Sunday Sermon: God Turned Them Over (Romans 1:24-32)

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You are listening to the Teaching Ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

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New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

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Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. Please open your

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Bible to Romans chapter 1. Our series for the year 2023 and surely into next year as well has been in the book of Romans and our theme is

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Christ to the Nations as proclaimed on the banner to your left with Romans 1 .16

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emblazoned as our reference, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God to salvation for all who believe to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek. We want to keep the words that we've sung this morning in mind the gospel present in the lyrics that we have sung together in worship and keeping this message this proclamation of the gospel forefront as we consider this difficult passage in Romans 1 verses 24 to 32 in honor of the word of the king would you please stand.

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This is Romans chapter 1. I'll begin reading in verse 24. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them for the exchange the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever amen.

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For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their females exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural and in the same way also the males abandoned the natural function of the female and burned in their desire toward one another males with males committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge

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God God gave them over to an unfit mind to do those things which are not proper having been filled with all unrighteousness wickedness greed evil full of envy murder strife deceit malice they are gossips slanderers haters of God violent arrogant boastful inventors of evil disobedient to parents without understanding untrustworthy unloving unmerciful and although they know the righteous requirement 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 you may be seated as we pray heavenly father as we come to this bold and clear text there's some difficult things that are said here especially in the nature of the culture in which we live that would be hostile to these things which we've read some people in the world might even wish that the section of Romans 1 we've read would be made illegal and try to silence us from proclaiming

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God's truth but it is necessary for us to hear these things clearly so that we may know the power of the gospel that rescues us from sin and delivers us into righteousness and your eternal kingdom may we seek first the kingdom of God and your righteousness in Christ Jesus this morning in his name we pray amen in the days of King Ahaz the

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Lord had promised that judgment was going to come upon Judah at the hands of the Assyrian army

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Judah had done wickedly before God even committing the same abominations that Sodom had been guilty of so God was going to turn them over to their enemies but though Judah was told through the prophet

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Isaiah of this judgment that was coming upon them their hearts were so hard that they could not hear the warning and so turn from their sin and be saved they were so without reason that they came to the prophet of God and instead of saying inquire of Yahweh for us they said inquire of the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter

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Isaiah 8 19 to 20 says should not a people inquire of their

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God should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living to the law and to the testimony if they do not speak according to this word it is because they have no dawn they will clamor in the dark for they suppress the truth in unrighteousness as we have heard from Romans 1 18 the world hates the idea that there is a

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God who is clearly spoken they don't want a God who speaks clearly they want a

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God like Ahaz and Judah wanted at that time a God who whispers and mutters and too many preachers are willing to appease them the last two

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Southern Baptist Convention presidents preaching on this very section of Romans said that God whispers about sexual sin of course one president was plagiarizing the other but I digress is that the impression that you got from Romans 1 while we were reading this that God was whispering about sexual sin

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God doesn't whisper about anything he has spoken loud and clear about sin and the consequences of sin when we read

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Romans 1 24 to 32 we are reading about how a perversion of the truth leads to a perversion of life we must be clear about this so that we will clearly see the need for the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations including our own as we heard from Romans 1 16

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I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe for the sake of context as we come to our passage this morning

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I want to consider once again although Tom had read this last week verses 24 to 25 where God gave them over to impurity we'll move on to verses 26 to 27 where we read that God gave them over to dishonorable passions and then verses 28 to 32 where God gave them over to an unfit mind look with me again at verse 24 where we read therefore

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God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity as the first word that we have here is therefore that's a good place

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I think to do some recap remember the argument that Paul is making here he has stated in Romans 1 16 to 17 that the righteous live they are justified by faith a point he's going to come back to in chapter 3 there is no way of obtaining righteousness except by faith in Jesus Christ by contrast he's showing how the unrighteous are condemned by their unbelief what he is doing from verse 18 to chapter 3 verse 20 is showing how all people women or men

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Jew or Gentile are under condemnation because they have violated the law whether that is the law of nature which we read about here in chapter 1 or the law of supernatural revelation which we will get to later on in chapter 2 our purpose is to understand that all have sinned even how all have sinned so that we will recognize the only way to be rescued from sin is in Christ alone but people by their sinful nature do not desire

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God nor his truth they suppress the truth with unrighteousness they exchange the worship of the

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Creator for the created they exchange the truth about God for the lie as Pastor Tom said last week perverted worship leads to a perverted life and so God in his wrath turns the unbeliever over to degrading passions therefore we read again in verse 24

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God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them the desire of their heart becomes the very action of their bodies what we have in this verse is a general statement of God having given them over Paul gets more specific as to their lust their impurities and the dishonoring of themselves in the verses that follow verse 25 calls back to what we heard last week in verses 18 to 23 look at verse 25 with me for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie

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Pastor Tom pointed out there's a definite article there so it's actually they exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever amen now look at me for a moment we're about to get into a list here of degrading passions this is not exactly the kind of passage that you think about going through at devotions at the family dinner table we heard not long ago from Ephesians 5 12 for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret and so to keep our minds fixed on the holiness of God rather than the unholiness of man

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Paul offers this brief four -word doxology God is blessed forever and he punctuates that by saying amen may it be so may we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness so that we will not be overwhelmed whether by solicity or by sorrow regarding this list of passions that follows so we go from this general statement about the lust of their hearts and now we get more specific about these dishonorable passions look at verse 26 for this reason again because they worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator for this reason

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God gave them over this is God's wrath manifested upon the unrighteous

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God gave them over to dishonorable passions what are dishonorable passions look at verses 26 to 27 for their females exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural verse 27 and in the same way also the males abandoned the natural function of the female and burned in their desire toward one another males with males committed indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error now

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I want you to notice something about the language here most of you in your translations have something like this for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another men committing shameless acts with men now that's not necessarily wrong but it's not exact what did

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I read to you rather than woman and man the words that I used were female and male almost every single translation that you will read will say women and men except to the

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Holman Christian Standard Bible before they made their revisions and the

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Legacy Standard Bible which I'm reading from this morning even the King James Version says women and men and I checked with Tom and Mark to make sure that they were seeing the same thing that I was saying that I was seeing and they confirm the

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Greek words that are there are not the words for woman and man they're the Greek words for female and male respectively now this should bring to our attention the natural order

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God made in the beginning remember that when we started in on this section in Romans 1 last week

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Tom said that it's clear here that Paul is taking us back to the beginning of creation and what do we read in Genesis 1 27

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God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them brothers and sisters there are two sexes male and female and males will always be male and females will always be female yeah their genetics are immutable by God's design now although there are only two sexes there are only two sexes we agree on that right how many genders are there four now before anybody drags me out to the parking lot and stones me permit me to explain people do not have genders people have sexes words have genders and in grammar the four genders of a noun are masculine feminine common and neuter where in the world did this concept come from that people can have any one of a multitude of genders and that gender is fluid this idea originated with a sexologist whatever that is named john money in the 1950s and 60s he wrote over 500 papers and 40 books on the subject of sex and gender money did not consider the idea that there are only two sexes to be absolute so he hijacked the word gender which led to the idea that though there may only be two sexes there may be any number of different genders and a person can change genders terry goldie professor of english at york university in toronto wrote a biography of john money and he said money believed that if you were a biological male and believed yourself to be a female that it was an eday fix it was so important to you as a person that it could not be contradicted goldie said that money did not search for biological evidence of transgender identity but accepted a patient's conviction as fact and quote that you should be given the right and the medical means to be what you want to be unquote if we would consider money to be the father of the transgender movement then even he said from the beginning that there is no biological evidence for transgenderism nor does there need to be if a man believes he's a woman then he's a woman if he feels like he's neither and he wants to make up his own category then that's true too with an insatiable desire for sin they have suppressed the truth and perverted that which god made from the beginning male and female unless anyone wants to say that jesus never addressed this oh yes he did first of all jesus is the creator who made them male and female and secondly he said in matthew 19 4 have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female but being given over to dishonorable passions back to romans 1 26 their females exchange the natural function for that which is unnatural it's fascinating that paul mentions females first before the males by the way that's the same order in which they fall in the lgbtq acrostic is it not why does paul mention lesbianism before sodomy as an exchange of the natural function women it seems have ingrained in themselves a natural desire for motherhood more so than men naturally desire fatherhood it's why we'll use the expression the clock is ticking for a woman but we won't say that about a man a woman has a limited window in her lifetime in which to bear children whereas a man can become a father at almost any age so in an unbelieving godless culture if the women have surrendered their natural function for that which is unnatural that speaks to the totality of the corrupting influence of such a culture the desire for motherhood is not even there instead they exchange the natural function for that which is unnatural john macarthur on this particular verse says the following quote in our culture the lesbian movement has been vocal and relentless and passionate and fierce and even violent proof that absolutely all virtue is gone when motherhood the highest normal human virtuous relationship is abandoned and the people who do it are elevated to cultural icons all virtue is gone when homosexuality invades the female sex unquote verse 27 again and in the same way also in the same way the males abandoned the natural function of the female and burned in their desire toward one another now to word it this way to to describe their lust as burning with desire is to say that the desires they have are a part of the wrath of god that they are under this has been worded in just such a way to express that even the desire is disordered we heard uh from the beginning of this section in verse 24 god gave them over in the lusts of their hearts if a man lusts for another man if he has a romantic desire for other men or likewise women with women that is unnatural desire do not be fooled into thinking as some want to say that desire isn't something bad until you give into it even the desire for sin is sin jesus said in matthew 5 that if a man lusts for a woman he has already committed adultery with her in his heart colossians 3 5 through 6 says therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to sexual immorality impurity passion evil desire and greed which is idolatry on account of these things the wrath of god is coming upon the sons of disobedience get that that the very desire for sexual sin will incur the wrath of god we read here in romans 1 of god giving men over to burn in their desire toward one another males with males committing indecent acts the wording is like it appears in the law leviticus 18 22 you shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female it is an abomination but here in romans 1 this is being spoken about as being contrary to nature one does not need special revelation to know men having sexual relations with men is wrong my friends listen to me we inherently know you know this you know a male and a male are sexually incompatible we know that it's obvious there is surely no farmer on the planet who is so ignorant that he purchases two males of any animal expecting to get more offspring from that animal if your kid goes to college and signs up for the ag program and he tries to mate a male sheep with another male sheep that university will flunk him from their ag program it does not matter how progressive and bought into the sexual revolution that campus happens to be we know this so plainly that there's really no point for me to continue to argue this point a man is an adult human male who will always be a male and even though our one of our supreme court justices doesn't know this a woman is an adult human female who will always be female sexual relations between man and woman are natural and sexual relations between a man and a or a woman and a woman are unnatural and our unbelieving depraved culture is so given over to a depraved mind that you might get fired from your job for repeating the captain obvious statement that i just made just last month a young police officer in georgia was suspended from his job and then forced to resign after he posted on facebook that god designed marriage and there is no such thing as homosexual marriage also last month the state of colorado ruled against masterpiece cake shop because owner jack phillips refused to bake a transitioning cake for a man who claimed to be a woman in october a teacher in california was fired because she refused to read books to her class that promoted same -sex marriage to children in july a housing manager in london was fired from her job when she voiced her belief in the biblical definition of marriage while campaigning for mayor in her local community in june a jailer in iowa was fired because it was discovered that he expressed his belief in the biblical definition of marriage on facebook 10 years ago in first peter 4 4 through 5 we read in all of this they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation and they malign you but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead and so the rest of verse 27 reads they receive in their own persons the due penalty of their error the due penalty is the fact that they have been given up to those unnatural excesses and there are very immediate consequences for those who indulge in such an unnatural lifestyle hear me give you that warning because i love and care for people and don't want them to fall into this kind of lifestyle which leads to sexually transmitted diseases deep depression substance abuse emotional and physical abuse a shorter life expectancy for those who exchange the natural function for that which is unnatural and then of course there is the greater judgment in the life that is to come if they do not repent so we have read that god gave them over verses 24 to 25 he gave them over to dishonorable passions verses 26 to 27 and finally he gave them over to an unfit mind look at verse 28 and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge god meaning that they did not approve of god as being worthy of their worship so god gave them over to an unfit mind they did not see fit to acknowledge god so god gave them over to an unfit mind rest of that verse to do those things which are not proper having been filled with all unrighteousness now remember that the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of man so we come back to that statement here in verses 28 and 29 they are filled with all unrighteousness and then paul fills out what other manner of unrighteousness they display now some will say that because there's this whole other list of sins here therefore there's no real difference between these sins and the sin of sexual immorality or even homosexuality but the scriptures are clear that there is a uniqueness to sexual sin that's unlike any other sin as the spirit says in first corinthians 6 18 flee sexual immorality every other sin a man commits is outside the body but the sexually immoral man sins against his own body and even worse than sexual sins like adultery and fornication are homosexual sins for the spirit describes them here in romans 1 as unnatural desire jude 7 says sodom and gomorrah and the cities around them having indulged in the same way as these in gross sexual immorality and having gone after strange flesh are exhibited as an example and undergoing the punishment of eternal fire don't try to tell sodom and gomorrah that god whispers about sexual sin or the sin of homosexuality these are unnatural passions that god will judge they will keep a person from the kingdom of god and far be it from us to appease a person in their sin that would lead to their own destruction but not everyone who has been turned over to an unfit mind will indulge in unnatural desire they will however be unable to perceive what is good and so do the right thing and so they will be given over to do that which is evil these are the things which are most common among them this list that we read at the conclusion of romans 1 so often practiced that they are said to be full of these sins look at the next part of verse 29 we have wickedness greed evil full of envy murder strife deceit malice they are gossips they are slanderers they are haters of god violent arrogant boastful inventors of evil they'll even come up with new ways to sin friends it's not like we've scraped the bottom of the barrel with this list of things that we've gone through today we've not touched on drag queen story hour at the public library or sex ed in public schools or pedophilia or prostitution or pornography this is not meant to be an exhaustive list of the worst sins but it's enough to show us what those who are under the wrath of god will be turned over to consider the rest of verse 30 they are disobedient to parents it is a thing most natural to recognize the authority of one's parents but if they will not submit to their parents authority they will not submit to any authority as we see in our culture today verse 31 they are without understanding untrustworthy unloving unmerciful unmerciful as proverbs 12 10 says even the compassion of the wicked is cruel and proverbs 27 6 says deceitful are the kisses of an enemy and so verse 32 and although they know the righteous requirement of god now get that they know the righteous requirement of god what have we read in this section verse 18 the wrath of god has been revealed from heaven verse 20 his eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen so that man is without excuse and verses 26 to 27 they do what they know is contrary to nature in this passage we're only talking about natural law we haven't even gotten to supernatural revelation which comes in the next chapter but just by natural general revelation they know the righteous requirement of god that those who practice such things are worthy of death and although they know this they not only do the same but they also give hearty approval they're not just apathetic they give hearty approval to those who practice such things those who do such things and those who approve such things will receive the same punishment the wrath of god and my friends as i said to you in the beginning it is important for us to speak clearly about these things so that we will recognize the need for the gospel only one message has the power to rescue a person from the sins that we've just read here and that message is the gospel of jesus christ the power of god for salvation to all who believe when i lived in kansas i was just an hour away from westborough baptist church i saw many of their protests one time they came and protested the high our local high school graduation and they'll have signs one sign they will hold up that will say repent or perish and another person standing right next to them will have a sign that says it's too late to repent so what's the purpose of the first message if the second is true but my friends i tell you if there is breath in your lungs it is not too late to repent a friend of mine shared on social media this past week i had sex with so many men and women i lost count i took my clothes off did heroin stole lied and cheated i was an adulterer an alcoholic and an addict jesus christ delivered me from that and dressed me in white and so you can throw your paint false church no one can stain my gown i am new you might consider the sins that we've read about today to be absurd and it's true they are absurd the more you sin the more foolish you become i've seen people throw their lives away for foolish passions and you probably have as well once upon a time in my life i almost did the same thing it's only by the grace of god that i was not given over to my debased mind to do worse than what i was doing i praise god that i came to my senses and i repented of my sin and my life returned to being fixed on christ instead of the desires of my flesh all by the power of the gospel as first john 1 9 says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness the scripture says he will give us a new heart and a new mind no longer after the desires of our fallen flesh but our desire will be christ and his righteousness in first corinthians 6 9 through 11 we read or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of god do not be deceived neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of god and such were some of you but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified in the name of the lord jesus christ and in the spirit of our god brothers and sisters in the lord may there be sitting among us in our midst people who can say i once was that but i've been washed by the blood of the lamb at calvary as we sang about this morning if you are convicted by anything that we have read this morning and you know you need the forgiveness of your sins and jesus christ your savior then i ask you to remain and talk to any of the pastors or if you go to a sunday school class talk to the sunday school teacher know the forgiveness of god that is found in christ alone and for the rest of us my friends we need to know emphatically the bible is not glib about sin or its consequences and we need to be clear as well though the world may hate us and we should not be haughty or arrogant when we speak about these sinful things in the christ who saves because as i heard from martin lloyd jones this morning who i was listening to as i was coming into church today lloyd jones said it is the most amazing thing in the universe that there is even one christian at all but we are christians by the grace and mercy of god and so let none of us be arrogant about these things but by the same mercy and grace that god has shown toward us let us take the gospel of christ to the nations in christ the testimony of believers might sound something like this therefore god gave them up in their hearts to self -control and purity that their bodies might be honored among them as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to the lord this is our spiritual act of worship for they kept and cherished the truth of god and worshiped and served not the creature but the creator who is blessed forever and all god's people said amen let us pray heavenly father what a convicting thing it is to read about our sin to be reminded that we were all at one time sons of disobedience following the prince of the power of the air and were by our nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind we all deserve to be destroyed as sodom and gomorrah and to burn in hell forever separated from the holiness and the majesty of god but god who is merciful and gracious toward us did not leave us dead in our sin but has made us alive together in christ by grace we have been saved and may it be that message of the gospel which came to us and saved us from our sin and saved us from judgment and the wrath of god be the very testimony of the gospel that we proclaim to others so that they too may be rescued from sin and have everlasting life with god may we not whisper or mutter that message but we speak bold truth even in the midst of a culture that hates it guard our hearts and our minds in christ jesus in his name we pray amen let's praise the lord for redeeming us years i spent in vanity and pride caring not my lord was crucified knowing not it was for me he died on calvary me mercy there was great and grace was free power there was multiplied to me there my burden soul found liberty at Calvary By God's word at last my sin

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I learned Then I trembled at the law

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I'd spurned Till my guilty soul in glory turned to Calvary Mercy there was great and grace was free

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Pardon there was multiplied to me

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There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary I've given

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Jesus everything Now I gladly own

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Him as my King Now my raptured soul can only sing of Calvary Mercy there was great and grace was free

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Pardon there was multiplied to me

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There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary Oh the love that drew salvation's plan

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Oh the grace that brought it down to man

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Oh the mighty gold that God did spend at Calvary Mercy there was great and grace was free

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Pardon there was multiplied to me

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There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary We grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.