By Solomon Chimange
God’s first institution that He ordained in the Garden of Eden was marriage between a man and a woman for life. Genesis 3:24 says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” God created them male and female (Genesis 1:27). God ordained marriage was composed of a man and a woman. He created them Adam and Eve, not Jim and Tim, or Helen and Ellen.
The sin of sodomy (homosexual relations between men) gets its name from the wicked city of Sodom, which God destroyed. In Genesis 13:13 we read, “But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord.” In Genesis chapter 19 the two angels, who were sent by God to destroy the wicked city of Sodom, stayed the night with Lot in his house. The homosexual men of Sodom came to Lot’s house and “called to Lot and said to him, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out that we may have sex with them’” (Genesis 19:5). The door of Lot’s house was shut and the homosexuals “came near to break down the door” (Genesis 19:9). So the two angels of the Lord “struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so they became weary trying to find the door” (Genesis 19:11). The next day after Lot and his family fled Sodom, “Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens” (Genesis 19:24). And “the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace” (Genesis 19:28). This shows how God detests wickedness, which includes the sin of homosexuality.
In the New Testament we read, “And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly” (2 Peter 2:6). God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah should be a warning and example for us today of what God has planned in eternity for those who would live ungodly.
In preferring to accommodate the sin of homosexuality, many try to lessen the ugliness of the sin. It is not an alternate lifestyle, but a perverted lifestyle. The term “gay” is a misnomer. This is only a futile attempt to bolster their sinful image. They are not gay as in happy, but miserable in their wicked and corrupt lifestyle.
Some contend they cannot help being homosexual. Homosexuals are not born that way. People learn to be homosexuals just as they learn to be alcoholics. This is what they have chosen to do.
A homosexual can be saved and go to Heaven, but he or she cannot continue in their sin (Romans 6:1-2). Sin must be stopped if it is to be forgiven (Luke 13:3). Homosexuality, adultery, fornication, lasciviousness are all sinful perversions of what God ordained for marriage. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 we read, “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…will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified”. Notice that some of the Christians at Corinth had been homosexuals and sodomites, but they had given up their sin when they obeyed the Lord by being washed and sanctified in baptism. But they could not be saved if they went back into their sinful lifestyle. “The Lord is…not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). God does not want anyone to be lost, but people who miss Heaven and end up in the burning fires of Hell will only have themselves to blame.
Solomon Chimange is the founding member and Senior Pastor of New Life Christian Fellowship. He is also The Director for Southern Africa Carmel Bible Institute. Solomon is a Distinguished Proffessor of Practical Theology at Carmel. He also holds a Doctor of Divinity Degree and a PhD in Systematic Theology. Solomon is a teacher par excellence and is a Chartered Christian Instructor.
