Given Up

For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
- Romans 1:21-22

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All throughout human history, the rejection of God - His authority, wisdom, and rightful place as sovereign and Father - results in catastrophe. How could it not? You can only be at war with reality for so long before things begin to fall apart around you.

This is, more or less, the core of what Paul is aiming at in these opening verses of his epistle to the Romans: man’s downward spiral into deeper and deeper sin, deeper and deeper self-destruction, and deeper and deeper blindness. If a person or people decide that they would rather do it their way than keep their knees bowed to the king of the universe, God is more than willing to give them what they think they want. 

Three times in Romans 1, Paul uses the phrase, “God gave them up,” to detail how mankind’s demand to have its own way resulted in greater moral depravity and separation from God. If humanity insists on sin, God will let us have it.  

We see this not only throughout the history contained with the pages of Scripture, but everywhere we look in our own culture, as well. Many of us not only have a sense that things are not what they should be, but also that full-throttle velocity is the only acceptable speed for heading down this road we’ve chosen. Men who have sexually assaulted children dress in drag to read stories to them in public libraries. Abortion continues unabated regardless of who holds power. Drug addiction continues to skyrocket right alongside the suicide rate. The biblical view of sexuality and gender is declared incompatible with our modern definition of human dignity. We redefine the concepts of marriage and family as if we came up with them and they were ours to do with as we please. And there is hardly a sin described in the Bible that some allegedly Christian church somewhere does not permit, promote, endorse and sanctify. 

The flight from God is the escape from reason. 

And most of us just sigh and roll our eyes as the irrefutable case is laid out before us.

“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” - Jesus Christ in John 3:19-20

As you look around at the incoherent chaos playing itself out through our culture, the only rational explanation both for the depth of the madness and for the speed at which our culture is embracing it all is the judgment of God. Our society has chosen its own ends, its own priorities, its own purposes, its own definitions of things like freedom, love and justice. And so, we have become blind, idolatrous fools while declaring ourselves to be enlightened, advanced and emancipated. 

I’ve written here before about how quickly people can become complacent and forget the God who has blessed their lives with comfort, security and wealth. Judges 2:10 shows us that it can be as quick as the passing of a single generation. In many ways, it has been so with us. The generation now leading this society and overseeing such a rapid rate of moral and cultural degeneration are the children of those who endured the Great Depression and stood up to tyranny around the world. 

Once the inclination to walk away from God takes hold, the inevitable results are never far behind. Our desires fuel our choices, and what we desire most will either lead us to abundant life or to the crumbling carapace that was once a great society. What was true thousands of years ago is still true today. You cannot go to war against all that is goodness, love and truth and expect to succeed or flourish.

Both collectively and individually, our desires will either lead us to our undoing or to our ultimate satisfaction and the very reason for why we were created. We will either sit in the filth and eat the pig slop or we will return home to the eager embrace of a loving Father. 

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I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, - Deuteronomy 30:19