When creation goes; God goes. When God goes; accountability goes. When accountability goes; sin prevails, conscience is seared, sin is sought with greediness, and destruction is the end.
GOD IS NOT RECOGNIZED
1. God’s invisible attributes, eternal power, and divine nature are clearly seen in creation but creation is ignored.
2. God is not glorified or honored as God (v. 21)
3. They didn’t acknowledge God or have Him in their knowledge ANY LONGER signifying that they once did (v. 28)
GOD IS REPLACED
1. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7)
2. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10)
3. The only option is “futile speculations” wherein the foolish heart is darkened
4. The Creator is replaced by the created (evolution). The substance is replaced by an image (idolatry). The incorruptible is replaced by the corruptible (fleshly). The undecaying is replaced by the decaying (materialistic). Truth is replaced by the lie.
5. When God is replaced accountability is lost. Man doesn’t have to answer to an Almighty Judge but rather to another man or worse, a created image or worse, an idea or worse, nothing. But God is “Him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13)
GOD GIVES THEM OVER AND SIN PREVAILS
1. God “gives them over” to “impurity” (v. 24) and “degrading passions” (v. 26) and a “depraved mind”
2. Sodomy or homosexuality is “unnatural” or “against nature” both anatomically and to procreate. It is not the result of a disposition from birth but rather a result from ignoring God and being given over by Him. Homosexuality is “indecent”, “unseemly”, and “shameless”.
3. Sin is “not proper” and is not the norm. Godliness is proper; godliness is normal.
4. The sin list from verses 29-31 are the result of being given over by the God they ignored. Notice that each one is anti-God and anti-Godliness. Sin takes exactly what God is and wants and does the opposite. It is wrong not only to do them but to approve of them.
5. Death is the outcome, they lead to death and practitioners are “worthy of death”
WE MUST SEE THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM TO SEE THE SOLUTION
1. God requires absolute and perfect righteousness, while man is characterized by his unrighteous. This is a problem that must be dealt with if man is going to see God.
2. Some illustrations:
a. A doctor can treat all the symptoms and even suppress them so they are bearable but until the disease is cured the symptoms will continue to come.
b. A weed can be cut down time and time again and will continue to return. It only dies when the root is removed from the soil.
3. The solution: Don’t just treat the symptoms or just trim the weed. Sin must be cured and uprooted. No amount of human correction or moral and physical disciplines will suffice – they only treat the symptoms but are unable to produce righteousness. No set of law ever produced righteousness before God. Sin does not just make us fall short of the glory of God but makes us unable to come to it. In himself man is unable to be righteous. No keeping of a code or rule of any sort is sufficient to fix the problem.
4. “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested” (Romans 3:21). God gives the solution in Christ and reveals that solution through the preaching of the gospel.
5. “16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith’.” (Romans 1:16-17)
THE GOSPEL, NOT LAW, DELIVERS A MAN FROM SIN
1. Most Christians are viewed as being judgmental because they do not know this. They see someone in sin and balk, “You sinner!” “That’s wrong.” And even quote the scripture to prove so. However true those statements may be, they are inadequate to bring about righteousness. We aren’t crying from Sinai “Thou shalt not…” Instead we are crying from Zion “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
2. “8dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9
3. “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18)
4. “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36)
5. “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed” 1 Peter 2:24