Last week we studied verses 16 and 17, in which Paul lays out his thesis for the epistle of Romans. The thesis for the book of Romans is simply justification by faith. The righteousness of God applied to man on the basis of faith. The righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, it is conveyed to man by faith, resulting in imputed righteousness, or to say it another way, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is credited to man’s account by faith in Jesus and what He did on the cross. That is the gospel; the good news from God to man and Paul’s thesis for this epistle.

Immediately following this statement of his thesis, Paul begins to elaborate in great detail the tenets of the gospel. And I find it almost ironic that the first tenet he begins with is the wrath of God. The subject of the wrath of God is not very politically correct in most churches today. Everyone wants to focus only on the love of God. And love is, of course, an important attribute of God. But so is the wrath of God. And what I believe Paul is teaching here is that you cannot be saved until you realize that you are lost. You cannot be healed unless you first realize your terminal condition.

I believe the Bible as well as history shows that the greatest revivals have come as a result of an understanding the impending nature of God’s wrath, or God’s judgment. One of the most famous sermons that was ever preached in this country was given by Jonathan Edwards to his church on July 8, 1741. The title was “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” And that message (which Edwards read, mind you) was interrupted several times by people crying out in terror, “what must I do to be saved?” The result of that message was the beginning of the revival known as the “Great Awakening.” One of the most widespread, successful revivals that the world has ever known.

So it is entirely appropriate that Paul should begin his message of the gospel with a detailed description of the wrath of God. The wrath of God is a necessary attribute of a holy and just God. God’s wrath and God’s love are perfectly balanced. From a human perspective we tend to view wrath as something inherently bad, something to be avoided at all costs. But there is such a thing as righteous anger. And God, who is righteous, must respond to sin. Justice demands the wrath of God. The cross is unexplainable without first understanding the wrath of God.

Hebrews 1:9 says concerning Jesus Christ; “thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.” God is able to love perfectly and hate perfectly. God’s anger is not capricious, it’s not spiteful. God’s mercy is great, God’s love is great, and God’s wrath is great. As great as God’s love is, so in like manner is how great his wrath is.

Here is the love of God. God made man in HIs image, in HIs likeness. He gave him the breath of life. He gave him the world and all the animal life and the plant life of the world to rule over. God gave man all that, and made him as the object of His love. But here is the wrath of God. Man rejected His Maker. Man chose to believe a lie and the father of lies rather than the truth of God. Man chose to rule over himself, rather than to let God rule over him. Man chose to partake of the only thing in the world that God told him not to take of. God had already made clear the punishment for breaking his law. The punishment was death. It was destruction. It was wrath. And it was deserved. It was just. It was justice.

Because God cannot abide sin. God cannot be holy and tolerate sin. What communion has light with darkness? We were made to be like God, to be one with God, to be the bride of God. To have communion with God. And when we chose sin, we rejected that communion. We broke that relationship with God for which we were made. And the wages of sin is death. Sin is destruction. God’s wrath is rightly poured out on sin and sinners, to be destroyed from his presence forever.

In the great epistle of John, what some have called the epistle of love, is found the verse in chapter 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” That verse establishes that the wrath of God is a pre existing condition of man. Man was born into that wrath. Man was born to die, he was born estranged and alienated from God. He was born into sin.

And that’s why Paul begins with the wrath of God. It is a pre existing condition. It is the judgment of God upon the world. He made it, and He has the right to destroy it when it no longer suits the purpose for which it was made. And sinful man is not able to achieve that purpose. He is broken. He is corrupted by the sin nature and as such he is destined to destruction.

So Paul says “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” Now we might ask, how is the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men? How is the wrath of God revealed to men? I would suggest that the way it is revealed is in death. It is by death.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has put eternity in the hearts of men. I think that is the reason that death reveals the wrath of God. Because somehow in our psyche death does not make sense. Somehow we know deep in our souls that we were made for more. Death cuts short life. And so the wrath of God is revealed through death in all it’s forms, whether prematurely or in old age, it is the operation of the wrath of God.

And the wrath of God is revealed in action. For example; by the flood. It’s interesting to note that almost all primitive cultures have a flood story. They may have changed it, but at one point at least God gave the world a witness of His wrath that endured for generations, to be told to subsequent generations. The same can be said of God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. Another example of His wrath which became known to the nations was His judgment upon Egypt during the time of the Exodus. These were meant to be examples to the watching world of the wrath of God which was upon the whole world.

And Paul says the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So God’s wrath is revealed against sin in all it’s forms. Ungodliness refers to a lack of reverence for God, and unrighteousness to a lack of reverence for His law. Both are sin; rebellion against God. And we are guilty of both.

Not only does man rebel against the truth of God, but Paul says he also works diligently to suppress the truth. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. There is a 6000 year war against the truth of God that is captained by no less than Satan himself, and willfully assisted by men of every generation to try to disparage or deny the word of God. Our unrighteousness provokes us to suppress the truth because we don’t like being convicted of sin. John 3:19-20 says, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”

The problem is that men love their sin, and they hate the truth because it reveals it as sin. So the sinner wants to validate himself, to defend himself, and to do that he must attack the truth. He wants to justify his sin. And so to add insult to injury, in his sin against God he also calls God a liar. They exchange the truth of God for a lie. One of the most common refrains you hear today is the statement that “My God would never do so and so, because my God is a loving God.” In saying that, they are guilty of idolatry, of making a god in their own image. Of trying to manipulate God according to what they think He should be.

Rob Bell, the notorious ex mega church pastor, the author of the book “Love Wins,” said “What kind of good, loving God would it be if He sent people to an eternal hell for what they did or didn’t do in the few short years they lived on earth? And if He was like that, then who would want to worship Him?” That statement flies in the face of the truth of God’s word, which clearly teaches the reality of hell as the just punishment for sinners. And in saying that, Bell is really attacking the character of God and suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

But Paul indicates that all men are guilty of the same suppression of the truth. “In unrighteousness” just means that in their sin they suppress the truth. Because of their sin they suppress the truth, because they love darkness rather than light. They love their sin. They love what they think is their autonomy. They want to determine for themselves what is good or what is bad. And as vs 25 indicates, they exchange the truth for a lie. What is good is deemed as bad. Right has become wrong. Morality is pilloried, and evil is championed. We live today in a society in which morality has been turned on it’s head. When perversion is accepted and validated as normal. Sexual abstinence among teenagers is said to be unnatural and unrealistic. Abortion is the law of the land. Suppression of the truth is nothing less than trying to make their own version of the truth to accommodate their sin.

But Paul says that irregardless of their suppression of the truth, God has revealed enough about Himself to condemn them. Vs. 19, “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” God has made Himself known through nature, through history and through man’s conscience. God has given enough revelation of Himself through these methods that man should have been convinced and convicted of God’s truth and his need for God.

Paul says that what can be known about God through creation has been clearly seen, so that they are without excuse. Vs. 20; “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

In vs16 and 17, Paul said that God revealed salvation through His gospel. In vs 19 and 20, however, Paul moves from special to general revelation. He is saying that enough truth about God has been revealed in creation to turn men to God. Unfortunately, today the lie of evolution has been exchanged for the truth about creation. I believe that evolution is a diabolical strategy to eliminate the general revelation of God in creation. Just as the devil has systematically tried to destroy the word of God, he also is attempting to destroy the truth of God revealed in creation.

But there is a witness to a divine design in nature that is apparent if one would only look for it. My son has developed lately an interest in aquariums. And he now has a freshwater aquarium as well as a saltwater. And as he studies and learns about all the different species of fish and coral and all kinds of living creatures in the ocean, he is constantly remarking how this great variety and creativity in these creatures is a testimony to a Creator. He said the other night how this has enabled him to see that God has a personality, even a sense of humor. And I think any study of nature should cause men to see the reality of God, unless they are prejudiced against the truth.

And I want to point out another interesting aspect in this verse. And that is that God is an invisible Spirit. Paul speaks of the invisible attributes of God. Jesus said that God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. John 1:18 says that “God Himself no one has ever seen.” Col.1:15 says that the Son “ is the image of the invisible God.” 1 Timothy 1:17 says the King of the Ages, the imperishable, the invisible God. And Hebrews 11:27 says “seeing Him who is invisible.” So we must recognize that God is a Spirit, and as such He is invisible. It is a grave error to imagine God as just like us, as perhaps a bigger or stronger version of ourselves. But we need to realize that God is an invisible, omnipotent, omnipresent Spirit who is over all, and above all.

Furthermore, Paul says these invisible qualities of God are “His eternal power and divine nature.” His eternal power is clearly seen in nature. It is clearly seen in the power of a hurricane, in the power of the seas, in the power of the sun and the moon and the stars. God’s incredible power is seen through the things which He made. God has to be unimaginably powerful to have created and have control over such things as seen in nature. And when we contemplate this power, it should be apparent that it is an eternal power. The power of the stars is evident from light years away. The God who made them must be superior to mortality. He must be eternal.

And Paul adds another attribute, which is HIs divine nature. When you consider the way all of creation works together, how it is all connected and interdependent, it should impress on you the divine nature of God, the goodness of God, the wisdom of God. It should indicate that God has a divine plan for the world, since all things work together according to His grand design.

To describe such qualities Paul uses an oxymoron. He says these invisible attributes are clearly seen. It might be correlated to “seeing” the wind. We cannot see the wind, it is invisible. But we can clearly see the effects of the wind and so we know that it exists, and that it is powerful. There is much we can learn about the wind even though we cannot see it. And so the soul of man clearly sees the nature of God through the works of God, or as Paul says through the things that are made.

So Paul says that man is without excuse, because nature is a witness to the invisible attributes of God, and yet they refuse to worship Him as their God. Even before the relatively modern inventions of microscope and telescope, man was able to see the immensity of the universe in the night sky, he was able to monitor the heavenly bodies in their courses and plot the seasons and months and the tides by them with absolute precision. He was able to study the way a tiny seed grew into a specific plant and the plant gave forth fruit after it’s kind, and in turn produced more seeds. He is able to see the variety and diversity of life in the birds, in animals, and in the sea. Man is still discovering ever more varieties of animal and plant life even today. If you look closely at the earth you will notice even the ground is alive with insects and animal life. The more microscopic you go, the more life you discover. And the opposite is true as well. As you look at the stars you see further and further evidences of galaxies upon galaxies. Surely, he who denies God is inexcusable.

But though they see the invisible attributes of God clearly in nature, yet they refused to acknowledge Him as God. Vs.21, “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.” There is a progression to sin. There is a hardening in rebellion. And Paul is delineating that progression here. Because their sin encouraged them to rebel against God they then suppressed the truth to try to justify their sin. And though God revealed Himself to them again and again in nature they continued to defy Him, they chose not to honor Him, and they became futile in their minds and their hearts were darkened. They loved darkness rather than light and so God gave them over to darkness. And their progression in sin progressed further and further away from the truth. Until not only was their hearts darkened, but they were hardened. Their consciences were blunted to dullness. The light of the truth flickered out. They cannot reason correctly. They no longer can see the truth. The blind lead the blind, and the devil leads them all round in circles in the rat race of life, until they expire by one means or another and face the wrath of God.

The progression of their sin goes from bad to worse. Vs. 23 “and [they] exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” Let us not just imagine primitive cultures are guilty of worshiping the images of man and beast. Today our modern culture worships the beast as well. They worship nature, they worship the environment. The very thing that should have turned them to God, they worshipped it instead of God.

Whether or not you want to believe in climate change or any number of other environmental initiatives, the fact is that there are a lot of people who have exchanged the glory of the Creator for the so called science of environmentalists, and as such they worship the creature rather than the Creator. Today there is a growing trend in society that there is nothing more sacred than nature itself. Environmentalism is the new religion. And as we see so often in new laws that are made concerning the left’s view of the environment, it rules with a rod of iron like they once accused religion of doing. And if it’s allowed to run it’s course, then one day the environmentalists will decide who will live and who will die. How many children you can have. What kind of food you can eat. What kind of cars you can drive. Whether or not you can fly in an airplane. It’s amazing how far they can reach into your life by the excuse of climate change, or what’s good for the environment. So don’t think that worshipping nature was just something that primitive people did hundreds of years ago. It’s going on now. Man worships the creature rather than the Creator. Man worships man, he worships movie stars, athletic stars, music stars. In one form or another, man worships that which was created rather than his Creator.

Vs 24 “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Three times in this chapter Paul uses the phrase, “God gave them over.” I believe that means that people reach a point in their progression in sin that He finally gives them over to their desires. They rebuke the conviction of the Holy Spirit to a point where He no longer speaks to them. The light goes out.

There is a verse in Isaiah that I really like that speaks of the mercy of God, which says, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.” That speaks of God’s long suffering with sinners. That is God’s mercy towards our weakness. Peter says His patience is waiting to lead us to repentance. But there does come a time when God no longer seeks to keep the flame burning. There does come a time when God allows the broken reed to fall away unto perdition. And I think that is what Paul is getting at here. They reach a point when God finally will give them over to their depravity and their desire and their destruction.

Paul says that as a result of their rebellion God gave them over to impurity, which means uncleanness, and their bodies are dishonored. It’s interesting to note that Paul is writing from Corinth, a city rife with sexual immorality. And as we studied in 1 Cor. 6 on Wednesday night, when a man commits sexual immorality he sins against himself. That is what I think Paul indicates here when he says their bodies are dishonored. We bring shame upon our own bodies in sexual sins. We bring consequences in the physical body that are destructive when we deviate from God’s plan of marriage.

Col.3:5 states, “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.” This outpouring of God’s wrath is yet future, but even now God allow a foretaste of this wrath by finally abandoning them that continue in their wickedness, so that they perish in their rebellion.

God allows that judgment to fall on them because according to vs 25, they “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” They worshipped and served the creature. That is the sin of idolatry. Rather than worshipping and serving the Creator who gave them life and the world and it’s creatures to enjoy, they rejected God and served and worshiped the creature, and so therefore they deserve the wrath of God.

At the close of his sermon on the wrath of God, Jonathan Edwards made this appeal; “Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come.” There is but one way out from under the wrath of God, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. He has taken the stripes due to us from God upon Himself that we might go free. Isaiah 53:4-5 says “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being [fell] upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” Jesus has borne the cross for you and for me, if we just come to Him in faith. He has taken our sins upon His shoulders, bearing our punishment, bearing God’s wrath which was due to us, if we would just believe on Him as our Lord and Savior.

The invisible, immortal God that the world has never seen has manifested Himself fully and completely in the man Jesus Christ, that we might know God fully and completely, and that we might have life through HIs death. An even worse fate than the one described here by Paul of the pagan Gentiles who did not know the scriptures but had the witness of creation to teach them, is to be had by those who hear the truth of God’s word, who hear the gospel of justification by faith in Christ, and yet consider the blood of Jesus Christ as no account and continue on in their rebellion against God. To those, the wrath of God will surely come with a vengeance that surpasses that of the ignorant pagans of time past. I pray that you will not refuse to answer His call today. Do not harden your heart against God.

Today, if you hear His voice, if you are outside of Jesus Christ, I urge you to fly to Jesus. In the hymn Rock of Ages it says, “Foul I to the fountain fly, wash me Savior or I die.” There is a antidote for the wrath of God, and that is to look to Jesus who took the wrath of God which I deserved upon Himself that I might be set free. Look to Him and receive justification and life.