Abandonment

Sin is no mystery.  Sometimes I allow myself to be shocked (or mystified) that we persist in our sinful ways.  Most of the time sin is pretty obvious.  "Thou shalt not commit adultery,"  "Thou shalt not steal," and other commandments have such obvious negative consequences that identifying the sin itself is not very difficult.  But there are those sins that we seem to have a hard time identifying.

Abortion.  Homosexuality.  Promiscuity.

These sins our contemporary society has a difficult time condemning.  If you're pro-life it is said you don't support women's rights or women's health.  If you believe homosexuality was not God's intent for humanity, you're labeled a 'homophobe'; someone who hates homosexuals.  They don't even bother labeling you anything if you preach against promiscuity.  Nope, that sin is so widely accepted that contemporary culture will actually mock you as 'one of ''those'' girls' if you have the audacity to remain virginal until marriage.

Sometimes this denial comes across as a shock to me.  After all, who could possibly witness the amazing way male and female reproductive systems compliment one another and not come away convinced they were designed in tandem?  Who could be witness to that and possibly determine that even nature (yes, small 'n') would desire it any other way than male/female?  And yet our culture has so convinced some among us that homosexuality is acceptable that those who disagree are labeled as bigots.  Indeed, homosexuality is often encouraged, especially that among women.  Quite amazing, is it not?

But why are we ever surprised by this?  God has warned us.  In something called the Judgement of Abandonment.

Romans 1:20 states "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what was made, so that men were without excuse."

Translation: The natural world around us proves God's existence.  Every single ancient culture believed in a God or gods; there were no atheists among them.  We often attribute this consistency to their un-evolved status, but in reality the opposite is true.  They were 'in' nature much more then we are, and so they acknowledged the obvious design.  Actually, it should be even more obvious to us.  We've looked inside the cell, something so beautifully complicated that the only logical conclusion is that someone designed it.  However rather than acknowledge God, we are not unlike those in the following verse which, to be honest, sucks.

Romans 1:21  "For although they knew God, they neither glorified God nor gave thanks to Him."

It is profoundly (ironically?) amazing that God says His very creation yells out "God made me", yet we have devised a 'theory' that replaces purposeful creation with random chance.  How insulting this must be to God, and pleasing to Satan.  We've seen God's proof, we've looked into the cell, yet we teach our children that it doesn't take a designer to create our universe, that a bunch of monkeys in a room given enough time would create the same environment.  How shameful.  What a blight on our 'intelligence.'

And what is the unfortunate consequence of our rejection of God?

Romans 1:21 b  "Their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened."

Paul continues:

Romans 1:24  "God gave them over to their sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another."

Romans 1:26  "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.  Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.  27  In the same way, men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.  Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversions.  28  Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.  29  They became filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.  They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless"

Pretty horrible huh?  The interesting thing is their sin was not homosexuality, promiscuity, envy or even murder.  Their original sin was rejecting God.  Because they "neither glorified God nor gave thanks to Him," He gave them over to those subsequent sins.  Is it any wonder then why our elected leaders, so proud of their support of evolution and a 'tolerant society' have the governing wisdom of a dog in heat?  And then to cap it off verse 32, which I believe is the current condition of the heart of America:

Romans 1:32  "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

Have you heard anyone, either celebrity or elected leader, praise the bravery of those homosexuals pursuing marriage as though they were fighting for civil rights in the 60's?  You hear it every day.  Has it been long since you've read of one of these same people praising the mature way they handled their divorce, that they just needed to focus on themselves and that their marriage was holding them back?  Have you seen any innovative ways of sinning?  Have you been shocked to see babies cut from mother's wombs?  Are you surprised that after teaching our children that God did not create them unique and wonderful, but that they are evolved pond scum these same kids end up shooting their schoolmates?   Are you amazed that in the United States of America we now have an entire political movement devoted to the envy of others possessions and the entitlement for their own?  Or do you think that these circumstances are merely coincidental, that Romans 1 is overreacting?

The truth is that the sad state of American culture was foretold almost 2,000 years ago, because the human condition remains the same: reject God, and he will abandon you to your sinful ways.  Your mind will devolve to a place where you can't even discern that marriage was not created for two men, where you will encourage the sin of others (how popular is lesbianism in entertainment these days?), you will be consumed with envy, and you will do all of this willingly.  All the while thinking that it is God who is insane.

Of course the end result of all of this isn't good.  When leaders are men and women whose minds have become futile and whose hearts are darkened, and the nation is full of men and women whose minds have become futile and whose hearts are darkened, things aren't going to be comfy.  Unless the United States experiences a spiritual revival of sorts we can expect our culture to continue to devolve, sin to become more rampant, and people will encourage each other in sin ("What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas").  On this path, sin begets sin begets more sin.  Of course there is always hope of revival, and such revival has occurred in the past.  The alternative is God bringing his judgement as he did on Babylon, Egypt, Assyria and Rome before us.  Or as Thomas Jefferson put it:

"Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever."

Note: Since the publishing of this article, Hollywood has (predictably) reacted strongly against actor Kirk Cameron for his comments that Homosexuality is 'unnatural': http://www.eonline.com/news/marc_malkin/brad_pitt_george_clooney_star_in_gay/298608