Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey, podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

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Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day. This Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 3

The Bible says when you disobey God, especially in the sexual arena, there's this little voice that tells you—it's called a conscience—that what you're doing is wrong.

But when you engage in that over and over again, you can so harden your conscience that you can't feel anything any longer and the great harm that you're doing to yourself.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. In our changing culture, the line between right and wrong tends to shift with time. Tragically, many define morality by their own standards rather than according to God's word.

Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress reveals the consequences that await those who reject God's truth.

Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message. Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 2

Thanks, David. And welcome to this midweek edition of Pathway to Victory as we continue our study in Romans 1 through 5 called Grace Powered Living. I'm glad you chose to join us today.

When Paul wrote his masterful letter to the Romans, he included a frightening warning in the first chapter to those who embrace a homosexual lifestyle. Many scholars claim that Paul's indictment represents an archaic bias and that his judgment bears no implication for our times. What do you think?

Well, today and again tomorrow, we're going to do a deep dive on the first century culture and an honest assessment of Paul's decree. As a compliment to our study, I'd like to send you one of the finest Bible study resources I've come across that's designed to help you understand the culture in which Paul lived and ministered. The resource is called An Illustrated Guide to the Apostle Paul. This illustrated guide brings the remarkable story of Paul to life. It's like stepping into his sandals as he ventured over countless miles to spread the gospel to a pagan culture.

You can get a copy today? It's my gift to you when you include a generous gift to support the growing ministry of Pathway to Victory. Plus, as a bonus, I'll be sure to include a multifolded Journeys of Paul Map and brochure so that you can easily trace the footsteps of this hero of our Christian faith.

Now it's time to get started with today's message. I've titled our study in Romans 1.

Speaker 3

When God lets Go Duck Star Dynasty. Phil Robertson's comments about homosexuality. The whole controversy was interesting to me on a number of different levels. But perhaps the most interesting development in that controversy was when a well-respected news organization uncovered what they were sure was the smoking gun that proved Phil Robertson was nothing but a homophobic bigot. They discovered a video from several years ago of Phil Robertson preaching at a Pennsylvania church. During Phil Robertson's sermon, he talked about homosexuality. He described it as unnatural men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their bodies the due penalty of their error. And God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which were unnatural.

The writers at Huffington Post, the broadcasters at TMZ and CNN, and all the other outlets were so biblically illiterate that they didn't realize Phil Robertson was simply quoting verbatim from Romans chapter 1, the passage from God's Word we're going to look at today. Romans Chapter one is a scathing indictment against homosexuality. But it's much more than that. Romans Chapter one has a message for all of us, heterosexuals and homosexuals alike. It is a sobering truth. And the truth is those who abandon God will be abandoned by God to their own self-destruction. That is the theme of Romans Chapter one. I invite you to take your Bibles, whether you're here, you're listening, or watching on Pathway to Victory. Turn to Romans Chapter one as we discover what happens when God lets go.

Now remember, we're in that section of Romans chapter 1, verse 18 to chapter 3, verse 20, in which Paul is describing why we all need the righteousness of God—a right standing with God. He goes through in these two and a half chapters a list of everyone who is guilty before God. He starts with a group of people that we think would be innocent, not deserving of God's wrath: those who have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Surely God will give those people a pass. They can't be held accountable for a Gospel they've never heard. They're innocent before God. We say God says no, they are guilty. He explains exactly, beginning in verse 20, why the unbeliever who's never heard the gospel is still guilty before God.

He says, first of all, unbelievers have received the knowledge of God. You don't have to have a Bible, a preacher, or a missionary to know there is a God. The heavens are declaring the glory of the Lord. Everyone can know there's a God. And while that knowledge isn't sufficient to save us, it is sufficient, if rejected, to condemn us. Secondly, unbelievers have rejected the knowledge of God. That is, even though they know there is a God, they have rejected the knowledge of the truth, the true God. And thirdly, they have replaced that knowledge of God with a false God. The person who bows down before a statue or worships an animal or a plant doesn't do so because they think that's the real God. Instead, they have created a God of their own liking, one that they can control.

So what happens to the person who does that? That's what verse 24 explains. It explains the downward path toward destruction of those who reject the knowledge of the true God. Look at chapter one, verse 24. Therefore, Paul says, in light of these people who have received, rejected, and replaced the knowledge of the true God, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity that their bodies might be dishonored among them. Do you remember in verse 18, God said, for the wrath of God is being revealed against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men who stifle, who suppress the truth? Paul says God's anger is now being poured out. It's not that God is just going to wait and judge them at some future day; he's going to do that at the great white throne judgment. But the Bible says right now God is judging those who reject the knowledge of himself.

How is he doing that? Well, verse 24 says he's doing it by giving them over. You see that phrase over and over again. Verse 24, God gave them over. Verse 26, God gave them over. Verse 28, God gave them over. That word gave over is the Greek word paradidomy. It sometimes is used to describe the deliverance of one person to a specific location. For example, a person is delivered over to prison to serve out his sentence. It's used in the Bible to describe the angels who committed that sin in Genesis 6, and God delivered them to Tartarus, the place of punishment for the fallen angels. Sometimes paradidomy means a direct dispatching of one person to another location. But a second meaning of paradidomy is simply to let go of, to abandon a person. And that's how Paul is using the word here. Because these people have rejected God, God has let go of them. He has abandoned them to follow the desires of their own heart.

Now, ironically, this is exactly what the unbeliever thinks he wants. He thinks he wants to be unshackled from the idea of a God who judges and has a list of obligations. The unbeliever says, I will free myself from this God and follow the desires of my heart. But when he does that, he discovers that freedom from God is not all that it's cracked up to be. Do you remember the story of the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15? The prodigal son said, I am tired of living in my Father's house. I am tired of having him rule over me. So he went to his dad one day and said, give me my inheritance so I can get the heck out of here. And so the Father gave him his inheritance. Off he went to the far country. For a while, he indulged himself in every dream, every desire of his heart. But soon he fell into despair, depression, and depravity. That's what happens to a person who follows the inclination of his own heart.

Students, listen to me. When you abandon God and follow the desires of your own heart, it always leads you downward. It never leads you upward. Those who abandon God are always led downward, not upward. Let me illustrate that for you. If I can, for just a moment. I'm holding this cup here. I am holding onto it right now. But what happens if I paradidomy? If I let go, if I abandon this cup? If I let go of this cup, is it going to float upward to the ceiling? Knock out one of those lights up there? Is that what's going to happen? What happens if I abandon, let go of this cup? It falls to the ground. It will always go down. Why is that? It's because of a force called gravity. It is a downward pull. And that is true in every one of us. There is a spiritual force at work called sin. And whenever God lets go to follow the inclination of our heart, the path is always downward.

And that's what we see in this passage. I want you to notice where freedom from God leads. When a person says, I want to be unshackled from God, I want him to let go of me. I want to follow my own inclinations. Notice what happens. God gives such a person over. This downward path manifests itself in three ways. First of all, God abandons unbelievers to immorality. Look at verses 24 and 25. Therefore, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. This word impurity is a general term for sexual immorality. I think it is significant that this passage that describes the person who abandons God and is abandoned by God places such an emphasis on sexual immorality.

People say, well, isn't all sin sin? What's the big deal about sexual immorality? I mean, lying's wrong. Covetousness is wrong. Why is there such an emphasis on sexual immorality in the Bible? Because sexual immorality is a special kind of sin in that it is a special kind of rebellion against God, and it represents a certain destruction of our own. Let me explain what I mean. How is sexual sin rebellious? God's the one who created sex. Do you remember that? Man didn't think it up. God thought it up. God thought up the idea of sex. He created it to be a gift to us. But along with that gift, there were some stipulations to the gift. He said, sex is a gift from me that operates best between a man and a woman in a marriage relationship that's forever. Those are the instructions that came on the box, so to speak. You can unwrap this gift. You can use it, but here are the directions of how to use it.

But whenever we pervert God's gift of sex, we twist it through premarital sex or adultery or homosexuality. It is a rebellion. It's like saying, God, we don't like your gift. We're going to twist it and use it the way we want to. It is rebellious, but it is secondly, very, very destructive, unlike other sins. In 1 Corinthians 6:18, Paul says, Flee immorality, for every other sin a man commits is outside the body. But the immoral man sins against his own body. When you sin sexually, you're not only sinning against God, you're sinning against your own body. How is that? You know, if you take your hand and you put it near a fire, you're going to recoil; you're going to sense the heat and pull your hand back. Why? Because God has placed nerve endings in your hand that make it sensitive to heat. Did you know the problem with people with leprosy or Hansen's disease is they have no feeling in their hands? They have no feeling in their feet? Their nerve endings have been destroyed. So the real destructive part of leprosy is what it allows people to do to themselves. People without any feeling in their feet can walk on a nail and not feel it, and it destroys their feet. Or they touch something that is hot, and they destroy their hands. They're not aware of it.

In the same way, the Bible says, when you disobey God, especially in the sexual arena, there's this little voice that tells you—it's called a conscience—that what you're doing is wrong. But when you engage in that over and over again, you can so harden your conscience that you develop spiritual leprosy. You can't feel anything any longer. And the great harm that you're doing to yourself. That's why in First Timothy 4:2, Paul talks about those who have had their consciences seared as though with a branding iron. Imagine taking a branding iron and placing it on your hand and pressing in on it until your nerve endings were destroyed. When you disobey God, especially, especially in the sexual arena, over and over again, it hardens your conscience so that you can't feel anything any longer, and you engage in behaviors that will ultimately destroy you.

I remember seeing on PBS years ago a very disturbing documentary. It was called the Lost Children of Rockdale County. It was about an affluent suburb outside the city of Atlanta that was experiencing an outbreak of syphilis. It was coming through teenagers who, out of boredom and affluence, decided to engage in sex parties after school. I cannot describe for you in a mixed audience what they did, but it was not just normal one-on-one heterosexual kind of sex. They engaged in group sex activities. In fact, some girls composed a rap song to describe the kind of perversion they were involved in. But you know, in that hour documentary, I never saw one of the teenagers say, this is great. We have never felt better than we feel right now. Instead, one of the young ladies who was interviewed said, when I would return home from one of those parties, I would feel so dirty and so ashamed. I didn't even want to face my parents. But that is what Paul is saying here. When people abandon God, God abandons them to follow the desires of their heart. And the first stop on that downward path is immorality.

But it doesn't stop there. Secondly, God abandons unbelievers to abnormality. Look at verses 26 and 27. For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions. For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. And in the same way also, the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. Now, obviously, Paul is talking about homosexuality here. Have you ever heard people say, well, it's just the Old Testament that condemns homosexuality, not the New Testament? Have you heard that before? Well, here's one of many instances in the New Testament where God says homosexuality is a sin. Or have you heard people say, well, homosexuality is okay as long as the homosexuals are monogamous and faithful to one another? There's no allowance for that in here either.

Will you notice that the word of God says the homosexual act is both the cause of God's judgment and it is the result of God's judgment? Isn't that interesting? The person who engages in this kind of perversion is somebody who is under the judgment of God. The homosexual does what he does because he has abandoned the knowledge of the true God. He has rejected it, and he has replaced it with a God of his own making. Now, some people will say, and I'm sure I'll hear from them this week, oh, pastor, now that's just not right. I know many homosexuals who are Christians. I know homosexuals who worship God just like you and I do. I've debated through the years with homosexual pastors. There's one I used to debate here in Dallas, a lesbian pastor, over and over again, and she would say to me all the time, now, Dr. Jeffress, we worship the same God you do. Oh, no, you don't. The God that homosexuals say they worship is not the God of the Bible. It is the God of their own making. They have created God in their own image. They have imagined God to be a sovereign who approves of everything and condemns nothing. But that is not the God of the Bible who says, be ye holy, for I am holy. A.W. Tozer says, the idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true. And that's what the homosexual Christian does. He imagines God to be a God who approves everything and judges nothing and acts accordingly.

No, the Bible says homosexuality is both the cause of and the result of God's judgment. And I want you to notice the three statements here the Bible makes about homosexual behavior. First of all, homosexuality is degenerative. By that, I mean it is unnatural. That word, unnatural, in verse 26 means it is against nature. Now, don't misunderstand. Adultery and premarital sex are just as much of a sin as homosexuality is. But even though adultery and premarital sex are sin, they are natural sins. By that, I mean the desire we have for members of the opposite sex is a natural desire. But adultery and premarital sex represent those desires gone amok—those desires trying to be fulfilled in an ungodly way. But homosexuality is unnatural. It goes against nature itself.

I want you to listen to what one writer says about homosexuality. Even in purely non-religious terms, homosexuality represents a misuse of the sexual faculty. And in the words of one educator of human construction, it is a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life. As such, it deserves fairness, compassion, understanding, and when possible, treatment. But homosexuality deserves no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, and no fake status as a minority martyrdom. Who do you suppose wrote those words? James Dobson? No. Robert Jeffress? No. The late Jerry Falwell? No. Those words appeared in Time magazine in an article on June 21, 1966. You say, oh, I can't believe that Time magazine would say such a thing. Boy, that was back in the Dark Ages. 1966. Look how far we have ascended. Look how far we have come today. No, look how far downward our nation has gone since then. That is what the world says. That's what the world says. But God says it is a downward path.

Speaker 2

You can tell by the spontaneous applause that we had a receptive audience as we talked about what happens when God lets go. And I suspect that you share our convictions too. We often receive feedback from our listeners and viewers who tell us how much they appreciate our bold biblical teaching. We refuse to skip over the parts of God's Word that are unpopular in our times. Instead, we teach the whole counsel of God's word, knowing that we find freedom in embracing the truth rather than fighting it.

Knowing that you believe this too, I'm asking you to step forward with your generous gift today. I'm willing to teach in this bold manner so long as we have people like you who put wind in our sails. And I can tell you there are forces of evil working against us. But we're not backing down as long as God gives us the freedom to teach His Word without censorship.

Now, when you give a generous gift today, I'm going to send you a Bible study resource that will open your eyes to the political and religious tensions fighting against Paul's efforts in the first century world. You'll find that his opposition is not much different than the adversaries who stand in our way these days. This tool is called *An Illustrated Guide to the Apostle Paul*. Paul ignited a revolution that continues to this day.

Pastors, students, and anyone engaged in Bible study will find this an indispensable resource when we ask you to financially support Pathway to Victory. We truly enjoy sending you quality resources like this one in order to accelerate your walk with God. So thanks for giving generously today.

Speaker 1

David, thanks. Dr. Jeffress, to request your very own copy of *An Illustrated Guide to the Apostle Paul*, simply give us a call at 866-999-2965. A copy is all yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory.

Now, as an added bonus, we'll also send you the new and exclusive German. Again, call 866-999-2965 or make your request online at ptv.org, and when your gift is $75 or more, you'll also receive the *Grace Powered Living Teaching Series* on audio and video discs, highlighting chapters one through eight of the Book of Romans. This teaching set features the complete, unedited messages and is perfect for listening to in the car or watching in your small group Bible study.

To request the teaching set, call 866-999-2965 or visit ptv.org. You could also send your donation by mail right to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, TX 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins inviting you to join us next time for the conclusion of the message "When God Lets Go." That's Thursday here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.

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