Romans 1:18-23 WHY IS THE WORLD IN SUCH A TERRIBLE STATE? IT’S IN A TAILSPIN – Romans Message 3
[A]. INTRODUCTION
We continue the series in Romans. Last time we looked at Paul’s obligation to the gospel and ended with the important verse 18 - {{Romans 1:18 “The WRATH of God is REVEALED from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who SUPPRESS THE TRUTH in unrighteousness.”}}
From that point onwards Paul examines the downward progression of the world. This downward progression is now a tailspin and heading for a crash. This is the world in general, the descent of mankind from the once delightful position he was in when God created Him. Sin is never static. It can not ever improve or rise to God but will always decline lower and lower into the worst degradation possible. That is what Paul now deals with in Romans, and where we take up our study for today.
This consideration is just so important today because we are witnessing the world, especially the western world today in accelerating downfall. There are several of us who reach the same conclusion about the past 2 or three years. I wish to quote from a Rapture Ready writer, Terry James, who quotes Michael Hile – [[“My friend Michael Hile, in an article, presented a record of this invasion through the pre-Trib portals. When the nation, through court action, began removing God and His righteous principles for life from the national conscience, the vacuum created a supernatural opening for the invading forces from the dark side. Here’s what Michael wrote:
The United States has been in a moral freefall that accelerated in the decade of the ’60s with restrictions on prayer (1962) and Bible reading in the public schools (1963). The U.S. Supreme Court has systematically helped destroy religious liberty in America with the following 12 court cases - - - -]]
[B]. GOD’S CREATION IS SO EVIDENT THAT PEOPLE HAVE NO EXCUSE – THE UNIVERSAL STANDARD GOD HAS ESTABLISHED
{{Romans 1:19 “because that which is known about God is evident within them, for GOD MADE IT EVIDENT to them, Romans 1:20 for since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been CLEARLY SEEN, being understood through what has been made, so that they are WITHOUT EXCUSE.”}}
Now we have the Holy Spirit outlining to us the downward progression of the human race. This begins at verse 19 and steadily gets darker and more distant as the verses progress. This is not a pleasant situation to be in, but God tells us and wants us to know so we will not even start to go that way. However nation after nation keeps walking the same road.
Look most carefully at verse 19. {{“because that which is known about God is evident within them, for GOD MADE IT EVIDENT to them”.}} The fact of God’s existence is imprinted in men’s souls. The atheists must struggle with their nature to deny the existence of God. The verse clearly says God has made it evident to them. Stephen Hawking and David Attenborough are living a lie. God has made the evidence of His existence known to them. The Creator and First Cause, of ALL things, has been made evident to them by God Himself through the imprint in men’s souls, and in creation itself. I saw in National Geographic, a detailed diagram of the brain of a flea. It is so intricate; it is amazing, yet that is only a flea. Atheists are fools; God says so. They are deniers who deliberately close off their minds to shut God out to pretend then He does not exist. What a shock they will get one day when they enter hell and even a greater shock when they stand before a God of judgement at the great white throne.
{{Psalm 14:1 “The FOOL has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt. They have committed abominable deeds. There is no one who does good.”}} I think fools must try very hard continuously, to compel themselves to accept the lie they want to believe. It is one of the great delusions of human beings. I delight in studying the universe that I have done since age 10 and am just fascinated at the immensity of it and the matter it contains. It is not in my scope to redo that just now but I will leave you with this thought:-
There are 10,000000,000000,000000,000000 stars in the Universe (10 to the 24th power), it is estimated by Space Agencies. Each star on average consumes 600 million tons of hydrogen per second and produces 598 tons of helium. Our human brains can not comprehend how much hydrogen is converted in just one second in the entire Universe. Yet lying atheists say there is no God. It all just happened by chance! They are fools (God says so).
[B]. GOD’S CREATION IS SO EVIDENT THAT PEOPLE HAVE NO EXCUSE – THE UNIVERSAL STANDARD GOD HAS ESTABLISHED – LOOKING AT THE STUPIDITY OF IDOLATRY
{{Verse 20 “for since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse,”}}
Verse 20 expands that, and uses the aspects of creation as the evidence in men’s souls of the existence of a Creator. In fact God has done that so clearly that He has to declare that all mankind is without excuse. No one has an excuse. Not a leg to stand on! The evidence of creation is overwhelming. You have to force yourself to deny it.
While I was mapping this out, I had cause to read Isaiah chapter 44. Turn to it. We are going to consider verses 12 to 20. Isaiah is speaking about man and his created idols. Have a look at the determination in these verses. He works so hard to make his idol so he can then please his idol. {{Isaiah 44:12-14 “The man shapes iron into a cutting tool and does his work over the coals, fashioning it with hammers and working it with his strong arm. He also gets hungry and his strength fails. He drinks no water and becomes weary. Another shapes wood. He extends a measuring line; he outlines it with red chalk; he works it with planes, and outlines it with a compass and makes it like the form of a man, like the beauty of man, so that it may sit in a house. Surely he cuts cedars for himself and takes a cypress or an oak and raises it for himself among the trees of the forest. HE PLANTS A FIR AND THE RAIN MAKES IT GROW,”}} How amazing this is. All man can do is plant the fir tree, but God sends the rain. I suppose the idolater thinks his god sends the rain so that he then can make the god to send the rain!
{{Isaiah 44:15-17 “Then it [the fir tree] becomes something for a man to burn so he takes one of them and warms himself. He also makes a fire to bake bread. He also makes a god and worships it. He makes it a graven image and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over this half he eats meat as he roasts a roast and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Aha! I am warm. I have seen the fire,” but the rest of it he makes into a god, his graven image. He falls down before it and worships. He also prays to it and says, “DELIVER ME FOR YOU ARE MY GOD.”}}
In this section, Isaiah is using the logic God has given in regard to the First Cause. We might think it is stupid for a man to make a wooden god, then attribute to it, all the powers of divinity. He makes the god, then becomes subservient to it. The amazing part is, that a higher reasoning, and systems of logic, do not expose the stupidity of such actions. Do you know why the natural man thinks that way and logic is locked up? It is demonic delusion. It is sin. Isaiah is showing the stupidity of idolatry and those who engage in it.
Even the primitive idolater has a bit more sense that all these university academics and a growing number of politicians who pride themselves on being atheists and reject any divinity whatever. I challenged young people once on an atheist forum as to the issue of a Mastermind who created everything from nothing so intricately and carefully. Their reply was, “Things made themselves”. Made themselves? So the car made itself? The moon made itself? How can people with even a small amount of intelligence believe this? God has placed the imprint of creation in man’s soul and to deny it is utter stupidity of an eternal remorse.
{{Isaiah 44:18 “THEY DO NOT KNOW nor do they understand, for He has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see, and their hearts so that they cannot comprehend,”}} That traces the path of a man bent on this downward progression. When a man will not acknowledge the true God, so that his behaviour might be changed in renewal, then God gives him over to the base, fallen passions of his fallen nature. Man is a fallen creature and is capable of all sorts of the worst evil when he is given over to his own way. The wickedness in human beings is great and fathomless.
THREE TIMES IN ROMANS 1 Paul used the expression - “GOD GAVE THEM OVER”; ? in lusts in verse 24; ? to degrading passions in verse 26; ? to a depraved mind in verse 28. Isaiah says because “they do not know nor understand”, which means they have rejected the truth, so God has smeared over their eyes and heart. I think this means, when His light is withdrawn or willfully rejected, then God allows the natural consequence of that to happen, which in biblical terms, is “darkness” in the soul. Verse 18 in Romans says they do not know. They do not understand. Now, unlike our world today that has no accountability, God will be declared the Holy One, the One the whole earth will be accountable to.
Isaiah later wrote regarding man’s departure from the declared precepts of God – {{Isaiah 46:6-7 “Those who lavish gold from the purse and weigh silver on the scale, hire a goldsmith and he makes it into a god. They bow down; indeed they worship it. They lift it upon the shoulder and carry it. They set it in its place and it stands there. It does not move from its place. Though one may cry to it, it cannot answer. It cannot deliver him from his distress.”}} BUT then God’s declaration of Himself is that He is the ONLY One – {{Isaiah 46:8-10 “Remember this, and be assured. RECALL IT TO MIND, you transgressors. Remember the former things long past FOR I AM GOD AND THERE IS NO OTHER. I AM GOD and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done saying, ‘My purpose will be established and I will accomplish all My good pleasure’.}}
{{Isaiah 44:19 “and no one recalls, NOR IS THERE KNOWLEDGE OR UNDERSTANDING to say, “I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination. I fall down before a block of wood!”}}
The prophet draws attention to a simple logic that would clearly reject the nonsense of fashioning an idol and bowing down before it. However the heart of man can’t apply that logic. THE TRUE GOD IS DISMISSED FOR A COUNTERFEIT. Today, God is rejected by Natchez’s catchphrase “God is dead”, and men have gone their own ways, to make IDOLS of pleasure, of money, of power and control, of fame, of sexual perversion, of selfishness. Verse 19 uses the word “RECALL” - “no one recalls”. That is so relevant, so pivotal. Who recalls today, what made many of the nations great, or what saved England in the time of the Wesleys and Whitfield? It was the repentance of man and a thirst for righteousness. Very few in the secular world want to know about that, or will delve into history to understand God’s workings in the past. Apart from Christians, who in the world wants to recall these things? As Isaiah said, “there is no knowledge”. It is not my topic today, but knowledge has been perverted. Then it is manipulated according to agendas.
{{Isaiah 44:20 “HE FEEDS ON ASHES. A deceived heart has turned him aside and HE CANNOT DELIVER HIMSELF nor say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”}}
This verse, and passage for that matter, could almost be part of Romans 1. Because of his evil in rejecting God, he feeds on ashes, and probably thinks he partakes of the satisfying works of his own hands. To depravity, ashes taste like the sweetness of honey. Then the prophet says man has a deceived heart which has turned him aside. When the light of God is rejected, then darkness clasps the person’s hand, and leads him into its own dark domain. The next statement in that verse, is almost too self evident. “He can not deliver himself”.
That is at the heart of the gospel, you know. Man can not deliver himself from the darkness of sin. As darkness increases in today’s world, more and more people are caught in deception. The devil is the deceiver. Paul alludes to it in Romans 1. We understand man is not able to prevent the downward spiral, and only God can deliver from that. Man is deceived by his own behaviour, by the world’s concepts, by philosophy, and by religion. To end verse 20, we are face to face with a modern man. The person does not have the ability to comprehend or to say, “My life is a lie,” or in Isaiah’s words, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?” That, modern man can’t admit into his belief system.
What is the answer to man’s dilemma? Surely, it is only one thing. That is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us move back now to Romans. In chapter 1, Paul brings in the whole Gentile world guilty before God, and without excuse. Man can have no excuse when he stands before God in judgement. The human race en large has rejected the light God has given to every individual through Nature. In chapter 2, Paul shows the whole nation of Israel likewise guilty of sin, as are the Gentiles, and failed in righteousness, for the Law was not kept, and in chapter 3, he concludes this sweep and spells out the inherent and perverse sinfulness of the whole human race. When all that is laid bare on the table, then Paul proceeds to the way of recovery, which is faith and justification with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. We will come to that in time.
[C]. THE BEGINNING OF MAN’S DOWNWARD SPIRAL – STEP 1 – GOD WAS DISHONOURED AND THE HEART BECAME DARK
Romans 1:21. Please look at {{Romans 1:21 “Even though they knew God, THEY DID NOT HONOUR HIM AS GOD or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”}}
This is a critical verse in this passage for it sits at the top of the slippery slide. The verse tells of a DELIBERATE rejection of God in the face of God’s declared knowledge, and conviction, found in all creation. It was a choice made in full knowledge, a deliberate decision of the will to reject God.
For a moment, let’s consider it like this. The deliberate rejection has shut the door on God, and now man stands outside, in the world of his own choosing. Is it any different from what Adam did, and he finished up also on the outside. Verse 21 goes further. IT BEGINS THIS DOWNWARD SPIRAL. Futile speculations took over; their hearts were foolish and became darkened. That means, that their darkened state they were already in, became increasingly darker. It allowed the acceptance of delusions and conspiracies. They submitted to stupidity and wickedness. Mankind was adrift in the middle of nowhere, but it was not nowhere; it was on the sea of hell.
[D]. THE NEXT STEP IN MAN’S DOWNWARD SPIRAL – STEP 2 – SELF DELUDED WISDOM PRODUCED FOOLS
{{Romans 1:22 “Professing to be wise, they became fools,”}}
Darkness gives rise to misplaced values and a breakdown in reality. Enter all the “isms”. Humanism, atheism, socialism, and many more. What is darkened, imagines itself in the light, and then delusion overtakes them. They imagined themselves to be wise and all intelligent, but the stark reality of it all, is that they became fools in God’s eyes. These fools parade around in their deluded wisdom. They are inflated, so full of hot air they could almost float. The more they elevated their self-deluded wisdom the more they became fools. Modern man is ignorant of the wisdom and intelligence of the past and places himself on the apex of human intelligence. Conceited, modern man is the reinvention of past cyclic stupidity.
The wisdom of man is foolishness with God. Man thinks he is the master of his destiny but he is wrong; Satan is. You see this conceited delusion in politicians, government bodies, the public service and universities more than in other places.
David Attenborough is a fool. He joins Darwin and nearly all the philosophers, and King Charles planning to bring in a new world order as part of the WEF’s Great Reset of global control, working with the World Health Organisation. We have to realise this is a fallen world and we see beautiful things in it, that are marks of God’s creation, but the human race is so far away from God and is becoming worse as we near the Rapture. Paul had to warn the Colossians about the elementary principles of the world.
[E]. THE NEXT STEP IN MAN’S DOWNWARD SPIRAL – PART 3 – GOD’S GLORY WAS REPLACED BY MAN’S INVENTIONS
{{Romans 1:23 “and EXCHANGED THE GLORY OF the incorruptible GOD for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”}} The next step down is THE REPLACEMENT OF GOD. God was exchanged for idol images of all sorts of earthly creatures, even of man himself. Do you remember the Romans practised Caesar worship? Xi wants that for China as the deluded man in North Korea also does. There is within the human spirit, a spiritual capacity that must be filled. Man is at peace when that is satisfied only by God, but when God is rejected, as we have here, then everything else has to become the substitute.
The verminous flying fox in Queensland and the worshipped crocodile are held in the highest esteem by the Government and unbelievable penalties apply to any harm to them, even touching them. They have more rights than people do. Check out the legislation. We must appreciate God’s creation in a sensible way and the worshipping of flying foxes carrying disease, is not what is meant. Man has ruined it all. One day we know God will put it right because all nature is groaning for that time (Romans 8).
Next time we'll continue and see where the downward spiral stops.
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
