Romans 2.1

Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.

In Romans 1, Paul takes great pain to point out to us that every human who rejects God slips down a death spiral, that without God their condition is hopeless. This is why Paul is not ashamed of the good news that Jesus Christ is our Saviour, Redeemer, Healer, Prosperer, Lord, Protector, Comforter and Friend. Because everyone needs a Saviour.

In Romans 2, Paul deals with the biggest problem in people becoming Christians: organized religion. Since I have started feeding on the Word of God and realizing how much God loves me, I have developed an absolute hatred for religion. There is not an atheist or secular humanist on this planet that hates religion as much as I do.

Religion is a system of behaving to attempt to impress God. Whether it is a Muslim praying five times a day, a Hindu offering food to an idol, or a Christian tithing – if the motivation behind your behaviour is to impress God it is religion. Religion always leads to depression, failure, bondage and sin. Religion always leads to comparing yourself with other people, something the Bible describes as foolish (2 Cor. 10.12). It always leads to making judgments on other people, something that is a symptom of pride. Religion always leads to pride, and pride goeth before destruction (Proverbs 16.18). Religion is evil.

Christianity as it should be is resting on the completed work of Christ on the cross. It is knowing that I do not have to impress God because I already impress God because of Jesus. If I do anything for God it is because He loves me and I love Him; never because I am scared of Him or because I need to placate Him. The wrath of God and the justice of God are taken care of because of the gospel which is the message of Romans 1.

Romans 2 is setting out to prove that religion does not mean you do not need the grace and mercy of God. We know instantly that Paul is talking about religious people in chapter 2 of Romans because he is speaking to those “that judgest”, and that is religious people. The reason why more people are in the pub than in the church is because non-religious people are – on the whole – non-judgmental and they accept people as they are. Do you remember the old sitcom “Cheers” set in a pub, it used to begin with the lyrics:

Where everybody knows your name,
and they’re always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

That is why more people are down the pub than in church because with a few notable exceptions in church people do not know your name, are not glad you came and try their hardest to hide that they have the same troubles as you because they are terrified of being judged. It is not Christ, the friend of sinners, the merciful, the Redeemer, the one who eternally makes intercession for us, that makes people like that it is religion. It is the stinking lie that you have to reach a certain standard or do a certain thing to impress God.

Paul takes his first swipe at religion here in this verse: if you judge people according to a standard, you are inexcusable. The Greek word here is anapologētos, which literally is: without apology. Apologetos in the Greek means a defense or justification for your actions.

People in the Roman church, just like in my church and your church, often when they have done things wrong and sinned against God and man do not rest in the truth that they are justified by faith in Christ and have peace with God (Romans 5.1), but rather try to hide the seriousness of their sin by comparing themselves with other people and judging other people:

I might have lost my temper at my wife, but at least I provide for her, unlike Bob in the church.
I might have eaten too much cake, but at least I don’t have a glass of wine like her.
I might have had a glass of wine, but at least I am not a greedy glutton like him.
I might have had an affair, but I tithe and turn up every week – most people in here don’t care for this church and do that!
I might have an anger problem, but I am a deacon, not like everyone who is not a deacon.

It is a horrible attitude for two reasons. Firstly and obviously, it means that church becomes just another rat race. You can never be the holy building God wants you to be while one stone is thinking it is better than the other stones. Every stone is needed, and it is need in the shape it is to fit into the master plan for the building. No one wants to go to church where the leaders are smug, where the ushers are sneering and where people do not genuinely love them.

Secondly, it means that people are self-justifying. They are acting in a way to impress God. It totally bypasses the work of Christ. In Romans 1-5, Paul is showing the Romans – in the most powerful way ever put to paper by any individual in all of history – how to enjoy being made righteous. One of the key ways is to realize that righteousness frees you from religion.

Then Paul says something so accurate and powerful: if you judge someone, you condemn yourself because you do the same things. Look at the verse in some modern translations:

You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. (NLT)

THEREFORE YOU have no excuse or defense or justification, O man, whoever you are who judges and condemns another. For in posing as judge and passing sentence on another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge are habitually practicing the very same things [that you censure and denounce]. (AMP)

Therefore, anyone of you who judges is without excuse. For when you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things. (Holman Christian Standard)

Whenever you judge another person for their sin, two things are true:

1. You are condemning yourself.

If you are pointing out the sin in another and holding it against them, you are saying implicitly that Jesus Christ’s redemptive power is not enough to deal with sin. If someone comes to your church for healing and you tell them God cannot heal them when they are wearing ripped jeans (I have heard someone say that to someone), you are saying that the blood of Jesus is less powerful than rips in clothes! The blood of Jesus is more powerful than ripped jeans! The blood of Jesus is more powerful than alcohol, than drugs, than adultery, than immorality. Healing is a fact achieved for us by Christ – there is no minimum standard necessary to receive healing.

But the minute you set a standard, you condemn yourself because you are not perfect. The next time you come to the Lord for healing, the devil will jump in there and your own conscience will jump in there and tell you that you had a lustful thought, you had an angry thought, you haven’t prayed enough, you aren’t good enough and your faith will not be enough to overcome this because you are the one that said there was a standard. Yes, you set the standard in such a way that you are doing better than Mr Jones, so you should be more blessed than Mr Jones, but by setting a standard you are being legalistic and you obscure Christ and His redemption, so when you come to the Lord you condemn yourself and make it impossible to receive from God.

If you are telling other people they are not good enough for God, but you are coming to God on grace alone, then you are double minded (see James 1 to find out what you will receive from God being double minded!)

2. You do the same things!

This is very difficult to misunderstand. When someone in the church starts aggressively judging someone in sexual immorality, that person according to Romans 2, does the same things.

One of the main reasons why some Christians are so judgmental of people living in sin is that they secretly want to! They live the life in their mind, never letting it out and hide it away. This is what religion does to people: because it makes God this critical wrathful Judge, it keeps people away from Him. People who know the Father, who walk with Him, genuinely do not want to sin. Like Moses they would give up the pleasures of sin in a second just to be known as one of God’s people and enjoy fellowship with Him (Hebrews 11.25). They know that God is more wonderful than any passing folly.

Religious people keep away from God: He is painted as a God of wrath with exacting standards who we have to continually impress or be attacked. I would stay away from God if He were like that, but He is not: He is humble, He is gentle, He is gracious. He redeemed us and He loved us and He gave the most precious thing He had to set us free! But religion tells people that God needs to be impressed.

So religious people have no relationship with God, they only have relationship with rules. Their hearts are still wicked and selfish as they have never been given a new heart. They have no intimate relationship with God, so they turn to rules and try and keep the rules. But their heart is not in it. So on the outside they have never committed adultery, but on the inside they are burning with lust. Jesus said that if you look at a woman with lust and imagine having sex with her, you have committed adultery of the heart (Matthew 5.28). The reason someone committing adultery of the heart disdains and hates and judges someone committing adultery is because they are jealous: their heart’s desire is to commit adultery. They do not do it not because they know the love of God, but because they are terrified of the punishment of God. They are only keeping the rules because of fear.

They are like the little boy who tells Jimmy angrily that he cannot come out to play because “Mum won’t let me.” Everything on the inside of the little boy wants to go and play, but he is scared of his mother. As soon as mother’s back is turned, the boy will be out the house. If mum does not turn her back, Jimmy will not have a good relationship with mum, but sulk and hate her. That sums up many Christians relationship with God perfectly.

When your secret heart desire is to commit a sin, you hate and judge the people who do commit that sin because you are jealous.

Christians who are not religious, who love God and know God loves them, do not want to commit adultery. They are not stupid – they know that breaking a marraige covenant would cause so much pain in the world they will not do it. They do not want to catch STDs, or hurt their families, or bring pain into their life. They trust God to satisfy them with one woman or one man, they believe God’s plan for sex and marriage works because they know God and they know He is love and that He is wiser than them! They walk with God and do not fill their minds with thoughts of adultery. They are not avoiding adultery to make God love them, because they know God loves them.

When someone like that meets someone in adultery, they do not condemn them. (John 8.1-11, compare Jesus’ reaction of love with the Pharisees’ reaction of judgment – that story sums up what I am saying here perfectly). They love them. They do not want them to commit adultery because they do not want them to be in pain, but if they keep doing it they will still love them. They will still know their name, they will still welcome them. But because our churches do not show the unconditional love that the pubs do, people are going to go “where everybody knows their name” and stay away from church in droves.

Religion kills. It stops people from accessing the grace of God for themselves and it then means that they stop others receiving that grace. Hopefully as we examine Romans 2 we are going to see how destructive religion is and get out of it. Religious death is just the same as Conscienceless death (Romans 1) and has the same negative effects. But when we reject religion and accept redemption and righteousness, we enjoy life, we enjoy God, and good things happen to us.

Glory and freedom,
Benjamin

The Blog is Back in Town…

Hey all,
Thanks for continually reading this blog and searching through it and reading some of the faith filled articles.  I haven’t updated it for ages due to a whole host of reasons.  Mainly I have been busy and I was not convinced that this blog was the most constructive use of my time.
However today the Holy Spirit nudged me to keep writing on Romans, and keep talking about God’s Word and God’s power to protect us, prosper us and heal us.

I will do so,

Please I know from the stats that hundreds of people are reading this blog, yet we have very few comments.  I want to hear testimonies, I want to hear how God is helping you increase in His goodness daily.

Blessings,

Ben

Romans 1.32

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.

The first remarkable thing that Paul closes his commentary on an individual or society that rejects God is that he says that such a person or such a group of people KNOW THE JUDGMENT OF GOD.

In other words, even though they deny God, reject God, hate God, and ignore God: they still know that God is a judge. They are aware deep down inside that living the way they live means that when they die. Even someone with a completely reprobate mind, someone without natural affection, someone completely merciless knows that God will judge them when they die. They know that unless they run to a Saviour that they will die and end up in a Christless eternity of hellfire. That is why we need to preach grace and reconciliation to the world.

They still remember God is a judge and they hate that, but they do not know the message of reconciliation and redemption.

If you preach to someone in the street: you are going to hell, that message will be rejected and ignored. We need to do what Paul said and be ambassadors of Christ with a message of reconciliation and a message of hope and destiny for the world. A message that their sins have been paid for, that there is a book better than the book of their life to be judged by and that is the Lamb’s book of Life. As soon as you are in this book, your book of life is ignored and never used to judge you again.

You must know this if you are to be an effective witness of Christ: every single individual knows that God is their judge. They might supress, ignore and hate that knowledge. They might say – and scream – that they do not have this knowledge. But they do!

So go and tell them boldly that Jesus has paid the price for them.

This verse concludes Paul’s assessment of individuals and societies that completely reject God. After letting us see the 22 characteristics of a society without God, Paul tells us that these people still know God is a judge.

Paul also tells us a second piece of information about these people. Not only do they do the things wrong that they do, but they have pleasure in them that do them.

In the Greek, this word “have pleasure in” is one word: syneudokeō. It comes from three Greek words syn-, eu- and dokeo. Syn means together, eu means good, and dokeo means opinion.

Together these words mean: to have a good opinion with someone. In other words, someone does something that is sinful and evil. Let’s use a very real example: abortion. In today’s society, not only do many people have abortions, but they celebrate and exalt people who do. They fight and agree for the rights of people to sin and rebel against God. Being bitter, getting revenge, all sorts of sexual behaviour – even if people are not involved in the behaviour – they do not want to judge people, they do not want to say it is wrong. Instead they say loudly that it is good and they have pleasure that people do these things.

People take pleasure in sin. Look at the entertainment industry: based entirely around sexual immorality. We now have television programmes in the UK where they lock people up in a house and hope they strip naked and have sex on camera. We are one step away from gladiators and lions in our entertainment!

One of the translations of syneudokeō is applaud or to clap. There are talk shows in the UK (and all over the world, I know) where people go on these shows, describe the most outrageous sins, and are applauded. If someone went on these shows and said they were a virgin or they forgave someone who hurt them they would not be applauded! The audience reserves their applause for the sinners!

One of the hallmarks of a reprobate society is that it applauds and approves the wrong things. It is even worse that some churches are involved in this as well – accepting and applauding homosexuality, ordaining and promoting homosexuals, seeker-friendly no-offense no-truth services, and so on.

Let us not be like this. Let us never applaud evil. Let us not watch TV programmes that promote evil lifestyles and hatred and malice. Let us not find sin entertaining.

Glory and freedom,
Benjamin

Romans 1.31

Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

In this final section of his list of the characteristics of the man or the nation without God, Paul lists five things that they do not have.

In the Greek, this verse is five words, all beginning with the prefix a-. The prefix a- in the Greek means without or the opposite, similar to un- in English. For example, someone who believes in God is a theist. Someone who believes there is NO God is an a-theist.

Let’s examine these five words and see exactly what someone who has reached the bottom of the death spiral is doing without:

asynetos – without understanding, intelligence, wisdom and education. This is what happens when you reach the bottom of the death spiral. You start to lose intelligence.

A society that reaches the bottom of the death spiral becomes a society without intelligence. The government often prefers the people to be without intelligence and without education as they are easier to manipulate.

Look at education in the UK at the moment: every year the examination results increase and statistically the students are smarter. Then we look at the examination papers and the mark schemes and find out that the examinations are continually being “dumbed down” (for just a small example of this, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6244942.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1507358.stm). More and more students are going to universities, but then we find out that these universities are jumped up polytechnic colleges offering what are pejoratively called Mickey Mouse degrees!

It also means that they cannot draw parallels or make inferences. Their logic skills are completely flawed. So many young people cannot use logic to make an argument or formulate a decision. People are passion led, not intelligence led. Intelligence is not always the right answer, but someone who follows reason will be healthier, wealthier and happier than someone who lives on passion.

Jesus only uses this word once (read through Matthew 15.1-21, it is in v.16 Jesus uses the word and the KJV translates it as “without understanding”) when Peter fails to understand a parable that He told the disciples. People without understanding cannot grasp a parable or analogy – especially a spiritual one, it is simply beyond them.

This phrase does not just mean without an education or without intelligence, but it also means without understanding morality.

People at this level of the death spiral commit sins and then are genuinely surprised at the consequences. It is no longer a case that they do not want to walk in holiness, they honestly do not know what is pure and what is impure any more.

They exalt things that the Bible calls sins such as homosexuality and the murder of unborn children, and reject and mock things that the Bible calls pure such as humility, walking in forgiveness and having an absolute standard of truth.

asynthetos – This word means without agreement or without a joining together. It is only used here in the Bible because you absolutely have to be reprobate to be in this place.

It means that no-one agrees with you and you agree with no-one. The Jews would use this word to describe someone with no faith in God at all.

Someone without agreement is someone that is always contrary. If you say “black”, they say “white”. They could not even explain why they say white, they just have to disagree.

Obviously someone with a mind this disturbed cannot follow God. Whatever God says, they say and do the opposite.

These are people that enjoy and relish rubbing others up the wrong way, take pleasure in arguments and disagreements. They will deliberately try and start arguments and fights.

One of the greatest things about being a Christian for me is that when you find another Christian, you know there are so many things you agree on. There is so much you have in common. It is wonderful. Just today I went to see a friend who is part of our church, I was only in his house for 10-15 minutes on the way back from a bit of shopping.

But it was wonderful. There was just so much harmony and agreement. I had just had some non-Christians disagree with me and were rather rude to me, and it was lovely just to be with a Christian and be in harmony with someone.

We all like walking in harmony with people. But, imagine having no harmony, no agreement with anyone. That is what this word reveals about people at the bottom of the death spiral.

astorgos – Storge is one of the four Greek words for love. It means affection: the love you have for things you are accustomed to.

Just as a quick reminder: phileo love is the love you have for your family and your friends. It can often be translated in the Bible as brotherly love.

Eros love is the love you have for someone that you are romantically and sexually linked with. For Christians this should only be your marriage partner! Eros is not a sinful lust, but a true romantic and sexual attraction that is God-given.

Storge love is the love you have for something you are familiar with. If you say that you love a particular song, it is storge – it is the song that you know and hear and love. You love your slippers – that is storge, they are your slippers and you know them and you love being in them. Brand new slippers would be worse than your pair of slippers even though they are old and tatty. Why? Storge. We are designed to be affectionate to things that have been in our life.

This word is often used for the love a mother has for a baby: the mother does not have a friendship with the child in the same way sisters or good friends do – there is no reciprocal relationship. It certainly is not eros love, but the infant child is cherished. Why? Because it is a major part of your life and you could not ever imagine being without that baby.

Agape love is the highest kind of love: it is the love for something that is not lovely. It is compassion and love that manifests in action. The other three loves are conditional (phileo: you have to still be my friend; storge: you have to still be in my life; eros: you have to stay sexually attractive) but agape is completely unconditional. You love because you are loving, not because the other person is lovable!

Now, as soon as you start to descend down the death cycle, agape goes. You stop unconditionally loving anyone and everyone who you love must fit certain conditions.

As you continue down the death cycle, eros dies and all your are left with is lust. You cannot love someone as a partner. All your relationships are casual, immoral sex or vile passions.

As you continue further down the death cycle, phileo dies. You cannot form friends any more, you do not hesitate to backstab the people you used to call friends. You are so prideful that you consider these people to be worth nothing so what is the problem of abandoning them.

But, storge only goes when someone is at the very bottom of this cycle. When someone has no natural affection they are certainly someone with a reprobate mind. We are talking about someone who could never even treat a pet properly. Even criminals look after their pets. Even the Mafia treat babies well.

Only someone with a reprobate mind could hurt a baby, or an innocent little animal. I mean hurt them just for cruelty. They simply have no natural affection. If you know someone and you think they could easily murder a kitten, that is someone without storge.

In addition, possessions mean nothing to them. They would smash their own bed and house into pieces in a fit of rage and not care.

They are not even nice when being nice costs nothing. A “hello” at the shop, or a thank you if someone moves out of their way.

There are people at this stage in our nation. I praise the Lord the whole nation is not like this. I believe that everyone in the time of Noah was like this: how else could it be that not one single person joined him in the ark? Not one person even thought: I will just sit in the ark on the day Noah said it was going to rain and then if it does not rain I will get out and have a laugh at Noah.

No people at the time of Noah were completely without understanding, without agreement and without natural affection. Noah must have lived in a dreadful world.

aspondos – The KJV translates this word as implacable, the NKJV goes with the more understandable word “unforgiving”. The NIV and most modern translations follow the NU-manuscript and do not have this word in their Bible translation.

I am not going to spend any time discussing the merits of the different Greek manuscripts or textual criticism, I am just going to state that I believe that aspondos is in the original text and that I believe I have good reasons for believing that. If you do not believe that, fine – just go straight onto the final word and do not read any more of what I say about this word!

Aspondos means without an offering. Spondos is the Greek word for a drink offering (see Php. 2.17 and 2 Tim. 4.6 for the word spondos). Aspondos means without a drink offering (In theology, libation is the technical term for a drink offering)

The drink offering is first found in Genesis 35.14 where Jacob pours a bottle of oil onto the ground to thank God for speaking to Him. Jacob is now at a place where his hardship has ended and God is moving powerfully in his life, so Jacob offers a drink offering.

Drink offerings had to be from pure wine (Numbers 28.7). Wine is often in the Bible a symbol of joy (Psalm 104.15) and gladness. When a Nazarite had finished his season of separation and could return to living normally he had to make a drink offering (Numbers 6.1-21). Finally, every feast day had to have a drink offering (Lev. 23.13, 18, 37).

Drink offerings in the Old Testament are a pouring out of wine onto the ground to represent the joy and gratitude of having God work in our life. In the New Testament, Paul refers to his life as a drink offering (2 Tim. 4.7) – in other words, Paul says that his life was wine given over to the ground as a sign of joy of having God work in his life. No wonder Paul could say “Rejoice in the Lord always!” (Php. 4.4) – his whole life was full of joy because he was living for Jesus, being poured out for Jesus. Every day for Paul was a day of destiny, of adventure, of joy – for me to live is Christ (Php. 1.21) he told us.

Now, people at the bottom of the death spiral are completely without joy. They know nothing of living for a cause, they know nothing of living for another person. They do not know the joy of having God work in their life. Nothing in their life ever feels finished, feels right, feels complete. They are without a drink offering.

The drink offering is the moment when God delivers you and you say thank you. It is the moment you stand in front of your church and tell them God delivered you and people are delivered and encouraged and inspired.

People at the end of the death spiral know nothing of the joy of being set free by God or setting anyone else free. They do not even know how to encourage someone or bless someone.

They live a life without joy. No wonder so many of them turn to drinking wine as a cheap substitute for the wine of the drink offering. No wonder so many of them live life from one moment to the next using chemicals to either dull the edge (Prozac) or take them to a new high (cocaine).

aneleēmōn – without mercy. In Matthew 5.7 Jesus said “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”. Mercy is the ability to withhold judgment and not treat someone according to their sins. It means the ability to let offenses pass.

People at the bottom of the death spiral cannot do this. If you look at them the wrong way, they might kill you. If you say something they do not understand, they might hit you. If you believe in a God they hate, they may try and destroy your life and humiliate you. The NIV translates aneleemon as ruthless, and that is an excellent translation. If you cross someone in this state, they will do anything to get you back. They will not be upset spending time in jail because they know they had to get you back.

Any crime against them will result in their judgment, their fury and their rage being thrown in your direction. They cannot forgive, they are eaten up inside day after day replaying the offenses they have received from people over the years.

A nation that is without mercy is a terrifying prospect especially in the day of nuclear weapons. Yet, there are nations in this place on the planet today.

This is the last item in Paul’s 22 item description of someone who is reprobate. I believe it is last because it is the worst place to be. To be unmerciful is a horrible thing to be for three reasons.

1. You cannot ever have internal peace. You are always imagining the hurts other people have caused you, you are always thinking about and imagining ways to hurt the people who have slighted you.

If you have ever seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Gollum is someone who could be described as someone who is aneleemon. If you remember the scenes where he is muttering to himself about Bilbo stealing from him, or some other slight against him. His lack of mercy drove him insane, leading him to have some form of split personality. There are people just like that in the world: insane simply because they refused to let an offense go!

2. You cannot form relationships. Listen – every single relationship (your marriage, your employment, your church, your family, your friends, your cell group, your neighbourhood – EVERYONE!!!) will cause you grief at some point or another. No-one is perfect, therefore someone at some point is going to say something you did not like, do something you did not want them to do, or have an opinion you do not appreciate.

Most people are able to look past people’s imperfections and still love them and fellowship with them. Mature people realize that they are imperfect themselves and give a little because they would appreciate people giving a little with them!

People without mercy cannot do this. If the wife burns the dinner, she must be punished. If the pastor attacks your pet doctrine, not only must you leave the church but do so in the most hurtful and disruptive way possible. If the family let you down, leave them.

It must be horrible to never be able to form long term relationships. The saddest thing is that because someone is astorgos as well, they do not even care that they are alienating everyone around them. This is indeed hell on earth.

3. You cannot receive mercy. Jesus was quite clear: the merciful are blessed because they receive mercy (Matthew 5.7). He also told us more than once that if we did not forgive, then we could not be forgiven.

Merciless people end up in hell. The same justice they have ruthlessly put on others is the same measure God will use on them. Like Haman, merciless people build the gallows that they will be hung on.

Read through Matthew 18.21-35 and see a perfect picture of aneleemon. The unforgiving servant will punish anyone that crosses him, which is the only reason he ended up being punished.

Make sure today that you are merciful. If people sin against you, forgive them seven times seventy times. Yes for them so that they are free, but also for you because an unmerciful person is never free and will never be free until they forgive.

Glory and freedom,
Benjamin

Romans 1.30

Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

We are today continuing to examine Paul’s list of the features of a society or individual that is reprobrate and has reached the bottom of the death spiral: people or nations that have ignored God and rejected God totally and completely.

katalalos – kata means to move from the higher to the lower, and lalos means to talk.

Translated “backbiters” in the KJV, “backstabbers” in the NLT, “gossips” in the NIV, “slanderers” in the AMP and “boastful” in the NASB, it is clear that this word katalalos cannot easily be translated into one English word.

It means to move from the higher to the lower in your talking. It is to assume that whoever you are talking about or talking to is lower than you and talk appropriately. You may therefore just talk to them as if they are worthless or talk about them as if they have no dignity. That is why this includes backstabbing, backbiting, boasting, slandering and gossiping. All these practices can only occur if you think that you are better than someone.

You will never gossip about someone who you esteem more highly than yourself (cf. Romans 12.3). You will never backbite someone you think is worth as much as or more than you. You will never slander someone if you realize that they are a precious child of the Lord.

One of the most powerful and thought provoking Scriptures is this:

Only by pride cometh contention (Proverbs 13.10, KJV)

If you are in an argument with someone and the argument has become contentious, there is pride somewhere. There is NO OTHER SOURCE of contention other than pride. There was no war in heaven until pride came into the devil. There would be no war on earth if there was no pride!

Someone thinks they are better than someone else. If I am arguing with my wife, I am being arrogant or she is. If I am involved in a church split, there is pride involved somewhere. And if you think that it is all the other person, that is generally a great indicator that it is probably you!

All talking down to people, including gossip and backbiting, backstabbing and slander, comes from a root of pride: thinking that you have the high ground. Realize that there is no high ground (or more accurately all the ground is high ground, we are all precious!) and that every single person you ever talk about is as precious to God as you and your language will change.

Lots of people struggle with gossip and slander, and repent and sin and repent and sin and repent some more, over and over. They cannot understand why the thing will not go away. The reason is simple: the root of thinking that they are better than other people has not been addressed. As long as you think you are the best and are selfish and proud, you will always talk down to people and talk down about people.

Be humble and your language will flow with love and wisdom.

theostygēs – This word come from the two Greek words Theo and styges. Literally God-hater. It is remarkable that the same people who deny there is even a God hate Him and hate people who love Him. This hatred is expressed in many ways. Listen to the disdain in which some secular humanists dismiss religion and God. Listen to the names people call God. Listen to people use his name instead of swear words, blame Him for everything wrong in their life.

At this stage the death spiral is complete: people start down this spiral of immorality, malice and rejection of God when they fail to thank God for the good in their life. At the bottom of the spiral, they simply hate God for anything less than perfect in their life.

We live in a generation that has completely failed to take responsibility for itself, to clothe itself, to find work for itself, to achieve and learn for itself. We look to the governments of the day to provide all our needs and are moving into socialism at a rapid rate. This always leads to God hating because it is easier to blame and hate God for our life than make the necessary changes to our thinking, our speaking and our behaviour to change our life and change our destination in life.

hybristēs – I cannot improve on Strong’s definition of this word: “one who, uplifted with pride, either heaps insulting language upon others or does them some shameful act of wrong”.

hyperēphanos – This is another compound word. Hyper means above, and ephanos means to shine. Someone who is hyperephanos is someone who is always trying to outshine other people. Make themselves the best, cover their backside, put other people down, catch other people doing something wrong, making up things that the other people do wrong.

People like this can never be trusted, they will always tell tales about you to put you down. They cannot form friendships.

This really is the worst place to be in the death spiral: someone who has no idea they are created by God and adored by God and redeemed by God has only one place to find self-worth: in putting down and pulling apart other people.

Notice that in Romans 1.30 so much of the nature of people without God is just pride to the worst degree. They cannot speak without putting people down, they cannot act without putting other people down, they cannot think of God as someone to worship or even say thank you to, but they can only hate Him for their life being so bad because they could never be at fault.

This is a terrible place for a person or society to be because it makes everything a battle. It means that work is the rat race, and even if you win it is only because you are biggest rat. It means that your marriage becomes a point scoring game. It means that church is about politics and about being seen. It means that you will – unless you change – never know the goodness and gentleness and majesty of our God and Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.

alazōn – In the KJV this word is translated “boaster” which is a great translation. It means someone that makes claims that are not true. Someone trying to make everything think they are better than what they are. Again, this makes society unbearable – always remembering what you have told people, always having to top other people’s achievements, always concerned about what people think; never being free to be honest about yourself and your achievements.

epheuretēs kakos – This is best translated an inventor of things that ought not to be. You need to realize that some things should not exist in this planet. They simply should not be. Horror movies should not exist. Pornographic magazines should not exist. Soap operas should not exist. Many, many films simply should never have been created: all they have done is increase the evil and darkness in the world. All they have done is cause fear and exalt the devil.

There are whole clothing ranges that should not ever have been invented. There are sex “toys” that ought not to exist. There are techniques for abortion that should never have been invented. There are “sex-change” procedures within medicine that should not have been invented.

There are people in this world that invent jokes, invent ideas, invent gadgets, invent stories, invent medicines, invent surgeries that should not be.

This is the sign of a society that should not be! A society far from God, far from His goodness and glory. But praise Him, they are not far from His grace. His mercy is still with us, His grace is still here and we can still repent and change.

apeithēs goneus – disobedient to parents. One of the signs of a society that has rejected God is that the youth of that society are out of control. Then the government or charities try and impose control (in the UK we have ASBOs, youth prevention schemes, youth community schemes and a whole lot more) because there is no control. But no-one seems to want to admit the truth: for a young person to be out of control, they have disobeyed their parents. They have disrespected their parents. They have assumed they know more than their parents.

Parents in a society in the death spiral do not discipline or train their children. Why? They are too selfish to. It takes too much effort, too much time and costs too much. So they ship their children off to the state to nanny them and school them and they never once obey the Biblical instruction to train a child in the way he should go.

If “disobedient to parents” does not sum up this generation in the UK, I cannot think of a better phrase.

As the church we need to ask the Lord for ministries and preachers to rise up to train parents and train children. We need to restore the heart of fathers to children and the heart of children to their parents. We need to ensure the little children can come to Jesus. We need to show the world that it is possible to live as a harmonious family in this day and in this generation.

Churches should not be hiving off and forming youth churches. Youth church is an oxymoron, just like black church is. A church is for all races and for all ages. Church should show young people that they are not better or different than old people or children or families, and that they can worship with them, hear the Word with them, serve with them, pray with them and fellowship in love with them. Then we have an opportunity to reverse the death spiral and raise up a generation that thanks God, glorifies God, is filled with faith and power and does exploits across the world.

Glory and freedom,
Benjamin

Romans 1.29

eing filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

This verse and the next two verses show the the end results of the “death spiral”. This is what it looks like when an individual or a community or a nation completely rejects God and His ways and His personality. They have started with rejecting God’s glory and not being grateful to Him and ended up with a personality and a society that is utterly broken down. Sin is like a montrous weed: you think you can plant a couple of seeds and enjoy life a little bit, but the pleasure is just for a season and then the consequences bring pain.

God is not a killjoy! He is the source of joy, and His joy is our strength. He outlines in the Word what brings joy and what does not. Following His will is not about a grey and sterile life, it is about a life of joy and wonder. A life of adventure!

Paul gives us a long list about what a society or individual that consistently and constantly rejects and ignores God ends up like. I am going to simply go through this long list and describe each of these qualities so you can see what a society that rejects God looks like.

adikia – unrighteousness – in this context, the word means unjust or unfair. A society that rejects God becomes unjust. People are penalized for things that they did not do, people who commit genuine sins against society are rewarded. A society hits the bottom of the death spiral when it fails to reward just behaviour and punish unjust behaviour. Both the US and the UK recently have seen high profile court cases where justice was simply not done.

In addition, adikia also means that the innocent are not looked after. Children are not cared for, orphans are not looked after and the elderly are ignored.

porneia – This is defined by Strong’s as:

1) illicit sexual intercourse
a) adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc.
b) sexual intercourse with close relatives; Lev. 18
c) sexual intercourse with a divorced man or woman; Mk. 10:11,12

Another hallmark of a society at the bottom of the death spiral is an “anything goes” attitude to sexuality.

ponēria – This word means “wicked”, but in the sense of rotten, like an apple that has spoiled. As you know a bad apple can make a dozen good apples bad, but a dozen good apples cannot make a bad apple good.

Any individual at the bottom of the “death spiral” will infect others with his ideas, his speech and his attitudes unless they are aware of what is going on and deal with it appropriately.

Many of us know people like this: they have gone bad. Beware – bad company corrupts good character.

pleonexia – this is the desire to continually have more. The KJV translates this as covetousness, but the NIV and NLT both use the word “greed”. We have made the word “greedy” in our generation a humorous term – a jokey kind of insult when someone takes the second doughnut, or steals someone’s client in the office, or even when someone is cheating on their partner. However, greed is a serious sin that has huge social consequences. Out of control greed is one of the main causes of human suffering in the world.

Greed is actually one of the truest expressions of unbelief. If you feel you have to get all you can, then that is because you do not believe that God will supply your needs. The Christian has no place for greed: seek ye first the kingdom, and all these things will be added to you. Remember the words of Jesus: “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.” (Luke 12.15, NIV)

kakia – this is the word for malice. It means that you do things to deliberately hurt other people and you do not even care or feel ashamed that you do. It is one of the symptoms and one of the signs of a nation that is at the bottom of the death spiral is that people feel no shame at hurting others. They rejoice when they get one up on people, they are happy when people are hurt. They boast of how they put people in their place. There is no fear of the Lord, there is no humility. There is something so alien to Christ about taking pleasure in the pain of others and in causing pain to others.

phthonos – This is envy. A lot of people get confused with envy and jealousy. Jealousy can be sinful, but does not have to be – Deut. 4.24 tells us that God is jealous so we can know for a fact that not all jealousy is evil.

The difference is simple: jealousy is an intense desire for something. So if your neighbour gets a brand new car and you intensely desire a car like it, that is jealousy. This is why God calls Himself a jealous God – He intensely desires our attention. There is nothing wrong with having intense desires. If your desires take us away from God, then there is a problem. That is when jealousy becomes a sin.

Envy is always a sin. In the situation with the neighbour’s car, envy would lead you not to want the same car but to want your neighbour to lose his car, maybe to crash it or for it to be scratched. Envy and malice are linked: malice is where you want to hurt someone, envy is where you want their possessions or their reputation in life or their relationships to be destroyed because you want them for yourself.

phonos – Translated murder by the KJV and the NIV, phonos means to deliberately take an innocent life. If you think that is not part of our society, then what do you define abortion as?

eris – This word means strife or contention. This was the sin of the Corinthian church:

For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions (Greek eris) among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. (1 Cor 1.11-12, KJV)

The eris in Corinth was expressed by them forming gangs: the Paul gang, the Apollos gang, the Cephas gang, and the Christ gang. One of the signs of a nation or community hitting the bottom of the “death spiral” is a gang culture. This could be gangs on ethnic grounds, or the east end postcode gangs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6304345.stm). Football violence comes from eris as does most racism.

It is dividing yourself up into the “we’s” and the “not-we’s” and deciding that the not-we’s deserve to be treated differenrly. In Corinth there were all sorts of problems, but thankfully they had not reached the end of this cycle – though they did have huge problems. At its worst, eris is probably responsible for more violence, wars and death than any other sin on this list.

dolos – This word means “deceit” and comes from a root word meaning “bait”. It is not just lying, but lying and deceiving people in a way to trap them and entrap them. 1 Peter 2.22 says that dolos is not found in Christ. Isn’t it wonderful for us as Christians to know that our God and Lord will never do anything to trap us or entrap us? He is always honest, always true, always genuine. His goal is never to catch us out!

kakoētheia – This is a really simple compound word. Kako means bad in the sense of not fit for purpose, in the sense that a bad knife is one that will not cut your vegetables or a bad jacket has holes in it and will not keep you warm. Etheia is the word in which we get our English word ethics, and means “appropriate customs”. Kakoetheia means that your customs are not fit for the purpose. Your whole community, your whole set traditions are just without use – they do not build community, they destroy it. They do not bring a sense of family, they deny it.

Many people in society have bad ethics – unfit traditions. They are corrupt by habit – they are used to being selfish, hateful and unfair.

psithyristēs – this word means whispering, in the sense of whispering rumours and slandering people. Whispering is when you never know who is about to backstab you, when people will lie about you to get ahead, when you cannot trust people with your heart. When you have a problem, there is no-one you can trust to help.

Whispering destroys community, destroys churches and destroys families. If you have something to say to someone, say it to their face or say it to the Lord (and I do not mean phone up the church and give them a “prayer” request!) – they are your only two options. Do not ever become a whisperer, you will be destroying your life and your community.

Glory and freedom,
Benjamin

Romans 1.28

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;

This is the third and final letting go of God. The first time is when He lets go of us to glorify a false god, the second time is when He lets go of us to error and falsehood and the third and final time is when He lets go of us to a reprobate mind.

Again, Paul takes the care to ensure that we know God only lets go of us because we have chosen not to retain God in our knowledge. The word retain simply means to “have”, one of the most common words in the Greek and the word for knowledge means to know on a personal level.

You see because people make a clear decision to have nothing to do with God and refuse to acknowledge Him as Creator, they turned to false gods and sexual immorality.

Because people make a clear decision to have nothing to do with God and refuse to acknowledge Him as Truthful and Honest, they turned to falsehood and vile passions.

But here – because people make a clear decision to have nothing to do with God at all on any level, they turned to a reprobate mind.

This is life in many Western countries now: God is not even acknowledged in literature, in law, in rituals and in calendars. The nod-to-God (religious values but no dynamic walk with God) squad is dying out and being replaced by people who have a reprobrate mind. The Greek word for reprobate is adokimos.

In his commentary on Romans 14.18, Donald Barnhouse says this about the Greek word dokimos:

“In the ancient world there was no banking system as we know it today, and no paper money. All money was made from metal, heated until liquid, poured into moulds and allowed to cool. When the coins were cooled, it was necessary to smooth off the uneven edges. The coins were comparatively soft, and of course many people shaved them closely. In one century, more than eighty laws were passed in Athens to stop the practice of whittling down the coins then in circulation. But some money-changers were men of integrity, who would accept no counterfeit money; they were men of honour who put only genuine, full-weight money into circulation. Such men were called dokimos, and this word is used here for the Christian as he is to be seen by the world.” (Donald Grey Barnhouse, Romans: God’s Glory, p. 18.)

Dokimos means someone who is completely honest, the same on the inside as he is on the outside. Someone whose character you can rely on, someone whose value you can accept.

Adokimos means the exact opposite. The Greeks use “a-” at the beginning of words in the same way that we use “un-” (for example: atheist or agnostic) to mean the exact opposite.

If you – or a community or nation – rejects God completely by rejecting His values, His personality and His life then your mind becomes adokimos. That is a fact. You cannot rely on your mind, your mind will play tricks on you, your mind will not work properly, your life will never be a success ever because your own worst enemy is your own mind.

That is true of many people today. You will see them experience pain, loss, anguish and regret over things that at the time they genuinely thought were a great idea: have sex with that person, tell that person what you think of them, get revenge on that person, hurt that person. Why so many errors of judgment? Because their own mind cannot be relied on at all. Their own mind cannot be trusted to give them logical, rational and godly advice.

And what is the end of people who cannot trust their mind: [They] do those things which are not convenient.

Look at that phrase in the NIV: to do what ought not to be done.

In the NLT it says: do things that should never be done.

The Greek word is possibly best translated “inappropriate”. This is what happens when you reject God as a person: you act inappropriately. When a nation or a generation rejects God everyone in that nation acts inappropriately. They do things that should never be done.

This is what happens when you reject God. You do things that should never be done because your own mind does not function properly.

Your mind is part of your soul. It is according to Strong’s, “the power of considering and judging soberly, calmly and impartially”.

Today there are many young people (and older people) who cannot rely on their power of considering and judging soberly, calmly and impartially. In the news (on the front page) today was a story of a young rapper who interrupted the music awards in the middle of someone receiving an award to tell her that she did not deserve it. He is now on national and international TV apologising.

Why did he get up and do such a thing that has ruined his reputation and endangered his career? His mind was reprobrate – he does not even acknowledge God as a person.

On a far more horrific note, in the news this week a mother has been arrested for murdering her two daughters so that her ex-husband could not win custody for them. Why would someone murder a human, their own babies, just to spite someone else? A reprobate mind.

Any time you read a story that is horrific and you cannot understand why someone did not judge soberly you know that person has a reprobrate mind. This is a serious stage to be in and signifies that you are out of control. You need set free, you need restored, you need a dose of truth.

My friend, never let yourself get to the stage where your mind is reprobate. If there is an area of your life in which you are continually making stupid decisions and the consequences are genuinely surprising you then in that area your mind could be reprobate. If so, you need to go back and read Romans 1.21 and see how you started down that path and start to glorify and praise God, and thank Him for His goodness. You need to acknowledge Him as a person who you can relate to and walk with and talk with and glorify and enjoy!

Selah!

Benjamin

Romans 1.27

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.

In the last verse we looked at what I call the “death spiral” in which a person or community who rejects God starts to fall deeper into sin and rebellion and deception.

At this stage of the spiral, people have rejected God’s truth and gone from immorality to what the KJV calls “vile passions”, which is essentially homosexuality.

This verse here tells us five important facts about homosexuality that we should all be aware of.

1. It is unnatural.

It is natural, according to this verse, for a man to be with a woman. Indeed going back to creation, this is obvious. God created Adam and Eve, one man and one woman. Looking at how we are designed biologically this is obvious. Thinking about the continuation of the human race, it is clear. You do not need to be a genius to realize that this is the case!

2. It is destructive.

Romans 1.27 says that the homosexual men burned in their lust. This word is ekkaio in the Greek which means to burn until completely destroyed. The normal word for burning in Greek is kaio, the “ek” part means “out of”, implying to burn until completely out of resources and out of fuel. Homosexual desire will lead to destruction – it will lead to you burning out of control, and running out of strength, energy and life.

3. It leads to shame.

aschēmosynē is the Greek word that the KJV translates as unseemly. Strong’s defines it as shameful, nakedness or deformed. Men having sex with men ends up in inappropriate nakedness and shameful acts: acts in public, public displays of nudity and sexuality. The root of this is fear – the fear that they will be separated from this sin leads to increasingly public displays of it. Homosexuality over time always leads to open displays of nudity and shame.

In the UK, homosexuality has always been around. However, as our nation is starting to descend down the “death spiral” of Romans 1, it has been leading to more and more open displays of nudity and shame.

4. It is an error

The Greek word in this verse for error is plane (pronounced plan-ay) which means to wander the wrong way or to follow the wrong directions. Obviously the Manufacturer’s Directions for sexuality involve one man and one woman for life. To be involved in anything else is following the wrong directions. It is a fallacy to say that it is an alternative lifestyle – it is an erroneous lifestyle.

5. It has consequences

It says at the end of this verse that people receive their recompense for homosexual behaviour. The Greek word for recompense is antimisthia, which comes from the words anti- and misthia. Misthia is the Greek word for wages received for working (cf. 1 Cor. 3.14, 1 Thess. 5.18). Antimisthia is the opposite of wages received for working. It is destruction for not working, for not following God’s plan.

You will end up with consequences for your behaviour. Social consequences, financial consequences, mental consequences, physical consequences.

That is not the main reason to avoid it though: the main reason is that it will lead to spiritual consequences. It will lead to an inability to discern right and wrong, truth and error, life and death. It will ensure you that you descend even further into the “death spiral” outlined in Romans 1, and in the next few verses we will find how destructive that will be for you.

Glory and freedom,
Benjamin

Romans 1.26

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:

For exchanging God’s glory for the glory of creation, God lets go of you and unclean desires and motives come into your life. (vv. 23-24)

Then you exchange truth for a lie, and God lets go of you further and then vile affections start to take hold of your life. (vv. 25-26)

This is the next huge step in the spiral downwards for a nation or community or individual.

Let’s look at this phrase vile affections and find out exactly what it is. The Greek word for vile is atimia which means literally “without honour”. It means to be completely ignored, to be without any reputation or regard, or to have no value whatsoever.

The Greek word for affections is pathos. This word means a desire or a passion for something. It is a neutral word in classical Greek, but in the New Testament is only ever used for negative passions: sexual lust. It means the desire for what is forbidden.

As we said when discussing Romans 1.25, this spiral is a gradual path. It goes from clean to unclean, then unclean to forbidden.

In the context of the rest of Romans 1.26 (and verses 27 as we shall see), this is referring in particular to homosexual and lesbian behaviour.

Whenever an individual or a community or a nation is involved in and is condoning or promoting homosexual behaviour, then you know that they are spiralling away from God at a furious speed. In the United Kingdom, it is at the stage where people are interviewed by the police just by saying that it is their opinion that homosexuality is a sin! Our nation is spiralling away from God.

The first step (and this can be historically proven for the UK and any other nation or community or individual) is to be sexually immoral. Sex stops being for marriage and marriage stops being for life. Divorce is more common and more commonplace, and is condoned and even celebrated. Sex before marriage becomes normal, not strange. Just watch evening television to know this has happened.

Then at some point, the nation or community (or individual) makes a jump from immorality to vile passions. Immorality is the correct passion out of control. It is correct for a man to desire a woman – it just needs to be kept in control. Vile passions is incorrect desires – a man desiring a man, a woman desiring a oman.

Notice that the Bible says here very plainly that homosexuality is against nature. The word for nature in the Greek is physis. This means nature or it can mean the state you are born in.

It is not natural to be homosexual – and it is NOT THE STATE YOU ARE BORN IN! There is no homosexual gene, there is no-one who is homosexual from birth.

The sexual desire is one of the easiest to manipulate. Advertising people know this and make their adverts accordingly. Studies done in the 1980s showed that if you take a teenage boy and show him pornography with woman wearing a particular brand of trainers, it only takes 20 minutes of fixating on this pornography for this boy to become aroused whenever he sees those trainers for the rest of his life.

That is why people become homosexual: they have homosexual experiences and are manipulated into it – just like the young men with the trainers. It is that simple. But mentally those people have to first stop thanking God, stop glorifying God and exchange truth for a lie. This has happened on a national scale in the UK and is increasing.

Now, do not get confused. Our nation is not under God’s judgment (and neither is your nation – wherever in the world you are reading this!). God has already placed all judgment and wrath on Jesus Christ. We are redeemed from the curse and God has given us the message of reconciliation to preach to the world, not the message of judgment!

All that happens is this: we wrestle with God to get away from Him, He loves us so much He lets go. And we end up unable to tell the difference between truth and lie, and we end up in sexual immorality. Then something happens: we reap what we sow. We chose a nation without God and we have it. But He still loves us and cares for us and adores us and the moment a single individual chooses to follow Him and thank Him and glorify Him and worship Him, that individual is delivered from the death spiral and filled with Him and His goodness.

If you are reading this and you have been involved in homosexuality, the Lord loves you. But your vile passions are proof that you are not right with God, not grateful to your own Creator and Maker, not giving Him the glory He deserves, and not listening to His voice and His Word. So repent and change your attitude, start to be grateful to God, start to worship Him and start to praise Him and your life will be changed. Forever.

Glory and freedom,
Benjamin

Romans 1.25

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.

Here we find the process of degradation of any nation, any community, any person who rejects God spiral even more out of control.

Let’s look at what has happened so far:

An individual or a community or a nation has rejected God by failing to give Him the weight He deserves, failing to be grateful to Him, failing to keep their imaginations under control and failing to keep in the Word. (v. 21)

This individual or community starts to call himself or itself intelligent, wise and rational. It starts to see pride as an asset, not a sin. At this exact moment, they become foolish and start making bad decisions (v. 22).

This individual or community turns to false idols, drawing strength from and giving worship and time and energy to false gods. (v. 23).

This individual or community then turns to unclean practises – helping people with mixed motives, sexual immorality and the degrading of their bodies in sexual acts outside of marriage. (v. 24)

You might recognise yourself in this list! You might realize that you are starting the spiral. It all starts with being unthankful – and it never happens overnight.

When you read of a “successful” man of God falling into some horrific sexual sin or being caught in some financial compromise, you often think: well, if it could just happen to them, it could just happen to anyone. Let me tell you something: it did not just happen to them. It cannot just happen to anyone.

You cannot have a harvest without a seed being sown. This is a spiritual and physical law that is part of the nature of God and is woven into the spiritual realm and the physical realm. A serious action of sin does not happen instantly. You cannot jump from Romans 1.21 to Romans 1.25 without going through the steps in between.

You have to be failing to thank God, failing to keep your imagination under control, be turning to idolatry and then finally – after a long process – do you end up with something publically known. We only see the public exposure and the public fall of a minister, but we do not see that for a long time that individual was not grateful to God and was not keeping their imagination under check and was not feeding from the Word.

In this process, it starts to become obvious that someone is rejecting God. You can keep your lack of control of imagination secret. You can keep your lack of gratitude to God secret. You can even keep your sexual immorality secret – for a season. But you cannot keep your exchange of truth for a lie a secret – because you aren’t even aware of the problem to hide it. You will make statements in front of people and then be surprised that they as Christians are shocked at what you say. You don’t even know the lie is a lie! With great sin comes great deception, which brings great errors in theology, in practise and in what you think and believe.

At this point, you are so unclean and have so rejected God and His standards and goodness, you actually cannot grasp the truth. You end up believing lies. There is an old cliche that says if you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.

If you do not stand up for God, stand up against circumstances by giving God the glory due His name, stand up against your flesh when it wants to grumble and not thank God, stand up against your imagination when it wants to imagine doom and gloom and lust and filth, stand up against sexual temptation when it comes your way… if you do not stand up for God, you will accept and receive a lie.

The Greek word for lie here is pseudos. Webster’s defines pseudo- as an adjective that means “being apparently rather than actually as stated”. In other words, it is all pretend. For example: pseudonymn is a pretend name, pseudoscience is something pretending to be science and pseudo-intellectual is when someone pretends to be an intellectual.

If you do not stand for God’s truth, you will fall for imitations. You will buy a fake religion, fake ideas and ultimately a fake god. This is not the way forward! What will be worse is that you will not be able to tell the difference between the fake and the real.

If you notice you are on this spiral, get back to thanking and glorifying God now before you end up unable to tell the difference between truth and fake.

Glory and freedom,

Benjamin