“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”
(Rom 1:28-32)
I noticed that Paul also uses the phrase “God gave them up” in two other verses. Verse 24 states that “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity,” and verse 26 says, “God gave them up to dishonorable passions.” In the text above, verse 28 states, “God gave them up to a debased mind.” Giving them up here means that God handed them over to the power of sin.
When God removes His restraining force from a person, or for that matter, a nation, he leaves them to self-determination and self-destruction, which is part of the price of man’s moral freedom. To reject even the knowledge of God is a deplorable and criminal perversion of the truth. This perversion, by nature, leads to the worship of creation, or more specifically, ourselves.
What makes this even terrifying is that when God releases someone to their desires, that person becomes so filled with all that is sin there is no room for anything good.
F.B. Meyers, a bible commentator, stated this: “The next downward step is uncleanness; and when once men have deliberately chosen the downward path, there is nothing to stop them. They go headlong from one point to another in their descent into darkness. When our hearts turn from the purifying presence of God, they become the haunt of every foul bird and noisome reptile. What a marvel it is that out of such material, God can even create saints!”
Psa 10:3-4 “For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the LORD. In the pride of his face, the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”