Introduction: In our series on the end-times, we chose to begin in the book of Romans because Romans gives us God’s calendar of events – past, present, and future. In today’s message, we will understand the past from God’s perspective. More specifically, we will see the making and unmaking of nations throughout history. I know y’all are wondering – what does this have to with the end-times? Revelation 21 25 “Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.” Revelation 22:2 “In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” In other words, there will be different nations in the New Heavens and the New Earth, but they will not be like the nations today. Today’s message is titled “Mapping History – 3.”
Romans 1 (pages 1732-33) 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;”
Context: Last weekend, we looked at the division between the Gentile background Christians and the Jewish background Christians in the church in Rome in the first century. It was very much possible that the number of Gentile background believers was growing compared to the Jewish background believers. In fact, this was probably becoming the case more and more in other places as well. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul was writing to all believers in all places and all times to understand how their salvation was grounded in the Old Testament but not Judaism. At the same time, this did not mean that God was through with Israel, ethnic Jewish people. That’s where Romans 9-11 comes in, but that’s for a later time. The Book of Romans was written by Paul to educate the Gentile background dominated church, which he knew would be the future of the church. Last weekend, we saw how he taught them about cosmology, the creation of the world. In this message, we will see how he taught them about history. Why history? Maybe because the Gentiles had the wrong conception of the past, or they were trying to create their own version of history based on their past religions. So, Paul was schooling them from the Old Testament as to their past. In fact, he is schooling all of us as well. Imagine this lesson as steps going down:
First Step: KNOWLEDGE
Romans 1 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
Maybe, the Gentile background believers were wondering about the fate of their ancestors who never had the opportunity to hear about Christ. Paul reminds them that they had suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. If we are to benefit from this as well, we may have to set aside some false learning from our times: we not only have to abandon the billions of years hypothesis, but we also have to abandon the ape-men and caveman narrative. I’ve covered this in a previous message titled “Ascent.” When Charles Darwin wrote The Descent of Man, his arguments were based on anatomical, embryological, and behavioral evidence, not fossils.Until his death in 1882, no fossils for non-human or pre-human ancestors of human beings had been found. He blamed it on the lack of fossil research. Bottom line: Human and primate fossils are extremely rare (See David Menton and Marvin Lubenow). What about ape-men fossils? From combining bones of apes and humans (Piltdown Man in Natural History Museum in London with the skull of a human and jaw of an orangutan, with the teeth filed down. It was left there for 50 years.), claims that ape skeleton is human, and vice versa. Unfortunately, lots of pictures drawn by artists also misrepresent the facts. What about Cavemen (Homo Habilis – 1.4-2.4 million years, Homo Erectus – 144,000 years, Homo Sapiens – 200,000 years ago)? Basic differences: large brows in adults and wide nasal cavities. DNA evidence shows that we are the same. Fossil records show close association and integration with modern humans. Archaeological evidence shows that their behavior and thoughts are human.
The book of Job actually mentions cavemen and talks down about them! Keep in mind that his civilized friends came to visit him and sat in a Circle around him to weep with him and encourage him in his time of grief. Job 30 1 “But now they mock at me, men younger than I, whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock…3 They are gaunt from want and famine, fleeing late to the wilderness, desolate and waste, 4 Who pluck mallow (tiny plants that were edible) by the bushes, And broom tree roots for their food. 5They were driven out from among men, they shouted at them as at a thief. 6 They had to live in the clefts of the valleys, In caves of the earth and the rocks. 7 Among the bushes they brayed, Under the nettles (little plants that have stinging hairs that cause irritation) they nestled. 8 They were sons of fools, yes, sons of vile men; They were scourged from the land. 9And now I am their taunting song; Yes, I am their byword.” So, yes, there were cavemen in the past, but, no, we didn’t evolve from cavemen. In fact, they were cavemen because they made bad decisions and were driven away from civilized society. They were the ones who taunted Job when he was down.
Civilizations did not evolve over a long period of time. They sprang up not very much after the Great Flood (2350BC) and the Dispersion after the Tower of Babel incident (2250BC). I’ve covered this before – Sumerians (Some Apples Bananas And Peaches – Sumerian AkkadianBabylonian Assyrian Persian) – 2230BC; Egyptians – 2180BC; Indians – 2070BC; Chinese – 2070BC; Peru (Casma Valley – couple of hundred years after the Great Pyramid – after 2000BC). These were not from primitive to advanced. In fact, they were the opposite. Great Pyramid – “precisely aligned with true north within 3/60 of a degree” see Don Landis, “The Genius of Ancient Man.” I’ve been inside and there are over a million stones, averaging 2 to 15 tons, heaviest about 80 tons. There are no tools!
Here’s Paul’s lesson from history for the Gentile-background believers – These nations were built by God – Romans 1:19 “because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.” God founded these nations – Acts 17 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
Unfortunately, throughout history peoples, nations, and civilizations have individually and collectively rebelled against God. In turn God’s wrath came upon them. By the way, some people think that God’s wrath comes in big disasters. That may be true but not necessarily. When we read Romans 1, we see that God’s wrath is seen when He gives up. When after we continue to reject Him and refuse to obey Him and resolve to do what we think is right, there comes a point when God gives up.
Second Step: REBELLION
21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, What’s more? nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Application: Do you think in America we have become UNGRATEFUL, FUTILE, and FOOLISH? We need to remember that this nation was founded upon Biblical values; that this nation has been blessed by God through the years; that this nation is standing today because God’s hand has been upon us.
Step Three: IDOLATRY
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
Background: When people refuse to glorify the Creator, God calls them “fools.” God does not debate with the atheist. Adrian Rogers would say “God only gives one half of one verse to the atheist – the fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God.’” If a human being refuses to believe in God, it does not mean he doesn’t believe in anything. They will find something to believe. NATURE ABHORS A VACCUM. G.K. Chesterton once said, “When we cease to worship God, we do not worship nothing, we worship anything.”
People all over the world worship all kinds of creatures. They worship bugs, snakes, cows, trees, rivers, mountains. In Egypt they used to worship Khepri, the scarab beetle. It is a dung beetle. It roles the dung down a hole in the ground and lays its eggs in it. Then the newborns crawl out of the ground. So they worship it as the God of self-creation. You remember the plagues that God sent against Egypt – swarms of flies (4th plagues) were beetles.
Someone might say, “In America we don’t worship idols.” Are you sure? Anytime we have something that we love more, fear more, and value more than God – it is an IDOL.
In fact, human beings take their worst vices and make them god. Alcohol – God Bacchus; Sex – Sacred Prostitution.
For e.g. Can you ever turn on TV without being bombarded by either of those two.
Step Four: SEXUAL IMMORALITY
24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Background: “God gave them up” means “God shut them up to the consequences of their sins.” God’s wrath does not have to come in a storm or an earthquake or a tsunami. Sometimes it comes in God allowing us to self-destruct.
Application: Listen carefully – when we sin and deliberately sin, don’t wait for the hammer to drop. Sometimes God’s wrath is not in striking us but in turning us over to ourselves. Growing up my biggest fear was not that God would put His hand on me if I sinned. My biggest fear was that God would remove His hands off me.
What did God give them over to? Listen to verse 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,
Background: The word for “lust” is epithumia which means “passionate desire for forbidden pleasure.” God gave them over to passionate desires for forbidden pleasures to dishonor their bodies. Meaning: God gave them over to sexual self-destruction. God did not give them over to the sin of anger, bitterness, envy, or hatred. He gives them over to the sin of sexual self-destruction. Why?
Listen carefully: The way a person acts sexually tells a lot about what’s going on internally. Sex is really a type of worship. It is a desire to be one with someone; to share our deepest feelings with someone; and to find the deepest satisfaction in someone. Only a marriage relationship can give us that. If you go outside of marriage, it doesn’t work.
When we reject God, He removes the restraints and people try to sleep around and have multiple sexual encounters and one-night stands and they come back empty. God is pulling back the covers to show the emptiness that is in our hearts without Him.
Application: Beware of the sin of sexual self-destruction. Your friends might say – “that’s not really sex,” “it’s not a big deal,” or “you’re just getting to know each other.” With every encounter, you are revealing the emptiness of your hearts. Only God can satisfy your longings. Only God can fulfill your cravings. Only God can meet your deepest needs.
Step Five: HOMOSEXUALITY
26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 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.
We are talking about homosexuality. Why did God give them up to this vile passion? Because human beings have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, God has removed the restraint and they have exchanged the truth of their bodies for a lie. My identity comes from God. He is the measuring stick. Remove God and our fundamental identity is gone.
In 1934, an Oxford anthropologist named J.D. Unwin published a book titled “Sex and Culture” in which he studied and analyzed the sexual behaviors of 86 cultures through 5,000 years of history. Unwin was not a Christian, which he admitted, saying, “I offer no opinion about rightness or wrongness.” But this is what he found: “In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on pre-nuptial and post-nuptial continence.” Meaning: when a society becomes promiscuous instead of a man and woman having sex only in the confines of marriage, it’s a matter of time before that society will shrivel and die. After studying the Romans, Greeks, Sumerians, Moors, Babylonians, Anglo-Saxons, and many others, he wrote, “The evidence is that in the past, a class has risen to a position of political dominance because of its great energy, and that, at the period of its rising, its sexual regulations have always been strict. It has retained its energy and dominated the society so long as its sexual regulations have demanded both pre-nuptial and post-nuptial continence…I know of no exception to these rules.”
Unwin’s warning is especially applicable today as sexual immorality is being celebrated by some and even justified by so called pastors. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for such sins. Lest some say that, per Ezekiel 16:49, this was simply “pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy,” I suggest reading the next verse – Ezekiel 16:50 “And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit.” Not only does the Old Testament stands firm on this, but the New Testament affirms this as well. Among many other passages, Jude 7 confirms “as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after unnatural desire, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”
No hermeneutical gymnastics can justify this last step on the way down (Romans 1).
Bottom line: God loves everyone and so should we. But love that condones sexual immorality, especially of the worst kind, is not love at all. Imagine a doctor who refuses to inform a patient of a sickness that could be fatal if untreated. That’s not love. It’s a crime. God not only informed us of our sickness of Sin, but because of his love for us, he also sent his Son as our cure. John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Sep Six: SELF DESTRUCTION
28And 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; 29being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30backbiters, haters of God, violent. . .
Background: Now we come to the final chapter of any culture or civilization. Paul gives us a list of 24 specific sins – the worst and most heinous sins.
- People know they are doing wrong.
- They do wrong anyways.
- People know what others are doing is wrong.
- They approve them anyways.
- It is the complete loss of all sense of right and wrong. God has now given them over.
- It is now Hell on Earth.
- If you look at the final chapters of some of those ancient civilizations, they were marked by all these vices.
Application: People ask me – Are we under judgment in America? To the contrary, we are ready for revival. How does this tie with end of times? There is coming a judgment of nations in the future. Nothing will go unpunished.
Friedrich Schiller, a German poet, philosopher, historian once wrote, “The history of the world is the judgment of the world.”