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No.
God is loving, but He is also Holy. That means He is pure and untainted by sin. Because people refuse to accept His offer of forgiveness through the sacrifice of His son Jesus on the cross, God will judge them for those sins. People these days like to think that they can live free and unfettered by moral constraints, that whatever they do will have no consequence on earth or in heaven. I have one word for that philosophy.
No.
There are consequences. Individually, people who refuse the offer of salvation by Jesus' substitution death on the cross are in effect, choosing hell, because they are choosing sin. We are all sinners, me, you, all. (Romans 3:23). But those who escape judgment of those sins are the ones who asked Jesus to forgive them, and repented. All others will be eternally separated from God in a place called the Lake of Fire. God doesn't send you there...you chose it by rejecting the alternative.
That was individuals. God judges nations, also. He is judging America. This is a short commentary from John MacArthur today, about this verse from Romans: "Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them." (Romans 1:24-25; 28).
Introduction: "If we chart the spiritual course of America, a distinct pattern of sin emerges. Evolution has become the dominant world view. People live as if God doesn't even exist. And even the destructive sin of homosexuality has become commonplace. Sounds like Romans chapter 1 where God gave them over to impure lusts, degrading passions, and a depraved mind. Three times in that passage it says "God gave them over." What does that phrase mean, and what application is there for our nation today?"
MacArthur's answer: "Giving someone over was actually a legal term that was used in the court to speak of a person who had been found guilty and who was handed over for judgment. And that is exactly its meaning in Romans 1. This is God's judgment on nations. And what Romans 1 is describing happens over and over though all human history. Nations know the truth about God, they reject the truth about God, they create false gods, they live according to their lusts, and there's a sequence. First, sexual immorality, second homosexuality, thirdly reprobate minds. When you look at a nation, or a civilization, and you see that nation honoring immorality, honoring homosexuality, and laughing and enjoying the reprobate mind, then you know that nation is under Divine judgment. That is the wrath of God at work in that nation. That's where we are. We need to pray that God will be gracious to this nation and bring revival."
A reprobate mind is mentioned three times in the New Testament: Romans 1:28, 2Timothy 3:8 and Titus 1:16. Other translations use the words depraved, disapproved, and worthless. A reprobate mind, no matter what the word used in which translation, adds up to the same thing: a mind rejected by God.
I think no one can argue that this nation is immoral. Licentiousness abounds, even in the simplest of commercials. Abortion doctors make millions. Some Grandmothers pose in short short hot pants in front of the world. Other grandmothers do the same. Homosexual marriage is legal in five states and recognized in three more. Homosexuality is promoted as normal on television, movies, ads, and in this startling report, half of boyfriends say that adultery from their girlfriend is OK as long as it was with another woman.
I think anyone with eyes can see that America is in a terrible moral decline, and not only is approving of it, accepting of homosexuality, but laughing at it with a reprobate mind. As MacArthur showed us in the verses from Romans, God gave us over. And we know what comes next: judgment.
If you are sorry for your sins though, you can ask Jesus to forgive them, and He will. He is loving and gracious that way, taking on all sinners. He died for every sin that was ever committed and will ever be committed. No sin is too big for our Jesus to handle. He loves you and does not want to reject you. But if you persist in choosing sin, He WILL give you over to it, just as He is giving America over to it.Tweet
This is pretty truthful stuff, love it.
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
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I think the saddest thing of all is that fellow Christians are justifying that type of behavior. I saw someone the other day post a link about how homosexuality isn't wrong, and that Paul was directing his words toward infidelity-- nothing more; because of the number of times the word infidelity was said up against homosexuality.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand how we can take the words of the most beautiful thing ever written and completely warp them into our own understanding/longing. We are losing more Christians into that "lukewarm" mindset every day, and it's truly terrifying. It's heartbreaking.
“IF THE FOUNDATIONS BE DESTROYED,
ReplyDeleteWHAT CAN THE RIGHTEOUS DO?”
(PSALM: 11:3)
It grieves and frightens me that this country has gone so far down this road, and my grandchildren will have to live in it. I am 60 years old. I look at the america I was raised in and compare it to now and it is totally mind blowing how decadent this country has become. I personally believe we have gone beyond the point of no return and that no "revival" is forthcoming
"America the Beautiful"
ReplyDeleteRomans 1:20-32 (NIV)
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.