Romans 1:19-25
Where Are We?
This is Wednesday and it is time to start a new book of study, but it
will not be the book of Romans. I have wanted to do a study prophecy
on prophecy, but I have been hesitant for many reasons.
1. Prophecy is massive.
2. Prophecy is scattered.
3. Prophecy is deep.
4. Prophecy is not settled or agreed upon.
a. There are things we just cannot know for sure—yet.
b. Prophecy is certain but our interpretations are not.
c. We need to keep our mind and eyes open.
If the Lord will allow me to do so, I would like to jump around in
the Bible to see if we can learn and relearn something dealing with
the future.
I count five main events and a done of stuff that will fall in-
between them.
1. Rapture of the Church
2. Seven years of Tribulation
3. The Coming of Jesus
4. The Millennial Reign
5. Eternity
That is the order I believe the events will come in, but we will
study the Bible together and you make up your own mind.
Right now, let’s just figure out where we are and where we are going.
I will base my perspective on two things: The Bible and what I am
seeing. I will back up in time a little and then move forward just a
little.
I. Stage One - A false foundation was laid.
A. The false foundation that was laid is evolution or that there
is no God.
B. \\#Rom 1:19-21\\ In Paul’s downward spiral, it all started
with the false teaching of creation.
1. I realize this is not a passage often used to teach the
return of Christ, but it is Paul’s explanation of what is
aand will happen to the human race starts there.
2. Read Verses
a. The beginning of man’s spiral into sin is the
teaching that man got here some other way than by
God’s divine creation.
b. Many of us have lived during a major portion of that
time.
(1) On the one hand, this lie has worked its way into
our system and eroded our moral and faith
slowly.
(2) Darwinism has been around for more than 150
years, and evolution existed by other names
before that.
(3) However, has become exclusive in our schools for
the 50 to 60 years.
(4) Look at how far we have come from God and values
in such a short period of time.
(a) The Ten Commandments were on the walls of my
classrooms.
(b) We opened everyday with a Bible verse, a
student lead devotion, a pledge to the
flag, and a prayer.
(c) Today neither the Bible, prayer to Jehovah,
or even a pledge are allowed at school.
c. As Paul said, this was the first step, but because of
it:
(1) …there was a second step \\#22\\,
(2) …and a third in \\#24\\,
(3) …and fourth in \\#26\\,
(4) …and fifth in \\#28\\,
3. It is important to see that this one lie was the start of
the road of the road we are traveling for if it is
accurate in telling us where it started, it will be
accurage in telling us where we are going \\#32\\—a
destruction from the Lord.
II. Stage Two - A Massive Decline
A. The first stage progressed slowly, at least at first.
B. The second stage has speed up our decline.
1. Maybe the downward spiral speed up because of these things
or maybe these things happened because the spiral speed
up.
2. I really don’t know.
3. This is our stage, our present time period.
4. I believe the second stage is a combination of things, and
I don’t know if there is any particular order.
a. A falling away in the church
2Thess 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means:
for that day shall not come, except there come a
falling away first, and that man of sin be
revealed, the son of perdition;
(1) I start with this one because, in this country at
least, I believe it to be one of the major
causes of our downward fall.
(2) No nation was ever more like a Christian nation,
no nation has ever fallen so far,
and so we can judge the effects of this better
in this nation than any other.
(3) Drugs, violence, perversions, and blasphemies are
all the result of our falling away.
b. A rise in false prophets
Matt 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise,
and shall deceive many.
(1) Looking back I see that we have been inundated
with a variety of false prophets.
(a) False prophets are not those who honestly
study the Bible and come to wrong
conclusions.
(b) False prophets are those who misrepresent
the Bible or deny it all together.
(2) Those who deny the Bible or want to change what
the Bible says or to add to the Bible or to take
away from the Bible.
(3) The prosperity preachers are false prophets. (One
cannot get as out of balance with the Bible as
these are and be true to the Book.)
c. Increase in iniquity
Rom 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain
God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a
reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness,
fornication, wickedness, covetousness,
maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate,
deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud,
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient
to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers,
without natural affection, implacable,
unmerciful:
(1) To a single generation, evil and wickedness might
seem to be moving slowly.
(2) A 15 year old could not imagine going to a school
where there was basically no drugs, no teenage
pregnancy, no locks on the doors, no profanity
or sex on the television.
(3) But this isn’t the world from just a few
generations ago.
(a) I am the grandfather of a 15 year old so
that puts me two generation removed.
(b) The number 1 television show was Andy
Griffin.
(c) I think our class had one girl get pregnant
and she just disappeared.
(d) The reason people were sent to school was
for chewing gum and talking in class.
(e) If we went to the principals office, we
usually got paddled.
(f) Every home had guns but there was hardly any
violence.
d. Lack of Love
Rom 1:26 For this cause God gave them up unto
vile affections: for even their women did change
the natural use into that which is against
nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the
natural use of the woman, burned in their lust
one toward another; men with men working that
which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves
that recompense of their error which was meet.
Matt 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound,
the love of many shall wax cold.
(1) Matt 24:12 tells us that as these things
gradually increased, love gradually decreased.
(a) Free sex is love waxed cold. Giving away
for a thrill a gift intended for your life-
long partner is a cold heart.
(b) Abortion/Abandonment is love waxed cold.
(c) Drug abuse is love waxed cold. Few behaviors
are more selfish than getting yourself
addicted.
(d) Violence is love waxed cold. The term that
comes to mind is cold-blooded.
b. By this point, the end-time cycle becomes
unstoppable—save from God.
c. It might take time, but it would come.
III. The third stage - Persecution
A. For our country, although it has always been around,
persecution is still mostly future.
Matt 24:9 Then shall they deliver you up to be
afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be
hated of all nations for my name’s sake.
10 And then shall many be offended, and shall
betray one another, and shall hate one another.
B. I think the writing is on the wall.
C. The true American church will persecuted over preaching the
truth about sin, especially the sexual sins.
D. There may also be some persecution over proclaiming Jesus as
the only Way, but I now think that will be secondary.
IV. The Fourth Stage - Delusion.
Romans 1:11 And for this cause God shall send
them strong delusion, that they should believe
a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed
not the truth, but had pleasure in
unrighteousness.
A. I am torn between listing this as the third stage, part of
the third stage, or the fourth stage.
B. It is obvious that delusion is already present, but I also
believe it is just in its infant stages.
1. If the people have actually elected people like the
Clintons, the Obamas, and the Bidens, then there is no
doubt that delusion is already here..
a. I am not saying that to be poltical.
b. I am saying that because those elections—if honest—
are showing us the state of minds of the American
people.
2. If the majority of people really think homosexuality is
acceptable,
that souls are in the wrong bodies,
that sex change operations on children are acceptabe,
then they are showing us the level of delusion that
is present.
3. For that matter, if people really think the world just
created itself, they are showing us the level of delusion
that is present.
C. But the delusion that Paul meant was…
1. the delusion that a man possessed with the devil will
be thought to be Christ.
2. the delusion that all of the world should be rules
over by this possessed man.
3. the delusion that any who oppose or deny him as Christ
should be hunted and killed.
V Last Stage - The rapture of the church.
1Thess 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God: and the
dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to
meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever
be with the Lord.
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