The Wrath of God

Last week we began a new study though the book of Romans.

And I shared with you that this is essentially Paul’s gospel to the Roman Church. (WHO IS PAUL)

And if you were here last week we looked at the first 17 verses where we saw how much Paul just wanted this church to know that they were loved and adored by Jesus…And that Jesus rescued them and had a plan for them. Paul wanted them to know that Righteousness comes through faith!

Paul wants the Roman church to know the gospel and the salvation of Jesus and that we can share in his righteousness

The first half of chapter 1 is all about God’s righteousness and the second half of chapter 1 is all about God’s wrath!

Now! This is not something we like to talk about much…

There was a church movement that really began in the 1980’s called the seeker sensitive movement and the idea was to make church comfortable for new people who knew nothing about Jesus to feel at home. The idea is great there is nothing wrong with that…The idea was to invite people who are irreligious to be able to come to church, feel comfortable enough to find and follow Jesus! What is wrong with that? Nothing at all!

But the problem with any movement is when it is taken to the extreme…

This is where Topical preaching started to get really big and there is nothing wrong with topical preaching I do it as needed…

Topical preaching began to leave out difficult parts of the Bible

So we heard a lot about God’s grace but nothing much about his wrath

You hear about God’s love but not his anger!

I would say early on in my ministry I was probably influenced by the seeker sensitive stuff, quite unconsciously and I would hear from our older parts of the congregation…

Pastor, We need a little more fire and brimstone in the pulpit…

See they had grown up in the era of the camp meeting where church was all about not going to Hell but going to heaven…The church swung the pendulum the other way with the seeker sensitive movement

And I had grown up in the era of church that didn’t talk much about God’s wrath or Hell much at all

And see this is the dilemma:

If I were just to preach to you Romans 1:1-17 you would only hear about the need for faith and to grow in the righteousness of God…

And if I were to just preach Romans 1:18-32 you would only hear about God’s wrath

The point is that you wont get a full view of God’s character unless you look at both!

You can not fully understand the holiness of God without understanding God’s wrath

You can not understand Love apart from wrath!

Wrath is a function of love!

Anyone who truly loves someone gets angry at anything or anyone that ruins that person

So before we get into this text today I want to read a text that I think would have been on Paul’s mind

The single most quoted bible verse in the whole of the Old Testament comes from Exodus 34:6-7

It recalls the time when God’s people sinned by building a golden calf and how God forgave them but then made a statement about his own character in the process

If there were ever a place to look in the Bible and pinpoint what is God’s character…it is Exodus 34:6-7

Exodus 34:6–7 NIV

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

So God is compassionate and gracious

He is slow to anger

He abounds in love and faithfulness

He maintains love to thousands

He forgives wickedness rebellion and Sin!

Yet he doesn’t let the guilty off the hook

The bottom line is that God’s love wouldn’t be real love without his justice…

I realize that the way we read this passage in english makes it look like that God indiscriminately punishes our decedents for our sin…But what is happening here is a little deeper… In the Hebrew mind the phrase the “third and the fourth generation” is an idiom that means however long it take

So the point of this text is not that God will punish children for their parents sin.

The Hebrew idea of this is that we teach our kids our own sinful ways and that God will punish sin for as long as it takes for people to come back to him

Justice is about setting things right

What is impotrant here is that God is angry at sin

Sin ruins humanity

See we as humans are called to find our identity in the lord, anything else no matter how well meaning ruins us!

And what sin does is it breaks thing…It violates our relationship with God and takes our allegiance away from Jesus…Sin slowly ruins us…and if God really loves us then he should hate sin and punish it!

So let’s get to the text this morning

Romans 1:18–20 NIV

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be 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 people are without excuse.

So what Paul is doing here is looking at the totality of the cosmos..

All of creation and seeing the effects of the Gospel on people and seeing the effects of rejecting the gospel on people

He is looking at sinful humanity and the effects of our sin…See sin estranges us from God

And this is what Paul is doing in this section…He is looking at the gentile world and seeing just how far they are from God

And You might think…Well these poor Romans, they just don’t know about the Lord but Paul’s first really big theological statement is in natural revelation

that actually we can know that there is a God who is good just through nature

Creation reveals the creator (Romans 1:18-20, Matthew 6:25-33)

Paul says that from the beginning of the world, God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen!

This is a massive statement!

Creation is God’s self disclosure!

Jesus told the disciples Look at creation, it is all provided for, and you are the crown of God’s creation why wouldn't he provide for you too!

I think in our scientific world we have just become too sophisticated to say…Go outside and look at God’s creation it reveals a creator!

But the reality is, it is true

But since our society is so sophisticated now….Let me speak to that…

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols…It is writing

All of you can go to a restaurant read a menu and come to the conclusion that there is some intelligence behind that menu right? I mean after all, we know that the menu is created by the chef…We can read the markings on the page and know what to order correct????

The last thing that you are probably thinking at this restaurant is that over billions of years trees collapsed into a pulp got mashed together with water then rocks went over them and flattened them out and dried them and a cochineal bug which has a red dye in it, miraculously released its ink on this mashed pulp and randomly created this menu…

No when you go out to eat and look at that menu it reveals the mind of the chef!

Now lets go even further…Using Semiotics, the study of language…Let’s just say that I am stranded on a dessert island and after 20 years of being there one day I look at the sand and see my name is written in the sand…

Would you say, wow the mystery of evolution! That just the right amount of wind and sticks and erosion just happened to write my name in the sand! You would say, “WOW who is here that knows me?”

So how much more when we look at the human genome and realize that every single person is literally coded like a computer programer…When you pull apart the human genome you find letters and coding that is complex and intentional! You might look at it and rightfully think! WOW someone knows me, they literally wrote me into existence!

So what Paul is saying here is that the creation reveals the creator and when we are not obedient to our creator that sin and wickedness ruins us! And that is what God is angry at…The sin that ruins his creation

And ALL OF HUMANITY HAS THIS INFORMATION!

this is what Paul is saying, we are without excuse!

But what Humanity doesn’t know is that in God’s grace he has made a way for this sin that ruins us to be dealt with!

Romans 1:21–23 NIV

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 a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

So what Pagans regard as wisdom is independence from God…And what Paul is saying is that this kind of thinking is actually driving humanity down a path that is destined to ruin them and even their minds

Paul is revealing the ridiculous folly of the pagan world…

See the pagan world worships other humans birds and animals and reptiles

and he is saying look you are giving glory to things that die! Your own logic defeats itself…Why would you worship something that dies

Remember what we covered last week in Paul’s introduction:

Romans 1:4 NIV

and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus defeated death! He has the power of life! and these pagans keep worshiping things that eventually die! and they think they are wise!

They see independence from God as wisdom whereas the truly wise are totally dependent on their creator!

God designed humans to be the crown of his creation…We are looked at as Royalty by God but when we give our worship and obedience to other stuff it just ruins us!

Romans 1:24–32 NIV

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

The judgment of God is to “Give them over” or to give people what they want

Three times Paul says God gave them over to their sinful desires

God gave them over to their shameful lusts

God gave them over to a depraved mind

This is such an impotrant chain of logic to follow!

When you desire to live apart from God, he will not force himself on you…

People say to me all the time, well look at the Apostle Paul….God showed up and instantly changed his life…. and my response is that Paul desired God more than anything, He was actually seeking God’s will as he was headed toward persecuting the church…

But the general princable here is that the Lord will not force himself on you…

You have to want to follow God, you have to choose him

And look at the progression

God Gave them over to their desires…Their shameful lusts and then ultimately to a depraved mind…

See notice here how Paul doesn’t call on God to punish the sinners…What Paul is saying is that their immersion in the world of sin is their punishment!

This is so universal…If I were to somehow conglomerate every testimony of everyone who was saved they will tell you that living in sin and being immersed in the world of sin is actually hell itself…it is its own punishment

Paul eventually says the punishment for going down the road of sin is that you are ultimately punishing yourself and your mind becomes depraved…The word here the best we can tell comes from the root idea of “can not stand up to the test” or won’t pass the test…The word is rather harsh in other places it means unqualified, worthless…It can also mean empty

There is an interesting word picture at play here…See back in the time of the Maccabeean revolution a few hundred years before this…What happened is that the Greek people took over the temple and did all sorts of evil things in in

So the books of the Maccabees are not Biblical canon but helpful for us too understand historically what happened in the period of the 400 years between the old testament and new testament…This would have been a widly read and understood book at the time of the writing of Romans

2 Maccabees 6:4 CEB

The Gentiles filled the temple with wild partying and sexual indulgence. They were entertaining themselves with prostitutes and having sex with women in the priestly chambers. In addition, they carried in unfit things,

Paul is probably making a connection to the depraved mind to the depravity at the temple that was happening

If you were Jewish and reading this you would get this picture of the temple which was created for God’s Holy presence but filled with emptiness and evil

See you are the temple of the Lord and your mind is ment to be filled with the things of the Lord…How much more are you meant to be filled with the knowledge of the lord?

Paul is making this connection that you are the temple of the living God…You can either have faith that leads to righteousness or a mind that leads to depravity…

Emptiness and worthlessness

And you got mad when the Greeks desecrated the temple with all their evil! but how about you! You were made to be a vessel for God’s holiness and you fill your own life with emptiness and worthlessness

There is a point here that I think matters for everyone and especially if you are a christian

The mind sets the stage for the will to choose

The question is how much these days do we fill our minds with absolute crap?

How much are we the temple of the lord and yet putting pure trash into it

I mean maybe you think oh I don’t watch rated R movies…I only listen to christian music

But I watch cable news every day all day…But I scroll aimlessly on my phone all day

I am in the top 1% of all candy crush players!

Now I don’t want to be an extremist…A little bit of candy crush is just fun and might help you to relax…But 8 hours of it and your brain dead!

My point is especially as parents..We need to protect our minds and the minds of our kids!

So Paul goes on to give this list of what happens when our minds are given over to sin and remember this is in absolute contrast to the beginning of chapter one..A person who has faith in Jesus and is given the righteousness of Jesus

Romans 1:26–31 NIV

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

This is Paul’s list

There are sexual sins including but not limited to homosexuality

Greed, evil, wickedness, envy murder strife …Gossipers..slanderers…arrogance the wicked invent ways of doing evil

And then it says “They disobey their parents”

You know everyone wants to focus on the homosexuality reference in this passage, and it is true that God designed the human sexual relationship to be for Married men and women but what I want to focused is this phrase

They disobey their parents

Guys let this sink in: In 21st century America this is probably a less popular message than Paul’s message on homosexuality…Dishonoring your parents is evidence of a depraved mind!

Guys this is in the same list as murders! Don’t brush it off

I have seen what I think is an epidemic of adult children dishonoring their parents and I see it in young kids too

Teach your kids to respect you and honor you! Teach your kids to honor you

Why? Because you are the first authority in your life and part of your job as a parent is to teach your kids to submit to authority!

If they can’t ever submit to your authority, how will they ever submit to the Lord’s authority!

Don’t let your dishonor you.

Don’t let them be in charge…WHY???? you are putting a stumbling block in front of them for future submission to the Lord!

Because if they can’t honor you how will they ever honor the Lord?

Even as adults…you need to honor your parents because you are setting the stage for your kids to decide how they will treat you later in life when they are married and have kids…

So Adults here who are dishonoring your parents or avioding them or not talking to them….You are paving the road for how you want your kids to treat you!

Do you want grandkids one day? DO you want to see them…Show your kids how to honor your parents!

The sin of dishonoring mom and dad lasts till the third and fourth generation!

See I think the general theme of chapter one is this

In the beginning

Faith Leads to inheriting the righteousness of Jesus

But apart from that the human condition is death and depravity!

Where are you finding life?

You are going to keep going after the things that you think bring you life but they really bring you death.

It’s not always a good thing, If you worship something other than Jesus it will always bring you death…

Later in the book of Romans which we will look at extensively Paul will say this:

Rejection of Christ ends us with a depraved mind…But letting Jesus in to transform you renews your mind…Look at what Paul will write later

Romans 12:1–2 NIV

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Maybe you know the depravity of the mind…

There is the possibility of renewal!

There is the possibility of transformation

There is the possibility of new life!

Maybe your here today and you need to give your mind over to Jesus

Also,

I wonder if some of Paul’s readers were feeling condemned by his writing…And that is because our sin is condemning

It breaks us!

There is a possibility that you read the scripture today and felt condemned for it

Well Paul wants you to know:

You are a sinner…But a sinner who has given their life over to Jesus is a new person

Romans 8:1 (NIV) Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

Response:

I think the point of all of this is that you might look like the temple but if willful and consious sin is a part of your life then your really just filled with death

You look good to your family you look good to your friends. You’re a good on social media, but you know the truth inside you are littered with sexual sin inside you were littered with a depraved mind .

You look like the temple, but your thoughts are full of things that bring you death. I think God is looking for bold people who are willing to admit it who are willing to fess up and say Lord, I’m filled with the thoughts of death and I need you to fill me again

Lord, I need you to redeem my mind and my thoughts 

YES to Jesus

Remember Jesus flipped over table in the temple

Cleanse the temple

Songs

In Christ Alone

Communion

Lord I need you!

The Blessing