Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The Celebration of Sin

Yesterday President Obama threw his support to leading Democratic Senators who are bent on repealing the Defense of Marriage Act that defines marriage as a bond between one man and one woman. Last week Governor Jerry Brown of California signed a landmark bill adding lessons about gay history to social studies classes in California's public schools.

Brown, a Democrat, signed the bill passed by a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, making California the first state in the nation to require public schools to include the contributions of and promote the lifestyle of gays and lesbians in social studies curriculum.

On June 24th New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the Marriage Equality Act. This makes New York the sixth state (Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia) where so called homosexual marriages will be legally recognized.

In Chicago on June 26 there was the Annual Gay Pride Parade supported by many of our state politicians. President Obama hosted a gay pride reception at the White House.  Tolerance is one thing, but it is something else altogether to celebrate this lifestyle or to say that this lifestyle is good and that our children should be taught so. Homosexuality is a sin just as lying, stealing, hating, greed, drunkenness, adultery and fornication are sins. And practicing sin is one thing but celebrating it is another. Sin has always been practiced but rarely if ever celebrated!

The Bible is not silent about this. In the clearest explanation that homosexuality is a sin (Romans 1:24-27) stands the indictment of those who celebrate sin and a declaration of severe consequences. Though people know instinctively that homosexuality is wrong (along with gossip, slander, pride, etc) some “being filled with all unrighteousness [and] sexual immorality…knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them (Romans 1:29, 32). Some people approve and applaud sin—are we nuts or what?

Our country does not realize the tragedy that is waiting to happen to men and women, families and children, because of this approval of homosexuality. Biblically thinking people can see that sin carries its own misery. The Bible warns us that the unnatural act of women being with women and men being with men and doing “what is shameful” will receive “in themselves the penalty of their error which was due (Romans 1:27).” In other words sin brings great misery and sorrow to people’s lives now. And along with sin’s power to destroy lives in the present, in the future the full and final “wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience (Colossians 3:6).”

Why do I bring this up? It is certainly not to exalt myself or any Christian as morally superior to others. It is to offer hope to those struggling in sin, any sin, that there is a way out. I am a sinner who deserved God’s judgment and wrath, but I have been saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. God offers to all of us, all of us, amazing grace. The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth and said,

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

Let us not celebrate sin; let us weep over it. And let us lovingly and boldly share the good news of Jesus Christ to people who are as we were—lost in sin.

1 comment:

  1. Ok so with being born again Christians can they not be forgiven if they are afflicted with being gay not by choice but by spirits? and if they are born again and gay what then? will their sin be washed away?

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