Several years ago, I hFireappened to be listening to radio talk show host Michael Medved. Mr. Medved was asking callers if they agreed with Sir Elton John’s statement that, “organized religion doesn’t seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings

[those who blindly follow one another until they are all destroyed] and it’s not really compassionate.” Elton John’s solution would be to “ban religion completely.”

Before long, a man called in and asked Mr. Medved if he believed that God would send homosexuals like Elton John to hell. Michael Medved (a practicing Jew) referred to Leviticus 18:22 where God said, “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” He then said that, although homosexuality is an abomination to God, this does not mean that gays as people are an abomination. Michael Medved’s perspective was interesting, but he did not answer the man’s question.

Let’s look at the Bible for an answer to that caller’s question. First of all, the New Testament, as well as the Old Testament, teaches that homosexuality is a sin. For example, in Romans 1:26-31 and I Corinthians 6:9-10, God includes homosexual behavior among the sins that characterize those who are bound for hell. Keep reading, this will all make sense in a minute.

Homosexual acts are listed in both of those passages, but it is important to note that many other sins are named in the same category as homosexuality. Observe what some of them are: greed, envy, murder, strife, lying, gossiping, boasting, disobeying parents, and being unloving are in the same list as homosexuality in Romans 1:29-31. In I Corinthians 6:9-10, in addition to homosexuality, we find (among others) the sins of fornication, adultery, stealing, drunkenness, and dishonesty. The Bible, you notice, doesn’t paint homosexuality as being any worse than many other sins – some of which we may not even think of as sinful.

When we look at those lists of sins (as well as at the Ten Commandments, like I pointed out last week) we must conclude that we all deserve God’s wrath: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness” (Romans 1:18). We all deserve God’s wrath because we fail to give God the honor and the adoration that He deserves (see Romans 1:19-21).

Have you ever wondered why God hates sin? It’s because God deserves, and demands, that we worship Him and Him alone: “That they may know that You alone, whose name is the Lord, are the Most High over all the earth” (Psalm 83:18). The Lord has made it very clear that He will not share the spotlight with anyone or anything else: “I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another….” (Isaiah 42:8).

Now let’s answer the caller’s question. Gays do deserve hell—right along with all the rest of us. We all have a self-centered focus that robs God of His glory, and only God can change the inclinations of our heart. All sin is a cancer that robs us of real peace and any hope of eternal joy.

Thankfully, there is more to this story than just sin and punishment. Christ endured the punishment that we deserve so we could be changed on the inside and experience complete forgiveness.

What a joy to know that our sins can actually be completely gone! After the Bible gives us those sample lists of sins (mentioned above) it boldly says, “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). We can be made into new people no matter what sins have controlled our lives in the past.

What a thrill to know that Christ’s death on the Cross is enough to pay for any and all sin when we turn from it and follow Him. “As a result of the anguish of His soul [Christ’s death on the Cross], He [God the Father] will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge [i.e. knowing Jesus personally] the Righteous One [Christ], My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities [sins]” (Isaiah 53:11).