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Twelve Reasons Why There Are No Acceptable Excuses With God
Contributed by Paul Fritz on Sep 2, 2012 (message contributor)
Summary: Paul gives the reasons why all men are without excuse before God in Romans 1.
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Twelve Reasons Why There are No Acceptable Excuses With God (Romans 1:16-20)
We live in a day when everybody seems to have their own excuse for why they are not submitting to the righteousness of God in Christ. Most people fail to realize that there are no acceptable excuses with God no matter how clever they may think they are. Here are the reasons that Paul gives why all people are without excuse before God in Romans 1:16-20
" For I am not ashamed of the Gospel (good news) of Christ, for it is God’s power working unto salvation [for deliverance from eternal death] to everyone who believes with a personal trust and a confident surrender and firm reliance, to the Jew first and also to the Greek,
17 For in the Gospel a righteousness which God ascribes is revealed, both springing from faith and leading to faith [disclosed through the way of faith that arouses to more faith]. As it is written, The man who through faith is just and upright shall live and shall live by faith.
18 For God’s [holy] wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the truth and make it inoperative.
19 For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them.
20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification]. (Romans 1:16-20)
1. Creation - Psalm 19:1-4 says: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows and proclaims His handiwork.
2 Day after day pours forth speech, and night after night shows forth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor spoken word [from the stars]; their voice is not heard.
4 Yet their voice [in evidence] goes out through all the earth, their sayings to the end of the world. Of the heavens has God made a tent for the sun.
The creation of God is so wonderfully made with intricate sophistication that it is evidence of God’s brilliant and intelligent design.
2. Conscious Mind - All people are born with a consciousness of their own identity. We have a sense of one’s personal or collective identity, including the attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or group: Love of freedom runs deep in the national consciousness. Special awareness or sensitivity: class consciousness; race consciousness.
Alertness to or concern for a particular issue or situation: a movement aimed at raising the general public’s consciousness of social injustice. We desire freedom but it can only be found by knowing the truth in Christ which sets us free.
3. Conscience - This is the built in smoke alarm that God plants within each person. It is the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action: to follow the dictates of conscience. The conscience is the complex of ethical and moral principles that controls or inhibits the actions or thoughts of an individual. It is an inhibiting sense of what is prudent: I’d eat another piece of pie but my conscience would bother me. This conscience drives us to Christ for the cleansing from our sins and the imputation of His righteousness that comes through faith in the atonement offered to us in Christ Jesus.
Romans 2:14-16 -
(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
4. Cure - The gospel gives us the cure for the spiritual cancer of the soul which is sin. The wages of sin is death, spiritual separation from God. (Rom. 6:23) Only Christ can give us the remedy we need to heal our sin sick soul and cleanse us from all unrighteousness through His blood spilled on Calvary’s cross.
5. Curriculum - The Bible is the curriculum that contains the gospel that teaches us that we must:
A. Admit we are sinners and cannot save ourselves
B. Believe in Christ’s substitutionary payment for the forgiveness of our sins and trust Him to be our personal Savior and Lord