Now we know that whatever the law says, it says
to those who are under sin, so that every mouth
may be silenced and all the world held accountable
to God. Romans 3 .19. That's our memory verse
for today. Did you recognize it? Oh, you did.
You were saying it with me. And that's good.
I'm going to give you an opportunity to do that
audibly now. As we say together, our memory verse
for today is part of our worship. By the way,
we're working our way through a card which is
available to all of you. We're on verse number
three out of four next week of Romans 3 .20.
And we will have another card available next
week for the next section of verses that we're
memorizing together. If you'd like to get one
for Romans 3 .20, they're available in the back
in the lobby area after the service. Let's say
together, Romans 3, 19. Now we know that whatever
the law says, it says to those who are under
the law, so that every mouth may be silenced
and all the world held accountable to God. That
verse ties together perfectly with our text for
today, which is in Romans chapter 1. I invite
you to take your Bible and turn there with me.
As we read verses 18 through 23 of Romans chapter
1. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven
against all the godlessness and wickedness of
men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
since what is known about God is plain to them,
because God has made it plain to them. For since
the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities,
his eternal power and divine nature, have been
clearly seen, being understood from what has
been made, so that men are without excuse. For
although they knew God, They neither glorified
him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their
thinking became futile and their foolish hearts
were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise,
they became fools and exchanged the glory of
the immortal God for images made to look like
mortal men and birds and animals and reptiles.
We come to verse 18. We are entering the first
major section of the book of Romans, the first
17 verses being an introduction. Verses 16 and
17 represent the core theme of the book, the
righteousness of God, which is revealed in the
gospel for our salvation, those who believe,
that is. Having written about the... Righteousness
of God, he turns now to a companion truth and
reveals God's wrath in condemning the world.
God's righteousness is revealed, as he says,
in the gospel to them who believe. God's wrath
is revealed from heaven against those who reject
the light that God has given to them. I am particularly
interested in that last clause in verse 20 that
says, so that men are without excuse. Now that
is a novel thought in our age of excuses, isn't
it? We live by excuses, or so it would seem.
How many of us have ever said, well, I can't
help it. That's just the way I am. I don't have
time. I'm too busy to get involved in something
else. Let somebody else do it. I've already served
my time. This way of thinking has even invaded
our legal system so that today our courts are
backlogged. Men make excuses for their crimes,
one of the most often being not guilty by reason
of insanity. And that plea in itself is causing
our whole society, it would seem, to go insane
in its legal system. We live in an age of excuses,
and men and women get that honestly. Excuses
began in the Garden of Eden, didn't they? God
confronted Adam and Eve and the serpent after
man had fallen into sin. God said to Adam, who
told you that you were naked? How did you learn
this? And Adam immediately placed the blame for
his transgression on his wife. He said, well,
Lord, you know the woman you gave me? It's all
her fault. So God turned to Eve and said, well,
Eve, what about this? And she said, well, it's
not me, it's the serpent. The serpent deceived
me. So she pointed to the serpent, made an excuse.
And so God turned to the serpent and spoke to
the serpent, judged the serpent, and worked his
way back up the line. Men and women have always
made excuses, and we who are believers in Jesus
Christ need to try to avoid that way of living.
In other words, we need to be honest with ourselves
and with others and tell the truth. Someone has
said that an excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed
with a lie. We need to avoid excuses, whether
it be in our education or at work or in our church,
in our relationships with our families. I think
it would be a noble thing on the part of every
one of us to seek to put away excuses. What it
tells us in our text today is that no man has
any excuse which he may offer to God for his
sin. We may from time to time receive an overlooking
of our blame from men, but we will never receive
that from God. There are no excuses. All are
responsible for their actions and are held accountable
to God, as our memory verse for this morning
said. Even those who have never heard the gospel
message of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection,
are without excuse before God for their sin,
and they're under God's condemnation. All men
are without excuse before a righteous God. And
there are two reasons why this is true. These
reasons are given in our text this morning. Reason
number one is they suppress the truth of God.
Reason number two, they reject the knowledge
of God. All men are without excuse before God
for these two reasons. Think with me about the
reasons that we've talked about. Men are without
excuse because first they suppress the truth
of God. We'll notice that he says in verse 18,
who suppress the truth by their wickedness. The
first thing we need to define here is this word
truth. What is meant by it? The truth here is
broader than just the gospel message. It means
something much larger than that. Truth here means
what is known about God. There is a universal
revelation of God's existence. The fact of a
supreme being who is worthy of worship and obedience
is known to all men, wherever they may live on
the globe. all have available this truth that
God is, that he is worthy of their adoration.
You say, where do they get that knowledge? Well,
he tells us where it is. It's from creation.
He says in verse 20, or verse 19, God has made
it plain to them, and in verse 20 he says, for
since the creation of the world, God's invisible
qualities have been clearly seen. So it's in
the creation itself that God has revealed himself
to all men to some extent. This is what we call
natural revelation, revelation in nature. There
is special revelation from God, which is the
Bible. There's the personal revelation of God
in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. But there is
this natural revelation, which is available to
all. And he tells us that in natural revelation,
in the creation, the invisible is made visible.
It seems to be a contradiction, doesn't it? But
he says that the invisible qualities of God are
manifested sufficiently to men to make them responsible
to God. And specifically, he says, that God's
eternal power and his divine nature are seen.
In other words, in the creation of the world,
men may see that God is powerful. As they examine
the heavens or examine the world or themselves
and the miracles of their own bodies, men must
know that someone with great power has created
them. Now today, of course, evolution. is the
excuse that men give for not believing this.
We'll talk more about that excuse in a moment.
But men are held accountable for the knowledge
of God because of the power of God that is to
be seen all around us. That power is available
as we look at the stars or as we look at a tree
or as we see the results of the wind. And then
God's divine nature is also... evidenced in the
creation. That is that there is someone who is
bigger than us who has put this all together
and holds it together. Men may know that just
by observation. Regarding this, E .F. Harrison
has said concerning natural revelation that it's
sufficient to make man responsible but not by
itself sufficient to accomplish his salvation.
The point is, though, at this point in Romans,
that all men are responsible to God because they
have this much truth about God. He says this
knowledge is plain to all men in verse 19. In
other words, it is plain to his inner moral sense.
He can tell that there is a God if he will, and
that's the critical point, if he will. The Apostle
Paul says something similar to this in a sermon
he gave to some pagans in Athens, recorded for
us in Acts chapter 17. Paul always began where
his listeners were and led them to what he wanted
them to know. With the Athenians, he began with
their idolatry. He spoke to them about this idol
that he had seen, dedicated to the unknown God.
They were so fearful of leaving out a God in
their mythology that they dedicated an idol to
the unknown God just to cover all their bases.
So Paul picks up that theme and he says, now
this unknown God I want to declare to you. And
part of his sermon says, verse 26, from one man
he made every nation of men that they should
inhabit the whole earth. and he determined the
times set for them and the exact places where
they should live. Verse 27, God did this so that
men would seek him. In other words, God has worked
in history. God has worked in the creation so
that men would seek him and perhaps reach out
for him and find him. And then he says, though
he is not far from each one of us. What does
he mean by that? Well, he means that around every
one of us is the knowledge of God, the truth
of God, the awareness of God's existence. And
so the point that Paul is making in Romans is
this, that man, reasoning from the law of cause
and effect alone, should know and can know that
there is a great cause to the universe. It is
plainly evident to all men. This knowledge of
God is not a personal knowledge of God because
that can only come through Jesus Christ. But
it is a knowledge nonetheless of God's majesty
and his glory. This knowledge of God is available
to people even though they may not be able to
see the creation. All of us have heard the name
Helen Keller. one of the most remarkable Americans
who's ever lived. Helen Keller was sightless,
deaf, and mute. And yet there was a friend who
helped her to begin communicating with the world.
And at a particular point, this friend explained
to her about God. in the very simple language
that she devised on Helen Keller's hand, being
able to spell out the words. And after she had
explained God to Helen Keller, Miss Keller made
this statement, I always knew he existed, but
I didn't know what to call him. Isn't that an
interesting statement from one who was blind,
deaf, and mute, who could not even see the creation?
but who nonetheless had an inner moral sense
of the existence of the Creator. Now the fact
that we want to see in this first paragraph,
verses 18 through 20, is that men suppress this
knowledge of God, this reality, this truth about
God. Men cannot destroy it. Men cannot alter
it. But they can suppress it. That word suppress,
as it is in the NIV in verse 18, means to hold
down. It means to repress something. It's the
same word exactly that's used in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2 when it talks about the one who now
restrains sin, waiting for the Antichrist to
be revealed. They're speaking about the present
ministry of the Holy Spirit restraining the spirit
of lawlessness in the world. holding it back,
pushing it down, so that Satan cannot accomplish
all he would like to right now. That very same
verb is used here. Wicked men suppress, they
hold back, they push down this truth about God,
this very basic truth of God's existence. He
says they do this by their wickedness. That seems
to indicate their motivation. In other words,
They don't want to repent or to acknowledge God
because that would make them accountable for
their moral sin. Therefore, they refuse to acknowledge
that God exists. They suppress the truth about
God. We see this most relevantly in the battle
today between the forces of evolution and creationism.
in our country. One would think that in a free
land where we are open -minded to everything,
that the concept of creation would be allowed
in the schools. And yet it's not. It's fought
bitterly by the forces of evolution and atheism.
Why is that? Is that because of the separation
of church and state? I would say to you that
that is a banner that's been draped across many
a sin. The separation of church and state has
been misconstrued out of every shape that it
was intended by the writers of our Constitution.
It is used today as an excuse to suppress the
truth about God. Linsky, the Lutheran commentator.
in his book on Romans, has this interesting paragraph.
Here Paul explains in one little clause, that
is, by their wickedness, how despite the constant
revelation of God's wrath, men go on in their
wickedness. Whenever the truth starts to exert
itself and makes them feel uneasy in their moral
nature, they hold it down, suppress it. Some
drown its voice by rushing on into their immoralities.
Others strangle the disturbing voice by argument
and by denial. Take the subject of hell. Again
and again we meet violent, passionate denials
of its existence. But if a man is convinced that
there is no hell, he ought merely to smile in
a superior way when the subject is mentioned.
Take God's wrath. Why these assaults against
it? or the existence of God, if no God exists.
These denials and these arguments are not altruistic.
They are the efforts of the ungodly to suppress
the disquieting truth in the interest of their
own ungodliness. They face an inescapable alternative
in their moral nature, an either -or, either
to yield to the truth and to give up ungodliness
and unrighteousness, or to hold firmly to these
two and then of necessity to squelch the truth.
How accurately Linsky has put it. Why are men
without excuse before God? Because they suppress
the truth about God. There's a second reason
that flows right out of this found in verses
21 to 23. Men not only suppress the truth about
God, but they reject the knowledge of God. And
what we have recorded here and through the rest
of this chapter is but a record of man, of civilization
prior to the flood of Noah. And yet what is recorded
here is also the record of every civilization
in the history of the world. They begin with
the knowledge of God, verse 21. What knowledge
is this? The knowledge we've been talking about.
The general knowledge that God exists and that
he is worthy of worship and obedience. The knowledge
of God's wrath, which we'll talk about in concluding
our message this morning. He says, although they
knew God, and then he begins to list the steps
away from God. which every society has followed.
Sin is evidenced in these steps that we see listed
for us in verses 21 through 23. They knew God.
That was their original position. Now the steps
away. Number one, they did not glorify God. Although
they had an awareness of God's existence, they
did not acknowledge God or give him worship.
They did not glorify God. They did not set him
apart and give him obedience. So that led to
step number two. They did not give thanks to
God. They didn't acknowledge him, so why should
they give him thanks? And yet they're held accountable
for that. They did not give thanks even for life,
besides food and shelter. They abused God's gifts.
and God's resources in the world, not recognizing
God's ownership and man's stewardship. Step number
three, their thinking became futile. Out of their
ungrateful hearts came a reasoning process that
was empty and vain. I believe that this is the
origin of mythology. and all man -made religions.
When man turns away from the truth of God, he
turns to a religion of his own creation. He invents
another religion. His thinking is futile. It
is without result. It is unsuccessful. But nonetheless,
he creates for himself another religious system
by which his religious nature may find some kind.
of fulfillment, hopefully. Men reason about God,
but their rationalizations lead nowhere. They
are utterly senseless, he says. Their thinking
became futile. Out of that, step number four.
Their foolish hearts were darkened. The heart
is the seat of the understanding. In the biblical
sense, it is where we get our capacity to feel
or to choose or to understand or to grasp something
intellectually. He says regarding the heart of
man who turns from God that his heart is foolish.
The word means it is stupid. It is undiscerning.
It is unintelligent. He says the foolish heart
was darkened. That may indicate God's judgment,
or it may indicate the simple fact that the darkening
of man's intellect is the natural overflow of
his turning from God. The natural man claims
to be very scientific and open to all truth,
and yet he looks down upon the Christian for
simply believing God. Once again, Linsky has
an interesting statement regarding this. It has
always been the boast of the ungodly and the
unrighteous that they are wise, scientific in
their thinking, use their reason, and so forth.
They look down on the believer for his faith
in God and in Christ. Silly is Paul's verdict,
just plain silly. Any heart and all reasonings
that because of the love of unrighteousness refused
to bow to what all creation proclaims concerning
God are silly. And that's what Paul says. He
says that out of their foolish hearts that were
darkened came silliness. That's step number five.
They became fools. The word here literally is
morons. Because of the way that we use that term
today, we understand what is meant. It refers
to one who is dull, one who does not have sufficient
capacity. Now this is the record of our civilization,
folks, as well as the civilization before the
flood. They became fools, it says. They alleged
themselves to be wise, in other words, to be
intelligent. They claim to have a cultivated
learning. And yet they are fools. Recently I
heard a conversation on the radio with the son
of Madeline Murray O 'Hare. One of her sons,
I believe his name is William. Can anyone help
me with that? It is William. Has become a Christian.
in recent years that has rather deterred the
communication between himself and his mother
for obvious reasons. He is going around the country
now speaking about the atheistic movement of
his mother as well as talking about her. Everything
that he says is in the context of his praying
for her to be saved. One of the statements that
he made in the conversation that arrested my
attention was that atheists believe themselves
to be mentally superior, to be far above the
average person in our society. They believe themselves
to have greater capacity intellectually, and
that's why they have arrived at the superior
conclusion that there is no God. In other words,
the real basis for their belief that there is
no God is an arrogant intellectualism. But I
would say that it goes deeper than that. Because
this refusal to believe in God, it says here,
is based upon the fact that man does not want
to give up his sin, his wickedness. When you
find a man who refuses to believe in God, if
you do a little probing, you will find that the
root of that is probably a moral sin, that he
refuses either to acknowledge, certainly that
he does not want to repent of. Well, step number
five is that they became fools, and finally,
step number six, in man's steps away from God,
They exchanged God's glory for idols. He says
they exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for images made to look like mortal man. Notice
the contrast there, the immortality of God, the
mortality of man. Today in our society, we of
course are much too sophisticated to worship
images for the most part. So we have been given
to the most subtle, and the most dangerous kind
of idolatry of all, and that is the idolatry
of oneself. One does not need a temple for this.
One simply worships himself and the decisions
that he makes in life. I would submit to you
that that is the root of abortion. It is the
worship of oneself. and caring only for oneself.
That is the root of segregation and racism. It
is arrogance and the worship of oneself. It is
the root of atheism, the worship of oneself.
That is the kind of worship that our society
today is given to. It is engrossed in the most
perverse and wicked. kind of idolatry. We have
not images of stone made to look like man or
birds or four -footed animals or snakes. We have
an invisible idol that men worship, and that
idol is each man himself. Now because man rejects
the knowledge of God, And because he holds down
the truth about God that is plainly evident to
anyone who will look, he is without excuse before
God. He is under the just condemnation of God.
And I want you to notice that this does not say
that they will be under the judgment of God or
that God's wrath is going to be revealed. It
says that God's wrath is being revealed. now
from heaven, against this sort of thinking and
people who are engrossed in it. This ties together
with what Jesus said in John 3 .16. Whoever rejects
the Son will not see life, but God's wrath remains
on him. We usually think of God's wrath as the
last judgment, but the Bible depicts God's wrath
as starting long before that. For God's wrath
is faced in this life. It culminates at the last
judgment. God's wrath may be defined as his indignation
with evil. God's wrath is not fictitious. It
is not simply a figure of speech. It is, as one
commentator said, a terrible reality. The constant,
unchanging reaction of God's holiness. Now because
we define wrath in terms of men, we often think
of God's wrath as like a volcano that erupts.
It sort of builds up pressure and then all of
a sudden fire comes out of heaven and licks up
the guilty as it did at Sodom and Gomorrah. But
that is not God's wrath as the Bible pictures
it. Sometimes God's wrath does. overflow that
way. But his wrath, as revealed in the Bible,
is an unceasing reaction to sin. It is his stern,
constant opposition to sin. It is a settled,
abiding attitude regarding evil, not a sudden
outburst, but a lasting response to wickedness.
God is both a loving God as well as a just God.
God could not love righteousness if he did not
hate evil. Everdeth Harrison said, The unfolding
of history involves a disclosure of the wrath
of God against sin, seen in the terrible corruption
and perversion of human life. Now listen to me
a moment. What is said in this chapter is that
God's wrath is being revealed. That does not
necessarily mean that God wipes people off the
face of the earth every time he's angry. As a
matter of fact, this chapter will go on to say
that God's wrath is revealed by his allowing
man's perversion to take its own course. Three
times, as we will see in our text next week,
it says, God gave them up. That is the revelation
of God's wrath. Instead of restraining the degeneration
of sin, God simply allows that degeneration to
take its own perverted course. And we will see
next week where that leads. And notice that it
says in verse 18 that the wrath of God is being
revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness
and wickedness of men. Two thoughts there, the
ungodliness and the wickedness of men. They are
similar but not the same. Ungodliness refers
to a lack of reverence for God. And the real
thought is not carelessness. But it is rebellion,
a rebellious irreverence toward the Lord. Wickedness
has to do with a violation of what is right.
It involves injustice toward our fellow man.
And so what we have really in these two words
is a summary of the Ten Commandments. The Ten
Commandments are divided really into two groups,
aren't they? The first four deal with man's relationship
to whom? Right, to God. The last six deal with
man's relationship to man. The first four are
vertical. The last six are horizontal. And that's
the direction of these two words. Ungodliness
is a word that is vertical. It is man's irreverence,
his rebellion to God. The word wickedness refers
to man's injustice toward his fellow man when
he violates the rights of his fellow man and
sins against him. It says that God's wrath is
revealed against all of this, A -L -L. There
is not a sin that has been committed. since the
Garden of Eden that will not in some way be dealt
with by God. Not one lie, not one adultery, not
one thievery, not one sin that has ever occurred
on the face of the earth will escape the scrutiny
of God. How blessed it is to know that one's
sins have been forgiven. And that God poured
out his wrath upon his son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
so that we might escape the wrath of God. If
we reject the work of Jesus Christ for us, the
only alternative is for us to experience personally
the wrath of God. And there is no escape. And
there is no excuse. Have you given your heart
to Jesus Christ? Or does the wrath of God now
abide on you? God's wrath will be a constant
opposition to you in life. And though you may
enjoy a success here or there, God's wrath will
be against you. and ultimately will carry you
away to the place you deserve to be, in hell,
separated from God for all of eternity. You say,
but I'm not really that kind of a person. I'm
not that bad. I'm better than the other guy.
All men are without excuse before God. Every
one of us will give account of himself to God,
not for the other guy, but for ourselves. And
if there's one sin in our lives, we stand condemned
before a holy God. That's why it is so wonderful
to know that when we trust the Lord Jesus Christ,
that all of our sins, past, present, and future,
are under the blood of Christ. And God's righteousness
is given to us. Because from that point on, God
only sees us as in Christ, as in... His righteousness
and righteous in him. Our sin is never held to
our account after that. We are justified, declared
righteous in the sight of God. That is a wonderful
thing. If you've never experienced that, you
need to do it today. I hope you will. Remember
that if God does not have his right place in
your life, that something else will take his
place. That process, that principle is true of
the Christian as well. If he is not Lord of our
lives, then something or someone will take his
place. Does that happen in your life, Christian?
Are you glorifying God and thanking God as you
ought to? Let's pray. Lord, as we... Examine
these verses, all of us. Step back a bit. For
it is a fearful thing to consider your wrath.
Not just in hell, but in this life as well. Your
wrath is being revealed all around us, even in
the course of history. Those of us who have trusted
your Son, who have believed, Thank you today
for the fact that we have been given Christ's
righteousness so that we stand before you perfect.
Thank you for your forgiveness of our sins. Some
of us, Father, may need to come today and confess
that there are other idols in our lives, other
gods that have usurped the place. a preeminence
that rightly belongs to you. I pray if that be
the case in any brother or sister here today,
that all the excuses will be put away, that there
will be a genuine repentance in turning to you.
I particularly pray for any friend who's here
who's never trusted the Lord Jesus and who is
under your wrath. They may flee to you in faith
today and be saved. In Jesus' name, amen. The
gospel is the power of God unto the salvation
of everyone who believes. We're going to close
today by singing. Number 298.