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God’s Creation Reveals God’s Invisible Qualities
God’s Creation Reveals God’s Invisible Qualities Romans 1:18-32 Key Verse: 1:18 “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness....” Last week we studied the introduction to the book of Romans. In particular, we studied the key verse for the whole book, Romans 1:17. “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’” Through this verse we learned a very important lesson. That is that the only righteousness that we can have comes from God Himself, in the form of Jesus. Therefore, the only way that we can have any righteousness is by living a life of faith in Jesus from first to last. In today’s passage we learn that just as a righteousness from God is revealed in the gospel, so the wrath of God is being revealed against those who live without faith. We also learn that men are without excuse since God’s invisible qualities can be seen by all men through God’s creation. God is merciful and loving, but God is also righteous, so we must have a balanced view of God. We must realize the necessity of faith in God. We must see through the culture of our times and understand the world from God’s point of view. First, the wrath of God is being revealed (18). Look at verse 18. “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness....” Many people don’t like to think about this verse because they don’t like to think about an all-powerful God whose anger might be directed toward them. Others might not like to think about this verse because they say that a loving God would never have rather to reveal. They say this because they think of God’s wrath like that of sinful men. However, the anger of God is not like the anger of an emotional person who ‘blows up’ because he is having a bad day. It is an anger that is rooted in God’s righteousness. It is a fierce anger against evil, or in other words, rebellion against God. Of course, this wrath is not poured out upon men one by one as our sins deserve. If it was, no one would be left alive on the earth. God is a shepherd. He does not punish our sins with a cause and effect principle. As we will see in next week’s passage, in character, God is rich in kindness, tolerance and patience (2:4). However, God reveals his wrath to educate us that he is righteous. Someday all the sins of all mankind will be punished with the full measure of justice (2:5), but in the meantime, God reveals his wrath just enough to help mankind realize that He is righteous. It is important for us to know why God is revealing his wrath. Look at verse 18 again. It says that God is revealing it “against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness....” Godlessness and wickedness always go hand-in-hand; you can’t have one without the other. The people of Noah’s time and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are excellent examples of this. The people of Noah’s time were living godlessly. The author of Genesis describes this this way, “the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.” (Gen 6:2) He goes on to describe the wickedness of Noah’s time like this, “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” (Gen 6:5) The wrath of God was revealed to these people in the form of a flood that wiped them from the face of the earth. Likewise, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were also living godless, wicked lives. Genesis 13:13 says, “Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.” God revealed his wrath to Sodom and Gomorrah by completely destroying those cities. It is interesting to note that of all the sinfulness that was going on in Sodom, the one sin that the Bible highlights is the sin of lustful homosexuality – I will speak a little more on that later. People generally think they are clever. Many live godless and wicked lives, confident that they are not being seen by God, but God is not blind. Psalm 94:9 says, “Does he who fashioned the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see?” God knows the secrets of men’s hearts and God will bring about absolute justice in his time. In the meantime, God reveals his wrath against men’s godlessness and wickedness. It is a warning from God that should not be taken lightly. Second, God’s creation reveals His invisible qualities (18-20). Verse 18 also says that men suppress the truth by their wickedness. What is ‘the truth?’ ‘The truth’ is that God is the Creator of man and the world. Each person’s life and all of creation came from God. To suppress this truth is to ignore the existence of God. It is to deny the relationship people have with God and its accompanying responsibilities. Men do this because they want to live a sinful life. In other words, people know that God exists, but they deliberately suppress this truth. They are like an ostrich that sticks his head in the ground, thinking he is hidden from view. Men reject God because they want to sin. God knows that, and in their hearts, those who reject God know it, too. Paul says men suppress the truth by their wickedness. Their argument goes something like this, “I committed sin last night, but today I am okay. Therefore, there is no God.” One religion teacher at a major university made this argument: “God claims to be almighty. God claims to be good. There is evil in the world. These cannot all be true at the same time. Therefore, there is no God.” In other words, men use their own wicked behavior as a basis for rejecting the existence of God. Man’s wickedness is really unbelievable. To show that man’s suppression of the truth is a deliberate act of wickedness, Paul mentions the undeniable evidence of God’s existence. Look at verse 19-20. “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 men are without excuse.” God is invisible, but, like the wind, the evidence of his presence is obvious and unmistakable. Paul mentions two invisible qualities of God: his eternal power and his divine nature. Let’s begin with eternal power. What does eternal mean? It means forever. God’s power lasts forever – that means it has no beginning or end. There is nothing else in all creation that is eternal. Everything else has a starting point: i.e. when it was created. Believe it or not, any scientist, whether he believes in God or suppresses the truth of God, will acknowledge this. In the past 60 or so years, scientists have made amazing discoveries. The first is, what they claim is, the age of the universe. By looking at the farthest galaxies from the earth and calculating the speeds that these galaxies are moving away from our own, they can work backward to the moment of the big bang. Their calculation leads to the age of the universe which is about 13.8 billion years, give or take a few hundred million years. You might ask yourself, why is this important? Doesn’t it undermine my creation faith? It doesn’t undermine that at all – it confirms it. Before 13.8 billion years ago, those scientists will tell you that there was nothing in this universe. Therefore, there had to be something that existed before this universe in order to bring it into existence (or, in simple English, to create it). That would be God. God is eternal and more than that, he is powerful enough to create a universe that is over 27 billion light years across. That is what I call eternal power. Ecclesiastes 3:11a says, “He (God) has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men....” Man has a longing for eternity in his heart. Man is conscious of another reality beyond the physical world. In Irian Jaya, which is part of Indonesia, there is a tribe of native people whom Missionary Don Richardson met in 1963. He found that they understood God’s eternal power from nature. They didn’t look at the universe. They simply saw that caterpillars go into their cocoons and come out as a beautiful butterflies. They understood that mortal people can have a new life after death. They believed that the One who can do this would come and visit them someday. They didn’t need anyone to tell them that God’s eternal power was revealed in nature. They could see it for themselves and understood it. Now let’s think about divine nature. Divine means “god-like”, but in this case I think the English translation is not quite correct. I think a better word would be ‘perfect’ or maybe ‘incomprehensible’ (not able to understand). If we look at creation, it has a wonderful perfection to it that we can’t even imagine. Again, any scientist will tell you that this universe is finely tuned for our existence. If gravity or the speed of light had been just a millionth of a fraction different the possibility of our existence would be impossible. All the physical constants had to be precisely as they are or the universe would not exist (probably at all, but at least as we know and can exist in it). God’s perfect nature is seen in creation simply because we can see it! Regarding God’s divine nature, we cannot say everything in this short message. However, let’s consider a two examples. There is a fish called a steelhead salmon. It is born in small rivers. After growing to sufficient size, it leaves the river and travels the oceans, sometimes throughout the whole world. After three years, these fish find their way back to the river where they were born. They jump up waterfalls and go through many obstacles to return to their birthplace. After laying their eggs, they die. Who taught them how to navigate the oceans and get back to the place where they were born? Now, consider the spider. It crawls on eight legs. It wants to eat flies, but it cannot fly and it is not fast enough to catch them. So what does it do? It spins a web which catches flies. Then it can store them and snack on them whenever it is hungry. Who taught these creatures how to spin a web? God plainly revealed his eternal power and divine nature in his creation. God plainly revealed the image of God in man. All men know that God exists. Those who deny God’s existence are liars and they will face the wrath of God inevitably. Third, pride and ingratitude are the root of sin (21). Look at verse 21. “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.” Paul clearly established that men know God. Therefore, men are obligated to glorify God and thank God. We must know that not glorifying God and not thanking God are serious sins in his sight. Men have received everything from God, but they do not thank God. Pride and ingratitude are the root of sin. Pride and ingratitude are the beginning of total depravity of a human being. The last part of verse 21 says, “...but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” When a man is proud and unthankful toward God his mind becomes useless. He begins to meditate only on his sinful desires. He uses his creativity to do evil. He is trapped by the thought of death. At the same time, his heart becomes very dark. He loses meaning and direction. He dwells in sorrow, bitterness, regret, despair, hatred, and so on. Many become depression patients. Some become suicide candidates. Fourth, they become fools (22-32). Look at verse 22. “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools....” What is a fool? Well, for one thing a fool is one who does not trade well. Foolish men who live without God make three foolish exchanges. First, they exchange the glory of God for idols. Look at verse 23. “...and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” Instead of worshiping the glorious, immortal God, people worship cheap images. When people worship God, they can grow in the image of God. They can taste the joy and peace of heaven. They can keep their God-given dignity as human beings. But when people worship idols, they fall down to the animal level, or worse. They become miserable slaves of the flesh with no hope. Second, they exchanged the truth of God for the devil’s lie. Look at verse 25. “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen.” God made man to contain the word of God’s truth. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6). This word of truth is Jesus himself. Jesus gives clear life direction, purpose and meaning. Jesus leads us to eternal life and the kingdom of God. When Jesus is in our hearts we are happy and sure about what we are doing. But when men deny God, they exchange the word of truth for a lie. It means that Satan comes into their hearts (Jn 8:44). Satan leads men to worship all manner of things, anything except God. Some worship money, some worship other people, some worship themselves. Idol worship results in moral and spiritual death and complete shame. Third, they exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. Look at verse 26b and 27. “Even their women exchanged natural 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 indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.” In these verses Paul goes back to the one sin that God pointed out to describe the wickedness of the city of Sodom: i.e. homosexuality. This is a terrible sin because it goes against the very nature of the way God created us. In Genesis it is pointed out that man is create as both male and female in the image of God so that they could fulfill the mission and blessing that God gave us. Genesis 1:27-28 say, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’” Mankind cannot fulfill this mission to be fruitful and increase in number if women are inflamed with lust for other women and men only desire other men. This is unnatural and it is a rejection of God’s design. Fifth, God gives them over to their sinful desires (24-28). The phrase, “God gave them over” is repeated three times in verses 24-28. Look at verse 24. “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.” When a person persists in enjoying sinful desires and never repents in their heart, God does not fight them endlessly. God reaches a point where he says, “Okay, go your own way” (Gen 6:3). God allows men to live without him, withdrawing his protection for them. It is to punish them for their unrepentant attitude toward sin. However, this punishment is not only for punishment for its own sake, it is also for redemption. God is like the father of the prodigal son. When his son was determined to leave home and enjoy an irresponsible life of sin, his father let him go. He knew his son would suffer tremendously in the hard world without his father’s love and protection, but he let him go. In the same way, God knows men will suffer a lot under the power of sin, but he gives them over to punish them in the hope they will repent and be restored. Sixth, they develop a godless society (28-32). Look at verses 28-31. “Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to 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 are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” This is a picture of hell. It is the result of removing God from society. This kind of society cannot but self-destruct. This kind of society comes about when individual people abandoned God to live according to their sinful desires. People do not find lasting happiness without God. People are truly miserable when they live without faith. Look at verse 32. "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." This is what we see happening today. People know in their hearts that things like homosexuality are wrong because they go against the nature of creation itself, yet many people not only practice things like this, they encourage others to participate in these activities as well. In this passage we learned that men are without excuse when they choose to abandon God and live their own way, because God has revealed His invisible qualities in what he has created. When men live without faith, they become miserable in their minds, hearts and souls. They make a society that resembles hell. They must bear the wrath and judgment of God. Therefore, we must live by faith from first to last. We must honor God as God. We must thank God. We must live for the glory of God. May God help us to do so. |
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