ROMANS 1:28-32
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 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; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who
practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also
give hearty approval of those who practice them (NASB).
A Father had a rather strong-willed son. On the way to the
store he kept telling the child, “Sit down and buckle the seat belt.” But the
little kid just kept standing in the seat. Again he said, “Sit down and buckle
the seat belt.” And after a time or two more the boy was convinced that he had
better sit down or disaster would strike. So he slipped down onto the seat,
snapped the seat belt closed, and said, “Daddy, I’m sitting down on the
outside, but I’m still standing up on the inside.” Human rebellion is not a
learned art but a condition of the heart that has not been transformed by the
Spirit of God. We are born with a heart bent on rebellion because we are
sinners by nature, choice, and practice.
As I conclude the series on “The Steps to Human Degradation
and Destruction,” I would like to share with you on the topic: “The Response of
God to Human Rebellion.”
I.
GOD’S ANSWER TO HUMAN PRIDE
AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY V. 28
The downward spiral of human rebellion, which began
with the rejection of God’s self-disclosure through natural revelation or
general revelation led to idolatry. Idolatry then, led to homosexuality, which
resulted in self-inflicted diseases. For one last time, lest there should remain
any doubt, Apostle Paul emphasizes the direct link between humankind’s
rejection of God and its disordered state. It all stems from the basic refusal
to recognize God. The character of this refusal is the deliberate act of human
pride and self-sufficiency. Humans began to think whether they should give God
a place in their life and thoughts, but they concluded that God does not
deserve a place in both their lives and thoughts. In the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, some Western thinkers concluded that God does not exist.
They explained that humans made God to fit into their ways of life. In other
words, people made their own projections of God to fit their belief systems.
The Apostle
Paul says that due to this rejection of God, though there are ample evidences
of His manifest presence in creation and history, God handed them over to “a
depraved mind.” The phrase “depraved mind” can be translated “unapproved mind”
or “disqualified mind.” The truth of the matter is that sin affects not only
your affections (idolatry) and your senses (immorality) but also your thinking
(mind). The judgment the unbelieving world passed against God has actually
condemned them. In claiming the ability to evaluate God, they simply proved the
unfitness of their own rational powers. Therefore, God handed them over to the
maturity they claimed. The irony is that the human sense of maturity that
rejects the self-disclosure of God through His creation is immaturity, because
only the immature would be bold enough to make such a claim in the first place.
Only the immature person would dismiss the existence of God.
The root of all evil is man’s choice
to be independent of God (Gen. 3). The simple fact is that humans as created
beings cannot escape their own nature and the nature of the world as God made
it. Rather, it is God who has handed unbelievers over to their desires and the
endless pursuit of their satisfaction. Your freedom to go your own way still
leaves you within the limits set by God. Therefore, Christians should not be depressed
at the disorder of the society and the evidence of human degradation, because
it really constitutes evidence of God’s overall control. Man is still the
creature whom God made no matter what he thinks or says. The truth is that even
when you refuse to recognize God, your essential creaturely instincts bear
witness to the Creator your conscious mind denies. This makes it clear that
God’s wrath is indeed the converse (opposite) of His righteousness, since both
express and bring into effect the world as God intends it to be. Righteousness
through faithful dependence on the Creator leads to salvation; wrath through
self-deceitful pride and self-indulgent desire leads to self-destruction.
Turning away from true knowledge of God, means cutting
yourself off from any ultimate and accurate understanding of this world and
your place within it. That is why many people do not understand the moral stand
that Christians take on the basis of God’s truth. This is why you run into a
problem with your boss, who is not a Christian when you take a moral stance on
an issue. In the Parable of the Prodigal son, the father could not force the
younger son to reconsider his decision and stay home. The father allowed him to
go to the foreign world. When unbelievers dismiss the existence of God and
write Him off in their affairs, God gives them over to depraved mind to do those
things, which are not proper.
II.
THE OUTCOME AND EXPRESSION OF PRIDE
AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY VV. 29-31
When
you reject God, you end up doing what you should not do. In order not to let
those who have rejected God but do not practice idolatry and engage in
homosexuality off the hook, the word of God provides a catalog of sinful
conduct. It is not only idol worshipers and homosexuals or sexually immoral persons,
who are living in rebellion against God, but also those who practice the works
of the flesh. The climax of Paul’s analysis of the fall of humanity and its
consequences is a picture of the general disorder of human society. This is
what the word of God is saying: if you are an envious person, deceitful,
whispering behind backs, gossiper, malicious, slanderer, arrogant, boastful and
so on, you are manifesting human corruption, which is as serious as those who
are idolaters and homosexuals. In other words, God is saying that if you
practice the list of vices that are listed in verses 29-31, you are not
different from a person who is a homosexual. Your pride and self-sufficiency
that gave you the audacity to reject God and the knowledge of His truth is what
is producing these works of the flesh in your life. Since you have written God
off, you do not have an inherent power to produce any righteousness or
godliness in your life (Gal 5:19-21). The catalog of vices in these verses
contains a certain logical order. The first part of the list contains general
terms for sin; the second focuses on basic sins affecting human relationships;
and the third list is, more a potpourri (mixed collection) of sinful conduct.
Similar lists of sins usually called vices appear elsewhere in the New
Testament (Matt. 15:19; Gal. 5:19-21; Col. 3:5; 1 Tim. 1:9-10; 1 Peter 2:1;
4:3). People have the tendency to minimize or ignore their own sins, while they
are pointing accusing fingers at the sins of others. In order not to overlook
the sin of anyone who has rejected God and His revealed truth, the Apostle Paul
provides a list of sins. For example, you may not be worshiping a statue of an
animal but do you gossip? You may not be a homosexual or a lesbian but do you
slander others? While gossip and slander may not be as serious to you as
idolatry and homosexuality, they are nevertheless just as much an indication of
God’s wrath against sin.
Therefore, if you engage in everyday vices, which poison
human relationships, you have rejected God and His revealed truth as any person
that practices sexual perversion. How can you say you love God when you are
envious of your brother or sister that you see? How can you say you know God
when you slander people who are made in the image of God? How can you say you
are walking in the light when you are inventors of evil? How can the terrorists
say that they are fighting God’s battle, when they are inventing evil ways of
destroying human lives? The Apostle John says that if we say we are in the light
and walk in the darkness, we are liars. Those who are the children of God and
love Him are the ones, who bear the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). Unless
the Holy Spirit lives in you, you cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit.
Because unbelievers have rejected God and God in turn has given them up, the
natural outcome of their lives is evil deeds.
III. THE PRACTICE AND APPROVAL OF
SINFUL CONDUCT V. 32
In this verse, the apostle Paul under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit refuses to accept that people generally are not aware of the
negative character and ultimately destructive effect of such conduct. For
instance, in the creation narrative, God gave a warning to Adam concerning the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil saying, “In the day you eat of it you
shall die” (Gen. 2:16), and yet Adam went ahead and ate. Every human being,
created in the image of God, has a basic moral nature and a conscience. This
truth is understood beyond religious circles. Psychologists say that the rare
person who has no conscience has a serious personality disorder that is
extremely difficult to treat. Most people instinctively know when they do
wrong, but they may not care. Some people will even risk an early death for the
freedom to indulge in their desires now. Take Timothy McVey for instance, he
knew that what he did in Oklahoma City would result in the loss of human lives,
and ultimately his own life, but he did not care. Sometimes when people want to
justify their sinful conduct they say something like: "I know it is wrong,
but I really want it, or I know it is dangerous but it is worth the risk."
For such people, part of the fun is going against the law of God, the
community’s moral standards, common sense, or their own sense of right and
wrong. However, deep down inside they know that sin deserves the punishment of
death (Romans 6:23). Even if you go to any primitive society, where the people
do not have access to the Bible, I can assure you that they have moral
principles that guide them to distinguish right from wrong. It is like a parent
who knows that his/her child has done something wrong. Instead of dealing with
the child’s sinful conduct, he/she goes out of the way to support the child and
malign the person or persons the child has offended. When you do that you are
setting your child up for a future catastrophe.
In this verse, the apostle Paul is saying that humans are
in a position to understand God’s truth. Earlier Paul focused on what might be
called “ontological” knowledge of
God, that in creation, people come to understand something of God’s existence
and nature (v. 20). In verse 32, the apostle Paul turns to the “moral” knowledge that all people
possess. What the word of God is saying is that all humans have a sense of
right and wrong and understand that wrong actions deserve punishment.
The next key theme that Paul expresses one last time is the
fact of divine punishment for sin. Sinners deserve death. Choices have
consequences. The death that is mentioned here is spiritual death; the
condemnation or wrath of God under which all who have not embraced His Son
Jesus Christ stand because of sin. When you are defiant of God and continue to
violate God’s moral laws, and give hearty approval to others who do the same,
you become just like the devil. The devil rebelled against God because he
wanted to usurp the throne of God. In view of this, God booted or expelled him
out of heaven. He was not content to be the adversary of God. He went out of
his way and enticed Adam and Eve to rebel against God, and they did. Sin is
contagious; and those who are living in sin continue to spread their sinful
lifestyle. They give hearty approval and a hand of fellowship to those who
practice evil. God says that the sentence for sinful rebellion against Him is
death. God gave the same warning to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God
extended the same warning to the Israelites in captivity in Babylon when He
said, “The soul that sin shall surely die” (Ezek. 18:4). Death in this
context is not physical death, but spiritual and eternal death. When Adam and
Eve believed the lies of the serpent and sinned against God, they died
spiritually. There are many people who are alive physically but dead
spiritually, because of their rebellion against God. What is more dangerous is
that unless they repent and turn to God for forgiveness, they will die in their
sins. When they die in their sins, they are separated eternally from God; that
is eternal death. When a person is living in sin, he thinks he has much time to
live.
George Whitefield mentioned
in his journal that during his first voyage to Georgia, the ship’s cook had a
bad drinking problem. When the cook was reproved for it and other sins, he
boasted that he would be wicked until the last two years of his life, and then
he would reform. Whitefield added that within six hours of the time the cook
made his boastful statement, he died of an illness related to his drinking.
Perhaps you are asking, "Is there
no hope for those who have rejected God?" When there is life, there is
hope. All that such people need to do is to act the same way as the “Prodigal
Son” did. The heavenly Father is still waiting for His rebellious sons and
daughters to return home. First, the sinner must come to the end of his rope.
You need to acknowledge your sin. You need to have a heart of contrition and
broken spirit. In other words, you should repent and return to God the Father.
He will receive you warmly, save you, and forgive you of all your sins. He will
wipe the slate clean—He will delete your sinful document from His hard drive.
The Apostle Paul gives an example of what I am saying in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, "Or do you not know that the
unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will
inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you
were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and in the Spirit of God" (NASB).
INVITATION
1. I extend the invitation to
you that have not received Christ to come to Him to experience His transforming
power in your life.
2. Maybe you are a Christian
but you are living in disobedience to God, repent of your rebellion and ask God
for forgiveness and He will forgive you.
3. Maybe some of your friends,
coworkers, family members, and neighbors are living this life of rebellion,
please pray for them and share this message with them.
