God Handed Them Over Part 1 - Romans 1:21-25

1:51For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have clearly been perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. So at the very beginning of this section, we've already studied these verses. The first thing he says is that I want to preach the gospel, and the reason is because the wrath of God has been revealed. So people need to know how to be saved from the wrath of God. Well, he's going to tell us about the wrath of God, but he doesn't tell us what the wrath of God is yet. He just says you need the gospel, and we do need the gospel, right? If you hear nothing else today, if you're about to check out and not listen to the rest of the sermon, hear this one thing, is that you can be saved from the wrath to come. You can be forgiven. Yes. All of us have sinned. Yes, all of us deserve the hot wrath of God. But God has made a way that each one of us can be saved from that wrath. And that way is Jesus Christ. He died on the cross. You know that. He died so that he could pay the penalty for sins, the penalty that we deserve to pay for eternity. He paid on the cross. So even today, you could come to him and be saved from the wrath to come. Even today, you can be bought by him.

3:37Jesus died to pay the price for sin so that you can be forgiven. So I just encourage you to stop rebelling against God. Come to him today. He can cause you to be born again. He can cause you, if you are stuck in this pattern where you just really love your sin and you don't want to come to God, if you come to him, he can change that desire. He can cause you to where you don't love your sin more than you love God anymore. Instead, you'll love God. So come to him today. You do need the gospel because we are all under the wrath of God before we come to him. But back to our text today. Remember, I said he hasn't told us what the wrath of God is, he's told us why we're under the wrath of God.

4:25It's that we are ungodly. We're not. Like him, and we're unrighteous. We have chased after unrighteous things. But he's also told us why he's justified to have this wrath. That was our topic last time. Why is he justified to have this wrath? And it's because he knows he's communicated these things to us very clearly. Specifically, two things that he's communicated to every single human being through creation: is that he is powerful and that he is divine. When we look out at creation, he says there is no excuse for us to sin. Because when we look out at creation, we understand that God is powerful and we should come to him. And yet, every single one of us has rebelled against that. Every single one of us has seen those truths, and every single one of us has rebelled against it instead of accepting it. Therefore, all of us are under condemnation. We're under the wrath of God. Therefore, no one has an excuse. Well, today we're going to get to see what the wrath looks like. We know why. It's there, but now we're going to get to see what the wrath is. And you might be surprised. You know, often when we think of the wrath of God, the first thing that comes to mind is that future day of wrath that all of us know about. That future day of wrath where people will be thrown into the lake of fire and they will burn forever. Day of eternal punishment. But Paul doesn't go there today.

6:06He'll get there. In chapter 2, verse 5, he says, But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. So Paul will get there. He'll talk about it. It's not like he's leaving it out. But he's not there yet. In fact, what he's just said in Romans 1:18, he said that the wrath of God is presently. The wrath of God is revealed.

6:38He's not talking about the future. He's talking about something that is already going on. So what does the wrath of God look like in Romans chapter 1? I want you to look down at verse 24. Verse 24, because they have worshipped idols instead of the true God, verse 24, therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. Look down at verse 26. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Look down at verse 28. Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind.

7:30You see what's going on there? He gave them up. He gave them up. He gave them up. They sin. So God gives them up to that sin, and they find a new way to sin. And he gives them up to their sin and they find a new way to sin. So, as we continue to study this passage on the wrath of God, what I want you to see today is the haunting reality that part of the wrath of God is to give sinners up to their own sin.

8:07Part of the wrath of God is displayed by letting sinners sin, by giving them over to do the things that they've wanted to do all along, instead of borrowing them from that. That word to give them up or to hand them over was frequently used in judicial contexts. So, like, for example, somebody could say he gave them over, and it doesn't have to always mean this, but it was so frequent that when people said, just said they handed him over, usually what you would think, if you heard that, was, oh, he got arrested.

8:49So, we hear about that in the New Testament. We hear that John the Baptist, when he's arrested, the word that it uses is John the Baptist was handed over. Or Jesus is saying it. To his disciples as he's going through his life, saying, We're going to go to Jerusalem, and I am going to be delivered up. That's the same word to the authorities. So, just like for us, we might say, Oh, he got locked up, right?

9:14That doesn't have to mean he went to prison, right? But usually, if I said, so-and-so got locked up, your thought would be, oh, he went to prison. Okay, so that's this phrase. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, This, Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you're going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say, you will never get out until you've paid the last penny. That's Matthew 5. So, all over the place, this word is used in judicial contexts. And I think that that is part of what Paul is getting at in this context: that in response to sin, God is handing us over and delivering us up to our own sinful hearts that want to keep sinning.

10:02He's handing us over to do the very things that we want to do, to sin even more. And in our text today, we're going to see three pathways to God's judgment. Three pathways to this kind of judgment. And they're easy, okay? They all start with the same letter this time. Three pathways to God's judgment: ingratitude, idolatry, and immorality. Ingratitude, idolatry, And immorality. I'm going to read through our text for starting in verse 21. See if you can pick out each one of those: ingratitude, idolatry, and immorality. Verse 21. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became feudal in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and the animals and creeping things.

11:03Therefore, God gave them up. That's the first time it's used in this passage. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Pray with me. Father, as we study this text, I pray that you would cause us to be in awe of you and your character.

11:36I pray that you would cause us to tremble at your holiness and even at your wrath as we read about it. I pray, Lord, that people would be drawn near to you because of what we're reading, knowing that you forgive. And, Father, everything negative. That we read about today, I pray that our hearts would run to doing the opposite with joy. Help us, Father, as we study this passage. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, our first pathway to God's judgment is in gratitude, and this is really the key. This is really the gateway into the others, in gratitude. Remember that what we've just studied, that God has made these things plain to all men. He's very clear that he knows exactly what he's communicated in creation. That he's made these things, he knows your thoughts, and he knows that he's communicated to you his power in creation.

12:45All men see, and all men know, but all men sin. And so all men are without excuse. And now in verse 21, the beginning of our text, he continues this idea, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. So the response of every person when they see creation and they're full of awe at creation and the power that it would have taken, the response should be to honor God and give him thanks. That should be the first impulse of the. comes when we see a grand mountain or a beautiful flower.

13:36The impulse that should come is thank you God. That's what he's saying. But mankind does not do this. They should, but they don't. And since they don't, they become foolish. Or your translation might have vain or empty in their thinking. It says darkened in their hearts. One writer says about this passage, to turn from the light of revelation is to head into darkness. Ignorance is the result of a choice. And so this passage is saying that at that immediate step, when we take that opportunity to not be thankful, that our minds are twisted and we're not thinking correctly. It causes us to become foolish and darkened in our understanding. It is thanksgiving to God that leads to rational thought about God and the universe. And so the moment that people reject the impulse to honor God, they abandon clear thinking. They abandon good sense. And we'll see what that looks like in just a minute. But this has happened to all men everywhere, including you, right? Including every single person in this room, is that you have done the same thing before you were a believer. You had abandoned that rational thought.

15:05Last time, we talked about how all of us have become experts at sinning so that we can suppress our thoughts of God. That's what we did constantly when we were unbelievers. But even after we become believers, we can still be good at it, to suppress our thoughts of God by unrighteousness. Well, here we see that we have also become good at rejecting the impulse to give thanks. At every turn, our hearts should be giving thanks and honoring God. And so, this should be a call to action for us. Yes, all of us have failed in this, but after we become Christians, knowing that this is a problem, we should do everything we can to train ourselves to get back into this reaction of constant thanksgiving.

15:55We should build habits. When Job was speaking with God, and he was being maybe a little more rash than many of us would be comfortable with, and God wanted to remind him to honor him and be humbled. What did he talk about? He talked about creation, right? God is stepping through creation, and he's speaking of all these amazing things that he's made, and this humbles Job. In Psalm 8, David is talking, and he writes about. Creation in verse 3. He says, When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars which you have set in place. He's talking about creation and these amazing works that God has done. Well, what does he say in the next verse? What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him?

16:53See what happened there? He looked at creation, and that caused him to realize that God is so elevated and honored above us that it makes him say, Oh, what is man that you would even look at us? He is honoring God and giving thanks. And like Job and like David, we should be moved. We should be stunned by God's creation. And our response should be to honor him and give him thanks. We need to train it. That's why we try to build habits into our life over and over and over, right? That's why we try to pray every day. That's why we come together and we pray every Sunday together. That's maybe why you pray at every single meal. Thank you for this food. Every single time you eat. You're building these habits because you want to train that impulse. You want to thank God over and over and over and over again.

17:49It's an important impulse to train into our children, right? To get them to be grateful and thankful, to pray with them at every meal, to pray with them before breakfast. Every night, giving thanks over and over and over. Clearly, because it's something that's right, and we know from other scriptures that we should do this, but also in this text, it's telling us because this is the pathway to clear thinking, right? If we want our children, for example, to be twisted about something, to not be able to think the right things about God, well then teach them not to give thanks. But if you at least want them to be thinking more clearly, according to this passage, we need to train that impulse of thanksgiving. Minds get twisted when we reject gratitude.

18:48When we refuse in our own lives to be in a habit of giving thanks, more foolishness is going to be close behind. So we need to be working on this to develop this all. Verse 21 again. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Okay, so the next question is: well, how did this foolishness express itself? If men are becoming foolish by refusing to give thanks, and their mind is twisted into really stupidity and foolishness, how is this going to show itself? And this is our second pathway to God's judgment: idolatry.

19:31Idolatry. Look at verse 22. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. This is indeed the height of folly, isn't it? This is the worst decision ever, but it is also the dumbest decision ever for mankind to have done this. They could have had a relationship with God, the immortal, incorruptible God. And yet they traded this relationship so that they could have a relationship with fakes, with a lie, with corruptible, not immortal images.

20:35From the very beginning, man did this, right? Adam and Eve refused to properly honor and give thanks to God and to trust him. And they traded up their relationship with God. And the generations of mankind after them, once you give up that idea, once you give up the proper honoring and thanksgiving to God, you're going to fill that void. with something they couldn't stomach the reality of God and they wanted to rebel and so as they claim to be wise as verse 22 says they're really being foolish this this void this emptiness that they're trying to fill with something else whatever else as long as it's not God of someone to worship someone to honor, someone to give thanks to. They fill it with creatures. And the whole time they're claiming to be wise. Maybe they're claiming to be super spiritual. Or maybe another kind of wisdom, maybe they're claiming to hedge their bets. I know that was a temptation for me as a teenager. You know, maybe I'll believe in Jesus, but maybe I'll do everything in these other religions too and just hedge my bets. One of them's got to be right, right?

21:57And so maybe they're saying, okay, I'm going to worship all these different God options. And so even though they're claiming that this is wisdom, it's really stupidity. It's really foolishness. They didn't want to honor God, but they're still compelled to worship something. And here he mentions carved images, that they are going to deify, they're going to call God in lieu of the true God. He goes through basically any creature available to them, men, birds, animals, creeping things, anything. You know, in the sky, on the earth, anything you can think of, men have made into some kind of idol that they're then going to bow down and worship, even though it's corruptible and not immortal, and they made it themselves. We don't see that too much in this culture, but we do still see it today all over the world. Right? But even though we might not see that in America, we do still see the same kind of silliness.

22:57People are going to fill that void with something. You'll notice it's a little silly and awkward around Thanksgiving, the holiday, on TV or something, because all the TV personalities, they keep wanting to say, yes, I'm so thankful. They want to give thanks on Thanksgiving, but if they don't believe in God, who are they giving thanks to? And so you'll see them kind of dance around the topic. They'll keep saying they're so thankful, but they'll never talk about God. Maybe they're thankful to their family. Maybe they're thankful to the people who have gone before us or thankful to soldiers or something like that, which are all good things to be thankful for. But you can see that kind of silliness, that awkwardness, that there's this impulse to give thanks, and it's going to be filled with whatever they can get their hands on, whether it's carved images or money or fame or anything. This is the twisted nature of mankind's darkened mind after they refuse to. Give thanks.

24:03It's a twisted nature of all of our minds. Our flesh wants to do the same thing, right? We want to steal the credit for ourselves, or we want to give devotion to something dramatic or emotional instead of training the impulse to give thanks to God. But it's foolish. He says they've traded a real deal for an image. And if you look there in verse 23, exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man. You can see he's kind of stacking up words there: images resembling or images imaging a man. And if you think of the fact that man is created in the image of God, he's saying they're trading a relationship with the true God for an image imaging the image of God.

24:54They're pretending like this is wise, but really all they're doing is backing away from God because they're willing to give thanks and honor to anything else but Him. It's a foolish decision. If you're a business owner and I had this newspaper here, and I said, you see this? This right here, this says the word business on a piece of paper. I want to trade you this piece of paper that. Says business for your business. You give me your entire business that you've created, and I will give you this paper that says business. That's a foolish decision, right? Or if I turned to the stocks page and I said, okay, I'm going to trade you this page. It's got all the stocks written on it with the graphs up and down and things like that. And I said, I'm going to take this page out and I'm going to give it to you. And what I want you to give me are all your stocks. So I'm going to trade you this image for your stocks. That would be foolish, right? Nobody would take me on that bet or on that deal. That would be a foolish decision. And he's saying that's the kind of foolishness that people have done. They are trading the real thing for an image imaging the image of God.

26:19It's a bad decision. And in doing so, they earn the wrath of God. And because of that wrath, God gives them up to enter into yet another pathway to God's judgment, impurity or immorality. Impurity. Look at verse 24. Therefore, so because of these things, God gave them up. God handed them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. So you can see in verse 25 at the end of the text, he returns back to the ideas that we were just talking about. Just to clarify, he makes sure you know that the reason he's doing this is because of what he just said. So, verse 25, because they exchanged the truth, that's similar to what we just read, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator. So, again, they've been given through creation this knowledge of God. They have rejected that knowledge, and they have instead made the foolish trade of trading it in. And instead of worshiping and giving thanks to the true God, they've said, No, I want to worship and give thanks to this fake one. They have traded it in. So, back to verse 24. What is the next step after this? What does God give them up to? Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.

28:03He gave them up to impurity, in the lusts of their hearts, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. What's he talking about? He's talking about sexual sins, right? This is the next thing he's bringing up about mankind. They refused to give him thanks. Their mind was twisted. And so they became foolish and tried to fill that void with idols, even though he told them not to. They did it anyways, and therefore, as an act of judgment, he gives them up to their own hearts again, and their hearts have these strong desires. That word for lust, where it says God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that just means really strong desires.

28:50It doesn't have to mean anything sexual. It doesn't even have to be negative at all. It could just be a really strong desire. But here, it clearly is something negative, right? And it frequently means that. And so a part of a judgment of God is he hands people over to their own hearts, and their hearts have these strong desires. Instead of a strong desire to give thanks to God, their strong desires is going to cause them to chase after these sexual sins.

29:19He calls it dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. And he will go on, in a passage that we're going to study next week, he'll go on to say that this is going to merit even further judgment, more giving up and more giving up to more and more sins. But God had given them a design for marriage and for intimacy and marriage, and they have rejected that. And so their strong desires are going to chase after everything else under the sun. So what's the lesson to be learned from this verse in your life? I think first is the most obvious lesson, right? Is that when you commit sins like this, speaking of sexual sins, immorality, things like that, when you commit sins like this, you dishonor your body. That's what he says.

30:15Sexual sins bring a different kind of shame. And many of you know this from experience. Maybe most of us in this room know this from experience. It brings a different kind of shame than other kinds of sins. And so I think the call to the Christian is to do what you can to avoid these sins, to work hard at it. You're playing with a different kind of fire when you're toying with these temptations. They are not by any means, and hear me on this, they are not by any means an unforgivable sin, whether you commit it before you're a believer or after you're a believer.

30:54God loves to forgive sinners, even those who have brought this shame upon themselves. Heaven rejoices when sinners are forgiven. So remember that. This is not by any means any kind of unforgivable sin, but what he's saying is be particularly watchful about these. Listen to this in 1 Corinthians. He says, flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that? That your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You are not your own, for you are bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body. So, glorify God in our bodies. That's what he says in Corinthians. And in our passage today, he says, You dishonor God, or you dishonor your body when you do this. So, don't dishonor your body, instead, use your body to glorify God. And now, listen, I know that there are many people in this room that are struggling with this. This is a secret struggle, and it could be that way for a long, long time. And you are feeling that shame from this sin. Maybe you're a teenager, maybe you're an adult, but you don't have to. If you're a believer, even if you've been struggling for this a long time, come and talk to the elders about it. Talk to the pastors, they want to hear about it. They're not going to make you feel embarrassed. They want to talk with you about this. You can get through these kinds of sins.

32:35Please, please, please, talk to the pastors. Talk to the elders. You can start down the road today of being done with this kind of shameful sin, and God can forgive you fully and freely. So, that was the first lesson from this verse. Another lesson that we can learn from this is that this kind of sin is a symptom and a cause. This is a symptom and a cause. And a cause, yes, immorality and impurity, they cause more judgment to come into the unbeliever's life. He'll go on to say that in the rest of the passage. But what I want you to see here is that it is also a symptom.

33:19If you are repeatedly committing sins of this nature, then there's something more foundational that is twisted in your thinking, and that is ingratitude and the dishonoring of God. If you were properly honoring God and giving thanks to Him, then you wouldn't have made it to this pathway. And yet, all of mankind has brought judgment on themselves by sinning in this way. We're done with the text, but before we go, we have a little more time. And I just want to make a few clarifications about this passage. So, listen close to this, okay? Don't check out yet. Listen close to this. A few clarifications. First, I want you to be clear about the fact of who he's talking about. He's talking about mankind as a whole.

34:17He's talking about mankind as a whole has chased after these things, and God has let mankind then by their own volition open a door to another kind of sin, and then another kind of sin. Is giving them up in judgment to do these things. But Paul is not here speaking of Christians specifically after they have believed. Yes, it's every man. He's handing people over, giving them up, abandoning them to their own sin, but he will not do this for the believer.

34:53What do I mean? We might be disciplined by God as a believer. In fact, it says God disciplines those whom he loves. So if you are a true believer, you will be disciplined by the Lord, unless you're perfect. So he is going to discipline you, but he is not going to put you under his judgment again after you've been saved. And maybe that seems like a small distinction to you. You know, you're thinking, okay, I'm experiencing bad things because I did bad things. What's the difference if it's judgment or discipline?

35:38I'm experiencing bad things because I did bad things. What's the difference if it's judgment or punishment or discipline? But it does make a difference, right? It makes a world of difference. He disciplines us as a father out of love. And Ephesians 2:3 says, we were by nature children of wrath. That's every single one of us before we became believers. We were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind, but the implication is, but no longer. So we're not under his wrath. We are justified. And so when we read this passage, what I want to make clear to you is that this is not a threat to believers. That you, yes, you become a believer, but if you keep sinning in this way and you're not thankful enough to God, or you worship in the wrong way, or something like that, that's not saying all of a sudden, okay, God is going to put you back under judgment. He's done with you. You're back under the category of being judged. No, he'll discipline you because he loves you, but he's not going to suddenly give you up, as this text says. He's not going to hand you over. You're his forever.

36:47He's not going to give you up. Okay, the second clarification related to the first is that since this is about all of mankind, it's not necessarily this stair-step ladder that describes everyone's individual testimonies. Sometimes that's how we accidentally read this passage. So since it has these steps where he's giving up and giving up and giving up, he's not speaking of necessarily individuals. And what I mean is sequentially. So he's not saying that you must have at some point not given thanks. Therefore, he gave you up to this other sin. Therefore, you started lusting in your heart and that kind of thing.

37:26This idea falls apart as we keep going through the passage because at the end of the The list are things like disobedient to parents, right? And so the sequential list kind of breaks down for the individual. Instead, he's talking about mankind as a whole. Mankind rejected God, they tried to fill the void with fakes, and then therefore God gave them up to pursue their lusts. But still, what I wanted to clarify is that still, even though that's true, that for the individual, what seems to be the case in this passage is still, I think, that ingratitude is that gateway sin into the other sins. That when our mind is twisted by ingratitude, which it is for all of us, that's what leads us to make the wrong choice, to respond incorrectly to creation. Okay?

38:18Third clarification, we'll come back to the second one in just a minute. Third clarification is to remember the entire context of this passage that he's talking about general revelation, creation seen by every single human being, everyone under the wrath of God, because they've all made this choice. And so, if you're sitting in this room and you're an unbeliever, let me tell you the truth. It is not what we're saying, that the Christians in this room are more clever than you, because when they saw creation, they turned to God and you didn't. That is not what we're saying. Instead, we're saying that every single person, no matter who they are, has turned against God.

39:00And yet, God was kind enough to step in and save some. The last clarification related to that one is that nobody is stuck under God's judgment. We've talked this whole time about God's judgment, how he gives people up to their sins, and you might be thinking, I don't want that anymore. Well, you're not stuck there. That's what the rest of this letter is about: that he sent his son to die so that God could be just and the justifier, the one who clears you of your guilt. He offers you full and free forgiveness if you come to him.

39:36Okay, before we dismiss, I want us to make sure that we are doers of the word. And so, before we go, I want you to pick something that this week you can apply from this text. Here are some options. It could be the three most obvious things, right? We've said that the three pathways to God's judgment are ingratitude, idolatry, and immorality or impurity. And so, the three most obvious applications for you would be do the opposite, right? So, maybe you could choose one of those. Instead of ingratitude, I'm going to have gratitude. I'm going to this week intentionally try to over and over every day give thanks to God and train that impulse. Or it can be that I'm going to try and honor God and worship Him alone, exclusively, and in the way He wants me to. I'm going to read the word and pray to him instead of dividing my allegiance this week. Or maybe, third, it could be that I'm going to stay free from this lustful impurity, this shameful dishonoring of my body this week. Or maybe you've tried that before, and the application for you is: I need to talk to a pastor about this. This is getting ridiculous, and I'm tired of it. Okay, so those are three applications that you could do, but there's also some other ones. Remember that giving thanks is the, or not giving thanks, is that thing that twists our mind, that twisted the mind of all of creation, or all of mankind, that they should have seen creation and immediately given thanks. And so, as we think about that and we think about other sins in our life, then maybe the issue is you need to attack a certain sin that you've been struggling with by making sure you first are being thankful to God and honoring Him in your heart. Maybe fix that attitude in an effort to attack another sin. If you're weeding out sin, you might as well attack it at the roots in gratitude. Last one, finally, I think another option for you to pick. You're still supposed to be picking one before you leave this room. Another option to you, and I think this could be an application for many of us, is to pray that you may be kept from sin. The psalmist says, Keep back your servant also from presiding. Sins, let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. So, if God is the gatekeeper who is able to keep us from our sins, then surely we can pray that he would keep us from temptation. Does that sound familiar? Jesus told us to pray that. Lord, keep us from temptation. Okay, so choose something. Give thanks, worship rightly, honor God, walk in purity, pray to be kept from temptation. These are just options, but be a doer of the word and pray with me. Father, I pray that you'd help us remember this text. I pray that we didn't go over it too quickly or just skim over it. But I pray that you'd help us understand these things.

42:59I pray, Lord, that you would cause us to see that all of man has rejected the revelation of you in creation. In their mind, it's been twisted because they should have given thanks, but they didn't. And I pray, Lord, that we would, with joy and excitement, say, I'm going to run in the exact opposite direction with God's help. I want to give thanks. I want to be pure. I want to honor God and worship Him. I pray, Lord, that you would help us say that. I pray that you would help us apply these things.

43:33And, Father, I pray that if there's an unbeliever in this room that has realized he's on this pattern, and he knows the great day of judgment is coming, but even now, God's judgment, your judgment, has already been revealed against him because you're allowing him to keep sinning and sinning and sinning, and he's enjoying it. I just pray, Lord, that even today people would turn to you, flee from the wrath to come. I pray that people would trust in you and know that you will forgive. But, Father, we thank you so much for another time in your word. Help us be grateful, people, in Jesus' name. Amen.