Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful: but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Romans 1:21-25
We see in these verses that both sexual perversion and idolatrous religion have their roots in the rebellion of the creation against the Creator. As soon as man turned his back on his Creator, he began a perverted love affair with the creation. This spiritual perversion began to manifest in the natural as sexual perversion. Man’s rebellion against God resulted in an arrested development that can be seen in both spiritual and sexual manifestation. It is for this reason that there is such a strong affinity between homosexuality and the spirit of religion and why the churches are filled with homosexuals in need of a message and an anointing that will deliver them. Let us examine the relationship between spiritual and sexual perversion.
The Sexual Types
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. Romans 1:26
The first description given in this passage from Romans is of female homosexuality because lesbianism is a type of, or represents, the first level of deception found in the Babylonian religious system. Many Christians who are members of mainline churches have failed to come into proper relationship with Christ as their head. These dead denominational churches that had their origins and roots in genuine revivals of the Holy Spirit today are nothing more than social clubs or forums for political correctness. The headship of Jesus Christ is either not acknowledged at all or given merely lip service. God intended the Church or body of Christ, as his female, to be united to Jesus Christ as the Bride is joined to the Bridegroom. Lesbianism is the type of churches (females) or Christians who reject the Bridegroom. The system’s rejection of the leadership of the Man or Christ is seen as spiritual lesbianism by God because the creation, which is female in God’s eyes, worships and serves itself rather than the Creator.
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. Romans 1:27
The second level of deception, represented by male homosexuality, is more subtle than the first. Here the enemy mixes just enough truth with the lie so that the bondage (sexual or spiritual) runs deep. Male homosexuality is a type of, or represents, those Christians who have come to the basic revelation that the Church is the Bride and that Christ is the Bridegroom to whom we are united in bonds of love. These Christians have the revelation that they are the female united to the male but all spiritual progress stops there. The system resists, rejects and rebels against the revelation that we are Christ and that we possess all that he possesses.
In the psychological and sexual development of a male child, he begins life identifying with his mother exactly as a little girl does. However at a certain age, in the normal development of the boy, he must begin to pull away from his mother and begin identifying with the male parent in order to learn what it is to be a man and how to relate to females as a male. If that transition from identifying with the female to identifying with the male is never made, the boy’s development is arrested and psychological and sexual problems manifest.
In the spiritual parallel, to move into the fullness of the stature of Christ is to step out of the female aspect of God (the Bride) into the male aspect (Sonship) for the purpose of ministry or spiritual reproduction. Many Christians reject Sonship, resist the message of the Kingdom and refuse to grow into a mature identity with the man Christ Jesus. Instead of becoming conformed to his image and growing “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children…”, they would rather relate to Jesus as a female in the same way that a homosexual man desires to relate to men in a feminine mode rather than asserting and identifying with his own masculinity.
The Spiritual Reality
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha and the cities about them in like manner giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh… Jude 7
In this passage Jude is comparing spiritual rebellion with the sexual sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. These sins, fornication and going after strange flesh, must be seen in a spiritual light to get the deeper meaning and to understand the spiritual parallel. In spiritual application, the "strange flesh" is actually the flesh of Jesus.
Like the homosexual who is so deceived about who he is or what he already has, the religious system of man has deceived Christians into desiring fellowship with the flesh of Jesus instead of presenting their bodies a living sacrifice in order to become his flesh. Jesus gave his disciples the commandment to eat his flesh in order that it be digested, that his flesh would become our flesh, not “strange” flesh. It is their attachment to the “strange” flesh of Jesus that has so many Christians in bondage and that keeps them in spiritual immaturity.
Another powerful scripture that shows the connection between sexual perversion and spiritual rebellion is found in the book of Revelation:
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Rev 11:8
Where also our Lord was crucified. What does this mean? We see in this scripture that, in the mind of God, Sodom and the sins of the Sodomites have a spiritual significance that has nothing to do with sexuality. It was not homosexuals that crucified Jesus but rather the old pharisaical order. The sexual manifestation is merely an outward sign of something much more offensive to God: the religious system of man (Judaic in Jesus' day and now Christian in our day). God has compassion on homosexuals. God's wrath is aimed at the spiritual homosexuals that populate the "great city" referred to in this passage. That city is the Jerusalem that is "below" or in the realm of carnality which Paul contrasts with spiritual Jerusalem that is "above" (Gal 4:25-26). In the mind of God, the Jerusalem that is below is spiritually synonymous with the whore, Babylon, and as we can see here, with Sodom and Egypt. They all speak of a place where God's people are held in bondage -- not to secular authority but to fleshly religious authority and to their own attachment to that authority. They also speak of a place that will crucify those who, like Jesus, proclaim the truths of God's kingdom.
While the religious system makes an attempt to minister to homosexuals and to get them delivered, the success is sporadic because it is an example of the blind leading the blind. There can be no dramatic and massive deliverance until the underlying spiritual causes of homosexuality are recognized and judged within the Church. Cleansing and judgment must begin in the household of God. If the Church is to minister in power and compassion to homosexuals, Christians must repent of the unscriptural teachings - such as the concept of "free moral agency" (how can a man dead in sins and trespasses be a free agent?) - and judgmental spirits that have hindered their effectiveness. Indeed, the only hope for the Church and for all creation lies in the preaching of the kingdom message and in the unveiling of the Sons of God:
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Romans 8:21
When the Sons of God begin to manifest, all aspects of man’s rebellion and the fruit of that rebellion will be reversed as the Sun of righteousness arises within us with healing in His wings.