Welcome Back! Let’s continue our journey through the book of Romans – “The Romans Road to Righteousness.”
The Roman’s Road to Righteousness (Chapter 1:18-32)
This
week we will consider the remainder of chapter 1
verses 18-32 and I believe as we examine this very critical
section of the text we find the “key“
that unlocks the Gospel of Jesus Christ – the starting point of evangelism…
As
we learned last time, the Apostle Paul has announced his “Gospel” theme in
verses 16 and 17. He called it the Gospel of God back in verse 1 because
God is its source. He also called it the Gospel of Christ in verse 16
because Jesus Christ is its culmination. The Apostle Paul clearly states his
positional thesis:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith – Romans 1:16-17
We
also found that these two verses represent the theme of the entire epistle to
the Romans. Now as Paul moves to verse 18, he begins to unfold in great detail
the substance of that theme. To help the Christian reader understand the
significance and the meaning of the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
Paul begins with this intense statement:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness – Romans 1:18
The
Gospel message actually begins with a statement about the “wrath of God.” Frankly, that's diametrically
opposed to most of our “modern” evangelistic techniques utilized today.
Most of our contemporary evangelism purposely avoids God’s wrath. We’re quick
to talk about God’s love, happiness, abundant living, forgiveness, joy and
peace. And we often offer people all of these blessings – apart from repentance
– and ask them if they would like to have all of those things. Who wouldn’t
want these? Right? But, we may rarely – if at all – warn of God’s wrath.
Admittedly,
the wrath of God can be a difficult subject to address. Yet it is the beginning
of the saving Gospel and is the proper preparation for the announcement of
His gracious mercy. How can lost
sinners understand anything about God’s love
if they don't understand God's hate? How can they understand
anything about His grace if they
don't know about His law? How can they understand His forgiveness if they don't understand the penalty
of sin. Apart from God’s intervention, men simply cannot
understand. They cannot seek God’s grace and salvation unless they are affected
with the dread of His wrath that is upon them. Unless men sense they are in
grave danger there's no “pressure” applied to them to change – repent.
Sometimes
when we talk about God being a God of wrath, people often get disturbed. They
don't understand how God can be a God of anger, wrath, fury – and terror.
But that's because they don't understand the full nature of God. People
often say, What's happening with all the murders, all the crimes and all the
horrible things that are going on today? Why is man so inhumane to man?
It's because sinful man is so unrelated to God. All human relationships
and all human transactions are corrupted.
The
Bible is filled with statements about God’s wrath. We see His wrath exemplified
in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. At first against the old world
when He brought the flood. Against the people at the tower of Babel. Against
Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. Against the Egyptians. Against
the enemies of Israel. In fact, on many occasions against the Israelites
themselves! His wrath was poured out against Nadab and others. Against the
spies. Against Aaron and Miriam. Against Abimelech. Against the family of Saul.
Against Sennacherib…
Here
are just a few Old
Testament Scriptures to support this truth:
Why do the nations rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us – Psalm 2:1-3
In
other words, let's do away with God, let’s do away with His rule and do things
our own way. He intimidates us, let's eliminate Him. The Psalmist continues:
But He that sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His great displeasure – Psalm 2:4-5
Then
again warns:
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish from the way when His wrath is kindled but a little… – Psalm 2:12
When
God gets just a little angry,
people perish!
Reflecting
back on the judgment of God upon the Egyptian army we see:
At thy rebuke, 0 God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a deep sleep. Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry? Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared and was still, when God arose to judgment to deliver all the oppressed of the earth – Psalm 76:6-9
Here
God's wrath is poured out against the enemies of Israel again:
He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them. He made a way to His anger; He spared not their soul from death but gave their life over to the pestilence; and smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength n the tabernacles of Ham – Psalm 78:49-51
God
was angry. God was fierce. God had wrath. God had indignation and God brought
trouble… very severe trouble.
The
Psalmist again says:
For we have been consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath we are terrified… Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath – Psalm 90:7 & 11
The
Old Testament Prophets also spoke often of the wrath and judgment of God.
Isaiah
warned of the wrath of God:
Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts the land is burned up, and the people shall be as fuel for the fire – Isaiah 9:19
Jeremiah
spoke of the wrath of God:
Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place—on man and on beast, on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground. And it will burn and not be quenched – Jeremiah 7:20
Ezekiel also
spoke of the wrath of God:
Not their gold, nor their silver shall be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their stomachs because it is the stumbling-block of their iniquity – Ezekiel 7:19
God's
attributes are perfectly balanced in His divine perfection. If God did not have
wrath and anger then He would not be God. God is perfect in love – on
the one hand – and He is equally perfect in hate – on the other hand.
Just as totally as He loves, so totally does He also hate. As His
love is unmixed, so is His hate unmixed. God
hates sin!
We
also see God’s wrath exemplified in the New Testament. The Apostle John talks
about it in several places, particularly in the last verse of the third chapter
of his Gospel letter:
He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him – John 3:36
It
is not well with people who do not know Jesus Christ to learn that the
wrath of God abides on them. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he warns:
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience – Ephesians 5:6
The
Bible says God will damn unbelieving men. Paul’s letter to the Colossians
expounds upon the very same warning:
Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience… Colossians 3:6
Paul’s
second letter to the Thessalonians is perhaps the most vivid of all:
…when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power – 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9
Jesus
Christ is coming again in
flaming fire and will take His vengeance on those who do not know
Him and shall be punished
with everlasting destruction for all eternity!
And
as the book of Hebrews also states of Jesus Christ’s personal hated of sin:
You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity… – Hebrews 1:9
It
goes on and on….
Again, those are just a few
passages expressing the wrath of God! It is here within the Scriptures where we
find the perfect balance in the full nature of God and His divine
attributes.
In
modern times, humble men of God also understood His wrath and hatred of sin.
Following are a few such examples:
Charles Spurgeon (1834 – 1892), known as the
"Peoples Preacher" put it this way:
"Lower the law and you dim the light by which man perceives his guilt; this is a very serious loss to the sinner rather than a gain; for it lessens the likelihood of his conviction and conversion. I say you have deprived the gospel of its ablest auxiliary [its most powerful weapon] when you have set aside the Law. You have taken away from it the schoolmaster that is to bring men to Christ."
Donald Barnhouse (1895 – 1960) wrote this very
potent paragraph:
"Will God give man brains to see these things and will man then fail to exercise his 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 hammerhead 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 men drive those nails through it and place Him on a cross in the supreme demonstration that men are without excuse."
Francis Schaeffer (1912 – 1984) shared this
approach:
"If I had one hour with every man, I would spend the first 45 minutes talking to them about God's law, and the last 15 minutes talking about His great salvation."
The
bad news is – God hates. The good news is -
God loves!
But we must remember: God hates sin!
The
"Good News" of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ is the cure for the
sin problem revealed to us by our INABILITY to keep God's perfect law.
Scripture has pained an absolutely fearful and horrifying picture of God's
wrath – and it is a picture that men need to have firmly fixed in their minds.
First the diagnosis then the cure.
In
closing:
What
makes a church healthy? It is Holy living and the fruit of healthy doctrine.
What the Lord wants has nothing to do with the size of a church. What He
wants has everything to do with the virtue
and character of a church. A
pastor’s Scriptural mandate is to concentrate on the spiritual depth of the
church and let God take care of its breadth. The size is not an issue to
the Lord – character is. And it is to start with the lives of the
pastors and the leaders of the church through excellent examples of personal
righteous conduct and sound doctrine.
A
healthy church is not marked by how many programs it has or how much money it
has or how big it is in size or numbers. What marks a healthy church is its holy character. And yet that's very, very
infrequently ever even suggested today in the area of the church growth
movement of our post-modern times. It is so important to understand that
the Lord is concerned about the spiritual quality of a church. The size
of the church is dependent upon His own sovereign purpose and is directly
related to its virtue. Today – under the Total Quality Management
corporate influence of the late business guru Peter Drucker – we're continually
told that if we want to build the church we've got to come up
with the right techniques, strategy, marketing savvy, etc., etc., etc…
Those
activities do not concern the Lord. Again, what concerns the Lord
is the character of the church – its virtue
and its godliness. This is how we
are to honor the Lord in the church. In other words, how we live will directly
determine how the lost world views the Word of God. A Christian wife who is not
what she ought to be, a Christian young man who is not what he ought to be, a
Christian older man who is not what he ought to be, a Christian older woman who
is not what she ought to be is going to give reason for people to blaspheme
God's Word. The world doesn't judge us by our theology, the world judges
us by our behavior. They judge the validity of the Scripture by our
behavior. And they ultimately judge whether Scripture is really true, powerful
and life changing by whether it changes our lives. After all, if it's
life-changing truth, then it ought to change our lives. Right? Why
should people believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is life-transforming truth
if our lives aren’t transformed?
That's
why it's so absolutely devastating when some well-known evangelist is caught in
gross kinds of sins and immorality. The on-looking world just says, “oh, the
transforming power of the Bible they preach, huh? Show me the transformation”
As the German philosopher Heinz said years ago:
"Show me your redeemed life, I might be inclined to believe in your Redeemer."
The
credibility of the Christian gospel is tied to the integrity of the life of
those who claim it. The impact of the lives of men and women who carry the
Lord's name is vital to the credibility of the faith and the effectiveness of
personal witness in preaching and becomes a determiner as to whether someone
may repent and turn to Jesus Christ or falls away and follows the path of
Satan.
We
must make godly living a priority as we live for Him, to His glory, for the
benefit of others and accountability to one another. This is the Christian’s
responsibility!
Please read the remaining verses 18-32 of the
first chapter of Romans.
We are not guaranteed tomorrow – tomorrow may be too late! If you haven't yet made that most important decision of your life, won't you make Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior today - before it's too late? Today is the day of Salvation!
If you have been blessed by this message or have a specific question, prayer request or testimony, please send me a note to: encouragingconcepts@live.com
I love hearing from you. Keep reading Encouraging Concepts!
Blessings!
Shane K. Morin <><
Encouraging Concepts
Truth for Today
"Living Life From a Biblical Worldview"Lighthouse Publications <><
