Romans 1:18-23
God Says Excuses Won’t Work
David
Brooks, columnist for The New York Times, claims that Americans no
longer take religious doctrines seriously. He says we assume that religious
differences are temporary, that denominational barriers will fade away, and “We will all be united in God’s embrace.”
To fill the pews, says Brooks, pastors “emphasize
the upbeat and the encouraging and play down the business of God’s wrath.” [1] A
paraphrase of Brooks’ statement might be: “We
have lost the sense of horror of sin and the seriousness with which God views
sin.”
We
tend to treat the wrath of God like the little Scottish boy who wouldn't eat
his prunes. His mother sent him off to bed saying, "God is angry at you." When in his room a violent storm broke
out. Amid flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, the mother, worried that
her son would be terrified, looked into room. When she opened the door, she
found him looking out the window muttering, "My, such a fuss to make over a few prunes."[2]
I want to preach this morning on the fuss that God makes over
sin. That fuss is called God’s wrath.
Let’s first describe what the wrath
of God is? Verse 18 says: “The
wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness
of men who repress the truth by their wickedness…”[3]
There is a Greek word that is often
used where wrath is to be conveyed. That word is “themos” from which we get the
word thermometer. It means to quickly boil or an anger that is hot. But, that
is not the word used here. The word “orge” is used here. It refers to a
controlled anger. God gets angry, but God never loses control, never blows his
top. Wrath refers to God’s controlled anger.
Why does
God get angry? God gets
angry because God is righteous. Sin angers God because it has distorted the
perfect image of God in which we were created. God’s wrath is an expression of
God’s love. Love expresses anger over things that hurt those we love. In fact,
when husbands and wives become angry with each other it is not necessarily
unhealthy. It is far healthier for them to express their anger toward each
other than for them to fall into apathy and not to care. Anger can be a sign of love. If God never
became angry at sin and its devastating effect on those he loves, you and me,
he would not be worthy of our worship.
We admire the character of a loving parent who opposes
disorder, vice, and disobedience in his family, and who expresses his
opposition in a proper way. We admire the character of a ruler who is opposed
to all crime in the community, and who expresses those feelings in the law.
Should we not be equally pleased with God who is opposed to all crime in all
parts of the universe, and who determines to express His opposition in the
proper way for the sake of preserving order and promoting peace?[4]
Yet, God’s
wrath is not arbitrary, but specifically aimed at two targets: godlessness and
wickedness. Now let’s
define those two words.
Godlessness is living one’s life as if God does not exist. Wickedness, on
the other hand, means living one’s life without rules, as if you are the sole
judge of your actions. Wickedness is a sin against other humans, which
eventuates in sin against God. You see, if our vertical relationship with God
is messed up, our horizontal relationship will be a mess as well. So, if we
live godless lives, we will also live lives of wickedness. The two go hand - in
- hand.
But,
that is not the bad news. The bad news is that God says excuses don’t work. We
are without excuse because God reveals himself to us in ways that are
undeniable, unmistakable, and universal. Verse 19: “…since what
may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.”
But, rather than acknowledging
the existence of God, humans are, apart from faith in Christ, prone to deny God
in three ways:
First,
humans repress the truth about
God. Verse 18, “…who repress the truth by
their wickedness.” “Repress”
means to hold illegally, to bury, to cover up.
Many of you remember the
Watergate scandal of the early ‘70’s and others of you have probably studied
about it. Do you know what the real issue there was? It wasn’t the break in –
it was the cover up after the break in. Just as Nixon tried to cover up his
wrong, humans try to cover up the truth about God.
But, how do we do that today? One of
many ways that happens is when developers of school textbooks omit the story of
creation. Neither creationism nor evolutionism can be proved scientifically.
Yet creationism is omitted, not because it cannot be proven, but because it
demands acknowledgement of God. It takes as much faith to believe in evolution
as to believe in creation. Both require faith: one in God, the other in chance.
Evolutionary science that omits God seeks to repress or to cover up the truth
that God is creator. Humans repress the truth about God.
But,
humans also reject the truth. Some refuse to even acknowledge it. “For although they knew God, they neither
glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.” To know God means to give
glory to God alone. But humans want to be self-sufficient, so some reject God
altogether and rob God of the glory for his might, power and eternal nature.
Some would rather believe that what we see around us just happened than to
glorify God.
Consider the realm of philosophy – we
are taught that study of philosophy demands knowledge of the philosopher. If
you are going to study communism, you need to study the life of Karl Marx. If
you are going to study nihilism, you need to know something about the life of Friedrich
Nietzsche (NEE-chuh). When you study
existentialism you need to study the life of Soren Kierkegaard
(SOR-uhn KEER-kuh-gor).
If you are going to study psychology, you need to know something about Sigmund
Freud. When you understand the life of the philosopher, you can better
understand why they engaged the philosophies they are known for. Here is the
issue: Humans fabricate philosophies in order to justify and excuse their
behavior. We see it all the time.
Freud is a great case in point. He is
known to have had an incestuous relationship with his mother. Is it any wonder,
then, that his perspective on human life and especially sex would be so different?
Did
you know that Friedrich Nietzsche (NEE-chuh),
Hitler’s philosopher, is the man who first declared that God is dead and spoke
of a super-human race? Toward the end of his life, venereal disease was driving
him insane and he committed suicide.
Look
at the life of the philosopher because, in many cases, they have developed a
system of thought to justify their actions. And, while we are at it, we need to
look at your own lives and see the kinds of excuses we embrace to justify our
choices. Humans repress and reject the truth about God.
Thirdly,
humans replace the truth of God. Humans fashion idols to resemble
men, birds, animals, and reptiles. Some
of you have been to locations in
Beloved,
before we come down too hard on others, lets admit that we, too, replace the
truth. We have our own idols. We don’t fashion them out of wood and metal in
the sense that others did and do. No, we fashion them out of plastic, paper,
personalities, fame, success, wealth, prosperity, health, and appearance. Make
no mistake about it we have our idols.
Exodus 20: 3-4, “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 You shall not make for yourself an idol in
the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters
below.” We don’t make graven images that we bow down to, but we do bow down
to idols. Nobody, no-thing is to take the place of God in our lives. We
are especially careful not to introduce to this space anything that would
attract attention to itself and thus away from God.
So, this is the bad news. We are
guilty of the godlessness of living our lives as if God does not exist.
And the
results of such living are in verse 21? “ … their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts
were darkened Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.”
In other words, if you start with a false premise, you will arrive at a false
conclusion. The word there in
the Greek is literally moron. We are guilty of seeking to live life
without God.
Conclusion: In conclusion, I will
attempt to express the meaning of this passage more succinctly.
You
have been shopping for diamonds before. The jeweler brings the diamonds out
wrapped in black velvet and then displays the diamonds on the black velvet in
order to illustrate the brilliance of the diamonds, to draw contrast between
the diamonds and their surroundings.
This
passage illustrates our sin by drawing contrast between the gospel and nature
or whatever other sources we might attempt to gain righteousness from. Pursuit
of righteousness from any source other than the gospel of Christ results in
immediate judgment because it angers God. Pursuit of righteousness from any
source other than the gospel equates to living life without God. It leads us to
repress, reject and replace the truth
of God. Such actions bring ro bear upon themselves the wrath of God.
Supreme
Court Justice Horace Gray once said to the man who escaped conviction on a
technicality: "I know that you are
guilty and you know it, and I wish you to remember that one day you will stand
before a better and wiser Judge, and that there you will be dealt with
according to justice and not according to law."[6]
The
wrath of God is being revealed. The
Word does not say that God’s wrath is an event in the distant future that
allows us to engage godless, wicked living and expect God to wink at it. God wrath is a reality in the here and now.
God says that excuses will not work.
This is a tough word but remember that there is grace;
the grace that brings us to this place to hear and to be transformed in the
light of the truth of God’s Word.
[1]Attributed
to Charles Colson in “Christianity Today (April 2004),” at http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/
illustration_search.asp?keywords=wrath&image
[2] http://elbourne.org/sermons/index.mv?illustration+2789
[3] All scripture passages are in The New International
Version, (
[4]
Attributed to “Albert Barnes” at http://www.esermons.com/search.asp?user_id=15766&theOtherType
=illustrations&whichOne=other&whichOne3=w&whichFile=wrath_of_god
[5] Under
“sin” at sermoncentral.com – quote by
[6] Attributed to “(Roy B. Zuck. The Speaker’s Quote Book.