The Bad News - Part 3 (Romans 1:24-32)
INTRODUCTION:
This is our third week looking at the bad news of the gospel and we have not even gotten out of the first chapter. We still have most of two chapters to go before we finish the bad news. I am going to do my best to get us to the end of the first chapter today. The end of this first chapter, our passage for this morning is possibly the most terrifying part of the bad news.
Last week we looked at man’s downward spiral in the four reasons that Paul gave us that man is without excuse, the reality is that man rejected the knowledge of God and the truth of God and then replaced God with man-made religion and gods of their own making that catered to their sin.
What happens when sinful man reaches this point? This morning we will see that when man abandons God, then God abandons man so that God’s wrath might be revealed. As we go through these verses it will seem that Paul wrote this while living in North America today, not nearly two thousand years ago from the other side of the world in the city of Corinth. Let’s open in prayer and then get into our passage for today.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans 1:24-32, our passage for this morning. Please stand if you are able in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
Romans 1:24-32,
“Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:24–32, NASB95)[1]
ABANDONED IN THEIR LUSTS (Romans 1:24-25)
Three times in this passage we have the phrase “God gave them over…” a phrase that means that they are abandoned by God, that God has removed His restraining grace and left man to his own devices. It is at this point that man begins to experience God’s wrath, God’s initial wrath is to allow sinful man to live with the results of his own choices, with all restraint removed. That is what we see happening in this passage.
Paul begins this passage with the word “therefore” which refers us back to the preceding verses. In verses 18-23 we learned that God revealed Himself to man, not only externally, but man has a knowledge of God built into him, but man has suppressed this knowledge and rejected the evidence and truth about God, came up with his own reasonings for the cause and origin of all things thus rationalizing his rejection of God and then he made substitute gods. Man abandoned God, and God abandoned man. This abandonment by God and the consequences that Paul lays out for us in this passage is the most sobering and the most terrifying passage in this entire book.
This phrase “gave over” used three times in this passage is a phrase that can have a judicial sense, which I believe is the intent here. This judicial sense is a judgment made on a criminal and then handing him over or giving him over for execution or punishment. This is how this is used here as man is found guilty before God, and God’s wrath then condemns sinful man, and the first phase of his punishment is to remove all restraints and let him go the way of his own choices and the effect or the consequences that those choices will have in his life.
Sin is rampant in our world, in our nation and it has become politically incorrect to call sin, sin. To point out sin. So, sin is tolerated in the leadership, sin is even tolerated in the church for fear of offending somebody. This has made our society a society of victims because one person’s sense of right and wrong does not match another person’s sense of right and wrong because we have rejected the moral standard given to us by God and each man decides what is right and wrong in his own mind and beware that you don’t criticize someone who does not share your beliefs. So, in this passage we see a downward progression that occurs when God abandons people or a nation. I believe God has abandoned our nation and you can see that our nation has suffered the consequences of God’s wrath through the removal of God’s restraining grace.
Paul writes that “God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity…” (Romans 1:24a, NASB95)[2] This is the first action of the wrath of God on a society is to let them go after their lusts of their hearts to impurity. This is where it begins, in the heart man’s moral perversion and deviation begins. Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, NASB95)[3] It is in man’s heart where it all begins, and God turns them over to the impurity of the lusts of their hearts. Jesus said in Matthew 15:19-20, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.” (Matthew 15:19–20, NASB95)[4] Jesus said it all begins in the heart because it is deceitful and wicked. So, man abandoned by God functions only out of the desires of his impure heart.
But it does not stop with the heart, what comes out of the heart defiles the body. Paul said that “God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.” (Romans 1:24, NASB95)[5] What begins on the inside must show up on the outside and we see the effects of this in our world today as man’s body is dishonored, what this means is that we become man-centered and it results in the de-humanization of one another. Man is just another animal to be used, and we see this in our society in sex, alcohol, drugs, abortion, a low view of everyone else leads to abuse and murder. No longer is there a sense that man is created in the image of God, instead life is about self and what you can get out of life by fulfilling uncontrolled and unrestrained desires no matter what or who may get in the way and it leads to dishonoring our bodies and those who we use everywhere. Look at our society through its entertainment that portrays brutality and murder as all but normal and sexual promiscuity and perversion are constantly glamorized. Because humanism rejects God, it has no basis for dignity, and humanity is dehumanized.
Why has this happened? Because sinful mankind has exchanged the truth of God for a lie, maybe better translated “the lie.” The lie that started it all in the garden of Eden and we still choose the lie over the truth about God. What is the lie, go ahead and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and you will be like God. Today we still believe that we can be like God and we worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. Man has abandoned the purpose for which he was created, to worship the Creator and enjoy Him forever. Instead man worships self and seeks to gratify the lusts of his heart any way that he can.
Paul mentioning the Creator in the midst of this terrifying abandonment stops and worships, the Creator, who is blessed forever, Amen. Paul could not help adding this refreshing thought about the Creator in the midst of the bad news about man. This word of praise by Paul to the Lord, the Creator of all things, by contrast shows the utter wickedness of idolatry and all other ungodliness.
ABANDONED TO DEGRADING PASSIONS (Romans 1:26-27)
As sinful mankind is consumed with the lusts of their hearts in impurity, Paul tells us that then the corruption goes from bad to worse. Paul writes that because of the idolatry of self, because man pursues the wicked desires of his heart that God gave them over to degrading passions. What are degrading passions? Paul defines it as the sin of homosexuality. When we speak of sexual perversion it is the illicit and twisted expression of that which is God-given and natural. Homosexuality is not a perversion, but an inversion, it is the abandoning of what is natural to participate in what is unnatural. When man rejects the Author and Creator of nature, man forsakes the order of nature. Homosexuality is abnormal and unnatural, and it is unique to humans.
Paul does not use the usual Greek term for women here in verse 26, but instead uses a term that simply means female. Paul begins with females in this degrading passion, which is odd because women are usually the last to be affected by the decline of culture. Paul uses females first to show how far sinful society has fallen, all virtue is gone as women exchange the natural sexual function for the unnatural.
Paul goes on in verse 27 to say the same has happened to men and again he uses the Greek term that simply means males. He says that they have given up the natural sexual function with women and the men too have engaged in homosexual relationships. Paul describes it as burning desire of men for other men, committing indecent acts. Paul finishes by saying that they receive in their own persons the due penalty of their error. Paul is saying that there are consequences for these degrading passions, that God’s wrath is revealed in the consequences that are the result of this type of sinful lifestyle.
Let me be clear that both the Old Testament and the New Testament condemn the sin of homosexuality. Under the Old Testament law it was punishable by death. Paul does declare in some of his other letters that homosexuality can be forgiven and cleansed just like any other sin. For example, he writes in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9–11, NASB95)[6] Paul is stating that those who blatantly choose to live these kinds of sinful lifestyles will not inherit the kingdom of God, but he goes on and says that some of you Corinthians lived these kind of lifestyles, but you came to Jesus Christ in repentance and were forgiven and washed and sanctified and justified through Jesus Christ. Salvation and cleansing are available through Jesus Christ.
We must understand that we are all born in sin, but no one is born a homosexual any more than someone being born a thief or a murderer or an adulterer. Anyone who chooses to live the life style of a thief or a murderer, or an adulterer, or a homosexual does so because he makes that choice and not because he was born that way, no matter what society tells us.
God through Paul says that those who practice this sin will receive the due penalty for their error. They will be judged by the destructive consequences of their sin. AIDS seems to be one of the consequences of that kind of lifestyle. A lifestyle in which lives are destroyed morally, mentally, emotionally, medically, and ultimately physically and eternally.
Our society, our nation has been abandoned by God in this area and the repercussions of that abandonment are seen everywhere in our society as we are bombarded with it all the time to the point that it is no longer a sin, it is no longer abnormal or unnatural, but it is accepted in our society and sadly many churches see this as an acceptable lifestyle. We must remember and understand that we love the person, but that does not mean we condone their sinful lifestyle, because in God’s eyes if a person makes the choice to live as a homosexual God sees that as sin, just as someone who makes the choice to live as a murderer or a thief, or an adulterer.
ABANDONED TO A DEPRAVED MIND (Romans 1:28-32)
The third level of abandonment by God is given in verse 28 and Paul says that it is due to the fact that mankind did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, which we already discussed last week, man has rejected God and even rejected His existence even though God has given ample evidence of Himself in creation and even though each person has within them a knowledge of God that they are born with, it cannot be denied, but man suppresses it and refuses to acknowledge the existence of God. Man has become so dishonored and degraded in his lifestyle that he refuses to acknowledge a God to whom he would be answerable for his sin. Because of this Paul writes that God gave them over to a depraved mind. In other words, God has abandoned man to a depraved mind. The mind that rejects God, refuses to acknowledge His existence is a depraved mind, whose predetermined and certain disposition is to do those things which are not proper. I want to define a depraved mind for you, it is a mind that is tested and found useless. The word translated depraved was used of metal or coins that were found to be worthless or of no value and thus useless and rejected. The same is true of the depraved mind, it is found to be worthless and possessing nothing of value, so it is to be rejected. In other words, those abandoned by God to a depraved mind are so wicked they are so vile that their ability to reason has become corrupt and must be rejected. This means that their intellectual faculties, their conscience is so destroyed that they cannot do anything moral. Their sin has reached a depth that it has rendered their brains useless when it comes to anything besides sin, everything is corrupt. What happens when a society or a nation has been abandoned by God at this level? It begins to look like the United States.
Look at the list that Paul gives us that comes out of the depraved mind: “being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;” (Romans 1:29–31, NASB95)[7] That is the society that we live in today. I am not going to go word for word through this list, it is very clear that those who God gives over to a depraved mind can only do those things which are not proper for man to do. Never in the history of our nation has this list described it as it describes it today. We live in a godless and unrighteous society that hates God and has rejected all truth that is about God or comes from God. Then we reach the epitome of man’s depraved mind, the reason that man is without excuse. Paul writes in verse 32 that, “they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death,” (Romans 1:32a, NASB95)[8] Over the last two weeks we saw that Paul established that since the creation of the world God has made himself evident. The only reason man does not recognize God is because man suppresses and rejects the knowledge of Him. Here in verse 32 Paul declares that whether they recognize it or not, even if they have never been exposed to the revelation of God’s Word, they are instinctively aware of God’s existence and His basic standard of righteousness. We will learn in the weeks to come that all mankind has the law of the righteousness of God written in their hearts. That is why we can have a guilty conscience when we do something we are not supposed to do, because the law is there whether we admit it or not and that law tells us that we who practice such sins are worthy of death. The absolute bottom of the pit of wickedness is reached when sinful man knows that what he practices is worthy of death, yet he does not care, and he applauds those around him who practice sin like he does. This is the lowest descent of sin. Sinful man’s conscience is gone, he has no fear. Man, at this point has no reason, has no understanding, he is like a mindless beast.
CONCLUSION:
A society that openly condones and defends such evils as sexual promiscuity, homosexuality and anything else on that list that Paul gave us in verses 29-31 has reached the deepest, darkest level of evil and corruption. As we look around at most of the socially advanced nations of our day they are in this category, they have been abandoned by God.
Every nation or society that has come to this point has fallen, has been destroyed. This is where the Roman Empire was in Paul’s day when he wrote this letter and where is that empire today? It is gone, because an empire, a nation, a society abandoned by God will not last. Sin cannot endure forever, it always brings with it destruction and death. God has abandoned man to the evil desires of his heart, because man has abandoned God. The only hope that we have is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the only one that can save man in this situation. When man is drawn by the Spirit of God to Jesus Christ, and is convicted of his sin when he sees it in comparison to the righteousness of Jesus Christ and repents of his sin and believes that Jesus Christ died for him, that His death paid the penalty required for sin and that He was buried and rose triumphant over death on the third day, then that man is washed, he is sanctified, he is justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
[1]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[2]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[3]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[4]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[5]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[6]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[7]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
[8]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. La Habra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995