GOD’S JUDGMENT AGAINST DEPRAVED MEN ON EARTH IS ABANDONMENT TO THEIR LUST
The massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida in U.S.on 11th June showed a sign of the country’s spiritual condition....
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 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.
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. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 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.
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. 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, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 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. ROMANS 1:18-32.
The massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history which took place late in the evening of Saturday, 11th June, ‘16 has captured the world’s attention. Many comments were reported. According to The Cap Times, Rev. Franklin Graham, the evangelist and son of the Rev. Billy Graham opened the rally in Madison, Wisconsin on Wednesday 15th June, with a prayer for the victims of the Orlando shooting, which killed 49 and injured 53. He said that America brought the mass shooting upon itself because it has become a “godless nation” and he asserted it to be a “symptom” of the country’s spiritual condition.
The article puts it:
The preacher has warned gay people "that if they want to continue living like this, it's the flames of hell for you," and has said gay people cannot belong to the Christian faith. When it was announced this year that President Barack Obama planned to designate the area near the Stonewall Inn in New York as a national monument recognizing the struggle for gay rights, Graham called it a "monument to sin." Asked Wednesday whether he believes Christians who believe homosexuality is wrong should reconsider that stance in light of the violence in Orlando, Graham said his position is what the Bible teaches — that is, that homosexuality and sex outside of marriage are sins. "But the bible also teaches us that we’re all sinners, and I’m not here saying that a homosexual is a greater sinner than Franklin Graham. They’re not. We both deserve death, and that’s the penalty for a sinner, is death," Graham told reporters after the rally. Graham said he wants gays and lesbians to know God loves them and wants to forgive sin. "I love the gay community enough to tell the truth, and not tell them a lie," Graham said. "I’m going to tell them the truth, and if they would repent and believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, they’ll have that same hope that I have”. He also said: Some atheists held signs that said, “I'm not afraid to burn in hell.” That is very sad — one day they will change their minds. The Bible says that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Every person is going to face eternity in either Heaven or Hell. The most important thing in this lifetime is to trust God's Son, Jesus Christ, as your Savior and to follow Him as Lord for the rest of life. (http://www.christianpost.com/news/franklin-graham-says-orlando-shooting-symptom-of-a-godless-nation-165307/)
The following is an analysis by Dr. William Welty, which I have found important and worthy of notice. He points out the fact that certain members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas were quick to comment to the Orland attack, bluntly stating WBC is unapologetic in its advocacy of putting homosexuals to death, while Islam also teaches the killing of homosexuals in the Qur’an. He argues that the difference between the two factions is that WBC believes the executions should be carried out by the state, whereas Islam delegates the carrying out executions of homosexuals to every believer, and that for Islam, killing homosexuals is an individual’s duty before Allah, while for WBS, it should be the duty of government.
However, Welty puts it:
WBC and Islam get it wrong. The reason God’s divine, catastrophic judgments are recorded in Scripture isn’t because that’s the way he acts in human history. Quite the opposite—the records are there to let us know how serious God is when we are warned about the eternal nature of sin, and how it cries out to God for eternal retribution that cannot be remedied apart from the redemptive grace of God’s own Son. The flood of Noah’s day and the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and the Cities of the Plain recorded in the book of Genesis, the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of Israel recorded in the Chetubim (Ketuvim) of the Hebrew Scriptures are reminders to us that God hates sin.But the normative policy of God in judging sin is to let the consequences of godless behavior reap its harvest in due time. In short, the abandonment wrath of God is the normative way in which the judgment of God works in the life of an individual or in the culture of a nation. The first chapter of the book of Romans addresses that in some detail as we’ll note below. The eternal aspects of the judgment of God go to work in eternity, not necessarily in the present time domain. When applied to nation states, the abandoned nation state collapses from within. Carthage, ancient Greece, the Babylonian empire, the Roman Empire, and (if we do not repent) the United States as well, are historic examples of the abandonment wrath of God at work in His world. As it is today, America stands at the brink of reaping the consequences of the abandonment wrath of God.In sum, we suggest that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah violently as an object lesson for us, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Except for the case of those cities of the Plain described in the book of Genesis and the judgment of national Israel by the Babylonians and by the Romans, most historians can cite only one other instance in history in which God catastrophically destroyed a city by what would otherwise seem to have been “natural” means. (At this juncture, I’m inclined also to cite the example of Pompeii, the hometown of Roman general Titus, who destroyed Jerusalem, God’s adopted “hometown,” so to speak. A few years after Titus destroyed God’s home town, God destroyed Titus’ home town of Pompeii by means of a volcanic eruption.) …When administered by divine wisdom, divine judgment can bring about repentance. This principle works for a nation and a culture just as surely as it does for the individual. As long as we live in that certain unique dimension called Time, change is possible. In eternity, change is no longer an option. We can neither grow nor repent. We have become what we will always be. For the damned, it means they can never be changed. Nor can the righteous fall. Human wrath, such as is practiced by Islam toward homosexual behavior or as urged to be carried out by members of WBS, can never work the divine judgment of God, since neither postures work to display the possibility of repentance. It is to this issue, therefore, that we address the rest of our remarks. In short, attitudes toward both sins that came to the forefront of public attention during the Orlando attack are not extended the opportunity for repentance that God’s grace demands: neither the sinful murderer not the sinful victims would be given such opportunity if the WBS posture were adopted here in the West. (Lines added, http://khouse.org/enews_article/2016/2517)
In the passage of Romans Chapter 1 as quoted in the beginning, Paul the Apostle condemned the pagan world for three reasons, the first of which is the suppression of God’s truth, the second is the ignorance of His natural revelation, and the third is the perversion of His glory. The wrath of God is being revealed in opposition to human sinfulness such as godlessness and wickedness. Everywhere in the universe, God’s creation reveals evidence of His design, reflecting His unseen character, but man chose to ignore this, and so all men are without excuse. Although people knew God they rejected the clearly visible evidence of God as the sovereign Creator, and turned their perversion into idolatry. With such willful rebellion against God, their thinking and hearts became futile and immoral as Paul expressed in Ephesians 4:18-19,
They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
The Psalmist declared:
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise (Psalm 111:10).However, when the knowledge of the true and living God is refused, false gods inevitably fill the vacuum, and those who worship idols of stone, wood and so on become like the gods they worship as Psalm 115 depicts:
But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. …Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them (v.4-8).On the contrary, if we worship the true God, Christ, we are all promised to become like Him as depicted in Ro. 8:29,
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters (Emphasis added).
Although God loves sinners and He desires their salvation, He hates sin and so, He judges it. In the passage above, the following phrase is repeated three times: ‘God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity’ (v24), ‘God gave them over to shameful lusts’ (v26), and ‘God gave them over to a depraved mind’ (v28). This describes God’s wrath in this world, in a sense as a warning, referring not to the final damnation but that of the at-present-loss. In other words, God allows men to go their own way as His present judicial action on earth until the time of judgment at the great white throne, where there will be no liberty left for men to indulge themselves in lusts as in this present world. Because of man’s continual, willful and impenitent rebellion against God with a depraved mind and lifestyle, God’s responding judgment for the present is expressed to be abandonment to their desires, but their attitudes and actions of which are utterly unacceptable to God.
If they repent, however, God’s grace is still available for them, but if not, the consequence will be found in a solemn prophecy of what would be at the close of time, i.e., at the Second Coming of Christ, which is expressed in Re.22:11,
Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.
John Gill comments on this verse in the following way;
The meaning of this expression is, he that is now found without a righteousness, and full of all unrighteousness, and acts unrighteously, will continue so; there will be no change made in him, no regeneration, renovation, repentance, or reformation; he will remain the same wicked man he ever was; or he that hurts, or does injury to his fellow creatures, will still do mischief; at least he will have the same inclination, though not the opportunity and power, but will attempt it, of which there will be an instance in the wicked dead, when raised. … all mankind are originally, naturally, and universally filthy, or defiled with sin. Some are cleansed from it by the blood of Christ, others are not; and these will continue polluted, nor will the fire of hell fetch out the filthiness of their hearts and nature: or the words may be rendered, "he that defileth, let him defile still"; though he will not be able to defile the temple of God, or corrupt the good communications of the saints, yet he will continue to defile himself; the same evil thoughts will proceed out of him as ever, which defile the man.
Apostle Paul, stressing ‘now’, urged people that now that salvation through Christ was preached, it should be brought home to all sinners’ souls by the ministration of the gospel, in which sinners were convinced of their need of salvation and made to submit to Christ:
As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation (2Co.6-1-2, Line added).
It is important for all sinners to turn to God now, because the Greek words used in verse 29 in Ro.1, ‘wickedness, evil, greed and depravity’ can become manifest outwardly more specifically as ‘envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice’. As such, Christ warned that the evil in the heart births evil actions in time. The call of God is for man to turn from their habitual, sinful lifestyle against Him and to be cleansed from the inside out.
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This month, a money gift of $ ***** has been sent to Mary Jane in the Philippines to support her ministry of reaching out to minority tribes and to the impoverished children with the sustenance of livelihoods and the Word and also expense of the missionary trip to islands of the remote place and the personnel cost of labour for the engagement in organic vegetable gardens and in pig breeding and poultry farming. Pray for her successful outreach to remote islands, which are notorious for witchcraft and many Filipino folklore evil spirits, and where the gospel has not been heard yet.