When Jesus Is Thrown Out

Commentary

It begins with open rebellion against Jesus. The Israelites moved away from the Lord over generations. In their wicked hearts, they decided that they didn’t want God to rule over them but would rather be like the Gentile nations which surrounded them. And why not? Those Gentile nations did as they pleased, and they placed all their joy in visible things rather than the invisible God. That looks really appealing to someone who has a hard heart.

This isn’t limited to the Israelites of that time, but the rebellion of the human heart toward God has been ever-present since the beginning. Israel was given a warning from the Lord that if they chose to have these human kings over them instead of Him, then there would come with it circumstances that they would not like. Among those circumstances were the taking of their sons for the king’s work and the taking of their daughters as maidservants. These kings would take the best lands and tax the peoples on all that they produced and earned.

Here we are today, in the Western nations, once God-fearing and quick to live by God’s authority, now like Israel of Samuel’s day, the people are begging for leaders who will allow them to do whatever they want and give them that false sense of security, but in exchange, there is a heavy price to pay, not just from the fallout of wicked leaders but ultimately in God’s wrath for those who reject Jesus.

In this study, we’ll take a look at the phases of God’s judgment upon the unrepentant and what that looks like in a society.

Commentary

When people reject Jesus, they exchange the Truth for lies; they have become foolish. They worship mankind and creation instead of the Creator. Look at what has been manifesting in our current generations. We have worship of nature in the form of the “climate change” cult, worship of self in various forms of sensuality and transhumanism, worship of man in the form of celebrities, politicians, cultural Marxism, and more. It’s all about taking Jesus out of the equation and filling that void with everything that man desires and thinks that he knows.

The Israelites of Samuel’s time knew God existed, but still wanted to follow after their own hearts. Likewise today, many know that God exists because He has revealed Himself through creation, yet they still choose to reject Him because in their eyes they are “wiser” and know best. It’s in that outright pride that God will give a person over to the desires of their heart. And that heart is not a heart that is in tune with God; instead, it grows more and more dark as they run further away from Jesus.

Commentary

The Heart Goes

The words, God delivered them over are frightening. You don’t want to be delivered over to the desires of your heart, because you will get hurt or even die. This is a warning shot by the Lord to those who are going down the road of His wrath.

You can see this darkening of people’s hearts saturating our society and culture today. It has been this way for decades. After World War II, this world changed, and in the 1960s, America and much of the West started rebelling heavily against Jesus. This world does not want Jesus as their King, so they have been coming together to reject Him, desiring human leaders and false religions who say “it’s okay to redefine marriage and gender”, ”it’s okay to kill your unborn baby”, ”it’s okay to sleep around. We have treatments for those diseases”.

Like Israel, these people just want to do as they please, and the result is that their wicked hearts are given over by God to the lies of Satan, which have taken hold in their hearts. Toxic, godless culture has become more virulent than ever before due, in part, to technology allowing the sharing of information at a speed never seen in history. Sexual sin is so prevalent in our culture now that its effects have helped to destroy the family unit, countless individual lives, and have destroyed the minds of children and adults alike, placing people in chains of slavery to their impure desires. We are truly in days which Lot himself would likely recognize quite well.

Commentary

The Body Is Degraded

If a person does not heed the warning from God, in His first phase of judgment on them, then He delivers them over to the next phase, the degradation of their own bodies. Sexual immorality comes in many forms, and what starts out smaller can manifest into something much greater. When someone engages in sexual activity with another person of the same gender, they not only open themselves up for increased disease transmission, but they degrade their bodies to the fullest extent, as they have completely defied God’s design for human sexuality. On a societal level, we’ve seen this manifest with the 1960s sexual revolution ushering in open rebellion, which then made way for the next phase, the gay rights movement of the 1980s and currently the redefining of marriage and the push for total LGBTQ acceptance and approval.

We’ve watched our society become filthier and filthier in these last several decades, with a pretty much “anything goes” mentality that is supported by the most popular celebrities, political figures, and even some religious figures; and goes unpunished by the lawmakers at all levels of government.

Commentary

The Mind Becomes Corrupt

Finally, when someone still remains unrepentant, God will deliver them over to a corrupt or debased mind. This is a condition of absolute sin-drunkenness, where the person is so intoxicated by their lusts that they also take pleasure in encouraging others to do the same. We see this full force in our society today. When a majority of people in a society have turned away from Jesus and relentlessly pursue the desires of their hearts, then that society becomes saturated by evil.

Jerusalem and Judah experienced that very thing, and the Lord not only turned individuals over to a debased mind but the society was given over to inexperienced and corrupt leaders, along with a saturation of crime and violence. Does that sound like our world today? You bet it does, because this is exactly what is going on. A society that is healthy in Jesus is not a society that has drag queens reading stories to children at public libraries nor speaking in the pulpits of “churches”. It’s neither a society that finds no fault in the murder of 60+ million babies nor a society with leaders who openly break the law, with no justice, nor is it a society that markets all manners of crime and sexual immorality on its people.

Many have already been given over to this last phase of judgment, and our world is very much a reflection of that. It’s time that we, who love Jesus, stand up and act, not with the hope that we’ll save this world but with the hope that we might nudge a few more people toward Jesus.