Those verses in Matthew 12 certainly describe how we got here.... and Romans 1 perfectly describes what constitutes ‘here’ starting with Verse 22 “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools...” When reading this years ago in the context of the encroaching acceptance of ‘homosexuality’, it seemed that this was what this was specifically referring to. In reading it today, the issue of transgenderism can also be inferred in it. However, stepping back a bit further, the umbrella issue is simply this.... the rejection of God and the replacement of God with anything that the individual conjures up as being something that he/she thinks is right. This is just another version of “you are your own God”… and therefore you can be anything you want, do anything you want etc. This of course is a doctrine that is being rammed down our children’s throats in schools and elsewhere starting from a very young age. As Romans 1:25 says, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.”
The phrase “in his own eyes” shows up several times in Scripture… and none of them in a particularly positive sense. Perhaps the most well known of these is Judges 17:6 which says …. “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” This almost perfectly encapsulates what we are seeing today with a culture that thinks that King Jesus can be replaced with whatever wild ideas can come out of one’s own mind.
There are of course consequences for rejecting God and these could not be laid out more clearly in the Romans passage. The free will that God gave mankind is allowed to play out…. “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections:” (verse 26) and “God gave them over to a reprobate mind,” (verse 28). In other words., people are without excuse as God has given everyone all they need to know as far as how one should live but if the individual rejects that and chooses a different path, God allows them to do that….. but they are on their own and the end result of this is ‘death’.
Romans 1:32 has to be one of the saddest verses in Scripture…. “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”
I remember it popping up via the hippy culture of the 60s. "If it feels good, do it" was their mantra. The Isley Brothers did a song, "It's Your Thing" in '69. The opening verse, "It's your thing. Do what you want to do." Young people across the land fell in line to that hedonistic propaganda. And, here we are.
The Lord says differently. Jer 10:23: O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
2 Cor 4:4: the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them
Great post.
Judges 17:6 which says …. “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
Jesus is our King. When rejected, he doesn’t sulk, or go home to his mansion. He waits with open arms.
The way out of this is through prayer. The best cultural expression I can think of is in the cartoon version of “The Grinch”. The people came together and rejoiced without presents. The writer clearly was portraying celebration and supplications which came from immense cultural Faith.