Abandoned by God

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Well, you can turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 1. Last time I had the privilege of speaking was in the summer and finished off in verse 17. And providentially God would have us here in the last half of Romans 1 verses 18 through 32 to be specific. On the doorstep of election day, so what an opportunity for us to look at the state of our union in the state of men’s souls and the natural state of those who have been abandoned by God, the state of natural men that is. Around April of 1997, so some of you were not born, some of you were more seasoned already by that point, I became a Christian. That was my freshman year in college and I was involved in a campus ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ, though not yet a Christian.

I was impacted by the testimony of many Christians with whom I associated. A lot of people I hung out with had relationships with Christ that were distinctly different from what I had. And so it’s always been kind of a near and dear to my heart is the testimony of Christians and their love for each other because that can be compelling to unbelievers. That was the case for me. But up until that point, I lied. And I lied a lot because I told a lot of people I was a Christian. And I said that regularly. But in my heart of hearts, I knew that I was not. I knew I wasn’t. The truth was I wanted to be regarded as a Christian.

I wanted people to think highly of me in the various circles in which I walked. And I had a clear sense of morality having grown up in the church, having had two moral parents. And I wanted a reputation that was consistent with the Christian testimony that I was supposed to have. But I hypocritically believe that I could separate, that I could dissociate my private life from my public testimony. And of course we know that those things are inseparable. They, one impacts the other. I thought that I could separate what other people thought of me from what I did in private. So I carried on a particular narrative. There was this narrative that I was communicating to others as well as to myself. I used Christian lingo.

I went to church. I hung out with Christians and unbelievers alike. And I privately enjoyed my sin. And all the while I’d act piously while again telling others that I was a Christian. But here’s how I know I wasn’t a Christian. It’s not hard to know you’re not a Christian, you don’t love God. But I know at that time I was fully aware that I wasn’t a Christian. And here’s how. I was very careful about how I prayed. When I was alone, I wasn’t trying to impress anybody, and I knew that God knew my heart, and so that was okay, I could let my guard down then. But even then, I would, well then, and in more public settings, when I was praying with other people, I would never pray things like, I want to do your will, or I give you my whole heart, or be glorified in my life.

You know, the sort of prayers that Christians actually pray? Instead, my prayers were reduced to superficial requests, the types of, again, selfish requests that anybody can go ahead and make. I also remember one time my youth pastor preaching a message that hit a nerve.

It pricked my conscience, since you know what I did? I got defensive. And it turns out that he didn’t have me in mind at all. I mean, that happens a lot of times. You’re thinking, man, how does the preacher know it? Just happened in the car drive on the way over. That happens a lot, but I went up to him afterward and I asked, so you guys something you want to say to me? Because it sounded like you were insinuating something in your message. I may not have used insinuating, but he was a bit taken aback because he had no agenda. He was just trying to be faithful. So he insisted that he wasn’t taking shots at me, but I did learn two things at that point.

And one was that I was fooling everybody. Because of my youth pastor, who actually knew me pretty well, didn’t know me that well, didn’t know me well enough to know that I wasn’t on the right track at all. then I could fool lots of people. And another thing I knew was that I hated the truth because the truth condemned me. And I would in fact get mad if somebody tried to give me the truth.

And this getting mad would take the form of defensiveness that someone would dare to suggest that I wasn’t a Christian. I mean, do they know me? After all, who were they to judge me? Well, I wanted two things, to enjoy my sin And then the benefits of being a Christian. So what I mean by that are people’s respect. When you’re going to church, you want people to think you’re a Christian. Things like going to heaven, the whole fire insurance thing, that’s a benefit of being a Christian, right? That’s one thing that’s very alluring. And basically for people to stay off my case. So if they thought that I was okay, then they’d leave me alone and not be going after my sin.

So I lied. I believed I was a Christian, but I knew I wasn’t. Do you understand that statement? I believed I was a Christian, but I knew I wasn’t. I think we can identify with that when we say a lie regularly enough, we begin to believe ourselves while knowing full well the truth is different. I am going somewhere with this in the context of Romans 1, by the way, just in case you’re wondering. My lies were intended to help me convince myself that I was okay. And I’d whisper, I’d shout, and everything in between suppressing the truth that I was, in fact, a hell-bound sinner, guilty before God and in desperate need of salvation because I knew that I did in fact need to give up my sin and give my hearts to Christ.

I now know from scripture that I was among the elective God at that point and I also know from scripture that at that point I was righteously earning the wrath of God. Not righteous in my conduct but righteous in the demonstration of God’s wrath on ungodliness.

see that in verses 16 and following of chapter 1 and that God’s righteousness is demonstrated in the gospel. I had heard the gospel in fact and I had rejected it. I remained facing rearward with respect to God. My back was turned to Him. As He was with me, God is rightly incensed when His people turned their backs on him. The Old Testament record reflects this. The division of the nation of Israel was a direct result of Solomon having gone after the gods of his wives, something he was warned not to do. The Babylonian captivity of Judah, the Assyrian captivity of Israel, respectively, were the stated and direct result of the people of God giving their hearts to other gods, turning their back on him. When nations turn to other gods, Yahweh has traditionally withdrawn his protective hand from them. And in the case of his people, it was with an intention to let them suffer the consequences of their behavior so they would come back to him. That is always the case with his people, is he intends

for us to come back to him. But when people want to be free of the worship of God, he gives them exactly what they wish for. And we see it happening all around us today. So tonight let’s take a look together at the last half of Romans chapter 1 and we’ll consider together its implication for us as modern American Christians. Follow along while I read the entirety of verses 18 through 32. Romans 1 verses 18 and following, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse. For although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature, rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Verse 26. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions, for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. Now I’ll tell you tonight that if you’re expecting a verse by verse full exposition of each one of these concepts, terms, and ideas.

I’m sorry, we don’t have time for that. You’re going to be disappointed. Plus, I think that a very plain surface level reading of this text is explicitly clear. Instead, we’re going to take a look at idea by idea, more so than verse by verse. And I was encouraged to see that a lot of commentators and other teachers do the same thing. There is a considerable debate among many of those commentators as to whose experience is described here in Romans chapter 1.

Is this the state of Israel? I mean, is Israel described by these qualifiers? It doesn’t seem like it for a few reasons. Not the least of which is that these natural men are rejecting not the word, but they’re indicted for the rejection of even creation. So if they were Israel and they’d be turning their back on the very Word of God and his commands and promises to them. So it seems like this is an indictment of mankind, of humanity in general in their natural state. So this is the state of natural man. This is a, again, we hear from the president of the State of the Union address every year, this is the state of mankind. Like this is what they’re like. So like I said, I don’t think he’s talking about Israel, but rather the experience of the fallen human race in general.

So what we find in Romans chapter one is characteristic of all natural fallen men unless and until God chooses to rescue them. God demonstrates his wrath in a variety of ways in scripture. And so if I say a term like the wrath of God and I ask you to form a picture in your mind, for many of us something akin to what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah comes to mind. Fireballs from heaven just wiping out large swaths of land and things like that. the cup of God’s wrath being poured out. And that is totally, that is totally wrath. We may think of God using a nation to correct or just outright punish a disobedient, another disobedient nation, not unlike how he used the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Philistines, to correct or to punish the nation of Israel, for instance.

Those are not fun. I mean, those are painful, explicit, clear demonstrations of wrath. And what happens is a lot of time, people get the picture right away and come back to him. Sometimes they continue to harden their hearts. But I mean, if that’s the case, then not unlike swift punishment that is intended to correct, it is merciful. It is merciful when God punishes in this way because we’re like, right, I messed up, I’m sorry, forgive me, and then restoration quickly ensues. But there is a wrath of God that is, in my opinion, far worse. It is a wrath that guarantees destruction, just as certainly as fireballs from heaven.

But what’s so scary about it is that with regard to this kind of wrath, men love it. They love it. And what is this wrath? It is the wrath of abandonment. And it is spoken of in this passage from Romans 1. And why do men love it? Because God gives them over to their sinful passions and to the natural consequences of those sins. They love living like there’s no consequence for their sinful behavior. They love being left alone. If there’s one thing that a sinful man wants, it’s to be left alone. If there’s one thing that I wanted when I was not a Christian, it was for people to stay off my case.

For it to regard me like a Christian, so I could be in the social circles that I typically walked without having to give up my personal sin. And the clearest outpouring of God’s wrath on me would have been for him to let me continue in that state, to continually harden my heart over and over and over again and to reap the natural consequence for that kind of behavior. So with the more active expressions of his wrath, those immediate swift executions for instance, the Corinthians misusing the Lord’s table.

Fireballs from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah. Like I said, men may repent and turn back to him, but when he abandons them they don’t repent. They think that they’re right. They think they have it figured out. We’re going to look again from a sort of about a 5,000 foot level at this passage and we’re gonna zero in when we do on three main ideas. I know kids corner kiddos you got four lines on there they’re blank so there’s me three three points. The indictment common spelling that’s just kidding kids that’s I-N-D-I-C-T it’s got a silent C in there right indictment the evidence and the verdict so those are the three the three areas we’re gonna look at I’ll be restating them as we go first the indictment. So you may recall in the verses leading up to verse 18, so that would be like 17 and before. Paul writes of how the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel. Interesting start contrast here, we have the righteousness of God and we have the wrath of God. We also have juxtaposed the righteousness

of God, the righteousness of God and the unrighteousness of men. So the unrighteousness of men and the wrath of God are introduced here when the righteousness of God have been talked about priorly. God has written plainly on the hearts of men of his existence and his law. So you could say that looking again here, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. Skipping down, verse 21, although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. It is safe to say that God does not believe in atheists. And yes, that’s right, since they know he exists. Aside from their built-in knowledge of God’s existence, his law having been stamped on their hearts, their having been created in his image and likeness, and so on, if that’s not enough, which it is, but if it’s not, then there’s creation. And creation screams of an intelligent creator, and for them to reject the God of creation does not require the Bible.

Men can be damned apart from the gospel. They don’t have to reject the gospel for that. They’re born in that state. Yet they cannot be saved without the gospel. So what do men do? By their unrighteousness, they suppress the truth. They push it down. They press the truth downward, I’m just hoping that what they know to be true won’t pop up again because that’s a nagging truth. So I’m hoping that if I suppress it, bury it, push it down, it’ll leave me alone. The law of God requires more than mere intellectual assent. This truth carries with it a behavioral standard.

So if I know that there’s a piano that is falling from a 10-story building, and guess what? I’m standing at the base of the building. That kind of knowledge requires action, does it not? So the knowledge that God exists requires our submission to a holy judge.

And we’ve all seen actions and I’m haunted by my own past, by the example that I gave you. I knew the truth. I knew that I wasn’t a Christian. And I knew that I should deal with that, and I hated that truth. Eventually, obviously by the intervening work of God’s Holy Spirit and by the testimony of other people, I was like, that’s pretty sweet and that’s something I don’t have. So God in his immersion, his perfect timing, he brought me around, but we have seen, we have seen in our own hearts and on television, on the street corners, we’ve seen active suppressions of the truth. It happens when lies become more and more grandiose.

It happens when people get angry that you won’t endorse their sinful behaviors or ideologies. Think about it. Atheists become really angry when Christians insist that God exists. And why is this? Because they know they’re wrong. And they’re trying to lie persuasively enough to convince not only their hearers, but their very selves. They’re trying to lie convincingly enough to persuade themselves to believe what they know is wrong. So why do they get so mad? It’s obvious.

They want desperately to believe that there’s no righteous judge who will rightly hold them to a perfect standard to which they cannot attain. Yet they know that he’s real and they hate what they know. We also see it with a modern push for tolerance. It’s the height of irony that tolerance is tolerant of everyone except for the intolerant. If you agree out loud that Jesus is the only way to the Father, well then, you’re guilty of hate speech and hateful things will be said about you. Homosexuals love their sin. Again, these are more examples of suppressing the truth. And Christians who agree with God that homosexuality is shameful are labeled as unloving, bigoted, hateful.

and those attacks on the person who’s making those claims have nothing to do with the claims that the Christians are making. They used to go after the person because they know they can’t go after the truth. They know it is unnatural. This Jim’s message this morning, in my mind dovetails nicely with this evening’s message because there are no instructions in the New Testament for how husbands are to treat their husbands. You can look, you can check. It’s just not there. So for the evangelicals who affirm homosexuality, that’s unconscionable. It is a reach, it represents a flawed starting point, an inconsistent hermeneutic and everything else.

We throw around language like don’t judge me, don’t judge me, which generally translates to, I know what I’m doing is wrong, and I want to be left alone to do what I want to do. I’ve never ever heard somebody, And I’ve had people tell me, don’t judge me a few times. I’ve never had anybody pull the don’t judge me card who actually believed that what he was doing was right. It is usually a red herring, dragging across the trail to get the hound off the scent. Like, I hate what you’re saying, but you’re right. But don’t judge me. The pattern, it goes on and on. Suppression of the truth takes a variety of forms. This pattern of ongoing, willful sin, This effort to convince themselves that it is acceptable, I mean, it’s unnerving, but it’s a hallmark of having been subject to the abandoning wrath of God.

And it is what the suppression of the truth looks like. This is a harrowing indictment on mankind. Paul says in the second half, or first half of verse 23, claiming to be wise, they became fools. Plenty of us have seen those worldly wise men who reject the truth and who are what the Bible would then call fools. What evidence do we have? What evidence, second point is evidence, of the abandoning wrath of God. And this is where we start to get into some of the nitty-gritty of the sins themselves. What evidence does Paul provide that men have been given over to their sins and to the natural consequences of those sins?

this section here in the middle and it stretches from verse 24 through about, yeah, through to verse 31. In this passage the apostle catalogs a host of sins that are common to the recipients of God’s abandoning wrath. First we see in verses 24 and 25 idolatry. Idolatry. Therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. The hearts and bodies of natural men are profaned as they give themselves over to the worship of idols and idols are the creation of their own mind.

Our society thinks that it’s exempt from indictments like these because we don’t worship Dagon or Baal or Zeus or Thor, right? If you were to walk up to a person on the street corner who is not a Christian and call him what he is, an idolater, he would say, well first of all, don’t judge me, but then he would say, you don’t know, last I checked I’m not worshiping Apollo or Athena. I mean they’re fine, but I’m not an idolater. We think I idol, we think a golden calf or some tangible object of our worship, some shrine and candles and things like that, or someone in the Greek or Roman pantheon or ancient Babylonian or something, all these multiple gods. Yeah, that’s totally idolatry, but it’s actually much worse than that. It’s way bigger than that. We’re all idolaters. Calvin says the heart of man is an idol factory because we are worshippers and we’re guilty of worshiping self if nothing else.

They would emphatically, well, so first of all, they would say, I don’t worship, you know, Dagon, Zeus, or Thor. But then secondly, they would emphatically champion their atheism. In fact, says the person in the street corner, how on earth could I worship the wrong God when I don’t worship any God and I don’t like advocate any God’s existence. Well, we don’t get to not be worshippers. That is how God made us. And when we are not worshiping the living God, we’re worshiping a creation. So do you get that?

Worship is inescapable and unless we’re directing our worship God-word, it is to an idol. It is something that we have made up. And God alone is a Creator, so we are guilty of idolatry anytime affection, love, or attention that ought to be directed toward Him are directed elsewhere. It’s not a hard case to make but it doesn’t bode well for men. What else do we see in verses 26 and 27 we see homosexuality. For this reason God gave them up. Well you see this you see this language right? He gives them over, He gave them up. To dishonorable passions for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and men likewise gave up their natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” John MacArthur observes that the reason the Holy Spirit lists women first is because it is the most mind-blowing. You know your society has gone badly when it actually has women who have strong maternal instincts woven into the fabric

of their being, being given over in the desires of their heart to go sexually after other women. I mean, I’m uncomfortable talking like that because it is such a debased, profane picture and yet that is exactly the picture that Paul is painting here. Like I said, I I did want to dissect these verses and break them down, but I just don’t think that careful close examination really sheds greater light on them than a casual reading. The characters in these verses trade in, they exchange. They say, I’ve got option A, I’d rather go with option B. I’m trading in man-woman relationships for man-man relationships. And that they think that’s a good idea is an evidence that God has given them over the lust of their hearts. They receive then the accompanying consequences as a result.

There’s a whole bunch of consequences. STDs, sexually transmitted diseases, would be among many for homosexual and heterosexual sexual immorality. I would put in there a natural consequence for that is an inability to procreate, an inability to have children is wrathful for it is a demonstration of that to them.

I’m not saying anybody who is unable to have children or anybody who goes after or is only single is under the abandoning wrath of God. It is a consequence in that case for that kind of behavior. And just like obviously there are stories of people getting sexually transmitted diseases who had lived morally pure lives in that respect. But what we see here are, I’m talking about trends, and there are obviously different situations and examples on both sides, but we see here a pattern that Paul is speaking of when there are natural consequences for this kind of behavior. Homosexuals are under the abandoning wrath of God.

And frankly, so is the society that tolerates or even encourages that behavior. We also see in verses 29 through 31 that they are given to evil hearts and motives. Evil hearts and motives. Verse 29. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are goss of slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, and ventures of evil. Disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. So here Paul is unloading a host of sins that may have slipped through the cracks before or didn’t fall under one of the larger umbrellas before.

As much as anything, we can identify with this list because we’re like, America, America, America, America. It sounds like our culture. Yeah, broken down by sentence. They are filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. And to be full of evil does not mean that you are as evil as you absolutely could be. Just like being totally depraved does not mean that you are as evil as you could be, but that you are evil to the core. That you are evil throughout. That it pervades who you are. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. You don’t have to kill somebody to be full of murder.

If you read 1 John, anyone who’s hated his brother is a murderer. And so, yes, these are outward manifestations, but these are sins of the heart that Paul is talking about. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insulin, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, ruthless, heartless. What disturbs me is that these are normal sins. They are commonplace and they are bad. But because they’re so common, our hearts have become callous to them. So where does this take us? The verdict is the third main point. And we see that in verse 32. There was an indictment to open this up, and he comes up with a verdict here in verse 32 that is sort of all encompassing. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them.

Ours is a society that will fight for the rights of people who want to commit immortality. Ours is a culture that practices and gives approval to rampant sin. We think that teenage rebellion is just a normal part of life. We normalize fornication. We allow divorce with the check of a box marked unreconcilable differences. We expect people to live as hedonistically as their finances will allow. We think that a woman has a right to commit murder so long as the victim resides within her and we call it a health need. The gossip industry is worth billions of dollars in the United States. We think that having First Amendment rights means that it’s okay to be wrong and stay that way and that others are obligated to listen to us when we flaunt our ignorance.

And if that weren’t enough, evil, we, like those who are in verse 30, are inventors of evil, coming up with new ways to sin. Many in our culture are so proud of Romans 1 that they want to make it official, as we’ll see in a moment. The sins of Romans 1, they want to be official, officially permissive. And this is what it looks like then to not only do these sins, but to give approval to those who practice them. So I wanted to finish up this evening with the time we have left by a practical application of some of this information that, again, I find really disturbing. And part of what I find so disturbing about it is that, is how, is how this characterizes our culture and how desensitized I am to it.

And I hope that would disturb you as well. As you prepare your ballots for Tuesday. There are a host of things we need to keep in mind. As we have, as has been noted from this pulpit and lots of other places, America gets the candidates we deserve. And ought not surprise us when our candidates are only as moral as our society. So I want to quote a passage from a message by John MacArthur that he preached in September entitled Abortion and the Campaign for Immorality. Some of you have heard it before. But this is just a brief section that he’s mentioning as regards appointing political leaders. He says, you’re not voting for a pastor.

You’re not voting for a spiritual leader. You’re voting for someone who has a sense of morality. Since the Bible says that the role of government is to punish evil doers and to protect the good, you better have somebody in power who understands what good is and what evil is. If you think homosexuality, abortion, sexual freedom, hating God are not evil, you better go back and check your Bible again. How can people with that kind of agenda protect those who do good and punish those who do evil? That’s Romans 13’s definition of the role of government. Again, that message is entitled, abortion and the campaign for immorality.

It’s actually a really good point. If the role of government is to bear a sword, we want them wielding it the right direction. And how can that happen if the government has no sense of what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil, what is moral, what is not?

So I certainly couldn’t have said it any better than he did, but with that quotation of mine, indulge me while I share with you two excerpts from the Democratic National Platform. That is the party’s drawn-up official position in a number of areas under the heading, Protecting Rights and Freedoms. That’s the heading on the document. Protecting a woman’s right to choose. The Democratic Party strongly unequivocally supports Roe versus Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. Abortion is an intensely personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her clergy. There is no place for politicians or government to get in the way. We also recognize that health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions. We strongly and unequivocally support a woman’s decision to have a child by providing affordable health care and ensuring the availability

of and access to programs that help women during pregnancy and after the birth of a child, including caring adoption programs. Another section entitled Freedom to Marry. Freedom to Marry. We support the right of all families to have equal respect, responsibilities, and protections under the law. We support marriage equality and support the movement to secure equal treatment under law for same-sex couples. We also support the freedom of churches and religious entities to decide how to administer marriage as a religious sacrament without government interference. We oppose discriminatory federal and state constitutional amendments and other attempts to deny equal protection of the laws to committed same-sex couples who seek the same respect and responsibilities as other married couples.

We support the full repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act. Now, I’m not going to go after the language, the speaking of abortion as medicine type of language or even the need to redefine marriage in order to call same-sex partnership marriage because that is not the institution that God put in place. I’m not, we don’t have time to go after that. I want to entertain the question, how on earth did we get here? How on earth could we be at a point where as a society in writing one of our two major political platforms is cataloging the sins of Romans 1 that are an explicit hallmark of having been abandoned by God.

We’re under his abandoning wrath. How is a society we allow abominable and outrageous sins like these to persist? How can we stand by and watch as over 1 million innocent babies are killed annually via abortion. How can we call it perfectly normal for children to go through a rebellious stage when that sort of behavior commanded the death penalty in the Old Testament? How can we be so desensitized as to think it’s cute or funny when men act like women when it’s detestable to God? If Proposition 74 passes on Tuesday, our state will have actually taken an official position of premeditated sin, sanctioning and encouraging homosexuality.

How can we listen unaffected as God’s name is taken in vain in things as trivial as serial commercials? How has sin so saturated our culture? How do we get to this point? Well, we got here by the same road that all the other nations who have gotten here got here by turning our backs on God, by committing idolatry, by refusing to take responsibility for our own sins, our own sins. We can blame Adam and Eve all we want. And according to Romans 5, we committed those sins in Adam. So we inherited some good old fashioned sin from our first parents, but if that weren’t enough, we got plenty to deal with on our own. And we refused to take responsibility for those things.

We as a nation are currently and presently experiencing the abandoning wrath of God being allowed to experience the natural and inexorable consequences for those sins. So this passage in Romans 1 is only part of an extensive and oblique portrayal of the state of mankind, and it continues for a couple more chapters before the gospel and the good news come. But while the situation is dire, there is hope. You didn’t think I was going to leave you on the down note, did you? Well, I’ll give you some reasons why there remains hope for Christians. And number one, and I’ll finish with these, God is not finished. He’s not done.

The story is not over. It’ll inevitably get worse before it gets better. But we know how the story of man will end. The name of Christ and the fame of God will be vindicated. And Christ will gloriously reign in his kingdom before introducing a new heaven and a new earth. The enemies of Christ will be cast into the lake of fire at the end of the millennium at the great white throne, where they will then experience for all eternity the pain that accompanies a fully informed conscience. They will know forever that they have finally gotten exactly what they wanted and deserved.

Second, God is still faithful when we are faithless. If you want an example of this, you can read the Old Testament. There’s lots of examples. If you want a Reader’s Digest version of that, you can read Psalm 78. And there’s a familiar pattern featured in Psalm 78. The people of God are sinful, they’re rebellious, they overtly or passively turn their backs on Him.

That is more active, I realize that. They forget Him. He punishes them then in an act of love in order to regain their attention and affection. They’re faithless. He is faithful. repeat. They are faithless, He is faithful, repeat. And this is the pattern that we see in our lives on an individual level, on a national level. God has been so incredibly kind to this nation. And it is not because we have been kind to Him. You see that? He has been kind to us as individuals, and it is not because we deserved it. So that is God’s pattern and that ought to be encouraging to us and ought to bolster our faith. And finally, I would point out that for Christians, Christ has atoned for our sins.

The payment is done. It is complete. The personal sins of believers have already been paid for by Christ Himself. And though the world may come under judgment, we can still have hope because the object of our fear, God Himself, He remains on the throne and He loves us. So let’s pray together. Father we are grateful that your word is so clear and is true and that there remains hope even in the midst of a bleak situation for our culture.

Please forgive us for our own passivity and our lack of courage, our own unwillingness to engage a decadent culture. Please give us the courage and resolve and conviction and also the knowledge to know what to say. May we be saturated with your word, and even as Lycia asked for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit, we ask that you would give us the double portion of courage that we would need when there are so many adversaries and we fight an ancient foe who would seek to work as well. We pray that with Paul we can read this, we can know it, we can even rehearse it, And then we can come out at the back end of chapter three excited as to what you have in store for us and the atonium work of Christ.

We love to be champions of your righteousness knowing that the gospel does speak of your righteousness. By which you damn men to be sure, but more than that, the righteousness that you give us. May that be evident among us this week. And we ask this all in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.