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: God hardens the heart and sears the soul, and even though His restraint, His gracious restraints were placed over the culture to protect that culture and to keep them from unraveling, God gives them over to the very sins that will lead to their ruin and destruction unless. Did you know that's the point of the whole chapter? There is an unless. They and all lost people, regardless of their sexual orientation, will perish and die in their sins unless they hear the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ.

You see, we have no guarantee that we can fix the culture. We have no promise that we can alter legislation, but we do have the guarantee that God's elect are out there and that they can be saved through the proclamation of the gospel. We have a Savior who really changes people's lives. A King of sovereign power, fully God, fully man, who lived on earth, who never sinned, who bore the wrath He didn't deserve for sins He didn't commit, who conquered death, rose again, and at this moment, He is alive.

He rules all things by the word of His power, and He's coming back again to rule His kingdom and to break the curse and to lift the spell and make all things be the way they ought to be. That is the message that saves people from destruction, that by faith in Him alone, we can receive the treasure of salvation in full. I said it before, I'll say it here: we would have less power if we had the launch codes for nuclear weapons.

We are former slaves trapped in darkness, mingling with current slaves to sin who are right now trapped in darkness. The question is, what are the implications of knowing and having a message like that? Do we not owe to perishing people the same opportunity afforded to us? Simply to hear and believe the gospel of Christ? Do you believe that just by speaking words, that just by saying things, should they match the message of the text, is able to save people from destruction?

That's astonishing. I said it before. You know what we are? We are brokers of eternal life. That's what we are. We're middlemen. We are salvation middlemen that arrange meetings between sinners who need salvation and the God of the universe who sent His Son to give salvation. We would have a less important job if we were kings who ruled an empire. May God give us strength to preach the gospel, to contend for the faith, to expose the darkness, to be willing to be hated, to suffer shame for the name, no matter the cost.

Because like Paul said, "Woe to us if we do not preach the gospel." And we're not quite done. Paul's almost done. There's one more revolution, and it is this. Number four: A cultural revolution. This is the revolution that we are in the midst of at this moment. Once you're here, you can go no further. There's no basement in the sewer. There's no cellar in the slough of despond. Once you're here, you're here, and you can go no further in the stage starting in verse 28.

"Even as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper." There it is. That's the last and the worst. That's the reaching of a breaking point, the crossing of a threshold, and in most cases in human history, the point of no return. We're here. This makes a lot of sense that a culture could get here. Not long after homosexual revolution, you get to a cultural revolution when everything in the culture is upside down.

When good is evil and evil is good, and people pursue their rejection of God to the furthest logical implication. That's what this is. It makes a lot of sense that with a collective conscience of a culture cauterized by sin and given to rampant immorality, it's only a matter of time before they do not see fit to acknowledge God any longer. What does that mean to not see fit to acknowledge God? What that is means a culture-wide disapproval and rejection of God.

When God becomes forbidden, when God becomes taboo, when God becomes the one whom you should not name, when even bringing God into the conversation in the public sphere has the possible penalties, and when this happens to a culture, the signs are clear. There is persecution, there is discrimination, there is marginalization of believers. When God is gagged, and churches are targeted, and believers are silenced, and the word of God is forbidden, you have entered into a stage four culture war.

This is where we are. If that sounds extreme to you, explain to me why the FBI was caught searching private emails of churches who disagreed with homosexuality? During the 2020 lockdowns, why were pastors taken to jail for holding service, but managers at Costco were fine? Also during the lockdowns, riots were fine, casinos and strip clubs were open, churches were closed. There are dozens and dozens of examples exactly like that. The proof is there that we have arrived at a stage four culture war.

It's not as bad as it could be, but it's also not as bad as it will be, and we have to be prepared. Notice the phrase Paul uses there. Paul says that the culture, "they did not see fit to acknowledge God." The phrase "see fit" is one word in Greek. It's the word dokimazo. That word literally means to examine something, to put something to the test, to measure something for its quality. It's actually the word for quality control back in the ancient days when they would make coins like the Roman coins.

They'd make coins, and you had to evaluate them to see if they were fit for public use. So they'd make the coins, and then they would dokimazo them. They would test them, examine them, look at them, weigh them out to see if they were fit for public use. Those that were, they distributed them publicly, and those that were defective were taken and destroyed. Paul says that is exactly what cultures do with God. They put Him on the scale.

They measure His claims. They weigh out His character. They scrutinize His ways. They evaluate who He is. What does Paul say is the consensus of the culture? The culture as a whole finds God to be wanting. We don't need God. God is defective, they say. He is flawed. He is unfit for public recognition, let alone for worship and devotion. We don't need God. We don't want God. Here there is no place for God.

When that is where a nation goes, God has no choice but to give them what they want. What they want is all their sin without a shred of conscience, and that's exactly what God gives. Look at verse 28. "Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper." That's the final revolution. That's it. When a culture is given over to a depraved mind, the word literally means worthless.

A worthless mind. What he means is it's when the collective consciousness of a culture is so jacked and so warped and so inside out that the culture can't think right about anything. For instance, did you know that you can't say nursing mothers anymore? Because that assumes that only women can have babies, and now we know that men can have babies, and so instead you must call them chestfeeding persons to be more inclusive.

You can't say women who menstruate anymore because that assumes again that women are real people, that women are a thing. We can't do that, and so instead we have to call them non-binary individuals who menstruate to be more inclusive. It's not mothers anymore, it's birthing persons because men, if you didn't know, can also have children. By the way, math and science are also white supremacy. Children can get puberty blockers without parental commission, but they still have to get permission for a tattoo.

Pedophilia is fine, criminals are the victims, and yes, absolutely we should mutilate children to alter their gender, or excuse me, we call that gender-affirming care now. This isn't just the weirdos on the fringe. This is major. This is mainstream. It's in the universities. It's backed by politicians. It's funded by corporations. It's spread through social media. If you express disagreement with it on say like Facebook, you get Facebook jailed, you're fact-checked, you're done.

Anyone who doesn't comply or steps out of line will be crushed without mercy and canceled by the woke mobs of social justice. My point is I'm not at individual sinners, I am distressed by this because what this is is proof. It's proof that a culture has lost its mind and gone insane, which is exactly what Paul means by a depraved mind. A depraved mind, literally worthless, and that word depraved there is actually built on the exact same root of the word dokimazo.

Remember the making of coins? If you worked in the place back in ancient Rome where they made the coins, but you had no idea what was legal or illegal, you had no idea what constituted a valid coin, you had no idea what was quality, what was real, what was counterfeit, what was second rate, every single decision you made would be subjective, wouldn't it? It'd be random. It'd be arbitrary. It'd be illogical.

You'd have nothing to go off of other than what your mind thought and the truth that you felt. That's exactly what Paul is saying a depraved mind is. Truth is what you feel. It's a mind that can't think right about anything. It's when the entire framework to understand good and evil and right from wrong and truth from error is broken, that the system has crashed, that the rope to the anchor is cut. That's what this is. Paul says this is the wrath of God.

The insanity is the penalty. The madness is the punishment. The chaos is the wrath. This is where we are, and yet we do not despair, do we? We don't fear, let alone feel disgust for individual people. Rather, what does this text do? This text is a gift. This text gives us clarity. This text gives us courage. This text gives us competence because we know what's wrong with the culture and we know the solution.

This text gives us confidence, not confidence in the self, but confidence in the very message that is able to save sinners from destruction. This text gives us compassion. These are real people with real souls who are really going to spend eternity somewhere, and we would be in the exact same place if someone didn't intervene. I mean Christ, but also I mean those sent by Christ with the gospel. What's the result of this?

What happens to a culture who's outlawed God and gone insane? Paul says they do those things which are not proper, and then he gives a list of things that happen. "Filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; malicious gossips, slanderers, haters of God, violent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful."

"Who, although they know the righteous ordinance of God, that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only do them, but they also give hearty approval to those who do." Name one sin on the list we do not see unleashed today. Of course, all these sins have always been in existence, that's true, but not like this. Paul says in verse 29 that people become filled with these things. The difference is that these very sins are now the virtues.

These are celebrated. These are commended. These are the new virtues. An immoral majority is given over to sin without restraint. That's what happens when God is removed. You look at that list there in 29 through 31, and it's actually extremely ordered and structured according to theme into three groups. Group number one: these are the sins, the root sins that result in the others. Verse 29: "They are filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, and evil."

Add all those up, and what do you have? A people and a culture who love what God hates and hate what God loves. A nation of people enslaved to their cravings whose appetite for evil is insatiable. Exactly where we're at. Group number two: these are the most destructive and vicious sins that leave a culture ripped and torn apart. Verse 29: "They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice."

Add those up, and what do you have? A people and a culture vicious and brutal, right? Divided and violent, cruel and deceptive, nasty and ferocious, who love and delight in the misery of others. Is that not exactly what we see? Group number three: the full range of evil madness when a culture pursues its rejection of God. Paul says they are malicious gossips. There's entire TV shows that all they are is gossip and people watch them.

"Slanderers, haters of God, violent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents." The shattering of the family unit. "Without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful." Add these up, and what do you have? A sinister, secular, savage, self-exalting people who, although they know the righteous ordinance of God, they not only do them, but they give hearty approval to those who do. Is that not exactly what we see?

And that is why God is angry. And even more than that, that is why all people, verse 16, need the gospel. And that is why all people, verse 17, need the righteousness of God found in the gospel because God in His love has made a way for the wrath that He has that it may be placed upon another, upon a substitute who took the wrath He didn't deserve for sins He didn't commit. Romans chapter five, starting in verse six.

"For even when we were weak, even at the appointed time, Christ died for the ungodly. One will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God, God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans chapter eight: "For what the law could not do, weak as it was from the flesh, God did, and after sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."

"So that the righteous ordinance of the law would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit." Chapter 10, 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.' For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Do you see it? That is the gospel that we proclaim. What's embarrassing about that? What is shameful about that?

That is incredible. You just meet with people and you talk with people and you look them in the eye and say, "Look, as a person who right now deserves to be in hell, let me just extend to you the very gospel that saved me from destruction." And speaking of the proclamation of the gospel, I'm going to close this morning with a challenge and a summons from the Apostle Paul. Because people get saved when they hear and believe the gospel.

"How therefore shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: 'How beautiful, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things.' For faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ."

Beloved, this service right here right now is your commissioning service. We're sending you out. There's people in your life that have not called upon the name. There's people in your life who have not heard. There's people in your life that need a preacher. Who are the preachers who are going to send to them? Do you know any preachers that we can send to the people in your life? I do, and you do too because it's you.

This is your commissioning service. May God give you strength to preach and proclaim the sin-bearing, wrath-removing, life-giving, soul-saving gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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 has 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.