Our lesson begins in verse 21
of Romans 1, where Paul writes, Because that, when they knew
God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but
became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Now here Paul continues just to lay low human nature, to lay
us low for who and what we are by nature. In these previous
verses, Paul told us, and you know this is true, people know
that God is, that God exists. You can see that in creation.
You look at the world around you and you see God made this.
That didn't just happen. God made this. You look at creation
and you see God's wisdom. How wise God had to be. must be to make this creation
as wonderful as it is for it all to work together like it
does. That's amazing. That could not have happened
by chance. God made that in His wisdom.
We see God's power in creation. Not only the power that it took
to speak it into existence, but the power in holding it all together. By the word of His power, the
planets all spin in space with nothing touching them. That's
God's power. We see God's goodness in creation. How this world is preserved and
provided for. Rain and sunshine and food. It's amazing. And all this is
done by God's goodness despite our sin against Him. That's God's
goodness. That's the only reason that God
would keep us spinning is His goodness, His mercy and grace
to His people. And people have a sense in themselves
of God's justice. People know. I'm going to have
to answer to somebody for the way I've lived my life. That's
just in man to know that we're going to have to answer to God
in judgment. And Paul said, because of all this, men are without
excuse. They can spend all the time they
want saying they're atheists and God doesn't exist, but they
know. Thou protestest too loudly is
what I think when I hear somebody being an atheist. They know God
exists. And this just shows you how depraved,
how fallen human nature is. that even though men know God
exists, they will not acknowledge Him as God. They won't worship
Him as God. They won't be thankful to Him
for His goodness to them. And that's not just to heathen
people, not even religious people. They won't acknowledge that God
is God. Unless the Lord does something
for us, we will not admit that God is God. He can do with me. He can do with mine as He pleases. He can save me, or He can damn
me, and He'll be just. He's still God. Unless God does
something for us, we will not admit that. We will not worship
God as He is. God as He's revealed in the Scripture.
Everybody loves baby Jesus, but we won't worship Him as Lord
and Christ and King unless the Lord does something for us. That's
not our nature. It's not our nature to be thankful. We'll
be like the Pharisee in the temple. Lord, I thank You I'm not as
other men. Well, what he's really saying is, I'm being thankful
to myself. I've kept myself from being like
the other men are. I'm thankful to myself. I'm thankful
to the Lord. That's not glorifying God as
God. And that's human nature. And
you know, humanly smart people, the smartest people that there
are, are so interesting. The people that the Lord gave
the most human intelligence to are almost always the ones who
are furthest away from God. The smartest scientists in this
world, people who are utter geniuses, we can't understand half of what
they're saying, will say that man evolved from an amoeba. They're
the ones that are furthest away from God. They always deny God
as Creator. The brightest of the bright become
more vain and fall deeper and deeper and deeper into darkness.
The very brightest people that God's put on this earth turn
further and further and further away from God. They won't have
God rule over them, so God gives them over. Let's foolishness
and darkness reign over them. And here's the whole root of
the problem. Sinful man is so blind, so spiritually dead that
we think God's like us. That's the problem. And you see
through these next verses, that theme running through these next
verses, that men think God's like us. Look over to Isaiah
55. Here's the thing men by nature
don't understand. We wouldn't understand this unless
God gave us an understanding. Isaiah 55, verse 8. For my thoughts
are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith
the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts. Until we understand that, we're
not going to understand the first thing about who God is and who
we are. Now, verse 22, back in Romans
1, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. These
so-called wise men, philosophers, geniuses. One thing about them
is they're always quick to point out how brilliant they are. They
want everybody to know. And they love learning. They
love learning new things and finding out all these new things.
But in all their learning, in all their bragging about how
smart they are, all they're doing is setting themselves up to be
seen as the biggest fool of all. And the reason for that is there
cannot be any true wisdom. There cannot be any true knowledge. There cannot be any true understanding
apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the wisdom of God. I'll
show you that in a couple of scriptures. Proverbs chapter
1. There cannot be any true knowledge apart from the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the wisdom of God. Proverbs 1 verse 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. That's the ABC's, the beginning
of wisdom. You can't have a beginning of
knowledge. You can't have any knowledge, true knowledge, without
the fear of the Lord. But fools despise wisdom and
instruction. Those smart people, you can't
teach them anything. They despise instruction. That's not the fear
of the Lord. Look over in 1 Corinthians 3. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 18. Let no man deceive himself. If
a man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become
a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world
is foolishness with God. For it is written, he taketh
the wise in their own craftiness." Now look over back a couple of
pages, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18. For the preaching of the
cross is to them that perish foolishness. To these wise people,
that gospel is foolishness. But unto us which are saved,
it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent." Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where
is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? All the wisdom of this world
God eventually will reveal as foolishness. You think just about
past civilizations in this world. wisdom, things they thought were
so smart, in time, has been revealed as foolishness. Doctors used
to think they could cure a sick person by cutting them and taking
blood out of them, or putting leeches on them and taking blood
out of them. Dolores caught a blood transfusion
yesterday because that's been revealed as foolishness. You've
got to have blood, enough blood for your body to be healthy.
There was a time you would suffer severe consequences if you said
the world was round. All the smart people said it
was flat. That's been revealed as foolishness. And that's how
all men's wisdom without Christ is going to end up. Just utter
foolishness. It'll all be revealed that way
eventually. Now, verse 23. And they changed the glory of
the uncorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible
man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Here's
what I told you a minute ago. Part of this theme about natural
man cannot comprehend God. So we think God's like us. And
human beings can't comprehend eternal. We are definitely finite. We
live in the confines of time. I wear a watch. I can't stand
not having my watch. I'm controlled by time. God's
eternal. He lives outside of time. We
can't understand that. Human beings can't understand,
comprehend immutable, something that never changes. We change
every minute. Just the slightest, anything
can totally change our disposition. You just eat a teaspoon of something,
it won't sit right with you. Your whole disposition's changed. It just doesn't take anything
to change us. God's immutable. He's immortal. We all live with
the fear of death, waiting for death to come on us. God's immortal. He's invisible. He's incorruptible. We can't understand that. We're
so corrupt. God's incorruptible. But men
don't understand that, so they make idols to represent God.
And no idol can show the glory. No visible idol that a man could
make with his hands could possibly show the glory of the infinite,
invisible God, could it? That's why God forbid it. That's
why we don't have, even now, here, we don't have religious
symbols or pictures or anything. We don't need that. God is Spirit. He's worshipped in spirit and
in truth. You don't need some sort of visual aid, some statue
to bow down to, or some picture to look at. We have Him. He's worshipped in spirit and
in truth. But when men make idols of God, they make idols like
themselves, and worse yet, they make idols to represent God,
now, lower than themselves. Other beasts and animals, you
see them on the back of cars, they're just fish. That's supposed
to represent God? How foolish is that? That's utter
foolishness. And over the course of history,
the more intelligent, the more refined the culture has been,
the further away from God and the further away from true worship
that they've been. Just think about when these explorers
first went into the darkest jungles of Africa and found these just
primitive, heathen cultures that just lived in mud huts, Then
they had the first technological advancement, the simplest of
all men. What did they worship? The sun
and the moon. At least they were worshipping
something bigger than themselves. The Egyptians. Move on down a
little bit. The Egyptians, who were so admired
for their wisdom and their intelligence and the things they could do,
worshipped an onion. I mean, can you imagine that?
The smarter they got, the further away from God they went. The
Greeks, who are so admired for their wisdom and their philosophy,
in Athens, they worshipped everything. There wasn't anything they wouldn't
worship. So when Paul preached the gospel
to them, they laughed. The Romans, who are considered
the greatest civilization in history, every free democratic
society has the roots of its government in Roman government.
They had running water and houses and plumbing and the greatest
architecture and buildings this world's ever seen built without
cranes? Who knows how they did it? They
worshipped everything. That mythology you hate to study?
Savannah hates to study. That's Roman mythology and things
in her Arts and Humanities thing she does with her academic team.
They worshipped everything. And the greatest civilization
man has ever known crucified the Lord of Glory. The smarter
we are, the further from God we get. by nature. One of the
writers said this, God gave man the greatest honor he could give
man when God created man in his own image. But man does the greatest
dishonor that we can ever do to God by trying to make God
in our image, trying to bring God down to our level. And if
the Lord is to be worshipped, I'm telling you it begins with
fear. with awe and wonder at who He
is. Like Mike prayed with awe and
wonder at His amazing grace to us. That's where it's got to
begin. But left to ourselves, here we are, verse 24, wherefore
God also gave them up, done cleanness through the lusts of their own
hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. See,
this is where idolatry will always lead. This is where man's fallen
nature will lead if it's left to go in its own direction. We
ought to give thanks, be thankful every day that the Lord did not
leave us to ourselves. It's hard telling where we'd
be if the Lord would leave us to ourselves to go to the direction
that we wanted to go by nature because this is where it always
ends up. Because they didn't want to worship God, God gave
them what they wanted. Just gave them what they wanted.
Three times in these next verses, Paul says, God gave them up. I cannot imagine anything worse
than God giving me up. Just let them go. And because
they didn't want God, God just took the bitten bride off and
let them run wild. He took all the restraints off
and they're like a pig. Left to itself immediately. It
will go back to wallow in the mud. And when God lets us go,
Men don't do something honorable when God takes their restraints
off. We do things dishonorable. The lust of our hearts leads
us to dishonor ourselves even more. Men worshipped idols. Dishonored God's son, so God
let him go. They dishonored themselves. They're
going to dishonor God's son, God let him go, dishonor themselves.
And see, this is how much we owe to God's restraining grace. There would be no civility No
decency in the community if it weren't for God's restraining
grace. If God didn't withhold some of man's nature, this would
be hell on earth. If human nature is just left
to go and run wild. That's why I pray, Lord, protect
me from myself. I, my worst enemy, protect me
from myself. Because what's described in these
next verses is in the heart of every son of Adam. What's described
in these next verses is in the heart of every single one of
us is born with. Look at verse 25. He changed
the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature
more than the Creator. He's blessed forever. Now when
men are left to themselves, the first thing they do is turn the
truth of God into a lie. And isn't that our day? They
turn the truth into a lie. They deny God exists. They deny
men are totally depraved. I don't know how you can do that
looking around you, but that's what they do. They deny that
the Lord Jesus Christ is God's Son. They deny He's the Savior. They deny right is right and
wrong is wrong. You don't have to look very far
in our community to see how people Take what's wrong and try to
call it right. They'll change the name of it. They'll make
excuses for it. They call what's wrong, right. And what's right, wrong. They
change the truth into a lie. They deny everything that's taught
in this book. They don't have to think very
long before they can come up with some way to deny everything
that's in this book. And I tell you, the more you
read about what happens to people in these verses, when you read
about what happens when God gives them up, the more scared you
become for our country. I'm telling you, this is like
reading today's newspaper, describing what's happening in our country
today. I tell you, we ought to pray
for our country. You can change presidents, you can change congressmen
and senators and ambassadors, all you want to, and there is
no help for this country unless God puts some restraints on us.
That's just so. Because look what here, verse
26. For this cause, because they didn't want God, God gave them
up unto vile affections. For even their women did change
the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise
also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their
lusts one toward another, men with men, working that which
is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of
their error which was meat." Now you know he's talking here
about homosexuality. And God's Word says that a person
who's a homosexual practices homosexuality because God gave
them up. That's what God's Word says.
And the smart people, the refined people of our day say, well,
homosexuality is just fine and dandy. It's a choice somebody
makes. It's a lifestyle choice. It's what makes them happy, so
they ought to be able to do it. But that's not what God's Word
says. And this says men and women. My wife tells me all the time,
men are much worse than women. Men are gross. This is men and
women. It's human nature. I agree, men
a lot of times are more gross than women, but this is human
nature running amok. Men and women, there's no difference.
And people say, well now, they're born that way. They can't help
it. And you look at a man who seems to be born effeminate,
a woman who seems to be born masculine. You look at that and
you think, well, that's true. They look to me like they're
born that way. Well, now wait a minute. Here's a good thing for us to
remember. If we look at something and we think, well, that looks
like this is true, but it contradicts God's Word, we're looking at
it wrong. Isn't that right? If we think
we see something, understand something, but it contradicts
God's Word, we're looking at it wrong. God's Word is true. It cannot be wrong. Yet we see
these things. I have an explanation. Somebody
asked me about it once. This is the best explanation
I could come up with that matches Scripture. Every one of us, me
and you included, every one of us is born totally sinful. I think we all agree with that.
We're born with a heart that loves sin, a nature that's capable
of any sin, any sin, no matter how dark. We're all capable of
murder. capable of adultery, stealing,
lying, cheating, wickedness. You know, we compare ourselves
to great villains of the past. You say, well, I'm as bad as
Adolf Hitler. My wife and I were talking this morning. And she made this statement.
We're getting ready for church. She said, how about being as
bad as a pedophile? Are you born that bad? Are we?
Come on now. That's the nature we're born
with. That's what's in the heart we're born with. Now why haven't
you done those things? I don't think anybody's actually
taken someone's life. I don't think you've actually
abused a child or something. Why haven't you done those things
though? There's no difference between you and me and the people
that do them. Why haven't we done those things? We talk about
stealing or lying or cheating. Well, we've done those things,
but why haven't we done them more? Why don't you walk in those things?
What's the difference? I'm telling you, it's God's restraining
grace. God hasn't left you alone. That's
why. And when a person practices homosexuality,
yeah, they may have been born with that tendency, but we all
have it. The reason they practice those things is because God let
them alone. That's what the Bible says. That
must be so. And we're all born with a sinful nature. We have
a tendency to every sin. But you don't have to practice
it. And God left these people alone to do what their vile affections
wanted to do. And not only did that practice
of homosexuality violate God's law, it violates the laws of
nature. You don't see homosexuality anywhere
in nature but in human beings. You don't see it in animals.
just in men, women, human beings. And in the end, people can say
all they want to. They can change the truth of
God into a lie and say it's alright. But in the end, God will judge
them for it. Sodom was famous for homosexuality. Homosexuality then, named after
Sodom. Famously practiced. And what
happened to them? God wiped them off the face of this planet.
People can say they think they know where Sodom was. Today,
I don't think they can. He wiped it off the face of this
planet. And in the end, they'll receive
what Scripture says, in themselves, that recompense of their error,
which was me. AIDS, I believe, is God's judgment
against homosexuality. And it's just right. That's what
the Bible says. Now, verse 28, And even as they
did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them
over. to a reprobate mind to do those
things which are not convenient. They didn't like to retain God
in their knowledge. It's not that they couldn't,
it's that they didn't like to. They didn't want to. Because
it violates what they want to do. It tries to put some restraints
on them. They didn't want to retain God in their knowledge,
so God gave them what they wanted. He let them have a mind that
was void of judgment. They didn't want to retain God
in their mind, so God gave them a mind that couldn't retain Him
in their mind. He took away their understanding
so they can't tell the difference between right and wrong. They're
blind. They can't tell the difference
between light and darkness anymore. We read in Scripture about a
time that Pharaoh hardened his heart. Then there came the day
God hardened his heart. Look over in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2. He simply gave them what they
wanted. A mind that was void of judgment. 2 Thessalonians
2 verse 8. And then shall that wicked be
revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his
mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all
power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish. Why? Because they receive
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, and for
this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should
believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed
not the truth, but had pleasure in uprightness and unrighteousness.
God gave them what they wanted and the end is destruction. Now
verse 29, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate,
deceit, malignity, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud,
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without
understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable,
unmerciful. Quite a list, isn't it? That's
where human nature will run and God takes the restraints off.
When God gives a man up, he ascends against the whole law. Both tables
are the Ten Commandments, the first table and the second table.
The first table of all, the sins against God. The second, sins
against man. And they're all listed right
here. And you see, if this doesn't describe the prevailing personality
in our day, filled with all unrighteousness. Not just having it, but filled
with all unrighteousness. Just any kind of sin is good
with them. I mean, they like it all. Just anything that goes
against righteousness and goodness, they love it. Fornication, adultery,
all kinds of sexual sins. Wickedness. Just doing something
for no other reason than you want to hurt somebody else. Just
meanness for meanness sake. Just so you can hurt somebody
else and enjoy it. Covetousness. Just always wanting what somebody
else has. Never being satisfied with what
the Lord provides for us. Maliciousness. Seeking revenge. And just for any reason, just
for the most minute slight, they just seek revenge. They're malicious.
Envy. Murder. No respect for human
life. They want something and somebody
else has to kill them for it. Debate. They've got to argue
about everything. Boy, you give them the truth,
they're going to change the truth of God into a lie. They'll debate
about that. Oh, they're just always ready to debate. Deceit. Lying, cheating to get ahead.
There's no respect for honesty or integrity. They just don't
think it's important or necessary. Malignity. No manners. There's no decorum about them
at all. They're just impolite. It's okay
to be rude. Whispers. Secretly planning mischief. They are ashamed to do some things
out in public, so they whisper. Just because they're ashamed
to be seen doing them in public doesn't mean they're not going
to do them. It's just whispers. They're going to do it in secret.
Fat biters. Publicly and privately slandering
people. Tearing people down for no reason.
You can't find a person today in public that somebody doesn't
want to tear down. They just can't stand it. They've got to
find a way to tear them down. Haters of God. The reason for
all of this is haters of God. They hate Him. They hate everything
about Him. And they love everything that's
against Him. Despiteful. That's just to mistreat someone
with violence, either words or actions. I love this one. Inventors of evil things. They
can't just copy something evil somebody else did. They've got
to come up with something new. They've got to top them. They've
got to do something worse so they can be remembered. Go down in
history. This boy shot all these people
in that mall out in the west. You know, he said he wanted to
do something shocking so he'd be remembered. Inventors of evil
things. Disobedient to parents. Disobedient
to the authority that God gave us for our own good. God gives
us parents for our own good. And we're disobedient. Without
understanding. It amazes me every day. I tell
Janet so often, I see people do things and say, that's stupid.
How stupid can somebody be to do something like that? And then
there's consequences for it and they act shocked. Well, duh. Why do they do that? No understanding. God gave them a mind without
understanding. Covenant breakers. You know,
it used to be a man's word was good. That's the way our word
ought to be. If I tell someone I'm going to
do it, I'll do it. I mean it. God help me. Unless something
happens, I mean to do it. It used to be a time you could
do business with a man with his word. Then it got to be you had
to have a written contract. And today, I'm telling you, a
written contract is not worth the paper it's written on. Not
a bit. In our business, we make people
sign, I mean, a stack of papers like that. So we'll deliver them
goods and products to their store. They make personal guarantees.
They make, I mean, all this stuff that they promised. They sign
it. It's notarized. It's witnessed. We had a fellow
buy $70,000 worth of products from our business in one week.
He didn't pay for it. He paid the next week, but he
didn't pay this week. And I called him about it, and
he said, well, I paid that. And I said, no, you didn't. Well,
we went and we wrangled for quite a long time, and he finally admitted,
you know, I do owe that. And he started making payments
on it. But he didn't want to make payments anymore, and he
said, I don't owe that. I said, well, Scott, we've got a contract
here you signed. And I took his tune, and he signed
it. I owe this money. Signed it. He made a personal
guarantee. I got a stack of contracts like that. I've spent six months
in court. And in the next six months, I
still will not have that money. Covenant breakers. Doesn't matter. Implacable. Once they're offended,
you just do anything to offend them and you'll never recover.
No apology would be good enough. They remember it forever. Implacable. Unmerciful. had no compassion,
no mercy for people. And if somebody's a hater of
God, how can they love mercy? Can't. A hater of God will always
be unmerciful because mercy is an attribute of God. Oh, I love
mercy. Don't you love mercy? Thank God
for mercy. Well, verse 32, The judgment
of God. They don't know. They do not
know there's a judgment one day who, knowing the judgment of
God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not
only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. The light
of nature tells people, I'm going to be judged by God for this,
and it deserves death. And they continue doing them
because they have a mind void of judgment. That's just bad
judgment. to keep doing something I know
is worthy of death. And worse yet, not only do they
enjoy doing those things, they recruit other people to do them
with them. They take pleasure in other people doing them with
them. I started to get dressed this
morning. Jan asked me, were you excited about teaching your class?
I said, well, yeah, I am. I said, it's kind of a downer. But this is our nature. This
is the nature that we're born with. This is the nature that
God's got to save us from. All of them will. I hope God
bless you.