Romans 1:18-32
The Wrath of God and His Restraints



We are going to be talking about 2 subjects from the text that are very hard to hear. I mean hard to hear as in they aren’t talked about very much at all, and especially in the western church, they are avoided all together.

This portion of scripture deals with the sinfulness of the gentiles. If you guys didn’t realize this already gentile means anybody outside of ethnic Israel. Paul talks about our condition apart from the gospel and apart from His saving grace. The text is going to point out 2 things predominantly here. That is:

1. Our idolatry
- We know that there is a God, but we refuse to acknowledge Him.
Even though He has made Himself evident to everybody.

2. The state and condition that sin holds in our lives
- Which i sthe result of our idolatry. That being, not honoring God
and His commands. Just filling our own desires of what we want
apart from Him

This portion of the text may seem very bleak and dark, but it goes to show our
true condition. Not what we think we are, but what we actually are and the power of God to make us who He wants us to be in Him through Christ.


Read Romans 1:18
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

· There are 2 things that Paul establishes in this verse.

1) The wrath of God reveals how much He hates sin. God is absolutely repulsed by evil and sin. Which happens to be what we are.

2) God’s judgment isn’t this far off thing that happens later. His wrath can strike at any place and time as He sees fit, because we are nothing but filled with sin.

· One observation I have here is how Paul words this verse. “Ungodliness and Unrighteousness.” Maybe, this is kind of an order in which things happen. Meaning, when we refuse to be “godly” that leads to our natural act of unrighteousness.

· The other observation I have here is how Paul says we suppress the truth. That would seem to indicate us lying to ourselves about what we know about ourselves.


Illustration
Have you ever been asked a question that you knew the answer to but you refused to speak the truth because it got you or someone else in trouble? I think we have something in us that refuses to tell the truth to ourselves in regards to how horribly filled with unrighteousness we actually are.

· What Paul is pointing out here is we cannot, under any circumstance, claim ignorance. We can’t go in front of God and say, ”You can’t send me to hell God, I had no clue about you or your commands.”

Read Romans 1:19-20
19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For 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.

· So here, Paul goes into more detail. Everybody has a sense that there is a God through the expanse and sheer awesomeness of creation. The invisible God is seen in the visible creation. There have been numerous studies that have shown this world and the things of it did not just appear by accident. Someone had to put it together.

Example
Think of our bodies. We know evolution is a crock. As a matter of fact a story just came out that said two of those men on the timeline of evolution, that were suppose to be millions of year apart, were just found together. This is just one of many stories that scientists are concluding that something had to create us. Also, what I never understood about evolution. Who created the monkey we evolved from in the first place? Who created the water that splashed against the rocks to create everything we see now? You cannot get or make something from nothing.

Read Genesis 1:26-27
26Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

· God created us in His own image. Creation and everything in this world point to a mighty and powerful God. With all the advancement in medicine. We are able to do transplants and make prosthetics. I am sure we could instruct an entire human body. But there is no way we could give it life. This does nothing but point to a mighty, majestic Creator.

Note
I have heard this question asked before. “If we need Jesus Christ to go to heaven, what about the tribes in the middle of Africa that never hear the name of Christ? Do they not even get a chance to go to heaven?”

· Paul is showing here that even they know enough of God to be held accountable. There are stories of people finding these indigenous tribes and they actually have a God that is worshipped by people and they offer things to it to glorify him, as well as go to him for forgiveness of sins. Why do they do that? So they won’t feel the wrath from a God that, they perceive, has the power to give them eternal damnation. Isn’t that interesting? This thing is just pre packaged and built in us.

Read Romans 1:21-23
21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

· So Paul states here again that humanity has a general sense of God. Humanity’s sin is refusing to acknowledge God even though they know enough of Him to be true. The consequence of not honoring Him and giving Him thanks leads the heart and mind to go dark.

· We also see here how idolatry is so ever present. We think we know what is good for us, by not acknowledging and honoring God, but we are actually worse off and stupid for worshipping the things that are created, and more specifically the things that God created for us to have dominion over.

Illustration
This is us worshipping the created things over the creator. This is like someone telling me “Hey, nice tattoos.” Why are they in awe of my tattoos when all I did was get them? I wasn’t responsible for putting them on there. The tattoo artist, or creator of the tattoo, should be the one getting the praise.



Read Romans 1:24-25
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

· That word “Therefore” insists, almost always in the scriptures, as an action that follows some sort of instruction or teaching. Here, because we are idolaters, God removes His divine restraint on both our sinful actions as well as the consequences of those actions.

Read Romans 1:26-27
26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and 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.

· I want to point out a couple things here.

• Homosexuality is a sin and there is no questioning that. How you deal with that and people in that lifestyle is a whole different message all together. This is just something that you need to strike the balance between truth & love in dealing with.
  
• Paul is using this as another example of how depraved, sinful and backwards our thinking is. We exchange what is right, natural and of God and we pervert it to do what is best for us. Completely removing God all together and yet again refusing to acknowledge Him and His commands. Again, here we see God’s hand removed and He gives us over to ourselves and we pervert and sin and that leads to more consequence.
  
  

Read Romans 1:28-32
28And 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. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such thing deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

· Sin brings a hate for what is known to be truth and risks abandonment by God.

· What we see here is our refusal to acknowledge God causes:

1. God to remove His hand and give us over to ourselves, which in turn affects our relationship to Him. (v. 18)
   
2. It causes a warped vision of us and the things of Him. (vs. 21-25)
   
3. We are given over to what we desire most apart from God, which is sin and unrighteousness (vs. 26-32)
   
   · We are so filled to the brim and rooted with sin and idolatry that we can’t help but think that it is right and encourage other people in their sin as well.
   
   Illustration
   Have you guys ever done something you know was bad and you tried to convince someone else to do it with you just so you didn’t feel like you were the only one? It makes you feel like what you did couldn’t be that bad if others were doing it too.
   

· This is what I believe Paul is talking about here. Just being around sin causes more sin. We take such a nosedive in our sin that we even encourage sin in others to make it “not so bad.”


The wrath of God is a scary, scary thing. We see just a glimpse of how horrible and horrendous it can be when God removes all the restraints on us to do what we desire to do and are left to suffer the consequences of those things, and God actually has divine restraints on those consequences as well.

The best part about learning about the wrath of God and how sinful, idolatrous and unrighteous we are is it also shows God’s redemptive power.

It is such a wonderful thing. God, in His love, mercy and grace sent His son Jesus Christ to live what is not possible for us to live, that is a perfect and righteous life. He was a man and He was tempted and He experienced all that we experience, and yet still remained unblemished. God’s wrath was poured out on Christ on the cross at Calvary.

We hear so many times about becoming “saved”. Have you ever thought about what we are saved from? Is it Satan? Hell? What is it? We are saved from God and His wrath and nothing else. To think anything else gives no reverence to God and His power. A couple weeks ago, Pastor Mike did a 2 part series titled Un-punishable. By repenting and asking God into your life you to can become a Christ follower and be on the opposite side of God’s wrath.

That doesn’t mean you won’t ever hurt or suffer or experience pain. God loves us so He disciplines us for our own good. But we will not experience the wrath of God that we should experience and that Christ stepped in and took for us.

I can’t help but preach Jesus Christ to you after we hear a message about God’s wrath and our sinful state.