Reprobates and Trembling Nations - Part 1 — Carter Conlon

Reprobates and Trembling Nations: Romans 1

Romans chapter 1, please, if you have your Bible with you. Romans chapter 1, I'm going to speak this morning on reprobates and trembling nations. Reprobates and trembling nations. Father, I thank you, God, for the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

I couldn't do this if you hadn't called me to do it, Lord. I couldn't speak it if you hadn't given it to me. I'd have no power to deliver it. I'm asking you, Lord, that you animate me, quicken me. I'm asking the Holy Spirit to grip my mind and my emotions.

I'm asking, Lord, that what comes from this vessel would simply be an expression of the heart of God. I yield myself to this purpose today. I'm asking, Lord, that you might be lifted up and glorified.

Your people might be edified. I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Reprobates and trembling nations. Romans chapter 1. Begin to read it. Verse 15. Words of the Apostle Paul. So as much as is in me, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.

For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

The Wrath of God Against Suppressed Truth

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so they are without excuse. Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, and neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator, who was blessed forever.

Amen. For this cause, God gave them up unto vile affections. For even their women did change the natural use unto that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another.

Men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meat. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.

Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Now beloved, it's been said that there's no deeper darkness than that which comes upon a people who once knew, and once walked in the light, only to turn away from it.

A Nation That Rejects Its Christian Foundation

I'm afraid for this country, folks, I have to be honest, I have a trembling in my heart. A country that rose out of obscurity to such incredible greatness in such a short time, only to cast off the very foundation that gave America the greatness that she has enjoyed up to this point in time in history.

A friend of mine was invited to lecture at a university in China, in Beijing, and at the university the professors have done a cultural study, and they brought to him an interesting question. And they said, we acknowledge and we believe that what made America great was the principles of Christianity upon which it was founded.

They said, we've studied this and we believe this to be true. They said, our question to you is how can we as a society incorporate the principles of Christianity without the religion? An amazing question.

People who are outside of the kingdom of God have looked in and seen this incredible rise. The intellect that God gave to this country, the ability to achieve, all God given, because at least in great measure it was founded upon the principles of Christ and the Word of God.

The Single Eye and the Light of God

Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6, verses 22 and 23, the light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, the whole body shall be full of light. If there's a singleness of focus as it is for the Christian person who's here today.

If you truly do want the Christ of the Bible, if you do want the heart of this Christ of the Bible, if you want the ways of the Christ of this Bible, the scripture says your whole body will be full of light because God is the one who determines where the light comes to.

It is he in the beginning who said, let there be light. If he does not speak light, then all there is is an accumulation of religious knowledge which brings a person or a people into a darkness that's much deeper than any other darkness that you can find around you.

He says in verse 23, but if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. Think of when Christ came to his own people, chosen by him to bring glory to his name in the earth.

They had the scriptures, they had the prophets, they had the books of Moses. They had literally the word of God that gave clear identification of the Messiah that was going to come into their midst. But the light that was in them, because it was intermixed with a corruption as it is of the human nature, the fallen human nature, turned to darkness.

And boasting as it is of their savior, their God, they ended up crucifying him. How much deeper can darkness get? And that's exactly what happens when people sit and hear the word of God, but the word of God does not change them.

They do not embrace what they're hearing. How great is that darkness who comes out of people who once knew the truth, but they did not choose to walk in the pathway that God had clearly laid out before them.

Holding the Truth Without Yielding to It

Romans chapter 1 and verse 18, he says, The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and the unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. I can't think today of the number of places where people are holding Bibles as you are today.

The number of pulpits were perhaps some at least where this Bible is still open, where the word of God is in some measure spoken about. And they hold this truth in their hands, but they will not yield to the truth that they hold.

And folks, when that's the state of a person or a church or a nation, there's a darkness that comes upon it. A darkness deeper than anything that they've ever known before. Verse 23 says, See, when people will not yield to the word of God, when they will not do or walk in the path that God very clearly lays out before his people.

It's not complicated, folks. You just have to want to do it. You simply have to want to embrace it. It's not complicated unless you don't want the pathway of Christ through this world. And those who don't want the Christ of the Bible change his image.

That's all they can do. They have to take Christ and they have to make him, they have to change him from the uncorruptible God to an image like, as Paul says, to corruptible man. Men whose words don't mean anything.

All he did doesn't really mean what he says. It's not quite as severe as that. He doesn't mean that he's going to judge these things. This is exactly what he means or perhaps they'll say that was just an overstatement of the author that wrote this particular book.

It's changing the image of God into something or someone who agrees with their distorted view of truth. We're living at that hour right now when this is happening in many places that have been called the house of God.

Distorting God Into an Image We Can Control

There's a distorted image of God. There's cultural more than anything else in some cases. Or not only corruptible man but into an image like under birds. And I was meditating on this. I said, God, you've got to help me understand this.

What does it mean to change the image of God into a bird? Here's what the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart. A bird is something you can admire from afar off or the other alternative is you can captivate it for your own enjoyment.

And that's how many people are viewing Christ and Christianity. It's something to be admired from a distance. Well, that's exciting. It's nice that these wonderful words come from the Lord. Or to captivate this image as it is of God and to just take it home for one's enjoyment.

Not to ever be yielded to it. Or beasts. That speaks about...