Trading Away the Truth - Romans 1:25

God's Word teaches us that all people Christians and non-Christians alike are religious by nature. We read in verse 25. The parts and he worships and serves the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever man is incurably religious so this tells us that man experiences a number of consequences by virtue of choosing the speculations he has concocted rather than the Scripture which God is inspired mankind then loses or rejects a personal, loving, forgiving God's word and worship the creator or they will reject God's truth and substitute God's truth for something else. Are people free to find their own truth is truth absolute or is it relative has God delivered unchanging truth about himself or is it acceptable for us to decide on our own what God is like and what he wants from us. Relativism is certainly becoming increasingly common in our society. You likely know people who believe that what's true for you is not true for them.

This is wisdom for the heart and in this message. Stephen Devi gives us an absolute answer all these questions.

John Stott wrote some interesting words and he challenged me. I want to give them to you. He said this, if we come to the Bible with our minds made up expecting to hear from it only an echo of our own thoughts and never the thunderclap of God's, then, indeed, he will not speak to us and we shall only be confirmed in our own prejudices.

However, we must allow the word of God to confront us to disturb us to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and hate this morning as we return to chapter 1 of the book of Romans. We have already heard the thunderclap of God's truth and we have already discovered that mankind would rather not hear it at all. They would rather not hear from God. And so they devised religions and systems and distractions to keep them from hearing the rumbling of God's truth in creation and in their conscience they have denied the authority and the existence of a personal sovereign God. They don't want believe in them because they do they can't behave in a way they want to get believe anything they want to believe. But in spite of their persistent denials of his voice. The thunderclap of God's spirit has still spoken through the apostle Paul and we have taken a look carefully at chapter 1.

Thus far, and already he has told us beginning in verse 18, that the wrath of God has been revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God.

Paul writes, is evident within them. For God made it evident to them for ever since the creation of the world his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what is been made so that they are without a lot excuse for even though they knew God. Paul writes they did not honor him as God or give thanks but they became futile in their speculations and are foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became more on the Greek word is more on, they became fools, and exchanged in the process. The glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of bird did animals and crawling. Therefore verse 24 says that is on the basis of everything. Man has done in rejecting this creator God and denying him his honor and his due. Therefore, on that basis we have read those chilling words, God gave them over some translations read God gave them up paradigm. He is the Greek word used for those translations for God gave them over and we studied about seven weeks ago.

That's how long it's been since we've been out of the book of Romans is in a grade to be back in the book of Romans.

It talks about God's passive role in that God sort of lets man float away in his own ungodly rebellion. Knowing the waterfall is ahead. And man rushes over it and he is destroy, but it is not only passive, it is God's active role in that God literally fashions the boat and boards, rebellious man on it and sends them down the river and he crashes over the waterfall and is destroy. So this is a rather shocking word that reflects the character of God's holy judgment that will come in three times you read that phrase in verse 24 to peers God gave them over. He gave them up, in effect, he said you don't want to holy right does God you want to ignore God and God will ignore you. You want to reject God, then God will reject you says your verse 24. The prices paid. No one escaped unharmed because of their rebellion says their bodies are dishonored among them. The latter part of that verse. In other words, mankind becomes users and abusers of one another. They simply treat each other as objects of selfish desire, selfish longing and yet nothing satisfies intimacy as lost as men and women simply go from one hide to the next, from one toy to the next, from one partner to the next, from one spiritual experiment to the next, never satisfied, never fully contented. They fulfill the prophecy of Solomon is that the eyes of man are never satisfied. Second, instances in verse 26.

This reason God gave them over to degrading passions and he will go on to describe homosexuality and lesbianism. He will conclude in the last part of verse 27 what will look at only for today will reserve further discussion for the near future. He says they receive in their own persons the due penalty of their error. That is, they pay the price for rejecting relationships as God's designed them again in verse 28 and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper being filled with all unrighteousness and wickedness and greed and evil so man then pays a price he pays the price of a life filled with spiritual wandering unhindered wickedness, uninhibited perversion, unable to relate to one another, destroying themselves and each other. We began this particular series, I quoted Robert Louis Stevenson who said every man shall one day be seated at a banquet table of consequences, and it is true for what you have in the latter part of Romans chapter 1 is simply a description of what that banquet table looks like it is loaded upon it. All the evil and vice in sin and its accompanying pain and disillusionment. Mankind has said God. We want you to leave us alone and God does leave me alone and man pays the bitter price. Now let's pick up where we left off a a few weeks ago with some further commentary on why man reached the state of the digression that we will see laid out for us in the rest of this chapter will get about halfway through your study notes for today.

Romans chapter 1 verse 25 gives us further commentary on the nature of rebellious man, it says, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lot. You could render that phrase. They they traded, they swapped out the truth for the Eli definite article there indicates that this is reference to the Eli what would the ally be.

I think you have to go all the way back to the garden where Satan first whispered the lie into the ear of Eve and said if you eat that fruit you will not die and God had said if you eat of the fruit of that tree you will surely what you will surely die. So the lie then as an attack on the word of God and the veracity the accuracy of his word and the enemy the underworld is still doing that to this day the fundamental attack is still the authority the veracity the accuracy of God's word. It isn't so much that we do not know what God has said it said we do not like what God has said some of the lies that come off of that original liar.

These let's go through several of them quickly.

One lie would be the truth is relative. If there is no such thing as absolute truth. Obviously, God's truth being the main target. There than God's truth is merely one of many truths I got in the mail yesterday at a journal that I subscribe to and it gave the timeline of the educational system in America going all the way back to the days of the colonies and it was interesting to read an illustration of how far we have come in our digression. As a culture listen. This was passed in Massachusetts in 1640 7K 1647, they passed an act called the old dilute or act it became the basis for publicly funded schools is what it says the chief project of that old dilute or Satan is to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures.

It is therefore ordered that every township of 50 households shall appoint one within their town to teach all of the children. The Scriptures can you imagine Massachusetts today coming anywhere near this or any state ordering all the public schools to teach children so they will be saved from the dilute or in the delusion of the old dilute or Satan. There is no absolute truth. It is that absolute truth which introduces us to this one brings delusion a progressive step downward from that point is this additional live. Salvation is universal and all religions are equal.

That's religious relativism. One university student parroted the politically correct mantra of our culture in our day, when he said it is okay for you to believe that you're right but it's not okay for you to believe that I'm wrong. That's relativism and it has basically been baptized into a religious system which today around the world says anybody can be right and the worst thing you could ever do is say by virtue of what I believe is right.

You must be wrong.

If you want to believe in one true and living God great that's good for you that's true for you but if a Hindu wants to believe in 300 million God's then let him be. That's true for him.

One author I was reading was sitting next to a woman on an airplane. She was wearing a necklace with a cross around it and leaned over any citizen our Savior. One and she said oh no, she rolled her eyes and she said I don't I don't think of the cross like you doing, she showed in the beneath the cross was the Jewish Star of David, and beneath that was a trinket that symbolize the Hindu God all sheets were to cover all of her bases.

She explained this to him. I've discovered people find God in different ways. Christianity is but one path to the divine, and she went on to talk about how she preferred spirituality and religion you talk to people on the street at work in school and that is basically the thought of our generation and our culture. There are more ways to this supreme being and we would really rather not talk about religion, but we would prefer to talk about spirituality by doing what they really mean when they say that what they mean is, were not following a creedal system with no objective system of truth, no outside of ourselves system of right and wrong were just getting concocted working to make it up working to put the pieces together and make us feel better, and where to call it spiritual so I go to the lake and have a spiritual experience and that's good for me if I go into the woods or by hear some music or if I see something and that is a spiritual experience for me and I can call it that. The Bible says that the unbeliever is spiritually dead. That is their spirit as an ally that's quickened that conversion which means that a nonbeliever by the way, cannot have a spiritual experience an emotional one. A warm and fuzzy one but not an experience of the spirit you look at the Internet sampling of spirituality and you find something for everyone. Webpages like spirituality for today medical intuition just would spirituality Native American spirituality transgender spirituality spirit tools for the new age where they discuss things like pyramids and wands and daggers and pendulum sounds like best-selling books for kids, spirituality and health. The inner self magazine psychotherapy and spirituality. A man by the name of Andrew Walker I think sums it up very well for the unbeliever's position when he said this, we are no longer swayed by one religion only.

Many kinds are for sale and compete for our attention. We consumer are completely free.

That is the lie of the old dilute or says reject God and have freedom. The Bible says reject God and be enslaved forever. I came across an illustration a few days ago of pluralism Texas oil heiress Genevieve Vaughn and her husband visited Egypt and I came across a few years ago a statue of Seth met, which was the Egyptian goddess of fertility had been struggling to have a baby and she made a vow before that idle. She said later.

I said if the fertility goddess of sacrament could help me conceive I would build the temple in her honor. So in the mid-1990s the temple was completed. Built in Nevada by an all-female construction crew.

The temple encloses statues of goddesses and in the center of the idol of sacrament. There is also a full-time priestess who leads weekly rituals for visitors, many who drive-in for major holiday now. By the way, want to understand. I expect people to do that and so should you. That is the way of the world as they follow their wandering souls about if those people are right though, and there are many paths to God then Jesus Christ himself was deceived for. He said I am the way, I am the truth and I am the life.

No one in the original construction.

It means no, not even one comes to the father but by me. He was deceived was in and the apostles who preached in his name were deceived as they said in acts 412. There is salvation in no one ounce for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be say they were to see there either. Many ways, or as we see in his word. One way where people coming up with the stuff that Paul Artie answered in verse 21 of Romans chapter 1, for even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks.

They knew intuitively by virtue of creation. They saw and conscience within the creator existed, but they did not honor him. They did not thank him for creation. But they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Another lie is this that judgment is nonexistent. Obviously of truth isn't absolute.

It is relative and you can't be judge for anything you believe because you're not wrong for anything.

He believes her judgment is something done away with. Have you noticed you talk to most people, though, that most people believe in a literal heaven, but those same people do not believe in a literal hell which is a rather convenient religion to hold to Paul preached to the Athenians, the Roman conquerors of Greece said of Athens and in Athens it was easier to find a God and Amanda were statues everywhere and you remember how Paul introduced them to the unknown God. They had a statue and on. It was conscripted to the unknown God. They were afraid they'd leave one out. So Paul shows up and before the philosophers in that community. He preaches a sermon introducing them to the unknown God giving them a name Jesus Christ when he ends his sermon, he delivers this stunning conclusion. He says God is now declaring the men that all everywhere should repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness. I will say further comments on the subject of hell for the summer series will purposefully turn off air conditioners for full effect. Another lie is that man evolved as well that God is uninvolved. No other lie ladies and gentlemen in the past generation, and prior to have so influenced the thinking of our culture. No other view I believe has perhaps done as much damage in assaulting the character of God and the authority of God's word than evolution man by the name of Stephen J Gould wrote in his book entitled wonderful life which is ironic since this there is nothing predestined about our current preeminence among large terrestrial fauna where the product of a whole series of contingent events in the history of our planet anyone of which could have been reversed to give rise to a different outcome. We are in short, like every other creature that ever walked or slithered across the earth we are and accidents.

We were lucky. What is God said in John one word of God says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God all things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing came into being that came into being whenever the Bible repeats itself and wants to make sure we get nothing came into being apart from him that came into being. What is the Bible say Hebrews 1 God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he made the world.

Genesis 5. This is the book of the generations of Adam in the day when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God he created them male and female, and he blessed them and named them Adam in the day when they were created you here at created created created. He said will maybe God did create the world but he just sort of started it out.

He put the stuff in the puddle, and it evolved from there. Or maybe he brought about the bang and then he walked away and left it to evolve over billions of years. Doesn't that seem to be with the record of what we see, would indicate that this is an old universe once again Scripture does not allow for in Mark chapter 10 verse six Jesus Christ said, but from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.

In other words, ladies and gentlemen win creation occurred in those first six days, as were told in Genesis. At that time he created male and female.

It wasn't that he created something and hundreds of millions of years later, a man and a woman came to the scene know it was at that point in time. This would brief rather briefly at the record of God's word go back to Genesis chapter 2. Let's find out what God said in verse seven Genesis chapter 2 verse seven then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground know by the way, I've heard some really wild speculations, but I gotta tell you I would never come up with this. This is really bizarre that God gathered some dirt and created man and then he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. By the way, the record of Scripture tells us that God created this plethora of animals and will talk about it next Wednesday because we will get to it today but with the man he bent over him, as it were, and he breathed this eternal soul is immortal spirit looked on verse 21. Okay he forms man from the dirt.

In a moment of time. Now he takes a little longer. A few more minutes, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept and then he took one of his ribs. I would never come up with this and closed up the flesh at that place and the Lord God fashioned the same word translated in the prior verse formed this one literally means sculptured. He sculptured a woman from the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man and the man said, this is now bone of my bones know the latest John, I think that's what Adam said a little later after he caught his breath. The first thing I think he said was shazam or something like that. Probably not in the Hebrew there but if you read between the lines, what you have in the record of Scripture that is a fully developed man and a fully developed woman at a point in time whereby looking at them. You would think that took about 30 years to get that way. Now this happened in a moment of time.

Genesis chapter 1 also records that the trees were created already bearing fruits rated E. The stars were already created from the perspective of earth with their light beams reaching Earth even though millions and millions of light-years away.

God supernaturally took their reflection and brought it to earth immediately. You have a fully mature system created in a moment of time when Adam by the way Roe got woke up from his sleep. He wasn't introduced to a little baby girl.

He was introduced to a grown woman and if he had asked Eve the forgivable question how old are you, she could have said about 30 seconds and if she responded by saying how old are you, he could have said all a few hours, thus making even the first woman married to a much older man. What might appear to have taken years to develop what had taken a matter of seconds.

Time is nothing to God. One of the affront of things of evolution is that it produces God to have to operate in time and space that we can figure him out your member how Jesus Christ so shattered that a member in the garden when Judas and the mob was coming to arrest Jesus and they came approaching them and Peter decided to act with boldness and courage a little less with accuracy and he pulled out that sword you remember it proving he was a fisherman not a swordsman, and he came down with that sword and that high priest servant.or moved away caught him on the ear and it sliced his ear off. I imagine people wonder what in the world they were going to do next. Jesus, however, went over and he picked up the year and he walked over to the high priest servant and you remember he stitched it on with about half a dozen stitches and then he told them come back in about two weeks and I think the stitches out. Remember that story what he do. He walked over and he put the ear back on no time for healing. No stitches.

I don't even think there was a headache.

Nothing. It just happened like that proving he is not bound by time so you can calculate all you want things they while this proves that the word of God says that he created the universe already in full operation so evolution rejects clear Scripture restricts God's power and thirdly it forfeits true worship. Think of how many times in the Psalms.

How many songs you have to cut out your Bible if you took out the Psalms were David is praising God for the creator God is in fact your Bible would be reduced dramatically if you took out all of the passages that are related to God as creator. Now, according to Paul mankind.

In Romans chapter 1.

If you go back there chooses to swap the truths of God's word for his own speculations. We read in verse 25 and the parts and he worships and serves the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever man is incurably religious man has to worship something if not himself, and so this tells us that man experiences a number of consequences by virtue of choosing the speculations he has concocted rather than the Scripture which God is inspired mankind then loses or rejects a personal, loving, forgiving you reject God, my friend and you reject the Savior reject the Savior and you reject forgiveness of sin that he offers reject the forgiveness of sin and you are then left in your sin. Wonder darkness burden with your sin, you lose peace of mind and you lose true freedom so choose yourself and your speculations and you live in slave choose Christ in you become free under him. That's certainly our commitment here at wisdom for the heart. Stephen's commitment is to faithfully and accurately teach God's word so that you can apply it properly to your life. If you're a regular listener were glad to have you in the wisdom family.

If not, I hope you continue to tune in at the same time each weekday for these daily Bible lessons you can learn more about our ministry at our website which is wisdom online.org thanks for joining us today. We look forward to having you with us tomorrow on wisdom of the heart