Romans chapter 1 verse 20 the
invisible things of God from the creation from the creation
of the world are clearly saying being understood by the things
that are made, even His eternal, sovereign, holy power, and His
Godhead, His person, His throne. He is God on the throne, so that
all men everywhere, including us, including all men, are without
excuse. Verse 20 declares, all men are
without any valid reason not for submitting and acknowledging
that God is God. They are without excuse. While the light of creation does
not reveal the gospel of Christ, And sinners do not learn the
gospel by looking at creation, at the creation of God. They
learn the gospel by looking to the Lord Jesus Christ and by
the revelation of God the Holy Spirit. However, the creation
does reveal some things about God, the creation itself. That
is what is mentioned there, His eternal power and Godhead, so
that they are without excuse. Now, if you have the Cambridge
that I'm using, you'll notice on verse 20, There is a marginal
reference there to Acts 14, 17. So if you'll turn there and let's
read Acts 14, 17, and we see something very interesting. God
has not left himself without excuse. Acts 14, 17. Now, when
it says here, The invisible things of God,
of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen. How are
invisible things clearly seen? Now it seems like a contradiction,
but look what he says here in verse 17, Acts 14. Nevertheless,
he had not left himself without a witness in that God did good
and gave us rain from heaven. We see the rain from heaven,
don't we? And the fruitful season filling
our hearts with food. God gives us food. And He gives
gladness of heart. So God has not left Himself without
a witness, even in the creation of God. The familiar Psalm that
we look at all the time in this regard, Psalm 19 verse 1 where
it says the heavens declare the glory of God or the heavens declare
that God is God and the firmament showeth his handiwork The vast,
infinite space that we look at, it shows just the handiwork of
God. That's His handiwork. Creation,
God created all things by the word of His power, so that they
are without excuse. Now, look at verse 21. when they knew something of God
in this vast creation of God, when they knew something of the
glory of God as it's seen in the face of creation, in the
stars, in the sun, in the planets, in the solar system, in the universe,
they glorified Him not as God. Neither were they thankful but
rather became vain. Man at his best state is altogether
vanity, Psalm 39, five. Vain in their imagination and
their foolish heart, their foolish heart, not a believing heart,
their foolish heart was further darkened. Even when creation
declares the God of creation, The sun, the stars, the clouds,
the mountains, the rivers, the trees all declare that God is
God and all creation can be used in type and picture to declare
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. For example, the Lord
is called the Son of Righteousness, S-U-N, the Son of Righteousness
with healing in his wings. The Lord Jesus Christ referred
to himself as the light of the world. He is the only light. And then also He calls himself
the river of the water of life in a dry place in Isaiah 32. So we can use even all of creation. I remember seeing a sermon by
Charles Spurgeon when he used a tree as an example of the gospel
and then he used a small little creature and how that tree provided
for that little creature. provided him covering, provided
him food, and all those things. So we can take the things in
creation and make a gospel application to those things, but man by nature
looking at all the creation of God reveals something about the
character of God, the true character of God, it does not reveal the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ unto us. Because it says here,
they did not honor They did not, they glorified Him not as God. They did not honor Him as God,
believe Him as God, and bow to Him as God, nor did they worship
Him as God. The old, what they call the old
Ketchism or the old Articles of faith, the chief end of man
is to glorify God. If you find that old London confession
or the old Philadelphia confession, the chief end of man is to glorify
God. But even when fallen vain creatures
knew something of the true character of God, as he's revealed in the
glory of his own creation, They honored him not as God, and then
it mentions three things here. They were not thankful, but rather
became vain in their thoughts, their imaginations, and their
foolish heart was darkened. Now let's look at those three
things. They were not thankful. Instead, they were thankless. Man by nature is not only thankless,
but he is godless. Godless, ungodly. Believers are
thankful unto God for everything we have, everything we know,
everything we are, and everything give thanks. This is the will
of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. But unbelievers are unthankful. They were not thankful. Not thankful
whatsoever. And then the second thing it
mentions here, they were vain or became vain or revealed the
vanity of their imagination by not honoring God. Became vain
in their imagination. Now remember the scripture from
Genesis 6, all the way back now, just after the fall. Genesis
6, when God says to Noah, God saw the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, this is prior to the flood, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That's how fallen we are. Vain
in their imagination. And God said in Psalm 20, you
thought I was altogether such a one as thyself. No. No, God's
not like us. He's holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners. Every thought and imagination
of God is absolute perfection. That sinners, and that's us by
nature, vain, and then it says thirdly, their heart being darkened,
their foolish heart was darkened, blinded by sin, blinded by ignorance. Now, if you'll turn to this reference,
and you can find this quickly, Ephesians chapter 4, Ephesians
chapter 4, verse 17, Ephesians 4, 17, This I say therefore and
testify in the Lord, that you henceforth walk not, as other
Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness of the heart. You see the problem? Heart problem. We have a heart problem. Jeremiah
described our heart And that's not talking about the muscle
in our chest when the scripture refers to our heart. It's talking
about our mind, our affections, our will, all those different
things. The heart is deceitful above all things, deceitful above
all things. Now think about it. Deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. God's true summation of what
fallen man is. Men are so fallen, they think
evil is good. And they think good is evil. We're so screwed up. I mean,
excuse me for the slang. But we're just messed up. Man
is so fallen and so corrupt. I read this scripture and wrote
it down in Malachi 2. Everyone that doeth evil, this
is what they think is good in the sight of the Lord and he
delighteth in them. That's how messed up we are.
Our thoughts are totally contrary It says, and then where is the
God of judgment? Well, He's on the throne. In
Psalm 14, and turn to Romans 3, and this is quoted from Psalm
14, God looked down from heaven to see if there were any that
did good. That's Psalm 14. Now, it's quoted
here in Romans 3, verse 10, as it is written, that's Psalm 14.
God looked down from heaven to see if there were any that did
good. And the conclusion of the all-knowing God is, there's none
righteous, no, not one, there's none that understandeth, there
is none that seeketh after God, they're all together gone out
of the way, they are together, together, collectively, become
unpoporable, there is none that doeth good, no, no, not one. Not one. Not one. So, Where does
that leave us? If God doesn't do something for
us, as Brother Barnard used to say, we'll split hell wide open. Their foolish heart was darkened.
And now, look at this. Further, we see the depravity
of the sinner professing themselves to be wise. They think they know
better than God, don't they? Well, that's old-fashioned stuff.
You know, that's, you know, that Bible stuff, gosh, you can't
go that way anymore. I mean, that's archaic and ancient. We know better. We've come so
far. We've progressed so far. Professing
themselves to be wise. They became fools. They just
revealed, revealed their foolishness. So we can come to this conclusion,
the world by wisdom does not and cannot know God and never
will. The world by its wisdom. You
see, the preaching of the cross to those who are perishing, you
remember 1 Corinthians 1.18, the preaching of the cross to
those who are perishing is Foolishness. Foolishness. And as I had on
the radio this morning, I hope most of you listened to the program,
John 6, 44, No man can come to me except the Father which sent
me, draw him. The world by its wisdom does
not, cannot know God and never will. Because the fool has said
in his heart, and this is twice in the book of Psalm, the fool
has said in his heart, there is no God. Or some have rendered
it this way, the fool has said in his heart, no to God. No, you cannot be God. You see, we whittled ourselves
out and own our own little idol and man in her fallen state,
you know who they worship? Self. It's all about me, mine,
and mine. And to hell with everything else.
I mean, that's the attitude of the fallen man. Excuse the blunt
language, but that's just the way it is. The fool has sin in
his heart. There is no God. Twice in the Proverbs we read
this. There is a way that seemeth right unto men. Do your own thing. There is a way that seems right
unto man, but the end of that way is death, death and judgment. There is no true wisdom, knowledge,
or any spiritual understanding or revelation apart from the
God of wisdom and the God of revelation as He is revealed
in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Colossians 2 verse
3, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. You see, God must take this foolish
darkened heart and make us by his power and grace new creatures
in Christ. Or we'll stay that way, we're
born that way, we'll live that way, and we'll die in our sin
unless God Almighty doesn't intervene and give us a new heart, a new
nature, a divine nature to believe Him and to love Him. God must
make us wise in Christ and God must make the Lord Jesus Christ
wisdom unto us. Isn't that what the Apostle Paul
said? But of him are you in Christ, who of God is made unto us wisdom. He's our wisdom. We understand
in the gospel how God can be God and justify the ungodly and
not compromise one attribute of his character. and that's
the mystery and glory of the gospel. We're going to see in
Romans chapter 3 how God can be just and justify the ungodly
only in Christ. God must command His light to
shine in our darkened dead heart or we'll never see the glory
of God. Now man can go a long way in religion. I mean you just
look around this country and look around this world. Religion
is everywhere. Men left to themselves. Somebody
asked me one time, how come there's so many different religions?
because men left to themselves will whittle out some form, some
kind of God according to his wicked imagination. Everyone
who was taught of God and who believed the gospel, they all
believe the same things, that salvation is of the Lord. But
you leave a man alone and he'll come up with all kind of wild
ideas. You say, well, who would believe
those wild ideas? You reckon how many people are
following Mohammed? I mean, there's like four or
five billion of those people, maybe more, billions of them.
How many people will follow the craziness of a 14-year-old boy
who said he found gold plates in a hill? and started a whole
religion. There are over 15 million people
of those people who are believing that lie and they call themselves
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Who are those
people? Mormons. I was one of them. And I would still be right there
in that darkness, in that refuge of lies, believing that lie,
trusting myself for righteousness, for acceptance with God by my
morality? I'm not against morality. But
folks who say, well, we don't smoke, we don't drink, we don't
drink coffee, we don't drink tea, and certainly we don't eat
chocolate because it's got caffeine in it, and we don't do all these
different things, we don't go here, we don't do this, we don't
do that, we give this, we give that, and you count that for
righteousness, what does God say? Away with it, it is filthy
rags. Depart from me, you workers of
iniquity." Now, aren't you glad for the perfect, blessed righteousness
revealed in the gospel? Who is the Lord Jesus Christ? I mean, without Him, without
Him, we have no gospel. We have no salvation. Now, verse 23. They change the glory of God,
they change the glory of the uncorruptible God, God who is
uncorruptible, incorruptible, into an image made to corruptible
man. In other words, they want to
pull God off His throne and make Him just like them. So they can
have a God that they can manipulate. A God that they can change. A
God that they can control. A God that you can manipulate
and change is no God at all. He's nothing but a puny idol
whittled out by your own vain thoughts. You see what he's saying
here? They changed the glory of the
uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man. How sad. Now this just shows
you how depraved sinners are. And it's us by nature. I'm not
saying that we're not like that because by nature we are. And to birds, to four-footed
beasts. Birds, beasts, and creeping things.
What are creeping things? Bugs. I mean, we'll worship anything
but God. I mean, we'll worship a beetle,
a bug, a snake, four-footed beast. You remember from our study in
2 Kings about what Jeroboam did? How many times in the book of
2 Kings, you look it up, how many times where it says, the
sin of Jeroboam, the sin of Jeroboam, the sin of Jeroboam. You remember? Remember what he did? Well we're
just going to worship God by this golden calf. And he thought
so much of the first one he made, he made two. Put one in Dan and
one in Bethel. So the folks wouldn't go down
to Jerusalem and worship a two-and-living God. So we're just going to have
this four-footed beast and say, well this is what God looks like.
You see how corrupt we are? and change the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made like to a corruptible man, to birds,
to beasts, and bugs. You go back and look at Greek
mythology or in the time when Israel was in Egypt, those 400
years, I mean they had 400 different kind of God idols. Wherefore
it says, I have in my notes here, may God
keep us from all forms of idolatry. That's where he found us. That's
where he found us. In idolatry. And he turned us
to God from our idols to serve a living and true God. That's
what it says in 1 Thessalonians 9. And caused us to worship the
true and living God in spirit and in truth as he's revealed
in the word. putting no confidence in the
flesh, but rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ and worshiping God
in spirit and in truth. We've got a few minutes left,
so let's take a look at verse 24. Wherefore God gave them up. to uncleanness, to the lust of
their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies, who change
the truth of God into a lie, and worship and serve the creature
more than the Creator, who is blessed forever and ever. God gave them up. We're going to see that phrase
repeated here. Look at verse 26. For this cause,
God gave them up. Down in verse 28, even as they
did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them
up to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not fit,
which are not proper. Those who remain in willful rebellion
against God, God will leave them to their own polluted nature
through the lust of their own wicked heart, and that is the
source of all wickedness. I underscore that word in verse
24, the lust of their own hearts. The lust of their own hearts. Oh, my soul. Can you imagine
being left to the lust of your own hearts unrestrained by the
grace of God, where would that lead to? I mean, you can go as
far as you want to run with that. There is no wickedness that any
sinner is not capable of committing apart from the restraining grace
of God. Thank God He restrained sinners. And I've often said this, if
God took the restraints off of mankind Universally, by sundown,
we'd all murder one another. We'd be all dead. We'd just commit
what they call genocide. Genocide. The whole generation. We'd just all kill one another.
If you study the history of man, you know what you study? World
history, US history, all the way down through history, you
know what you study? Wars. Wars. Wars. And we get quite proficient at
killing one another. Why? God lets go the restraint
to the lust of their own hearts. These people in news media, they
just can't understand how somebody can take a submachine gun, walk
into a schoolyard, and mow down 50 kids. They think, well, how
can a man be so sinful and so low? Their news reporter is the
same makeup. Unrestrained, mankind unrestrained,
we'd all wipe one another out. in an instant. God let Adolf
Hitler unrestrained for just a little while. How many millions
did he kill? Stalin in Russia, down through
history. I mean there's just been, you
talk about mass murder. How does that happen? Unrestrained
to the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies
between themselves. No greater judgment upon any
sinner than for God to leave him to his own wicked heart,
evil thoughts, fleshly wisdom, and carnal ambitions. That's
the greatest judgment God can put on any man to simply be left
alone. God don't leave me alone. Don't
leave us alone. When God leaves a man alone,
there's no level too low for him to sink unto. He's already
totally depraved. But he unrestrained, out of the
heart, precedes evil thoughts, murders, adultery, fornication,
thefts, witnesses, blasphemies. That's Matthew 15. Those Pharisees
were all upset about their disciples. They didn't wash their hands.
How are they going to be defiled by what they eat? Now, you may
get the flu, but the Lord said it's not what goes in the mouth.
That's not your problem. It's not what goes in here, it's
what comes out of this wicked, wicked heart. The heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. That's Matthew 15, 19.
You see, to do what? to dishonor their own body, their
own heart, their mind, and soul. You see, saving faith honors
God, doesn't it? Abraham was strong in faith,
giving glory to God. Unbelief is only dishonoring
to God. And God says this, if any man
love not, honor not, believe not the Lord Jesus Christ, let
him be, ah, you know, be okay. Yeah, yeah, everything be, I'm
okay, you're okay, you know, just do the best you can, everything
be okay. That's what they say. But what
does God say? That's all that matters. If any
man loved not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema,
maranatha. What does that mean? Well, anathema
means accursed, maranatha means when the Lord comes. If any man
preach any other gospel unto you than what is the gospel of
God concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema,
a curse, a curse when God comes. Well, that's pretty strong language,
isn't it? That's God language. That's God
language. And you take that to this religious
world today,