Echoes of Lot: Grief in a Godless World

Romans 1:28 (NLT)

²⁸ Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done.

Message

See verse 28^a.

^28a Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God,

Verse 28^a encapsulates the essence of the preceding passage (Romans 1:18–27).  God’s creation obviously testifies about God (Romans 1:19-20). They have no excuse for not knowing God (Romans 1:20^b). They knew God but They did not worship or give thanks to God (Romans 1:21^a). Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools (Romans 1:22). Instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols (Romans 1:23).  They traded the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator Himself (Romans 1:25). So, God abandoned them to their shameful desires (Romans 1:26-27).

See verse 28^b.

^28a he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done.

It is a pain to experience “things that should never be done”. Like Lot, whose righteous soul was tormented day after day by the wickedness around him (2 Peter 2:7–8), the godly grieve deeply when they see people rejecting God’s truth (Ezekiel 9:4; Psalm 119:136).