What the Bible Says Concerning the Acts of the LGBTQ & How the Church Should Respond

It does not take one with a master’s degree in Biblical Studies to know that the world is totally depraved and that its outward manifestations of sinful debauchery are only increasing by the day. Slowly but surely America has taken its eyes off of the Holy and Sovereign God of the Universe and fixed its gaze upon mankind to solve all of life’s dilemmas. As a result of taking our eyes off of God America has willfully permitted and embraced what God declares as sinful acts. These sinful acts include such things as the murder of innocent children (though under the less-offensive title of abortion) and multiple acts of sexual immorality (a.k.a. LGBTQism) that God’s Word clearly label’s as detestable and an abomination. In fact in America, June is now openly celebrated as LGBT PRIDE month. 

Even though many believe we who stand on God's Word hate those in the LGBTQ movement, that is not true. We love them as God does, but we do not accept the sin they choose to commit as “okay” for God clearly declares it is not. We who follow God's Word reject as “okay” many sins that are committed  from greed, to premarital sex, to adultery, to gossip, to destructive anger, to the love of money, and the list goes on. (See Colossians 3:8-9 with the verses later in this blog.) To love those who reject God's truth is a command we must and do follow, otherwise we would be choosing to sin by rejecting the teachings of our Lord. How unfortunate it is when Christians act wrongly toward those who do not know Christ and harm the cause of Christ. After all Jesus rejected the sin of the woman at the well, Matthew the hated tax collector, and scores of others. Yet, He loved them and spent time with them until they saw Him as their personal Lord and Savior.  We who love Jesus as imperfect as we are, still love those who choose not to follow Christ.

The conflict increases because no longer does our nation consider Christian living to be the standard for all its citizens nor the Bible the standard for governing our land. Oh how far our nation has fallen since its inception. Our founding fathers once boldly declared statements like these by John Adams:
-“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

- “Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company: I mean hell.”

-“The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity, and humanity.”

-“Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. . . . What a Eutopia – what a Paradise would this region be!”

-“I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.”   
 
Nowadays it is viewed as a normal and acceptable thing to have men dressed as women reading storybooks to children in public libraries, young children being taught that gender is fluid, parades of men and women flaunting their wicked and rebellious lust in same-sex attraction, and that is hardly even describing the wretched acts of the LGBTQ movement (a.k.a. the sexual perversion movement). The world has so praised and accepted the LGBTQ movement that even some so-called “Christian churches” have hopped on the sin-affirming bandwagon and fully embraced what God describes as gross immorality. All-the-while, true Christ-honoring churches are being attacked for holding fast to what the Word of God clearly teaches concerning homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism and any other sexually debased lifestyle such as these.

So what does the Word of God say concerning these issues?

Leviticus 18:22
“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Leviticus 20:13
“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

Deuteronomy 22:5
“A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”

Romans 1:18-27
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
 For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-10
“Or 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 effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.”

Jude 7-8
“just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

There simply is nothing vague or unclear about what God’s Word has to say about the unnatural act of homosexuality. He fully condemns it. Why does God condemn homosexuality? Because it is contrary to God's fundamental design for intimate human relationships—that which is between one man and one woman.

Genesis 2:18-25
“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

Matthew 19:4-6
“He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Ephesians 5:22-33
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

Any sexual act that takes place outside the marriage of one biological male and one biological female is sin and should be repented of and repudiated. The blood of Jesus Christ was shed to purify and redeem sinners. Those who are presently enslaved to such sins can find freedom and restoration from such lifestyles by pleading with God to restore them by grace and through faith in Christ Jesus.

Romans 10:9-10                                    
“…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

Above I referenced a passage from 1 Corinthians 6 which states:
“Or 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 effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.”

But the passage does not end there, the apostle Paul goes on to state:

“And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

In other words, these Christian believers to whom Paul is speaking once lived lives like those listed above. Many were effeminate, which would include those who today identify as transgender, and many were homosexuals, and yet they were saved from those lifestyles and washed clean through the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

It is not possible to be both a Christian and a homosexual, for one cannot both be in Christ and be living in habitual sin. 1 John 3:8 states:

“Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”

It is the task the of the Church, not to acquiesce to the world’s demands, but to herald the gospel so that those enslaved to their sins might believe by faith in Christ Jesus and repent of their sinful behavior. Jesus states in Luke 24:46-48:

“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. “

Rather than celebrate Pride (which is a sin in and of itself) and the LGBTQ movement, we should proclaim the gospel to those enslaved to such sins in hopes that they might believe in Christ Jesus and be set free.

And while it is true that the world will hate us for taking such a stance, that is to be expected. For Jesus Himself stated,
Matthew 10:22
 “…and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

And

John 15:18-19
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

It ought to be the Church’s sincere desire to love and glorify God as well as demonstrate genuine love for people. All who die in their sins will spend an eternity in hell for they will be righteously judged for the wicked acts they have committed. Only those who have been redeemed by faith in Christ will be saved. Therefore, the Church has no choice but to proclaim the gospel to all who will hear it in hopes that some might receive Christ by faith.
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May God be glorified in all that we do and say!