Romans chapter 1 It's not easy It's not an easy subject when
we talk about God's wrath Nobody got up this morning to come here
Thinking that I get to hear about God's wrath this morning We didn't
get up thinking about that but this is the the reason that it is good to
go verse by verse because eventually, eventually you have to deal with
everything. This is, you know, this is the
best counseling. We talk about counseling. This
is the best counseling. When we take the word of God
and we go verse by verse and we hear what God has to say on
every subject. Eventually we do. Now, when I read this, and I've
read this several times over this week and last week, when
I read it, it makes me want to flee to the Lord Jesus Christ. Because I see myself here. The root of sin And this thought
has struck me as I've been reading this this week. The very root
of sin is in all of us. And you know what that means?
That means the very fruit of sin is in all of us. All it takes
is for God to take the brake off. That's all it is. So let's look at this, this morning. In verse 17, Paul speaks of a
righteousness that is of God that is revealed in the gospel. A righteousness he's speaking
of by which God saves sinners. And we know that righteousness
is of the Lord Jesus Christ who is God. He came into this world
and worked out a righteousness. Some old writers call it an alien
righteousness, which means it is a righteousness without ourselves,
with outside of ourselves. It is a righteousness that is
imputed to us, and it's the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Now, no one
will ever see their need of this righteousness until they see
themselves in what Paul has described. Until you see that the description
here that Paul has given is in us. It's us by nature. It's us. And one of the things
that Paul is going to show here, he's going to show that both
Jew and Gentile over this chapter, chapter 2, chapter 3, Paul's
going to show this. He's going to show that among
the Gentiles there's none good. No, not one. Chapter 2, he's
going to turn and show that there's none good among the Jews. That
they need this righteousness as much as the Gentiles need
this righteousness. In fact, that they are in more
trouble because they have more light. They have more light. And that's what Paul's going
to show us here. He's going to show us that God has gave them up
to their idols and to their depravity, to the depravity of their nature,
for this reason. I want you to understand, this
is very important. God gave them up because they
gave up God. They took the knowledge of God,
they took what they knew of God, and they put it aside. They put
it aside. And three times, you're gonna
notice this, three times it's gonna say God gave them up. He
gave them up, He gave them over. And we'll see this as we go along.
Now, one of the first things we see here is man's total depravity,
whether he's religious or non-religious. But I tell you this, everybody's
religious. Everybody's religious. But not everybody's saved because
they're religious. That's not being saved. Being
religious is not being saved. Believing God is being saved.
But we're going to see here the total depravity of the human
race. And I want you to notice that
the decline of any man, any woman, any society, any nation starts
with its rejection of the truth. That's how it starts. It starts
with the rejection of the truth. I think, and I do believe this,
I believe what we are seeing going on in this country, the
immorality, the lawlessness, what we see are going on in this
country, the very root of it, the very root of it comes from
the rejection of the truth. The truth of God, it says there
have been changed into a lie. It's been exchanged. It's an
exchange for the lie. Most, now listen, I'm telling
you the truth. Most preaching that's going on
today in pulpits is a lie. It's an exchange. They have exchanged
the truth of God for a lie. And now I think you see this
country is now suffering for it. It starts with God. It starts with God. The downfall
of society always starts with the rejection of the truth, the
suppressing of the truth. And this is what we're going
to see. Now let's look, let's get into it. For the wrath of God,
and we don't apologize for God's wrath, do we? We do not apologize
for it. God is a holy God, and God must
deal with sin. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness." Ungodliness is a lack of reverence
for God. And unrighteousness of men, that
unrighteousness is a moral wrongfulness of character, of life, and of
action. That's what that means. So, the
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men, now listen, who hold the truth, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. They hold the truth in a moral
wrongfulness. They hold the truth in unrighteousness.
Now listen, if God loves righteousness, the Scripture says in Psalm 11,
the righteous Lord loves righteousness, then He must hate evil. He must hate sin. Now listen,
this is so. You've heard it said, and I've
heard it said many times, God hates sin, but He loves the sinner.
Turn over to Psalm 11. I don't know where you get that
from the Bible. It ain't in the Bible. This is why men are not afraid.
This is why there's no fear of God. Let me show you something here
in the Word of God. Psalm 11, verse 5. The Lord trieth the
righteous. He puts them in trials. But the
wicked and him that loveth violence, His soul hateth." The Word of
God said, He hateth the workers of iniquity. We diminish the
love of God when we diminish the hatred of God of those who
practice unrighteousness. God loves righteousness and He
must hate evil and He must punish sin. Now, God's wrath is very
real. And God has demonstrated His
wrath in different ways. First, He kicked Adam out of
the garden. He kicked him over one act of disobedience. And
in that one act of disobedience, listen, is the very root of all
evil and all sin that we see nowadays. It was in that one
sin. You say, well, one act of disobedience,
that's pretty harsh. Now listen, there's a side of
me and you that when we think of that, when we think of hell,
we think of the eternal punishment of hell. There's a side of us
that thinks that's hard. That's harsh. That's the reason
we think like that is because of sin and because we cannot
see the depth of evil that God sees. We have some understanding
of sin if God has saved us, but we still can't see the evil,
the infinite evil of sin. There's no bottom to it. It's
just that God has the brakes on so that His church can live
in this world. He's not let it run to its full
measure. He hasn't done that. God's wrath is very real. He's
demonstrated it. He's demonstrated it when He
kicked Adam out of the garden. He demonstrated it with the flood.
God flooded this earth one time. This whole world was underwater.
Where you and I are standing right now, at one time, it was
underwater. Someone said to me once, they
came down to visit with me, they was talking about all this sand
here, they said, man, you think it was at the beach? I said, at one time
it was. At one time it was the beach. All underwater. God killed everything on this
earth at one time, every person on this earth, everything that
had breath in it, God killed it, except for those in the ark,
which is a representation of Christ. And then God destroyed
Sodom and Gomorrah. He burnt that place down. as
an example of His wrath. But the greatest example of God's
wrath is Calvary. God spared not His own Son. He put Him to death. When sin
was found on His Son, when it was laid on Him, when my inequities
were laid on Him, God's wrath was taken out on Him. The greatest
display of God's wrath is at Calvary. It's not hell. The greatest display of His wrath
is when it fell on His Son, His only begotten Son. Now hell, that will be the experience
of those who believe not on the Lord Jesus Christ. But another
display of God's wrath, listen, is seen in God giving men and
women up. When God gives them up, that
is, as one man said, that's the simmering of God's wrath. You
know, we look at these things here and we see them and we think
God's wrath is gonna surely come on people because of this. Well,
that's true. But when you see this, when you
see this being rampant, you're already seeing the simmering
of God's wrath started. When He gives a people, a nation,
a person over to this, you're already seeing the wrath of God
starting to work. Here's the reason. Who hold the
truth in unrighteousness. The word hold here, this word
hold in the Greek means to hold down or suppress. By their wickedness,
they hold the truth down. They suppress it. You know, it's
like this morning, you hear the truth. Well, the unbeliever will
take that truth and suppress it. And they suppress it by their
sinful mind and by their sinful conduct. They just keep suppressing
it. Until one day, you end up with a seared conscience, the
Scripture says. That's a conscience that can't
feel no more. That's the reprobate mind we'll get to here in a minute. The fact that God is, and when
he talks about the truth, you have to go back to start with
the being of God. When Adam fell, he was kicked
out of the garden, he taught Cain and Abel, and he lived 900
years, had a lot of children. He taught them children, and
I think he taught them the way to God, because God slew an animal
and clothed Adam and Eve with the skins of the old animal.
God shed the blood. And then Adam, no doubt, I think,
taught his children. And Abel believed and Cain didn't.
But he taught them that God made us. God created us. And then
over time, they took that knowledge and they suppressed it. Then
they started worshiping creatures and all kinds of this list that
he gives here. They started worshiping that
and they rejected the fact of the Creator, that God Almighty
is the Creator. They hold down, they suppress
the truth. It's what they did. And nowadays, we've got more
of it. We have the light of God's Word.
We have the truth of God's Word. We have the gospel preached to
us in truth. And how many have heard that
and suppressed it, pushed it away, rejected it? There's consequences. There's consequences when you
hear the truth and you just suppress it. There's consequences. And he says here in verse 19,
"...because that which may be known of God is manifest in them,
for God has showed it to them. That which may be known, or that
which is known, or what they could have known..." You know
that... I've heard Henry say this so
many times, and from the pulpit, and he stood and preached the
gospel. He said, the people in that community, they're not going
to be only judged for what they know, but what they could have
known. The gospel is preached right here, and they don't darken
the door. They don't have any interest
in the gospel at all. And God's going to judge them
for not only what they've known, but what they could have known.
What they could have known. And that's why he's saying it,
because that which may be known of God is revealed in them. For God has showed it to them,
and here I believe He's speaking, first of all, this knowledge
of a Creator is in every person. Every person that comes into
this world, this knowledge is in them, that there is a Creator.
That there is a Creator, He says here, is manifest in them. Their own conscience says there's
a Creator. And the Creator deserves worship. Listen to this scripture in John
1 forward. In Him was life, in Christ was
life, and the life was the light of men. Now listen to this. In
verse 9 of John chapter 1, He was the true light. He was the
true light, Jesus Christ. He enlightens every man coming
into the world. There is a light in every man,
in every man's conscience, that God is. that God is. Now, they suppress that. Over
time, they suppress that. They hold that down and they
exchange it for a lie. For the invisible things of Him,
of God, from the creation of the world are clearly seen, they're
very evident, they're very evident, being understood by the things
that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. so that they
are without excuse. There are some things about God
we cannot know except through the preaching of the gospel.
God's redemptive glory, God's mercy, God's grace, God's love,
that's only known through the gospel. But now listen, there
are things that can be known by God through nature, through
looking at creation. First of all, even though God
is invisible, we can see by nature His power. You know, you have
enough intelligence, I have enough intelligence to know that when
we look at creation, that it didn't just happen. It didn't
just happen. There's a creator. There is a
creator. You know, the very fact that
for you to have anything, okay, let's say, for example, we have
a car. There's a car sitting in my driveway
over here. That car did not evolute. That
car was created by some men who put some parts together. When
we look at creation, it did not evolute, as one man said, it
devoluted what it did. It's created. And that knowledge
is in every person. That knowledge. There's enough
in creation we can see His power, His majesty, something of His
wisdom. It all shines forth in the things
that we see made. And there's enough in creation
that ought to lead a man, a man or a woman, to seek the Creator. God said, walk in the light.
He walks in the light, I'll give Him more light. If a person really
walked in the light that they could see in creation, God would
give them more light. But instead, we look at creation
and we don't like what we see as far as God, we suppress it. We suppress it. Listen to Psalm
19, verses 1 and 3. I'll read it to you. The heavens
declare the glory of God. They declare that God is. It's
screaming. It screams every day. The sun,
when it's coming up and going across the sky, it's screaming,
God is. The heavens declare the glory
of God. The firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utter
speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no
speech nor language where their voice is not heard. There is
no speech nor language, there's no... Let me say it this way,
there's no conscience. There's no conscience that does
not know that, that does not hear that. It says here, they're clearly
seen, clearly evident. Look all around and you can see
God's power and God's glory and God's wisdom. You can see that
God is, that's what it's saying. And because they walk not in
the light God's given them, He says here, they're without excuse.
They're without excuse. Or it means this, they're without
defense. In other words, they don't have a leg to stand on.
There's no one on this earth that is without excuse, that
has an excuse for why they don't believe or why they don't seek
after the Creator. There's no excuse. God has made
it so evident. He says in verse 21, "...because
when they knew God..." They knew that God is. They've been informed. As the Creator of all things,
they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. They failed to
glorify God as God. They failed to glorify Him as
the Creator. And because of this willful rejection,
and it says they were neither thankful, Men refuse to give thanks to
God for their food, their shelter, their life. They refuse to give
God the glory. They give it to everything else
and everyone else except God. Isn't that something? That's
amazing. God who gives us every breath
we take. The food we eat is God-given. That garden is not going to grow
unless God gives the increase. It's not going to grow. And we don't give thanks to Him.
And because of this, it's all downhill from here. Listen. Verse
22, "...professing themselves to be wise, that is, cultivated,
intelligent, learned, skilled, they actually became fools."
I think he's making reference here to the philosophers in Rome,
you know, Aristotle and all those, Socrates and all those. They
became fools. They're the ones, they were supposed
to be wise, you know, they're supposed to have it together.
They're the philosophers and they're fools. They're absolute
fools. That's what he's saying. They
became fools. That word means dull, stupid,
morose. That's where we get the word
moron. They became morons. That's what they did. And they professed themselves
to be wise, and they changed the glory of the uncorruptible
God, a God not liable to corruption, into an image, a derived likeness
of something else, made like to corruptible man. It starts
out with man, but notice how it degenerates here. Man was
made in the likeness of God. So they've made an image in the
likeness of man, then it went down to birds and four-footed
beasts, and then down to snakes. Like over in Egypt, they worshiped
snakes. They worshiped beasts and animals. Spurgeon said this, it's easy
to become like a beast when that's your god. When you make that
your god, it's easy to become like it. They changed the glory of the
incorruptible God. They exchanged. That's what it
says. They exchanged the glory of the
incorruptible God for things created. I couldn't help but
think of Adam. God said, Adam, the day you eat
thereof, you'll die. Eve takes the fruit. And in my
mind, I see it like this. Now, she could have brought it
to him and then eat, but I see her eating this fruit. and taken
it to Adam, and Adam sees Eve. He knows what happened. Eve was deceived, the Bible says,
but Adam wasn't. He sees what happened. And you
know what he does? He chooses the creature, and
he rejects the creator. He rejects the creator. They choose the creature over
the Creator. They choose the idol, and they
choose to worship the idol. And then it says, God gave them
up. Here in verse 24, God gave them up. But if you'll notice
here, Paul says, God gave them. He uses the word them because
he's writing to the church at Rome. I'll show you this at the end
of the message. He's writing to the church at
Rome. And what he's saying, he's making a difference here. God
hasn't given you up. He saved you by his grace. You're
not like that no more. You don't live like that. You
don't believe like that. You don't act like that no more.
Even though sin is still in us, we don't live like that no more.
But he's saying this is, and I'll show you later, this is
who you were, but you're not that now, not now. Wherefore, verse 24, see how
it all started with God. It all started with exchanging
the glory of God for an image. It's all downhill from there.
This is the fall of society, the fall of any person or any
people. Wherefore, because of this, God gave them up to uncleanness
through the lust of their own hearts, that's the seed of action,
to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. The decline
of a person, a nation, starts because of its rejection of truth.
They gave up God first. God made it known to them. It
says God made it known to them and they just suppressed it.
They took that knowledge and they suppressed it. They suppressed
it. And then you'll notice what God
gave them up to. They worshipped the creature.
Remember now, they worshipped the creature more than the creator.
So he's gonna give them up to the passions and lust of the
creature. That's what he's gonna do. He's gonna show us what we
are by nature. This is us by nature. He gives them up to, and that
word means to give into the hands of another. And that the ones he gave us
up to is ourselves. The last thing you want God to
do is give you up to yourself. One of my prayers, Lord, save
me from myself. Save me from myself. I'm my worst
enemy. I'm my worst problem. So He gave
him up to uncleanness. God took the brakes off, is what
He's saying. God took the brakes off of human
nature. And He gave them over to the
control of their depraved minds, their depraved nature. And the natural result is immorality
of the vilest kind. God delivered them over to the
passionate cravings of their heart. That's what it means,
the lust. The passionate cravings of the heart. Giving over to
sexual immorality is what he's talking about. who changed the
truth, they exchanged it, here's why, they exchanged the truth
of God into a lie. And they worshiped and served
the creature more than the Creator who's blessed forever. So God
gave them up to the creature themselves. Themselves. They passed by the Creator to
the creature and gave worship to the creature. What is it we
worship? What is it we worship the most? Here's what man really worships
the most. This is what he fights for the
most. Free will. Free will. You know what you
can write in the place of free will? Sovereign will. That's exactly what we want.
We want our will to be done. The Lord teaching his disciples
to pray, Lord, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
But we worship the creature. We serve the creature. We promote
the creature. And it starts with free will.
I have the free will to do this. If it doesn't hurt anybody, what's
the matter? I'll tell you what's the matter. God. There is, now listen, there
is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. If you take that away,
you might as well take God away. There are things that are absolutely
right and there are things that are absolutely wrong. Why? Because God is. And God's the
measure of right and wrong, not me and you. And you and I have
no right to change God's order. We have no right to do that. Then it says here in verse 26
and 27, God gave them up, and for this cause God gave them
up into vile affections, That word means passions. For even
their women did change the natural use into that which is against
nature. And likewise, in the same manner, also the men, leaving
the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust." And it
means this. Here's what it means. Burned out. Burned out in their
lust. Burned out in the rage of lust.
It's an all-out endeavor to satisfy the lust of the flesh. And God's
turned them over to the burning out of their lust. One toward
another, men with men, working that which is unseemly, which
means immodest or shameful, and receiving in themselves that
recompense, that natural payback for their sin of their error,
which was meat, is just a proper outcome. God's wrath. God's wrath. He's speaking here of homosexuality,
they exchange the order of the natural use of the sexes, and
we don't have the right to change the order which God has established. And the word meat there means
when one violates the order of nature, one must pay the price. That's what it's talking about,
the word meat. God gave them up to it. And even,
listen, and even as they did not like to retain God in their
knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those
things which are not convenient. And here's what he's saying in
verse 28. Here's what he's saying. Man as a whole, or man personally,
or a people, man put God on trial. You see, and even as they did
not like to retain God in their knowledge, they put God on trial,
and God did not meet man's specification. Therefore man refused to approve
God worthy of worship, or to retain God in his knowledge God
was not worth thinking about. They didn't approve God. And then God gave him over to
reprobate man. He doesn't say He gave him one,
He gave him over to it. And the reprobate mind here is
a mind void of judgment. I got this from, and I thought
this was good. It's a mind which is not a mind
anymore. A mind that cannot function as
a mind anymore. It cannot differ between what
is divinely right and divinely wrong. That's why I said there
is an absolute right and there's an absolute wrong. There are
things that are absolutely wrong and things that are right. And
the reprobate mind cannot discern that anymore. Can't do it. It's the mind, as one said, of
the underworld. But notice here, notice here,
he's not done yet. He didn't just pick out one thing,
because all sin is sin. We lump sin, you know, we catalog
sin. We say this sin is worse than
this sin. No, with God, sin is sin. Sin
is sin. He said, I hate a lying lip.
I hate a proud look. I hate it. So he gives this list here, being
filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness,
maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity,
whispers. He's going to get you one way
or another. One way or another, you're going to get shot. You're
gonna get shot one way or another. Because the very root of sin,
everything that's mentioned right here in this verse is in every
one of us. It's in every one of us. It just depends on which
way God allows us to go. That's all. Envy, murder, debate, deceit. Malignity, whispers, backbiters,
haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things.
We invent ways to express our evil. Disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant
breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who knowing
the judgment of God. They know that God's judgment
is coming for this. They know it. People know that. It's like, who knowing the judgment
of God, it's like saying, well, I know if I do this, I'm gonna
get in trouble. They know that. You know, your own conscience,
your conscience tells you this, that they which commit such things,
they're worthy of death. They not only do them, but have
pleasure in them that do them. Someone said addiction is infectious. They have pleasure in them that
do them. This is the human race. This is the human race. Now,
now, let me close with this. Someone may ask. I'm not someone. I ask. Can any of these be saved
that we just read? Can they be saved? Turn over
to 1 Corinthians. Turn over to 1 Corinthians. Thank
God for 1 Corinthians. Chapter 6, verse 9. No, you're not. that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor
abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the
kingdom of God. And such were some of you." So, thank God for that. I thank God for 1 Corinthians
6, 11. Such were some of you. But you're
washed, you're sanctified, you're justified in the name of the
Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. You're saved in the
blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Such were some of you. Every one of us has the potential
to do all that we've just read if God takes the brakes off.
Every one of us is guilty of sin, no matter what it is, no
matter what category you want to put it in, don't matter. We're
guilty. But I thank God that through Jesus Christ, all sin
can be put away. and may write with God. There
is a righteousness, now let's go back, there is a righteousness
revealed in the gospel by which you and I, no matter who we are
or what we've done, can be saved and stand right in God's sight.
Stand right. Isn't that something? Now the
next chapter, we'll look at starting next week. The next chapter,
Paul's gonna turn around and deal with a religious man. The
man who stands around and says, pointing that finger at you.
Remember, every time you're pointing at somebody, you got three of
them looking back at you. You shoot yourself three times
with him one time, right? Right. Thank God he saves sinners.