18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For 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.
21For 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. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In 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.
28Furthermore, 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. 29They 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, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. 32Although 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.
Why is God so angry?
We all just want to have a little fun sometimes right? Some times you just have to live a little. No harm right? Maybe God should just take a chill pill and not be so uptight all the time?
Why is God so angry? Because people have substituted the truth about Him with a fantasy from their own imagination. (v-25) They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.
Sinners have stifled the truth God naturally reveals to all people in order to believe anything that supports their own self-centered life-styles. Why is God so angry, because God cannot tolerate sin or sinners. His nature is morally perfect and will not allow Him to. He cannot ignore or condone willful rebellion. What God wants is to remove the sin and restore the sinner through His Son Jesus Christ.
Does anyone have an excuse for not believing in God?
The Bible says plain and simple NO. God has revealed Himself to us since the beginning of time, who He is and what He expects from us. Every person therefore either accepts or rejects God. When the day comes for God to judge us, no excuses will be accepted.
Every single person was born with a sense of wrong and right. This sense of wrong and right was instilled in all of us by God. Just look around us, Gods hand is everywhere. The reason for this is so that no one could say that they didn’t know about Him.
How could a loving God send anyone to hell?
The truth is we all deserve the penalty of hell. God expects perfection. People since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden through Adam have since all became flawed. We are born sinners.
(Romans 3:23) 23”for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
I think many people today unfortunately like to think they are in complete control of there lives. Some even have their own distorted view of who God should be and what He should do.
They think in some weird way that they have the right to even say what or who God should be. Could you even imagine how messed up this world would be if we had enough power to pull that off. I don’t even have enough power to figure out how to set my VCR.
What has the world come to when the love of money, cars, motorcycles, big screen TV’s or whatever, is more to us a god than God Himself. We worship these things for hours every day. Just think of the relationship we could have with God if we spent just a fraction of that time each day praying and studying His Word.
Let me read the ending verses of this again - 28Furthermore, 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. 29They 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, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although 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.
There is a reality check. This is what we are capable of being when God leaves it up to us to handle things. We just mess it all up. This is the unsaved person.
As Christians though we do become changed people. It may be for some a slow process and for others a quicker process. But we continue from that very first point of faith in Christ to the day we die to be more and more like Christ. Not that we could ever be Christ that is impossible or that we could even come close to His perfection. But we do progress in our sanctification through Him growing more and more as time goes on. God gives us the strength and the tools to accomplish this.
2 Corinthians 5:17 - 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
And now being a new creation through Christ, we no longer live for ourselves but live our lives for Christ.
John Mac Arthur says this about this verse – When you receive Jesus Christ, you are born again, and enter into God’s kingdom, you become a totally different individual. The change that occurs when you’re saved is more dramatic than the change that will occur when you die. Why? Because you already have a new nature and are a citizen of God’s kingdom. Death simple ushers you into God’s presence.
In his epistles, the Apostle Paul says that when God transformed us, He gave us a new will, mind, heart, power, knowledge, wisdom, life, inheritance, relationship, righteousness, love, desire, and citizenship. He called it “newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Some teach that when a person becomes a Christian, God gives them something new in addition to their old sin nature. But according to the Word of God, we don’t receive something new – we ourselves become new!
We ourselves become new. The old is gone and we are new in Christ. It is time to forget about the past and to get going with the new you, never looking back at what you can’t change.
But it can be hard sometimes to forget about the past can’t it? We get chained to it at times. Every time we turn around there it is still there with us.
Well it doesn’t have to be that way. We should put our faith in what God is doing in our lives and move on. It is just a matter of you standing up and saying that’s it. No more. God has given me the tools and the power to put it all behind me. And then lay it to rest forever.
The old saying goes people never change. How true that is. But for a Christian God knows that so He doesn’t change them but makes them a completely new person. This is why it should make it easier for us to forget about the old person that use to live within us.
God evicted that person and replaced him with a new tenant, Himself in the form of the Holy Spirit.
Here is another reason why it is a good idea to teach the Bible instead of teach from the Bible. (V-26-27) 26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.27In 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.
Hard to get around that when you teach the Bible. There is this church I drive by on the way home sometimes and they have above their church sign the rainbow banner welcoming homosexuals. The problem is not that they welcome homosexuals but that they condone homosexuality. There is a big difference. We are all sinners and we welcome all sinners here, but if we except our sin as something that is ok and are not sorrowful, tormented and repenting of our sin then that is a dangerous place for us to be in.
32Although 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.
