In two different posts (here and here) the connection was drawn between homosexual sin and another sexual sin--sexually abusing little boys. There have been a number of people who have asked good questions about this, and some have raised reasonable-sounding objections. One major point needs to be made that goes a long way towards answering the questions.
It is always our temptation to think that we have our sin under control. We think we are the master. In reality, if we are not serving God, we are serving another master (Matthew 6:24). If we are sinning, we are not in control of where we are going. Satan wants us to believe the lie that we can control how far we go into sin. He wants us to think that we can stop whenever we want. Sin leads to death, but we think we can pursue sin without dying. We think we wouldn't ever take our sin to the point where it kills us. But the point is that we aren't the one taking our sin somewhere. Our sin is taking us somewhere. Romans 6:16 says, "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?" We are being led inevitably and inexorably toward the destination determined by whatever master we serve. If that master is God, the destination is life. If that master is sin, the destination is death.
With that in mind, let's return to thinking about the connection between sins. No sin is static. It is always leading towards more sin and greater sin. Those who give themselves to sins of greed grow in greediness and sins connected to greed. Those who lie and cheat a little bit soon find themselves lying and cheating a lot. A person who knowingly wears fake brand-name items like Gucci sunglasses or a Rolex watch is more likely to cheat on a test. As our sin progresses, it brings a variety of other sins into our life, but the general progression of sin is actually fairly predictable.
So let's make the offending statement more general: Those who give themselves to sexual sin grow in sexual sin. Or even simpler, those who sin sexually fall into sexual sin.
This ought to be as obvious to us as the nose on the end of our face. How many men today can describe the trajectory of their descent down the path of sexual sin as follows: Ogling women led to soft-core porn, led to hard-core porn, led to video sex chatting, led to meeting up for sex, led to rape, led to murder, led to death row? How far along that path are you currently?
When we tell people that pornography leads to real live at the nasty by-the-hour motel adultery, nobody believes it. They might agree in theory that sin leads to death, but they are thinking, "I would never, could never do that! How dare he! What does he think I am, some sort of sick pervert? Does he think I'm stupid? I would have to be retarded to throw away my happy marriage and lovely wife and wonderful children! I'm too smart to ride sin all the way to death."
Does everybody who looks at pornography end up murdering somebody? No. Nor is the path described above the only way to get from ogling women to death. But the closer you get to the end of sin, the more extreme sins of all sorts will be a part of your life. We shouldn't be surprised when a rapist is also a murderer. And once a man has gone so far as to attempt to physically act out his wicked sexual desires, there's a lot of truth to the statement that "you need to hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband, 'cause they're raping everybody out here."
Gay men who are already abusing other men sexually are not far from committing any number of other terrible sins, only one of which is raping little boys. Do all of them do that? No. But neither are they a good judge of whether they are capable of even desiring it. Our perversions are perverse. Who knows where they will lead us? We aren't the one leading so we don't know which path we will take to death (Proverbs 5:22).
Do we keep kids away from known sex offenders? Yes. What are gay men? They are sex offenders--people who have become so enslaved to their perverse desires that they act them out.
It's a tiny step from acting on one perverted desire to having a new perverted desire. The step from perverted desire to perverted action is also small (James 1:14-15).
Pornography perverts our desires. That's why, if I'm picking between two men to care for my children, I want to know which of them is a sex offender. If neither of them is, I want to know which of them has perverted desires. If neither of them does, I want to know which of them is looking at pornography.
There's a connection between sins, and sexual sin begets sexual sin.
Joseph and his wife, Heidi, have five children, Tate, Eliza Jane, Moses, Fiona and Annabel. He graduated from Vanderbilt University and Clearnote Pastors College. He is currently planting Christ Church in Cincinnati with several other families.
