Rescued From Moral Self-Deception Part 1

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Reading the book of Romans is like shining a light into a dark closet.

In its pages, we see ourselves as we really are. We find that apart from God's grace, we're capable of awful things. Today, we probe the darkness of the human heart and the amazing light God sheds into those hearts that come to believe in Jesus. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, don't most people feel they're at least as good as the next guy?

Yes, Dave, they do. And the next guy is going to hell unless he believes in Jesus Christ. We as humans are so easily deceived.

And you know, there's no area in which we are as easily deceived as when it comes to sexuality. In the last chapter of my new book entitled We Will Not Be Silenced, it is entitled Strengthen What Remains. It's the words of Jesus to the church in Sardis. Could I tell you this very quickly? I've been to Sardis and there are churches that are right next to pagan temples.

Now, let me ask you a question. How should we interpret that? We could say, oh, you know, there was a pagan temple there and the church wanted to be where the darkness was the darkest. But there's another way to interpret it. And I think that's the way we should interpret it.

The church felt comfortable next to the pagan temples. So Jesus writes this letter and he says to them, strengthen what remains. And in my book I suggest what Jesus might say to us if he were to write us a letter, because at the end of the day, it's the church of Jesus Christ that is standing against the darkness. And there's no better way to stand against that darkness than to understand and appreciate the gospel, which is of course this series of messages. Now, for a gift of any amount, this book can be yours, here's what you do.

You go to rtwoffer.com, rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. And now let us open our Bibles, our minds and our hearts to once again hear the wonder of the gospel. Others went into the Twin Towers. Some of them I'm sure knew that they would never come out alive again. Some of them, God bless them, they rescued others and they themselves died. Others perhaps went in to rescue others and then later on they died, even though perhaps they couldn't rescue anyone, but they tried.

And today we honor all of them and it is true that greater love has no man than this, but that a man lay down his life for his friends. Jesus came to us on a rescue mission. Right away from the beginning, the angels said he shall save his people from their sins. And the fire that he came to save us from is much greater than even the fire in the Twin Towers, because the Bible says that our God is a consuming fire and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. One of the reasons that we really don't appreciate the grace of God and think that it's nice, but not absolutely necessary, is that we have no conception as to what it is that Jesus actually came to save us from.

Blinded by sin to our own faults and our own inadequacies and failures. Forgetting the holiness of God, we don't understand the gospel and appreciate it and how far-reaching Jesus Christ's coming really was. In order to help us understand this, the apostle wrote the book of Romans and I invite you to turn to chapter 1 today.

In chapter 1 of the book of Romans, and this is a series in the book of Romans about how God came on a rescue mission, and you'll notice that our first message on this series went to verse 17 and now verse 18 of chapter 1. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. First of all, we're introduced to the wrath of God. We think to ourselves that because God is love, somehow love cancels wrath. No, actually love and wrath exist in God perfectly, but both of them exist. And it is impossible for me today to over-exaggerate God's fierce anger and hatred of sin, and yes of sinners too. After all, it is the sinners whom he punishes. And we have lost sight of that in modern evangelicalism, thinking that God is only love, forgetting the fact that he is a God of wrath.

Just read the Old Testament. But notice that the text says, and I think it's there in verse 24, is it not? The text says that they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Actually, I should say that's verse 18.

I'm ahead of myself. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The Greek word really does mean suppress. It would be like taking a spring and squishing it together and then knowing that you have to hold it there because the moment you let go, it's going to go back to its original shape.

Maybe another illustration would help. We've all taken a garden hose and then we've used our thumb to try to hold back the water and to be against the compression of the water. And sometimes a little bit of it squiggles out here, and then there's a stream of it there. But we know this, that the moment we let go, the stream of water will flow. What Paul is saying is that, as verified in other scriptures, that we are born into this world as sinners and a great deal of our psychic energy is going to be spent managing our sin. A great deal of it is going to be spent by suppressing what we intuitively know to be true. And we are going to rationalize our guilt. We are going to cover our guilt. And we are going to take care of our guilt primarily by living in darkness, in the secrecy of our own hearts and in our own activities. And this is what man now is going to do, as he takes the truth and he suppresses it at every single opportunity in the interest of self-justification.

You say, well, what truth does he suppress? Well, let's read the text, and let's go through this passage. He says, verse 20, for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and godhood and these divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. What Paul is going to say this is that when we were created by God, we were created with an innate knowledge of God. We know intuitively that there is a divine law within us called the conscience, and that has come to us from God. And Paul will expand upon this in the second chapter. But also he's saying that when we look at the heavens, we should know his eternal power, his eternal authority should be recognized by us, whether we have a Bible or not, whether we know the Ten Commandments or not.

There is within every single person a moral law so that we are without excuse. And what Paul is going to explain in this chapter is how we take that truth and we suppress it and we rebel against God to become our own God. And in this way, we actually are living in such a way that we are in deep, deep self-deception, a self-deception that we invite into our lives. We want to be deceived. We grasp at any straw to be deceived because we want to justify the way in which we want to live, and we don't want to deal with the God of wrath and anger against sin. That's true of all of us. We don't want to deal with him.

Now let's see how things develop here. It says they are without excuse, verse 21 I believe it is, so that although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but became futile in their thinking. 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, birds and animals, and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them up to do the lust of their own hearts, their impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. In this passage today, I'm going to outline three exchanges that are made by human beings in order to suppress the truth and willingly accept deception.

That's where we're going. The first exchange is found there right in verse 24. They exchange the truth of God for a lie.

What happens is simply this. When Paul talks about the fact that they prefer idolatry, making gods in accordance with animals and everything else, what was the attraction in idolatry in the Old Testament? Why is it that when you read Jeremiah and the prophets, constantly the people were going after pagan gods? What was the big deal about these pagan gods? I didn't know what the answer was until I heard a lecture on a Hebrew scholar, an Old Testament scholar who gave a lecture on it and pointed out that the great attraction was sexual license.

You could do whatever you wish. Do you know the God of Israel? He's got these commandments. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. Hey, the pagan gods said, you can do it all. And they said, we want these pagan gods. So from now on, what man is going to try to do is to shut out the true gods, suppress the truth, and he is going to ultimately end up, it turns out, to worship himself. My desires are now going to become my God.

Whatever I want to do is going to become my God, and I'm going to do it in my way and in my time. And so what you have in this text is they substitute the creature for the creator, and they accept idolatry. But also, there's going to be rebellion against the creator. Paul indicates this when he says God turned them over and then he says they accepted and worshiped the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. Paul couldn't help but give a doxology about God's creation right there. And in order to reject this creation, in our day, it's done in a couple of ways. One way is through atheistic evolution, the very absurd notion that nothing times nobody equals everything in all of its complexity. And I've read Dawkins, the great atheist. It's absurd that you can explain human life by random molecules bouncing around on their own producing all of the complexity that we see with no intelligence guiding the way.

It's impossible. But they would rather do that. They turn the truth of the creator, and they begin to worship creation, and they turn against the creator. And then, of course, there are other ways that this is also done that we will point out in a moment. What's going on here in the text? What is Paul saying? That every one of us are born with this strong desire to replace the true God with our own desires and to come up with a God who always agrees with us. No matter what we want to do, the God approves it. Even if we think of God beyond the world, he's the kind of God who understands us, he approves of everything that we are doing, and we never are going to be judged by him. And if we do mess up, I mean to forgive us and to gloss over our sin, that's his job. And so what we do is we exchange one God for another. And I need to tell you today that the God that America is worshiping is the God of the human body.

How you look, who you are in terms not of your character, but your appearance. And of course, this is all related to sexuality as well. So that's the first exchange that is made in the text, and then there's a second change, and that's coming up now in verse 26. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.

Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. Now that we've done away with God, and now that we've even done away with natural law, we can do whatever we want. And as a result of that, you have in today's society actually the incredible quest for same-sex marriage. Now what I want to say in the next few moments, I'm not referring to those of you who struggle with same-sex attraction, but you know that an intimate relationship with someone of the same sex, you understand that that is a sinful relationship. I speak with a great deal of compassion, and let me explain to you why. Many years ago, I was asked to speak to Exodus International, which is a ministry that you can go online and see, and it helps people coming out of same-sex attractions. And it ministers to them and shows them a pathway of hope. And I was the speaker, about 700 people were present.

Turns out that at breakfast, I found myself seated with a group of young women, perhaps five or six, and as we were eating together, I said to them, if you would feel comfortable, would you share with me, how did you get into this lifestyle? And I need to tell you that it was enough to make anyone weep. I mean, there was brokenness, it was molestation by an uncle, a father, it was being misused by men. They were horrible stories of brokenness. And if you talk to the men who were present, they would give you a similar story of how they were inducted into it and how they were misused and stuff. And I began to see that a lot of what we see today in modern sexuality grows out of a tremendous amount of brokenness within people's lives.

So I speak compassionately, but I hope I shall also speak clearly. And now I'm talking about the wider homosexual agenda and same-sex marriage. And what you discover today is that that movement is strongly opposed to natural law. I remember speaking to someone who was a part of the movement, and I said, you know, even if you don't have a Bible, even if you don't believe that the Bible is God's word, I mean, does not nature itself teach you that this is wrong, this is not the way it's to be, and he spoke vehemently against natural law? Because, you see, the Bible says that they suppress the truth, and so there has to be a lid put on this volcano somehow, and that lid needs to stay. You know, never before in history until the rise of modern Europe did you have homosexuals wanting to be married and to be recognized as married. Of course, throughout all of history, there's been homosexuality, but this is the first time there's been a clamor for the status that is equal or even above a heterosexual relationship.

And so that is what we are encountering today, and I simply say this, that there is a tsunami that is coming toward the church in this area, and we have only seen a tip of that tsunami, and we had better be ready for it. Let me ask you a question. How is the truth suppressed? How do you justify it? How do you make right something which you intuitively know is wrong?

A couple of ways. First of all, you have an emphasis of saying, I was born that way. I have the gay gene. I remember talking to someone who was a kleptomaniac, and he stole even when he knew he would be caught, and then he told me, he said, I have a kleptomaniac gene. He said, I stole even when I was a boy.

He said, stealing is just a part of who I am. So you have a kleptomaniac gene. You have a pedophile gene. You have an alcoholic gene. You know what the problem with all of us is?

Bad news, but there's good news at the end of the rainbow. Bad news, we all have the sin gene, and that's our problem, right? And sin, yeah.

All sinners clap at this particular point, all right? We have the sin gene, and sin bubbles up in all kinds of different ways. In the life of one person, it becomes this addiction.

In the life of another, it's that addiction, and in the life of that, it's somebody else. Nowhere in the Bible do we find that God excuses us because we have the wrong genes, and the fact is that we are born sinners. Yes, we have the sin gene. So there are other ways that this is, of course, enforced, and that is legally. I think, for example, of parents in a school in California, this made headlines. They did not want their school children, especially in the very early days, to be indoctrinated into homosexuality, but the law is that you must, and if not, you will be penalized. So they don't even want the parents to have authority over their own children in this area.

This is the way it must be. Whenever same-sex marriage is instituted in whatever state, there's immediately lawsuits against people who are photographers for weddings, because if you are an independent agency even, you have your own photographic studio. If it's a same-sex marriage and you say no, there's a lawsuit. Did you hear the story on the news about two women who were in a committed relationship, and one of them, through a procedure, became pregnant and gave birth to a child? And then this committed relationship broke up, and the woman, who was the natural mother, became a Christian. And she became a Christian, and then there was a dispute between the two regarding parental rights. And as a result of this dispute, the judge ended up giving this child to the woman who wasn't the natural mother, not because the natural mother, was she an abuser? No. Was she mistreating the child? No. But the reason was because anyone who believes the Bible and is going to be brought up in a home where same-sex relationships are not accepted is really ultimately an unfit parent.

Expect more lawsuits along the same lines. And then, of course, without going into detail, and I discuss this more in detail in the little booklet I wrote entitled The Truth About Same-Sex Marriage, but one of the great mantras today is you're a hater. You don't agree with us? How can you be so filled with hate? So the alternative that we are given is you either buy into this, or where is all this hate coming from?

One day I was giving a lecture at a university, and I was setting things up before the lecture because I wanted to put my outline on a screen. And a college student comes up to me and says, do you believe that Christ is the only way to God? I said, yeah. I said, that's what I'm going to be speaking about here. He said, how can you be filled with so much hate? Why are you spreading so much hate? So folks, remember this. You oppose it.

You are a hater. If you ask the question as to why the same-sex marriage agenda has made so much progress in the United States, that's a longer issue also. It has to do with a concerted effort of propaganda. But one of the points is demonize anybody who disagrees with you and make them look so terrible that no one will be willing to be like them. And that's what's happening in society today. And you know, my friend, this is Pastor Lutzer, and in my new book entitled We Will Not Be Silenced, I refer to that exactly.

As a matter of fact, the radicals quote Hitler, and they use him as an example of propaganda because Hitler said that with the right use of propaganda, you can make heaven appear like hell and hell like heaven. Now in the book also, the last chapter is entitled Strengthen What Remains. It's based on the words of Jesus Christ to the church in Sardis. And in that chapter, I talk about what I think Jesus might say to us.

And indeed, it has to do with our submission to our culture's view on sexuality. But also instead of the gospel, what we are finding today is a false understanding of what is known as social justice. And then I think Jesus would talk to us about our relationship with the world because many no longer see the world as an enemy. For a gift of any amount, this book can be yours. It's entitled We Will Not Be Silenced, Responding Courageously to Our Culture's Assault on Christianity. My heart in the book is for the church. It's for us. How do we respond?

For a gift of any amount, it can be yours. Here's what you do. Go to RTWOffer.com. That's RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. I want to take a moment and thank the many of you who pray for us. At the end of the day, we need your prayers. We need your support. We need to stand together.

RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 14. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Paul teaches that fallen mankind suppresses the truth, darkening their minds and committing moral perversion, all the while thinking that they're enlightened. Next time, more on how badly we need rescuing. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.