For this morning, I am going to pause the third installment of our three-part series on Psalm 4, which I'd been planning to do to address a matter of growing concern. I think it was just a little over two weeks ago that John MacArthur sent out an email to a lot of pastors and people on their mailing list. to speak on the subject of biblical sexual morality because of the assault that we've been seeing, not just recently but for years this has been building up, and to address this subject from a biblical perspective. Now there is a background that does make this even more timely because on November 29th, so just six weeks ago, the Canadian House of Commons unanimously passed a bill that would make all forms of sexual perversion safe from criticism and make it unlawful to tell somebody what the Bible teaches about sexual morality or how to be saved. In other words, read, evangelism is criminalized now. If you try to evangelize someone who is not heterosexual, you could be arrested as a criminal. I want to address this situation from a biblical perspective, but I also want to do so with a tone that reflects my love for the lost and for those in spiritual bondage, because that's where all of us would be apart from grace. There's not a one of us here that doesn't need a Savior. We all need a Savior. And God's grace can save the vilest of offenders. So this is not a hate message at all. This, if anything, is a word of warning in love to those who are perishing without the gospel. Now, this Canadian law went into effect eight days ago. So we're talking about something that is very current. And so today pastors around the world really are speaking and preaching in defense of what the Bible teaches about God's plan for sexuality and what happens to those who reject it. Now the Bible is very clear, so let me open with a word straight from the Bible. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9-11, the Lord is speaking to the church through the Apostle Paul. Listen to these words of warning, and I especially like the way the New American Standard Bible renders this. After telling the Corinthians not to drag each other into lawsuits, into court, not to defraud one another, he continues in verse 9, Or, do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God." Now there are a lot of sins in that list of vices, not just sexual sins. There are many sins covered here. And you can hear in this message, in this passage, there is forgiveness and restoration in Jesus Christ for all who repent. And there is a wide range of sins mentioned here. So all who come to Jesus for salvation will be received. They will be welcomed into his eternal kingdom. But all who remain in their sin will perish. And if they don't repent, they will perish forever. So this message of salvation from sin has now been criminalized in Canada as hate speech. And it's coming here. It's coming to the United States, and it is sweeping through Western civilization, as it has already dominated communist nations. That's why this is urgent. Because our mission doesn't change regardless of what our government passes as a law. The mission for us is the same. We're still going to be committed to the gospel. We're still going to preach the truth, come what may. It's harder when the laws are against us, much harder. It's harder when you don't have freedom of speech. And so we must preach, especially while it is still daylight before the night comes and it becomes much harder, but the labor goes on. Because as long as we're here as believers, we have the saving gospel to preach. Now from the very beginning, Jesus said in Mark chapter 10 verse 6, God created them male and female. So this is the ordinance of creation. God made one man and one woman as those image bearers who would form that initial union of society. That is the basic unit of society. One man, one woman. Then Jesus continues. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two, the man and the woman, shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." You hear in the passage that maleness and femaleness is God's design, not man's. It's not government. It's not the church who came up with maleness and femaleness. This is God's design from the beginning of creation, and so is the heterosexual oneness in marriage. And so we need to understand this as God's design from creation. No one is forced into this. This is the biological design from the beginning and no government has the right or ability to change or alter the biological record that is established by God from the beginning. But the laws in Canada and increasingly in the United States are trying to silence and suppress this truth. Now the good news to keep in mind is that Jesus Christ is on the throne. Amen. He is still on the throne. He is still sovereign and his sovereign will is the final word on who has power and who doesn't. On who wins elections and who doesn't and by however means. Now, the Lord's invincible plan for his people remains the same. As I said a moment ago, it moves forward regardless of who wins or loses elections and regardless of what the Congress or the Senate or the President decides or what members of Parliament codify into law, either in Canada, Great Britain, or elsewhere. You know, God can also reverse or undo harmful governmental policies overnight if that's his purpose to do so. And he's done it. He has done that before, overnight. And so one way of looking at the ominous trend that we're seeing in the realm of sexual perversion at a governmental level today is to really see this as believers as a validation of what Romans 1 teaches. This is just a validation of what we read. This is exactly what Romans 1 teaches will happen. And what we're seeing today are merely symptoms of a long-growing celebration of sin in America and Canada and beyond. Now just a brief survey of the recent history in America reveals a downward trajectory that we have seen in this area of sexual morality. This has been going on for over 60 years. There was a sexual revolution in the 1960s that was a casting off of moral restraint at the heterosexual level. And that was quickly overlapped by the radical feminist revolution in the 1970s. And then came the radical homosexual revolution in the 1980s and 90s, and that has become mainstream as we all know today with homosexual marriage legalized in 2015, followed today by an alphabet of letters and symbols representing every kind of sexual identification except one, which is heterosexual male and female. God's original design for all men and women who are created in His image is the only design that is silenced, canceled, and suppressed in our day. They cut your microphone off in the public square when you have that message, the message of God's design, which is the only pattern that brings life and health and peace. And now, The younger generation, which is a wide range because it's really anyone under 40, is part of this new younger generation that is being indoctrinated and brainwashed with a destructive narrative that gender is fluid. that you can transition from male to female or female to male or something in between all the gray area. It's a destructive narrative that maleness and femaleness are merely social constructs rather than designs from our loving creator. Now this false narrative is breeding great confusion among the uninformed and the untaught, including at the highest levels of governmental authority in our day. And with these prevailing influences, it should come as no surprise at all that people who are indoctrinated in this kind of pagan worldview have minds that are unable to discern the difference between good and evil, between true or false, or right or wrong, Even on other subjects that were once considered obvious to the majority of citizens. Now I want to remind you, these people are not our enemy. They are not our enemy at all. On the contrary, they are deceived. And they are in desperate need of the saving truth about God's design for male and female from the beginning. They need salvation. And so much of the issue that is dealt with publicly is really just about the external effect of sexual sin. But God deals with all the layers that led up to that. There is healing. And so the answer is not the message we should preach is, you just need to change. If you're a homosexual, you need to stop acting like a woman if you're a man. You need to stop acting like a man if you're a woman. That's external. That's not getting to the gospel. The gospel is the internal salvation that comes from God through the gift of faith. And that's the only thing that can bear the true external fruit of a changed life. And Jesus Christ doesn't just change the outside. He changes the inside and brings healing. of all the layers of sin and hurt and sometimes molestation as a child and all the issues that damage that person through other sins that led them to the present state of bondage that they're in. There is so much that goes on and Jesus Christ deals with all of that in salvation. So I don't want anyone hearing this to think that I'm just saying we just need to change the outside, have some behavior modification, and then everything is right. The answer in Jesus Christ is salvation. And that is an internal change where He changes the inside and deals with the past, the present, and by His grace, the future. He sets the prisoners of Satan free. Now, today, as we understand that there's that need of salvation, you need to understand what's going on with the media and how this affects the message and how we feel when we have the gospel, we feel in the minority, and there is an illusion going on. There is a small yet vocal element of our society that is actively calling evil good, and that which is truly good, they're now calling evil and hate speech, and the gospel itself is being outlawed. That's what's going on right now. The Lord cannot and will not bless patterns of sin that promote death and ruin and bondage to evil. He can't do that. He won't. Now, we as a nation in America have been slouching in this direction for many decades now, so this is not new. This didn't just happen in the last couple of months. All of this has been escalating in our country for years and decades, and it's continuing now at an alarming exponential rate. It's been said before that we are clearly living in a Romans 1 society, and you know that covers a lot more than just a focus on homosexuality. There are a lot of issues in a Romans 1 society. And I want to underscore that homosexuality, homosexual marriage, gender dysphoria, these are merely symptoms of a greater battleground. The real assault in our society is against God and his revealed truth in scripture. That's really what the enemy is aiming at. And the enemy can use homosexuality or he can use Islam or any other thing that opposes the gospel to try to get the gospel to be suppressed. But you know what? The devil could do the same thing if he had a puritanically moral society and churches packed with people as long as the word of God wasn't taught. As long as the gospel wasn't heard, he wouldn't need to use the tool or the instrument of militant homosexuality or militant Islam or all these other factors that we label as the enemy. Really, the devil's focus is, get the word of God suppressed. That's the true thing that undoes his kingdom. When the gospel is heard and believed, it undoes everything that the devil is trying to do to drag people and bring them to destruction. The devil wants to rob and kill and destroy, and he will use homosexuality or he will use any number of cults or other malignant forces in society to do that. But he could do the same thing in a puritanically moral society as long as the word of God was silent. As long as the gospel wasn't preached, he would be fine with clean streets and happy, prosperous people, as long as we didn't hear the word. As long as we never heard the gospel, the devil would just be fine with that. And so there is a growing war against the Bible, against the preaching of scripture, the hearing of the gospel, against the church, and against truth itself. Now these are all symptoms of a Romans 1 society. As Romans 1 18 says, there is a growing suppression of the truth. Truth is being criminalized right now, literally. It's being outlawed. And all of this assault against the truth at every level is fueled of course by the chief deceiver, Satan himself. Now regarding the science of gender identity since there is so much talk about science, Regarding science, every human being is conceived with genetic markers recorded in their DNA that determine maleness or femaleness. That's recorded in the DNA at conception. That's where those markers are determined. Now, the chromosomes don't change. The male chromosomes are XY. The female chromosomes are XX. That isn't fluid. That doesn't change. So based on science and biology, gender is not fluid. It never has been. So what are the symptoms of a Romans 1 society? Well, let me just read off a list and then I will read the text and you'll see how this plays out. But just let me let you hear the list of the symptoms of a Romans 1 society and then we'll talk about the verses in a moment. First, there's an increased prominence of ungodliness and unrighteousness. That's a blanket statement. Then there is a suppression of truth at increasing levels. There is a denial of what God is clearly shown in nature. There's a preemptive rejection of biblical creation as scientific and biological fact. There's a refusal to acknowledge God or to give God thanks. There's an increase of feudal thinking at the highest level so that bad ideas are empowered and good ideas are vilified. intellectual and spiritual darkness escalates from foolish hearts. Foolishness is exalted as wisdom and wisdom is rejected as foolishness. We see an increase of insolent behavior where truth and godliness are boldly mocked in the public sector. The created earth is worshiped while the creator is denied and rejected. Idolatry becomes the dominant religious expression in society. We see the sanctity and glory of human life exchanged for the extravagant protection of lower forms of animal life. Animals are accorded special rights and privileges at the expense of humanity's own well-being. An escalation of extreme sexual impurity leads to unbridled lusts that destroy those who yield to them. Debased thinking leads to a general dishonoring of the physical body, desiring actions that lead to the mutilation and devastation of their own bodies of both the living and the dead, from the preborn to the elderly. Lies are exalted while truth is criminalized, and while murderers and rapists are being released from prisons, Those who stand on biblical convictions are now being charged as the new criminals of society and imprisoned. The truth about God is vilified resulting in false premises that derail scientific and medical advancement so now widespread improvement for all humanity is stalled in that system. There's also a growing manifestation of dishonorable behaviors and practices that are now in public where they once were hidden behind closed doors out of the shame. They're now dragged into the open sector and videotaped and broadcast. Things that were so dishonorable that no one would even talk about them are now publicly broadcast. Women increasingly exchange natural patterns for unnatural patterns. More women now are aligning with aberrant sexual expressions like lesbianism. Women increasingly identify with male patterns of behavior, which is what is known as androgyny, which is a blending of male and female so that there is a blur between the two. More women reject nurturing children in motherhood for childless advancement in the public square. And then men increasingly exchange natural patterns for unnatural patterns. Males within the population increasingly align with aberrant sexual expression, that is homosexuality. Males increasingly identify with female patterns of behavior, again, androgyny. Males within the population are increasingly consumed with unnatural passions for one another along with other unnatural passions like bestiality and pedophilia. Shameless acts become customary and routine in society. No longer is it the shocking news that it once was. It becomes like the same old thing day after day until we become deadened to it. We become desensitized to it. And when it's put on television, it's put into the framework of sitcoms so we learn to laugh about it. So people are laughing about it. It's the funny people who are committing aberrant sexual sin and living in sexual bondage publicly, and it's all a big joke. And then debased minds reject what is true about God and use their power to codify into law what ought not to be done according to God's law. Internal patterns of sin become increasingly external in public expression and divine consequences are denied while depravity is celebrated. That's quite a list. That's just going over the top of the list. That's not going into details, but that's just a brief survey of the second half of Romans 1. Now in Romans 1, the Apostle Paul opens Romans by asserting the glorious gospel which saves all who believe. That's verses 1 through 17. The gospel saves all who believe. And it reconciles all sinners with God in every realm of creation, regardless of the background that they have, regardless of the sins in which they're currently held in bondage. God can redeem the vilest offender. As we sing in the hymn that Fannie Crosby wrote, the vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus, a pardon receives. But then beginning in verse 18 of Romans 1, we have a warning about the wrath of God coming against all who don't believe, regardless of their sexual orientation, all who don't believe and who refuse to repent of rejecting God's witness. Progressive unrepentance stemming from militant unbelief is what characterizes a Romans 1 society, and it describes lost humanity under judgment. But a biblical sexual morality safeguards the greatest blessing on society in general. And when this biblical sexuality is rooted in saving faith, it advances maximum blessing and prosperity from God. In other words, there is an external sense of blessing even when people who are unbelievers uphold the moral laws of God. There is a protection and a sanctifying effect in society. But the true blessing comes through saving faith because you can be moral like a Pharisee and still die and go to hell. so that doesn't save anyone from their sins so the gospel doesn't just say you need to clean up your act on the outside the gospel gets inside and makes us right with god through jesus christ and his perfection imputed righteousness put to our account as if we had lived the sinless life of jesus that's what the miracle of saving faith does. He takes our sin and he gives us his righteousness. That is the great exchange that the gospel makes known. And so there is a safety that comes from biblical sexual morality. And when this is rooted in saving faith, this advances maximum blessing, maximum prosperity for any people, for any nation that comes from God. Now, rejecting God's pattern for sexuality brings sure and heavy judgment. Now, listen to the verses. I've already told you what the symptoms are. Listen to these verses. Beginning in Romans 118 and following, Paul writes, is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Now that is going on at a massive level, the suppression of truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring 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, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up. to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful inventors of evil. disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. Now in these verses, We find that humanity is depraved and in desperate need of salvation. That's the second thesis of Romans 1. The first part is about the gospel, the supremacy of the gospel. That's verses 1 through 17. Once you get to verse 18 to the end of chapter 1, it's about humanity is depraved and in desperate need of salvation. So in other words, the second half of Romans 1 is about why the gospel is needed. And again, it's not just about sexual sin. It's about all the sins. There's a catalog of sins. And brothers and sisters, this is the current spiritual state of the union. This is where we are right now. These sins are dominating all of Western civilization right now. And if this trajectory continues, we're going to see more and more correspondence with what we just read in Romans 1. So having stated his gospel theme in the first 17 verses of Romans 1, Paul is here explaining the reason why a gospel is needed. Why do we need the gospel? And so what follows in verses 18 through 32 is just an overview of depravity that is permitted by God to run its course when a people have rejected the knowledge of God. In other words, God is not manipulating anyone into judgment. He's not forcing people to do these things. They are doing them of their own will, their own fallen will. They are not forced into this. This is a picture of what society is doing now, and it's also a glimpse of where we are all headed unless God, in His mercy, intervenes. And, believers, we have the message that saves. We have the saving gospel of Jesus Christ, which we need to boldly live and declare. Now, this begins with individual repentance. All of the freedoms that we're talking about hinge upon individual repentance. Forget the idea of mass revival just for a moment. Just set it aside because that tends to make people feel passive. Like, I will become a part of a massive revival when that takes place and that'll fix everything. Listen, it begins with individual repentance. That's where it all hinges. If you say, I'll get right when everybody else is getting right, and I'll be swept into that. No, that won't happen. It's individual. You repent. You repent when? Now. Today. Now is the day to repent. Because widespread revival is really the product of individual repentance that is spread across a large number of repentant hearts. That's what it is when we say there is a revival, but it begins with the one. It begins with the individual. Now, other than the account of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, other than the future havoc that is depicted when the Antichrist is ruling in Revelation, there's not a more hopeless picture of our fallen sexual morality in the present era than we have in the second half of Romans 1. Yes, there's always been sexual immorality. Yes, there have always been bad rulers, corrupt politicians, People in nations have loved evil to various degrees since the earliest chapters of Genesis. Yes, yes, absolutely true. But the empowerment of evil and the empowerment of falsehood in our nation has never been stronger than it is at this moment. And the moral lows we are hitting have never been lower than they are right now and they're likely to get lower. So what has changed most is the scope. Its degree of widespread evil and falsehood is the only acceptable narrative that is allowed because the gatekeepers of those outlets are lost and they are corrupt. They have exchanged the truth for a lie, to use Paul's words. There's almost no tolerance for truth today and even civil discourse, you used to be able to talk about it in public or talk about it even on television in debates. Even civil discourse that challenges the prevailing view is canceled, is suppressed, it's outlawed. Your account is deleted when you even try to discuss it. And when every dissenting view is silenced or canceled, what happens? It allows falsehood to go forward unchallenged. It allows bad ideas to thrive and eventually become law, as we saw in Canada. Now, that's the real intent, at least in the temporal realm of government. The intent is to suppress the truth so that the evil can be codified into law and create a safe space for sexual immorality. Now, just as Romans 1.18 says, the unrighteous suppress the truth, and they have to. They have to suppress the truth because truth stands in their way. Lies are the only way to advance a godless agenda that celebrates perversion. You have to have lies. Truth stands in the way. Now, documented scientific facts are now deemed baseless if those facts counter the accepted narrative. You see, it's okay if you use facts here and there, cherry pick, as long as it supports the narrative that they want. But once you use a broader view of what really the facts say scientifically, it's canceled if it doesn't go along with the narrative. Even these days, a lot of medical truth is not tolerated. Certainly not climate truth, not environmental truth, not gender truth. To say nothing of God's saving gospel truth, it's all silenced. You know, the problem of lost humanity, as described in Romans 118 and following, it affects all of us either directly or indirectly. Your sin and morality impacts every person in your life just as mine does. God has written his moral law, even on the hearts and consciences of lost humanity. It's written in creation. Yet many people who once hated God, hated the church, hated the truth, have been gloriously redeemed by hearing and believing the gospel. They have. Hundreds and thousands of men and women have been redeemed and set free out of that lifestyle. Today, there are thousands of men and women who were once involved in militant sexual immorality at the highest levels of gay and lesbian activism who have been gloriously redeemed through faith in Jesus Christ. They've been radically transformed. And we know some of them. We know some of them. But there are many, many more than we have heard of. Someone told those people the truth. Somebody told them the truth about why Jesus came. And by the grace of God, they believed the gospel and they were set free to repent, to walk in newness of life. And all of us are to live repentant lives. all of us as believers. That's the pattern of our faith. Now we are to walk in ongoing repentance. And this is the way we show people what the gospel does is that you and I live those transformed lives and we are available to those who are lost, that we don't just see them. They're not the enemy. They're people who need to hear the truth. They are in bondage and we have the truth that sets them free in Christ. That's why when we tell people about Jesus and why Jesus came to the earth, the most effective authority to use is the written word of God. I always say, when you're doing evangelism, quote the Bible. Quote the Bible a lot. Jennifer and I did this all the time, especially when we're going through Europe. We were riding in taxi cabs, often with Islamic drivers, and we would quote the Bible and engage the conversation that way and just keep getting back to the scripture. The Word of God is the infallible witness. It always bears fruit. It's very effective to cite scripture when we do evangelism. That is, you build a conversational bridge, then you cite what God has written in his word. Scripture is authoritative in piercing the conscience and converting the soul. Now, even if somebody isn't converted, there are a lot of conversations that end without somebody being converted. But it always has an effect. You're sowing seed. As we've learned from Isaiah 55, God's word never returns void. It always, always accomplishes its purpose. So it never goes out without effect. Now we know the Bible is effective in the lives of believers, but listen to this. Amazingly, the Christian who quotes God's word has an unexpected ally in the heart of every lost person. Did you know that? That's because the work of God's internal law has already been written on the heart of every lost person. There is that internal witness. Yes, it's suppressed. Yes, it's been sublimated because they've gone through brainwashing education so often, teaching an evolutionary form of how everything came into being. Yes, it's suppressed. But there is that internal witness written on their heart that ultimately they can't deny. And when we read the truth, quote the truth of God's Word, it resonates at some very deep level. This is the key to confronting the sexual perversion in our day. It's not through slick arguments. It's not through force. It's not through law. It's not imposing it. It's through conversion. People need the Lord. The battle belongs to the Lord. This battle belongs to the Lord. His word goes forth and His word accomplishes His work in people's hearts. Now, God's law is written even on the heart of the most unsavable, lost atheist you can think of right now, and there is so much evidence in science today that atheism has become an intellectually untenable position. It's mostly emotional now. It's because, I hate God, they say, and they're angry, and they don't care what the facts say. But it has become scientifically, intellectually untenable to say that no designer designed this. No creator created this. That is not really legitimate anymore. So God specializes in saving the unsavable. Men like Saul of Tarsus, men like Saul once hated Jesus Christ, labored to destroy the burgeoning church. As you know, Saul was radically saved when the Lord changed his heart, opened his eyes to see the truth in Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. Now it's the same man. We know him as the Apostle Paul. He's writing this letter to the Christians in Rome. The word of God is a piercing sword. Now, although lost humanity really knows God exists, they know that internally, if only at the deepest level of their suppression of this truth, they know he exists and yet they reject him as God. Now, this is the main way lost humanity suppresses the truth. They have natural revelation which is nature. They see witness whether they look through a telescope or a microscope. You see design. You see order. You see intelligence. So they have natural creation. But even though they have this, instead of believing the message of creation about God, they believe a man-made myth, a counter narrative like Darwinian evolution. They deify the most contemptible of men and cults and false religions and other creatures as well. They worship the Earth. Celebrate Earth Day, which is a celebration of Mother Earth today as the source of all of our life. And we need to protect Mother Earth because she's being attacked. That's the message of society. That's the message of culture. This is worshiping the creation, rejecting the reality that there's a creator who made it all, Father God. And all of this misdirected worship of the creation is being forced to get regulations on the population under the rubric of environmental protection, all to suppress freedom to control the population, to suppress the truth further. And as a result of worshiping fallen creation, they give themselves over to vile affections. And that's because people can never rise higher than the object of their worship. Let me say that again. People can never rise higher than the object of their worship. And when people reject the creator and worship the creation or the creature, they always descend lower and lower into a moral abyss of self-degrading passions. Like the law of gravity in the physical realm, this is a spiritual law that cannot be broken. It breaks those who try to break it. So far from forcing people against their own fallen will to have freedom in Christ, no one is being forced, no one is being manipulated here. It says God simply gave them up. Verse 24. Notice the language. He gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. No one is being forced or manipulated. Now Romans 1 uses that language three times. Three times it says God gave them up. Now what does that mean? This refers to handing them over to their sin along with all of its inevitable consequences. So he's just giving them what they want in their lostness, in their depravity. When fallen man rejects the Savior, spits in his face, God gives him over to the sin he loves. And so we have a group of people in power now who are supported by the pagan world industry that controls the flow of our information. And this is the unrighteous world system. It is ultimately ruled by Satan. He controls that system and he's using it because his time is short. He has a very limited amount of time. His destruction is drawing nigh. But through carefully crafted narratives right now, narratives that sound like they're all written by the same person, incidentally, because they all have the same verbiage, the same approach, same perspective. It's like one person wrote all of these narratives that are published everywhere. They make a majority of people like us feel like we're in the minority when we're really not. It's like the Wizard of Oz syndrome, where there is a big projection on the screen that everybody sees and an intimidating voice, and there's really just a little man behind the curtain. He's a small minority. He's afraid, but he's got all the control of the media. And so it looks like this big, powerful message full of sound and fury, but it's not. It's just a little group, but it makes a lot of people feel silenced and feel helpless. Makes a lot of people feel like they're very few in number when we're not. But truth and time eventually come together. Life on this fallen earth is as close to heaven as the lost will ever experience unless they repent. This is as close to heaven as they will get. What a sad thought. But by that same token, for the believer, life on this fallen earth is as close to hell as we will ever experience. That's by God's grace. But still, we want our life here to be as blessed and as peaceful and prosperous and purposeful as we can possibly make it. Absolutely, we should all want to live in freedom as opposed to bondage. But listen, God can use either one. He doesn't have to have freedom. But life on this present earth is where two distinct paths of destiny intersect for both time and eternity. But our destiny in the future is indicated and displayed by the truth that sustains it. The growing dominance of homosexuality and gender dysphoria, transition and such, this is not the only reason I would characterize ours as a Romans 1 society, but I think it's clearly an obvious part of it. I think this is really the tip of a much bigger iceberg of sexual deviations that are flourishing in more and more publicly acceptable ways. You know that sin loves secrecy, at least initially. Sin loves secrecy. It cultivates in the darkness where the less light causes sin to flourish. But when sin begins to thrive in publicly acceptable ways under the brighter lights of the open society, that's when you know it has really overrun its banks and become a more malignant, virulent, militant form of sin. And it shows that the silencing of God's truth becomes necessary for sin to flourish at this level. Fraud hates the exposure of evidence. Liars hate the truth that shows them for who they really are and for what they're really doing with their lives. And so the truth has to be suppressed for that to take place. So at some level, there is always a battle. And this is certainly true in the sexual realm. Like other sins, homosexuality is something the Lord can and does forgive. Never forget that. Homosexuals, lesbians, those who have transitioned in their gender and are confused, they are all subjects to be redeemed. Jesus Christ can save any of them, just like he saved us. But throughout the history of the church, Even going back to the apostolic age, people have been saved out of a homosexual lifestyle, among other things, out of perverted forms of heterosexuality as well, like adultery and pornography. Jesus saves every kind of sinner. Repentant sinners have been gloriously redeemed throughout the history of God's creation. As we read earlier in the catalog of sins from 1 Corinthians 6, the Apostle Paul says, and such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. So Jesus delivers from all kinds of sins, including every variety of sexual sin. When we repent, when we repent, that's the key. That's the key to all sin. It's repentance. Whether you have a heterosexual sin or a homosexual sin or something that has nothing to do with sexuality, all sin hinges on repentance. That's where there is life change. Now, as I said earlier, many of those who now practice some form of aberrant sexuality, that didn't just come out of nowhere. A lot of these people have been deeply hurt. Some of them going back to when they were children, they've been sinned against, and it bears fruit in the present. So we need to understand that. There are a lot of layers to this, and we can't just deal with the visible layer. The gospel goes to all of that. The gospel covers all of that damage from past sins, even generationally past sins. He can deal with all of that. Jesus Christ saves. He saves from all of the damage in the past and the present and the future. So we need to understand that and this after conversion is the ongoing work that takes place in the body of Christ as we fellowship and help people to deal with all of that damage and brokenness of their past. And so Jesus deals with our hurt. He can redeem the deep damage that sin has done in our past, and he can set his people free to walk in newness of life. And this is not just a pipe dream. This is the reality of faith in Christ. He breaks the power of canceled sin. He sets the prisoner free. This is what the gospel does, and it does it for all people, not just the sexually immoral. Now go back to Romans chapter one, look again at verses 26 and 27, referring to those who embrace the homosexual lifestyle as normative and even superior. Paul begins with a description of the women and then he talks about the men. Verse 26, for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions, for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. It needs to be understood by those who are living in this sin and are drawn into it that God can deliver you. Yes, He can. He can deliver you right now. You can be saved. from every degrading passion, regardless of how long this has been going on. There is hope in Christ for you. Now, it requires saving faith. This is not a pull yourself up by your bootstraps. This is not your own human will. This is not you changing the outside. This is asking Jesus Christ to save you. And He changes the inside and it bears external fruit in your life. This requires a higher passion found in Christ alone. This is the way of freedom in any sin. It requires a higher passion in Christ alone. It is what Thomas Chalmers called the expulsive power of a new affection, a higher affection, a consuming passion for Christ himself to defeat indwelling sin in the present. Now today there are thousands of former homosexuals, thousands of former lesbians and porn addicts who have all been redeemed by Jesus Christ who have been absolutely delivered from all of these sins. They're not sinless. They're still sinning in different ways, but they've been delivered from these sins, from this pattern of sin. But sexual sin has always been a serious subject, and it's certainly not new. This is not just our culture. It's almost as old as sin itself. It's dealt with, as I said, significantly in Genesis chapters 18 and 19 with Sodom and Gomorrah. It was rampant in 1st century Rome as well, which is the context of Romans, the context of all the New Testament really. There were sexually immoral people in power everywhere in the Roman Empire. And as noted just a moment ago, there were many redeemed former homosexuals who are in the church at Corinth. They had become repentant, forgiven Christians who are actively living for Jesus. So the message is acknowledge God's truth. Acknowledge the way he created all people as male and female. Acknowledge that God's design for men and women is inherently good. It's not oppressive. It is sin that corrupts that which is good. And there are many consequences to sexual perversion and other sins which are both physical as well as spiritual, emotional, and relational. He says they receive the due penalty in themselves. It's in themselves. So there is an internal devastation that begins with the cultivation of sexual sin as with other sins. All sins destroy and demoralize more than just one realm of a person's life when they cultivate that sin as a pattern or as a habit of life. You know, sin never keeps its bounds. Notice what verse 28 says. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. Let me explain that. In verse 28, a debased mind, also called a reprobate mind in the King James Version, this refers to a mind that no longer works in a healthy way. That's a dysfunctional mind. This is a self-destructive mind, we could say. This is a mind that no longer functions as it was made to function for the best interests of the one who has it. It's a mind, a reprobate mind, is a mind that is not only unrighteous, but it's one of decreasing quality to think or reason at all. The debased or reprobate mind can't think properly and it no longer operates in a rational or reasonable way to even know the difference between good and evil, true or false, right or wrong. I like the Holman Christian Standard Bible, the way they translate this phrase as a worthless mind. That really gets to the root of it. It's a worthless mind because it delights in its own ruin. It delights in its own destruction. And when those who govern a nation And when those who dispense the information in a society are controlled by that kind of a mind, it can only bring further judgment, further destruction to that nation under its influence, and that's what we're seeing. So the debased person does what ought not to be done to their own destruction and to the demise of all who are under their authority. And all authority comes from God. Ultimately, God is the one who determines who gets into power and who is removed from power. And so what we're seeing can be seen as a judgment of giving them up, letting them go, giving them over to their sin. And so to finish what Romans 1 teaches, In verses 29 through 31, we have 21 vices, 21 evils listed in rapid succession that proceed from a debased mind. This is what a debased mind does. Verse 29, they are filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless, And finally, verse 32 summarizes, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval, one translation says hearty approval, to those who practice them. So the evil referenced in verse 32 is not based on ignorance, at least not primarily. This is willful defiance of God and his moral laws. So the unrepentant incur both spiritual as well as natural consequences. And if they don't repent, it's eternal. As for their guilt, he says they not only do these things but they give approval to those who practice them. Now that's exactly where we are in America today. This has been going on for many years. Sin is first tolerated and then it is celebrated. But it's always tolerated before it's celebrated. Those who practice homosexuality represent a very small percentage of society. Very small. But those who approve of homosexuality and other forms of perversion, well, that's a much larger segment of society. And again, it's the Wizard of Oz syndrome. Everybody plugged into the media thinks it's a larger number than it really is, that it's a massive number of people who are all going along with this, when it's really not. It's really not. It's an illusion. It's a mirage. And yet, it's going forward, and that builds consensus. And it makes people think, I need to get on board this. I need to say what everybody else is saying, or I'm going to be canceled. I'm going to be silenced. And so there is fear that promotes this, fear of man. Now those who practice homosexuality are very small in number but there is a larger number of people who are approving of it and this is now widespread and growing in our nation so that not only homosexuality but every other form of degrading behavior is now being approved. So how do we close a message like this? What are the marching orders? What do we do? Well here's what I want to recommend. This is how we as Christ people are to respond. Let's go back to scripture. Another passage. Listen to 1 Timothy chapter 2, familiar verses 1 through 4. 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 1 through 4. In a very similar context, Paul writes to Timothy, first of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people literally all kinds of people that's the translation all kinds of people and then he gives an example in verse 2 for kings and all who are in high positions that we citizens may lead a peaceful and quiet life godly and dignified in every way this is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior who desires all people same phrase all kinds of people literally to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth now let me ask you something when did Paul give these words to Timothy well it was likely during the reign of Nero Now Nero was historically a homosexual. I'm not giving the reference just to make that point, but he was a homosexual. He also had his mother killed. He was a malicious dictator, ruthless. And eventually Nero had Paul executed. So this is written about praying for rulers and authorities who are far worse than anything we've seen. That's the point I want you to see. It was far worse when Paul gave these instructions and exhortations to Timothy than we see today. But we're a lot closer than we've ever been. We can see it from where we're standing. Now as Christians, we need to keep praying for those who govern our nation, even now. We need to keep praying that God will open their eyes to the truth, that God will save their souls. It's for all of our benefits that we may lead peaceful, quiet, godly lives that are dignified in every way, for this is good. It is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior. These are our marching orders, believers. This is how we're to live in these turbulent times. So let us heed the warning of Romans 1 and not be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but make the saving truth of the gospel known to all who are perishing in this present darkness. For God has set apart a people for himself and they will come to a knowledge of the gospel and they will ultimately be saved. Will you be the one who tells them? Let's pray. Father, these are striking words that burn with relevance for all of us. Make the saving gospel known to those who are perishing in sin all around us as you make it known to us and through us. We ask all of this in the glorious and saving name of Jesus, amen.