It seems everywhere you turn these days you see and hear of gay pride, gay marriages, homophobia, gay tolerance and gay bashing.
What are we Hutterites to make of all this? Where should we stand? Didn’t Jesus talk of love and forgiveness?
Matthew 19:4-5 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Exodus 20:14 “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
Hebrews 13:4 “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”
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, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.”
From these passages we know that sex outside marriage as God ordained it is adultery. Adultery is sin. Sin cannot enter heaven.
I’ve had a few discussions with people on the subject of gay activity and marriages. For one they say “These people love each other, God is love and loves love, so therefore being gay is good.” or “These people were born gay, and God made these people, therefore gay is good”
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20
There is also the argument that if we feel a want or a need, that we need to pursue that want, cultivate that want, and fulfill that want, but there’s a real problem with that. Let’s take for example a married man who sees a beautiful woman and feels lust towards her. Should he cultivate and let that lust grow until it’s too powerful for him to resist? Or should he resist and quell that lust right away, reminding himself that it’s an adulterous, sinful lust that will only lead to heartbreak and a breaking up of his family? Or how about the young lad who feels a lust to build fires? Should he consider since he was born with that lust that he should fulfill it? Or the lust of the drunkard to drink? The druggie towards drugs? The depraved to depravity? The rapist to rape? The killer to kill? How should we separate a good lust from a bad lust? For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. Matthew 15:19. There are also many good passions, for example a farmer who’s passionate of raising animals, a nurse with great compassion for sick people, a gardener who loves to garden, or a cook who takes great pride in how the evening meal turned out.
What we need to is a moral guide. But what should that be? Our own feelings and passions are not very good guides. Government then, or society at large? Fifty plus one vote? We know those are not good moral guides, for if they were, Auschwitz would have never happened. Look at the tribes who supported cannibalism and human sacrifice. And look at the current issues with abortion and euthanasia. We have to admit that there’s only one true moral guide by which morals can be judged by and that’s by the Word of God. Scripture tells us we are made in the image of God. That gives human life intrinsic and unmeasurable value.
So back to the subject at hand. What is the homosexual to do with his orientation towards the same sex? Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. 1 Corinthians 6:19.
The homosexual has to first of all recognize it as sin, repress and quell it with all other sinful lusts and walk the narrow road. For what are the passions of this world worth towards the passions of what is to come?
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. 1 John 2:16
It seems we all have our own special cross to bear. And that cross can be our ticket to heaven. Without that cross we live a life that has no problems or cares. A life where we depend on ourself and our strengths and talents. A life where we get along just fine without God. A life where we have no need for a God and no need to look for one. Where we don’t need to look upon the heavens for help. Yes, that’s what a cross does. It makes us recognize and see how Iittle in control and helpless we really are. It makes us look for God, ask for his help and depend on it. It makes us understand what Paul meant when he wrote “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
So yes, we can say homosexuality is a heavy cross to bear, but not unlike many other different crosses that people bear. We have to recognize it as such. God loves sinners and so should we, for in reality we are all sinners and in desperate need of God’s Grace. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And the answer to this is: Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Romans 6
Look at this sobering message in Hebrews 10:26 “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.”
Let’s not be fooled, sin remains sin and shame remains shame. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8 God’s values and morals don’t and won’t change with the passing of time, changes in philosophy or advancements in science. God doesn’t need to go through the Age of Enlightenment. He is the Enlightenment. We must conform to the ways of God for he will never change, nor will he conform to the ever-changing whims of man. But if one doesn’t believe there is a God and that we were made in his image, then I suppose there is no reason not to support the entire LGBT movement. There is also no reason not to support any lust or passion of any kind, regardless of consequence. If all there is to this life is this life then who are we (Christians) to expect (Christian) morals from anyone? Who are we to say what’s right and what’s wrong? Who says there even is a right or wrong?
Louie Vetter
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