Romans: By His Grace - For His Glory
10th in the Series
The Rational Mind Depraved
Romans 1:24-32
April 28, 1996
by J. David Hoke
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the
knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are
full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters,
insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their
parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's
righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do
these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
(Romans 1:24-32 NIV)
Without God, the human race is in serious trouble. The evidence is all around us. Most
of what is wrong with our society today could be fixed if people chose to live according
to God's standards. Crime would cease because people would not steal, assault, and murder
one another. The poor would be cared for because people would have compassion in their
hearts. People would be reconciled to one another instead of forever fighting and arguing.
Wars would cease as people laid down their selfishness and their arms. Think of what would
happen if people lived by the two Great Commandments that teach that we are to love God
with all of our being and love one another as we love ourselves. The results would be
incredible.
In fact, this is what has happened in times past during great revivals. The great Welch
Revival that began in 1904 is a fine example of this. Peoples lives were changed to such
an extent that businesses supporting the more carnal desires of the populous had to close
for lack of interest in their services. J. Edwin Orr, in his book The Flaming Tongue,
gives us these reports:
Many were the evidences of the Spirit of God working in Wales. Long standing debts were paid, and stolen goods returned, while striking cases of restitution were made. In Maesteg, a tradesman received a live pig in payment of a debt which had been outstanding since 1898. Other notable instances of open restitution were reported.
Stocks of Welch and English Bibles were sold out. Prayer meetings were held in coal mines, in trains and trams and places of business. The works managers bore testimony of the change of conduct of their employees. The magistrates in several places were presented with white gloves, signifying that there were utterly no cases to try.
The police rejoiced in the revival. One day in Holyhead, in the island county of Anglesey, the solemnity of court proceedings was broken by songs of praise in Welch. The police guard outside hurried in, but stayed to add his bass to the jury's choir of praise over a sinner repenting.
Cursing and profanity were so diminished that several slowdowns were reported in the coal mines, for so many men gave up using foul language that the pit ponies dragging the coal trucks in the mine tunnels did not understand what was being said to them and stood still, confused.
When people choose to follow the Lord, society is changed. But, where people choose to
live without God, everyone suffers. You see, because we choose to live without God, He
abandons us to our own desires as we continue to descend into greater and greater
depravity.
Years ago there was the presentation of a series of programs by Jacob Bronowski on the
Public Broadcasting System called "The Ascent of Man." There is this notion that
somehow our society is evolving into a more civilized and more humane culture. This idea
was much more popular before the Second World War. Hitler did a great deal to burst that
popular bubble. He showed that we are still capable of inconceivable inhumanity. And since
that time we have, unfortunately, had a constant series of reminders of our own depravity.
Stalen, Idi Amin, Sadam Hussein, just to name a few. It really doesn't seem as if we are
ascending at all. Perhaps another series should be done entitled "The Descent of
Man."
That could certainly be the title of today's message. The text before us catalogs the
continuing downward spiral of sinful unbelief and reveals its horrible consequences for
humankind. What we see is the full force of God's wrath revealed against people who choose
to reject Him. What we see is a revelation of the results of sin. And what we should hear
is a challenge to realize that sin is no game - it has real consequences, both now and for
the future.
Do you really see the results of continual sin? We must, for it can have devastating
consequences for our lives.
In the last message we looked at the steps in the downward spiral of sinful unbelief.
We saw that this unbelief results in deceit, as we suppress the truth about God, denial,
as we ignore the evidence for God, darkness, as our minds and hearts become unable to
apprehend God, and delusion, as we actually come to believe that we are right in
dismissing God. Let's turn our attention now to the consequences of this downward spiral
of sinful unbelief.
Degraded
Oscar Wilde said, "When the gods wished to punish us they answer our
prayers." While Wilde certainly did not have our passage in Romans in mind when he
wrote these words, he may have stumbled on a truth contained in these verses. It is as if
God is answering the prayers of unbelievers who desire for Him to leave them alone. They
choose to reject God and desire that God leave them alone therefore God gave them over
in the sinful desires of their hearts to their foolish endeavor to live without Him.
So God has answered their prayer, but it is not an answer that will help them.
Since their desire was to be rid of God, God abandoned them. This is what the word in
Greek connotes. It could be literally translated as "given up" or "given
over." Since they did not want to deal with God, He has given them over to their own
sinful ways. He has left them to become degraded and distorted.
The first consequence of this downward spiral of sinful unbelief is that they become
degraded. Paul talks about the degrading of their bodies with one another. Because they
exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than
the creator, their sinful desires lead them to sexual impurity. And the
result of this lifestyle leads to the degrading of their bodies.
What is in view here is a casual approach to sex. And the fact that sex is treated as a
casual thing is evident everywhere around us today. The mentality of our day accepts
casual sex as the preferred way of life. Indeed, when someone suggests that casual sex
leads to undesirable consequences, that person is dismissed as being
"old-fashioned" or a "religious prude." But there is nothing
"new-fashioned" about sexual sin. It has been around since the beginning of
time.
The problem with indulging a promiscuous lifestyle is that it tends to open up the
heart to further self-indulgence. This is, you see, the central issue. Sexual promiscuity
is merely indulging our desires. And the problem with indulging our desires is that our
desires are never satisfied. So we move from self-indulgence to greater self-indulgence in
an effort to find something that fulfills us.
Paul next deals with the next downward step in depravity, which is homosexuality. They
move from degrading their body to a distorted view of sexuality itself. Here again it says
that God gave them over. This time He abandoned them to shameful lusts. Look
closely at what these lusts are: Even their women exchanged natural relations for
unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and
were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and
received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
There can be no doubt as to what this means. He is talking about the perversion
and unnatural character of the homosexual lifestyle. And the words "unnatural"
and "perversion" stand as clear reminders that God's opinion of
lesbianism and male homosexuality is that they are a distortion of the way God created sex
to be used. And because of this, people who indulge in this lifestyle have received in
themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Now Paul was certainly not thinking of AIDS when he wrote this, although he may have
been thinking of other sexually transmitted diseases. Indeed, some who work with
homosexuals have suggested that the real penalty is the loss of self-identity and
self-worth. The reality is that there are real penalties, real consequences for continuing
to do our own thing. When God lets us go, we are in trouble.
James Boyce, speaking of this very thing, said:
It is like releasing the porcelain pitcher on earth rather than in space. When you let go of the pitcher it does not drift off into nowhere. You release it from your hand to the law of gravity, and when you do that it falls downward and breaks - if the fall is far enough and the ground hard.
When we run away from God we think our way will be uphill, because we want it to be so. But the way is actually downhill. We are pulled down by the law of moral gravity - when God lets go.
Depraved
Finally, people who refuse to live under God's standards experience a full fledged
depravity. Paul says, "Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to
retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to
be done."
Here he catalogs a long list of what he calls every kind of wickedness, evil, greed
and depravity. He speaks of people being full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and
malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they
invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless,
heartless, ruthless. This is quite a description of people without God. It is a
description that deals primarily with the sins of the spirit. These are sins that are much
worse than any other kind of sin, including sexual sin. C. S. Lewis, in his book, Mere
Christianity, says,
If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual. The pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me competing with the human self which I must try to become: they are the animal self, and the diabolical self; and the diabolical self is the worst of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig, who goes regularly to church, may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But of course, it's better to be neither.
The end of the downward cycle is a depraved mind. Here is a picture of someone
who has been totally abandoned by God. What we see here is the picture of where we would
be without the grace and mercy of a loving God. We become degraded, distorted, and finally
depraved. But this is a frighteningly accurate picture of our contemporary culture. We
have come to the point where we call right wrong and wrong right. And the real tragedy is
that many people, if not most, believe that they can continue to sin with impunity. But
there are real and tragic consequences to sin.
Damned
Paul says about them that although they know God's righteous decree that those who
do such things deserve death, they do not only continue to do these very things but also
approve of those who practice them. It is clear that the judgment is death.
This is what the Bible speaks of as the "second death" of eternal damnation.
The final consequence of those who choose to live without God is that they are damned.
What a tragic end for any life. Sadly, it is the way many have chosen for themselves.
What if it could be different? Pastor Kent Hughes said that as he was studying this
passage in Romans, he took a few minutes to write out a positive alternative rendering. In
other words, he wanted to see what it would look like if everything were reversed. This is
what he wrote:
Therefore, God gave them over in their hearts to self-control and purity, that their bodies might be honored among them. For they kept and cherished the truth of God and worshipped and served the Creator, who is blessed forever, rather than the creature.
For this reason God gave them over to pure and wholesome lives, lived with carefree ease even in the most intimate relations so that all received in their own persons the due reward of their fidelity.
And just as they saw fit to acknowledge God in all things, God gave them over to a sound mind, to do those things which are proper, being filled with all righteousness, goodness, generosity, kindness; full of selflessness, life, healing, openness, kindliness; they are gentle in speech, always building others up, lovers of God, respectful, humble, self-effacing, inventors of good, obedient to parents, understanding, trustworthy, loving, merciful; and as they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are possessors of life, they do the same, and give hearty approval to all who do likewise.
One way leads to death, and the other leads to life. One way leads to the wrath and
judgment of God, and the other leads to the approval and acceptance of God. The question
is: which do you prefer?
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