Romans 1:24 “Scary”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²⁴Therfore, God gave them up in the desires of their hearts into uncleanness of the dishonoring of their bodies among them.

This verse is yet another bombshell of truth for us to ponder. Once again, as I sit looking at these words I feel like I ought to take off my shoes and spend a few hours just wondering at our God.

First of all, I want to note what is happening. As the Lord looks down on the human race, He sees that they refuse to acknowledge Him and are unthankful and instead choose to fabricate idols to worship. And what is His judgment upon these sins? He allows them to fall into sexual immorality. In this verse itself, we see what He gives them up to is the “desires of their hearts.” The word translated “desires” can simply be that and can be good or bad. When we believe “bad” is intended, we translate it “lusts” or “evil desires,” which I believe would be totally justified in this passage. I’ve left it “desires” in my literal translation above only to remind myself the actual word is just that.

So the vehicle, so to speak, which He abandons them to is their own (evil) desires, and where those lead is to what is called “uncleanness” and the “dishonoring” of their bodies with each other. This and the rest of Romans 1 is where we begin to see that clearly we’re talking about sexual immorality.

The bombshell, I believe, is to see that sexual immorality is a judgment. I think any of us would naturally think that, if people are immoral, God will judge them, and it does say in Hebrews 13:4, “Adulterers and the sexually immoral God will judge.” But notice here in Romans, the sexual immorality is the judgement. “God gave them up to sexual immorality!” That, for me, is a complete twist in my brain for understanding how the Lord is working in our world. We all can look out at what our America has become and fear the judgment of God on such a grossly immoral nation – but, if we understand Romans 1, we can add to our horror the realization that the immorality is our judgment!

Here He exposes a place where we see the vast gulf between the Lord’s heart and ours. Just to be kind, for now I’ll limit the discussion to my own. What I mean is that, way down deep underneath it all, I don’t really see sexual immorality as being that bad. Oh, I can quickly exclaim, “It’s wrong!” but in my heart of hearts I don’t see what’s so bad about it. If the Lord was to announce tomorrow that He’s decided it’s okay, I’m afraid what I’d think in my heart is, “Cool. Now we don’t have to worry about it being something bad. Especially young people can ‘sow their wild oats’ and life goes on.” Underneath it all I’m thinking, “As long as people are careful and don’t accidentally make babies, what’s the harm?”

Again, it is horrifying to my heart to realize I am totally missing God’s heart in all of this. To God, sexual immorality is “uncleanness” and “the degrading of their bodies with each other.” In fact it is so bad, it is not just something to be judged, it is the very judgment itself! If you’re following me, what I’m recognizing is that, once again, there is a huge gulf between my heart and God’s. When it comes to this issue, obviously, I am not seeing the world through His eyes.

If I may now be allowed, can I bring this back to all of us? I rather suspect I’m not alone. Have we as Christians become so engulfed in this culture of immorality that we’ve lost the ability to see it for the horrific, ugly, body-degrading sin God says it is?  I fear we have. If I am right, does it not reveal in us an awful Satanic blindness? If the Bible says it’s black and my heart of hearts thinks it’s white, what else can that be but a Satanic blindness?

And if it is, should we not all be asking the Lord to heal it? Jesus said to the Laodiceans, “You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from Me…salve to put on your eyes, so you can see” (Rev. 4:17,18). The ancient prayer was “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy Word.” And may I add again, Jesus’ wonderful promise, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!” To truly see all of this through God’s eyes would be some sense of freedom we are not now enjoying. We need to see the truth!

There is more I’d like to note about this verse, but this possible business of blindness is serious enough I need to pause and ponder on it a while.

Scary.

Hmmmm. Time to climb in my Father’s big lap and tell Him all about it. He’ll know what to do. He always does.