SEQUEL OF REJECTING A SELF-EVIDENT GOD

By pilgrim 26 June, 2022 PILGRIMAGE 1 Comment

As you stroll through beach, you admire the sand dunes and the patterns thereof and reflect on the effect of the wind and waves on the sand. When you go further, you see a sand castle with its intricate design and immediately know that this could not be created by the waves and the wind, but only by an intelligent designer who went beyond what is natural to create something so complex.

When you see the design in this universe, it is evident that behind it is an intelligent designer and this designer is none other than God. To come away after observing all that is within us and around us with the conclusion that all this is natural evolution is not very intuitive. Hence Paul makes this statement in Romans 1,

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 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. (v 20,21)

Now to reject the existence of God does not come without its implications, prominent among them being a darkening of the heart and the mind. Paul goes on to elaborate,

Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. (v24)

Our hearts refer to our emotions and desires, which ascend to the throne when God is dethroned from our souls. It is wonderful when our desires are reigned in by God but terrible when they take on kingship. Man is then set on a path of self-gratification which eventually ends in self-destruction. It isn’t just our hearts but also our minds that become depraved without the illumination that God provides.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done (v28)

A depraved mind refers to a deformed way of thinking much like a computer that goes rogue when infected with a virus and unable to function as with the uncorrupted factory installed software.

When God is dethroned, the soul becomes deformed. The heart and the mind end up only being a shadow of what it could be.