A century ago, public standards of morality in so-called Christian lands approximated to the standards of the Bible, whatever might have taken place in private behind closed doors. Divorce was considered shocking, a child born out of wedlock scandalous, and homosexuality beyond the pale. Now all three are viewed as ‘normal’. Such are the declining standards of the Christianised world. But where does God stand in all this? Take the matter of homosexuality. Of the abominations for which God “destroyed the cities of the plain” (Gen. 19: 29), that of homosexuality is prominent (see v5). The scorched earth surrounding the Dead Sea is a solemn witness of God’s abhorrence of this grievous sin. It is incredible then to find professing Christians (I dare not leave out the qualification) attaching God’s name to what is Sodomite in character - the so-called gay Christian movement. There is nothing Christian about it. “Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who make women of themselves, nor who abuse themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor abusive persons, nor [the] rapacious, shall inherit [the] kingdom of God. And these things were some of you; but ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified, but ye have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6: 9-11). “These things were some of you …” (my emphasis) - thus if we are practising these things now, have we really been washed, sanctified and justified? Sadly, the answer is probably No. When God decreed in His law that “thou shalt not lie with mankind as one lieth with a woman: it is an abomination” (Lev. 18: 22), were His words not clear enough? Furthermore, this solemn verse is accompanied on the one side by a denunciation of child–sacrifice (see v21), and on the other by a condemnation of female bestiality (see v23). These, in the sight of God, are the companion sins of homosexuality! Nor let it be imagined that these are merely Old Testament ideas (profane as the suggestion is). Read Romans 1: 27: “and in like manner the males also, leaving the natural use of the female, were inflamed in their lust towards one another; males with males working shame, and receiving in themselves the recompense of their error which was fit”. What could be plainer? There is no need to debate these issues! God precludes any such debate by the clarity of His words. To invite discussion is irreverence of the worst and basest kind. The question should not be an echo of Satan’s “Is it even so, that God has said”? (Gen. 3: 1) but ‘Am I willing to obey His will?’ Certainly the world, and even the Church, has changed, but God has not changed. May it be said of you and I, whatever the strictures of the world, that “thou … hast kept my word” (Rev. 3: 8).
