Given Over to Desire

Transcript

GR 2205
04/28/2019
Given Over to Desire
Romans 1:25-27
Gil Rugh

We’re in Romans chapter 1. We’ve just begun this great letter of the Apostle Paul writing to a church that has been established in the city of Rome. We don’t know for sure how it was established, who the individuals were that God used to bring the gospel to those people, perhaps as we noted, some Jews from the city of Rome were in Jerusalem for Pentecost and were there and saved on the day of Pentecost. We don’t know. Paul has not been there, so we know that he wasn’t the person used. He’s been wanting to go to Rome, but other things have been more important at the time. Paul’s passion was to carry the gospel where it had not been taken and obviously, someone had taken it to Rome, and there was a church established there. And even now, as he anticipates visiting there, it’s going to be possible because he’s saying, I want to go to Spain because somebody needs to take the gospel there, but I’ll stop in Rome on my way and I look forward to that and he writes this tremendous letter under the inspiration of the Spirit.

Paul has a sense of indebtedness, both as an apostle but as one who was in and as one who has been entrusted with the gospel, but in that sense of every believer. We can identify with that, by God’s grace that we have had the gospel brought to us. We want to share that with others because as Paul will share in chapter 10, people can’t be saved who don’t hear, and they won’t hear unless somebody comes to tell them or bring it to them, so Paul said in verse 14 of chapter 1. “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, to the wise and to the foolish. So, for my part, I’m eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome.” Now he’s writing to a believing church, but he wants to bring the gospel there with the desire that others will come to know Christ and be added to that church. And, also, that that church, and then we have this great letter, so that church can be more firmly established in the truth, and that is not only crucial for the Romans 2,000 years ago but it is just as crucial for us today.

This gospel is God’s power for salvation. If we’re not anchored in that, we’ll soon be carried with the drift that seems sooner or later to overtake churches wherever they are. Now if you’ve studied history and the history of the church, some of you are studying that now, and you know it’s just a tide, what happens? The churches just drift. I was reading about Spurgeon’s church and when he was there, there were 5,000 and you had to have tickets to attend that service, and then periodically they would ask those who were ticket holders not to come next Sunday so that other people can come in and hear, and that time passed. The last I read there were about 300 attending what remains of that church. Praise the Lord the Word’s still being taught there! So, Paul is establishing in the gospel, we don’t want to lose our hold on that and by God’s grace we hope to pass it on to the next generation, but it becomes their personal response to the gospel that determines where things go.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against the ungodliness of men, and the crucial issue here as we have looked at, is the rejection of the living God, and the replacing of God with gods of our own making. Now keep in mind the first section of Romans, after the introductory material, is showing the condemnation of all people. Romans 1, verses 18 to 32 are specifically focused on Gentiles. Now it covers what we call general or natural revelation and the revelation in God’s creation which is general and open to everyone everywhere. So naturally Jews would be exposed to that as well, but Jews have been given an added benefit and blessing. They had received what we call special revelation, the very word of God entrusted to them, so he’ll address the Jews in their sinful condition in chapter 2. What he’s dealing with in chapter 1 encompasses all Gentiles everywhere and we could say all people everywhere, even though the Jews will be specifically addressed in chapter 2, the sins that he’ll be talking about.

We want to be careful, we read that, and we pick out and say yeah, that’s a terrible sin. That’s a terrible sin, but what he’s really dealing with is the condition of everyone, so it’s not that we’re looking at the sins that other people commit. We are looking at ourselves in the mirror of the Word in Romans 1 and the guilt that is ours, because where Paul wants to take us is over in chapter 3 verses 19 and 20 by having shown the Jews that they are lost, even though they have the special revelation of God’s Word.

Chapter 3 verse 19 says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God because it’s not only those outside the Law who only have general revelation who are condemned. But it’s the Jews who have not responded in faith to the special revelation that they’ve been given, so we want to be clear about Romans 1. We sometimes go here to pick out specific sins like homosexuality and we can point out how terrible that is. But that’s just one example, that’s not the root problem, because he demonstrates people that aren’t homosexuals are in the same lost condition. All, everywhere, are found guilty before God so we don’t want to give the idea, well if you don’t do what we see these more awful serious sins, we weren’t as sinful. Scripture makes clear we were dead in our trespasses and sins like everyone else, or as Paul told Titus, remind them they were just like those repulsive unbelievers that we find repulsive. Oh boy, that’s terrible their sin, now that we have righteousness in Christ but we were just like them. That’s what Romans 1 is doing, what was our condition, everyone in this auditorium, every believer around the world came out of this.

The root problem here is a rejection of the living God. That’s what verses 18 down to 21 and 22 talk about and following. The “wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth” and the truth they suppress is the truth that God has revealed concerning Himself in the creation He has made. God made it evident, His basic attributes in verse 20 “have been clearly seen and they are without excuse.” There is not enough revelation in creation for a person to be saved but there is enough revelation in creation to demonstrate man’s sinful rejection of the God who has revealed Himself. The fact that He hasn’t given them further revelation doesn’t change anything. Oh, if He had given me more revelation. No, you demonstrated your character and the Jews will demonstrate theirs in chapter 2, but just having special revelation from God does not save a person either.

So, we want to make clear the foundational issue, verse 21 “they knew God, but they did not honor Him as God, so they became futile in their speculations their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise they became fools, they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man birds, four-footed crawling creatures.” They created their own gods is the point. Once you’ve rejected the one true and living God, everything else you go to is a lie. It is just a further manifestation of your rejection of God, so the root issue here is a spiritual one. The specific sins then we are going to unfold are just manifestations of the root problem. People have rejected the one true and living God. The evidence of that rejection is all around us, and all the kinds of sins that take place. We categorize them well that’s a--the root sin is the rejection of God.

We ought to be careful here. We have so much evidence of this…begins to confuse Christians. Conservative politics get mixed in and we say we have a lot in common with these people, even though religiously we would have disagreements. We can join-together to stand for the moral fiber of our nation or something like that. You see what we’ve done; we’re saying the real problem is not the real problem. The real problem is some of the manifestations of the real problem and then people get confused. The real problem is people have rejected God and refused to submit to Him and His way of salvation. That’s what we’re talking about the gospel, which is the power of God. If we don’t agree on the gospel, we don’t agree on that which matters. The fact that we might agree on certain things that are sin and no problem we are free as citizens here to vote as we believe would be more consistent with the Word of God. Naturally, if someone’s running for an office and saying I want to ban the Bible from this country, I’m going to vote for the person who says I want to have the Bible allowed in this country, so we have that freedom, but I want to be careful. I act like maybe the real issue and our problem is homosexuality in our country. This is what is destroying us. No, it’s not that. That’s just one of the sins that manifests itself. And if everybody quits homosexual activity and becomes a committed heterosexual, all we’ll have is a country of heterosexuals who are in rebellion against God on their way to hell.

Otherwise, the gospel’s not true, so if we’re not clear on this, we begin to float out here on a sea of uncertainty, and the manifestation of the rejection of God is the moral abandonment of what God says is consistent with His character, His holiness, His righteousness and there’s all kind of things. By the end of the chapter, we’ll have gotten a rather complete list, but it’s not complete by any means, and there are a number of other Scriptures that have lists like this. but it’s not exactly the same, because the point is, any sin is a manifestation of rebellion against God. We’re all under condemnation and man is proud, he is arrogant, that’s what he says. Verse 21 “they knew God, but they didn’t honor Him as God” that’s not just past, that’s what’s going on today that continues to be the condition. “Their foolish heart was darkened.” Now there’s a problem. They’re darkened on the inside, they live in spiritual darkness. The “god of this world” as Paul wrote to the Corinthians wants to keep them in darkness. He doesn’t want the light of the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ to shine in. The issue is, this is what Satan is battling.

Whether you quit doing this sin or quit doing that sin or get reformed out of this or give up drunkenness, decide to live a more sexually pure life, that’s fine, but that won’t get you to heaven because the problem is the heart. It’s darkened, it’s in rebellion against God. I have people who will quote, “Give testimony” of how they cleaned up their life. Well is that salvation? No, this was the problem with the Jews, they were proud. What? Like the Pharisee, “I thank you Lord I’m not a sinner like that person.” When we get through chapter 2, we’ll find out they’re just as sinful in God’s sight, but they stood against homosexuality and some of the other things mentioned but that didn’t make them acceptable to God. They’re just as lost. I realize I’m emphasizing, I hope I’m preaching to the choir, so to speak, but if we’re not anchored here then we just begin to drift out here and we get caught up in the moralism and the crusades of the day, so he’s going to continue on from here.

They’ve created their own gods and there is a multiplicity. Look at all the religions in the world. You know what? They all serve one god, the devil who’s referred to as the god of this world who has blinded the minds of the unbelieving lest the light of the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ should shine in. So, every other worship system is a worship of the devil, so people have a lot of choices, but there’s only one way of salvation, and so when were accused of being narrow, I guess you have to say we are. There is one way. Jesus said, “I am the only way, and no one comes to the Father but by Me”… that means all the other religions of the world are wrong and you’re right. It means all the other religions of the world are wrong and God is right. It’s not an issue of whether we are right. We have to submit ourselves to the authority of the Word of God.

Okay so we go on from here. “Therefore,” in verse 24, “they exchanged,” and that’ll be mentioned again in verse 25 and again in verse 26. Once you’ve rejected God then the follow through is you reject Him you replace Him with something else. The god’s, the ideas of your own making, so that also has a follow though. They exchanged, three times here, and God gave them over, verse 24, verse 26, verse 28, and that is an active judgment of God. God gave them over it’s not just God sat back and let them go. It is more active than that God did something He gave them over. He really sentenced them. One commentator uses the picture of a judge banging someone in his court. He sentences them. He’s not the cause of what is going to happen. They’re going to prison, whatever, it is the consequence of what they have done, and he is implementing the sentence, if you will. Well here’s what God does. He gave them over. You’ve rejected Me; you’ve chosen your own way and lived in rebellion against Me. Your sentence is that will now consume you. You will pay the penalty that I have prescribed and the first part of that is you will be taken over and enslaved and controlled, eaten up by your own sin, that’s God’s judgment. God gave them over, so I want to be clear when I’m dealing with someone who’s—you know they may be practicing this, they haven’t trusted the Savior. I’m going to go to the root of the problem.

I talk to someone and he says, “oh you’re a Christian, you think I’m going to hell because I’m a homosexual.” No, I think if you weren’t a homosexual, you would still be going to hell. In fact, I wasn’t a homosexual and I was going to hell. Your homosexuality simply reflects your true problem, as any sin, all sin. God “gave them over in the lusts of their hearts.” Now you note, remember the end of verse 21, “their foolish heart was darkened.” Now what’s going on in that heart? God’s judgment is they are given over in the lusts of their darkened hearts to impurity. And just like someone being sentenced in a court to being enslaved in prison and that imprisonment, so here your judgment is now you are enslaved to your sin. We’ll get to the slavery of sin in that picture in Romans, chapter 6. God gave them over in their hearts, the lusts of their hearts to impurity.

Now this is important because you know what people think? They say, well I was born this way, and my desire is God wouldn’t have given me these desires. I clipped an article in the news. Some of you saw it, and this was about an evangelical school, and they were going to have the vice president come and he’s made comments that he doesn’t believe homosexuality is acceptable and homosexual marriage is wrong. So, in this evangelical school, 3,300, it’s called a small evangelical school, but in that small evangelical school 3,300 students and alumni have signed a petition he should not be allowed to come because that’s not consistent with the Christian ethic of love that we hold dear. Now where does that ethic come from? That ethic of love that what? Makes sin not sin, makes sin okay, makes it wrong to call sin, sin, what does it mean to be an Evangelical Christian School? Now let me say I’m not condemning the school because the leadership says no, that their values hold, but I’m saying somewhere kids coming out; they don’t understand. I understand you can be raised in a Christian environment, attend a Christian School and be lost and on your way to hell because that doesn’t save you. But it does indicate something of the blurring of the lines here.

Now, at the end of this, there’s another politician who is running for President, and he’s openly gay. If you’ve watched the news, you’ve seen him with his husband. He discussed his sexual orientation, not at this school but another event hosted by the LGBTQ Victory Fund. And note that the LGBTQ victory, they must win here, saying if me being gay was a choice, it was made far, far above my pay grade. That’s the thing that I wish the Mike Pence’s of the world would understand, that if you’ve got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me, your quarrel sir is with my creator. I know what he is saying, God made me this way. Why does he think God made him that way, because he has the lust and desire in his heart for this kind of conduct, and that’s the standard? God made me this way. Why, I desire to do it.

It’s not unusual. Several years ago, I think I still have the article in my file, there was a man who had his doctor’s degree from Harvard. He was being sentenced to prison for pedophilia. You want to know what he said in the courtroom? I was born this way. Why can’t you people accept this? If your desires determine what is right and wrong and that’s what happens, how does the change occur for example in our country what was not too long ago considered wrong is now considered right? Because why? Well, there are so many people that have these desires and they’ve been suppressed and now when we tell them it’s okay, it’s good, we accept it, now anyone who rejects that is guilty of what? Homophobia. I looked up in the dictionary again, I’m familiar with the Greek word phobia that we carry over and it is that irrational fear of something. I don’t have an irrational fear of homosexuals. I just believe rationally it is a sin against God. That’s all, but if you disagree, you’re filled with hate, that’s why these students at this school, it’s not consistent with the Christian ethic of love we hold dear. One graduate of this school said the school should be ashamed. I’m physically shaken. I feel personally the attack.

If the Scripture is not our authority, then we’re not truly saved. Salvation is coming in what? Recognizing God’s authority, fearing Him, bowing before Him, believing that what He says is true and submitting to it. That doesn’t mean a Christian can’t sin and a Christian can be confused. That’s why we need to be filling our hearts and minds with the Word and understanding it. So, we don’t get carried along as Paul told the Ephesians, “with every wind of doctrine” that comes down. And sometimes you don’t know, am I talking with believers, am I talking with unbelievers. Have they ever been saved or have they not? A school like Wheaton, I’ve shared the article with you and I’m not attacking the school, but they have an alumni group for graduates who are homosexuals, and we’re afraid.

I thought it was interesting in this news article you could chase down another site, I didn’t. Half of pastors say they worry about speaking out on hot button issues, offending people. You know the goal is not to be offensive, but the goal is to tell the truth and the truth is offensive. That’s why people want to brand you. Oh, you’re a hater. Oh, you have an irrational fear. One dictionary classified a phobia as people who have a mental condition. It used to be the psychological manual that is authoritative in the secular world classified homosexuality as a mental problem, so what we’re talking about here is the manifestation of sin. “God gave them over,” verse 24 “in the lust of their hearts to impurity,” so you may have a strong desire, you may ask why is this desire there? Because we live in darkness and even as believers, we battle with sin. There’s not a person here who’s lived a perfect life even since salvation.

That’s why we need the blood of Christ to keep on cleansing us, that we have Him as our high priest, “interceding for us at the right hand of the Father” as Hebrews 7:25 says.

First John 2 says that He’s “the propitiation for our sins.” He’s the one, if we sin and we do, but sin cannot become acceptable. It’s not, “the new norm” the heart, the lust of the heart, that’s just an indication of God’s judgment. That desire, and we’ll see it can be a burning desire, is just an evidence of God’s judgment. He gave them over, your sentence is, you will be consumed and enslaved to that sin. I don’t question that. Only God can set you free. That’s the solution, so they give in to the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so their bodies would be dishonored among them. When you enter into sinful activity, you dishonor the body because the body was made for the Lord, as all His creation was to live under His authority, in submission and obedience to Him. We dishonor the body, we disgrace ourselves, that’s why the Old Testament sin is a disgrace to any nation. It is but we’re not on a moral crusade to clean up the nation in that sense because the only thing that will bring it in any foundational sense is the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation.

What did they do? God gave them over so another exchange, verse 23 “they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for gods of their own creation.” Verse 25, “they exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.” The truth of God, how He has revealed about Himself, even for the unbeliever in creation as we see in verse 20 He has “revealed His invisible attributes, His eternal power His divine nature having been clearly seen.” The revelation He has given, even though it’s not full and enough for salvation, is plenty clear enough to demonstrate that their rebellion is against clear revelation. They “suppress the truth,” verse 18, “in unrighteousness.” What we’re saying here in verse 25 is now they exchange that truth for the lie that says sin is okay. There is no god that we are accountable to except the god we create, and we create him to approve what we like. As this politician said, “your problem’s not with me, it’s with my creator because he made me like this, so therefore it’s not sin. I am just fulfilling the will of my creator.” The problem is, he created that creator. That’s not the Creator of all things, and in that, he is willfully suppressing the truth, and the more you suppress, it the more hardened you become in your lostness.

That’s why the Scripture talks about consciences being cauterized, the judgment of rejecting truth. It hardens us. Now, by God’s grace He breaks through the hardness. How many would have been saved after hearing the truth many times, perhaps over many years, and then God brings it with force to our hearts, but the reality of it, this is how unregenerate men live. They exchange the truth of God for a lie, so I’m rejecting the truth of God. I replace it with something else, the lie. I make my own god. I serve my god, we talk about secular humanism, we just create our own god whatever kind it is. This man I don’t know if he has any particular religious identification, but in his mind, he’s created a god that approves what he’s doing, because he created me like this.

But where does it go? I was reading an article, “What People Claim Made Me Like This.” We’ve had people that have been guilty of multiple murders and they say I just have this burning desire to kill people. I don’t doubt that. We are not in control, God gave them over, but Jesus said what? “He that sins is the slave of sin.” We willfully lose our freedom just like the judge sentencing the person. The judge hasn’t caused their condition, but he has implemented the consequences of their condition. God doesn’t cause us to sin, but he implements the results our sin that will culminate in hell, but for right now, you know we should understand what’s going on in the world in our own country. It is under judgment for their persistent suppressing of the truth and rejection of the one true and living God, so it’s not surprising sin seems to be all of a sudden kind of what is happening?

It was, in my lifetime, while I was pastor here that they had the Moral Majority started because even though people weren’t saved, the majority do have morals. Well the lie has been put to that hasn’t it? And even those who don’t practice the sin, we get down to verse 32, will encourage people that it’s okay and we want to suppress any other view. So, their bodies would be dishonored among them, they worship and serve the creature, so once you reject God you worship something, our own ideas, what we have discovered and believe is true. Where did that come from? I believe it, I shared the gospel with a man here a few months ago and he says Gil, you and I disagree. I’d talked to him before; I don’t believe there’s anything after this life. When it’s done it’s done, it’s over, that’s my belief, that’s my philosophy of life. You’re welcome to have that. People create their own god. Where did that come from? Well that’s what I believe. In other words, I’m my god, I’ve created my system of beliefs and I live consistent with them. That’s what I serve, that determines how I live, so verse 26 for this reason “God gave them over.”

This is judgment. We are reminded, this just God, doesn’t say all right I’m out of this. No, He is the Judge of all men and His judgment is not just the last judgment that will take place at the great white throne for the unbeliever but judgment comes out now. We know Israel is experiencing, has experienced and does experience to this day the judgment of God for their rejection of Him, so all sinners under the judgment of God. God “gave them over to degrading passions.” Degrading passions, we violate our own bodies. God doesn’t cause them. A man in prison can’t say, “oh, the judge did it, it’s his fault; I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.” No, all he did was sentence you to what you deserved. That’s what God did, you’ve rejected Me you’ve suppressed the truth. My judgment is you will be now under the control of your sin, you will be enslaved. It will begin to eat you up from the inside out. That’s what sin does; we see some of it manifested more clearly, where you say, wow!

When I was in Philadelphia, I used to go to the city missions to preach and sit and visit with those men afterwards and lives that had come to what? They’d say, “I never thought I’d be here, I had a good home a good family a good job.” You know sin eats you up, it destroys you. We see it with young people that get into drugs and they spend their life, well that’s what sin does. Sometimes it’s more openly manifest, its terrible impact but this is what God says, it destroys you, its degrading passions and the example, their women exchanged, so here the exchange that goes on. God created us for one thing they’re going to do the opposite. They “exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural” that which is consistent with nature, what God made us to be, how God made us to function. And as we noted in our previous study, as we overviewed down through this, a part of their rejection, this is part of what is visible.

You know down through history there has been recognition of the difference between male and female. Now that difference has been rejected but now we see it on a full scale. It is so called the “new normal” so people can get on television, can run for President of the United States and two men can introduce themselves as a husband and wife. You say, wait a minute, where’d you get that. I read an article it was one of those in Hollywood, they’re not alone but they get the news, said that she was raising her five-year-old son as transgendered. You know why? When he was three, he said to her, “I’m a girl.” She said that opened my eyes, I shouldn’t be raising him as a boy, a male; I’ll raise him as transgendered. Now a three year old is telling you? What if he said I’m a dog? You put him out in the back yard on a chain. I know you’re not supposed to chain your dog, but you see when your heart is darkened, and you don’t have God as the one you bow to and submit to, you are in a world out here.

If it wasn’t so serious, the sin of rejecting God, it would be just viewed as silliness. You know you think, can you make this up, and how many little kids think they’re Superman or one of the super heroes. You going to let them go out and stand in front of a moving car because he can stop it. No, but if I say I’m a boy or I say I’m a girl, that must be what you are.

All the evidence contrary, the chromosome pattern, the visual, what your eyes see, don’t believe it. Its part of the creation; this is what is according to nature that God made in the beginning. He made man in His image, male and female He made them, so “women exchange the natural function for that which is unnatural,” what is against nature, which clearly goes against God’s created order, so this is another manifestation of man’s rejection of what we would call general natural revelation. And it’s not just the women; the “men in the same way abandon the natural function,” the function that was consistent with nature as God had made us of the woman “and burned in their desire.” They can have an intense inner desire for this relationship, just an indication of the judgment of God. Sin enslaves, that’s why we as believers want to avoid it, because we can’t put ourselves back into the old slavery, and believers know they get into sin and suddenly they find themselves entangled, and it’s very difficult to get out because the character of sin has not changed.

Now that I’m a Christian doesn’t mean, oh, I can dapple in sin, because now I’m free in Christ so I can get out anytime I want. No sin has that characteristic because when we sin, we’re rebelling against God, we’re stepping back from Him, now rebelling, even as His children and that’s the danger of it, that’s why so much of the Scripture warns us about sin. But here we’re talking about the pattern of every person apart from God. We may not commit this specific sin. He’ll mention all the rest as well. He develops this one; men abandoned the natural function, burned in their desire. I want that to be clear to you, so when you think, well they say they were born this way. They’ve had these desires, but you know we have people from younger years that do cruel things to animals, and then they grow up and they do things, and people carry this out with other people, and they say yeah, we saw that in them. You know the fact that we are born in sin and it’s only God’s grace, we don’t live in a world that would be unlivable. But its God’s grace that we don’t, we call it common grace, but the judgment of God is just as real, and it becomes more manifest. And remember, we are moving toward a time when there will be the greatest manifestation of open rebellion, and what will be joined with that, the unifying of worship of nations together. Now we want to be careful we don’t get caught into something.

I was reading a chapter by an evangelical writer that has written some good things but his view on what he calls racial reconciliation is all confused with Scripture, and you know God divided the world. Why, because when the world comes together, they want to come together in worship too. The tower of Babel, isn’t that the issue? Let’s have a center of worship so we don’t get scattered. God says, “My intention is for you to be scattered because I don’t want the worship to be unified, but in His plan there’ll come a time when the world will come together to worship one person, the Antichrist and the world will be united under his authority. Now we understand that racial barriers are broken down in Christ but that’s not what we’re talking about with so much of quote, “racial reconciliation”.

I’m invited, been invited as a pastor, to come to a seminar. This was already past, where we’re going to be praying for racial reconciliation in our city. It was signed by evangelicals and those who are no closer to being evangelical than your—whatever. We’re going to pray for racial reconciliation. Now Ephesians does say that reconciliation has taken place between Jew and Gentile in Christ, and we understand the biblical foundation for being together and in the body of Christ, there should be racial reconciliation. So, what’s he saying, well the world is saying, this is what we ought to do, the whole world ought to be joined together and everybody in our country and you know what they also, what to think. Christians can’t be in this because we have to bring in the homosexuals, of course the LGBQRWS or whatever their initials are.

Well, wait a minute! We can’t be part of that. Oh, that’s because you have homophobia, that’s because you’re unloving. You are hateful people. You can’t be part of our group anyway. So you see where it goes, so “the men abandon the natural function of the man. They burned,” that’s a strong word here “they burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent, shameless acts receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” You know what happens when you commit sin. That sin takes ahold of you in a greater way, in a deeper way. This is the penalty, God has given them over and the more you’re involved the more you want it. It’s like taking drugs, you use that as a parallel because the results are so manifest and the more you take, the more you want and the more you want and the more you take, the more you begin to be destroyed by it and that’s always…sin is always destructive, the devil doesn’t love his people. God loves us and had His Son die for us. He loves us and cares for us, the devil doesn’t, and sin always destroys, so “they receive in their own persons the due penalty of their error” because God’s given them over.

This is the judgment and the more you pursue the sin the more serious the penalty that you experience. Just like in the human realm where there is justice and the judge sentences a person to what? To a greater penalty for greater activity and this is that they will now be more and more controlled by their sin. And you say why do people do some of the things they do? You look and see beautiful, attractive, healthy and they’ve destroyed themselves. You say why? Because sin takes over and that’s true of every sin and that’s the realm in which we live. That’s why we are all, who have been saved, testimonies of God’s grace. Not that we were less sinful because we didn’t do certain sins, but because God, in infinite love, reached down to us with His saving grace.

That’s why Paul wants to come to Rome according to chapter 1 verses 16 and 17 because the gospel is the power of God for salvation. That’s what they need here, they don’t need to realize heterosexual marriages are better than homosexual marriages, which they are. The more a person, even an unbeliever lives consistently with the Word of God, the more he’s living as God created him to live but that doesn’t make him more acceptable to God because God’s looking at the heart as we talked about. So, this burning desire and they receive the due penalty of their error, and one more pattern, we won’t go into this.

I want to read you an article. “They didn’t see fit to acknowledge God any longer. God gave them over to a depraved mind.” Important we see where this is taking place, in the heart, in the mind, as we talk about. Remember that immaterial part of a person, down in the inside of what we are. Until we’ve had that dealt with, we are unacceptable to God no matter how we clean ourselves up on the outside. The Jews, they would have stoned people for this kind of sin but that didn’t make them righteous. Their pride, their arrogance, their self-righteousness was just as sinful before God. So we want to be careful here, don’t lose sight of what the foundational issue is. We’re just looking at the manifestation and the rest of these, and I don’t want to just run over them right now because they’re just as serious, but this area of the sexual deviation is a clear rejection of what God has manifest in His creation. There is no reason for an explanation except sin for not seeing the creating work of God and a man as male and female, and he uses the words here because different words for the man and the woman, the male and the female, these words for female emphasize the femaleness if I can say that of the woman. The word for man emphasizes him as a male in distinction from a female.

I was reading one professor at a secular college. Even there he is was saying it has no rational. He uses the chromosome. He says we can check it scientifically as well as you just look. This is the way societies go, let me read you so you realize Paul was dealing with this. And he was dealing with this at Rome, so we think what’s happening here is—this is fallen man. And the cycles go on, so here’s what one person calls Capturing the Pagan Mind written by Peter Jones. Let me read you some excerpts. He talking about what it was like at Rome and you see what Paul is writing about, we’re 2,000 years later and you see some of the similarities. Rome’s power and ingenuity had provided an ease of life unequaled in the history of the world and he mentions a quote, a Roman writer here, Juvenal in around A.D. 100, so that’s just about the time the last apostle John will die. Remember he wrote the Book of Revelation around 95, so we’re right there at that end of that apostolic period around A.D. 100. He coined the famous phrase, “bread and circuses” to indicate how the Roman state looked after and controlled the population through material plenty, and endless entertainment. At the time of the formation of the New Testament, I’m just skipping through this article so I’m not going to tell you I’m skipping. I’m not reading consecutively on any of this. At the time of the formation of the New Testament, Rome attained its highest level of material riches, and there’s always a danger in that.

I’ve shared with you, many years ago I was doing some studies on the West Coast and they had studied the world’s--churches in the world, and they said when the church moves into the--believers come in with the gospel and churches are established in a new area, it’s usually in the poor among the poor. But then people get saved, they become more responsible and they begin to rise in the economic levels because they become more responsible people, more faithful and diligent and so on. But at the same time the passion of their Christianity begins to decline, and it was just interesting as they charted that in different places in the world. Rome at the time of the formation of the New Testament had reached its highest level of material riches. Discretionary income was lavished on mass entertainment to a degree never seen in the history of the world and unparalleled until modern times. And just as they loved the great spectacles, and they talked about some of the things, the Romans loved their bodies; they kept them clean, perfumed, suntanned, in excellent physical condition, because each Roman pictured himself on stage. Image was everything. It was none other than juvenile. The Roman author that I mentioned--around a 100 A.D. who came up with the famous phrase, “A healthy mind in a healthy body.” You say, well boy, we just took this off you know, clean perfumed suntanned in excellent condition. Huh, looks like some of us but the image was everything.

You know now we have professional organizations that what? They will help you with your image. And how you project the image you want before people and everything is about the externals. Another section he’s got in Rome’s early history from around 200 B.C., there were seven days per year devoted to games. They called them the Ludi we get the word ludicrous from this. It means frivolous. At the time of the Emperor Claudius, so 200 years before Christ there were seven days a year devoted to the games that they put on to entertain the people. The time of Claudius and Claudius was the Roman Emperor who preceded Nero. He ruled Rome from 10 B.C. to 54 A.D. so Paul would have carried on part of his ministry under Claudius’ reign and then Nero. At the time of the Emperor Claudius from 10 B.C. to A.D. 54 the Roman calendar contained 159 days celebrated as holidays, which 93 were devoted to games given at public expense and this doesn’t include many non state sponsored ceremonies. With the obsession for sports came an obsession for gambling. I want to say, remember Francis Schaffer, some of you were here back in the 1980s when he was popular and has reprinted--some of you read it. He said personal peace and affluency, that’s what drives people, and it’s similar to what drove the Romans, personal peace and affluency, my comfort and my prosperity.

Material success and leisure came at a price, so here’s what happened to the Roman Empire. People demanded more and more festive wealth until Rome choked on its own affluence. A contemporary of Jesus, the Roman historian Livy who died in 17 A.D. so a little before the apostles, but Christ had been born by this time, left this telling indictment. “Of late, wealth has made us greedy and excessive pleasures produce a general desire to carry wantonness and license to the point of personal ruin and universal destruction.” The general populace was not bothered as long as food and entertainment abounded. A contemporary said of the Roman Emperor Trajan, at the end of the first century, that his wisdom never failed to pay attention to the stars of the theater, the circus or the arena. For he well knew that the excellence of a government is shown no less in its care for the amusements of the people than in serious matters and although the distribution of corn and money may satisfy the individual, spectacles are necessary for the contentment of the masses.

Then he goes on to talk about the family. The Roman family constituted a structure of stability for all involved, husbands, wives and children alike. During the first century A.D. the Roman family, this unassailable rock had cracked and crumbled away on every side. During this same period, the role of the women began to change, and so no longer to be housewives, some Roman women for reasons good or not so good chose emancipation from the duties of maternity, and engaged in male pursuits of all kind. They included all kinds of jobs, gladiatorial jousting in full armor, fencing, wrestling in the nude and other feats of strength, physical prowess and one of the Roman writers, a historian, a Roman historian, speaks of the emancipated wives who were the various product of the new conditions of Roman marriage.

Some evaded the duties of maternity for fear of losing their good looks. Some took pride in being behind their husbands in no fear of activity vied for them in tests of strength and so on. With the emancipation came the loosening of family ties. In this liberated culture personal choice prevailed, adultery became endemic, divorce spread unchecked. Another Roman writer of the period, writing, he lived between 38 A.D. and 101 so that would be the time where Paul was carrying on his ministry and other of the apostles and so on. Comments about a woman marrying her 10th husband, bisexuality was common among the elite according to the historian Dupont, pedophilia was a constant and accepted expression of Roman sexual appetite.

Notice how it’s spreading now. We’ve got the issue with the Boy Scouts. It just seems, where does this all come from? Well if your desires, you know that’s what I desire and that’s your god, you pursue it. Now all of it hasn’t been made legal but give it time. We do have organizations that are promoting that this is good and healthy for children. You almost even hate to talk about it, but there was a time when some of the things we talk about now—you can’t turn on the news without it being promoted. Dupont, this historian, says if children were constantly molested, it was because Roman adults found that the deepest rooted passion, and the one that was hardest to overcome, was sexual desire for young boys and girls. Now if desire determines what God created us to be and to do as this candidate for President is not a bit ashamed to say, God created me this way. Where are we going? If your desires of your darkened heart are your god, because I create my god out of what I desire, and since I have these desires, the god that I serve created me this way. Just a way, we create God in our image, and the historian that most of us are familiar with, Will Durant.

The fall of Rome was in a great part attributable to the Roman refusal to bear and raise children. Durant points to the widespread practice of infanticide, abortion, sexual excesses and the avoidance or deferment of marriage as the likely causes in this plunging population. What happens is the population of Rome underwent a huge decline with the weakening of these intermediary structures of family and marriage. The socially destabilizing effects of alternative sexual practices, and the depressing relentless drop in the birthrate, the liberated individuals stood face to face, and often alone, before the enormous power of the police state, and you wonder; where are we going? We know that there will be a revived Roman Empire. Maybe what we see going on in our country is the decline of our country, which will ultimately bring its ruin, so that we can have a revived Roman Empire that we see the elements that could be there in what we call the Common Market of Europe and so on.

There’s nothing new. We think what has happened and then we read what was going on in Rome as Paul had to write the New Testament and other New Testament writers and it’s like we’re reading about our own society today, because what? The human heart hasn’t changed. Well, there’s cycles where sin is more openly manifested, different kinds of sin. You know we say, well the early years of our country we were Christian. No we weren’t, but there was more morality and morality that was more consistent perhaps, but pride and arrogance was just as much in evidence. In fact, I read at the time of the revolution, something like only 17 percent of the country attended church. We think church attendance is declining. It has exploded and now even with the decline we see taking place, we’re still somewhere in the 40 percent. We say well back then we thought they were Christian and godly. No, they had more morality but it’s like Israel, some of these things they wouldn’t practice but their pride their sin was just as real.

We want to be clear. We’re not here to change the world by reforming it, getting legislation done. I have no problem you want to—we should vote as we feel we should vote and consistent obviously with convictions, but I’m not in on a crusade to reform the world. The problem isn’t homosexuality; the problem isn’t homosexual marriages. The problem isn’t all the other things that will be unfolded here. The problem is men and women have rejected the true and living God. They will not bow before Him, and they are under the judgment of God, hopelessly enslaved to their sin. And only the power of the gospel, released in the gospel, the power of God released in that gospel can set a person free. That’s why we cannot compromise that. We’re not here to join reform movements. We’re not here to join social movements, not here to join a racial reconciliation movement, we’re here to present the gospel of Jesus Christ, and only that can resolve the issue that is the heart of everything else.

Man’s sin, man’s rejection of God, so even if we talk to people practicing this—I don’t hate them. I don’t hate the homosexual. I would love to have him come to know the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. I was just like you. I didn’t practice the same sins, but I had the same sinful heart. I was just as much in rebellion against God as you are, I just displayed it differently, but the gospel can change your heart. Oh, but my desires are so strong. Yes, that’s the way it is, you serve the devil. You’re enslaved to your passions but that’s the beautiful thing about the gospel, it is God’s power for salvation. If we don’t hold that tight, if we don’t present it, where will it come from. We are the people who have experienced that redemption, been entrusted with the truth of the gospel, now we give it out.

Let’s pray together: Thank You Lord for the riches of Your word. Lord, these are truths that are so basic; we’ve been through them so many times. Lord, it’s easy to loosen our grasp on these things which are so important to be squeezed in the world and allow the world to reshape our thinking. We wouldn’t openly deny these truths, we wouldn’t reject them, but we would just not want to stand too openly. Lord thank you for the power of the gospel, each of us here who has been saved by your grace are testimonies of the power of that gospel that has set us free and we still understand there are allurements in sin. Sin can be made attractive, we stumble, we all stumble in many ways, but Lord Your grace keeps us, restores us. Lord we want to be faithfully shining as lights in the darkness that’s all around us, so that the light of the gospel might shine on darkened hearts. Bless the week before us. Use us wherever we are to bring honor to Yourself, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.