Romans 1:18-20

We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

So, upon completing this statement, in Paul's very logical way,

! He loops back to the beginning to help us understand mankind's need of salvation.

Our need to be justified.

Our need to avoid the wrath of God.

This gospel he's not ashamed of, because it's the power of God for salvation.

He wants us to be very clear what we need to be saved from.

Now, we're going to speed up our study a bit and spend today and the next Lord's Day

finishing up chapter 1, Lord willing.

But I do not want the lessons of verses 18 through 32 to be lost on us.

At the conclusion of our study of this chapter, you ought to either feel a great condemnation for your lost state,

and, I pray, will flee from the wrath to come to the mercy of Christ,

or you ought to feel an abundant, overflowing gratefulness,

having already received Christ's mercy in the salvation of your soul.

So, Romans chapter 1, verse 18 through 23.

Romans 1:18–23

Let me remind you, beloved, that this is God's word to us.

It was written for his glory and our good, and so we would do well to listen to it

in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.

And Paul goes on,

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature,

have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse.

For 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.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools,

and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Some weeks ago, I pointed out the logical progression of Paul's writing.

Paul's writing is full of fours and therefores, one assertion building on the next.

I like preaching Paul because I'm a very linear thinker.

I don't like making lots of loops, so I enjoy this kind of writing.

We saw one four at the beginning of verse 16 and another at the beginning of verse 17.

And here we see one at the beginning of verse 18, 19, 20, and 21.

As we proceed through chapter 1, we see a therefore at the beginning of verse 24 and two fours in verse 26.

All of these are just the fours and therefores that begin in verse 16 through the end of the chapter.

I'm just pointing this out to you simply to show you the logical progression of Paul's case.

Don't miss the fours.

This is the way he most regularly wrote, and it's the way he most regularly preached the gospel.

We can read in Acts chapter 17, verse 2 and following.

Acts 17:2

And Paul went in as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the scriptures,

explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead,

and saying, this Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ.

Now, Paul wasn't exerting his own ideas, right?

He was reasoning specifically from the scriptures, from the Old Testament text.

He was taking up the word, and he was clearly, with some logical progression, explaining the need, right,

for Jesus to suffer and to rise from the dead.

Why did he do it in this way?

He spoke to their minds with the scripture with the intent of getting through their minds

by the power of the Spirit to their hearts.

He was just simply using ordinary means that God might do something miraculous in the lives of his hearers.

And we see this to be the case.

In fact, Luke records it for us in verse 4 in this way,

and some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas,

as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.

So why take the time to do such a thing?

I'm just trying to say to you that it is good for us to engage our minds,

whether you find yourself in Christ or not this morning,

whether you want to be here or somehow got drug here,

it is good for you to engage your mind in the argument that Paul here is making.

It is our prayer that he might do something miraculous, the Lord, in your life as you think about these things.

Paul progresses neatly from one assertion to the next,

which is why for today I don't have points for the sermon.

I'm just going to follow his four format throughout the text,

beginning in, of course, verse 18.

He says,

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men

who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

In verses 16 and 17, remember that Paul states that the gospel is the power of God for salvation.

For in it, verse 17, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

So in verse 18, he begins his explanation of why anyone would care that the gospel is the power of God.

He begins telling us why we need the righteousness of God that comes through faith.

He doesn't just assume that we know it.

Power of God for salvation, right?

The righteous shall live by faith.

He begins to rewind and begin to make the case that we are not righteous by ourselves

and we need a righteousness that comes from God.

God's righteousness.

The reason, he tells us, is the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness.

It's something to be afraid of.

God's wrath seems to be a very unpopular idea in modern evangelicalism.

But Paul's inspired writing offers up as the very first reason someone would receive the truth of the gospel

is the fear of God's wrath.

He begins there.

Now, God's wrath is not the same as the kind of uncontrolled venting of anger that we are likely to exhibit.

Rather, it is a determined indignation.

God justly feels angry at sin as it is an offense to him.

It's an offense against him.

It is bad for us and it wreaks havoc for others.

It is objectively wrong.

And so, therefore, God has a determined indignation against sin of every variety.

God's wrath is righteous wrath.

And it does not detract from his loving kindness.

Rather, it magnifies his mercy and grace as all of his divine attributes are held in perfect balance.

We have to be careful as we open up the word and look at our God that we don't over-inflate one aspect over another.

They're all held in perfect balance.

This is the doctrine known as the simplicity of God, although it may be a bit misleading of a term.

It means he's always who he is all the time.

All things at all times.

He's not given to fits of emotion like we are.

He is not swayed by whims.

Listen to just a few texts that speak of God's wrath.

Psalm 90 in verse 7 through 9.

Isaiah chapter 9 and verse 19.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts, the land is scorched.

And the people are like fuel for fire.

No one spares another.

Jeremiah chapter 7 and verse 20.

Jeremiah 7 · chapter mention

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place upon man and beast,

upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground.

It will burn and not be quenched.

Unless you think that this was only an Old Testament reality,

maybe fall victim to the error to think that our God has changed from Old Testament to new.

God's wrath was a major part of Paul's theology.

We see it here just in chapter 1 of this tome of Paul's writing.

Here are two other texts that proceed from Paul's hand.

Ephesians 5 and verse 6.

Let no one deceive you with empty words.

For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

In Colossians chapter 3, verse 5 and 6.

Colossians 3:5

Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness,

which is idolatry.

On account of these things, the wrath of God is coming.

God's wrath is a settled reality against sin.

He is a just God and He justly does and will punish sin.

Whether or not you realize it, you want God's wrath to exist.

You want justice to be served.

It is proper that Kim Il-sung and Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Lenin and Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.

If you don't know who these people are, you need to know who these people are.

Many of them are socialists, as a note.

It's proper that they're punished for the heinous crimes that were carried out by their commands and at their hands.

We want justice to be done, right?

Beyond our power and beyond our control, we want justice to be established.

We want a God that sets these atrocities right.

But if we understand the nature of our sin,

if we get that our sin is the rejection of God as creator and king,

that our sin as just as grievous,

then we will understand the deserved wrath against all sin.

God, because He's just, must punish sin.

He is perfectly just, right?

He's not like any judge that has ever lived, right?

He doesn't dismiss some things and punish other things.

He is perfectly just.

He always rightly judges sin.

He must do it or He ceases to be God.

And this is a good, good thing.

If you haven't placed saving faith in the personal work of Jesus Christ,

then you will pay the penalty for your sin.

You will endure God's wrath forever.

And this is just.

Think it not unfair.

It is the good and proper thing for our God to do.

If you have placed saving faith in the personal work of Jesus Christ,

then He, Jesus Christ, paid the penalty for your sin.

God maintained His justice in punishing your sin in Christ,

that you would be set free from its penalty and its power.

This is the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.

And it is the core of the gospel, right?

Astoundingly in our age, there's debate amongst, I will say,

in quotation fingers, Christian circles about this doctrine.

If you dismiss penal substitutionary atonement,

Christ died in our stead in order to satisfy the wrath of God

that was aimed at us,

then you're denying the gospel altogether.

Each and every one of us deserves God's wrath.

If God were to be entirely fair,

we would all be consumed in a moment and then punished forever.

This would be the right thing for Him to do.

But because of His loving kindness toward us,

He sent His own Son,

that His Son might live the life that He expected of us

and die the death that we deserved.

So that in that gospel belief,

all who believe in that gospel,

the power of God,

we would be granted the righteousness of God, right?

That we would be justified,

that we could stand before God forgiven.

And note that God's wrath does not discriminate, right?

As I've made the point already,

it is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

These two words, ungodliness and unrighteousness,

are very similar in the Greek language.

They are almost but not quite synonyms.

The first stresses a severed relationship with God.

The second focuses on the activity that proceeds from that severed relationship.

The one on whom God's wrath is revealed

is not living as an image bearer of God,

but in contradiction to that created purpose.

And in so doing, suppresses the truth.

Presses down the truth.

Now, Paul is going to continue to develop our understanding

of the fallen nature of man

and the deserved wrath for those apart from Christ

until halfway through chapter 3.

But before we move on from this verse,

we need to note something that will have bearing on our study

in coming weeks.

This will be important and increasingly important.

Paul states,

The article before reveal,

the article is,

it's not in the original language,

but it's properly added into our text

as the verb translated revealed

is in the present form,

which means that not only will God's wrath be revealed,

but it is currently being revealed.

That the unrighteousness are presently under the judgment of God

and will, apart from saving faith,

be under the judgment of God forever.

It's currently playing out in the world in which we live.

We will need to understand the profundity of this verb,

understand the rest of the chapter

and, frankly, the world that we live in

and into the rest of our text.

The wrath of God revealed from heaven

against ungodliness and unrighteousness.

He goes on in verse 19, right?

The for here is referring to the suppression of truth.

For what could be known about God is plain to them

because God has shown it to them, right?

Here's the truth suppression happening.

Sinful man denies the truth that God has revealed to them

and so, he'll go on to say in verse 20,

they are without excuse.

Now, I like the translation that we preach from.

This is the English Standard Version.

Many, many years ago,

we decided to pick a translation to preach from

in the hopes that others would have the same.

And if you don't, that's entirely okay.

There are many good translations out there.

But I'll tell you, when we made that decision,

it was hard for me because I had an NASB 95

that I really enjoyed a lot.

And it was difficult to give it up

as the primary preaching text.

And so I'm always eager to confer with my NASB 95

and see the way those translators rendered some of these texts.

And it's not always helpful,

but in this case, I thought it was particularly helpful.

Listen to the way they rendered these Greek phrases.

They say, verse 19,

That's fascinating.

Those Greek phrases can also be translated in that way.

ESV says about God is plain to them, right?

Here, they root it with the evidence

that's actually put within us.

And Paul's going to develop this idea later in chapter 2, I believe.

So what could be known about God is plain to them

or is evident within them,

for God has shown it or made it evident to them.

For, verse 20, right?

He's developing this even further.

For God's 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.

Two things can be clearly observed in the natural world.

One, Paul says there is a creator God.

Whether we know exactly who that creator God is

as revealed in Jesus Christ or not,

we know by looking at nature that there is a creator God.

And two, that He is eternally powerful.

And everybody seems to know this in our age,

which is a suppression of the truth.

So, let me read to you just a bit.

This is from John MacArthur's commentary on this text.

He gathers a lot of stats together in just a way that I don't have time for.

So, I'm going to read what he gathered together.

I'm not sure he had time for it either,

but I don't want to suggest I'm busier than John MacArthur,

but I'm going to lean on him and the commentary here at this point.

Listen to some of the things, right?

There's just some examples of things that can be observed,

things that display our God as a creator God

and eternally powerful.

At any given time,

there are an average of 1,800 storms in operation in the world.

The energy needed to generate those storms

amounts to the incredible figure of 1.3 billion horsepower.

By comparison, a large earth-moving machine has 420 horsepower

and requires 100 gallons of fuel a day to operate.

Just one of those storms,

producing a rain of 4 inches over an area of 10,000 square miles,

would require energy equivalent to the burning of 640 million tons of coal

to evaporate enough water for such a rain.

And to cool those vapors and collect them in clouds

would take another 800 million horsepower of refrigeration

working night and day for 100 days.

I don't know how he figured that out.

It's pretty incredible.

Agricultural studies have determined

that the average farmer in Minnesota

gets 400,700,000 gallons of rainwater per acre per year,

free of charge, of course,

and my addition is for now.

The state of Missouri has some 70,000 square miles

and averages 38 inches of rain a year.

That amount of water is equal to a lake

250 miles long, 60 miles wide,

and 22 feet deep.

God blesses with rain,

is the point.

The U.S. Natural Museum has determined

that there are at least 10 million species of insects,

including some 2,500 varieties of ants.

There are about 5 billion birds in the United States,

among which some species are able to fly

500 miles nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico.

Those are hummingbirds, by the way,

that can do that.

Mallard ducks can fly 60 miles an hour,

eagles 100 miles an hour,

and falcons can dive at speeds of 180 miles an hour.

The Earth is 25,000 miles in circumference,

weighs, I don't, this is an astounding number,

how we figure this out.

Let's say approximately,

6 septillion, 588 sextillion tons,

I don't even know what those numbers mean,

and hangs unsupported in space.

It spins at 1,000 miles per hour

with absolute precision

and careens through space around the sun

at the speed of 1,000 miles per minute

in an orbit 580 million miles long.

We get our seasons from that astounding reality.

The head of a comet may be

from 10,000 to 1,000,000 miles long,

having a tail 100,000,000,000 miles long,

and travel at a speed of 350 miles per second.

If the sun's radiated energy

could be converted into horsepower,

it would be the equivalent

of 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 horsepower.

Each second, it consumes

some 4 million tons of matter.

To travel at the speed of light

across the Milky Way,

the galaxy in which our solar system is located,

would take 125,000 years.

And our galaxy is but one of millions.

The human heart is about the size

of its owner's fist.

An adult heart weighs less than half a pound,

yet can do enough work in 12 hours

to lift 65 tons one inch off the ground.

I think he's talking about the...

Never mind.

I'll make that more confusing

if I say what I think he means.

A water molecule...

I love this one.

A water molecule is composed

of only three atoms,

but if all the molecules

in one drop of water

were the size of a grain of sand,

they can make a road

one foot thick and a half mile wide

and would stretch from Los Angeles

to New York.

Amazingly, however,

the atom itself is largely space,

its actual matter taking up

only one trillionth of its volume.

Except to a mind

willfully closed to the obvious,

it is inconceivable

that such power, intricacy, and harmony

could have developed by any means

but that of a master designer

who rules the universe.

It would be infinitely more reasonable

to think that the separate pieces

of a watch could be shaken in a bag

and eventually become

a dependable timepiece

than to think that the world

could have evolved

into its present state

by blind chance.

It is just statistically impossible

that we exist

apart from a creator God

and there's so much

to be observed

in the world around us.

If we are not suppressing the truth,

we will realize

there is a creator God

and you can call that God

whoever you want that God to be.

I'm telling you,

it's the God of the scripture.

And so we should listen

to what he says

because he's eternally powerful

and he's either going to pour out

his wrath on you

or he's going to grant you

the power of God

for salvation.

Right?

No one,

the end of verse 20 tells us,

will have an excuse.

No one can now plead ignorance

or will be able to plead ignorance

on the day of judgment.

It will be impossible.

God will say,

I showed you

what you needed to know,

that I existed.

Donald Gray Barnhouse,

this is the quotation

on your bulletin this morning,

said,

will God give man brains

to see things

and will man then fail

to exercise his will

toward that God?

The sorrowful answer

is that both of these things

are true.

He goes on to say,

this wouldn't fit

on your bulletin today,

God will give man brains

to smelt iron

and make a hammerhead

and nails.

God will grow a tree

and give man strength

to cut it down

and brains to fashion

a hammer handle

from its wood.

And when man has the hammer

and the nails,

God will put out his hand

and let man drive nails

through it

and place him on a cross

in the supreme demonstration

that men are without excuse.

Paul goes on to develop

the sinful thoughts

and how they lead

to sinful behavior in man.

And as I note the time,

I think we're going to pick up

these last verses

in more detail

next week.

Yeah, we are.

Right.

For 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.

Claiming to be wise,

they became fools

and exchanged the glory

of the immortal God

for images resembling

mortal man

and birds and animals

and creeping things.

So just briefly note

these last three verses

and then we'll look at them

at greater length next week.

Note the progression.

The worship of God neglected,

the futility of their thinking,

the foolishness of their hearts,

the idolatry of their actions.

The worship of God neglected,

the futility of their thinking,

the foolishness of their hearts,

and the idolatry,

misplaced worship

of their actions.

Dear listener,

have your part in this text

to be only who you once were.

We all have to identify this

with this text in some way.

My hope is that it'll only be

to identify it

in who you once were.

Do not let it be said of you today

that you are a futile thinker,

a foolish-hearted idolater

upon whom the wrath of God lies.

The one who made you

offers to you salvation this day

if you would simply come to him

for mercy.

Ezekiel 33, 11 says,

As I live, declares the Lord God,

I have no pleasure

in the death of the wicked,

but that the wicked

would turn from his way

and live.

Turn back, turn back

from your evil ways,

for why will you die?

If you only find yourself

in this text

to be who you once were,

then don't we have

great reason this day

to rejoice in the saving work

of Jesus Christ

on our behalf?

As we meditate on that

who we once were,

we know that it is only

by grace alone,

through faith alone,

in Christ alone

that we are not

the very worst

of sinners.

sinners.

So until next week,

let's pray that these verses

will rightly affect

our understanding

of the good news

as it is the power

of God for salvation

to everyone who believes.

Let's pray together.

Let's pray together.