Then God Gave Them Up

I have been listening to a preacher who teaches that if man does not grasp how hideous sin is to God, that we can not begin to measure the magnanimous character of His love. A parent understands this on a vastly smaller scale. The love for your child covers a multitude of their sins. Fortunately, my children have never tested my love, my patience, certainly – love, that has never wavered. But I ran into this link, this atrocious nauseating photo essay depicting a vile and blasphemous “celebration” of Easter… and I had to acknowledge that if one of my children could countenance this filth, I would mourn them as if they had died, because certainly, their spirit is dead. Any human being who could abide the degradation that is depicted has been reduced into a lesser being, has become exactly what that old devil Lucifer has always argued that the human race actually is; unworthy, rapacious, lustful, fleshy louts with absolutely no right to God’s grace, His love, His forgiveness. Lucifer’s whole point in despising God is because God preferred us, human beings, to him. That God adopted us, made us His children. Lucifer has ever been about proving to God that we are unworthy. This orgy would certainly seem to affirm that.

And yet, God could forgive that, would forgive even that, if any of these ‘celebrants’, who are His children, actually repented**. And that forgiveness indeed is far more magnanimous than a mere human heart could conjure.

It is tragic how denigrated language has become where words like repent, sin, depravity and God, grace, forgiveness are of no import. More to the point, actually, what is appalling is the growing prevalence of hardened hearts that can no longer measure sin, hearts whose calibration is so skewed that the atrocities that increasingly pass before our eyes are impotent to repel us or shame us. But then God quite clearly promised that He would give man over to his lusts. And so he has. And that is the frightening part. God gives mankind over to the desires of their hearts and the raw, God-less heart of man knows only the most foul darkness and deceit. The fact that what is depicted in this photo essay was witnessed by children with parental permission attests to that.

And God says we have no excuse. Were a man’s heart to seek truth, God provides abundant proof of who He is.

18 God’s anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known. 19God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God himself made it plain. 20Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all! 21They know God, but they do not give him the honour that belongs to him, nor do they thank him. Instead, their thoughts have become complete nonsense, and their empty minds are filled with darkness. 22They say they are wise, but they are fools; 23instead of worshipping the immortal God, they worship images made to look like mortal human beings or birds or animals or reptiles. Romans 1:18-23

and…

1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 2 Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, 5 which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. 6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. Psalm 19

And there we come to what so few understand. It is something I think I have always known, but now the knowing of it weighs on me. What does the world look like, how do human beings behave when God finally removes His grace? For it is manifest in the simplest things we so easily dismiss; the breeze through spring branches, the color of the sky after a storm, the savor of home cooking, the haven of home and family – music, dance, science, art, man’s genius, this earth that man now thinks he owns – all of it we use by God’s grace. By His permission. The genius of a 1000 Stephen Hawkings has yet to create a thought that hadn’t already been owned by God. We are here by grace and all that we hold to be beauty and honor and love are but wispy wavering reflections of what God practices in the Kingdom He owns. Yet He has for centuries (our time) shared His bounty with us.

Until He doesn’t.

With caution I present this link. Be forewarned it is repellent beyond speaking. It is depravity.

And here is an alternative to the link. Romans 1. It describes the debauchery the link’s images record. It is eerie how old evil is, yet it’s face never changes. It invents nothing new, though those who would defend this believe themselves to be evolved. No, the link need not be visited at all, but Scripture has described it accurately.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Though evil has always been with us, it never was welcomed, feted and honored as it is today. And there is only one character in this story whose gift is life and whose Word is true. This is a time of choosing whom you will serve.

**Repent. Oh my! What a anachronistic blip of a word to slip in there. Repent: To turn away from sin. To be done with it. To abhor in your very soul the spit you hurled in God’s face with every ungrateful breath you took before He was kind enough to offer to change your mind. By the way, it’s a supernatural process that comes from a regenerated heart. It can’t be faked. For long.

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