Who changed the truth of God into a lie...

The truth isn't always easy to hear is it?

We say we want the truth and nothing but the truth and yet if you were a wife suspecting your husband is cheating on you, or a husband suspecting your wife is cheating on you part of you wouldn't want to know the truth. If you're a parent whose child is getting into drugs and other bad things, part of you doesn't want to know the truth.

Some of you maybe shouting, 'I'd want to know!' And that maybe be true for you. But a lot of times people don't want to hear things that force them to hard realizations.

A cheating spouse means the spouse no longer loves you, no longer finds that you satisfy their needs, a child caught up in drugs has some how turned from all you'd thought you'd taught them and maybe it means you're not the parent you thought you were, maybe there *was* something you could have done more, true or not these thoughts play through peoples minds, these thoughts and more.

Sometimes spouses will live in denial of an affair for years rather than face anything. People will sometimes choose to be blind because it's easier, it's less upsetting, it's hard to face facts when they hurt, or have the potential to hurt.

We talked about God's wrath yesterday, and we know it's alive and well, it didn't disappear into a soft fuzzy warm ball of pure cotton. God's wrath is exacting today as it was back when He destroyed almost everyone in the great flood. God's wrath is as real today as it was when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. People today don't live in fear of God's wrath, most don't believe it exists, we live in a world that pats us on the back and tells us sure our sins have consequences but nothing all that bad, just go to Jesus.

I'm not making light of going to Jesus for forgiveness, not at all. A great price was paid by Jesus so that we can go to Him and find forgiveness. That price wasn't paid however so we could make light of sin and use forgiveness as a person swipes a credit card in a machine. Four sins, alright, lets pay for those...

No, it doesn't work that way.

Some may shout but if you make this all too hard then you're *working* for it and you can't be saved by *working* for it.

I say if you're sinning without true remorse and continue in sins without any heart felt desire to be rid of them, then you're making the cross a joke.

Jesus didn't die to give permission to sin.

Jesus didn't die to make sin seem less sinful.

Jesus didn't die so that we could have our cake and eat it too.

Seriously, Jesus called sin sin, and told people to go and sin no more. Jesus' life as our example, well, Jesus was sinless.

The truth is sin is a live and well and it's still against all that is God and the forgiveness we need to seek has to be heartfelt not frivolous.

Sin warrants death, not a trip into a confessional booth and a slap on the wrist.

The only way to keep from having to pay that penalty for sin is to repent, seek forgiveness, to go and sin no more. Not sit there, ask for forgiveness and turn around and smile happily as you start the same sins all over again.

I'm not saying that sin is easy to get rid of, I know for a fact it's not.

It's so easy to get caught up in the hopelessness of being a sinner, and just give up and give in to sin because to not sin seems too hard, too impossible. It's a fight, it's a battle, it's a war we're in and they are always hard to be involved in.

Just as Paul said he was a wretched man, a sinner that seemed to do things he didn't want to do, and not do things he should do, so too are we all, but like Paul we have to keep on fighting this fight, not because our fighting gives us eternal life, the only way to get that is through Jesus. The fight is standing up for the truth, the fight is choosing to live in the truth, the fight is a constant reminder of our helplessness to save ourselves and the price paid for us to be saved. The fight is the reality of Satan at war with God.

Don't tell me the wrath of God is no longer real. Don't tell me that sin today is okay. Don't try to change the truth of God into a bunch of lies because it's easier to digest, easier to live with than to believe that sin has a real price, all sin and every single sin needs to be forgiven. There is no sin-free pass you can buy and wave about to get away with sinning. Sin kills, and it killed Jesus, the sinless.

Here is Paul talking about sinners and before anyone thinks this is my time to take a stance against homosexuality it's not. I'm against fornication, I'm against lust for lust sake. I'm against the selfishness involved in seeking pleasure for the sake of self gratification. Am I guilty of these sins? Can I be against them and be guilty of them? Yes, but my guilt is mine to deal with and because I'm guilty doesn't mean I'm going to try and make sin acceptable. As for homosexuality, my belief is that people can be born certain ways through no fault of their own. Just like heterosexuals can be perverts and filled with sin because sex is something used wrongly, so too can homosexuals.

I know a lot of people might not agree with me and that's fine, no one has to agree with me. But I've see people - girls born that look more like men than women. Boys born that are more effeminate than some girls. Born with things not quite right and I have to believe that it is the perversion of what is natural for anyone that is wrong, gay or straight, the perversion is what corrupts it all.

God knows the hearts and I'm not going to throw any stones, I'm not without sin. Yes, I'll stand up and shout that sexual perversion is wrong because in my heart that's what it means, but I won't stand up and shout that all homosexuality is wrong. A God that allows some people to be born with both male and female sexual parts has to mean the perversion of love is what is wrong, not that babe born innocent and guilty of no crime, of no sin. Yes, inheriting the propensity to sin as we all do, but accountability comes with knowledge and babies don't have that knowledge.

Anyway, please read on--

Romans
{1:24} Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
{1:25} Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

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People changing the truth of God into a lie.
People worshipping the creature more than the Creator.
Do you see it?
When we worship ourselves and revel in our self-worship, when we put ourselves- the creature- before our Creator we are changing the truth of God into a lie. We are saying that we are above God. We are saying that Jesus' sacrifice can mean nothing because we are worthy of worship, not Him. When self comes first, when we put anything before God and worship anything before we worship God, we lose salvation because we are saying we have no Savior, no one greater than we are.

When we are caught up in self-worship there are consequences for our sins. We choose our path, it's not chosen for us.

Romans
{1:26} For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
{1:27} And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
{1:28} And even as they did not like to retain God in [their] knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient
{1:29} Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
{1:30} Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
{1:31} Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
{1:32} Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.


**
We're going to continue this study tomorrow, but for now we have to realize that as sinners we need to seek forgiveness and repent, to turn from our sins not try to justify them. No, we can't save ourselves, only Jesus can save us, but we have to choose to follow Him, to believe in Him and that's a daily walk we are on with daily choices to be made and those choices will have consequences- good with good consequences, evil with evil consequences.

May the love of Jesus Christ fill our hearts, our minds, our spirits. May the forgiveness obtained for us by the only begotten of the one true God, our heavenly Father be ours. May the Holy Spirit guide us now and forever. Come soon Lord Jesus, come soon.

Amen.

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.”- 1 Peter 5:8-9