show me the town. He told me to get my gear stored and meet him in the hallway which I did.
Being the young guy from the midwest that I was I thought how neat it was that someone who was above me would want to take the time to show me a good time before I headed for my duty station off the coast of Vietnam.
Once we arrived in the small town outside of the base he first stopped and got a motel room and told me that if we had any drinks we probably should not drive back to the base. That seemed wise to me. We went up to the room that had two beds and he told me he needed to shower before we headed out for a few drinks. When he returned from taking a shower he had a towel around his waist. The details of what happened I will leave out but he more or less pulled rank on me and in a gentle way sexually molested me.
This man sinned against me by forcing me to do something I did not want to do. His actions affected how I related to other men for the next 30 years. I was 48 before I truly trusted another man with friendship or felt safe alone with another guy. Now you might say this man's sin was using his authority over me in a wrong way not homosexuality. I believe God says that it was both.
Let's look at what the God's Word, the Bible, has to say about homosexuality.
Lev. 18:22, "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."1
Lev. 20:13, "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them"
1 Cor. 6:9-10, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God."
Rom. 1:26-28, "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27and 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. 28And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper."
I believe it is celar that God sees this behavior is sin and having said that let's look at some other sins God equally hates.
Proverbs 6: 16-19 Here are six things God hates, and one more that he loathes with a passion:
eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent, a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track, a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family.
Galatians 5: 19-21 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.
Matthew 5
Murder
21-22"You're familiar with the command to the ancients, 'Do not murder.' I'm telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother 'idiot!' and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell 'stupid!' at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.
23-24"This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.
25-26"Or say you're out on the street and an old enemy accosts you. Don't lose a minute. Make the first move; make things right with him. After all, if you leave the first move to him, knowing his track record, you're likely to end up in court, maybe even jail. If that happens, you won't get out without a stiff fine.
Adultery and Divorce
27-28"You know the next commandment pretty well, too: 'Don't go to bed with another's spouse.' But don't think you've preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.
29-30"Let's not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here's what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.
31-32"Remember the Scripture that says, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights'? Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are 'legal.' Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you're responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you're automatically an adulterer yourself. You can't use legal cover to mask a moral failure.
Empty Promises
33-37"And don't say anything you don't mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you,' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say 'yes' and 'no.' When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.
I think it is clear from all of these scriptures that homosexuality is a sin just as slander, unjuust anger, divorce, gossip, pride, arrogance, lying, pornography, lust, covetness, greed, and many other actions that you and I might have. My point is when you judge another's sin and we should we first must examin our own sins and repent of them. But more than that it is our responsibility to focus on ourselves and let the Holy Spirit take care of others.
I encourage you to reach out to those you know are struggling with sin and allow the Holy Spirit to convict them as you love them.
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