Ecclesiastes 8:11-13 “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. 12 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him: 13 But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.”

I will begin today’s message by telling you a little bit about the Babylonian Talmud. Let’s begin with the word Talmud (Hebrew: תלמוד). The Talmud is a collection of ancient Rabbinical writings consisting of two parts, the Mishnah and the Gemara, which record the opinions of the Rabbis pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history. There are two Talmuds: The Palestinian Talmud (c. AD 400) and The Babylonian Talmud, which is more extensive and thus more highly esteemed. So, why am I telling you this? The answer is, there has only been one other time in history when same sex marriage exhisted. As I understand it, according to the Babylonian Talmud, one of the features of society in Noah’s time was same sex marriage.

Why should that concern us? Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 24:36-39 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. 37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Turn to the parallel passage in Luke 17:26-27 “And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.”

If there is any doubt in your minds that we are living in the “last days” you should rethink your position! We are walking down the same slippery path that many European countries, Canada and now Mexico have walked down. But…

• How Did We Get Here?

For years, when you thought of family it was a male husband who was the head of his home (Ephesians 5:23). He went to work and was the primary breadwinner. The mother was primarily a “home maker” or housewife (Titus 2:5). The husband protected his wife and his children. In fact, the dad would even watch over a grown daughter until she was given to the man she would marry.

It Began With Promiscuity in the Late 50’s & Early 60’s

All that changed in the 60’s and it had nothing to do with homosexuality. Hugh Hefner came onto the scene promoting his hedonistic, pleasure-oriented, recreational sex philosophy

focused on personal enjoyment, instead of biblical sexual relationships within the confines of marriage and only with your own spouse.

About that time, fornication came out of the closet, fueled by two things. First came the introduction of the birth control pill. Secondly, there was a proliferation of unsupervised, recreational dating. Rock & Roll added fuel to the fire of hormone driven youth and parents abdicated their responsibility to supervise their children. The public school became the focus of young people and not the family or the church. Promiscuity, which had been there all the time, but was subdued and kept in the closet so to speak, came bursting out of the closet big time.

What happened next was the acceptance of heterosexual cohabitation. This is where the accepted definition of the family came under attack and began to change. Larry Vincent of World magazine put it this way – “Cohabitation began shedding its stigma, leading to a revolving door family structure that often left children fatherless and economically deprived.” Then, by the 1970’s we began to commonly hear the phrase, “single parent” families, which usually referred to a mother rearing children without the benefit of marriage and without the presence of the biological father, (though different men were often in and out of the woman’s bedroom).

Here’s how Dr. Erwin Lutzer sums it up in his eye-opening book The Truth About Same-Sex Marriage – “Gradually, the notion of a family with a father, mother and children, all living under the same roof, became something of a relic of a bygone era…” for the most part. Thus, the definition of “family” underwent its first change, and it had nothing to do with the homosexuals. But, the success of fornicating heterosexuals in “freeing” themselves from biblical morality signaled to the homosexual community that it was time for them to break the bands of biblical constraint.

Homosexuality Comes Out of The Closet

Homosexual Activists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen reveal the approach they would follow in “coming out of the closet.” Here’s how they put it — “Almost any behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it.”

The homosexual crowd cares nothing about the truth! They will lie if it will advance their cause. But, remember, the Bible is clear. We are all to tell the truth. The 9th of the 10 Commandments tells us that we must not lie, or more specifically we are not to “bear false witness” (Exodus 20:16). Or as Colossians 3:9 says, “Lie not one to another….” However, homosexuals do NOT play by the rules! You cannot believe a thing they say! Eric Pollard, the militant homosexual and founder of ACT-UP, writes that lying was a part of the strategy of homosexual activists. He said Hitler was the model. “By cleaver and persevering use of propaganda, even heaven can be represented as hell to people and conversely, the most wretched life as paradise.” In fact, homosexuals will lie and their sympathizers will swear to it because their goal is to force us to accept their sinful perversion as normal.

I studied psychology as a part of my social science major for an undergraduate degree. I can tell you that when I began attending the University in 1968, homosexuality was classed as psychiatric illness! By 1970 the homosexuals were coming out of the closet. Part of their strategy was to strongly encourage homosexuals to talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible. Of course this is completely contrary to the Scriptures – Ephesians 5:12 “For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.”

One of the first targets of the radical homosexuals was the American Psychiatric Association. Every year, for three years, they made a huge ruckus for the purpose of disrupting the APA’s annual meeting. One year one of the radical homosexuals grabbed the microphone and yelled – “Psychiatry is the enemy incarnate. Psychiatry has waged a relentless war of extermination against us. You may take this as a declaration against you.” In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of psychiatric illness and reclassified it as normal behavior. It should be noted that this was the first time in the history of the organization that a scientific society ignored scientific data and yielded to the demands of a militant group.

With this victory under their belt, the media soon cooperated with the homosexual strategy. Sitcoms, movies and documentaries were all calculated to make homosexuality took normal. They began to portray themselves as victims and underdogs whose perversion needs special privileges and protections.

A BIG part of the Gay agenda was to make anyone who was anti-gay look nasty. In fact in the book, Unveiling the Gay Agenda, the two homosexual authors write – “We intend to make the anti-gays look so nasty that average Americans will want to disassociate themselves from such types.” The homosexual’s goal is to portray themselves as normal, just another option. Homosexuals Kirk and Madsen say, “It makes no difference that the ads [portraying homosexuals as icons of normality] are lies, not to us….”

Finally, the capstone of the radical homosexual agenda was realized when in 2001, the National Education Association adopted a resolution to indoctrinate school children to accept and affirm homosexual behavior as normal. When word leaked out, the motion was “tabled” but quietly implemented without official member approval.

This is how we got to where we are today.

• The Arguments Homosexuals Use Against Us

Let’s begin with one of the main lies that are being used to convince us that we should accept homosexuality as normal…

I Was Born That Way

Here’s how they present their false argument: “If it can be established that homosexuality is caused genetically rather than a chosen lifestyle, then homosexuality cannot be immoral.”

This reasoning is utterly false. We are all responsible for our behavior, even if we are genetically motivated. No one can say that their genes have rendered them helpless robots, incapable of human choice about their behavior. As Dr. Erwin Lutzer points out, “no matter what influence our genetic makeup has on us, we cannot use this as an excuse for a lack of accountability and responsibility.” Here’s why. We are all born with certain predispositions. Since the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin, we all have a predisposition to sin. We are born sinners! However, even though that is the case, “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” Romans 14:12. God will judge sinners. He expects us to abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good (Romans 12:9).

Homosexuality Cannot Be Changed

That is a BIG lie. Pastor Darrow and I went to a conference where two, one time homosexuals, gave testimony how God freed them from homosexuality. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

Gay Marriage Is A Matter of Civil Rights

The civil rights movement had to do with people being born black having the same rights as people who are born white. While I do not care much for the Reverend Jesse Jackson, I agree when he points out, “we must unhitch the supposed connection between civil rights and homosexual rights. After all, no black person can abandon his or her blackness, but many people have abandoned their sexual behavior. The “civil rights” argument is bologna!

I Am A Christian and God Accepts My Homosexuality

Some who profess to be Christians claim that they can be in active homosexual relationships with God’s approval. One such alleged “Christian” is Marsha Stevens. She is a practicing homosexual. That is one of the reasons we do not sing her song “For Those Tears I Died” (also, the song is not theologically accurate). One of the reasons I do not allow Gaither songs to be sung here is because he endorsed the homosexual immorality of Marsha Stevens. The Bible is clear, active homosexuals are not saved and will not be in heaven. I refer you back to 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

Even If You Do Not Accept Homosexuality You Should Tolerate It

That is completely contrary to the teaching of the Bible. I point you first to Psalms 97:10 “Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.” Now turn to Proverbs 8:13 “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.”

While tolerance has emerged as a national value, so to speak, people don’t understand what the original meaning of tolerance was. It meant that people should be free to believe what they wanted to believe. However, today people define it as freedom to do whatever you want to do. Those who preach toleration, demand that we accept all behavior, no matter how demented, immoral, unnatural and bizarre. The homosexual lobby defines tolerance as the requirement to endorse homosexual behavior. You can clearly see their agenda when you see how they went after the Boy Scouts of America because they refused to allow homosexuals to be Scout leaders. It cost the BSA dearly. Let me put it simply for you – What God condemns in His Word, we must NOT tolerate.

In conclusion, I would like to remind you that the family, that is one man married to one woman seeking to have children, is the backbone of any society. Regardless of the homosexuals’ intimidation, we must stand strong for the Biblical Family.

[Resource material for this message came primarily from The Truth About Same-Sex Marriage by Erwin W. Lutzer. You should read this book]