Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Jim W N

Folks still have to accept the freely offered gift.

Otherwise, if they persist in unrepentance they trample Christ underfoot and there remains nothing more to be done for them.

Romans 1:18-32 deals with people who refuse to retain knowledge of the Lord (in our time this would be folks who know the gospel but persist in remaining unconverted, those most in danger are those awash in knowing about the Gospel, and not proverbial pagans who never knew much) and presents a fruit in their lives that shows their spiritual state.

Support for homosexuality in society is then like a canary dying in a coal mine, in that it lets you know the air is bad where those miners are. At the core of such groups expect to find individuals who don’t simply appear to be depraved as set forth but actually are. Though of course more may be.

Scripture is specific that friendship with the world is enmity towards the Lord and so therefore people who, having turned aside from the truth also become champions for homosexuality, even if they’ve not been turned over to a reprobate mind, will lose whatever hope for influence they might have had to call homosexuals to repentance, and indeed become part of their defenses to resist repenting.

So, for example, someone who changed their mind about homosexuality because someone they care about comes out as homosexual in no specific order 1) loses their witness, 2) lets go of sound doctrine, 3) encourages their “loved one” to remain in sin by giving the appearance of Christian approval, 4) chooses the love for a creature above any love for the creator they may have had, 5) will probably join with others like minded, 6) may do so very vocally giving unbelievers opportunity to blaspheme depending on how famous they are and 7) in all this they are being friends to the world.

Not everyone who does that sort of stuff will be turned over to reprobate minds but everyone who has been turned over to a reprobate mind will act accordingly.

Again, championing homosexuality is a sign something has happened before it. That something is what is really serious. Other signs we might talk about besides the one given include murdering children (children are a blessing from the Lord, then whose will results in them being murdered?), reviling basic aspects of our creaturely existence such as demanding you’re the wrong gender (think of a pot telling the potter off in the parable), being full of violence and envies and ingratitude ... just to name three.

Should these things not bring wrath if they are the outworkings of high handed rejection of the Gospel? And wrath is arguably what we are seeing in our culture, in the lives of people we know or maybe even care about.

So while we may still be within the day of the Lord’s favor in the general sense in individual lives that day may have already passed as the Lord essentially allows they they shall have their way.

If it looks like Romans 1:18-32 is going on all around you don’t be surprised to learn when all is said and done that it had been.


77 posted on 12/27/2020 4:00:40 PM PST by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies ]


To: Rurudyne

The heart of God is not revealed in Romans 1:18-32 which is a picture of the hopeless condition of man (which is why Jesus had to die in the first place) and the utter futility of anyone, you or I included, trying to be righteous by their own works.

Although the world including you and I are in miserable condition without Christ, God did not condemn you, me, or the world, but loved us and saved us (John 3:17). There is, therefore, no room for us to judge others because their sins have been completely dealt with 2000 years ago - a blank love-check - whether or not the blank check is accepted. To condemn another for their sin is to commit unrighteous double jeopardy because Christ has already fully paid their (our) debt and has been fully judged and condemned for every sin anyone has committed (1 John 2:2).

The whole teaching of grace in Romans and the New Testament is that we are saved and justified by grace without our works (God justifies the ungodly Romans 4:5), that righteousness is a gift, righteousness is not what we do (Romans 5:17), and God does not impute the world’s or America’s or American’s trespasses to them (2 Cor. 5:19), but rather continually seeks reconciliation to himself (vs. 20).

So the issue now is not sin, it is Christ which you must receive to be saved. But God is NOT condemning the unbeliever, he is seeking to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10).

Quit condemning those who don’t know him who God wants to reconcile to himself. That is what the Pharisees did (and do now). Jesus was and is the friend of sinners but no friend of the Pharisees.


78 posted on 12/27/2020 5:57:13 PM PST by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 77 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson