The Unchanging Truth

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Unchanging Truth, the verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Jerod Gilcher, lead pastor of Christ Community Bible Church in Arlington, Texas. Through the living and active Word of God, the Unchanging Truth exists to encourage your soul, transform your life, and help you trust and treasure Christ as Redeemer, Savior, and King. Now, opening the scriptures and proclaiming the truth that never changes, here is Dr. Jerod Gilcher.

Dr. Jerod Gilcher: Revolution number two. Revolution number two is a sexual revolution. It is a sexual revolution because the fact of the matter is, when the cat is gone, the mice come out to play. And when God is gone, the outcome is inevitable. Sin comes out to play. In particular, sexual sin, and very specifically a sexual revolution, which is what we see in verses 24 and 25.

Look at the text. Paul says, "Therefore." Therefore. Stop right there. Don't even look at the next word. Whatever it is that Paul is about to say is crucial to the logic and the message of the text. Remember, he just said in verse 18 that man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, that the anger of God is upon the sons of men, right? Verse 23 says that the reason why it is, is because they traded God for idols. Here in verse 24, Paul is going to show us what the anger of God looks like.

Ready? Here it is. "Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies would be dishonored among them, who exchanged the truth of God with a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen." And there it is. Do you see it? Do you see the sexual revolution?

A mass of people plunging into lust, indulging in uncleanness, living in open shame, dishonoring their bodies, violating one another with sexual sin. That is exactly what Paul is describing here, and yet the text is chilling, isn't it? It's even prophetic in a sense, because once the rope to the anchor of God is cut, the ship of society drifts inevitably into an ocean of sexual immorality. And when you look at American history, that is exactly what you see.

Take a walk with me down historical lane. I said some of this last week. You remember that with the Renaissance, with the Enlightenment, with the Age of Reason in the 17th and 18th centuries, man became enamored with man, right? What man could do, what man could achieve. Reason replaced revelation as the arbiter of truth. Why on earth do we need the Bible when we have the mind of man?

And it was man, not God, who became the center of the universe. Liberal theology from Europe crashed on the shores of America. Seminaries were corrupted, churches were poisoned. And then with modernism and humanism and secularism and liberalism came Darwinism. It came Darwinism, which made God logically unnecessary. We believe in science now. We don't need God anymore.

And here's the thing, almost overnight, the morals and ethics that generally govern behavior and marriage and sex and family, all of a sudden, almost in a moment, became irrelevant and arbitrary. Do you see? And then beginning in the 20s and then exploding in the 60s was this culture-wide, universal rejection of every single moral imperative there is. Ethics were no longer a matter of theology. They were a function of the feelings.

Free love became a kind of battle cry, which meant you could do what you want, with whom you want, without the constraints of marriage, even with multiple partners if that's what you prefer. Marriage was slammed as patriarchal and slavery. Gender roles were rejected and redefined. Sexual activities which had some kind of bounds and restraints and moral compass were then given free rein to be whatever the heart desires.

And then with that arose public nudity and pornography and premarital sex. I'm not saying those things didn't exist before, they totally did. I'm just saying that these things just exploded onto the scene. And my point is, that kind of culture-wide, unanimous embrace of rampant sexual immorality is exactly what Paul's describing here. Since that day it has only progressed, or should we say, digressed.

And here's the thing about the sexual revolution. Tragic though it is, because the bodies from the sexual revolution have been washing up on shore ever since, but tragic and sad though it is, it raises the question, how did that happen? How did that happen so fast? Do you see? I mean, how was it that there was an entire cultural, ideological shift where a massive part of society united together in a sex-crazed solidarity, abandoned and rejected all previous moral constraints?

How did that happen so fast? What's the explanation? Paul gives the explanation in verse 24. "God. God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies would be dishonored among them." Do you see it? God did it. God did that. God gave them what they wanted. Don't you see? The revolution is His wrath. The rebellion is His punishment.

That's what Paul means when he says God gave them over. No, He didn't allow them to go. He didn't merely permit them to go. He didn't hands off, walk away, passively let themselves plunge into lust. No, Paul is clear, God actively handed them over to the very sins that would lead to their destruction. It's the active verb. God did that.

One writer said this, that that word "gave" or "gave them over," he says it demands that we give God a more active role as the initiator of a process. God does not simply let the boat go, he says, He gives it a push downstream. Like a judge who hands a prisoner to the punishment his crime has earned, God hands the sinner over to a terrible cycle of ever-increasing ruin and sin.

And this, Paul says, is the wrath of God revealed, where God removes His gracious restraints that keep a society intact, and then He hardens the heart corporately, sears the conscience, cauterizes the soul, gives people over to the very deeds that will destroy them. Which means it wasn't freedom that they felt, it was God's fury. It wasn't progress that they made, it was God's punishment. It wasn't liberation that they experienced, it was God's vindication of His justice.

And I'll just be honest, if the advocates of the sexual revolution were honest, if the people who marched in those sexual liberation parades in the 60s were honest, they would admit that the progress they wanted was not the paradise they expected. That the great utopia and new world order that they guaranteed would come never came, and instead only left the wreckage of mangled lives and people in despair, didn't it?

Which is interesting because that's exactly what Paul said was going to happen. Look at verse 24. "God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness or to impurity." Here it is. This is the result of that. "That their bodies would be dishonored among them." Do you see it? Lust had a very grim and devastating result. What did he say it is? The dishonoring of their bodies.

What does he mean? I think he means the ruin and the pain and the devastation that comes from unrestrained sexual sin. I mean you take the gift of sex that God has given, you remove it from the context in which it's blessed, you use it as a weapon for selfish personal pleasure, and the only possible end is broken hearts and mutilated lives. Tell me I'm wrong.

I mean you read the stories that come out of the supposed sexual liberation, and it's just crushing. Out of it came tons of divorce, illegitimate children, abuse, disease, betrayal, molestation, sex slavery, shattered lives. It's exactly what Paul describes, which means that he just blows the cover off the lies our culture tells about the supposed freedom to do whatever it is that you want to do. I've got four of those lies.

Number one, the culture says that it is insignificant and inconsequential what you give away sexually in relationships. That's insignificant and inconsequential, they say. And I think the MeToo movement is proof that it is not unimportant what you do sexually, even if there is consent. Number two, the culture says love is love, no matter to whom it is given or with whom it is shared.

And I have in mind primarily but not exclusively the homosexual community, and you understand that love and sex are gifts from God that you have every single right to enjoy within the context that He has ordained, namely within the loving confines of a marriage between man and woman. And yet try to enjoy those things outside of that, and mark my words, they will destroy you.

Lie number three, the culture says that an ancient book does not have a fraction of a right to tell me who I can and cannot love and how that love can be expressed, which is a bit like saying the doctor has no business telling me about how to handle my health, which is crazy because health is the doctor's area of expertise. And in the same way, life and how to live it is God's area of expertise.

Number four, lie number four, the culture says Christianity and the Bible only view sexuality with caution and restraints and rules and no passion or joy, which very clearly means they have not read the Song of Songs or Proverbs 5. Yikes. But the truth of the matter is, in all seriousness, any caution or restraint in the Bible about the gift of sex is only because what it is, is so unbelievably sacred.

The more precious it is, the more it needs to be protected. The more sacred it is, the more it needs to be secured. At the end of the day, love and sex are a little bit like plutonium. When plutonium is used in the way it ought to be used, it can give light to a city of millions. You use it in the wrong way and you get it into the wrong hands, and it can kill a city of millions. And the sexual revolution has killed millions.

And this, Paul says, is not just a sign of a culture in rebellion, it's a culture under the wrath of God. Let me just say this. Pulling back from this just for a moment, I want to say that if sexual lust or porn or sexual sin of any form, if that is wreaking havoc in your life right now, I just want you to know that if you belong to Jesus Christ, if you truly belong to Him, that there is incredible hope for you.

You know that, right? I mean Romans chapter 6 is just clear about this, that if you belong to Christ by our union and faith in Christ, that we're no longer slaves to sin. That our old man has been crucified with Him, that the body of sin is done away with. That we are dead to sin but alive to God. Sin shall not be master over you, he says, for you are not under law, you are under grace.

And what is grace? Grace is the power to do what God demands and the power to flee what God forbids. That's grace. Which means that in Christ, lasting, satisfying victory over sin is not merely a possibility but a profound and inevitable reality. We're almost done. For them, however, the wrath of God remains, which is why getting the gospel out is so incredibly urgent.

Notice in verse 25, notice what it is that frees people to pursue their lust. Like what has to happen theologically in the soul to make that happen? And Paul says what it is. Look at verse 25. He says, "They exchanged," just like verse 23, "they exchanged the truth of God with a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen."

So do you see what he's saying? Verse 25 is what they already had done to make verse 24 a possibility. Does that make sense? Put it another way is that the sexual revolution is the result of a theological revolution. I mean you can only live guilt-free if you have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. Paul says notice, look at the language there. Paul says they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, which is really profound.

Those two words, worship and serve, that captures both the internal and external parts of what it is to be a worshiper. All of the love and fear and devotion and service owing to someone lofty and exalted like the Creator of the universe is instead redirected to the creation, even nature. Nature, and I think the whole climate change cult, save Mother Earth movement is a symptom of this very thing. It's worship of the creation.

And yet it's God, Paul says, it's God who is blessed forever. Amen. Do you see that there? And you kind of wonder, why does he just throw that in at the end? "Blessed forever, amen." Why does he just sort of just tack that on at the end? The reason why he does is because it heightens the discrepancy, doesn't it? It exposes the discrepancy between what should happen and what does happen.

What should happen is that human beings should fall to the ground in joyful worship of the One who made them, who is blessed forever, but instead of that is suppression of the truth, the exchange of God and the worship of creation, and that is why God is angry. Turn to chapter 3. Chapter 3, starting in verse 10. Let's just walk through what the gospel message is. God is angry, that's true.

Starting in verse 10, Paul says, "There is no one righteous, not even one. There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God. All turned aside, together they have become worthless. There is no one who does good, there is not even one." Verse 18, "There is no fear of God before their eyes." Skip down to verse 23. "For all, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

What does that mean? It means all people fail to glorify God in the way that they were created. They were created to know God and love God and enjoy God and obey God and submit to God, and sin is doing the opposite of that. And yet you know the problem with that? Romans 6:23, "the wages of sin is death," right? And death doesn't mean grave, death doesn't just mean the cemetery. Death is a graphic and vivid way to describe the eternal separation and wrath of God forever.

And yet, and yet God made a way, didn't He? In a plot twist that no human being could have ever conceived, God made a way where the wrath that sinners deserve can be placed upon another, upon a substitute who stands in their place and takes the wrath He didn't deserve for sins He didn't commit. It's astonishing. Look at chapter 5.

Chapter 5, starting in verse 6. "For even when we were helpless," Paul says, "even at the appointed time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die, but God demonstrates His own love for us in that even while we were sinners, Christ died for us." Verse 9, "Therefore much more having been justified now by His blood, we will be saved from the wrath of God through Him."

Look at chapter 8. Chapter 8, starting in verse 3. "For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh." Do you know what it means? The law, Ten Commandments and beyond, the 613 commandments contained in the Mosaic Covenant, those were never ever designed to save a soul. There is no such thing as accumulating enough works under the law that would somehow turn God's wrath against you into favor. That's not how it was designed. You can't do it. All the law can do is deepen your judgment.

"What the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did after sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous ordinance of God should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

And that's great. The question is, how do you get what Jesus paid for? How do you get what He bought with His blood? Which brings us to chapter 10. Turn to chapter 10. Do you see what we're doing here? We're just walking through the gospel message already contained in Romans. The solution for the wrath of God talked about in chapter 1. That's what we're doing here.

Chapter 10, starting in verse 9. "That if you should confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation. For the scripture says, everyone who believes in Him will not be disappointed." That is the understatement of eternity.

Not only would they not be disappointed, but forever will savor the riches of eternal life in the splendor of the kingdom, which means the question is, beloved, have you done so? Have you done so? Have you yielded to Christ by faith as Lord and God and King and Savior and Treasure of the soul? Have you done so? Have you given up? Have you despaired in your worthless works to save you and have you cast yourself upon Jesus Christ alone in His redemptive achievements?

Have you truly turned from the suicidal pleasures of sin to the One in whose presence is fullness of joy and in whose right hand there are pleasures forever? Because if you haven't, beloved, now is the time. Now is the time. Romans 13, "to awaken from sleep." To awaken from sleep. "For salvation is nearer to us," Paul says, "than when we first believed. The night is almost gone, the day is at hand."

Let us put off the deeds of darkness, let us put on the weapons of light. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but instead of having in fact the opposite of that, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. Which means, believer or unbeliever, time is short. The time is now to put away the deeds of darkness and to live our lives for the glory of the Son.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us for the Unchanging Truth, the verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Jerod Gilcher and Christ Community Bible Church in Arlington, Texas. At Christ Community Bible Church, we exist to prize, portray, and proclaim the supremacy of Christ as we trust in His Word and wait for His return. We hope today's teaching has encouraged your soul and helped you trust and treasure Christ as your Redeemer, Savior, and King.

If you're in the DFW area and looking for a church home, join us for worship Sunday mornings at 10:30. To learn more about the mission of the church, meet the pastoral staff or plan a visit, go to ccbiblechurch.com. You'll find ministry services and additional teachings there as well. Just click on the resources tab to get started. That's ccbiblechurch.com. Join us again next time as we open the scriptures together and proclaim the truth that never changes. This has been the Unchanging Truth.