Two preachers were talking one day. One was kind of a grizzled, seasoned, old, salty dog kind of preacher. Been doing that for a lot of years. And the other one had been in ministry for a number of years. And as they were talking, they were talking about difficulties going on in the church. Particularly the younger one was really wrestling with some things in the church and confiding in the older one and struggling with how to say it and all that was going on. And... Is there an echo in here? Hold on, I'll just stop. It's gonna keep going. Does anybody remember the band Milli Vanilli? Not good, yeah. No, it's not good. Not good. At least it's my voice that I'm singing or talking, yeah, yeah. All right, we done back there? All right, cool. So anyway, there's this old season preacher and this preacher's been there for a while and they're talking and the younger preacher's talking about things he's struggling with and some difficulties in the church. And the old season preacher looked at him and he said, don't worry, I'm sure it's much worse than you know. Most likely a true statement. But you know what, guys? The more I've been digging in Romans and studying week after week, I thought I had a decent grasp on the depravity of man as far as what the Scripture says. But even in my personal study in preparing to come to you with the Word, There have been times where I've had to walk away from my desk. Wow. Wow. The depravity of man is so awe-striking at how fallen we are. And we like to cut ourselves slack and flatter ourselves that Jesus came to rescue those who were pretty good people but have made some mistakes. And as I study the word and I ask God from the word of God, okay, Lord, in your scripture, I'll be as objective as Dan can be, as objective as I can be, make clear to me the depths of the fallenness of mankind. Now, I can't get there. because I would have to be in some sort of a perfect understanding of who God is to recognize the depths of my own depravity. I can't do that, but what I can do is I can have a deeper grasp of what the scripture says in the ink on the page in its description of the fallenness of man. And the more I do that, the more I go through chapter one in Romans with you, and then we're gonna do chapter two, and chapter three will come after that, we will be hit wave after wave after wave of clear exposition from the clarity of these passages that tells us the depths of our fallenness. And I'll make this statement, I've made it here before, it's nothing new. I believe one of the greatest misunderstandings in Christianity is their misunderstanding in reference to the nature of fallen man. If you miss the boulder of the nature of fallen man, the rest of your theology will crumble. If you begin with the idea that mankind is basically good, you'll go nowhere. If you begin with he's not very good, you'll still go nowhere. But I wanna go for that last 1% where people believe that there's still this little island of righteousness. I challenge you by the word, I don't believe that's true. Mankind, the description of scripture about fallen mankind is tenacious in how God describes it. He goes after us to communicate this to us. And we flatter ourselves, we lie to ourselves, we dumb down the word, and we try to make ourselves feel as if we were not that bad, or at least not as bad as somebody else. Well, here's my problem. And I say this, my problem with me, my problem with you, my problem with the church, this is just a problem in general. The more we cut off or shave off the sharp edges of how bad we are, the greater we remove our gratitude to the grace of God. If he saved a pretty good man, then I'm thankful. But I'm not that thankful. Because I was okay. And so I cut him off. And glory that should be God's becomes Dan's. And so a foundational point of Christian theology and of an understanding of your Bible is what really happened to mankind in Genesis 3. As that old preacher told the younger preacher, it's way worse than you thought. It's way worse than you know. especially for some of us Christian kids who grew up in the church, and I learn about my depravity as I grow in godliness. And then you do too, all of us do to some level. But I have to study the word to find out the nature and the level of my fallenness as a lost man before I came to the Lord as a kid. Romans chapter one, verses 18 to 32 is devastating. And let me say this, beloved, it's supposed to be. It's on purpose. Paul is not wincing as he writes this. Paul is not saying, oh, this is going to offend, I'm going to step on their toes. Because the reality is, until we're leveled, we don't look to Christ. until you have that poverty of spirit Jesus spoke of in Matthew 5, you don't look for righteousness. When you think you have some righteousness, you don't flee for other righteousness. You've got to come to a point where you say, I genuinely recognize I don't have any righteousness in and of myself to put before Him, so I must get righteousness from somebody else. But beloved, before that takes place, we have to see how deep does this go? And so the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, just wave after wave after wave just levels us. And I pray with my heart, beloved, none of us have the audacity to read this chapter and go, wow, he's talking about some bad people. He is, but you is the bad people. I'm the bad people. If you walk out of here thinking this is a list of those and not of me, you've missed the text. So look at 18, and this morning if you're visiting or if you forgot where we were at, I'm gonna be going 26 to 32, but look at 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and His divine nature, have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks But they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed animals, and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their females exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. And in the same way, also the males abandoned the natural function of the female and burned in their desire toward one another. Males with males committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to an unfit mind to do those things which are not proper. Having been filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, violent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. And although they know the righteous requirement of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. And so if you look at 26 to 28, this is a whole nother level. where God gives them over to degrading passions. So this is falling right in line with the idea that they deny the reality of God, okay? So there's a domino effect that we're working through here. It begins with God clearly showing himself in what's been made, a denial of that, a suppression of that, And then what flows from that denial of that magnificent reality in what is made flows a denial of other realities. But particularly in the denial of other realities comes in sexual immorality. Now, this is interesting and you can kind of track this through history. There's a very interesting connection historically between idolatry and sexual immorality. They're connected over and over and over and over again. And I think, I believe the connection there is because there's an absolute beginning of a denial of the one true and living God who's made himself evident, made himself known in that which he has made. And the Scripture says they all recognize it. They're without excuse. It's what the Bible says. They can give you a million excuses. The Word says, nope, nobody has an excuse. So they have no excuse. Why? Because the Lord is so clearly and evidently shown Himself in the beauty, variety, and order of His creation. So much so, the Word says that they have to suppress that truth. That idea of they have to hold it down as it's pushing up. God is making himself so evident and they have to with pressure deny that and ignore that. In the midst of that comes a myriad of other denials. There's no God. We're here by mistake. We're here for ourselves. Therefore, pleasure seekers comes right out of that seedbed. And now as it comes out of that seedbed, you see a denial of all kinds of things in Scripture. of all kinds of things that are natural. Natural meaning designed by God, purposeful by God. There's a continual connection between idolatry and deviant sexual sin. Homosexuality is separated out here to show the deep level of corruption in mankind. This particular sin is revelatory of man's radical fallenness. Because here's the question as a Bible student, why pick out homosexuality particularly? Why is it separated? Because he's going to give a huge list, right? We're going to cover, I'm not going to cover them word by word, but we're going to walk through that list. But he begins here. He separates this particular sin. And our question is, well, I thought all sin convicts us to be guilty before the Lord. It very much does. But this sin in particular, he refers to as unnatural. against nature, contrary to nature, contrary to God's design. And you say, so why is he putting this one out there in particular? He's putting this one out in particular because it's showing the very depths of their depravity, how far they've gone, which by the way is woven all throughout this passage. The depths of how far they've gone. Did you notice how many times in this chunk it says, therefore the Lord gave them over, therefore the Lord gave them over. And so the Apostle points to this sin of homosexuality in particularly. It says, therefore God gave them over to, and this translation says, dishonorable passions. And he begins with females exchanging the natural function for that which is unnatural. As I was talking over this text with Amber this week, we were talking about, isn't it interesting how the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Spirit, speaks in general terms when he speaks of these kind of deviant sins throughout the scripture. There's a language here where, in particularly, he does not want to pollute with details of these sins. And so rather, he speaks with maybe a broader brush, if you will, to make reference to that which is unnatural. Because some sins, as we've heard from the Apostle Paul in other portions, shouldn't even be named among you. You shouldn't even speak of those kinds of things. All homosexuality is sin before God. I have to make that point because that's the battle line this morning between the world and the church. And I recognize with all of my heart, as best as I can, how many friends and family members are upset with that statement. It's not my statement. All homosexuality is sin before God. Homosexuality is completely contrary to God's design for mankind. It is unnatural, goes against nature, and is self-evidently not what God designed for male and female. And the world screams. Beloved, there's not too many things right now in the context of our world as Christians that you and I will feel hotter pressure in than this. to fold. John Murray said, in any case, the stress falls upon the unnatural character of the vice, and in that, as also in verse two, consists of the peculiar gravity of the abomination. The implication is that however grievous is fornication and adultery, the desecration involved in homosexuality is on a lower plane of degeneracy. It is unnatural and therefore, Evans's a perversion more basic. All sin is worthy of judgment, but this one particularly reveals the depths of man's sin. And I just encourage you to go back and reread the whole context around Sodom and Gomorrah and what took place there. It speaks, it just, it perfectly falls in line with what is being described here with what we saw there. and the more liberal theologians of our day do exegetical gymnastics to seek to make it say something else, and they fail left and right to ease consciences in their sin. The suppression of the truth of God then leads into the denial of other blatantly obvious realities, resulting in unimaginable ways of sinning. I thought this was interesting. The women sinning in this way is first listed to show just how radically fallen they are. Typically, it would be the male first in this sin. You can see that throughout history. It's fascinating that first he speaks to the women giving up that natural and going to the unnatural. And men burned with uncontrollable lust. If you look back at your text, It says, and in the same way, also, the males abandoned the natural function of the female and burned in their desire toward one another. Males with males committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. The men burned with uncontrollable lust for that which is unnatural. Paul refers to these as indecent acts. Paul is very guarded in his writing here, not overly descriptive. They receive the due penalty of their error, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, and yes, physically, in giving their bodies over to this act. Beloved, here's a thought that came to my mind in preparing this message for you. A conviction that I felt in my heart was I have almost lost the ability to blush at that which is indecent as I look at our culture. And the reason that came to my mind was because we're inundated. It's everywhere. And I don't just mean homosexuality, I mean just sin, I mean heterosexual sin. All sins, all idolatry. The air we breathe, it's everywhere. How many times did you hear the Lord's name taken this week? And I feel like I've been soaking in those waters to a point that I forgot, I don't blush anymore at the horrific nature of what that world is. and seeing the Apostle's language where he does not go into detail to describe the nature of what's going on here out of the purpose of, this shouldn't even be named among us. It gave me a good fresh reminder that you and I are called to be a holy people. So here's just a spot of conviction in my own heart and I'll throw it out to you. How much do you allow in your computer, your TV, and your phone. And I'm right beside you. I'm not talking down to it here. I'll go down here, OK? I'm not talking down to anybody. Have you ever found yourself saying, this movie is a great movie. It's got some parts, but it's pretty good. I am not, I don't think guilting people is a good motivator. That's not my goal. My goal is to just ask the question that it's just uncomfy to ask, but I love you and I want to grow too. Have you forgotten how to blush? They receive the due penalty of their error. I don't know exactly what that penalty is. As I read commentaries, they gave a myriad of ones. They said there was psychological issues, emotional issues, spiritual issues, and physical issues, the AIDS epidemic. There are aspects here, beloved, that it is showing itself, it is evident. But the pressure's on for us to ignore it, deny it, and condone it. Well, now the Apostle does something here that I think is beautiful because right at this moment, this is where you and I could go, eww, I'm glad I'm not bad. Well, buckle up and look at your Bible. Verse 28 says, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, so remember, that's the beginning point, okay? They did not see fit to acknowledge the Lord. God gave them over to an unfit mind. Man, if that was ever a good describer of what's going on currently and has been going on. Their mind is unfit to do those things which are not proper, having been filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, violent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents. You want to raise your hand and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're telling me 26 and 27 and then we end with disobedience to parents? I was feeling okay about myself. Well, that's the point. This is not an exhaustive list, obviously, because he leaves much room when he says there's even inventors of evil. We'll figure out new ways to sin. We have technological advancement to figure out really new ways to sin before God. But beloved, as you read through this list, it begins with, they are filled with this. This is not an exhaustive list, but it represents a large swath of the fallen nature of mankind. And I just challenge you, if you haven't found yourself in the list yet, you're not looking. You're there, I'm there. Beware, brothers and sisters, that you don't come to a list like this as the rich young ruler and says, ever since my youth, I've been doing this. Doubt it. With all my heart, doubt it. No, the point here, you guys, is Paul levels all of us. He's eventually gonna wrap up in chapter three with all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. whether Jew nor Greek, male nor female, all have sinned, all have fallen before him. But the point he's making here throughout this is that there's no better sinner than another sinner. How do you stand before God and go, my sin's not as bad as his sin? It doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. And so the results of this fallen, if you look at verse 31, it's kind of the results that come about in the lives of these people. I say these people, us people. They're without understanding. They're untrustworthy. They're unloving. They're unmerciful. I find it fascinating how pastoral I would say this list is. And what I mean by that is Dennis Chris, over the years when you were teaching or whatnot, Dennis has said he's listed a few different vices and he'll say, and if I forgot yours, you know. Because I think if you read through this and you didn't find anything you've ever struggled with, you could. potentially flatter yourself into thinking that you're doing better. And so, what does Paul do pastorally? He actually gets in your grill and he gives you particular sins. Because see, when we say we're all sinners, everybody kind of just gets a little more comfy in the chair. Okay, we talk about a particular sin that maybe you don't have a struggle. Alright, Okay, so what am I gonna do? I'm gonna give a list, and I'm gonna get every last one of you somehow. And so he just, because if you look at it, beloved, that's an extensive list that the apostle lists here. And I was doing fine till that whole disobedient to parent thing, and man, just blew up in my face. Or I was doing fine till there was gossip. Why did he throw that one out there? or violent, or arrogant, boastful, malice, slander, haters of God. Beloved, He's kindly doing this. He's graciously doing this. You have to be wounded before you're healed. You have to be brought low before the Lord brings you to Himself. Why would you need a Savior? How would you have any recognition of your need for salvation until you see yourself in this way? And let me just say this, all He's doing here is He's showing you reality. Paul's not making an argument to convince you of something that is not true. He's showing us where we are, who we are, the depths of our sin. God in His grace, when we see ourselves as fallen sinners before Him, we are being allowed to see ourselves rightly. We're not adding to it. If anything, we can't see totally the depths of our depravity because it'd be too devastating. And so God in his kindness shows us doses throughout our Christian life of how fallen we really are and how much grace we were in need of. And so these results are we're without understanding, we're untrustworthy, we're unloving, we are unmerciful. But as the preacher said that one day, it's worse than you thought. Look at 32. And although they know the righteous requirement of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them." Now, there's not too many things more applicable to our culture than the statement at the end of this verse. While knowing the truth, they deny it and run to their vile sin. Remember, you're suppressing truth. So you've suppressed the truth that there's a God. Then you suppress the truth that you're here on purpose. Then you suppress the truth that there's really any moral borders. So you just keep suppressing, suppressing, suppressing, right? Holding it down. And then you say, don't you realize the vile nature of that particular sin? But you've built up so well to it. It all begins with there's no God. Death is the outcome of this. Physical death. but also eternal death, eternal judgment for ever and ever and ever. But beloved, it's one thing to practice a sin under cover of darkness in shame. That's, I would say, somewhat common to man, okay? Mankind. But this is different. There's not only the practice of it, I would say from the text you can see an implication, the open practice of it, but then the hearty approval to those who are practicing it. See, there's no blushing, there's no shame, there's nothing of that nature. No, no, no, rather you're a cheerleader for this. You're excited for it. You want to see more and more and more of this stuff. The sinful denial of God and the vile acts love company. You've heard misery loves company. I'm saying the sinful denial of God and vile sin loves company. Why? Because it eases the conscience. You get the majority to agree that it's no longer sin that soothes the conscience. Beloved, this is the world you and I live in. This is the country we live in. And let me just be careful here because I don't want to give the implication, therefore, that we had it all perfect until today. No, no. This was written a long time ago. Genesis 3 happened a long, long, long, long, long time ago. This is not new. The Apostle Paul is not coming as the murderer. Rather, he's coming as the coroner. He's the one who declares, this is who you've been. This is who you are apart from grace. Beloved, it's much more worse than you thought. It's much more worse than I thought. It is devastating. And the interesting part is kind of a sidebar, is how we respond as believers in this culture to this kind of a thing. as long as you give hearty approval now it used to be as long as you keep your mouth shut but now it's gone farther it's as long as you give hearty approval okay everything's okay And I speak to this, beloved, because I love you with all of my heart, and I know to some extent I'm preaching to the choir, but I've got to get this out and say this this morning. The pressure that is brewing and building on you and I to fold on this category, and particularly of homosexuality, is unbelievable within our families, Within the quote-unquote church, I use that term very loosely because there's a mountain of unbelievers who call themselves church. And within our world, who look you in the eye and say, but you don't have a problem with it, right? And all your friends and family turn at the table and they stare at you going, wonder what he's going to say this time. Or your boss. or your precious homosexual friend. What are you going to say? And for a bunch of us, what have you said? And as long as you just give hearty approval, things are fine. If you hum and haw, it gets nervous. But they still wait, because that at least shows you're a little bit confused on the issue, and maybe we'll get you clearer on this. But once you make a statement of, this is what I believe, I see in the scripture, and I seek to live my life according to what I see in God's word, beloved, it's over. It makes me think, and this is one of the best lessons I've ever learned from Lieutenant Frank Columbo. If you've ever seen an episode of Columbo, Frank Columbo is a detective. And what he'll do is he'll go, and there's a murder or something that's taken place. And he'll arrive, and he plays dumb. You can see this trend every episode. He plays dumb. He walks around, and typically the bad guy, the guilty guy, treats him like just kind of a dummy. But then you get about 15 minutes in, And Columbo starts stumbling onto things and he starts showing things and revealing things and then the bad guy starts to get a little bit kind but indifferent to him. You get a half an hour in, then the guy starts to become very frustrated with Columbo. You get 45 minutes in, the guy's starting to get frantic and he's trying to hide more evidence and he just can't stand it. When this short little guy shows up in the brown trench coat, he doesn't know what to do with him anymore. And then you round to the end of the show And Columbo, in his quirky way, says, one more question. And then he shows, you are guilty. You lied the entire time. And that individual who put so much pressure on Columbo the entire episode falls. And what I've thought as I was thinking about the trend of that show, and you could do, there's lots of murder mysteries or whatever. These old shows, Perry Mason and whatnot, where you see it unfold, they are so strong, they're so adamant, they're so just, I am not going to be found out. I will not be found out. This dumb detective is not going to find me out. And he just, he spied his own face. He cuts off his nose in the episode. And then eventually at the end, to some extent, beloved, that's conversion. Is I stiff-arm, I stiff-arm, I stiff-arm. No, it's not that bad. No, it's not that bad. No, it's not that bad. And Columbo, in his tenacity, pursues the case. And God, in his tenacity, pursued Dan. Until eventually, You are completely guilty. You've tried to soften your conscience. You've tried to lie. You've tried to hide evidence. And this entire time, you are running about knowing, I'm guilty, but I'll suppress that. Until God, in His grace, opens your eyes, opens your heart, you see what you've been doing, I always find it interesting at the end of Columbo, typically, they go silent and they sit down fairly often. And then it cuts away. Beloved, that's where you and I are at right now, where if you fold, you are Columbo, except for you're bad Columbo. Because you have not been tenacious in searching out truth, holding steady to the truth for the sake of their soul. You've simply wimped out. And I'm speaking to Dan Mason. And I'm not talking about being a rude, obnoxious Christian. I don't mean that in the least. All I mean is one who's faithful to what you know to be true. I've been trying to work a Columbo illustration into the sermon for five years. So here's a couple points of application for you just to chew on, okay? I know you know this, but let me remind you for your sake and for my sake, the majority opinion of mankind does not decide that which is right or true. The majority opinion of mankind does not make the difference. Can I remind you, Jesus Christ was crucified by majority vote. Pilate even said, he hasn't done anything wrong. I'll give you Barabbas. He said, Barabbas or Jesus, give us the murderer, give us Barabbas and crucify him, crucify him. Beloved, the majority opinion doesn't carry a lot of weight. I know it does when it comes to a vote or whatnot, but I'm saying in reference to that which is right and true, the majority does not carry the day. God carries the day. That which he says is right and true is right and true. And lastly, Jesus Christ didn't come to rescue pretty good people. If you would, just look quickly with me at 1 Corinthians 6 9. 1 Corinthians 6 9. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, or idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." Now, if that's the end, that's true. But 11 says, and such were some of you. Beloved, the precious word in that is the word were. But you were washed But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. Beloved, a radical fallen human is in desperate need of a radical salvation. That's why the Scripture refers to your salvation not merely as a change of thought pattern, but as a new birth. As a new creation. and from death to life. The more I study salvation, the more I see it as an absolute spirit-wrought miracle. It does not happen apart from the supernatural work of God. Because when you see the radical depths of fallenness, and you see the need of a radical salvation, I need to become a new person. And that's what the Spirit of God accomplishes. And so I thought long and hard about the title of this message this morning. And for most of the week, my running title was, The Radical Corruption of Mankind. Then I thought, you know what? That's true. But to be a bit more positive, that radical corruption is desperate for a radical salvation. Let's pray.