You Would Not

May 21

We who live in the United States have been blessed with a Constitution that assures our freedom. We may worship freely, speak freely, live freely, within the bounds that assure we will not impinge on the freedom of others. Our founding fathers, the vast majority of whom were believers in Christ, believed freedom was purchased for man by Jesus and that it is the responsibility of government to protect that freedom.

Although many of us still cherish that freedom, a significant number of us take it totally for granted because they can’t fathom life without it! Perhaps even more troubling than those who take freedom for granted are they who have perverted it—they have exchanged freedom for license. They are clearly described in Romans 1:21-32, where it describes our day clearly. Here Paul is speaking to believers in Rome, but he sees through the tunnel of time to our day as well. He says:

"For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator who is forever praised. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

“Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

What is the solution to the dilemma we’ve created for ourselves through our wantonness and sin? The answer is found in Isaiah 30:15 where the Lord God says, “in returning and in rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength…” If we as individuals and as nations turn to Jesus, He will restore us to fellowship with Him, to peace and prosperity. May we not fulfill the conclusion of that verse in Isaiah that states God’s disappointment, “…but you would not.”