If God is Good Why is the World Such a Mess - Romans 1:18-32

Copyright February 25, 2024 by Rev. Bruce Goettsche

It is easy to get discouraged watching the news. It feels like we are watching the unraveling of decency and the erosion of the human race right before our eyes. There are many, especially after the latest act of random violence, who ask, “Where is God? Why doesn’t He do something?” Some have even concluded that God must not exist because a good God would intervene on behalf of His creation.

We will learn some things this morning that will help answer that charge. Last week, we looked at Romans 1:16-17, which told us that it is through faith that we are made right with God. In the verses we look at today from the end of Romans 1, we will see the flip side of the good news. We will see why we need to be justified by faith.

I am going to give you a “flyover” of these verses. We could easily get bogged down discussing the issues raised in this passage. To do so would risk missing the main point that Paul is making. I will try to stay on task as we follow his argument. Let’s look first at verse 18-20,

18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

God’s wrath is an uncomfortable subject for us. However, we see it frequently in the Word of God. People are judged, nations are destroyed, and people even drop dead. Contrary to popular opinion, we find His wrath in the New Testament and the Old. Many of these passages trouble us deeply. We don’t like an angry God. We like the “loving God.” However, the two are the same. Let me illustrate.

If someone attacked or sought to hurt someone you loved deeply (think your spouse or your children) would you respond with fierce anger? You would. If someone tried to undermine your marriage, would you respond with wrath? Most likely. And that wrath would be because of your love.

God shows His anger against those who suppress the truth. They put God in a corner and engaged in wickedness. We were created for fellowship with Him, but we spurned that love and desire for intimacy to pursue created things rather than the Creator Himself. God will not stand idly by as we ignore Him.

God Reveals Himself to Us in Different Ways (1:18-20)

Someone might say, but if you don’t anything about God? Paul says we don’t have any excuse for our lack of devotion to the Lord. No one can say, “I didn’t realize there was a God.” He has made Himself known to us. He does this in two ways.

First, there is what is called General Revelation.This is what Paul talks about here. God reveals Himself to EVERYONE in some general ways. Psalm 19 tells us that the Heavens declare the glory of God. The idea is that anyone, in any place, can look at creation and deduce that there must be a Creator. Paul said looking at creation we can see His divine nature and eternal power are clearly displayed.

The complexity of the human eye, the magnificence of the human brain, the staggering complexity of DNA, and even the fact that creation is so finely tuned to support life (the anthropic principle) that if any one of a hundred things were different, it would have made it impossible for earth to support life. This planet is perfectly balanced. All of these things point to a Creator or Designer.

The moral sense that everyone has, what we call a conscience, argues for the fact that we instinctively know there is a moral code in creation. We know what is right and wrong. That conscience can become dulled, but that comes from our persistent disregard for it. We know instinctively that some things are good and other things are evil.

Just by observation, it should lead us to the conclusion that there must be one who . . .

1. Is self-existent, timeless, and outside the natural world. Any designer had to have existed before time began.

2. Is immensely powerful to fashion this universe in which we live

3. Is unfathomably intelligent…the intricacy of design is staggering

4. Is personal to have made us able to respond to Him

5. Should be worshipped and submitted to.

These things do not prove a Christian God- just that there is some god. No one will get a free “pass” from God because they didn’t know better. The evidence for God is all around us. And we will be held accountable for what we do with that evidence. And we all suppress (or deny) that truth. We deserve God’s wrath.

God also reveals Himself through Special Revelation.In addition to these natural bits of insight into the reality of a God, The Lord also revealed Himself by choosing and working through the nation of Israel. He gave us the Ten Commandments, He showed us miracles, and ultimately, He spoke to us through Christ and now through His Word. This specific revelation leaves us without excuse. There is no reason for us to resist and turn from God. Yet we do.

We Resist His Revelation Persistently to Our Detriment (21-23)

21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

Our sinful nature is revealed in several ways. First, We refuse to worship Him or give Him thanks. Even though God is clearly superior to us, mankind refuses to submit to Him. We don’t want to live our lives by His commands. We are OK with the commands that agree with what we want to do, but we embrace even those laws only to get what we want. It has nothing to do with honoring the Lord.

Second, We foolishly worship Idols. In Paul’s day people bowed down before statues instead of before the true and living God. Today our idolatry is more subtle yet just as sinful. An idol is anything that takes the place of God in our life. It is anything that

“absorbs our attention, fills our thoughts, and requires our devotion. Greed, money, talent, love, beauty, financial security, strength, and reputation are all good things, but they become idols when they are ultimate things. It is to substitute the blessing of God for the immediate pleasure of the moment. (Doriani, ROMANS)

Tim Keller summarizes the way that idols will destroy what is good in his book “The Reason for God”

· If you center your life and identity on your spouse or partner, you will be emotionally dependent, jealous, and controlling.

· If you center your life and identity on your family and children, you will try to live your life through your children until they resent you or have no self of their own.

· If you center your life and identity on your work and career, you will be a driven workaholic . . . [and] if your career goes poorly, [you will] develop deep depression.

· If you center your life and identity on money and possessions, you will be eaten up by worry and jealousy about money.

If you want a clue as to idols in your own life, ask yourself a question: What is it that keeps me from worship, from prayer, and from great devotion to the Lord? Idolatry destroys what God made beautiful.

God Rightfully Judges Us for Our Rebellion (1:24-32)

24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. 27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.

28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.

Because God is a just judge (defending those who do right and condemning those who do wrong), He must judge sin. God does this in a couple of different ways.

Active Judgment. Sometimes God takes direct action. Some priests (Sons of Korah) tried a coup against Aaron and his sons. God told them to all bring a sacrifice. He told Moses and Aaron to separate from the men and (Numbers 16) the earth opened up and swallowed the sons of Korah. God took out the Egyptian army in the Red Sea and drowned them all. we frequently read about God leading Israel in military battles. That is immediate judgment.

Acts 5 tells the story of Ananias and Sapphira. They sold some property and gave part of the proceeds to the church (a good thing). God wants to be generous but He also wants us to tell the truth. There are some who teach that God is too loving to send people to Hell. God is a just judge and will judge those who ignore or disrespect Him.

There is a second, and more common way God judges people. It is Passive Judgment. This is the judgment Paul describes here in Romans 1. He says, “God abandoned them to do whatever their sinful hearts desired.” In other words, God judges us by saying, “So, you think you can do things better than what I can do? Do you think your rules and guidelines are superior to mine? Fine . . . go ahead, live by your desires and sinful longings, and let’s see what happens.” What comes next in Romans 1 is a list of things that have resulted from mankind’s desire to “run their own lives.”

Notice when it says, “God gave them up” (24,26,28). First, he gave them up to lusts of their hearts to impurity. This is primarily seen in sexual relationships outside of marriage. It would include pornography and random “liaisons.” Anything that takes what was meant to be love and connection in marriage to merely a recreational means for pleasure is a result of God’s judgment. People will always say: “But I am not hurting anyone or forcing anyone.” What you are doing is worshipping the created rather than the Creator. You are showing disregard for God’s commands in this area. You are hurting yourself and those who participate with you.

Commentator Paul Doriani writes,

Human fallenness often manifests itself sexually, whether in mental sins (lusts), physical sins, or disordered desires. Illicit desires of all kinds are a result of the fall. They are contrary to God’s design, and we should lament over and kill them. The best setting for a good and godly sex life is a loving marriage. God constructed a cosmos in which abiding commitment of mind, heart, will, and body go together. Therefore, marriage and sex go together. By God’s genius, sexual union expresses love, deepens bonds, and even rekindles affection. If a couple drifts apart slightly, physical intimacy reconnects them, with physical hormones and kind words both playing a part.

The hookup culture doesn’t work. People find it dehumanizing, dishonest, and painful. Dating apps and pornography aggravate body-image problems, which impede sexual intimacy. By contrast, a spouse loves us as we are, despite imperfections, and says so. That fosters union at every level. It also points to Christ, as good marriages should. When a husband truly loves and accepts his wife, as she is, he hints at the love of Christ for his church. (Doriani, Daniel M.. Romans (p. 83).

Second he gives them up to dishonorable passions. This is taking things even further. Now the natural design of creation is dishonored in favor of same-sex relationships. To say such things is politically incorrect and now deemed to be hate speech, but . . . read what the text says. It is not the church who sayings this . . . it is God.

Third, God gave them up to do what ought not to be done. This list is long and includes things that describe the culture we live in today. Be careful! It is easy to focus on the clear teaching condemning homosexuality and immorality and miss the other things in the list. In other words, we tend to miss the message to our hearts that should lead us to repentance.

Persistent sin (ignoring God) will lead to hardness, and hardness results in a spiral downward. The perversion grows worse, the regret becomes less, and we drift further from the Lord and possibly from any desire or feeling of need to be saved.

Ultimately, says Paul, values will turn upside down, and people will approve and actually celebrate the things of which they should be repenting. (Think about Gay Pride parades, Satanic parades, celebrations for unwed pregnancies, rejoicing at laws protecting the killing of babies). This not freedom . . . it is the very judgment of God!

Conclusions

Let me draw some quick conclusions. First, God is not to blame for the state of the world. Those of us who are older can tell you how quickly things have changed. This has come about because God has let us live in our own mess. Many around us talk about the “progress” we are making by giving people greater freedom. But, in truth, all we are doing is taking the walls down and letting the flood waters of sin’s destructive power destroy our lives and our society.

When you watch the news and see the random shootings, the reckless indulgence, the sexual perversion, the growing anger, greed, and idolatry, we need to tell ourselves the truth: this is what happens when the Lord is ignored. WE did this.

Second, many of the things we embrace as acceptable behavior are provoking God to greater wrath. We have come to accept many behaviors that are part of the hardening of hearts. Let me give you some examples: It is rare when people get married and are sexually pure. We barely bat an eye when someone tells us that they are living together apart from marriage. Divorce has become commonplace. Marriage has been redefined, gender is now “fluid.” The idea of working hard and doing the job that needs to be done is giving way to those who would rather get what they now feel they are owed from the government for doing nothing. There is disrespect for all authority: in the home, in the classroom, and when it comes to law and order in the community. We have reached a point where those who seek to enforce the law or standards of behavior, are the ones who are considered “abusive.” We are buying into the way of the world and are developing calloused, if not hardened hearts. And that is trouble.

Third, Our morality and values should be defined by the Lord and not by what is socially acceptable. By the same token, we must judge our actions (not just the actions of others) by what the Lord teaches us in the Word of God. His wisdom is superior to the world around us.

Finally, The only possible solution to this mess is to repent, follow Christ, and take our direction from the Word of God. These issues are not going to be corrected by electing a certain candidate! Human beings will not, and cannot, fix this. We are experiencing God’s punishment for OUR sin! The only thing that can help is for us to repent, seek the blood of Christ applied to us, and then ask God to help us move in a different direction in our lives. How do we begin?

a. We must be honest about our disregard for God in how we live.

b. We must call our sin what it is: a revolt against God. We need to stop making excuses (to ourselves and others) or trying to make what is wrong seem right.

c. We must ask God to cleanse us and help us follow Him.

d. We must return to His Word and seek to live as God commands, trusting He knows what is best for us.

To do this, though, we better be prepared. We will meet resistance and lots of it. We will be swimming against the current of our society. We will be called names, be ostracized, and maybe even treated aggressively. But we will be right with God! If WE are unwilling to repent, how can we hope anyone else will do so? If WE are unwilling to live by His commands, no one else will do it. Right now, Sodom and Gomorrah would be celebrated as “enlightened cities.” The clock is ticking, and we are headed for eternal judgment unless we run to Christ. There is no substitute. Do you continue to do just what you feel like doing, or do you work to honor Him in the way you live? That decision will determine where you will be after you die. It is not only a big decision, it’s the biggest!