In the sermon titled 'Against Nature' by Scott Brown, the speaker discusses the biblical perspective on homosexuality using Romans 1:26-27 as the main text. He emphasizes the tragic exchange that occurs when individuals reject the truth of God and pursue their own passions. The sermon also addresses the cultural shifts towards the acceptance of homosexuality and the importance of upholding the creation order of manhood and womanhood. The consequences of indulging in sinful desires and rejecting God's design are highlighted.

Please open your Bibles to Romans 1 verse 26. Romans 1 verse 26. I'll be reading two verses, verses 26 and 27. This is the inerrant, all sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. These are the words of the Holy Spirit to all the people in his church.

Verse 26, 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. Let's pray. Father, you've taken us into these words which you have designed that are perfectly framed for everyone in the hearing because it is your word and it is perfect. I pray, Lord, that from the youngest to the oldest these words would be clear, clearly understood by the work of the Holy Spirit and also that you would just show us what a tragedy is for us to exchange the truth of God for the lie.

That you would show us the beauty of your glory to be so attracted to it in all things, to love your glory more than our own passions, amen. Please be seated. So these verses continue to illustrate the tragic exchange and Paul is continuing to explain why he's not ashamed of the gospel. Remember, he can't wait to get to Rome, and he says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God to salvation. And in the beginning of chapter one, he's gone to great length to explain what the gospel has done for him.

It set him free. It's made him a servant of righteousness, and he just goes on and on and on. And then he comes to this section, beginning in verses 15 and forward, of why he's not ashamed of the gospel. And the reality is that there is salvation in Jesus Christ for a world that has been given up to vile passions, a world that rejects the creation order, a world that rejects the way that God has ordained manhood and womanhood to function. And we saw last time that this giving up begins with a sexual revolution and it advances to a homosexual revolution.

This is the trajectory of culture. In the 1960s, we had a sexual revolution, and in recent years, we've been having a radical homosexual revolution and these verses just explain the trajectory of what has been happening and the result of that trajectory ends in this dramatic radical example of how men and women completely throw off the creation order, which is such an important blessing in the world, where men and women, they prefer their own passions, their own truth for the truth of God, for the passions of God. And with men you have this exchange, exchanging the natural use, and with women the same. This is the idolatry of the self. This is the idolatry of your own passions and your own feelings, which really this is the idolatry of the 21st century where everyone wants to do what's right in their own eyes as we've seen many times before in history.

And so this passage is about this tragic exchange. Also, what you'll hear in this sermon really is what the Bible says about homosexuality at from Genesis to Revelation. But you notice that there are exchanges. There are three exchanges here. And I think this is the heart of the trip cord of mankind.

In verse 23, They changed the glory of God for the glory of man, professing to be wise, verse 22. They became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. In other words, identifying with yourself and animals and whatever else your preference might be. And then the second exchange is spoken of in verse 25. They changed the truth of God for the lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.

Notice this has to do with the creature, with man, with things on the earth and then in this you change the glory of God for the glory of yourself. And that's the heart of it. And then the third exchange is to change what is natural and consistent with the creation order for vile passions. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women, exchange the natural use which is against nature.

So you have these three exchanges. If you read this passage and the net of it is that you're now angry with Sodomites, you've actually missed completely what the Apostle Paul is trying to declare here. What the apostle is doing is he's talking about what happens when you let your lusts run free. There's a cascading effect and it accelerates and it finally advances to something where actual nature is rejected. He's talking about the exchanging of the glory of God for the lie.

That's really the heart of the problem. But if reading a passage like this makes you a brash, self-righteous, culture warrior, raging against the homosexuals, you've really not understood what Paul is saying here, because he's talking about this matter of exchanging your passions for God's glory. That's the issue, that's the essence of it. And there's so many manifestations of it. And when I preach on this again, we're gonna walk through the 21 sins that are listed right at the end of this chapter that we all participate in one way or another.

And then when you get to chapter 2, we learn that everyone is exchanging the glory of God for their own passion. So this isn't something that we should use to just isolate homosexuality. Well, it is a definitive and egregious sin, but it's a sin that follows the trajectory of letting this lust run in your life, or that unclean thought. There's a trajectory involved here. That's what he's talking about.

And it ends with this. Now, the situation that we're in today is quite different than the situation when I was growing up. Many of you, you know, who are in your teens are, you're in a different world than the one that I grew up in. You know, the month of June just passed. It has become the holy month of the sexual revolution.

This is something that couldn't have happened 40 years ago. Over the past years since Obergefell in 2015 when sodomite marriage was legalized, massive changes have taken place, just absolutely stunning changes. June became, has become the month for the largest corporations in the world, the largest institutions in the world, the entertainment outlets, many so-called Christian ministries are calling evil good and good evil and they're flying their flags even in the White House, the rainbow flag took the center stage among two flags being posted there. There's nothing to be proud about in Pride Month. And if you don't celebrate it, you are shamed.

I'm going to give you a little bit of history. Until very, very recently, every single state in the United States had anti-sodomy laws. Today 16 states, only 16 have anti-sodomy laws. In 1952 the American Psychological Association listed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance. That was 1952.

1953, the year I was born, President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450 banning homosexuals from working for the federal government and listed homosexuals as a security threat. I just want us to understand the trajectory that our nation has engaged in. In 1962, Illinois was the first state to repeal an anti-sodomy law. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders because it was listed as a mental disorder previous to 1973. In 1974, when I was in college, the college textbooks changed homosexuality from deviant mental illness to normality.

In 1981, the world discovered AIDS. The CDC says 30 million people have died of AIDS since. In 1987, a book was written really to disclose the strategy of the sodomite movement. It was a book called After the Ball and it really was what became the playbook of the tactics to overhaul America regarding sodomy. And they outlined several stages to soften the resistance to homosexuality in our culture.

First, to create sympathy for sodomites. Secondly, to portray sodomites as victims. Make sure that no one says anything critical towards sodomites to normalize sodomy by saying, making it plain that everybody's doing it. So, you've got to begin to have it on television programs and films which is what you see today. You would never see that in the 1960s or 70s, not even in the 1980s, but you see it all the time today.

And then you demonize everyone who differs. This was the strategy in the book after the ball. And you, it was made very clear that you need to introduce new language to surround your conversations. You tone down the language to make it more acceptable. Instead of sodomite, the biblical word, you use the word gay.

And instead of vile passions, you say I'm same sex attracted. Rather, you ought to say abominations because these are the biblical terms. So, the replacement of biblical terms has happened. Instead of calling a person a Christian, you'll call them a homophobe. Tolerance, acceptance, inclusivity, multiculturalism, These are all parts of the strategy and the strategies worked quite well.

So then in 2015, The Supreme Court legalized sodomite marriage. Notice I'm going to use the word sodomite. I don't want to, I don't want to pander to the softening that's taken place. To use the word gay or same sex attracted, I think it so minimizes what the Bible actually says. You know, when Obergefell launched in 2015, Isaac Burke and I launched a website called Defending Marriage, defendingmarriage.com.

A lot of articles there. We wrote a declaration for that website. Here it is. We believe marriage can only be between one man and one woman bound by a lifetime covenant and that no person institution or civil court can redefine marriage contrary to what is revealed in the Bible. So this is kind of the state of affairs that we're living in right now, you know, if you have children, your children are growing up in a very, very different world.

You need to understand that and you need to understand the language of the Bible and what they're being assaulted with. You know, one year before the US Constitution was ratified, the historian Edward Gibbon published the final volume on his history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. And Gibbon identified five major causes of the fall of this remarkably powerful empire. I'll read them to you. Number one, breakdown of the family, increasing divorce, undermining the home.

Number two, increased taxation, spending public money on circuses and bread for the public. Number three, insatiable craving for pleasure, more and more brutality and sexuality and entertainment. Number four, building giant armies to fight external enemies when the decadence of the people was the greatest threat internally. Number five, the decay of religion and loss and the loss of guiding principles for living. And what Gibbon says is that the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire was, quote, the loss of civic virtue and individual morality.

But, and it was being lost from the top down. I mean 15 of the 16 Roman, first Roman emperors were homosexuals. So, The moral world of America and the condition of the family has been dramatically altered over the last 60 years. Before 1912, it was estimated that 80% plus brides entered marriages as virgins. Today it's 3%.

In the church, about 20%. In colonial Massachusetts, one out of every 200 babies was conceived out of wedlock, today it's 40%. In 1890, there was one divorce for every 18 marriages in the United States. Today, there's one divorce for every two and a half marriages. One third of American children grow up without a biological father.

So, this is the moral revolution, here's your revolution. But The root of the problem has to be very clear in our own minds. The problem is exchanging the glory of God in the smallest ways, one day after another, for what is not glorious. It's to replace the bright shining light of Jesus Christ with the dim lights of the world is what it is and to prefer the the fabricated and the fake for the things that are real and true. And that's why Paul says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.

And there is redemption in Jesus Christ. That's the whole point of this passage, that every sin, every person on every trajectory of sin, there is an opportunity to turn to Jesus Christ and to be healed and to have your sins forgiven. So after framing the discussion that way, Let's move into the text. Notice we read in verse 26, for this reason or therefore, in other words, he's continuing a thought, for this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. And what's the reason?

Well, the previous verse 25, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator. But so God gave them up. This is a judicial abandonment. And again, this phrase God gave them up appears three times in this passage. In the same way exchanging appears three times, so does God giving them up.

This is the second occurrence of this phrase. The first was in verse 24 and now we encounter it in verse 26, for this reason God gave them up to what? To vile passions. And then the third occasion is in verse 28. And even as they did not retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting.

So it ends with a debased mind where you can't even think straight about life. And the truth is what God does is He brings his wrath so that you'll know what it means to do just what you want to do, how harmful it is. And one of the great examples in the Bible of this, of God letting go, of God giving over is the story of the prodigal son. He was glad to be out from his authority. He was so happy to be able to go have new experiences and meet new people and do new things.

And can you imagine him talking about just how great it is to finally be free from the house of your father and to be with whom ever he wanted to spend his money, however he wanted to spend it, he didn't have to answer to anybody, he could experiment with whatever he wanted to experiment with. He's one of those people that says, I just wanna get out more and learn new things. I want to get some worldly wisdom. And of course, you know what happened, he spent all of his money and wasted his time on debauchery. And it only turned out to be bondage for him.

And he ended up eating the pig slop and then he came home. And the moral world is just like the natural world of gravity. Gravity pulls everything downward. You know, if you drop an egg on the ground, it will go down. If you drop an egg, it will go down and it will break.

And that's the illustration of God giving men over and then Paul uses two words vile passions the term vile indicates dishonorable shameful disgraceful it's really it's calling evil good and good evil. And then passions, this has to do with following your heart, following your desires, doing the things that you want to do. And the Bible, it tells us what to do with our passions. It's very important that we understand what to do with our passions. If you're raising children, one of the most important things you ever do is to help your children understand what to do with their passions.

Everyone's full of passion. In Colossians 3, God calls following your passions idolatry, therefore put to death your members which are on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry, that's verse five in Colossians chapter three. In 1 Thessalonians 4, 5, he says that the will of God is your sanctification, in other words, your improvement, your healing. And so you should abstain from sexual immorality that each one of you should know how to possess his own vessel and sanctification and honor, not in passion, not in passion and lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. The Gentiles just let their passions run and they're finding themselves all over the place.

But the true believer is putting his passions to death in Galatians 5, 24, and those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. You always have to ask where are these passions coming from? Where are these desires coming from? What made them rise in my heart and where do they take you? In Romans 8 13, we're told that if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Those deeds of the body include passions, vile passions. And then, the creation order is violated. Not only did God give them over, but the creation order is violated. Verse 26 at the end of it to verse 27 For even their women exchange the natural use for what is against nature Likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lusts for one another men with men committing what is shameful. This is just very simply the rejection of the creation order.

The purpose of manhood and womanhood and the function of manhood and womanhood is so important. It's interesting, you know, he begins with women. Theologian Charles Hodge said, "'Women usually are the last to debauch.'" Paul showing the depth of the depravity. So this has to do with manhood and womanhood. Men and women are created according to God's design.

They're created to do particular things. I mean, I believe men and women are fundamentally different. Men and women are equal, and yet they are very, very different and they have different functions and roles. Their differences go even beyond. I just think their function and their role has to do with what they're created to do.

And our culture is completely thrown out biblical manhood and womanhood. You know, between 2006 and 2017, The percentage of evangelical young people supportive of homosexual marriage went from 16 percent to 47 percent. These are people who are called evangelicals. You have pride marches, you have drag queen story hours, you have body mutilation, you have public schools that teach children to figure out what gender they might be today. But the whole ethic of this is I will decide who I am.

I will choose my identity. I will be my own person. I will have my own brand. You know, people are so desperate to be themselves and it's idolatry. But in Christianity, we're told what is good.

We don't choose what is good, we're told what is good. And then we go for that. That's such a wonderful thing to know what to do with yourself and with other people. And God is so kind. Your children are growing up in a world where they're gonna have to grapple with what has come to be called gender neutral pronouns or non-binary pronouns or gender inclusive pronouns.

This is a rage against the creation order. And instead of he or she, it's they, you must refer to a person as they or them or zee or zem or zim. This is inclusive language of personal identity. It's the forced respect of a lie in our culture. You know, just this year in April, Rosaria Butterfield, actually publicly in writing repented of using gender neutral pronouns up until just recently and she published an article about it.

It was on Reformation 21, you can find it all over the place. Here's the title of the article, Why I No Longer Use Transgender Pronouns and Why You Shouldn't Either. And, you know, she's talking about, you know, many evangelicals have taken the idea, well, these are hospitality pronouns, you know, you should be respectful of a person's chosen identity to preserve winsomeness, you know, to become a friend, to be a soft presence in the enemy camp. I'm just quoting from what people say about this. But instead of she, zee, instead of her, zer, or them, instead of hers, zers, instead of herself, zerself.

This is just from the gender neutral pronoun handbook, not from a Christian source. This from an article, Gender Neutral Pronouns 101. Offering your own pronouns first helps make others more comfortable sharing those they use. For example, you could say, I'm Devin Norrell and my pronouns are Z, Zim, nice to meet you. Then you can ask their name and pronouns or more, simply ask, how may I address you?

And of course, you know, the people who are advancing this, they just say, this is evolution, you know, language is evolving, and now this is the new language that you must use. Just this last week, the head of the Church of England, the Anglican Church, told the ruling body that he didn't think they should use the word father in the Lord's Prayer, our Father who art in heaven, suggesting that they are problematic because of their patriarchal association. You know, how can you say that? How can you identify God as a male? Well, that's a whole different discussion, but The Church of England just this year decided to offer services to bless sodomite marriages and lesbian couples at weddings.

So, this is pandering to a fictional identity. Rosariah Butterfield, she calls it wolfish theology that seeds the moral language of the Bible. Here's what she says, I'm quoting from Rosaria Butterfield. Using transgendered pronouns is a sin against the ninth commandment and encourages people to sin against the tenth commandment. Here's another.

Using transgendered pronouns is a sin against the creation ordinance. Using transgendered pronouns is a sin against image-bearing. Using transgendered pronouns discourages a believer's progressive sanctification and falsifies the gospel. Using transgendered pronouns cheapens redemption and it tramples on the blood of Christ. Using transgendered pronouns fails to love my neighbor as myself.

Using transgendered pronouns fails to offer genuine Christian hospitality instead of yields the definition of hospitality to liberal communitarianism, identity politics and human flourishing. I encourage you to go get her statement of repentance, just registered this year. It's very interesting. She writes a lot about the matter and her statement of repentance. But this passage really is very helpful because it shows us how to live in the body.

It shows us how to be a man. It shows us shows us how to be a woman and how to function as a man and how to function as a woman. And these things are against nature and that's That's really the problem. In verse 26, against nature and then in the next verse, leaving the natural use. So this is just a rejection of biblical manhood and womanhood at its very fundamental level.

And so here in Romans one, you have this mention of male and female, man and woman, and you have the creation order. And it takes us right, the same language is used in Genesis one and two. I think this is connected. Let's go back to Genesis one, find verse 27. Genesis 1, 27.

Find verse 27, Genesis 1.27. You find this same kind of language in 127 and 28, but also you find it in chapter 2, 23 and 24. I'll just read the 127 as a representative sample of it. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him.

Male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So this is a connection with Romans 1. The language of male and female are identical, and the matter of the creation is identical as well.

So this goes back to the very creation of God. But the Bible has quite a bit to say actually about homosexuality. A few years ago a very well known megachurch pastor right here in our area became even better known by telling his congregation in the context of talking about homosexuality, he said, we should whisper about what God whispers about and shout about what God shouts about. But he says, but God only whispers about homosexuality. So we should whisper about it.

And is that true? Well, let me take you on a walk through the Bible. We started in Romans 1 and went back to Genesis 1 27 and 28 but in Genesis 19 you have this picture of the abusive brutality of the Sodomite community in Sodom, and Genesis 19 makes it very clear, verse 4, now before they lay down the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, both old and young. Reminded me of the pride parade two weeks ago, where you had all these kids growing up in these Sodomite homes, old and young. It was astounding in Sodom.

Old and young, all the people from every quarter surrounded the house and they called to Lot and said to him, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally." Leviticus 18, go to, you don't have to turn, you won't be able to keep up with me. But Leviticus 18, 22 through 30, we learn that God will vomit sodomites out of the land. It won't go well with them. Verse 22, Leviticus 18, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman.

It is an abomination. And then he goes on, verse 24, Do not defile yourselves with any of these things, for by these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you, for the land is defiled. So God punishes nations, God puts nations out of commission like he did the Roman Empire. In Leviticus chapter 20 verse 13, you find the death penalty for Sodomites. For Anyone to say that the Bible whispers about sodomy needs to just kind of go back and read through the narrative.

Leviticus 20 verse 13, if a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, Both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. Deuteronomy 22 verse 5 speaks about women and men cross-dressing. Women putting on the apparel and the garb and the personality of men and men doing the same for women.

Verse five, in Deuteronomy 22, a woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor a man put on a woman's garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord. Women should dress in a way that's distinctively feminine. Men should dress in a way that's distinctively masculine. It's an abom—it's actually an abomination, uh, not to do that. Uh, And then in 1 Kings 15, you find actually Sodomites being banished from the land.

This is under the reign of King Asa. Asa did what was right in the sight of the Lord, as did his father David, and he banished the perverted persons from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. That word perverted is the word for Sodomite. It's the word for a male prostitute. It's a broad term as well.

Ezekiel 16 verses 49 through 50 speaks of the judgment on Sodom and how the children of Israel were acting like the children of Sodom. He says, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food and abundance of idleness. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy, and they were haughty and committed abomination before me. There I took them away as I saw fit." In 2 Chronicles chapter 23 verse 7, Josiah cleanses the land of the abomination of sodomy.

He tore his robes. So in the law and in the prophets, you have this testimony. In the New Testament, you have the same thing. There are many places that we could go. Perhaps the first place to go is in Ephesians 5 where we learned that marriage is between a man and a woman, where Jesus Christ, him, or where the Apostle Paul quotes the Old Testament narrative, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

Marriage is made between a man and a woman, not men and men and women and women. In Matthew chapter 19 verses 4 through 6, the Lord Jesus repeats it. He says that he made them male and female, quoting Genesis 1 27 in the creation narrative. In Jude six and seven, we learn of everlasting chains and darkness for the judgment of the great day as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in similar manner to these having given themselves over to sexual immorality having gone after strange flesh that are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. There are people today who say, well, the New Testament doesn't really say anything about homosexuality.

That's just not true. The Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount and in Matthew Chapter 5, he uses the term porneia which is, which has, it's a very broad term that includes all manner of sexual sin, not just adultery. It does include adultery but it's use of others as well. And 1 Timothy 8, 10, we learn that the law of God condemns sodomy, verse 8. But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, and then he goes on in verse nine, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the holy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites.

And if there's anything contrary to sound doctrine. In 1 Corinthians chapter six, verses nine and 10, we learn that there were sodomites who were converted and ended up in the Corinthian Church and the Apostle Paul gives a long list of things that if you continue to do them you will not enter the kingdom of heaven but then he says but such were some of you you were some of you were sodomites Some of you were homosexuals and sodomites in verse 9. And such were some of you, but you, such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus by the spirit of our God. I mean, there are actually are some very, very popular evangelicals who say, if you are quote, And I hate to use this term because it so undermines the biblical terminology.

If you are same sex attracted, it's just something you'll have to live with. And that's wrong because you can be delivered. They were delivered in Corinth. In Romans chapter six, we learn that Sodomites are set free from bondage, slaves to uncleanness and lawlessness. But everything's changed here and they're now slaves of righteousness and holiness.

And he says, he says to the Roman church in chapter 622, but now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God you have your fruit to holiness and to the end everlasting life for the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord you get to the very end of the Bible in Revelation 22 sodomites are condemned to everlasting darkness But outside are the dogs and the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. So there's sort of a biblical flyover of what is said about this matter of homosexuality. I know it's very sobering, difficult to even work through it. But There are consequences and you see this at the end of verse 27 and here this is the tragic personal fallout from letting your own passions run and then letting them run a little bit more and then letting them run so far that you become a sodomite. The penalty, the consequences, the due consequences and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

There's a line from Valley of Vision, there is no wrath like the wrath of being governed by my own lust for my own ends. Because all of our disorders come from this exchange.