Debbie and I covered your prayers
too. We're leaving to go to Kentucky after the service today. And
I'll be back next week to preach here. And then next week, the
week after that, we're going to Louisiana. I'll be preaching
for Brother Richard Wormack there. Brother Mark's going to preach
here on the 20th. So keep all of us in your prayers. Keep us
in your minds, if you will. All right? Romans chapter 1. Why we need the righteousness
of God. You know, today, we talk about
how unbelievers and the enemies of Christ, the enemies of the
gospel, are intent on taking God out of every area of life. And somebody, I think, Walter
mentioned how they wanted to take the word God, the name God,
off of the money and off of all kinds of things, things like
that. And then another thing that we're
faced in our day with is that they also want to remove all
gender distinctions. Used to be, when I was growing
up, it was the Boy Scouts of America. Now they say it's the
Scouts of America. Well, if I had children, they
wouldn't join the Scouts of America. That's up to you. I mean, I'm
not trying to leave you alive. In fact, I think somebody ought
to start another organization and call it the Boy Scouts of
America. But there are gender distinctions,
and those are ordained naturally by God. But people want to remove
those gender distinctions, and we're supposed to pretend that
there's no difference now between men and women. And that's ungodly. But here's my point. If you think
that's just a modern-day sin, what we're about to read was
written in the first century A.D. Understand that, okay? And listen to what it says. He's
talking about how man by nature rejects the revelation of God. And we talked about last week
out of Romans 9 how we know that the ordination of God, there
are vessels of wrath made up for destruction and there are
vessels of mercy that are prepared under glory. But that's God's
business and we have the mandate from God in His word, the command
to seek the Lord. But rather than seeking the Lord,
what happens? Look at verse 22. He says, professing
themselves to be wise, they become fools. Man, in his efforts to
suppress the truth, to suppress the natural truth that he has
in creation, there is a difference between men and women. Now, when
we try to cloud that or to remove that distinction, man thinks
he's wise, but he's a fool. And nowhere is that seen more
in man's natural reaction to the gospel and salvation. But let's read on. He says, change
the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to
corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping
things. Now what we have there is man's
natural desire basically to worship himself. In other words, he thinks
his knowledge of God is not from the revelation that God gives,
but from himself. I'll never forget, I was speaking
to a group of what they call Christian businessmen one time.
And I was talking about evangelism. And I asked them the question,
I said, if you were going to learn about true evangelism,
Where would you go to find the realities, the basics, the message
of evangelism? And three men said, well, you'd
go to yourself. And I said, really? I said, I
would go to the master evangelist, who is none other than Christ,
and see what he says. But see, that's the way people
think. In other words, it's inside you. Truth is inside you. And everything has to be measured
by how you see it. And so what you have is this
relativism. What may be true for me may not
be true for you, but they're both okay. See, that's pluralism. We're all okay, I'm okay, you're
okay, that kind of thing. Man by nature thinks this is
wisdom, but it's foolishness, and so what he does, he changes
the glory of God. Now this is in his mind now.
You can't change the glory of God. God's gonna be glorified
no matter what. But what he does is, in his mind, being ignorant
and alienated from God. And understand now, and this
is one of the main points of this lesson and the next lessons,
understand when we read this, he's talking about all of us
by nature. Now, not just some scummy segment
of society, all right? Not just the outspoken atheist. But even in religion. Even in
religion, and of course, he's gonna prove that more in chapter
two when he goes to the religious Jew who's under the law, who
boasts of the law. And basically, here's what he
says. You think you're better off? You look at these people
who are doing these abominable things, okay? And you say, well,
good, not that, that shocks me. Well, I hate it. Listen, I hate
that they're doing it. But it really doesn't shock me.
And you know why it doesn't shock me? Because it's right here in
the word of God. You remember Christ told the
disciples what they were going to face when they go out to preach
the gospel. He said, I'm telling you this beforehand so that you'll
know. And so he said, marvel not if
the world hates you. And I know it seems kind of sad. when we come to a point in our
life that nothing shocks us. But it doesn't shock me. What's
going on today doesn't shock me at all. Because that's what
was going on in some segments of society right here in Romans
chapter one. But here's what he's telling
us. Here's the main issue of this. This is the revelation
of the righteousness of God. That is the gospel is. How God
saves sinners through Christ. based on a righteousness that
Christ as God in human flesh produced by his obedience unto
death as the surety and substitute of his people, and his righteousness
alone is the only way that any fallen son or daughter of Adam
can be saved. You can't be saved by your works.
You can't be saved by your decisions. You can't be saved by your cooperation. It is totally a work of God.
Now that applies to every one of us, Jew, Gentile, moral, immoral
in the eyes of men. And so when we read these things,
understand, we are just as much in need of the righteousness
of God as anyone described here. We're sinners, and salvation's
by grace. But look at it, they changed
the glory of the incorruptible God, the uncorruptible God, into
an image made like to a corruptible man. You know, today they talk
about God who changes. Now why do they talk about a
God who changes? It's because we change. That's
the basis of that view of God. It has no basis in scripture.
In fact, the scripture says the opposite. God is immutable. That
is mind-boggling to me. How about you? I can't fathom
something that doesn't change. But rather than receiving God's
revelation of himself, they reason from the ground up, well, I change,
so God must change. Well, he doesn't. I do this,
I think this, I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't think that, so God
doesn't. It's like the man who, the unbelieving
A professing Christian who was really an unbeliever told a preacher
one time, after the preacher had preached on the sovereignty
of God, and he said, preacher, my God wouldn't do what your
God does. And the preacher said, I expect
you're right. Your God wouldn't, but your God's an idol. Your
God's like you. God pronounced an indictment
against man. You thought I was one who was
altogether like yourself. But no. When he talks about they
changed the glory of God into the image of birds and four-footed
beasts and creeping things, what he's showing there is how far
down man can go in this thing. Not only does he worship a God
who's like himself, but he makes God like the animals. They worship
birds. In India, they worship cows.
You ever heard of the phrase, well, I'm going to kick the sacred
cow? There's nothing sacred about a cow. There's nothing sacred
about a hamburger. That's idolatry. But they worship
them. They worship the ibis. They worship all kinds of four-footed
beasts and creeping things. And I think that's man's desire
to set himself up as a god because, you know, we're better than a
cow. Hopefully. And then look at verse 24. And
again now, understand now, nowhere does this kind of attitude show
up in blatant disregard to the revelation of God than in man's
view of salvation. Now that's already been settled.
How God saves us, who God is, and who we are. I've been thinking
about preaching a series of messages on what we call Tulip. And you
know what? You know what? The doctrine of
total depravity, that's not just Calvin, John Calvin, that's Bible. And really what it does, it shows
me who I am. This book here tells me who I
am. And if I disagree with what this
book says, then what am I doing? I'm elevating myself. Tells me
what sin is. You know, man does not know what
righteousness and sin really are. Thinks he does. That's why we need the revelation
of the righteousness of God. But all of this shows up more
blatantly in man's life, more so than in any other area, in
his reaction to the gospel. If left to ourselves, what will
we do with the gospel message of how God justifies the ungodly? How God takes a sinner and purges
his sins, her sins. Or how God makes a sinner righteous. Well, we're gonna find out later
on in chapter two, the Jews had their idea. Well, we're circumcised
and we keep the law of Moses. Well, what they've done there
is they've changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into
the image made like to a corruptible man. Bible says that this is the condemnation,
John 3, 19, that light has come into the world and men love darkness
and hate the light because their deeds are evil. That's why we
need the righteousness of God. It takes the righteousness of
God not only to justify us but to sanctify us too, set us apart. So look at verse 24. He says,
wherefore, for this reason, God also gave them up to the uncleanness
through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own
bodies between themselves. Now see, we see that man, instead
of learning the glory of God in the use of his own physical
body, he turns it into something He turns it into something that
makes it idolatrous and sinful. I think about this in this vein. Sin begins with the unlawful
desires of the heart. Sin is a heart matter. But it
sometimes manifests itself into sinful practices with the use
of the physical body. And so I think about Psalm 139
verse 14 that I've got in your lesson where the psalmist wrote
this. He said, I will praise thee, praise God, for I am fearfully
and wonderfully made, marvelous are thy works, and that my soul
knoweth right well. In other words, his view of his
own body, the knowledge he had of his physical body caused him
to glorify God. And you think about that. If
you've ever studied anatomy or physiology, the human body is
an amazing thing. It certainly could not have come
about by millions of years of evolution. It's created by God. And what a great God we have.
But what does man do with it? He talks about evolution, survival
of the fittest, origin of the species, man climbing up out
of the primordial ooze. And then he goes back even before
the big bang theory on the world and all of that. Well, that's
what happens. That's the declension that goes
on in verse 25. Look, he says, who changed the
truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more
than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. And that's what
it ends up to be. And understand now, that's what
man is at his best and at his worst on this earth. If let go
by himself, if God, listen, if God doesn't sovereignly, providentially,
graciously intervene, this is what it is. Isn't that right? Thank God he does in the case
of his people. He says, I'll have mercy on whom
I will. I'll have compassion on whom I will. It's not of him
that runneth, nor of him that willeth, but of God that showeth
mercy. So look at verse 26, for this cause God gave them up to
vile affections, even their women did change the natural use into
that which is against nature. Now what he's going in here is
he's talking about the sins of the sexual immorality, use of
the body. in ways that dishonor themselves
because it's unnatural, even nature teaches us the things
that nature teaches us that's natural, going against that. Verse 27, and likewise also the
men leaving their natural use of the women, burned in their
lust one toward another, men with men working that which is
unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error,
which was meat, which was simply The punishment that they get
for that is appropriate, that's what it's saying. Don't ever
let anybody tell you that the Bible doesn't speak against homosexuality. Because it does, it's an abomination.
The relationship between one man and one woman in the marriage
relationship is a beautiful thing. The love that they have for each
other is a beautiful thing. And the Lord says it's a picture
of Christ and his church. And when that relationship is
abandoned for the unnatural, unnatural meaning, men with men,
women with women, it's an abomination. And whatever they receive, just
like, and think about it this way. All sin deserves death. That's what the scripture teaches.
It's not just one sin that we see as worse than another. Well,
that one deserves death. And then this little sin that
I commit, it doesn't. All sin deserves death. I understand
that. But what he's simply teaching
here is that when people go into that kind of behavior, the recompense,
the vengeance that God exacts out is just, that's what they
deserve. Now, that's not to say that if
God ever gave me what I deserved, I would be doomed too for my
sins. We fell in Adam, ruined by the
fall. The wages of sin is death, not
the wages of some sins is death. It's not the wages of some specific
sins or the worst sins as we see it. You know what, if somebody
were to ask you, What's the worst sin that a human being can commit? What would you say? Don't answer
because I'm going to answer it for you. Self-righteousness. Unbelief. That's the worst sin. Depart
from me, ye that work iniquity, I never knew. Standing before
God, pleading something other than the imputed righteousness
of Christ. That's the condemnation. So he says in verse 28, and even
as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, now think
about, you know the reason people want to remove the name God off
of everything? You know why people, I've got
a theory and I believe it's, why do people deny that there
is a God? There's atheists who, you know
why? They don't want to be held accountable. If there is a God,
there is a judgment, which means I'm going to be held accountable.
Everybody's going to give an account, Paul said in Romans
14. You say, well, that scares me.
Well, here's the point. If you're in Christ, washed in
his blood, clothed in his righteousness, he is your account. Did you know
that? You'll be judged out of the book,
singular, and that book is the Lamb's book of life. It's not
gonna be, well, God's gonna flash up a movie of your life and show
you all the bad things you're doing. No, we're in Christ. Oh, that I may know Him and be
found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ. And that
is every believer's account. Jesus Christ, the Lord, our righteousness. But now everyone who appears
before God at judgment without Christ, they'll be judged out
of the books, plural. And they'll be judged according
to their works and be condemned. So understand, well man wants
to, he doesn't want to retain that kind of knowledge of God
that holds him accountable for a righteousness he can't produce. He wants to be the captain of
his own fate. He wants to be the determiner
of his own destiny. He wants to work his way, claim
that his goodness is enough. Well, he says in verse 28, and
even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
or the knowledge of God, God gave them over to a reprobate
mind. A reprobate mind is a mind void of judgment. Now, by nature,
we all have minds void of judgment. You understand that? People look at the term reprobate
and they say, well, that's the non-elect. Well, a reprobate
is a non-elect. There is. But as far as a reprobate
mind, it means a mind void of judgment. Before we're born again
by the Spirit and given the knowledge of God, by the Spirit of God
and His revelation, all our minds are void of judgment. But what
it's talking about here is how God gave them over to that mind
void of judgment. And it says to do those things
which are not convenient, which are not appropriate. And then
verse 29, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,
Wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate,
deceit, malignity, whisperers, that's gossip, backbiters, haters
of God, despiteful, proud boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient
to parents, that is any kind of authority, what he's talking
about. Here he is listing all of these
in verse 31, without understanding, covenant breakers, Won't keep
their promises. Without natural affection. He
says, implacable, immovable, unmerciful. They won't bow, they
won't submit. There's no humility there. See,
all of these things. And it's talking about man before
God. How God sees him. And he says
in verse 32, now listen to this. Who knowing the judgment of God.
They know if there is a God. And he's like he says he is in
this book. We're in trouble. That's what
they know. That's why they don't want to
hear the Bible. They don't want to read the Bible.
They want the Bible taken out. In fact, you know, I mentioned
a couple weeks ago where somebody said, you know, if they keep
on going out there, they're going to outlaw selling the Bible.
I don't know if that's true or not. I don't think so. God's
going to have his witness. I know that in this world by
his sovereign providence until he comes again. But when you
read them things like the Bible, listen, I know this from personal
experience. When they read the Bible, when you read the Bible
to them or talk about them from, they hate it. I know it because
I hated it. And when I first heard it preached
in the right light, I knew, I remember telling my mother one time after
hearing a gospel preacher preach a gospel message and I told her,
I said, Ma, I said, what he said this morning is true, I'm lost.
I was a seminary student. I was studying Greek and Hebrew,
New Testament, Old Testament, Christian philosophy, Christian
education. I was studying all that. And
I heard that message and I said, if what he said this morning
is true, I'm lost. You know what she said? She said,
well, you are. My own mother. But you know why
she told me that? Because she loved me. And so
I set my mind, I know that very day, I set my mind to say, well,
I'm gonna prove him wrong. And I'm gonna do it by the Bible.
And I often jokingly say that was my first mistake. Because
I found out that I was wrong. And so that, you know, who knowing
the judge, I knew that if this is, God's sovereign, he chooses
whom he will, when he will, how he will. It means salvation's
not conditioned on me, on my decision, my goodness, my compliance,
my cooperation, but it's all of God. Are you kidding me? That's what the Bible says. I
say that on TV all the time. I tell people, in fact, I just
got through doing a program talking about prerequisites of salvation. And the first prerequisite, you
know what the first prerequisite of salvation is? God must choose
his people. God must choose, not you choose.
God must do the choosing. Electing grace, God's electing
grace. Somebody hears that and they
say, oh wait a minute, that doesn't sound fair. Well, maybe, it probably
doesn't to you, but let me give you the biblical answer, turn
to Romans chapter nine. Is there injustice with God?
Is there unfairness with God? And the answer's no. Well, that's
verse 32. Who knowing the judgment of God,
that they which commit such things are worthy of death. If what
this Bible says is true about God, then every one of us by
nature and by practice are worthy of death. Is that not right?
And so the only way that I can be put in a position before holy
God and not be worthy of death is how? By his grace based on
the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
it. Washed in his blood, clothed
in his righteousness. And he says not only do the same
but have pleasure in them that do them. You know what that means,
that last line of verse 32? It's the old sinful human adage,
there's safety in numbers. Well, everybody's doing it. You
ever had your teenagers tell you that? Everybody's doing it. That means it got to be right,
got to be okay, must be okay. I had a preacher out in Leesburg
who told a gentleman who's starting to come here, he said, do you
realize that if what they're preaching here at Eager Avenue
is true, how many people who claim to be Christian are lost? I said, well, what does that
have to do with it? The only thing we can go by is
what the Bible says, folks. What it tells us. The fact that
there's millions of people who have a false hope, doesn't change
the truth of God one iota. There's one way of salvation,
and that's by God's sovereign grace, through the Lord Jesus
Christ, based on one righteousness, the righteousness of God, and
we need that righteousness, all of us, equally. We are in need
of the righteousness of God, which is the imputed righteousness
of Christ.