Introduction:
God is a Being of Moral Perfection and His Character is the law of the universe. How unlike the gods of Greek mythology who lived on Mt. Olympus. The Greek gods were even more immoral than the people. Xenophanes, a 6th century BC Greek philosopher, complained about the immorality of the gods, stating that Homer attributed to the gods "all that is shameful and disgraceful among men; they steal, commit adultery, and deceive one another." It is no wonder that Paul found some Gentile converts to Judaism everywhere he went. They saw that the God of the Jews was superior in every way to their old gods.
WBTU:
The book of Romans sheds great light on current conditions. The end of the first chapter is most relevant in comprehending present day realities.
Read Romans 1:18-32
Last time we looked at these verses in regard to the heathen, those who don’t have Bible or gospel of Jesus Christ.
Thesis: Let’s talk about the three fold sin of our society.
For instances:
Humanizing God
In the beginning God made man in His image, and ever since the Fall, sinful man has tried to remake God into his image rather than being conformed to the image of Christ.
This is the main problem in Romans 1:18-32. When they “knew God” they refused to “glorify God as God”- vs. 21.
Their depravity accelerated as “they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image made like corruptible man”- vs. 23. We don’t do that today. Oh, we don’t. Here is the black and white of it- mankind wants to bring God down to his level. When we look at mythology we see that the gods are made in man’s image, instead of man being made in the image of God. This is the sin of humanizing God.
Behind all of this is the “god of this world” who attempted to dethrone God. Satan tried to displace God as the center of the universe. He failed in that attempt. However, this is what he does in our world today. Satan’s attempts to dethrone God have not ceased. Because man followed Satan in the Fall, mankind is in a joint effort with Satan to get God off the throne.
The major strategy in these attempts is to create lies to replace the truth. Examples:
Evolution. This is nothing more than a way to get rid of God, or at least get Him down to where we can handle Him! Pure evolution removes God from the picture totally, while theistic evolution removes Him from being a major player. Both are an attempt to dethrone God. Vs. 20 says that mankind believes that God made all of creation. This should be plain to them according to vs. 19. The only way to get this out of people’s minds is to make their thinking futile and their hearts darkened. Vs. 22 basically says that those who do not believe this are fools and are out of their minds.
Get rid of God’s unappealing attributes. Today’s preaching many times avoids the aspects of God’s perfect character which bring guilt to imperfect people. The whole notion of God as a judge who casts lost people into eternal darkness is seldom heard. In fact, popular preaching is more therapeutic than prophetic. If the word God were brought before people today, I wonder what pictures would come to their mind? For some, it would be the picture of a feeble great Grandfather who gives the great grandchildren anything they want and who doesn’t want to correct the great grandchildren because it might cause the great grandchildren not to want to visit him. Vs. 18 talks about God’s wrath coming down upon the wickedness of mankind.
Eliminating the fear of God. Matthew 10:28: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. When Paul preached to Felix, he did not open with, “God has a wonderful plan for your life!” This is true, but that is not where Paul started with Felix. Acts 24:25: As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid. When we eliminate the fear of God and mask the sterner aspects of the truth, conviction of sin becomes rare.
Deifying Man
Humanizing God naturally paves the way toward deifying man. After exchanging the glory of God for the image of man, the object of worship is no longer God, but man himself. Vs. 25
Fallen man seeks to bring God down to the human level and exalt man to God’s level.
Self exaltation is not new. It is as old as the devil. What was the temptation that Satan first used against man, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God”- Genesis 3:5.
Our culture is permeated with the belief in the godhood of man. The message is clear: do everything to please yourself. Restrictions don’t apply when you’re a god.
Pride is not just thinking we are better than others; it is thinking we are better than we are. The truth is we are not good people who happen to do bad things; we are sinners through and through! But a society that deifies man doesn’t believe this. We don’t bow down and worship images, this is true, but we do worship ourselves and essentially that is what the Gentiles were doing.
Man’s arrogance and pride is illustrated in the Humanist Manifesto. Notice this excerpt: “We can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves. Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful.”
Alas, this terrible sin is fast becoming an established article of faith among professing Christians. The ultimate evil is no longer sin but a lack of success or happiness. One media evangelist believes we are “little gods” on our way to sovereignty! One preacher believes the worst thing one can do is to tell a person he is a sinner.
Proverbs 3:34: He (God) mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble.
Minimizing Sin
Because the vision of God has faded, sin does not appear exceedingly sinful. With a low view of God, sin is not really black, merely a pale gray. Of course, the normalization of sin follows a weakened image of God. We see this especially in Romans 1:26-32.
Having brought God down and propped man up, it is only natural to trivialize sin. “Well, nobody is perfect.” Many try to rationalize it away.
Shortcomings, failures, mistakes, temperament weaknesses, and other catch words serve to blunt the severity of sin. We can no longer call sin “sin” because it is politically incorrect. We use "sexual preference" or "alternative lifestyle" to refer to what God calls vile affections, "sexually active" for fornication, "chemical dependency" for drunkenness. We no longer lie; we embellish or stretch the truth. Children are no longer unruly or disobedient; they have Oppositional Defiant Disorder Syndrome . “Mid life crisis” is the new name for adultery. “Sibling rivalry” sounds better than selfishness and jealousy.
Another way of minimizing sin is to underestimate the blackness of the human heart. “Follow your heart” is very bad advice. A.W. Tozer stated publically that he had seen a lot of terrible things in his 63 years, but the most wicked thing that he ever saw was his own heart! Jeremiah 17:9: The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Mark 7:21-22: For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.
Heart can refer to the mind, a depraved mind in vs. 28.
Another way of minimizing sin is downplaying sin’s consequences. Sin looks attractive and exciting but in the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. Think about the end results of these sins listed: 1. Greed- accumulate more and more without regard for the rights and needs of others, no friends, no help to society, only one more dollar 2. Envy- wanting what someone else has but also resenting them for having it, leads to division and strife and even murder 3. Gossips and slanderers- separates close friends 4. Insolent- like a bully who abuses others and runs roughshod over the weak. 5. Invent ways of doing evil- never satisfied with the usual, ordinary ways of sinning. 6. Disobey their parents- cuts short our life. 7. Faithless- Cannot depend on this person. 8. Heartless- without natural family love, results in abortion, child abuse, murder of parents or siblings.
The one that is most evident in this section is vs. 27. AIDS, the health concerns for homosexuals are multiplied because of what they are doing, This carries a special curse, this is why Paul treats this sin separately and does not include it in the list of vs. 29-31.
These things defy common sense. This is why Paul calls them unnatural. It goes against creation. One sin in vs. 29 might help us understand these illogical practices, not just talking about homosexuality here. The sin Evil. Evil spelled backwards is LIVE. People who practice these things are living against the nature of reality and trying to get away with it.
People who live this way, against the nature of reality and creation, many times have physical problems. One doctor said it this way, “I’ve discovered the kingdom of God in the tissues of the body. The right thing morally is always the healthy thing physically.”
Without the gospel these all end in eternal death besides the terrible results on earth.
The terrible truth is that the 3 fold sin of society is not limited to the lost, it filters through into the Redeemed. There is little doubt in my mind that this 3 pronged sin is at the root of the decline of our culture. All of our ills can ultimately be traced to a weak concept of God.
