Romans 1:18-32 The World is Unrighteous

Introduction

As we study through Paul’s letter to the Roman believers, we are looking at: the Good News (or Gospel), salvation, trust in God, the righteousness of God, and the dynamic of Jews and Gentiles living together as one new man in Messiah Yeshua, and my prayer is that we all get to know Yeshua better and learn more what it means to live by emunah (faith).

Last week we talked about the topic of “To the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Today, we will begin the main body of Paul’s letter. Paul has finished his introduction and now begins to talk about the necessity of Salvation, and how we all need it. I have broken up this first section, between Rom 1:18 to Rom 3:20 into four subsections. If you still have your Outline you will see the following four topics will be covered:

1:18-32 The Pagan World is unrighteous

2:1-16 Adonai judges unrighteousness

2:17-29 Jewish people are also unrighteous

3:1-20 Everyone is unrighteous

In the capital city of the world empire, Rome, where every thought they were good or at least better than rapists and murders, Paul knows that he needs to share the bad news before he shares the Good News. Paul knows that the believers in Rome already know this, but still feels the need to explain his understanding of why the world is unrighteous.

So let us read the passage and then go into the detail that Paul is showing: Romans 1:18-32

Romans 1:18–32 TLV

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. In unrighteousness they suppress the truth, because what can be known about God is plain to them—for God has shown it to them. His invisible attributes—His eternal power and His divine nature—have been clearly seen ever since the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made. So people are without excuse— for even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. Instead, their thinking became futile, and their senseless hearts were made dark. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image in the form of mortal man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Therefore God gave them over in the evil desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies with one another. They traded the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to shameful passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for what is against nature. Likewise the men abandoned natural relations with women and were burning with passion toward one another—men committing shameful acts with other men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And just as they did not see fit to recognize God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what is not fitting. They became filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents. They are foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree—that those who practice such things deserve death—they not only do them but also approve of others who practice the same.

Wrath of God

As we discussed last week, Paul has just stated in Romans 1:16–17 “For I am not ashamed of the Good News, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who trusts—to the Jew first and also to the Greek. In it the righteousness of God is revealed, from trust to trust. As it is written, “But the righteous shall live by emunah.””

So Paul has made the statement that the “righteousness of God” is from “trust to trust” and that Salvation is necessary for everyone, now he begins to expound upon the opposite, the “ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.”

God hates sin. This may seem obvious, but we live in a society that does not want to know this fact. We would much rather focus on the reality that God is Love, but we truly can not understand the depths of that love, unless we understand just how much Adonai’s wrath is stirred up with the presence of sin. Paul points out 2 different categories of sin that people participate in: ungodliness and unrighteousness.

Ungodliness

Ungodliness is the state of being demonstrated by humanistic materialists, who simply choose not to believe in the existence of God, but it is also seen in those formally known as Deists who choose to believe that God may or may not exist, but is not active in the world around us and does not care about us.

Unrighteousness

The other category is unrighteousness which is a synonym of wickedness. This is the state of being of people who oppose law and reject discipline and correction. An example of this would be King Saul as shown in 1 Sam. 15:22-23

1 Samuel 15:22–23 TLV

Samuel said: “Does Adonai delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of Adonai? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination and stubbornness is like iniquity and idolatry. Since you have rejected Adonai’s word, He has also rejected you as king.”

Suppressing the Truth

Now both of these states of being are founded upon actively suppressing the truth. It is interesting that the Australian Government is currently attempting to turn the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) into their own Ministry of Truth, and give them the power and authority to decide what is true and what is misinformation and disinformation. Now, thankfully, the Australian people are contacting their senators and letting them know that we do not want this, but from God’s perspective the suppression of truth has been going on since the beginning.

I said last week that God does not believe in Atheists. Here in Rom. 1:19 we see this statement. Adonai states that what can be known about God is plain to them. Specifically, Paul point out that God’s eternal power and Hid divine nature are “clearly seen” since the creation of the world.

When we look at creation around us, it is obvious to everyone that what or Who created all that we see was clearly powerful, and eternal. These two attributes cause Paul to point out that because of these two attributes, all people are without excuse.

Some people try to make the argument that there are people in the world who have not heard about Yeshua, and therefore God would be unfair if he judged them based upon that lack of knowledge. This is what Paul is addressing.

Glory & Thanks

All around us, creation demonstrates that there is a Creator, therefore what is owed to Him is glory and thanks. In response to a question from the Pharisees, Yeshua said, Matt. 22:36-40

Matthew 22:36–40 TLV

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Torah?” And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire Torah and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

To love God, is to give Him what is already due to Him. Love, in its simplest terms, means to give preference to another. So when we love God, we are choosing to set His preferences above our own. Paul is pointing out that this also means to glorify God and to thank Him.

To glorify means to exalt or lift up, God and His ways above our own. We are to recognize that God’s thoughts and ways are greater, more valuable, more honorable, more just than any of our ways. Adonai spoke to Isaiah in this way: Isa. 55:6-9

Isaiah 55:6–9 TLV

Seek Adonai while He may be found, call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous one his thoughts, let him return to Adonai, so He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways.” It is a declaration of Adonai. “For as the heavens are higher than earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

And to thank Adonai, means to recognize the provision that He has made for forgiveness, to recognize that, as Jacob says: Jas. 1:17

James 1:17 TLV

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

David puts it this way in Ps. 19:2-3

Psalm 19:2–3 TLV

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky shows His handiwork. Day to day they speak, night to night they reveal knowledge.

Instead

There is no such thing as coasting in this life, we are either moving toward God or away from Him. When we choose to follow and believe lies, we end up following the Father of Lies. Those lies could be a simple as believing that God does not exist, or a complex as believing that He does not love us, or that we are worth less than what we were created to be.

Regardless, when we choose to not believe nor trust in God, our reasoning become futile, without sense and darkened. The word “futile” means “producing no useful result, or pointless.” We find ourselves spending a lot of time thinking about unimportant things, worrying about what is only temporary. We go on thinking that we are intelligent, but we are no longer wise. We think of all sorts of wonderful ideas, but can not apply any of it to our lives, for our benefit.

So instead, we create a god with our own hands. Worship what our own hands have made, and begin to think that we are gods.

God Gives Us Over

Three times we see this phrase, “God have them over” and it is truly terrifying. It means that if we resist God and His ways, then He gives us what we want. We say we do not want His ways, and that we want to go our own way, and He says, “Ok, let me help you!”

We this first in verse 24. As a result of us choosing to believe a lie, and refusing to follow the path that God has laid out for us, God gives us the desires of our heart. The only problem is that, as C.S. Lewis puts it, “Men usually get what they want, that don’t usually like it.”

Why is it that when we reject God’s way as a culture, that we tend toward dishonor and impurity? Well, Paul gives us the answer in verse 25. Because we traded God’s truth for a lie, we end up worshiping and serving the creation. In practical terms, this means that we satisfy our fleshly self-centered desires at the expense of those around us. We become, as Jack Frost put it, “Two ticks, and no dog. Sucking the life out of each other.” Our world begins to only revolve around ourselves; we live to satisfy our desires. We need to feel needed, and so even our good deeds end up wounding and hurting others.

For this reason

So, when we see Adonai giving a culture or a country over to shameful passions such as Lesbianism and Homosexuality, we know for certainty, that the culture/country has already rejected God. Thomas Aquinas, when answering a question on what was the most grievous of sins, state the following:

in order to overcome their pride, God punishes certain men by allowing them to fall into sins of the flesh, which though they be less grievous are more evidently shameful. … carnal lust is apparent to all, because from the outset it is of a shameful nature: and yet, under God's dispensation, it is less grievous than pride. For he who is in the clutches of pride and feels it not, falls into the lusts of the flesh, that being thus humbled he may rise from his abasement. From this indeed the gravity of pride is made manifest. For just as a wise physician, in order to cure a worse disease, allows the patient to contract one that is less dangerous, so the sin of pride is shown to be more grievous by the very fact that, as a remedy, God allows men to fall into other sins.

Where as humility is defined as a proper understanding of our subjection to God, pride does not regard this subjection to God and seeks to elevate itself above this appointed position.

And this is what Paul is pointing out. When, as a people, we seek to divorce ourselves from God and His ways, when we think that we know better than God, then we have fallen into pride. Then Adonai gives us over to sins of the flesh, to do what is obviously shameful so as to expose the hidden sin of pride. Do you think that it is an accident that the very thing that is used to celebrate the LGBTQI lifestyle is Pride Month?

As a nation and a culture, we have long rejected God, and now God has given us over to the shameful sins of the flesh that go contrary to nature and to Nature’s God.

Did not recognize God

And when we don’t listen nor repent Adonai then gives us over to a depraved mind, to do what is not fitting.

I think somehow, we believe that we are unique in history, that there has never been a culture so advanced as ours, or that we are special and the rules of God do not apply to us.

But we are not; rather we are just the same as ever other culture. And when we reject Adonai, and we reject His definition of what is sin, then eventually we come to the place where the entire society looks like verses 28 to 31. These verses represent the most comprehensive list of sins in the entire Bible.

Romans 1:28–31 TLV

And just as they did not see fit to recognize God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what is not fitting. They became filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents. They are foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

So I have some questions.

Where are we on this slippery slope away from God? Have we and our rulers rejected God’s word and His ways? Or do we honor His command, and respect His word?

Or have we slipped further to the point that shameful passions are exalted as normal? And why do we talk of slipping in the first place? Lets read Psalm 73:18-19

Psalm 73:18–19 TLV

Surely You put them in slippery places. You hurled them down to destruction. How suddenly they became a ruin— terminated, consumed by terrors.

As Jonathan Edward asked in his sermon, Sinners in the hands of an Angry God:

Are we, as a nation, exposed to sudden unexpected destruction?

Are we liable to fall internally, without anyone pushing us over?

Or is it only a matter of time?

God’s timing.

And finally we ask the final question that Paul asks: Does our culture approve the practices that were described by Paul? Are we a culture that promotes wickedness and godlessness, or do we exalt God?

But what about the promise?

Some may say, “But God has given Australia a promise of blessing.” And to that I would answer directly from Jer. 18:7-10

Jeremiah 18:7–10 TLV

At one moment I may speak about a nation or about a kingdom, to uproot, to pull down or to destroy it. But if that nation turns from their evil, because of what I have spoken against it, I will relent concerning the calamity that I planned to do to it. Or at another time I may speak about a nation or about a kingdom, to build up or to plant it. But if it does evil in My sight, not listening to My voice, then I will relent of the good that I had said I would do to it.”

Application

I wish I could give you better news for our nation of Australia. I wish that we were on a pathway to hope and peace, but I can not see it. The more I see and the longer I live, the further we slide away from God. I see no guarantees that Australia will be still a nation when Yeshua returns, and I see no reason for Adonai to withhold His judgement. Our sins anger God far more than we realize, and every day we continue to thumb our nose at the time that we have been given. As Jonathan Edwards put it, “[We] have no refuge, nothing to take hold of, all that preserves [us] every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.”

Most people are not aware of this; most people think that their plans to preserve their life is better than the last persons; but the actual reality is that nothing is “between [us] and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds [us] up.”

So what must we do to be saved?

On the day of Shavuot, Kefa called out Acts 2:30-41

Acts 2:30–41 (TLV)

So because [King David] was a prophet and knew God had sworn with an oath to him to seat one of his descendants on his throne, David saw beforehand and spoke of Messiah’s resurrection—that He was not abandoned to Sheol, and His body did not see decay. “This Yeshua God raised up—we all are witnesses! Therefore, being exalted to the right hand of God and receiving from the Father the promise of the Ruach ha-Kodesh, He poured out this—what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens; yet he himself says, ‘Adonai said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” ’ “Therefore let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him—this Yeshua whom you had crucified—both Lord and Messiah!” Now when [the crowd] heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the emissaries, “Fellow brethren, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and let each of you be immersed in the name of Messiah Yeshua for the removal of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Ruach ha-Kodesh. For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far away—as many as Adonai our God calls to Himself.” With many other words he warned them and kept urging them, saying, “Save yourselves from this twisted generation!” So those who received his message were immersed, and that day about three thousand souls were added.

And so I provide this same call today. Today, while there is yet life, is the day of salvation. Do not harden your hearts as in the day of Korach’s rebellion, but rather repent, trust in Yeshua who's death atones for those who trust in Him, and be immersed in the name of Messiah Yeshua for the removal of your sins, and you will receive the promised gift of the Ruach HaKodesh.