A Christian’s Heart 12-9-12

Just the Messenger

Don’t be fooled: the God of the Bible Detests All Sexual Immorality

Here is what the resurrected Jesus tells us in the New Testament book of the Revelation:

“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 [of heaven] are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” (Rev 22:14-15, NIV 1984, my emphasis)

Note that the LORD Jesus Christ uses the term “dogs” to describe the sexually immoral. This is a particularly awful epithet, just about the worst Jesus could use, because dogs were unclean under Jewish Law and were detestable to the Jews.

Sexual immorality includes any heterosexual sex act performed outside of marriage. But it also includes all homosexual sex acts. That God detests the homosexual sex act, no matter the context, is made plain in the following passages, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament:

Here, Moses is quoting the LORD:

Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. (Leviticus 18:22, NIV)

Here, Paul is commenting on the evil that pervades the world:

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. (Rom 1:25-27, NIV)

Many have argued that God’s attitude toward homosexuality changed somehow with Jesus’ advent. We have seen that this is not true in the two New Testament passages quoted above.

This is not about hating the people who commit sexually immoral acts. It’s a matter of hating what they do. We are commanded by the LORD to hate what is evil. Therefore the reason we are to hate sexual immorality is that it is sin (evil in God’s sight), which will lead to eternal death in hell if the sinner does not repent.

I write this blog with tremendous grief welling up in me. Because in this sexually corrupt society, it is considered okay for people to engage in sexual acts that the God of creation finds detestable. When such acts were illegal, there was an incentive for people to turn from them. Now, there is no outward incentive for homosexuals or other sexually immoral people to repent of their sin, because they think there is no cost to them in the here and now (except for contracting sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, aids, etc., and getting pregnant out of wedlock, which many times leads to the murder (abortion) of an innocent baby). But there is an eternal cost to these poor people if they don’t repent. In the here and now they think they’re okay; but if they don’t repent, in the Judgment they will stand before a wrathful God who will hurl them into the pit of hell where they will suffer unspeakable torment for all eternity.

How sad!

I would hate to be the one to stand before God having told the sexually immoral that it is okay to commit these acts, especially if I was raised in the church, on Christian doctrine. My judgment would be much, much worse because I should have known better. And I really fear for those churches and church leaders who have ordained active homosexuals as pastors and priests. It will not go well for them in the Judgment.

I urge anyone reading this who’s leading a sexually immoral lifestyle to repent and turn from it and to the LORD Jesus Christ. God’s redemptive hand of love is extended to anyone who’s willing to accept it. Do it today before it is too late for you.

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