Sign of a Dying Culture

One sin always leads to another. This pattern of going deeper into sin can be seen in Romans 1:18-32. When a culture denies the existence of God, worships the environment and exalts human wisdom, either they, or the next generation, will fall into sexual immorality.

They became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another (Rom 1:23-27).

When people persist in worshipping created things, they end up worshipping their bodies and they have no protection from lust. God gives them over to the “desires of their hearts” and they often end up in sexual perversion. This may take more than one generation to work through, but without repentance, it is inevitable.

One reason why homosexuality has become more common in our society is that previous generations stopped believing in a Creator and exchanged the truth about creation for a lie called evolution. Therefore, God has given the current generation of our society over to seduction and homosexuality
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Rather than condemning those who are inflicted, we should see their fate as a warning about the state of our society, and we all share responsibility for that. The Church is the guardian of the gospel, so the greatest responsibility rests with us. Like Sodom, we are a society that enjoys wealth and comfort; and the church has not been much different. Even those who do not accept the prosperity gospel are fairly serious about their comfort. Therefore we should not be surprised that our culture is going down the same path as Sodom.

Instead of being stirred up about homosexual behaviour, we should be seeking God to find out how we turn our nation round. God’s invisible qualities, which have been visible in creation since the beginning of time, should be even more evident in the church. If society could see them clearly, we might now be on a path to blessing. Maybe we should be more agitated about the state of the church and God’s witness in the world.