GOD’S WILL AND GRACE
Romans 1:24-32
S-1699
●SLIDE: Will and Grace is a television sitcom glorifying the homosexual lifestyle. According to Romans 1, God is not nearly so impressed with gay love as is our society.
God’s will is for holiness—His grace is for when we fail.
●SLIDE:In Romans 1:18-23 we saw last week how God has revealed Himself to all mankind: (1) Conscience; (2) Nature. But all men take that knowledge and suppress it. As a result no one has an excuse for not believing in the existence of God.
Saw how we are not waiting for God’s judgment on our society. It is all around us.
Passage for today expands on God’s judgment. This is our society.
●SLIDE: Romans 1:24: Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
●SLIDE: 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised. Amen.
●SLIDE: Romans 1:26: Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
●SLIDE: : Romans 1:27 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.
●SLIDE: Romans 1:28: 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.
●SLIDE: Romans 1:29: 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, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
●SLIDE: Romans 1:31-32: they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 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.
If we are not careful we will swell up with a sense of righteous judgment as we see sin and sinful people dealt with in this passage: “Go get them, God.”
If we are not careful, we will approach this passage with the wrong attitude.
But, when we see this passage in the right light it will break our hearts.
Some of you will personally identify with the dramatic sketch of the next few moments. You have lived through it. You are living in the midst of it.
●SLIDE:SKETCH: Misjudged Love
LARRY AND JAN perspective.
●SLIDE:Romans 1:18-23 – Man forsaking God.
Now, see the flipside – Romans 1:24-32 – God forsaking man to the depth of his own devices.
●SLIDE:“GOD GAVE THEM OVER” – is the key phrase (Romans 1:24, 26, 28).
READ ROMANS 1:24a, 26a, 28a – God gave them over – The term resounds like the final three nails being driven into a coffin of mankind.
Paradoken: “God gave them over” literally means, “to hand over to one’s own power.”
●SLIDE:Oscar Wilde: “When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.”
See the irony: freedom from God is precisely what man has been fighting for ever since Adam’s rebellion in the Garden.
Our contemporary society says, “God, we want you to leave us alone. We don’t want to hear your voice, we don’t want to follow your life principles. We don’t want your Son, Jesus Christ.
And God says, OK. Have at it. You are on your own.”
When we run away from God we think we will be going upward to better things. But the way is actually downhill. We are pulled down by the law of moral gravity—when God lets go.
Illustration: Drop and break a light bulb. Just as natural as it can be.
When you let man go, he is going to go down. This is just as natural as it can be.
●SLIDE:“GOD GAVE THEM OVER” TO SEXUAL IMPURITY (Romans 1:24-25).
READ ROMANS 1:24-25
Epithumia: “sinful desires” really means a “reaching out after pleasure that defies all reason.”
Like, what in the world are they doing!!? It is the way of a society which is so completely immersed in the pursuit of sex that they have ceased to be aware of God at all.
Why sex?
●SLIDE:Because sex is the most intimate of encounters. God reserves our deepest intimacy for Himself. It is not possible to be misusing our bodies sexually and be intimate with God.
See Ezekiel 23. It is one of the few Bible passages I refuse to read with children in the room.
Today we are witnessing a frantic pursuit of pleasure that is being called in our secular media, the “New Hedonism.” Our society is saturated with sex in literature, TV, radio, and advertising. Cable, internet.
There are consequences.
●SLIDE:CBS ran an hour long special on the freewheeling lifestyle in California—interviewing many women who are caught up in it. Interestingly enough, the majority, when they got honest, felt betrayed by the sexual revolution. One woman said,
●SLIDE:“All men want from us is our bodies; we have had enough of this to last a life time.”
●SLIDE:“GOD GAVE THEM OVER” TO UNNATURAL SEXUAL BEHAVIORS (Romans 1:26-27).
READ ROMANS 1:26-27.
Rampant homosexuality is the second mark of a godless, wicked and abandoned society.
●SLIDE:“Even the females (θηλυς)” and “even the males (αρσην)” are not the normal Greek words for men and women.
Paul used the animal terms for “male” and “female”. We might expect the males to break out like this—but not the females—and the females are leading the pack!
For centuries homosexual activities were hardly spoken of in our society.
Homosexual activities were considered so morally reprehensible that people not only refused to speak of these things, they had no idea what most of the acts were.
STORY: Dad and I reading morning paper. One man was sodomized. “Do you know what that means? No. Let’s look it up in the dictionary. Dictionary was so vague we still did not know.
Not today!! Today these immoral acts are written about in explicit detail in virtually every newspaper and magazine in our land. Grade school children discuss them.
Not only are we no longer shocked—we have become accepting.
The critical word here is “natural” used in verse 27 and the opposite term, “unnatural” used here.
Fornication and adultery are “natural” sins—they are not against nature.
On the other hand, homosexuality is using one’s body in an unnatural way—against nature.
A look at one’s sexual apparatus should convince anyone that practices of this kind are not normal. They were not meant to be.
●SLIDE:How we handle the homosexual issue is one of the greatest challenges facing the church today.
For too long the church has made it a secret thing hardly talked about—the issue in the church is explosive—in large part because of Romans 1.
Need to be careful—some sitting here are gay. The very discussion is painful—no matter what is said.
Numbers of you have children who are gay and you are feeing so guilty that you did something wrong to cause this.
I would be greatly remiss here if we did not attempt an honest, open, intelligent and Biblical approach to this permeating societal issue.
Be at peace, some of us are so afraid that if gays are born and not made by choice then the truth and validity of the Bible is in question.
No. Our faith rests on the resurrection of Christ—not how we try to interpret Romans 1 in light of recent medical research into this subject.
Mid 90s the gay gene was discovered—R2D2CP3O. T-shirts: Gays were proud—argued that their personhood and behaviors are OK because they are created that way.
But, many were soon terrified. New wave of prejudice that they were born flawed.
Scientific research seems to indicate that the gay lifestyle is certainly more than just a choice.
●SLIDE: Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter.
●SLIDE: Genome by Matt Ridley
●SLIDE: Nature via Nurture by Matt Ridley
There is no one gay gene. Hundreds of genes are involved. Quite complex. Like all genes, many are turned on or off by contact with their environment.
Anatomy of gay brain is slightly different from heterosexuals.
Hypothalamus is about 2/3 heterosexual size (result of genes or lifestyle choices?)
Corpus Callopsum is midway between heterosexual male and female sizes.
Testosterone produced in mothers womb is significant. More we have the more likely to be heterosexual. Less we have the more likely to be gay.
Measure how much you have by proportionate size between ring and index finger.
Race, measure fingers, one with most testosterone in womb will win.
Given exactly the same genes, every male child born to mom has less testosterone available than the brother before—this probably has to do with mom’s genetic immune system reacting to each new male child. Also, each successive male child tends to have less birth weight.
Less testosterone and less birth weight, more disposition to homosexual orientation.
This doesn’t mean that if you are the third born male, your chance of being gay is out the roof—only slightly—3% to 4%.
Some genes turned on and off in response to environment. Predisposition may be there but only tuned on by homosexual encounter early in childhood. No encounter, no homosexuality.
Return to the gay claim that since they are made this way, their lifestyle and sexual orientation are OK.
This is called the “Naturalistic Fallacy”—developing morals from the way something is formed. Matt Ridley refers to this on numerous occasions.
“I am made this way, therefore my sexual orientation and behavior are OK.”
No. Inappropriate conclusion.
No one would say, I am born with MS—this is OK. Naturalistic fallacy.
I was having lunch with Dr. Tom Griffin, discussing the complexities of Romans one and the complexity of homosexual genetics and Tom said,
●SLIDE: “This means that it is time for us to get ‘off our high horses’ and let God be the Judge. We need to enter this arena with love and compassion! We know we are called to do that.”
●SLIDE: Don’t get me wrong. Homosexual behavior is a sin at any level.
Sexual behavior is not an inborn right. God says, “control yourself. You will never close the gap to an intimate relationship with Me while you are involved in homosexual behavior.
Don’t get me wrong. Herterosexual behavior outside of marriage is a sin at any level.
Sexual behavior is not an inborn right. God says, “control yourself. You will never close the gap to an intimate relationship with Me while you are involved in homosexual behavior.
READ ROMANS 1:27: “Due penalty for this perversion”
Is Paul speaking of AIDS? No. No AIDS in Paul’s day—though he may have been thinking of other sexually transmitted diseases.
What he is saying is that sin does have its consequences and unnatural sins have unnatural consequences.
Internet help site:
Passage not dealing with individuals—it is dealing with an outbreak in society. First outbreak natural sexual sins, then outbreak of unnatural sexual behaviors.
Society is obsessed with sex.
God is so far from society’s thinking that their minds are depraved—they are no longer able to make proper moral choices. They no longer can tell right from wrong.
By the way, there was a widespread conclusion in the 60s that homosexuality was the result of an overbearing mother and a quiet, submissive and uninvolved father. How many heard this.
Be at peace, parents, it is not true.
●SLIDE:“GOD GAVE THEM OVER” TO DEPRAVED MINDS (Romans 1:28-31).
READ ROMANS 1:28
“Depraved mind” – hard to translate – Depraved mind is like an abandoned building which soon becomes the home of rats and other rodents.
●SLIDE:Depraved mind is unfit to distinguish between right and wrong. It is a mind which is warped with regard to moral judgment.
When God turns the human race over to a depraved mind, they immediately begin to do things which ought not to be done.
READ ROMANS 1:29-31.
See things all of the time that people do – We shake our heads and say sadly, “They must be out of their minds…” They really are.
●SLIDE:Here is the doctrine of original sin—total depravity. This is why mankind needs a savior.
“Cute little baby.” Hard to believe that he’s depraved. But he is.
See babies grow up – much evidence of original sin. They’re selfish and demanding. Always want their own way. Cry if they don’t get it.
STORY: Bronwyn being disobedient: “If I have to get up from this couch you are going to get it!”
Brie: “Get up, Daddy, get up!”
Every twenty years we have a new generation of barbarians. Someone must teach them language and customs and social restraints. Otherwise we’ll have anarchy in our society.
●SLIDE:HOW LOW CAN YOU GO (Romans 1:32)?
READ ROMANS 1:32.
Here is the final climax in man’s separation from God. Not only does man enjoy these sins, he enjoys watching others do them.
At some point we ask the question, “Is there some point where we will pull back from our increasing decline and say, ‘this is where we stop; this is enough?”
If there is, it is certainly not fornication and adultery. We have plenty of that—people flaunt it openly and watch others do it on the internet and television.
It is not prostitution. It is legal in some places.
It is not pornography. Porn is the number one search topic on the internet.
It is not gay marriage: it is now legalized in some states.
Surely we will stop with perversions being perpetrated on children?
We would like to think that here is the limit.; but, several years ago Brooke Shields starred in a movie when she was only 12 years old by playing the role of a child prostitute in a New Orleans brothel at the turn of the century.
●SLIDE: GOD HAS NOT REALLY GIVEN UP!
It is in the context of this abyss of iniquity that God put on a body and was spit upon and ridiculed and killed for all the sins of all the world.
Christ came to give sinful man His righteousness and make him fit for Heaven if man will believe in Jesus.
No matter how deep the abyss, the love of God is stronger.
●SLIDE: Lamentations 3:22-23: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
The local undertaker in Brooklyn called a pastor friend and said that he had a funeral that no one else wanted to do because the guy had died of aids. So this pastor took the funeral.
What was it like? Let’s let the pastor describe it in his own words.
“It was wierd. When I got there, there were about 25 to 30 homosexuals sat there frozen with their hands on their laps. Their eyes were riveted straight ahead. I read some scriptures and prayed some prayers. The funeral was over; we got in some automobiles; we drove out to the cemetery. We watched as the casket was lowered into the hole. Once again I read scriptures and prayed.
” I said the benediction and turned to leave, but, none of the homosexual men budged. ‘Is there anything else I can do?’
“’Yeah, there’s something else you can do. I haven’t been to church for years. Actually I was looking forward to the funeral because I always loved to hear them read the 23rd Psalm. Pastor, you didn’t read the 23rd Psalm. Would you read the 23rd Psalm?'” I read the 23rd Psalm.
When I finished another man said, ‘There is a passage in the Book of Romans and it says that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Do you know that passage?’ I read to this these homosexual men, ‘Nothing can separate you from the love of God…neither height, nor depth, nor things present, nor things past, nor principalities, nor powers, nothing…nothing can separate you from the love of God…nothing can separate you from the love of God.’
“I stood by the grave reading these homosexual men passages upon request for over an hour.”
That story and makes us want to cry because there are people who are hungry for the Word of God who would never set foot inside the church because they believe that the church despises them—and they are right.
You say, “Are you approving of a homosexual lifestyle?” Certainly not!! Neither do I approve of a heterosexual lifestyle of sex outside of marriage.
All I am saying is that it is about time we started loving the people that nobody else loves?
TAKE AWAYS
●SLIDE: 1. Protect the children.
●SLIDE: 2. Pray for repentance. The chances of our nation repenting is slight. But, it does happen. Nineveh fell to its knees in sackcloth and ashes in repentance after Jonah preached of God’s coming Judgment. The entire nation turned around. I would like to think that if it happened for Nineveh, it can happen for America.
●SLIDE: 3. Let’s stop yelling, “Stop it” to the sinners in our society. Jesus yelled, “Stop it” to the religious leaders who should have know better.
He lived with compassion for the folks who knew no better.
We will turn this society around only when we are able to show them a better way—that God has a better way than they do.
We are called to love and to demonstrate a new set of values to a decaying culture.
SONG: There is a fountain filled with blood.
