These are some of the saddest words in the Bible in my perspective. God giving anyone or anything up from Himself is a sad place to be indeed. The phrase is found in one of the most poignant declarations of God’s truth regarding justice and judgment in the Bible, Romans 1:18-32. It is about the righteousness of God and the sinfulness of man. Preceding this passage is the great declaration by Paul that he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The reason he refused to be ashamed to believe it and declare it is because it alone is what God has determined to save the souls of sinful people. Paul emphatically declares that God is righteous and it is the Gospel that reveals God’s righteousness to us in our need of it due to our sinfulness. He also states that it is only available to us by faith to faith in order to live by faith in it. Immediately after those statements in Romans 1:16-17, Paul, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, opens up the next verse declaring God’s righteous wrath on man’s sin. Notice what God says in His word about this desperate conclusion of giving up. God does not give up on them as if He was unable to do anything about their sinfulness or that He thinks that they cannot respond to Him. But it states that God gives them up unto their own sinful desires or “vile affections” as stated in verse 26. For anyone to choose sin so much that God gives you up to your own desires and stops convicting you or chastening you to get right with Him is a dreadful place to be. This is also true for a nation. We need to pray for our nation to turn from wickedness and turn to the Lord so we do not run this risk ourselves. This is what revival is all about and this is what I and many others have been praying for in our nation. This is what II Chronicles is all about for the children of God, which is who revival is directed to in the Scriptures. The same is true for a lost person who has spurned God’s call to repentance too many times or ignored the Gospel too many times. When God gives us up to our choices to reject Him, what is our hope? This is a sobering text for us all to seriously think about when it comes to our response to the conviction of God in our lives and the truth of God’s Word to our soul. This is why it is so important for us all to be in the house of God as often as possible corporately and in the Word of God personally during the rest of our week. God works in our soul, our thoughts, the desires of our heart, and the decisions we make through His Word. His Spirit uses His Word to convict us, guide us, and speak to us. When we spend time in true, intimate, worshipful prayer we are communing with God and letting Him work in us to help us keep ourselves sensitive to Him and His work in us through His Spirit. These are all critical to us not grieving the Spirit in our choices or quenching the Spirit in our lives. We need to watch this in our own lives so we can be a help to our nation as citizens of this great Constitutional Republic of the United States of America.