1.     Last Sunday morning I mentioned an experience I had while out knocking on doors in Queens Village.  The lady plainly told me and my soulwinning partner that she simply could not believe in Jesus.

2.     Time after time I have observed this pattern: First, sinners will not believe; then they cannot believe.  Genesis 6:3 says, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man.”

3.     After the service last Sunday, someone asked me about this incident.  I tried to explain the situation from a Biblical perspective, and in this morning’s message I will try and deal with this problem.

4.     Let me begin by stressing that our God is a gracious, merciful, loving and compassionate God.   Our Lord said in Matthew 23:37, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”

5.     Our Lord said in John 5:40, “And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (cf. Ezekiel 18:23, 30-32).

6.     So while we must preach and teach the goodness of God, we must also warn that it is dangerous to keep saying “no” to God.  The Bible teaches that those who do not repent must suffer in hell for all eternity (cf. Matt. 10:28; 25:41, 46).

7.     Many years ago, two of the most prominent preachers in America were Henry Ward Beecher and William G. T. Shedd.

8.     Beecher was a liberal Congregationalist preacher.  He pastored the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. His sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote the famous book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

9.     Dr. Shedd was a conservative Presbyterian preacher and author. One of his books is entitled, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment.  A popular magazine engaged the two men for articles on the subject of eternal punishment.  Dr. Shedd believed in a literal, hot burning hell, but Beecher did not.

10. Shedd was asked to write an article defending the doctrine of eternal punishment, and Beecher was asked to answer it.

11. When Dr. Shedd’s article was sent to Mr. Beecher, he sent a telegram to the magazine’s editors: “Cancel engagement.  Shedd is too much for me.  I half believe in eternal punishment now myself.  Get somebody else.”

12. But the magazine could not find anyone.  No one was able to answer Dr. Shedd’s arguments.  To this day (over 100 years later), Dr. Shedd remains unanswered.  No one can successfully deny what the Bible plainly teaches (cf. Ps. 9:17).

13. There is no answer, Biblically, logically, or philosophically to the doctrine of eternal punishment.   We simply believe it and preach it.

I. GOD’S WRATH IS REVEALED FROM HEAVEN AGAINST SIN (1:18).

1.     Dr. Shedd said that God’s wrath towards sin was not rage, but “the wrath of reason and law.”

2.     The theme of the book of Romans is “the Gospel of God” (1:1), specifically “the Gospel of Christ” (1:16).

3.     After having introduced the theme of his epistle, the apostle Paul explains in detail the history of human sin and condemnation (1:18-32).

4.     Paul, in his endeavor to prove that the only righteousness available to man is that obtained by faith, declared that God’s displeasure toward sin has been revealed from heaven (1:18).

5.     The idea behind the word “hold” (1:18) is “hold down” (see margin).  Rebellious sinners hold down the truth.  They hinder the truth. 

6.     Dr. AT Robertson said, “Truth is out in the open, but wicked men, so to speak, put it in a box and sit on the lid.”

7.     Those who are charged with ungodliness and unrighteousness stand under the wrath of God.  “They are without excuse” (1:20b).

8.     Worldly sinners think they are wise but they are fools (1:21, 22).

9.     Sinners have rejected God’s light.  They prefer darkness (John 3:16-21).  Therefore, they are under the wrath of God (John 3:36; cf. Rom. 1:18). 

10.  This concept of being under the wrath of God is essential to understanding Romans 1.

11.  Sinful men have rejected their Creator and have given themselves over to idolatry (Rom. 1:23).

12.  Proud sinners boast that man is evolving, but the history of mankind is one of retrogression, not progression; “devil-ution,” not evolution.

13.  Mankind is moving downward, not upward.   I remember the man from the corner hardware store talking about the contrast between the nightclub next door and our church.  He said, “They’re going down, but you people are going up!”

14. Man’s choice is either regeneration or degeneration.  Most people prefer degeneration – pornography, drunkenness, drugs, gambling, adultery, homosexuality, abortion, etc. 

15. Our Lord said in John 3:19 that they “loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

16.  In unbelief, man is stumbling around in the darkness, and has turned to folly – evolution, global warming, gay marriage, etc.

17.   From Genesis through Revelation, the Bible teaches that sin brings down the judgment of God.  Three times in Romans 1 it says that “God gave them up” (1:24, 26, 28).

II. GOD CONSIGNS SINNERS TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR SINS (1:24, 26, 28).

1.     This terrifying refrain – “God gave them up…God gave them up…God gave them over” teaches that God consigns sinners to the consequences of their sins.

2.     Acts 7:42 says, “Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven.”  Both the OT and the NT teach that idolatry invariably leads to sensuality.

3.     This abandonment of sinners to the power and consequences of sin is a punitive infliction.  It is a judicial abandonment.  It is a punishment for their unbelief and apostasy.

4.     Psalm 81:12 says, “So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.”

5.     After 9/11, a well-known preacher said that God withdrew His hand of protection from America on account of our sin.  He specifically mentioned abortion and homosexuality.

6.     There was a big uproar from the secularists but this preacher had a valid point.  The Bible teaches that God withdraws from the wicked the restraints of His providence and grace.

7.     Three times in Romans 1 we are told that God “gave them up.”

8.     It is obvious that Romans 1:24-28 is talking about the detestable sin of homosexuality and so I will try to be discreet.  Hardly a day passes by that we are not confronted with this filthy sin (e.g., Elliot Spitzer and “gay marriage”).

9.     A congressman from Florida had to resign this week because it was revealed that he was sending lewd emails to teenage boys.

From the NY POST, September 28, 2006:
“The body of a man clad in a kinky black leather mask and decked out head to toe in S&M gear was hanging from a chain-link fence on Hudson Street yesterday – as many passers-by ignored it, thinking it was a Halloween display.

The slightly built, fair-skinned mystery man may have been choked to death by a dog collar around his neck, it's other end strapped around a 3-foot-tall fence post, police sources said.

The 40ish, tattooed man was found kneeling, braced face-first against the fence in front of 424 Hudson St. at around 6:45 a.m.

In a bizarre twist, the body had been there for at least an hour, dismissed by some who walked past as a quirky seasonal display in an area scattered with S&M and gay bars.”

10. We see articles like this are in the newspapers almost every day. Much of the blame has to be placed where it belongs – on the worldly churches and backslidden preachers, who either condone homosexuality, or refuse to condemn it.

11. Joel Osteen is the pastor of the “nondenominational” (charismatic) Lakewood Church in Houston and the author of Your Best Life Now.  He was recently at a Boston bookstore signing books when he was asked his opinion about “gay marriage,” which has been legal in Massachusetts since 2004. According to the Boston Herald, Osteen “suddenly got sheepish.”

12. “I don't think it’s God's best,” Osteen said, according to the Sept. 2 edition of the Boston Herald. “I never feel like homosexuality is God’s best.”

13. Osteen has always been evasive when it comes to basic Biblical issues such as sin and salvation. In June 2005, during an appearance on the “Larry King Live” TV show, Osteen was asked about his positions on “gay marriage” and abortion.

14. “You know what, Larry? I don't go there…I’m not going to condemn those people. I tell them all the time our church is open for everybody.”

15. “You don't call them sinners?” Mr. King asked.
 “I don’t,” Osteen said.
 “Is that a word you don’t use?” Mr. King asked.
 “I don’t use it,” Osteen responded.  “I don’t go down the road of condemning.”

16. Osteen does not use the word “sinner.”  But the words “sin” or “sinner” are found over 500 times in the Bible. 

17. So whenever we discuss the problem of homosexuality, we must stress that the liberal churches and so-called ministers are largely to blame.

18. The Bible teaches that God consigns sinners to the consequences of their sins.  This is clearly brought out in Romans 1.

19. Barnabas and Paul said to the heathen at Lystra, God “in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness” (Acts 14:16, 17).

20. Note that in times past God suffered (allowed) all the heathen nations “to walk in their own ways” (Acts 14:16).

21. “Nevertheless he left not Himself without witness…” (14:17a).

22. God allows sinners to walk in their own ways, but then sinners must suffer the consequences.

23. Now let us go back to Romans 1. I believe “receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet” (Rom. 1:27) refers to AIDS and other STD’s.

24. The meaning here is not simply that God withdraws from the wicked the restraining force of His providential care and grace, but that He positively gives men over to the appropriate judgment of their sins.

25.  This thought is carried over into chapter 2, where verse 5 says sinners treasure up for themselves “wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”

26.  William Newell, in his commentary on the book of Romans, refers to this principle of treasuring up wrath as “the cumulative character of continued impenitence.”  Think about that!

27.  In fact, I have entitled this message, “When God Gives Up on Sinners,” but I could have entitled it, “The Cumulative Character of Continued Impenitence.”

28. Someone once asked an elderly Christian lady if she believed in a literal lake of fire and brimstone. She said she did (cf. Rev. 21:8).  She was teased about this and someone said to her, “No such an amount of brimstone could be found in one place.”  She replied, “Everyone takes his own brimstone with him.”

29. That old woman understood the Bible better than most preachers (cf. Rom. 2:2-6).

30. Sinner friend: do you think God is pleased with your “hardness and impenitent heart” (2:5).  Doctors warn people about the hardening of the arteries, but hardening of the heart is far more dangerous!

31.  You have probably heard that the NYC Health Department wants to ban “trans fats” because they say this causes hardening of the arteries.  But hardening of the heart is far more serious!

32. This is how it happens: sinners give themselves over to sin, and then God gives them over to a reprobate mind (Eph. 4:19; Rom. 1:28).

33. Sinners give themselves over to adultery, and fornication, and even perversion, and then God gives them over to the consequences of their wickedness.

34. We often preach that moral depravity results in the judgment of God, but Romans 1 teaches that moral depravity is the judgment of God.

35. I remember the first time I heard a preacher say that my jaw dropped.  But I studied my Bible and soon discovered he was right.

36. One preacher wrote this over 30 years ago, “Sexual rebellion, license, and anarchy is the retributive judgment of God.  The civilization of the western world, including the particular civilization of the United States of America, is not a civilization in danger of contacting a fatal disease.  That civilization has already contracted a malignant and fatal cancer through its unbelief of the message of God in Christ.  It is now hurrying on with increasing speed to final climactic destruction.  Civilizations do not die because of violence, crime, immorality, and anarchy.  These things are evidences that death already is at work, a death brought on by disobedience to the revelation of God” (S. Lewis Johnson, “God Gave Them Up,” Bibliothecra Sacra, April-June 1972).

37. Pitirim Sorokin was a sociologist from Harvard University.  In fact, he founded the Department of Sociology at Harvard.  In an article in Time magazine, Dr. Sorokim wrote, “At their fullest flowering, the Persian, Greek, Roman, and Muslim civilizations permitted a measure of homosexuality; as they decayed it became prevalent.”

38. Sounding more like a preacher than a sociologist, Dr. Sorokim pointed out that sexual permissiveness and sexual perversion always lead to mental breakdowns and decreasing creativity and productivity in the intellectual, artistic, and economic spheres of life.

39. Sin leads to mental breakdown and physical breakdown, and sin leads to death – both physical death, and what the Bible calls the second death (Rom. 1:32; 6:23; Rev. 20:14, 15).

40. Charles Hodge, in his commentary on the book of Romans, wrote,
 “Those who abandon God, He abandons.  Irreligion and immorality, therefore, have ever been found inseparably connected.”

III. THE MERCY AND LONGSUFFERING OF GOD

1.     First of all, we should stress that God does not give up on all sinners.   Consider the thief on the cross (Luke 23:32, 33, 39-43).

2.     And while we consider the salvation of the repentant thief, let us not forget about the impenitent thief.  Luke 23:39 may have been his last words.  As far as we know he died the way he lived.  As far as we know he died and went to hell.

3.     In fact, most people die the way they lived.  God is longsuffering and merciful.  

4.     God gives sinners time to repent, but there comes a time when it is too late. We could look at Pharaoh, at Balaam, at Judas Iscariot.  We could look at Felix (Acts 24:24, 25).  And we could look at King Agrippa (Acts 26:27, 28).

CONCLUSION:

1.     I had a friend in high school who hung himself in jail.  At the funeral parlor I heard his wicked father joke and say he was waiting for his son to sit up in the casket and ask for a beer.

2.     My heart was very heavy because I do not think I was a good witness to my friend, and he is probably in hell right now.

3.     Christian friend: let’s get serious about winning souls.

4.     Unsaved friend: do not trifle with God’s patience.