Sexual Immorality | Homosexuality
by Bryan Carlson
God and His Word:
God is truth:
To know God, we must know His truth. God is the only source of truth. It is our goal to align our truth with the truth of God. We cannot create truth; we can only submit to God’s truth. God has always been truth. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament is the same God.
God never changes—Malachi 3:6: “I the Lord do not change.”
Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
The Word of God is our authority:
The Word of God absolutely has to remain our authority—the yardstick by which we measure everything. The only way to justify sexual sins and homosexuality Biblically is to make the Bible say something it simply does not say. Many liberal or uneducated people tend to make the Bible line up with current events or personal persuasions as opposed to letting the Bible inform our beliefs on the events of the day. This is extremely poor exegesis. Isaiah 5:20-21: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.”
Any time someone concludes that the Word of God is not the absolute authority—that defines the way we interpret the world—false doctrine ensues. To believe that God is absolute truth and the Spirit’s voice is absolute truth, but not believe the Bible is also absolute truth, opens the door to every false doctrine. 1 Peter 1:24-25 (quoting Isaiah 40:8) is a beautiful verse. It says, “For all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever. And this is the word that was preached to you.”
To know God is to align/conform to His truth—to His image and likeness—Romans 12:1-2: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” We are to conform our will to His; our truth must align with His truth. God, as Creator of all things, determines how everything in the world works and makes the rules.
Sin:
God determines what is sin, not us. God, and only God, determines the truth around sex. God’s Word defines marriage and the appropriateness of sex as one man and one woman for life. Any and all sex outside of the parameter of one man and one woman in marriage is outside of God’s plan:
Genesis 1:27: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Genesis 2:20-25: “But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.’” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Matthew 19:4-6: “Haven’t you read,” He (Jesus) 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.”
Hebrews 13:4a: “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure.”
Marriage is a picture of Christ and His Church, which should not be defamed.
Ephesians 5:21-33: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
All sin is a violation of God’s holy character with eternal consequences, separation from God:
Romans 2:5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed.
James 4:4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who indwells every Believer. Be holy as I am holy (1 Peter 1:16—quoting Leviticus). It is sacrilegious to say that something is holy that God calls detestable. This is blaspheming God.
Satan:
After creation, Satan deceived Eve, and sin entered the world. Romans 5:12, says, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” Ever since sin entered the world, Satan has been masquerading as an angel of light looking for someone to deceive and devour. Satan convinces us, if we are not careful, that God is holding out on us—that our plan is better than His plan—that we know better than God. 1 Corinthians 11:3: “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.”
Satan hates us with a passion. He is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). He comes only to steal and kill and destroy (John 10:10). He gives us deluding spirits (1 Timothy 4:1). He gives us ideas that are close to the truth that sound and look like truth but are actually false teachings. He is the great deceiver.
2 Thessalonians 2:8-12: “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”
Since the beginning of time, we have been in a spiritual battle for truth. Satan has deceived billions of people into thinking their way is superior to God’s way. Our battle is not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:10-18). It is common for Satan to fight using our emotions and feelings to deceive our minds and to form false theology—even theology that completely contradicts Scripture. Satan uses this weapon to discount any number of things the Bible teaches, even to the point of discounting the whole of Scripture, which is eventually what will happen to all of us who start making verses fit our desires.
Sexual immorality:
Sexual immorality is any sexual act outside of one man and one woman in a marriage relationship. Sexual immorality is now considered the norm in our world and those who believe in the traditional view of marriage and sex are considered backward and strange.
Acts 15:28-29: You are to abstain from… sexual immorality.
Galatians 5:16-26: “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Colossians 3:1-10 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8: “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.”
Revelation 21:8: “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
Homosexuality:
One form of sexual immorality is homosexuality, which is defined as romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender.
Our society as a whole has embraced and now even celebrates homosexuality as a lifestyle. How should we as the Church look at this issue? Generally speaking, the homosexual community considers the traditional Biblical view as bigoted and intolerant…and some would say hateful. Today’s more liberal theologians and churches espouse that homosexuality is not a sin and that the Bible doesn’t say that two men or two women of the same sex in a committed relationship are living in sin. Their thinking and rhetoric usually goes something like this: “we are called to love and not judge”; “their sin is not any worse than my sin or your sin”; “God wouldn’t have created them this way and then expect them to live according to their nature”; “the Bible was condemning homosexual rape—not the loving, committed relationship between two men or two women.”
Homosexuality is a perversion of God’s design and plan for mankind. Like all sin, it takes what God intended for good—love, intimacy, and sexuality—and perverts it into something unholy. Some would say that homosexuality is not a sin—and is even something accepted and celebrated by God—and still claim to believe the Bible. Doing so grossly misrepresents the Word of God. Never is it mentioned, or even hinted at, that a relationship between consenting same-sex couples is okay. Marriage is ALWAYS in the context of a husband and a wife.
Leviticus 18:22-30: “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable. “‘Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion. “‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you. “‘Everyone who does any of these detestable things—such persons must be cut off from their people. Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the Lord your God.’”
Leviticus 20:13: “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Romans 1:18-32: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other me and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-20: “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.”
1 Timothy 1:9-11: “We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.”
Jude 3-25: “Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage. But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
Is it okay to identify as homosexual and not act out on it?
No. That’s what we were before we were saved! Our passions and desires have been crucified. We are no longer slaves to sin or children of the devil. We will truly only be happy if we are delighting in the Lord and obeying Him (1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Galatians 2:20, 5:24-25; 1 John 3:9-10; Romans 6:5-14).
Did God create homosexuals this way?
Did God create me to lust? For those that struggle with same-sex attraction, did God create them that way? No.
The same way he didn’t create me to struggle with lust for women. Sin deceives us. Satan wants us to believe that God is holding out on us by not allowing us to pursue our natural desires. We are “more than conquerors through Christ who gives us strength” (Romans 8:37).
James 1:13-15: “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
What about love?
We cannot confuse the issue of loving homosexuals and endorsing homosexuality as a lifestyle. They are two very different issues. We should love homosexuals, care about them, listen to them, give them a safe place, share the Gospel with them, and disciple them. We can’t conflate the two issues. It is never loving to leave people in their sin. Come as you are does not mean stay as you are. Many people in our society today would say intolerance is equivalent to unloving. Love is not telling people what they are wanting to hear and affirming their beliefs when they contradict the holiness and plan of God. Love is speaking truth and calling the person to repentance. Ironically, “loving” people so much to accept their lifestyle is the most unloving thing we could do for them—because their lifestyle does not please the Lord.
Repentance and salvation:
The point of all of life is to know God—to be redeemed to the lover of our souls. The decisions we make about God on this earth will determine where we spend all of eternity. Each person’s name will either be in the Lamb’s book of life or not. In John 17:3, Jesus says, “Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom who have sent.”
Like all sinners, the person tempted by sexual sin needs to turn to Christ for salvation. All of us will struggle with sexual sins at different points in our lives—lust, pornography, adultery, heterosexual sex outside of marriage, homosexual sex, etc. We all need to strive to live holy lives as He is holy—confessing sin, turning away from sin, and turning to God in obedience.
Our only response to sin is repentance—Jesus said in Mark 1:15, “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” 1 John 1:5-10: “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.”
Deny ourselves:
Individuals with homosexual lusts may struggle with this sin the rest of their lives. They may have to deny themselves every day and take up their cross and follow Christ. This may be a cross they must bear. God may be calling them to singleness, which isn’t always a bad thing—Paul passionately talks about the benefits of being single—a single person can more effectively serve the Lord (1 Corinthians 7). Or it is possible that God may give them the ability and desire to be attracted to and love someone of the opposite sex.
Confused Christians:
How do we address this with Christians who are confused on these issues? First, we must acknowledge that not everyone who identifies as a Christian, who sits in a pew on Sunday, or leads a church, is a Christian. We must confront in love and in truth by defending this as a direct violation of what the Scriptures teach thoroughly and clearly from Genesis to Revelation.
Galatians 1:6-9: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” You are making a mockery of the Gospel—to make the Gospel fit your sinful desires.
We are called to lead our errant brothers and sisters in Christ to holy living and repentance.
Matthew 18:15-17 (Jesus) “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
Luke 17:3 (Jesus) So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”
1 Corinthians 5:1-13 “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”
2 Corinthians 7:8-12 Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while—yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. So even though I wrote to you, it was neither on account of the one who did the wrong nor on account of the injured party, but rather that before God you could see for yourselves how devoted to us you are.“
Galatians 2:11-13 “When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.” Even Peter, the rock on which Christ was building his church, was capable of being deceived. Praise God that Paul loved Peter and the Gospel of Jesus Christ enough to oppose him to his face. And praise God that Peter humbly repented and agreed with Paul’s rebuke.
Galatians 6:1-8: “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” Defending and protecting sin, though well intentioned, will lead to death.
Ephesians 4:11-16 “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
2 Thessalonians 3:10-15 “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good. Take special note of anyone who does not obey our instruction in this letter. Do not associate with them, in order that they may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard them as an enemy, but warn them as you would a fellow believer.”
Our plea is for those we love to respond to our teaching.
2 Timothy 2:11-19; 22-26: “And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.” Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”
2 Timothy 3:14-17: “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
2 Timothy 4:1-4: “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
Hebrews 10:23-27 “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.”
James 5:19-20: “My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.”
