“…haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors (of new forms) evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful (without pity).” Romans 1:30-31
In Paul’s devastating rundown of the toll the “great exchange” takes upon the human race, reducing us to animalistic savagery (without the furry cuteness of some of those animals, though), we might recoil at the comprehensiveness of it all. Regardless of our feelings, however, the logic is clear. When we suppress the obvious truth about God and reality (1:18) and refuse to acknowledge God and give Him thanks, we trigger a chain reaction of evil.
First, we become futile in our thinking and our hearts are darkened. Claiming to be wise, we embrace all sorts of foolishness (Romans 1:21).
Second, we exchange the glory of God for various forms of idolatry (1:22-23). God responds to these illogical sins by giving us over to them (1:24). At that point, in verse 26, there’s an outbreak of sexual sin…in our day we call it the “sexual revolution”, which started in the 60’s and continues to this very day. The “revolution” is against God and His righteous moral order, make no mistake. The attempt to cast sexual sin as righteousness is part of this process detailed in Romans 1:26-27.
What is God’s response to this? Well, we’re seeing it around us and it’s detailed, in principle, throughout the rest of Romans 1. The chief thing to take from today’s verse is the first thing: they’re haters of God. In our revolution against Him we grow, unless grace breaks in, increasingly hostile to Him and His word/law. The flim-flam fortresses of intellectual deceit we see being erected around us are to support the lie of the great exchange. In any contest, the antipathy grows as the divide gets wider. In the case of man’s war against God, God’s righteous response is to give rebels over to the consequences of their actions, pulling His blessings back (Proverbs 19:3), which causes untold hardships since He’s the source of all good things.
In our time the haters of God love power over their fellow men. Ours has been a time of ever increasing foolishness and tyranny. The great cry of “follow the science” has been a cover to impose authoritarian restrictions under the banner of public health. But the science, we should note, in every case that it meets politics, has caved to the humanists. In the name of science we butcher babies in the womb and sell their body parts, calling it research. This is a new kind of evil they’ve invented. If a teenager hits an emotional valley, the “science” will mutilate them by surgically removing their breasts or penis. What are parents to say about this? The humanistic state has made it so that the authority of parents is nothing compared to that all-encompassing power of the state.
Let this sink in: the “science” of the haters of God can no longer distinguish between men and women and insists a baby in the womb isn’t a baby but then sells the human parts of something they insisted wasn’t a human. We must repeat this because you need to know it as well as you know the way home from work: in any area that science meets politics, the politics of God-hatred wins. Be warned.
Indeed, the political Left is drunk on totalitarian power. They print money out of thin air, thinking the laws of economics don’t apply to them. The laws of economics, they believe, according to their fanciful “modern monetary theory” are suspended. And they are merciless, pitiless, without remorse. “Follow the science,” they say, as they put evil burdens on others. It isn’t enough for them to wear a mask or get a vaccine, they demand that you do too.
“The liberty which Christ has purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law, and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin; from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation; as also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto him, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind….God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to his Word…” Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 20.
So, “follow the science” means wearing a mask on a plane, because the deadly virus knows somehow not to virus when you remove your mask to eat or drink. That’s science apparently. Oh, and it knows if you’re at a political rally and screaming for some cause or another that it’s not to touch you or others because…well…the righteousness of your cause or something like that. The thing to note is that the cause must be left-wing. Only then does the virus leave you alone. Alas, COVID-19 is history’s first smart virus. If you try and sing in church, the virus will virus, be sure. And you must shut down your business though other businesses can stay open because the virus knows that some businesses are essential and others – yours! – are not.
And you must get an experimental vaccine for the virus with over a 99% survival rate even though it’s obviously not working since you can still get the virus and probably need a booster shot within months. What if you ask questions? You can’t. You must obey. They’re unmerciful, unloving, and clearly untrustworthy. The liberty of the Christian conscience detailed throughout the New Testament, the freedom from sin and the bondage of humanistic law, is what atheists hate. Make no mistake. The principle of autonomy, that is freedom from God to be a self-law, leads invariably to tyranny. The idea at the root of it is to selfishly and pridefully rule over others (see Cain and Abel in Genesis 4).
The minions of nice, the mealy-mouthed, God-hating army of moral nags who say they don’t believe in objective morality, will never leave you alone because their desire is to rule. God warned Cain that sin was crouching at the door. God told him, “you must master it.” Cain’s response wasn’t to master sin, but his brother. Nothing has changed. It never will until Christ reigns in our hearts. Unwilling to battle sin, we will battle our neighbor.
This is precisely why one thing you’ll never hear the unconverted say is “well, that’s none of my business.” Everything is their business because they must master you, control you and make you approve of them. They will never rest until you repent of following the Lord, lay down your Bible and, like them, embrace sin. Watch how the desire to be free, to be left alone, to live quietly, is anathema to them. Climate change, COVID-19, poverty…you name the problem and their answer is more and more government control because the humanist state, their reflection, is god. They hate freedom because it is God’s gift to mankind.
With all this said, we shouldn’t be surprised to see the sad, desultory things we’re seeing. Indeed, the battle is truly spiritual in that political opponents are being animated by forces beyond their understanding. Their embrace of evil, in all its glaring contradictions, which makes them support such obvious foolishness, is the consequence of their rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. This means that we must not submit, in matters of principle, to the tyrannies they push. I’ve worn a mask to get my haircut. I’ve worn a mask in some businesses that have required it. But the larger principle is that the civil magistrate has no right under God (or the Constitution) to command my conscience and mind, which are free from the tyrannies of sin and deceit through the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. The yoke of slavery to foolishness is gone in Christ. Why then would I, or you, accept the empty deceptions (Colossians 2:8) of humanistic philosophy?
Indeed, the true battle is to see the truth about life in Christ.
“If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, ‘Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!’ (Which all refer to things destined to perish with use)- in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.” Colossians 2:20-23So, we have peace with God through faith in Christ. Therefore, let no one bind your conscience with appeals to faulty science that’s been clearly proven (as we mentioned above) to be politicized. We are under obligation to obey the Lord by the law of faith, loving His moral law. We are under no obligation to take any action that violates our Christ-given freedom, that binds our conscience to obey unbiblical or illogical commands. No authority exists on earth that hasn’t been established by God and is therefore defined and limited by the principles of God’s word. Presently, the CDC, certain governors and President Biden are telling us that Caesar is Lord. But we know this isn’t true because Jesus Christ is Lord.
Do not bend the knee to tyranny. You may follow certain rules out of expediency and respect for the magistrate but you must not obey them in principle. There is a difference, after all, between being robbed at gunpoint and willingly giving away your God-given freedom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17).
In all, fear God and keep His commandments in faith. This is your duty. Do this and the fear of men is gone.
Recent Comments