Eternity Daily Bible Study - No. 504 Series: Romans 1-8 "A Righteousness That Is By Faith" Verses: Romans 1:28-32 Topic: The Reprobate Mind Date: 25th August 2005 {Apologies for the inconsistent delivery of Eternity-DBS but we have been exceedingly busy in other areas of the ministry, prayers appreciated. Also a change, I will just focus on Romans 1-8 so I can build up some momentum in the devotionals. Blessings, John} Romans 1:28-32 HCSB And because they did not think it worthwhile to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them over to a worthless mind to do what is morally wrong. (29) They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, disputes, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, (30) slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, (31) undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. (32) Although they know full well God's just sentence--that those who practice such things deserve to die--they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them. Our inmost being is constructed by God's love and without divine love we are lost. And if we continue to reject God's love and push away even the very knowledge of God, all sorts of evils come to dwell in the inmost vacuum of our souls. Without God we turn inward, into a black hole, which may not seem large at first, but which eventually consumes the entire personality making it ever more dysfunctional. People far from God devour one another. They become predatory and unsafe, treacherous and deceitful, violent and abusive. The concerns of self are uppermost and concern for others is minimal, they are without empathy or understanding of the pain of others. Eventually they become narcissists - totally in love with themselves and treating other people as objects with complete disdain. Who we are in our innermost being is determined by just one thing - our attitude to God and in the light of that, our attitude to others. If we reject the knowledge of God we end up rejecting our own growth as persons. We see this with the most brilliant atheists such as George Bernard Shaw who end up in later life as bitter, acerbic and unlovely. Even a great mind cannot save a person from interior collapse, - if that person rejects God. Here are some last words of atheists: Voltaire, the most influential atheist of Europe in his day, cried out with his dying breath: "I am abandoned by God and man; I shall go to hell! I will give you half of what I am worth, if you will give me six months life." Sir Thomas Scott, chancellor of England: "Until this moment, I thought there was neither God nor hell; now I know and feel that there are both, and I am doomed to perdition by the just judgment of the Almighty!" Sir Francis Newport, the head of an English infidel club to those gathered around his deathbed: "You need not tell me there is no God for I know there is one, and that I am in His presence! You need not tell me there is no hell. I feel myself already slipping. Wretches, cease your idle talk about there being hope for me! I know I am lost forever! Oh, that fire! Oh, the insufferable pangs of hell!" M.F. Rich: "Terrible horrors hang over my soul! I have given my immortality for gold; and its weight sinks me into a hopeless, helpless Hell!" Thomas Paine, the leading atheistic writer in American colonies: "I would give worlds if I had them, that The Age of Reason had never been published. O Lord, help me! Christ, help me! . . No, don't leave; stay with me! Send even a child to stay with me; for I am on the edge of Hell here alone. If ever the Devil had an agent, I have been that one." Thomas Carlyle: "I am as good as without hope; a sad old man gazing into the final chasm." That final chasm is the soul's distance from God and from eternal life. We may be able to function in business without the knowledge of God, but we cannot function as full persons. When such folk are finally faced with themselves and eternity it is awful and empty. The sins of the wicked are simply reflections of the shape their particular inner black hole has chosen to take. One may be selfish, narcissistic, boastful, cultured and vain while another may be violent, coarse and lustful. Wickedness does not do its deeds alone, but rather excuses them and even encourages others in the same excess. "Swingers" form their clubs, drunkards head to bars, thieves form into crime gangs and so on and so forth, each convinced that others should join them in their sin. Yet they are also the first to condemn others - they are often hard, merciless and unloving. Someone once said "Sentimentality is often just a disguise for cruelty, the most vicious Mafia bosses were the ones who wept the most at movies and who sent flowers to their mothers." Entire communities can dwell in darkness without the knowledge of God, and these communities frequently have a mentality that is small-minded, petty and nasty. Such places can continue to reject God and become poverty-stricken and lawless, havens for thieves and outlaws, smugglers and pirates. One such community was the pirate city of Port Royal, Jamaica . Here is what happened to it from: http://nautarch.tamu.edu/portroyal/ Once known as the 'Wickedest City on Earth,' Port Royal on the island of Jamaica was one of the largest towns in the English colonies during the late 17th century. It was a haven for privateers and pirates, such as the famed Sir Henry Morgan, due to its excellent geographic location in the middle of the Caribbean. From Port Royal, these buccaneers preyed upon and plundered the heavily laden treasure fleets departing from the Spanish Main. After 1670, the importance of Port Royal and Jamaica to England was increasingly due to trade in slaves, sugar, and raw materials. It soon became the mercantile center of the Caribbean area, with vast amounts of goods flowing in and out of the port through an expansive trade network. Unfortunately, the glory of Port Royal was short-lived. On the morning of June 7th, 1692, a massive earthquake hit Jamaica. The tremors rocked the sandy peninsula on which the town was built, causing buildings to slide and disappear beneath the sea. An estimated 2000 Port Royalists were killed immediately in the disaster. Many more perished from injuries and disease in the following days. Blessings In Christ, John Edmiston (johned@aibi.ph) __________________________________________________________________ REFER OTHERS: If this devotional is a blessing to you, maybe you have a friend or family member that would like to start receiving this daily bible study. You can forward this to them, and they can use the following link to subscribe. http://www.aibi.ph/eternity/ or they can just send a blank email to: eternity-dbs-subscribe@strategicnetwork.org BLOG: If you missed a day or would like to read the bible studies online you can catch up using the new Eternity Daily Bible Study Blog at: http://aibi.gospelcom.net/eternity/wordpress/ EBOOKS & ARCHIVES : http://www.aibi.ph/eternity/ - includes free ebooks containing each series of Eternity-DBS bible studies. 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