Often times
I hear preachers preaching against a homosexual lifestyle. Marriage should be between one man and one
woman, they say. Adultery is wrong. These things are true however these same
ministers often preach that God's ten commandment laws are done away with. To them I say, "Now wait just a
minute..." How can you claim that
both things are true? I took the liberty
of looking up ALL of the texts that I could find about homosexual activity. I
found six. "YOUVERSION.com" has a Bible app that allows a person to
search for key words or phrases. The
word homosexual actually doesn't actually appear in the King James Version of
the Bible. In the New King James it
appears once. I had to really do my
homework to find the verses. So let's
look at those verses. The first one is
in Leviticus 18:22 it reads, "You shall not lie with a male as with a
woman." The whole chapter prohibits
several other kinds of sexual relations.
Mark 7:21, 22 Talks about the evils that come from the heart of men and
in one translation the term "Lewdness" found in the NKJV are
translated homosexual. The next verse is 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10 reads, "Do
you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not
be deceived. Neither fornicators, no idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God." Did you notice how the list is written?
Fornicator, idolater, adulterer, and the homosexual along with various other
sins? One sin is apparently not going to be any better or worse than any other
sin as NONE of them enter the kingdom of heaven. I found it very interesting that four of the
sins listed had to do with sexual activity but that an Idolater was put in
between the list of sexual sins. And let's take a look at the rest of the list.
Do any of these remind you of the last
six commandments? (See Exodus 20:15-17)
The next verse is found in 2 Corinthians 12:21 this verse also
translates "lewdness" to homosexual in one version that I found.
Galatians 5:19-21 gives a list similar to 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 also calling
lewdness as homosexual. The list of sins
is longer and includes outbursts of wrath, sorcery, selfishness, envy, murder,
heresies, and hatred. The last verse is
in Revelation 22:15 It simply refers to the "sexually immoral", along
with murderers, liars, and idolaters.
That's all of them.
So then I did a search for the word
"law". There are 515
references in the Bible for law; we will not be looking at ALL of them
today! If you are really that ambitious
you can do your own searching, and I encourage you to do so. 313 of those references are in the Old
Testament and 202 in the new. Some of these references had to do with in-laws
so they can be discarded in this study.
Most preachers who say that the law is done away with or "nailed to
the cross" often only want to omit one of the Ten Commandments, the other
nine they don't have a problem with. The
ONE commandment that they want to do away with is the Only one that starts with
the word "remember". Can it
possibly be that God knew thousands of years ago that people today would be
trying to forget the one law He asked them to remember? You can ask these ministers if since the law
was done away with is it then okay to have other gods before God? They say no, and
then you can ask well is it okay to dishonor your parents? or murder? or lie,
or commit adultery? No, no, no! So then they say that we honor the spirit of
the law not the letter. If the letter of
the law says "thou shalt not murder" the spirit of the law is,
"thou shalt not hate thy brother without a cause"; so if I don't hate
my brother, I can then kill him and that's okay cause I don't hate him?(Matthew
5:22) or how about adultery... I never slept with that woman, I just thought
about it night and day. Matthew 5:28
states, "But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust
after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." So which
is more stringent the spirit or the letter?
What verses are they using to say that we don't have to follow God's
laws anymore? One of them is found in Colossians 2:14 "Blotting out the
handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and
took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;" verse 16 expounds on
this by adding, "let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or
in respect of a holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:" And
they say, "see, we can eat and drink whatever we want and we don't have to
keep the Sabbath." In the very next
chapter Paul refutes their arguments to this, in Colossians 3:5-13 Paul tells
his readers to put away uncleanness because the wrath of God cometh children of
disobedience. The ordinances that Paul is referring to here are not the Ten
Commandments but rather the ordinances that Moses put forth to point forward to
Christ; such as the sacrificing of innocent lambs. Do we need to do that anymore? Why not?
Because Jesus IS the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world.
(John 1:29) The Jews had other customs
like feast days that reminded them of their heritage. These customs don't mean much to people
outside of the Jewish nation. This customs included extra days that they called
sabbath days (small "s"). They
weren't the Seventh day Sabbath, they were just solemn feasts. That is where the phrase "new moons, and
sabbath days" comes in at.
So my question is this...Can God change?
Malachi 3:6 Says, "For I am the Lord, I change not:" So can God
change his laws? Suppose for a minute
that God randomly decided to change the laws of gravity. One minute we would be walking down the
street and the next we could be floating in midair. Or the gravitational pull
was so strong that occasionally we could not lift even our foot because it was
too heavy and then we go to yank it up and we fly into outer space because God
reversed the gravitational field? Sound
silly? Of course. How about the text in
Romans 6:23 that says, "The wages of sin is death...?" What if Jesus said, "I don't want to die
on the cross, could we just change that law for a little bit?" Wouldn't we then consider that God is unjust
and unfair? The same author that wrote Colossians also wrote Romans so what
does Paul say about God's law in Romans?
Let's look at chapter 7:7-25. I
will highlight verse 7, 12, and 25 here but please read the whole thing on your
own. 7 "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not
known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said,
Thou shalt not covet." 12 "Wherefore the law is holy, and the
commandment holy, and just, and good." 25 "I thank God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God: but with
the flesh the law of sin."
Let's take a quick look at when The
Sabbath was instituted. Turn to Genesis
chapter 2 verses 2-3. "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he
had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had
made. And God blessed the seventh day,
and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God
had created and made." Now I ask
you what nationality were Adam and Eve?
They weren't Jewish. Moving
forward to Exodus 16 God begins reeducation His people on which day the Sabbath
is. Take some time and read the whole
chapter. Notice that chapter 16 comes before
the giving of the 10 commandments to Moses which takes place in chapter
20. So God expected them to keep the
Sabbath before He actually wrote it in stone with His finger. Beginning in verse 22-35 God is taking the
time to teach the Israelites which day the Sabbath is and the lesson continues
for forty years. I found verse 28
especially interesting, it reads: "And the Lord said to Moses, How long
refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?" Wait a cotton picken minute, He hadn't even
written them down yet! Do you think that
they forgot which day of the week they were to worship on? Nope! 'Cause in Jesus day they had so many
laws concerning the Sabbath Jesus had to remind them what the day was for! (See
Mark 2:23-28) So which day is the Sabbath? Matthew 28:1 "In the end of the
Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week...." Which
day is Easter on?
So maybe the disciples changed Sabbath? First let me ask, EVEN IF a mortal disciple
decided to change which day he worshiped on would that make it acceptable in
God's eyes? The Book of Acts repeatedly
tells of the disciples worshiping on Sabbath.
Let's look at one such verse, Acts 17:2 "And Paul, as his manner
was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the
scriptures." But wasn't it Paul
that had so much to say about freedom from the law? And wasn't it Paul who instructed others to
do so? The one text that people use to
say this is found in Paul's writings to the church in Corinth. 1 Corinthians
16:2 "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store,
as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." Paul is simply instructing them to gather the
offerings before he gets there so as not to waste time when he does get there.
Repeatedly the Bible gives reference to people
in the last days obeying God's commandments and following His Sabbath day. Lets look at a few of those in closing. Matthew 24:20 Jesus has been talking both
about the coming destruction of the Jewish temple and about the end of the
world and He says, "But pray ye that your flight be not in winter, neither
on the Sabbath day." If Jesus had
planned on changing His laws don't you think He would have said something about
it in his 33 1/2 years here on earth?
Isaiah 66:22-23 say, "For as the new heavens and the new earth,
which I will make shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed
and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to
another and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before
me, saith the Lord." So even in the
new Earth all will be keeping the Sabbath.
The Last book in the Bible chapter 14 verse 12, Revelation 14:12 says,
"Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the
commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."
From the Beginning of the Bible to the very
end God admonishes us to keep His commandments.
There are warnings against those who think to change the words of God's
book. Revelation 22:19 "And if any man shall take away from the words of
this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of
the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." While it is always good to preach against sin
in all of its forms, it is important to remember that God always means what He
says, and will not hold a person guiltless who disregards parts of His laws.
L H J E T W N I S Q R
Y R W K Y H G
I U X A E R E V I V E
D A U L W R W
C D R B V P O B M M U
L O G O X Z V
A T E W O R D A I N E
D N V R N G T
R D V E C K Y O V D O
I E D T M B H
N W I O Y F S U H Q D
X U T L R Q G
A E L G T A O O P E G
H H A A W R I
L L E E I T Z X E E R
J U H N H W L
W L D B V E O C Q W N
T G V L S R E
O E L E I O X B L A I
X J Z F C E D
L T N N T E S X D R Z
A M D O I T H
L H V B P I P J I R L
U W L R Q C S
A B Z N A C W P Y I U
G P O B S H F
A P D J C N S Z V N B
G G S I O E L
N H Y L O H Z E N G U
L P K D F D E
Y Y M H M O R N O I S
A C C O E L S
I J L G T H A N K T K
W K R Z I H H
A L C O M M A N D M E
N T J T C I T
|
alive
|
dwelleth
|
ordained
|
|
allow
|
exceedingly
|
revived
|
|
captivity
|
flesh
|
sin
|
|
carnal
|
forbid
|
sold
|
|
hate
|
spiritual
|
|
|
covet
|
holy
|
|
|
delight
|
law
|
warring
|
Romans 7:7-25
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