We shall stall no more. Let's grab our Bibles out and stand together. It's about 5 till noon so that you all know the time. You don't have to look. Alright. If it gets too cold, you know why I stay warm? Because I'm constantly moving. I never stop moving. People pick on me sometimes, y'all. Like, I'll be sitting, and y'all, I'm like this all the time, and they're like, you gotta use the bathroom? I'm like, no, I just like to move. There we go, all right. All right, Romans. Y'all know where we're at, Romans? We're at church, amen. Romans, chapter number one. Romans, chapter number one. We're gonna read verses 24 and 25. The title to the message today is When God Gives Up. Oh, Romans 1, 24 and 25. All right. I don't know why I emphasize the T in 20. I usually just say 20. All right. 2425. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature. more than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to look here and see this matter of giving up. And Lord, we just pray that you would speak to our hearts, that you would have your way. And we look forward to all that you're going to do in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Amen. All right. So I need to give a little disclaimer here because I know somebody is going to say, well, God never gives up. Understand the title, the message, if you saw on the back of your bulletin, it says when God gives up. the text says, and I quote, Wherefore, God also gave them up." Understand that when I say in the title, and I was trying to think of different possible titles and stuff, and I started with this, and I went to some other things, and I came back to this. I was like, yeah, you know, it kind of fits. It's the best fit for this passage, I think. But it's not that God is like, I quit. Okay, so when we say when God gives up, it's not that God quit. It's that God is giving someone up. Now, God does not give up altogether in that sense. He gives up in degrees. Because you're going to find that he gives them up in verse 24, and then he's going to give them up some more in verse 26. And then he's going to give them over. in verse number 28. And so the idea here is not that God is in desperation and He's just quitting. The idea is that He's handing over or giving up in that sense. Okay? When we say give up, we typically just mean like, I quit. But that's not what God's saying. And we'll get into that maybe a little bit more as we go through this. I've got four points today, four main points. And I did try to alliterate just a little bit, not a lot, just a little bit. So number one, the judgment of surrender. So this matter of giving up is more a matter of surrendering. And by the way, it's in God's nature, or rather in our nature, in the way that God made us, He made us in such a way that we have free will. And so, when God gives up, all He's doing is He's surrendering us to our free will. That's what is happening. And so, in the first verse there, in verse number 24, it begins with saying, Wherefore God also gave them up. So we're going to look at the judgment of surrender. Letter A, the meaning. Now, I didn't alliterate the sub-point, sorry. Letter A, the meaning of, quote, God gave them up. Okay, so the phrase gave them up. I'm going to use a little bit of Greek today so that you all can learn a little Greek, maybe. I don't know. And by the way, the Greek words that I'm using today are the biblical Greek words. If you read Greek, and you were to read the Greek versions that underlie the new translations of the Bible, you would find that the Greek words are not the same. The Greek words are not the same. Because the underlying text of your King James Bible, and the underlying text of those other books, are not the same underlying texts. And so the Greek words are going to be different. Hmm. By the way, there's a reason that's a whole other message. Bibliology, you can look it up. It's on our it's on the main page of our YouTube channel. So. The phrase gave them up, it's one Greek word, and that Greek word is. Para Didomi. Yes. Pi. Pi, alpha, rho, alpha. Oh, you want it transliterated? Sorry. I'll transliterate it into English, OK? So the Greek, it's pi. It's the pi that's the letter, and then the alpha. But so it's P-A-R-A. D-I-D-O-M-I. That's the transliteration. That's when you take the Greek letters and you move them into English letters so that we understand how it's pronounced. So that's P-A-R-A, like para, and then did, and O-M-I. D-I-D-O-M-I. P-A-R-A-D-I-D-O-M-I. And it means, to hand over or to surrender, right? And so, let me give you an example. Give me your cell phone. She's not on it, okay? It's on her. She gave it up, right? Simple. She gave it up. It's in my hand now, not hers. What's that? A lot of things, yeah. But that's not the message yet. But it's to give over or to hand over or to surrender. It says, and God gave them up to, we'll talk about what he gave them up to a little bit later, but it's to hand over or surrender, right? Yeah, you all put your phones in your pockets. I might ask for them in a minute. Hey, man. And so I didn't pick on her because she had her phone out. I just picked on her because she was at the end of the row and it was easy. So that'll teach you to sit at the end of the row. No, I'm just kidding. So, yep, now Brother Ramsey's giving over his phone to his wife now. God removes his restraining hand. That's what's happening here. And there's a lot to say about that. It allows man to begin to live according to his sin nature. We are quite sinful without God's restraining. I'm gonna try not to get into, I've got some more to say about that in particular in the second sub point, but it's God saying, you wanna do that? Yeah, yep. You want to do that? That's what you're going to do. There's more, though. We'll get into that a little bit more. But it's God taking His restraining hand off. You know, sometimes God's chastisement isn't God laying His hands on you. In fact, a lot of the time, God's chastisement is God taking His hand off of you. And when we say that, most of the time we think about God's hand of blessing in the sense of giving and using us. But there's another aspect of God taking His hand off of you. And that is that God has His hand on you restraining you from sinning. And when He takes His hand off of you in a particular area of your life, it becomes easier for you to just do what you ought not do. Okay? And that is directly in correlation to your actions, your choices to do that. So, in Psalm 81, verses 11 and 12, it says, "...but my people would not hearken to my voice." and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust, and they walked in their own counsels." You see, God did that to Israel. They didn't want to listen to him. They didn't want to accept his counsel or hear his voice. And so he said, OK, fine, I'll give you up to your own counsel. I'll give you up to your own to do what your own heart wants to do. The lust of your own hearts in in Hosea chapter number four and verse number 17. He says Ephraim is joined to idols. Let them alone. In other words, God recognizes the state of the person and He says, I see that they're not going to move forward unless I just let go of them. Now in many cases, after God lets go, Man sins more and consequences come from that sin. Not all consequences are God's direct hand of wrath on you. Some consequences are God's indirect judgment that takes place because you did dumb stuff and then you reap the consequence, right? Right? So when you do things, sometimes you break the law and then you have to, you know, You do the crime, you do the time, right? Or you get the punishment, right? You are going to reap what you sow, which we're going to say this over and over again, and it's your memory verse. But that's the thing. When you do wrong, you're going to reap of that wrong. And when you choose to say, no God, no God, no God, no, What's going to happen is you're going God's eventually going to say, OK, fine. You want that? Take it. That's how that's how people go to hell. I'm not saying you go to hell because you just said no to God in the sense of like your daily life. I'm saying that when when the gospel is presented and the gospel is preached and you hear how Jesus Christ died for your sins, He was buried and he rose again the third day and he offers you that free gift of salvation when you say God I don't want your salvation. I don't want you. I don't want you in my life. I don't want anything to do with you Well, God will give you what you want and what you don't want. You don't want to have anything to do with him well, that's what you get if you if you want and to be away from God, then you get to go to hell because that's what you're asking for. And so that's how that happens. God just gives you up to the desires of your own heart. And there are some additional passages. I'm just going to give you the addresses. You can write them down. I actually just did that in my notes. I was like, if I go to all these passages, we're going to be here all day. So I just wrote down some other passages you can look at on your own time. Matthew 15, 14, Acts 7, 42. Acts 14, 16 and Acts 17, 29 and 30. I know, I feel like I'm cheating you by not taking you to the passages and reading them, but it will give you a little homework. You can take a little time to look them up later and see those. Those are in relation to this God giving them up. Letter B. Consequences of rejecting the truth. This kind of builds on what we already talked about. That's the way it's supposed to go, right? God doesn't do this arbitrarily, though. I want to point that out. God doesn't just arbitrarily say, No, it is in direct correlation to persistent rebellion. When man persistently rebels against God, By the way, in a particular area of your life, a sister testified a little while ago that it's been five weeks since she has directly said no to something she knows God says not to do, right? Or she said, no God, I'm going to do that anyways. Every time you do something you know God does not want you to do, every time you do that, that's disobedience to God. or every time you do something, every time you don't do something you know God wants you to do. It is direct disobedience to God. And that direct disobedience doesn't go unchecked. It doesn't go undealt with. Eventually, as you continue to do the things that God tells you not to do or you continue to not do the things God tells you to do, it eventually builds up to the point where God says, okay, If that's what you want, you can have it. You no longer feel bad about it. That's bad. It's bad when you felt bad about something, and you no longer feel bad about it. And I'm not talking about like you felt bad about something that you didn't necessarily need to feel bad about, and then you found in the Word of God that it wasn't what you thought it was, and then you learned better. I'm talking about you went from being convicted about something to no longer convicted because you just ignored God. And He eventually said, okay, That's called grieving the Spirit of God. It's when he's grieved and the conscience then is seared with a hot iron. You are no longer able to feel bad about the bad that you're doing. That's a bad place to be in because it leads to more. more wrongdoing. It leads to being further from God and more disconnected with God. You know, remember Proverbs 1 verses 24 through 31. I don't really want to go there again. We went there two weeks in a row, and they were the last two weeks I've taught. Remember, he says, you would none of my counsel and said it not my reproof and all of that, right? And then I'll laugh at your calamity and all that, right? Y'all remember that? Proverbs 1. Most of the chapter, really, but the tail end of the chapter versus 24 to 31 especially. You ever wonder why or how? People can be so mean. Or sinful. You ever wonder how people could just? Just do the things that they do and not have any sort of remorse or problem with it. It's because. And I wrote this down, but I got ahead of myself a minute ago. When we say no to God, He lets it run its course, and we progressively get worse. That's why people can do that, because you've been saying, and by the way, oh man, I'm going to get ahead of it. Yeah, we're going to go to that. We're going to go to that later. Yep. Not right now, but later. Go to go to Leviticus. And this is going to be a little bit heavy for just a moment. Favorite book of the Bible, Leviticus. Yes, sir. Leviticus. Chapter 26. I forgot to put the colon here, so my notes say Leviticus 2614. I forgot to put the colon in between, so it's 26 starting in verse 14. Leviticus Leviticus. 26 it's it's toward the beginning. Yep, It's on page 156 in my Bible. Probably not the same page in yours. That's a local church? Oh, well, chapter 26, verse 14 in mine is 156. Mine's probably 20 years older than yours. So it might have been a different printing plate or something. What's that? There you go. Leviticus 26, verse number 14. Verse number 14. We're going to read, I don't know how far, you know what I wrote? I put, or typed, I put, well, besides the 2,614, I meant to put 26 colon 14, and then I put dash question mark. I don't know when we're going to stop. We might read all the way to Revelation. No, I'm kidding. Leviticus 26.14 says, "...but if ye will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these commandments..." You all know what's going on here, right? God's given commandments to Israel, and He's given commandments specifically in this book, He's given commandments to the Levites. But these commandments here He's dealing with, He's dealing with like several chapters of commandments here. And you get to chapter 26, and he's already been dealing with blessing and cursing and life and death and all that. But this kind of gets down to the crux of what we're talking about. He says, if you will not do, all these commandments and if verse number 15 and if ye shall despise my statutes or if your soul of whore my judgments so that ye will not do all my commandments but that ye break my covenant I also will do this unto you. I will even appoint over you consumption, the burning ague that shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And ye shall sow your seed in vain, and for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies. They that hate you shall reign over you, and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins." Now notice here, oftentimes God will give us a direct punishment. He'll give us a direct... How do I put it? The difference between God's punishment of He'll give us an active punishment. There's there's the active punishment and then there's passive punishment where God just says, OK, I'm taking my hand off and then you just get the passive. In this case, he gives the active. But then he goes on and says, I will break the pride of your power. And I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass and your strength shall be spent in vain. For your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits. And if you walk contrary unto me and will not hearken unto me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you. So it's going to compound. He says in verse 28, Then will I walk contrary unto you also in fury, and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. Yeah, and you shall eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. Shall you eat? And I will that that's talking about them being in captivity and having nothing to eat and I will destroy your high places and cut down your images and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols and my soul shall abhor you man. Imagine God, the God of love. abhorring you. I will make your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries into desolation and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors." You sacrifice, you give prayers, and you try to reach God and He says, nope. I'm not smelling that steak you're cooking for me. I am not smelling your sacrifices, the sweet odors, I'm not smelling that. I am not taking your sacrifice. I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies which dwell therein shall be admonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you. And your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land. Even then shall the land rest and enjoy her sabbaths." Think about Think about the fact that during during the time that Israel is taken into captivity, they're removed from the place that God wanted to meet them. Right? Y'all remember God said, I'm going to have a place. I'm going to set my name there. And when you get there, that's where you're going to go to meet with me. And God says at some point, finally, he says, you know what? I've had enough. I've had enough. I'm taking you out of the land. You can no longer reach me. Your heaven is going to be like iron. The Iron Dome. that keeps prayers from getting out instead of missiles from getting in. The earth will be like brass, you plant seeds and nothing's coming out. You can read that whole chapter, not right now, we'll get in, you can take that time, we'll move on. Letter C, God's judgment begins with moral decay. The first consequence in our text, in our text in Romans, the first consequence that we begin to see is moral perversion. The first consequence in our text in Romans chapter one. First consequence for man's sin and lack of acknowledging God is moral perversion. Moral perversion. As our text indicates and we'll spend a little more time talking about this corruption and stuff in the next. The next main point. But as our text indicates In verse 24, uncleanness and dishonor of the body is going to follow. As we already have alluded to, Galatians 6, 7 and 8. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Point number two. Point number one was the judgment of surrender. Point number two is the depth of sin. The depth of sin. And if you want to put the little extra piece on here, it's the depth of sin colon moral corruption. That's the depth of sin is moral corruption. You know, in the next step here, the depth of sin, the verse continues. It said, Wherefore, God also gave them up. And then here it continues to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. Before we get on to what that's talking about, understand that sin begins in the heart. It begins in the heart. The seed of sin there is in the heart. And you're going to find that it will happen just about every time before it manifests in the body. The all-secret, secret sin is dangerous. Secret sin is dangerous. Now, that does not mean that you ought to let everybody know about your secret sin. It means you just need to get it right. Quit. Whatever it is. Secret sin is dangerous, right? And it begins in the heart. Remember, Jesus said in Matthew chapter number seven, you can look at that later, verses 21 through 23. I'm trying to keep us from going to one o'clock if I can, but may not happen. But you'll find in that passage that he says, I'm just going to give you a little piece of it out of. The heart proceed. And then it starts talking about all this sin. Out of the heart proceed. And then he goes into these sins, right? In James chapter 1, as Brother Travis referred to earlier, verses 14 and 15. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived it, bringeth forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Letter B. Letter A there was sin begins in the heart. Letter B. Uncleanness leads to dishonor. Uncleanness leads to dishonor. This is A and B under point two. So it says, to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts to dishonor. And this uncleanness is going to lead to dishonor. That word uncleanness there, I'm going to give you a little more Greek here. It is, and I'm just going to spell it so it's easier for you. Well, the transliteration is A-K-A-T-H-A-R-S-I-A. Akatharsia. There you go. A-K-A-T-H-A-R-S-I-A Uncleanness. It means moral impurity. It means perversion. Perversion. Dishonor there, without the Greek, just referring to the distortion of God's design of physical marital relations. OK, now the next couple of verses are going to get further into that, and so I'm going to try to leave that off as much as I can. But these verses are dealing with a distortion. They're dealing with dishonoring, distorting God's design for physical intimacy in marriage. That is not, that action, and by the way, for those of you just wondering, there's probably very few, if any, people in this room that don't know what I'm talking about because of our society today is so perverse that children at very young ages are exposed to all kinds of perversion in this area. And so, I'm not trying to get into it much further than that. Just saying that God has a planned design of a man and a woman being married and having their physical intimacy within the bounds of that marriage alone. Not before that marriage. Not outside of that marriage, but in the bounds of that marriage alone. And when sin continues, it normalizes immorality before... Hey teenagers, pay attention please. It normalizes immorality Before it, let me, let me, immorality, period. It normalizes immorality, period. Immorality includes premarital physical intimacy. That's sin. And sin in the heart and saying no to God ends up normalizing in one's life and in society. Making it seem like it's wrong to do right. I'm telling you there. I don't know how many times before I was married when I was a young man. People said that it was right to do wrong. Because if you do right, you don't know if you're compatible. Wrong. That aspect. You know what you don't know what your spouse is going to think. Five minutes after you get married, let alone five years or 50 years. And there's a whole lot more to do with compatibility than physical connection. A whole lot. In fact, if you don't have the other stuff right, that part won't work. That's a fact. And just for you married folks out there, physical intimacy, men, husbands, if you want that part to be great in your marriage, all the other stuff needs to be focused on. your spiritual well-being, the way you talk to your wife, what you do for her throughout the day, what you expect of her and how you expect it of her. How you communicate to her, not just what you communicate to her. When you communicate it to her. A lot of those things. on the other side of this and on the primary point of the message as people. And by the way, even within marriage, there's there's perversion in that sense of of having the wrong expectation in that area. And yes, you can sin in that area of your marriage. Dishonoring, and I'm bringing it out the way that it is. The context clearly denotes that what we're talking about when it talks about dishonoring their own bodies between themselves. It's not talking about homosexuality yet. That's the next two verses. It's talking about other perversion, premarital, extramarital, even in the marriage. Things that are where you pervert, you change God's designed plan. And if you're married and you don't understand what I mean by that, you come ask me, I'll tell you, okay? And don't make any assumptions. If you assume that you know what I'm talking about, you might even ask me anyways. But go to 1 Corinthians 6. We're going to deal with this matter of uncleanness leading to dishonor a little more here. 1 Corinthians 6. I'm not just trying to pick on you teenagers. What I'm doing is I'm telling you that it's very important for you to think about these things now. If you're a teenager, 12 years old or older, okay? These things should not be hidden. Because you need to know that I'm not talking about you get like into this into sin on this or get perverse. I'm talking about you need to know that certain things are wrong, no matter what your friends say, no matter what your teachers say, no matter. It's thus saith the Lord. In First Corinthians chapter six and verse number 13, it says. Meats for the belly and belly for the meat and the belly for meats, but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord. And the Lord for the body. It's not for that. I don't care how you feel about it, what you think about it. God did not design your body to be active in marital intimacy before you are married. at any time outside of your marriage. Verse number 18. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. Don't do it! Now listen, I understand that people do sin and have sinned in the past. If it's in the past and you haven't gotten it right, get it right. Once you've gotten it right, don't continually beat yourself up over it. Just don't do it ever again. 1 Thessalonians 4 to the church of the Thessalonians, Paul says. And y'all know, the church of the Thessalonians, what do we know about that church? The general theme and understanding of the church at Thessalonica was that they were what? They were good. It was a good church. You know, Paul didn't spend chapters and chapters and chapters rebuking and correcting them. But he says toward the end, well, second to the last chapter, He says in verse 3, now let's just start at the beginning of the chapter. Furthermore then, we beseech you brethren and exhort you by the Lord Jesus that ye, I'm sorry, 1 Thessalonians 4. Yes. Furthermore, then we beseech you, brethren, that and exhort you by the Lord Jesus that as ye have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God so that ye would abound more and more. for you know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus for this is the will of God even your sanctification that ye abstain from fornication had to warn a good church about that That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel, that your body, in sanctification and honor, not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God. That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter, because that the Lord is the avenger of all such. as we also have forewarned you and testified." He also said to them in chapter 5 and verse number 21, Prove all things, hold fast that which is good, abstain from all appearance of evil. Not just the evil itself, but also the appearance of evil. Not even setting up a situation where anyone would think you're doing something wrong. Now I understand that sometimes people are just evil and they think that everybody's doing something wrong. That's a problem too. That's a problem too. But, don't put yourself in a situation where it makes it easy for those people to conclude that you're doing something wrong. It doesn't make them right to conclude you're doing something wrong when they're wrong about you doing something wrong. But it makes you responsible for giving them a little material and ammunition, there you go, to think that they're right about what they're wrong about. In other words, let me just get real with you, in other words, I don't hang out in a room with a woman that is not my wife With nobody else there if somebody if a lady needs to talk to me about something or whatever It's in a public place Not private Why? Because we're going to do something wrong? No, because I don't want to give any material to anybody that might think we would. That's it. It's not about me worrying about me doing wrong or them doing wrong. It's about somebody else. Having some something to say they were. They were by themselves. Who knows what they did? Yeah, or what they're saying, yeah. Or, I mean, or you dial it back some from the specific context we're dealing with to just, those two people, they were talking about such and such and all these assumptions of what they were talking about or, you know, whatever. Yeah, so there's a point where some of that, it just gets ridiculous, but that standard is good for people who are married and people who are not married. And I'll just get right down to it. If you're not married to someone, you shouldn't be alone with them, whether you're dating them or whether whatever, not because you're going to do something wrong, hopefully not, but because others might think you're doing something wrong. You say, well, we don't care about what they think. Well, it says abstain from all appearance of evil. That's what the Bible says. And that could be that that is an appearance of evil. I was just talking, I said something earlier this week about when my wife and I were dating, we were gonna go sledding, I think it was. It was public, a public thing we were gonna do. And a friend of ours, not somebody from McGregor Road, this guy, he went to a Christian church and he played the organ for the Indianapolis Ice and the Indiana Pacers. He was and he was a very what we would keep consider to be like a liberal Christians Christian or whatever, right? He was like kind of the ultra grace, you know, it's all grace and and you know, whatever that kind of guy But he asked me do you have a chaperone? And I said we're going sledding He said, do you have a chaperone? I mean, I was 20 years old and I'm like, we're both adults. We're going sledding, whatever. And he's like, brother, I think you should consider having someone go with you so that no one that knows you thinks you're doing wrong. Well, do I really need to think about or worry about what everybody thinks I'm doing? Yeah, sometimes you do because you need to avoid the appearance of evil. Well, we were going to be in a public place and all, you know, but that I just I'm reminded about that was 22 years ago, right? Something like that. Almost. I'm reminded about that. 21 and a half years ago, something like that. It was like in January or like, maybe it was in December, I don't know. I think it was sledding we were gonna do, right? There was snow on the ground or something. I don't know, I think that's what it was. Anyways, we were gonna go do something and it was in public, I remember, and he was like, where's your chaperone? Who's your chaperone? I'm like, who are you? But the reality is he was right, he was right. So. Avoid all appearance of evil. Hebrews chapter 13 and verse number four says marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled. but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." Listen guys, that act in its right place and with the right heart, that act, that marital, physical intimacy in marriage, that is proper. It's honorable and undefiled. It is right and there is nothing unclean or wrong about it. But when it's perverted, whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. uncleanness leads to dishonor. And that dishonor is their own bodies between themselves. There are consequences for this. Letter C. The consequences of dishonoring the body. When the spirit is corrupt, the body is used to satisfy degrading lusts. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Did somebody bring lunch? Because we're going to have to eat when we get done here. I'll preach all afternoon. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Somebody get Sister Becky an IV. No, I'm kidding. Or a cup of water or something. Alright. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. We're going to read here from verse 18. We just read 18 to 20. We already read 18. We're going to read it again. It says flee fornication. Every sin that a man do it is without the body that he that committed fornication sinneth against his own body. What? Hold on, hold on, y'all. This passage is the passage we go to often to say that it's wrong to do. A lot of times people use this verse to say it's wrong to smoke. The context says it is wrong to fornicate. Now, can it be applied to smoking or eating things that you shouldn't eat or, you know, not taking care of your body the way you should? Yes, it can apply to all of those things, but the direct context Specifically is dealing with fornication says what know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost Which is in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own For we for ye are bought with a price Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's that's not your body No matter what you're talking about, now specifically in its context here, we're talking about fornication. It's not yours to do with what you want. It's not your boyfriend or girlfriends. Now, once you're married, there is a transfer of ownership of your person. You your spouse owns you. You belong to them. That body is not yours anymore. It's hers. If you're if you're a man, it's his if you're a lady. It's your spouses, OK? But before you're married and even after you're married, by the way, Though, from an earthly perspective, your body belongs to your spouse, it still belongs to the Lord. God didn't say, OK, you can have it now. No, it still belongs to the Lord. We still answer to God for what we do in our bodies, and that's still something that we have to consider. But in this specific context here, He's saying that your body, as it says earlier in the context, that the body is not for fornication. God gave you that body. Actually, He didn't even give you the body. He's given you the stewardship over the body. It's not even yours. You're borrowing it. Yeah. And what you do with it, you have to answer to the owner for it. Anybody ever rent a car before? Anybody ever heard of a rental car before? All right. So can you do anything you want with it? No. No. What's that? Somebody's going to keep your deposit? Oh, on your body? Oh, yeah. Whoo. Yeah, sometimes you put a deposit on a rental car or you know, you got your credit card on file and you bring it back and somebody was smoking in that car and they weren't on fire. And guess what you get to do. Usually it's well used to be it was $250. Now it's five or $600. Wow makes me not even want to rent a car in case they might think somebody smoked in it Yeah, if they if they have any reason to believe that somebody smoked in the car They charge a cleaning fee and you know what they don't call you and ask you it just comes off your credit card Oh man, it's not yours. Yeah, if you ruin or damage the car, you vomit in the car, you spill your drink, whatever. Transport a dog? Man, you know what? The owner gets to decide what you can do with it. Now if they say it's okay to transport dogs, fine! If they say it's okay to smoke it up, fine! Now it's not okay, but I'm saying they own it, they can decide what gets done with it. What's allowed and what's not allowed. Just like your body. God owns it. He gets to decide what you can do with it, what you cannot do with it. And you've been bought with a price. By the way, you belong to God because He made you. And if you're born again, you belong to God because He's bought you. You belong to God because He has bought you. You're owned twice if you're a believer. He made you and he bought you. Mom, if your elbow accidentally swings around once in a while, that's fine. All right, so I don't want people from the back to have to get up and come to the front. If somebody's snoring next to you, help them out. If somebody's talking about something that's not directly related to the message, help them out, okay? So, your mouth belongs to the Lord. It's His. That thing you're sitting on that's getting sore because you're on a hard pew, that's His. That's His. It's not yours. Flip over to Ephesians. We're close. We're nearby there. It's down the street. We'll just jump over there. Ephesians chapter 4. I know Corinth and Ephesus are not next door neighbors, but in your Bible they're close. Ephesians chapter 4. Let's look at verse 17, 18, and 19. Ephesians chapter 4. Now this I say therefore, this is verse number 17. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that ye walk not I'm sorry that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. Y'all realize that literally means that their mind is empty. Or worthless, the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, who wants to be alienated from the life of God? Anybody? No, no, nobody wants to be alienated from the life of God. But if you walk as other Gentiles walk, that's where you go. That's what you get. Alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness." That's unbridled lust. That's saying, well, I'm just going to give myself whatever I want. "...to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ." That's not what Christ has taught you. That's not what you've learned of Him. To be that way. He says rather in Colossians 3 and verse number 5, mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness, and covetousness which is idolatry. I'll give you a little bit of understanding of those words there. Mortify. What does it mean to mortify? Anybody want to help me here? How about, how about we just, we just get our, oh man, you gave it up. Mortify therefore your members. What are your members? Your church members? No, your body parts, right? Kill your church members. No, don't do that. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, right? Sorry, it's over here. I've got it typed out. Fornication we've already defined. Uncleanness. Uncleanness, it is indirect context of fornication. Uncleanness has to do with impure thoughts and impure deeds related to that when other people aren't involved in it as well. Uncleanness. Inordinate affection. I will be real simple with you. Yes. I'll be real simple with you. It is having affection or attraction to that which God has not designed you to be attracted. Men should be attracted to women. and women should be attracted to men. Outside of that attraction, it is inordinate. Or in other words, it is not the ordained order of God. Okay? We'll deal with that more next week. But understand that is in the midst of this same discussion. It's dishonoring to the body. Evil concupiscence. In its context here, having to do with going beyond and taking off the restraints. We talk about God taking His restraints off. But when God takes His restraints off, often we take ours off too. Sometimes we've taken ours off first, and then He's taken His off, and then it gets worse. And covetousness. y'all know that like the first two things when it says in in Exodus in in the Ten Commandments when he says thou shall not covet see we we do like our Ten Commandments it says thou shall not covet what goes on it actually names the stuff not to covet first things what your neighbor's house and then his wife yeah Covetousness can have to do with the same topic that we're dealing with. Of course, first, we're talking about possession in Exodus 20. We're talking about the possession, their house, their dwelling. But we have the judgment of surrender, the depth of sin, and now the awful swap. This is what happens when you are surrendered by God's judgment and your sin deepens. There is a swap. Verse number 25 of our text. Who changed the truth of God into a lie? Rejecting the truth to embrace lies is letter A. Rejecting the truth to embrace lies. The word changed there. It's a fun Greek word to say. Meta lasso. Meta lasso. And it's not necessarily what you would think. But it's M-E-T-A-L-L-A-S-S-O. Yeah. It means to exchange or swap. Yeah. So when it says, who changed the truth, there's a swap or exchange. The truth of God In the context of the whole chapter, the truth of God is His revelation of Himself. His revelation there is both general and special. If you remember when we dealt with doctrine, we dealt with the doctrine of the Bible or Bibliology, we talked about the general revelation of God. That's God's creation. He generally reveals Himself to us. He shows Himself to us in the creation. Shows Himself to us in the creation like ourselves, right? There's an innate or an intrinsic understanding of God. That's His general revelation. Then special revelation is the Bible. It's when God speaks to us, right? And then, to a very, very, very limited extent, there's special revelation in the sense of God's guiding by the Spirit. And so, in other words, you know, we have His order, His moral law, these things. That's the truth of God. And then it's traded, it's exchanged, it's changed, it is swapped for a lie. And that is going to be what we're going to continue on to in the next main point, but we'll cover a little bit of it here. The lie is that it's okay to worship anything other than God. But especially, especially self. pleasure and creation. In 2 Corinthians 11, verses 13-15, it says, For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works." These are folks who have transformed themselves from the wicked, vile wretches that they are to appear to be apostles of Christ or representatives of Christ. These are folks who have a form of godliness, who have an appearance that they try to look what they ought to be, but instead of being what they ought to be, they just look like it and there's no power. Having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. And so we have in In that passage there it says, "...whose end shall be according to their works." Letter B, so letter A there was rejecting the truth to embrace lies. Letter B is the idolatry of self and pleasure. The idolatry of self and pleasure. The very first sin was, it was idolatry. It was selfishness but it was idolatry. Yeah, turn to Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3. Y'all know we're always going to go to the beginning, right? I still have 18 more points. No, I'm just kidding. Genesis chapter 3. What is it that the serpent said in Genesis chapter 3? That's right. But he started out, he first said, in verse number 1, he said, I'm just taking the little piece out, his phrase here, that he said to the woman, Yea, hath God said? And then he goes on asking about what God said, but he distorts it. But what is it? He first questions God. He questions God's words specifically. What did God say? Yea, hath God said? And then he goes further and he convinces her of something. He questions God's Word and then he directly contradicts God's Word. When she says, well no, God says that we're going to die. if we eat of this tree. And what does the devil say here? He says, ye shall not surely die. In other words, what he is directly saying is that you will not suffer the consequence that God said you were going to suffer. Basically, he says, did God say this? He questions God's Word. And then she says, yeah, God said this. And she clarifies. Now, she gets it a little wrong, but she clarifies. And then he says, He doesn't question the part she got a little wrong. He says that the part that she got right was wrong. You shall not surely die. What God said is not going to happen. And then He offers a replacement God. And says, you're not going to die. You're going to become your own God. He's not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be open, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Yeah, I know he says as gods, but the whole concept here is that you're going beyond what God has given to a point of being your own God. There's a point here where you trade off, where you decide, ah man, I've got to be careful because I'm going to cover all that in the next point. When man chooses to sin, is filled with vanity and deception. As in Jeremiah chapter 10 verses 14 and 15 say, Every man is brutish in his own knowledge. Every founder is confounded by the graven image, for his molten image is falsehood. And there's no breath in them. They are vanity and the work of errors. in the time of their visitation they shall perish. Remember we covered Colossians 3, verses 5-7 there. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. That idolatry has to do with wanting more than what God has for you. Covetousness. This idolatry It's going to boil down to the worship of the wrong thing. For which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience, in which he also walked some time when you lived in them. Point number four, the wrong Savior. So we have the judgment of surrender, the depth of sin, the awful swap, and the wrong Savior. The wrong Savior. It's worshiping, or worship of creature over creator. In the final verse of our text, it says, toward the end of it here, it says, and worshiped and served the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Letter A, worship directed toward the wrong object. The word worship, I'll just spell it rather than going into all of it. Greek word, S-E-B-A-Z-O-M-A-I. I'll just leave my notes out for you to copy it down. S-E-B-A-Z-O-M-A-I. Sebasomai. Worship, it means to venerate or adore. Word for worship. Then serve. Serve is Latreu and that's L-A-T-R-E-U-O. It means to minister or render a religious service. So man who was made to worship God Now worship's created things. That's quite a wrong situation there. Man is made, he was created to worship God, and instead chooses to worship that which is created, instead of the One who did the creating. Turn over to Acts chapter number 7. I'll be done before 7. Alright, Acts chapter number 7. We are in the last point and there are less references that I didn't type out. So, chapter 7 and verse number 39. Y'all know what's going on here? Yes, that's right. His brother Stephen, he's preaching. He's been arrested. He's preaching now to the elders here. And he says in verse 39, referring to the time in the wilderness. It says, "...to whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt, saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us. For as for this Moses, which brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what is become of him. And they made a calf in those days and offered sacrifice unto the idol and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. And God turned and gave them up. Oh, wow, that there it is again. God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven as it is written in the book of the prophets. Oh, ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of 40 years in the wilderness? Yea, you took up the tabernacle of Molech and the star of your God, Rimfan. figures which ye made to worship them, and I will carry you away to Babylon." There's more there. You can look at it on your own. So much. Man, I don't know why we cram things into like 40 minutes or an hour. I know it's because our attention spans are about 8 seconds long. Worship directed toward the wrong object creation What are the modern forms of idolatry though? We we have modern forms of idolatry that that you know, we don't necessarily Just worship like a little image that we make and bow down to it, right? We have yeah, that definitely could be I was just gonna give you three. Okay, so three money By the way, all of these are really just one But money? Remember, I'm just going to give you the address and give you the portion of the verse, okay? You can go there and look at the context. I'm speaking it in its context, okay? In Matthew 6, 24, Jesus said you cannot serve God and mammon. Mammon there is like the money God. Pleasure? In Second Timothy chapter three in verse number four, it says lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. You know, if you love something more than God, that's an idol. And the third one here that I that I put down is self. Philippians three verses 18 and 19 there it the key phrase that I'm bringing out, though, is whose God is their belly. Yeah. That all really just boils down to self. Really. All three of them. You want money because of what you can get. What you can get from it. You want pleasure because you want it. It's for you. It's selfish. I mean, even the folks who worship the sun. They worship the sun. Why? Because it gives what's needed for their crops to grow. They worship the stars and stuff because they've affixed some sort of benefit to it. You see, people worship that which they think benefits them the most. And so when people choose to create a God of their own belief, it's not the God of the Bible, People will take and they'll worship some other God. A God that doesn't say the things that the Bible says. Or they'll ignore, they'll take things out of the Bible and say, well, God didn't mean that. I mean, that's what the devil said, you know. God didn't mean what he said. But when we do that, we have created an idol that we're worshiping. And we do so because we love me more than we love Him. We love self more than we love Him. We love our own personal pleasure and what we want. And we say, God, get off the throne, that's my seat. And that's what's happening in the text. When we say, God, I don't care what you have to say, I want my pleasure. Letter C, God is the only worthy object of worship. I'm just going to read for you these passages, but Revelation 4, 11 says, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created. Psalm 96, verse number 5 says, For all the gods of the nations are idols, But the Lord made the heavens in Exodus 20 verses 3 through 5, which I already referenced a bit, but it says, Thou, now I didn't reference this, I referenced the end of the last commandment, but Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. I, the Lord, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." By the way, every time I come to this passage, I'm reminded, I listened to Oprah Winfrey's testimony. Okay? Just give me a second here. Alright? Her quote-unquote testimony, okay? Not her testimony of salvation, her testimony of leaving God. Her preacher got up, I don't know where she was going, but her preacher got up and he read this verse and she said, I could not worship a God that's jealous. He said, well, that's because you have to be the one. You can't let Him be God, you gotta be God. Sorry, every time I read the passage, I hear her voice saying that. That she could not worship a God that's jealous. She doesn't understand what it really means. We think about it in our own terms. But, I hope she gets saved. So trading, the kind of recap in here, not necessarily recapping, but just kind of concluding it, bringing it to a close here. Trading, or there's danger in trading truth for a lie. You know, kind of like if during our work yesterday, if we would just kind of like cut the alley and just taken, made a cliff off the end, you know, instead, and just made it, yeah, we already had a cliff. If we would, instead of filling in the potholes, if we would just cut, I noticed we filled the parking lot. The whole parking lot's full of cars out here. They're all Brother Ramsey's, but it's full. No, I'm just kidding. No, the whole parking lot's full because people didn't have to worry about the war zone coming in. But if we were to cut it off and then we were to stand out there and give a lie instead of the truth to somebody, to somebody driving, say, you know what? Or let's say we gave them the truth. We say, hey, we cut the alley off. It's a cliff out there now. You're gonna die. And they say, you know what? I got places to go. I got things to do. Leave me alone. I don't want to hear what you have to say. I don't care. And they hit the gas. What happens when you trade truth for a lie? You suffer the consequences, right? You fall off the cliff. You know, the fool is often pictured in that way. It's the guy who's stepping off the cliff, turning around, telling the guy behind him, I'm fine. I'm going to be okay. Don't worry about me. I've got things figured out. I'm under control. Don't tell me that I can't go that direction. As they walk off the cliff. That's the fool. You'll find the fool in the Bible. The fool is the guy who knows everything. And the fool is the guy that you can't tell anything to. And the fool is the guy that he worships himself. That's the reality. Because he sees himself so highly, God's Word can't correct him, and you certainly can't either. There is danger in trading the truth for lies. People reject truth. God gives them up. People exchange God's glory. They dishonor themselves. People worship the creature and they fall into deeper corruption, which we're going to find as we continue through the chapter in the coming weeks. So what about us? What are we doing to apply these things to our lives? Not apply and try to live the way that these wicked people are living. But what are we? What are we doing to avoid that which they're diving into? What are we doing to keep God's hand on us? What are we doing to make sure that we're worshiping the Creator and not the creature? What are we doing to be sure that we're walking in the truth? That we're not saying, no, God, I don't want that. You know what? I'll take everything else, but not that. My old preacher, years and years and years ago, he would say, if you've got a box, a shoebox in your closet, up in your closet, hiding up there in the closet, he said, and if you can take God to your closet and you can say, God, you can have anything in here. And he says, I want that. No, no, not that. Anything else? That's your God. That's your God. What about us? His illustration was, these are sins. You know, I'll give, oh, I'll go to church, or I'll do, I'll read my Bible sometimes, or I'll do this, or I'll do that, but I'm not quitting this. Or I'll quit this, I'll quit that, and I'm not gonna start doing that. That's because really, when you close the closet door and the mirror, you know, is there, that's your God. Right? I don't have I don't have a mirror on my closet, but some people do. And in this illustration, there's a mirror on the closet door. You close the door and you look at the door and you're like, that's a handsome God right there. Oh, that's the wrong. That's the wrong thing. But that's the reality. If there's anything that God can't have. or if there's anything that you can't give up to God. If we choose not to give up the thing that God wants, we'll be given up to it.