Calvary Road Baptist Church

“LET’S CALL SIN SIN”

First Corinthians 6.9-11 

If the Declaration of Independence is our nation’s birth certificate, then our country is 243 years old. Throughout our nation’s relatively short span of life, it has been appropriate, it has been necessary, and I believe it has been pleasing to God for Gospel ministers to speak to political issues occasionally. Or rather, when political matters have spilled over into the spiritual realm, spiritual leaders have responded as necessary.

Few would dispute the alarm that overtook the English freemen living in the American colonies as the British crown and parliament began stripping away their long-held rights and privileges acknowledged for many centuries under British common law. So, when Gospel ministers began responding to the wrong being done by the English crown and parliament, their responses were both timely and effective.[1] A nation, unlike any other before or since was born.

Though the American nation was born, it was born with a birth defect. That defect was the institution of slavery. The decision considered and then made at the time was whether the birth was to take place with the defect or the birth was not to take place at all. After the birth with defect occurred, a movement was born in the United States near the nation’s fiftieth birthday. It was called the abolitionist movement, and abolitionists demanded nothing less than the complete abolition of the institution of slavery throughout the country.

As was the case before the Revolutionary War, so too in the 1830s, there were those who insisted that spiritual leaders should not interfere in politics. But what should Gospel ministers do when politics interferes with ministry? “Abolitionism was partly fueled by the religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening, which prompted many people to advocate for emancipation on religious grounds. The abolitionist movement became increasingly prominent in Northern churches and politics beginning in the 1830s, which contributed to the regional animosity between North and South leading up to the Civil War.”[2]

Would anyone here today argue that the Gospel ministers who responded to the political spill over into their ministries leading up to the Revolutionary War were misguided, that they should have remained silent? As well, would anyone here today suggest that Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth thought Gospel ministers who preached political sermons against Democrat Party slavery policies in the South and also in the North were wrong?[3]

How about during the civil rights movement days of the 1960s? Were the Rev. Martin Luther King, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, the Rev. Andrew Young, and others wrong for taking the civil rights issue into the pulpits on Sundays? The fact is, they did.

We have now reached the fourth period in our nation’s history. Politics is again spilling over into spiritual matters, with the California legislature and its Democrat Party supermajority presuming to introduce a resolution, Assembly Concurrent Resolution 99, that calls on “counselors, pastors, religious workers, educators” and institutions with “great moral influence” to stop perpetuating the idea that something is wrong with LGBTQ identities or their preferred sexual behavior.[4]

Well-known Los Angeles area attorney and radio personality, Larry Elder, said on Friday, 

“California wants to force pastors to adopt LGBT agenda. California, which already demands that public schools only portray homosexuality in a positive light and banned counselors from telling troubled youth they don’t have to be gay, now is moving against pastors and other spiritual leaders. They, apparently, are guilty of telling homosexuals and others that the Bible teaches something else.”[5] 

Thus, it is clear that politics is once more intruding into our arena; the arena of constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. Therefore, I am forced by my religious convictions to respond. And I respond by bringing to you a sermon I originally delivered in this auditorium on April 17, 2005. What I preached then I will preach now, to show that our religious convictions and our standards of right and wrong are not subject to political whim and changing opinions, but to the infallible Word of God.

Please pay careful attention to not only the facts of this Bible-based sermon from God’s Word but also the tone used to present the truth. We don’t hate anyone. We are not judging anyone. However, in our love for God, we agree with God’s judgment of various kinds of human sinful conduct and bow to His wisdom.

How many of you have ever heard of the disease of kleptomania? Kleptomania used to be the psychological description of what was once thought to be the disease of thievery. The word mania coming from the Greek word meaning madness, frenzy, or delirium.[6] Thus, it was once thought to be an illness that makes you steal.

Anyone ever heard of Wade Boggs? He was the hall of fame third baseman for the Boston Red Sox who got in trouble for his affairs with numerous women back in 1988.[7] I recall Boggs admitting during an interview to being afflicted with and being treated for what he called sexual addiction. It was widely accepted that Wade Boggs had the disease of sexual addiction, something the actor Charlie Sheen has also claimed to be afflicted with. They couldn’t help themselves. Or so they insisted.

How many of you have ever heard of Alcoholics Anonymous? Listen to this statement from the AA official web site: “Alcoholics Anonymous® is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.”[8]

Despite claiming they want to avoid controversy, AA promotes the idea that the person who cannot control his drinking and who gets drunk all the time is overcome by a disease known as alcoholism. So widespread is the notion that alcoholism is a disease for which there is no remedy that AA’s mantra, “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic,” is accepted by virtually everyone these days.[9]

Here is another one for you. Did you know that until 1973, the American Psychiatric Association diagnosed homosexuality as a disease?[10] Nathan Purkiss, a historian, specializing in the history of homosexuality, writes that homosexuality used to be viewed as a medical problem.[11]

I have briefly reviewed four different kinds of behavior, four different kinds of conduct people choose to engage in; stealing, adultery, getting drunk, and having sex with people of the same sex. Have you noticed a pattern here? In each case, the medical community, which would include psychiatrists and psychologists, diagnosed such behavior as a medical matter.

Interesting, is it not? If you choose to steal things, you have an illness. If you violate your marriage vows by committing adultery many times, you are sick. If you habitually buy wine or beer or whiskey and get drunk, you have a disease. And if you are a guy who has sex with guys or a girl who has sex with girls, until 1973 you were diagnosed by psychiatrists has having a medical problem.

Of course, psychiatrists no longer diagnose homosexuality as a medical problem because they have discarded the notion that there is such a thing as right and wrong when it comes to sexual behavior. So, bowing to the changing winds of political correctness, homosexuality was removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental illnesses.

It is time to turn to the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is the authoritative source of truth about the condition of man. The Bible is true. And the Bible has the solution for every one of mankind’s problems. My text is First Corinthians 6.9-11. When you find that passage, I invite you to stand for the reading of God’s Word: 

9  Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

10  Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

11  And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 

There are four conclusions that are undeniably outlined in our text, which was written almost 2,000 years ago: 

First, THERE IS AN ETERNAL DESTINY SOME WILL NOT ENJOY 

Paul begins verse 9 with these words: 

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?” 

Keeping in mind that Paul is writing to Christians in the Greek city of Corinth, he reminds his readers that a certain category of people will not inherit the kingdom of God. To simplify what Paul is stating here, there are certain people who will not go to heaven when they die.

What does this mean? It means that there is a heaven to be gained and a Hell to be shunned. Whether people want to admit it or not, the Lord Jesus Christ very definitely did have more to say about Hell while He walked among men than He said about heaven.

What kind of people will go to Hell? What kind of people will be denied access to heaven and will not inherit the kingdom of God? Paul indicates that it will be those who are “unrighteous.” But what does it mean to be labeled “unrighteous”?

Read the Bible through, and you will see that Adam and Eve fell from God’s favor and were expelled from the Garden of Eden because they sinned and became unrighteous. The angels of heaven who were cast out were those who forfeited their righteousness by following Satan’s rebellion against God.[12] Thus, a person who is “unrighteous” is someone who is out of favor with God, as well as being someone who does things that offend a holy and just God.

What are the implications of this? There are several, one being that you cannot just do anything you want to do and expect to go to heaven when you die. There are definite consequences for the choices you make and the deeds that you do. One of those consequences, the direct result of being unrighteous in the sight of God, is that you will go to Hell when you die. 

The Second Conclusion Has To Do With THE BEHAVIOR OF THOSE WHO ARE DAMNED 

Paul continues,

“Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” 

When Paul writes, “Be not deceived,” he is urging his readers not to be fooled by appearances. Things are not always as they appear at first glance to be. You cannot evaluate the reality of a person’s spiritual condition, or the eternal destiny of a person’s soul, by his likeability and charming personality. Keep in mind that “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.”[13]

What Paul gives his readers in verses 9 and 10 are indicators that reveal the true state of a person’s soul, the actual destiny a person is hurtling headlong toward to claim the genuine fruit of his unrighteousness. And what does he give his readers? Not a list of illnesses, but a list of sins.

Consider this list of sins one at a time: 

 

Please keep in mind that people who behave in these ways are not going to Hell because they do these things. It is quite the other way around. It is because they are unrighteous people, people who are already on their way to Hell, that they do such things. So you see, this kind of behavior does not determine a person’s eternal destiny. Rather, this type of behavior exposes or reveals what a person’s eternal destiny already is.

One other thing to take note of before we move on: There is no room for the so-called medical model in this list of sins. That is, you don’t see any mention of smallpox, of measles, or the mumps in this list given to us by Paul. What you see here are sins listed, wrong deeds that people are guilty of committing, behavior that individuals are responsible for. Paul has not listed morally neutral illnesses or diseases which come upon a person through no fault of his own but has named immoral deeds that are the direct result of wicked decisions that individuals make. A person has to decide to engage in sinful sexual activity, whether it be fornication, adultery, or homosexual activity. A person has to decide to steal or extort. A person chooses to use abusive language or bow down to a false god. But who decides to catch a cold? Who decides to contract influenza or West Nile virus? So you see, alcoholism is not a disease. Drunkenness is a sin. Likewise, homosexuality was never a disease, and psychiatrists were wrong to diagnose it as such.

Not to deny that any sin that is committed often enough can lead to habits and feelings of compulsion. There is no doubt that a drunk feels compelled to drink liquor. There is no doubt that a thief can feel compelled to steal. There is no doubt that a homosexual can come to the place where he feels a compulsion to engage in such sinful behavior, even before he has engaged in actual homosexual activity.

But do not confuse any sin with a disease that comes upon a person apart from the activity of his own will and his own choices. These sins are committed by the people who commit them because they have chosen to commit them. Thus, there is nothing noble about the LGBTQ communities’ sexual practices. Gay pride is nothing to be proud of because pride goeth before a fall. My authority for so saying? 

Psalm 10.4:

“The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.” 

Proverbs 13.10:       

“Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.” 

Proverbs 16.18:       

“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” 

Proverbs 29.23:

“A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.” 

The LGBTQ community is not an oppressed minority anymore than thieves are an oppressed minority. As a matter of fact, they average higher incomes than the population as a whole.[20] They are a group of people who have chosen to identify on the basis of their sexual activity. What is next, the thieves’ political action group? 

Third, THE HOPE THAT EXISTS 

Alcoholics Anonymous asserts, “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.”[21] They insist that those under the spell of booze are always alcoholics and that the best anyone can ever hope for is to be a recovering alcoholic.

Militant LGBTQ activists insist that not only should homosexuality no longer be considered a mental illness, but that homosexual activity be accepted as normal and not in any way immoral. But they go farther still, insisting that a person who is LGBTQ will always be LGBTQ, denying that there is such a thing as a former homosexual or Lesbian. Some even assert that LGBTQ is an inherited trait that is determined by one’s DNA, though there is zero science to support such claims.[22] This is merely an effort on the part of the LGBTQ community to establish that their behavior is normal, natural, and not in any way wrong. How could it be wrong if you are not responsible for it?

I could go on and on with many other examples, but there is one phrase in our text that shows the medical model of this behavior, the notion that this is just the way you are and there is nothing to be done about such behavior, to be entirely wrong. In First Corinthians 6.11 Paul writes, 

“And such were some of you.” 

Consider that Corinthian congregation, comprised of people who had been born and raised in the wicked city of Corinth. In a city where any boy could steal an animal and take it to a pagan temple and exchange it for sexual favors with either male or female religious prostitutes, there were very few in that city who had not committed fornication, adultery, thievery, homosexuality, idolatry, and who knows what else?

Paul acknowledges that the Corinthian Christians were those who used to be that way: 

“And such were some of you.” 

No recovering alcoholics in that Church. They were men and women who used to be drunks.  No people with repressed urges, but men and women who used to be fornicators, who used to be adulterers, who used to be effeminate, who used to be abusers of themselves with mankind: 

“And such were some of you.” 

I am not suggesting that they did not have appetites that they needed to deal with aggressively.

But do you see what this phrase means, my friend? It means there is hope for the so-called sex addict or the individual wrapped up in the LGBTQ lifestyle.[23] It means there is hope for the so-called alcoholic. It means there is hope for the so-called kleptomaniac. My uncle Leon was a staggering, functional, drunkard from 1945 to 1965, when he trusted Christ as his Savior and was delivered from drunkenness. It means there is hope for the man who thinks there is no way he will ever bring his abusive speech under control. It means there is the hope of a straight life for the person who is convinced he or she is LGBTQ. It means there is hope for the person who is an idolater or covetous. You do not have to be that way (whatever that means) for the rest of your life: 

“And such were some of you.” 

And it means politicians are wrong for intruding into spiritual matters they know nothing about. Gospel ministers with integrity will resist their evil intentions to confuse the issue about which the Gospel message speaks clearly. They claim Jesus does not save from sins; we claim Jesus does save from sins. They insist that we should not say bad things about their sinful conduct; we insist that there is no hope for a sinner unless we point out the sinfulness of their sinful conduct and hold up Jesus Christ as the only Savior they must turn to for deliverance. 

Finally, HOPE EXISTS ONLY FOR THOSE WHO ADMIT THESE PRACTICES TO BE SINS 

Our text closes with these words: 

“but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” 

The operative words in this phrase are “washed” and “sanctified” and “justified.” These are words that have to do with sins, not diseases. Sins. Sins are “washed” away in the blood of Jesus Christ, First John 1.7. “Sanctified” has to do with being set apart for God’s use and being separated from sins, First Thessalonians 1.9. “Justified” has to do with being pronounced righteous in the sight of God through faith in Jesus Christ, Romans 5.1.

When the angel told Joseph that the Virgin Mary was going to give birth to the Lord Jesus Christ, the angel said to Joseph, 

“thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.”[24] 

This is very important to remember. If idolatry is a sin that you commit, there is hope for you because Jesus Christ saves from sins, even the sin of idolatry. If drunkenness is a sin that you commit, there is hope for you because Jesus Christ saves from sins, even the sin of drunkenness. If sex sins are sins that you commit, and not the result of some disease called sex addiction, there is hope for you, even if you are immersed in the LGBTQ community, because Jesus Christ saves from sins. 

Some politically correct people get very angry with preachers like me because they think I am heartless and cruel for saying that certain types of behavior are sinful instead of people being born that way. I have a niece who thinks that I am evil because of that, even though when she was a little girl, she asked her grandma, “Oh, grandma, why couldn’t Uncle John be my dad?” But they seem to be unaware of the fact that it is God Who assigns responsibility for behavior to each one of us, and it is God who calls disobedience and the violation of His will sin. And God’s way is most merciful and hopeful.

You see, if I am a drunk through no fault of my own, and this entire problem with getting drunk is a disease, then there is no hope for me. But if drunkenness is a sin that can be forgiven by God and washed clean by the shed blood of Christ, then there is hope for the worst drunk. I can be forgiven and delivered.

What about you? I maintain that the so-called medical model of behavior that suggests that everything that is wrong with you is the result of some disease or mental illness that is entirely beyond your control leaves you with no hope of remedy. What can you do about a disease? What control do you have over measles and the flu once you catch it? Not much, really.

But if these kinds of behavior are sins and not illnesses, if they are the result of choices that you have made that you may not even remember, and not the result of some inherited trait or DNA, then they are your sins and not some else’s. And I do not deny that you may not metabolize sugar properly, but that’s not the point. If they are your sins and not someone else’s you can be forgiven; you can be delivered from them.

But you have to understand that sins can only be forgiven by the Lord Jesus Christ. Only He is the Savior. And He only saves from sins. So, if you refuse to give up the lie that these things are diseases, or not your fault for the choices you’ve made, or that they are completely moral conduct, then you will be stuck with the problem, you will die with the problem, and the problem (which will turn out to be a sin after all) will drag your soul into Hell.

On the authority of God’s holy Word, therefore, I urge you to turn from your sinful lifestyle and trust Jesus Christ to the saving of your eternal and undying soul.

And I publicly declare to those who would seek to legislate our message, never, never, never, never, never, will you determine what Gospel preachers teach and preach. Never.

__________

[1] Ellis Sandoz, editor, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805, Volumes 1 & 2, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Second Edition, 1998)

[2] https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/abolitionist-movement 6/18/19

[3] https://www.prageru.com/video/the-inconvenient-truth-about-the-democratic-party/

[4] https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2019/june/ca-lawmakers-trying-to-force-pastors-to-preach-pro-lgbt-sermons

[5] http://www.elderstatement.com/2019/06/california-wants-to-force-pastors-to.html?fbclid=IwAR3KL8Kkhj8O0WulWnoerGufNGccZxvinhRIOsydkMHoeOiCcRhioQqWRKM

[6] Bauer, Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), page 615.

[7] http://www.mywiseowl.com/articles/Wade_Boggs 4/16/05

[8] http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org/default/en_about.cfm 4/16/05

[9] http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_BigBook_chapt3.pdf, page 33.

[10] http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~epf/1997/purkiss.html 4/16/05

[11] Ibid.

[12] Matthew 25.41; Jude 6; Revelation 12.4

[13] 2 Corinthians 11.14

[14] Exodus 20.4-6

[15] Fritz Rienecker & Cleon Rogers, Linguistic Key To The Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference Library, 1980), page 402.

[16] Bauer, Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), page 135.

[17] Rienecker, page 402.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] https://www.businessinsider.com/census-data-on-gay-households-2015-6

[21] http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_BigBook_chapt3.pdf, page 4 4/16/05

[22] https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/10/12/despite-what-you-may-have-read-theres-no-gay-gene/

[23] https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/76597-former-homosexuals-choose-christ-and-holiness-over-sin

[24] Matthew 1.21

 

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