so Look at Thursday morning to you. Today we're reading the first few verses of Acts chapter 20, and then jumping to the book of Romans and reading Romans chapters 1 to 4. I want to zero in on a section of Romans chapter 1. I heard the story the other day, just an absolutely heart-wrenching story, about a dad who has lost complete custody of his children. One in particular is a 12-year-old boy, and the reason he lost custody of them is that the wife wants to have the boy transition to this whole gender thing about trying to transition to another gender, wants the boy to transition to a girl. She wants to put him on puberty blockers and chemical castration and all this kind of stuff. to try to turn this boy into a girl, which is of course ultimately futile, because the boy will always be biologically a boy, no matter what society says, no matter what they do to him surgically, and all the rest of that kind of thing. But the dad objected to it, the dad protested. The wife left, this all started in Texas, the state of Texas. The wife divorced the husband, she got enough custody of the kids to be able to pursue this, she planted the whole thought in the boy's mind, and all the rest of this kind of stuff. She eventually went to California because Texas was legally blocking the ability to do these things. She appealed to the court to allow her to move to California so she could pursue this, and the court allowed her to do it, thinking that she wouldn't, whatever their excuse was. Anyway, the court allowed her to do it. She gets to California. California upholds her right to pursue this destruction of her son over the objection of the dad. If I recall correctly, the irony of it all is that the couple utilized IVF, and it was the dad who's biologically the father, and the mother wasn't even biologically the mother, I guess, if I recall correctly. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. The point is that the courts in California have completely given the green light to this mom to go ahead and ruin the boy's life. And then, furthermore, because they deemed the father to be such a negative influence over the child because of this, they limited him to having supervised visits with the child, which of course the dad, he said, I couldn't go along with this. So in essence, the dad has basically lost the ability to interact with and influence his children because of the mother's wicked perversion of thinking and doing what she wants to do to the son. Now here's the thing. Look at this. You've got a child whose mind is messed up. It's messed up because of the mother's mind is absolutely corrupted and perverted. But not only that, you've got a legal system where there are lawmakers who enacted laws that said that this was okay. There are judges who have upheld those laws, and not just in one state, but in multiple states. And this... sane people hear of this and scratch our heads and we say, how in the world can anybody think that this is good, that this makes sense? How? Well, it doesn't make sense, and here's why it happens. Romans 1. In Romans 1, God says because people who knew God, they had enough awareness of the existence of God, they didn't honor him, they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. then there is this progression of degeneration that follows, where they profess to be wise, become fools, and gave themselves up to idolatry, and then verse 24 says God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. And furthermore, For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions to do all the behavior of lesbianism and homosexuality, in verses 26 and 27. It is a consequence of God giving a people over to these things. And then verse 28, even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind. Why is there so much incredibly debased thinking that supposes it is okay to do these kinds of things to children, that even thinks that it is possible for somebody to choose to be a gender other than what they are, or to choose to be no gender, and so forth. What kind of thinking is this? Well, it's debased thinking, and the more it proliferates in a society, the more evidence it is of God's judgment on that society. And I don't say that lightly, because as you well know, We are living in a society today where it is perfectly acceptable by the powers that be for all kinds of debauched behavior to take place, and for all kinds of destructive thinking to hold sway, even to the mutilation of children, Oh, what kind of crazy thinking? It's debased thinking that is the result of God giving a people over to this. When it is sanctioned from the top down, it will then proliferate throughout the culture, and it spirals downward from there. What we need to pray for is that God, in his mercy, would send a great awakening to this land where souls would be converted, sinners would be converted, spiritually dead people would be made alive so that this crazy, mixed-up, destructive thinking can be corrected before it is socially, societally too late. May God have mercy. And so, our Father and our God, we do thank you for the revelation of your Word, because it gives us insight into what's going on, even in our own culture. But Father, we do pray that you would please be merciful to this land and send forth a great spiritual awakening, because that really is the only answer in our day. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Thursday. I hope the Lord will bless you in it. Good day.