Transcript

Due to the unique topic we’ll be looking at this morning, there won’t be one primary text but you might want to go ahead and turn to Genesis 1 and be prepared as we begin this series called “The Family Assignments.” I was reminded of what Dr. Francis Schaeffer said about 35 years or so ago. Francis Schaeffer was a Christian apologist, a brilliant man and a sound man in doctrine, and he wrote a book one time that was entitled, “He is There and He is Not Silent.” His point, of course, being that God is separate from you. God is not to be found by you looking in your heart or discovering him somehow inside of your thoughts and notions. God is separate and objective. He has to be discovered, and he’s there but he’s not silent. He has communicated to man. I would add to Dr. Schaeffer’s statement this: not only is he there and he’s not silent, he has spoken and he has not changed his mind. Since he is God, and since he is perfect, and since he is immutable, cannot change because to change would be to change perfection, then what he has said stands yesterday, it stands today, and it will stand tomorrow. He has spoken and he has not changed his mind.

He has spoken about the family and he has given us all assignments within the family. Now, you might want to say, first of all, that God has given all Christians general assignments that apply to everyone. It’s God’s assignment for everyone to believe. Those who believe, it’s their assignment, all of them, to be baptized; to join a church; to be faithful in service and in giving; to live godly and holy lives; to not steal or lie or cheat. These are general assignments for all men but then there are specific assignments, specific according to the place and the calling God has giving you in life. In our nation, there are specific assignments. The city councilman or the policeman and others, have certain roles or assignments and then we as the common citizens have certain roles and assignments. Then, of course, within the family, the men have certain assignments, the women have certain assignments, and children have certain assignments, and that’s what I want us to look at as we journey together in this series called “The Family Assignments.”

Now listen, friend, quite honestly, God is not too interested in how you feel about it. If you’re a husband, there are certain assignments. If you’re a wife, there are certain assignments. If you’re a parent, you know we live in a day when people want to have children but they don’t want to be parents. If you’re a parent, there are certain assignments. And young people, if you’re a child, there are certain assignments. But before we get to that, I want to talk about the gender assignment and that is today that God assigns from conception one’s gender as either male or female. Now, I’m not going to deal with the extraordinarily rare situation where a child may be born with both male and female genitals. I’m not going to cover that; that is extraordinarily rare and a parent has got to do the best they know in those situations. But don’t bring out something that is so extraordinarily rare and unusual to dismiss the basic truth that God gives us in these areas.

First of all, let’s talk about the evidence that God assigns from conception one’s gender as male or female. Here’s where we’ll look at Genesis. A. in our outline, first of all, it is self- evident. In other words, it is so true and so obvious actually it needs no defense or explanation. In Genesis 1:27, Moses writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit said, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” It’s self-evident. It’s an axiom. It’s much like Genesis 1:1 where the Bible simply says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” There is no explanation for God, where he came from, how he came into being because, of course, he didn’t come into being because he has always been in being, if you will, but it’s a self- evident truth. God is God and God exists.

Now, another thing here, another thought rather, let me give you two thoughts at this point about man. The Bible says he made man in his own image. Now, while there are vast differences between God and man, God did not make man after the pattern of the rest of creation but after himself. That means he has given a dignity, he has given a sanctity to human life. Human life has a quality far exceeding the life of all other creation. He has given man rule and dominion, Genesis 1:28 tells us that he said, “God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'” So God has given man a special role of dominion and rule over the rest of creation. Man, if you will, is God’s representative in the earth. Man was made the visible head and monarch of the world but, of course, Adam sinned in the garden of Eden and he has marred and diminished his dominion. Now for man to exercise dominion over the earth, the Bible says he will have to do it by the toil of his hand and by the sweat of his brow. Creation is not in harmonious flow with man’s dominion anymore. Creation is unyielding and so it makes it difficult but Jesus, the perfect man, will return to earth one day and Jesus will succeed where Adam failed. Jesus will become the perfect man in the earth. He will restore holiness and righteousness in the earth and will rule and reign as earth’s righteous Monarch.

Now, back to my point about assignments, the point is when God’s assigned something to man and then man deliberately fails or rebels against that, it’s all the more grievous because man is just not a higher form of monkey, man was made in God’s image. Man has such a high dignity and sanctity, it’s a much more serious failure when man fails to live up to God’s assignment. It is self-evident that God made humankind to be male or female.

Secondly, I would like to say it’s nature evident. It’s evident in nature. Now, for our purposes here, go to Romans 1, if you will, and I will preach this probably somewhat differently as we go through today because I have a lot to cover and I don’t want to stray too far though sometimes straying is a good thing to do. Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature,” now note, “have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, for they are without excuse.” So Paul writing to this Greco-Roman culture full of wickedness and immoralities, by the way, much like our culture today, says there are those who reject God and not only are they atheistic but it’s a little more than that, it’s just they’re saying, “We want no supreme authority in our life. Period. God is gone. Authority is gone. We’ll be our own God.” But Paul writes here that it’s so self-evident that nature itself proves, if you’ll look at it objectively, that there is an intelligent Creator to whom you must yield and honor.

Now, it’s interesting that he goes straight from the “no God” atheistic concept and he goes right into sexual immoralities and particularly the sin of homosexuality. If you would, look at verse 26, “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,” verse 27, “and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” I want you to note here in both verses the words “natural” and “unnatural.” So Paul is writing that when it comes to one’s gender and one’s sexuality, if we’ll just look at nature itself, it is nature evident what God’s will is. The men left what was natural and did that which was unnatural, men laying with men. The women left that which was natural and did that which was unnatural, women in sexual relationships with other women. So nature clearly teaches us the beauty and compatibility of the male, female gender when it comes together in sexual union and God has designed that sexual union in marriage for both pleasure and for procreation. Paul’s point here among many other points, we don’t have time to look at all of them, is that the animal kingdom itself shows us what is natural, that God made male and female. He gave the gender assignments.

It’s self-evident. It’s nature evident. Thirdly, all of this, this is the main point of all of them and it sums up all of them: it’s scripturally evident. Now, we’re going to find that when you’re dealing with gender identity and those who say they are transgendered, it inevitably is inseparable from the homosexual movement also. These always seem to go hand-in-hand. First of all, 1 Corinthians 6:9, Paul writes again to the Corinthian church, a church that was in the middle of a very promiscuous culture and a very deviant promiscuous culture. Homosexuality was rampant in the Greco-Roman Empire of this day. In fact, 15 of the first 16 Roman Caesars were either gay or bisexual. But in that context, he writes to this church and says, “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.” Now, we could go on and there is a point he’s making, he’s not just picking out a few sins here but he’s just showing the things that truly are sin and how those who are not repenters of these things but who are embracing these things, are those who are outside of God’s kingdom.

The word “effeminate” here is a Greek word that simply means “soft.” It’s a person who is of the biological male gender of male or biological gender of male, yet he is purposely trying to act female. That’s what the word “soft” means here. Then he adds to the word “effeminate,” the homosexual. The word “homosexual” simply means “a man lying with another man.” 1 Timothy 1:10, “and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching.” Once again, we have the word “homosexual” here which, by the way, God assigns your gender and he assigns your sexuality based on your gender. That’s why these are always connected together, one’s sexual expression and one’s gender assignment. So, once again, the word “homosexual” is used which means “a man lying with a man” and that’s outside of sound teaching. So the point is God assigned to each one his gender and correspondingly to each one his sexuality and we are not to go against God’s assignment. Now, there are many many other Scriptures but it’s very very clear, it is scripturally evident, it’s nature evident, it’s self-evident, that God has assigned at conception each person’s gender as male or female.

Now, fourthly, it’s scientifically evident. Lots of things we could look at here but I was particularly interested at Dr. Paul McHugh’s viewpoints, he’s the former head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, a highly esteemed hospital in our country. Here’s what Dr. Paul McHugh said about the transgender issue and I quote, “Policymakers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right and need of defending rather than as a mental order that deserves understanding treatment and prevention.” Now, here’s a scientist, he has no claims to Christianity but said the media and the politicians are all doing a disservice to some troubled confused people by saying they are a certain class of people that deserves certain rights and defenses.

He continues and says, and I quote, “The transgendered suffer from a disorder of assumption similar to other psychological disorders like anorexia or bulimia. Studies show fundamental problems with the transgendered movement.” I’m continuing with Dr. McHugh’s viewpoints. He said, “Studies at both Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman clinic found that children who felt transgendered yet did not receive medical or surgical treatments, up to 80% of those lost those feelings as they matured.” If you just don’t cultivate it and nurture it, he said, it most of the time goes away. God help these parents who take their little boys and little girls and begin pushing them toward a gender contrary to their birth gender. It’s wrong. Even science says it’s wrong and not helpful.

At Johns Hopkins, Dr. McHugh says, “We found that long-term studies have revealed that there is no better psychological help in those who received sexual reassignment surgery than those who did not.” He said, “We’ve studied it long-term, we’re not helping these people at all.” Years after they’ve changed their genitals to look more like the opposite sex than their birth gender, they are no happier. They have just mutilated their bodies. So Dr. McHugh states, “That’s why today Johns Hopkins now refuses to perform sexual reassignment surgery.” You see, biologically and scientifically, to change one’s gender is not possible. Your genetic code was assigned at conception. You may alter your body to a degree through hormones and you may mutilate your body through surgery but you cannot change your gender. To reject one’s gender assignment requires one to, in essence, rebel against his own biological makeup. Nothing is more clear in science and biology than one’s gender. You put your chromosomes under amplification and there it is, you are either XY, male, or XX, female. Now, folks, there’s every reason why as believers in Christ we show patience, lovingkindness and compassion to people in this dilemma but we are not helping them by celebrating their confusion.

II. That’s the evidence I wanted to give you that God has assigned gender at conception, either male or female. Now some contradictions in the sexual progressive movement. I use the word “sexual progressive” because the word “progressive” is the word they use for all the liberal movement today but a huge component of that movement is now we’re progressing sexually, and what they call progress, the Bible calls perversion. But they are very contradictory. They go all over the place.

1. I’ll just give you two examples. A. Their complete reversal on biological determinism. You know, for years the liberals have told us the behaviors we may say are sin are actually based in biology. They say there is a physiological component to these behaviors. They were “born this way.” That’s what they kept saying. We’ve heard that alcoholism or a drug abuser or depression or homosexuality or bisexuality and many other things, have a biological foundation, a biological determinism, that’s just the way they are; that these are not just, they would say, personal choices or preferences, this is something that is ingrained in this person’s biological makeup. But then we come to the dominoes kept falling and we’ve come to the transgender issue. Now all of a sudden biological determinism is out. All of a sudden biological determinism has been shown the door. Now one’s sex or gender or your bathroom assignment is not to be determined by chromosomes and biology because that’s clear, but by your own feeling about yourself. They call it, “I self-identify,” self-identity. The scientific biological fact of binary thinking, that means binary to God made male and female, that’s no longer to be considered. They say there can’t just be two distinct genders from now on. That’s not even relevant, they say, now you just have to look within and self-identify as to who you feel you think you must be. So all of a sudden we’ve gone from, “That’s who they are. They are made that way,” to, “No, they are made a certain way but all of a sudden this person has the freedom to just identify as what they want to be.” A total contradiction.

Do you remember Rachel Delisle? Rachel Delisle was on television or her story was on television, she’s the former president of a chapter of the NAACP and she claimed to be black but then her parents outed her. Her two white parents came forward and said, “Rachel is not black. She is fully white. She has identified as black but she’s not a black person.” What happened? What happened is what ought to have happened, the black community that’s in that movement rejected her claim. They removed her from office. They called her perverse and pathological. They said this is a version of identity theft that fails to consider the significance of the African American experience. One leader said, “For me, black identifying was not a choice so much as a fact. I am black but Rachel was not.” It was just back and forth, back and forth. Since she wasn’t biologically black, she didn’t qualify to self-identify as a black person, but today they tell us you’re free to self- determine what you want to be.

I wonder what’s really the difference between a person who feels they’re a man in a woman’s body or a woman in a man’s body than those who are struggling with all kinds of psychological disorders who think they are Jesus Christ or Napoleon or some other great person? I’ve counseled with someone who thought they were Jesus Christ and I assure you they were convinced they were Jesus Christ, but I assure you they are not. They didn’t need me to celebrate their new self-identity, they needed me to lovingly reprove them and help them get on the right track.

You know, there is actually no basis for saying, “Well, one group is to be embraced and celebrated but this other group, they’re outrageous and they are suffering from a mental disorder.” As one guy said on television the other day, he was a president of a Christian college, a very simple point, I’ve said it to you before but it’s so true: when you throw out God’s big truths, then there is an unraveling of all kinds of things that you struggle with knowing how to handle. When you throw out the big truth God made you male or female, you open yourself to everything else, then your bathroom laws, locker room, just all kinds of things begin to unravel. These liberals who are experimenting on us and forcing on us this new agenda, they are wrecking this country.

Well, another reversal, not only on biological determinism have they just gone back and forth, it’s biological determinism if you’re homosexual, bisexual but transgendered, well, no we go the other way. That’s just how you feel. It’s not what you are, it’s how you feel. Secondly, their complete reversal on tolerance. Linda Hirschman in her book “Victory, the Triumphant Gay Revolution,” notes that the progressives, especially in sexual progressivism, let’s call it, that’s what they call it. I wouldn’t call it progress but they do. She said they have been successful by making a moral claim. For example, they say gay is good and then they made the gay movement a part of the civil rights movement. It’s just the next logical step in a free and equal society, they were saying. So now they no longer ask for tolerance. That’s what they started out saying, “We know we’re different but can’t we be loved and tolerated?” They no longer want tolerance, now they require full acceptance and even celebration of this chosen lifestyle. Now the dominoes kept falling until we are embroiled in now this transgendered movement and now they’ve got another designation, this is their word, not mine, a queer designation. So you’re lesbian or gay or bisexual or transgendered or queer. Now, I don’t know what the others are going to be if this thing keeps going, sin never stands still. It never stands still and evidently the queer designation and I have read some about it and I don’t understand it, your sexual expression is so bizarre you can’t put a title on it, is just queer.

So conservatives and Bible believers today are out. There is no concession for a contrary opinion. Every contrary opinion must be silenced. Your voice if you’re a conservative Bible believer must not even be heard. You’re a bigot, they would say. You’re a hater. You’re a Neanderthal and you are of the prehistoric age. We have progressed beyond that.

To which I would say, the Bible says, “Woe to those who call good evil and evil good.” So this sexual progressive movement is like a train that has run over us.

Three powerful allies have joined forces to propagate this life. First of all, prominent political leaders. We know one party has wholesale embraced all this whole movement. The other party is far too soft and wobbly on it. The university professors have been there forever, and the mainstream media unrelentingly, unrelentingly throw out this new progressive Gospel and what bothers me so much is the out-and-out lies they show. Just on another part of the front, I’ve gotten to where I can’t go see a movie with a 110 pound woman who is constantly whipping men twice her size. Now, what’s the point there? They want to show women are equal. I’m sorry, they’re not equal, not in physical strength. Not in physical strength. And they keep showing, showing, showing, showing what they would like for it to look like when in reality it doesn’t look like that at all. Now, they do it with the gay and lesbian aspect and every aspect of the liberal progressive movement.

But these three, prominent government leaders, university professors and the mainstream media, they are unrelenting enforcers. There was a television actress who came out not long ago, she was on I think the “Friends” sitcom and she came out and decided she just wanted to sexually experiment and she made this statement, “I wasn’t born this way, I just want to have sex with a lot of different kinds of people.” And the gay and lesbians pounced on her and unrelentingly forced her to take back her statement and say, “No, I was born bisexual.” And they said it, they said it openly, “We have won the day in popular opinion by saying we’re all born this way and if you just say you’re choosing to be this way, you’re going to hurt our movement.” I mean, they are real strict enforcers. Toleration is out. They will not tolerate other opinions. Domination is their rule.

So we’ve looked at the evidence that God made people male and female from conception. We’ve looked at the contradictions in the modern movement. Many many more things we could say but our time is so short. Thirdly, I entitle this: here we stand. Here we stand. 1. We stand to say this is sin. We have compassion for these sinners because we are sinners, amen? But I’m not going to say it’s not sin. It is sin. This is what it has always been, it’s a revolt against the one true Creator God. It’s all part of the rebellion that rages in the hearts of all men until Christ changes them.

They call this a progressive movement but that is not true at all, it’s part of an ancient movement. The Greco-Roman Empire, as I said earlier, cast aside God and God’s laws and established themselves as their own rulers and as their own authority and they indulged in gross immoralities. The leading men of Rome in the days of Christ had a little boy for their sexual activities plus a wife plus their concubines. This kind of wanton giving in to immoralities is not progressive, it’s ancient. And in the Greco-Roman Empire of that age, homosexuality and those impurities were rampant also. You can go back further than that, Sodom and Gomorrah, indulging in all kinds of perversions and immoralities. This has all been played out before, in fact, this rebellion has its roots over 6,000 years ago when Satan said to Eve in the Garden of Eden, “Has God said?” In other words, “Eve, I know God said don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” but here’s what Satan is saying, “Eve, is God really your authority? Is God really right? Does God really have your best interest? Eve, don’t you think you can decide for yourself, Eve?” That’s what Satan would say. This is not a new progressive movement, it’s an old wicked movement.

Then this evil: rejecting God. “I’ll be my own authority. I’ll decide for myself.” This poisonous seed takes new root from time-to-time and a generation rises up again that rejects all of God’s authority over their lives and that’s what the prophet referred to in Judges 17:6, “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.” We’re like Proverbs 2:14, “Those who delight in doing evil And rejoice in the perversity of evil.” So instead of subjecting our thoughts and notions to the word of God, we in effect throw God off his throne, put ourselves and our depraved desires on the throne and then we rail and revile against any who would question us. These are those as the Bible says, that are held by the cords of their sin and are in the stronghold of sin. Russell Moore, the lobbyist for Southern Baptists in Washington, DC said and I quote, “We must reject this notion that we are born into this world as self-defining gods and goddesses. We know that the one true God knows more about us than we know about ourselves.” A man by the name of Kell who wrote a good article on the transgendered issue said, “Every culture where every man does what is right in his own eyes ends in a pile of rubble.”

The Bible teaches us, by the way, that sin never stands still. Sin that is not confronted and repented of always metastasizes and deforms. Just look at what sin has done to the beauty of God’s gift of human sexuality. Originally they said we must embrace deviant sexual desires because they are born this way and, by the way, there is some truth in that because we’re all born fallen. We’re all born with depraved hearts, the Bible says. The Bible says the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful beyond all else. Every one of us if we gave into some of the things that have arisen in our hearts since we were old enough to understand our inner thoughts could fall into all kinds of wickedness and perversity. So yes, it is true somebody over here may have a unique propensity toward one kind of evil that this guy over here does not have but we all have propensities and things that are more difficult for us than other things, and sometimes we judge one another when we’re strong in an area but they are weak in another but they may be strong in an area where we are weak. So yes, it is true we are all born this way. That doesn’t make it right. God help us, you want to live in a culture where everybody follows whatever lust comes across his fallen heart? You talk about anarchy and chaos. You talk about crumbling from the inside.

The Bible says in Ephesians 2, we are all by nature children of wrath which means if you take a natural child’s heart and don’t give it governance and guidance, if you don’t shepherd it to the truth and to Christ, that child’s heart can go into anything. By our very nature left to ourselves, we deserve wrath, the Bible teaches. Jesus taught in Matthew 15:18-20, “But the things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.” Now where do these wicked things come from, from the culture around us? No, Jesus said verse 19, “out of the heart come evil thoughts.” You don’t have to teach a child to have an evil thought, just leave him alone, he’ll have a bunch of them all by himself. It comes out of a heart, “murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man.” Because they taught silly laws in Israel at this time that it was the food you ate. If you ate unclean food, you defiled yourself so he said, “Your food is the least of your problems. It’s your rotten wicked heart that is the root of your problem.” So of course, of course we’re all fallen and you’d be a fool to say that you would never be involved in some perversions. We’re all capable because we’re all fallen.

So, yes, we’re all born with these varying propensities to varying types of sin and we’re certainly all born with a rebellion in our hearts against God and against his holy dictates and we each and every one could all become exceedingly wicked if we only looked within ourselves for truth and for answers. Ours is a narcissistic age that looks not to God but looks on the inner man for truth and this will produce a culture that is perverse and headed off a cliff. Today’s god for far too many is the god of sexual experimentation and sexual indulgence. By the way, sex is a wonderful good gift. We ought to joy in it. We ought to glory in it, but we’re not to pervert it because there are assignments given by our Creator God. When you start down the funnel of worshiping the god of sexual gratification, you will come under an insatiable pull into all matter of excess and perversion. That’s why Romans 1 in the context of that kind of culture, a perverse immoral culture, and in the context of talking about men who cast God off and his laws off and want to do what they want to do, he says this, “Professing to be wise, they become as fools.” They spout off the sophistication of their pseudo-intellectualism, “Oh, we progress,” and God says, “No, you profess to be wise but you’ve become a fool. You’ve become a fool.”

And the multiplication is rampant. 2009 or so when Barack Obama was running for office and he began, as far as I can remember or know, to be the first man running for office who put homosexual marriage on the front burner. Now, if some Bible believing evangelical had stood up and said, “Wait a minute, if you start down that road, if you start down that funnel, who knows that seven or eight years from now we may have men who claim to be women wanting to go to the women’s restroom in our stores and in our schools,” and those progressives would have stood up and laughed us to scorn and in mockery at the excessive extreme things we thought would happen. We’re so homophobic. Eight years later, where are we? Where are we? You start down that road, it’s almost impossible unless God intervenes to turn back.

The gay rights movement and gay marriage was the first domino, then more fell, then more fell, now we come to the transgendered issue, the queer issue. I heard this on the news, you know what news I watch, but I heard this on the news, New York City – now listen to this – New York City today recognizes 31 different genders. Two of the 31 are male and female, by the way, so we’re still okay. 31 different genders and the Fox News commentator is right, this is insanity. Where are you going to stop? Once you say the Judeo-Christian tradition which has been the foundation for Western civilization and United States law in specific, once you say that’s out, now every man can decide for himself, where are you going to stop? 31 different gender classifications and they can fine you up to $250,000 if you don’t get a person’s gender right when you refer to them.

What’s happening, folks, the first domino fell, the next domino fell, the transgender domino has fallen, the queer domino has fallen, really this whole thing, I told you this over and over, gay marriage was never the issue, it’s not the issue, it’s free sex, anyone, anywhere, any time is what they want. It’s a love for sin and a love for lust and a rebellion against God. That’s what this is. They are coming to a no marriage, no gender, no moral parameters, just what I feel is all that matters, to which the old evangelist line, I know it’s old, I know it’s overused but it’s true: sin will take you further than you want to go. Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay. And sin will cost you more than you want to pay.

Now, for you libertarians out there, I’m kind of with you to some degree but listen to me, you can’t just say, “Well, they can do what they want. It doesn’t bother me.” Yes, it does because God’s ordained us as social creatures and we can’t help but interact one with another and what my neighbor does in some way does influence what I do and far more important, may influence what my children do. Societies must have objective standards by which they all hold themselves to or you’re going to have anarchy and chaos.

So here we stand unapologetically but with compassion because we are sinners, yet to say this is sin. By the way, you unanimously affirmed an addendum to our statement of faith where we say homosexuality and one who tries to change his gender from his birth gender is sin. That’s where we stand. If that’s not where you stand, you need to make a meeting with the elders immediately. I know that’s where you stand.

2. On here we stand: no, you cannot have our children. We’re not going to be open- minded about it. We’re not going to be inclusive about it. We will teach the realities of the society and the culture but only in the context of what the Bible says about them. You see, the sexual progressives, they need to make disciples because they need to appease their conscience. God has put in every man a God-given conscience and they know they’re not right. Nature shows them, it’s self-evident, and the conscience God put in them condemns them but they can appease their conscience by gaining followers and supporters. So to further appease their conscience, they want to reach the next generation and they have used the media and the school system very successfully to do so.

There is a vivid illustration of this principle, look at Genesis 19 right quick. Would you go there? Genesis 19, beginning in verse 1. We’ll have to just rush on through this. Lot was in Sodom. Lot was a righteous man but he had begun to compromise and he had become a hypocrite to some degree and God knew to get Sodom out of Lot, he had to get Lot out of Sodom and so he sends some angels in. Genesis 19:1, “Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.” So Lot has the discernment to know these are holy men sent from God; these aren’t just men, they look like men, but they are more than that, they are angels from God.

Verse 2, “And he said, ‘Now behold, my lords, please turn aside into your servant’s house, and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go on your way.’ They said however, ‘No, but we shall spend the night in the square.’ Yet he urged them strongly, so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he prepared a feast for them, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter; and they called to Lot and said to him, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them.'” That simply means they wanted the men to come out and have homosexual sex with them.

Verse 6, “But Lot went out to them at the doorway, and shut the door behind him, and said, ‘Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly. Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man; please let me bring them out to you, and do to them whatever you like; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof.'” Now, it was the law of that day you must show protection and hospitality to your guests, of course, here Lot falls into a wicked compromise to offer his daughters for their sexual ravages rather than the two men, angels, who have come in.

Verse 9, “But they said, ‘Stand aside.’ Furthermore, they said, ‘This one came in as an alien, and already he is acting like a judge; now we will treat you worse than them.’ So they pressed hard against Lot and came near to break the door. But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.” Verse 11, “They struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves trying to find the doorway.” This is a culture so aflame with their sexual immoralities and perversions, they came demanding, “We want all.” They were banging on Lot’s door, banging there. As a matter of fact, in Judges 19, we have the same thing as the Levite is traveling through Gibeah, he stays there overnight and he is welcomed into a man’s home and the homosexuals of the community come banging on the door demanding the man deliver the Levite to them for homosexual relations.

My friend, in like principle, today they are banging on the door, “I want your children.” Trust me, they want our children. They are banging on the preschool door saying, “We want in there. We want to teach the kind of stories and the kind of lessons that make our lifestyle look good and acceptable.” They are banging on the elementary school door. They are banging on the high school door and they have already taken over the colleges, that happened a long time ago. Now they are banging on the household door. They are getting in through the media and every other way and according to Mrs. Clinton, and I quote, “We must use the coercive power of the federal government to change church doctrine.” That should scare you to death. Never have we had a person running for president who addressed the church needing to change its doctrine that I can remember in history.

So not only are they banging on all the other doors, now they’re going to come to the church house door. “We want in. We want your children.” But listen to me, no matter what the cost, we’re going to protect our children and our grandchildren and our great- grandchildren. Listen to me, we’re going to be very intentional to raise our children in the discipline and in the instruction of the Lord. They can call us what they want, it just doesn’t matter. They are not going to have our children. Children come into this world with fallen sinful hearts, hearts that we must shepherd to Jesus Christ. A child must have parents and a solid church. Now, let me emphasize that, too many of our evangelical and Baptist churches are way too soft on these issues. You cannot raise your children to be morally clean and love Christ when they are sitting in a church full of people who live in open sinful rebellion, sexual sinful rebellion and the church does nothing about it. It’s not going to work. That’s why I’m glad you’re helping me plant a lot of churches that are at least striving to do right for the glory of God. A child must have solid parents and a solid church that will lovingly and firmly guide and govern them with the truth as they wrestle with puberty, they are developing desires, and they are developing sexuality.

3. Here we stand. We stand saying it’s sin. We stand saying they’re not going to take our children. And we stand, thirdly, saying: we will speak the truth in love. Ephesians 4:15 says, “but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him.” Listen to me: love is never sacrificed, I’m sorry, truth is never sacrificed in love. Truth is never sacrificed in love but listen, truth must be spoken and lived out in love. We must love our community, love our families, and love our friends enough to tell them the truth so we can genuinely help them. Be ready for that open door. Just in some of the settings that the Lord has allowed me to be in due to my daughter’s college situation, we have had some open doors to talk to people who would disagree with us on these points and we’ve spoken the truth in love when those doors opened. But secondly, let me caution you: don’t cast your pearls before swine. Don’t go strolling into dens of iniquity and start throwing your Bible around and screaming at people. That’s not the way to do it. Just be prayerful about true open doors and the rest of the time it’s probably wise not to say anything. Be mindful – now, listen to your pastor – many a good faithful Christian have lost their jobs over this truth, you and I may be called to do the same. It is happening practically every day here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

4. On here we stand: there is hope. There is always hope. There is hope. First, as a believer in Jesus Christ, Jesus has promised, “I will never leave you nor will I ever forsake you. I’m going to be with you,” he has promised. And also all throughout the teachings of Scripture, God has had a way of putting people in places of authority for the good of his children: Pharaoh who helped Joseph and the king in Babylon who found favor in David or David found favor in his eyes, and on and on and on. God just knows how to do that. Don’t feel like you’re abandoned. We’re going to be fine. God is going to take care of us. There is hope.

You know, as we go out into this world, we must never minimize sin but we must always maximize the Gospel. Jesus can change anyone. He can change me, he can change you, he can change anyone. But if you reject God’s gender assignment for you, to self-identify as something else, that indeed is sin and homosexuality is sin, and lesbianism is sin, and bisexuality is sin, and the queer activity, whatever that is, is sin, and fornication is sin, and adultery is sin, and lying is sin, and disobedience to parents is sin, and coveting is sin, and anger is sin, and murder is sin, and battery is sin, and many other things because the Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But you do not have the right to self-identify as to whatever gender you feel like you ought to be because of one simple reason, your gender like many other foundational issues about you was decided by someone else, God. He chose your gender. He chose your conception. You didn’t self- identify or assign how you would be conceived. He chose your parents. You didn’t self- identify as somebody else’s child. He chose your nationality, your race, your socioeconomic situation. He chose your eye color. He assigned your eye color. You say, “Wait a minute, I’ve got some new contacts. I changed my eye color.” No, you changed the appearance of your eye color. Your eye color hasn’t changed. He chose your hair color. “No, I changed my hair color.” No, you changed the appearance of your hair color but your hair color was set by God and you cannot self-assign your identity. You do not get to self-identify these things. Job said in Job 31:15, “Did He not make me in the womb?” He in the womb established these assigned things for me. By the way, ultimately the only self-identification that really matters is when you by the Holy Spirit of God come to conviction, to self-identify before God as a helpless sinner deserving of wrath. That’s the self-identification we need.

Jesus died for sinners. The Bible says when he went on the cross, he became sin and the Bible says when Jesus was on the cross, the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all so it doesn’t matter whether you’re a fornicator or an adulterer or disobedient to parents or a lesbian or whatever else you may be, your iniquity can be taken by Christ and was taken by Christ and you can be forgiven. Those who will humble themselves in repentance and believe on Jesus Christ will be forgiven and then God will give them a new identity. You get a God identity. He will mark them as his own. They will be God identified as his precious beloved children, forgiven and blessed forever. And all of God’s people said, amen.

Let’s stand together this morning.