The Wrath of Abandonment (Part 2)

How many of you have heard Victor Wood’s song, “Hahabol-Habol”?

O ang babae pag minamahal
May kursunada’y aayaw-ayaw
Pag panay ang dalaw ay nayayamot
Wag mong dalawin, dadabog-dabog
Wag mong suyuin ay nagmamaktol
Pag iyong iniwan, hahabol-habol

According to Max Lucado in his book “Sacred Romance”, there are three basic desires when it comes to relationship: Desire for adventure, desire for beauty and desire for intimacy.

Desire for adventure

Our desire for adventure is a desire to try something new and something challenging. We want to do something that challenges our limit. When it comes to relationship it is the desire of men to pursue women. That is why, God made men more sexually active than women. We were created to initiate, to lead and pursue women.

On the other hand, the women’s desire for adventure is a desire to be pursued. Women love to be pursued. That’s why the song of Victor Wood, “May kursunada’y aayaw-ayaw.”

Desire for beauty

Men love to see beautiful girls. We often fall through our eyes. Di ba boys? Kon naay sexy moagi, molingi dayon ta. Ladies, if you are with your boyfriend or husband, and kung naay niagi. Og kung nilingi sya, ayaw dayon sikuha. He’s just exercising his desire for beauty. After that, wala na na dayon sa iyang huna-huna. Believe me. The fact that he’s with you is because he loves you. Beauty? pang display ra na sa Mall. So, don’t be insecured with women who dress sexy. The truth is pobre na sila kay nagtipid sa tela.

Some of them, of course, are just exercising their own desire for beauty. Di ba girls? Most of the time, you dress the way you are not to impress the men but because you feel comfortable. It’s your desire for beauty. If men’s desire for beauty is they love to see beautiful women, women’s desire is to look beautiful. It’s normal. It’s natural. It’s God’s design for all of us. And why we desire like this? It’s because we desire intimacy.

Desire for intimacy

The desires to pursue and to be pursued, the desires to see beauty and to be beautiful are all designed by God for intimacy. We want relationship- a close relationship with someone. We want love. That’s how God designed us. And it’s the bottom of it all.

The wrath of God

Now, as we continue our lesson about the Wrath of Abandonment, we will discover that these three basic desires, when distorted are transformed into the lusts of our hearts. And Paul mentioned three lusts of our hearts to which God gave people over to. These are impurity (v.24), dishonorable passions (v. 26) and debased mind (v.28).

We have learned few weeks ago that there is wrath with God. His wrath is real. It’s part of his holy character and an expression of his justice. We can see many verses in the Bible speaking of the wrath of God.

God’s wrath is also righteous because it is intended against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. It is also relevant because we need to know where we are saved from in order to appreciate our salvation. We are saved from, more than anything, the wrath of God. We need to know the disease before we can know the cure; the bad news before the good news.

We also examined that the reason why God revealed his wrath. It’s because of God’s revelation. He revealed Himself through creation and man’s response was rejection. They rejected the obvious reality that God exists. So as retribution God gave over these people to the Wrath of Abandonment.

We also learned that the wrath which was revealed in verse 18 is not the kind of raining fire and brimstone to Sodom and Gomorrah, but the wrath of abandonment. The wrath of abandonment, as we learned, is God’s giving people over to the lusts or evil desires of their hearts. It is simply a distortion of our three basic desires: the desire for knowledge and adventure, the desire for beauty and the desire for good and pleasant things.

God created human beings with three basic desires and they are not sin in themselves. They are good. They are natural. They are normal. Everyone has these desires: the desire for knowledge and adventure, the desire for beauty and the desire for good and pleasant things.

When it comes to love life, these desires are expressed in adventure, beauty and intimacy. Through these desires, Eve fell. Through these desires Jesus was tempted. And through these desires, we rise and fall in our spiritual life.

The case of Eve

Take for example the case of Eve. In Genesis 3, the Bible recorded how the first human sinned. Verse 6, “ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”

Did you see that? Eve was deceived by the serpent and disobeyed God because she saw that the tree was good for food – a desire for good and pleasant things. Again, “and that it was a delight to the eyes” – a desire for beauty. Again, “and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” – a desire for knowledge and adventure. She fell through her three basic desires.

The temptation of Jesus

Consider the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4.

First, Satan tempted Him in verse 3, And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” (An appeal to the desire for good and pleasant things.) Food is the basic good that we desire.

Second, in verse 5-6, Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple ⁶ and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

Now, this is an appeal to the desire for knowledge and adventure. Jesus countered Satan’s temptation by memorizing a verse. And so Satan, tempted Jesus the second time by memorizing a verse also – a test to Jesus’ knowledge and a temptation to prove the Scripture true. “Jump! Since it is written.” Of course jumping from the pinnacle of the temple is also an adventure. And maybe, when people saw him jump and angel catching him, they would believe immediately without the hustle of dying at the cross. But Jesus knew it was a test.

Third, in verse 9: Again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. ⁹ And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

This is an attempt to sway Jesus through His desire for beauty. The Devil showed Him the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

So, there are three basic desires and Satan tempts us through them as what James 1:14-15 says,”each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. ¹⁵ Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

The sinful forms of these desires

These three basic desires in their sinful form are what John called as the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life. 1 John 2:16, “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”

The “desires of the flesh” is the sinful form of our desire for good and pleasant things. The “desires of the eyes” is the sinful state of our desire for beauty and “pride of life” of our desire for knowledge and adventure.

I have a friend who had an admirer. It happened she just graduated from college and her admirer was a sakada – karga tapas sa tubo – a person who work chopping and loading sugar cane to the truck. She told me, “No, I’m a teacher, why should I settle for him.” And I said in my mind, “ah, so this is what it means by the pride of life.” We boast of our educations, professions, possessions, achievements and experiences in life. Pride of life is a distorted form of our desire for knowledge and adventure.

The abandoned forms of these desires

When people or society excessively sin against God and reached the point that God abandons them, God abandons them to these three sinful desires. In other words, God let them do what they want, according to their hearts’ desires and the result is a much distorted form namely, impurity, dishonorable passions and debased mind.

Impurity is the desire for beauty that was abandoned. “Dishonorable passions” is an abandoned desire for good and pleasant thing and the debased mind, an abandoned desire for knowledge and adventure.

Let’s elaborate them one by one.

Impurity

Impurity (or uncleanness on some versions), when mentioned in the Bible is often associated with sexual immorality and sensuality. For example in Galatians 5:19, “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality.” This means, that these sins are closely related with each other.

Sexual immorality, the Greek word is “porneia” from which we derived the word pornography. This is translated in other version as “fornication”. This is sex outside marriage. This includes adultery, premarital sex, pornography and anything that involves two persons doing something sexual.

Impurity is a younger brother of sexual immorality. Sometimes he is called uncleanness because of the ugliness and dirt of this sin. This includes also pornography, masturbation, nudity and anything sexual that one person does to arouse himself.

Sensuality is a pursuit of sexual pleasures whether in private by fantasizing a woman or publicly like flirting to a man. Sometimes it is expressed by touching your body in a sensual way or by letting others touch you to feel the same.

All these are what Paul called the “dishonoring of their bodies among themselves”. And we can see them everywhere. Women trying to look like men, and men dressing like women. That is a dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.

Try looking at bill boards, TV ads, internet ads. Go to beaches and people unashamedly showing their private parts. Ride a jeepney near Opon and you will see bars for men and bars for women. Night clubs, beer houses, prostitution – all these promote sexual immorality, impurity and sensuality.

According to www.theinfo.org Philippines is 4^th in the world with the most number of sex workers, 85 sex workers per 10,000 people. Thailand, which is considered the sex capital of Asia, is only rank 10^th with 45 sex workers per 10,000 people.  The highest on the list is Venezuela 119 sex workers per 10,000 people. I don’t know how true this statistics is, but if we consider this, there is 1 prostitute for every 118 adult persons in the Philippines.

Dishonorable passions

“Dishonorable passions” (or vile passions in other translations) is a perverted desire for good and pleasant things. One of the good and pleasant things we desire is sex. Sex is good. It is created by God to be enjoyed by husbands and wives within marriage. God designed sex to be consummated within marriage as gift for the couple and means for bearing children.  When this desire for sex was distorted this becomes dishonorable or vile, despicable passions.

Passion is an intense desire for sex. And Paul described how this is done.

Their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. Now, the natural form of sex is between man and woman married to each other. What is unnatural is anything outside this scope. First, women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. They stopped having sex with men and have sex with fellow women instead. Lesbianism. Woman and woman having sexual relationship with each other. That is why  some women act and dressed like men because they want to have relationship with fellow women.

One woman was asked, “Nganong nisugot man ka mag-uyab og tomboy?” She answered, “Kay nahadlok ko mabuntis.” For them, it’s better to have relationship with fellow woman because they enjoy the pleasure of sex without the risk of pregnancy.

Likewise, the men gave up natural relations with women. (Kung pul-an ang babaye og laki, pul-an sad ang laki og baye. Bawos-bawos lang.) and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Homosexuality. Man having sexual relationship with man. And you can see them everywhere. Uso ni karon. Because our television, social media and society promote lesbianism and homosexuality.

I had a classmate who had gay friends and became gay himself. And he is now living with his boyfriend. I had a church mate who turned out to be one. And he too is now living with his boyfriend. How can that be?

An American friend told me that Philippines is an abandoned country because of rampant homosexuality. He is shocked to see men cross-dressing unashamedly in public. So I told him which is worse? Cross-dressing or legalizing same-sex marriage?

Now, there are 26 countries that legalize same-sex marriage, mostly western countries. Netherlands was the first to do it in year 2000. And Australia did it last year. Who will be next? So far, no Asian country has legalized same-sex marriage. But homosexuality is practiced in Asia strongly. Taiwan is trying to legalize same-sex marriage. Hopefully, Philippines will not follow. But the LGBT community is very proactive in pushing it to law. Let’s pray that it will not happen in our country – that God will not abandon our society to the wrath of abandonment.

About prostitution, eastern countries dominate the world. But for production of pornography, US produces 89% of all pornographic web pages. Every 30 minutes, a porn film is made in the US. Every second: 30,000 people are viewing porn. 42.7% of internet users view porn (that’s 102,434,567 people).

Porn is roughly a $13 Billion industry. It’s larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix and Earthlink.

One-third of porn viewers are women. The least popular day of the year for viewing porn is thanksgiving. The most popular day of the week for viewing porn is Sunday.

Debased mind

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.

And Paul enumerated some of the things that ought not to be done.

^“They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.”

Think of how our society accepts immoral character. To be righteous is not the word of this generation. Evil is now considered good. When someone did something awesome, the expression is, “wicked!” To prosper, to gain money, to have comfortable life is now the priority of many. The rise in technology gives way to consumerism and covetousness. If someone has a new cellphone, bisag mahal, bisan magka utang-utang, hala palit og bago. Covetousness. “We buy things we don’t want to impress people we don’t like.” And there’s much hatred or malice in the world today. Just look at how people bully people in social media. Make one mistake, once the camera is on you, you will go viral.

“They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.”

Because people does not want to retain God in their minds, first they are filled with all manner of unrighteousness, second they became full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

Envy, similar to covetousness is desiring what others have. Murder is killing other people. There’s ISIS who beheads people without reservation. We have Maute, Abu Sayyaf. We have riding in tandem, gun-for-hire. We have the war on drugs that killed so many criminals and innocents. Some may be legal and some may be not. Because of the uncertainty of motives, we have strife in our government. One part is against the war on drugs others are in favor of it. So, there is conflict (strife) within our government. And because each politician tries to defend his political part, deceit abounds. Propaganda is all over the media and the streets. You can’t know who is talking the truth anymore. Opinions are highly favored more than truth. Truth is twisted and become lies. And lies often told became truth.

“They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents.”

Gossips – or whisperers, talking wrongly about other people behind their backs.

Slanderers – making false statement or accusation, damaging their reputation.

Haters of God – some did it by denying his reality. Some, acknowledging His existence but blaming Him of every evil they experienced.

Insolent – people who are rude, arrogant and lack of respect. Children do not show respect to their parents. People do not respect other people and authorities. We can see rich drivers beating traffic enforcers.

Haughty – the word is over-shining. Someone who wants to be seen always. A person who feels superior, an arrogant person.

Boastful – bragging of things he does not own.

Inventors of evil things – like weapons, drugs, diseases, viruses (both medical and computer), etc.

disobedient to parents – though common in the society, here is expressed in a much evil way.

³¹ foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Foolish – without understanding, not because he is uneducated but because he is hard-headed.

Faithless – or untrustworthy. People who cannot be trusted anymore.

Heartless – without natural affection. Like someone who broke your heart. Tell him, “You’re heartless. Why don’t you have a natural affection to me?” The word connotes of a person who don’t feel emotion with an element of cruelty in it. Pusong bato na, cruel pa.

Ruthless – or unmerciful. One example is a boy who killed a mother bird with his slingshot. When he heard and saw the chicks crying in the nest, he felt compassion on them and killed them all.

³² Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

And this is where most people are guilty. They know God’s decree. They know that those practices are sin. And in the ancient times, such crimes are punishable by death; they not only do them, but also give approval to those who practice them.

How many of us here condemn people of their sins and yet practice the same? How many hates homosexuality and watch their shows and laugh at their jokes? How many of us despise prostitutes and watch pornography? We know their sins and yet give approval of them.

The wrath of abandonment is simply a perversion of our three basic desires: the desire for knowledge and adventure, the desire for beauty and the desire for good and pleasant things. In other words, each of us are capable of doing the worst sin. The reason why we are not doing what other people are doing is because God did not abandon us.

Why God abandoned people to these things?

There are three things:

Verse 25, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

The answer is idolatry. The reason why God abandoned people to these sins is because of the sin of idolatry. A society or country that worships idols is in danger of the wrath of abandonment. And Philippines is a country that worship idols so much.

Verse 27, receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Their abandonment is a due penalty of their error. Their continuous sinning is appropriate for them. The sin that they are doing is their punishment themselves.

Verse 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.

God abandoned them because they don’t want to acknowledge God. They don’t want God in their knowledge or mind. They don’t like God so God gave them what they like.

How should we respond to this truth?

Next week, we will get into detail on how to respond this truth, but for now, let me give you some which are more relevant to our message.

1. Let’s be careful with our desires. James 1:14-15 says,

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

Every sin starts with our desire. Let us not allow the natural desires that God gave us to be distorted. Let’s not allow the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life to govern our hearts. Rather let’s use these desires to worship God.

2. Let us know God more and more. Let us take the challenge and adventure of knowing God. Life in God is full of adventure. ^“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3.) Let’s accept the challenge to be holy and the adventure to pursue godliness.

3. Let’s fill our minds with His beauty. Let’s satisfy our desires for beauty by seeing the glory of God in Scriptures. Go out and see the beauty of God in creation. Look back in history and marvel at God’s sovereign works. Be awed with God. Psalms 27:4, “One thing have I asked of the Lord,that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”

3. Let’s fill our hearts with joy in God’s presence. Let’s satisfy our desire with good and pleasant things by loving and enjoying God. Psalms 16:11, “You make known to me the path of life;in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! (Psalms 34:8)

4. Let’s pray that we will not fall into temptation. Let’s pray for our children, family members and relatives. Let’s pray for our churchmates and churches. Let’s pray for our society, for our government officials, for our country – that God will not abandon us to our sinful desires.

Bro. Joseph, Grace Mactan Fellowship, January 28, 2018