Book of Romans - Ch. 1, Vs. 16-32 (07/04/2004)

Park Meadows Church

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Romans 1 16, going back one verse to get a running start at 17.

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First of all, do we ever do anything except worship

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God or worship the devil? Greg, are you real sure?

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David, how do you stand?

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Well, it is right. We don't think of it very often,

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Joy, but everything that I'm doing, saying, planning is either to worship

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God or to worship Satan. Well, good morning.

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First of all, it's good to be back. I have heard about Greg, that he did a wonderful job, that he was nervous.

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It's good to be nervous. Romans 1 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein, therein refers to the gospel.

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Therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.

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As it is written, the just shall live by faith. Now, Joy, what does it mean, shall live by faith?

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All right. Greg, what does it mean from faith to faith? All right.

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David, can you expound upon that a little bit more? Yes. I didn't understand enough.

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Well, the gospel message progresses by word of mouth.

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You understand it by faith, that the justified man lives a more holy, useful, and excellent life than other men.

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The justified man. His life is from God.

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Greg, your life is from God, this life that you're living. His life is with God.

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He lives the life of God himself. That whatever life a justified man lives in a more excellent manner than other men, he lives that life by virtue of his faith.

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The just shall live by faith. We all are living by faith.

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Righteousness. Now, does this righteousness come from us,

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Russell? No, sir. This is an act of God.

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Does it only remove all sin, Greg?

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All right. Does this righteousness only remove all sin?

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I else did you say? All right.

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That's good. What more does it do? All right.

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Now, David, does this righteousness only remove sin? All right.

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It removes all the guilt of sin, but more than that, it bestows a right relationship on the individual.

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So, Russell, this righteousness, by the way, we're in Romans 1 .17.

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This righteousness is not just to remove all of our sin.

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If that's all it did, then there would be a void in our life. But it removes all sin and bestows upon us a right relationship with God.

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So, without this righteousness, we'd never go to heaven. It is performed by God and God alone on all of his elect.

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It has been bestowed when he first thought of us. Now, I don't know how to use something other than thought because he doesn't think as man thinks.

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He doesn't have a thought today, any tomorrow, another thought, another thought. That's God.

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But we're forced to use words to explain him. We find out about it at the time of his notification to that person of salvation.

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No one can explain to you the faith. No one can explain faith.

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We can try. We have a definition of faith. But I think it's not explained fully.

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Why is the righteousness so important, Joy? All right.

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The reason that righteousness is so important, that man doesn't have any of it.

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And we can't go to heaven without it. So, it becomes extremely important to us.

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There is not a little bit of good in everybody as the liberals would have you to believe.

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I heard that this past week. But that's not true. From faith to faith.

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Out of faith into faith. Now, it's not faith to works or works to faith.

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It's faith to faith. God used faith to bring us salvation.

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We live by faith. We die in faith. Greg, go to Hebrews 1038.

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Hebrews. When you get there, read it.

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All right. These people that are trying to keep the law. Now, David, what does that include?

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Trying to keep the law? What does that mean? All right.

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Read Hebrews 1038. Now, how could one draw back from a faith which he had nothing to do?

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He had nothing to do to receive it. He can't do anything to keep it.

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So, how can a man draw back from faith, Russell? That's right.

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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.

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All right. Yes. Lots of truth.

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For several reasons. One, we older are not involved in all the things the young people are.

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We cannot do everything that the young people can. So, we have more time to think, contemplate, meditate upon God and his attributes.

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Yes, they do. But it's a natural process for the older.

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I can't run outside anymore. So, I'm not. That's true.

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We do not have more faith than we ever had, but we do express it differently.

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We express, well, we dwell on faith more than the younger person, but they have as much faith as I do.

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That's about all I can say about it. Yes.

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We know how to rely more on God. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold or suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

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Now, very dangerous. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.

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When does that happen, David? The wrath of God is revealed right now.

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Now, maybe we cannot see it. Maybe we've grown accustomed. Maybe we think that's the way it's supposed to be.

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Who is it that's running this universe? Ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

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The wrath of God, present, meaning right now. Ungodliness, this is against God.

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It denies the very existence of God. But Russell, they're denying does not eliminate

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God. They cannot eliminate God. I'm thinking of the

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Middle East, Sudan, and all of his bunch. He is but a tool of Satan.

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And Satan is a tool of God. Unrighteousness is of men.

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This is against man. It is the denial of the rule of God.

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Greg, I cannot imagine such a thing. The denial of the rule of God.

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To deny it does not remove it, thank goodness.

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But there are people that deny the rule of God. The person that disobeys

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God's laws habitually is unrighteous.

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The state of unrighteousness of man is the natural status of man before God.

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We were just as unrighteous as Satan before God, before the

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Lord. The wrath of God.

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Greg, turn to Romans 12, 19, please. We'll learn a little bit about God here.

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Give place unto God. What's that mean, Russell? Give place unto the wrath,

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I mean. Why is it that when somebody wrongs me,

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I want to get even? Does anybody else have that problem?

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It's just natural, isn't it? Well, he told us, don't you do it.

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You leave me place for my wrath. Vengeance is mine. I will do the repaying of that individual when the time is right.

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19, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God has showed it unto them.

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Now, David, does any man have the excuse that he didn't know that God existed?

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No. Now, Joy, that's a little hard to believe when you look at some youngster in the middle of Africa, but he has put it in the heart of every man.

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Be known of God, known. God is knowable. Manifest in them.

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No one, and I mean no one has the excuse of ignorance as to the existence of God.

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Now, Greg, how do we know that all people know the existence of God?

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That's right. I was watching a documentary on the

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Aztec and the group of people in South America, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, thousands of years ago, they worshiped something.

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No different than today. Everybody worships something. Man has always worshipped something.

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Now, David, why does man have the desire to worship something? That's exactly right.

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The real has to come first. The object of the apostle was not to say that everything pertaining to God could be known by them, but you can know

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God. 1 .20. 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 that they are without excuse, the invisible things.

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Now, suppose, Fred, that you have come into this room for the very first time, and that happened sometime.

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You came in. How do you know that there was somebody here ahead of you?

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All right. Greg, how could you tell if you came into the room for the very first time, and there was no one else here, you didn't know that anybody else existed, but you came into the room, and it's as it is now.

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How could you tell someone had been here ahead of you? Same thing

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Fred said. Russell? Well, that's the answer.

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We know it by the things that are visible. Now, David, have you ever seen

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God? Then how do you know he exists? How do you know he created?

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You know, that's the only reason that we know God exists, is what he put in us.

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Yes, but that in itself is not enough. If God had not instilled in every one of us that he exists, we would not have known that he created.

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We would have think that all of this just happened, and there's lots that do, but they still know there is a

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God. One of the most profound things you can ever say or do is to know there is a

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God. That's right.

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There is his spirit in everybody, invisible.

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So by the things we see, we know that God is invisible.

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He is a spirit, but we know that he is because of everything that we see.

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We cannot see the spiritual. We say we sense this or that in the spiritual, and maybe so, but you cannot prove it.

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21, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.

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Neither were thankful, but because vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened.

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New is Ginnetsko, head knowledge, to know there is a

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God. They did not proclaim him to the people, but shut him up in their ministries.

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They gave the people in exchange for an incorruptible God, and in an image made like corruptible man.

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Now that wasn't just the old people and the Old Testament.

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Greg, is there anybody on the television or radio or by word of mouth today that is touting the corruptible

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God? Sure. The word vain means void of all power, force, or truth.

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22, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

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David, what is a fool? Their minds seek

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God nowhere but in the place where he never is found. They cannot find him.

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They will always search for him. Talking about the unsafe. But Greg, why is the world so full of unsaved people?

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Well, is it because I'm not evangelizing? Because I'm not telling people? David, why doesn't he save the world?

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The world of people. Well, that's true, and that's about the only answer you can give.

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23, and change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four -footed beasts, and creeping things.

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Changed means exchange the one only living and true

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God for images of birds, beasts, and reptiles.

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The doing of what persons know to be wrong blinds their minds, hardens their heart, and makes them more wicked than they were before.

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So we set up an idol and worship it. Nothing happens, so I come back and worship some more.

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Then I set up another idol because I can't walk that far anymore, and I worship it, and nothing happens.

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Their hearts makes them more wicked than they were before as a punishment for their sins.

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God suffers them to commit their sins and still others until they bring upon themselves an aggravated destruction.

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Now, Greg, it doesn't come according to my plan. Why? Why do

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I forget that? Somebody wrongs my family or my wife,

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I want to see the fire of God fall on him. I want to see that.

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I want to be present and see that. Well, I've never seen that, and it's a good thing, but it will fall upon them.

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24. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanliness through the lusts of their own heart to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.

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God had programmed for them the right to do evil. Did you hear that?

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They're responsible for what they're doing, but God had them programmed.

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I can't go there. I can't read the program. I don't know who is and who isn't.

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All I know is myself. 25.

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Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the

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Creator who is blessed forever. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections.

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For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.

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Lesbian and homosexuals you never find in the animal world.

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And likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust one toward another.

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Men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meat or fitting for them.

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God has told us that the people who live like this are destroying themselves.

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It is a law of his and it is not just another lifestyle.

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Now we have no trouble with all of this. We say that's true. I don't want to discuss it.

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I don't want to go there, but it exists. But I'm not going to spend your time and mine in discussing all of that.

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It's wrong. Period. And even as they did not like to retain

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God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient, not fit for man or beast.

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And even as they did not like to retain God, now they didn't have

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God, but they didn't like to retain the knowledge of God.

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Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers.

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Now this word filled, being filled with, and then he names a great list of things.

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Joy, what does the word filled mean? All right.

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This is a perfect participle, filled. Greg, tell me what does the perfect tense mean?

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The perfect tense speaks of a past completed action having present results.

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Those who had disapproved of holding God in their knowledge were completely filled with a consequence that they remained in a full condition, not filled just a little bit.

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They were full. Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud bolsters, 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 it.

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You cannot be angry and learn of God at the same time.

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Neither can you scream and chew at the same time.

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You cannot witness and hate someone at the same moment.

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It's impossible. And if you blame others for your mistakes, you must also credit others for your success.

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I want to continue with Romans, but next week I want to deviate a little bit, and we'll go to the 16th chapter of Proverbs.

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So study that, and we'll look at that next week. Yes, sure it does.

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That's right. They have denied it and convinced themselves that that's not true, and they don't read that part of the

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Bible. Just skip over that. But I have found,

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David, that we cannot tear out a leaf of the Bible and it not exist.

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Sixteen. All right, anything from anybody?

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Well, sure it is, just as anything else is.

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The disease, that's something else. When you make a visit to hell, you'll find all the diseases there.

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I hope you never make that visit. Yes, that's right.

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Absolutely. It seems so plain and open to us, and I can't help but think that there are no atheists.

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There are people that, there are not people that believe that and not know the truth.