Pastor Mark Mikels – November 22, 2009
“GOD FORSAKEN SOCIETY”
(Romans 1:24-32)

Intro … Last week we faced up to the fact of God’s Wrath – the Wrath of God that Paul said “is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men” – we discussed its Character, its Cause, its Course
and its Cure.

Last Sunday’s message concluded with this “final thot” …

Not until we understand God’s righteous wrath towards sin
are we able to fully appreciate God’s love toward sinners!

God’s righteous wrath towards sin is an inescapable truth in the bigger picture of things … God hates sin! Paul said in last week’s passage (Romans 1:17-23) that God wrath toward sin is even now being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men.

The fact is, there aren’t very many truly happy sinners – there are not very many sinners who are escaping the consequences of their sin in this life and none of them will escape the consequences of their sin in the life to come. Sinners wear their sin like a garment and God’s wrath expressed toward sin inevitably affects those who clothe themselves with it.

Today’s passage builds upon last week’s and demonstrates the worst of the present-tense consequences of persistent, willful sin.
Let’s look at it together (Romans 1:24-32)

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.
Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.
They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.

They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

I said that this passage reveals the worst of the “present-tense consequences of persistent, willful sin”. It’s a consequence that can be experienced individually but in this passage Paul refers to it happening collectively – to a group of people … to an entire society.

For the purpose of this message, I’m calling it …

Society’s Most Neglected Truth …

Human Societies can reach a point where God lifts His
HAND of RESTRAINT and allows SIN to run RAMPANT!

Three times in this passage Paul uses this ominous phrase …
“God gave them over” – (vs. 24 … vs.26 … vs. 28)

God “gave them over” to the unbridled manifestations of sin … no restraining influence would He exercise … He allowed them to experience and those around them to see exactly what sin was like and what sin would ultimately produce in those who are totally given over to it. It’s an ugly sight … it’s no wonder God hates sin so much!

In this nine verse passage are revealed Three Increasingly Ugly Manifestations of “sin set free” …

Ugly Manifestation #1 …
* SEXUAL IMPURITY … vs. 24
(The DEGRADING of their BODIES)

“God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts
to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.”

Impure, improper sexual relationships “degrade” the body –that is, make the body less than it ought to be.

The body ought to be a “Container of the Spirit of God” – it ought to be a “Conveyer of the Purposes of God” (the union of husband and wife as a picture of the union between Christ and His Church as well as an expression of a unity brought out of diversity that pictures the fellowship of the Trinity itself) – the body ought to be a “Communicator of the Blessings of God” (the joy of genuine intimacy and guilt-free emotional and physical release).

But improper sexual behavior “degrades” – that is, reduces the experience (and the body) to be something that is much less than that which God intended.

Sexual impurity puts man on the path that can easily lead (once all Godly restraint is removed) to …

Ugly Manifestation #2 …
* SHAMEFUL LUSTS … vs. 26
(Perverted, Unnatural RELATIONS)

“God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.”

Paul says that both men and women gave themselves to these kinds of unnatural relationships and it came as a result of them “exchanging the truth of God for a lie and beginning to worship and serve created things rather than the Creator Himself” (vs. 25).

Sexual passion is one of the most powerful forces God ever created. When it is linked to a “lie” – when it is freed from God’s restraining and directing grace – it can and will and has and does express itself in the most perverted of ways.

And all of those perversions come at a price – both physical and emotional and perhaps eternal.

A society that has run amuck sexually is a society that is heading toward total collapse and is a society from which God either has or is lifting His Hand of Restraint.

And as that society continues on its downward, Godless path it soon experiences the third of these three Ugly Manifestations of Sin that has been set free from Godly Restraint.

Ugly Manifestation #3 …
*A DEPRAVED MIND … vs. 28
(What OUGHT not be DONE)

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.

You remember the old TV College Commercial that said,
“A mind is a terrible thing to waste”.

How about this version …
“A mind is a terrible thing to set loose from God’s Restraining Grace.”

Paul says that God “gave them over to a depraved (twisted, corrupted, perverted) mind to do what ought not be done” – that is, to do the things that would not be done by someone who was in his “right” mind.

Paul lists an entire catalog of behaviors that are planned and executed by the depraved mind and then he summarizes the entire list with four powerful descriptors … He says that they (these free-thinking people) have become senseless, faithless, heartless and ruthless.

Let’s look at them one by one …

SENSELESS – irrational, twisted, convoluted THINKING

Once you eliminate the truth of God and the truths of God from your thinking, then what is left but something fabricated from the imaginations of man?

Vast numbers of scientists today, especially those who teach in our institutions of higher learning and who benefit from Government funding, take as their starting point the assertion “There is no God”.

Now from that faith-based premise, logical deduction can lead and has led to the most preposterous conclusions – like man evolved from some lowly life-form and that somehow “survival of the fittest” evolved into the kind of “higher ethical values” upon which a stable society depends or like the notion that all the matter in the universe once existed in a space too small to be even seen (though no one can explain who or what created it or packed it so densely together) or like the notion that all men are inherently and basically good and if we just treat them like they are, then they will act that way.

Human Beings set free from the enlightening and restraining influences of God’s Grace will engage in the most irrational and convoluted thinking – they will become absolutely senseless! The book of Proverbs would classify them as fools.

Next Descriptor … Paul says that those who have been given over to a depraved mind will become …

FAITHLESS – no sense of COMMITMENT or CONNECTION

The depraved mind definitely buys into the “me first” and perhaps even “me only” type of thinking. The depraved mind does not commit itself to anyone or to anything … The depraved mind uses things (people included) and then discards them when they are no longer considered useful. Those who are led by such a depraved way of thinking resist making any kind of commitment or forming any kind of connection that might limit them or obligate them in any way.

These are not people that you would ever want to depend upon; they will turn on you in a flash no matter what they have previously promised. They exhibit the essence of “self-centered sinfulness.”
Senseless – Faithless – in addition, those possessing a deprived mind are

HEARTLESS – no normal human FEELINGS

The depraved mind is not restrained by things like compassion or sympathy or empathy. The depraved mind can freely function without any such limitations – people can be used or abused as the situation dictates. The depraved mind creates an emptiness within – a kind of soul-less existence where warmth and tenderness are not known. Think of the Grinch taken to extreme!

And now Paul’s fourth and final Descriptor:

RUTHLESS – no moral or ethical BOUNDARIES

The depraved mind eventually brings a person to a place of absolute ruthlessness – living with no moral or ethical boundaries at all – the exercise of pure unadulterated power – might makes right – complete disregard for the rights or needs of others – whatever it takes to get the job done … destroy someone’s reputation, take someone’s life, engage in bold-faced lies, inflict pain (if necessary) to achieve your aims. The lawless pursuit of desired ends – a ruthless life … it’s an ugly place to which unbridled, unrestrained sin brings human beings.

To these four Descriptors of the actions of a “Depraved Mind” I would add a fifth based upon Paul’s closing comment in this passage …

REMORSELESS – no sense of SHAME or REGRET

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 (verse 32).

In the face of what they know … they persist and they recruit and encourage others to do the same! The fully depraved mind not only spits in the face of God but it encourages others to do the same. It feels no remorse or shame – it proudly/arrogantly upholds its rebellion.

Like the Devil Himself who knows his doom is sure, the depraved mind pushes
on … ever more sinfully for it can and would do nothing else.

Final Thot … God’s HAND of RESTRAINT is the only thing that keeps
the UNSAVED (person or society) from TOTAL DISASTER!