God’s Just Wrath on the Unrighteous

Read the Passage

Romans 1:18-32

Intro

For much of church history, what is written here in Romans 1 was not at all controversial within the church. It was pretty much taken as a given. But you and I both know that today, even in the church, this passage stirs up much controversy.

I would argue, that this passage is so controversial, not because it is irrelevant or dated. But exactly because it is so relevant. It hits close to home. We are living it. This passage not only exposes the sinful condition that all people are guilty of, but it exposes particular sins that are celebrated in our own culture.

This passage gets personal. Because truth is personal.

The point of this passage is not to make us wallow in our guilt, but to show us our need for salvation. We must read this passage in light of the Gospel.

Read in light of the Gospel (v. 16)

Two weeks ago Pastor Darrell began our study of the book of Romans by focusing on Romans 1:16.

Romans 1:16 ESV

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

This statement is the key to understand the whole of the Book of Romans and, with it, our passage this morning.

The Apostle Paul, here in Romans 1:18-32 is beginning to build his case for the saving power of the Gospel. But in order to understand how we are saved we need to know what we are saved from.

What we read in our passage this morning is the bad news that makes the good news so good. It is a diagnosis of the wickedness of man. And having a clear diagnosis of our sin is absolutely necessary if we are to understand the saving power of the Gospel.

See, if the Gospel is merely, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Then there is no need to talk about sin, or wrath or judgment. If the Gospel is merely a therapeutic message to give you a more confident, purposeful, and prosperous life, then the weight of our sin doesn’t need to be mentioned at all.

But if the Gospel is as 1 Corinthians 15 tells us, “That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,” then we need to understand what sin is, why Christ died for it, and how we can be saved through this good news.

We need to have a clear diagnosis if the disease of sin, to know our need for the cure.

Our passage begins in v. 18 where it says…

Exposition

God’s just wrath (v. 18)

Romans 1:18 ESV

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Paul begins this diagnosis by telling us the danger that all of mankind is in: God’s wrath is being revealed. The word that is used here gives us a sense of a curtain being drawn back to show what is on the stage. And this is something that is in process, something that is happening now.

1. God’s Wrath Revealed in History

God’s wrath will be fully, and completely, demonstrated at the final judgment, but it is also demonstrated throughout history.

And this wrath is against all the ungodliness, and unrighteousness of man.

There is not one sin against God or creature that will go unpunished.

2. Suppressing the Truth in Unrighteousness

Part of the ungodliness of mankind is that they suppress the truth in their unrighteousness.

You can think of it like holding a beachball under the water at the beach. Rather than see the truth of a holy God that man has to give an account to, mankind would rather hide in his sin.

We see this in the scriptures when Adam and Eve hid themselves from God after their sin in the garden.

We see it when people who are caught up in sin would rather surround themselves with others who participate in the same wickedness, than listen to those who beg them to repent.

And we see it in ourselves, when we give into sin and temptation, it can be difficult to pick up our Bibles or kneel to pray, or to even worship in church.

Someone I know had written in her Bible, “This will keep you from sin, sin will keep you from this.”

Mankind attempts to hide himself away in his wickedness, but God is inescapable. And no matter where we hide we are always faced with the reality that there is an all powerful creator God, and we are accountable to him.

No Excuse (vv. 19-20)

Verse 19 of our passage says,

Romans 1:19 ESV

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

Romans 1:20 (ESV)

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

This is known as General revelation; that God reveals himself in a general way to through his creation. Romans 1:20 goes on to tell us that God’s creation makes known to us two major things about God. (Starting with the second one)

1. Divine Nature

His creation shows us God’s Divine nature

God’s creation shows us that he is the Creator God.

God created everything and he created it all with order, beauty, and purpose.

The existence of all things was no accident. Time + matter + chance could never have done it.

Order does not come from chaos, it comes from an orderer. And the testimony that God’s creation gives us is that there is a designer, a divine creator behind it.

2. Eternal Power

And the creation also shows us God’s eternal power.

Think about this:

What is the largest thing we know of in creation? (The cosmos, the universe - and it is expanding) Immeasurably big.

What is the smallest thing that we know of? (Quarks and Leptons, and scientists are not even sure if these are the smallest particles)

Largest thing we know of is immeasurably big, the smallest things we know of are immeasurably small.

And that just speaks to the size of physical things, just one aspect to the creation. The examples we could point to of the eternal power of God are endless themselves.

Our passage tells us that these two unseen attributes of God (his eternal power and divine nature) have been clearly seen ever since the creation of the world.

A lack of evidence is not the main barrier to mankind’s unbelief. They are surrounded by evidence, they themselves are evidence of an eternally powerful divine creator. So what is the barrier to belief?

Idolatry (vv. 21-23)

1. Rejecting God

Our passage goes on in verses 21 and 23.

Romans 1:21–23 (ESV)

For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

A certain evangelist asked a group of atheists and agnostics, “If i could definitively prove to you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God exists; would you worship him right now.

8/10 of the people he asked said, “no.”

See, the main barrier to faith isn’t a lack of evidence.

The main barrier is our sin. We suppress the truth in our unrighteousness because we sinfully do not want to recognize the one true God, and we don’t want to recognize God because, if we do, we would have answer for our sin.

But the natural, sinful man would rather worship nearly anything but God.

2. Worshipping Created Things

In verses 22-23 we read:

Romans 1:22–23 ESV

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

This is a description of idolatry. Probably the most clear and succinct description of what idolatry is is found in verse 25 of our passage. “Worshipping and serving created things rather than the creator God” (v. 25)

A. Idolatry in Antiquity

The examples that Paul gives us here of “images resembling mortal man and birds and animals.” Are exactly what we think of when we think of idols from the ancient world. We’re pretty familiar with these.

You have the Greek and Roman gods who looked like ideals of men and women.

You have the animal headed gods of Egypt.

God’s people Israel, with their embrace of golden calves, Ashera poles and all sorts of other idols; gave into the sin of idolatry to such a degree that modern historians can’t help but call them a polytheistic culture. A culture that worshipped many gods. Modern archeology is a witness to Israel’s idolatry.

I wonder what archeologists far off in the future would say about us?

B. Idolatry Today (Contextualization)

We think of the ancient idolators as foolish, but in the 21st century we are no better.

We have our own religious statues; visit any garden centre, home decor shop, even several places on our main street in Huntsville and you’ll see them for sale or displayed for veneration.

But we have a special talent of making nearly everything into an idol nowadays.

John Calvin once said, “The human heart is a perpetual idol factory.” And you could make a good case that this has never been more true than today.

People worship money, sex, celebrities, their work, their hobbies, their kids, their pets, the list could go on forever.

Whats probably most common in our society though is the worship of the self.

The Theologian Carl Truman, in his excellent book “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self” says that in the west we have adopted, “a view of personhood that has almost completely dispensed with the idea of any authority beyond that of personal conviction.”

Our society sees no authority above ourselves, our will, our desires, our feelings. What God says doesn’t matter, what matters is what I want.

Whether it is the ancient worship of beasts, or the modern worship of the self, it is all Idolatry. Worshipping and serving created things rather than the creator God.

What this idolatry leads to is the wrath of God. But this wrath is not fire from heaven, it’s not the earth swallowing people up, it’s not a plague of locusts, frogs, or flies.

God Gave Them Up (vv. 24-31)

What we have in the following verses is what is sometimes called the passive wrath of God. It is God giving people over to their sin. It is God giving sinful people exactly what they want.

This wrath is described for us over verses 24-31 through three statements that all include the phrase, “God gave them up.”

GGTU 1. Lusts of their hearts (vv. 24-25)

The first God gave them up statement is in verses 24-25.

Romans 1:24–25 ESV

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Because of mankind’s rebellion against God and his pursuit of idolatry, God in his wrath gives them up to the lusts of the heart. In this passage we have a broad description of sexual immorality.

Sexual immorality is a hot button issue today because, for a long time now, sexual licence has been celebrated as an expression of freedom.

What the Bible teaches consistently, though, is that any sexual activity outside of the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman is sexual immorality, it is sin.

And sexual immorality is a grievous sin. We are warned in 1 Corinthians 6:18 to,

1 Corinthians 6:18 ESV

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Jesus takes the Bible’s clear teaching about what constitutes sexual sin and applies it to the heart. In Matthew 5:27-28 he says,

Matthew 5:27–28 ESV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

The impurity of lust is not merely something that is expressed in physical action, but it is something that first finds expression in our heart, our desires; in what we think about, in what we look at.

This is why Pornography is such a deep evil. You and I live in one of the most pornographic civilizations in all history. The depravity that is on display in countless places on the internet, and sometimes in public, is beyond what previous generations could imagine.

And, what was once considered the deepest darkest depths of perversion, has spilled into the mainstream..

I am certain that if pornography was not allowed to run rampant in this society decades ago, we would not be drowning in all of the kinds of sexual immorality that we are today.

Sin always progresses, it increases in it’s degeneracy, as we will see in a moment.

GGTU 2. Dishonourable passions (vv. 26-27)

Our second “God gave them up” statement is in verses 26-27.

Romans 1:26–27 ESV

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and 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 themselves the due penalty for their error.

Where the first “God gave them up” statement spoke to the heart, this one speaks to the stomach; the passions, the appetite.

As a result of man’s rebellion against God, God gave them up to dishonourable passions. And what follows is an unmistakably clear description and condemnation of both male and female homosexuality.

I want you to notice that what is condemned here is not merely the action of homosexual activity, but also the desire behind it.

Disordered Desires

Lately there has been an effort by some Christians, through various movements and organizations, to make the case that though homosexual actions are sinful, the desires are not. Some even go so far as to say that the desires are God-given, and may identify themselves as LGBT Christians.

Here in verses 26-27 we see clearly that even the desires themselves are disordered; the relations are contrary to nature, and the passions that led to the shameless acts are condemned as sin.

Desires may not necessarily be a choice, but that does not mean the desire is without moral value. A married man may not choose the feelings of lust he has toward a woman who is not his wife, but that does not mean the desire, the lust itself, is not sinful.

Jesus even says in Matthew 15 that it is what comes out of the heart that defiles a person.

Sinful desires lead to sin if we give into them, feed them, or make them core to who we are; and through this they lead to death.

James 1: 13-15 is helpful in understanding this.

James 1:13–15 ESV

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

As Christians we must not try to whitewash or excuse our sinful desires, nor use them as our identity. Rather we must pursue God’s sanctification of every part of our lives, even our desires. This is especially true of every kind of lust, as well as covetousness, hatred, greed, and other sins of desire. This is not easy, it is hard, and it often takes time.

J.C. Ryle once said, “Habits have long roots. Sin, once allowed to nestle in your bosom, will not be turned out at your bidding.”

God’s work of sanctification takes time, prayer and obedience. And even after a long time of struggle, you still need to be vigilant. I know this to be true in my own life.

Until the day I go to be with him, God is not done with me, and he is not done with you. Whatever they may be, do not let your lusts, your desires, define you. Whatever you struggle with, actually struggle with it. The struggle will be difficult, it will take time, but trust that God accomplish his work of sanctification in you.

1 Thessalonians 4:3–5 ESV

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;

Biblically there is no debate: All sexual activity, thoughts and desires outside of the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman is sin.

And the point our passage is making, is that when individuals and societies rebel against God and pursue idolatry, God gives them over to their lusts and their appetites. This results in all kinds of sexual desires which are not only sinful but contrary to nature, leading to shameless acts like homosexuality.

But Paul doesn’t end there. In his description of man’s wickedness as result of our rebellion against God, he leaves no stone unturned. Absolutely none of us gets away unscathed.

GGTU 3. Debased Mind (vv. 28-31)

Our third and final, “God gave them up” statement begins in verse 28.

Romans 1:28 ESV

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Where the first “God gave them up” statement spoke to the lusts of the heart, and the second to the appetites of the stomach, this one speaks to the corruption of the mind.

Sin is not merely in action, or even desires, but it infects our thoughts too.

The whole of man is corrupted by sin. This is known as the doctrine of total depravity, that every part of a person is corrupted by sin.

And the results of this are devastating. Listen close to all of these .

Romans 1:29–31 ESV

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

One thing I hope you notice from all of this is that none of us is innocent. We have all been guilty of one or several of these at some point in our lives. But it is an expression of the wrath of God to be given over to these sins.

It is one thing to struggle with lust, it is another thing to be given over to your lusts.

It is one thing to struggle with homosexual desires, it is another thing to embrace that desire and make it core to who you are.

It is one thing to struggle with covetousness, envy, gossip, and all manner of unrighteousness, it is another thing to live an unrepentant life and sin with impunity.

All this to say; that if there is something that God calls sin, and you are able to shamelessly participate in it, you are on extremely dangerous ground. You have been given over to your sin and are under the wrath of God.

A Society Under the Wrath of God

And this passage is not only true for individuals but it is true for societies, cultures and nations. And our culture, without a doubt, is one that has been given over to its sin, we are a nation that is under the wrath of God.

Each one of these “God gave them up” statements is true of our own culture. This is a society in which sexual licence is celebrated. But not only that, we are a society in which immorality and vice of all types is allowed to run rampant.

Gambling has taken over sports, our governments are the biggest dispensers of what used to be illegal drugs, there’s seemingly nothing for the mafia to do anymore.

Rates of alcoholism, drug use, homelessness, domestic violence, gun and knife violence, depression, anxiety, suicide, corruption, pornography, and human trafficking are all sky high. Is it any wonder that even many unbelievers think that we are living at the end of something?

Application

Ready to Proclaim the Gospel

We live in a society with many miserable people and most don’t have a hopeful view of the future. Now that may sound pretty bleak, but thats actually part of what gives me so much hope.

I want you to know that we live in a very exciting time for evangelism right now.

Though there are many in our society who celebrate sin, there are more and more who are becoming disillusioned with the reckless pursuit of their lusts.

People are discovering that gratifying the god of the self ironically leads to self destruction. They’ve seen the truth of this in their communities, in friends and family members, and have even experienced it themselves.

They have felt the bad news in their flesh, and because of this, they are more than ever opening up to the good news of the Gospel.

But we need to be ready with the Gospel that saves people from their sins, and that means calling people to turn from their sins, all of them. This is why our passage this morning is so important. It is a diagnosis of the sin that the message of the Gospel cures.

Ill say it again, this passage is personal. And it is personal because it is true and we are living it.

Reject

There are many who reject it. Paul describes these people in verse 32.

Romans 1:32 ESV

Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Depravity loves company, and these are people who not only ensure their own destruction but the destruction of those they approve. Though they call it love, it is the opposite. They reject the diagnosis, and in so doing, they reject the cure.

Embrace and Proclaim

Remember here in Romans 1 Paul is building his case for the saving power of the Gospel. This passage is a diagnosis not an autopsy! Where there is life there is hope.

There is a way out of what is described for us here in Romans 1, and it is the Gospel. Even if a person is given up to their sin, the Gospel still is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” Even if a nation is under the wrath of God, the gospel still is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”

Repentance

The Gospel is the only way to be saved from sin and death. “Christ died for our sins.” This is the good news, and we receive salvation by it through repentance and faith.

If you recognize that you are still in your sins, do not be content to hide away from God. Do not suppress the truth in unrighteousness and be given over to your sins. You can have forgiveness of your sins now, you can have freedom from sin and death by faith.

Repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for he has taken the wrath of God for you through his death on the cross! Don’t suppress the truth for one moment more, repent and believe.

Conclusion

Our response to a culture under judgment

I want to end our time with a word of challenge for my brothers and sisters who are in Christ.

Carl Truman wrote - “Every age has it’s darkness and it’s dangers. The task of a Christian is not to whine about the moment in which he or she lives, but to understand it’s problems and respond appropriately to them.”

Too often, when we look at the state this society is in, our response is to complain and whine about it.

Let me remind you of something.

God did not make a mistake in placing you and I in this time. And I’ll tell you what, he did not place us here to listen to us complain.

There is untold damage right now being done to the bodies and souls of those who pursue and promote sin and vice here in this culture.

This is a spiritual problem. And it requires a spiritual response. Political action, and culture war are a plastic sword when it comes to saving souls.

Let me ask you this.

What if we took the energy that we use to whine and complain about the state of things and do something different?

What if we committed to pray unceasingly? What if we cried out to God, with empty stomachs, with parched lips, and calloused knees, for the rescue of the countless people given up to their sin in this country?

What if we prayed for them, served them, and shared with them the Gospel that is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. But let’s start by praying fervently.

What might that say about what we believe about the power of the Gospel?

What might this do in our own hearts?

What might God do in this culture in response to our cries for mercy and salvation?