Yeah, very cool. th th All right, good evening. Good to see you guys all here this evening. We're very, very spread out. We are as socially distant, I guess, as we can possibly get here tonight. But I appreciate you guys being here. We're going to start a new study tonight. It'll take us three or four weeks to get through this study, if we make it. But you can turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 1, Genesis chapter 1, 2. Both will be in both chapters tonight. And what we're going to do in this study, and this is a new one for me. I've not done this before. I don't know of too many preachers that are doing this right now. So whether you want to say it's brave by me or dumb by me, that's up to you. I don't know which one. But what we want to do is we want to ask what the Bible says about homosexuality. I'm going to try to keep this PG. We have kids in here, but we're going to look at it and see what does the Bible say. We're not going to ask what sociology says. I don't care what sociology says. I don't care what psychology says. I don't care what the cultures say. I don't care what celebrities say. I don't care what politicians say. I don't care what my friends may say. I don't care what the people around us may say. All we care about here is what the Bible says about homosexuality. So that's what we're going to look at. The Bible is our authority, and the Bible tells us to examine everything in light of what the Bible says. So that's what we're going to do tonight, and the place we're going to start, and I want to work my way in this series through the Bible, because the Bible does speak on the issue of homosexuality. The Bible doesn't whisper about it. The Bible's very plain, very clear, but the Bible actually shouts about what is homosexuality and how God feels about it. Not how God feels about it, but what God says about it. So we're going to look at it starting in the very beginning and we're going to look at God's design. I think it's the right place for us to start to see God's design for man and woman. God, the great creator, had a design. He could do it however he wanted to do it, whatever way he wanted to do it. And God designed for there to be a man and for there to be a woman and for man and woman to be together and that's the only way. So we'll go ahead on the outset and we'll say right now, if somebody's watching online or somebody here that doesn't like this, according to the Bible, starting in Genesis 1 and 2, homosexuality is not according to God's design. So let's look at this. I just want to read to you verses 18 through 25 of Genesis chapter 2. And just to get the ball rolling here tonight, we'll start in verse 18. And it says, and you guys, this is very familiar. I love Genesis. Johnny preached through Genesis. It's just a great study. Starting in verse 18. And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all the cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helpmeet for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, and she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And then they were both naked and the man and his wife were not ashamed. So let's pray and we'll look at God's design for man and woman. This is the very beginning, at the outset of creation, that God designed it this way. So let's pray and we'll study this passage. Father, we come to a controversial subject. And God, I've had many people ask me why I'd want to cover this. There's all kinds of sins that we could cover, why this one? And God, I tell them the same thing I would say to you. This is my justification for this. This may be the only sin that our culture is telling us to accept and to applaud. And I believe that makes it the most dangerous sin, because this sin is sending many to hell because our nation is telling them it's OK. So we need to deal with this. We need to deal with it rightly. We need to deal with it humbly. And we need to deal with it lovingly. So God help us to do that tonight. I do this for the edification, for the growth of the people in our church here. And I do this to be able to tell the truth, because I think telling the truth is the most loving thing we can do. And we love people who are caught in sin, and we want to see them saved. So God, I pray that you would use this sermon and the sermons to come to shed light on the truth of your word on this subject. And we ask and pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're asking, what does the Bible say about homosexuality? And the reason that we're doing this is because I believe the church has been silenced on this issue. Everywhere we turn, it's on our TVs. I was talking to somebody earlier this week, and they said, you watch commercials, and it's all over our commercials. Pastors don't talk about it because they're afraid that kids will hear what the truth is, but our kids are hearing it in cartoons. They're hearing it on movies. They're hearing it, again, on commercials. They're hearing it everywhere they go. They're seeing it in school. They're seeing it all around them. Everywhere we look, we're hearing and seeing homosexuality. The only place that's not talking about homosexuality is the church. I mean, I've done a search this week of churches in this area who's talking about this subject and there's not one. I did a survey of the churches in America and how many of them are talking about homosexuality and there's very few. So the culture is shutting us up on this issue and telling us not to talk about it. So they can say whatever they want to say in their way, but we're being silenced and not allowed to say anything. They're doing their false teaching and we're not allowed to do our true teaching. So we have to come to this. We have to talk about this. We have to combat the lies of the devil with the truth of the Word of God. And that's what we're doing here tonight. And I say that because the reason we're doing this is because they're telling us what they want us to hear. We need to hear what God's Word says about it. And not only that, I think it's, it's a very important subject, because it's bigger than just it now I'm telling you this, because I can get up here and I can say homosexuality is a sin one sermon one minute and we move on to songs, right. But I think it's bigger than that question of is homosexuality a sin or not? Does God bless it or does God curse it? I think it goes deeper than that. I think it goes beyond that. I think it goes to a deeper issue of even marriage and family. God designed the marriage. God instituted it. Will God bless homosexual marriage? That's a big question. It goes into the home and into marriage. I think it goes into what is love. You hear, love is love. Just let everybody love. Love, love, love, love, love. And if we say anything negative at all about it, that's hate. We need to know what true love is according to the Bible. So we're going to look at that. I think it goes into the issue of what the Bible says and what the Bible is. Is the Bible our authority on every single issue in life or is it not? Does it speak to just the heavenly things? Or does it speak to even our relationships on earth? So it's a deeper issue. I think it speaks to a salvation issue. If the Bible says the sexually immoral shall not inherit the kingdom of God, then we must deal with this. We must call it what it is. Because if we don't, and we leave it alone, and we let the culture say, it's okay, it's acceptable, we ought to applaud it, and you're attacked if you say anything else, And we're doing great damage to people who are living in that sin. We're damning them to hell if it's a sin. And we don't say anything about it. So I think it's a salvation issue. I think it's a gospel issue. I think it's a tragedy that the church doesn't speak up on this issue. So that's what we're going to do. We must ask this question. And in order to answer this question, we've got to go back to the very beginning, to the foundations of it all, when God set everything in motion. And if you look at it with me in Genesis 1, and I'm going to try to just look at the passage. I love that. I love that we can just look at a passage and what it teaches. that you're going to have to combat, not me in my opinion, if you disagree with me, you're going to have to combat scripture. So we turn to Genesis, and I want you to look at verse 1 of Genesis chapter 1. It says, in the beginning, and if you're here tonight, in the beginning, do you guys know the next word? God. That's the next word. In the beginning, God. So we start with the very beginning, the foundational statement of the Bible is in the beginning, God. We meet God. We meet the creator. We meet the ultimate authority, who we said on Sunday is so much higher than anything any of us could ever imagine. God is high and exalted above everything. Above every power, every authority, every king, every queen, every president, every judge, every governor, every mayor, everybody. God is the one who created it all. The ultimate authority. And then we see the very next word in the beginning, God created. I love this word. This word is God decided what he was going to do. God ordered things. God designed things by his own initiative without consulting anyone. God designed it all. God determined it all. God is the potter and He's taking the clay and forming it into the earth that was. And He's not using His hands. He's using the power of His Word to form everything and to create it all. He's the Master. He's the Ruler. He's over it all. He's the potter. We're just the clay. So we're setting God above us all as the authority over all. Whatever He says goes. I tell my kids that all the time at the house. In my house, it's dad's rules. And what dad says goes. My rules, my house. And this is God's house. And I'm not talking about the church. I'm talking about God who sits over the circles, what Isaiah 40 said. This is all God's. And God can determine to do whatever he wants to do, and he can command in whatever way he wants to command. If God wants to set it one way, God can set it that way, and nobody can argue against him. So he sets things as they are. And God's design here in Genesis 1, and I'll get into our points, because apparently I'm giving out all kinds of ice cream tonight. That was just for my kids, and now it's open to the whole church. If you get the points right, you get an ice cream. And not McDonald's. I'm hearing Dairy Queen. The fancy stuff. But as we get into Genesis 1 and we see God's design, his order, what he's determined, it's not two men together. You've heard the old saying, God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. I know that's cliche to say that, but it's so true. God didn't design it to be a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or a group of two or three men and two or three women, or one man and two women, or one man and three women, or one woman. We could do all kinds of combinations of this. When God ordered creation from the very beginning, he decided, he ordered, he designed, he determined that it would be one man and one woman. And anything outside of that is sin. So that's what we're going to look at tonight. I just want to look at a straightforward reading of this, biblically, historically, and we will see why homosexuality is a rebellion against God's created order, his design for man and woman. We're going to say the quiet part out loud. You say, what do you mean by that? Everybody's supposed to be hush-hush about these things. Well, here tonight, we're going to say it out loud, that homosexuality is a rebellion against God's creative order. So let's look at it. God's design for man and woman. Number one, I'm going to show you the fit of God's design. The fit. And this is so simple. I just want to look through the story. The kids that we have here tonight probably know this story, but it's good to go back over it. Starting in Genesis 1, you see that God created, in verse 26, he said, let us make man in our image, after our own likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing. that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image. You see that God created man. And then you move to chapter 2 and God placed man, verse 8, He put him in a garden east of Eden. And there He put man whom He had formed. God put man in the garden. And what did He put man in the garden to do? I'm not going to read the whole thing to you because I don't want to be here all night. But He put him in the garden and what did He tell him to do? The first thing He did in verse 15, He said the Lord God took man, put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. He gave him a job. He said, here's what you're going to do. Prior to the fall, prior to sin, we all think that work is sinful and it only came because we failed. That's not the truth. Work was before the fall. So Adam had a job before sin came in. The only difference between the work after the fall and the work before the fall is that work after the fall ain't no fun. Work before the fall was a fun thing. Adam liked to do it. He'd go around and he would dress and be the gardener and he was a hard worker and he was laboring. And then God in verse 17 gave him a command. You got that? I think this is funny. We got one command here and 10 commandments in Exodus and God just broadens his commands. But here he only has one. Keep the law. So work hard, keep the law. But he wasn't complete. That wasn't it says in verse 18 that as he's keeping the the garden and as he's not going to that one tree, that's the only command verse 16. Don't don't eat of that tree. And then in verse 18, we see the first thing in the whole Bible that's not good. Everything in chapter one was good. And the Lord God said here it is not good. It's not good for man to be alone. So I'll make a help me for him. And God made I love this this passage. I think it's beautiful. God made woman. He said in verse 21 and the Lord God caused a deep sleep fall upon Adam and he slept first surgery. And he took one of his ribs and closed it up, the flesh thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, he made woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, and she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. It's a beautiful picture. Can you imagine what Adam thought when he first saw Eve walk by? I mean, he'd been seeing giraffes and rhinos and porcupines and all these different things that you can name. And he's been naming them one by one. You shall be called this. And you shall be called a hippopotamus. And you shall be called all these things. And then all of a sudden, God puts him to sleep in a surgery. He wakes up, and there goes the hippopotamus. And there goes the giraffe. And there goes the elephant. And all of a sudden, there comes woman. Adam's like, Oh, there's flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. That's woman because she's come out of me and and God here identifies very, very early on that there's only and I know this is this is very profound. That's the beginning. How many genders are there? Two, okay, you guys are listening, I love that. I think my kids could tell you that. Right here, you have man and you have woman. There are only two sexes, male and there's female. And that's all that God created. There are no other genders. And our world today will tell you there's hundreds upon hundreds of genders. Go back to the foundation and there's only two. And when God made Eve for Adam, she was from him, a rib taken from him, and she was, get this, get this, different from him. I know that's profound. You have two sexes, a man and a woman, and the woman taken from the man was like him but different from him. He saw her walk by and he didn't say, hey, there's another man. He saw her walk by and said, whoa, man. That's somebody different than me. She's like me. She's bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, but she's not like me. She's different than I am. She's like me, but not exactly like me. It says there's differences between a man and a woman. I know that's so profound to say today, but there's only two genders and there's a difference between the two. Yeah, I mean, we need amens on that nowadays. And she was for him. And I'm getting to the main point of this. She would be his helpmate. She would compliment him. Would be his companion. By his side. I'm going to preach this on Sunday night in Ecclesiastes. He said that it's great to have a wife. Enjoy your wife. She's going to be right by your side all the time. And it's going to be you. And it's going to be her. And you should enjoy each other. She was complimenting. She was his companion. Adam couldn't be all Adam needed to be. unless he had Eve. And Eve couldn't be all she needed to be unless she had Adam. So they were made to, and this is where the point comes in, fit together like peanut butter and jelly, like coffee and nothing else. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Like peas and carrots. You know, whatever you say that goes together perfectly. Whatever it is. Two pairs of things. And that's the fit that God made. He made Adam and He made Eve. And He made them to fit like a glove. And I don't want to get too much into the genetics of it all, but she was perfectly fit for Him. Man and woman were made for each other in a perfect fit. Like two puzzle pieces, y'all ever worked a puzzle? I love puzzles. Thousand, five thousand pieces. I don't like putting them together, I like puzzles. Because you sit around and you look for the pieces to go in, and I'll find a piece that just doesn't fit. I'm like, I'll make that thing fit! Some people say, that don't fit. This one fits. And it fits perfectly into that spot. Like a match made in heaven. And when God made Adam and Eve. He made him to fit perfectly together. Says in verse 24, therefore shall man leave his father and his mother. And shall cleave. To his wife. Joined together to his wife. Fit like a puzzle piece together with his wife. And they shall become one flesh that one flesh means they shall be get this. A match made in heaven. They shall be uniquely fitted to one another. They were designed to fit. And I don't necessarily mean Adam and Eve. I think they were a match made in heaven, obviously. God was a matchmaker there, so God put them together. But I think male and female are a match made in heaven, that they're uniquely fit together, unlike any other thing. A man and a man don't fit together like this. A woman and a woman don't fit together like this. Only a man and a woman can fit like God designed them to fit. Only they can be welded together. So this is the first marriage instituted by God. Man and woman and it fits. Again, two men don't fit. I'm not going to get into biology here. Two men don't fit. Two women don't fit. Several don't fit. Only a man and a woman can be united and welded together in a design perfectly made in heaven. This is what Jesus confirmed in Matthew 19. They say Jesus don't talk on this issue. Jesus said what God joins together, let no man separate. What God joins together cannot be separated. And this is exactly what the world's trying to do. Jesus says, don't separate. Man and woman belong together. And society's telling us, no, it can be man and man and woman and woman. No. God's design was a perfect fit, a match made in heaven. So God designed a man and a woman to fit perfectly together. And you can't do it any other way. You can try, but it's like trying to put a puzzle piece in that just don't fit. And that's what society's trying to do. It just don't fit. So that's the fiat of God's design. Let me show you the second, the fruit of God's design. The fruit. I want you to go back to Genesis 1.28 here. Because watch this. This is good. Look at verse 28 of chapter 1. It says, And God blessed them. God blessed the union of man and woman. God does not ever bless the union of man and man or a woman and a woman. God instituted man and woman and God blesses man and woman, that's as straightforward as it gets. And then God commanded them, watch this, he blessed them and then God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply. and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. So here he says, commands them, this is what you're to do. I want you to flourish. I want you to multiply. I want you to replenish the earth. I want you to feel the earth. I want you to have fruit come out of you. So he gave them the purpose of marriage, the aim of marriage. Go and have lots and lots and lots and lots of kids. And I took that command very personal. Me and Steph, fruitful, multiply, lots and lots of arrows in my quiver. We got lots and lots and lots of kids. We were fruitful. It's not the sole purpose of marriage, but it is a purpose of marriage to produce offspring and to have children. So here's where we get really, really complicated. I want you to put your thinking caps on. God told Adam and Eve, I blessed your union. I blessed you two being together. Now I want you to go out and say, I command you, go and replenish the earth. Go and fill the earth with children. Be fruitful and multiply. Exponentially, I want you to multiply. And who knows how many kids Adam and Eve had. So here's where we start thinking, OK? The first time we saw the fit, that only a man and a woman can fit together. And now we're seeing the fruit. So let's say this. I want you to think with me now. It takes two people to have a child. A man can't reproduce all by himself. You can fact check me on that. You can take me to a fact checking website and they will tell you, you can get mad at me if you want to, but one man by himself can't have a child. One woman, science can try all they want, but here we are, many thousands of years later, and we still need more than one to have a child. To be fruitful in the multiply. That's science. We can go to a hospital. And the only time it's ever happened, that it only had one, was Mary. And they looked at her like she was the craziest thing ever. You're lying. You have to have somebody else. Why? Because you've got to have two. The old saying is, it takes two to tango. It takes two to have a kid. You've got to have more than one. I mean, I'm not a scientist, but that seems pretty obvious to me. Second, it takes a man and a woman. Be fruitful and multiply. Is that hard? I don't think it is. You can't be fruitful without having a man. And our society today is just... I want to be loving. It's like our... Not very smart. You got to have a man and you got to have a woman in order to be fruitful and to multiply. You can't do it with a man and a man Or a woman and a woman. You have to have a man and a woman. You can fact check me on that. That's how it works. You say, Josh, you sound like a brilliant scientist here tonight. Get this. Civilizations that have never had a Bible, and have never been taught anything, and they're just living in a jungle with barely any communication at all, and they're not very smart at all, have figured out, man, you can have cavemen can do this. Man, woman produces children. That's the only way it works. That's how God designed it. It doesn't work any other way. It's impossible. If you try it any other way, humanity dies. The only way to be fruitful and multiply is by God's design of a man and a woman. That's the only way you have any fruit in a marriage. The Bible says it, science confirms it, the only way to be fruitful and multiply is one man and one woman. That's God's design. You leave mother and father, you cleave to your wife or your spouse, and you conceive children. You like the way that works? That's what I teach my kids. Leave, conceive, or leave, cleave, and conceive. That's how it works, and there's no other way for it to work. Any other way outside of that is wrong. So it's a beautiful design of God. One woman, one man, in marriage, for life, having kids. That's God's design. That's what the Bible says. That's what history has confirmed for now 19 and a half centuries. I mean, everybody's believed that. And this isn't gonna change because our society thinks it needs to change. I wrote a quote this week and I want to read it to you. God is designed for male and female. It's good and it's for his glory and you need to deal with it because he's not changing it. So what happened? If this is God's design and you get to verse 25 of chapter 2, I hope you guys are still with me, and you get to end of chapter 2, and I've taught this here before. You get to verse 25, and it says they leave his father and mother, they cleave unto his wife, and they become one flesh, and that they're wielded together, and then they were both naked, and man and his wife were not ashamed. And right there in verse 25, everything was good, everything was right, man was with woman, and there was no woman and woman, or man and a man, there was no adultery, there was no, none of that stuff was happening right there in verse 25. So where do we get all that we have today where it's become what I like to call alphabet soup? L, B, G, T, Q, A, B, C, D, E is just all these letters mixed together, thrown at us. How do we get that from God's design? And the answer is, because you see this here in chapter 2, everything's good. And you turn to chapter 4 and you see a murder. And you turn to chapter 6 and there's already some kind of sexual sin going on between giants and women of the earth. And so there's all this craziness that goes on. four, five, and six, and the rest of Genesis, and the rest of history, and here we are today. So if everything was good, okay, let me ask this. Again, we're thinking here. If everything was good in chapter one and two, and everything was bad in chapters four, five, and six, then where's the answer of what happened? Everything good, one and two, everything bad, four, and everything after that. So where's the answer to what happened? Chapter three. And what happened in chapter three? The fall of man. And that's what I'll show you the last point that I have tonight. We've seen the fiat and the fruit. Now I want to show you the failure. The failure was not with God. The failure is with man. Because in chapter three, we see the story of the fall. It was all good. Chapter two, the design was perfect. They were left there. And I'll give you three L's here. I don't know if you guys want them or not. But in verse 25, Adam and Eve was left there to labor. and to follow the law and to love one another. Labor, law, love. Labor, law, love. And then it all came crashing down in verse six. As a serpent come up to Eve, you guys know what happened there. You don't need me to repeat it. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, she went out to do her labor. She went out without Adam, her love, and she broke the law. And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and the tree to be desired to make one wise. She took of the fruit thereof, and she did eat, and gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. Verse eight, God catches them. But right here, sin enters the world, and it takes what God made good, and it makes every bit of it bad. At the fall, everything fell apart. Everything came crashing down, and it began an all-out assault on God's design. God didn't intend for it to be this way. God intended one man, one woman, together, being fruitful and multiplying throughout life. Sin came in and totally destroyed it. That's a failure of God's design. An assault on created order. That's why the world is the way it is, and it happens fast. Watch this. I'm not going to take you through all of it, but you'll see there in Genesis 3.16, the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and conception, and in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. See, it's now a heart thing. Work's a hard thing. You're going to have children, and it's going to be a hard thing. And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Now there's going to be an animosity between the husband and the wife. And the wife's going to try to usurp the authority over her husband. And there's always going to be the husband trying to lead and the wife not wanting to follow. And there's going to be a battle of the sexes. And there's going to be feminism and there's going to be men becoming more feminine and women becoming more masculine and all this mess of what the world has today. Verse 16 talks about that this is just a mess that sin brings. Genesis 6, there was sexual sin before the flood. We're not going to go through it all. Genesis 19, there's Sodom and Gomorrah. We'll teach on that next week. Genesis 34, there was rape. There was prostitution. There was adultery between Abraham and Sarah and Hagar. There was incest between Lot and his daughters. It just keeps on rolling and just keeps getting ugly and it happens fast. And to the point now, I'm going to take you to one more place and I'll close. This is where the fall starts. And boy, it gets the ball rolling fast. Genesis 3, sin. Genesis 4, there's murder. Genesis 6, there's sexual sin. We get to Genesis 19, and there's a homosexuality, and it just keeps on rolling. Again, there's incest, there's prostitution, there's rape. And you just go through the Bible, and those things continue. And our explanation for this is in Romans chapter 1, if you want to turn over there real quick. Now I'm going to preach this too. I think this is probably in two weeks. Because I want to show you not just that God speaks on it in Genesis, He speaks on it throughout the Bible, all the way to Revelation. But Romans chapter 1, I'm just going to read it because I've got a few minutes here. But when you deny God as the authority, as the creator overall, watch the way it goes. Just listen to this. I'm not even going to give any commentary on it. For the wrath of God, verse 18, is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them. The invisible things of him from creation of the world are clearly seen. clearly understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power in Godhead, so that they were without excuse. I'm going to stop and do some commentary. Verse 20 is that it's obvious. These things are clear. God ain't hiding these things. God's not hiding his design. They're just not listening to it. They're rebelling against it. Watch this. Because that when they knew God, they understood it. They knew. And they glorified Him not as God. Neither were they thankful, but they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves, and let's talk about verse 22. Do they not think that they're wise? And there are going to be people, and I don't think there will be, but there could be people watching tonight, or watching this later in the week, they're going to look at me and say, that guy's foolish! He's so Neanderthal! They think I'm foolish because I believe God's design. Thinking themselves wise, they became fools. Watch this. and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into the image made like unto corruptible man, and to birds, and to four-footed beasts, and creeping things. So God gave them up to the uncleanness of the lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. When you reject God as authority, it just keeps on rolling down until it gets bad. Watch how bad it gets. They changed the truth of God into a lie, worshiped and served the creature more than the creator, who's blessed forever, amen. And for this cause, God gave them up to vile affections, for even the woman to change her natural hues into that which is against nature, that which is against God's design, that which is against the natural way of doing things. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burn in their lust one toward another, men with men, working that which is unseemly, and receiving themselves the recompense of their error, that which is meat. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to reprobate minds, to do those things which are not convenient. Being filled with awe and righteousness, and fornication, and wickedness, and covetousness, and maliciousness, and full of envy, and murder, and debate, and deceit. This is just where it goes. Verse 32, who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do they do them, but have pleasure in them that do them. They applaud as everybody does it. Does that not speak to our culture today? Turned into all these things where they vandalize God's design. You say, what do you mean by vandalizing God's design? They come into God's world. Imagine somebody coming into your house while you're gone and taking a can of spray paint and spray painting your house and throwing everything out of order and you walk in and it's chaos and everything's just nasty and there's all kinds of terrible words on your wall and you walk in and you say, this isn't how I designed it. That's not how I painted it. That's not how I did it. Somebody's come in here and completely vandalized my house. That's what they've done to God's design. They've corrupted it, they've polluted it, they've perverted the way God designed things to be. For now we're at a complete upheaval of God's design. It began with a sexual revolution in the 60s and 70s, it became a homosexual revolution in the 80s and 90s, and now we have a gender revolution where we don't even know what to call each other. That's why I call it alphabet soup. So utterly corrupted that we deny what it means to be a man and a woman. I read it this week. We have a complete breakdown of language. We won't even let doctors now say, it's a boy. Now it's whatever you want it to be in 10 years. That's where we are in this effect of the fall. Now they want to end colleges. We can't be he and she anymore. You have to be ze, zur, and zis. Whatever that means. Whatever this means. It's not slowing down. People are embracing it, endorsing it. Applauding it and attacking those who don't agree with him. I fully expect. That after this series that there will be an attack on me and upon this church. Because we don't agree with their narrative. They will attack anyone who stands up for the truth. And every bit of it is a consequence of the fall. It's sin, it's open rebellion against God's design, it's twisted, it's evil, and it's marching down Main Street. Steve Lawson said this, and I'll close. The sin that used to slink down in the back alley is now strutting down Main Street. In fact, that sin is now in public office. And it all goes back to Genesis chapter three in the fall. Complete twisting, perverting of the design that God has for man and woman. You say, what do we do with this? And I'll close with this. The question is, what can we do? For us as a church, and I'm going to give us each week, I'm going to give for us in the church, and I'm going to give for those who disagree with me, what you can do. Or if you're in homosexuality, what you can do. For us in the church, I think we need to take a stand. We don't need to back down from this. We don't need to be silent on this. The Bible isn't silent on it, so we shouldn't be silent on it. So we need to preach it and we need to say it. It may be called hate speech for me to say these things. And I'll get that blowback that, Josh, you're just being hateful, but I think it's the most loving thing that anybody can do to tell people they're in their sin and on their way to hell. It's hate to let them go, to applaud it, to allow it, and to attack those who say it's wrong. You're sending people to hell! That's hate speech. Love speech is me getting up here knowing an attack could come, but saying it anyway. It's a sin and you need to repent and believe in Jesus. That's love. That's the most loving thing anybody can do. Tell the truth. And do it in a loving way. So that's what we need to do. Take a stand and tell the truth. And for those that are unbelievers, The Bible does say, just be clear, it's a sin and it's a sin that will send you to hell. Just like every other sexual sin, homosexuality is a sin that will send you to hell. saying that may get me cancelled, but it's a sin that will send you to hell. But the Bible also says, and this is the good news, that's the bad news, it's a sin. The good news is Jesus saves. The good news is Jesus forgives that sin. The good news is Jesus will change you and your desires in that sin if you believe in Him. Now our message has never been homosexuality is a sin. Our message has always been Jesus will save you out of that sin. We sing about Jesus, we worship Jesus, we pray to Jesus, we preach Jesus, we offer Jesus to anyone and everyone who will believe. And we do that for the homosexuals, we do that for the adulterers, we do that for anyone in sin. They can have Jesus, believe, and be saved. So every single time I preach this, and I'm only going to do four, But there's going to be, here's what we do. We take a stand and we speak up in a loving way. And here's what you need to do. Believe in Jesus because there's hope for homosexuals. I think even the last sermon will be called Hope for the Homosexuals. But the door is open for them if they will believe. So there's number one. Next week we'll look at Sodom and Gomorrah. And it might be a little bit more PG-13. This is the truth. This is what the Bible says about homosexuality. Father, we thank you for your word. This is what we stand upon. This is what we speak. And we can't back down and be silent. When the rest of the culture is being silent. If we don't speak up when everybody else is being silent, what good are we? And God, I expect some blowback from this. I don't expect persecution of any magnitude, but I expect to make some people mad. Because this is such a, it shouldn't be a touchy, hot button issue, but it is. And I pray that you'd give me the courage, that you'd give me steel in my spine to be able to speak these truths in love. And God, I pray for our church that we'd be able to take a stand on these things. Christians will take a stand on these things. And we'll speak up, God. I pray it would be wonderful, and I've prayed that since I prepared started preparing this series. That there would be one person. Maybe not even a homosexual, but maybe believes that it's OK. At their heart will be changed, their mind will be changed because they heard a sermon online. So God bless the preaching of your word. I believe I've rightly divided Genesis one and two. That's all that I want to do. And we ask and we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.