The Watchman’s Call

Announcer: Standing at the intersection of the word and the world, there is a clear sound for uncertain times. Welcome to The Watchman’s Call. Join us as we stand on the ramparts of scripture to examine the intersection of biblical prophecy and modern culture. The headlines are changing, but the blueprint has already been written. Listen as Pastor Andy Woods uncovers the prophetic significance of the world we live in. The Watchman’s Call starts now.

Dr. Andy Woods: I want to welcome you back to The Watchman’s Call broadcast. The last time we were together, we started a series entitled The Days of Lot. The reason we're doing this is Jesus himself said in Luke 17, beginning around verse 28, that as it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man.

If we want to be good prophecy students, good prophecy observers, then we need to understand the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were the days of Lot. Look at the trends happening in that time period, compare those trends to our world today, and ask ourselves, are we there yet? In other words, those trends should reappear as we get closer to the second advent.

These trends serve as sort of a barometer that we’re reaching very rapidly the end of the age. In this series, we’re looking at seven trends related to the days of Lot, comparing them to today. The first two we covered on our first episode together: there was a tremendous insensitivity towards God and there was great material prosperity in Sodom and Gomorrah on the eve of her destruction at the hands of God.

Those are two trends that we saw developing in our world as well. Now, with all of that being said, let's move to our third trend. What was happening in the days of Lot? What was happening in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah? Number three, there was a mainstreaming of sexual deviance. There was a mainstreaming of sexual perversion.

Some of the things I’m going to say here are going to sound somewhat harsh. Don't shoot the messenger; this is what God's word teaches. As I go through some of this material, I want you to understand that God loves everybody. Jesus himself said in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Just because God loves everyone doesn't mean he approves of the behavior of everyone. The old adage "love the sinner, hate the sin" applies, and so we want to keep that in mind as we go through some of this strong material.

So, what was happening in the days of Lot? There was a mainstreaming of sexual perversion or sexual deviance. As we saw in the last show that we had together, they had achieved a material prosperity to the point where they weren't working to eke out a living, and so there was more opportunity for the manifestations of the sin nature to be explored. Boy, did these people explore it.

They were no longer satisfied with God's blueprint for sexuality, which is one man for one woman for one life. Maybe they began to say things like, "monogamy rhymes with monotony," and "I’m sort of tired of God's blueprint for sexuality, so let's see if my sexual desires can be explored through other avenues outside of God's standard."

Make no mistake about it, folks, God has a standard for sexuality. I understand that many have fallen short of that standard, but the grace of God is always available to all. Beyond that, just because humanity has fallen terribly short of the standard doesn't mean the standard isn't there.

You'll find that standard expressed in early Genesis before the fall affected mankind. God said this in Genesis 1:27, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." Then in the next chapter, Genesis 2:24 says, "For this reason, a man shall leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."

What is God's standard of sexuality for the human race? One man for one woman for one life. We might call this heterosexual monogamy. This is a blueprint for New Testament teaching as well because Jesus, in Matthew 19:3-6, was asked about marriage and divorce.

Rather than get into a debate with the Rabbis about the "indecent thing" mentioned in Deuteronomy 24:1, there was a big debate in that time about what the indecent thing was. The school of Hillel had a tendency to be more liberal; the indecent thing was anything you could divorce your wife for—she put too much salt on your food, you could divorce her, etc.

The school of Shammai was more strict and said no, it's only for adultery that the non-offending party can dissolve the marriage and remarry. There was that dispute going on and the Pharisees came testing Jesus, wanting to know who he was with, Hillel or Shammai. Jesus doesn't take the bait; he goes back to the original standard of God.

Notice what he says in Matthew 19:3-6. "Some Pharisees came to Jesus testing him, asking, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?' And he answered and said, 'Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?' That's Genesis 1:27. Verse 5 of Matthew 19 says, 'For this reason, a man shall leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.' That's Genesis 2:24. 'So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let man not separate.'"

This is the standard of God, Old Testament and New Testament: heterosexual monogamy. Any form of sexuality outside of that standard—it doesn't matter what it is—is a sin because it goes against God's blueprint for the human race.

This is what we read in the book of Hebrews 13:4. It says, "Marriage is to be held in honor among all, the marriage bed is to be undefiled, for fornicators and adulterers God will judge." What's a fornicator? This would be someone unmarried involved in sexual activity. What's an adulterer? An adulterer is someone who is married but is involved in sexual activity outside of that union of marriage that God has established.

Notice that the standard is heterosexual monogamy, and any form of sexuality outside of that standard is considered deviant and is something that God himself will judge. This is why and how God judges this whole homosexual agenda that our culture is plummeting into.

The whole notion of homosexuality is deemed deviant by God because it's outside of his blueprint. You're not dealing with a man and a woman anymore, but two women or two men. Of course, we're observing it about to be judged here in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Then when you go into the Mosaic law, you see the behavior of homosexuality judged in very strong terms. For example, in Leviticus 18:22, it says, "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."

Over in Leviticus 20:13—this was during the age of the law, which we're not under today, but it is a revelation of God's perfect moral character—it says, "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act. They will surely be put to death; their blood guiltiness is upon them."

Then you move into the teachings of Jesus Christ, and people say, "Well, Jesus never condemned homosexuality." Well, that's true, but there's a lot of things Jesus never condemned that we don't condone. He never condemned freebasing cocaine either, and yet obviously Jesus would not be in favor of that.

What Jesus did affirm is the heterosexual monogamous blueprint in Genesis 1 and 2. We saw the quote earlier in Matthew 19. We also know that Jesus, in John chapter 2, decided to perform his very first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. So Jesus was pro-marriage; he was pro-divine blueprint.

Of course, when we get into the teachings of the apostle Paul, we see very clearly that Paul affirmed heterosexuality constantly and he condemned the practice of homosexuality. We're going to read a little bit later 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Paul also condemns the practice of homosexuality in Romans 1:26-27 and also in 1 Timothy 1:9-10.

Paul was not just against things; he was for things. He was pro-heterosexual. He affirms that in 1 Corinthians 7:2-5. He affirms it in 1 Timothy 3:2 and verse 12 where he's talking about church leadership, how an elder or a deacon within the church must be a husband of one wife.

Then over in Ephesians 5:22-33, he analogizes our relationship to Jesus, as members of his church, as bride to groom. So Paul and Jesus both promoted heterosexuality. Paul, in particular, condemned homosexuality.

In fact, you might be shocked to learn that our country, the United States of America, at its inception considered homosexuality a crime against nature. I’m not necessarily here arguing that we go back to those days; I’m just trying to describe the roots of the United States of America. There was something that our legal system was based on here in the United States of America called Blackstone's Commentaries on the Law.

Here's what Blackstone said: "Thus, when the Supreme Being formed the universe and created matter out of nothing, he imposed certain principles upon that matter from which it can never depart and without which it would cease to exist. If we farther advance from mere inactive matter to vegetable and animal life, we find them still governed by laws more numerous indeed, but equally fixed and invariable. Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is an entirely created and dependent being. No human laws should be suffered to contradict the laws of nature and the laws of revelation."

What Blackstone is saying in these legal commentaries is God has disclosed himself in two sources: his word and in nature. The purpose of law is to cooperate with what the Creator has disclosed in those two sources. Obviously, at our inception, homosexuality was considered a crime against nature because it went against the word of God, which condemns homosexuality. It also went against natural revelation because in nature, two living beings of the same sex coming together don't reproduce. They only reproduce when you have heterosexuality. Blackstone said since the Creator is against the practice of homosexuality both in his word and in general revelation, then it's okay to have laws on the books to make homosexuality a crime.

My point is this has been the biblical standard for the last 2,000 years. But you see, what was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah is the sin in Sodom and Gomorrah in the days of Lot was deviating from this divine standard.

We read about this in Genesis 13:13, where it says, "Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against the Lord." We also read about it in Genesis 18:20 where it says, "And the Lord said, 'The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.'"

We also read about it in 2 Peter 2:7-8, which describes Lot living amongst the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah as they were practicing this sexual deviance. It says, "If he rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard, that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment."

Notice the perversion of Sodom there is described as lawless deeds. Over in the book of Jude verse 7, it describes such depravity as the inhabitants of Sodom going after strange flesh. It says there, "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire."

So obviously what was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah was a mainstreaming of perversion. What kind of perversion was happening here? When you go back to the account of Sodom and Gomorrah, you'll read these words in Genesis 19:4-5. It says, "Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house of Lot, both young and old (catch that, both young and old), all the people from every quarter; and they called to Lot and said to him, 'Where are these men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them.'"

I read that out of the New American Standard Bible, but here's how it reads in the New King James Version: "'Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally.'" What does it mean to know them carnally? It's talking about sexuality.

Here's what we read in Genesis 4:1: "Adam knew his Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, 'I have acquired a man from the Lord.'" So "know" is sexual intimacy. We know it's speaking of sexual intimacy here because this is what impregnated Eve, and that's why she gave birth to her firstborn, Cain.

When the men of the city, both young and old, surrounded Lot's house and said, "Bring out your guests, we want to get to know them," the New American Standard Bible does a great job translating it as "that we may have relations with them." We want to violate them sexually.

Lot had, I believe it was three angels. One of the angels left; we think that was the angel of the Lord. Then the other two angels stayed with Lot in Sodom, and we know that angels can appear as people. The book of Hebrews 13:2 says some of you have entertained angels unaware.

Once the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah got wind of the fact that these two men were in town, the whole city, young and old, surrounded the house and demanded that Lot release his guests for their sexual abuse, their own sexual pleasure. The expression "everyone in the city, young and old" shows us how far this mainstreaming of sexual perversion was happening.

Is that kind of thing happening in our country today? I’m sad to say that it is. I have several newspaper clippings in front of me. One of them right here was written by a law professor in the New York Times, and the title of her piece is "Pedophilia is a disorder and not a crime."

Here's another piece, an advertisement for a conference of scholars, so-called. The title of it says, "Scholars say pedophilia is now a sexual orientation that should be accepted by society." Here's another piece by one of our governors in one of our most populous states, and he, according to this headline, has just signed a bill reducing penalties for sodomy with minors.

This is the kind of thing that's happening all over the world. I’m looking here at another newspaper heading. It says, "Explosive: Labor chiefs, it's okay to have sex with 10-year-olds," one of these leaders around the world is arguing.

What you see happening in Sodom and Gomorrah and what you see happening today is just a tremendous pressure to take something that is perverse and mainstream it. This is all part of a design. It's called the Overhauling of Straight America.

Let me read to you a little bit from a piece written by some members of the homosexual movement in Guide magazine going all the way back to 1987. They say this: "In any campaign to win over the public, homosexuals must be cast as victims in need of protection, so that straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role of protector. If homosexuals instead are presented as strong and a prideful type promoting a rigidly non-conformist deviant lifestyle, then they are more likely to be seen as a public menace that justifies resistance and oppression. For that reason, we must forgo the temptation to strut our gay pride publicly when it conflicts with the gay victim image."

So the whole name of the game is to present homosexuality as if it's a persecuted minority. If you can do that, you can change the civil rights laws of America, and once you change the civil rights laws of America, you can go to war with any organization, any church, that would say, "I’m sorry, we’re not going to have homosexuals."