Romans 1:24-32
We tend to bypass vices list; we don’t like dwelling on negatives, & we don’t think these apply to us. “Therefore,” because they exchanged God’s glory for something else? Ex 34:14; Eze 39:25.
1) “God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity.”
• “So that;” the results of our continued sin is exhibited in our bodies. Sin has a debilitating effect on our bodies. We pay for it w/ shortened lives & with decreased quality of life. Mark 7:20-23
• “For,” Why would God do this? They believed the lie instead of the truth. Ever since Eve believed Satan in the Garden, people have chosen the lie over the truth. “You will be gods, knowing…”
• “The lie” produces lusts in our hearts. Why is porn desirable? It excites lust. Coveting is lust for property, $$. The very idea of sin excites lusts. Sinners want lust, God lets us. 1 Cor 5:5; 1 Tim 1:20.
2) “God gave them over to degrading passions.” The umbrella.
• Sinners will do anything, even things that are against nature. It is natural for boys to like girls, & girls to like boys. Homosexuality is unnatural; w/o recruting children, homosexuality would die out.
• “Homosexuality” is condemned in the strongest terms in both the OT & NT. We are called homophobes, & intolerant for protecting our kids & forbidding them in church positions. I won’t dwell on this point.
3) “God gave them over to a depraved mind.”
• Here is the long list of things people do as a result of being abandoned by God. Does any of this seem familiar to you?
• “Depraved” speaks to something put to the test & found wanting, lacking; what was expected was not found. A complete failure: a grade of “F.” No hope for future good.
• If a glass is filled w/ water, I can’t put anything else into it. To the extend it is already filled, I can’t add. These people fill themselves with unrighteousness.
• You may not be guilty of each of theses sins, but you are guilty of some, if not many. But Ja 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.”
4) “Loved the wages;” don’t think it’s unrighteous.
• You don’t want to give up your sins, because you are like the wicked prophet Balaam.
• 2 Pe 2:13, 15 “suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong,” “forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.”
• How low can you go? How wicked can you be? How depraved will you become? Will you really go this way? Will you not repent & return to God who loves you?
