 The title of our sermon this morning is The Penalty Which Was Due. The Penalty Which Was Due, this is part two. And it is Sober Joy to be back with you in this book of Romans this morning in chapter one. It's a sober joy because we're looking at some very difficult, very terrifying passages of Scripture. God's wrath, God's judgment, God's abandonment of sinners, hell. And so if you're visiting with us this morning, welcome. We're glad that you've come to worship with us. We generally work through the Bible verse by verse, preaching what we call sequential exposition, right? Text by text through the Bible where the point of the text becomes the point of the sermon. And we preach that way intentionally because rather than subjecting you, subjecting ourselves to the rambling opinions of some fallible man, we'd much rather spend our time looking at detail at the infallible truths contained and revealed in God's Word, amen? So be encouraged. You have joined us at a great time. We've just recently begun the book of Romans. We are still, we're in chapter one, only about 25 sermons in at this point. So you've come at the right time and we can grow old together working through the book of Romans. That would be a joy, a joy to do that. Our next text today, Romans chapter one, verse 26 through chapter two, verse one. The Bible is clear. The Bible clearly teaches that God is just and will deal with us, will deal with sinful men according to his justice. The song of Moses, Deuteronomy chapter 32, God proclaims his work to be perfect. All his ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice, righteous and upright as he. God is just and he deals with man according to his justice. But God's justice is intimately connected to God's holiness. God's holiness, his perfect character, his perfect righteousness, his holiness stands in opposition to all in any sin. And God's justice then is the means by which God vindicates his own holiness in dealing with sin or in expressing his opposition to sin. In other words, God's justice displays or manifests God's perfect hatred for and holy opposition to sin. God's justice is God's response to sin. In that sense, God's justice is retributive. There is a reward for righteousness, for the righteous, and there is vengeance upon the wicked, each one according to his work. If you look at chapter two, verse six, God is he, verse six, who will render to each one according to his deeds. Eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor and immortality. But to those who are self-seeking, to those who do not obey the truth, but obey rather unrighteousness, there is indignation and wrath, retributive justice. Tribulation and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek. But glory, honor and peace to everyone who works what is good to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for there is no partiality with God. Everywhere in the Bible, judgment is according to works. Salvation is by grace and it's all of grace, but judgment is according to your works. Justice then demands satisfaction. Justice demands satisfaction. If there is a debt owed, then justice demands that the debt is paid. If you owe a debt, you pay the debt. Every person, every person here, you and I both, every person here owes a debt associated with your sin. You owe a debt to God for your sin. The most professing Christians today simply want to cancel the debt. They simply want to write it off, sweep it under the rug, turn a blind eye to it, wink at it. Most professing Christians want to simply blow it away or imagine somehow, imagine that there is no debt. And they imagine to themselves that the Bible doesn't teach debt. God is a God of love. God will forgive. Maybe God with a word will simply cause our debt to vanish. He simply decides, maybe he simply decides that we don't owe it anymore. Cancels our debt as if God says, listen, I know what the law says. I wrote the law. I'll simply disregard my law and forgive you because I love you. Is that what God does? At that moment, at that moment, God would cease to be God. His inviolable justice, His perfect holiness, His spotless righteousness supposedly sacrificed on the altar of His love? Never, never. God will never sacrifice His perfect justice. God will never sacrifice His inviolable righteousness, His perfect holiness. If God forgives merely or only on the basis of love, then why in the world did Jesus Christ have to die? God upholds His righteousness. God upholds His justice. God upholds and vindicates His perfect holiness and upholds His perfect love. And He does so by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin. The Son of God satisfies the demands of God's justice, but He upholds justice. The Son of God propitiates or satisfies the burning wrath of His indignation. But mind you, His wrath burns. And so when we come to a text like this one in Romans chapter one, we are face to face with the wrath of God against sin. We're face to face with the retributive justice of a holy and omnipotent God. And we're compelled to answer the question, what must be the degree to which God hates sin if He would subject His own most innocent and beloved Son to such a cruel and a cursed death on the cross in order to redeem us a high cost of justice and the hellishness of our sin? What must be the degree to which God hates sin if He would do that to His Son on our account? Now, if you forsake your sin to follow Jesus Christ in repentant faith, if you turn from your sin to entrust yourself to Him, then you have the blessed joy of looking at the cross of Jesus Christ from another perspective. Romans chapter five, verse eight, but God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, died in our place as our substitute. It's substitutionary atonement. He stood in our stead as it were and took our punishment, took God's retributive justice upon Himself in our place. And you get to look at the cross from a different perspective. He bore my sin. He bore my shame. He bore my wrath. The wrath that was reserved for me, He took upon Himself so that I am free. Amen. Because God vindicates His perfect holiness, because God acts in perfect righteousness, satisfies His perfect wrath, upholds His perfect justice by securing our pardon through the death of His own Son, because God does that, He demonstrates. He is free to demonstrate, able to demonstrate, willing to demonstrate. His perfect love and goodness and mercy and grace toward us and undeserving beggars like you and I become adopted sons in the kingdom. But apart from repentant faith in Jesus Christ, apart from turning from your sin to entrust yourself to Him, apart from that, you're forced to consider the cross from the opposite perspective. You're forced to consider the opposite. All that remains for you is justice. That's all that you have to look forward to, not love, not mercy, not grace, justice. And if God poured out His wrath like that upon His own beloved Son on account of sin, what horrendous punishments await you? What rebel and enemy of God by wicked works? What punishments? What wrath awaits you? Thomas Watson said this, If God be a just God, then God will take vengeance. God has given men a law to live by, and they break it. There must be a day for the execution of offenders. A law is not executed. A law not executed is but like a wooden dagger. It's for nothing but show. And the last day, at the last day, God's sword shall be drawn out against offenders. Then His justice shall be revealed before all the world. The wicked shall drink a sea of wrath, but not sip one drop of injustice. At that day shall all mouths be stopped and God's justice shall be fully vindicated from the cavals and clamors of unjust men. Retributive justice is a necessary consequence. Retributive justice is a necessary component of God's righteous dealings with unrighteous men. It's a necessary consequence. It's the grace of God that reveals this to us in His Word. You come this morning and we're working slowly through the book of Romans. We're going to spend a considerable amount of time in Romans 1, Romans 2, and getting to the climax at Romans 3 of man being confronted with his wickedness. And that continuous or that consistent, that length of time is all grace to us. Why is it grace to us? Because God stups. He condescends to reveal that to us in His Word. Why? So that you might turn. So that you might turn from your sin and put your faith and trust in Him. The preaching of judgment. The preaching of hell. The reality of God's wrath revealed to us is grace to us. And it's grace to us because at the same time that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, the righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel. And if you'll turn from your sin to put faith and trust in Jesus Christ, then you can have the righteousness of Jesus Christ Himself as a free gift credited to your account so that you can stand before Him righteous. And not in your sinful filth condemned to die. It's the grace of God that He reveals to us in His Word when He confronts us in our sin. It's the grace of God that is revealed to us in His Word when He confronts us with His wrath. Romans 1, verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhood. So that they, men, sinful men are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but they became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to become wise, these sinful men became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God as an object of their worship into an image made like corruptible man, birds, forfeit and animals and creeping things. Therefore, having rejected the truth of God and their unrighteousness, having rejected the revelation that God has given Him Himself in creation, having refused to glorify Him as God, having withheld the gratitude that is do God as God, that is rightly do Him, they exchanged God and all His glory as the object of their worship and devotion and replaced Him with an object of their own devising. Therefore, God gave them up. You see, God delivered them over. God surrendered them, handed them over to the dominion of sin. Last week, we considered in point one on your notes, the tragic refrain of that abandonment that is expressed in verses 24, 26 and 28 as the retributive justice of God against the wicked, even in this life, even in this life, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Verse 24, therefore, God gave them up to uncleanness. Verse 26, for this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. Verse 28, even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind. It is the wrath of God's abandonment, that terrifying refrain expressing God's retributive justice against sin. In each of those three examples from our text, we see the Lord acting judicially. He's acting in judgment against man's idolatry in a three-part pattern. Man rejects God in his idolatry, God abandons man to his sin, and then man degrades himself with further wickedness. We see the reality of that pattern all over the place today, don't we? Treasuring up further wrath for himself in the day of wrath. Now in our text, we further see then the nature of that degradation. At third step, the nature of that degradation we further see in point two on your notes, a shameless perversion, and in point three on your notes, a corrupt compulsion. We're going to get to point two today, we'll cover point three and four next week. Now consider with me for a moment the first example, an ashamed perversion in verses 26 and 27, a shameless perversion. Men reject God, they plunge themselves into idolatry, verse 26, and for this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchange the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise, also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. That issue of being due speaks of God's retributive justice. Now God here again, verses 26 and 27, is described as abandoning men in their sin, delivering him over, handing him over to the dominion of his sin. Here now the sin to which the rebellious men are given over to is described in verse 26 as vile passions, vile passions. Vile passions to the one who's delivered up vile passions take dominion of his heart. Vile passions take dominion over the person. They begin to exercise a power, exercise a control, exercise a dominion over the life of this person. Passions here, the word passions refer to lusts. They are cravings, physical and otherwise. Cravings which cannot be satiated, cravings which go unsatisfied and vile is the word used to describe them. They are lusts, they are physical heart level cravings which would disgrace or desecrate the person, they're vile. That which is vile is that which is despicable. Repulsive, disgraceful, shameful. Now these words express the semantic range of the word vile as if vile doesn't communicate it clearly enough. These vile passions are despicable. They are repulsive, they are disgraceful, they are shameful. Literally in the Greek they're passions of dishonor. They bring dishonor upon the person. Notice this judicial abandonment by God to their vile passions is reflected first in their condition, the condition of their heart and second it's expressed in their conduct. It's expressed in their conduct. First, these vile passions of verse 26 reside in the heart. They reside in the heart. They flow from the heart. It's not that which goes into the man that defiles him, right? Mark chapter 7. It's that which comes out of a man, out of a man's heart that defiles him. These vile passions exist within the heart of this one who's been delivered over. The fact that God has surrendered them to vile passions suggests that they're brought into a heart bondage. The fact that he's given them over or delivered them up, he's delivered them up to bondage. It suggests that they've been brought into or under the dominion of these vile lusts. The one given up is now being ruled by these lusts. They have become uncontrollable, unsatiable, unsatisfying, habitual, powerful obsessions. Revolting and repulsive obsessions have seized control of their heart. Now that's a terrifying place to be. When you are being controlled, run, ruled by vile passions, they are then expressed physically in their bodies. There's a physiological connection to these vile passions. If you know any experience of this, and if you've been lost, you do, the power that a vile lust or a vile craving has over your heart and soul, has over your mind. There is a physiological power that it exerts, a physiological force that is at work in that vile craving, that vile lust, and that vile passion originates in your wicked heart. It is a craving of our wicked flesh, and it is something that can take physical control or exert a physical force or a physical power over you. It's physically in your flesh, so to speak, right? It's manifest or revealed in you. Now notice how these vile lusts then show up in their conduct, verse 26. Even their women exchange the natural use for what is against nature. What Paul is clearly referring to here is the abomination of homosexuality. And Paul emphasizes, emphasizes the vile nature of the lust by referring to women first. That's interesting, isn't it? That little word even communicates the depravity to which this lust has degraded them. Even their women, right? It expresses the depths of the depravity to which they've been given over to. Even their women exchange the natural use for what is against nature, as disgusting as male homosexuality is. Paul seems to emphasize here the low depths to which they have sunk by mentioning women in particular in this way. It is particularly abhorrent or particularly repulsive that even their women have been delivered over to such unnatural vile passions. Now notice that their conduct here isn't simply described as unclean. It's not simply described as immoral. Their conduct is described as unnatural. Unnatural. Verse 26, women exchange the natural use for what is against or contrary to nature. Verse 27, likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman for that which is against nature or contrary to nature. Natural would refer to anything here that is in accord or in harmony with God's design. Natural would refer to that which is in harmony or accord with God's intention or God's purpose. Natural would refer to, for example, the created order. How God created things. How he intended things to be done. God's determined intent. For example, Genesis chapter two, he created them male and female. Not he, she, it, they, them, or otherwise. I can't keep up with it all. He created them male and female. That's the created order. That's God's intention, God's purpose, God's design. There is a creative order that is in keeping with that creation of him and her, and that is marriage. For that reason, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. Now that word natural would refer to anything that is in accord with God's design or God's intended purpose. The word also communicates, doesn't it, a sense of instinct or a sense of, an innate sense of that which is right or normal or good or moral. It's part of the reason that it flows from the fact that we've been created in God's image, made in God's image. The law of God written upon our heart, his image embedded within him, his law written upon our hearts, we have as men and women made in the image of God an innate sense of what is right, normal, natural, or against nature. One place in particular where Paul refers to this innate sense, I believe it's in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 when he's talking about long hair on men, short hair on women. He says, you know, we would sort of all have a sort of a natural sense an innate understanding that men have short hair, women have long hair. That's cultural to his time, it's not to say anything against anyone male or otherwise with long hair here. However, he's referring, what he's referring to in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 is just the sense that people have of what is right, natural, moral, good, according to God's design, right? Unnatural or against nature would then refer to that which God did not intend. Unnatural is in violation of God's intended design. It's in violation of God's intended purpose. That which is innately not right, not normal, against nature refers to that which is perverse. That which is a corruption of what God has intended. A perversion of what God has intended. And it refers to that which is unthinkably rebellious. Unthinkably rebellious. It's one thing to rebel against the commands of God. It's a different level altogether to rebel against that which God has determined to be quote unquote natural, right? And notice, their conduct here verse 26 and 27 is not simply against law. It certainly is against the law, isn't it? God's law has determined that homosexuality is a sin. It is certainly against his law, but it's not simply against his law. It's also against nature. You see, it's against nature. By referring to the sin in this way, Paul is emphasizing or bringing out the vile character of this evil passion, right? The vileness of it. This speaks to the utter horror of their moral degradation. They have degraded themselves to such a horrific extent that they have been given over to vile passions which express themselves in conduct that is against nature. You see, this is the ultimate expression of men who reject God, who reject his revelation, reject his truth, plunge themselves into idolatry. This is an example or an ultimate expression of the depravity to which he is sunk. It's the ultimate expression of his descent into denigration or his descent into desecration. It doesn't exclude that God would deliver him up to vile passions that precede these, but these certainly represent the extent or the ultimate expression of that abandonment, of God's abandoning them to their sin. Notice the heart condition then of the men who were given up to this. We're looking at the heart condition that is expressed in conduct. We'll look at the heart condition of the men who are given up to this. Verse 27, they burned in their lust for one another. The intensity of the vile passion is indicated by the word burned. They're obsessed. They're in bondage to unnatural, vile, insatiable desires for other men. Lusts, again, referring to a craving that refuses to abate unless it is fulfilled, reminded of those men in Sodom who were blinded and rather than stopping and saying, we've been blinded, we need to repent and turn back to the Lord, they weary themselves searching for the door of the house so that they could satiate or fulfill this vile craving, that craving that refuses to abate unless it is fulfilled. Notice their conduct, verse 27. Their conduct, men with men committing what is shameful means committing that which brings shame, committing that which brings disgrace or dishonor upon themselves. In Ephesians chapter five, verse 12, Paul refers to things done by wicked men in secret that are too shameful even to speak of. And that's what this is, right? That's what this is. Men with men committing what is shameful these verses give particular clarity to what Paul's already said in verse 24, right? Therefore, verse 24, God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts to dishonor, to bring shame upon their bodies among themselves. John Murray, Dr. Murray says this, Paul emphasizes the peculiar gravity of the abomination. The implication is that however grievous is fornication or adultery, the desecration involved in homosexuality is on an entirely lower plane of degeneracy. It is unnatural and therefore evinces a perversion more base or more basic. In other words, this represents the ultimate depths to which sinful men who have rejected God in idolatry, who have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, who have suppressed the truth of God in their unrighteousness. This represents the depths to which they sink when God abandons them to vile passions. Do you see? Now, it should also be clear to us that both the heart condition as well as the conduct of these people both are considered vile and shameful. There are many today, many, a growing trend inside evangelicalism. A growing trend, even amongst churches, it might be considered in the camp with us, theologically. A growing trend of those who would attempt to excuse homosexual desire as something else or as something else. Homosexual desire as something quote, unquote, uncontrollable and therefore excusable and would rather refer to Scripture to condemn the conduct alone, right? The desire, understandable, you're quote, unquote, born with it. The conduct, though, is sinful, is rejected by Scripture and so you are to live, therefore, you're consigned to a life of homosexual celibacy. As if the uncontrollable to them from their perspective, the uncontrollable nature of the desire gives excuse for the desire and only the conduct is addressed. The text is crystal clear. Both the passion and the conduct are vile. Both the desire and the conduct are sin, right? To say that the desire or the conduct is something you were born to is to say that it is quote, unquote, natural to you and it is anything but natural. And to say that you were born with it or that it is quote, unquote, natural to you does not make it better, does not excuse you, it makes it worse. It means somehow that you were born an abomination, born to abomination, abominable passions or abominable lusts or abominable conduct. It makes it worse. Desires are sinful. The condition is sinful and the conduct is sinful. Paul, in fact, describing the desires and the conduct, describes them as an abomination. Paul's describing someone who has been utterly degraded, utterly degraded. The fact that the concept, that the sin exists as described in Scripture and as an abomination gives you an understanding of the degree of degradation that has been reached. Turn with me back to Leviticus chapter 18 and let's look at that together. Leviticus chapter 18. Listen, the Old Testament has something to say to us about this sin. It's not that, you know, the Old Testament has nothing to say to us about this sin. Depths of this sin are seen in the Old Testament and repeated in the New Testament. And just because you may wear polyester today or eat shellfish is no reason why homosexuality has been abandoned as sinful in the eyes of God, right? Those are people who absolutely have no clue what they are talking about. Don't understand the Old Testament. Leviticus chapter 18 verse 22. Verse 22, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. The word means an abhorrence. Something, an abhorrence is something which causes horror and disgust. I want you to think about that with me for a moment. That sin, those vile passions, and listen, any vile passions should cause horror and disgust. But this is a vile passion, a passion that should cause horror and disgust to the degree that we can't look at our own sin or look at the sins of our nation or look at the sins of others without horror and disgust is to the degree that we don't understand sin the way that God does. Is to the degree that we don't see sin the way that God does. Is to the degree that we are corrupted, polluted by our own sinful flesh. Sin, this sin in particular is an abomination. Something which should cause horror and disgust in us. We shouldn't merely have a moral aversion to the thought of it. We should have a visceral, gut level, reaction of disgust at the thought of it. It is an abomination. Verse 23, nor shall you mate with any animal. It's unbelievable that God has to say this in His word. Why would He say this in His word? It's because the nations around them were given to this. And He's telling Israel, you're not to do this. You're not to be this way. It is an abomination. It is abhorrent. And this is what the nations are given to, right? Given over to vile passions. You should not mate with any animal to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion. Do not defile your... This is the God who was the same yesterday, today and forever. His opinion about this has not changed. Do not defile yourselves with any of these things. For by all these, the nations are defiled. Which I am casting out before you. What does God do? He casts them out before them. Our nation is defiled by these things. Defiled by these things. Desecrated by them. Denigrated by them. Degraded by them. Overrun by them. The absolute base degradation of human depravity is what this is. It's a testimony of God's hatred for idolatry that He would deliver up, hand over, give up people who are given to idolatry to this sin. And it's a testimony to man's depravity that they are given to such abominable wickednesses flowing out of their own heart. Verse 25, That's what God does to nations who are given to this vile passion. You see, you know, we can draw the connections, can't we? It was for abomination like this that God put the Canaanites under the ban where the Lord commanded the Israelites to kill every man, woman, child, and animal in those lands and wipe them off the face of the planet forever because of these vile passions, this abominable sin, these sins. It was for sins like these that the iniquity of the Amorites reached its full measure and then God used Israel to judge the Amorites, right? Verse 26, For all of these abominations, the men of the land have done who were before you and thus the land is defiled, lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it as it vomited out the nations that were before you. For whoever commits any of these abominations, the persons who commit them shall be cut off from among their people. Therefore, you shall keep my ordinance so that you do not commit any of these abominable customs which were committed before you and that you do not defile yourselves by them. I am the Lord your God. Matthew Henry, the sins, these sins being common or even fashionable does not make them at all the less abominable nor should we the less abominate them but the more. The fact that we somehow don't see them as wickedly as they are portrayed on the pages of Scripture and we don't react to them with the abhorrence that we should is more indication of our own heart condition. The fact that those sins, these sins become more and more mainstream, more and more common, even more and more acceptable, more and more promoted does not make them any less abominable and does not mean that we should abominate them less but even more so. Paul says that they are committing what is shameful. Many today have lost sense of how shameful this abomination is. Our Canaanite culture has labored to present this as normal, has labored to present homosexuality as normal, even acceptable, an equal and legitimate alternative to heterosexuality, right? Acceptable entirely. If you don't accept it, you're a bigot. Homosexuality has progressed from being seen as a perversion to being seen as a pathological disorder to being merely unhealthy to entirely legitimate. From condemnation to tolerance to full acceptance to promotion and now full circle to the condemnation of those who refuse to promote it as they do. Jeremiah chapter 6, Lord speaking to the prophet regarding children of Israel and the just the shameless, shameless way in which Israel had rejected God in their sin. He asks the Israelites, were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? Were they ashamed? The Lord says no. They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush, right? Without having the use of an informed God-given conscience without having some innate sense of the disgrace and dishonor and shame that's heaped upon this particular sin, they didn't even have the capacity to be ashamed at all. Didn't have the capacity to even blush at their sins. Therefore, God says, they shall fall among those who fall. At the time I punishment, I punish them, they shall be cast down, says the Lord. God will act in retributive justice toward the sin of men. God will uphold his justice. God will uphold his holiness. God will uphold his righteousness. All of this is an affront to God's holiness who set things in order, who created you and I in his image. All of this is an offense to his holiness and God will act in retributive justice. The indication, the clearest indication that God will act in retributive justice on that day when men and women, boys and girls will stand before him at the great white throne, the fact that he will do that is most clearly indicated by the fact that he's doing it even now as the wrath of God is being revealed against ungodliness and unrighteousness of men as God even now turns men over, gives them up, abandons them to these vile passions. It's a shameless perversion, shameless. And it's as if today the shame of it is being intentionally suppressed by the brazenness with which people live and promote these sins, these vile passions. It truly is abominable. We see God's judgment reflected in their condition. We see God's judgment reflected in their conduct. Paul explains this judgment as a consequence. Verse 27. These are men with men committing what is shameful, women leaving the natural use of the women for that which is against nature. And then he says in verse 27, And receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And that's a terrifying thought. But it's a true thought. Receiving the penalty which they deserved. Receiving the punishment that is proportionate or appropriate to their sin. The punishment that God gives, doles out in retributive justice, is appropriate in light of their transgression. In other words, the sentence fits the crime. Do the crime, you do the time. The sentence fits the crime. God's justice, in other words, is never arbitrary. It's never arbitrary. It's not Allah, the God of Islam. We're talking about two separate things altogether. God's justice is never arbitrary. It is meted out in exact proportion to what the crime deserves. It is proportionate to their error. What's Paul referring to here when he says this in verse 27? Is he referring to the consequences of homosexuality? I don't think so. Let's look at that together. The key to answering that question is found at the beginning of verse 26 with that little connecting clause for this reason. For this reason. For this reason, God gave them up to these vile passions. For this reason, they burn in lust for one another, committing what is shameful. For what reason? In other words, what was their error for which God delivered them up? What was their error, verse 25? They exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. In other words, their error is idolatry. Most often, this word is used several times in the New Testament, used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. And wherever this word is used, it's often used to refer to doctrinal departure or departure from the truth, right? Men go astray. Paul in one place refers to it from false teachers as deceitful plotting, same word, deceitful. In other words, it leads men astray from the truth. Leads men astray after false doctrine or leads men to reject the truth. And what is Paul said here? These men suppress the truth of God and their unrighteousness, right? Their error, then, is idolatry. They exchanged that truth for the lie, rejecting the truth and living God for a God of their own making, suppressing the truth of God in their unrighteousness. And so their error is idolatry, their penalty, then. The penalty that is due their error, their punishment is God giving them over to the abomination of homosexuality. Homosexuality is the judgment, do you see? Homosexuality is an expression of the retributive justice of God against their idolatry, against rejecting the knowledge of God in their unrighteousness. They receive, in other words, the penalty, they receive it in themselves, right? Receiving in themselves the penalty of their error, which was due, which was appropriate. That exists, those vile passions, remember, exist within their own heart. God doesn't have to work that vile passion in their heart. No, no, no, he just gives them over. He removes the restraints, the restraints of his common grace. He removes the restraints, and what does man do? What is, quote, unquote, natural to his fallen condition. And he becomes embonded and slaved to vile passions. They receive that penalty in themselves. Paul says to dishonor their bodies among themselves. That's what he's talking about. And it's a penalty that the Lord says is well-deserved, proportionate, appropriate. It's due. Now there are vile consequences to homosexuality, and certainly those who are given to that sin face those consequences. Let me just give you an indication of that. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 43%, 43% of homosexuals report to have had 500 or more sexual partners. 15.7%, 15.7% report to having between 501 and 1,000 sexual partners. Only 1%, only 1% report to have had between one and four partners. Given over to vile passions, insatiable passions, unsatisfied lusts. 77% meet their partners in a city park, 62% in a gay bar, 31% in a restroom. Only 28% can claim to have known someone for longer than a week prior to homosexual sex, blinded in their sin, clamoring to find the door to the house in Sodom. According to the gay report, 23% of homosexual men reported sex with boys under the age of 16. 23%, 1 in 4, 7% of homosexual men reported sex with boys under the age of 13. 18% of homosexual parents reported sex with their own children. Although homosexuals only account for about 2% of the population, they account for over 1 third of child molestations. The depths to which they have degraded themselves, degenerated themselves in this sin. According to a UK study, homosexuals face a 200% higher risk for suicide. That's not because they're ridiculed or persecuted. Our culture applauds them. Our culture confirms and affirms them. Lifespan of a homosexual man is 24 years shorter. For homosexual men, the median age of death is 42. 2% of the population is homosexual, and yet they are responsible for 61% of HIV diagnoses. They are upwards of 86 times more likely to contract HIV, according to a University of Chicago study due to the promiscuity that is common among homosexuals, 55.1% of Chicago's homosexual population had at least one STD. According to the CDC, there are alarming rates of intestinal parasitism for homosexual men, disproportionate cases of hepatitis A, hepatitis B, 75% of all syphilis cases involve homosexual men. 2% of the population. Homosexual domestic violence rates double that of heterosexual men. List goes on. List goes on. Study after study demonstrating the same consequences of perversion. They receive in themselves the penalty which was due, their error. Paul says they degrade themselves. They have shameful passions. Degrade God in your own heart and mind, and God will give you up to degradation. That's the moral of the story. That's the lesson to be learned from God's retributive justice. Degrade God in your own heart and mind, and God will give you up. He will abandon you to degradation. Denigrate or disdain God's natural purpose or intention for sexual intimacy within the bonds of marriage, and God may give you up to that which is unnatural. Allowing you to illustrate or picture through your own actions the gross disorder that is the vile antitype of his good and godly order. Not only does the Bible condemn homosexuality, it certainly does. The created order itself militates against it. We see all of this in this passage, God's retributive justice. Gotta keep in mind that these vile passions to which these idolaters are delivered represent an ultimate expression of God's retributive justice, but certainly are not characteristic of all the ways in which God reveals his wrath and retributive justice currently on those who reject the truth of God in their own righteousness. Homosexuality represents a particularly, an ultimate denigration, if you will, associated with that, but there are all kinds of ways, all kinds of ways in which men and women, even boys and girls, give themselves to vile passions incurring the wrath and judgment of God. It is justice. God's retributive justice is justice that is due. God will do it. So it begs the question, doesn't it? What sin are you given to? What vile passion are you given to? What unnatural desire are you putting action to? What is the condition of your heart? For lesser sins, God may still judge in lesser ways but his judgment is nonetheless. His judgment holds true. It is proportionate and appropriate to your sin. As I mentioned briefly at the outset of the sermon, there is grace in this sober-minded revelation. It is inarguable. The case that Paul is making from Romans chapter one is inarguable. It's unassailable. Paul is being very clear. You can take it or leave it. God would offer freely in his grace that you take it and you acknowledge the truth of God's word. But men everywhere reject this truth. In their ungodliness, in their unrighteousness, and they say that this is the, this book is written by misogynists and bigots and racists and, you know, anti-women, anti-race, anti-this, anti-that. This is the word of the living God. And God's word is true and God's word is clear. And so it would behoove us, brothers and sisters, to speak about God's word in truthful and clear ways, not disguising or covering or attempting to mask the reality of what God's word is saying, which, listen, happens in a vast majority of pulpits at this time, not at this time, it's five after 12. They're gone to the buffet. Before the hour, you know, over the last hour, it has happened in churches all over our country, where these truths, the truth of God's word, is, because it is perceived to be offensive, is smoothed over, is swept under the rug, is softened, because they imagine somehow that that's charitable to do that. The most charitable for you and I is to understand what God's word clearly says and to speak that truth in love. We need to understand exactly what God's word says. It's grace when God pours out his revelation to us in this way. God pours out his grace whenever he stoops to explain the condition of man's heart, right? The sinfulness of man's conduct, the consequences due to his error, and why is that grace, because it is the context in which he then offers to you the gospel. God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth of God in their unrighteousness. For that reason, Paul says, we're not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. It's in the gospel that the righteousness of God is revealed from heaven, from faith to faith. The power of God in the gospel is on display every time God takes a vile sinner, which all of us are, and releases that one from the degrading bondage of his sin. God's power is on display every time God sets him free through the gospel to worship and to serve the creator rather than the creature who is damned apart from him. And sets him free to do that which is, quote, unquote, naturally right and good as God has intended. The wrath of God's abandonment is an expression of his retributive justice, but that wrath of abandonment on this side of eternity is not permanent. God's wrath of abandonment on this side of eternity is not yet eternal. As long as you have life and breath, you have opportunity to turn in repentant faith to Jesus Christ and to be saved. First Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. The wrath of God's abandonment on this side of eternity is not permanent. Paul says, those of you who the Lord has graciously saved to himself were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified. You were set apart to him in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. What sin are you giving up to this morning? What sin? What vile passion? What has you in its grip this morning? You want to try harder? It's not going to for you. It's not going to for you. Turn to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ will for you, right? You have to put yourself in the shoes of the leper. You are leprous apart from him. The leper comes to Jesus Christ and he says, Lord, Lord, if you're willing, you can cleanse me. Cleanse me, Lord. If you're willing, what does Jesus Christ say to him? I'm willing. That's what Jesus Christ says to you. If you will turn to him in faith, Jesus Christ says, I'm willing and Jesus Christ will cleanse you. He can and he is willing. Humble yourself. Humble yourself. Come to him as the leper. He worshiped Jesus Christ saying, if you're willing, you can make me clean. Do you hear the faith in that statement? The faith of the leper? Jesus says to him exactly what he'll say to you. I'm willing. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he's near. Let the wicked forsake his way. The unrighteous man has thoughts. Let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy upon him. Let him return to God for he will abundantly pardon. Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we praise you and thank you that you are willing. Lord, you've expressed that willingness by offering us a revelation of your righteousness in the gospel by sending your own beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to die in our stead, to live the life we could not live, to die the death we could not die in our place taking your wrath, your justice upon himself on the tree that we might be set free. Lord, we praise you and we thank you for that expression of your love in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Thank you, Lord. I pray that if there's anyone here who has laid hold of some vile passion, they would acknowledge the foolishness of their own heart to continue to grip to that thing and, Lord, that they would gladly in faith for the joy of knowing you turn from that sin and put their faith and trust in you for salvation. Pray, Lord, that you'd be merciful with us. We need grace and mercy and not because we are somehow deserving, but because our Lord Jesus Christ is deserving. He is worthy. I pray, Lord, that you would save sinners, build your church, edify your saints for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We love you. We thank you for this blessed privilege of studying your word together. Help us to be bold and to be truthful, to pull no punches as it were, to attempt to soft-pedal truth, but help us, Lord, to speak the truth clearly and clearly in love so that sinners might come to know you. We love you. We thank you for this time together. In Jesus' name, amen.