Page 84 - Push Back

who have violated Yahweh’s commandment “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” Many of those who engage
in theft come from broken homes. There is no father present in many instances. Gang influences
are often a factor. The experiences and influences that contribute to a person engaging in the
criminal, sinful behavior of stealing, embezzlement, or robbery are varied and complex. Yet the
behavior itself is not difficult to understand, nor are Yahweh’s instructions to mankind relating to
this subject difficult to describe.

We do a disservice to people struggling with homosexual desires when we portray their struggles
as exceptional. They are no more exceptional than the person struggling with an attraction to
pornography, or inordinate heterosexual desires such as fornication or adultery. The solution is
no different than for the person who is a compulsive liar, thief, or those who struggle with anger
and violence. A person can be delivered from homosexual behavior as surely as they can be set
free of any other activity that Yahweh describes as sinful.

Following are a couple of foundational principles that are true of the sin of homosexuality, as
well as every other sin:

• Homosexual behavior must be confessed as sin.

This is the starting point for dealing with any sinful behavior. We must agree with Yahweh that
sin is sin. This is not a point to be glossed over, for not only is society denying homosexuality to
be a sin, but the church has begun to do so as well.

There can be no turning away from sin as long as a person denies that their behavior is sinful.
Nor can there be deliverance and restoration to God until a person quits making excuses for their
sins. This was a failing of King Saul. When he was confronted by the prophet Samuel with his
disobedience to the commandment of Yahweh, Saul first denied, then made excuses. In the Old
Testament we read of a time when Yahweh determined to execute judgment upon the people of
Amalek. He sent Samuel the prophet with words of instruction to King Saul.

I Samuel 15:1-3
Listen to the words of Yahweh. Thus says Yahweh of hosts, “I will punish Amalek for what he
did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt.
Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to
death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”

King Saul attacked the people of Amalek, and Yahweh delivered all the people and their