“God Gave Them Up”

 

BIBLE READING: Romans 1-3


“When you play with sin, you pay.” -Unknown

            A sad discourse of the damage done by sin is detailed in Romans 1. Paul addressed the people that “… knew God …” or had a relationship with Him (Romans 1:21, 28, 32). Somehow, they ignored what they had learned about Him and the way He had shown them to live. They “did their own thing.” The saddest part of this chapter is that God got to the point that He gave them over to the consequences of their sins. God gave up on them!

I imagine God thinking or saying, “I convicted your hearts about sin. I gave you the knowledge to know what sin is and that you would stay away from it, but you ignored me. You think you are so smart (Romans 1:21, 22), but you will not stop sinning.  I give up on telling you to flee from iniquity, and now you will reap the consequences of your wickedness.”

Three times God said He would not restrain them anymore from their sinful commissions (Romans 1:24, 26, 28). God’s guiding and warning hand came off of those people, and soon they were involved in at least 23 different violations (Romans 1:26-31) of God’s will and way. They found out their sin would take them much farther down sin’s slippery slope than they had ever expected it to take them.

Sadly, there are many today that are also like the Roman 1 casualties. They have heard admonitions to do right from their Sunday school teachers, parents, preaching, Scripture reading, and hundreds of other avenues. They know what is right or wrong, but sometimes they decided to ignore what they had learned and live their lives their way. Soon one sin led to another. Other sins led to a more hardened heart, not heeding any righteous instructions. It happens to Christians and the unsaved alike.

One day they may come to the “bottom of their barrel” and see how low they have sunk. They may repent, turn their lives around, and live righteously. Some may die in their sin and never stop their iniquities. However, there is hope when one can still hear the small, convicting voice of the Holy Spirit and obey His plea. Constant ignoring of that prodding conscience can result in what happened to the people spoken of in this chapter of Romans — God’s giving up on them. What a frightening life that would be, to be without God’s help and blessing.                                                                                                                                                                                     -Selected

 

 

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