Foundation

Well, in this class, we're studying homosexuality and the Bible.! Last time, we considered a brief history of the homosexual movement.

! We saw that same-sex sex has been with us for a long time, as early as Genesis 19, we read of it. But we also saw that the voice of Old Testament and New Testament are united in condemning same-sex sex as a perversion of nature, as sinful in the eyes of God.

And we saw how that united voice for thousands of years has been eroded, and very quickly, in more recent times. But we want to start with the fact, just in way of review, that even the world has predominantly viewed same-sex sex as a perversion of nature, as an abnormal disorder.

The world itself has seen this isn't right. This isn't the way God made human sexuality to operate. In fact, until 1973, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Isn't that something? That wasn't that long ago.

I graduated that year. And that was the year that they took homosexuality out of that manual of mental disorders. Why did they do that? Well, there was tremendous pressure from the gay movement, threats, and applied upon the American Psychiatric Association. It was by no means a unanimous decision, and they withdrew it. So it's not just the church. This is the world weighing in on human sexuality and saying, there is something in nature that can be seen, even apart from this revelation that we have. The world may dismiss this, but they saw that this was a disorder. Well, we've seen the church then conforming to the world on this issue. Rather than calling the world to repent of its aberrant ways and beliefs, it has joined them in this rebellion against God. Liberal churches, first of all, we saw that those churches that no longer believe that the Bible is the Word of God and inspired and authoritative were some of the first to really open their doors wide to homosexual behavior as being just another normal, healthy way of sexuality. And then it is making its way into conservative churches and people who do believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible, that it's inerrant, it's authoritative, are nevertheless saying that there is nothing here that condemns homosexuality.

It is acceptable in the eyes of God. And that's not just from so-called gay Christians, quote unquote. It's true of a huge number of evangelicals who are not gay, who are nevertheless saying we don't see anything in the Bible that would condemn it. Now, be that as it may, we need to remember that our mind is capable of being influenced by pressures outside of biblical arguments. What are we to say of the fact that, what was it, 51% of white evangelicals from age 18 to 34 support gay marriage? From 18 to 34 years old, white evangelicals, the most conservative bloc in America, 51% support gay marriage. Are we to think that these younger people have better insight into scripture? Is that the reason that they have now come to see this differently? I think not. I think it's rather just that they are mirroring what their youthful counterparts in the world are believing. 69% in the world approve of homosexual marriage. 69%.

That's almost 7 out of 10 people in the world in this category of 18 to 33. 73%. And so we find conservative, quote, Christians now, one out of every two supporting gay marriage. So, we saw the danger in being deceived and twisting scripture to our own destruction, that those who not love the truth, those who don't love it, but rather love wickedness, are those who are most prone to be given over to the delusion and that we can very easily come to the Bible and only see what we want to see rather than coming to be taught, whether it condemns us or blesses us, whatever God's word is.

Well, that's something of a brief history and you can go back and check that out on the internet if you missed that. But we turn now to the foundations. We want to come to the word of God and say, what does the Bible say about gender, sexuality, and marriage? And as we come to this subject, we find that the Bible is full of teaching that is both positive and negative. It comes in a positive form and a negative form. Very often there are positive statements of God's will. This is what I want. And then it may be followed up with other statements. Therefore, don't do this. Do this, the positive. Don't do this, the negative. Now, the six Bible passages that refer specifically to homosexual behavior as sinful, they're all negative. They're saying, don't do this. Don't do this. This is wrong.

And sometimes pro-homosexual authors like to launch into a reinterpretation of those, what they call, six clobber passages, and just dive right into them and try to show that they're really not condemning homosexual behavior, but other kinds of sin, and think that if they can somehow dismantle these six passages that they have fixed the problem. But that's to ignore the foundational positive teaching that God gives us at the very beginning of the Bible. The positive statement of what is his will for sexuality, gender, and marriage? It's not just found in those negative passages that we're going to come to, but it's found, first of all, in the positive form as far back as Genesis, the first two chapters of Genesis. Let me just seek to illustrate this. Take the positive statement that I make to my son on Friday night, and I say to my son, be home at 12 midnight. That's placed in a positive statement. I'm saying, be home at 12 midnight. Now, I may or may not add some negative statements, such as, that means, son, you're not to come home at 1 o'clock in the morning, or you're not just to start home at 12 o'clock midnight, or you're not to get so far from home that you can't get home by midnight, or you're not to be so preoccupied with your friends that you forget what time it is, or you're to go, you're not to go to someone else's house at midnight. You see, all those negative statements are assumed in the positive statement, be home at midnight. Now, I may choose to make use of one or more of those negative statements, especially if they have been a stumbling stone in my son's obedience, but the negative would simply back up and reinforce the previous positive statement. You see, he would not be justified at coming home at 1 30 in the morning and saying, I didn't know it was wrong because you never said, don't come home at 1 30. Well, the positive statement includes the negative. So with the

Bible's position concerning human gender, human sexuality, and marriage, and we're turning then to the positive statements that God made about his word. What does he want for man in these areas?

So let's turn to the opening letter of the Bible, the opening book, the book of beginnings, Genesis 1 and verses 26 and following. Now it's day six of creation as we're dipping in to the creation account here. Day six, the land animals have already been created, and before that on the other days, everything else that was made has been made. There remains one creation, and that is the creation of humanity. And so Genesis 1, 26 and following. Then God said, let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. I'm going to jump down to the last verse. God saw, verse 31, God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Then we come to chapter two, and what chapter two does is it goes back over day six, and it goes into further detail of what God did on day six, and specifically with regard to man as his creation. Now reading chapter one alone, we might think that God made Adam and Eve at the same time. Might you? As we just read the passage, you might think that, oh, God said, let us make man in his own, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them. Oh, he made them both at the same time.

But that would be to mistake things, wouldn't it? Because chapter two tells us, in fact, that Adam was created first and spent some time alone before God made the woman. And all this is richly instructive for us as the New Testament points to that fact and makes doctrinal applications upon it.

So chapter two is a kind of rewinding of the tape. Let's go back, he's saying, after God made the plants and the animals, verse seven of chapter two, the Lord formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Now we need to understand something, that in the Hebrew, the word for human race is Adam, and the word for the first human that God made is Adam. So the same word stands for the first human being, Adam, as is used to explain the whole of humanity, the whole human race. All right, so he puts Adam in the garden to work it, cultivate and take care of it. And then in chapter two and verse 18, the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. And those words would jump off the pages if we'd have taken the time to read the whole of chapter one, where God says over and over after making something, it is good, it is good, it is good. Here he says it is not good.

First time. Now here's the question, did God fail and is now learning from his failure? Did God fail in creation to make something good? Did he mess up? Did he oops? And now he sees that and says, oh, this isn't good. I need to make a mid-course adjustment to correct my error.

Well, to ask the question is to answer it, isn't it? Our God makes no mistakes. His wisdom is perfect. It's unchanging. He can't get wiser.

And so that's not what he's doing at all. He's not here making something and say, oops, I've got to put that back on the wheel and make it over again. What he's doing is he's pushing the pause button in creation. He's so far made the man, pushes a pause button and says, it's not good.

Like it is now. But that was never his intention to stop there, was it? It'd be like you men walking into the kitchen when your wife is making a cake and it's still in the gooey form and she's adding the eggs and the flour and the ingredients and it's a messy gooey thing. And you take a spoon and take a bite and say, ew, it is not good. And she'd chase you out of the kitchen and say, come back in an hour.

It's not done. And you'd come back in an hour and take a bit and you'd say, mmm, it is very good. And that's what God is doing for us. He's pausing in the process of creation and he's saying, not good yet.

Not good yet. I'm not done yet. This isn't what I intended. Just one man. Stick with me. And he creates a helper for him.

So why would God run the risk of looking like he messed up by saying it's not good? What is the point that he is wanting to make that he would pause here? Well, he's making a point and wants us, the reader, to get it.

But even more drastically, he wanted Adam to get it. And that's simply that he wasn't meant to be alone. He wants him to get that, even to feel it, that he needs a helper suitable to him.

At this point, Adam hardly even knows what he's missing. He's been single all of his two-hour life, right? So how does he even know what he's missing at this point?

That's all he's ever known. So God wants to prepare him for the woman, his counterpart, the one that he's about to make, so that when he brings her to him, he will embrace her and see her as the goodness of God in fulfilling all that he made her to be for him and worship God for the good gift and embrace her and love her and treat her with respect as a co-heir of the grace of life.

So God brings the animals on parade before Adam to inspect them and to name them. And what did God learn from this experience? This is before Eve is made.

Here they come. Animals on parade. He's looking at them all. Verse 20, chapter 2, So the man gave names to all the livestock, birds of the air and all the beasts of the field, but for Adam no suitable helper was found.

Now that's the lesson that God wanted him to see and feel and be impressed with by this process of naming the animals. So there is nothing here in all of the created animals that's a match for me.

That's what he saw. No suitable helper for him. Now they were glorious creatures reflecting the goodness and greatness of God. But in none of them did Adam find a suitable helper.

None of the animals were on the same level as Adam. They're all beneath him. None shared his dignity as being made in the image of God.

They're all beneath him. None were qualified to be his counterpart, a suitable helper answering to his need. They didn't qualify intellectually, emotionally, sexually, spiritually, communicatively.

In no way were they the match for Adam. And he sensed that. No suitable helper anywhere. You know it was even true of what we call man's best friend.

As Adam named the dog, He found him to be a suitable pet. But not a match to all that he was.

It was not the creator's intention. And that's an important lesson then as it is now. No suitable helper found in the animal kingdom. So, God makes a suitable helper for him.

Verses 21 and 22. So, because a suitable helper was not found among the animals, so, and because it's not good for the man to be alone, so the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep.

And while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man.

And he brought her to the man. It's one of the most dramatic events in the Bible. As he wakes up with one rib less, but with something that made him drop his jaw.

A woman. A woman. And he recognizes her immediately as what he was missing. His counterpart. That one that would answer to his need.

His match. His suitable helper corresponding to him as an equal. His companion tailor made for him. One capable of fulfilling him as a man. And notice what God made.

Was not another man, but a woman. Like him, but delightfully different. And his response is, This is now bone of my bone.

You see the likeness? Bone of my bone. Flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman. For she was taken out of man.

There's a difference. She's like me. Bone of bone. Flesh of flesh. But she's different. Therefore, I am man. And she shall be called woman. Ish.

Ishah. There's that similarity and yet a difference. In the very language. The very terms that are assigned to male and female. The man and the woman.

So what God created as a suitable helper to the man was a woman. And she alone is suitable for the man. Now, we want to notice two things.

She was like him and she was not like him. First, notice how she was like him. The animals were not enough like him to be a suitable partner. They were beneath him. But here is his equal in every way.

Because she is another human being. She shares in being a human being in every way like he does. He was taken from his side.

And I think that shows this equality. She's on par with him intellectually. She's on par with him emotionally. And spiritually. And sexually.

And communicatively. She's one who stands face to face with him. A fellow human being. Is he made in the image of God? She no less. You saw that, didn't you?

Let us make man. Man. The generic term for the human race. Mankind. Let us make man in our image. In our likeness. And let them rule over the fish.

And so on. So God created man. The general term for mankind. In his own image. In the image of God. He created him. Male and female. He created them.

And God blessed them. And said to them. Be fruitful and increase in number. They're male and female. But they equally possess the image of God. Though in different ways.

Equal dignity and value. Equally blessed by God. Equally sharing the same commission from God. She's like him enough to be a suitable helper.

And yet at the same time. We can't help but see that she was also unlike him. In very important ways. Indeed in ways that enabled her to be that suitable helper.

That he needed. And to help him fulfill their great commission from God. So though she is a human being like him. She's a different kind of human being. 26 defines for us.

Chapter 1 verse 25. Defines for us the two genders that God made. In his creation. And it is a male and a female. And she is female. Whereas he is male.

And a person's gender is the same as their biological sex. Now we're going to get into this next week. There's a real enigma and puzzle today.

To find out what our gender is. And in the beginning God said. It's all one and the same. With your biological sexuality.

Did I create you a man? Your gender is the male. The man. Did I create you as a woman?

That is your gender. There's no confusion here. There's two genders. And we see it from the very beginning. And it all flows from the wisdom and goodness of God.

The sexual differentiation is God's goodness and wisdom. And it represents profound differences between the two.

It's all part of God equipping her to help and bless the man. It's as woman that she was made a helper suitable for the man.

So let's not miss these critical points. First of all. God is the one who from birth assigns our sexual identity and gender. He defines who we are and how we are to serve and imitate him.

Whether it's as a woman or as a man. That's not part of the decisions that he's given us to make in life. He makes that decision. And it is part of our submission to God to submit to his choice of our sexual identity and the behavior that is appropriate to each gender.

So that's the first thing we see here at the foundation level of creation. Secondly, we see that God also defined the only appropriate context for sexual intimacy. So God created male and female.

Different sexually. And he also defined the only appropriate context for sexual intimacy. And it is in the covenant commitment of marriage.

Verse 24. He's just brought the woman to the man. And he says, wow, she's bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She should be called woman. She was taken out of man.

And then, verse 24. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. And they will become one flesh.

Here's the creator's design for sexuality. Expression of sexuality and its intimacy. And for marriage. And the one flesh intimacy is to be between a man and a woman.

A male and a female within the context of the marriage union. Now, some would say to us, well, God was just using a man and a woman as an example of all other kinds of faithful, loving, monogamous sexual relationships that are possible today.

And just using it as an example. And you can plug in every other. No, no. This is his created sexual order. Two genders, male and female, that God means to be brought together in marriage for their mutual blessing.

And so subsequent scripture forbids any violation of the created order of sexuality and marriage. It's to be one man, one woman united in the covenant of marriage.

And so every other form of sex outside of that context is forbidden later on in scripture. Whether it be same-sex sex. Whether it be fornication.

Adultery. Polygamy. Bestiality. Prostitution. Incest. They're all forbidden. But you see, it's the primary foundational truth that lays the groundwork.

Why every other aberrant form is condemned. Because God's intention was one man with one woman, male, female, in the context of marriage.

There's the place and context for one flesh intimacy. And so the man and wife were both naked and they felt no shame. That's how chapter 2 concludes.

And so God looks down upon them in the one flesh intimacy and he says, this is very good. This is exactly what I intended. This is exactly what I want.

How it's supposed to be. You see, it wasn't man with man. That's a mirror image. That was not God's plan. Here's man. And God's plan to make a helper suitable was not to give him a mirror image.

Another man. But rather to make one who is like him and yet not like him. That they might thereby enrich each other.

In ways that could not happen if they were exactly like each other. The woman brings to the table things that the man doesn't have.

In every way. But it does not exclude sexually. It includes that very much. That she brings things that are different than he is.

But it's all these differences. Intellectually, mentally, emotionally, physically. They're meant not to be the exact mirror image. But like him enough.

And yet different from him enough to enrich him. And to make him better than what he was alone. And vice versa. On her behalf. So God intended a complementary relationship.

Where the differences serve to enrich the other. And that extends to their sexuality. Her anatomy and sexuality is not exactly like his.

It is profoundly different. And meant to be so. For his enrichment. Each are the perfect match and counterpart to the other.

The two anatomies are clearly made for each other. Her different sexuality is no small part of what made her a suitable helper for the man.

Now, I am emphasizing that. I don't believe any more than what you see in Genesis 1 and 2. But I do that because some homosexual authors point out that their male counterparts are very different from them too.

They have different personalities. Different interests. Different gifts. Different interests. Maybe one is more emotional than another. And all the rest.

One is more feminine. One is more masculine. And so we have this complementary relationship as well, they are saying. But that is still a refusal to accept the divine order that insists that the differences include the gender.

The sexuality. God did not mean for it to be a match. A perfect mirror image. But rather a matching difference to enrich.

It is precisely as female that the woman is the suitable helper to the male. Now, there's something else here that we must mention.

And that's just that we can't escape the way her differences equipped her to be that suitable helper to Adam in fulfilling the great commission that God gave them.

The creation mandate. What was it? What was his call upon them? To be fruitful and fill the earth. That's what God gave to this first couple.

And it takes male and female to procreate. And that speaks volumes to God's design for sexuality and the marriage union. Children are the product of the sexual intimacy of a man and woman in marriage.

And this original intent simply cannot be ignored as if it is insignificant. It's being dismissed today by the fact that there are, what, seven some billion people on the planet.

So, obviously, that concern is not on the heart of God anymore that we fill the earth and replenish it. We've already done that. So, God's not concerned anymore with this idea of procreation.

Male, female are the only ones that can procreate. How do you answer that? Okay. So, it's true that in some nations there is an increasing child birth rate that is increasing over the death rate.

But there are many nations that are on the road to extinction. So, even yet today, the need for procreation is there, isn't it?

And we must rather ask the question or make the statement that what God was laying down was not just a temporary matter. This is a creation ordinance.

This is something that's found that's to be good for the earth as long as it is in this present form. We know that in the next age, there will not be marriage as we know it now.

But for this present age, this is the rule that God wants. And it's not something that he sets aside once the population reaches a certain level.

No, these are creation ordinances that are still in effect for man and woman. Another homosexual writer says, You know, the Bible never really draws attention to the fact of the way that a man is made different from a woman physically.

And therefore, it must not be of any concern to God with regard to marriage. And I would just say there are some things God takes for granted.

And that he doesn't need to point out. Just open your eyes, man. Open your eyes. It's self-evident. And even, as we said, the world for thousands of years had eyes enough to say it's self-evident.

He and she were meant to be together. Let me be clear, though. Non-romantic, non-sexual male-to-male relationships are indeed gifts of God for our enjoyment.

Men, you should have other male friends. Two are better than one. They're means of grace within the body of Christ, whereby iron sharpens iron as it gets together and as it rubs with each other.

We are meant for relationships. And that means, in part, men with men. Women with women. Same-sex friendships can be healthy. We see it with David and Jonathan.

We see it with Paul had a Barnabas and a Timothy and others. Jesus had a Peter and a James and John in his inner circle. And we acknowledge such for the gifts of God that they are, the fellowship that we enjoy, and the stimulation in the spiritual walk that we find from it.

But they're not romantic. They are not sexual. They are not marriage relationships. Indeed, we need to deny that every time somebody says Jonathan and David had a sexual relationship, or Jesus and someone else had a sexual relationship.

No, that's not what it was. They were legitimate friendships, but they were not romantic and sexual. Such is a crossing of the line that God himself established from the beginning.

So, same-sex friendships are good and healthy and helpful. But another man is not the helper suitable for a man that God provided.

And so we say as well, on another level, dogs are a gift of God to man. There's nothing wrong with having a dog as your friend, as long as it doesn't pull you away from more important relationships, human relationships, higher relationships.

But the Bible does prohibit sex with dogs and other animals. It does so explicitly. In other words, what is proper on one level is improper on another level.

So it is proper for men to have friendships with men, but it is improper, it is sin, for that to cross the line in romance and sexuality.

Some object that these early verses of Genesis are just descriptive and not prescriptive. You know what they're saying by that?

That God is just describing what was then. Well, obviously, marriage was between a man and a woman. That's all there was then. He hadn't yet created other men.

There hadn't been men procreated on the earth. So, of course, he was just describing what was rather than prescribing what ought to be.

Anybody want to take a stab at that? The Lord Jesus, when he walked the earth, quoted Genesis 2.

It says, for this reason a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

There's Jesus. This isn't just descriptive Jesus. This is prescriptive for human sexuality and marriage. And the Lord Jesus in Matthew 19 comes back to this creation mandate and this creation ordinance of marriage between a man and a woman in marriage.

And states it as an end to the argument. Indeed, 1 Corinthians 7.2 says, Each man should have his own wife.

Each woman, her own husband. That is prescriptive. What Jesus said is prescriptive. It's not just descriptive. And it reminds us that what God said in Genesis 2 was not just descriptive.

It was prescribing what's right and wrong with regard to sexual relationships. And then lastly, some object that these opening chapters do not forbid homosexual sex.

They don't say in Genesis 1 and 2, it's wrong for a man to lie with a man as a man lies with a woman. It doesn't say that here in Genesis. But again, as we began, when God has stated the matter positively, be home at 12 midnight, it includes all the negations of it.

And that's what we find later on in the Bible, in those other passages that will come along and say to us, This is forbidden. This is forbidden.

This is forbidden. But as God starts out, he is simply stating positively what his mind had designed for the good of the human race for his children, Adam and Eve.

Well, our time is gone. But let me just emphasize the importance of these foundations in Genesis. We're going to see how the, quote, gay Christian, unquote, movement seeks to get around this next week.

And would say that there is nothing here that would forbid same-sex sex. So let's make sure that we have our minds wrapped around the beginning.

And what's at the beginning is the way that God intended and was commanding man to behave. All right. Let's pray, shall we? Thank you, Father, for the way that you have blessed us.

Thank you for the scriptures that tell us how you were good to us from the very beginning, even before sin came into the world, what it was that you wanted.

And we who are husbands and these who are wives would bow and thank you for your goodness, your kindness to us.

What a kind, heavenly Father you are. And we worship you then. And we would submit to you and to all that you've said in your word, not complaining, but rather amazed at how good you are.

Come and help us then that we would be armed with the truth against all the lies that Satan would bring to us. We ask for Jesus' praise. Amen.