In Romans 1, the Holy Spirit reveals the three phases a dying culture goes through when God removes His hand of grace and allows a people to experience the consequences of their own sin. We have seen this unfold in our own country over the last 60 years. And unfortunately, once a culture reaches the third phase, the debased mind, there is no return. The dye is cast, and the day of grace has passed.
These three phases are introduced by the phrase, “God gave them over” or “God gave them up” (Rom: 1:24, 26, 28). Literally, it describes a people who have rejected His Word, demanded their independence, and received just that. God removes His hand of protection and allows those in active rebellion to experience, first-hand, the consequences of their sin as they strive, by their actions, to look less and less like Jesus and become more and more like Satan.
And we can see the downward trajectory our own culture is following. The first phase, or the first curse of God on a culture under judgment, is sexual sin. We experienced the beginning of this in the 60s. And now, on every level, we are living in a sex saturated society.
Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature (flesh, their bodies) rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen – Romans 1:24-25.
No longer satisfied with sexual sin, the next curse, phase two, is homosexuality. Our collective “coming out” as a culture began in the late 80s and homosexuality is now an accepted part of the fabric of who we are as a people, regardless of what the Word of God says.
For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due – Romans 1:26-27.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, the third and final phase is what the Scripture calls a “debased mind.” No longer do we even think logically as a people. Now, men can choose to become women and have children, or so we affirm, regardless of what history, science, and logic tell us. We teach our children they can choose their gender while in kindergarten before they are old enough to read without help or have mastered their multiplication tables. And then we encourage them to undergo medical mutilations in order for them to feel better about being who God did not create them to be. This is a debased mind.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting – Romans 1:28.
But there is more. If you look around, you will see the plague of what we call narcissism infecting the psyche of our society. Everywhere we turn, someone is talking about the pain and suffering they have experienced by a loved one who is a narcissist.
Is there a connection between the “debased mind” in Romans 1:28 and the growing epidemic of narcissism we see today? In a word, absolutely.
Narcissism is not a mental disorder. It is a spiritual curse that has infected the members of our society and has caused untold misery to those who have fallen prey to the deceit and manipulation of a narcissist. And narcissism is the perfect description of what God calls a “debased mind.” In fact, narcissism is the literal personification of the personality and characteristics of Satan himself, clearly manifested in a human being.
Let me give you a...
