Rom
1:24-25 (NIV) Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their
hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created
things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.
NOTE: This is the
first of the three "God gave them over" phrases that describe the
downward cycle of sin. This first usage
follows the worship of images despite evidence to the contrary. The Greek word for "gave up" is
paredooken and is an intensified form of the word "give," suggesting
a person in possession of something, transferring it to another. God, who has a personal interest in our
well-being and protection transfers his possession to what we wanted, which was
the sinful desires of our heart. The
result of this new phase (second stage) is no longer just giving thanks and
worship to images, but worshipping and serving create things. Our lusts become our gods. In this stage, men also exchange truth about
God for a lie. Today, our land is full
of lies about God because we do not want to know the truth. We are our own enemies. Rather than shaking our fists at God for not
protecting us from evil or disaster, we should realize that it was our own
rebellion that causes God to give us over to what we truly wanted. God is very good. The evil in the world does nothing to dispel
that truth. It only amplifies our poor
choice!
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