The Shameful Perversion 3-13-2022

WALK WORTHY THE SHAMEFUL PERVERSION Sunday March 13, 2022 Scripture Reference: Romans 1:24-27 (NLT) Intro. A. I said a few weeks ago when we entered into V.18 that Paul was turning a corner in his words to the church at Rome. These are not easy words to read. It is a message that can easily make us uncomfortable because without Jesus in our lives, or for some of you I can say, before Jesus was in your life. This was YOU. Sadly, this is the picture of many of those you love and want to see come to a saving faith in Jesus. 1. I saw something in my study of these verses that I had never seen before. Perhaps you had already seen it. When Paul begins this admonition to the church at Rome back in V.18, it appears that he is specifically addressing the gentile population. Now please do not take this to mean that this sinful behavior is somehow reserved for a particular group of people because it is not. In fact, let's look at what Paul said as he begins chapter two. "You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things." Romans 2:1 (NLT) We could also go back to Pauls' words in 1 Corinthians 10:13 where he tells us that temptation, whatever kind it might be, is common to everyone. Then he tells us that God provides a pathway to escape or overcome that temptation no matter what it is. 2. Last week I encouraged you to read V.18-32 so that you could get the better picture of the incredible downward spiral that takes place when we reject or ignore the truth of God in our lives and today, we continue to see the terrible consequences of this decision, and please remember. This is OUR decision, not God's. B. Let's look at the verses we are now exploring. Chapter 1:24-27, "So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. 27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved." Romans 1:24-27 (NLT) 1. What we are seeing in these verses that we have been looking at now since V.18 is that the root of human sin is the perversion of religion. Here is what James told us. 27 "Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you." James 1:27 (NLT) What we are seeing here in these verses is the very opposite of what James said pure and genuine religion is. I can't take the time to do it today but look back over these verses we have studies so far and what you see is a perversion of true faith in God. Now the root of human sin is religious perversion, but now we are going to begin to see the fruit, which is moral corruption. Friends we have seen this play out since the opening chapters of Genesis. When you separate yourself from the life of God, and how does a righteous person have life? FAITH! You take that life away and the result is that you fall into depravity. You become a helpless slave to the creature instead of the Creator. Trans. Ok let's look at this shameful perversion Paul speaks of here. I. THE SHAMEFUL PERVERSION. Now I need to remind you again of what we just spent two weeks studying. We talked about how people have a knowledge of God. It is both moral and philosophical, but they rejected that knowledge and then began to create their own god. The sad results of this are seen in the very next words in V.24. "So God abandoned them" A. God Abandon Them. 1. This reminds me of the words Jesus used as he looked down upon the city of Jerusalem. 37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me. 38 And now, look, your house is abandoned and desolate." Matthew 23:37-38 (NLT) He wanted to protect them, to be their true God, but sadly and tragically they would not let him. Friends this same thing is happening today. It is happening with many that you care for and want to come to Christ. He would, but they will not and the results for them are the same. 2. Now I need to tell you people that right here and right now we have to begin to address what I consider to be the biggest controversy in the Christian church today. It is an issue that has literally divided the Christian Church into two camps. Now I will say right up front that I do not think this need to be the case, but I am also not optimistic enough to believe that I will settle the controversy that has raged for hundreds of years in this message or in the others I will preach. This will not be the only place we will confront this controversy in Romans. We will come nose to nose with it again in chapters nine and ten. The controversy I am speaking of is the issue of Eternal Security. Another word we use in this controversy is Predestination. The two camps, if you are not familiar with this is Calvinism and Arminism. This refers to two theologians, John Calvin, and Jacob Arminius. Now my definition of these two camps will be very basic, but they will do for now. Basically, one camp says that God has already predetermined who will be saved and go to Heaven and who will be lost and go to hell. This theology also says that if you do make the decision to accept Christ, after doing that it doesn't matter if you continue in a life of sin, you will still go to heaven. Even in my reading for this series I read one preacher who said the idea that you and I have a free will when it comes to our salvation is absurd. The other camp, of which I am a part I will add, is the camp that says you do have a free will in your salvation and that free will also allows you to say at some point, "I no longer believe in God. I want to live my life as I chose so I am walking away from this thing called Christianity." Now I will not be getting into all the specific issues pertaining to these two theological differences today, but we will be fleshing this discussion out as Paul brings it up in chapters to come. Today I want us to give our attention to these words, "So God abandoned them" 3. Now I will admit again as I have many times that I am pretty simplistic in my thinking, but for me some of this seems awfully simple. What I have seen in the verses we have looked at so far seem to point to people who have a free will to choose to believe in God or not believe and these opening words of V.24. Which by the way are repeated again V.26 and again in V.28. These words seem to indicate to me that God gave these people a choice and their choice led God to make a choice as well. Let me share a quote from one commentator I read. It is kind of long, but very good. "Man abandons God, actually turns away from God and gives God up. This may be called spiritual abandonment: man spiritually abandons God. God has given man a free will, and if a man wills to turn away from God, he can. God cannot interfere with that choice. To do so would be to take away man's freedom. So God appeals to man spiritually, through mercy and love and grace, but He does not violate man's choice. He cannot. To do so would be to have a coerced and mechanical universe. Man would become nothing but a robot, coerced to do this and that and to do it exactly as God wills. The result would be tragic: man would never experience love, goodness, care, concern, or feelings. Love is not love if it is coerced. It is mechanical and meaningless. The expression of any affection or virtue is meaningless unless it is freely given. Therefore, when man turns away from God, he himself makes the choice to do so, and God cannot interfere. The choice is man's, and man is abandoned-left all alone to himself to do exactly as he has chosen. Therefore, God has no choice." Leadership Ministries Worldwide, 1996) 4. For me the big question is this. "If our salvation is totally dependent on God then how do we explain hell?" Wouldn't you expect God to damn us all because we are all sinners or in His great mercy redeem us all? For me the over-reach here is trying to prevent the idea that we can in some way save ourselves. I can assure you right now as a true Arminian that you cannot save yourself. Ephesians 2:8-9 makes that abundantly clear. But I also believe that the grace of God is offered to everyone, and we get to choose whether we will accept the gift or refuse it. I do not believe that in the words of John 3:16 that God so loved a few elect, but that He did and does in fact love the entire world and gave His son so that the entire world could be saved if they choose to but their faith in Jesus. The truth is, Most Calvinists move away from this strong position and point out that God does not send people to hell; all persons are under God's wrath and "without excuse" as we saw in V.20 because of their sinful condition. As sinners, all humans deserve to be condemned as Paul showed us in 3:23, but God in His mercy reaches out and rescues some. These "some" are what my Calvinist brothers would call the "elect" or "called" by His grace. They would tell us that because we cannot fully understand the mind of God, we cannot know whom He chooses or why, but by His grace we are saved. Now this view tries to avoid the distasteful idea of a loving God decreeing that some persons go to hell for His glory, but it still raises the question of why God would not choose to rescue all of His creation, rather than just a part. If a person dashes into a burning building to rescue those inside and is able to bring out only a few, we praise his heroism and do not hold him accountable for those who might not be rescued. If that same person has the opportunity to bring everyone out alive, but stops after rescuing one person, we are likely to be very angry. And so, the tough issue for all those who say that salvation is only by God's grace, apart from any human response, is "How can you account for those who are lost without reducing or even eliminating God's power and love?" 5. The alternative viewpoint is to grant the individual some role in determining his or her ultimate destiny. Again, I am not suggesting that we can do something to save ourselves. That is simply not a biblical position. This position was what was first proposed by the Dutch theologian, Jacob Arminius, and later popularized by John Wesley's and the people who came to be called Methodists and if you didn't know this is where our Nazarene heritage comes from. This position was that the sinner cannot come into a relationship with God without the work of the Spirit and the saving work of the Cross; but neither can that person find eternal life without making specific responses to God's call. At the very least, a person must exercise faith in God. Most Wesleyans consider obedience to God's commandments to be a natural consequence of placing one's trust in God. This assigning of some responsibility to the individual certainly reduces the questions about why there is a hell and who will end up there. From the Wesleyan-Arminian view, persons who do disobey God's laws and do not accept His gracious offer of heaven have every reason to be condemned to hell. God does not predestine persons to damnation. Nor does He allow them to remain in their lost state without reaching out to them. Instead, God is the righteous Judge who reveals His moral code and then holds His creation accountable to that standard. 6. Now here is where we Wesleyans run into our trouble. The problem with the Wesleyan perspective is not so much in accounting for those who are eternally lost as it is accounting for those who are delivered from sin. That is the question of whether or not a person can lose their salvation. We will talk more about this when we come to chapters seven and eight, but I will put this out there. If God does give us a free will in deciding whether or not we want to follow him, then if you do make that choice does that choice now remove our free will? I heard a radio teacher say one time, and this was a VERY popular teacher that will say I am certain he is smarter than I am. He said that some Christians can become so sinful, so corrupt and such a poor witness that God has to take them home to Heaven to remove that poor influence. That in my mind does not add up with what Paul is telling these Romans believers. Consider this. If this wicker person Paul speaks on In V.18 was in fact predestined for Hell, then he does have the perfect excuse. His excuse is, "God made me do it". From a Wesleyan perspective, such condemnation can result only from some deliberate choice and act on the part of the sinner. As someone who ascribes to this Wesleyan theology, I believe that the words, "God abandon them" is simply God allowing human freedom to run its course. God does not give us over easily. As Peter told us, God is not willing that any should perish, but by the same token He also will not force us to be righteous. Again, I will refer to 1 Corinthians 10:13 where Paul tells us that all temptation is common to all mankind, but God provides a pathway to escape it. We must decide if we want to walk that path. Conclusion A. Now I want to say again that I understand that these two theological positions cannot be full discussed or understood in one message. Again, we will be looking at these issues in later chapters of Romans. What I do want to emphasis is that whichever camp you wish to be in, we can still learn to walk hand in hand even if we do not see eye to eye. My best pastor friend, Pastor Mike Spradlin is in the Calvin camp if you will and yet we get along tremendously. While I would say that a person can lose their salvation, he would say they were probably never saved to begin with. I think that is two sides of the same coin. I know that he would also not say that God has predetermined who will be saved and who will be lost. Does God know? Oh yes, He most certainly does, but does foreknowledge predetermine what will happen? I do not believe it does. B. Next week we will finish looking at Verses 24-27. 2