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Rom. 1:28-23
We invite you to join us for worship each Sunday morning at 9:30. You can download our service on iTunes or tune in for “The Good Word” each day on AM 1230 WSAL or on Hoosier Country 103.7 FM just after 8am. We are continuing our study of the necessity for justification. Last week we studied the revelation of God’s anger in 1:24-28. We learned God reveals His anger toward those who refuse to turn to Christ in repentance by giving them up… If people refuse to repent, and some do – is why Paul was inspired to write v. 28-32 – God gives such people up to debased minds. A depraved or debased mind simply stated means a thought process and a way of life that believes and demonstrates it is acceptable to live in sin. One of the major themes that runs throughout the NT is life/existence as a true Christian lives, in the light of their salvation and its blessings, and the knowledge of certain judgment based upon that life and lifestyle. True Christians are always aware that all their life will be tested and judged, and God’s Laws are the only standard of testing and judgment. Therefore, the desire of Christians is to live a life that is seen by God as tested in battle and found to be reliable, trustworthy, esteemed by God when He judges every part of their life. In Rom. 1:28 Paul is pointing out that the unsaved, and the ungodly have chosen a lifestyle that is NOT trustworthy, reliable, esteemed, approved by God. His point in v. 28 is that a debased or depraved mind is the natural outcome of a person’s thinking when they continually ignore God’s repeated intervention in their lives encouraging them to turn from their sin (which is true Biblical repentance) to Christ in faith and live as He taught us to live. Sin prevents us from thinking correctly about moral issues. When people don’t accept and follow what God reveals in His Word they cannot think and reason as they should about all issues of life. One cannot possible understand how and why God’s Truth and His laws, decrees, commands, and His ways of life are the very essence, the fundamental factors we need to make sense out of the moral world we live in. A depraved mind further explains the need for Man to be justified because a depraved mind is reveals itself through: debased character (v. 29-31). The Apostle Paul is telling us one of the most dangerous effects of sin on the human mind. He writes in v. 29 “they were filled…” Sin is never satisfied, it always seeks for more and more; and as it constantly wants more, it also simultaneously becomes more ruthless in its quest to be satisfied. Sin is not content with just a little, it fills a person’s character so that a person’s entire mental and emotional make-up, or the real you, is filled and controlled by sinful lusts! Notice how, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul explains to us a deeper need for God reach down to sinful man in love and redeem us from our: debased comprehension. The most condemning confirmation of man’s guilt before God is found in the 2 words “they know!” What they know is that God’s laws have sentenced them and everyone who lives as these people are living, to death. Paul goes on to show us that debased comprehension leads to debased confirmation. Listen to how one author so clearly explains Paul’s statement “gives approval to those who practice them.” He writes “willful rejection of divine revelation heart is the heart to the point where the rebel takes delight in the sinfulness of others. At this point wickedness has sunk to its lowest level.” All of us who have come to Christ for salvation must remember we are held to a higher standard because we know the truth as God intends for us to know it. We are most certainly without excuse. All who have yet to come to a saving knowledge of Christ are without excuse because they have been made aware of God and His law because He has made it known to them.
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