Gentiles

The unrighteousness of All Mankind

Gentiles (1:18-32)

Rom 1:18 But God shows His anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Rom 1:19 They know the truth about God because He has made it obvious to them. Rom 1:20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

Our God is a jealous God and will not stand for idols or other non-deity items. He has made that very clear in the old testament. Please read 1 Kings 18:19-40 it is a great testament to what can do if you believe in idols.

Psalms 19:1-6 is a passage that testifies to the ability to see G0d in nature.

Rom 1:21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship Him as God or even give Him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Rom 1:22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. Rom 1:23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

The old testament had been written and taught by this time. Time after time Jews and gentiles alike had gone to idol worship. The golden calve comes to mind. Each time it cost the Jews a great deal. The gentiles were slaughtered by the Jews when they believed it God and the Jews were slaughtered by the gentiles when they fell away. You have to wonder at the ignorance of those who stopped believing.

Rom 1:24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies. Rom 1:25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator Himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. Rom 1:26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. Rom 1:27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved. Rom 1:28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, He abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Rom 1:29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. Rom 1:30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. Rom 1:31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. Rom 1:32 They know God's justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.

I personally do not feel I can state my beliefs succinctly. I will use the Life Application New Testament Commentary on verse 26 & 27: 1:26-27 There have always been those willing to believe that human desires are self-regulating. They do not believe that any action they enjoy could possibly be wrong. When the desire for the true God is rejected, other gods are raised up. When the desire for God is rejected, shameful desires take control. When people refuse God and his standards, when they are left to themselves as their own gods, nothing can stop them from seeking to fulfill their passions. Perversions of sex became rampant. God’s plan for natural sexual relationships is his ideal for his creation. It is the height of foolishness to think that any sex act is acceptable as long as “no one gets hurt.”

Paul’s treatment of homosexual behavior falls in the middle of two other major areas at which God shows anger (Rom_1:18). The first is sinful worship; the third is a whole list of personal and relational sins. It is important to note that Paul is using homosexual practices to indicate the extent to which sin has brought chaos into every area of life. Homosexuality (to exchange or abandon natural relations of sex) was as widespread in Paul’s day as it is in ours. Many pagan practices encouraged it. God is willing to receive anyone who comes to him in faith, and Christians should love and accept others no matter what their background. But homosexual behavior is strictly forbidden in Scripture (see Lev_18:22). Homosexuality is considered an acceptable practice by many in our world today—even by some churches. But society does not set the standard for God’s law. Many homosexuals believe that their desires are normal and that they have a right to express them. But God does not obligate nor encourage us to fulfill all of our desires (even normal ones). Desires that violate God’s laws must be controlled. God offers freedom from those sins through Jesus Christ and power to control our desires through the Holy Spirit.

Sin has a penalty, and the punishment is in keeping with the offense. The exact consequences of sin are not predictable, but they are inevitable. These people cannot call themselves helpless victims; a sinful choice was made, and it carries its penalty. Unfortunately, the due penalty also has a way of spilling over into other lives. The connectedness of everything in creation makes it almost impossible to confine sinful penalties. Often a truly painful consequence is seeing how a sin we unleashed affects others.

If you need any examples of this look at history. When God is left out of the picture the nation comes to an end. The Pharos are gone, the Greeks do not rule, the Romans failed, are we next. As God is lessened in our society I fear that we too will become extinct as leaders and become like all those that failed before us.