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Romans 1:22-28, Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28 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,
Last week we saw that God is revealing His wrath against all of man’s ungodliness and unrighteousness. This week God warns us that when we turn away from God and exchange His glory and His truth for a lie, God turns us over to our own depravity. I don’t have to tell you that we are seeing first-hand evidence of His wrath in our own country as the LGBTQ+ movement has swept like a tsunami through every aspect of our country. A recent survey reveals 6.4% of females and 4.9% of males identify with the LGBTQ+ community. In 2001 53% of Americans agreed that homosexuality was wrong. In 2020 that figure dropped to 32%. As we’ve seen, the effort to normalize the LGBTQ+ movement is on fast forward. Some educators are determined to hyper-sexualize grade school children to strip them of their innocence.
When you think our moral meltdown could not get any more ridiculous, sure enough, something more insane surfaces. Erwin Lutzer in his book The Church In Babylon tells about 52-year-old Paul Wolscht who was married with children, but who said, “I can’t deny I was married. I can’t deny I have children…but I’ve moved forward now and I’ve gone back to being a child” (p. 159). He now identifies as a six-year-old girl named Stefonknee. He says he is now living authentically. It’s called trans-age.
Of course, that is an extreme example of the depths to which we’ve plummeted. But we are hearing daily about the trans-gender movement where children identify as the opposite gender than their birth gender, use puberty blockers, get trans-gender top and bottom surgery, and demand everyone to use their preferred pronouns. If you refuse to refer to a male who identifies as a female as a female and use their pronouns, you may well be cancelled, fired, even thrown in jail! This is all called expressive individuality, being your own authentic self, “you be you,” living out your own inward feelings rather than submitting to how God designed you.
THE DOCTRINE OF JUDICIAL ABANDONMENT
What we are seeing is God turning us over to our own desires, which is evidence of God revealing His wrath as He lets us go our own way, as Paul describes in this Romans passage. Donald Barnhouse called these verses “the most terrible in the Bible.” It is a description of God “withdrawing His restraining and protecting hand.” Psalms 81:11-12 put it like this, “But My people did not listen to My voice, And Israel did not obey Me. 12 So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart, To walk in their own devices.”
Let’s trace what God says about his wrath revealed in our moral meltdown. Man has rejected and suppressed the knowledge and truth about God. He thinks he is so smart, but verse 22 says otherwise, “Professing to be wise they became fools.” Then you have three “exchanges” and three times the phrase “God gave them over.”
FIRST EXCHANGE The first exchange is in verse 23. Men exchanged the glorious and incorruptible God and worshiped anything other than God. The result is that God gave them over to vile affections or moral impurity in verse (24).
SECOND EXCHANGE In verse 25 men exchanged God’s truth for “the” lie (a specific lie) that they can make up their own minds about life. They listened to Satan’s “Did God really say?” and the result in verse 26 is that God gave them over the second time to degrading passions.
THIRD EXCHANGE So what do men do? What is the result? Verse 26, the women exchange normal sexuality for lesbianism. Verse 27, men exchange or abandon normal heterosexuality for homosexuality. How have we gotten to normalizing same sex marriage? God has turned us over. There is a penalty that comes as a result of perverted behavior.
But again, what does God do in verse 28? We don’t want God to telling us what to do, so He turns us over to a depraved mind. Then Paul gives a long and sordid list of evil thoughts and actions, ending with verse 32 which is so relevant to our day. Those who engage in perverted behavior know it is wrong, but they work hard to affirm and encourage others to go on in their perversion. “Be your own authentic self. Don’t let other people or normal standards make you feel guilty or odd.”
Romans 1:32, 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 to those who practice them.
Sometimes Christians are accused of hating LGBTQ+ people. The fact is God calls us to speak the truth in love. Truth is the most loving thing we can speak. God’s truth is the only hope for man. We dare not live by lies. Based on a passage in 1 Corinthians 6, God gives hope to homosexuals. Christ came into the world to save sinners from the bondage of sin.
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, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 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 our God.
John MacArthur had an excellent comment about homosexuality, and we can apply it to any moral perversions of our day. MacArthur notes, “God has good news for homosexuals. They are redeemable. They can be saved. They can be delivered from that sin. They can be washed from its stains. They can be set on a road of godly holy, pure living called sanctification. And that had happened in the Corinthians church. It was full of ex-fornicators, ex-idolaters, ex-adulterers, ex-effeminates, ex-homosexuals.” When people whose lives are characterized by these sins repent and turn from them, God’s grace in the gospel is rich and available for them. God saves sinners of every kind. But they must repent. One of the great tragedies is when these sins are redefined as something natural and approved by God.
Let’s track with Paul as he takes us down this moral slide under the wrath of God. We’ll pin our thoughts on the judicia abandonment phrases “God gave them over.”
God gives them over to defiling lusts.
Romans 1:24-25, Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Where do these defiling lusts come from? China? Russia? Christ told us in Matthew 15:19, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts.” Paul puts his finger right on the source of these godless lusts, these desires that lead to dishonoring their bodies. They come out of the heart. Ephesians 4:18-19 says sinners are excluded from God’s life because they hardened their hearts, became insensitive and calloused, and gave themselves over to sensuality. Instead of using their bodies to glorify and worship God, they use their bodies to worship and serve themselves by following their own impure lusts or desires.
God gives them over to degrading passions.
Romans 1:26-27, For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
Notice God is not a passive observer here. He is actively giving people up to these vile affections and what Paul calls degrading or dishonoring passions. Paul probably had Genesis 2 in mind as he uses specific gender terms for female and male. And he targets females first, as they reject their natural function as a woman and turn to lesbianism, women living with women, which is unnatural. God says lesbianism is unnatural. Instead of marriage with a man, intimacy with the husband, and in many cases reproducing, lesbianism is thoroughly overturning, perverting, and inverting God’s good, true, and right design. Charles Hodge suggests Paul puts women first because they are always the last to be affected in the decay of morals, so their corruption is proof that all virtue is lost.
Then God describes the homosexual behavior of men burning or strongly desiring other men instead of the natural function of women. If you don’t get it, God makes it clear: men engaging with men is not natural. Men engaging with men in indecent acts often results in the penalty of some kind of venereal disease. According to health experts, monkeypox by far afflicts men who have engaged in homosexual relations. Sexually transmitted diseases continue to spread through the homosexual world. Psychology Today reported that one study in San Francisco found that nearly 50% of homosexual men had more than 500 partners.
Young people, be alert. In your innocence, you may be a target. Way back in 1967-68 I worked at a large Boston hospital in the emergency ward and as a respiratory therapist. One of the x-ray technicians invited me to his apartment. Being a naïve country boy, I went. As we stood on his balcony admiring the city view, he moved beside me and put his arm around my shoulder. I don’t recall how I got out of there, but like Joseph fleeing Potiphar’s wife, I got out, fast. Beware and flee.
Based on these verses in Romans, we can make two conclusions: homosexuality for women or men is wrong, and the desire to pursue homosexual behavior is the result of God removing His restraint and turning people over to their God-rejecting desires. Is homosexuality worse than other sins? Pride is probably the mother of all sins, but homosexuality goes to the very core of humanity and God’s plan for marriage and reproduction. And God doesn’t whisper about these perversions as some evangelical leaders have proposed. Not at all. He proclaims it clearly and repeatedly as sin.
Again, this doesn’t mean homosexuals or lesbians are beyond redemption. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and just like the church in Corinth, the gospel holds out hope to all who are willing to repent and trust in Christ. MacArthur tells a touching story of a man with AIDS about to die in the hospital. He called for John to visit with him. The man knew he had been wrong and had been living with a guilty conscience. Now he was fearful of dying. As far as John could tell during their visit, that man did trust in Christ as His Savior before dying.
God gave them over to a depraved mind (vss. 28-32).
We’ll look at this final passage next Sunday.
GENDER ISSUES
Back in July of 2015 I gave a talk on Gender Issues to a group of college students. Here are some of the points I made.
First, God created the genders and there are only two, male and female. There is no such thing as being non-binary or trans-gendering. Anatomy doesn’t lie and the efforts to deny one’s birth gender is to rebel against the God who knits us together in our mothers’ wombs (Psalm 139:13). When people go through the madness of trans-gender surgery, they end up being the same gender they started with. No surgery changes a person’s gender. One physician said, “Every cell in the body is programmed to be male or female.” Dr. Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins University labels transgender surgery of minors “child abuse.” Many others say the same thing. The very fact that puberty blockers and transgender surgery is being approved and even encouraged reveals the wrath of God as He takes His restraints off the hearts of educated, professional people.
Second, God defined marriage in Genesis 2:24 and it is always between a man and a woman.
Genesis 2:24, For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. There is no other marriage other than between a man and a woman. Just because our Supreme Court on June 26, 2015, decided in the Obergefell case in a 5-4 decision that state bans on same sex marriage are unconstitutional didn’t change a thing about God’s definition of marriage.
Third, God in the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality.
Along with God raining fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gomorrah for their moral corruption, the following verses clearly state that homosexuality is sinful. God does not whisper about this sin.
- Leviticus 20:13, ‘If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.
- 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 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, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
- 1 Timothy 1:10, [The law is for] immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching,
Fourth, the LGBTQ+ movement has worked hard to be accepted, normalized, and affirmed by everyone. Rosaria Butterfield, a converted ex-lesbian and now wife of a pastor, says we rejected God’s authority over our sexuality, sexual identity, sexual practice. This interfered with what we felt good about and we didn’t want a higher being telling us who we were and what we should do. (Her fascinating story can be found on the Ligonier app).
In 1989 two authors wrote the book After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s. They gave a six-point agenda: 1) Talk about gay and gayness as often and loudly as possible. 2) Portray gays as victims. Give homosexual protectors a just cause [social justice issue] 4) Make gays look good. 5) Make the victimizers look bad. 6) Get funds from corporate America.
LGBTQ+ WITHIN THE CHURCH
I think we can agree, our culture has for the most part succeeded to normalize something God calls detestable. And yet, there are movements within the church that want to make LGBTQ+ acceptable without repentance. They identify as “gay Christians.” Some are fighting for same sex attraction to be legitimate, as long as you don’t act on your desires. “If a Christian man is attracted to men, that’s ok, you can live for Christ like that.” This is called Side B and was part of the discussion at the Revoice Conference in 2018 hosted by a PCA church in St. Louis. Harry Reeder, pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church of Birmingham, wrote an excellent response. He said, “Revoice is not God’s voice.” He wrote, “To be clear same sex attraction is not a syndrome to be managed. It is a sinful desire to be mortified. God’s voice is clear. His grace is greater than any and all of our sin.” He adds that some believers fight a lifelong battle with sins like same sex attraction. But we cannot deny the power of the Spirit and prayer to deal with our sinful desires.
Other LGBTQ+ so-called Christians searched the Scriptures and “concluded that the traditional view was not correct and that God affirmed same-sex relationships.” How do they do this? They find what they are looking for. I call this sling-shot hermeneutics. This view is called SIDE A.
Matthew Vines of the Reformation Project has been a spokesman for the LGBTQ+ professing Christian community. He finds nothing in the Bible condemning homosexuality. You might ask, “Wait, what about those verses in Leviticus and Romans?” Vines and others call these “clobber verses.” But they claim they aren’t talking about homosexuality in a loving, caring relationship. They claim that for the most part, as in Romans 1, the Bible is talking about heterosexual men or women who are acting like homosexuals or lesbians, but they aren’t talking about homosexuals who were born “gay.” Speaking of Genesis 2, Vines says, “A woman is a suitable partner for the vast majority of men – for straight men. But for gay men, that isn’t the case. For them a woman is not a suitable partner…for gay men, it’s another gay man who’s a suitable partner.” This is a case of finding what you are looking for in the Bible in order to defend your twisted desires.
SO WHAT?
Here are several concluding lessons to take with us in the middle of our shameful, impure culture.
- God determines right and wrong, not judges, or our feelings, or other people’s opinions. We live in God’s universe and God sets the rules. We’ve all offended His rules. We all need a Savior. But we cannot reject His rules.
- God designed intimacy for enjoyment in marriage alone, and marriage is only between a man and a woman.
- All moral perversions of God’s good plan deserve and are worthy of God’s judgment.
- Christians need to take a strong stand for purity before marriage and faithfulness within marriage.
- We need to speak the truth in love and assure all sinners that God is willing to forgive and transform any person who repents and turns to Christ. He came into this world to save sinners of all kinds.
- Your goal is to please God and glorify Him with your body.
Paul summarizes in 1 Thessalonians all we have been saying in this message:
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God.
If you know Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will fight sinful attractions until your dying day.