Hi, and welcome back.  I hope you are enjoying my blog.  I truly enjoy teaching others about discipleship and what it means to be a Christian.  It’s not easy to walk the walk, but the more you know…the more it will show!

This passage from Romans 1 then, describes the downward progress of the human race as it steadily moves away from God.  Each step takes man further away from God and deeper into moral depravity.  The key to this passage is that three-fold phrase—”God gave them over.”  Each time it is repeated, it describes a further stage in man’s turning away from God.  Stage 1 is bad, Stage 2 worse, Stage 3 worse still. In the end society has turned all moral values upside down.

What is the judgment of God when men turn away from him?  God “gives them up” to their own devices.  He lets them follow their own desires.  He doesn’t try to stop their meteoric descent into the abyss.  God “abandons” the human race by letting men reap what they have sown.  Nothing more terrible could ever be contemplated.  When men “abandon” God in their thinking, God “abandons” them.  Why?  Because God is a perfect gentleman.  He respects the freedom of the human will.  If a man or a woman decides to live without him, he says, “Fine.  You can live without me.  In the end, you’ll be sorry.  But if that’s your decision, I’ll respect it.”  When we abandon God in our homes, we reap what we sow.  When we abandon God in our schools, we reap what we sow.  When we abandon God in our government, we reap what we sow.

Verse 25 explains what happens: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the created things instead of the Creator—who is forever praised.  Amen.”  When men and women turn away from God, they “exchange” the truth of God for “a lie.”  What lie?  The lie that you can ignore God and still find fulfillment in this life.  The lie that you can break God’s laws and still be happy.  The lie that you can live the “good life” without God.  The truth is that living without God isn’t the good life.  It’s quite literally hell on earth.

Zac Saenz says in a sermon, “Sinners have stifled the truth God naturally reveals to all people in order to believe anything that supports their own self-centered lifestyles.  Why is God so angry?  It’s because God cannot tolerate sin or sinners.  His nature is morally perfect and will not allow Him to.  He cannot ignore or condone willful rebellion.  What God wants is to remove the sin and restore the sinner through His Son Jesus Christ.

Does anyone have an excuse for not believing in God?  The Bible says plain and simple: NO. God has revealed Himself to us since the beginning of time, who He is and what He expects from us.  Every person therefore either accepts or rejects God.  When the day comes for God to judge us, no excuses will be accepted.  Every single person was born with a sense of wrong and right.  This sense of wrong and right was instilled in all of us by God.  We were made in His image.  Just look around, Gods hand is everywhere.  The reason for this is so that no one could say that they didn’t know about Him.”  Romans 1:20 – “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

How could a loving God send anyone to hell?  The truth is we all deserve the penalty of hell.  God expects perfection.  People since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden through the first man Adam have since all became flawed.  We are born sinners.  Romans 3:23– “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

I think many people today, unfortunately, like to think they are in complete control of their lives.  Some even have their own distorted view of who God should be and what He should do.  They think in some weird way that they have the right to even say what or who God should be.

Well, I have done gone to preaching now!  To be continued next time…