Ron Dunn Podcast - Where Is History Heading?

Episode Date: August 13, 2014

You are listening to the Ron Dunn Podcast. Ron Dunn is a well-known author and was one of the most in-demand preachers during the latter part of the 20th century. He led Bible studies all over the United States, Europe, and South Africa. For more information and resources from Ron Dunn, please visit rondunn.com. Would you open your Bibles with me, please, to the book of Romans, chapter 1. Book of Romans, chapter 1. And I want to begin reading with verse 14.

And I'll read through the end of the chapter, actually. I will not read every verse, but nearly every verse. Romans chapter 1, beginning with verse 14. When we get to verses 16, 17, and 18 and 19, I want you to pay particular attention to the repetition of the little word,-O-R, for. I was mentioned this morning, I was reading from the NIV. I'm not tonight. Unfortunately, it is not the nearly infallible version

because for some reason they leave out that little word so often, and yet that is a key word that links this passage together as you'll see as we progress tonight in the message. So keep your eye open for the repetition of that word for. We'll begin reading in verse 14. Paul says, I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. Hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you who also are at Rome. The reason that I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are at Rome, that's the force of the word for,

for I am not ashamed of the gospel. The reason I'm not ashamed of the gospel is because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world, His eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things He has made. So they are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their

thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions, for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.

And in the same way also the men, giving up the natural function of women, were consumed with passion one for another. Men committed shameless acts with men, and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done

until they were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness. And then the apostle goes on and gives a catalog of all of the wickedness with which they were filled. And he comes to the conclusion in verse 32, they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, yet they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.

Five hundred years before Christ was born, another miraculous birth took place on the far eastern western side of the then settled world in a little town there was a miracle and that miraculous birth 500 years before Christ was born, determined the kind of world into which Jesus Christ was born, and determined the kind of world into which you and I have been born and live today. That miracle occurred in a little town by the name of Athens. And in Athens, five hundred years before the birth of Christ, there was born the Greek civilization. Bertrand Russell, in his History of Western Philosophy, says that there is

nothing in all of history that is so surprising and is so difficult to explain as that Greek miracle. Because at a time when all the other civilizations of the world had collapsed and were in dust, suddenly this little town of Athens gave birth to the greatest civilization the world has ever known, the Greek civilization. What was so miraculous about it is that this civilization didn't take hundreds and hundreds of years to develop, but it seemed to come forth from the womb of history full grown and fully developed. And the accomplishments of that Greek civilization are with us to this very day. They actually, for all practical purposes, invented mathematics. They invented philosophy. They wrote the first poetry. They

wrote the first novels. They were the first to write history as literature as opposed to simple annals or journals. Their achievements in art and architecture have never been surpassed and rarely equaled, and they are still the standard by which art and literature and architecture are judged today. They were the ones who came up with the idea of straight line reasoning and thinking. Deductive thinking from general premises was an invention of the Greeks. The Aristotle line of thinking that there is a logical, rational line in which to think and in which to figure, was an innovation of the Greek mind. They perfected the alphabet into a Roman script that you and I still use today. As a matter of fact, the truth is that everything that you and

I today take for granted so much in the way that we think and in the measures by which we judge what is good and what is bad were categories that they came up with so long ago in that little town of Athens. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Well, preacher, to be honest with you, didn't come tonight for a history lesson. That's one of my unfavorite subjects. And could you get on with the message? What's the purpose of all of this?

Well, there is a purpose. Because, you see, the world, as you know, is divided into the East and the West. And we are the West. And we are the inheritors of that Greek civilization. As a matter of fact, the flesh of 20th century America hangs on the skeletal system of that Greek civilization. We think and act like we do today in the West because of what they did in Athens all those thousands of years ago. The way we reason, the way we figure, the way we argue has been determined by us, by that Greek civilization.

For instance, it's very difficult for us to understand the Eastern mind. Have you noticed that, especially when it comes to diplomatic relations? Why is it that it's so hard for we in the West to negotiate and understand those in the East? Well, the reason is that we think differently. In the West, the Greeks taught us to think in straight line logic. One leads to two, leads to three, leads to four. A leads to B, leads to C, leads to D. Straight line logic. That's the way Aristotle taught us. But in the East, they don't think that way. They don't think in straight lines. They think in circles.

They go from one to six, back to three. They go from A to H back to I and over again to Z. They don't think the same way as we do. They don't reason the same way as we do. That's why it's difficult for the East and West to ever get together because we come from a different mode of civilization. And you and I are the inheritors of that Greek culture. If you were to pick up the American culture today and look on the bottom of it, you'd find stamped, made in Greece. Well, you say, well, that's a little bit more interesting, but still not enough to keep me here.

Well, there's something else you need to know about the Greeks. They were the first ones to ever create their gods in their own image. That was something new. No other civilization had ever done that before. Do you remember in high school when you were studying Egypt and Egyptian history and Egyptian religion, do you remember the picture of their gods they had, those weird looking things? The gods of the Egyptians, for instance, were like mutants.

They were like hybrids. They were inhuman, unhuman type of things. You might have one of their gods would be, had the body of a man with the head of a bull. Or there was one god that had the body of a woman with the head of an eagle and the wings of an eagle. And all of their gods were nightmarish type of things. And other civilizations, they worshiped things made of wood and animals and stars and creatures that were unhuman and nightmarish. But when the Greeks came along, they created their gods in their own image. that were unhuman and nightmarish. But when the Greeks came along,

they created their gods in their own image because the Greeks believed that they were descended from the gods. And if you see pictures of their gods, you'll see the finest specimens of human beings. The men, physically, absolutely, they were the Adonis of that day. The women, beautiful. That were their

gods. They created their gods in their own image. You see, Socrates said, Know thyself, not know thy God. The Greeks were the ones who made man the measure of all things. With the Greek civilization, man became the center and the heart of the universe, you see. And we became a man-centered civilization. And we began to worship the creature more than the creator. You see, this is who Paul is talking about partially. What you have in chapter 1 of Romans is God's view of history. And it's not like the history you'll read in the school books.

And he comes down to explain some of this history. And notice what he says there in the 21st verse and 22nd verse, 23rd verse. He's talking about these people originally exchanged the true God for a false God. And verse 23, and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being, or birds, or four-footed animals, or reptiles. So you see, God, through the apostle Paul, is talking about part of the generation, part of those pagans were your ancestors and my ancestors. We were the ancestors of those who sat down and I are to understand what's happening in our world

today, I think we must understand what Paul is talking about in Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1 is just as important to us as is Genesis chapters 1 and 2. If you didn't have Genesis chapters 1 and 2, you wouldn't't have Genesis chapters 1 and 2, you wouldn't understand what all the fuss is about. But those chapters give to us the story of the fall of man and what went wrong with creation. And having that understanding, now we can understand why God has been acting

as He had throughout all the centuries. And so when Paul comes and he writes his greatest theological treaties to the Romans, and I think it is significant that he addresses this particular letter to the Romans, you see, and so he writes to them, and what he's giving us is a picture of pagan civilization and Western civilization to this very day. Now, you know, as I began to study this, the amazing thing that came to me was I discovered that men and women were not originally, well, I'm going to put it another way. Well, let's look at these pagans

anyway. Here's what Paul is saying. He's writing to these Romans, and he says, now I'm very anxious to preach the gospel to you. Now, why is Paul so anxious to preach the gospel? Well, he says in verse 16, he said, I'm not ashamed to preach this gospel. And the reason that I'm not ashamed to preach the gospel is because it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. And the reason that it is the power of God unto everyone who believes is because that in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. And that's what saves men. That's what saves women. And when the gospel of Christ is preached,

the reason people are saved is because when you preach the gospel of Christ, the righteousness of God is made available to men and women, and it is revealed, and they embrace the gospel, and suddenly they are made righteous in the presence of God. And we all accept that, don't we, that when the gospel is preached and when the gospel was and suddenly they are made righteous in the presence of God. And we all accept that, don't we, that when the gospel is preached and when the gospel was revealed in Jesus, that the righteousness of God, the way to be right with God, that's a good way to describe

righteousness, God's way of being right with Him was revealed to man. But did you realize there was something else revealed at the same time? Look at verse 18. For, same word, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness. Now, here is the thing that surprised me as I got into this passage of Scripture. I've always assumed that the wrath of God was something reserved for the future, you know. I mean, one of these days, God is going to say that's enough, and He's going to ring down the curtain on this whole business, and the trump is going to sound, and the dead in Christ are going to be raised. And all of those things are going to happen. And then men are going to stand in the presence of God before the throne of God, and the wrath and judgment of God is going to be poured out upon men. And so we preach, flee the wrath that is to come. And I just always assume that one of these days in the future,

the wrath of God is going to be revealed. But Paul says right here the wrath of God has already been revealed. That the wrath of God is not a future prospect, it is a present reality. That at the same time the righteousness of God is revealed in the preaching of the gospel, so the wrath of God is also revealed. You see, both of those are present tense. So you can read it like this. For the righteousness of God stands revealed

and the wrath of God stands revealed. In other words, there is a sense tonight in which you and I are living under one of these stands revealed. In other words, there is a sense tonight in which you and I are living under one of these two things. We are either living tonight under the righteousness of God because we have by faith embraced Christ, or we are living under the wrath of God. The wrath of God is not some future event. The wrath of God is already here. We are right now living under the wrath of God, and understanding this is going to explain a lot of things as we'll see as we progress. Now, I know that there is going to be a future, you see, cataclysmic event. I mean,

there is going to be that final judgment. There is going to be that final standing before God and receiving judgment. But that will simply be the last court of the session, or the last session of the court. The truth of the matter is, court's been in session all along. As a matter of fact, Jesus said in John chapter 3, He who believes on me is not condemned, but he who believes not is what? Condemned when? Already, already condemned. Second Corinthians chapter 2, over there in verses 14 and 15, Paul talks about

the gospel of Christ, and he says, it is an aroma of life to some, an aroma of death to others. Did you realize that a legitimate response to the preaching of the gospel is death? Just as much as is life. When you preach the gospel, it brings life to some. Why? Because they embrace Jesus Christ. But it brings death to others. Why? Because they reject Him. And so every one of us tonight is living either under the righteousness of God

or we're living under the wrath of God. Someone said to me, but preacher, if the wrath of God had already come, we would have repented and everything would be different. Oh, no, no, not at all. The wrath of God does not make men better. It makes them worse. Hell is not a rehabilitation center, folks. You turn over to Revelation, and it talks about the fact that when God starts pouring out His judgment, it says that men still would not repent.

And so we look around and we say, why, my goodness, if the wrath of God had already been poured out, well, then all of the ungodliness would have been stopped. Oh, no, the wrath all of the ungodliness would have been stopped. Oh, no. The wrath of God increases ungodliness, as we will see as we progress. Now, why has God revealed His wrath from heaven? He tells us why in verse 19. Why has He done this? For what can be known about God

is plain to them. Now remember, he's talking about who we call pagans, the heathen, back in the ancient days. What can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things He has made, so they are without excuse, for though they knew God. Well, I didn't know they knew God. My idea of the pagans and of the heathen way back yonder was the fact these poor creatures didn't know God.

That was their problem. They didn't know God. That was their problem. They didn't know God. Oh, no. The Bible says at the very beginning when God created man, even these pagans, oh, they knew God. They knew God. It's strong language. He says, because what can be known about God is plain to them. I mean, it's plain. It's obvious because God has shown it to them. Every since creation, His eternal power and Godhead are, even though they're invisible, yet they are seen through the things He has made. No one is born an atheist.

You have to get there on your own. Because when God created man, He created man with the capacity to know God, with a conscience that seeks after God. And the Bible says these people knew God so that they are without excuse. Well, how could they know God? Well, it's plain. You go around and you look outside and you see the things that He has made. Look at a blade of grass. Look at the design on a butterfly's plain. You go around and you look outside and you see the things that He has made. Look at a blade of grass. Look at the design on a butterfly's wing. Look at the petal of a flower. And if you really, listen,

if you want to know whether or not there's a God, it's obvious if you really want to know. Sometimes people say, well, you know, if God would just do some miraculous thing, He would convince all the atheists. Well, watch in the morning. He's going to do something miraculous. He's going to raise the sun.

I'll take your word for it. I'm not going to be there to see it, hopefully. We're always saying, well, if God would do something miraculous, you know, spectacular, why, then people would believe. No, he's done. Listen, you go out tonight, look up into the heavens, and look at the moon and the stars. If you want to know whether or not there's a God friend, it's right there. You don't have to get out on a limb with Shirley MacLaine to find out whether

or not there's a God. Well, then why do they worship idols? I don't understand that. It looks to me like if a person knew God, that's stupid. That's foolish. I mean, why would a person take a living God who knows and who can be known and get rid of that living God and come over here and take an animal

or carve something out of stone and worship that? That's stupid. That's right. That's exactly what Paul says. But notice what they did. He says in verse 21, for though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became vain or empty in their thinking, and then their senseless minds were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. And what did they do? And they exchanged the glory of the immortal God

for images resembling a mortal human being. Here's what happened to them. Now, boy, this is something. Here are these people who didn't have the Bible and who don't have the full revelation of God as we have, but they knew enough about God that God was cramping their style. When they looked around and they saw the things He had made,

there was something in that that said, this God is a holy God. This God is an awesome God. And we don't like it. Because there are things we want to do. And there are ways we want to live. And this God makes us uncomfortable. Tell you what, let's do. And there are ways we want to live. And this God makes us uncomfortable. Tell you what, let's do. Let's sit down at the bartering table and let's barter for an exchange. That's exactly what the word means when it says they exchanged. They bartered. And I said, I'll tell you what we'll do.

We'll get rid of this God. And we'll make a God just like us that approves of everything we want to do, and then we can live as we want to live. That's what happened to mankind, and my dear friend, surely you can see it. That's what's happening today. That's been the history of civilization. Now, when you want to get rid of God so that you can live the way you want to, there's something you've got to take care of. There's just something you've got to take care of. You know what you've got to do? Well, you've got to get rid of truth.

You've got to erase all signs of the truth. Why? Well, because as long as you know the truth, you're not going to be able to pull this swindle on people. It's interesting that over in, let's see where it is, in verse 25, when it says, Because they exchanged the truth about God, all the translations read, For a lie, and worshipped and served the creature. But in the Greek text it reads, They changed the truth about God for the lie.

It's a definite lie, the big lie. What is it? That man is the measure of everything. That whatever I want to be, whatever I want to do, that's all right. So they changed the truth, they exchanged the truth about God. So what you've got to do if you're going to have this kind of lifestyle is you've got to get rid of truth. Now, go back with me to verse 18, and you'll find what Paul is speaking of here.

He says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those, here it is, who by their wickedness suppress the truth. You've got to get rid of truth, you see. As long as there's truth around, it's going to make you mighty uncomfortable and people are going to be questioning your stands on things.

So what you've got to do is to get rid of truth. Well, how can we get rid of it? Well, the best way to get rid of it is just to cover it up with all kinds of wickedness. The word translated suppress literally means to choke or strangle, or it means to cover up with layer after layer of something. And so here's what mankind has done, God says, is that they've taken the truth and with wickedness and ungodliness,

they have covered up the truth. They've smothered the truth. They buried it under a pile of wickedness and choked the very life out of truth. It's like an old car that's received 30 different coats of paint. Nobody knows what the original color was, and so my word is just as good as yours. Somebody says, well, what is truth? My goodness, I don't know. My granddad said it was blue. But I tell you, it's received so many covers of coat since then, nobody knows what the original color was. There is no such thing as absolute truth. There's no such thing as absolute truth.

You say this is wrong, or you say this is wrong. Well, where do you get off saying this is wrong? Well, because the Bible... Oh, no, don't pull that Bible stuff on me. Tell me why you think this is wrong. Well, because God... Oh, no, don't pull that on me. Well, it's just true.

Oh, there is no such thing as absolute truth. Truth is what you think it is. And the way to gauge or measure what you want to do is whatever is right for you. I mean, you know, if it's good for you, if it's right for you, then do it. But don't try to force it on me. Don't tell me that there's one standard of morality over here

and that everybody has to follow that. No, I mean, if that's the way you feel, that's the way you want to go, okay. But you can't make that the standard because, I mean, show me where truth is anyway. I mean, we choked the life out of truth a long time ago. Now, see, when you do this, it allows you to do two things. Number one, it allows you to turn vice into virtue,

and it allows you to make nonsense out of sense. First of all, it allows you to make nonsense out of sense. It allows you to take logic and turn it into illogic. For instance, a few years ago, I was in Warner Robins, Georgia, in a meeting, and I kept hearing sort of on the periphery of my consciousness that there was some crisis going on up north about some whales. And when I'm in a meeting, I don't get a chance to read newspaper a lot and watch the news, and so I really wasn't keeping up with it. But I kept hearing about, man, all of a sudden the Russians were sending ships up there to save the whales. And so far America had spent five million

dollars trying to save these whales up yonder. And I got to thinking, I guess I better tune in and see what's going on. I mean, the whole whale population of the world is in danger. And because it could, I mean, spending all this money and all these ships coming up there. And so I sat down one night and watched the news. And you know what I found out? They were talking about three whales. I mean, three whales. I thought they were talking about the entire whale population of the earth. But they're talking about three whales. Now folks, I love whales. I mean, you know, I'm not against saving whales, but I don't know,

it just sort of seemed to me, my goodness, here we are. Three whales? I am not a good sleeper. I don't sleep well at all. And so a lot of times I lay in bed and watch the late, late, late, late, late, late show. That's when you discover how many different diseases there are in the world.

Because you see, there are a certain number of public service messages that a television station has to broadcast, and so they do it after midnight. And most of them are about different diseases, you know, and funds for these, and they'll have movie stars mostly making these pitches for these funds. And I remember watching one night, and a well-known TV actor came on,

and he was sitting on a porch, front porch, and there were dogs and cats around him. And he was talking about how cruel pet owners were by not taking their pets to the veterinarian and having them, you know, fixed up where they wouldn't reproduce. We just let them reproduce and then willy-nilly we just take them down to the pound,

have them put to death, and that's terrible. I mean, that's irresponsible. I mean, I got to feeling terrible about that. I sort of wish I had a pet that I could take to the vet. I mean, you know, just good night. I came away and said, how can people be so cruel? How can people be so cruel as to take a little puppy or a little cat and put it to sleep at the dog pound?

Now, the only thing that sort of bothered me about this whole deal is that this same TV actor is for abortion. Now you see what I'm saying? I have a little problem with this. Here is a man who gets all excited about the death of a little innocent puppy, and yet will get almost violent in saying we have the right to put to death unborn babies. And another thing that confused me about this fellow is he also is against capital punishment. Now, folks, help me here.

Now, help me here. I admit that, you know, there may be gaps in my intelligence and my understanding, but I don't know. It seems to me it's a little bit illogical, and to me it seems like nonsense, for me to protest the execution of a man, and I'm speaking now about somebody, a real instance of somebody who took an eight-year-old girl

and raped her and then strangled her to death and pleading for mercy in that man's life. And yet without any thought at all, lest put to death this unborn child. Now, am I missing something here? We know in Texas last year, a year or so ago, we started a lottery. The governor promised that it would go to education.

So far, not a penny has gone into education. It's gone into the general fund, which is what it always does anyway. But they started this Texas lottery. Do you know what's printed on the back of the lottery tickets? Hotline for gambling addicts. Now again, now again, if I'm missing something here, if I'm being unreasonable, we've taken sense and made nonsense out of it.

Folks, we're acting in the most illogical, stupid ways. Have you noticed that? we've taken sense and made nonsense out of it. Folks, we're acting in the most illogical, stupid ways. Have you noticed that? But nobody will say anything is wrong anymore. Have you noticed that also? Why? Because there is no truth. And so we also take vice and turn it into virtue.

I wish I had it with me, but I've got a sheet of newspaper, a page out of the Dallas newspaper. There's an article at the top and there's an article at the bottom that just, well, presents a picture of what's going on. The top of the page, it's an article about distributing condoms in the junior high schools in New York City. At the bottom of the page, it tells about how they will no longer let the Gideons place Bibles in the schools in Idaho. That make sense to me? No. We've taken vice and turned it into virtue.

Rock Hudson was a hero because he died of AIDS. Magic Johnson is a hero now because he has AIDS. I feel sorry for Magic Johnson. I think that's a tragedy that a man has been killed by a girl he doesn't even know the name of. But that doesn't make him a hero. It doesn't make him a hero, folks. But you see,

it wasn't all that very long ago until the world would have been outraged at passing out condoms to junior high schools. And by the way, teaching 12-year-olds how to practice sex. But now that's a virtue, you see. So if some preacher stands up and says, we don't like this, they say, oh yeah, you're just one of those bigots.

You want everybody in the world to die of age. You don't have any compassion. You're just an old puritanical preacher. And you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Well, we're doing a good thing, even though about half of those we send out in the state of Arkansas are defective and they're not going to work. we don't want to tell anybody about it

because actually doing this now is a virtue and not a vice. Boy, the devil has scored a magnificent victory in this AIDS business because now it's no longer talking about abstinence. It's talking about safe sex. And by the way, let me just say here, there is no such thing as safe sex. We're being lied to, folks. I just want you to know that. If you don't believe me, talk to your doctor. There is no such thing as safe sex. And they're lying to us on television when they say that you can practice safe sex. There is no such thing. And so the wrath of God has come

upon us until we've lost our sensibilities. You know, I remember the first time, well, the only time actually I saw Gone with the Wind No. Well, I was old enough to know that there was a word in that movie that had never been spoken on screen before. And I want to see that movie. I mean, I'd heard that word before, but not on the screen, not by an actor. And so when Gone with the Wind came to town, Mom and Dad were going to see it. I wanted to go with them because I wanted to see Clark Gable say that word. Well, Mom and Dad didn't want me to go

because they knew that word was in the movie. But I kept on at them, kept on at them, and finally they ran in and let me go. We went to the Plaza Theater there on Texas Corner in Fort Smith, Arkansas. I never will forget it. I didn't sit with Mom and Dad because I knew that later on when that word was spoken,

I'd be embarrassed to be around them. And so I sat a few rows in front of them and sat through that movie. That was the longest movie I'd ever seen in my life. And I didn't have a clue as to what was going on and couldn't care less. I was waiting for that word. And I got down, and I got down to the end of that movie, you know,

and where Rhett Butler's going out the door, and Scarlett O'Hara says, well, whatever's going to become of me? And folks, a hush fell over that audience. I mean, you couldn't hear anybody eating popcorn. It was almost reverent. I mean, it was just a hush. And then Rhett Butler told her what he thought

of the whole situation. And when he said that word, would you believe this? This is, isn't this silly? When he said that word, the audience gasped. Can you believe that? How dumb we were back in those days. Now we're enlightened and sophisticated.

And TV evangelists will use worse language than that. And we don't think a thing about it. Well, what happens? How has God poured out His wrath upon us? Now here is the point of this whole passage. God's wrath is present. It's here right now in our world. And its nature is

that God's wrath is in kind, kind, K-I-N-D, to the sin itself. In other words, the judgment of God matches the sin of man. Now let me show you something over in verses 24, 26, and 28. There are three phrases that occur in verses 24, 26, and 28.

Actually, it's one phrase that occurs three times. Verse 24, therefore God gave them up. Verse 26, for this reason God gave them up. Verse 28, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up. Three times it says, for this reason, because they did such and so, God gave them up. Three times, God gave them up, God gave them so, God gave them up. Three times, God gave them up, God gave them up, God gave them up. A.T. Robertson said, it sounds like clods of dirt falling on the coffin of civilization, and that's a good description. That phrase, God gave them up, literally means

God let them go, or God abandoned them. It's the idea of God removing the restraint, you see. The interesting thing about human being is this, that God has built into His creatures a restraint, something that restrains them. You realize, of course, that men are not as evil as they could be. Every once in a while, we are just, we cannot believe, we're shocked at when we hear about some of these ghoulish serial murderers. And when we talk about the Holocaust and we say, listen,

that possibility lies within every human being. That possibility lies in every human being. But God has built in a restraint. Why is it that even lost people, even ungodly people, are repulsed at some of these things? They're repulsed at them. Why? Well, because all of us have within us a God-given restraint, a conscience, something that keeps us from being as evil as we could be.

And every once in a while we see somebody who somehow has broken loose from that restraint and they are as evil as a person can possibly be. But that's just a few of us. And we're repulsed by that. Because, well, we all, as sinful as we are, there are just some things we're not going to do. We're repulsed at.

But what happens is this. Man keeps tugging at that line, wanting to get loose, wanting to get loose. More freedom, more freedom, more freedom. I can't stand the restraint. I want to break all the restraints off. And so what does he say? God says, all right, if that's what you want,

that's what you'll get. And he abandons man to himself. You see, he says, all right, I cut the restraint. It's like a boat that's tied to a dock and the current of that river is tugging at that boat. And at the few yards down, there's a falls. And if that boat gets loose, it's going to go over the falls and be destroyed but as long as the rope is tied to the dock the boat is safe but it lacks like the boat keeps acting like it wants to go you see and so somebody comes along says you you seem like you want to go oh yeah i think that's the thing to do so you cut the rope you You take off the restraint. You give it up. You abandon it to the current of the river, and it's taken on its way to destruction. Do you know how God punishes sin?

By giving us what we want. When I was a little boy, I loved to eat Miracle Whip out of a jar. Crash Miracle Whip. See, I didn't know there was anything such as mayonnaise. I mean, we called it mayonnaise, and I just thought it was all Crash Miracle Whip, and I loved it. And I loved to sneak in the kitchen and eat it out of the jar.

And my mom was forever more getting on to me about that. I never will forget, I think I was about seven years old one night the whole family was in the living room listening to the radio and I went into the kitchen and the light was not on and I did not turn it on and I went over to the old Frigidaire and I opened her Frigidaire and there it was. Mom had been shopping that day. Giant family size. Brand new bottle.

Crafts Miracle Whip. I picked up that jar of Miracle Whip, unscrewed the cap, laid it over there. I was all poised to go down and get a big glob of it. And a kitchen light came on. I did not turn around. I knew who it was.

Yes, it was my mother. She came over to me. She said, Ronnie, do you want some Miracle Whip? Well, yes. Takes that jar of Miracle Whip, comes over and puts it down on the kitchen table, pulls out the chair for me, sits me down, goes over, opens the drawer, takes out one of these long spoons, puts it down there, and she says, son, you eat all you want. Now I want to ask you kids, is that a neat mom or not? Now boy, that's the kind of mom you want, right? I mean, man, great. I sat there, and I ate Miracle Whip, and I ate great. I sat there and I ate Miracle Whip and I ate Miracle Whip and I ate Miracle Whip and I threw up Miracle Whip and I threw up Miracle Whip and I threw up

Miracle Whip. And to this day, I have never eaten Miracle Whip out of a jar again. I'll put it on a sandwich, but none of this sitting down and eating all you want. Now, my mom, my mom was a wise woman. She could not scare me out of that. She could not punish me out of doing that. You know what she did? She let me have what I wanted.

And the worst thing that can ever happen to a person is for God to give us what we want I want you to listen to something over in Numbers chapter 11 you'll see this over in Numbers chapter 11

the people over there griping because they don't have meat all have got that manna and manna has been highly overrated in sermon and song by the way manna. And manna has been highly overrated in sermon and song, by the way. Manna is what you and I would call four-day-old bread. By the way, do you know what the word manna means in Hebrew? What is it?

That's what it means. God said, I've got dinner out there for you on the ground. He went out there and said, what is that? That's what I say when I sit down to a casserole. You know, I don't... Too many UFOs in casserole. Unidentified food objects.

So they're griping, you see, because all they've got is this manna to look at, it says in verse 6. But now our strength is dried up and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at. So in verse 13, Moses comes to God and said, Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they come weeping to me and say, Give us meat to eat.

And so in verse 18, God says, You say to the people, Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wailed in the hearing of the Lord, saying, if only we had meat to eat, surely it was better for us in Egypt. Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall eat not only one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome unto you. God said, you want meat? Okay, I'm going to give you meat.

And you're going to eat it and eat it and eat it until it runs out your nose. Well, he tells about this in Psalm 78, verse 29, And they ate and were well filled, for he gave them what they craved. Sounds like the kind of God I want. But before they had satisfied their craving, while their food was still in their mouths, the anger of God rose against them and killed the strongest of them and laid low the flower of Israel. He tells the same story in Psalm 106, where he says, but they soon forgot his works, and they did not wait for his counsel. In verse 14, but they had a wanton craving in the

wilderness, and put God to the test in the desert. Now look at this, verse 15 of Psalm 106, he gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them. You know, getting what you want is not always a blessing. Some years ago, Jerry Falwell picked up a lot of flack because he said the judgment of God upon homosexuality was AIDS. Well, I think there's a measure of truth in that, but I tell you what I believe is the real judgment of God on homosexuality. More of it.

You see, God's wrath is demonstrated in this way. He abandons man to what he wants. He removes the restraints. Now, let me ask you something. Are we seeing this or are we seeing this today? The restraints. The restraints. It's unbelievable. Now, not to the younger generation, of course, but I'm talking to old people like myself. I remember in 1969, we had a fellow from England in Fort Worth, and he made this statement.

He said, unless America sees revival in 10 years, you will legalize homosexuality. I went away angry because I said, everybody knows England has long since forgotten God, but America is a Christian nation. That'll never happen here. Boy, was I ever wrong. Would you have ever believed it? All right, let's look real quickly in closing these three statements he makes. First of all, God, he says, has abandoned man, civilization, to depravity. God gave them up in verse 24, in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator. Here he's talking about God abandoning man to immorality.

Now the pagan, the characteristic of every pagan society is the exaltation of immorality. And it's when God just says, all right, you want to live in gross immorality. And so finally he removes the restraints, he cuts the rope, and he abandons people. And that's what we're seeing today in our own world, a flood of impurity and a flood of immorality. And the Bible always speaks of there being some special attachment of sin to the sin of immorality. It's different than any other

sin. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul says that when people sin, they sin without their body, but when they sin in fornication or sexual impurity, they sin with the body. Nobody knows for certain exactly what Paul means, but one thing is certain. He means that that sin is different than any other sin,

and it has a different effect than any other sin has. Notice verse 26, not only did God abandon man to depravity, but He also gave them up to dishonor. For this reason, God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged the natural function for unnatural, and in the same way also the men giving up natural function with women were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts. We ought to bring that phrase back, folks. We're trying to pretty it up.

God says it's shameless acts with men and received in their own persons to do penalty of their error. And of course here he's talking in this statement about homosexuality. I said that God gave them up and I used the word dishonor. And I used that word because literally the word means passions of dishonor.

There is something degrading about immorality, but there is something dishonorable about homosexuality. Why is that? Everyday plain old adultery, sexual impurity, is the abuse of a God-given desire. It is the abuse of a legitimate appetite. Homosexuality is a dishonor because it is not a legitimate desire. It is not a God-given appetite. He says that they have left the natural intention. Now, I don't want anyone to go out of here, and I really resent anybody who says they're not for homosexuality being called a homophobic.

I'm not homophobic. I'm not afraid of them. One of the closest people to us in our life is a lesbian. And we love this person

with all our heart. And I've tried to find loopholes in the Bible where we could accept our friend's lifestyle. But there are no loopholes. Folks, I'm not a hater of these people.

I want you to understand this. One of the persons, my dearest friend, that I love as much as I love almost anybody in my life is in this lifestyle. I'm not a hater of these people. And I know the arguments. But I want you to know something.

The Word of God plainly says that it is not natural nor normal. And it is not honorable. I mean, you can pass a law that says it's okay. That doesn't change a thing. You see, we are forgetting what a horrible sin this is. Folks, this is the sin for which God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. I mean, God hates this sin.

As a matter of fact, most of your translations will read, the women gave up the women and the men gave up the men, but that's not what it says. It says the males gave up the males and the females gave up the females. In other words, when Paul comes to talk about homosexuality, he doesn't give them the dignity of calling them man and woman. He designates them simply by their sex as you would any creature, male or female. Now, what is terrifying about our generation is that we are accepting this. It has become politically correct. And churches are being pressured

to change their beliefs about it. I want to tell you something. It doesn't matter to me. It doesn't make a bit of difference if the Pope himself says homosexuality is all right and if every denomination in the country says homosexuality is all right. The words of men and the laws of men

do not change one thing about it. And as long as the Word of God stands, that's what the Word of God says about it. Well, one last word. Not only does God give us up to depravity and God give us up to dishonor, but the final and the conclusive one is God gives men up to darkness. Look at verse 28, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind, a darkened mind. Now notice here you see a beautiful picture of what I was talking about. They didn't want to think about God. They didn't, oh, don't bother me with God. They didn't want to think about God. So what did God do? God said, you don't want to have God in your mind? All right, I'll give you a mind that can't think God. I'll give you what you want.

And so he abandoned them to debasement, to a darkened mind. And then what? To things that should not be done until they were filled up with every kind of evil. And in the end, it says that these people who do these things, they know that it's wrong, but they not only do them, but they applaud others who do them also. You see, that's where we are. The word translated a debased mind means incapable of making moral distinctions. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and in their imaginations they became futile, and their minds were darkened.

What does that mean? It doesn't mean that man is stupid. It doesn't mean that man is ignorant. It doesn't mean that man can't put another man on the moon. It doesn't mean that you can't, oh my goodness, I couldn't even begin to go into all the unbelievable things that man has accomplished. He's such a brilliant, brilliant creature. And yet, he has a mind that may split an atom,

but can't make moral distinctions. And when he starts talking about moral issues, he reveals himself to be an idiot in spiritual things. Turn on Phil tomorrow. Or Oprah, or Aldo, any of those. Let's see, let's get Jane Fonda on there and two or three other people like that, and let's listen to them discuss moral issues. You know what you'll be listening to?

You'll be listening to the wisdom of fools, for that they are. When it comes to spiritual and moral things, they are fools. For that they are. When it comes to spiritual and moral things, they are fools. Oh yeah, we laugh. We get on Murphy Brown's side. Most of the TV shows now

feature single parents. And we laugh at people like Dan Quayle, who is so old-fashioned and so behind times and so darkened that he still thinks they ought to have a mom and dad. And then we wonder, all the time we're laughing at this and putting down the family, then we turn around and wonder, why are our kids carrying guns to school?

Darkened. Darkened minds. Ron Dunn's podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church. For more Ron Dunn materials, sermon outlines, devotions, and scanned pages from his study Bible, please visit rondunn.com.