This is why I, Paul, am in jail for Christ, having taken up the cause of you outsiders, so-called. I take it that you're familiar with the part I was given in God's plan for including everybody. I got the inside story on this from God himself, as I just wrote you in brief. As you read over what I have written to you, you'll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God's Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I've been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board. (Ephesians 3:1-6 MSG)

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In part 3(click here to read part 3), we started to look at why God keeps His mysteries away from the religious leaders and proud and presumptuous religious people. Here we look at an example of how people deny inconvenient truths.

[I]. People with independent agendas can’t be trusted with the riches of God’s true knowledge, which He has hidden in mysteries since the foundation of the worlds. This is self evident from what they did to the knowledge of His existence. The verses below reveal that people were clear that there was a creator by virtue of His creation.

1. "But God's angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives."(Romans 1:18-21 MSG)

[II]. They had a personal agenda and to evade any accountability and placate their consciences, sought to pervert that truth by replacing God with other things.

1. "They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand."(Romans 1:22-23 MSG)

2. "..God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth. Scripture says the same: Your words stand fast and true.." (Romans 3:4 MSG)

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His word is truth, every man a liar

When they contradict

You know whom to believe

Eventually it will have to change

Make a liar out of your circumstances

Not out of Him, He cannot lie

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[III]. They were in self-induced denial of the living God, choosing to worship a dead self-created alternative instead.

1. "So God said, in effect, "If that's what you want, that's what you get." It wasn't long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them--the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!" (Romans 1:24-25 MSG)

[IV]. Abandoned to their own devises, they lived for self at the expense of others, descending into all manner of perversion. No longer guided by the heart of the creator, they abused all He created. They turned His blessings into a curse, suffering the consequences thereof.

1. "Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn't know how to be human either--women didn't know how to be women, men didn't know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men--all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it--emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches. Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose." (Romans 1:26-28 MSG)

[V]. It is clear that those who esteem their own agenda above God’s, will not honour the truth no matter how obvious it may be. They will ignore it or pervert it. That is why the scripture says:

1. "Do not give that which is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and tear you. "(Matthew 7:6 MKJV)

2. "And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it's not as if they don't know better. They know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care--worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!" (Romans 1:29-32 MSG)

(To be continued..)

Every Blessing

Breadoflife

click here to read part 5

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