Reprobate Minds

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

Audio for this article here: SermonAudio.com/StudyGrowKnow

Last week, I published three articles; All the Lies, Blind to Truth? and Death of Human Conscience? These three articles actually lead up very nicely to what this particular article is all about; reprobate minds.

There are two main definitions for the noun reprobate. They are, a depraved, unprincipled, or wicked person and, a person rejected by God and beyond hope of salvation. The first definition applies to the person from the way God sees them. There are people in this world who are extremely depraved, unprincipled and wicked. Because of that, they wreak havoc on other people in their sphere of influence. The more powerful the person is, the greater the damage done to others. These reprobate people have no shame and the whole of their life is lived with them squarely at the center. Everything they do they do for themselves, for their own betterment. In many ways, these people can easily become sociopaths or even psychopaths because they not only do not care how their efforts negatively impact others, but they can also arrive to a point where they begin to have a god-like attitude about themselves and thoroughly begin to enjoy what they do to others.

This type of person, according to the second definition above, is quite often beyond the hope of salvation. God ultimately turns His back on these people as a reaction to their own continued choices of rejecting Him. While the first definition shows us how God sees people like this, the second definition applies to how God deals with them. Because they resolutely and repeatedly turn their backs on God and remain that way for the remainder of their lives, God will eventually “honor” their wishes and give them over to themselves. At such a point, they become completely lost in their own growing evil, unable to determine right from wrong and end up immersing themselves fully in whatever evil they can conceive, even joining in with others who are of the same mindset.

So it appears that each person has the responsibility of whether or not to seek God, which hopefully, leads to their being saved by Him. If they reject Him repeatedly throughout his/her life, then God will ultimately turn them over to what they are asking for: a reprobate mind. The constant refusal of the person to acknowledge God’s existence leads to a seared conscience and reprobate mind. I’d like to be clear here in stating that it is impossible for us to know when a person reaches such a state. That is God’s domain. While we might tend to judge by outward appearances, we do not know the true condition of their heart and simply saying that there is a point that can be reached by a person at which point God turns them over to themselves. We do not know when that point is for anyone.

In Romans 1, the apostle Paul tells Roman believers how much he longed to visit them. In fact, he was hopeful that he had actually found a way to go to Rome (v 10). He looked forward to a mutual beneficial meeting spiritually.

Starting in verse 16, Paul proclaims that the just shall live by faith. The more we live by faith, the stronger our faith becomes.

Then, in verse 18, Paul gets right into one of the main reasons he wrote to them. Paul is anxious to remind them that God’s wrath is and will be revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. It will happen and ultimately, I think he’s referring to our Lord’s physical return and the seven years just prior to that glorious event. However, we see His judgment first occurred during the days of Noah and then again, during the days of Lot. God will only put up with so much and then He will step in to deal with it.

But in both the days of Noah and Lot, only the judgment during Noah’s day dealt with the entire population of the earth at that time. The wrath God later poured out on Sodom and Gomorrah was localized because it only affected the twin cities of the plain, not the whole world. There is a day coming and probably not that far into the future, when God will step directly into human history as God, King, Lord, and Judge and will pour out His judgment onto the earth because of all the unabated wickedness that exists due to the tremendous amount of people with reprobate minds.

Paul is clear in Romans 1 that people have no excuse for not believing in God, because God’s attributes are clearly visible to all people throughout Creation if they are willing to see and accept it. Unfortunately, most are not and prefer to come to a point where they no longer even think of Him. Romans 1:21 states sadly…

…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.

Notice that Paul says, in our heart of hearts, we know that God exists. However, to refuse to acknowledge this fact will cause people to come to the point where their thoughts are absolutely futile and their hearts become darkened, devoid of any light/truth that can point them to God.

Verse 22 tells us that the natural result of this is to start worshiping things that God made; animals, birds, etc., and then even resorting to creating gods made of clay and metal that have no capacity to speak, breathe or move. People prefer those types of gods because they control them.

Verses 26-27 tell us what happens to people who do this.

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.

In other words, once God gives them up to their inner vile passions, their affections become thoroughly warped and they start lusting after people of their own gender, among other things. This is the natural reaction to rejecting God and God giving the person what they truly want to have and experience. Homosexuality, transgenderism, etc., are unnatural from what God created. It is part of the downward progression described above, but it is not the only aspect of that progression. It also includes the movement toward legitimizing adult/child sexual relations and generally, the way many in the world think and pursue “wokeness.”

Romans 1:28-32 tells us the conclusion of this serious downward slide.

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; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 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.

Tragic picture isn’t it? But this is what exists in society right now as people are unhinged because of the Supreme Court’s recent decision to simply send the Roe v Wade decision back to the states, where it should have always been. The 10th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America essentially states that anything not specifically delineated in the Constitution gives power to the individual states, but way back in the 1970’s it was an activist Supreme Court that made a decision they had no right to make regarding abortion. Their gerrymandering regarding abortion became “law” of the land based on that faulty decision and now the Left is going haywire violently protesting and crying streams of tears over the “fact” that their “right” to an abortion is now gone. It’s not gone. It’s simply now under the auspices of each state to decide. Abortion will always be available in America until Jesus returns. Apparently, it’s only “my body, my choice” when women want to abort the child they’re carrying. But at least, we finally have the definition of a “woman” back in circulation.

But consider the fact that these people are crying and even violently angry over the perceived belief that they can no longer kill unborn children! There is something seriously wrong with that. It’s as though birth control does not exist and the only way they can cease to be pregnant is by aborting. Rape is certainly something that needs to be dealt with but the percentages of rapes that occur that result in pregnancy are extremely small when compared with the number of women who actually use abortion repeatedly as their primary means of birth control.

By the 5th week after conception, a baby’s heart starts beating. The growing child can feel pain from 12 weeks. These monsters on the Left could not care one iota about these two facts and continue to push the idea that it’s not a “baby” or “human.” They want the freedom to kill what they do not want. Globalists of course support abortion because they want this world far less populated than it is now or will be.

What we are seeing today is the result of people who have spent their lives rejecting God. God is now rejecting them and giving them over to themselves and their ever-increasing vile passions so that their reprobate minds are fully developed within them. They will increasingly become more evil as time goes on. This is what society is now becoming. The idea that we can go back to what we had in the 1950’s, 60’s or even 70’s if only we had the right leader is not reality. The only Leader Who will make any permanent difference is Jesus Himself.

Between now and then, while there may be brief respites from evil here and there, it seems clear to me, from a biblical perspective, that the world is quickly hurtling toward judgment. I see no way it can be avoided. There is too much corruption in the federal government and in people in general. There is too much puerile interest in dominating children sexually. There is way too much lack of concern about how one’s actions affect others.

This decidedly downward spiral toward the abyss is the natural progression of a society that rejects God in a wholesale manner. People on social media shed tears of anger and are spluttering while peppering their speeches with foul language and a stated desire to be violent toward anyone who stands in their way. They are all very base and have lost the ability to think clearly and rationally because their consciences are seared. These people have lowered themselves to the point that most animals are now above them because animals live by instinct. They kill to eat or when threatened, otherwise they tend to leave other animals (and people) alone.

Today’s average person is so far gone that even the mention of God or especially Jesus will cause them to react with angry rhetoric and a serious desire to harm the person who utters the Name of Jesus. Based on this, I can only wonder how far away we are from a total and complete breakdown in society wherein any authentic Christian is seen as the enemy that must be purged from society. Can that really be that far away?

But rather than leave this on a down note, let’s focus on the fact that God is still in charge. He is still on the throne and what is happening in society is happening because it must happen in order for Him to ultimately return to the earth in victory as King and Judge. I’m all for that!

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective