Hello, this is Pastor Patrick Hines, and I want to press on in the book of Romans here, Romans chapter one. We left off at verse 22. We went through verse 22, but I'll go ahead and pick up there since that is a sentence. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Now, the context here is setting the stage for the blessed doctrine of justification by faith apart from works by the righteousness of Christ being imputed to our account and his cross being received by God as our judge as the full payment for all of our sins so that we are not condemned on the day of judgment and sent to hell. And in order to give a background for that blessed truth of God's grace in Jesus Christ, Paul's got to spell out the problem. The problem that the doctrine of justification is answering is sin. And although there's a lot of distortion about that these days, and there are people who have written lots of books and done a lot of talking who have missed that point and have demonstrated by missing it, missing the point that the gospel is primarily God's answer to the issue of sin, have only proven that they have an incredible penchant for missing the obvious. Think of the new perspectives on Paul and other things like that. If you've not heard of that, don't worry about it. But they think that the doctrine of justification is primarily ecclesiology. It's primarily about the church, which it's not. Obviously, you need to be justified to be a part of the communicant membership of a church. But the doctrine of justification or being saved from the wrath of God is God's answer, His gracious answer to the issue of human sinfulness. And so it's God's wrath that's being revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and the unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness because it is plain and obvious, God has revealed it, successfully revealed it to every human being in the entire world, that He's there. And we know this God, this God reveals Himself continually to us, but we suppress the truth about Him because we are in love with sin, and because we are rebellious against God, and we want to pursue whatever lusts and desires and wicked things that we know we shouldn't do, but we still want to do them anyway. Regardless of that, we do know this God in our heart of hearts, but we are running from Him. We are in rebellion against Him. And no matter how much evidence we see, no matter how many facts we see, it's not going to change our stony hearts. And so it takes a supernatural act of God's irresistible grace to change the heart of the unbeliever. And so this is simply further explaining this idea that God has real wrath, real anger, just and righteous anger against human sinfulness. And they didn't glorify him as God, nor were they thankful. We just don't want to do that because we want to sin and we want to go our own way. Verse 22 says, professing to be wise, they became fools. Every time I read verse 22, I think of evolution. We'll say that dirt became life by accident, all by itself, and that the absolutely irreducible and unspeakable complexity that we see in all the various forms of biodiversity that are all around us happened naturally by chance. That coincidence plus time created bones and veins and arteries, livers, kidneys, stomachs, digestive systems, reproductive systems, and everything else that supposedly simple forms of life, by the way, there are no simple forms of life at all, slowly but surely became more and more complicated and eventually single cell life that produces, reproduces asexually, eventually differentiated into male and female counterparts. How did that happen slowly and gradually, I wonder? No idea. Because it didn't happen. God created animals, God created man according to his kind, and we reproduce according to our kind, and that's the way it's always been. So we want to no longer be fools. And fool is not an intellectual judgment. It's not saying that men are stupid, or that their IQs aren't very high, or that they're not smart. Fool is a moral judgment. meaning somebody is just dense. They just don't get it. They refuse to believe what is obvious to everyone. And, you know, we all would be that way apart from the saving grace of God, including myself. Verse 23, because we're fools and because we're rebellious, we don't want to worship God. And so here's what we do instead. We change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. And so we tend to worship ourselves, or we worship stuff in creation, we worship anything but God. We exchange God, we exchange the glory of God for a cow, or for ourselves, for sex. for money, sports, athletic achievements, musical accomplishments, you know, whatever it might be. We exchange that, we exchange the glory of God for a bird or a four-footed animal or something that we can worship in creation. Verse 24, therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. So God looks at mankind and his sin and says, okay, if that's the way you guys wanna go, go ahead. And God will lift his hand of restraint and let us go our own way and let us pursue the lusts and the sins and the depravity that we want to pursue. And the result of that is that we are unclean and we're even more wicked and more sinful and more evil. The wicked and evil desires of our hearts were given over to them. and we dishonor our bodies among ourselves. Anywhere you see the human body being disrespected or mistreated or being abused or being used for unlawful things, that's because there's apostasy there. There's a human being that has no interest in God, no interest in knowing God, no interest in submitting to the lordship of God, and really a person who has no interest in joy, no interest in walking in happiness and blessedness and peace. God gives them over to uncleanness, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. So where you see the human body, disrespected, discarded, abused, cut up, that's where you see apostasy from God, the turning away from God. Because men exchange the truth for a lie. Men willfully do this. They exchange the truth of God for a lie. And they will worship and serve the creature. They'll worship and serve things that are made of matter, things that are not God. rather than the God that made everything. It's such an odd thing. If an artist makes a painting, we don't praise the painting for how beautiful the painting is, right? You praise the artist. Wow, what a beautiful painting that you made. Wouldn't it be odd to see a whole group of people just complementing a painting? And it's like, no, the painting isn't a person. The painting can't help you with anything. The painting doesn't have feelings. Okay, the painting doesn't have any inherent intrinsic glory. It is the creation of the artist. You praise the artist. Okay, if someone writes a wonderful novel, we don't praise the pencil that they used to write it. You praise the author, right? And yet that's how foolish man is. We want to praise and worship the stuff God made rather than the one that made it. We want to worship and praise cows and ourselves and praise and worship and live for things in creation, rather than the creator that made all those things. That's foolish. That's rebellious. That's evil. It's wicked. And it goes on there in verse 26 through 27, a text of scripture that is not controversial. It's not hard to understand at all. It's easy. It's an easy passage. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. The Greek phrase para fousam, what is against nature, talking about lesbianism, homosexuality. Verse 27, likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error, which was due. So men burning in their lust for one another, that is homosexuality. So the desires for it, burning with lust for another, and committing what is the acts themselves, which is not one flesh. Men and men cannot become one flesh. Only a man and a woman can become one flesh, because two men don't have the proper equipment to do that. Now, who would ever have thought I'd have to say that? But apparently we have to say that these days because people are confused about it. But the fact of the matter is you don't even need to own a Bible to understand why this is wrong. What this is pointing out is that the human apostasy and falling away and turning away from God is so comprehensive, is so bad that human beings will even do this. They will even do what is against the created order itself, what is against nature itself. Because the body parts are designed to function a certain way, and it does not work that way. So homosexuality is simply one very obvious, very clear example of human rebellion against God. It's a rebellion not just against God, it's a rebellion against what is obvious from the design of creation itself. Okay? And that's an important thing to recognize. That's why it's put the way it is. They even do this. Not only do they worship and serve creatures and hippopotami and alligators and birds and four-footed animals, not only do they worship that and do things that are that foolish, they even violate the created order itself with their sexual appetites. And the desires and the actions are named and condemned. And so it's very important that we recognize that's a very clear, plain, obvious condemnation of homosexuality. There is absolutely nothing in this passage about a temple, temple prostitutes or anything like this. This is just talking about excessive lust or anything like that, or a temple prostitution, things like, where's that in the passage? These are very general statements. People have come up with a whole array of interpretations to get around the plain meaning of the passage, but that's not gonna work because the passage stands and it's very easy to interpret and it's very easy to understand with those with eyes to see it and those with ears to hear it. Verse 28, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. So the picture here is pretty bleak, but in all these videos, as we're leading up to the glorious transition in Romans chapter three to the gospel of God's free grace in Christ, what is remarkable about the book of Romans and what's remarkable about the truth of God, the only truth of God that we have in the world, which is the Bible, as revealed to us by God through his apostles and prophets, preserved providentially pure for us in our Bibles, God justifies, saves, and loves the people that do this stuff. There are people who have been engaged in every form of depravity you can imagine, from bestiality to homosexuality, pederasty, and everything else, adultery, fornication, covetousness, theft, murder, idolatry. Jesus dies for them. God loves them, calls out to them, repent, come to me, I will give you rest. So if you're one of those people, if you're weary of this, if you're tired of a ruined conscience, if you're tired of your body being dishonored constantly by all the sin, there's peace with God to be had through our Lord Jesus Christ. God is calling you turn away from death and embrace life. Turn away from hell below and embrace the Son of God, the Lord Jesus. Trust that His righteousness will get you into heaven and that His cross can forgive you of everything you've ever done. We've talked to people occasionally who believe that they're too bad. There's no way that you'd ever want me in your church. There's no way I could ever go. I've done so much. You have no idea the stuff that I've done. And I say, welcome to the club. Moses murdered someone and buried him in the sand. Paul was a murderer. David, an adulterer and a murderer. God has saved some pretty surly people through the years and he can always save one more. You're never too far gone. You're never so lost that God cannot save you. But as we read through Romans 1 and 2 and the early part of Romans 3, as we read all these indictments and all of this wrath and anger that God has and the giving over of human beings to their depraved minds and their idolatry and their sin and their wickedness, just remember, the whole tone of the book is going to change in Romans 3, 21. Jesus dies for the people that do all these things. He dies for the backbiters, the sexually immoral, the covetous, the malicious, the murderers, those that promote strife, deceit, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who even while they were doing all that, they knew, they knew that made them worthy of hellfire. God will accept even them if they repent and believe the gospel. Jesus loves them, dies for them. It's an amazing thing. He dies for and loves the people that do all of this. and his heart goes out to the world, repent, turn, and I will give you rest. I will give you the righteousness of my son. I will impute it and charge it and credit it legally to your account before me, and I will accept his shed blood on the cross as the full payment for your sins, and therefore, no charge of wrongdoing can ever, will ever be brought against you, because I have loved you, sent my son to die for you, and I will receive you to myself. But you must repent and believe in him. If you continue on in sin, if you continue on in unrepentant sin, then you're going to go to hell. That's the truth. God's reaching out his arms to the world. Come to me, repent of your sin and believe in the gospel and I will save you. That's God's promise. As Jesus said in John 6 47, he who believes in me has everlasting life. Thank you for watching and listening.