Friday, September 5, 2014

Romans 1:28

Copyright Ó 2014 J. Neely
Romans 1:28

28 And [kai] even as [kathos] they did [dokimazo] not [ou] like [dokimazo] to retain [echo] God [theos] in [en] their knowledge [epignosis], God [theos] gave [paradidomi] them [autos] over [paradidomi] to [eis] a reprobate [adokimos] mind [nous], to do [poieo] those things which are [katheko] not [me] convenient [katheko];  KJV-Interlinear

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 
ESV

When the Bible says one, two, three, then the fool will inevitably say, the Bible does not say one, two, three.  Because the fool lacks knowledge, because the fool refuses to learn knowledge, and therefore the fool presumes knowledge that is inaccurate and just plain wrong.

And by rejecting Gods word, which is the doorway through which you have to pass, in order to understand what is and what isn’t, then you become a victim of your own decisions.

Lacking truth, means lacking discernment, means lacking orientation to life, and that all leads to worse and worse decisions and circumstances for yourself.

And when you do this for long enough, then God will in fact give you up to your own bad choices.

One to of the best examples of this is Pharaoh.

When Moses came to him and demanded that the people be let go, Pharaoh refused six times.  In every case, the Bible tells us that it was Pharaoh who hardened his own heart.

As we have learned from our study in Ephesians, the hardening of the heart is a callousing over of the soul.  Do this for long enough and the soul becomes blackened out, so to speak.  Once a soul is blackened out, then light can no longer enter.  What remains is death for the individual.

But in Pharaohs case, the next four plagues ended with God hardening Pharaohs heart.  Pharaoh should have been dead after the sixth plague, but God kept him alive for the remainder of the plagues, just to teach us all a very important lesson.  Continued rejection of truth, leads you into a no mans land that you cannot return from on your own.

God is always there, but for some people, there is a line across which they cannot return.  Not because of Gods decision or action, but because of their own hardness of soul and defiance against truth.

Often times the lies of ones beliefs are more important than the living truth of life. And that is a very sad thing.  It takes a very stubborn attitude to get yourself in to that situation, but then it is all of your own doing, never Gods doing.

If you were ever walking out in the desert, all alone, hungry and thirsty and poor, and then entered into a phenomenal banquet with every imaginable food and beverage, and then walked into a Christmas party with every imaginable gift for you, and then walked into a treasure of enormous wealth, and decided to walk away from it all, then that is the perfect example of the fool. 

A fool finds excuses to reject Gods provision and blessings, so that they will end up with nothing and less, all the while believing that they can do better on their own.

Pursuing a self-appointed arrogance or righteousness of personal standards, is the quintessence of sin and evil.

And that is the real risk that everyone takes when they refuse to obey Gods command to learn Bible doctrine, daily.

The word for convenient, ‘katheko,’ means to reach to or to accomplish.  And it is stated clearly here, that whatever you are doing in order to accomplish your own purpose, is not accomplishable.  You cannot achieve your purpose by means of any worldly means.