Is God Angry? Series

Is God Angry?

Text: Rom. 1:18-23

Introduction

1. Marvin The Martian Video

2. This morning I want to ask the question, "Is God angry?"

3. According to the Apostle Paul he most certainly is angry. However, unlike ourselves or Marvin The Martian, he has good reason to be angry.

4. God is angry because people are...

A. Suppressing the Truth

B. Ignoring His Power And Divine Nature

C. Foolishly Discarding His Glory

5. Let's stand together as we read Romans 1:18-23.

Proposition: It's time for the church to proclaim the foolish behavior of humans and encourage them to turn back to God.

Transition: First, God is angry because people are...

I. Suppressing The Truth (18-19).

A. Suppress The Truth

1. The thought of God's anger, or more literally, his wrath, is not an idea with which we are very comfortable.

A. We like to think of God as a loving and merciful God, which he most certainly is, but to dismiss his anger at sin is to ignore an essential aspect of his character.

B. The Bible makes it clear from the OT that God's wrath is the basis for his judgment.

C. Therefore, anger or wrath is necessary to a biblical understanding of God as long as God is God (Moo, NICNT: The Epistle To The Romans, 99-100).

D. Now some might say, "But Pastor, that was God in the OT and he's different in the NT, right?"

E. The answer to that is "No!"

F. In fact, Hebrews say that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."

G. So we cannot ignore the fact that yes God gets angry.

2. In v. 18 Paul says, "But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness."

A. Paul indicates that God's anger is shown from heaven against all sinful, wicked people.

B. Those two terms in Scripture are synonymous and refer to sins against God in general.

C. This is seen in the added comment that they "suppress the truth by their wickedness."

D. To suppress the truth means to "hinder" the truth of God by opposing it.

E. The end result of wickedness is to bury the truth of God under a mountain of rationalization and evil behavior (Osborne, 46-47).

F. That is what we find in our society today. People like to say things like, "that may be wrong for you, but it's not for me," or "truth is all subjective to whatever you believe."

G. In other words, if I think it's okay for me it is no matter what someone else might say, even if that someone else is God!

H. They try and sweep the Bible under the rug by saying that the Bible is just a book of myths and fairytales written by men.

I. But it is because of these things that the wrath of God is coming!

3. Then in v. 19 Paul contines his argument saying. "They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them."

A. The truth about God has been clearly revealed by God. The clues to God's existence and character have traditionally been called general or natural revelation.

B. God could have kept humans in ignorance about himself. But he chose to reveal himself, generally in nature and specifically through the Scriptures and Jesus Christ.

C. Because God has made certain facts about himself known instinctively, people will someday have to give an account before God of why they chose to ignore his existence and his character (Barton, 582).

D. Paul says that people have always known the truth about God and therefore are responsible to him for their actions. So God is justified in bringing his anger upon them (Osborne, 47).

E. Just because people want to ignore the truth about God doesn't mean that they are not responsible for their sin.

F. Despite what our society may think there is such a thing as true truth!

G. John 17:17 (NLT2)

17 Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth.

B. The Truth

1. Illustration: One of the most telling examples is our view of truth. In the 1960s, 65 percent of Americans said they believed the Bible is true; today that figure has dropped to 32 percent. Even more dramatically, today 67 percent of all Americans deny that there's any such thing as truth. Seventy percent say there are no moral absolutes.

(Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God, p. ix. 10,000 Sermon Illustrations).

2. One of the main reasons God is angry is because people are denying the truth about Him.

A. People say that there is no such thing as absolute truth, but Jesus said...

B. John 14:6 (NLT2)

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.