Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study #47 of Romans 1, and we are reading Romans 1:26-28:

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

Let us take a look at some of the things that God says about homosexuality or “men with men” and “women with women.” The word “homosexuality” is not found in the Bible, but God speaks of it in a more plain sense as “men with men.” We read about this Law of God in Leviticus 18:22:

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

This explains why the world wants to allow men to lie with men and women with women. The world seeks to do so, and the explanation is they do so because God commands that it be not done. It is the fallen nature of man to do the opposite and to be contrary to the Law of God. If God had not addressed it, it would not be such a concern and thought in the minds of men, but whatever Law God lays down, you can be sure that men of the world will seek to break it, transgress it, deny it, and say it does not exist. They will seek to do the very thing that God says they should not do, and this was the condition of man right from the beginning. God said they should not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and man disobeyed God and they did eat of it. And since that time, this is what man does – he goes against God’s Laws.

And this is a very plainly stated Law: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Speaking to men, God is saying, “You are not allowed by the Law of God to have sexual relations with another man as you would a woman. It is not the proper order of things. I did not create you that way. I created you male and female.”

Remember when Adam was in the Garden of Eden all alone. He was made of the dust of the ground. Then God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and opened up his side and took a rib and made a woman, and God brought them together: “You are the man. Here is your wife. The two will become one flesh.” The whole institution of marriage and biological sex was made by God. It is the way God has designed things for this world, and not just for people, but we see it when we look around. Everywhere we look in the world, we see it in nature.

The Greek word for the word “natural” that we see in Romans 1:26 is the Greek word “phusikos,” and it is Strong’s #5446. And it comes from another Greek word, “phusis,” which is Strong’s #5449. Regarding the word “phusikos,” I found this quote from an online site: “One might more precisely speak of physical philosophy to describe what we now call ‘science.’ The term ‘physics,’ therefore, is a Greek form of physical philosophy or natural philosophy, and in its original meaning included all of science.” And biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, so biology is a science, and science is the study of life and living organisms or “natural” things. That is what the scientists claim and, apparently, are concerned with – natural things, not spiritual things. They do not want to get into the idea of God because you cannot see Him. He is Spirit and spirits are invisible. They want visible things, and visible things are natural things that they say they study.

Then why is it that all of a sudden there is a push for unnatural things and activities, and they are getting the “seal of approval” from the scientific world? And the biologists are saying, “Oh, sure, it is fine for two men to come together or two women to come together. And, yes, gender is a fluid issue, and we are not limited to just male/ female.” They are saying this is science, but science is a study of natural things, but what they are doing is searching nature and they seek some “exception” to the rule of male with female. They search everywhere they can to find those few exceptions to male with male or female with female in nature, and they highlight them. But these things are, without question, the exception and not the rule. The rule of nature is male with female, and female with male. It is not same sex. It is not typically male with male or female with female. Female cows mate with male bulls. Male eagles mate with female eagles. Male owls mate with female owls. Male elephants mate with female elephants. Male spiders mate with female spiders. Female ants mate with male ants. Female whales mate with male whales. Female dolphins mate with male dolphins. We see it with cats and with dogs. Wherever we look, overwhelmingly, the teaching of nature is “male with female.”

In Romans 1, God tells us of man’s sinful nature and how in the lusts of his fallen state, they will seek after these things. And men and women have fallen into this sin (homosexuality) throughout history, from time to time, but nothing like we are seeing today. In Romans 1, God is bringing it to the forefront because He is letting us know that this will be the sin that will signal the time of the end of the world: “You can know when you see the world celebrating homosexuality, and turning this into a wonderful thing.” The world is saying, “Is it not great that men are marrying men and women are marrying women? It is wonderful how far we have progressed in civil rights.” But it has nothing to do with that. What they are doing is contrary to the law of nature and the law of God.

We have discussed this in the past, but when it comes to law, God’s Law is supreme, and God’s Law is laid out on the pages of the Bible. God’s Law is above all earthly law, and that is why it does not matter when Supreme Courts of lands get together and they say, “Now, women, you have the right to abort (kill) your baby.” It does not supersede or remove the Law of God that declares, “Thou shalt not kill.” God’s Law stands above the laws of men. What does that mean for the women, and the doctors and nurses that have been involved with all these abortions and killings of babies? “Thou shalt not kill.” Whosoever takes a man’s life, God says, his life shall be taken. It is the shedding of blood, the murder of children. So God’s Law stipulates that it is a horrible sin to take a life, even if it is done by men of renown that are famous for their legal minds and who have been lifted up to high positions of authority and honor in society. But it does not matter, because they have violated God’s Law. They have broken His Law, and they have been instrumental in the death of large numbers of people.

Likewise, when men come to any Law of God (and it does not matter what Law it is) and they say, “Yes, we know that throughout the whole history of the world, men have married women, and women have married men, but we have progressed. We are an enlightened society.” And, by the way, where is the evidence for saying that the world has been enlightened? When we look at the world, do we see enlightenment anywhere, in any corner of the earth? No – we see darkness. We see ignorance of the highest magnitude. We do not see wisdom and understanding and knowledge, where people have grown in “reason” to the point where they are now capable to develop good, moral laws and laws that should have been there all along. No – it is not going in that direction. The way mankind is going, as demonstrated by the nations, their courts, their judgments, and wisdom, is downward into the depths of depravity. It is going down, down, down, into the pit of “hell.” It is not rising up to an enlightened position where people have better understanding and greater knowledge and wisdom. It is completely the opposite.

And these men, in this time of intense darkness, have determined that they not only know more than God, but they know more than all past civilizations, cultures and nations, and all past rulers and lawmakers, and they have finally come to the point where they say there is nothing wrong with two men getting married, or two women. It is fine. And, yet, the Law of God does not permit it. The Supreme Law, and the Supreme Judge who is God Himself, will not permit it. You can do it – men do all kinds of things, say all kinds of things, and believe all kinds of things. But what men do, say, and believe is immaterial, as far as God is concerned. It is sin. It is error. It is, frankly, strong delusion that comes from the fallen mind of the sinner that thinks he knows better, and who thinks he is a greater lawmaker than Almighty God. But God says, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

You know, we should not take this word “abomination” to mean that this sin is a more horrific, terrible sin than others is sin. Sin is sin, and all sin, in one way or another, is abomination. The sin of Adam and Eve in disobeying God and eating of the fruit of a tree that God had said not to eat was abomination. Just look at all the evil that resulted because man thought he knew better than God and had greater wisdom than God. It has just brought untold misery and suffering to every generation since then.

But this (homosexuality) is sin. It is not a good thing. No sin is a good thing, and it is not good for a male or a female to have any kind of sexual relations outside of marriage. And it is not a good thing for a man to take a second wife after being divorced (and his first spouse is still alive), and to enter into another marriage. You know, God’s law for marriage and sexual activity are very, very strict, and if it were followed, we would have tremendous blessing. Society would be tremendously blessed if only they followed the Law of God. But society is made up of sinful people that think they know better than God. So, “It is okay,” they say, with a little wink of the eye. “What does it matter? Everybody does it. Everybody has sexual relations with others before marriage – it is only the oddball that does not.”

But look at society. Has that idea helped anyone? How many has it ruined? How many teens have gotten pregnant, and it has led to another sin of aborting and killing the baby because of having engaged in sexual relations when they should not have done so? And, again, man’s wisdom does not measure up, because man has no wisdom. Man is a creature, and a fallen creature. He does not know better than the Creator. God, the Maker of man, knows what is best for the creature He has created.

So God gave His Law: “This is how you are to live, and if you live in accord with these commandments, you will live a blessed and happy life to the degree that you follow these Laws.” It is like reading the instruction manual for a machine or tool, because the one who made it knows best how to operate it, so follow the instructions. But it is like the guy who throws the instruction manual away, and in his pride and arrogance, he says, “Oh, I know how this works.” But he “cuts off his foot,” to use an expression, because he does not know how it works. And this is the nature of the sinner.

We also find another statement the Lord has made in Leviticus 30:13:

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

You can read the same kind of death sentence concerning adultery between a man and a woman. And, again, it is not that this sin is more sinful, but it is sin. And that is the point, and that is the problem today. Man has desensitized himself to all kinds of sins. He does not see them as sinful, and that is how he goes about his life, and then he wonders, “Why is everything so chaotic? Why is society like this? Why are people running around and shooting one another? Why is it so dangerous, and why cannot we just live together in peace?” And, yet, everyone is participating in the rebellion against God, and in scoffing at the Law of God on every point – adultery, fornication, homosexuality, and even murder, as it is called a right for women to kill their own child. But then the world acts as if they are wondrous and incredulous: “Why is everything so bad? Why is everything so awful? Why are people doing wrong like they are doing?”

And everyone likes to point the finger out there at someone who is breaking the few laws that society can agree are wrong, and these are very few things. And, yet, they do not realize they have raised a generation of lawbreakers. That is what they have taught their children since the children were babies: “Oh, it is just a white lie. That is okay.” And they give justification for lying. Or, they say, “Be careful if you go out with a girl. Make sure you practice safe sex,” and they teach this, rather than telling them about the Law of God: “It is better not to touch a woman. Be sure you do not have any kind of sexual relations (before marriage) because God has said that is not to be.” There is none of that, or very little of that. It is more about how to get away with it: “Here are contraception methods. Do this or do that, but if you get pregnant, here is a way to get out of it.” It is a world that is so wrapped up in its sin. Sin is the strand that holds society together. Sin is what society functions according to, according to the rebellion they have engaged in with the Law of God. Then the same society wants God to bless them and give them sun and rain in their proper seasons and fruitful seasons.

Whenever anything bad happens, like some evil catastrophe, then they shake their fists at God: “How dare you, God!” How dare God? What is incredible is that God has put up with mankind for so long, and, yet, the Bible tells us that God has put up with mankind for a very specific reason. In Romans 9, we read of God as the Potter, and it say sin Romans 9:21-23:

Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

This means that God put up with the sins of the world (with all their evil deeds) in order to save a people for Himself, vessels unto glory, the elect. But now God has accomplished the salvation of those elect and, therefore, He is no longer longsuffering and patient with mankind’s sin. On May 21, 2011 God came and began the final judgment process on this world, and we have been in that judgment process since that time. And according to Biblical evidence, it will continue until the year 2033, and God is now punishing the inhabitants of the earth.

None can argue. None can try to defend the people of the world by saying their punishment is undeserved. Nobody can say that because we all know the transgression – our own, and all that we see around us. We all know our wrongdoing and our evil doings. It is clear for anyone to see if they have eyes in their heads. Therefore, God’s judgment is a righteous judgment. It is the righteous judgment of God to punish and pour out His wrath upon those that have trampled underfoot His Law and brought pain, misery and suffering to themselves and to the entire world. This is why God has brought the world into the Day of Judgment, and it is why He will soon destroy the world and remove them out of existence, and all the wicked along with it and all their evil deeds that they have thought, spoken and done, and it will be gone forever. It will be removed from Holy God for evermore, and then God and His people that He has redeemed out of the earth will turn our attention forward to eternity future. We will not give a moment’s thought or have even the slightest bit of recollection of this cursed creation and this sinful people.