Romans 1:24-32
God’s Wrath Can Be Passive
I recently learned of a young woman
whom I thought I knew quite well. Ten
years ago she would have been the last person I would have expected to become a
resident in a Federal Prison Camp. But there she is; having made decisions like
the Israelites of Judges fame: She did
what was right in her own eyes. She chose to live a life of sexual
promiscuity and other immoral conduct. In other words, she abandoned God and
was effectively abandoned by God. My prayer for her is that her current state
of abandonment will serve to bring about spiritual transformation. And it will
- if she turns to God.
Let’s move immediately into the
passage. The phrase “God gave them over,”
which appears three times in this passage, literally means “God handed them
over.” Now that does not mean that God stops loving those he hands over nor
that they are without hope nor that they cannot be Christians nor even that
they are not Christians.
Suppose you have a son -
a young adult who lives with you. He likes to party and is addicted to drugs.
He comes home night after night high on drugs and often sick. You have
confronted him about his problem, but he persists in immorality. You tell him,
“Son, if you are going to continue to live here, you must turn away from the
life you are living.” So, your son chooses in his immoral lifestyle and
says, “Goodbye”. You still love him, but you hate the choices he has
made. So, you “gave him over” to his
choices and their consequences, much as the loving father did in Jesus’ parable
of the prodigal son.
God doesn’t zap humans
with degraded lives as punishment for their choices. God simply withdraws his
restraining power. God abandons those who abandon him.[1]
God ceases to hold the boat as the current of the river drags them downstream.[2]
This is the “here and now” aspect of God’s wrath against willful sin. In other
words, the wrath of God against sin in the here and now is sin itself.[3]
We see it everywhere:
broken homes, child abuse, sexual diseases, and relational problems. God knows
that he does not have to zap us with fire and brimstone because we have
initiated our own destruction through sin. All God has to do is to allow us to
have our way.
You know people who say, “I can do
as I please. I don’t need a moral compass. If it feels good, I can do it.”
Take such a person to the top of the
Do you know people like
that? They are living in disharmony with God, but since they haven’t hit bottom
yet, they say, “So far so good.” God’s wrath can be passive and we bring
it upon ourselves. God hands us over and allows us to have our own way.
This passage reminds us
of three indulgences, which God allows us to persist in.
First, God
gave them over to a lie: Have you noticed that
Some people want to sew
their wild oats while praying for crop failure? Some live like hell during the
week and then ask for heaven’s forgiveness on Sunday. Some desire to exercise
their tendencies free of guilt, so they pick and choose the Scripture passages
in an attempt to eliminate everything that causes conviction or contradicts
society’s rules for life. Of such people verse 25 says, “They exchanged the
truth of God for a lie.”
Actually, the Greek says,
“the lie”, not “a lie.” And what is “the lie”? We need to
go to Geneses to find out. There it says, “2The woman said to the
serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3but God
did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the
garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” 4“You will not
surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5“For God knows that
when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing
good and evil.”[5]
The temptation to embrace
the lie is two-fold. The first part of the lie is that there are no
consequences to rebellion against God. The lie was that God’s Word is not
trustworthy and true. In essence, the serpent said, don’t believe that “You
will not surely die” stuff.
The second part of the
lie is that we can become like god and call our own shots. Eve (and Adam) chose
to accept the lie and they called their own shots. They chose to live
independently of God and they did so for all humanity. It was there that humans
were predisposed to believe the lie rather than the truth of God. First, God gave them over to the lie that
God’s word is not trustworthy and true.
Secondly,
God gave them over to shameful lusts: The Greek word here translated
“natural” can also be translated “God’s created order”.[6]
God’s created order for human sexuality is marriage between one man and one
woman. It is created to be the closest representation of God’s image on earth.
It is no secret that man and woman are different from each other. The marital
bond between man and woman, who are so completely different from each other, is
analogous to God’s bond to you and me who are so completely different from God.
Any relationship that subverts God’s created order distorts the image of God.
It is sin.
Note that it says, they “received in
themselves the due penalty of their perversion.” A self-inflicted
problem always occurs when people yield to their lusts. There is despair, a
loss of identity.
Same-sex sexual relations distort the
image of God in which humans were created. Note what it does not say. It does
not say that same sex attraction is
sinful. Some say that same-sex attraction is an inborn predisposition. There is
just as much scientific evidence opposing that claim as there is embracing it.
But, for the sake of this message,
let’s assume that some are born with predispositions to same sex attraction.
Even if that is true, it does not excuse humans from indulging in lustful
thoughts and sexual actions, which contradict God’s created order. The person
who has a predisposition to same-sex attraction is no more justified in
yielding to his temptation than I am justified in yielding to my predisposition
to alcohol abuse.
Verse 27 says they were, “inflamed
with lust for one another.”[7] That word
“inflamed” literally means “burned out”. That is what happens
with any willful and habitual sin. It goes on and on and there is no
satisfaction – burn out, nothing satisfies. God allows people, by their own
choices, to involve themselves in immoral actions so that they receive in
themselves the due penalty of their choices. God gave them over to the lie and
to shameful lusts
Thirdly, God
gave them over to irrational practices: Just pick up the newspaper and read.
You will see irrational behavior. A man walks into Virginia Tech and kills 32
people – irrational. This passage offers a catalogue of sin which includes
evil, envy, murder, strife, greed, deceit, malice, and gossip among others.
This is where humility sets in. Up to
this point, some have thought that this passage addresses only same sex sexual
relations. But, did you hear the sins included here: envy, murder (And by the
way, Jesus says that both murder and anger result in judgment.) strife, greed
(At what point does your ambition cross the greed line?) deceit (Which of us
has never been deceptive?), malice, and gossip (There is little that needs to
be said about gossip?) These are set on par with lust and immoral sex.
The passage goes on to say, “31they
are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”[8]
In Roman society, if your slave spilled your wine at the dinner table, you had
the right to have that person killed on the spot? Secular historians write
about the Romans’ disregard for babies, especially female babies. They say that
one could hardly walk the streets of
Verse 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.”[9] “Approve”
literally means “to applaud.” Some people applaud those who participate
in evil.
But, before we come down too hard on
the NT folks, let’s consider the way we condone the sin of others. What about
adultery and fornication? Some have it in their families and do or say nothing
about it. Our response might be “Well, times are changing.” Times are,
indeed, changing and the church is standing on the sideline applauding sin by
our inaction. But, there is one thing that shall never change. God shall never
change. And God has revealed himself to us in the pages of the Holy Scriptures.
When we sin against God, in whatever manner, we distort the image in which we
were created.
I don’t want to leave you there this
morning. I want to give you the good news as well. And it follows the greatest
word in the Bible – but.
Romans 5:8, 9: “But God
demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ
died for us. 9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how
much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”
“Saved from God’s wrath.” Now,
you can understand why such a bleak, yet accurate and truthful, picture was
painted. If you and I are in Christ, we will never suffer God’s wrath: not now
- not ever. But to be “in Christ” means to deny the lie that God’s word is not
trustworthy and true and to live in harmony with God as God is witnessed to in
his word.
Some of you are struggling with
habitual sin or you are freely indulging in habitual sin with absolutely no
struggle at all. Such living is corrupting your relationship with God. The
church is no the place for perfect people. The church is a hospital for sinners
and as I look out at you and you at me, none of us see a perfect person, for we
are all sinners.
God does not give up on us. But, God
does give us over to our own habitual indulgences. God allows us to suffer the
consequences of our actions in order that as we head for the bottom, we might
be brought to our knees before the cross of Christ. God does not allow his
wrath to overtake us in order to destroy us, but to bring us to himself in
Jesus Christ.
Some of you could testify how it was
when you hit bottom. You can testify how it was that you heard his voice and
came to him. The good news of God is that even in his wrath there is grace.
Paul would write this later, “Where sin increased, grace increased all the
more.” And that is the hope that brings us to this place of worship.
[1] Charles Hodge, D.D., Commentary
on the Epistle to the Romans – New Edition (
[2] Robert H. Mounce, The New
American Commentary, Volume 27 (USA: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1995)
80.
[3] Hodge, 61.
[4]The New International Version, (
[5]The New International Version, (
[6] John Stott, Romans –
God’s Good News for the World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994)
78.
[7]The New International Version, (
[8]The New International Version, (
[9]The New International Version, (