Where I live at this moment has the fifth busiest traffic in the country on Highway 80, headed toward what is called the MacArthur Maze. During coronavirus, it’s been different, but before March 2020, traffic would come to a complete standstill because people would turn to look at an accident. The same principle applies as the world stares at the present devastation in America. Scripture provides commentary and explanation for what they see happening. What is it?
In Romans 1:28, the Apostle Paul writes, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” The flow of Romans 1 is that men knew God, but they suppressed that knowledge. God turned them over to what they wanted, as His act of judgment. An indication of God’s turning them over, is their “reprobate mind.” “Reprobate” is depraved.
The lust is what fools the person, their thinking that what they like, based on their feelings, is good for them. James 1:14 describes it as being drawn away of one’s own lust, and then enticed. The enticement is in the mind. Nothing or not enough is there to stop the lust. When someone is saved, Hebrews 9-10 describe the inward transformation, the purging of a defiled conscience.
What looks horrendous to many, construed by and through a reprobate mind looks attractive. Someone’s trash really is a treasure. It is a perspective, a worldview, a grid by which someone measures. The chaos in Seattle many call a street festival. The right instinct is trash. Why does someone see it as depraved and others as acceptable? This is the reprobate mind.
The most influential party platform in the United States is built upon killing babies in the mother’s womb, destroying the most fundamental unit of relationship, the family, by eliminating male and female roles, promoting homosexuality, and they are proud about it. Then Paul say in verse 32 that it is not only those who do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
These people and their activities are advocated or defended on social media by a majority of 18 to 30 year olds. They take pleasure in them that do them. They elect them to office. They choose them for congressman, senator, and president. That’s who they want. They reject those who point it out, hate them.
Because of the depraved mind, they can’t find favor in what God does. They don’t want what He wants. They are not for righteousness. The problem is not an external problem. It is an internal one. That’s who they are. Like Jesus said in Matthew 12:35:
A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
Earlier in Matthew 15:18 He then said this:
But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
There is a salvation problem here. It’s possible that someone, like Lot, is vexing his righteous soul, but more likely, someone not saved. He has forsaken the church for the world.
A common reaction in many cases is to mask the pain of conscience. Some of these were trained in a different way by their parents, but they anesthetize it in three ways at least. One, they listen to sensual music that pushes everything out but their own lust. Two, they set up boundaries against those who say something different. They don’t listen to their parents. They push away a church that teaches the truth. This allows them to continue to be misinformed. Then third, they speak evil of dignities, like 2 Peter 2 talks about. They tear everything down that came before them, including the law of God around them. They’re pigs.
Apostates scorched earth the previous generation of righteousness. They’ll find something. Everyone can, but that’s the not the point. The point is like those in Ezekiel 18:2:
What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?
This proverb took root as a philosophy of the day. The fathers ate sour grapes and now the children’s teeth are set on edge. The latter doesn’t follow from the former. The former is just used as propaganda. These were bad people. These were the ones that either built these statues or they allowed them to stay.
The children don’t care about the teeth. They just use them to nullify anything the parents or authorities say. “You ate sour grapes.” The result doesn’t follow, but it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t. This phenomena of apostasy occurs to a certain degree with any generation, but because of technology especially, has multiplied. Most of these don’t study out almost anything from scripture. They don’t have the means or the interest. They’re not looking for the truth. They won’t even be challenged. The point isn’t knowing what scripture says. They can’t stand for almost any kind of debate, which is why they set up boundaries, where they are unaccountable.
The boundaries of children with teeth set on edge are also a psychological barrier with the auspices of self-care. Personal well-being necessitates not being under any kind of analysis. The bent teeth really are in the head, psychological bent teeth of this generation. This is the reprobate mind. They hence redefine love to be toleration, what they call “unconditional love,” as opposed to “transactional.” These are what the Apostle Paul calls “vain philosophies” in Colossians 3, or today, psychobabble. They pervert the gospel, which is transformational, someone turning from these excuses to serve the living God.
Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing to hinder the lust. Without righteous souls as salt and light, nothing was there to stop the downward slide. The United States has reached a new state of existence. Instead of standing up, too many churches are encouraging the depravity with their silence. It’s a tipping point. This portends for a different kind of judgment in the future, maybe very close.
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