Hi, church, and welcome back to this week’s Bible study video, where we bring the Bible home as you continue with the Scriptures, not just on Sundays but throughout the week also. If you are new here, my name is Ryan Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California, and today’s video is the seventh in our video series through Romans. We have been covering Romans on Wednesday nights. It has been several months since I did a Romans video, and in the last one we got all the way into chapter 1, past verses 16 and 17, into what started the condemnation section of the book. The book starts with the gospel in the first sixteen or seventeen verses, but then there is the condemnation of everybody. It starts negatively, showing these deviant sexual sins. And yet we looked at verse 18 last time: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” So we saw that this is a condemnation of all men. Some people jump to this passage as though it were a catchall just for homosexuality, but that is not the only sin mentioned, although there is a deviance to the sexualized sins that takes a greater grip on you, and I believe we covered that in our last video.
The Condemnation So Far
We have been quoting some outline points from one of our commentaries. The first is that this passage teaches that men are under condemnation because they hold the truth in unrighteousness; that was from verse 18. Then, men are under condemnation because they have the light of creation and yet do not honor God; that was from verses 19 and 20. If you remember, we talked about Dr. James Tour, a brilliant professor of chemistry who understands creation way better than I do, and he knows this whole creation is from God. Mankind naturally understands that, I believe, and yet suppresses that truth. Number three, men are under condemnation because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; that is from verse 21. Number four, men are under condemnation because when they knew God, they changed the truth of God into a lie and created false gods. We stopped there last time, with the idolatry of immorality: knowing God and yet rejecting God, creating their own version of God, and saying, “God must allow my sin, because I do not like a God who does not.” That is verse 25: “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”
God Gave Them Up
Now verses 26 and 27: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.” There are times when sin pushes itself in the face of God. There is an allowance God has for sin, and yet you have to live with the consequences, and it says here they received in themselves the consequences. The Bible says in Proverbs, “The lot is cast into the lap.” Let me back up here… oh, it looks like I did not include the Proverbs passage, but Proverbs 16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.” One author said, “God did more than simply let nature take its course. God acted to abandon people to expressions of a corrupt lifestyle that deserved God’s wrath and the sentence of death.” So God is involved in the punishment that comes on the people who reject Him. It is not that He causes their rejection, but He is involved in the punishment. Verse 24 says God gave them up. Three different times we see this; verse 28 has it as well: God gave them over to a reprobate mind. If you reject God, it is as if He responds in kind: “All right. You reject Me, then you will be rejected.” It is like a Chihuahua trying to charge after a Great Dane or some giant dog, a pit bull or something. The Chihuahua wants to attack the pit bull, but he is on a leash, and the owner is holding him back, keeping him back, keeping him back, and the Chihuahua constantly pulls and pulls against the leash. That is the same idea as our hearts desiring their own way. There is the restraining hand of God, which is for our good and our protection, but it appears from this text that some push so hard against the restraining hand of God that the leash is removed, and like that Chihuahua you can charge in after the giant dog, but only to your own destruction. That is the idea.
Uncleanness
The wording here is not limited to deviant sexual behavior or abusive homosexual relationships, as some claim this text is only referring to. Verse 24 calls it uncleanness: “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts.” There is an uncleanness that comes with sexual sins. I took my son to Six Flags Magic Mountain, and in the bathroom there, as I was washing my hands, some young men walked in and made a lewd joke, and when I saw them outside, they had Playboy emblems on their T-shirts. It is like, okay, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, as the Scriptures say. It is no longer innocent and private, shameful and hidden. These sexual sins are just out there. They have a corrupting nature, an uncleanness. The Bible says they dishonor their own bodies between themselves. There is a theology of the body found in 1 Corinthians 6, which says the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord. Let me see if I have… no, I did not get that text in here; that is 1 Corinthians 6:13. There are those who are so strong to condemn and yet are justifying things going on inwardly. There is an outward condemnation, but the corruption starts on the inside. It is really a corruption of the whole body, and it affects you in terrible ways. I mentioned to our church a pastor who committed suicide last year. In his public ministry he was very open, but he had been caught in some of these same lewd sins mentioned here, and, boy, he killed himself over that. It is dishonoring and vile, a terrible thing even to hear about, and you hear about these things only generally, but that is the wording the Bible uses.
Vile Affections
Verse 26: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.” In our young adults class we have been working through various topics they will face in everyday life, and one of them is homosexuality. There is often pushback from those who do not like the Bible or who have rejected it, and from those who want to justify sodomy or homosexuality as though this passage referred only to the abuse of relationships in the Roman culture of the day, saying that common sexual acts between consenting adults are no big deal. I think that is a stretch of the text; that is not what the text is saying. Especially in the Roman culture, yes, there were vile affections, terrible atrocities that went on in those cultures. And even in the name of the church of Rome there have been sexual perversions and pedophilia; I do not know whether it was common, but it seems to have been very common in its day. I am not saying the Baptists are immune from that, right here in our Baptist ranks. I am all for exposing sins and not covering them up, shipping people off to other churches and making it all hush-hush, and we try not to do that at our church. But we are talking about things God calls vile affections, and we just want to be biblical about it. The Bible says in Leviticus 18:22, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” It is abomination in kind, not in the same category as mixed garments, as some people point to, saying the Leviticus laws are not being applied consistently. No, the kind is different. Leviticus 20:13: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” For them it was capital punishment in their day, and it was not just the abuse of relationships. It was all forms: lying with mankind as with womankind. Jude 1:7 says, “Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” So the acts of homosexuality are unclean. It is a heart affection, and the outward acts are called vile. The word is used of dishonor in Romans 9:21, of shame in 1 Corinthians 11:14, and of reproach in 2 Corinthians 11:21. And it is referred to as affection: “vile affections,” here in verse 26. “They burned in their lust”: that burning is a stretching out for, a reaching out for. Some would say, “Well, it is okay if it is not acted on.” But I believe the Scriptures indicate here that it is more than just the acts of homosexuality. The affection is what is wrong, the vile affection, the desire, the burning. And the Bible says it goes against nature. The natural inclination of man is to be attracted to woman. I realize those attractions can be twisted or deformed, just as sin twists all kinds of things; I believe that is the nature of sin. But the Bible says sexual desires and sexual acts are for marriage. Hebrews 13:4: “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” This is based in creation and in the Scriptures.
Unseemly, Error, and a Reprobate Mind
Outside of that, verse 27 calls it unseemly: “And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly.” That just means indecent or shameful. I realize there is a world that says we should not shame, that nothing can be shameful: “You cannot judge me. You cannot shame me.” But I am not the one saying it; the Scriptures are: “and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” Again, it is called error, and it is called shameful, and they received in themselves the recompense of their error. I believe that refers in part to STDs. The CDC reports that STDs are particularly common among homosexual men, and that is a recompense of their error, the recompense of sinful, unnatural acts. It is called reprobate in verse 28: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.” Reprobate just means unacceptable or unapproved. 2 Timothy 3:8 talks about the reprobate: “Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.” The word reprobate means: here is the faith, and here is a deviance from that faith. There is the faith and the things the people of the faith do, and then there are things outside the faith, which are considered reprobate. That is false. They are reprobate concerning the faith, and that is what verse 28 is talking about: a reprobate mind. It is a state of mind, a corruption of the mind. Verse 21 talks about vain imaginations, minds that dwell on vile things. So that is the battleground we are dealing with: the mind and the affections and the heart, and where we allow our minds to dwell. It is a battle not just of actions but of the mind. The old saying goes, you cannot keep a bird from flying over your head, but you can keep it from building a nest there. It is what we allow our minds to dwell on that produces our affections and desires. Verse 28 calls these things “not convenient.” That is just an old King James expression meaning not becoming, not fitting, not right, not proper. Those are actions and habits and affections that are just not fitting for a child of God. That is reprobate, different from what people of the faith do.
Worthy of Death
So in talking about this condemnation section, I am not saying that I am condemning or that Christians are condemning. Some have a condemning spirit and an attitude of pride in approaching this, and they think homosexuals cannot be saved and all that nonsense. But the condemnation is not us doing the condemning. The condemnation is that the Scriptures line up some pretty clear sexual sins, and to be in bondage to these sexual sins is to be under God’s condemnation. The ideas we have been covering continue here: men are under condemnation because they know that sin is worthy of death, and yet they love sin and they love sinners. They have seen the sin and know what it is, but they love it and want to continue in it. “Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” Verse 29 says they are filled with all these things; they are full of it. We are all capable of those things; there is no doubt. We are all capable of everything on that list. Before salvation, that fullness was all of us. We were all full of sin. This is the sin all of us are capable of. Jesus said, “Look, murder and hatred are from the same root.” If you had the same hatred in your heart and slightly different circumstances, you would murder that person, because it is from the same root. Adultery and lust are from the same root; in slightly different circumstances, you would commit the act of adultery. So lust that starts in your heart is of the same root, equal in sin. The same idea is here: this is all the sin that is possible in all of us, and those who continuously reject God will do so to their own destruction. Verse 32 says they even go so far as to have pleasure in those who do them. There is a creation that says there is a God, and there is a man who says, “No, I want my sin instead. I have created this idolatry of immorality, and I want that instead.” And the Scriptures make it very plain that their condemnation is justified. You see, you know the law, but you reject it. You see creation, the natural order of things, the Creator, and yet you reject that. So this condemnation section is not comfortable. It is not pretty to go through, but it is true, and we cannot sidestep the issues. But I am so thankful for the grace of God and the mercy of God and His longsuffering with our sin. Even when we reject God, even for years, the longsuffering hand of God is still saying, “Look, you can repent, turn from that sin, turn to Jesus Christ, and be saved.” No matter how many steps away from God you feel you are, you are one step away from turning to Him and being saved, and He can forgive you of that sin. And homosexuals are not the only ones who need it. That list of sins talked about all kinds of things, all kinds of issues; that is all of us. We all face that. In the next video we will talk about chapter 2, which turns to religious folks next. Even religious folks need the saving grace of Jesus Christ. So let us talk about that in the next video. God bless you, and we will see you then.
