Reading

  • Rom 1:18-32

Introduction

  • Last week we spoke about the equal certainty of …
    • God's love and his wrath .
    • The reality of his promises and judgement. 
    • We mentioned 5 ways his wrath is revealed …
      • Three of which we are currently experiencing …
        • Eternal wrath
        • Escatalogical Wrath
        • Calamity wrath
        • Consequential wrath …
        • Abandonment wrath …
    • My point is that …
      • The wrath of God is as much a reality in life as is the love of God 
        • This is a truth that is disputed in the world and many churches today.
      • The Gospel is the power of God unto Salvation…
        • And salvation is essential as the wrath of God is being revealed … Rom1:18
      • Until we acknowledge the truth of the wrath of God we will not recognise the need of salvation …

The world we live in

  • We live in a world that has rejected God's gracious free gift of salvation …
    • We are surrounded by many philosophies and religious beliefs … 
      1.  In total about 4200
        • Each one  having narratives, symbols, sacred histories that they claim give meaning to life … 
        • Explaining  the origins of life and the universe. 
        • They devise morality, ethics, and religious laws and preferred lifestyles.
        • All from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature. 
        • They worship the sun, moon, heavens, rain, snakes, cows, birds, bugs and beetles.
          • There are Gods of war, gods of fertility, love, prosperity
          • Ancestral worship and mysticism …
          • Even the unknown god just in case. 
      2. Until Darwin (Died 1882) arrived on the scene most people believed in a God or gods who were the creators of all things. 
        • Darwin's theories changed that and now many are godless, atheistic or agnostic. 
        • And today we can add to that list of religions…
          • Science, intellect, business, nationalism, naturalism.
  • People will believe in almost anything no matter how ridiculous it may seem. 
    • Anthropological research reveals that  within each society and culture there is this inexplicable desire to worship.
    • For those who deny the existence of the Sovereign Eternal God of creation this is a massive problem. 
      1. Liberal philosophers, like Richard  Dawkins, claim that this is a byproduct of ignorance that is slowly disappearing as we grow up in the evolutionary process.
        • In other words the more sophisticated society becomes the less superstitious and religious we are. 
      2. Belief in a monotheistic creator of all things is, according to them, ignorant and idiotic.
    • In the 1940’s John von Neuman worked on creating the ultimate machine
      1. A machine that would be able to sustain itself, I.D. and repair any problems and self replicate itself.
      2. That is crazy … impossible. 
    • But the truth is, that is what each and every cell in your body does…
      1. Our immune system is a miracle of creation. 
    • Dawkins says
      1. There is no creator, because who created the creator. 
      2. He says natural selection is easier to believe than a complex designer.
        • But even natural selection had to have a beginning.
          • How does nothing become everything?  
    • This is the world that we live in and the outright rejection of a creator God of the universe is a symptom of the depraved mind … Rom 1:28

Is God just in his wrath

  • What does God say in his word …
    • Many do not have access to the Bible. 
  • Revelation …vs 19
    • You do not need to read the bible to know God is the creator …vs 19
      1. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made… vs 20
        • Creations complexity demands a designer not random chance. 
      2. God set eternity in the heart of man… Eccl 3:11 
        • The gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things of the law… they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts … Rom 2:14-15
      3. Their conscience also bearing witness. Rom 2:15
    • This answers the question as to why studies of anthropology find traces of god worship in one form or another in every society studied.…
      1. We are made in the image of our creator …
      2. We have eternity written in our DNA. 
      3. As we see creation in all its complexity we must conclude that there is a designer ,,,
        • It can’t possibly be random chance… by natural selection. 
    • So man is without excuse …And God is just…20
      1. Particularly those of us who have access to God's revelation … the Bible … 
      2. We know of the existence of God and our accountability.

Suppression of truth vs 18

  • Notice that the great godless act that leads to unrighteousness is suppression of the truth …
  • Suppress… Katecho…
    • Means to hold down or squash …
    • Present tense … continually, actively, willfully, restraining, withholding truth. 
      • Notice that suppression demands a continuous act …a tough job.
        • Continually, actively …
        • And this war takes place within the person who rejects God's clear revelation. 
      • And that is why these people are so aggressive in their defense of the lies. 
        • The old conscience keeps popping up and getting in the way. 
      • The gospel is by free choice …
        • The woke movement, women's liberation, atheists all demand, all fight for compliance. 
          • Freedom of speech is not tolerated. 
          • They will defend their stand with violence. 
  • They know God exists …because it is written in their hearts …
    • But they refuse to acknowledge his authority in their lives …
      • So they suppress the truth …
        • He does not exist …
        • Evolution … natural selection. 
        • Where did God come from 
        • There is no eternal punishment.
      • And so the lies are presented as truth. 
  • Suppression of the truth is the great sin …vs 18
    • It is nothing new …
      • Jesus miracles … by Beelzebub say the Pharisees … Math 12:24
      • The empty tomb …Soldiers bribed  by chief priests … Math 28:1-14
      • Peter & John heal the cripple …Sanhedrin can't deny but lie.. Acts 4
    • And today we are still being exposed to suppression of the truth. 
  • Last week we mentioned the law of life that God put in place …
    • A man will sow what he reaps. 
      • It is all about consequences …

Consequences of Rejection vs 21

  • Although they knew God they neither glorified him as God or gave thanks to him 
  • Consequences …
    • They claim to be wise but they became fools…
      • Their thinking became futile … hearts were darkened … 
    • Man is not progressing upward in the chain of life …Dawkins
      • But plummeting downwards… foolish hearts…
        • Their thinking is so warped they don’t recognise it
    • For the godless …
      • Life is random and meaningless … no purpose
      • Truth becomes relative … What is truth… Pilate. John 18:38
      • Life is lived for self … Me first , greed, selfish ambition.
      • And unrighteousness becomes the norm… vs 18
    • God calls them fools… Moraino
      • From which our English word moron comes.  
  • They are now judged to be Godless…vs 18
    • They do not recognise him as the immortal God of creation …
    • Herein is their problem …
      • That God awareness is still there and needs to be suppressed …
      • So they create their own gods…
        • Worship men … like Caesar
        • Birds … like eagles … 
        • Animals … Whales to ants.
      • They exchange the immortal living God for dead images…
    • That is how futile and dark their thinking is. 
  • One of the brightest minds of the Age of Enlightenment was Voltaire…
    • The age of reason or enlightenment lasted from 1685-1815
      • He believed in Reason, Individualism and Skepticism. 
      • He referred to Jesus as … cursed wretch
      • He claimed that the bible and Christianity would be forgotten within 50 years
        • He said … I will show you how one Frenchman can destroy it within 50 years 
        • In 20 years Christianity will be no more. 
        • My single hand will destroy the edifice it took 12 Apostles to rear.
    • He died in 1788 a broken lonely man …
      • Within 20 years the Geneva Bible Society bought his house for the purpose of printing Bibles and Christian literature.
      • It became the Paris H/Q for the British and Foreign Bible Society. 
    • The Bible remains the world best seller and all of Votaire’s 6  volumes were once sold for 90C

God’s Reaction to rejection … Abandonment  

  • How does God react to rejection  …
    • He abandons them (Gave them over) and allows them to go their own way.
      • As we trace the history of Israel we see that this is true of all people and groups who suppress the truth about God. 
        • And it leads to suffering. 
    • Samson was such a man …
      • He knew where his strength lay but he broke God's commands continuously…
        • The Scripture tells us that God departed from him… Jude 16:20
    • Israel was sold( abandoned) into the hands of the Philistines … Judges 10:7
      • Israel would not listen to me so I gave them over to their stubborn hearts … Psalm 81:11-12
    • King Saul was another one who God abandoned… 1 Sam 15:23-26,35 
      • Pleads forgiveness but God abandoned him… for David
    • Nations permitted to go their own way … Acts 14:16
  • Because of their rejection of God and the suppression of his truth the scripture says …
    • God gave them over …abandoned them…which leads to suffering   
  • The same word abandoned is used here… vs 24, 26, 29
    • “Gave them over” … is a judicial term …Paradidomi
    • He abandoned them to the judicial process …
      • Handed them over to another authority… and enslavement. 
    • We appear before the judge who must rule in the matter before him. 
      • Having been found guilty the courts abandon (Hand over)the guilty to the correctional authorities to carry out the sentence. 
  • God abandons us to run our  lives in the darkness of the flesh. …
    • His hand of restraint is withdrawn altogether…
      • As is his protection and blessing. 
    • He hands men over to another power (Power of darkness) for the sentence to be served.

Consequences of Abandonment…24-32 …Paradidomi

  • Consequences … step 1 …vs 24
    • They exchange the truth of God for a lie …
      • They abandon God and his word …therefore consequences …
    • God abandoned men (Hands over ) to …vs 24
      • Sinful desires of their hearts …
      • Sexual impurity
      • Degrading of the body. 
    • In the 1960’s there was  a massive sexual revolution… free love. 
      • The hippies, flower people, Woodstock festival  …
        • It was a revolution without restraint. 
      • We abandoned God's truth … And became Godless… vs 18
    • Sex is sacred within marriage …a privilege …truth
      • Truth was exchanged for a lie … 
        • Free sex without consequences is a lie.
    • Degrading …
      • To be disgraced, to bring reproach and shame upon.
      • This is not the intimacy that God intended in marriage. 
        • It is all unrestrained lust of the flesh…. And degrading.
          • Lust followed by impurity, dishonour.
      • In sensuality… man worships and serves himself. 
  •  Consequences … 2nd step …vs 26 … 
    • Then the next downward step in the abandonment 
      • Handed over to shameful lusts …Enslave therein.
    • The shamefulness lies in the fact of abandoning the natural process of sound relationships. 
      • Natural relations are man and woman …Husband and wife …truth
      • Purpose is … 
        • The woman is made for her husband
          • And to have and mother children 
          • All women long for a good husband.
        • Men are there to provide for and to protect …
      • But in this darkness of sin this is all thrown out of the window. 
        • Women with women & men with men…. it's all wrong …
      • And they blame God …
        • It’s the way I am made… I’m not to blame. 
    • Follow the language … and adhere to the truth …
      • Shameful, unnatural, inflamed with lust, indecent acts, perversion …
      • Then they attempt to change the meaning of the text so that their sin will be acceptable in God's sight. 
        • But he has abandoned them .
  • Consequences …3rd step … vs 28–32
    • Given over to depraved minds …vs 28
      • Filled with every kind of wickedness (Unrighteousness) … vs 29
      • Although they know God’s righteousness … 32
    • Depraved … Adikimenos …
      • It has no worth, it is non-functional… 
        • Ability to reason, to think clearly, apply logic…
          • It is all twisted. 
          • Hence the twisted thinking relative to genderism
            • E.g. Pronouns …Him, her, They X32
      • They know God’s righteous decree …
        • Know … Epiginosko…
          • To know fully with certainty
          • Having a knowledge of God’s instruction with regard to right and wrong. 
        • They continue to do that which they know is wrong. …
          • And in approving the evil that is done they continue to suppress the truth.

Challenge

  • Truth of scripture is so important 
  • God's way ensures blessing