Creation, Fall, Redemption

Well, homosexuality in the Bible is our study in these classes. And last week we saw something of the fact that terminology sometimes carries baggage and freight that we might not realize.

That's surely true of the terms homosexual and heterosexual. Terms that carry along the baggage and the freight of teaching and entire sexual orientation.

So a homosexual, properly speaking then, is not just one who engages in same-sex sex. Rather, it is the term that has been coined to speak of one who is wired for sex with the same sex.

So instead of there being just two basic kinds of human beings on the earth, we now have at least four. Not just male and female, but two kinds of males, those who are wired for females and those who are wired for males.

And two kinds of females, those who are wired for men and those who are wired for women. Those are four different identities, sexual orientations we're told.

Part of who we are, defining us, what is natural and normal and right and healthy for us depends upon that sexual orientation.

Now, according to the popular notion of what is called queer theory, how do we know what our specific sexual orientation is?

You remember from last week? How do I learn what my particular sexual orientation is as a male? Experiment.

And what will tell me which I am? The desires and attractions. Okay? So this whole idea of sexual orientation comes down to what I want, what I'm attracted to.

That becomes the determining factor of a person's sexual orientation, we're told. Now, armed with that popular theory of sexual orientation, what happens to such text as Genesis chapter 2 and verse 18, where the Lord says, It's not good for the man to be alone.

I will make a helper suitable for him. What happens to that text? So, what is the helper suitable for the man?

Perhaps another man. Maybe a woman. If it's a straight male. But if it's a gay male, what is suitable for the man would be not a woman, but another man.

So you can see how this verse has just been twisted and turned right upside down, rather than saying, No, what a man needs, what God saw we needed, and what God provided for the man was not a man, but a woman.

Now we've said, Oh, yes, but that was before there was this thing of sexual orientation, different sexual orientations. And so that text no longer has the meaning that you thought it did.

That's how they're handling it. Or such text as Romans 1, 26 and 27, where we read that women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones, and men abandoned natural relations with women, committing indecent acts with other men.

Again, they're saying, Yes, what Paul is doing, he's condemning heterosexual, straight men, who have desires and attractions for women. He's condemning them when they step out of what's natural for them, and go after other men.

But he's not condemning the man who has a sexual orientation for other men, if they do that. You see, the whole idea of sexual orientation has now been the pattern that's laid over the scriptures, through which we now interpret the word of God.

So what is natural for the man? Well, it may be a woman, but it may be another man. And so these texts that have been understood for so long to be condemning any same-sex sex are now being twisted to say, No, that's only true if you're wired for the opposite sex.

So that means our desires and attractions are given the determinative status for what is right and wrong for us. Our desires are not to be denied, but boldly expressed, since it is who we are at the most fundamental level.

And so gay Christians saw it as their duty to come out and to celebrate what God has made in terms of their desires, and to learn to glorify God with the sexuality he has given them.

Then the issue became, do we get our sexual orientation from nature or nurture? Do we get it by some genes as we are born or some biological, chemical situation that stamps us once we come forth from the womb?

Or is it the socialization of our family and of other friends and society? Is it nature? Is it nurture? And the world has claimed both, but nothing conclusive has been proven, even according to their own scientific peers.

However, the prevailing view, I'm sure you've caught this drift, is that people are born this way. That we come forth from the womb with an orientation.

And it's something that we're born with, it's not chosen, and it cannot be changed. Just like the theory of macroevolution, it's widely accepted today as what?

As fact or theory? As fact, isn't it? Though it has not been proven, yet it is considered by most as just true.

And so it is with this idea that homosexual men and women come forth, they're born this way. It's never been proven. But it's the prevailing view that this is not just a theory, but this is dead truth.

I found it interesting, though, that Alfred Kinsey, who was no evangelical Christian by any stretch, a sexologist that, well, a perverted man, and did all kinds of studies on sex, and has a school of learning that's named after him at Indiana University, Bloomington.

But he asked homosexuals how they got that way back in 1940. 9% said they were born that way. Okay? In 1970, 30 years later, he surveyed nearly 1,000 homosexuals in San Francisco.

And again, 9% said they were born that way. 9%. And then just 13 years later, in 1983, as this inborn theory had become more and more promoted, he asked the same question.

Now 35% said they were born that way. And it has only continued to increase. Clearly, as the politically correct thought has been, we're born this way, more and more are saying, we're born this way.

And when the gay Christian movement adds that it's God who made me this way, we see that even more clout is gained, because who can argue with God, after all? The creator.

Chandler Burr is a gay author seeking to legitimize homosexuality. He's best known for his book, The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation.

The biological. So from birth, you are born with this sexual orientation. He poses this question. If sexual orientation is found to be biologically determined, as he is persuaded it will be, how can one justify discriminating against people on the basis of such a characteristic?

God made gay people this way, and like it or not, there are majority and minority expressions of sexuality.

So the implication is clear, not just with him, but with the movement as a whole. If you're born that way, then it's right for you. Now, we're going to turn to the scriptures then today, and we just, in wrapping up last time, began to make this turn in our study.

How do we respond to this whole idea of sexual orientation from the Bible? The idea of one's sexual orientation being determined at birth, not being chosen, irreversibly setting the direction of a person's sexual identity.

Now, to answer such questions like these, we turn to what the Bible has to say about three things, creation, fall, and redemption.

And those three things should be right on the tip of your mind whenever you're evaluating anything. How was it from creation? How was it after the fall?

How is it after redemption? Because that determines everything. What are we talking about? What is normal? What is right? What is meant to be?

Well, for that, we have to go back to creation, don't we? And Ecclesiastes chapter 7 and verse 29 says, This only have I found.

God made mankind upright. But men have gone in search of many schemes. Now, some sex proponents do not go back far enough.

They begin with what is. That's all the further they go back to when they were born. Rather than beginning with the true beginning.

Where it all began back at creation. So it's not enough to say, Well, I was born this way. Wait a minute. There's something that happened before you were born. It's called creation. And that's when man came from the hand of God.

How did he come then? And we have to start there. That's what Jesus did. Turn to Matthew chapter 19. A question was put to Jesus about marriage and about divorce.

And notice the method of our Lord. These Pharisees came to him to test him. And they asked in verse 3 of Matthew 19, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?

And his answer in verses 4 and 5 is haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh.

So they are no longer two but one. Therefore what God has joined together let man not separate. And so the whole issue of marriage and gender and sexual orientation it's all here isn't it?

And Jesus is saying we go back to the beginning to see the way that God designed things to be. So Genesis 1 and 2 is not just a description of what is.

It's a description of the way it's supposed to be. It's a prescription of duty. That's how Jesus is using it here when the question is what is right for marriage and divorce.

He says well let's go back to the beginning that will determine what is right and wrong. And what was from the beginning was one man with one woman united in the one flesh union within the marriage commitment.

That those two male and female are joined together by God and are not to be separated. Well they come back at him then well if what's at the beginning is what's right well then why did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?

Verse 7 and Jesus replied well Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. It was a protection to the wife not just to be bandied around but to have a divorce paper given to her to protect her rights that for that reason because of your stubborn hard hearts Moses permitted it but it was not this way from the beginning.

I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for marital unfaithfulness that is sexual unfaithfulness and marries another woman commits adultery.

So according to Jesus the creation order determines what's right it sets the standard in this whole area of sexuality and marriage expression of our sexual identity it's all back here at the beginning and so it's not just for some men that a female is intended and others a male.

No this sets the stage for what's right and wrong. God created a female for the male and in that way he blessed the man and in bringing them together blessings flow equally to the woman as well.

There's mutuality in God's design as we saw. but what we need to see is that this is the way it was supposed to be. Remember as God stepped back from the creation on the sixth day and he just he looked over everything that he had made it included Adam and Eve in the naked embrace of the one flesh union and he says it is very good.

What's he saying? He's saying this is the way I intended it. This is the way it's supposed to be. Just like this and God refreshed himself in himself and in his creation and rejoiced over his creation.

So the created order defines what's right even as Ecclesiastes says God made man upright.

So that's where we've got to start and we've got to beg to differ with the homosexual argument when they go back to birth. You've got to go back further. But you see what was is not what is.

Something's wrong. Something has happened to man and theologians call it the fall and so we come to the second major doctrine of scripture from the creation now to fall.

And it's called a fall because it's what happens when you stumble and you go down. This is not ascent. This is a descent to a lower position.

They fell into sin and that's described in Genesis 3. First Eve then Adam rebelled against God and they lost their former righteousness.

They lost their happy communion with God. Their moral image of God was defaced. Indeed it was a fall not an improvement.

They were cast out of the garden lest they should eat of the tree. of life. Now what was the effect of Adam's fall upon us? Let's hear your theology this morning.

What was the effect of Adam's fall upon us? I mean we who are reformed believe that indeed any biblical Christian believes that what happened to Adam didn't just happen to him but he acted as the representative of all the human race that was to come from his loins.

So the question is what effect did Adam's fall have upon us the rest of the human race? We're born sinners.

sinners. What does that mean? Hmm. That's a strong word coming from a computer programmer. Did you hear that?

To be born a sinner is to be programmed from birth to sin. I like that. That's exactly right. So we receive from Adam a sinful nature that is programmed to sin.

Alright. What else did we get from Adam? condemnation. We got guilt and condemnation from Adam. Romans chapter 5 and verse 12 tells us that by the one man sin entered the world and death by sin and in this way death came to all men because all have sinned.

When did all sin? They all sinned when are represented sinned? Adam. Romans 5 12 So we inherited the guilt and condemnation that comes because of Adam's sin.

Romans 5 12 to 19 is full of it for if the many died by the trespass of the one man. Isn't that the punishment for sin death? Why is it that everybody since Adam died?

It's because they inherited his punishment his condemnation and so they died. The judgment followed one sin not yours his Adam's the judgment this is Romans 5 16 the judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation not just to Adam but to all his race verse 17 for if by the trespass of the one man death reigned through that one man reigned over who?

Over all men. Verse 18 just as the result of one trespass Adams was condemnation for all men. You see these are strong words and Paul is wanting us to see this representative principle for justice through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners they were counted sinners in God's sight guilty deserving of hell and that's before you even got out of the gate you have received from Adam guilt and condemnation and also a sinful nature which simply rubber stamps Adam's choice from the womb that we too sin ourselves so Adam's sin means that we're all spiritually stillbirths we come into this world spiritually dead isn't that where Ephesians 2 says that it was when we were dead in sin that Christ made us alive how does

Christ find us he finds us dead so though we're alive physically spiritually we're dead toward God we have no spiritual life in us and that's why we need to be supernaturally birthed again from heaven a new birth apart from that no one will ever see much less enter the kingdom of heaven John 3 so we're born with physical death and decay it's at work within us isn't it anybody go to the doctor this year and he said well you got a problem well that's all from Adam it's it's death and decay in our bodies they don't live forever and then we're also born with the second death of the lake of fire as our deserved eternal destiny so yes death is the punishment for sin and we're we're dead spiritually we are dying physically and the second death the lake of fire awaits us that's what we've inherited from Adam his death and condemnation but also his polluted nature our confession of faith is clear on this paragraph three of chapter six on the fall of man says speaking of Adam and Eve all their posterity all their descendants who also from birth derive from them a polluted nature so man no longer enters the world with a perfect slate as we did back at creation how did

God Adam and Eve come forth from God's hand upright perfect not one blot on them of sin we don't come into the world like Adam and Eve did no we come in with a polluted nature as Paul said a nature programmed to sin you see it's not just saying that that man's actions are sinful that's true but it's saying his nature is sinful sin is not just something he does it's something he is it's his nature it's his identity it's his constitution his orientation if you will he sins because he is a sinner it's his nature to sin just as it's the nature of a fish to swim and the nature of a bird to fly it is the nature of a sinner to sin and it's the reformed view of fallen man as being totally depraved that presents a theology of fallen man that is robust enough to deal head on with this claim of the homosexual movement paragraph two of our confession of faith chapter six by this sin our first parents lost their former righteousness their happy communion with

God was severed their sin also involved us all and by it death appertained to all all men became dead in sin and totally polluted in all parts and faculties of both body and soul soul and body totally polluted that's the tea and tulip for the reformed faith isn't it that we are totally depraved now that doesn't mean that everybody is as depraved as they could be that's not what we mean by total it simply means that the depravity the pollution the infection has gone into the totality of man's being all that there is of man is now polluted not one one segment of man's being has somehow been isolated and quarantined from the fall no the Ebola of sin is swept through the whole man and everything in him is now infected so not only his body which is evidently seen isn't it that man is infected by the fall but also his soul his heart and what is the heart in scripture it's the mind as it thinks the affections the desires that want and don't want and the will as it chooses the conscience as it condemns or justifies us this is the heart of man and there's no aspect of man that is not polluted that's total depravity that's what the

Bible teaches We're not going to take the time to go to all the texts that prove that we're wanting to study this in the light though of the homosexual issue so let's bring the teaching of the scripture on man's fall then into contact with the homosexual claim of social orientation same sex proponents especially gay Christians say God made me this way with the sexual orientation toward the same sex we need to be very careful about blaming God for our sin he's sovereign over the process of birth we're not denying that but he is in no way the author of sin is he he cannot tempt to sin he does not he's not the author of it sin is what man did and his sin has polluted his own offspring so that we're all born programmed to sin we bear the fallen moral likeness of our fallen father so the bible distinguishes between creation and subsequent birth you understand what I mean we've got to keep that distinct in our mind creation is one thing subsequent birth is another creation brought forth a perfect man a perfect woman birth has never brought forth anything other than a sinner programmed to sin okay so in one sense you see we don't have a problem with now it's not been proven we shouldn't just tip the hat and say okay we agree with you that you're born with this sexual orientation all

I'm saying is isn't it interesting that we have a bible that would tell us that it's not a shocking thing for us to find sinners who are hardwired to sin not at all that's what we believe the bible teaches about the fall and so we can enter into this debate with the word of God and we don't have to scramble and say oh no if this is true then what happens to our bible and our view of man no nothing happens to it it just reinforces just the depth of man's depravity if that should be proven that in some way that even this desire for same sex sex comes forth from the womb that does not throw our bibles into disarray not at all so when gay men say that some of them say that they feel they were born with the same sex desire and they can never remember it ever being any other way or that they were never conscious of being of this being a choice that they made and many of them will testify and

I've heard these quote gay Christians testify! choosing to be this way I just have always been this way it has always felt natural this direction well we can understand them because that's the way sinful desires are explained in the Bible the Bible teaches us that all people are born sinners and when David is confessing his sin of adultery!

murder sexual sin he says surely surely I see now something even more clearly than before I fell into this sin surely I was sinful at birth isn't that something that his sexual sin with Bathsheba highlighted in yellow marker the doctrine of original sin I was sinful from birth sinful from the time my mother conceived me these desires go way back in my life way back before I saw her on the roof that night way back to when I was in the womb I am sinful from conception my problem is not just something

I did my problem is not just something I saw my problem is something I've been from birth a sinner programmed to sin it's a deep problem and it's beyond my own ability to fix so he cries Lord have mercy upon me you wash me you cleanse me you purify me you create in me a clean heart oh God because I cannot this sin has roots in my very nature as a fallen man that's Psalm 51 you turn over to chapter 58 and the psalmist says even from birth the wicked go astray even from birth the wicked go astray from the womb They are wayward and speak lies last week you who confessed that you are left handed said you don't remember choosing to be left handed it's just something you always felt natural to you well let me ask all of us this how many of you remember consciously deciding to tell your first lie no takers

I was going to call you a liar we come forth from the womb speaking lies there are lies in our cries as infants and so it came natural to us we're all liars by birth remember what Jeremiah 17 9 says about the sinful heart the heart that comes forth from birth the heart is deceitful that's lying it lies it's deceitful above all things and beyond cure who can know it that's the heart we're born with Romans 3 says that our tongues practice deceit that's part of what it means to be a sinner and that's why none of you had to teach your children to lie either you had to teach them hard didn't you to tell the truth but you never needed to teach them to lie and to deceive because from the womb they were wayward and spoke lies it was their nature to lie drummers drown pipers pipe and liars lie so let me go on how many of you remember first choosing to be selfish remember the first time you said mine and pushed somebody else away nobody taught you that that was your nature to say mine you came forth from the womb that way and that's why it comes quite naturally to say mine and to be concerned about mine because that's our sinful nature somebody harshly criticizes you and almost instinctively you defend yourself you attack back or you go off in a self pity pout you didn't need to learn that from anybody it just is ingrained it's almost as if it were instinct we do it automatically without great effort or conscious choice it just comes out turn to

Mark chapter 7 notice the way that our Lord Jesus shows the effect of Adam's sin upon us all in Mark chapter 7 I said these things these lies this self defense mechanism this selfishness it just comes out doesn't it well that's the language that Jesus uses in Matthew 7 and verse 20 he says what comes out what comes out of a man is what makes him unclean for from within out of men's hearts come evil thoughts sexual immorality and that includes every form of sexual immorality homosexuality is our study Jesus says homosexual immorality comes out of the heart all sexual immorality comes out of the heart it's already there it just comes out along with theft and murder adultery greed malice deceit lewdness envy slander arrogance and folly all these evils come from inside and they make a man unclean so all the seeds of sin are within our fallen hearts

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this line from a Nazi concentration camp before he was executed and he saw plenty of guards who mistreated him and others in inhumane ways but he recognized that there was the same seeds in his nature as he saw in theirs and this is what he said nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves out of the heart and what you see in other men is just an expression of what sinful nature looks like and unless our hearts are changed by grace these things could characterize us notice the list does include sexual immorality and again I I say that because of our study inborn tendencies part of the sinful nature of all men they're not just the products of society and nurture it's not just the product of growing up in a family where a father was distant no these things are found within our hearts we come into the world not with clean innocent hearts but rather with hearts already programmed to sin already biased towards sin

Paul used the I need to clear up my language Paul Philpus used the terminology of being programmed to sin the apostle Paul used the illustration of in Romans chapter 8 and verse 7 he says that the mind of sinful man is enmity against God it's not neutral it's against God and how does it show it it will not it refuses to submit to God's law and so that takes many forms but it's telling us that the human mind fallen in sin is biased it is not neutral it's biased against God Paul used the computer illustration I'll use the lawn bowling illustration Tom you remember back when we were young we went to a tennis tournament up in Niles and we were driving around looking for the place and we came across this green flat area and we got out and it was like a golf course green there was a bunch of old men out there and they were lawn bowling and it's kind of like bocce ball you throw the one ball out and you roll the bowls!

the thing with these balls it's not like bocce they're rather oblong and they're weighted they're biased there's a weight on one side of the bowl you can't always see it when you look at it but there's probably a marking they know and as you roll it it rolls straight for a while but at the end as it slows down it curls to the side of the bias and if you wanted to curl that way you just turn the bowl around and they taught us then what lawn bowling was our hearts are like those bowls they're not they're not straight they're biased they're weighted towards sin and that's why we all sin because we were programmed to sin we come from the womb biased to sin and we all have different tendencies Isaiah 53 says that we all like sheep have gone astray we have turned each one to his own way each one to his own way that means there are particular biases about me and my sinful heart that might not be the same as yours

I have certain sinful tendencies that maybe you don't wrestle with and and it's not that we have chosen these propensities and predispositions and leanings and inclinations we didn't choose to have rage and anger be the thing that we struggle with or to have lust the thing that we struggle with or love of ease or self love or pride these things just rise up naturally out of our hearts but it does not give us the license to express them does it doesn't mean that they're therefore right oh if you're born that way if those desires go all the way back to birth well then that's what's right for you no not at all that simply tells me what I've got to rise up and murder not what has become right for me many desires may feel natural to us may feel very natural to eat that fourth piece of pie doesn't mean it's not gluttony better be careful of saying your desires make it right it may be as a man that it feels quite natural to lust after pornographic images of women you're born that way doesn't make it right you better gouge out the eye

Jesus says lest you go to hell many examples a single young man may have a natural attraction for another single young woman but that doesn't make it right for him to have premarital sex with her does it so just the desire from birth does not make it right worry feels very natural to me some of you don't worry about worry I do and I'm real good at it I can do it without trying I've got to try hard and fight hard not to worry but it doesn't mean just because it's natural to me that it's right for me as long as Jesus words are in the Bible do not worry it's a sin for me to worry so again you see how the Bible's robust theology about the fall of man even these inborn tendencies and predispositions do not make them right are no reason to say well this is now what is natural for me ought to be expressed and

I glorify God with my worry what nonsense it's doubting God that doesn't glorify him so God's word must define what's right and wrong not my desires we've come into a dangerous condition when we make our own desires and attractions the rules by which we determine right and wrong well I've got to draw a line there and call it to an end and we'll have to take up there next time we're dismissed