In this episode, Scott walks listeners through the opening chapter of Romans, offering insights into the character and nature of God. He reminds us about the inherent righteousness and justice at the foundation of God's throne, and how this contrasts with human unrighteousness. By dissecting the text, Scott explores the reasons behind the current state of the world, linking them to humanity’s tendency to suppress the truth and engage in sin. He emphasizes that, despite mankind's willful rejection and habitual sins, God's standards remain unchanged.

Scott also tackles the controversial subject of sexual immorality, explicitly focusing on unnatural relations as an example of humanity's descent into deeper sin. He explains how God's wrath manifests as a consequence of human willful rebellion and how this is part of a larger pattern of degradation that begins with idolatry and ends in a plethora of sinful behaviors. Throughout the discussion, Scott underscores the importance of recognizing these truths to understand both human nature and God's justice.

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Key Topics Discussed:

• God's righteousness and justice
• Revelation and suppression of the truth
• Wrath as divine justice
• Human idolatry and willful rebellion
• Concept of judicial hardening
• Consequences of impurity and dishonoring the body
• Explanation of sexual immorality in Romans
• Downward spiral of sin and rebellion
• Transformation and renewal of the mind

Hi. If you're looking for greater hope, assurance, and confidence through the shifting sands of life, then join me on today's episode as we dig deep into the bible to discover rock solid truth for life and living from the God of the bible. I'm your host, Scott Keffer. Hi, and welcome to today's episode. As always, for a deeper experience, you can go to the show notes and download the blank insight sheet. Fill in the blanks along with the group. Depending on how you're listening to this, there'll be a link to the episode website at beholdingbibletruth.com, and a sheet with the answers is included as well. Enjoy today's episode.

Well, I think it was in 2008 that, with great intrepidation, I stepped into doing the book of Romans, and I kinda resisted it for a while. And here 16 years later. We're walking that road again. I'm guessing that since it took a 102 weeks to get through Matthew, that I'll be doing this until the Lord calls me home. We'll see how how far I get between now and then. I have no idea, but we are, we're still in chapter 1, and I'm trusting his favor as we do that. So if you'd stand with me and let's read the word of God out of reverence for him. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the June 1st and also to the Greek.

For in it, the righteousness of god is revealed. Okay. For the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Therefore, god gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. They exchanged the truth of god for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than creator who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, god gave them over to degrading passions for their women exchange the natural function for that which is unnatural. And in the same way, also, the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons to do penalty of their error.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, their gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give party approval to those who practice them. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, that sounds cheery. One thing about the word of God is it doesn't mince. Right? No. It doesn't mince the truth.

It tells the truth. Sometimes we wanna hear it. Sometimes we don't. But forever, everyone's trying to explain why are things the way that they are. Why are things the way that they are, and who's responsible for that? So we're gonna delve in here and see and remind ourselves of literally the other core, the other foundation of what we're looking at here, and that is the very character nature of God. Because we tend to start here what's happening in the world, what's happening in history, what's happening in my life, what's happening around me, what's happening in the US, what's happening? So it reminds us to go to the core and start with a very character and nature of God. And scripture is clear that his foundation, the foundation of his throne, his settled, right, core is righteousness and justice. Righteousness and justice is holiness.

At the core of that is righteousness and justice. And these are the foundation of his throne. What I mean, everything else is built upon that, righteousness and justice. And in this section, it's saying that that it's required that the cover be taken off, if you will. The cover be taken off, which is literally the Greek word for God has revealed. God has revealed. He's taken the cover off. He's brought to recognition to us to understand.

Some things god is going to demonstrate. God demonstrates his own love toward us. He demonstrates it. Other things he reveals. Some are mysteries in the past not known, and now they are revealed. But god's saying, god has taken the cover off, and he's revealing these things to us. They're becoming uncovered. They are brought to light because we tend to do what we always do is and that is take our our world, our experience, and we use that to test everything.

And the challenge with that, when we were building our house, we had, a builder friend come over as they were building it and bring his laser level. The laser level was designed so that the foundation we're assured the foundation was level. If the foundation isn't level, everything else gets built upon it. And one thing, how many have been through the truth project? Truth project. So in the truth project, they remind us that there are suppositions that are often not spoken, and their foundations for building beliefs and conclusions. And if we don't understand what are the suppositions that the belief or the conclusion is built upon, we can come to faulty beliefs and faulty conclusions. And we tend to build our work, our, belief, and our philosophies based upon our world, our experience, our past. Right? Who we are, all the things that kind of give us a framework to be able to test things.

And the lawyer is saying that there's there you need to think about where is your laser level. Is it this, your world, your experience, your past, your beliefs, or is it god. And I've used this all the time. Right? Here's the algorithmic scale. God says there's a scale that I gave you, a ruler that I made physical so that you could understand the difference between how I think and how you think. For my ways are not your ways and and my thoughts are not your thoughts. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. So these are your thoughts.

These are your ways. God says, these are his ways and his thoughts. And this is the scale. This is the ruler that I made. The ruler is the universe. Right? The universe is, Chris 90,000,000,000 light years? 90,000,000,000 light years. Get in the car, drive 60 miles an hour for 4.2 months, Never stop for gas. Never stop to go to the bathroom.

Right? Sixty miles an hour, 4.2 months. That's how far a light travels in one second. So think about 60 seconds. That's a minute. 60 minutes. That's an hour. 24 hours in a day. 365 days in a year for 90,000,000,000 years.

That's the difference between god's ways and god's thoughts and mind. So we have to remember that when we encounter god and his ways, they don't make sense, do they? So he's saying here, we have to get clear. He is revealing. He's revealing his righteousness and justice, and he's revealing his wrath, which is his justice. Regret? When you think about wrath, because we tend to think about what is that? It's really his justice. So he says he's revealing his righteousness where? In the underline the gospel. He reveals his righteousness. The gospel reveals the righteousness of God.

You think about it as the good news, but he's saying, it is revealing the righteousness of god from faith to faith. So we look at it and we see his righteousness, his equity, his justice, his justification, and we see that he has a justifiable abhorrence. He has a a violent passion against sin, which is rebellion and rejection. Rebellion and rejection. So it's wrath. He reveals his wrath in creation and conscience. Right? He says in that in that previous passage, what is known about god is very clear. Therefore, all are without excuse.

He's made it known in our conscience. He's made it known in in creation. So he said he's revealing all of this because we tend to wanna know the answer. Why are things the way that they are? Why are things the way? So he's reminding us of the cause. What's the cause of the way that the world is? He says it's the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Well, what does that look like? They do something. What do they do? They suppress the truth. In other words, they hold it down.

And the Greek verb form is a continuous ongoing action. They are in active mode to suppress the truth. So when you think about it, we understand that people are lost in darkness. Right? They're lost. They're held captive by the evil one, but the scripture is making it really clear that that darkness, right, that darkness is as a result of a willful suppression. Verbs are very informative about things. When you look at the verb, right, the verb is suppressed, hold it down. Therefore, not want it to be known.

It says that men do this in ungodliness and unrighteousness. But growing up, I was a Star Trek fan, and Star Trek was built upon the fact if enough time went by, we would get it right. That was really the core behind it. Ron Barry believed that if enough time went by, men would finally get it right. And if we got out in space, maybe we'd find the answer. Well, scripture would tell us that ain't so. So it says, even though they know god, they know god, but they refuse. They refuse.

Right? What's it say? Even though they knew god, they they don't honor. That'd be them and that'd be us. That'd be all of us. They did not honor god or give him thanks. That means who is responsible? Raise your hand. Everyone who's here, it says we all. That's right. We are responsible.

We not only refuse to acknowledge god. We not only do not honor him or give him thanks. We don't honor him as god. We who exchange the truth. Let's see our active verbs. We suppress. We exchange. What does it mean to exchange? Yeah.

Trade it. I get something for Christmas. I don't like it. I take it back and I exchange it for something else. I don't want what you gave me. And in this case is what? Truth. So I got truth, and it says men don't want truth. They take it and exchange it for yeah.

And literally, the Greek is the lie. It's translated a lie, but literally, the Greek is the lie. Yeah. Well, honey exchange truth for the lie. Can be God. That's the lie, isn't it? You can be God. You can be God. You don't need to serve god, honor god, give god thanks.

You can be god. I kinda like that. Wanna be master of my own ship. I wanna be the the commander of my own destiny. So the cause is the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, all men who suppress the truth. Again, they're not gender specific, but all. All. And who who refuse.

Right? Do not honor or give him thanks and no exchange the truth for a lie. And the what does that look like? We worship and serve the created things rather than the creator. Created things rather than the creator. So what's the result? What is the result? But before we go to the result, because we will get stuck in the result, we have to remind ourself of the cause. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This is the law of physics. Right? But understand the cause. The cause is men and their ungodliness and unrighteousness who suppress the truth, refuse to acknowledge god, exchange the truth for a lie.

So the scripture says, therefore, God gave them over. Therefore, that's the word. Therefore. Right? Therefore, pulling, going back. What is it? There for? It goes back. It pulls from this. Right? The cause of God giving them over is this. So God's act of giving them over is a form of judicial hardening.

In Isaiah, where they take and make idols, the Lord says, don't you get it? You take a tree, You take half of it. You bake bread. You make a fire and bake bread. You take half of it. You make an idol and you bow down and worship it. And he says, don't you get it? Don't don't you can't even see the lie. And then it says he smears over their eyes so they can't see it. So why can't they see it? They chanced it.

Because they smeared over his eyes and but what was the initial cause? They made idols out of it. They rejected God and made idols, and they couldn't see it. The combination of the 2, right, would be smeared because you look at that and say, why would God smear over their eyes? That doesn't seem fair. That doesn't seem right. But all that God gave, all the opportunity God gave them, they willfully rejected. They willfully rebelled. And the result is there is a hardening and a smearing over of the eyes, which can be called a judicial hardening. The consequence for for active rebellion and active rejection is a judicial hardening because we're gonna say that doesn't seem right that god would smear over their eyes.

So it's also explained in many ways because we're down here and we say, I gotta explain his ways and his thoughts. So we can say it's a judicial hardening. Some would say judicial abandonment. In other words, god just, you don't want me? I just step back. Right? So it's a willful rebellion and rejection. Understand willful rejection and rebellion. So you can explain to this. God steps back and says, okay.

You wanna you wanna on your own? That's fine. It's also been called passive wrath. Right? The same in other words, here's natural consequence. You wanna follow sin. Right? The wages of sin is death, but that not just just spiritual death, but there are there are practical natural consequences if you seek to live without me and seek to live in rebellion to me. So his passive wrath. Because the problem here is what do I do with the sovereign rain tea of God? How do I explain the sovereign rain tea of God? Right? This is also how to explain his reign over evil. How do I explain his reign over evil men? How do I write all of that? So these are words we use trying to come to grips with the fact that god is sovereign over evil yet not evil himself.

God is sovereign over evil and its consequences without being sinful. Everybody say that? So we use different phrases. Divine restraint withdrawn would be somehow how some describe this. Some would call this redemptive judgment. God's saying, okay. Just like I let, a child go their way for a time so that they would come to grips with, this is not a good life. Let me turn to God. Does that make sense? Those are our different ways and words, you know, to deal with this issue that God is sovereign over unrighteous, rebellious rejection.

That make sense? And it looks like some combination of they get their way and god does something in the midst of it. Because even if we say, god passively withdraws, god never passively does anything. He's always active in his withdrawal. He's always acting and is not working. Does that make sense? Yeah. Because he's willful in all that he does. And and we say that's his permissive will versus his perfect will. His perfect will is that all would come to a knowledge of him, follow him.

Permissive will is he's allowing evil to be at work. He's allowing the enemy to live for a time. Right? How do we how do we come to grips with that? Well, frankly, it's hard. Well, duh. It's 90,000,000,000 light years away in thinking. Yeah. So it's hard for us to come to grips. So we use different words and phrasing to to how do I deal with God as sovereign over all of this, and yet he's not evil.

That make sense? Not easy. Not easy. But I don't want to nullify this in order to be able to feel comfortable with it. Because what people do is I can't figure this out, so I'm gonna make god like me. I'm gonna make god like Wilford Brimley, you know, the grandfather. You know? It's nice and warm and comfy. Right? So god sovereign reigns. Alright.

Does that make sense? So there's there's there's a spiraling downward that occurs here, spiraling downward. There's man's willful idolatry and rejection of god. That's kind of the beginning. Right? He rejects he, she, all of us. Then there's unnatural sins that are a punishment for the idolatry, and then there's further rejection. Right? So there's there's idolatry. This whole thing is kicked off. Rejection and rebellion.

And then there's further further rejection, then there's more complete and radical depravity of judgment and radical and I'm gonna cross out rejection and replace it with rebellion. Right? So there's rejection and rebellion. So god is at work in judgment to all of this, called his wrath, his judgment. There's further rejection, and then there's radical rebellion. Fortunately, his mercy endures through it all. But he's he's giving us a sense of that's the way this man is. Man is not naturally good. None is the man not man will not naturally find his way and become better.

Therefore, it's very clear that in man's will, god moves in his will and that he gave us over. Notice I say us. As he says in here, he says them because there's a distinction. We've come to a knowledge, but we were in the us category. We were in the them category. If you come to a saving knowledge, you were in the them category. So it's to surrender, to yield up, I would say a judicial act of handing over and delivering up. God's judicial nature as judge of the universe is hard to come to grips with, didn't it? Because we like the loving part, but but it's hard for us to see that justice sits inside love.

They're all integrated. They're all integrated in terms of who he is. The only thing I always say to people is imagine if you were loving but not just. If you were loving but not just, you could twist his arm. You could make an argument that he would operate unjustly based upon, you know, don't you love me enough that, hey. Come on. Right? And that's what happens to human judges. They can be pushed into a corner.

They can be bribed. They because they have some higher ideal than justice. Does that make sense? So all I say is, okay. So take away God's justice and imagine the universe without justice. Scary place. What do you have then? You have human gods, the Greek gods. They were subject to our passions, and they were they were they were broken. And then then what do I get? I get, you know, the avengers.

That's what I get. Superheroes with brokenness. Broken superheroes. That's what I want. Broken people with lots of power. That's a good thing. Right? No justice. That's a super that's our superheroes.

That's who we make them to be. Right? So, therefore, god gave us over. So he gave us over to impurity, a moral uncleanness and corruption. And he says this impurity that he's given us over, rest and reside somewhere. He says it's in the lust, and those lusts are where? Or in our hearts. You mean in my physical heart? It means in my soul. In the core of who I am, there are lusts, and they are impure lusts, and they begin in my heart. How may I have seen their heart? A little open heart surgery.

Jeremiah says the heart is deceitful. It's deceptive. It's wicked. Who can understand it? Right? Who can understand it? I don't want it exposed. You've seen it. And we don't even see all of our own heart, do we? That's because we fool ourself because we fool ourself. And in the world today, you can put up a branded image of yourself. Go to Facebook and Instagram and all of that.

I can put up a branded image. Then life becomes the Christmas letter, you know, where everybody's perfect. Right? Where they're all doing all the right things. Right? So your life you start to believe your own press because nobody puts up their hearts, lust onto the, yeah, magic. So they originate in the heart of man, on the outside, in the inside. And he said, what we see on the outside of those lust are bodies that are dishonored, that are we begin to do those things that dishonor our body. Disgrace our body. Insult our body.

How many have done things that have insulted your body? You had disgraced your body. Yeah. The rest of you didn't understand the question. And or you need to go home and confess your sins. Like, come on. We have all dishonored our body, disgraced our body. Right? We do. We do.

That's why it all makes so much sense. It makes so much sense, doesn't it? Yep. And because you're stuck with, this is so true. This is so true. Unless I've fooled myself enough. Unless I fooled myself enough. And he says, we do it among them, which means there's mutual participation. We hang with people, and we do this together together, which means at least I have popular social proof because we're all dishonoring our bodies together.

That must be okay. Underline for this reason for this reason. In other words, this is another therefore. As a result of the fact that's what they're doing, he's gonna give us over to degrading passions. How many have had degrading passions? How many still struggle with them? Like, come on. Tell the truth. Like, get out. And he's saying that the outcome of this, the way that you'll see it kind of in the the epitome, if you will, of dishonoring.

Right? Dishonoring the body is to do that which is not natural. So it says women exchange their natural function. They exchange the natural function for that which is unnatural. Can you give an example of that? Yes. I will here because in in this because then there's a lot of discussion. Okay. Then what does that mean? This is very important because the next phrase answers it right after that in scripture. It says, in the same way, in the same way, according to this pattern, if you will, what this means here, Anthony.

According to this pattern, men abandoned their natural functions. What did that mean? Men with men. This is a sexual reference. This is homosexuality. This is a homosexuality. Interpretate that as actually, like, also abusing, like, sex between men and women as well. You know? Because it's It can be it unnaturally. Yes.

It can be that too, but it's men with men. So he's clearly defining this is what it means at at the epitome. It's homosexuality among men and in the same way women. Right? So if this is hard it's really hard today because likely in your family, very close to you, there's homosexuality because it's everywhere. Christian, not Christian, it just doesn't matter. And we have to come to grips so that these are nice people. These are people I'm related to. These are people I care about.

Right? And sin is sin. Sin is sin. And so is adultery and so is lying and so is gossiping, so is all the other sins. So, you know, we've come to grips okay. So how do I deal with that? That's different. How do I deal with that? That's different. What I don't do is call this natural because it just says in here it's unnatural. So the very first thing is that's what I start with.

I may get very confused on how do I deal with it. What do I do with it? How do I how do I, you know, be around it but not affirm it and all that other stuff? How many have dealt with that? We all have. Right? Because it's very close to us. So I don't that but that's different than we have to start to say, this is natural for unnatural. Natural front end. Does that make sense? Hard to do. Lots of people wanna explain this part away. Right? That's not what it means, but it clearly men with men.

This is homosexual, alright, sexual behavior. Right? And it can mean other things, but it clearly means men with men the same way women with women. So to begin to begin with is to call it unnatural. Well, how we deal with it are different. So it says, in light of that, they still did not see fit to acknowledge god any longer. So what do you see? There's a spiraling downward effect. Starting with idolatry, rejection, and rebellion. God gives them over.

So then we see, how did god respond? God gave them over because god gave them over to these things. Then there's more rejection. Right? Further rejection. And there's more god gave them over. So there's a spiraling downward. So they said, still. Hey. Still.

Still. Do you remember? You know, consequence for my rebellion, and I thought, hey. I'll just further rebel. Remember in high school, the principal in my face. Like, you're not telling me what to do. You're like, you're not telling me what to do. In Like, the more you tell me what to do, the more I'm not gonna do it. You think you've seen rejection now? I'm gonna show you even more.

You're not telling me what to do. I get this. I lived it. So he says, now God's giving them over to a depraved mind. Notice it began in the heart, went out to the body, now it's in the mind to a depraved mind. And they would do improper things. He says all kinds of improper things. Not just some, all kinds.

Now we have, right, there the specifically, the body, this is what it looks like in sexual relations. But, hey, by the way, wickedness, greed, evil, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, lovers of self, haters. Right? Lovers of money. Right? Haters of parents. Right? He just now he goes over to say, this is what it looks like. There's a whole bucket of this. There's a whole bucket of this. And in fact, he says they are filled with all unrighteousness.

Not just a little, they are filled. And as a result, without understanding untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful, then we get increased radical rebellion. And, oh, by the way, it does says, not only am I heartily rebelling, but I'm giving approval to you. Like, I wanna bring around me the other rebels, and let's rebel together, and let's bring hearty approval. Great job. Great job. Great job. Alright? Party approval.

And the Lord says, let's bring this into perspective. The holiness of God reminds us that at its tip down to its very core, at its tip down to its very core, that the consequence for this is what? The wages of sin is death. That the consequence for this rebellion, idolatry rejection, the wages of sin, for god who is just and righteous, the consequence for rebellion and rejection is death. Because we would get stuck in the homosexual or not, but it's all of this. Wickedness, greed, evil, envy, murder, strife, that the the consequence for all of this is death. Consequence for rejecting God is death. Well, that's not good news. Yes.

It is. If there were nothing to save us from, there's no good news in salvation. Right, Jack? No need for savior. No need for savior. Right? No need for savior. Unless he's an upgrade of life, oh, maybe he's gonna make life a little better. But unless we need saving, right, there is no good news. There is no there is no good news gospel without the bad news, which is really good news.

So so I just thought, okay. So Romans is not an easy book to walk through. Heavy duty, isn't it? Because it's heavy duty because it speaks about me. And heavy duty because it speaks about the world around us. Right? It gives us perspective on what's happening, right, which is hard. So the very first thing I love in Colossians, he says joyously, underline this, giving thanks. I'm joyously giving thanks. Who am I giving thanks to? Father.

The father. Right? The father. Why? I guess. He's qualified. Those who are worthy of death, what's he qualified as for? Oh, an inheritance. I deserve death. I get an inheritance. Nobody wakes up every day and says, that's not fair.

This isn't right. We looked and we say the world, what's happening, what I'm dealing with, my trials, my struggle, all of these are not fair. What are you doing, god? Nobody makes something say, what are you doing, god in Christ? That just this doesn't make any sense. You're taking rebellious rejectors who are idolaters, and you're giving them an inheritance with the saints of light sharing with your son in sonship. You're giving me such that's not fair. Let's hold God to account. We won't do that, do we? We what? We don't with the fairness in life, like, what I'm dealing with, but he reminds us joyously giving thanks. So there's a humility along with the gratitude in there.

Like, who am I that I was rescued? Because I'd be one of them. I was an idolater. I was an active idolater, actively rejecting, actively rebelling, and he worked actively to rescue me. That's good news, isn't it? It's not good news. It's great news. Then he reminds us, no longer walk as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind being darkened. So we need to be transformed from a depraved mind. He said, that's where we came from.

We were rescued from a depraved mind. So we need to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. When is that done? When he calls us home, that's when we're done. In the meantime, we need to continue to be renewed because, therefore, if he says walk no longer as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, he means it will be natural for you having been called out of darkness to still walk in the principles and philosophies that you were steeped in or to slide back into the principles or philosophies. And he says that in in in Colossians. Right? See to it that no one takes you captive through the philosophy and empty deception. So guard against worldly philosophies and principles. Where you can slide back in Okay.

To the world. Then he says, remember that the world are actively rejecting and rebelling in idolatry against God. The world system, there's a world system. Then he also says the lord's bond servant must not be quarrelsome, but be able to teach patient when wrong with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition. If perhaps, God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth and they come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil having been held captive by him to do his will. So part of the consequence of this swirling downward is we're under the influence. We're held captive by Satan himself, the world system. Right? We're held captive.

So so it says stand for God's truth, but with compassion. You need that compassion. That'd be me. You know, when when I talk to somebody who's who who actively is in opposition, you wanna just sometimes, you know, you want the light to go off. Other times, you wanna Yeah. Turn the light out. Right? So he's saying, with humility, remember remember, God turns the light on. So we stand for God's truth with compassion.

Brethren, Paul said, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them for in other words, for his Jewish by birth, his Jewish by birth. Right? For them is for their Salvation. Salvation. So pray pray that God would convict and convince. It's my prayer. God would convict and convince those who are lost. Pray for my brother that God would convict and convince because I wanna punch him out. Right? He also says, pray for workers out there in the world.

The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers. Send out workers. The other way, not only pray, but I'm active in whatever ministry God has given me. The ministry and the calling that he's given me, I'm active in that. Be a worker. Not only pray for workers, but be a worker. Be a worker.

Working your gift, working the platform that God has given you. And he says, don't be ashamed of the gospel because the world is gonna reject the gospel, are they not? Why? I don't I don't wanna be told that. The problem is you. I mean, that's the answer. Right? Your active rejection of rebellion of God, which leads to a life of idolatry. Because I want to be God. What's the you can be I wanna be God. I still wanna be God.

I still struggle with it. I don't want somebody to tell me that. Right? Holy smokes. Share the gospel when appropriate. It is the power of God for salvation. There's power. And by the way, to a Jew and also to a Greek, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

To a Jew or to a Greek. Share the gospel when appropriate means know how to. And then second Timothy, it says, realize this, that in the last days, things will get better. The world will become a better place. In the last days, a change in administration will make things easy. In the last days Difficult. Difficult. By the way, that word means dangerous and fierce.

Dangerous and fierce times will come. No. Well, thanks for that good news there, Keffer. Well, look out the window. Right? Look around us. That's what we're in. People are surprised. It's not gonna get better.

It may get it's gonna go like this, you know, in terms of but what I mean is make it more comfortable for me, god. That's what I mean. I don't care about the difficult stuff. Just make my life more comfortable. Right? But he says, expect difficult, dangerous, and fierce types. People will be lovers of self and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Is that going on? And if you look in second Timothy, that list is the same list he's saying back here in Romans, this is the consequence. Rebellion.

This is the downward spiral. Radical, right, rejection and rebellion. Radical rebellion. So expect difficult, dangerous, dangerous. But he said, Jesus said, what? Don't worry. I've overcome the world. I've overcome the world system. I've overcome the world system.

Alright. So write down an insight or an application on what we just talked about. Write down an insight or an application from what we just talked about. It's a it's it's more than a marathon. 2 of the guys, in our coaching group, one of the guys is an Ironman. An Ironman, you'd swim 2 and a half miles, you bike 112, and then you run a marathon at the end on purpose altogether. One of the other guys who's £280 became an Ironman. Now at 180, 1 nineties racing and as a result of that, it it's it's fun to see.

But that's, you know, that's a picture of and they talk about the struggle it takes to go from here to go from there. And the physical is kind of important, but it it's a metaphor for what we're doing. That that kind of race is what the Christian life is, isn't it? The sanctification. It's not just a marathon. It's like an Ironman. You gotta swim. You gotta bike. You gotta right? Do all of that.

And we're overweight. And, you know, I mean, it's a picture of all and we gotta deal with this and that. Right? So, yes, it's a we're on a we're on a journey that that consummates with the completion of all of this. We become like him. All the sin will be gone. We will be like him. We will be sons of the most high, Right? To which he will look in eternity and say, this is my son in whom I am well pleased for eternity. Is that good news? No.

That's great. That's great. May the god who qualify you to share in the inheritance of the saints of light. May he bless you. May he keep you. May he cause his face to shine upon you. May he lift up his countenance, and grant you his shalom deep in your soul. And may the grace of the lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you now until he comes again.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thanks for listening. I hope you have greater hope, assurance, and confidence in your life and a deeper trust in the God of the bible and his son, Jesus Christ. Until next time, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, and may the lord lift up his countenance on you and give you his peace, his shalom in your soul and in your life.

Until next time, may god bless you and keep you.