Sermon Tone Analysis

WALK WORTHY

GOD'S CASE AGAINST UNGODLINESS AND WICKEDNESS IN MEN Pt.2

Sunday February 27, 2022

Scripture Reference: Romans 1:18-20 (NLT)

Intro.

A. Let's begin by looking at the verses we started to explore last week.

"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." Romans 1:18-20 (NLT)

1.

We noted last week that in these verses Paul is making a very significant change in his words to the church at Rome.

He had been telling them how to be made righteous in God's sight and now he is telling them what makes us unrighteous or ungodly.

I don't know if you picked up on this, frankly I didn't see this until I was preparing this message.

Let me ask you a question and this is not rhetorical.

How are we made righteous in God's sight?

One word, FAITH!

There is only one way to be made right with God and one way to stay righteous.

As Paul said in V.17, "This is accomplished from start to finish by faith.

As the Scriptures say, "It is through faith that a righteous person has life."

Romans 1:17 (NLT) One word, one way to be made righteous, but look at all the ways we prove our unrighteousness.

Paul tells us in one verse with one word how to be made right with God, but he spends 15 verses showing us all the ways we prove we are not right with God.

2.

Last week we talked about the fact that sinful man is subject to the wrath or anger of God.

We noted two things in V.18.

It is because we are ungodly and wicked, and we suppress the truth of God.

Now we will look at more of God case against sinful men.

I. SINFUL MAN REJECTS THE TRUTH INSIDE THEMSELVES.

Look at Paul's words again.

They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them.

First:

A. They Reject Their Conscience.

1.

All of us have both a moral and philosophical knowledge of God.

What this means is that we can know God is real through something within us that we would call our conscience or a "gut feeling".

We can also know God is real through methods of study such as asking questions, critical thinking, and rational arguments.

We will be looking at the philosophical side of this in a minute, but first let's talk about this moral conscience all of us have.

2. This moral knowledge of God is seen in the fact that all of us have a sense within us of right and wrong.

Where did that come from?

Well, you might say, "I got it from my parents.

They taught me right from wrong."

OK, but who taught them and then who taught them and on it goes.

The fact is as a parent I can say absolutely nothing to my children about what is right and wrong, and they will still develop a moral conscience, because it is something that comes from God.

Also, the very reasoning that right and wrong exist it an argument for the existence of God.

In fact, Paul stated this argument very clearing in chapter two.

Here is what he said, "They demonstrate that God's law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right."

Romans 2:15 (NLT) The problem here though that Paul is addressing, and we looked at this last week, but these people and by the way you have many of these people in your life.

We call them your Oikos.

They choose to suppress this truth.

I See this suppression of the truth all the time.

As you know I officiate a lot of funerals and I see this suppressing of the truth in every funeral I officiate.

I see people squirming around, getting up to go to the bathroom or just trying to get their attention diverted to something else.

It is actually quite sad thing to witness because they are ignoring or rejecting the truth they desperately need.

They choose to not accept this truth they know within themselves.

It is this very suppression of the truth that is within them that leads to the terrible things people do that Paul will be addressing in the coming verses.

Trans.

Now as we just saw sinful man reject the truth that inside them, but it doesn't end there.

Paul also shows us that:

II.

SINFUL MAN REJECTS THE TRUTH OUTSIDE THEMSELVES.

Let's look at V.20.

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."

1.

I think we all understand that there is a lot we cannot know about God.

He is infinite and we are not, but just as there is much, we cannot know there is also much we can know.

God has created us with an enormous mental capacity.

We can through this philosophical knowledge, we can reason and grasp that God does indeed exist.

In fact, He has given us enough knowledge to lead us to him.

Notice that in V.19 it says, They know the truth about God.

This clearly shows us that we can have a cognitive knowledge of God.

That means we can think, reason, learn and understand that God truly exists.

2. Now I need to add one important truth here.

I have been saying that we have this moral and philosophical knowledge of God, but the truth is no one can know God of their own initiative.

Now I am not contradicting all that I have been saying.

What I am telling you is that our ability to know God whether that is morally, or through our reasoning and understanding is all because God made it so and I will add that He made it so because He wants us to know Him, love Him and service Him.

Then Paul begins to show us how we can know God.

A. We Can Know God Through Creation.

1. Look again at what Paul said, For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky.

Through everything God made This is the obvious place to begin even though there are those who reject this, choosing instead to believe that we are all just the result of some happenstance or some Big Bang out there in the cosmos.

I think the best argument against these evolutionary theories is simply, "How was something created from nothing", but I know I am too simplistic.

Let me use this example I took from another author.

Consider the possibility of forming DNA by accident.

To do so would be like throwing scrambled letters on the floor and having them write the blueprints for the space station, in a language that did not previously exist.

The fact is the very universe itself shouts God to us.

We all know people who do not know God in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and yet how often do we hear them use the words, "God's creation"?

I have a photo in my office that my older brother Howard took of the Yosemite Valley.

He was not a follower of Christ then and yet he wrote a little note about the beauty created by God.

(Here is what it says) I love how one man stated this.

"In creation man is confronted by "not-man".

That is, he is surrounded by objects he did not create."

2. Then Paul shows us other ways God is known.

He tells us we can know God; they can clearly see his invisible qualities.

Now here is the question.

How can I know something that is invisible, better yet, how can something invisible be clearly seen?

Well Paul doesn't leave us hanging he explains.

Here is what he says, his eternal power and divine nature.

Let's explore those two things.

a) We can know God through His eternal power.

It seems that Paul is still thinking here of creation and the power of God in creating the universe.

In fact, the word "power' that is used here is the same word he used back in V.16 when he talked about the power of God at work in our lives.

It is where we get our word dynamite.