Will you turn in your Bibles,
please, to Paul's letter to the Ephesian church, the book of
Ephesians, chapter 5. Ephesians, chapter 5. And I shall read only verses
11 through 13, words which come in a context in which the apostle
is exhorting the people of God to a life of holiness, holiness
understood in its highest sense as the imitation of God, verses
1 and 2. Holiness, which practically speaking
means the avoidance of those sins that are contrary to the
character of God, is revealed in the law of God. and a holiness
made difficult by the fact that we not only have indwelling sin,
but we must pursue it in the midst of an unholy society. And in that general train of
thought, this word comes to the Ephesian Christians and to us,
and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,
but rather reprove them. For the things which are done
by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of. But all things,
when they are reproved, are made manifest by the light, for everything
that is manifest is light." All of us sitting in this building
this morning, from the youngest to the oldest, are creatures
of time. We all have a day which is both
designated and celebrated as our birthday. All of us live
our lives in those little segments of time that we identify with
such words as minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, and
now the word that is very much upon everyone's lips and in everyone's
mind Now all of those words are a constant reminder to us that
we are indeed creatures of time. Though this is true, many times
we are not self-consciously aware of that reality. But it's this
time of the year, when everyone is thinking of the closing down
of one calendar year and the ushering in of another, that
we are made acutely aware of the fact that we are creatures
of time. And that awareness is even heightened
when we not only pass from one calendar year to another, but
when we pass from one decade into another. Now, as the people
of God, we are not in any way to think of ourselves as detached
from this reality of our being creatures of time. Though we
have confidence for that which goes beyond time, even the confidence
that we shall be forever with the Lord in the timelessness
of eternity, Nowhere does the Word of God call upon us as God's
children to be insensitive to this matter of time. In fact,
in this very passage, the Apostle goes on to say to Christians,
buying up the time. in which he pictures time as
a very vital and expensive commodity, a worthwhile commodity, which
we are to accumulate. We are to be sensitive of the
matter of time, and we are to buy up that time in seeking to
render acceptable service to our blessed Lord. Now in the
light of these things, It is my concern that on this, the
last Lord's Day of 1979, the last Lord's Day of this decade,
we should meditate together on matters related to time and seek
to glean perspectives that will help us on the one hand to assess
what has gone before and is now being phased out and to face
that which lies before and is ushering in upon us with some
degree of biblical perspective. And so, our meditation today
could well be called a perspective on the seventies and a prescription
for the eighties. And that's why, as I mentioned
earlier, we really have one overall meditation divided into these
two segments. This morning, In seeking to gain
a perspective on the seventies, I want to direct your attention
first of all to what I will call the paramount sins of the seventies,
and then we shall consider together the primary reason for the sins
of the seventies, and then finally the exclusive remedy for the
sins of the seventies. First of all then, the paramount
sins of the seventies. Now, some may ask, why concern
ourselves with such a negative matter on the threshold of a
new year? Why reflect upon the sins of
the seventies? Well, the text I read in your
hearing, among many others, demands that we engage in such an exercise. Notice the language of Ephesians
5.11. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness, but rather Reprove them. There is the negative
admonition, we are not to enter into fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness. Well, how do we know that we
are obeying that injunction unless we can identify that which constitutes
the unfruitful works of darkness? If we are to obey the injunction
to have no fellowship, no delightful sharing and participation with
and in the works of darkness, we must have eyes illuminated
by the Word and the Spirit to be able to identify what are
the works of darkness. Then there is the positive injunction,
but rather, reprove them. Our biblical duty is not fulfilled
by a mere withdrawal from the identifiable works of darkness,
but the people of God, this is not a word to ministers alone,
the people of God are called upon to reprove the works of
darkness. Well, they cannot engage in that
biblical duty unless they can clearly identify that which is
the just and warranted subject of that reproof. And how are
we to determine what are the works of darkness? Well, Paul
goes on to say, but all things when they are reproved are made
manifest by the light For everything that is made manifest is light. It is only as the pure light
of the Word of God shines upon patterns of human behavior that
we can identify them for what they truly are. Well, having
demonstrated, I trust, the legitimacy of beginning our meditation with
a consideration of the sins of the seventies, Let me just give
a word of explanation with reference to what I mean when I speak of
the paramount sins of the seventies. Since the fall of man, there
has existed in the heart of every man both the potential for every
single sin imaginable and a tendency towards that sin. One of the
most humbling teachings of the Word of God is summarized in
such passages as Jeremiah 17 9. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. and without in any way seeking
to minimize that pervasive teaching of Scripture that there is within
the heart of every man, woman, boy or girl both the potential
and the tendency, the capability of every form of wickedness,
it is also clearly taught in the Word of God that God, by
the restraining influence of common grace, and the transforming
influence of special or saving grace keeps back much of that
potential for evil that is in the human heart. But there are
times in the history of men and of nations when because of the
limited measure of special grace and the withdrawal of common
grace, certain sins that are not only latent or may have found
an expression here and there in a given society, not only
continue to express themselves as a latent possibility and as
an occasional outburst, but they become the very sins which characterize
that society. And you cannot think of that
society without thinking of those sins. This is illustrated in
such portions as Genesis 6, where we read in verse 5 that God saw
that the imagination of the heart of man was only evil continually,
and then that evil found expression in a peculiar sin. We read in
verse 9 that violence filled the earth. And it was that sin
of unfettered, aggressive violence which finally precipitated the
judgment of the flood. We read in Jude 7 that there
was a peculiar sin which characterized the cities of the plains. Even
as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them, having in
like manner with these given themselves over to fornication,
and gone after strange flesh. Now that does not mean that you
found no murder, no dishonesty, no blasphemy, no gossip, or any
other form of sin in Sodom and Gomorrah prior to the judgment
of God. What it does mean is that sexual
impurity and in particular sexual perversion became the dominant
or the paramount sins of that society. This was true likewise
in New Testament days. The Apostle Paul, writing to
Titus, speaks of the Cretans and of what we might call the
national sins, the paramount sins of the Cretans. Titus 1
in verse 12, one of themselves, a prophet of their own, said,
Tretons are always liars, evil beasts, idle gluttons. This testimony is true. There were these three sins that
predominated in the national life of the Tretons. Now that
does not mean again that other sins were not manifested or that
the tendency was not latent. What it does mean is that these
sins became the paramount expressions of the condition of the human
heart. Now it is within that biblical
framework that I address myself this morning to that which I
am calling the paramount sins of the seventies. I am not saying
that these sins were never present in our national life until the
seventies. They were present in our national
life from the moment we had any life. Even in our most blessed
periods of national righteousness, every one of these sins that
I will mention was present, and the potential for them was latent
in every human heart. But they did not become the predominating
social climate of our nation until the seventies. You see then the precise thing
to which we are addressing ourselves this morning. What then are those
paramount sins of the seventies that have become as much a part
of American national life as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie
and Chevrolet? Well, I confess that it has been
no pleasant thing for me to sit hour after hour in past days
and to think upon that which constitutes the moral face of
my own beloved country, to look at the open sores and the putrefying
wounds of the moral state of our nation. Yet is the people
of God we are called upon to have no fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness, but rather to reprove them, to have this
prophetic edge to our life and testimony, a duty which we cannot
fulfill unless we have some clear consciousness of what constitutes
those paramount sins of the Seventy. There is no particular significance
in the order in which I mention these things. First of all, this
decade of the seventies will go down in any accurate record
of its history in American national life as the decade of the tragic
reality of abortion on demand. One of the most horrendous decisions
that was ever made by the highest court of our land was made in
1973. A decision which has literally
turned those theaters of mercy and compassion, our hospital
operating rooms and clinics, has literally turned those theaters
of compassion and mercy into mass murder houses. And it has been done with the
sanction and the encouragement of the highest court of our land,
and it could never have been done at the highest court of
the land if it had not been a reflection of the basic moral fiber of the
nation itself. The hands of physicians that
have been trained and skilled to administer mercy now throw
murdered babies into sterile trash bins to be carried off
with the other garbage in the hospital. And I say, if the blood
of one creature made in the image of So moved God that He came
to the perpetrator of that crime and said, Thy brother's blood
crieth unto me from the earth. What must the pin be in the ears
of the Almighty from the trash bins of our hospitals and clinics
across this land? One of the great sins of the
seventies is the sin of abortion on demand. Secondly, the 70s
will be recognized by any accurate historian as the decade of pornographic
glut. Oh yes, Playboy has been around
with some degree of respectability for over 20 years. And under the counter for years,
one has been able to purchase any amount of pornographic filth
that his own depraved heart would desire. Mail-order houses have
existed where the foulest kinds of movies and pictures could
be obtained in order to answer to the foul base, bestial lusts
of men's hearts. But it awaited the seventies.
To have the glossy covers of Playboy and a dozen other magazines
spawned out of the so-called sexual revolution, staring at
us over the counter of the local deli, the local supermarket,
and every corner drugstore. It was one thing for wretched,
depraved men to gather in secret and there to feed the depravity
of their hearts upon the carrion pornographic movies that had
been obtained illegally from abroad or by a black market in
our own country. It's another thing for someone
respectable middle-class businessman to turn aside in his lunch hour
to plunk down his few dollars in a respectable place like Willowbrook
and there feed his mind upon the very thing that just a few
years ago had to be sought out but is now open and blatant,
a running sore in our society. But not only is it confined to
the magazines and to the movies, but the TV, t-shirts, bumper
stickers, we have nothing less than a pornographic corrupt as
the mark of the sins of the seventies. It will be known as the decade
of total sexual abandonment. Oh yes, there has always been
premarital sex and fornication. There has always been extramarital
sex and affairs, but it awaited the seventies to bring it out
to the level of respectability, so that premarital sex is a way
of life among our own present generation. And the college student
who even regards virginity as a virtue, let alone who seeks
to maintain it, is looked upon as some kind of a historical
anachronism, sort of looked upon like something out of the Ice
Age. Yes, there have always been extramarital
affairs. The Bible records them and the
tragic fruits of them. But it awaited the seventies
to have sociologists and the Dr. Brothers and the Ann Landers
and their ilk to tell us that extramarital affairs are not
only tolerable but often provide spice and new life to the marriage
relationship. Unashamed flaunting of the sanctity
of that inner sanctuary of marriage and saying that the violation
of that sanctuary can actually aid and advance the cause of
a good marriage. This will be known as the decade
of total sexual abandonment. Fourthly, the seventies must
be understood as the decade of homosexual militants. There have
always been homosexuals in our national life, but it awaited the seventies.
For the homosexual to be so blatant and bold, as to march shoulder
to shoulder with his fellow pervert, and demand not only that the
laws punishing this vicious, wickedness be rescinded, but
that laws be enacted to give him full status in the society. It awaited the seventies for
homosexuals to appear unashamedly, untalked show, television and
radio, to appear in popular magazines and openly acknowledge with joy
and with a measure of pride that they are perverts. And don't
you ever use the word gay. That's their term. Don't you
use it. God calls it perversion. And
to the tragic, tragic, erosion of our society, this will be
known as the decade of homosexual militants. Furthermore, the sins
of the seventies are to be found in the fact that this will be
known as the decade of drug and alcohol obsession. Oh yes, drugs
have always been with us. Alcohol has always been with
us. But this has been the decade
in which drugs and alcohol have become an obsession and a way
of life right across the board in our nation, both legal and
illegal drugs. So that you have the housewife
who, getting her prescriptions from her own doctor, can only
function as she's driven to her task, as she pops her uppers
in the morning, and can only get off to sleep as she swallows
down her downers at night. And you have the wino who staggers
on the skid rows of our cities, and you have the respectable
Scotch and water businessman who sits next to me on the airplanes
and belts down three or four before he takes his lunch, belts
down another three or four before he gets off the plane, and belts
down a few more before he eats his meal at night, he's utterly
addicted to his alcohol. Oh yes, he's not on skid row,
he has his three-piece business suit, he makes his forty thousand
a year and has a fancy title and a lovely home, but he is
obsessed and cannot function without his alcohol. And then
there is the downright pothead who lives for nothing more than
his next buzz or his next high with his joint. It's a way of
life to him, all the way to the respectable weekend user who
only gets his five or six on the weekend and considers himself
a vital part of society and making a vital contribution, but utterly
obsessed. You have the entire rock culture
with its music that is spun out of minds that are disjointed
through drugs, that is then paraded by means of an obsession with
a whole mentality that is saturated in chemicals? And it's significant,
isn't it, that the seventies close with a bitter memory that
rock group that is the symbol of everything that rock epitomizes. Read the article in Time Magazine
about who? The rock group who? Not written
by Christians! And saying that they are the
symbol of the inherent self-destructiveness of the rock music and the rock
culture! And eleven people killed, storming
the gates of an auditorium. And witnesses said most of them
were blown out of their heads with drugs and alcohol. My friends, I am not creating
bogeymen and setting them before you. These are the characteristics
of our national life, the decade of drug and alcohol obsession
The seventies will be known as the decade of dishonesty and
double talk. There was a time in our national
life when a man's word was his bond, Christian or non-Christian. Whether it was the man down at
the corner store and you happened to have no money with you and
you took home your groceries and said you'd be by the next
day to pay it. I've lived long enough to remember
when there was such a day and your word was your bond, but
no longer. The double talk in the dishonesty,
perhaps, was most clearly epitomized in that whole tragic affair that
goes under the title of Watergate, when the highest elected official
would look straight into the eyes of millions of his fellow
Americans and say, I'm telling you all I know, when he was spinning
out a web of lies. And the double talk in the dishonesty
is only exemplified by the fact that the very ones who are most
blatant in condemning him are guilty of the same double talk
and the same lies in their political and personal dealings. The 70s are marked as that decade
when dishonesty and double talk at every level of national life
has become a way of life. It will be known as the decade
of militant feminism. Oh yes, the so-called feminist
movement had its roots back earlier than that, I'm very much aware
of it, but it has been in the seventies that there has been
this obsession to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, even to the
twisting of our Constitution to get an extension of time.
What is constitutional law? We're determined What? That women should receive equal
pay for a job that they do in equality with men? If that's
all it were, I would stand behind it. There's injustice if a woman
does not receive the same pay for a job that a man does, if
the job is worth a certain amount of money. But that's not the
issue! The issue is much deeper. Militant
feminism asserts that there is no fundamental difference between
men and women except a few biological matters. There is no fixed role
assigned to the woman by God. There is no fixed structure of
authority in male-female relationships. There is no such thing as femininity
and masculinity. All of these distinctions are
man-made and imposed from without, and we are determined utterly
to obliterate them. That's the platform of feminism.
The seventies will be marked as the decade of militant feminism. Further, the seventies will be
marked as the decade of divorce as a way of life in America.
Divorce has always been with us. Even the scripture allows
divorce for two reasons. It does not encourage or smile,
but recognizes that sin being what it is, there will be circumstances
where divorce is the only honorable and righteous course to take
in a given set of circumstances, but it never envisions it as
a way of life. One just picks up an ordinary
newspaper now and there are the ads of the attorneys who, for
$200, will help you to dissolve your marriage. Just that simple.
One cannot stop at a popular a bookstore that carries good
literature. I'm not talking about a cheap
paperback shelf. And there will be books how to
get your own divorce at a minimum expense to yourself. The absolute dissolving of the
sense of the marriage bond and its sacredness. And then this
will be known as the decade of the rejection of the so-called
nuclear family, the whole idea that you have a family in which
there is a figurehead called the father who exerts a gracious
and righteous and authoritative loving rule in that home, and
a mother who is the epitomizing of all of those virtues spoken
of in the Word of God that are attached to motherhood, and children
who look to that mother and father for direction and guidance This
will be recognized as the decade that perhaps utterly destroyed
the concept of the nuclear family in our national life. Daycare
centers are far more competent to rear children because they've
got the experts whose only job is to manipulate three to five
year olds or seven to nine year olds. And so the terrible, terrible
propaganda goes on. And this will be known as the
decade, finally, of decadent religious obsession. And here
I wish I could pause to speak longer, but time will not permit
it. But we must face the fact that the 70s were marked by a
tremendous mushrooming of the cults. Whoever heard of the Moonies
before the 70s? They were around, but we didn't
hear of them. They weren't accosting us. Every
time we stopped at a red light, walked through an airport, But
in the 70s, there was this tremendous advance of the Moonies. And again,
the 70s are the decade of Jim Jones and the Guyanese tragedy. 900 people so fanatically obsessed
with a human leader that they will send themselves to hell
at his command. The decade of yoga, the decade
of TM, the decade in which there has been that mushrooming of
the mind cults and the oriental religions, the decade of pop
religion with no doctrinal substance or moral fiber, country singers
drunk on Friday night singing Amazing Grace on Saturday night
while 6,000 people stomp their feet and clap their hands and
have no sense of shame. Pop religion with no doctrinal
substance or moral fiber. We now have locker room chaplains
who go in and read a few verses to 35 men on a Sunday and pray
with them to salve their conscience while they go out and for three
hours profane the Sabbath before 60 or 70,000 and who knows how
many million on the TV. Pop religion with no moral fiber,
no doctrinal substance. Bumper sticker Christianity.
Smile. God loves you. Honk if you love
Jesus. What is all of this? It is nothing
more or less than the terrible blight, the terrible sin. of this that I have called decadent
religious obsession. Born-againism, where everybody
and his uncle who's had any kind of a twitch anywhere in his inner
being that has made him feel good in some way related in some
form or other to something that has to do with the Bible, he's
born again. Mystical experience. This is
the decade of the 700 Club and the PTL movement. Oh, dear people,
it is no pleasant thing for me to speak of these things, but
these, I suggest, are the paramount sins of the 70s. Some of you perhaps feel other
things should be added. Some of you perhaps feel some
should be subtracted. But no one can deny that the
things I have articulated are no longer done in a corner. These
things have always been present in our national life, but it
has been in the seventies that they have risen to the prominent
features and the very characteristics of our life, so that when a fanatical
Muslim by the name of Ayatollah Khomeini says that we Muslims
must rise up and put down your morally decadent Western Christianity. We have no answer. Now, he's
wrong in identifying American culture with Christianity. In
his Muslim mind, he cannot separate religion from total national
life. And we understand that. But no
one can say, you've misread our national life. What moral decadence
are you speaking about? We must hold our hands over our
mouths and blush and weep. These are the paramount sins
of the seventies. Now I must hurry to touch on
this second area of our concern. What is the primary reason for
these sins of the seventies? You're aware, I'm sure, that
there are some who would say that these things are not sins.
They fit the description of Isaiah 5. Woe be unto those who call
light darkness and darkness light, and evil good and good evil.
And there are people who would take these ten things I've mentioned
and would say they're an evidence of advance and development. We're
throwing off the shackles of the old puritanic mentality that
so long bound us in our national life. They would call all of
this evil good. Well, God has spoken to such
people and says, woe be unto them. But now I'm concerned from
the Scriptures to ask and answer the question, what is the primary
reason for these sins of the seventies? And here's where the
Romans 1 passage enters. I am not saying this is the exclusive
reason, nor am I saying that this is the only means that has
been operative, but I am asserting that this passage contains an
answer to the question, what is the primary reason for the
sins of the seventies in our national life in America. Romans 1 and verse 18. In this passage, I'll give you
a summary statement, then we'll break it down briefly and demonstrate
that that summary statement is warranted. What Paul says in
Romans 1, 18 through 32 is that God's wrath is revealed in giving
men over to sin when they willfully reject the knowledge of God given
in His revelation to them. Paul is saying that God's wrath
is revealed right now in giving men over to sin when they willfully
reject the knowledge of God given in His revelation to them. Notice
the main assertion, verse 18. The wrath of God, and there's
a present tense verb, The wrath of God is being revealed from
heaven, and all that follows is a commentary upon that fact. What is the wrath of God? How
is it revealed? What are the manifestations?
What are the causes which provoke it? Those are questions to which
the apostle will address himself. But now the main thesis is the
wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men. Now what's the main cause for
that wrath being revealed? And the answer is the rejection
of the knowledge of God, verse 21, because that knowing God
They glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks, but became
vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Knowing God, they did not glorify
Him as God. Verse 25, look at the language. For that they exchanged the truth
of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather
than the Creator. Verse 28, and even as they refuse
to have God in their knowledge. You see the main cause for that
wrath being revealed? It is rejection of the knowledge
of God given in His self-revelation. In this context, it was the revelation
of Himself in creation, nothing more, but it was that. And rejection
of that knowledge is the cause of His wrath. Now then, What
is the manifestation of that wrath? Abandonment to the vilest
of sins, verse 24. Wherefore, God gave them up in
the lusts of their hearts. Notice, the lusts were already
there. But there was a measure of common
grace restraining the lusts from finding expression in total abandonment. And now, as a judgment of God,
God removes the barrier. He gives them up to the lust
of their heart. Verse 26, For this cause God
gave them up unto vile passions. Then the sin of homosexuality
is described. And then verse 28, and here the
language is frightening, God gave them up unto a reprobate
mind to do those things which are not fitting. And then this
tragic list of social sins, wickedness, covetousness, envy, murder, covenant
breaking, all of this as the fruit of what? Being given up
by God to a reprobate mind. Do you see then the primary reason
for the sins of the seventies? The primary reason is the wrath
of God revealed on our nation for its rejection of the knowledge
of God. There is no explanation for this
pattern of abounding, aggressive, dominant wickedness, but that
Almighty God is right now in this last Lord's Day of 1970,
revealing His wrath from heaven by doing what? In the language
of the text, giving up those in our nation to the lust of
their hearts, giving them up to vile passions, giving them
up to a reprobate mind. Now follow me. If God did this,
when man rejected the mere glimmering light of creation, glimmering
compared with the full blazing light of the gospel. If man,
with just the light of common or general revelation, put down
that knowledge, refuse to act commensurate with it, and God
is angry and gives them up to these vile sins. What of the
nation that was born under the blazing light of the gospel and
visited with mighty outpourings of the Holy Ghost, so that woven
into the very fabric of our national life for the first couple hundred
years of its existence, was the overall moral consciousness of
the Word of God governing social life, family life, governing
our views of sex and of marriage, of education, of the home, governing
the dictums of our courts? What must God's anger be upon
a nation that takes that light and says, We no longer want it! and turns to the darkness of
humanism, pagan education, subjectivism, and the deification of man's
so-called intellect. My friend, there is no explanation
for the seventies but that Romans 1 is being reenacted before our
eyes. And if we are called upon as
the people of God to have no fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness, but rather to reprove them, we've got to
understand what has produced these characteristics of the
seventies. God has been thrown out of any
true consideration in the whole realm of education. in place
of an educational framework that operates in the orbit of creation,
fall, and redemption. We have for over a hundred years
had an educational framework soaked in pure humanism, an educational
framework which puts evolution in place of the God of creation,
which puts humanistic optimism in place of the biblical doctrine
of the fall. and which puts self-help based
on self-wisdom in place of redemptive power and light and grace. And
God has said, all right, you're so smart. You can get on educationally
without me. Go ahead. It's no surprise then
when young people act as though they were animals. They've been
told they were animals. They're just being consistent.
When God says you want to believe you're an animal, then I'll give
you up to your animal passions. In terms of our courts, the Word
of God and the great principles of justice, the sanctity of human
life, the overall moral implications of the unchanging moral law of
God expressed in the Ten Commandments, no longer a consideration. That's
why our highest court, can justify abortion on demand. It is no
longer felt the pressure of the Sixth Commandment. Thou shalt
do no murder. That's why divorce is so cheap
and easy, premarital and extramarital sex. No one is upset. Why? We no longer have the Seventh
Commandment exerting its pressure upon our national life and thinking. The tragedy is that within the
very Church of Christ, voices are raised up saying the Ten
Commandments have nothing to say to us. It's bad enough when
the world doesn't. But when the Church begins to
parrot what the world is saying, it's a double tragedy. Well,
this has been very oppressive, hasn't it? It's been oppressive
to me. I've lived with these thoughts
for the last couple of days, and my spirit is very oppressed. But I'm going to close by briefly
addressing myself to something that I hope will be a glimmer
of light. What is the exclusive remedy for the sins of the 70s?
Having contemplated the paramount sins of the 70s, the primary
reason for the sins of the 70s, now, very briefly and in closing,
what is the exclusive remedy for the sins of the 70s? Oh,
stay right there in Romans 1. You see, the apostle did not
introduce the thoughts of verses 18 to
32 in a vacuum. He had just stated his own sense
of indebtedness to preach the gospel, verse 14. Then he has given this wonderful
statement, of the power of the gospel. He says, I have no cause
to be ashamed of this gospel of the grace of God. It is this
very gospel which is the power of God unto salvation to Jew
first and also to the Greek. And then he launches into this
statement, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. You see
the connection? What he's saying in essence is
this, against the realistic backdrop of the condition of the pagan,
Gentile, Roman world, a world that is obviously under the wrath
of God, having been given up by God to its lusts and passions
because of its rejection of the knowledge of God and creation.
To such a world, I go with a gospel that is the power of God unto
salvation. And though I have gone into situations
where I have seen men ensnared in the very sins described in
this passage, I've seen this gospel break their chains, shut
them loose, and make them Christ-free men. He said, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel. It is the power of God. And oh,
my friend, this is the exclusive remedy for the sins of the seventies. And there are all kinds of quack
doctors who may to one degree or another admit the malady,
but oh, they come with false remedies. My friend, there is
but one remedy. It is the gospel preached in
this book of Romans, coming to the consciences of men in the
power of the Holy Ghost, a gospel that announces God's rights as
creator, lawgiver, and judge. And that's exactly what Paul
does in the first three and a half chapters of Romans. Right through
chapter 1, 2, 3 to verse 20. And he says, Whatsoever things
the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, Jew and
Gentile, that all the world may become guilty before God. That's the gospel that is the
hope of this generation. a gospel that announces God is
Creator, God is Lawgiver, God is Judge, but then a gospel that
goes on to announce that this same God has sent His only begotten
Son to die for sinners. And in the perfection of the
obedience of Christ, obedient even unto death, there is a righteousness
adequate for all the filth and unrighteousness of these things
that are categorized in Romans 1. You mean there is a righteousness
that can cover all of these sins, homosexuality, bestiality, open
idolatry, backbiting, insolent, disobedient to parents, covenant
breakers? Yes, my friends, that's the gospel.
That in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has provided a righteousness
that is adequate to all the demands of His holy law. And that righteousness
is to be found only in Jesus Christ. And it is only ours when
we come into Christ by faith. So he says, it is the power of
God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. Nothing here
about to everyone that joins himself to the true church and
partakes of the seven sacraments. There is no Romish hocus pocus
in this. No, no. It is the gospel to everyone
that believe it. Not to everyone who gets a wonderful
feeling about Christ. He doesn't know where it comes
from, what it's based upon. No, no. It is faith in this objective
truth, the announcement. God, our maker, is our lawgiver
and our judge. We've sinned against him. We
stand under his wrath. But that God, wonder of wonders,
has sent his Son. And in His Son has perfected
a righteousness that is available to everyone who believes. Believes
what? All that is revealed about God
as your Creator, your Lawgiver and your Judge. All that is announced
about God as the Redeemer of sinners in the Lord Jesus Christ. You are to believe that. You
are to embrace Him who is held forth in the Gospel. My friends,
that's the exclusive remedy for the sins of the seventies. The
remedy is not found in Christians going to Washington and lobbying.
The answer is not found in Christian action groups. The answer is
found in the mighty power of God the Holy Ghost attending
the proclamation of the gospel. and transforming men and women
at the citadel of their beings. That gospel proclaimed over the
back fence to your neighbors, proclaimed to your loved ones
when you enclose a good, solid gospel tract or booklet. That
gospel proclaimed when you pass on a tape to a friend or associate
at work. That gospel proclaimed formally
in pulpits across our land. And oh, as we gather tonight,
this will be one of the areas of exhortation and entreaty that
we have a renewed confidence in the power of this gospel.
You would think after Paul wrote what he wrote in that first chapter
of Romans, he'd have put his pen down, put his tail between
his legs and said, what's the use? If God's wrath is being
revealed on the Gentile world, why burn myself out? Why risk
shipwreck and death and imprisonment and beatings and stonings? If
men are so given over and given up and besotted in their sins,
my friend, That's the very glory of the gospel, and that's what
got hold of Paul. He saw that gospel come as divine
power and liberate sinners. Oh, may something of the thrill
and the glory of it grip our hearts, that as we feel the pain
of looking at the seventies and seeing the tragic moral and spiritual
declension those sins that characterized that decade. Recognize the cause
and the anger of God, the wrath of God, giving up a nation that
no longer wants God in its knowledge. How thankful to God we can be
if we've been rescued from that. All the potential for every sin
in Romans 1, 18 to 32 is in your heart. And oh, how grateful we should
be if God has laid hold of us in grace, and how filled with
hope and earnest desire to see that gospel come to others should
we be. And oh, my friends sitting here
this morning, some of you whose very lives fit the description
at one point or another of the sins of the seventies, you wouldn't
know how to get through one week without your booze, You wouldn't
know how to get through one week without your drugs of one kind
or another. Your life would be utterly shattered. You wouldn't know how to get
through one month without some kind of illicit sex, some kind
of a high from pornography or infidelity. Your life is a living
monument that these are the sins of the seventies. My friend,
there's hope for you, but there's hope in only one place. And that's
in Jesus Christ as he is offered in the gospel. That's all. Now
that's not flattering. That doesn't make you rise up
and say, oh boy, there's something. It strips you, it humbles you.
But oh, if you will but come in the humility of faith, you
will find the blessedness that we read about in our opening
song. Blessed is that people whose God is the Lord, even Jehovah
Jesus. Let us pray. Our Father, again we confess
our sense of shame and grief as we look at our own national
life, the moral consciousness and conduct of our nation. If we who are sinners feel a
sense of inward shame and blush, and at times a sense of anger
What must your holy heart feel? We know we come to one who, though
he is above us and beyond us, yet, O God, you have revealed
yourself as the God who feels. We pray that in wrath, that very
wrath which is causing you at this very moment to give men
over to their lusts, to give them over to a reprobate mind,
that in the midst of that wrath you would remember mercy. Seal
your word to our hearts. Give us, as your people, as we
are privileged to gather together tonight, a clear word of direction
for the days that lie before us, that we may not walk uncertainly,
for your word says that we are not to be unwise, but understanding
what the will of the Lord is. Give us understanding in your
will that we may, no matter what happens around us, be those who
walk surely because we walk in the light of your holy word.
Be pleased now to seal that word to our blessing and to your praise,
and may the benediction of your own felt presence and all the
promises that are yea and amen in Christ be our portion as we
leave this place through Jesus Christ our Lord.