Today's question comes from a podcast listener named Kathy. "Hello Pastor John. You recently came to speak at my church in South Carolina and wow, what a blessing it was to me and to our entire church. Thank you for your faithful ministry. I write because my best friend just told me that she has been wrestling with homosexual desires for years and will now give in to them.

She recently said this to me, "I'm going to date a girl. I just am. It just feels more right and I just have to try it. I've agonized over this for years. I didn't ask for this and I'm not guilty or ashamed anymore. I've prayed and prayed and prayed and studied and I don't really feel condemnation from God.

I just feel it from people. I feel fine about it, free, unconvicted, and not scared anymore." Those are her words. My friend clearly professes faith and has come to the conclusion that it is okay to pursue this lifestyle, but a strong defensiveness makes me unsure how to best voice my disagreement.

Pastor John, what would you say to Kathy? Kathy, my suggestion is that you go back and review what you know because seeing it in black and white in God's Word strengthens us, gives us guidance for what to do. I have in mind Romans 1, 22 to 28. All of it's important, but here's the sentence that is most immediately relevant.

Verse 26, Romans 1, "God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature." That's the most important sentence right now for you and your friend. This is very frightening because she is your best friend, you said. And it seems to me from what you say that God is doing this very thing in her life, giving her up to passions, a terrifying prospect that should make her tremble and you for her.

So notice two levels of activity in this verse, 26 of Romans 1. One level is that God is giving her up to dishonorable passions. God gave them up to dishonorable passions, these women. There are three implications for your friend here. One, God ordinarily restrains sin for millions of people.

He restrains sin, but sometimes in just judgment for their resistance, he stops restraining. And this is called giving them up or handing them over to their desires. So he's just pulled back on your friend's passions for sin, and he's letting her go. Second, instead of God being the dominant restraining force now, passions take complete control.

I hear this over and over in the way you describe the state of her heart. Quote is what you say, "I'm going to date a girl. I just am. It just feels more right. I just have to try it. I don't feel guilty or ashamed anymore. I don't really feel condemnation from God.

I just feel it from people. I feel just fine about it." That's the language of a person who has been given up to feelings, or what Paul calls passions, dishonorable passions. They are her new God. Once the power of feelings and passions had a governor in God's restraining grace.

Now these passions are like a tsunami. They are knocking down every tower of truth, every sign of warning, every barrier to destruction. And she is now, it seems, enslaved to her feelings, her passions. And there is no slave master in the world that feels more freeing than this one.

But he's very cruel. Here's the third implication of this level one in verse 26. This new God that she has, called the passions, Paul says is dishonorable. She is in the bondage of dishonorable passions. Not only do these passions lead to utterly unnatural and pathetic substitutes for the way God created women, but they turn friends into enemies.

She says she only feels condemnation from people. Feelings are not God. It doesn't matter whether the friends really are condemning her. All that matters is what she feels. That's the way this God enslaves its victims. Reality doesn't matter anymore. Being condemned is all that matters. Whether you love her doesn't matter to her.

If she feels condemned by what you say, feelings are God. Self-justification is right at the heart of these dishonorable passions. They are morally superior. They feel morally superior to her than all the people around her who are now judgmental. So they are dishonorable passions in that they take friends speaking truth in love and turn them into enemies.

I said there are two levels in this verse. That was one of them. God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Here's the other one. For their women exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. So first comes the dishonorable passions, the bondage to the God of feelings, and then comes the action.

First there's dating, then touching, then kissing, then who knows what pathetic, utterly hopeless attempts to make the unnatural feel natural. The cruel God of feeling will let her succeed for a while, but the end of verse 27 will sooner or later explode with misery. It says, "Committing shameless acts and receiving in themselves," she and her girlfriend, "receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error." You can say if you quote that to her, that she feels condemned by you.

Just realize that feeling is bondage to her new God, and you need to speak. God only knows in the short run what that penalty will be. All that from Romans 1 is what you would do well to remind yourself of, and it seems to me, Kathy, that perhaps the best thing you can do is somehow draw your friend's attention to the powerful role that feelings play in her life right now, that are all out of proportion to the truth and authority of Scripture.

I'm just going to date this girl. I just am. It just feels more right. I just have to try it. I don't feel guilty. I don't feel ashamed. I don't really feel condemned by God. I just feel condemned by people. I feel just fine about it. Feel, feel, feel, feel, feel.

If there's truly a vestige of submission to the Lordship of Jesus in her, perhaps she will see that this is code language for the God of self. Perhaps it is not too late for you to sound a wake-up call. Don't be afraid of being condemned by her as being judgmental.

It may be the price you will have to pay for loving her well. Amen. Straightforward word that we all need to find our confidence in the revealed Word of God as an act of love towards others. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the very honest question, Kathy.

Appreciate that. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Over at our online home, you can explore all of our episodes in our archive of about 1,300 to date. There you can see a list of our most popular episodes, read full transcripts, and submit a question you might be wrestling with yourself.

For all of that, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Also be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast app. We end the week with an email from a 20-something young man whose health prospect is very bad and it seems that his life will be shortened. How does he come to terms with his approaching mortality and not become jaded toward God's sovereign goodness?

That is the question on Friday. Thanks for listening to this podcast with longtime author and pastor John Piper. We'll see you on Friday.