Lesson 4

Alright, so we're on lesson 4. Let's see. Working through Romans chapter 1, verses 24-32. I don't know, I got to thinking the other day, one of the things that we haven't delineated or laid out very clearly. From chapter 1, starting in verse about 18. there starts this discussion regarding man and what he is in relationship to God and his sinfulness, that he has a responsibility before God to honor him as God and be thankful.

And if he doesn't do that, where he ends up? What we haven't talked about is that through that part of chapter 1, and then as we'll see in chapter 2, There are three groups of human beings that are talked about there. And really what the author is doing, he's grouping human beings into three categories and he's going to show by the time we get to three that nobody in any of these categories are righteous. And as we delineate it, you'll see that he is very careful to show why not.

The very first group which we're talking about right now are just the average, ordinary, run-of-the-mill human being who doesn't have any religion about him or morals or anything like that. He's just every man. I put a tag on him. towards the end of the study today. So I just call him the common sinner. So the first group that we're talking about now is the common sinner. And then when we get to I think Lesson 5 we'll talk about the next group.

So we're just talking about every man, every woman, every child that's born in Adam what they're really all about in terms of their relationship to God. So, as we talked about, we did 5, which was verse 24, talked about what the lust of their hearts is all about. What did man lie about? In question 6, what did man lie about regarding the truth of God? The lie was that they changed the truth of God into a lie. and they worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, the creator being blessed forever. Now, question seven, I think is where we left off.

Is the word here talking about the abuse of the natural desires of man? Now, again, I have to distinguish a little bit. The natural desires of man is something different from the desires of a person's heart. Give me an idea of what a natural desire of a man would be. What is a natural desire of a man?

Here's an easy one. You all have hunger pains. That's a natural desire. We all want to be loved. That's a natural desire. We want to have fellowship and hang out with people. We may have appetites for certain things. We want to be recognized. We want to be noticed and appreciated. Those are natural desires of every man.

Is that what we're talking about here? No, it's not. We're talking about the state of the unnatural appetites, which are consistent with who a person is who has turned away from God. Now, the normal instincts of a human being are left behind when we start down this road, or when a man starts down this road.

So, it's interesting if you guys are spending any time studying Newell, I would have loved to have asked Newell about this and he wouldn't have been a hit in 2017. He says that women take the lead in this because they're the ones that sin first. I just looked at Joanne and she went, I noticed he brought that up. Yeah, I thought that was interesting. Does that go to she made me do it? It wasn't really she made me do it.

Who did he blame? He blamed God. You know that woman you gave me? It's your fault, God. So it's really interesting to watch how quickly and without even thinking about it, we will blame anybody for anything we're called to account to, unless it's something that's favorable, then we'll jump all over it. So when you think about it, the things that are talked about here, I don't know if you've spent any time just reading these particular verses, but they're terrible. And you know what? This is every human being. This is not you know, the drugs of society that we would say, oh, well, they don't measure up. This is every human being, because they won't do what two things?

Why does God turn them over? They won't acknowledge Him as God, as the Creator, and they won't honor Him, and they're not thankful. And so what they really do is they say to God, I want me, I don't want you. and I don't need you, because you created me in such a magnificent way, why would I need you?" And that thought process came from Lucifer. Lucifer looked in the mirror and said, what do I need God for? Look at me, I got this.

So God says, when he turns man over, when they exchange the truth for a lie, God gives them up, In verse 26 he says, vile passions for even their woman exchange the natural use of what is against nature. I find it interesting that we live in a society today where man is actually trying to change nature. I'll tell the story in a minute. This is the path to homosexuality. Verse 26, For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions for their women, exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. And in the same way also men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire towards one another, men with men, committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

It's a really good picture, isn't it? If you could sketch this out, you wouldn't want it on your wall. Yeah, isn't it? That's the thing that just... So my question is, would you say this is the real path to homosexuality as opposed to the path that they're trying to sell us today, that they were born that way? Well, they were born with this in nature. That's exactly right. And that was my story.

We used to have two ladies that lived across the street that were lesbians. Were they married? I don't know. But one of them was pretty militant. She was always after me about wanting to discuss Christianity and homosexuality in the same breath. So that's what I told her one day. I said, Mary, you and I are the same. We were born the same. She said, no, we weren't.

I said, yeah, I was born with a sin nature and so were you. And my sin nature is exactly like yours, and yours is exactly like mine. You just chose to not honor God as God, and you weren't thankful, and you decided that you were going to sin continually. I decided I was going to sin too, but it wasn't that way, it was some other way. So we are the same. We're born the same. We really are. We never had a discussion after that. We really didn't. So the real road to homosexuality is right here, don't you see it? Is it there? And that's the way it is.

The problem I've always had with homosexuality is that we all have sinned and we're all sinners. it's not unique to homosexuality, but is that if you enter into that lifestyle, you have made a decision that I'm going to live that way. You know, that's different from, I'm going to try not to sin and I fall every now and then, but I've made a decision about this and I'm going to live there.

And so when you look at these verses, when you make the decision to turn your back on God, the intensity with which the appetites of the sinful man are increased dramatically. You see that? Does that make sense? When a non-believer decides not to honor God and be thankful, God turns them over. Up until that point, they have desires and they're sinning, but Once God turns them over and lets them have themselves, it seems to me that these verses say that the aggression of sin in them explodes. Does it to you too? I think it does. It really does explode. And so the homosexual environment This is the path that goes down. And if you could trace it back, it really goes back to not honoring God as God and not being thankful. That's really where it goes back to.

And this thing, well, I was born that way, or I get to decide what gender I am, or all of that, that's all a bunch of nonsense. So, yet in our society, or in the history of man, It's interesting how the Apostle Paul doesn't characterize people in a manner that women are weaker or men are weaker. He doesn't do that. What he does is he says, though the greatest and the highest sages of earth, the monarchs, the conquerors, poets, philosophers, and whoever, as men and women but as females and males characterized by ways below the brute, given up of God and even now enduring the just reward of their deeds. My one last comment about my, I don't know if this would be true of you, I have never met anybody who was engaged in a committed sinful activity like homosexuality or any other committed I'm in that have any rest.

It's not there. They do it thinking that they're going to find something there to satisfy this desire they have for rest and it's not there. It just is not there. Because where is rest? Where do you get it? The Lord Jesus is the only place you can get it.

You know, one of the most interesting ones is a second cousin who feels sad for the community. And so, you know, just read Romans one. It's not right. Do you think I'm going to read 2000 year old outdated document about this topic? And that is just so opposite of reality. Like we're enlightened today, more so than they were 2,000 years ago, nonsense.

You study the history of the environment in which the church started. All the politicians were pedophiles and all the teachers were pedophiles. The religion of the day with the temple of Diana had a thousand prostitutes. If you were a criminal, once you got inside the boundaries of the temple, they couldn't touch you.

Sounds like a fun society. Men never were, never ever were asked or required to love their wives. They could divorce them in a minute and if the kids made them angry they took them out at the end of town and kicked them out of the chariot and that was the end of it. Sounds like a great society to live in, doesn't it? We want to join up? Two thousand years ago, right? We're better today?

Mike, you're talking about they have no rest. Just this past week we heard or read, probably everybody else did, that those who try to change their gender, the rate of suicide is extremely high. Oh, it's unbelievable. So obviously they're not resting from turmoil. And the other thing that they sell today is abortion. Women who have abortion have terrible time. The guilt about that, I don't care how they feel. They mouth it, but the guilt about it is unbelievable.

So you can song and dance all you want, the problem is that God lays out the parameters, and if you don't honor them, there's a price to pay, and the price to pay is there is no settledness in your heart. It just isn't. And actually that's what I think the ongoing daily consequence of sin is no rest.

And the reason I say that is because the Lord Jesus said, come unto me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. He's offering humanity the one thing they can't find anyplace else. That's the one thing no human being has. I don't care what they have in terms of of pleasures or assets in our society, no rest. You don't get that. You only get that in Christ.

Now that side to me is, I picture God is knitting His babies together with all of them. The Bible says He knits them together in their mother's womb. But, you know, we are told about gender identity or abortion or something that this is the new norm. This is the way it is. Oh, and we're much more enlightened than those guys were in Ephesus in 100 A.D. Oh, really? Oh, really? Question nine.

In man's heart, he turned from the proper object to the creature. What happened in his mind and in his actions? Look at verse 28, actually go back up, but think about this. When a man turns away from God who should be the proper object of the creature, right? What happens to his mind? It becomes darkened and he becomes a fool. So whenever I'm watching the news now, I think, God, I'm just watching fools. If they're not believers, they're fools.

So, it's interesting that man will need an object outside of himself, and his efforts, he sought to supply it by worshipping and defining different forms of animal life. And I don't know if you've noticed in the verses that it starts up here with flying creatures and ends up with worms, you know, snakes and stuff.

It goes like that. So he has this desire that he's got to worship something. Donna? I was just going to say, in this Zodiatis, he talks about God gave him over to a reprobate mind. And the definition in that verse is undiscerning, not distinguishing, Oh, that's terrific. Everybody hear that? That is really good, because that's what happens. We sometimes, because we're such enlightened Christians, right? We watch decisions being made in our society and we think, really? How did they come up with that? Don't you ever feel like that sometimes? You think, that's a decision they made?

Or better yet, they're focused totally on this issue. And they forget the big issue that really matters. They're all over here. And it's like they bypassed the big issue, the real issue. The foolishness and the darkness is just amazing to me. How it all done with a lot of pomposity. I was watching the news this week. And I thought, you better just start praying. That's the only thing that's going to change this. It's not how much you control guns or other things. It's turn your hearts back to God. That's the only thing that can help. That's exactly right.

I got really excited a couple of weeks ago when Ruth Smith announced that one of the Cherry Creek grade schools had invited her group into their school, the Child Evangelism Fellowship. For the Cherry Creek School District to do that, they must really be hurting. They somehow recognize that what Ruthie and her group have to say might be relevant to the well-being of the children. That's really neat, so we'll see where that goes.

They never, never would think to turn to God for the answer about anything. He's not allowed in school. That's right. That's exactly right. The other thing that's interesting about our society is that we cover up all of the real consequences of our sinfulness. Suicide in high schools is rampant. I don't know any family who doesn't know a family who has lost a kid to suicide. and down into middle school now. It's amazing. Why? Because there's no hope for them. They're not fed hopefulness. They're fed disaster, hopelessness all the time, 24-7.

Have I just missed something? Just the last couple of weeks I've seen this kind of come over a flash thing where they're appealing to people to join the agnostic and atheistic. The last one was Ronald Reagan's son who was appealing to it. It's very short but it just says something like they're not afraid of hell. Is that just something new? I had not seen that before. The one this week, who was it?

Stephen Hawkins. Did you see the joke about stuff? Oh, Steve, yeah, I saw that. You know, he says that, you know, we've got to leave the planet and get to Mars because we're going to destroy this place, right? He needs to read the Bible. We're never going to Mars. We're men of Earth. God set it up that way. He died. This week. Now he knows, doesn't he?

This is my own personal theory. from a spiritual standpoint, every human being is created, or is begotten in sin, right? You have any trouble with that? From the smallest zygote to the oldest one, they're born in sin, they're conceived in sin, right?

If I'm Lucifer, the sooner I get them, the longer I get to keep them. If I can get babies aborted, and children to commit suicide and all of these other things, what am I really accomplishing? I'm building my army. Right? I don't want them to have a chance to hear the gospel and to hear the good news. See that? So I think that's why you see what you see.

There's depression and everything is designed, if you think about it, everything in the world, everything in this world is designed to destroy you. There's nothing here that's designed for you to improve or get better. Nothing. It's all designed in one way or another to kill you.

St. Patrick's Day, what's it really designed to do? To kill you. Right? What's alcohol designed to do? To kill you. How about drugs? What are they designed to do? To kill you. Everything is designed in this world to kill you. Name one thing that isn't designed to do that.

Now it's sold on a different basis, but it's a bait and switch, you know? It's like the Garden of Eden. Lucifer told Eve, God's lying to you. You're really going to live and know something if you take the fruit that kills you. She said, yeah. She forgot that God said that to her. You're going to die.

This picture of man created originally in the image of God, man was created originally and made in his likeness is presented as a faithful description of the Gentile world which comprised not merely ignorant barbarians, but civilized nations, cultured races, educated classes, intellectual abilities, beyond what we would appreciate. But where was the morality and the godliness to be found? It's not there to be found. My education was mostly in liberal arts, so we studied Greek culture and Shakespeare and all of these people. Once I became a Christian and through the years think about what my education was all about, that there's a glorification of man.

I'll tell you where else you see it today, turn on public television. It's all about how great men are. Really? Really. This is the description of man right here. This is who they really are. This is who we all really are without Christ. There's no difference. We're all like, we're all this. And one question there. When you become a Christian, all of this improves, right? So God's grace and his word, so you're not as bad as these guys are? light about the truth.

We're still just, we could be the mass murderer. Well, to jump ahead five chapters, what did God do to get us out of this stream? He crucified us. He crucified us. Because he knew ahead of time that these were a bunch of no-hopers. They had no chance. You can't, you know. So what did he do? He forgave us our sins by dying on the cross, but then he took us out of this creation and put us in Christ who is a new creation. That's why it's such important stuff. Because you can't improve on this guy. You can dress him up and make him look better, but he's still the same rotten dog underneath.

Maybe even more so. Do you think that man is more enlightened now than he was 2,000 years ago? What do you think? Technology is much greater, but what about man himself? No, because sin has a cumulative effect on the society. We're a lot dumber than the Roman culture was. We don't have the technology, but we are not as bright as they were. Moses was, according to our standards, a genius. because sin hadn't had 10,000 years to take effect in the culture. He can write the first five books of the Bible. He studied Anuvial Math. Anuvial Math, nobody even knew about it until some time ago.

So sin has a cumulative effect, not only personally, but in the society too. So, question eight, is there any godliness to be found in man? So this has to do with verses 28-31 and I'll just read and I'll send you home with a merit badge with this written on it. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind. To do those things which are not proper, being filled With all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.

Congratulations, you all qualify. So, it's interesting, this list which man has filled himself with might well, you can't read these verses more than one or two times and you start to recoil from them in horror. You think, well, I'm not so bad until you run into one that you are. Because if you're like me, there's one or two in there I'm really familiar with.

But having refused God the right of possession, very important point. What happened was that man said to God, you don't get to possess me, I got me. I don't need you to possess me. What takes over? this, these verses, which we can describe as evil. That takes over. Those are the only alternatives. So I haven't just shifted my transmission into neutral. I didn't do that, which would be, oh, I'm self-controlled now. I've got this. we would eagerly boast about sinfulness and we would not really be ready to acknowledge that we are a slave to sin.

So you see why the Holy Spirit has to do what he is going to do. He has to show a person that you don't control sin, sin controls you and you're in bondage. And oh, by the way, I have a Savior here who will release you from that bondage. But, you know, when's the last man you talked to that wasn't a believer that thought he was a slave to sin? Or she? Right? Or a believer walking in the flesh, does he think he's a slave to sin? No. Thank God for the Holy Spirit.

Notice here that all of these things, you know we talked last week about the desires or the passions of the heart, this is a list of them. These are not things that I can change my mind about. This is what the desires of the lost heart has and is and is its source. This is the way it is.

A man doesn't have to practice evil. Those of you who have raised children, how long did it take in their life before they started practicing evil? And you had to send them to sinning academy, right? No. It's built in. And all of this is built in to every one of them, whether they're 6 months old, 6 years old, or 60 years old, that's what they are.

That's what the Word of God says they are. And we like to tell, you know, little Johnny or little whoever, oh, aren't they wonderful? No, they're not. This is who they are. This is really who they are. We'll give them a bath to make them smell good. Yeah, but what about underneath? This is who we all really are.

It's a thing that should be frightening. I'm reading from the Amplified. It says God gave them over. to a base and condemned mind to do things not proper or decent but loathsome until they were filled, permeated and saturated with every kind of unrighteousness and then he goes through the list. Emphasis on the word full. So we somehow learn to get along with each other in the culture. But everybody in the culture is just like this, and they're full of this.

But I got free will, right? How much free will do you have in this cesspool? Well, gee, let's see. I get to pick between arrogance and boastfulness. I don't have any understanding, I can create some strife, or I can be deceitful. That's how much free will I got. I get to pick between these wonderful things. I can't pick to be holy. I can't pick to be righteous. I cannot pick to be good. Oh, well, I could sort of whitewash some of these and say that they're good. What's wrong with being a little greedy? What's wrong with being a little greedy? It's on the list.

What's interesting is that I don't think we appreciate, even as growing believers, how despicable our old man really is. When you read these verses, you can't escape the conclusion that what God has done here is He's exposed us all. Every one of us. And we'll try to put holy water on it, but it still smells.

So was there any discernment by man of the wickedness that was rampant around him? Now, listen to this. They have complete inner knowledge from God that their ways deserve and must have divine condemnation and judgment. Think that's a true statement? Every human being? I think so. They persisted in their practices despite the witnesses of their conscience. True statement? Yes. They are in fellowship of evil with all other evildoers. True statement? Yes.

But the revelation of God which accordingly brings in the knowledge of judgment according to truth, necessarily supposes the truth is there. So to listen under or to obey the truth becomes part of the moral testing of man, as well as law and natural conscience.

So when we get to Romans 2, 7 and 8, it will say to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor in immortality and eternal life. Not one does that. But to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.

So the problem that we have with God is he brings out this stuff in the light. He turns the light on. Nobody has an excuse. There's no dancing with God. So we run and hide as often as we can. In Romans 2, 9 and 10 it says that there will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil. So I know I've probably overemphasized, but I want us to be really clear as believers, what we have been saved from and when we insist on walking in the flesh, this is what we're doing. And there's no excuse for it, although we'll make an excuse for it. God has rescued us from this entire creation and existence. And it's a wonderful thing. I'm so, and you are so used to this behavior and this creation and comfortable there, it's tough for us to leave it.

So what does the Lord do to a believer? No, he brings you into a circumstance where one or more of these begin to be a real thorn in the flesh. And you have to, he almost forces you to trust him about his declaration that you have been separated from this and you will trust him to keep you on a walking basis day by day separated from this.

But he has to show us, I think, this is who we really are in Adam. If he doesn't show us, we're always going to think there's something good about us in Adam. We think we were a little bit better in my Adam than that guy, and so God saved me because I was going to be a real asset to him.

Really? Not after reading this. So don't be surprised as a growing believer that you get more familiar with this kind of stuff. than you were before you were saved. Because now, the light's on. Your mind is opened up. The Spirit of God begins to show you stuff about you, you know. And then you begin to think, well, you know, the people that you want to witness to, you come to the realization, well, you know, if he can save me, he can save them. For Paul to say he was the chief of sinners, we would look at that and say, what are you talking about, Paul? You're the superhero of Christianity.

Not in his mind, he wasn't. He knew himself was all of this. He couldn't write this if he didn't know. But because we live in 2017, we're better than that, right? Because we now have cars and computers. So, you understand what I'm trying to get across? This is what the old man really is, not what we were hoping he was going to be. And as the Spirit of God begins to show us that this is who we are, that in me, that is in my flesh, Romans 7, dwells no good thing, this is what we're talking about.

This is it. I would want to abandon this, wouldn't you? I don't want to be associated with this. I don't want to be anywhere near this." And the Lord says, well that's what I've done. I've taken you out of this whole creation. I've recreated you in Christ and there's none of this in Him. I think the most important thing I've learned is that the idea of I'm becoming a Christian, I won't be this guy anymore. to something and it's not like that goes away and now it just literally happens in my life.

We're dodged by that. You know what's interesting? God calls us to live by faith and to trust him and to have the Lord Jesus the center of our focus, our attention, every minute of every day. He's really taken us back to heaven, God, the center of our life, right? He's the creature, we're the creator, but now we're sons, much different. The minute we walk in the flesh, we're back to here.

The big, big, big problem with covenant and reformed theology is that they try to impose the law on you. What does the law force you to do? Even more subtle than that. Where does it force your attention? Yeah, it's away from God and back to yourself because you're looking at the rules and you're checking to see how you're doing. And the minute you go there, you're back to here. That's why it's such a dangerous theology because it keeps you from being focused on who you ought to be focused on, who's the glorified Christ.

Does that make sense? That's why it's so awful. It's really interesting that at the end of that Psalm 32, They not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. So as soon as you go back to that Adam, then I compare my sin nature to your sin nature, and if I know you're sinning, I'm better than that. Amazing.

And so that's the second group up here, which hopefully J.D. will do next week, are these same people who judge other people they think they're better. And we'll call them what they are. And then the third group is going to be the religious group who Paul uses the Jews as the example. Are they the best example ever?

They're perfect. Because why? Because they have God's law. The problem is, what does God's law force them to do? Pay attention to themselves. They're back to this. Okay, let's close. Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you that you have in your wisdom have totally, from a positional standpoint, separated us from this entire man and this entire creation and recreated us in your Son, the Lord Jesus. We are thankful for that. We pray in his precious name. Amen.