We stand forgiven at the cross. Do I really need to speak? Isn't that amazing? We stand forgiven at the cross. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, it is a wonderful privilege for me to be here with you this evening. I'm just wondering, can we just test that my slides are working and up and ready to go? But it is a wonderful privilege for me to be here this evening and standing here next to Dr. Beeke, he's an incredible list of books. It's great when you're there and he's got lots of books around you, you seem very scholarly. And so that's great. I hope you see that tonight. I always like to give announcements about announcements. These exits, they are emergency exits. They're not, we're sick of the speaker exits. Please don't use them, unless there is an emergency. Look, I am going to give you a little disclaimer. Let me start by giving a disclaimer to mums and dads. I'm speaking on the culture's war on marriage and gender. and there's a lot of kids in the room and it's a PG theme. Now, I'm not going to be explicit. I want you to know that. I'm not going to be very explicit, but I'm going to mention things about homosexuality and the culture and different things like that because that is the culture's war. Same-sex marriage is an issue and is the culture's war on. on marriage. So I'm going to be talking a lot about gender issues, same-sex issues, things like that, as we go through this talk. But I'm going to do it as close to a G-rated PG theme as I can do it. Okay? I hope you're okay with that. And so I'm just... so you understand what we're talking about because I do talk about this with fear and trepidation and I am speaking here tonight as an AIG representative among you as well as an Ancestors in Genesis representative among you and so I am also going to be really honing in on why it is important to get the foundational history right foundations that are in Genesis to get this issue right. It's very, very important. In fact, we're not just talking about marriage, and we're talking about marriage and gender, we're talking about biblical manhood and womanhood and other things. It's very, very important. This fight is much more foundational than just a discussion about marriage. In fact, the underlying issue prominent in our culture is that there is a fight for same-sex marriage, but marriage, at least in the eyes of the culture, at least in the eyes of the culture, is a legal institution. And so if same-sex marriage is legalized, the same-sex lifestyle then to these people is validated. You see why it's important to them. So right from the get-go, I want us to understand that this issue is more foundational than the state's legal institution. In fact, I think it's important that we define marriage in Christian terms, right up front. That marriage really, in the church, in the church of the Lord's saints, is a much higher standard than a set of legal beliefs. We believe that, right? It's a much higher standard in respect of that. It's more than a set of benefits that we have legally. It is a solemn covenant between a Christian man and a Christian woman who publicly and ceremoniously, I believe, leave parents and cleave to each other in a picture of redemptive covenant between Christ and His church. That is marriage. That's how Paul sees marriage in Ephesians 5. And that, folks, is what we in the church must uphold. That wonderful picture of Christ that we get to live every day with our marriage spouse. It's beautiful. We get to live just in marriage by saying to people, just our marriage should say that we are forgiven at the cross. And so that's what we're going to get to. That's where we're going to start, but that's where we're going to get to. But we're going to talk about the culture's war on marriage. And the culture's war on marriage, it should have been there all the time, Christian marriage at least, because you've either got the church and you've got the world, haven't you? I mean, the difference between the church and the world is from the east to the west. isn't it? And so we know that we who are in Christ, if you're in Christ tonight, if you're a genuine believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, that means you believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross and he rose from the dead, right? You believe that, right? And so, in believing that, you believe that you have also died unto this world and come to new life in Christ. And when we died to this world, we died to this world. The world is, we are in the world, I understand, and we are not of the world. We've got to understand, though, even though we're not of the world, we're still in the world. And we're in a world as Christians, understanding that the world is as far away from the church as the East is from the West. That's what we live in. So is there going to be tensions about Christian marriage in this world? Yes, of course there is. Those in Christ have always been against the world. The world has always been against God. That's why we need a Savior. So as we go through this tonight, I want to do something. I want to look at what the world says and what the Bible teaches. And we're going to spend a fair amount of time looking at what the world says. And so I want to talk about what does the world say, because the world, whether we like it or not, is influencing. And that influence is often being brought into even the doors of our churches because we're living in the world. You can't get away from that influence. I understand that. I mean, particularly from an AIG perspective, we're down the street, we look up at billboards every so often that say, you know, you don't believe in God, well, you're not alone. And that's an influence. You can have your children in the back seat of your car, looking out the window, seeing billboards like that, and they might not even say anything to you, but there's an influence on your kids. There's nothing that we can do about having... there's influence, isn't there? And that influence has impacted people. And so, you all come from churches, and I'm going to suggest that if you don't know someone in your church who has been influenced by the world in relation to relationships, gender, sexuality, those sorts of things, it's probably because you just don't know yet that they are. Because they're likely, most probably, there. And in any sizable church particularly. So you have to be equipped, we have to be equipped to deal with these things right from the very beginning. And it's a big issue because this is one of the most prominent messages that the world is giving right now, isn't it? That you have to accept all types of relationships. I've had a young man come to me and say, I'm struggling with same-sex attraction. I don't know if you've had that, but I have had a young man come to me. I've had discussions with a more mature Christian who's in confusion about his temptations. There are answers for this. There is hope for this in the Word of God and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But we need to know how to answer the world's questions. I've had many people come and ask me questions about this at conferences, and questions about their own sons and their daughters. And it might not be in your home, but I'll guarantee it won't take you long to find a connection somewhere of somebody who has been influenced by the cultural propaganda that we are living in today about sexuality and marriage. And you only have to look around us to see, you know, a rainbow no longer really means, at least not to the world, God is never going to flood the world again with a global catastrophic flood. And we see all around us, our children are barraged with messages from the community that is becoming increasingly gender neutral and it's not just friendly towards homosexuality, there seems to be, doesn't there, an aggressive marketing campaign in respect to these things. happening, the anti-discrimination laws, the so-called tolerance that's spoken about in the society, sexual educations in schools, redefining the family. We've had kids that have gone to schools where teachers in elementary school have read them books about having a mummy and a mummy and a daddy and a daddy. That's happened here in America. And so we do need to look around us. We need to understand the culture that we're living in because this is the culture that we are told to go out into and make disciples. of all people. It's important to know who we're going to, isn't it? It's important to know who we want to talk to. In fact, I don't know, you've heard of the letters LGBT, but they keep on increasing. It's not just anymore. It is now LGBTQA, lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, queer, and allies. And you can see these stickers now on cars that are saying, I'm an ally, A for ally. And we're seeing these letters increasing. These are people who are friends, who agree, who want to be the tolerant ones. And tolerant doesn't mean tolerating somebody even though you disagree with them. It means you have to accept their view in the society in which we live in. That's not tolerance. And so I say all this to say we do have to understand the world that we live in, but here's what I also want us to understand is these things just don't come out of thin air. They don't come out of a vacuum. They are built on a worldview. And we need to understand what that worldview is. And I want to put a case to you tonight. And the case I want to put to you is that the issues that are in Genesis, are really foundational issues to these cultural issues on marriage and sexuality that we're facing today. Because they're based on a naturalistic, evolutionary worldview. And I want to show that as we go through, because I think if we get that, we can start having conversations with people at the most foundational level about this issue as we reach out to them. There's one other thing I meant to say before I got going that I want to say. And that is that we have seen the church deal very poorly at times with this issue, haven't we? In fact, we've seen some churches embrace same-sex marriage. PCUSA did it not long ago, and other denominations are doing it. But you know, as much as that is wrong, wrong, wrong, as much as that is wrong, what else is wrong is the bigoted hateful response. And we've got to understand that there are two sides to this, and looking at the balance that we have in Scripture, where Paul actually talks to the Corinthians, and he's got a long list of all of these things that were all of the sins that were perpetrated in Corinth, and one of them was homosexuality, and he says, look at you, you're now redeemed, you're now saved. Such were some of us. Such were some of us. God saves the undeserving, doesn't He? That's good. Actually, if you're here and you're saved, you were the undeserving. because that's who God saves. Let's keep that perspective as we go through this. Well, there is a difference in the worldviews, and we've got to see that those worldviews are so far apart as the East is from the West. You know, the worldview that we get in Scripture is God created everything in six days, rested on the seventh, called it very good. A holy pure God, by the way, calling it very good. And he created marriage. We'll talk more about that in a second. But that's the foundational aspect. The origins are a major issue in this cultural war. And let's talk about what those origins are. Because the naturalistic evolutionary world view, the world view, is really in a nutshell this. That in the beginning, nothing became something and went bang. And somehow, 13 billion years ago, stars formed. And 4.6 billion years ago, the sun formed. And then after that, the Earth was a hot molten blob. And somehow, about 3.8 billion years ago, water formed on the hot molten blob. And then somehow, after that happened, from a single organism, which was not really so simple at all when you understand a single-celled organism, Things just started to develop. In fact, information from this organism developed into new information, becoming a new type of kind of creature. And then over millions of years of death, suffering and time, you see one creature develop information and functionality, become a whole other type of creature, eventually up to ape-like creatures and then human beings. And the history... on a history of murder, killing, death, pain, violence, bloodshed, suffering, all of those sorts of things that people say are in the fossil record. I'm reading the fossil record with man's eyes rather than God's eyes. You see, I say this to say that if we are just evolved creatures on the top of the tree at the moment, but if we are just evolved creatures, then you are nothing but rearranged molecules. And if you're rearranged molecules that determine everything about who you are, it's just your physical, biological impulses that are there saying what you should be. You've got a physiological, biological explanation for everything that you are. You can't really control it. It's just who you are, so be whoever you want to be. When you start thinking about that, why is same-sex marriage the end of it? It can't be. Why isn't it just more than that? Why isn't it whatever we want to be? We're actually seeing that. We're actually seeing people come in. I don't know if you saw this article, but not long ago, there's an article about polyamory. And it says why three isn't a crowd. The Greek words poly, much, or many, and amory, love, many, love. So why not three? Why not four? Why not anything that you want? These are just your biological impulses. And so I want to show you why I believe upholding Genesis is actually one of the big keys in dealing with sexual confusion and those issues that are in our culture today that is influencing and sometimes walking into our churches and parents' families. In doing that, let me give you an example. I don't want to give you a few examples here, but let me just give you one example. I don't know if any of you remember when Texas changed anti-sodomy laws. And so it changed the laws to allow legitimacy in a homosexual lifestyle. And there was a lady by the name of Donita Smith, and she wrote an article about the changing of those laws in Texas. And I want to show how using this argument, it was successful in repealing the anti-sodomy laws through evolutionary viewpoints. So she's writing for the New York Times discussing what happened in this law case in Texas. And she says this, this growing body of science has been increasingly drawn into charged debates about homosexuality in American society on subjects from gay marriage to sodomy laws, despite reluctance from experts in the field to extrapolate from animals to humans. And I don't believe there was much reluctance, okay? If you do any sort of reading in this area, you won't see a lot of reluctance about extrapolating from animals to humans at all. But even though it says that, it says gay groups argue that if homosexual behaviour occurs in animals, it is natural and therefore the rights of homosexuals should be protected. Now, take note of that word natural. We're going to come back to that word. It's very, very important that you see that. So you can see, okay, we see this in the animal world and I don't believe they're really seeing that in the animal world. It's misinterpreted. Animal aggression and those sorts of things don't mean homosexual lifestyle. And so they're saying, you know, we see this in the animal world, if it's in the animal world and we're just evolved animals, then it's normal for us, it's natural for us as well. On the other hand, some conservative religious groups have condemned the same practices in calling them animalistic. But if homosexuality occurs among animals, does that necessarily mean that it is natural for humans too? And that raises a familiar question. If homosexuality is not a choice, but a result of natural forces that cannot be controlled, can it be immoral? Look at where it goes to, okay? From the world view to what is natural and what is normal, and if it's natural and normal, it's moral. It's that stepping stones, and you can see those stepping stones read in this area any time. In fact, in this law case in Texas, a major work was used as one of the arguments by Bruce Bugameel, and his book called Biological Exuberance, Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity was quoted in the court case, and it was a pivotal part of the court case that actually helped to bring about that decision, that repealed those laws. And I want to see, you know, I've got another example that I want us to have a look at. Our starting points, but the first thing I want to say to us is this. Our starting points, and that's talking about starting points, that's talking about your view of origins and humanity and how we came here. These things matter, don't they? If that's what's happening to overturn laws, these things matter. And so origins matters. I would say that your origins determine your ethics. Let me say that again. Your origins determine your ethics. What you understand is determinative of your ethics. Here is a book that is an amazing book written by not a Christian lady. And she was writing this book about the triumphant gay revolution. And what it is, it's a history. And she's done it actually very well. I think she's as a non-Christian. as a non-Christian person looking at the homosexual and gay lobby groups as to what they have won over history in getting what they call equality. She looks at the history of that happening and I think she's seen a lot of things very well. But she starts by saying this, and look what she says, the Christian church had been humming along for centuries on the assumption that God created the world for his own purposes, including the limited range for limited legitimate sexual desire. What she is saying here is what I've just been saying. Hey, if you understand that... that there is a God who is in charge, that he is the authority, then he's gonna set the rules about everything. And this is what the church would stand on. If only we would stand on this more strongly today, right? All of us here in this room, I hope that we're doing that, but we have seen in general, making a great generality, the church not doing this very well in our lifetime. She also says this about, she actually, sorry, compares it to those who hold to the Darwinian evolutionary worldview. And in that worldview, she says this, there is no God and no man for whose benefit the natural world is ordered. Things mutate and the fittest survive. Even something like non-reproductive sex, which seems crudely not to be a great survival mechanism, obviously has some connection to survival or is harmless because organisms with an orientation toward that, in fact, survive. In the Darwinian world, anything that exists, bad or good, is by definition, look at that word again, what is it? Natural. Natural. Normal. Natural. Normal. Normal to moral. Moral to legal. Legal to rights. You don't think it's a right? You don't think they're talking about it as rights? I want to show you something that was put out by the United Nations Human Rights Office. And in this, it's a video called The Riddle that they put out. It had great, very wide distribution. Have a look at what is being said here, but look for the word normal. It's going to be said in the negative sense. You'll see what I mean when I show you. What gets children kicked out of homes, students bullied and expelled from schools, and workers fired for jobs without warning? What has existed in every country throughout history that some people still consider abnormal? The answer? Abnormal. If you see it as abnormal, then you are the ones that are the problem in the society. You are the ones that are causing the trouble. And we really need to do something about that is what this video is saying. This is, they're saying, a right. A right. world view, natural, normal, legal, right. See the progression? And it's there. It's there now. It's there right now. This is the world that we're going in. This is the world we're living in. This is what we're going out to with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We've got to understand how the world starts with the origins that are in Genesis. In fact, what does God say? He says, for this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women exchange natural, natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. If we want to understand what natural is, the Bible tells us what natural is, folks, and natural is how God ordained things. We know that this is referencing Genesis because Paul references you know those who turned away from the Creator and worship things that were made by hands and he's talking about he's talking about this reference God created things in the is the natural order of things and we've gone against the natural order of things when we go against God's order in the way that he created it and so if we want to understand what natural is we've got to understand it from the perspective of how everything was created this is a worldview issue This is a worldview issue. And you know, is that the way Jesus explained it? Yes, it is. It actually is. Some people say, Jesus never ever talked about homosexuality. Well, he did in two points, okay? And it's very prominent. Here's the first one. When Jesus was asked by the Jews about marriage and divorce, in the context of talking about divorce, and in that context, talking about marriage and divorce, Jesus was asked about that, and how did he answer the Pharisees when they were asking these questions? and Mark 10. He said to them, have you not read? Oh, by the way, let me just stop. You not read. I'm not giving you any new revelation is what he's saying. You've already got everything that you need. It's in your scriptures. Perhaps you should unroll those scrolls and have a read. Okay. But have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made the female and said, for this reason, a man shall leave his father joined to his wife and the two one flesh. Hey, Jesus was quoting a book of the Bible there. Which book? Anyone? Genesis, right? Genesis 1, 26 to 28, and Genesis 2, 24, that He created in His image, male and female, and they should leave and cleave and come together for life. That's marriage. Actually, what is Jesus saying? If you wanna understand the context of true marriage, you've gotta go to the author of marriage. Now, I know we live in a postmodern society. Well, it's not necessarily called postmodern today, but it's still influenced by postmodernistic thinking, where it's the reader that determines truth, not the author. You read into whatever you want to read into, and it's you that determines truth, and what's right for you is right for you. That's postmodernism in a nutshell. But Jesus is saying that's not how it works. If you want to understand the truth of something, you go to the author of that truth. Who is the author? God who created it. The one who is the author of marriage, that's God, and you read about that in Genesis 1 and 2. Did Jesus talk about marriage? Did Jesus talk about sexuality? Yes, here it is. But yes, Jesus talked about sexuality, because I would suggest to you that Genesis, Genesis, that book that starts with, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, is the words of Jesus, because He is God. Isn't every word in the Bible the words of Jesus? Because his words aren't just the red ones, right? They're the black ones too, yeah? Yeah? So we should understand that this is Jesus' word as well. And I want to suggest to you that Genesis, just like Jesus is saying, is the foundational history that gives us understanding for the doctrine of marriage and sexuality, biblical manhood and womanhood, gender, all of those things. That's where we've got to start. That's where we've got to go to. If you're going to have conversations with people, I would start talking about worldview. Where do you think it all started? Let's start there. You see, I actually believe that Genesis is the foundational history that gives us understanding, coherency for any Christian doctrine that's found the rest of the Bible. And if any of you have ever heard my brother speak, you've heard him do this a million times. How many of you have heard my brother speak, by the way? Yeah, just about all of you. Right, good. I hope that you understand that you're getting the younger, better-looking version this evening. Please don't tell him I said that. Actually, Linda Hirschman, who wrote that book, Victory, really sees it very well as to how it changed, how this issue changed in American society. She says, public schools are in fact the place where the values of the liberal secular state and values of the parochial hierarchical family may come into direct conflict. You think? has been true at least the monkey trial. So she's talking about the Scopes trial, isn't it? What's the Scopes trial about? The Scopes trial is about where there was really a great push to get the freedom of evolution, it was already being taught by the way, but the freedom, the freedom of evolution and the aggression against the Christian doctrine of creation taught in the public system. And so, she says, this is at least true since the Royal Controversy over the teaching of science of evolution. And I don't even call it a science, by the way. For science, you need a provable, falsifiable hypothesis to develop a theory. I don't even call it a theory, all right? And so, It's a religion. But anyway, she says, the controversy over the teaching of the science of evolution in 1925. Like it or not, learning about evolution in public school, children learn a lesson about the reliability of the Bible. They do, don't they? This is not a Christian lady. Don't you think she sees it very, very well? Better than a lot of other people do, even among some of our churches and even among some of our pastors. You mess with this area, you're going to mess with everything else that comes with it. So she says, the next thing parents knew, the schools were teaching the kids about sex, including how to have it without its natural justification of reproduction in Massachusetts. And that's where they started with that book, in elementary school and elsewhere. As part of the diversity curriculum in some public schools, books showing same-sex families were included in public school materials. So Linda Hirschman is saying, hey, this is a worldview issue. Now she might not want to necessarily come out and say that's all it is, but I'm saying the foundation of this is a worldview issue. And we need to be able to defend our worldview. We need to be able to defend scripture because at the very heart of this issue, at the very foundation of this issue, the origins issue, this is being attacked by the world and we see it. And it's not necessarily Not necessarily, I know people are attacking Christian morality and Christian sexuality and Christian marriage and they're doing that, but you know what? I see underlying this a massive attack and you see it too. Every time you turn on Discovery Channel or Animal Planet, every time kids step in to a school system program, it's everywhere on television sets. The moment you turn on your television sets, folks, you lose control of the worldview. I'm not saying don't have television sets, I'm just saying recognize that so you can do something about it. But, you know, the world is attacking the authority of the Scripture and the foundational issues that give us the ability to answer these questions, and they're attacking Genesis. What about evolution? What about age-dating methods? Ape men, millions of years, archaeology disproves the Bible, Bible's history, not true. What about dinosaurs? All of these other things, radiocarbon dating, radiometric dating, all of these issues. What do they say? You can't trust this book. In fact, you can't trust the origins that are in this book. Your worldview is up the creek, and you're going to need to adopt our view. And if you adopt our worldview, by the way, here's everything else that See, if you do adopt that worldview, if you do adopt that worldview, and everything else that comes with it, you do that progression, don't you? What the worldview is, natural, normal, legal, rights, and you start speaking in absolutes. How many of you have heard people say, evolution is a fact? I have. All the time, I get to hear it all the time. Probably more than you get to hear it. I get to hear it all the time. It's a broken record. And it's not true. But people are speaking in absolute terms. If they think something is natural and normal and should be legal and should be a right, you hear absolute statements. Do you want me to give you an example of an absolute statement in this issue? Here it is. Isn't that an absolute statement? It's pretty absolute to me to say, well, this is who I am because I am born this way. That's it. It's all over. Case closed. We've got to be able to answer these things, you see? This is not just a suggestion or an opinion. This morality is based in a worldview and it has become an absolute statement. And it's very important to note that this absolute statement is directly connected to that foundational history and origins. Well, let me, I think once I put that on the screen, we have to deal with a couple of things. Is it absolute? Is that the case? Because these are the things that are fueling the fight in relation to marriage from the world? Well, let me talk to you just one or two of the tests, and I'll just focus really on one. There's many there, but I don't know if any of you have read any materials in this area, but probably the most well-known test in this area to try and prove that people are actually born with a predisposition for homosexuality and other sexual issues is the Simon LeVay, Dr. Simon LeVay study on the size of the hypothalamus in the brain on cadavers. Now, okay, let me show you. This is where the hypothalamus is, just showing you this little part, this little blue part there, that is called the hypothalamus. It's actually the INAH3, the anterior hypothalamus, it is called. And... And what they were finding is in the anterior hypothalamus, what they wanted to prove among three different test subjects. Now, it's not just three individuals, but three categories. One, people who identified them, males, sorry, who identified themselves when they were living as being in a homosexual lifestyle. Women and men, okay, who identified themselves as being heterosexual. Now, I don't know how you could actually prove that to start with, because he had to use Godavas, because not too many people are willing to let him go in and measure their hypothalamus while he's alive, right? So, apart from that, the results of the test, I gotta say, were at best inconclusive, and we see this with a number of these types of tests. For instance, there were a good number of the people who identified themselves as homosexuals as having larger hypothalamus than heterosexual men, and that was vice versa. Okay, so he was saying they should have had smaller. So it wasn't conclusive. And so, Simon LeVay, actually, by the way, was self-proclaimed as wanting to do this to be able to validate his own lifestyle. He's self-proclaimed that. He's been very, very open about that. But it's inconclusive at best. But I want you to read the thinking. What is, why did he want to do this? Why did he want this explanation? Because he was out for a biological, physiological explanation. That's all he's interested in. Nothing else, a biological, physiological explanation. He'd get the worldview that says there only must be a biological, physiological explanation for anything. The observation, this is him, a quote of his, the observation of homosexual behavior among non-human animals suggests that the capacity for such behavior could have evolved over a variety of different reasons. Of course, these reasons could be relevant to humans too. I just really want us to see the worldview issue here. because it's really important that we see where the foundational aspect of this fight is at. In fact, he says this, and he only is interested in those biological factors. His biological factors give us sexual orientation in the sense of a disposition or capacity to experience attraction to one sex or another to both. So he's saying biological only explanation for these things, nothing else. And it's amazing, when I read this, read it again, looked at it, did other factors influence what we do with those feelings? Oh, so even if it is a biological, physiological explanation, he's saying somebody still has to make a moral choice. I don't think he'd want to say it that way, but isn't that what he's saying? Still have to make a moral choice. Dr. LaVey, I think you're right, a moral choice has to be made. I mean, we could talk about other types of studies, like the Pillard-Bailey twins study, where they tried to say that if you've got a set of twins, and they did a study on all of these twins, and they said that if they're twins, particularly identical twins, then they should, if one is going to, if it's a biological, physiological issue, then if one is going to, grow and take on homosexual lifestyle, then the other one should be too. But you know what? Both identified that way. 42%. That seems rather big to me. And what that study didn't do, didn't do, is separate them out of their same homes and put them in different social situations. No, they were kids who grew up all in the same home. If you're gonna do that type of study, wouldn't you wanna test it and make sure that environment has nothing to do with it? But that wasn't done. I'm just showing you a couple of these things to help us understand that the world is looking for a biological explanation, physiological explanation. They're not interested in talking about a moral explanation except for the fact that after they say that it's natural, then it's gotta be deemed as moral. And here's my question. Here's my question. At the moment, all of these tests that have come out, we can say inconclusive. We really can. They're all, at best, at best, inconclusive. But folks, here's my question to you. What would we do if someone used testable, repeatable, observational science and were able to prove that there is something, there is some type of mutation or whatever happened in humanity by which people were born with a predisposition to certain aspects of sexuality. What if? What would we do about it? Because here's what I'm going to do. It's not going to worry me in the least if that happens. Do you know why? because we are all predisposed to sin, aren't we? I was conceived that way. We all have a predisposition to sin. That's every single one of us. And so if that's the case, does predisposition make something right? No. We all have to answer toward God. We all live in a sin-corrupted world. That's where my worldview comes in. I understand that man rebelled against God, and ever since Genesis 3, we have all been born with a predisposition towards sin. It doesn't make it right, does it? If you want to know more about some of those studies, we have a book. I know that our bookstore isn't open tonight, but through the time that you're here, you'll be able to see the museum and go into some of our bookstores, and there's this little booklet that we've got in our bookstore, Help My Tina's Gay is called, but it actually talks about some of these studies in there. It's worth the read, and it actually has some wonderful biblical counseling advice as well. But you know, here's one of the things that we should really really consider. You see, when somebody says, when somebody says this is natural, this is normal and this is moral, I want to have, I actually want to have some compassion. And I hope you will be compassionate dealing with this subject as well, but I actually want to have some compassion. Because these people will be standing in front of us saying they have sincere desires, sincere affections for another human being, won't they? And they'll say, what's immoral about that? I've got a sincere affection for another human being. And we've got to understand that they're sincere. They are sincere. I believe they are sincere in their affection for another human being. I believe that. I'm not going to doubt that at all. But can somebody be sincerely wrong? Yeah, we can, can't we? But it is sincere. And here's what I'm going to say. If you are going to say to somebody that that sincerity is actually immoral in the eyes of God, that it's a sin, okay, you better have it on good authority. You better have it on very good authority. you better be able to back up that this Bible is really true. I think this is where apologetics and things like that come into play. I think this is where our ministry is really at the forefront of really helping the church on this issue. So, because somebody's going to say, hey, and this is also what the world says. My standards are better than God's. I have great affection for people. For this person, I have great, sincere affection for people. But your God, and then they start matching their God, themselves, to the morality of God, don't they? And they start making accusations about God, the God of the Bible. And your God commits human genocide. That's why I'm saying we better have it on very, very good authority. And so we need to deal with those questions. At least I have affection and love, my feelings are, others are very strong. Wrong, yeah, but your God is immoral, I'm least moral. Well. How do we answer that question? How do we answer the question about your God is a perpetrator of human genocide? Because you can't get away from these scriptures, can you? You can't get away from these scriptures. We can never walk away from every scripture. This is the word of God, and we believe that this is real history. In the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction. The Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites as the Lord your God has commanded so we're going to be able to answer that what is your moral ground in relation to answering that and and actually you know what we could turn that around because some people say hey I don't need to answer that question believe in God and therefore what is your moral ground for even asking that Where do you get morality from? Why do you even care? You make up your own morality. What's that about? And I think that is part of an answer. I do. But I don't think it's the only one because God's holiness is at stake here. God's reputation, God's character is at stake here and I think we need to be able to answer this. these people were moving into a land that is God's land that he made for them that they may not teach you this not to teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods and so you sin against the Lord your God God is a holy God he is not going to allow his people to grow in an environment of consistent unholiness yes but how do you prove that God is a holy God you see Here's the thing, if God is not perfectly, absolutely holy, I hope you're gonna agree with me here, I hope you see what I'm saying. If God isn't absolutely, perfectly holy, then the death of those nations is an atrocity. It is. But the Bible says that God is absolutely holy and he expected absolute holiness of his people. And here is where I want to give you, as much as I can, a little bit of a warning about this subject. Because, again, this is an origin story. Because people in the church, there's so many people in the church today, so many of our scholars in seminaries and pastors have said, oh yeah, it's okay to introduce millions of years into Genesis, even if they don't want to take evolution, it's okay, don't worry about those things. But the moment you start introducing millions of years into Genesis, stay with me here because I'm going to answer the question about holiness. The moment you introduce millions of years into Genesis, and most people want to introduce millions of years into Genesis because they're saying we believe that those rock dating methods are right and those rocks are very, very old, and the only place that you can put millions of years is into Genesis 1 because it doesn't fit into any of the genealogies. So it's got to be into the first chapter of Genesis. So if I'm going to put those rock layers into the first chapter of Genesis saying that they're millions and millions of years between each layer, I've got to put what is in those rock layers in there. And what is in those rock layers is a fossil record of death, carnivorous activity, thorns and thistles, disease, bloodshed, all of those things, isn't there? Now it doesn't matter what type of creation Old Earth creation view somebody has. They've all got one thing in common. Doesn't matter whether you call it gap theory, framework hypothesis, progressive creation, any of those. It doesn't matter. They've all got one thing in common. They all allow for millions of years before the existence of modern man, Adam and Eve, and before God said very good. They all allow for millions of years of death, suffering, disease, bloodshed, carnivorous activity, thorns and thistles. Thorns and thistles is the consequences of sin in Genesis 3. How could it be there in Genesis 1? So all of those things before the existence of man, which means any of those views have to say that when God said very good, he meant that. How does that defend the holiness, the absolute purity and holiness of God? Because unless God is holy, that is an atrocity. But praise God, God is holy. And he created a perfect creation. It's man's actions of sin that brought death and suffering and destruction into the world. And we have to understand then, oh yes, when we understand the world because of the corruption of man, because of the nature against God and our ongoing rebellious nature. We all, we have all caused this. Humanity has caused this. This problem is our problem. We're the unholy ones. We all deserve what those nations got, every single one of us, and we all do get it. You know the leading cause of death in the world, right? Birth. Yeah? Ever since Genesis 3. We all deserve it. Actually, look at what else we read in the Bible. In Joshua, we see this. Do you know at one stage, Abraham was brought into faith in the one true God and he had to abandon the polytheism of the other nations? He was an undeserving man who received grace, but God saves the undeserving. That's all of us. Do you understand that this is a worldview issue? Do you understand that this is a foundational Genesis issue? If we're going to deal with this in our society, this is where we've got to go to. What does the Bible teach? Well, I've already talked about this, but the Bible teaches that Genesis actually is the foundational history. We see it in the Bible. That gives us understanding for sexuality, marriage, gender, all of those things, biblical manhood and womanhood. I love the fact that when you walk through this Creation Museum this weekend, you're going to be able to walk through the seven C's of history, creation, corruption, catastrophe, Christ, cross, and consummation. You've got to be able to say it like that at the end of this talk, and there's going to be a test. What are we saying here? There is a physical world that we live in, and the Bible gives us an account for that physical world, and we get that history in Genesis 1-11, which is those first four seas. There is a Creator. We rebelled against Him. Corruption came into the world. We see the evidence of that corruption all around. God is the judge over us, and He has already shown His faithfulness in judging by a global catastrophic flood, catastrophe, and through the confusion of languages at Babel, that spread people into their own language groups, isolated gene pool, and shows us what happened in the different groups that we see all around the world today. What we see in the world today corroborates with the history that is in the Word of God. You know what? We get to actually answer questions and show people that this really is a true history because it actually fits with everything that we see in the world. And as a result of that, we understand that His Bible is true. His Bible is true without you having to prove it. It's true. is true and we can show that it is reliable and confirmable and credible and in doing that we can point people to the fact that there is he is the creator that he is the authority that we're under his authority and that we need to live by his rules but we all haven't and that's why Christ came into the world And He died on the cross to take our punishment for sins. And He rose from the dead in victory over sin and death. And one day He's going to return to judge the living and the dead and bring about a new heavens and a new earth. Wonderful. Wonderful history that we have in the Word of God, isn't it? And it's a different, it's a much more positive, much more fantastic situation. Everything else that people live for in this world is for temporary benefit, for an eternal damnation. Isn't that horrible? And so we do need to be able to defend against these questions. We need to be able to show that we have a source of authority that can actually deal with these questions and show people that God's word is true, that he does set the rules and that we need to live according to his standard and that in our failure he has even given us a way of salvation. It comes down to our source of authority. And you can look through this issue everywhere in relation to same-sex marriage and those who are who are pushing for same-sex marriage, even in the church, and you can see that they have a different source of authority. I don't know if you've seen books like Matthew Vine's book, God and the Gay Christian, or Justin Lee's book, Torn. Justin Lee is actually the head of the Gay Christian Network in America. I read Torn. I read both of the books, but as I was reading Torn, All the time I was going through and I was saying to myself, what's his source of authority for saying what he's saying? Where is his authority? Because I don't see what he's saying in scripture. I don't see this. What's his source of authority? Where is it? And then there was this glaring, big, huge statement. Well, actually, it wasn't very big. It's only just like this big. It's really small. But to me, it just exploded off the page. Let me give it to you. He says this. Growing up, I firmly believed that gay people chose to be gay. That's what he believed. That's what he was taught. But I learned by what? See His authority? Do you see His source of authority? Experience. Not the Word of God. Not the authoritative Word of God. I learned by experience that this isn't the case. We need to be able to show that God's Word is the authoritative base for everything from the first verse of Genesis right through to the end of Revelation. That's what we've got to do. What does the Bible teach? It teaches that Genesis is actually foundational for understanding. We've got that. I don't know how many times we've hammered that already. So if God's Word is the authority, and it is, then we need to ask ourselves, does God's Word actually say that homosexuality is wrong, that it's a sin? Well, I'm just going to put these passages up. Just write those passages down, Leviticus 18 to 20, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1. I'm not going to go through and deal with all of those passages. I don't have time. But I want to tell you, just go and do a general reading of those chapters. Please read the whole chapters. And the reason I say read the whole chapters is so that you can see that homosexuality is not the only sin mentioned, and not the only one mentioned as an abomination. Okay? And so please read the whole chapters and understand that it's very, very clear that God has a general prohibition on not just sexuality, but everything that is outside the one man for one woman, one flesh relationship. Outside that. And so, as we start in Genesis, I wanna quickly show that we start in Genesis and we consistently see this all the way through. We see it in the law, we see it in the gospel, we see it in the epistles, it's all the way through. People are asking questions about whether this is a sin, by the way, that little book again, it's great for that, but let me tell you, we wrote this book, we have answers books, probably many of you have our answer, how many of you have got at least one of our answers books? Yeah, a lot of you, okay? We've got four of them now. Please make sure you have all four. But we wrote a set for teens, and actually we've got a set for little kids as well. But when we wrote Anne's book for teens volume one, in there was a section on, was a chapter on homosexuality. Do you know how? all over the place. In fact, whenever we see people getting it and we see teenagers getting it, what's the first chapter? This is a big issue in our time. We have to deal with it. Well, what does God say about this issue? God actually created the platform for understanding biblical sexuality, including things like biblical manhood and womanhood, gender, marriage, all of those things. God has created the platform for us to understand this, and it starts in Genesis. In fact, if you read Genesis, if you just read the first two chapters of Genesis, just the first two chapters of Genesis, this is what you get, that there is an equality in humanity. Yes, there is, that we are created in marriage, aren't we? and woman is created in the image of God. So God created man in his own image in the image of God. He created the male and female. He created them. See, we are created in the image of God. Both mankind is created in the image of God. That word there for man, Adam, is in that context mankind. Mankind is created in the image of God. Both male and female created in the image of God. What is distinct about us? Why I believe is the word Adah, mankind, being used there in that situation where it says God created man, mankind in his own image. Because it's not saying that God created man as opposed to woman in his own image. He's saying God created mankind as opposed to every other creature that he's created in his own image. See, only mankind is created in the image of God, and then there is a distinction between mankind. There is male and female, they're subcategories. So in Genesis you see that there is an equality in humanity, in Genesis both being created in the image of God, but there is a distinction in gender, both anatomically and in relation to roles, which we should talk about. And then you see in respective Genesis 2, you get all of these aspects of seeing that Adam was to be the leader and the provider and the protector. You see that just oozing out of the Genesis 2 text, that he was given charge of the garden. He was to make sure that what happened with Satan happened. He was to be the protector and the provider and the leader. The womanhood is, we see Eve, actually God said, I need to make you a helper. and Eve is to be the helper. How are they going to fill and multiply across the earth if there isn't such a wonderful thing as motherhood? And we understand the aspect of marriage being the one flesh picture of Christ in Genesis 2.24. Hang on, it doesn't mention Jesus there. Well, Paul says in Genesis 2.24, this is the mystery, Christ and His church. You see, there is distinction, but equality in value. And so, sometimes I hear ladies saying, well, if I can't do the same role as a man, like be a pastor or be an elder, as a man, I'm not seen as valuable as him. But that's a subjective valuation system. That's like saying, if... Or people groups, if you're from one particular people group, you see yourself more valued than people groups? No, they're all subjective valuation systems. There's only one objective truth, propositional objective truth about human value that any of us can relate to. That's Genesis 1, 26 to 28, that we're created in the image of God. You read Genesis 2 and you just see all of this stuff. You know, Adam was formed from the dust of the ground. Adam's formed first. Well, so what? Well, Paul doesn't think it's a so what. Paul uses this as the reason as why it's men to be elders in the church and teaching elders are not women, right? It's a significant issue for the scriptures. Adam is tasked to work and keep the garden, commanded not to eat the forbidden fruit. God sees it is not good for him to be alone. He's not complete without Eve. God determines to make him a helper. Adam names the animals. He's showing that he has an authoritative role. And God takes Adam's side to make woman. Now, does that mean does Adam see her as less valuable? Not at all. This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh and she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Right there is cherishing and loving and caring. for the one that God has created. And the Bible never ever presents women in a demeaning, lesser way. Look at the Proverbs 38, 31 woman. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant. She brings her food from afar. You know what we have incredible. Thank God for godly resourceful wives, man. Yeah. You see, what I get from men have a role and women have a role, but they are complementary. And that complementarity is both anatomically and in our roles. It's beautiful. You mess with that, a man and man doesn't go together. A woman and woman doesn't go together. Right? But this complementarity is beautiful. God has created such an amazing thing for us. When you are walking through the Garden of Eden, walk, men, with your wives this weekend, and you go past the little sign about marriage, and you see Adam and Eve sitting there in the garden, would you say something beautiful to her that you've never said to her ever before in your life? Get the courage and do it. Because she's wonderful. I thank God for my wife most of the time. And even when it's not one of the most of the times, I still thank God for her. Every now and again, she'll come to me and she'll say something like, Stephen, what you just said to the kids, that was just pretty horrible. And I have to say, yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. And so I thank God for her, for that, right? Beautiful, wonderful. there is a distinction and the Bible makes that distinction and it does from Genesis and so I want to show us God says something in Genesis and he has ordained something in Genesis as to what is natural and normal we should see this natural normal thing all the way through scripture there is a gender distinction and we should understand that there is a gender distinction I'm not going to get into the intricacies of this verse but it doesn't surprise me to see in Deuteronomy as part of the law that We're saying that men should be men and women should be women, right? A woman is not to wear male clothing and a man is not to put a woman's garment. For everyone who does these things is detestable to the eyes of the Lord. This is just a confirmation of what God has already set forth in Genesis. It's just a confirmation. Now, I'm not going to get into whether a woman should only wear a dress or whatever. It doesn't bother me for my wife to wear a pair of jeans, but I've got to tell you that I know that there is a men's cut of jeans and a lady's cut of jeans, and folks, I'm not going to wear a lady's cut of jeans. Ladies, there's a men's haircut and a ladies' haircut. Please get a ladies' haircut. I'm not saying that it's all external, but what is in the heart works out, doesn't it, externally? And so, it's a heart issue. It's a heart issue. But we need to obey the word of God. All right, it's funny, Dad's test commercials are causing quite a stir. The company thought it had a successful campaign. It's a series of spots filmed during five with real dads and their babies, but there's been a backlash against the company with many people saying the commercials are insulting to fathers and that they make parents look dumb. On his Facebook page today, he's apologized if their ads offended anyone and promised to change them starting later this month. Now that was a silly ad, right? And one silly comedic ad goes on television and everybody gets in an uproar. But I want to ask you this. How many of our children are watching Disney programs where every single day on those silly Disney sitcoms, what we're seeing is the guys are portrayed as dumb ignoramuses that get into all sorts of trouble where the heroine comes and gets them out of it. Look at the way that culture is showing manhood and womanhood. No wonder we have problems. This is not how it ought to be, particularly in our homes. You know, a young man who came and talked to me about his concern about same-sex attraction, we watched him. And he was spending all of his time with his peer group as girls. How is he going to learn to be a godly guy spending all of his peer group time with girls? They're not his peer group. Guys, as they're growing up, parents understand this, as your kids are growing up, they need a peer group of godly guys. And girls need a peer group of godly girls. Guys don't learn how to be guys from girls. At one stage, so this kid, he goes into biblical counselling and God worked a miracle in his life through the gospel of Jesus Christ, he transformed. And I started to see manliness traits coming out of this young man. And at one stage during it, apparently one of his friends, they were climbing trees and he wasn't climbing the trees and one of his godly guy friends turns around, looks at him and says, hey, come and climb the tree with us. Guys climb trees. Oh, praise God. I mean, what is that? But it's just God saying, let's be guys. Nothing wrong with that at all. No problem with that. See, we live in a society that there's even been, I think it was Sweden or Switzerland or something, that wanted to come out with a new word. Instead of his or her, they wanted to come out with the word hen, which was gender neutral. No thanks. If it's okay by you, I'm gonna use his or her. We all need to be able to do that. Our children can know that we are distinct in gender and equally valued. They can know their roles and how they are complementary. They can understand how we are to reflect God's image and how marriage and family even seems to reflect the very trinity in unity but diversity. Boys can know how to lead and provide and protect and care and cherish, and girls can know how to help and support and compliment and nurture and be beautiful, not just on the outside, and to be resourceful and creative in the fulfilment of her role. And we can do all of this to help our children understand sexuality. Okay. Am I still on? I'm just gonna use this one. And we can do all of this to help our children know the distinctives. We must, folks, live biblical marriage as a gospel testimony to our children. We must teach it as a gospel testimony to our children. It's really, really important. We need to see... Most of all, we need to see and help our children Okay, it's probably a battery problem, but I'll keep going because we're finishing. We need to help our children to know, most of all, the most important thing about marriage is that it's not just one man for one woman for life, that it's actually a covenant before God that reflects Christ and His church. It's a gospel sign, isn't it? And that way, through marriage, we're able to point to the most important thing, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Just as I finish, I want to quickly throw a few other things in here, just to give you some tips to look out for. What does God say? There is hope with every temptation. As Christians, we should go into this knowing that. If we're going to talk to somebody, we should know that there is hope with every temptation. 1 Corinthians 10, 13 says, No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. So these sins are not some sins that are so hard that we can't deal with it, that the person dealing with it can't deal with it in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. We all can because there is no sin that is not common to man that Jesus hasn't saved somebody out of. But what I don't want us to do, and be careful, if you do know somebody that is going through this and you want to help them in this battle, please be careful about the help that you get. There's wonderful biblical counselors out there, but there's also those who are called integrationists, that integrate psychological techniques into their counselling. Be very, very careful about that. Here's an example of somebody who was a lady who wanted to do an integrationist in this manner, doing therapy, as she called it, with people. And here is what she used to say to the ladies who came to her to talk about struggles with lesbianism. She said, I want to invite her into a radical self-love. and self-acceptance that frees her to live another centered life and goes on. Folks, there is nowhere in the entire scriptures that tells us that solving a problem is by loving yourself more. The scriptures tell us that we love ourselves too much. We need to be bigger. There's a great video that we've got at Answers in Genesis. I can't... I'll tell you how much this is important. Counterfeit counselling is called by Brad Bigney, a wonderful biblical counsellor. Please consider getting that. And he shows you how the evolutionary psychology methods have been integrated with church counselling and how dangerous it is. The scriptures are sufficient for everything, aren't they? And have the right attitude, such were some of us. Let's have that attitude. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. And understand that the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. One of you here put a question forward, and I'm not here tomorrow in the question time to answer it, but there was a question that came forward that said, how do I witness to somebody at work who has an openly gay lifestyle and is proclaiming that? You know what I would do? Firstly, I would start with the gospel. because it's nothing that you're going to do to convince somebody, but it's only ever the gospel of Jesus Christ that saves. And be concerned about their salvation, not about their sexuality. You need to talk about that, but their salvation is first. I would start and finish with the gospel. And so you start with the gospel, and then I would sit down and take your time and say, you know, tell me about your worldview. Where do you believe everybody started? and do what I did today, and just go from Genesis, and help them to understand your worldview, and back it up, and show them why you believe that, and let it progress through biblical manhood and womanhood, and how we've betrayed God, and how Jesus is the answer. You start and finish with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it's only in Him that people can be saved. I'm not even trying to win a culture war. I'm not even trying to win that. Jesus calls me to make disciples. Wonderful books that help you. We've got articles about this in our Answers books. That book I've talked about. Wonderful DVD from Todd Friel that we've got in our bookstore. We've got amazing resources to help you. They're here while you're here. Would you please do that? Look at some of these wonderful resources that we have to help you in these areas and let me pray to finish. Our Father in heaven you alone are God and you created everything and Lord we bow to you we honor you we we worship you but we can only do that Jesus Christ because otherwise we'll worshipping ourselves and Lord Jesus you came and we thank you and we love you Lord I pray for these people that they would have the right attitude, get into the fight in the right way, with a heart to see people come to salvation, to love people. Help us to love, Lord. Even the LGBT community, help us to love them and show them that Jesus is the answer. Lord, I pray that you would save people even as a result of this talk tonight and throughout this weekend thank you God for showing us truth and being the God of truth we love you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray amen thank you brother him thank you all for coming tonight and get a good