1:18
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven…”
This is the God we love to cover up. A God of wrath? Is He not love? Yes, but His love is a holy love. His wrath is the heart of the surgeon who must get rid of the disease so that the body can live. His wrath is the heart of the gardener who mercilessly tears out the weeds so that the garden can produce. His wrath is akin to the soldier who will destroy all in his pathway who come against his homeland. A Divine hatred goes hand in hand with Divine love. You can’t have one without the other. Examine your love of God. Is it filled equally with hatred for sin, disgust with immorality around us, despising of lies?
We are somehow ashamed and embarrassed of a Jesus who cleanses a temple with a whip in His hand. But we know from reading the entire Bible that our God cannot tolerate unholiness.
This is the God who destroyed all but eight people in a worldwide flood. Who melted all the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, allowing only one family out. Pharaoh’s entire army was drowned in the Red Sea. Pagan kings Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar were all visited with the wrath of God.
God’s wrath is not some Divine temper tantrum, like we have when we get overly angry for usually the wrong reasons. Let us not judge God by our own lack of self- control. His wrath is settled, determined, controlled, directed, timed. His hatred is perfect according to Psalm 45:7.
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You say, hold on, most of that stuff you are talking about is the Old Testament God. Things are different now. Jesus was all about love, even if He lost it now and then. This is how people think. They see John 3:16 and see only a nice loving God who wants to save everyone in the world. But that’s only half the picture. Take a long look farther down the page in John 3, and go to verse 36.
“He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; [that’s the same as verse 16] and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
Notice the word “abides”. Not “visits”, not suddenly attacks. Abides. Lives. Stays. Doesn’t move. What am I saying? I’m saying what Scripture says: this world, all of it, is under a huge curse. That curse goes all the way back to Adam. Every man has inherited the disease that Adam and Eve had. Sin is the curse that eventually brings the wrath of God on all except the ones Jesus died to save. What was it the angel Gabriel said about Jesus’ name?
“He shall save the world from their sins,” right? No, He shall save His people from their sins. A condemned world, out of which comes a community of saved sinners. John 3:18 says the same as John 3:36.
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already…”
Pretty clear. Jesus did not come into the world “to condemn the world,” verse 17. Sounds nice. See, Jesus is for love. Yes, love. But read on in verse 18, “the world is condemned already”. Jesus came to seek and to save that lost sheep here, that wandering soul there. So that the wrath of God will not fall on at least a few of the condemned.
Question. If Jesus bore all that wrath for us by dying on the cross, why do we still see wrath being poured out here and there on the planet now? Do you really believe that Satan acts on his own when there are mass killings, a 9-1-1, a natural disaster? Can’t you see the beginnings of the wrath of God about to poured out in full measure? Yes, the wrath is visible already.
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The Bible talks of a time when more evils will be poured out on the earth. Remember, Calvary has already taken place. But in that great Tribulation, we see bowls of wrath being poured out. Where are God’s people? I know how some of you answer that question, but even you agree that there are some holy, holy people still here on the earth. Surely if God calls them holy, these so-called “Tribulation” saints, they are covered by the blood of Jesus. What happens to them? Not the wrath of God, but the persecution promised to all His people. Martyrdom. Which is not a threat, but a dear promise given to only the finest of the people of God.
Who are the uncounted multitude John sees after the 144,000 are dealt with? “These are they who have come out of Great Tribulation.” Not victims of God’s wrath, but court favorites who gave their lives for the Master in the midst of Earth’s worst hour.
So what wrath are we saved from at Calvary? The wrath that sin brings on a man eternally in the Lake of Fire. The ultimate blaspheming of the Holy Spirit, speaking against that Spirit of grace that called him to salvation, which call he denied flatly.
That wrath, God is bringing with Him, in Jesus, when he comes. Revelation 19:11-16 reads, in part, “I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse. And He who sat on him… the Word of God. And the armies of heaven, clothed in fine linen… followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations… He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God…”
That’s the wrath that God’s people will be delivered from. Eternal destruction and separation from God, poured out on all the world except the saints caught up to be with Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 says it all:
“For God did not appoint us to wrath, but [to the opposite of wrath] to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.”
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The opposite of receiving wrath is being saved, whether we die now or wait for His coming when He will keep us from being destroyed with the wicked. Wrath, for the Christian now, is not persecution, not martyrdom, not trouble or sickness. All those things will happen around us because wickedness keeps increasing, and will increase to the point where a wicked man will finally be allowed to take over this planet.
Then more wickedness, and more wrath, but not on us or for us. Finally, then we will be removed from the ultimate wrath when He comes. As later in the epistle, Paul will say (2:5) “… you [evil men] are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God…”
Or as John brings out in his Revelation: (14:9-10) “… If anyone worships the beast and his image [during the tribulation], and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God… shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.”
God has not appointed us to this wrath, for sure. “…against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men…”
Are these two words synonyms or is there a difference? Both the Greek and the English point out that they are different, yet related. Ungodliness relates, as you might expect, to God. To be godly is to be reverent toward God, a fearer of God, having a life pointing to God. One might call it the “vertical” perfection. Ungodliness would of course be the opposite. No fear of God or His ways, no reverence, a life pointing away from God. A breaker of the first table of the law.
Of course, this ungodliness then overlaps with the other property of fallen man, unrighteousness. Bad character. Bad relationships with others. The “horizontal” part of life as related to other human beings. Breaker of the second table of the law. In case anyone is in doubt as to his particular offensiveness to God, this verse covers it all. Whether you are wrong in
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religion or wrong in relationships, God is against it all. His wrath is going to be revealed against it all.
“who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…”
Verses 19-23 will tell us exactly how this process works. Suffice it to say now that every man ever born since Adam has a built-in truth suppressor. By nature, we do not like truth. We do not like light. We prefer to walk in self-deception, believing our way is the right way, or not even caring what is right, but just desiring to stay as we are. Jesus said it in John 3:18-20:
“…he who does not believe is condemned already… and this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed…”
Jesus is the Truth. He is the Light. Men did not and do not like Jesus for that reason alone: He demands change. What most of them don’t hang around to discover, is that He produces change by His Spirit. And those who don’t hang around and don’t seek after Him fulfill this word from Paul and Jesus that evil men – the entire planet, as we will see soon in Romans – suppress the truth. Now let’s look a little deeper as to how that happens and why God must react.
Macarthur poses an introduction to these next verses like this (p. 75):
“Many are inclined to wonder if man really deserves such a harsh fate. After all, no person asks to be born. Why, then, they surmise, should a person who had nothing to do with his own birth spend eternity in hell for being born sinful? …Why is everyone born under God’s wrath and condemnation?”
Seriously significant question, with serious answers that begin in verse 19:
1:19
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“because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.”
That’s a strong statement. God has shown all men Who He is? Yes. Every man. Read about the pagans that are mentioned in the Bible.
The Philistines. They believed there was a god and that they should fear him. Remember Dagon? Remember when they had access to the Ark of the Covenant, how careful they were not to offend Israel’s God?
A Canaanite prostitute named Rahab knew that God had already given her land to the Jews.
The Egyptians. Their magicians had power that they thought was from God. It wasn’t, but note their respect for some higher power.
All the pagans have had some revelation of a god. Even America’s pagans who worship politicians and money and power and Hollywood and sports. They know. Deep inside, they know. God has shown them before you first give them a Gospel tract, that Someone somewhere is bigger than they are.
So why don’t they go after this God that they know about? We already answered that: they suppress the truth. In unrighteousness. They take that truth from God and drown it in selfish pleasure. Unless God gives them life through the Gospel, they will remain in their awful state of ignorance, not of God, but of God’s way out.
Sorry, unbeliever, your ignorance is no excuse. God revealed Himself to you by every tree and every mountain and every common-sense thought of your conscience, before you seared it by ignoring it and re-framing it. Without excuse! You knew. You ignored!
Don’t take this as a signal that evangelism is no longer necessary. They know about God but they are condemned because of their ignorance of the salvation truth. We must tell them about the God they ignorantly suppress by their sin. Only then do they have a chance for life.
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Remember Paul’s approach to the pagans in Acts 17? Let’s look at it, through my own shortened paraphrase: 17:22-23.
“Men of Athens, I see you are very religious. As I was looking around at the various objects of your worship, I saw an altar that had a sign under it, ‘To the Unknown God.’ Incredible. You have been worshiping a God without knowing Who He is. Let me tell you about Him.”
And Paul went on to tell them about that God and His Son Jesus.
You see? That’s the pattern. Men everywhere know about a god. They may even worship him. But their sinful life represses any truth that starts to emerge. Like, this God is all powerful. Like, This God has demands on me. Like, This God is worthy of praise and obedience. Like, I need to know this God. Like, This God must be angry with us. All this truth just gets backed up, repressed.
Now comes a further explanation of this idea. Verse 20.
1:20
“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead [Divine Nature, Deity], so that they are without excuse.”
Macarthur tells the story of Helen Keller’s struggle with her teacher Anne Sullivan. There was a point when a breakthrough in communication occurred, and Ms Sullivan began to share with Helen about God. Helen’s immediate response was that she already knew about God. She just didn’t know His Name. Whether a pagan in the jungle or this privileged, though blind citizen of the free world, everyone knows about God instinctively.
What is it like to know about God and yet not to know His Name? You understand a little of Who He is when you see the majesty of a mountain or a sunset or a rainbow. You witness His “eternal power.” Something deep inside says, this God has done mighty things.
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The word “Godhead” is a bit foreign to us, but it is easily understood in the Greek. Comes from the Greek word for “God”, theos. The word takes several forms, but it simply means “divinity” or “Divine Nature.”
What can a pagan know of God-ness or the very nature of God? Perhaps a pagan hears the anger of God when the thunder rolls and the lightning cracks. Maybe he sees His kindness when a gentle rain waters his crops and refreshes his thirst. Maybe he sees His beauty in the rolling meadows and wispy clouds. Or the wisdom of God as he sees a tiny seed grow into a huge tree. Or God’s love of life as his son or daughter comes into the world through pain and devotion of the mother. Or the cleverness of God as he watches birds fly, then fly away for months, then return, build nests, hatch eggs. Marvels all around him!
It is possible to know many things about this God before the first Gospel message comes your way, if it ever does. It is what you do with that knowledge that matters. If you suppress that knowledge, you will die unforgiven of your sin of rejecting – ultimately – Jesus Christ. But you never heard, you will say, of Jesus Christ. But if you rejected the light you had, what is the chance that you will accept greater light?
On the other hand, when you see this light and you want more, God will find a way to get that light to you. Acts 8 tells us about a man from Ethiopia, an African man, who was seeking God, trying to figure out what these scrolls of Isaiah meant, when God sent Deacon Philip alongside to share the Gospel with him.
Acts 16 tells of a Jewish woman whose heart the Lord opened, to respond to the things spoken of by Paul. Notice the text does not say, that Lydia liked Paul’s message and made a decision to follow Jesus. Outwardly that may have been what men saw. But the fact is, God was behind the scenes, invisibly working on Lydia’s heart.
God promises that if we seek Him, we find Him. There is no place on earth where God will not show up in response to the cry of a seeking man or woman, because God has a people in every tribe and kindred on earth.
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He will reveal Himself to His people whom He foreknew. But that gets way ahead of Romans 1.
What we are establishing here is that God has revealed Himself in the Book of Nature. Every man can read this Book clearly, until He represses the message of that Book and re-interprets that Book and allows his sinful nature to blind His eyes to the truth of this Book. All such men – and that is the whole human race - have used their free will to reject God’s offer of salvation. Yes, man does have free will after all. And he consistently uses it the wrong way, except for those few scattered all over the planet that are touched by God and invited to seek Him.
Paul continues his explanation of why all men are justifiably under the wrath of God, verse 21:
1:21
“because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful…”
Now when Paul speaks about “knowing” God he is not speaking about an intimate relationship as we have in Christ. We would say “know about God”. They – the human race – knew about God, and might have even believed that in a sense they knew Him, simply because of all the wonders of the visible physical world. They had a knowledge of God.
But in spite of what they knew, they did not honor or glorify God “as God.” Knowing that God is great, they did not treat Him as one who was great. They did not thank Him for His greatness. They put their God on a shelf somewhere and went on with their lives. They ignored Him.
Did I say “they”? Paul, writing to Titus, says “we.” Titus 3:3:
“For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another…”
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The tendency of mankind, unless interrupted by grace, is to get worse and worse. 2 Timothy 3:13:
“But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” That’s the human race. And Paul is just beginning his description of this depravity of man. Man is without excuse. He knows God but does not glorify him. Quite the opposite. From Donald Barnhouse’s study on Romans, p. 245:
“Will God give man brains to see these things and will man then fail to exercise his will [free will!] toward that God? The sorrowful answer is that both of these things are true. God will give a man brains to smelt iron and make a hammer head 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.”
We helped put Christ on that cross with our sins. All of us are without excuse and in extreme need of pardon.
We were put here to give God glory. But our text, Romans 1:21, says that we did the opposite. Psalm 29:1-2:
“Give unto the Lord glory and strength! Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”
When I had to leave the Pentecostal movement, I left behind some people who know how to glorify God with all their heart. We must learn from them, without being drawn into the false teachings and excesses. Giving glory to God is basic. I Corinthians 10:31.
“…whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
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He alone is worthy to be glorified. Look at what He says to Moses when Moses asks to see God’s glory. It’s like a model prayer from the Old Covenant. Exodus 34:6-7:
“…The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression…”
Look at other instances of His glory. Israel. Wandering through the wilderness. But the glory of God manifested through the cloud that guided them. Exodus 40:34.
“Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.”
Solomon. Seems that that same glory cloud followed them into their new Temple: 1 Kings 8:10-11.
“… when the priests came out of the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.”
But that glory eventually left Israel and did not return until Messiah came. Even the chosen people rebelled against God and failed to respond in kind to the glory that was being revealed. They got caught up in idolatry and gave glory to false gods, demons.
Enter Jesus. Another chance to see and respond to the glory of God. John 1:14 says,
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father…”
Jesus manifested God’s glory in many ways. Miracles. Compassion. Forgiveness. And actual splendor as in Matthew 17:1-2.
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“…He led them up on a high mountain… and was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.”
Then,
“Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,” Romans 6:4.
Here was the glory of God! And those whom Jesus called out of the world, saw it and believed. Later, and down through history, a few more have believed their testimony and given glory to God. But most of humanity to this day, surrounded by the glory of God’s creation and the glory of the testimony of God’s Word, still refuse to give Him glory.
The creation praises Him: Psalm 19:1.
“The heavens declare the glory of God…” Animals do what they were created to do. Trees and flowers obey His will. But the fallen species, called Adam, will not give him glory or even thanks.
Of course, the people of God are different. They are of a different race, though originally Adamic. One thinks of verse 4 of the classic hymn,
“The bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom’s face, I will not gaze at glory, but on my King of grace;
Not at the crown he giveth, but on His pierced hand: The Lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel’s Land.”
“but became futile in their thoughts…”
So man suppresses Truth when it appears to the mind. He chooses not to accept the obvious, that there must be a God, and that that God has something to say to him of great importance. He ignores the communications coming to him by nature and common sense. What is left for him to think about?
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The vacuum must be filled.
The KJV says “vain in their reasonings.” NASB says “futile in their speculations.” Good to look at the Greek word here, to get a clear idea of what Paul said.
“Vain” or “futile” comes from the word mataois [ma ta yos], and its derivatives, and generally it means empty, profitless, depraved, foolish, idolatrous, senseless. In the KJV it is most often translated “vain.” Let’s look at some verses in the NKJV to see some other possibilities.
Jesus, Matthew 15:9, “In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”
Paul, 1 Corinthians 3:20, quoting Psalm 94:11, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:17, “… if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”
Paul, 1 Timothy 1:6, “Some [people], having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk.”
Paul, Titus 1:10, “There are many insubordinate, idle talkers and deceivers…”
Peter, 1 Peter 1:18, “… you were not redeemed with corruptible things… from your aimless conduct…”
You get the picture. Man as a race turned away from the knowledge of God and filled their brain with futility, vanity, emptiness, idleness, uselessness, ineffectiveness, foolishness, senselessness, depravity. And to this day, the human brain is filled with such nonsense.
Your old nature still has a lot of this stuff running around inside. Beware! But we will definitely deal with that, later in Romans. For now we are getting the picture of a race of creatures that has become idiotic in the universe, vain, worthless in their thinking processes.
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“…and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
John 3:18-19 explains this thought more fully: “… he who does not believe is condemned… and this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Here is a blanket statement that also covers all mankind. From the time we can choose evil, we choose evil.
Peter says that the Word that we have is a light that “shines in a dark place.” (1 Peter 1:19) Paul agrees and adds in Ephesians, about the nations [Gentiles], that they have “their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God…”
Matthew 4:16 quotes from Isaiah 9 and says, “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” He is describing the earth just before Jesus, the Light, came into it.
Folks, we are not so bright. Paul said that he knew that in him, in his fleshly carnal nature, there is nothing good. Darkness there, and nothing more.
1:22
“Professing to be wise, they became fools.”
Do you remember your biology class, and the scientific name they give to present-day humans? Homo sapiens is from the Latin: “wise man”, the species to which all modern human beings belong. Homo sapiens is one of several species grouped into the genus called “man”, but it is the only one that is not extinct. Man’s foolishness comes out even in dictionary definitions of himself.
We have to keep remembering that the persons Paul is talking about are us. “They” is “us.” And every one of us is under God’s wrath. We have suppressed God’s truth about Himself, and filled our minds with foolish thoughts. Thinking we were getting smarter and smarter, we became fools.
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We can all recite from the twin Psalms 14 and 53, “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.”
[Psalm 53 is a revised edition, by David, of his original Psalm. A few small changes, a few directions as to its performance, etc.]
The rest of those two Psalms paint the same picture that Paul is painting of a corrupted human race. We’ll visit them later. For now, we just agree with Paul that men are fools. They try to answer the questions about life, where we came from, why we are here, where we are going, by their philosophies and guesswork. They come up with answers that are far harder to believe than the simple revelations of Scripture.
In their thinking, there once was nothing and then there was something. Somehow. A little spark of life in a mud puddle, and no one is able to say where the water and dirt came from to form that puddle. That spark of life turned into a mass of cells, which divided and divided and turned into a living creature. How the life part was added, we don’t know.
Slowly life forms evolved and evolved, and here we are, getting better all the time. Proof? Look how smart we are! But you can fill a garbage can with Einstein’s theories, Dickens’ novels, Nasa’s accumulated knowledge, and it’s still a garbage can. A dead computer can be filled with smartness. But it is still a dead computer, with no future except what is given to it by man.
And man has no future either, unless given it by God. We think we are so smart, but we are fools. We try to figure things out on our own, and we always come up with the wrong solutions. We don’t know where we came from outside of God. We don’t know who we are, outside of God. We don’t know where we are going, outside of God. Man without God is a fool.
Billy Graham liked to tell the story of two men on a bridge. The one man was about to jump over and end it all. The other man tried to stop him. He said, “Wait, let’s talk it over. You take 5 minutes and tell me why you think jumping in the river is the answer. Then I’ll take 5 minutes and tell
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you why you shouldn’t jump. So they talked for 10 minutes. And they both jumped in.”
Man has no answers. They act like they know everything. They profess to be wise. They have become, and they are still to this day, fools.
For these fools, mankind, God has come up with a foolishness of His own. 1 Corinthians 1:18-21.
“The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written [Isaiah 29:14] ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise…’… For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through ‘wisdom’ did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.”
Everything is upside down in the world. God says the world is foolish. The world, so wise, thinks our message is foolish. But we know, verse 25 of that same passage,
“… the foolishness of God is wiser than men…”
1:23
“and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man…”
Man is very religious. This passage reminds us of the typical religious idol worship of the false religions. We should take a look at that first. But there’s another idol worship in the world today, just as evil, just as fallen.
First, the traditional idolatry. It’s everywhere. Man is very religious. By the early 1990’s the Hindus, for example, had 330 million gods, or about eight gods per family. Macarthur goes on to say (p.89),
“They also revere cows and countless other animals that they consider to be sacred.
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A two-inch-long discolored tooth, claimed to have belonged to Buddha… is venerated by millions of Buddhists.”
Do we need to go into the long list of relics and statues worshiped by the Roman Catholic system?
The world is a very religious place. About half the people of the world participate in an identifiable religion. The rest are religious in other ways.
Are things improving? Has man ascended from animism (many-spirit worship) to polytheism (many gods) and finally to monotheism? Not at all. We started with monotheism. Look at the opening chapters of Genesis.
Genesis 4:26.
“then began [all] men to call upon the name of the Lord.”
Only one God is mentioned for several chapters. But by the time we get to Abraham, Genesis 11 and following, the world has changed. Babylonia now rules the world, it is 2000 B.C., and Abraham has to be called out of the paganism of his day back to the one God.
Egypt’s many gods are being targeted by God’s plagues in the story of the Exodus. And Canaanite people have to be taken from the earth altogether due to the evil practices of their false religion. Later Israel and Judah will fall into that same idolatry which they at first wiped out.
Isaiah mocks the idolaters of his day: Isaiah 44:9-17 in part.
“[the idolater] plants a fir, and the rain makes it grow. Then it becomes something for a man to burn, so he takes one of them to warm 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 thou art my god.’”
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Paul says that man makes an image in the form of corruptible man. While speaking of statues of people here, we understand it can also mean simply, self-worship. You can form a god with your hands, as Isaiah’s man, or you can form one with your imagination. You can elevate yourself, as Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar and Herod, or as Nero or Hitler or Stalin or Kim Jong Un. Or most of the human race.
When your needs and wants and desires seem more important to you than God’s, you have created an idol. And you will serve that idol, whether you bow down or not. God is not looking at your posture as much as at your practice.
“In vain do they worship Me,” says God to His people at one point. In fact they are committed to themselves, though they go through all the religious rituals.
Time for self-examination here. Have any of us been guilty of the sin of making an image in the form of corruptible man, an image that looks eerily like me, or you?
Let us allow the poetic words of Thomas Washbourne, 17th century pastor, to speak to us about just how lordly and proud we ought to be. This is based on Psalm 8.
Lord what is man that thou
So mindful art of him? Or what’s the son
Of man, that thou the highest heaven didst bow, And to his aide didst runne?
Man’s but a piece of clay
That’s animated by thy heavenly breath, And when that breath thou tak’st away, He’s clay again by death.
He is not worthy of the least Of all thy mercies at the best.
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Baser than clay is he,
For sin hath made him like the beasts that perish, Though next the angels he was in degree;
Yet this beast thou dost cherish. He is not worthy of the least,
Of all thy mercies, he’s a beast.
Worse than a beast is man,
Who after thine own image made at first, Became the divel’s sonne by sin. And can A thing be more accurst?
Yet thou thy greatest mercy hast On this accursed creature cast.
Thou didst thyself abase,
And put off all thy robes of majesty, Taking his nature to give him thy grace, To save his life didst dye.
He is not worthy of the least
Of all thy mercies; one’s a feast.
Lo! Man is made now even
With the blest angels, yea, superior farre.
Since Christ sat down at God’s right hand in heaven, And God and man one are.
Thus all thy mercies man inherits Though not the least of them he merits.
The poet has said in advance what Paul will be saying in Romans 1, Romans 2, and much of Romans 3. It is a dismal, not a delightful, picture of the human race. It is our own history, and would have been our own future, this lowly base clay creation, but for the grace of God.
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“…and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.”
I freely use Macarthur’s research here (pp 94-95), not his exact words, to give you a partial list of birds, animals, and crawling creatures that the one called homo sapiens has worshiped through the years.
Birds: Rome worshiped the eagle. Israel tried their best to keep the Romans from displaying eagle statues in their land. Egypt: the stork and hawk. Native Americans here worshiped a number of birds, as seen in their totem poles. That’s not innocent artwork.
And don’t be driving around in a thunderbird either. Its name origin was the native American thunderbird. “The thunderbird is a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture. It is considered a supernatural being of power and strength.” Or so says Wikipedia. “…a mythic bird that created thunder and lightning. … this incredible bird that could shoot lightening from its eyes and create thunderous storms just by flapping its wings.” What a great name for a car. (Historicvehicle.org)
Four-footed animals: Egyptians worshiped the bull-god, the cat-goddess, a cow-goddess, a hippopotamus goddess, and a wolf-god. To name only a few. Israelites worshiped, temporarily in the desert, a golden calf. Diana, strangely enough, was not worshiped as a beautiful woman but as an ugly animal, with capacity to nourish the world with her milk. The ancients worshiped mice, rats, elephants, crocodiles, monkeys.
Crawling creatures: In Egypt you will find to this day, replicas of a beetle, sold as a souvenir. This beetle lives in manure piles and was an object of worship. Assyrians and Greeks worshiped snakes. Modern Hindus actually spare certain insects, thinking they might be a deity. Or they might be a human being in transition from one stage of karma to another.
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Idolatry in our day? Not just the Hindus and Egyptians. I listed the gods of modern man earlier. Some of them. I left out magic, spell-casting, witchcraft, sex rites, human sacrifice, demon/Satan worship. Our world is polluted and awaits the righteous judgment of God. Let me quote a poem that Macarthur quotes, from one J. H. Clinch:
And still from Him we turn away,
And fill our hearts with worthless things; The fires of greed melt the clay,
And forth the idol springs!
Ambition’s flame, and passion’s heart,
By wondrous alchemy transmute earth’s dross To raise some gilded brute to fill Jehovah’s seat.
He’s saying that we can be distracted by most anything from our love and worship and service of God. It’s a clarion call to obey John’s directive: “Little children, keep yourself from idols.”
