The Sin of Homosexuality - #453 - JCSM's Weekly Devotions

Hello!

I hope you had a very good weekend.

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Last Tuesday, my daughter and I went to Santa Barbara and heard Kevin Max sing with his guitarist. It was a fun show and we got to meet him. Click here for our picture with him. By the way, please pray for him and his music ministry. He's getting lots of opportunities to play and just between you and me . . . DC Talk may be getting back together in 2007.

One of my alma maters, San Diego State University, has made it into the men's basketball finals. They're playing Indiana on Thursday. Please pray they do well and that God is glorified through their efforts.

Welcome to the new readers of this message! Here is your Devotion, A Moment of Introspection, JCSM's Challenge, the Word of the Week, a faith-builder from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained," and the Quotes of the Week. Have a fantastic week and God bless you!

Love in Christ,

Jason Gastrich

JCSM's Weekly Devotions (click here to listen!)

"The Sin of Homosexuality"

Leviticus 18:22 "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination."

Romans 1:26-29 "For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers."

1 Corinthians 6:9 "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites."

Jude 1:6 and 7 "And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

Ephesians 5:22-25 "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her."

1 Corinthians 10:13 "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it."

For more on homosexuality, please click here and read our Bible lesson.

Insight: According to the scriptures, homosexuality is clearly wrong. It is forbidden and condemned by God. However, we still need to love those who are in sin and encourage them to follow God's Word. Affirm the Bible and let the scriptures judge right and wrong.

Prayer: "Dear Lord, thank you for being God. Let us love You and follow your ways. Help us to know the Bible inside and out. Thank you for giving us your awesome Word. Protect us from evil. Protect us from false doctrine and from those who only want to promote their opinions. Let us see through the lies of this world by using your Bible as a litmus test and your Holy Spirit as our guide. We love You Lord and we pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen."

America's Foundation

Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), an honored physicist, chemist and geologist, was the Yale College professor, who, in 1818, founded and edited the American Journal of Science and Arts. He also was an original member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863. Benjamin Silliman published his research on the potential uses of crude-oil in his respected Silliman Report, 1855, which was of significant importance in establishing the American oil industry. The mineral sillimanite (a form of aluminum silicate, A12Si02), is named for him.

Benjamin Silliman stated:

"The relation of geology, as well as astronomy, to the Bible, when both are well understood, is that of perfect harmony. The Bible nowhere limits the age of the globe, while its chronology assigns a recent origin to the human race; and geology not only confirms that the Genesis presents a true statement of the progress of the terrestrial arrangements, and of the introduction of living beings in the order in which their fossil remains are found entombed in the strata.

"The Word and the works of God cannot conflict, and the more they are studied the more perfect will their harmony appear." ¹

On June 13, 1855, he concluded his course of college lectures with the prayer:

"Thus, 0 Almighty God, hast Thou led me on in mercy almost to the close of a long life .... For myself, in the evening of my life, may I be every day ready to die, trusting in Thy mercy through the Redeemer of men; and if power and opportunity to be useful are still continued to me, may I have a disposition, as well as ability, to honor Thee, and to benefit my fellow men.

"For my salvation I depend entirely upon the Redeemer. In the sight of God I have no merits of my own, and feel deeply that if I am saved it will be of grace of not of works. I have none to offer that are worthy of Thine acceptance. And now, my Heavenly Father, I implore Thy blessing upon my dear children and their children, and upon the faithful and devoted companion whom Thou hast in mercy given me.

"I implore it, also, for the precious youth who are about to go into the world. Bless them all in time and eternity through Christ our Lord and Redeemer." ²

¹ G.P. Fisher, Vol. lI of his life. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, OR: American Heritage Ministries, 1987), p. 411.

² June 13, 1855, in concluding a course of college lectures. G.P. Fisher, Vol. II of his life. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, OR: American Heritage Ministries, 1987), pp. 411-412.

If you'd like to see more quotes from those that framed and founded America, please click here: http://jcsm.org/AmericasFounders/.

A Moment of Introspection

Does God have any commands in the Old Testament where the consequence is death, but in the New Testament the same act is praised or accepted? Those who use the Bible to try and promote homosexuality would like you to think so.

JCSM's Challenge

Pray now that you can be unashamed of God's Word, so that you can use the scriptures to correct someone who is in sin. You're not called to pester or annoy people, but you are called to judge sin with God's Word (see John 7:24). Be ready to step up to the plate and be a strong witness for God in an unbelieving world that wants to accept everyone and everything.

God bless you as you meet this week's challenge!

Word of the Week

kawdashe (Hebrew, see 1 Kings 14:24): a (quasi) sacred person, that is (technically) a (male) devotee (by prostitution) to licentious idolatry: sodomite, unclean

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained

"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible" claims:

Genesis 50:13 - Was Jacob buried at Machpelah or Shechem (Acts 7:15-16)?

"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained" responds:

Jacob was buried in Machpelah. With our present day knowledge, it appears that Stephen (who is in the middle of a fiery sermon in Acts 7:15-16) simply misspoke.

(This explanation came from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained", by Jason Gastrich. This book is on CD and gives over 4,000 answers to alleged Bible errors, regarding the entire Bible at http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.org. There is also a 300 question workbook that accompanies the CD-ROM.)

Quotes of the Week

I want to see your love, again.

We're just used to bad music.

I want nothing that you're not.

There's no better find than to find myself with you.

Don't let your relationships change your theology.

Love the sinner and hate the sin.

Does God have any commands in the Old Testament where the consequence is death, but in the New Testament the same act is praised or accepted?

I can sense you in nearly everything.

If you'd like to read more quotes, we have thousands in our archive! Visit http://quotes.jcsm.org. Plus, if you'd like to read a new quote every day, please go to http://jcsm.org/Wisdom.htm and bookmark it!

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