Actually Supreme

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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June 28, 2015

00:01: I want to welcome you to take out your Bibles with me and turn to the first chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans.
00:22: Hold your place at verse 18.
00:30: It is always a fearful thing to step into the pulpit to preach God's Word.
00:40: Preaching is a weighty endeavor, especially when you know that you are responsible for handling truth properly.
00:51: And it is even more weighty when the subject matter is one which is largely unpopular.
00:59: Very soon, messages like the one you are about to hear may be labeled as hate.
01:10: Some already will.
01:14: Yet, as a pastor committed to the truthfulness of the Word, I cannot stand silent in the face of what is happening in our culture.
01:21: We never have been silent here and we will not begin to do so now.
01:28: This past Friday, the Supreme Court in our land decided to legalize what is called same-sex marriage.
01:45: And in reality, they did much more than that.
01:50: They made the decision to redefine the institution of marriage.
01:58: That societal building block which has stood since God created man and woman in the garden has now been removed.
02:07: And not since Roe versus Wade have we seen such an alarming decision with consequences which have the potential to be so far-reaching.
02:20: Realize this will change how people think and talk about the family.
02:30: Laws will have to be rewritten simply to avoid using the term husband, wife, father, and mother.
02:40: Because those terms will no longer be appropriate for all.
02:47: This major redefinition was not lost on those who made it.
02:54: The justices are not oblivious to what they have done.
03:00: In fact, in writing the dissenting opinion, Justice Roberts wrote this, Quote, The court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the states and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia.
03:20: And then he goes on later to say, Just who do we think we are? They know what they've done.
03:30: It's not lost on them.
03:33: And again, this decision fundamentally alters the definition of marriage and the world knows that this was not a legal decision.
03:44: This was a theological announcement.
03:49: I agree with David French, writer with the National Review, who said this, This isn't constitutional law, it's theology.
03:56: A secular theology of self-actualization.
04:00: Crafted in such a way that its adherents will no doubt ask, What decent person can disagree? This is about love, and law can't fight love.
04:11: Justice Kennedy's opinion was nine parts romantic poetry and one part legal analysis, if that, end quote.
04:20: It's not about law.
04:22: It's about feelings.
04:25: And it's about secular humanism and theology.
04:32: The secular world is, by and large, celebrating this, if you had not noticed.
04:39: Social media pages quickly filled with rainbows on Friday, a symbol which was stolen from biblical Christianity and is now used to represent homosexuality.
04:53: As soon as the news broke of the decision, 35 major corporations changed their logos to incorporate the rainbow in celebration of this decision.
05:07: And even the White House was adorned with rainbow colored lights in celebration of this depravity.
05:19: The part that is so disturbing to many believers is that because of this radical redefinition of marriage, churches which hold to the Bible, ones like ours, are going to be labeled discriminatory.
05:38: In fact, in the majority opinion, we find these words, this is from the majority opinion, quote, it must be emphasized that religions and those who adhere to religious doctrines may continue to advocate with utmost sincere conviction that by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned, end quote.
06:02: That may sound great, but that is a very tenuous concession.
06:08: We may continue to advocate.
06:11: Well, thanks.
06:13: We appreciate your approval of what we were going to do anyway.
06:18: We may continue.
06:25: Again, quoting David French, he says, and I quote, this rhetoric is legally meaningless in the face of the potent combination of emotion and legal doctrines that have been long deemphasizing religious freedom, end quote.
06:43: Same-sex marriage is not something that we should just not be condoning.
06:48: It's something that must be condemned.
06:52: I mean, that's the simple matter.
06:55: We'll allow you not to condone it for now.
07:05: Furthermore, this concession is already demonstrated to be a lie.
07:10: Some who have refused to celebrate same-sex marriage even before the decision by the court have already been legally reprimanded.
07:21: In June of last year, Salt Lake City police officer Eric Mutzos, I'm not sure I'm saying that correctly, was suspended from active duty as a police officer for asking not to participate in a gay pride parade.
07:38: He didn't want to participate in the parade, and he was suspended.
07:45: A couple filed a discrimination suit against a bakery in Oregon when the owners refused to make them a wedding cake, citing that their religious convictions kept them from participating in the wedding by using their artistic talents to design a cake for a marriage that they did not agree with.
08:05: A discrimination lawsuit was filed, and they have now been ordered to pay over $100,000 in fines.
08:19: The reason for the fines, you ask? I'm glad, because I want to tell you.
08:23: The reason for the fines, the couple provided 88 symptoms of emotional distress they experienced for being refused a wedding cake, including acute loss of confidence, doubt, excessive sleep, the feeling of being mentally raped, dirty, and shameful, high blood pressure, impaired digestion, loss of appetite, migraine headaches, weight gain, and worry.
08:52: How do you have loss of appetite and weight gain? But it's just 88 reasons why we demand this fine be imposed.
09:02: And it was.
09:04: And now the bakery is closed.
09:05: And the family which owned it is in debt.
09:16: But that case is not unique.
09:17: All across our land, people are being sued for discrimination.
09:20: Wedding photographers have been sued for not being willing to participate in gay weddings.
09:24: A marriage chapel has been sued for not opening its doors to a gay wedding.
09:29: And the people who run the chapel, a confessing Christian couple, I don't know their faith or anything like that, so I don't want to stand for them as a couple, but confessing believers who said they would not participate in a gay wedding have now been sued and told they have to.
09:47: They have to.
09:48: Or they forfeit the right to their business.
09:54: This is terribly ironic when you consider the words which were also in the majority opinion.
09:59: Listen to this.
10:00: Quote, The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered.
10:17: End quote.
10:19: That statement cannot exist in the context where people are being sued for not participating in gay weddings.
10:28: You cannot have it both ways.
10:32: Its very inclusion in the document is an attempt to put salve on a wound which this legislative act has inflicted.
10:43: And that salve will not last.
10:52: What we are seeing is the result of God removing His restraint on the sins of our nation.
11:09: This is a form of judgment which God levels against the people who respect or reject and despise Him.
11:20: Often I hear people say, Well, if this keeps going, God's going to judge us.
11:24: Let me tell you something.
11:26: This is the judgment.
11:30: This is not bringing God's judgment.
11:32: This is the result.
11:40: People say, Well, why are we seeing God's judgment? Have you looked around the last 50 years and had to wonder? We have murdered millions of helpless babies all on the altar of choice and we wonder why we've been turned over to a depraved mind.
12:08: I want to read and examine Paul's words.
12:11: That was a lengthy introduction.
12:13: I want to go to Paul's words about what happens when God gives people over to their sinful desires.
12:18: I want you to see what judgment looks like on a people in the context of our modern culture.
12:25: And I want you to see this in light of where we are so that you know that I'm not just a man ranting my own opinions because they are not worth anything.
12:39: So I invite you to turn to Romans 1 and stand.
12:41: We stand for the reading of God's Word.
12:47: We're going to read all the way from 18 to the end.
12:53: So it's a lengthy passage.
13:03: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
13:13: For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.
13:19: For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.
13:27: So they are without excuse.
13:31: For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.
13:40: Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
14:01: Therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever.
14:15: Amen.
14:16: For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
14:21: 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 and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
14:39: And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
14:46: They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.
14:50: They were full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.
14:54: They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
15:08: Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them.
15:25: Father, I pray that you would keep me from error as I seek to give an exposition of your Word.
15:37: I pray that you would open the hearts of your people to the truth.
15:43: I pray that you would see fit to bless this time.
15:49: Father, we pray for an ear to hear.
15:56: In Jesus' name.
15:59: Amen.
16:19: This passage is one that we visited on several occasions and in various contexts.
16:29: I've taught on this in Sunday school.
16:30: I've taught through the book of Romans.
16:32: Back when we used to do a Sunday evening service, I taught through Romans from beginning to end.
16:38: And even our Dads and Dudes group, which is men's discipleship, are studying through Romans because of the doctrinal value, being able to pass that on to their children, to their families, to their wives, that they might understand truth.
16:53: Romans is as close to a systematic theology, particularly in regarding salvation, that we have in the New Testament.
17:01: It's outlined describing the depravity of man, justification by faith, the role of sanctification in the life of the believer, the role of Israel in the church, and then the practical application of all those things starting in chapter 12.
17:20: The book of Romans is a powerful book.
17:25: But we have not, as a church, spent a lot of time dealing with the issue of homosexuality.
17:36: Even though some might say, you know, well you've gone through Romans many times, it's right here.
17:40: We have not had whole conferences or whole Bible series on this subject.
17:49: Because really the focus of this passage is not so much the homosexuality.
17:53: The focus of this passage is the reality that every man knows God exists.
18:05: And that the rebellion that we see in all forms is a result of man having taken that knowledge, that innate knowledge of God that God gave him, taking that knowledge and spitting in God's face, and God turns them over to their depravity.
18:33: This passage tells us that no man is truly an atheist.
18:41: He may deny that God exists, but he cannot say that he is excused from the knowledge of God.
18:50: Read again verse 19.
18:52: For what can be known about God is plain to them.
18:56: Who are them? Well in verse 18 it tells us.
18:59: It says the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
19:05: All men who fall under the category of verse 18, which is everyone, fall under the category of verse 19 of the idea that what can be known about God is plain to them.
19:20: It's plain to every man.
19:22: Because God has shown it to him.
19:25: For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
19:35: If you look at the world and you think all this happened by accident, you are what the Bible calls a fool.
19:44: Because it is the fool who says in his heart there is no God.
19:52: And so, they are without excuse.
19:59: It is because of this that the fearful promise of wrath abides upon all men.
20:04: No man will go to hell because he's ignorant.
20:08: Every man who goes to hell will go knowingly having rebelled against the truth that God has provided to him.
20:16: No man goes in ignorance.
20:19: He may have never heard the gospel, but he knows that he is a sinner.
20:26: Man's nature, corrupted by sin, would prefer to create an idol than to worship God.
20:34: And that's exactly what men do.
20:37: They reject the God of the Bible and they replace Him with all kinds of things.
20:41: Read with me verse 21.
20:43: For although they knew God...
20:46: You see, that's something that Paul tells us.
20:49: Not a doubt.
20:50: Not they might have known God, they knew God.
20:53: And although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God.
20:58: Or give thanks to Him, but...
21:02: They became futile in their thinking.
21:04: Their foolish hearts were darkened.
21:07: And claiming to be wise, they became fools.
21:10: I remember a few years ago, watching the movie Expelled.
21:16: I don't know if you've ever seen it.
21:18: Ben Stein, who's not a Christian.
21:21: Ben Stein is a Jewish man.
21:23: He did a documentary on teachers and professors who'd been put out of public teaching because they refused to teach evolution.
21:35: The title of the movie Expelled was because they'd been expelled from the school for being unwilling to teach evolution.
21:42: In the movie, he interviews all of these different people about where do you think life came from.
21:49: And of course, they give all of these answers.
21:51: But he finally reaches the high priest of the secular movement, Richard Dawkins.
21:59: Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist who believes that you are very foolish for believing in God.
22:11: And he makes it well known that he believes that.
22:14: Well, in the interview, Stein is sitting with Dawkins, and Stein says, where do you believe life came from? Dawkins says, I believe life came from evolution.
22:24: It evolved over time, millions of years.
22:26: It came from just simple matter and energy working together to produce the life that we see.
22:34: And he said, but what came before the matter and energy? Was there anything prior to that? What came before? And Dawkins said, well, it is perhaps aliens came.
22:47: If I'm lying, I'm dying.
22:49: Watch the movie.
22:50: He said, maybe it was aliens who seeded the planet, but those aliens had to have come about through the process of Darwinian evolution.
23:01: Who's religious? Who's holding to his religion? Dawkins, no doubt.
23:08: But I say, going back to this passage, claiming to be wise, they show themselves foolish.
23:16: I won't believe in God, but I'll believe in a Martian.
23:20: Or some other creature.
23:24: Because it can't be God.
23:26: I won't allow it, even though I know it.
23:33: It's the attitude.
23:36: And so, verse 23, they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images.
23:42: Resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things, of course, there the Apostle Paul is talking about the idols that were carved.
23:50: Sometimes they were carved to look like men.
23:52: There were idols of Zeus.
23:53: And, of course, Zeus looked like a man.
23:55: And then, of course, there were idols of animals that were carved.
23:58: And, of course, we can see this in every culture.
24:00: Even the Native American culture had the totems, which were often carved into different animals.
24:04: And they were worshipped because every animal was believed to have a spirit.
24:07: And every spirit was believed to have some sort of significant power that was exalted among the people.
24:14: So it might be an eagle or a bear or some other type of animal because those animals exhibited some form of power and were to be revered.
24:26: In ages past, men carved their gods out of wood and stone.
24:30: But in our modern age, men simply worship an imaginary idea of what they want God to be, and thus they have carved an idol in their mind.
24:43: And that's what we see.
24:45: You ask somebody what they believe about God, and just listen for a moment.
24:52: Well, I believe God would never judge sin.
24:57: I believe God is absolutely loving, that He would never exercise any form of judgment.
25:04: God wouldn't send anyone to hell.
25:10: What's the answer? Well, you're right.
25:14: Because you have created a God in your own mind.
25:19: And the God that you have created, that idol that you have created, will only do what you allow Him to do.
25:27: Because the key to idolatry is pride.
25:31: Because if you create the idol, you get to determine the scope of the idol's authority.
25:42: Idolatry is pride.
25:45: It's an attempt to go back to Eden when Eve was told by Satan, on the day that you eat of it, you will know what God knows, and you will be like God.
26:01: That's what we've been trying to do ever since.
26:03: We demand to be God.
26:07: We don't want His authority.
26:11: And so we take Him out, and we replace Him with something over which we have authority.
26:18: The idol sitting on the shelf has no authority at all that I don't give to it.
26:25: And thus, idolatry is an extension of my own pride.
26:32: When a society rebels against the natural knowledge of God that He has given to them His judgment, it's to give them over to a debased mind.
26:43: And that's the subject I want to address today.
26:47: I want us to see the crescendo which occurs when a people are given over to their sinful passions, and it begins in verse 24.
26:55: The text provides three results of God giving a people over to their depravity.
27:00: The first thing that we see in a society that has been given over to depravity, number one, their desires become filled with impure, dishonorable, and unnatural lusts.
27:14: Impure, dishonorable, and unnatural lusts.
27:23: Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever.
27:36: Amen.
27:38: For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
27:41: For their women exchanged natural relation for those that are contrary to nature.
27:45: And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.
27:51: Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
27:59: Now there are three words in that section that stand out that I want to examine.
28:08: Impurity, dishonor, and contrary to nature, which is two words actually in the Greek, paraphusen, but it's one idea.
28:22: Impurity.
28:24: He says, God gives them up, God gives them up to the lusts of their hearts to impurity.
28:31: But what is impurity in the Greek? Hakatharsion.
28:43: Hakatharsion.
28:45: In English, you all know this word, cathartic or catharsis.
28:53: A person goes through something mentally, they get through it, and they have like a cleansing, and they say, ah, that was very cathartic.
29:02: I had a cathartic experience.
29:04: Maybe they go see a counselor.
29:06: They've been dealing with a mental issue that they've had to deal with their whole life, and they see the counselor, and the counselor deals with it, and he gets them through it, and they say, ah, a catharsis.
29:16: I'm cleansed.
29:18: Right? Maybe some of you aren't familiar with the word.
29:21: It's got awkward looks.
29:23: It is a word, I promise.
29:24: I didn't make it up.
29:26: But it's from the Greek language.
29:28: Cathartic or catharsis is cleansing.
29:32: And when you take the alpha and you put it at the beginning of the word, it makes it the opposite.
29:39: Just like when we take theist and put a at the beginning, it becomes atheist.
29:44: Well, when you take the alpha in Greek and put it at the beginning of the word, catharsion or catharsis, it becomes a catharsis or unclean.
29:57: Dirty.
30:01: The desires of the debased mind are unclean.
30:09: They are not pure.
30:17: They are abominable, is what a catharsion actually means.
30:20: Abominable.
30:21: You remember the abominable snowman? How many of you remember that? Do you know why he was called that? Because every time they found these big footprints in the snow, it was accompanied by a terrible odor.
30:34: Everywhere they found these footprints...
30:37: By the way, I'm not saying I believe in the abominable snowman.
30:39: What I'm saying is, this was how he got the name.
30:41: It was because every time they'd find these footprints, it would be accompanied by an odor that would turn your stomach.
30:47: So he wasn't just called the snowman, he was called the abominable or the stinky snowman.
30:55: The smelly or dirty snowman.
31:05: Thus when we go back to Leviticus and it tells us that the sin of one man laying with another man as he does with a woman is an abomination, that word simply means it's not clean.
31:21: It's impure.
31:23: It's dirty.
31:31: Simple.
31:34: I don't know about you.
31:36: When I was growing up, you parents would say, don't say that, it's dirty.
31:42: Or don't do that, it's dirty.
31:44: You ever have your parents say that? Don't look at that, it's dirty.
31:51: Right? What do we say anymore? We can't because nothing is dirty anymore.
32:03: Everything is acceptable.
32:06: You know, Ricky and Lucy couldn't even lay in the same bed and they were married.
32:15: If you don't know what that is, you're younger than me.
32:20: But the reality was, they could not even share a bed on television because at that time in history, there was a code of ethics which was the standard of television.
32:30: And now you watch.
32:33: They've had to create new types of demonstrations of what something is.
32:41: Because it used to just be G, P, G, and R.
32:44: And now they've got all these little, know that it's going to have this but not this.
32:50: Know that it could have this but not this.
32:51: And now every time I take my kids to the movie, you know what I have to do? I have to go on the internet and there are people out there, and God bless them, they actually tell you what's in the movie before you go.
33:03: So that you know what to expect, so that you don't take your children into something expecting it to be wholesome and it to be something that would rob their eyes of purity.
33:17: Unclean.
33:19: I'm dragging.
33:20: I've got to move on.
33:22: Dishonorable.
33:23: Hatemias.
33:24: What does it start with? Alpha.
33:26: What does it mean? It's the opposite of something else.
33:28: I've already explained this.
33:29: Teme is honor or respect.
33:34: So hatemias is what? The opposite of that.
33:40: What is good, what is wholesome, what is worthy of honor is jettisoned and replaced with the opposite.
33:46: That which is unwholesome.
33:47: That which is dishonorable.
33:49: That which is disrespectful both to the body and to the society as a whole.
33:55: And finally, natural.
33:56: Or contrary to nature.
34:01: Do you know what the word natural means? In this particular text, Laonita gives a good explanation.
34:06: Laonita is a lexicon.
34:08: And it gives a really good explanation of what the word natural means.
34:10: Fusen.
34:10: Do you know what it means? As it should be.
34:15: That's what natural means.
34:17: As it should be.
34:20: So what is parafusen? Para means to set something beside something else.
34:26: If you parallel.
34:27: So para means you take what it should be and you put something else over here that ain't.
34:34: That's the problem.
34:36: It ain't as it should be.
34:38: It ain't.
34:42: That's bad English, but you understand what I'm saying.
34:45: All of these are negatives.
34:48: They're negative virtues of what God calls us to.
34:50: God calls us to cleanliness.
34:52: The debased mind loves filth.
34:54: God calls us to honor.
34:55: The debased mind loves disrespect.
34:57: God calls us to natural order.
34:59: The debased mind turns the natural order on its head.
35:02: And these virtues express themselves most clearly as seen in the text in sexual deviation.
35:09: Paul expresses how the relationships go down a path of degradation.
35:12: From impure to dishonorable to unnatural.
35:15: And finally, they receive in themselves the penalty of the due penalty of what they've done.
35:25: And that's what it says in the text.
35:28: Going back, it says in verse 27, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
35:38: Now there's a couple ways that people have interpreted that.
35:40: Some see in that passage the promise of physical illness which comes with homosexuality.
35:46: And that is something that is true.
35:48: Studies have shown conclusively that certain diseases are rampant among homosexual men, yet it is so politically incorrect to say such a thing that one would be under the threat of censure for even saying it.
35:58: But the studies don't lie.
36:01: But I don't think that that's necessarily what Paul is saying here.
36:03: I just want to clear that up.
36:04: That's one way it's been interpreted.
36:07: I think what's actually being said here is that the act itself is the penalty.
36:13: By engaging in the act, they've received the due penalty of their desire to rebel against God.
36:18: Their rejection of God has led them down this path which has led to this.
36:22: And the act itself is the punishment.
36:27: The sin itself, having been given over to the debased mind, is the punishment.
36:41: But this deviation is not the end.
36:43: And again, I have to kind of hasten now because I've taken a lot of time.
36:47: But their actions become marked by all manner of unrighteousness.
36:50: And that's what we see beginning in verse 28.
36:52: And this is the second part.
36:53: Their actions become marked by all manner of unrighteousness.
36:56: And it says in verse 28, And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
37:03: They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness.
37:05: And then He gives us a litany of things.
37:07: Evil, covetous, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slanders, haters of God.
37:13: By the way, those of you who don't think gossip is that big a deal, it's in the list.
37:19: And it's right next to hatred of God.
37:23: So, take that.
37:26: That's serious.
37:28: Gossip, slander, and hatred of God are all in the same sentence.
37:34: People say, Oh, I was just sharing my story.
37:38: No, you weren't.
37:38: You were sharing somebody else's story without their knowledge.
37:40: It's called gossip.
37:41: Quiet.
37:45: Insolent.
37:46: Haughty.
37:47: Boastful.
37:48: I love that.
37:49: Inventors of evil.
37:50: We couldn't find enough.
37:52: We had to invent some of our own.
37:55: Disobedient to parents.
37:57: And by the way, that makes the list because that's a huge deal.
38:05: You know, in the Old Testament, a disobedient child could be stoned.
38:11: There's never a place I've found that it happened, but you've got to know those kids are a little nervous.
38:16: I never found a place where it actually occurred.
38:19: Now, if you find it and you show it to me, I'll retract that.
38:22: But, it was there as a law that the disobedient child could be not just excommunicated, but executed for his disobedience.
38:37: The parental relationship and the relationship in the home is huge from God's perspective.
38:41: And what have we done? Turned it on its head.
38:44: Watch television.
38:46: Father knows best.
38:48: Not anymore.
38:48: Now the father's an idiot.
38:50: The mother's at work all the time and the kids know more than the parents.
38:53: And they outsmart them every time.
38:58: Disobedient to parents.
38:59: Foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
39:03: Deviant relationships.
39:04: And this is where I really want to show you this.
39:06: Deviant relationships, sexual relationships, are not just the result of a debased mind.
39:12: But Paul lists here a series of sins which are also the result of God's judgment.
39:16: Some of them being amazing, as we've already seen, gossip and hatred, disobedience to parents, and things like that.
39:25: But what we're seeing here is the societal attitude change.
39:29: And he's going to explain this in verse 32 in just a moment.
39:32: But I kind of want to show you how it's working.
39:34: Mankind has always exercised this depravity.
39:36: We do.
39:38: We're all sinners.
39:39: We always exercise our depravity.
39:41: But in this scenario, the depravity is being filled to the brim.
39:45: They are being filled with all manner of unrighteousness.
39:48: And what we are seeing here is a society which once worked within the confines of God's natural order is now spinning into chaos.
39:56: Up is down.
39:57: Left is right.
39:59: And back is forward.
40:02: And this is the crescendo.
40:05: And a society marked by this will not last long.
40:10: Because this is already having been given over to judgment.
40:16: And here's the key.
40:17: Verse 32 is the key.
40:19: Their approval is given to this wickedness.
40:22: It's not just that the wickedness happens.
40:24: But you go back in every society in the history of the world, there's been wickedness.
40:27: But what happens as a result of wickedness is judgment.
40:31: That's why there are judges.
40:32: That's why there are police.
40:34: That's why there are these people that stand as guards against wickedness.
40:38: But what does this society do? Verse 32.
40:41: Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them.
40:53: This is the highest form of wickedness.
40:57: Not only do they practice evil, but they call evil virtuous.
41:06: And Scripture condemns those who call evil good.
41:11: Isaiah 5.20, if you want to write it down.
41:13: Woe to those who call evil good.
41:20: But you know what? That is what we have now.
41:25: Because we live in the culture of relativism.
41:29: If you don't know what relativism is, it's pretty simple.
41:33: Relativism teaches that there is no right or wrong.
41:36: Only opinions of right and wrong.
41:39: And thus, I can never say what you've done is wrong.
41:41: I can only say it's wrong for me.
41:43: And you can only say it's wrong for you.
41:46: In such a construct, you can never condemn evil because it's good in the minds of the person who performed it.
41:53: And you may laugh and you say, no one really thinks that way.
41:55: But that's precisely what we are being told to think.
41:59: Consider when a person is engaging in sin, and we say that that sin is wrong.
42:03: What does the world respond with? It's not wrong to him.
42:08: And thus, you must say to him, it is right.
42:14: So moral relativism is the outgrowth of this attitude.
42:18: The willingness to call evil good.
42:22: Our society demands it.
42:26: And the only ones who are deemed evil, ironically, are those who refuse to call evil good.
42:39: I'm going to draw to a close.
42:40: The title of this message is simple.
42:42: Actually Supreme.
42:43: The title is a reminder that there is one truly supreme court in the universe.
42:49: It is not the United States Supreme Court.
42:51: It's not any court in any other country.
42:53: It is the court of God, and Jesus Christ is the judge.
42:57: Jesus has already unequivocally ruled on the issue of marriage.
43:02: When asked about it by the religious leaders of His day, Jesus said this, Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
43:18: So they are no longer two but one flesh.
43:20: What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.
43:24: That's Jesus' words in Matthew 19.
43:27: The context of the passage is divorce, and truly that has been a plague on the institution of marriage as well.
43:34: I'm not going to soft-pedal divorce either.
43:37: It's a sin that the church has accepted and been happy about and happy to accept, and we should not be.
43:43: It needs to be repented of.
43:48: Christ calls for purity in marriage.
43:50: One man, one woman, one marriage.
43:52: That's it.
43:54: That's it.
43:58: In the time to come, and I fear sooner rather than later, we will see a massive change in our land.
44:04: I don't know what the world's going to look like when hope is Ashley's age.
44:11: She's two and Ashley's 17.
44:12: I don't know what the world's going to look like 15 years from now.
44:19: We must not abandon the truth and go the way of the world.
44:24: It will mean pain and suffering.
44:28: It will mean censure and sanction.
44:31: It will mean loss of tax privileges.
44:34: It will mean fines and imprisonment.
44:37: But come what may, we must stand with Christ.
44:45: For we will stand with Him or we will stand with the world.
44:49: There is no third way.
44:55: Let us pray.
44:58: Father, I thank You for Your Word.
45:02: I thank You for the truth that is given to us through the pen of the Apostle Paul and ultimately through the power of Your Spirit.
45:11: And I pray that this time has been used to edify Your people, to comfort them, but also encourage them for the time to come.
45:25: I pray for our church.
45:27: I pray for every individual member of our church that we would stand for truth even when it's unpopular and even when it's not easy.
45:42: Father, I pray for wisdom for our elders as we, Lord, seek to lead the church using Scripture.
45:54: I pray that You would raise up leaders among us, raise up men among us who have a desire to see Your Word proclaimed, that we might have groups of men, groups of people who love the Word and seek to have its precepts applied to our lives.
46:20: We pray for our nation.
46:28: We pray for repentance.
46:31: We pray for healing.
46:37: Father, ultimately we give everything into Your hand knowing that ultimately You are sovereign and that all things work together for the good of those who love You and are called according to Your purpose.
46:50: So let us look at all things, Lord, even those things which we would say are steps into a negative and sinful direction.
46:57: Let us see all things, Lord, as You use the view to grow Your people and to conform us to the image of Your Son.
47:07: And it's in His name we pray.
47:10: Amen.