HOMOSEXUALITY
God's
Law vs Man's Law
The Wicked
will continue to be Wicked
I cannot help Myself
If your Brother Repents,
Forgive Him
Forgiveness is as much for the Abuser as it is for the
Abused
The Abused can become Abusers if they Don't Forgive
Forgive or you won't be Forgiven
You are possessed by the one you Love
God will Give you the desires of your heart
HOMOSEXUALITY
God loves all men
and women regardless of their sexuality
He sent His only
begotten son Jesus Christ into the world to save us
Jesus took the
punishment
for us by dying on the cross in our place
If we believe in him
and love him with all our heart, he can cleanse us of all unrighteousness and
transform us into a different person
Homosexuality is
wrong
Brotherly love is not homosexuality
Homosexuality is more than
having love for somebody of the same sex (See
David and Jonathan)
It is wanting to
have sex with somebody of the same sex (Brotherly lust)
or
having sexual
relations with somebody of the same sex (carnality)
Homosexuality is against
God's
law
Like adultery, it
was punishable by death under Old Testament law
Homosexuality is just as harmful now as it was in
Old Testament times
Regardless of
whether we are homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual we have a choice as to
whether we entertain lustful thoughts and whether we engage in sinful activities
We cannot help who
we are attracted too, but we can decide whether or not it is right to give in
too it and act on that attraction
Adultery is a result
of attractions to people other than your partner
Lust is desiring to
have sex with people you are attracted to
We cannot help who
we are attracted too, but when God comes and lives in our heart, the people that
we find attractive changes
We must be careful
not to let these attractions cause us to sin
God's laws were
given for our own good and protection
If we break God's
Law, we will suffer the consequences
People turn to
homosexuality because of a negative experience with the opposite sex in the hope
that a relationship with somebody of the same sex will, somehow, be better
Homosexual
relationships are just as prone to infidelity, abuse and dominance by one of the
partners as heterosexual relationships
Homosexuality is in
itself barren, perverted, cursed and destructive to oneself and others
If we repent and
turn to God, He will cleanse our guilty consciences and save us
He can renew our
spirit and give us a clean heart
He can change our
affections and give us a new sexual orientation
He can heal our
wounds and help us to forgive those who have hurt us
We will begin to see
the opposite sex in a different light
We will start to
reign over our thoughts and not give into the flesh
Prayer
Lord forgive me of my sin
Wash me clean
I know that what I have been doing is wrong
I don't want to be like this any more
Lord, transform my soul
Give me a new spirit
Help me to walk in your ways
It is you that I love above all
Male Friendship and Brotherly Love
David and
Jonathan
1 Samuel 18:1-4
After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan
became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.
From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his
father's house. And Jonathan made a covenant with David
because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was
wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword,
his bow and his belt.
1 Samuel 19:1-4
Saul told his son Jonathan and all the attendants to
kill David. But Jonathan was very fond of David and warned
him, "My father Saul is looking for a chance to kill you. Be on your guard
tomorrow morning; go into hiding and stay there. I will go out and stand
with my father in the field where you are. I'll speak to him about you and will
tell you what I find out." Jonathan spoke well of David to
Saul his father and said to him, "Let not the king do wrong to his servant
David; he has not wronged you, and what he has done has benefited you
greatly.
1 Samuel 20:16-17
So Jonathan made a covenant with the house
of David, saying, "May the LORD call David's enemies to account."
And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for
him, because he loved him as he loved himself.
2 Samuel 1:26
I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were
very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that
of women.
Brotherly Love
Romans 12:10
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.
Honor one another above yourselves.
Romans 14:15
If your brother is distressed because of what you eat,
you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your
brother for whom Christ died.
Philemon 1:7
Your love has given me great joy and encouragement,
because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.
1 Thessalonians 4:9
Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to
you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in
fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you,
brothers, to do so more and more.
1 Peter 1:22
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so
that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another
deeply, from the heart.
1 Peter 2:17
Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood
of believers, fear God, honor the king.
1 Peter 3:8
Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be
sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.
1 Peter 4:8
Above all, love each other deeply, because love
covers over a multitude of sins.
2 Peter 1:3-11
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and
godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and
goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious
promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and
escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith
goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to
self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness,
brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they
will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind,
and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your
calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and
you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ.
1 John 3:10
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the
children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child
of God; nor is anyone who does not love his
brother.
1 John 3:17
If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother
in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
1 John 4:20
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother,
he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom
he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
1 John 4:21
And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also
love his brother.
Homosexuality in
the Old Testament
Leviticus 18:1-30
The LORD said to Moses,
"Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'I am the LORD your God.
You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not
do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow
their practices.
You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the LORD your
God.
Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am
the LORD.
"'No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the
LORD.
"'Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother.
She is your mother; do not have relations with her.
"'Do not have sexual relations with your father's wife; that would dishonor
your father.
"'Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father's
daughter or your mother's daughter, whether she was born in the same home or
elsewhere.
"'Do not have sexual relations with your son's daughter or your daughter's
daughter; that would dishonor you.
"'Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father's wife, born
to your father; she is your sister.
"'Do not have sexual relations with your father's sister; she is your
father's close relative.
"'Do not have sexual relations with your mother's sister, because she is your
mother's close relative.
"'Do not dishonor your father's brother by approaching his wife to have
sexual relations; she is your aunt.
"'Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son's
wife; do not have relations with her.
"'Do not have sexual relations with your brother's wife; that would dishonor
your brother.
"'Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not
have sexual relations with either her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter;
they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.
"'Do not take your wife's sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations
with her while your wife is living.
"'Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of
her monthly period.
"'Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor's wife and defile yourself
with her.
"'Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must
not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
"'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.
"'Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A
woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it;
that is a perversion.
"'Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the
nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.
Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited
out its inhabitants.
But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens
living among you must not do any of these detestable things,
for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before
you, and the land became defiled.
And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the
nations that were before you.
"'Everyone who does any of these detestable things--such persons must be cut
off from their people.
Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that
were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the
LORD your God.'"
Leviticus 20:13
"'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of
them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will
be on their own heads.
Homosexuality in
the New Testament
Romans 1:20-32
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal
power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has
been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God,
they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking
became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they
claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal
God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual
impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They
exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things
rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this,
God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural
relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned
natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men
committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due
penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it
worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind,
to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of
wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant
and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they
are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's
righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only
continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
1 Corinthians 6:9
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not
be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the
greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of
God.
2Peter 2:1-22
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be
false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies,
even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on
themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of
truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with
stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them,
and their destruction has not been sleeping. For if God did not spare
angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy
dungeons to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world
when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher
of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going
to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was
distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man,
living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the
lawless deeds he saw and heard)-- if this is so, then the Lord knows how to
rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of
judgment, while continuing their punishment. This is especially true of
those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority.
Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings; yet
even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring
slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord. But
these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute
beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like
beasts they too will perish. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they
have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are
blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.
With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable;
they are experts in greed--an accursed brood! They have left the straight
way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the
wages of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey--a
beast without speech--who spoke with a man's voice and restrained the prophet's
madness. These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm.
Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful
words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they
entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They
promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity--for a man
is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the
corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are
again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were
at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the
way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the
sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true:
"A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her
wallowing in the mud."
Revelation 12:14-16
"Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will
give to everyone according to what he has done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the
Beginning and the End.
"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may
have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.
Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the
sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and
practices falsehood.
"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for
the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning
Star."
Acts 2:38
Peter replied, "Repent and
be baptized, every one of you,
in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of your sins.
And you will receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit.
HOMOSEXUALITY
& RAPE - (SODOMY)
Genesis 18:16-19:29
When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham
walked along with them to see them on their way.
Then the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?
Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on
earth will be blessed through him.
For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household
after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that
the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him."
Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and
their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry
that has reached me. If not, I will know."
The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing
before the LORD.
Then Abraham approached him and said:
"Will you sweep away the righteous with
the wicked?
What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep
it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in
it?
Far be it from you to do such a thing--to kill the righteous with the wicked,
treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the
Judge of all the earth do right?"
The LORD said, "If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will
spare the whole place for their sake."
Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as
to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy
the whole city because of five people?" "If I find forty-five there," he said,
"I will not destroy it."
Once again he spoke to him, "What if only forty are found there?" He said,
"For the sake of forty, I will not do it."
Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only
thirty can be found there?" He answered, "I will not do it if I find thirty
there."
Abraham said, "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if
only twenty can be found there?" He said, "For the sake of twenty, I will not
destroy it."
Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more.
What if only ten can be found there?" He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will
not destroy it."
When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham
returned home.
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the
gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down
with his face to the ground.
"My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash
your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning."
"No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square." But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house.
He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.
Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of
Sodom--both young and old--surrounded the house.
They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them
out to us so that we can have sex with them."
Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, "No,
my friends. Don't do this wicked thing.
Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them
out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to
these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."
"Get out of our way," they replied. And they said, "This fellow came here as
an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We'll treat you worse than them."
They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut
the door.
Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old,
with blindness so that they could not find the door.
The two men said to Lot, "Do you have anyone else here--sons-in-law, sons or
daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against
its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it."
So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his
daughters. He said, "Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about
to destroy the city!" But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Hurry! Take your wife
and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is
punished."
When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of
his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful
to them.
As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, "Flee for your lives!
Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or
you will be swept away!"
But Lot said to them, "No, my lords, please!
Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness
to me in sparing my life. But I can't flee to the mountains; this disaster will
overtake me, and I'll die.
Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to
it--it is very small, isn't it? Then my life will be spared."
He said to him, "Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not
overthrow the town you speak of.
But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it."
(That is why the town was called Zoar.)
By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land.
Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah--from the LORD
out of the heavens.
Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those
living in the cities--and also the vegetation in the land.
But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had
stood before the LORD.
He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain,
and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he
brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had
lived.
Rape is one of the most detestable
sins.
In Sodom, homosexuality was very
common and accepted by most people. It had become a way of life.
A number of people in the city were
given over to to rape. They had become arrogant and Godless. They
did not respect other people's boundaries. They forced their will upon
others for their own sensual enjoyment.
They did not even respect the
angels of God.
Abraham pleaded with God and said
"surely you won't treat the righteous and the unrighteous alike?" (God
said that he would not destroy the city if there were just ten righteous people
there.)
Unfortunately, there were not ten
righteous people in the city.
God did not just destroy the Men in
the city, He destroyed the whole city; women and children, including Lot's wife
who looked back as she was leaving with the angels of God. The women
in the city were held just as responsible as the men.
God does not like it when his
people turn a blind eye to the sin that is going on around them.
This does not explain why the women in the city were held accountable. The
women in the city had some how contributed to the situation.
A similar situation occurred in
Benjamin (after the law of Moses was given). God
destroyed almost all of Benjamin including the women leaving only a few men to
repopulate the tribe. The other tribes had to give them wives because
there were no Benjamin women left!
For some reason, the Women were
held just as responsible as the Men. In a way this is understandable
because women are the back bone of society. If the women in the city are
Holy then, somehow, the city gets sanctified.
In what way could the women of the
city have contributed to this situation?
There are many ways that women can
abuse men and degrade society.
Seduction, infidelity,
prostitution, adultery, divorce are a few ways that society can be damaged and
degraded.
Child abuse, rape and violence can
damage the psyche of women as well as men and lead to a cycle of abuse against
one another. Some times men and women can end up hating each other.
We know that hatred and bitterness
not only destroy the person who is feeling this way, but it also hurts the
person who is the object of the hatred.
If forgiveness does not prevail,
the situation just seems to spiral down and down. Men and women find new
and more evil ways of hurting one another until finally they cannot stand to see
each other, let alone make love.
Finally, women abandon their
natural relationships with men and seek solace in themselves. Men do
likewise, but people of the same sex are no less likely to abuse you and hurt
you than those of the opposite sex.
Homosexuality is barren and
perverted. It destroys yourself and others.
Deep down, even the most proactive
of homosexuals knows that it is wrong.
Men were not created to have sex
with men and women were not created to have sex with women.
The same can be said of oral and
anal sex.
When people are hurt; when they are
the victim of
abuse, the natural tendency is to want to abuse somebody too. (maybe not
straight away)
Some of the perpetrators of the
most heinous crimes have be the victims of cruel abuse themselves.
Poor self esteem, poor self
control, temptation, drugs and alcohol all contribute to the cycle of abuse.
The only way to break the cycle of
abuse is to forgive.
We cannot forgive others unless we
ourselves have been forgiven too.
Only God can forgive us and make
things right again.
Turn to God and he will save you.
Judges 19:22-23
While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city
surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who
owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex
with him." The owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my
friends, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this disgraceful
thing.
TRANSVESTITES
Deuteronomy 22:5 A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor a man
wear women's clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.
MALE PROSTITUTES
1 Kings 14:24 There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people
engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out
before the Israelites.
1 Kings 15:12 He expelled the male shrine prostitutes from the land and got
rid of all the idols his fathers had made.
1 Kings 22:46 He rid the land of the rest of the male shrine prostitutes who
remained there even after the reign of his father Asa.
2 Kings 23:7 He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes,
which were in the temple of the LORD and where women did weaving for Asherah.
Job 36:14 They die in their youth, among male prostitutes of the shrines.
Ezekiel 16:17 You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of
my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in
prostitution with them.