Romans 1_24-25： How God Deals with Atheists
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Summary
In this episode of Real Christianity, I continue my teaching through the book of Romans, but today we re entering part 1 of a 3 part series touching on the matter of homosexuality and sexual immorality. And we re going to see shortly that there s a direct biblical connection between atheism and sexual immorality. So stay tuned to hear the biblical breakdown of this issue and how the church must respond.
Transcript
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In this episode of Real Christianity, I continue my teaching through the book of Romans,
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but today we enter part one of a three-part series touching on the matter of homosexuality
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and sexual immorality. And we're going to see shortly that there's a direct biblical
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connection between atheism and sexual immorality. So stay tuned to hear the biblical breakdown of
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this issue and how the church must respond. All that and more coming up right now.
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Welcome to the show. We are finally doing audio and video. If you're watching this episode on
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YouTube, welcome. We are finally getting these things back in video format. Last week, we talked
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about Romans 1, verses 18 through 23, we learn the difference between general revelation and
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special revelation. General revelation is sufficient to give humanity knowledge of God's
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existence. It's sufficient to condemn humanity because they know that God exists, but it's not
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sufficient to reveal the plan of salvation. This is why we need special revelation. Special revelation
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is the act of God revealing himself through scripture, through Christ, revealing the way
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of redemption, the plan of salvation. So we need general revelation and special revelation. General
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revelation allows us to know that God exists in the things that are made. We learned that last
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week. And then we know that special revelation is the gospel revealed in Jesus Christ. Now,
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these distinctions are important because we learned that ultimately humanity has no excuse
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for the rejection of God because God can be seen in his eternal attributes, even in the things
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that are made. God himself really reveals himself through all these things in the sense,
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the governing of the galaxy, through the seasons, through, you know, I said last week,
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the evaporative water systems, the functionality of our body, all these things can be realized
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from our brains to understand that there is a creator who is wise and eternal and all-powerful.
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And as a result for this, there is no excuse for atheism. That's essentially what Romans
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chapter 1, 18 through 23 tells us is that there is no excuse for atheism.
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We also learned that while humanity rejects God, we know that humanity understands that there is
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a God. And the reason we know that is because of the thousands of religions that exist. And also
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just this act of worship that we see in everyday life. We see people that are worshiping from,
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you know, New Age worship to religious worship through also the reality of we worship our idols,
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we worship money, we worship materialism, we worship sex, we worship whatever it may be.
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but we worship, we're a worshiping people. See, humanity is not unwilling to worship. We're just
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unwilling to worship the one true God. That's really what we have to get our heads wrapped
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around. And Paul says in Romans 1, 22 to 23, he says, claiming to be wise, they became fools
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and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible
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mankind of birds, four-footed animals, and crawling creatures. All right. So the next
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two verses are going to be the verses that we're focusing on, which is verses 24 and 25.
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And he says, therefore, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts so that their bodies would
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be dishonored among them for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served
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the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Okay. So this passage
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really speaks of God's consequences for their rejection of him and their false worship. They're
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exchanging the worship for the creator to the creature, and this is speaking of the consequences
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and the punishment as a result of those things. So we're going to learn of God's response
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to rebellion. We're going to learn of what God does to those individuals who reject God
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is really the catalyst for rampant sexual immorality.
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of why humanity is indulging in rampant sexual immorality. In other words, you can see the
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connection between the rejection of God and a sexual or a lifestyle of sexual sin. Now, before
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we begin, I just wanted to briefly mention a couple of things. As you guys know, we're a
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ministry and there's a few things that we do as a ministry. One of them is I write books. And so
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this book is brand new. It just came out in the last 30 days. It's called The Manliness of Christ.
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and in a world that's absolutely bankrupt of biblical masculinity, this book will really
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help men restore what it means to be a man. And we look at that because we know that Christ is
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the ultimate man. If you hate masculinity, then you're going to hate Jesus because Jesus is the
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most masculine man, man that ever lived the earth. You can pick up a copy of this little book. You
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can see it if you're watching it on video. It's not that big. It's four by six. It's about 70 or
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80 pages. You can read it in about an hour. And we also have an accompanying study guide that you
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can use for individuals or small groups like a men's group. And you can pick up that as well for
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just a couple extra bucks. You can buy both of those at our website at relearn.org forward slash
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man. Again, that's relearn.org forward slash man. All right, let's start today with verse 24.
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Let's read it one more time. It says, therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts
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to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. Now, the word therefore
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could be translated as a result. As a result of the rebellion and idolatry, God handed them over
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to this lifestyle of self-serving, this lifestyle of sexual sin, as we're going to see.
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He says that he handed them over to the lust of their hearts to impurity.
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And so Paul is saying that because of their rejection of God and their desire for idolatry,
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that the Lord handed over their hearts to be ruled not by the natural grace of the human
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conscience and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, but to be ruled by their emotions, to be ruled
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by their hearts. We know that the heart is deceitful among all other things. It cannot
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be trusted. I always tell people when they say, follow your heart. I say, that's garbage. Don't
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follow your heart. Follow the word of God. That is what we need to be focusing on. Now, this is not
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saying that God is handing them over in the sense that he is causing them to be more sinful.
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No, God simply withdrew his grace upon their life. And as a result, and this is a result of their
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rejection of him and idolatry. So one of the most fearful consequences that God can ever inflict
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upon a person is to leave them to themselves. And that's really to no longer intervene in their life
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through the conviction of their conscience or through, you know, the, I would say the restraints
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of common grace, but to leave them to who they are. I think about Jacob and Esau. Jacob, these
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are, you know, twin brothers and God allows Esau to be Esau, but he does not allow Jacob to remain
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as Jacob. So Esau, he allows him to permit him to go and do and seek his own desires.
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and he pulls his presence away from Esau's life, but he doesn't allow Jacob to remain as Jacob.
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Jacob is sanctified. Jacob is grown. Jacob is brought further into the truth, into the presence
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of the Lord. God convicts him of sin. He disciplines him. He shows him that he loves him
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through his righteous conviction of his heart. And so there's a distancing from Esau and a
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bringing in close of Jacob. And we see that clearly in the scriptures. Now, we know that
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we're not going to see this happen to Christians in the sense we're not going to see an abandonment
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of God in our lives because Philippians 1.6 says, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good
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work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself actually talks
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about this idea when he's in John chapter 10 verses 28. He's speaking to eternal security of
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believers. You know, this idea that he's never going to forsake us. He's never going to leave
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us. He's never going to allow us to perish. This is a really great passage of scripture for those
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people who don't believe in the preservation of the saints, who don't believe that, or who believe
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that you can lose your salvation or that you can walk away from God. This is not true because Jesus
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says, so right here in verse 28 in chapter 10 of John, he says, I give them eternal life and they
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will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. So, for those who have rejected God,
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the existence of God, they're taking that atheistic route, they've traded over to idols,
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God removes his sin-restraining grace from their life. And that being said, God does not ever pull
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back completely from sinful humanity. If he did, society would cease to exist. Theologically
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speaking, this is really getting into the idea of common grace. Basically, God, in his love for
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the church, always made some type of degree of control and order among the lost as a way to
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restrain evil in the world, to protect his church, and to continue his purposes in the world. Now,
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For example, you guys may have seen William Golding's famous book, Lord of the Flies.
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And this is a clear representation in demonstrating the savagery of human beings,
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obviously shown through children in that specific narrative, without governance.
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If you have no governance, if you have no restraint, we turn into absolute savages.
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And that's kind of the same concept that we see in common grace.
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Unfortunately, self-love is blinding and people think that humanity is genuinely good, and
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What we don't understand is that humanity is treacherously evil and that even the good
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works that are permitted to occur are only happening because of God's restraint of their
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sinful nature for the sake of his will and for the church in the world through common
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Dr. Sam Storms once said, quote, common grace means God not only restrains the full manifestation of
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the evil tendencies of the human heart, but also on a more positive note, enables the non-Christian
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to perform deeds of relative good, end quote. So this handing over to the lusts of their hearts
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to impurity isn't without purpose. Okay, the text says, it has a purpose clause. It says,
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so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. Okay, he's saying that essentially,
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I'm going to read this passage to you just one more time so you guys can grasp this.
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Therefore, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies
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would be dishonored among them. One theologian said, heathenism always leaves its stamp on the
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body. In other words, spiritual sin always transmits to physical pain. Our sinful actions
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are eventually always going to result in physical painful consequences on our emotions, on our
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hearts, on our bodies. And there's a reason for the mountain of human misery related to sexual
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misconduct. Okay, from disease and despair, from suffering and suicide, we know that the dishonoring
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of the body through sexual immorality is a painful way to live. We know that. And as it pertains to
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the forthcoming context of not just sexual immorality, but specifically homosexuality,
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this act of God to, again, purposefully permit them to dishonor their bodies goes far beyond
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just physical decimation. I want you guys to pay attention here. God's withdrawal from their lives
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to this emotional governance, to this desire to follow their heart, to this removal of common
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grace, to the removal of the conscience and the conviction of the conscience and the removal of
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the dictation or direction of the Holy Spirit that leads to sexual immorality and specifically
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homosexuality as we're going to see in the following verses. He's talking about this,
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specifically how God's withdrawal is because of their disobedience and their rejection of him
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and their idolatry. And as a result, he hands them over to the desires of their conscience.
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He hands them over to the desires of their minds, and he allows them to dishonor their bodies
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so that there's a purpose there, that their bodies would be dishonored among them. And in a sense,
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this isn't just physical detriment. This isn't just physical pain that God's inflicting upon
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them. In a sense, it's a curse of reproductive suicide and really the end of their entire family
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heritage. That's what we have to realize when we talk about homosexuality. It's not just physical
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pain, physical sin. It's actually really a reproductive suicide and the end of their
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entire family line. In a very real way, God backs out of a person's life, eliminating
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the conviction of sin and willingly allows them to pervert their own bodies and pervert their own
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sexual acts. And what's happening here as it pertains to homosexuality is really the
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removal of their complete perogeny. It allows the perogeny to perish. And for example,
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if my great-great-grandfather decided to live a homosexual lifestyle, I wouldn't be here right
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now. We need to understand the connection between living a homosexual lifestyle and not just the
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physical element of it actually affecting us physically or our decision to sin, but it's
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actually a decision to end your porogeny. It's to remove all of the future lineage that could come
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through your reproductive acts. And so when we remove all of our kind of modern takes,
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our political takes for just a moment, and we look at what happens when a person trades
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the biblical design, the traditional design of heterosexuality for a homosexual lifestyle in
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a very real way. They are eliminating their reproductive capabilities and abolishing their
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entire family line. And so this is something that is happening here when God hands people
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over to their own desires. And as a result of their own sinfulness, they result into a lifestyle
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of sexual sin or homosexuality. It is not just a sin against them, but it's actually a sin decimating
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the rest of their family line. So yes, God walking away will cause pain to the body.
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That's absolutely sure. It's going to cause disease and emotion, emotional despair and
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suffering and depression, all those things. But the most painful result is the multi-generational
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destruction that devastates not only themselves, but the many generations that will never follow
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as a result. So we have to see the sin of sexuality and the sin of homosexuality is going
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much further than just the individual. I think of Psalm 34, 16, which states,
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the face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
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Or Psalm 37, 28. Again, these are not direct references to this, but this is kind of the
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general principle. Psalm 37, 28 that says, for the Lord loves justice. He will not forsake his
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saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. So again,
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we often look at homosexuality as just the sinful, simple, sinful decision that affects only the
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individuals that are partaking in it. But the Bible sees it as one of the consequences of God's
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desertion from a person's life. Truly, it is an affliction of absence. Did you hear that for a
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second. Sexual sin, sexual lifestyles, and specifically homosexual lifestyles, is really
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a result of rejection of God, a worshiping of self or worshiping of idolatry, God pulling away
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so that there would be a dishonoring of their bodies and not just their bodies, but it would
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actually, as a result of their own sinful choices, this isn't God doing this, but it's God's pulling
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away, they would be decimated in their entire spiritual or their entire physical lineage
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because they sacrifice their reproductive capabilities when they go into a homosexual
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lifestyle rather than a heterosexual lifestyle. So this is important, deep stuff here that we
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can't pass over. So Paul again tells us that they will be left to the state for a particular reason,
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which gets us into verse 25. It says, because, so this is the ground, because the cause,
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the causal clause, because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served
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the creature rather than creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Now, if we turn just for a second
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over to Romans and we look at that passage, I'm going to read it in the ESV.
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And we read the, because again, you want to have that context of the homosexual stuff that I just
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spoke about. If you read 26 and 27, I'll read them for you real quick. It says,
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for this reason, again, it's this line of causal clauses. So it was therefore, because, for this
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reason. So we're getting this connection here. In verse 26, it says, for this reason, God gave them
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up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are
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contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed
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with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves
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the due penalty of their heir. Now, we're going to talk about that next episode, but that is the
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context that this is all kind of connected to, and you need to understand this is what the Bible
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teaches. Again, verse 25, but they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served
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the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. He offers really three
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reasons for God's exodus from a person's life. Number one is they exchange the truth of God
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for a lie. And these people who have been handed over to sexual immorality and sexual impurity,
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they've substituted the evidence of God that's so plainly seen in creation for fiction. Okay,
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they gave what was due to God to idols. They gave their worship to the things that were made,
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including themselves, including their own desires, including, you know, different carved
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images and natural creation. And it was not only that they did not. So one thing I want to make
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clear, because it says here in verse 25, it says they exchanged the truth of God for a lie. So
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this means that it's not that they didn't know the truth. You can't exchange the truth if you
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don't have it. No, they had the truth. They knew the truth and they exchanged it anyways. And this
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is what the whole 18 through 23 is talking about. They know that God exists. The world yells and
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screams that there's a creator, but they knew the truth of an eternal and all-powerful God,
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and they rejected him anyway. And this is why we have no excuse for atheism, but namely,
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they preferred lies. They preferred lies because serving lies permits them to maintain
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their sinful lifestyle. And this is what we know because John chapter three, Jesus tells us exactly
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why people don't come to Christ and they don't come to a theistic view of God where they love
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God or respect God. They love their sin and why he says here in verses chapter three of John
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verses 19 through 20. This is the judgment that the light has come into the world and men loved
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darkness rather than light for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light
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and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. Okay, as a result,
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we get to point number two of that three-point list I was talking about. So they worshiped the
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creature as point number two. The first thing is they exchanged the truth of God for a lie.
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Number two is they worshiped the creature. Okay, humanity has within itself this intrinsic impulse
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to worship. You can go all over the world and you're going to find churches and synagogues and
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worship in temples and places because we have an intrinsic desire to worship. This is the reason
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why there's thousands of religions in the world. We have an intrinsic desire to worship. The impulse
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of worship is given to us to maintain our relationship with God, yet we have perverted it
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in our sin, but that is why we have that intrinsic desire to worship. Now, people worship all types
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of things. People worship money. People worship self. People worship their emotions. People
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worship comfort, but people also worship other things. And Paul's saying that they've rejected
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the truth of God. They've redirected their worship toward the creature, toward created things. Now,
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I live here in Sedona, Arizona. If you don't know, this is the new age capital of the world.
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And there are people here that are worshiping the moon and worshiping the sun and worshiping
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the universe. And they're praying to the rocks and they're making sacrifices at temples. And
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this is probably the closest thing you can get to international ministry
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in the United States is here in Sedona, Arizona.
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before things that were carved with human hands.
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They absolutely hand over their worship to created things.
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So ultimately people have fabricated a God for themselves,
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They want to be able to live without, they want to be God themselves, they want to dictate what is
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right and wrong. But in addition to this, Paul says they don't just worship, they actually served
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the creatures. They didn't just worship the creature, they served it. And this is, you know,
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this is interesting because they worked for these things, these creatures. Instead of the Creator,
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they worked, they labored, they slaved for these things that were created, which makes no sense.
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This is essentially full-blown delusion, and it tells us the damage that has been done to us in
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sin. That's how delusional people have got because of sin. They will worship things that they've made
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with their own hands. They will worship a rock. They will worship a sun. They will worship a moon.
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They will worship the universe. All these things are created, yet we are worshiping them because
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we are delusional and we love our sin. So we're truly, when we see this, we're truly unable to
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come to Christ on our own. We do need that special revelation. Faith comes by hearing,
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hearing by the word of Christ. We need the gospel. Sin has really utterly distorted and destroyed
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and perverted the minds of the human in our hearts. And really, our souls are dead. We're
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dead in trespasses and sins. We see that in Ephesians 2. Now, secondly, and more importantly,
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the point Paul is making here is that God's will is that his creatures worship him and him alone.
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We know that we have a jealous God, Exodus 34, 14, which reiterates the first commandment,
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But he says, for you shall worship no other God, for the Lord whose name is jealous is
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He's unwilling to share his worship or share his glory with another person or with another
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So he alone is worthy of our worship and our servitude.
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So which leads me really to the conclusion of this episode here.
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So I'm going to offer you just a handful of points as we close out here.
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Number one, humanity is not unwilling to worship.
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We're just not willing to worship the one true God.
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The rejection of God will lead to an abandonment from God.
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Not fully, but, you know, again, there's always some sort of restraint,
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but God pulling away his light from your life as a lost person, and an onslaught as a result,
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an onslaught of sinful desires will flood into your life, and you will have no more conscience,
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your conscience will be seared, the conviction of common grace will move away, and an onslaught
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of spiritual desires for wickedness will come upon your life. Number three, the manufacturing
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of a version of God, whether, again, physically a carved shrine or an emotional definition of God
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that you wanted to produce, is idolatry. Jesus says that we must worship God in spirit and in
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truth. And so any perversion or production of a God that doesn't align with the God of the
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scriptures is idolatry. And it's not going to lead to a presence of God. It's going to lead
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to the withdrawing of God upon a person's life and handing them over to their sin.
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Point number four, and I want to make this point clear, is that while I do believe that the Lord
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will not permit this to occur in a full extent to a Christian to be completely abandoned because
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he knows that he will preserve us and sanctify us for those who are his, I will say I do believe
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the Lord permits Christians to experience a form of God's absence from their lives as a way for
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the consequences of their sins to cause them to come back to the way of their master. And so I'll
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give you an example of this. If someone is, a Christian is walking in rampant sin, God will
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maybe pull back, allow them to experience the consequences of their sin so that they will
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springboard back to him as a result of the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And so this
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happens all the time with our children. We kind of walk back away from our children and let them
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experienced the consequences of their foolishness, and then we know that we will hopefully see the
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conviction and bring them back in. So again, a born-again believer is going to be guarded from
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complete abandonment, but we are still capable of bringing upon ourselves significant and painful
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consequences when we follow sin instead of following Christ. William Barclay once wrote,
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there is a redemptive purpose that stands behind the wrath of God. By letting men and women go
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their own way, God is not just punishing them, but it's also allowing them to see the emptiness
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of life without him, end quote. So ultimately, guys, we have to be vigilant. We have to be
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vigilant over our own lives. We have to be careful on the way that we walk. We have to be pursuing a
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holy lifestyle that really is quick to repent of our sin. We should be hating sin. Romans 12.1
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reminds us, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind
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that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect.
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So this is our way. We are to walk in a way that we are constantly vigilant over our own life.
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And also this gives us, again, an understanding of how the world is so lost. Why is the world so
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lost. Why is the world allowing these sinners to get darker and darker and darker? Well, we know
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that when people reject God, when people trade the worship that is due to the creator to the
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creature, that God hands them over to a convictionless lifestyle that leads into sexual immorality,
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that leads into a way of life that produces sexual lifestyle sins like homosexuality,
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which is not just a present painful issue and decision of that individual,
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but really a decimation of their entire family line.
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This is kind of the spiritual, theological, anthropological issues
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issues that are going on behind the scenes that the Lord permitted us to see partially
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in this passage that we find here in Romans. So on that note, thank you guys for listening
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to this episode of Real Christianity. I hope that you guys are enjoying these episodes,
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especially that they are here available now on video. If you haven't subscribed to our podcast
00:29:48.140
on iTunes or Spotify. You can do that. Also, if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel,
00:29:54.160
you can find us. We're relearn.org. You are on YouTube, and we are constantly trying to create
00:29:59.920
biblical and theological tools to increase literacy in the church. We have a church that
00:30:05.660
really needs to understand sound doctrine, and that is a resource that we're continuing to offer
00:30:10.940
them. If you're watching this episode again on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter,
00:30:15.280
Again, would you subscribe, follow, come on board there?
00:30:21.800
In the next episode, I'm going to be teaching on Romans 1, verses 26-27, and addressing
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the issues we talked about that are pertaining to homosexuality as it's presented in Scripture.
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On that note, I'd like to close in prayer, and we will see you guys next week.
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Father, we thank you, Lord, that you have given us wisdom,
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that you've given us an understanding of your word.
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and kept us close, Lord, for not abandoning us, Lord,
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and keeping us consistent and convicted and sanctified.
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Lord, that you would bring conviction upon their spirit
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to the creature, but they would turn back to the creator.
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This is Real Christianity, and we will see you next week.