Dear Friends, I recorded this video bible message yesterday. It was a trial run. I was feeling better and wanted to give it a go. You know: see if the old engine can still run for a bit anyway. There are some long pauses and other annoyances with the speaker. My body was trying to keep up with my brain. But I am not sure which one was victorious! We will leave it with the Lord and with you. But the key is just that you get the message from God’s Word. This is not about Mike’s whining. God used a jackass to speak to Balaam.
So, apart from my braying, I have abridged the sermon for the devotional that follows, adding a new introduction and some insights I wished I had included in the sermon. Well, I pray the devotional is of some support to you as we navigate the absurdities of kindness in our day and stand strong on God’s Word by His grace. Truth always prevails.
And so, without further ado, to the text, a Word from another World.
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Romans 1:16-17).1
When we deny God, we deceive ourselves in the most essential way possible. The denial of plain and unassailable evidence of our Maker does something horrible to the soul. By turning off the switch that governs rationality, we ignite a cascade of other switches that trigger mental, moral, and societal failures.
Walker Percy’s (1916-1990) final novel was The Thanatos Syndrome (1987). “Thanatos” is the name of a Greek mythological figure (in the Iliad and Theogonia, i.e., the history of the gods) who embodies “death.” The word means “death” in ancient Greek (θνῄσκω thnēskō). In Percy’s novel, Dr. Tom Moore (see St. Thomas Moore [1478-1535]), a washed-up psychiatrist who prescribed too many “stay-awake pills” to truck drivers, ends up back in his hometown, the fictitious Feliciana, Louisiana. But life has changed there. Something was literally in the water. The people there, despite having access to the best in medical care, education, and modern conveniences, seemed alarmingly apathetic. In fact, they appear to be becoming more like “chimpanzees” than humans. The things that make them human appear to be in decay. They are numb, zombie-like, unfeeling, unloving, uninterested. Even his own ilk, other physicians, were casually drifting into a state of dumb, ape-like behavior. At the end of the book, the Catholic priest, Father Simon Rinaldo Smith, also a bit of a failure in his own right, delivers this line to Dr. Tom More as part of a prophetic warning linking modern medical ethics (abortion, euthanasia) to the moral failures that enabled the Holocaust and the “tenderness” of the gas chambers (and cause humans to become soulless creatures):2
“You are a member of the first generation of doctors in the history of medicine to turn their backs on the oath of Hippocrates and kill millions of old useless people, unborn children, born malformed children, for the good of mankind—and to do so without a single murmur from one of you.”3
In a world that feels increasingly like a Southern Gothic novel gone wrong—where men and women lose their way in the thickets of self-deception and call it progress—we turn again to the Apostle Paul. He writes not as a distant theologian but as a man who has seen the ruins of both religion and irreligion. Today, we linger over select verses from Romans chapter 1, that great diagnosis of the human heart and the healing power of the gospel.
When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror.—Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners (1961).
Paul begins with bold confidence: he is unashamed of the gospel because it is the very power of God unto salvation. In it, God’s righteousness is revealed—not our own feeble attempts, but His perfect holiness given as a gift to all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike. We need this righteousness desperately: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). As born children of Adam, we stand separated from our Creator by sin. Whether churched or unchurched, religious or barbarian, we have none of our own.
Paul then unfolds the universal sequence that follows when men suppress the truth in unrighteousness. God’s invisible attributes—His eternal power and divine nature—are clearly seen in creation, so that all are without excuse. Yet humanity, knowing God, refused to honor Him or give thanks. Their thinking became futile, their foolish hearts darkened. Claiming wisdom, they became fools, exchanging the glory of the immortal God for images of man, birds, animals, and reptiles.
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves” (Romans 1:24). They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped the creature rather than the Creator. From there, the downward spiral accelerates: dishonorable passions, a debased mind, every kind of unrighteousness—envy, murder, strife, deceit, gossip, slander, hatred of God, and ruthlessness. They not only practice these things but also approve those who do them.
The downward spiral of sin in Romans 1:18-32 is not ancient history. It is the story of pre-Christian Europe and the trajectory of any post-Christian Western people who deny the Creator to justify their sins. We see it in the confusion of male and female, in the codification of rebellion into law, in the academy that cannot plainly say what every honest heart once knew. A dean before Congress hedges on basic biology; a culture applauds what nature and Scripture plainly forbid. The mind grows dark, and the soul enters a thanatos syndrome—a slow death of self-destruction.
The downward spiral of sin in Romans 1:18-32 is not ancient history. It is the story of pre-Christian Europe and the trajectory of any post-Christian Western people who deny the Creator to justify their sins. —Michael A. Milton.
Yet this is precisely why the gospel is good news for every man. It is for the religious and the irreligious, the Jew and the Greek, the grandfather’s Baptist grandson who imagines borrowed holiness will suffice. No proximity to a preacher saves. Only the righteousness of Christ—His perfect life lived in our place, His atoning death borne for our guilt, His victorious resurrection—can deliver us. Faith itself is God’s gift, so no one may boast.
You may find yourself somewhere on this spiral today. Perhaps not as far as the culture around you, but somewhere. Even as Christians, we can deny God in pockets of our lives and forfeit blessing, joy, and peace—though never our salvation, which rests entirely on what Christ has done. He who saved us will keep us.
The good news is that God is near. Despite the ruins, the word of the Lord endures. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Escape the cycle. Come to the beautiful new world of faith in Jesus Christ—the righteousness of God revealed from faith for faith.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel [c]of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
This is the Gospel: God has given to those who repent and believe a righteousness not our own and a sacrifice for our sins. God raised Jesus from the dead and revealed Him to hundreds of people, many of whom were alive when Paul wrote this letter.
There is something in the water in the post-Christian world today. It is killing us. But the same God who raised Jesus from the dead and transformed the pagan nations can change us. Come as you are to the Lord Jesus. He loves you and extends His invitation to the great exchange: your sins for His life. Now and forevermore.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Going Deeper
Reflect: Where do you see the suppression of truth in your own heart or in the culture? How has denying God in small ways led to futility?
Repent: Bring every area of denial to the cross. Receive afresh the righteousness that is by faith.
Rejoice: The gospel is power—not mere advice. Let it renew your mind and restore what sin has disordered.
Respond: Pray for a loved one ensnared in the spiral. Share this word as one dying man to dying men.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel [a]of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like [f]corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise, 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.
28 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; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, [l]maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.
The full quote is notable: “In the absence of this faith now, we govern by tenderness. It is a tenderness which, long cut off from the person of Christ, is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced-labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber.” See Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1964), 19.
Walker Percy, The Thanatos Syndrome (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1987). I copied the quote from the Open Road Publishers edition (Kindle), page 127. Percy modeled the fictitious town after similar towns in that part of Louisiana where “they have no interest in the French to the south or the United States to the north.” This is the Republic of West Florida, populated by displaced Appalachian folk, misplaced Texans, and unassimilated post-Civil War folks from Mississippi and Alabama. Resentment remains that President James Madison ended the short-lived Republic when they were forced at gunpoint to join the Louisiana Purchase in 1812. This is where Dr. Percy lived and where I grew up. As usual, Percy captures the essence of the area with remarkable accuracy and literary flair.
