The Wrath of God

Brothers and sisters in the Lord, in previous studies in the book of Romans, we've been
seeing together that the whole theme or thrust of the book of Romans is God's desire in
Jesus Christ to take sinful and rebellious people and transform them into obedient servants
of God. Paul summarizes it earlier in this chapter when he says that we have received
grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among
all nations, the obedience of faith. And the key words there are obedience in the one hand,
but it's an obedience that is produced by faith. Ever since the Apostle Paul had his
own encounter with the person of Jesus Christ after having tried to live a righteous life
in his own strength for so many years, his heart was filled with the mystery of the power
of the gospel. He summarizes it here in the verses 16 and 17 when he says, "I am not ashamed
of the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed through faith, for faith
as it is written, he who through faith is righteous shall live. He who through faith
is righteous shall live." And that serves as a summary and an introduction to the whole
book of Romans because that's the whole theme of Romans that the righteousness of God
has been revealed in Jesus Christ and it is by faith in Jesus Christ that we can become
the righteousness of God. We can put off the old, we can put on the new and we can present
her bodies as he says in Romans chapter 12 as a living sacrifice to God. I am not ashamed
of the gospel. It is the power of God to salvation to everyone who has faith. Now having
thus summarized the whole message of the book of Romans, he now in the subsequent chapters
that begin to follow begins to outline the need for that salvation. Why do we need Jesus?
Why do we need a righteousness that is outside of ourselves? Why do we need the grace of God
to become the kind of people that God would have us be? And the reason he says as he goes
on in this chapter is because the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. He goes on to say for
what can be known about God is point to them because God has shown it to them ever since
the creation of this world his invisible nature namely his eternal power and deity has
been clearly perceived and the things that have been made so they are without excuse.
For although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him but they
became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. I have spoken on
this passage before let me summarize the thrust of his argument. His argument is really
very simple. He says every man, woman child that lives in the world by studying the created
order all around them. I don't know the two things about God. Number one there is a God
or else did the world come from. Number two this God is an all powerful God how else
could he make this whole universe and how else could he keep it running? Everybody regardless
of where they live regardless of what culture they are born into regardless of what they
know about God or what they don't know about God. They at least ought to know that much
and knowing that much about God the one thing that God desires from everybody in the world
is that at the very least people honor God as God and give him thanks. That is to say
people ought to be seeking after this God. They might not be able to find him, they might
not look in the right direction but they ought to recognize that if there is a God who made
this whole world then being in the right kind of relationship with his God is of critical
importance and honoring this God as God and thanking him for all the blessings of his grace
is of paramount importance in one's life. Now, says Paul the problem with people and
the reason that God is righteous in his wrath and in his judgment is that there is something
in human nature that doesn't want to do that. He says the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the
truth. His implication is there is something very deliberate in the human heart that
wants to push God out of the picture because you see if there is a God and if he really
made the world and if he wants to dominate my life then I've got to do what he wants
me to do. I cannot do what I want to do myself. I am accountable to somebody that is greater
than I and that's the one thing the human race doesn't want to do because ever since
original sin came into the world we want to be like God. And so therefore over all the
years there has been this pressure in culture and in society to try to get God out of the
picture to explain life and creation in the world apart from God so that rejecting God
we can now do the kinds of things that we want to do. Somebody has said the last four
or five hundred years has seen first of all Charles Darwin trying to remove God out of creation.
We have seen a guy by the name of Malthus remove God out of the study of sociology and
the gentleman by the name of Freud removing God out of the field of psychology and in
all of these cases the efforts have been to explain the world and to explain the relationships
of the people in the world and to formulate a destiny in life apart from and outside
of the existence of God because if there is no God then we can do what it is that we
want to do. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness
of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. The real core of sin in humanity says
the Apostle Paul is not all of the bad things people do. As we'll see in a few moments
all the bad things that people do flow out of the original sin and that original sin
is one that says to God I don't want to have to depend on you. I don't want you to tell
me how to live. I don't want you to tell me what it be. I want to be what I want to be
and I can do what I want to do because I am God. I am the captain of my own soul and
the master of my own destiny. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. Now having established
that basic premise in Romans chapter 1 Paul now goes on to tell us there are three very
closely interrelated things that flow out of that stubbornness on the part of mankind
that says to God I don't want you to be Lord over my life. I want to live apart from
you. Number one he says their minds are darkened. He says they became futile in their thinking
and their senseless minds were darkened. They became futile or useless in their thinking
and their minds became darkened. They no longer can see things that are very obvious and
when they do see things that are very obvious they reach the wrong conclusion. Haven't you
ever wondered why people can? Can look at a gorgeous sunset. Observe the beauty of creation
and that come away with awe in the realization that there must have been a God who made it.
That instead people want to subscribe to some kind of notion that somehow or another
we are the product of mere chance like animals in everything only worse because what is
a variety of theories about that? Does it never strike you a strange that in a day and
age where in Canada alone 78,000 babies are aborted every year? We can have knowledgeable
and intelligent people not only observe that process but participate within that process
and walk away as if what they are doing is perfectly normal and is just a regular part
of life. Even while today we condemn what the Nazis did in the prison camps of World
War II. Doesn't it ever strike you a strange? Paid in the foul as kind of seeing and like
the proverbial prostitute wipe off their mouth and say I've done all wrong. Where does
that come from? Their senseless minds were darkened. God removes the light of revelation.
The power of deception begins to take place when God judges a people. He starts by removing
the common sense that people ought to be having and He pursues them on a path towards destruction.
They became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Then He goes
on to say having become senseless in their thinking. They now begin to try to find from
one another what they ought to be finding in God. He goes on to say claiming to be wise
they became fools and they exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling
mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. They exchange the glory of the immortal
God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Doesn't it strike
you as incredibly strange? That rather than reaching out to God and receiving from God
the things that God has in His love for His children, the human race rejecting God plunges
itself in every other imaginable form of idolatry. You know, the big out-up thing in our
own generation is new age. The in-thing in Hollywood today is to have your own psychic.
It used to be ten years ago they all had their own shrinks, now they all have their own
psychic. I'm not sure that's a step forward. They don't want to hear what God has to say
but they're willing to tune their ear to the forces of darkness in order to figure out
how to live a long and healthy and a wealthy life. And you and I say, "Well, I would never
participate in idolatry but if you really analyze idolatry very carefully, it is trying
to receive from a creature, but only God can give." Notice He says that later on, "They
exchange the truth about God for a lie and they worship and serve the creature rather than
the Creator." That's not hard to fall into folks. A husband or a wife finding needs and
insecurities in their own life will often cling to their partner demanding and expecting
the partner to fill holds that only God can fill. Men and women from every walk of life,
unsatisfied and filled with emptiness, throw themselves into a variety of activities that
will somehow or another ease the pain of my life and every form of idolatry promises
some measure of relief but will always cost me an increasing component of independence
because whoever it is that I serve outside of the true God will try to own me and will
try to control me and when they're done with me they'll stomp on me and throw me out
of the window because you see they cannot heal the core of my heart and the world is full
of broken people who looked to mortal man for answers that mortal man could not give.
Discover that trust was broken, wrath and anger set in the gates were open to the powers
of hell and bitterness and anger set them on a course of life that would one lay lead
them to destruction. Paul says, "If we don't acknowledge God as God, the number one we
lose our straight level of thinking. Having lost our straight level of thinking we begin
to become idolaters, we begin to look to the created order rather than the uncreated
creator for all the needs of our lives." And when we persist in that he says number three
there comes a point where God gives us up. Verse 24, "Therefore God gave them up to the
lusts of their hearts." Verse 26, "For this reason God gave them up." And verse 28 since
they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up. Ever think about that? What
does it mean when God gives you up? We often talk about how gracious God is and how kind
God is and how His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting and many of us here can testify
that long after we had turned our backs on God, God's love and God's power was there
to bring us back and he restored us and he took our feet out of the My Reclay and he
put them on the solid rock and we learned a worship God and we learned to praise Him for
who He is and all of that is true. But I want you to know tonight that when people refuse
to acknowledge God as God when their minds become darkened and they become idolaters there
comes a point when God gives them up. And when God gives you up you're in trouble because
when God gives you up God removes from you the wall of protection that keeps you from
going over the edge. I don't know if you've ever thought about that but everybody to some
degree or another even people in the natural I believe have sort of a natural wall of
protection that God builds around us. Part of that is our conscience that will only allow
us to go so far. Part of that is circumstances in which God will supernaturally intervene
perhaps placing his angels around us to keep us from following through and to think that
we thought we wanted to do and a holy fear of God keeps us from going all the way.
And a young man in my office good many years ago he was the black sheep of the family
he has been gloriously converted today. But there wasn't anything that he wasn't into
and at one point God had really begun to work in his life and he was trying to come back
to the Lord and he was in my office. We prayed about that and he confessed his sins and
he renewed his commitment to the Lord. And he shared with me afterwards that not only
was it like an incredibly heavily loaded was lifted off his shoulders but he said you
know when I look back over my life God's always been there. He says there isn't anything
that I haven't done and that's true. There wasn't anything that he hadn't done but he
said I could ever only go so far and then it was like there was something that pulled
me back from the brink there's a lot of us here tonight we know that reality.
We have in our own stubbornness and in our own pride launched out into a direction that
we thought we could control and God could have let us go over the edge but you know he
didn't. He stopped us sovereignly. That's part of God's love and that is geared and calculated
to keep us from going over the edge because once you go over the edge the chances of coming
back are progressively difficult but I want you to know from Scripture that when people
by their own wickedness suppress the truth and they steadfastly refuse to acknowledge
the right of God tell them how to live and when people stubbornly and persistently turn
to forms and means other than God and their minds are darkened there will come a time
when God gives up on a people and when God gives up on a people he takes away the barrier
of common sense that keeps them sane and he allows them to plunge headlong in a scene.
That's what Paul is talking about here in Romans chapter 1. He says therefore God gave
them up. Now I want you to notice with me what happens in this chapter when God gives
up a people to sin. Number one sexual perversion especially of the homosexual variety becomes
the norm of the day. Verse 24 again therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts
to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchange the
truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator.
It was blessed for ever a man. Then he goes on to say in verse 26 for this reason God
gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchange natural relations for a natural.
The men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for
one another. Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons
to do penalty for their error. Women he says exchange natural relations for a natural
and men gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.
Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons to do penalty
for their error. A lot has been written and a lot has been said about these verses. The
world is full of all kinds of homemade theologians who try to reduce the impact of what the
Word of God is saying. I remember back in 1980 or 1981 being at the synod of our denomination
and I was on a committee there that had to deal with one of our churches that we have
what we call a ecclesiastical fellowship with who had begun to become very tolerant
in this particular issue and two of their spokesmen were at the synod to try to defend
their decisions to allow homosexuality to be carried on among the clergy of their denomination.
And I happened over here the good man and the hallway giving to one of my colleagues his
interpretation of Romans chapter one and it went something like this fascinating piece
of exegesis. He said for a woman who was homosexual what's natural? You catch this this was
a saint sober man. He says for a woman who's a lesbian what is the natural course of action?
Well of course it's homosexual activity. What does it mean then to exchange the natural
for the unnatural? Well he says in this particular case what Paul is really saying is that if
you ask a homosexual to become a heterosexual then you are asking them to forget what is
natural and to become unnatural for them and you're doing the very thing that Paul says
the ought not to be doing. And I stood there like I kid you not my jaw went about like this
you know and I said did I really hear what I think you were saying? Popular theory
today too is that Paul here isn't talking about committed homosexual relationships but
that rather he's talking about the kind of orgies the were in the Roman days and that
may or may not be the case. I want us to understand from a biblical point of view that when
a society moves into a homosexual direction that that's part of the signs of God giving
up a community to the lusts of its own heart and to the destruction of the human personality.
There are many many theories that abound as to what causes people to become homosexual.
I'm not bashing homosexuals tonight because I want you to understand that when you're caught
in that trap it's not much different from any other trap that we're caught into and the
saying in and of itself is not much different from the sins that you and I commit before
the face of God but whatever the cause we need the redemption that only Jesus can provide
in order to become the kind and people that God would have us be.
It's been tremendously encouraging in recent years that movement after movement has arisen
in the face of North America of Christians that have lived that lifestyle and they've come
to Jesus and they have found forgiveness and they have found restoration and they have experienced
a measure of healing by the power of Jesus. Don't you ever believe that what people are
saying that once you're born that way or live that way you cannot change, it is hard.
It is very hard because homosexuality isn't just a matter of sexuality. It's a matter
of your whole sexual identity and those things are programmed into your life from a very
early point in life. Perhaps there are components with which people are born. I don't know.
All I know is that when Paul says I'm not ashamed of the gospel, it is the power of God
to salvation. He includes in that category of people, people had been caught in that trap
and he will redeem them by the blood of Jesus. You ever want to read an interesting book
on it? The crisis of homosexuality. I got it just a couple of weeks ago. It's published
by Christianity today. Powerful illustrations of how God in Jesus Christ brings healing.
God gave them up. Number one, homosexuality and other kinds of sexual
perversion. Number two, he gives them up to a way of life in a system of values that
is upside down. Verse 28, "Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them
up to a base mind and to improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness,
evil, covetousness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity. They are
gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient
to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless." And then he ends with this verse that
is really the capstone of this whole chapter, though they know God's decree that those
who do such things deserve to die. They not only do them, but they approve those who
practice them. They not only do them, but they approve those who practice them. I trust
you understand tonight there's a world of difference between doing bad things and knowing
their bad and doing bad things and thinking they're good. And when he says here, they not
only do them, but they approve those who practice them. What he means is that God has given
people up to a base mind and to improper conduct, their thinking has become perverted.
They actually enjoy evil. They actually think evil is normal. They begin to hate good,
and they begin to think it is normal to live in sin, and they throw themselves into improper
conduct as I had talked about that many years ago. But he said, "Well, to those who call
evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light, light for bitterness, who put bitter
for sweet and sweet for bitter, when you refuse to acknowledge God as God." And when your
mind becomes darkened, an idolatry becomes a way of life, and you throw yourself into
that without reservation, and God gives you up, there comes a time when right becomes
wrong, and wrong becomes right. And you don't even know that your values have turned upside
out. And what happens is that you are on the road to judgment. You are running headlong
into condemnation, because this Paul goes on to point out in the next chapter verse
2, we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who do. Such thing, Paul's argument
is that God is righteous in all of his judgment, that God was righteous in sending the person
of Jesus Christ. And when people knowingly and willingly refuse to acknowledge his reality
and his power and his glory, and God gives them over to their sin, he lets them get involved
into every imaginable kind of thing, so that when they stand before the day of judgment,
they have no excuse, because nothing is hidden anymore. It's all been laid bare for the
whole world to see, and the whole world will acknowledge that God is righteous in his
judgment. I'm not a pessimist. Maybe it's my age, I don't think so, but I've become
worried about our culture. If you'd asked me 20 years ago, if I thought it possible that
we'd have somebody's, right today, appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada, a judgment
whereby he wanted all the family privileges for his homosexual lover. If you'd asked
me 20 years ago, if that whole movement could have thus come into the mainstream of Canadian
society, with the kind of force that it has to the degree that it is now beginning to
affect serious legislation at the highest levels within our province, I would have said,
you're crazy, because I couldn't have foreseen it, and I don't think neither could you
have. If you'd asked any of us 20 years ago, will we be standing by today and watching
the kind of fragmentation that is taking place in our country? The kind of self-righteous
hate-mongering that is becoming increasingly a way of life that will destroy our nation
if God does not step in in mercy? Then I wonder if we haven't crossed over to that point
where increasingly God is giving us up, and the judgment of God is around the corner.
I say that because historically, when nations have embraced knowingly the kind of sin
and the kind of violence that is so much away of our life and call right wrong and wrong
right, then you're not very far from that point where God moves in, and God begins to
eradicate the sin. That is within our culture, Mrs. Billy Graham used to say many years
ago, if God does not judge our culture today, that he's going to have to apologize to
Sodom and Gomorrah for the judgment that he brought upon him. And I don't share that
with you tonight because I'm a pessimist. I don't share that with you because I take
any kind of perverse pleasure in the fact that clouds of judgment are hanging upon our
nation or the world, but because I want us to understand the ways of God. And understanding
the ways of God, that ought to motivate us tonight to two things. Number one, we need
to be interceding for the nation. All it's easy to throw up our hands and despair and
to join all the hate-mongering and all the criticism that everybody has against everybody
in government and everybody is trying to do something. It's not the way of God because
you see it is very hard to govern the people that all want their own way. I wouldn't want
to be a politician today for all the money in the world because I think it's very difficult.
But what it ought to do is it ought to make us cry out to God for God to have mercy. Some
day the Lord will get into that as we get on with Abraham, but you'll recall that Abraham
interceded for God when God was going to bring judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. Had there
been only ten righteous people left in that city, the judgment of God would not have fallen.
The only reason judgment has not fallen upon our culture is because there are so many believers
who have not bowed their knees to bail. And we need to cry out to God and lay hold of
God's mercy. And we ought to say God raised up men and women in leadership positions who
have wisdom and who have understanding and who see what is happening and Lord help them
to lead us in a way that allows you to be preeminent in your glory and in your majesty
and in your power. The judgment may be averted and your blessings continue. Number two,
it ought to motivate us to living a holy life. God's very easy for us to judge what people
are doing out there. And it's very easy for us to view ourself righteous and good people
who obviously have thrown themselves into a lifestyle of sin. But let's be a little
careful because how many of us though we profess the name of Jesus truly honor God as God
in every area of our lives. How many of us though we know the name of Jesus still do not
find the remaining areas in our lives where we are trapped in patterns of sinful behavior
that we cannot break. And our Hosanna's language on our lips. And we can ever enjoy the presence
of God because when God is there our sin stares us in the face and we are accused before
God because we know we're guilty. And we may not be addicted to the kinds of things much
of the world is addicted to but how many of us in the secret areas of our lives don't
have some addictions that hold us in bondage. And if we're going to break the spirit of
our age, if we're going to be a testimony to what is happening in the world then people
of God we need to be a people of radicality and a people of commitment who have taken seriously
the promises of the gospel that Jesus Christ is able to deliver and to save and to set us
free and to make us men and women who are obedient from the heart to the teaching to
which we have been committed. And the Apostle Paul is as radical as he is concerning the
person of Jesus Christ because he knows that he knows that it doesn't matter whatever
it is that anybody can be into. The power the gospel is the power of God for the salvation
of everyone who has faith. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith
as it is written, he who through faith is righteous. Shall live. I want to encourage each of
us tonight to be radically open and honest with God concerning what lives in our own lives.
To allow the spirit of the living God just to sweep through us and to remove out of our
lives those things that that hinder and that heal and destroy to the end that we might
live for the praise of God's glory. Then one ask you to come up and one ask you to take
out your songbooks and turn with me to purify me. 800 and 29. Living God consuming fire
burned the sin for my life. Make your will my desire take my life in your hands. Purify
me with your blood till I shine far brighter than pure as gold in your eyes. Living God
800 and 29. As many as you want.
Living God comes to me fire burned the sin from my life. Make your will my desire take
my life in your hands. Purify me with your blood till I shine far brighter than pure
as gold in your hands. Living God comes to me fire burned the sin from my life.
Purify me with your blood till I shine far brighter than pure as gold in your hands.
Make your will my desire take my life in your hands. Purify me with your blood till I shine far brighter than pure
as gold in your hands. Purify me with your blood till I shine far brighter than pure
as gold in your hands. Purify me with your blood till I shine far brighter than pure as gold in your hands.
Living God comes to me fire burned the sin from my life. Make your will my desire take my life in your hands.
I desire take my life in your hands. Purify me with your blood till I shine far brighter than pure
as gold in your hands. Purify me with your blood till I shine far brighter than pure as gold in your hands.
Purify me with your blood till I shine far brighter than pure as gold in your hands.