Autopsy of a Nation (Romans 1:18-32)

Romans 1 and the Moral Decline of a Nation

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Romans chapter 1 and find your place at verse 18. I want to give a brief announcement as I am coming into the sermon. I had previously been preaching through Genesis verse by verse.

I've been taking a year to get through the first three chapters. I'm going to be taking a little bit of time off from that. We're going to be looking at some other subjects over the next few weeks, just for the heart of the nation and the heart of the church and a lot of other things that we need to think about.

You can bring my mic down a little bit, brother. I'm pretty hot and I'm going to get hotter, so you can bring my volume down a little bit. Yeah, this is just as the Lord is leading me, and I try to always follow the Lord and how He's leading me in preaching.

So, if you were really excited to be back in Genesis, know that we will get there eventually. It's in the Lord's timing. But today I am going to preach on, and in your bulletins the title is wrong. I changed the title late last night as I was thinking through what I was going to preach, that the original title was giving approval to evil, based on Romans 1 .32.

Not only do they do evil, but they give hearty approval to those who practice it. That was the original title. And I began to think about really what I'm talking about today, and I changed the title to An Autopsy of a Nation.

Now, I do want to say, I am not saying that America is dead, but the America that we live in now, and the America we are going into, is far different from what was established by our forefathers. And the question is, why?

What is it that brings death to a nation? What brings destruction to a people? And I think Romans 1 provides us that outline. So that is the subject of today. So I'm not proclaiming death, but I am saying, when and if death comes to a nation, this is how.

This is what the autopsy will read. Does that make sense? Let us stand and hear the word of God. We're going to read Romans 1, 18 to 32, and it begins. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 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, so they are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 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.

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 of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, amen.

For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions, for their women exchanged natural relation for those that are contrary to nature, and 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.

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. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

They are gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless, 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. Our Father and our God, we come to you in Jesus' name. I pray with my heart, Lord, that you would keep me from error today. For this is your pulpit, and this is your church, and this is your word.

May I handle it aright. And I pray that you would give me boldness and not cowardice. I pray that you would fill us with your spirit. May the word of God go into the ear, down through the mind, and into the heart.

May oh God, may it be in Jesus' name, amen. When I was a kid, I got my first professional job at a funeral home. It was kind of neat because everybody else got jobs at McDonald's and stuff, you know. But my stepbrother's father was a funeral director, and so I knew people in that business.

And I was asked, do you want to go to work at the funeral home, and sure, what do I need? Buy a suit. And so I had to wear a suit to work. And I went to the funeral home, and I began to work first as a funeral attendant, which basically meant when you go to a funeral and somebody hands you a card, or somebody's standing out to park your car, that was my job.

So I stood in Florida heat for the full summer, parking cars, and it was awful. But when I was 18 years old, I was able to go work in the prep room. And the prep room is where the bodies are prepared for the funeral.

And I had my first experience with someone who had had an autopsy. And it was fairly vivid, I'm not going to cause you any disturbance with the details, but one of the things that I was interested in is that all of the organs had been removed and weighed.

That was part of the autopsy. It's part of how they determine what caused death. And so all of those organs that were once part of the body have now been removed and put back in, but they're not put back in right.

And I remember looking at this awful thing and thinking, this is what we have to do to see how somebody died. This is the effort that has to go into figuring out how somebody died. This is gruesome, this is grotesque, this is awful.

And so that was in my heart last night as I was thinking about this message, because what we're looking at in our nation is really no less gruesome. It's really no less disturbing. It's just not the same type of gruesome that we would think about of a body that's decaying.

We're watching our nation decay before our very eyes. We are watching men and women who have been charged with protecting our Constitution spit on it and throw it down and walk upon it. And unless the Lord so intervenes, we will find ourselves in one of the most difficult times in our history.

And I am not a naysayer and I am certainly not a pessimist. Anybody who knows me, I keep a smile pretty much all the time. And I can find humor and joy in just about any situation. But this is a difficult time.

And so I want you to know from the outset of today's sermon, I heard along with you who are concerned for our nation. But I want you to know, this didn't start a day ago or six months ago or four years ago or 12 years ago.

We have seen a steady decline in our nation. We have seen a steady decline and honestly, it has followed the church. As the church goes, so goes the nation. And as the church has begun to push a cultural Christianity where unbelievers can sit happily in a church for 10, 20, 30 years, without the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and call themselves Christians, this is where we are.

There are churches that don't preach the gospel. There are pastors that don't know the gospel. I'm not saying that because I think it's true. I am saying that based on experiential evidence. Men that I have talked to and asked the question, do you understand the gospel?

And they say, that's a hard question. Not for a minister it shouldn't be. Not for a Christian. Now I understand if you can't necessarily explain the eccentricities of the hypostatic union, but you should know the gospel.

I understand if you might have a difference in distinction between infralapsarium and superlapsarianism and if you don't even know what it means or how to spell it, but you should know the gospel. And so we find ourselves in a bad situation.

How do we get here? What was the, if we weighed our organs, what would be found? I think Romans 1 gives us the answer and I want to break it down for you because I don't have an outline. I want to tell you this morning, I don't even have notes.

I'm preaching this in a different way than I normally do. Not because I didn't study, don't think that, I just, my heart is in what I want to say. But I have an outline in my mind and basically the outline is this, verses 18 to 23 is God's giving of the, essentially the prognosis of the problem and then verses 24 to 32 are the result of that prognosis.

So verse 18 to 23 tell us what the problem is and after that you'll notice it says in verse 24, therefore. So verse 18 to 23 is this is what the problem is, therefore, and you will hear this phrase come up three times, God gave them up.

God gave them up. God gave them up. And here's the thing about that phrase that comes up three times, it happens in verse 24, it happens in verse 26, and it happens again in verse 28. The thing that you will notice with that phrase, God gave them up, is that's not what's causing the judgment, that is the judgment.

What causes the judgment is 18 to 23. The result of the judgment is everything after verse 24. So in your mind I want you to keep that because what you're going to see is you're going to see after verse 24 and you're going to see that's what brought judgment, that's what brought judgment.

Oh, oh I see there, there's the homosexuality or oh I see there, there's the corruption and there's the lying, there's the maliciousness. No that's not what brought the judgment, that is the judgment.

A nation that gives a price to people doesn't bring judgment, it's already under judgment. That's the key. They have already been given up to a debased mind. That's already happened. So it's the result, not the cause of judgment.

Are you picking up what I'm putting down? You hanging with me? That's key to this because I know everybody, oh we got to stop doing this, we're going to encourage the, or we're going to incur the wrath of God.

We're already there. We've been there for a while. So let's begin verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Now first of all just on that verse 18 it says for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. A lot of churches don't talk about the wrath of God. In fact there are churches and ministries where the word wrath is put away and God's love is the only thing that is on display.

You all have heard this story but I want to remind you that a few years ago when a new hymn book was being produced for the Presbyterian Church of the USA, the PCUSA was producing a new hymnal. They were taking a song in Christ alone and they were going to add it into their hymnal.

But the song says on that cross as Jesus died the wrath of God was satisfied. And the hymnal committee said that does not agree with our theology. We want it to be changed to on that cross as Jesus died the love of God was magnified.

So they want the wrath taken out but they also want the word satisfied taken out. Because they do not believe in a God whose wrath must be satisfied. They do not believe in a God whose wrath must be propitiated.

Does that make sense? And you say oh I can't imagine a church like that. I can throw a stick and hit a church like that. I can drive down the road and point them out to you. I'm not here to point fingers and be ugly but they're all around us.

People come into church today and they're more concerned about hearing how Jesus can help their marriage. They're more concerned about how Jesus can help them with their wily children. They're more concerned with how Jesus can help them with their bank accounts or more concerned with how Jesus can help them get an advancement in their job.

They are not concerned at all with the wrath of God. I'll give you an example. In Bethel Church which is in California. It's one of the, it is an apostate damnable church. And at Bethel Church when they take their offering, their prayer, and I can't give you the exact phrase because I don't have it written down but it's something like this.

God we're believing you for jobs and better jobs. God we're believing you for raises and bonuses. God we're believing you for health and prosperity. And then they take the offering because somehow they believe that this offering is transactional.

If I put my money in, you know, blessings or praises go up, blessings come down. You know that's, you've probably heard that. And it's something to the effect of as long as you can't out give God so you give God so you get.

And I've heard them say this. This is not something I'm making up. You give so that God will give it back to you. Tenfold all that. You know they twist scripture and they distort the word of God. And they do not proclaim the wrath of God because the wrath of God does not fill coffers.

The wrath of God does not fill seats. The wrath of God makes people uncomfortable. And the one thing people don't want to have today is a church that makes them feel uncomfortable. If you are an unbeliever today, I hope you feel uncomfortable.

I hope that you are feeling the weightiness of this subject. Because the Bible says the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth.

And let me tell you this. If you're an unbeliever, you are actively suppressing the truth today. You know that God exists. You know that God has called you to repentance. You know that you deserve His wrath.

And you know this by nature. And you are suppressing the truth if you are not a believer. And you're suppressing it in unrighteousness. This text says the wrath of God is revealed. And that word revealed actually is in the... it's a verb and it comes across in the sense of being revealed.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. And you say, well, how is the wrath of God being revealed? Well, I'll give you a few examples. Because somebody might say, oh, well, every time a hurricane hits, that's an example of the wrath of God.

Maybe. But that's not what I'm talking about. Let me ask you this. How many people died yesterday? About 250 ,000. How many people are going to die today? About 250 ,000. And about 250 ,000 people die every day somewhere around the world in that amount of silence.

Somebody died. And they entered into eternity. And their eternal condition is set. They will give no opportunity for repentance. They will have no opportunity for anything except either they will open their eyes in hell, or they will be ushered by the angels into the presence of Almighty God.

Today, 250 ,000 people. Therefore, the wrath of God is being revealed every day. We see people dying. This is the result of sin. And we see people dying every day. People are entering into God's wrath every day.

I do funerals all the time. And do you know why I have to do so many funerals? Because it ain't all for y 'all. I have done very few funerals for our people. A few years ago, we had four of our church members die in one year.

And that was the most I'd ever done in a year. And it was heartbreaking. Because it happened so quickly. But otherwise, I don't do a lot of services for you guys. You know who I do services for? People who don't have ministers.

And you know why people don't have ministers? Because they're not in church. And do you know why people are not in church? Most of the time, because they're not believers. You get what I'm saying here, right?

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness are suppressing the truth every day, all day. It's like a spring that they're constantly having to hold down.

The truth about God is in them. And they're constantly having to press that truth down to allow their will to have its way. And that's what it goes on to say. I'm taking a lot of time on the first verse.

And if I do this with every verse, we won't make it through our normal time. So I do want to read all of this and make comments. So let's move on to verse 19. We know they're suppressing the truth. And by the way, the truth they're suppressing, Paul tells us what it is.

We don't have to wonder what truth they're suppressing, because he tells us. He says, For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them, 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.

So they are unapologetous in the Greek, without excuse. And an apology in Greek is a defense. Apologio means to make a defense. It was a legal term. If you stood in the law court and you were accused of something, you would have the opportunity to stand and give your apology.

See, we think of apology as a saying, I'm sorry. No, an apology is a defense. This is why I did what I did. And the Bible says that every man knows God exists, and therefore every man is without excuse at judgment.

No one will have an excuse before Almighty God. Nobody can say, I didn't know you were there, God. Because the Bible says, in what we just read, his divine nature and power are clearly perceived in the things that have been made.

You can't look at a tree, or a mountain, or a baby, and say, oh, that's just a cosmic accident. It's like John MacArthur said, he said, nobody is a liberal naturally, you got to go to school to become a liberal.

You know, you got to go to school to come up with that nonsense. You have to have somebody teach you this nonsense. Children know by nature God exists. My little babies, they have not been regenerated yet.

At least I don't think they have. But they love to talk about God. And they talk about God like he is in the room. Mommy, does God like this? Mommy, is God upset when we do this? And you say, well, that's because they're children and they don't know anything.

The Bible says that it is the faith of the child that should be the goal of us all. To have that type of faith that knows that I'm a child of God, as Andy's always saying, we're a child of God. And that's the faith, right?

And we know God exists by nature. I remember it was Richard, no, it wasn't Richard Dawkins, it was another famous atheist that he said, somebody asked him, what are you going to do if you get to heaven and God says, you didn't believe in me?

And he goes, well, I'm going to tell you there wasn't enough evidence. Let me tell you what he's going to do. I'll give you the play by play. He's going to fall on his knees, he's going to scream out, and that's going to be the end of it.

There's going to be no apology. There's going to be no defense. There's going to be nothing. And I don't say that happy. When I do funerals for people who don't know Jesus, I always, when I do funerals for people who I don't know if they know Jesus, I always preach the gospel to them.

Yesterday there was a young man sitting, I did a funeral yesterday, there was a young man sitting there, and I could tell he was not a believer, and afterwards he came up to me and he goes, you challenged me.

I said, well, praise God. Because a lot of people when they do funerals, they just sort of, you know, they're not going to go there. But I go there and I tell them, I say, Jesus is either one of three things to you.

He's either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. He's a liar in that he said what he said was true and it wasn't, he knew it. That would make Jesus a liar. He's a lunatic. He said what he said was true and it wasn't true, but he believed it.

That means he's a lunatic. Or he is the Lord. He said what he said was true, and it is true, and you're going to have to face him one day. So who is Jesus to you? He is the Lord of glory. He is the one who died, was buried, and is resurrected.

And he is the one who you know in your hearts is the true God. It's not him, or Muhammad, or Krishna, or any, or Buddha, or any of these other guys. It's Jesus Christ alone who died, was buried, and rose again.

Buddha is dead. Muhammad is dead, but Jesus is alive. But notice verse 21, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him because they, excuse me, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

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. What is the, what is the nature of man? He knows God exists.

He does not want to deal with the God who exists. But he is still in his nature filled with an understanding that there is a God. And so he creates a God in his image. And we call that idolatry. You see, what God does is God creates us in his image.

And ever since then, as I think it was Calvin who said, ever since then we've been returning the favor. We've been trying to make God in our image and after our likeness. And so notice here it says, it says, claiming to be wise, they became fools.

Who are those in our society who claim the most wisdom? Those who claim to be atheists. Recently I watched a video with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Do you know who Neil deGrasse Tyson is? Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of those guys that everybody kind of likes because he's got a very winsome personality.

He's a science guy. He's the new version. If you're maybe older, there was a guy back in the 60s and 70s who did the Cosmos videos. He was a very famous scientist. I can't think of his name right off.

Carl Sagan, thank you. Carl Sagan. Well, Neil deGrasse Tyson is sort of the modern Carl Sagan. He's very popular. People like him. And he does have a winsome personality. But if you've ever seen him speak directly to scientists, it ain't the same.

He's much more, he's much harsher. He's much more sarcastic. And I understand, you know, the idea of when you're with your buddies, kind of sharing, you know, being a little more real. Well, recently I watched a video of him and a group of scientists and he was really just explaining how ignorant he thought anybody who believed in God was.

And how the scientific consensus just is, basically this was his argument. 80 of people believe in God, but also 80 of people don't understand science. 40 of people who do understand science believe in God.

And like 90 of people who are actual scientists by trade don't believe in God. And so his argument was, if you really know how the world works, you won't believe in God. And if you really are a scientist, you won't believe in God.

And that was his argument. It was, like I said, he was still winsome, but he was just being very curt and sarcastic and harsh with his terms. But here's, ultimately, this is all I could say, claiming to be wise.

And that's what he says. The 10 of us who really know science are the wise ones. But let me ask you this, and this, I don't want to get too far into the political side because I'll end up going, I'll take a left turn if I, but how many of you have heard people say, well, they just don't believe in science?

Oh, but an eight-year-old boy can become a girl on a whim. They don't believe in science. But it's better to mill hundreds of thousands of acres for the materials that go into the batteries for cars, rather than have one oil well.

Claiming to be wise. They became fools. And it goes on. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images. That's idolatry. What is the second commandment? The first commandment is, have no other gods before the Lord.

The second commandment is, make not any graven image. Because do you know the difference between the first commandment and the second commandment? I'll give it to you again. Have no other gods before the Lord.

Do not make any graven image. That's the second one. What's the difference? The first one says, do not have any other gods before the Lord, meaning, don't put any other gods on the same level as God. The second one is, don't make something and call it God.

Don't say that that God who exists, exists in this golden calf. That's idolatry. When you make something and you call it God. But here's the thing. Our idolatry, beloved, is no longer golden calves. Our idolatry today is the God that we make up in our mind.

We say God must be like this when he's not. And when we create a God in our mind, that's when we become idolaters. When someone says to me, my God wouldn't send anyone to hell. I say, absolutely true because your God doesn't exist.

You've created that God in your mind. You are an idolater. An idolater is a person that creates a God. Whether they create it with a piece of gold, whether they carve it out of a piece of wood, or whether they make that God in their mind, they are idolaters because they have created a God that doesn't exist and replaced the God who does exist with the God they've created.

Sometimes it's money. Money can be a God. And it can drag us to hell. Sometimes it's popularity. People desperately want other people to like them. And that desire can drag them to hell. That's a danger that pastors have to deal with.

Because I don't like when people hate me. You know, I mean, you like when people hate you? I don't like it when people hate me. But I get hate mail. I get emails. I get comments left on our pages. And if I was so concerned with that, I wouldn't be able to continue doing what I'm doing.

That is a form of idolatry. I do care about you, but I cannot let what you think of me be more important than what God thinks of me. Because at that point, you would become my idol. God has to be the most important.

God has to be the only one that we worship. And because He is not, because a nation is given to idolatry, we come to verse 24. In verse 24, we begin the judgments. As I said, verse 18 to 23 is the diagnosis.

What's the diagnosis, everyone? Idolatry. Because really, it's all idolatry. It's all replacing God. Putting something else before God. Let me tell you something. There are people who put, well, a lot of things can be put before God.

I've seen it, and I'm going to say this, again, I want you to love me, but I'm not going to stop saying the truth, just because you might not. There are Democrats and Republicans who are idolaters. Some people worship the cow, I'm sorry, the donkey, and some people worship the elephant.

And we should be worshiping the lamb. And the idolatry of a nation brings God's lifting of His hand. And that's what we're going to see now in verse 24. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their heart to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.

Amen. God gave them up. God gave them up. God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. What is the first thing that happens in a nation that is under the judgment of God? Flagrant and abusive sexual sin.

And see, this isn't just in America. You go back throughout the different nations of the past. And what do you see when people turn their face away from God? You see flagrant and disgusting and abusive sexual sin.

What did we see in the 50s and 60s? What was it called? The sexual revolution. And what has been the result of the sexual revolution? Widespread divorce. Widespread sexually transmitted disease. Widespread recognition that relationships are temporary.

Not meant to be forever. The idea that... You know, I tell people sometimes... My wife and I have been married 21 years. They say, wow, that's great. It really shouldn't be. It really shouldn't be. It shouldn't be that we being married for 20...

The only thing that should be great about that is I didn't die yet. I mean, what I mean is it shouldn't be like, well, you've stayed together. No, you're supposed to stay together. You don't get a cookie for doing what you're supposed to do.

You don't deserve a prize for doing what's right. You understand? It's like somebody says, I ain't never been to jail. You're not supposed to go to jail. You know, when you're bragging because you ain't never been to jail, you're not supposed to go.

You don't get a cookie for doing what's right. Sorry. I mean, it's the truth though, right? I mean, it just absolutely is. We see our nation. But you go back to Rome. Same thing. Sexual sin. Go back to France.

Same thing. It's all... It's absolute perversion and sexuality. But notice this though, beloved. That is not bringing judgment. That is the judgment. Because God has given them over to a depraved mind.

And what is the first thing a depraved mind wants? It wants lust to be fulfilled. Yes. Sodom and Gomorrah is the fulfilling of all of those lusts. And we know what happened. So we see a sexual revolution.

Now we see verse 26. For this reason. For what reason? For idolatry. It's still the same thing. It's the same thing. It's just compounding. What's the next thing? For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women.

Exchanged natural relations with those that are contrary to nature. And 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. Okay, listen. I don't want to take too far of a right turn on the subject of homosexuality. But this one passage is one of the clearest passages.

Not that homosexuality is a sin. That we know by nature. And you say, how do we know by nature? Because the body is not designed to do what it is used for in the homosexual relationship. It's just not designed for that.

So by nature we know it's wrong. We see it. 1 Corinthians 6 tells us that it's a sin. The old covenant law made it a sin punishable by death. So we know that it's against nature. But that's not the point of this passage.

The point of this passage is when God gives people up to depravity. The natural thing first is sexual sin. The next natural thing is perverting sexual sin into homosexual sin. And the homosexual sin is...

Oh, by the way, I think... And I could be wrong if you... You may prove me wrong later. But I think this is the only place in the Bible that mentions lesbianism. Because most of the time it's men and homosexual men.

1 Corinthians... I'll tell you specifically. 1 Corinthians 6. It's arsenikoites and malakoi are the Greek words there. And that is the active and passive participant in a male homosexual relationship.

That's the terms. That's how they're used. So that's why in most of your modern translations it says men who commit homosexuality. The fact that men are involved. But this references women. And it says the first thing you can see when God gives people up to a depraved mind is a sexual sin.

But then women giving up the natural relations. And going after one another. So Paul is telling us here. When we see widespread homosexuality. That is on both sides of the gender aisle. This is a picture of the judgment of God.

This isn't bringing the judgment of God. This is it. And let me tell you something. Voting Donald Trump in wasn't going to save us from this. I know some of us. I'm disappointed that it went the way it did.

But it wasn't going to save us from this. It's already here. That's all I'm saying. So don't feel like this week is so much different than last week in regard to the presidency. It was already bad. Third.