 The penalty which was due, Romans chapter 1 verse 26, through chapter 2 verse 1. As we come back to the book of Romans this morning, Paul's epistle to this church at Rome. Having introduced this letter now to the church at Rome in chapter 1 verses 1 through 15, having then stated the gospel as his theme in chapter 1 verses 16 and 17, the apostle Paul, now very carefully, very clearly lays out a devastating case against all mankind in chapter 1 verse 18 all the way down through chapter 3 verse 20. The verdict associated with Paul's case, the sentence is that no one is exempt. All men, Jew and Gentile alike, from all those with no more than a general revelation of God in creation to all those who were given the very oracles of God through covenant, all men alike are under the righteous wrath and just condemnation of God due their sin and rebellion against him. They have suppressed the truth of God in their unrighteousness, although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful, and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image made like corruptible man. They exchanged the truth of God for the lie. They worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Now as a result of their sin and rebellion against them, against the pattern of ungodliness and unrighteousness that they live in, all the world is rendered speechless in the day of his wrath. All men are without excuse in the day of his judgment, all the world is guilty before God. Israel's case is airtight. It is unquestionable, unassailable. The verdict is clear as it is damning. No one will be reconciled to God on the basis of his own righteousness. No one. There is none righteous, no not one. One has said of Romans chapter one here that it's a picture of mankind as one of regression or retrogression, not progression. Of devolution, not evolution. It's a picture of downward, not upward. In unbelief, man has passed from light to futility to folly, and thus the divine wrath has found its justification in human rejection of the truth of God. It's one of the points and purposes of Paul's case here is to justify or devindicate the righteous justice of God against the sin and rebellion of man. Is God just for pouring out his wrath upon the unbeliever? Yes, he is just. Is God righteous for revealing his wrath from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men? Yes, God is just. Why? Because man has suppressed the truth of God in his unrighteousness. Although God has manifested it to them, although God has shown it to them, man has suppressed that truth in his own sin. He's believed the truth, exchanged the truth for the lie, worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, and has damned his own soul in his own sin. Do you see? God is just for pouring out his wrath. What remains then for man? What remains is then a certain fearful and terrifying expectation of judgment, the fiery indignation which will devour God's adversaries. Left to himself, man is damned. Do you see? No hope. Left to himself, no hope. What remains then for man is the righteous and retributive justice and wrath of God, revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and poured out injustice upon a deserving and hellbound race. It's in response to this deplorable state, this devastating condition of man that Paul then makes a declaration of divine retribution in verse 24. Therefore, God gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, and we refer to this justice of God as retributive. We refer to the outpouring of God's wrath as retributive justice. It is an act of divine retribution. Now retribution refers to recompense, refers to getting what you deserve, getting what you ask for so to speak. It is paying back what is due, whether punishment or reward, retribution is paying back what is due. Here, Romans chapter one, it would refer to God giving men exactly what they deserve for their sin. It is a just and a righteous retribution. It is divine punishment executed or poured out in accordance with the law of justice. In other words, if God didn't punish sin, God would be unjust. God has given his holy, just and righteous law. Then break God's law with impunity, and it would be unjust for God simply to sweep that sin under the rug, turn a blind eye to it, wink at it, and go his way. It is just for God to punish sin. It would be unjust for God to avoid that punishment. Retribution means paying back what is due, whether punishment or reward. It is divine punishment here executed or poured out according to the law of justice. Each person receiving, according to his works, whether good or bad, each person receiving according to his works exactly what he deserves. The Charles Hodge referred to retribution as God's vindicatory justice, vindicatory justice. Not because God is somehow maliciously vindictive, but because he will vindicate his righteousness. God will vindicate his holiness in just retribution against sinners. God has found just when he judges. God has found righteous when he speaks here. God has found just in pouring out his wrath upon a sinful and rebellious humanity. God will bring upon sinners the just consequences of their sin. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I'll repay. What about grace? What about grace? Grace, grace, God's grace, amazing grace. What about grace? You mentioned grace as if, as if somehow the reality of wrath would introduce a contradiction in the nature and attributes of God. They introduce grace as if to negate the reality of God's righteous wrath in retribution, in punishment of the sins of wicked fallen humanity. Willa Miss Brackle said this, there is no contradiction in God. The justice of God, which cannot be compromised to the least degree of necessity demands the punishment of the sinner. God cannot deny himself and thus grace does not negate his justice. Grace is not incompatible with justice, but grace confirms it. This is the grace of God so highly exalted in his word that God, without finding anything in man, yet contrary to his dessert, gave his son as a surety. He transferred the sins of the elect from their account to his account, and by bearing the punishment justly due upon their sin, he satisfied the justice of God on their behalf. That is grace, right? Grace upholds justice. Grace demands satisfaction for sin, and Jesus Christ is our satisfaction, amen. God does not forgive your sin apart from retributive justice. God forgives your sin through retributive justice. Brothers and sisters, the more that we understand that reality, the more we understand the gospel, the more we understand what Jesus Christ has done for us through the gospel, the more that we love and cherish and treasure grace as it is. Do you see? A cheap grace peddled by most churches today is as worthless as the paper it is that is written on. It's not worth anything. God's grace is worth everything, right? God's grace through Jesus Christ, our Lord, professing Christians in our day, labor. They toil, they strive to nullify or negate the reality of wrath by proclaiming his grace or by proclaiming his love, whereas true grace, true love. God's grace, God's love upholds the reality of wrath. That's the reality of retributive justice. You can't exalt one attribute of God by denying another. There is no contradiction in God. Chapter one, verse 32, men know this, right? Chapter one, verse 32, men know that the just judgment of God is righteous. The Lord God, who is merciful and gracious, long suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin is the same. Lord God, who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. There is no contradiction in God, do you see? It's really important that we, in order to know more of God, to understand more of the richness of the gospel, understand this tension that is inherent in scripture, this tension that is inherent in the nature, in essence, and being of God. Grace and mercy and love uphold his retributive justice. His retributive justice is vindicated in the outpouring of his wrath upon a deserving people. In this section of Paul's letter to the church at Rome, Paul then intends to vindicate the retributive justice of God's wrath as righteous. It's part of Paul's case here. Part of Paul's case is the universal condemnation of all men and their sin. Another part of Paul's case here in Romans chapter one is the vindication of the retributive justice of God's wrath poured out against the sinner. Paul's going to do this by making this point. The wrath that is visited upon men for their sin is the punishment that men deserve for their sin. The wrath that God pours out visits upon men for their sin is the righteous punishment that men deserve for their sin. It is, as the title would suggest, the penalty which was due, the penalty which was due. But I plan for us to consider this text this week, possibly the next two weeks, maybe next week. I plan for us to consider this text under four headings. Four headings. The first, a tragic refrain, we're going to look at that in depth this morning. Secondly, a shameless perversion, we're going to introduce that point this morning. Point three, a corrupt compulsion, we'll look at that next week. And lastly, a righteous judgment. A tragic refrain, a shameless perversion, a corrupt compulsion, and a righteous judgment. First, look at the text with me. I want us to consider together the tragic refrain, the tragic refrain. The retributive justice of God is communicated in Romans chapter one in our text in the three-fold refrain at the heart of our text. That three-fold refrain is this, God gave them up. God gave them up, verse 24, therefore, better translated for this reason, for this reason, 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 and their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind. Now that expresses a very terrifying truth, doesn't it? Very terrifying reality that God, who holds our life in His hands, gives people up, delivers them over, hands them over. It is a terrifying truth. If you're outside of the Lord Jesus Christ this morning, there is no reason, no reason why you wouldn't have opened your eyes in hell this morning other than the common grace, restraint, long suffering, and patience of our God. And it is His grace to you this morning that you're here listening to this text and listening to this sermon. God gives people up, gives nations up, God gives men up to their sin. The language God gave them up refers to divine abandonment. Divine abandonment is a judicial act on the part of God in retributive justice poured out against sin. Divine abandonment, God hands them over. It's language that describes God's action, a judicial act. God delivers them up to the dominion of or to the rule of something else, namely, it's something that already is present with them, right? They're experiencing this sin, God gives them up to it. They're experiencing futile thoughts or a debased mind, and God turns them over to it. He surrenders them to it. He hands them over to it. It's not passive on the part of God, as though God just merely lets go. It's not God merely letting go. It's a judicial act of God by which He delivers over the sinner to the rule or the dominion of something else. He does it as an act of divine retribution against the sin of man, right? It is a just action on the part of God. This is in keeping with the present, active, or ongoing revelation of the wrath of God mentioned in verse 18, right? The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. This is an example of that present, active, ongoing revelation of God's wrath. In other words, this is an act of God's judgment. God gave them up is an act of retributive justice, giving men what they rightly deserve for their sin, okay? When God abandons them to their sin, doesn't cause them to sin, it's not the author of sin, doesn't tempt them to sin, removes the restraints in a judicial act and delivers them over to their sin. Now Paul's threefold description of divine abandonment in that description, a pattern emerges, a pattern emerges and I want you to see that pattern. Each installment of the pattern begins with the sin and rebellion of man. The first step of the pattern is the sin and rebellion of man. From our text, men suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Men refuse to glorify him as God or be thankful. Men exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for an image made like corruptible man. Man exchange the truth of God for a lie. Men worship and serve the creature rather than the creator. In other words, the actions of men are to give themselves to idolatry. Step one, man gives himself to idolatry, do you see? The pattern then continues with step two, God's retributive justice in abandoning men to their sin. Step two, God gave them up to uncleanness, verse 24. Step two, God gave them up to vile passions. God gave them over to a debased mind, verse 28. God gives them over to the corruptions that are defiling their rebellious hearts. Step two is divine abandonment. And there's step three, the pattern is completed with step three, which is the degradation of men in the filth of their own lusts. The desecration, the denigration, the degradation of men in the filth and corruption of their own lusts. Step three, they dishonor their body among themselves. They give themselves over to unnatural, the unnatural perversion of homosexuality. They do those things which are not fitting. All three of those things, dishonoring their body among themselves, the unnatural perversion of homosexuality and then doing those things which are not fitting certainly refers at its simplest form to sexual immorality or sexual uncleanness. But in the parallelism of the text, all three really refer to what is homosexual perversion and we're going to talk about that. They give themselves step three to degradation, to desecrate themselves. John Murray says this, he gave men over to the judgment of more intensified and aggravated cultivation of the lusts of their own hearts with the result that they reap for themselves a correspondingly greater toll of retributive vengeance. That's also terrifying. To think on this side of eternity, if you reject God and reject God and reject God, God gives a gracious revelation of himself to you, you have more revelation right now given to you in the preaching of God's word, a Bible in your hands than most people have, right? Even the revelation of God that he gives of himself in creation is enough to damn a person, to reject that revelation, to reject the revelation that you're hearing now, to reject revelation, God hands men over in their sin to more and more sin. What does that do? To those men given over in their sin, they plunge themselves into further and further sin, treasuring up for themselves more and more wrath reserved for the day of wrath when God in vengeance will pour out his undiluted wrath and fury upon a God rejecting, God hating world. It is a terrifying reality. Men turned over to their sin. What do they do? They continue to sin, continuing to sin. They continue to treasure up wrath and build up wrath for a greater toll. One day in that day, in that terrifying day, a greater toll of retributive vengeance. God is not to be mocked. What a man sows, that will he also reap. As our relationship to God is disordered, think about it with me, as our relationship to him is disordered with more and more idolatry, more and more rejection, more and more self-will as we continue to defy him in living for ourselves, the more that we become disordered in our relationship to him, the more that we become disordered in ourselves, our very being becomes disordered, our sexuality becomes disordered, our minds become disordered, our thoughts become disordered. In other words, that disorder in the relationship between us and God is pictured in the disorder of our very beings in plunging ourselves into our sin. Now listen to this, the first example, I want to look at each of these examples that Paul gives here in keeping with that pattern, that three-fold pattern. Look at the first example in verse 23, right? The first example, step one, verse 23, men are idolaters. Step two, verse 24, God abandons them. He gives them up to uncleanness. Listen, that uncleanness there doesn't simply make men guilty. It makes them filthy, right? It makes them impure, unclean. It's filthiness, as Paul would say, of flesh and spirit. He gives them up to their filth, gives them up to uncleanness. Verse 24, they degrade themselves. Step three, right? They dishonor their body among themselves. To dishonor there is to bring shame upon their own bodies. They do that, which is shameful. And what's even more shameful is they don't see it as shameful, right? They do that among themselves, meaning that it's public. And what do we see today, right? The open, brazen proclamation of homosexuality is completely acceptable, right? We're going to talk about that. That's merely a manifestation of a deeper problem. First example, right? Second example, verse 25, second example. Verse 25, they exchange the truth of God for a lie. Step one, they worship and serve the creature rather than the creator. They're given up to idolatry. Verse 26, step two, God gives them up to vile passions, vile passions. Verse 26, the women desecrate themselves and go against nature in the perversion of homosexuality. This is step three, verse 27, the men desecrate and degrade themselves and go against nature in the perversion of homosexuality. Step one, they exchange the truth of God for a lie, idolatry. Step two, God gives them up to vile passions. Step three, they degrade themselves. They desecrate themselves and for their sin. Look at the third example, verse 28. Third example, step one, they don't want God in their knowledge, idolatry. Step two, abandonment. God gave them over to a debased mind. Step three, degradation, verses 29 through 32. They do that which is not fitting. And note now, in addition to doing that which is not fitting, they are filled, filled with all manner of degrading sin, degrading sin. Do you see? The pattern is established. Paul establishes a pattern here of God's retributive justice, his righteous wrath poured out against deserving sinners. All people in pursuit of living life for themselves suppress the truth of God in their sin. If you're here today, you've not turned heart, soul, mind and strength to follow the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. If you've not turned to Him, then you are pursuing life for yourself. You are suppressing the truth of God in your sin. And this is you. This is you. Right? You conduct yourself in the lusts of your flesh. You fulfill the desires of your flesh and of your mind. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, that's what you're about. That's what you're after. You want what's in front of you. And so you push God to the side. You don't even want him in your thinking. I don't even like to retain God in my mind. If I can just get him out of my mind, get him out of my head, get him out of my heart. And so you push him out, you silence your conscience. You ignore the truth. You're about to sin and you know you're about to sin. And what do you do? You silence that God given warning system, your conscience. You silence that so you can quote, unquote, get away with your sin. You plunge yourself more and more into your sin. It is for this rejection of God that men are under his judgment and incur and incur his wrath as retributive justice poured out against their sin. God abandons them to that which they have shown they most desire. God gives them up to the lusts of their own flesh. They're idolaters, do you see? Apart from his restraining hand, they have no power to restrain themselves. Apart from the common grace of God, apart from God's restraint, you have no power to restrain yourself. So what do you do? As punishment for sin, you desecrate yourself, you degrade yourself, you plunge yourself further and further and further into your sin. In a degenerative, downward, destructive spiral of greater and greater abominations to the degree that you aren't plunged into the depths of that degrading abomination is to the degree that God has so far restrained your sin. It's by the common grace of God that that's the case. That three step pattern is fully complete when one day, one day, they close their eyes in this life only to open them in the next as eternal objects of his wrath. Now you'd have to be spiritually blind. Not to see this pattern at work all around us today, right? All around us today. Often you'll hear professing Christians say that, you know, because of the sins of this nation, God is going to rise up in judgment against it. God's going to have to judge America because of America, because of all of the sins in our country right now, all the sins that we see. Abortion on demand, no fault divorce, homosexuality, homosexual, so-called mirage, I mean marriage, um, open perversion. And so professing Christians will say God's going to judge our nation. No, no, no, no. No, that is the judgment of God already against our nation. These are sure, evident, observable Romans one indications that God has already judged our nation. What we are witnessing, what we're experiencing right now is step three in the pattern. We're in the middle of it right now. The utter degradation, the utter degeneration, the utter, utter desecration of a God hating, God rejecting people, sexual promiscuity, sexual uncleanness, sexual rebellion, licentiousness, anarchy. Those who rule over us, we're not in danger of the disease. The disease has already metastasized. It's all over the body and we're on hospice. That's what this means. The speed of that degradation, that degeneration is increasing like birth pangs on a pregnant woman to borrow a picture from Matthew 24. It's increasing. We're racing toward destruction. God's wrath is being revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. And we see this pattern throughout the Bible. This is not isolated to Romans chapter one. We see this pattern throughout the Bible. Turn with me to Acts chapter seven. Let's take a look at an example together. Acts chapter seven, we see God's pattern at work even now. Acts chapter seven. In Acts chapter seven, Stephen, who is a recently appointed deacon in the early church, Stephen is described by Luke as a man full of faith, full of power. Stephen was a godly brother. Look forward to seeing Stephen in heaven one day. Stephen is preaching the gospel with boldness. The Jews are described as being entirely unable to resist the wisdom of Stephen and the spirit by which Stephen speaks. They can't argue with the truth of what Stephen is saying. And so these murderous thugs drum up charges of blasphemy against Stephen. They trump up a charge against him. We've heard him speak blasphemous words, right? So they bring him before the council in Jerusalem. They said when he was there that his face was like the face of an angel. And Stephen begins to speak. Now, Stephen begins to speak preaching the gospel to them. He begins with a history of Israel. And that history of Israel culminating in the rejection of their Messiah, the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. But he arrives in verse 37 in their history at Moses. And listen to what Stephen says beginning in verse 37. This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear. Now this is a prophet of the most high God. A prophet of God is speaking the very words of God. The people are commanded to hear him as a spokesperson for God, right? Verse 38. This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, whom our fathers would not obey but rejected. And their hearts in their hearts, they turned back to Egypt. What do they just do? Step one, in rejecting Moses, the children of Israel are rejecting God. Step one, they reject God. They suppress the knowledge of him, the knowledge given to them in their sin, and they turn to idolatry. Verse 40, saying to Aaron, make God's for us. Verse 40, as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's become of him. Verse 41. And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. They've given themselves to idolatry. Step one, step two, verse 42. Then God turned, and what did he do? He gave them up. God gave them up to worship the host of heaven as it is written in the book of the prophets. Did you offer me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during 40 years in the wilderness? Oh, House of Israel? No. Right. In retributive justice, God abandoned them to their sin. Do you see? And they degraded themselves with the worst kinds of unspeakable desecration. Look at step three, verse 43. You also took up the tabernacle of Malak and the star of your God, your idol, Refim, images which you made to worship. And God says, I will carry you away to Babylon, beyond Babylon. You see the pattern, pattern complete with their exile to Babylon. Idolatry, God gives them up and they desecrate themselves. They degrade themselves with further and further sin. Psalm 81, verse 10, the Lord says this, I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. But my people would not heed my voice and Israel would have none of me. Step one, verse 12, so I gave them over to their own stubborn heart. Step two, to walk in their own counsels. Step three, oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways. This is the retributive justice of God's abandonment. We see it in the example of Israel when we were going through the book of judges on Sunday evenings, we saw it in the book of judges, didn't we? You know, call out to your gods and let them deliver you. I'm not going to deliver you any further. Judges chapter 10, right? I'm not going to deliver you any further. God gave them over the retributive justice of God's righteous abandonment. One of the ways in which God chooses to pour out his wrath and punishment for man's sin is by removing the restraints of his common grace and delivering men over to the sinful inclinations of their own wicked hearts by which men plunge themselves into further degradation and desecration. Rejecting the truth of God, God gives them over and men degrade themselves in further sin. It's a tragic refrain. It's a terrifying refrain. And it is a testimony to the depravity of men left to themselves. Men don't choose God. Left to themselves. Men don't decide to pursue righteousness. There's no one who seeks after God. No, not one. God says, you didn't choose me. I chose you. It's a tragic refrain. It's a terrifying refrain. And it testifies to the depravity of man. This tragic refrain point one on your notes gives way to a shameless perversion. Point two on your notes versus 26 to 27. The act of divine abandonment, this pouring out of divine wrath in retributive justice is accompanied by a devastating descent into unnatural perversion, which itself is the judgment of God. And notice first, this descent into unnatural perversion, shameless perversion, is described by female homosexuality in verse 26, lesbianism verse 26. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions for even their women exchange the natural use for what is against nature. Now, the next mentioned here is male homosexuality or sodomy mentioned in verse 27, verse 27. 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. Now, we're going to carefully unpack the details of these verses next week of the Lord allows, but in the time remaining we have this morning, I want to step back on these verses and give you the big picture view of what is being communicated here and why. Okay. Why does Paul focus one with such particular attention on sexual sin and in particular sexual perversion and homosexuality? Why does Paul in particular focus on these sins? Uncleanness verse 24 refers to sexual sin. He refers to the lusts of their hearts referring to sexual sin. They dishonor their bodies among themselves referring to sexual sin. Why this particular sin is homosexuality, for example, sexual uncleanness, sexual perversion is homosexuality at the very bottom of a long list of sins that God may give you over to in His wrath. Is it at the bottom of that list as if homosexuality represents the absolute worst of sins and that God somehow hands men over and hands men over and hands men over until eventually they plunge themselves into homosexual perversion, right? I don't think so. Is this the only sin? Is this the only sin that evidences someone as being delivered over to vile passions or a debased mind? I don't think so. In fact, verses 29 through 32 lists a host of sins that mark this condition of being delivered over by God, right? We see a host of sins there. However, however, that being said, it's exceedingly clear that Paul focuses on sexual sin in this context. And he focuses on homosexuality in particular. There's a reason for that, and I want us to see it. The degradation and degeneration, the desecration of fallen and depraved human beings is intentionally set in terms of increasing sexual perversion. We've got to ask ourselves why that is. What's the reason for it, right? When men reject the revelation of God, the revelation that God has graciously given to us of himself, when they suppress that truth that God gives to us for our good, when they suppress that truth in unrighteousness, rather than glorifying him as God, rather than being thankful. When we, in the context of our passage here, when we reject the true and living God for idols, step one, right, exchanging the truth of God for the lie, when we turn and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, our departure from God, our distance from God, our descent into hell, as it were, is expressed in terms of greater and greater disordering of our sexual conduct. And there is a connection between those two things. The more that our relationship to God becomes disordered, the more that we are given over, so to speak, or we plunge ourselves into more and more a disordering of our sexual conduct. Now, here's why. That which is most natural to man, as God has created him to be, that which is most natural to man, to man made in the image of God is our communion with God, our relationship to God, our worship of God, our love and affection and devotion toward God, right? That which is most natural to human beings made in the image of God is our communion, our fellowship, our intimacy with him. You see, we're made, created by God to enjoy him and to glorify him forever. It was the joy and rejoicing of man's heart in the garden before the fall to worship and to serve God, to serve him in all things. He is our God. We are to be betrothed to him. I find my joy. I find my peace. I find my blessedness in submitting to his will in all things, in having full unfettered communion with the one who made me in his own image. I am he. He is mine. That is to be the cry of man's heart made in his image. Nowhere is that communion, that love, those roles, that relationship more clearly and intentionally exemplified or pictured than in the relationship, the human relationship between a man and his wife in the covenant relationship, the covenant bond of marriage. Nowhere is that relationship more expressly pictured and the Lord in his word intends marriage as a picture of that communion between God or between the Lord Jesus Christ and his what, his bride, the church. Nowhere is that relationship more picture, more beautifully illustrated than in the relationship between a husband and his wife. In other words, the most profound representation of a right ordering of that relationship between man and God is the right relationship, a rightly ordered relationship between a man and his wife. The right ordering of that love, that submission, those roles in a human marriage. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter five, Ephesians chapter five, that becomes clear, very clear that marriage between one man and one woman for one lifetime is the picture that God gives to point to the blessedness and intimacy that we will enjoy in communion with him into eternity. It's the picture, the communion that we should have with him now, and it's a beautiful picture of the communion we'll have with God into eternity. It's not sexual, mind you, it's closeness, heart level intimacy. In the drama, the theater, if you will, of human marriage, the husband represents Christ, the wife represents his bride. The relationship is our mysterious union to the father. Look at verse 22, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Now listen, I want to make a point at the outset of looking at this text to the degree, ladies, to the degree men, that we do not exemplify the roles and instructions that we find here in Ephesians chapter five is to the degree that we represent a disordered human idolatrous relationship to our God who made us. This is to be a picture of our communion with him, right? So we need to pursue obedience to these rules. I don't care what the world says. Submission in a marriage? What are you? Are you like from the fifties? No, that's the wisdom of God, ladies. That's the wisdom of God. Sacrificing for your family? What are you, a lackey? No men, no. That's a picture of Jesus Christ giving himself for the church. It's a right ordering of our relationship with God. It's pictured here. Verse 22, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church. And he is savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let wives be subject to their own husbands in everything. Is that clear, ladies? Amen. And there's a reason that the Lord gives us that instruction. It is a blessed role, a glorious role, because it pictures our relationship to our Heavenly Father, right? Pictures our relationship to Jesus Christ. Husbands, verse 25, you're not off a hook. Love your wives, just as, that is, those are weighty words, right? Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with a washing of water by the word. You see the picture that's being established here. It's a clear picture, isn't it? This is not a coincidence. This is a picture determined by God to present us with a spiritual truth that we are to internalize, get and live out, right? This is a picture for us to follow. Verse 27, we do that so that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church, for we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. Verse 31, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined together with his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. This picture, this picture, this illustration and the implications of it. This is a great mystery, but what's going on in human marriage is a picture of the divine. It's a picture of the spiritual. It's a picture of our communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a picture of a rightly ordered relationship that we're to have with the one who created us in his image. This is a great mystery, verse 32, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. This relationship, the Ephesians chapter five, picturing or illustrating the relationship between Jesus Christ and his bride is exemplified, exemplified in the heterosexual relationship between one man and one woman for one lifetime in the covenant bond of marriage. You understand that point, right? But what a fallen men do, we disorder our relationship to God. We suppress the truth in unrighteousness. We reject the revelation that God has given of himself. We don't even want him in our thinking. We exchange the truth of God for the lie and we would rather worship and serve the creature rather than the creator. In that exchange, God has determined that this disorder in our relationship to him will be pictured or illustrated in the disordering of our own sexual relationships to each other. You see, in the same way that human marriage pictures the relationship between Christ and his church, the disordering of that illustration, if you will, reflects the disorder in the relationship between us and God. God is determined in his wisdom to depict that disorder in our own sexual immorality. Do you see the connection between those two things? The first and primary problem that we have, that men have is that we have forsaken that divine order. We have forsaken God for ourselves. We have dethroned God. We've deified man, right? We've pursued living life for ourselves. We have fallen away from him, forsaken him. We reject him and the disorder of that relationship involved in that relationship is pictured by God's determined will and purpose pictured in our own sexual disorder, the disordering of our sexuality. It's the fruit of the disorder in our relationship to God. We reject him in idolatry. Step one, he gives us over, abandons us to the disordered lusts of our own fallen flesh, the disordered lusts of our own sexuality. He abandons us to that. And what do we do? We plunge ourselves further and further into degrading vile passions such that vile passions, perverse passions, uncleanness and homosexuality ultimately, ultimately express the disorder inherent in man's relationship to God. Some have asked, you know, is AIDS for an example? Is AIDS a judgment of God against homosexuality? Yes, but homosexuality is the judgment, right? Homosexuality in the same way that in our fallen world, we see the consequences of sin all around us, the consequences of living in a fallen world, death, disease, lawyers are a consequence of cats. Cats are a, are a. Now we see, don't we, the consequences and effects of sin. AIDS is no different, any more different really than cancer or other horrific pictures or illustrations of this fallen world in which we live. But the judgment of God is the disordered sexuality, right? The judgment of God is, in this case, homosexuality. God gives them over to defile themselves, to degrade themselves, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. And homosexuality is a visible, a visible, tangible, if you will, expression of that disorder. Often people today will say nowhere in the Bible, nowhere in the Bible does the Bible condemn homosexuality at a, at a very fundamental level. It is, it is the planet Jupiter in our eyesight, right? It's the sun that you can't block out with your thumb, a picture of our disordered relationships with God. It is fundamental, something, fundamentally something that the Bible obviously and evidently condemns, rightly as an abomination. And we're going to talk about that more in detail next week. It is homosexuality then is the vilest picture. It is the end of the road, so to speak. The vilest picture in ourselves, right? Made manifest in man. It is the vilest picture of man's disordered relationship to God. And in that sense, it is an utter abomination. Not only should we hate it and it is right to do so. Homophobic? Absolutely. Not only should we hate it, we should have a visceral and guttural aversion to it. It should be, as it is in God's sight, it should be disgusting and disgraceful. It is a desecration. And listen, that is a fruit, if you will, of God handing men over, delivering them up in their sin. Can God abandon men to judgment? Yes, he obviously does. Is God just to do so? Yes, his righteous justice, his retributive justice, his righteous wrath, is upheld on hell deserving sinners. A chief example of that is the cross. Can God hand a man over to sin? He does that with his own son, not to disorder himself or degrade himself, but he delivers his own son up to bear our sin upon his own body on the tree and bear the punishment that we rightly deserved. He bears that for his people. He became sin. He who knew no sin became sin for us. That we might become the righteousness of God in him. Jesus Christ delivered up for us, delivered up, given up, handed over, surrendered, delivered over because of your sin and because of my sin. Chief example of God's abandonment is the cross. God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Right? Do you remember the Lord's words? Redemption then, redemption through faith in Jesus Christ. If you will turn from your sin, stop pridefully in a self-will way. Stop pridefully living for yourself. Turn from your sin and trust your life to Jesus Christ. And what God does that in redemption as he reorders, he reorders, he restores, he redeems that fallen condition and he restores it. He reorders it as it should be. We become a new creation, a new creation. All things become new. I have a new heart. I have a new nature. I have new desires, new affections, a new hatred for sin, right? A new love for the Lord Jesus Christ, a new value system. Everything becomes new. And God returns his own glory to its rightful place in our sight, in our thoughts, in our affections, in our devotion. He returns it to its rightful place in our worship when he redeems his people to himself and we will enjoy in eternity the communion, the fellowship with him that he intended when he created man on his image, right? It's a restoration of all that, only possible through faith in Jesus Christ. And my, what a, what a contrast of extremes it is, what we see in the world today and the degradation of man and the perversion of their sexual sin in contrast to the beauty and the glory and the love and the worship and the joy and the peace and the fellowship that we will enjoy with our creator in heaven forever. The picture cannot be painted any clearer. Why, why would you continue to persist in your sin? The Bible would call you a fool to do so. Turn to Jesus Christ, give your life to him. He makes all things new, right? Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we love you. We praise you. We thank you. We worship you. We glorify you. Lord, our desire from the heart is to praise you and worship you, to serve you as you are worthy to be praised, honored worship, loved and served. Help us, Lord. As we grow in our knowledge of you, grow in our understanding of who you are and what you've done. Help us, Lord, to follow that up with the appropriate love, the appropriate devotion, the appropriate worship. And Lord, conform us, renew our minds, conform us into Christ's image, make us, remake us after that good and righteous order that you established from the beginning, and help us to rightly relate to you as we should. And Lord, help us to be faithful in preaching the gospel in this lost and disordered world as we see it just degenerating, degrading into moral anarchy and chaos all around us. Lord, I pray that we, your people would be faithful to bring light to that darkness and would preach the gospel and that for your glory, for the glory of your son, for the completion of his bride, as it were, you would save men and women, boys and girls to your self, that you would redeem them from the slave market of sin, make them worshiping, grateful, affectionate servant slaves in your kingdom for your glory. We pray these things for our good. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.