Reasons for the Wrath of God, Part 4

Romans 1:23

Our study tonight takes us back to the first chapter of Romans ... Romans chapter 1. In recent months we have begun a study of this marvelous epistle of Paul to the church at Rome in which he presents the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're looking now at verses 19 through 23. Tonight we're going to sum up our examination of these verses.

Let me read the text to you beginning in verse 18. And here Paul really begins the main body of his letter.

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness: Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shown it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things."

Now, we've titled this section Reasons for the Wrath of God. God's wrath revealed in verse 18 and the rationale for it in verses 19 through 23. We've been giving you four points, or four reasons for the wrath of God. And the last one that we're going to be looking at tonight is religion. And we'll get to that in a moment.

You might be interested to note that the Hindus, for example, have some 330 million gods. Which amounts to about eight per family. Four hundred and fifty million Hindus have 75 million cows to worship. In Thailand there are 20 thousand Buddhist temples, one for each baptized Christian. And, in fact, a two inch long discolored tooth is reverenced by 400 million Buddhists as the most sacred object on the earth. And they claim that it is a tooth rescued from the funeral pyre of Buddha in 543 B.C., his tooth. They have set it in a golden lotus blossom in a temple called - The Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, Ceylon. They've surrounded it with rubies. They surround it with myriads of flowers. And people come from many countries to worship it bringing gifts of gold, silver and jewels. The Buddhists believe their Buddhas are really living gods. In fact, in Foochow, China, one of fifteen wooden Buddhas on a temple shelf accidentally fell over on a man and killed him. His family demanded a court trial accusing the Buddha of murder. He was found guilty and so were the fourteen other Buddhas on the shelf and they beheaded all of them. They really believe those are real beings, their gods.

Some of the relics of apostate Christianity differ little from this. For example, the Roman church claims to have the hair of the Virgin Mary. And they have several locks of it, one in a church in Naples, another in a church in Rome. They also say that in the Cathedral Perugia is her wedding ring. They have her holy girdle at the church in Prato. Drops of the virgin's milk are kept in the church of San Guadioso e Patrizio at Naples and St. Mary of the People at Rome. The holy basin used at the Last Supper is supposedly kept in the cathedral of St. Lorenzo in Genoa. The lance which pierced Jesus' side and Veronica's veil with Christ's features imprinted and the head of St. Andrew are all kept in the four massive piers which support St. Peter's dome in Rome. Christ's burial sheet is supposed to be the Shroud at Turin and it doesn't seem to bother anybody that it says He was wrapped in one sheetcloth and His head was wrapped in a napkin, separate from that which sat in the place by itself. The rectangular marble stone with Christ's footprints is kept in the church of St. Sebastian in Rome. And they have three shoulder blades, four legs, five arms, fifty index fingers, all belonging to John the Baptist. And all fifty of those index fingers are the actual fingers that pointed and said - Behold the Lamb of God.

We live in a very religious world. Lots of religions. Even in our own society, young people flock into cults. They identify with religious groups. At least 2.6 billion people in the world have an un ... or rather have an identifiable religious affiliation. That's over half the population. They say 1.7 billion people in the world have an unidentified religion. The pollsters, then, and the people who count people determine that if they don't know what your religion is they assume you have one, they just say your religion is unidentified.

Man is religious. Now, is all of this religion man really seeking God? Is that what it is? Is it man struggling through his primitive confusion and the chaos of his world, struggling pass the traditions and the errors of his past forefathers? Is man really struggling trying to find his way through all of this stuff to get to the true God? Is this man on the way up? Is this man ascending through animism and polydemonism and polytheism finally to monotheism or one God and finally to the true God? Is man really on the road up? Should we pat men on the back and say - We commend you for your pursuit of God? We honor you for seeking. Is man then to be pitied because he's working so hard and he just can't seem to come up with the truth? It's not readily available to him for one reason or another. Is he just trying to get God in focus and he's doing everything he can to focus the lens but God's just out of focus and he's given it his best shot? Liberal theologians would want us to believe that.

And if God then sends that man to hell, whose trying so hard to get the thing in focus, isn't God unfair? After all, man is religious; he's given it his best shot.

Well, liberals would also tell us there's no hell. But this isn't what Paul tells us in Romans 1. Paul tells us that man does not ascend to religion, he descends to religion. And that's the message of Romans 1:19 to 23. Man is to be pitied, not because of a lack of opportunity, not because there's no way he can get his focus clear, not because God is unfair, but man is to be pitied because he refuses the truth. And having refused the truth at the highest level he descends to the pit of religion. Man did not ascend out of the muck of paganism to discover God; he left the knowledge of God and went down into the muck of paganism. Religion is not man's ascent, religion is man's descent.

Now this is a critical passage because you have to see the justice of God all bound up in this. And that's why it begins in verse ...18, by saying the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. In other words, God is angry with men. And God demands that they face the consequence of their sin. And the reason he has a right to be angry flows out of what Paul says at the end of verse IS - Men hold the truth but they abandon it. Verse 19 says - "That which may be known of God is manifest in them." But they leave that. And verse 21 says "When they knew God they glorified

Him not as God." And verse 23 says - "And they changed the glory of the truly incorruptible God into their idols." This is the descent of man.

Now, we've been saying all along that as Paul opens the gospel he starts with the bad news. You have to have the bad news before the good news. First the danger, then the deliverer. First the judgment then the way of escape. First the condemnation and then the forgiveness. First the guilt and then the grace. The whole message of forgiveness, the whole message of redeeming grace, the whole message of the love of God, the whole message of the death of Christ on the cross on your behalf and mine is based upon the fact that we understand that man is truly honestly guilty before God of abandoning the truth of God. And Paul makes this his message by the way, beginning in chapter 1 verse 18 and running all the way to chapter 3 verse 20. A good portion of chapter 1, all of chapter 2, and a good portion of chapter 3 all deal with the fact that man is guilty before God, he is a sinner.

So, God's indignant hatred of sin is continuously being revealed from heaven against ungodly men because they have the truth but they descend from it into the pit of religion. Which, by the way, is the ultimate blasphemy because it substitutes a false god for the true God.

One writer said - "God's righteous anger never rises and never abates, it is always at flood tide in the presence of sin because He is unchangeably and inflexibly holy."

And so God is continually revealing His wrath against sin. In fact, in Psalm 7 and verse 11 is this interesting statement - "God is angry every day." God is angry every day. Continually against sin.

You say - Well, does God have a right to be angry? Of course. Indifference to sin would be a moral blemish. He who does not hate sin is a moral leper, said Arthur Pink ... and he's right. How could one who delights only in what is pure and lovely not loathe what is impure and ugly? How could He who is infinitely holy disregard sin that violates that utter holiness? How could He who loves that which righteousness manifests not hate and act severely toward unrighteousness? And how could He who is the sum of all excellency look with satisfaction upon virtue and vice equally? He couldn't and He can't because He's holy and just and good, He hates sin. And He has a right to react because man is guilty. Man has turned his back on available knowledge of God, and we've been seeing that as we've been flowing through these verses. The wrath of God is simply the proper reaction of holiness to unholiness. And Paul wants us to know that before we can understand the grace of God we have to understand the wrath of God. Before we can understand the meaning of the death of Christ, and before we can understand how loving God is and how forgiving He is and how gracious He is, and how merciful He is, we have to understand how guilty and undeserving we are. His wrath, by the way, is no less a divine perfection than His love or His holiness. It's just as much an element of His perfection as anything else. It is a divine perfection.

In Psalm 95:11 for example, it says: "Unto whom I swear in My wrath." God says certain things in His wrath; He swears in His wrath that He'll do certain things.

Now there are two occasions of God's swearing in the Old Testament. Two times when God swears to do something. One is when He makes a promise, and that would be such as Genesis 22:16 or any other time God says He swears and makes a promise, it means He'll bring it to pass. The other time that God swears is in denouncing and calling for judgment such as Deuteronomy 1:34 and you can look those up as examples.

We know that God swears in mercy to His children. And sometimes He swears to terrify the wicked. God will as surely bring wrath on the wicked as He will bring His mercy on the just. He swears to do both and we must understand that. God is perfectly angry as He is perfectly loving because men are guilty.

Now, there are four reasons why God's anger is justified. Reason number one, let's look back and be reminded, is revelation. And what I mean by that is men have been given the truth, verse 19: "That which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shown it unto them." How did He do that? Verse 20: "Through the invisible things of Him being displayed in the creation of the world." They are understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, you can know of His supernatural nature and His great power by just looking at creation.

I read this week the statement of a scientist, he said The phenomena of nature reveal the two qualities of force and intelligence working in perfect harmony.

You have to see force and you have to see a tremendous intelligence. And that is what Paul is saying - You can see His eternal power and you can see His Godhead, His infinite supernatural intelligence and wisdom just by looking at the world around you.

Now, God is manifest in creation so that man is without excuse. And we've been trying to show you that if man would live up to the light that he sees in creation God would reveal the rest of the truths to him. But man turns his back at that point. If he would follow the light that God gives, God, I believe, would give him more light. And God would give him the message of Christ. The Lord wants every man to know Christ. That's why it says in John 1:9 that Christ is the light that comes into the world and lights every man. God wants men to know Christ and wherever He finds an eager willing heart He'll bring the message of Christ someway to that heart. But men don't even live up to the light they have.

And that takes us to the second point rejection. In verse 21 we learn that men have turned away from the truth because when they knew God they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Now when they knew God they turned their back on God. And there's a very simple reason why, it's indicated to us in John 3:20, 1 believe. They didn't come to the light because they were afraid their deeds would be ... what? ... exposed. Men see God and they see the truth of God and they run because they don't want to be exposed. That's the basis of it. They are not willing to come to the light lest their deeds should be reproved, lest they should be unmasked, lest the rock under which they hide should be lifted up and everyone know the truth. And so they reject God.

Daniel's indictment, by the way, of Belshazzar in chapter 5 of Daniel verse 23 is true of many people. It says this, and I think it's a great statement: "The Lord in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified." The Lord in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified.... you reject a very God who is your life. And when man does this, when he rejects revelation and he turns his back on God, he greases the slide and he slides further away from God. And he falls, it says in verse 21, into vain imaginations or vain reasonings. And we talked about that last time, meaning human philosophy.

Now I want to make something very clear. I'm not totally against all human logic; I'm not against all human reasoning. Every once in a while man has intersected with the truth, no question about it. But when I talk about philosophy I'm talking about it the way Paul does in Colossians 2:8. I'm talking about the vain reasonings that he talks about here. And what we mean is useless philosophy, empty reasoning, that is devoid of God. When God reveals Himself and man rejects then man slides down from God into his own philosophy, his own reasoning, his own imagination, his own speculations of science falsely so-called. And man's perception of truth becomes hopeless and clouded, confused and uncertain. His heart is plunged then at the end of verse 21, into total darkness. The light is out. He starts with light, and you can see this, you can see this. The way you can see this is by watching a little child. They respond to the message.

This noon we had lunch with a couple from Florida. And the man said that he had gone home to his family when he was saved and he got them all together and he has seven brothers and sisters. And he stood up and told all of them about Jesus Christ and they tore him to ribbons and they mocked him and they laughed at him and he said they're all into the Harvard thing and the MIT thing up in Boston. And they all fancy themselves as intellectuals. And he got all done with the whole thing and he had two little sisters, and they stood up with tears after his whole presentation. And they said to the rest of the family - Can't you see that what he's telling us about Jesus is really true? Where'd they get that? You never met an eight-year-old ethical. They don't have any problem with that. That which may be known of God is visible to them. There's a heart of belief. That's why Jesus said - Except you become as a little ... what?... child, you don't enter the Kingdom. And then when they get older and they get sophisticated and they have to call their own shots they turn their back on God.

And so, they become dark. First of all it's vain empty reason and into the vacuum of vanity- and emptiness plunges darkness and the lights go out. And that's why when the Apostle Paul set about to minister; the definition of his ministry is thus: I was sent to the Gentiles, Acts 26:18, to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to ... what? ... to light. Why? Cause they're in darkness. Their evil heart is darkened. Their foolish heart is darkened. And we said last time that is both intellectual darkness and moral darkness. And we see that throughout Scripture, that darkness can refer to the intellect or to the morality of an individual.

So, man descends from knowing God, rejecting God, failing to glorify and thank God, he then is left with his own human reasoning and it plunges him into utter blackness and he is totally unable to discern what is right, what is wrong, what is true, what is a lie, he's lost. And by the way, he is descended so far from God, of course, into his pit of darkness that there's no ability in him to restrain evil. That's why as countries and nations and people move away from God they move into immorality and amorality because there are no restraints in human philosophy ultimately.

And that leads us to the third step - rationalization. Remember that from last time, verse 22? Professing themselves to be wise they became fools. Men have heard the truth, rejected the truth and now they affirm that their darkness is the truth. And they stand up and say - We know the truth. And that tells me that they've lost touch with reality. They have totally lost touch with reality. They no longer know what truth is. Like Pilate said to Jesus- What is truth? Who knows what that is? That is the character of lost man, he's utterly unable to ascertain what is true.... doesn't know.

In II Timothy 3:13 you get the picture here. "Evil men and seducers," listen, "shall become worse and worse," listen to this, "deceiving and being deceived." That is characteristic of human philosophy, they deceive others because they are totally and utterly self-deceived, they do not know the truth.

In Titus 3:3: "We ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived." It is characteristic of unregenerate man that he's deceived... doesn't know the truth, can't know it - he's in absolute blackness. But you know what he'll do inevitably? He'll stand there and rationalize that he knows the truth and he'll spew out all of these supposed answers.

An interesting statement made by Isaiah the prophet in chapter 47 verse 10, he says: "Thy wisdom and thy knowledge hath perverted thee and thou hast said in thy heart, I am and none else beside me." Isn't that interesting? You're so perverted by what you think you know that you've decided nobody knows anything but you ... you've got all the answers. What an illusion. That was the illusion by which Lucifer fell incidentally ... thought he had all the answers. He thought wisdom resided with him. He looked at himself and saw the majesty and the beauty of his person as created by God and it went to his head, he thought he would be superior to God. What an illusion.

So, God has the right to judge man because man rejects Him in the darkness of his twisted and perverted mind. And then stupidly affirms that he's wise. His fantasy carrying him into that deception. But you know something? Even in the midst of his human philosophy and in the midst of his befuddled mind, in the blackness of his heart he has a residual knowledge that there must be God. Have you ever noticed that? It's true. Even though he wants to be a philosopher, he wants to have it all reside with him, ultimately he is a religious being and he can't deny that. And so we come to the fourth in the four reasons for God's wrath - the fourth step in the descent of man religion. From revelation to rejection to rationalization to religion in verse 23 ... because he cries out for a God. He's got to have a God. There's the pulling of the supernatural dimension on his nature. He must worship. He has to bow someplace. Just as he breathes air, he must worship somewhere.... and he will. Even in the midst of his philosophy he's got to have some God. And if he will not have the true God he will invent a god that he can live with.

And verse 23 tells us. So, "He changes the glory of the incorruptible God into an idol, or an image like corruptible man and birds and four footed beasts and creeping things."

Voltaire once said - "God made man in His own image and man returned the favor." And that's true. He falls all the way to the pit and he does the worst thing that a human being can do - he gets religious ... the worst blasphemy against God...religion apart from the true God.

Want me to show you how I know that? Go back to Exodus chapter 20 ... Exodus chapter 20. Now here God lays down the rules...the standards. This is the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. Verse 1:

"And God spoke all these words, saying," here comes God's priority standards, "I am the Lord thy God, who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Here comes rule number one "Thou shalt have no other ... what? ... gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me."

Rule number one - no other gods. Rule number two - no idols of any shape or form. That is the highest standard. It is summed up in the statement of our Lord; "This is the great commandment, Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength." In other words, utterly committed to the true God, no place for any other god. When men get religious apart from the true God they have violated God's standard at its very beginning point. It is the most blasphemous thing they can do.

A man purchased a statue of Christ and put it on his desk. A few days later his wife moved it into the living room. A few days later it appeared in the dining room prompting a little child to say - Just where are you going to put God? And maybe that's the question that God wants every man to ask - where are you going to put God? He demands first place. This command says there's only one place where God will be put and that is first and there will be no other gods and there will be no idols or images of any kind. And this is precisely what man has violated, he has broken God's commandments at the very start ... blaspheming God.

So, man is inexcusable. There's a good illustration of this, I think, in II Kings 17 and you can see that even Israel did this. Israel followed this flow. In II Kings 17, just listen for a minute, 15, it says about them this: Verse 14 says: "They did not believe in the Lord their God." So, that was the first thing. God had revealed Himself to them but they rejected. They did not believe in the Lord their God. "They rejected His statutes, and His covenant that He made with their fathers, His testimonies which He testified against them; they followed vanity." There they go, as soon as they reject God they slide into emptiness. "And they became vain." Sounds exactly like Romans 1. This is what Israel did. "And they went after the nations who were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should do ... not do like them. And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God and made them ... what? ... melted images, two calves and an idol and worshipped all the stars in the heaven and served Baal." It's incredible ... incredible. And God got so angry He removed everybody but the tribe of Judah only, says verse 18.

What did they do?. They didn't want to believe in God. So, they descended from there into emptiness and from emptiness into idolatry. And from idolatry into moral perversion. At the end of verse 17 - they sold themselves to do evil and into judgment.

Look with me for a moment at Daniel chapter 5 and let's see this same truth illustrated for a moment. This is most fascinating. Daniel 5:17 ... Belshazzar the king made a big feast, you know, and this is the handwriting on the wall chapter. Verse 17: "Daniel answered and said to the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation." I don't want a thing from you but I'll tell you what it says anyway. "O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom and majesty and glory and honor: And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down." In other words, he says - you should have looked backwards and seen Nebuchadnezzar your father and how it was with him, God gave him all these things ... Absolute sovereignty, verse 19, utter sovereignty. Verse 20: "When his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne and they took his glory from him: And he was driven from the sons of men: and his heart was I made like the beasts and his dwelling was with the wild asses; and they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven,." In other words, he became a raving maniac. "Until he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointed it over whomsoever he will. And thou his son, 0 Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart," now listen to this line, "though thou knewest all this." Now there's the first principle again. Belshazzar sinned against knowledge, all men do. It should have been clear to him from what he saw in the case of Nebuchadnezzar. His sin was not in ignorance. His pride and his boasting and his rejection of God was without excuse because he should have seen it.

The end of verse 22 indicts him - "You knew all this." He sinned against light. And in the midst of light he blasphemed God. Verse 23, "But thou hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee and thou, and thy lords, and thy wives, thy concubines, have drunk wine from them; and praised the gods of silver and gold, and bronze and iron, wood and stone," and so forth. What did they do? They went into the temple and took the sacred vessels and they got drunk