Hi, church, and welcome back to this week’s Bible study video, where we bring the Bible home as you continue with the Scriptures throughout the week, not just on Sundays and Wednesdays but on the weekdays too. If you are new here, I am Ryan Rench, the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California, and today’s video is the sixth in our series through the book of Romans. We have been going through Romans on Wednesday nights, so we are following up the Wednesday night services with these videos to help you bring the Bible home and have the content in a video format as well.
Scripture Helps
Before I get into Romans, I wanted to mention an upcoming book we are trying to get ready for our fall festival. It is called Scripture Helps, and it will have several chapters to help both Christians and non-Christians. The first chapter is a gospel introduction, and the next chapter is Scripture Helps for Understanding Christianity. I wrote all the verses out in the book, but I used just the references to make this little brochure from chapter 2, with several topics and the Scriptures that go with them. The next chapter is alphabetical topics. I made a little brochure for a counseling setting: verses on abortion, abuse, addiction, alcohol, anger, and verses for each of those alphabetical topics. Another chapter is practical helps: Bible reading schedules, a one-year Bible reading schedule, a thirty-day schedule, a Proverbs-a-day schedule, and some practical resources on a prayer method you can use. I am really excited about the Scripture Helps book. We are going to try to get it into as many guests’ hands as possible, and it will be available October 5th, a little before our fall festival. I am excited to launch it.
The Wrath of God Revealed
Now, getting into the book of Romans, as you see on your screen, we have made it up to verse 18. In the previous videos we covered up through verses 16 and 17. I have broken the whole book down this way: the first three chapters of Romans talk about condemnation, condemning sinners, Israel, everybody. Chapters 3 through 5 give the message of salvation. Chapters 6 through 8 give a message of sanctification. Chapters 9 through 11 are dispensation, and chapters 12 through 16 are application. We will see how far we get. I think we will get to verse 18 or so, but not much beyond that. So, verse 18: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” Verse 18 starts the section of Scripture that some want to take a penknife to. My dad preached on that passage in Jeremiah, the penknife, right before his stroke. People want to cut this part out of Scripture. And in response to people trying to cut it out, I think some overzealous Christians almost say, “Well, I am going to use this Scripture even harder now,” and they want to make it a weapon. A passage like Romans 1:18 through the end of the chapter, they almost use as a weapon, as if it were their favorite Bible passage. And man, if this is your favorite Bible passage, that says more about you than about the people it is condemning, because reading this should break a Christian’s heart. I do not think Paul was angry when writing about God’s condemnation of sin. I do not think he is channeling the wrath of God as if it were his own wrath. No. If you are reading a passage like this and you are not broken over the lost souls who are bound by their rejection of God, bound under the condemnation of God, then I think part of our prayer should be that God breaks our hearts and gives us hearts to see lost souls changed.
Brother Russo in our church sent me a video about his sister, who was led to the Lord. Just by being passionate about the Bible, her husband got saved, and then his sister got saved, and now his sister’s husband is a pastor. Their testimony was of the incredible power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to change their lives. The gospel itself was the power. It was not somebody beating them over the head with the Bible as if it were a weapon. That is what this section is really all about. If you have watched the previous videos, you know verses 16 and 17 are all about the gospel, not the gospel as a harmful weapon, just a hammer, but the gospel as a life-changing, powerful force in people’s lives. No matter how far somebody has gone, I am not convinced there is some point of no return. Paul could say in 1 Corinthians 6, “And such were some of you,” and there were sodomites in the church who had been saved. If he could say, “You have been turned, you have been changed from your past life,” then I believe we ought to preach the gospel to every creature, love every person, and be willing to confront sin the same in every person, no matter what it is.
Levels of Sin
Now, I understand and believe there are levels of sin. In Matthew 11, Jesus says it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, and even Sodom, in the day of judgment than for the Galilean cities that saw His miracles but refused to repent. James 3:1 says teachers will receive the greater condemnation. When Jesus condemned the Pharisees, He said in Matthew 23:14, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.” So there does seem to be a degree of punishment. Matthew 23:15: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” I do not know exactly how God is going to work all that out, but there seem to be indicators of levels of punishment. “And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” So as far as sinner and saint go, all sins are equal. We understand that if you offend in one point, you are guilty of all; James tells us that. But as far as the consequences of those sins and their perversity go, there are obvious differences. Again, I do not know how God is going to sort it all out on judgment day, but there are sins with various punishments, and there are sins that, even here on earth, cause greater harm. They cause us more harm. I believe sexual sins take a deeper grip on you. 1 Corinthians 6 tells us that sins of the body, sexual sins in particular, unite you to somebody in a way that goes deeper than even the body itself. “What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.” So Romans 1:18 and following deals with sexual sins, but it deals with more than that. Verse 18, which we read, says, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” So it deals with much more than sexual sins. It deals with all sins.
Repentance and Belief
To believe the gospel, you first have to come to the conclusion, “Man, I am repenting of sin. I am turning away from sin. God condemns all sin.” Repentance literally means to have a change of mind about something. It really is “easy believism,” because it is easy to believe. We believe in Jesus Christ, and that is salvation for us. We trust Him as we trust a parachute. But what are we believing? We are believing first that we are sinners, in need of a Saviour, and that our sin is condemned by God. That is repentance from sin: believing what God says about my sin. So it is easy believism, but I am not a fan of quick-prayerism evangelism: “Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose again?” “Yeah, sure.” “Well, do you want to go to heaven?” “Yeah, sure.” “Okay, then just say this prayer.” They might be believing in the prayer, or believing something about Jesus. But when Scripture talks about belief unto salvation, I believe it has to start with the wrath of God, the understanding that the law of God has been broken, which means, man, the wrath of God will be poured out on all ungodliness and unrighteousness. Adam understood the wrath of God. Cain and Abel both knew the wrath of God. The world in Noah’s day understood the wrath of God; he was a preacher of righteousness to them. They understood what God wanted, the law of God, the desires of God, but they chose to suppress it, reject it, hold it down, and ignore the teachings of God. Mankind throughout history has chosen to ignore it and not believe it. You are condemned for ungodliness and unrighteousness. That is what we are condemned for: our sin, knowing the Word of God, knowing the conscience written on our hearts, and breaking the commandments of God. It is not simply, “Well, I just never really heard about it, so now I have to go to hell. That does not seem very nice of God.” No, mankind is in sin, on its way to hell, because of its ungodliness and unrighteousness. That is what we are condemned for. So the real Romans Road starts with condemnation. The whole book starts with a message of condemnation, and over the coming weeks of these Romans recaps, we are going to start with the condemnation the book of Romans starts with. We will cover many verses showing exactly why God is so condemning. I pulled at least twelve statements from missionary David Cloud’s commentary on Romans; they are themselves statements from the Bible.
Holding the Truth in Unrighteousness
We have already read verse 18, the condemnation of God, which follows verse 17, which talks about the righteousness of God. When it talks about the unrighteousness of men, that is in contrast to the righteousness of God in verse 17: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” So if we are talking about the wrath of God being poured out on unrighteousness, we have to start with a belief that the wrath of God is a good thing. The wrath of God is good if we care about justice, and I think there is something innate in us as human beings that cares about justice. We believe this wrath of God must be poured out on all unrighteousness and ungodliness. It must be revealed from heaven, and verse 18 says it is revealed from heaven. That is the right kind of righteous indignation, the right kind of wrath, when it is poured out on ungodliness. What is ungodliness? Anything that is not of God. And what is unrighteousness? Anything that is not righteous, everything that is wrong. Those two words summarize everything evil in this world; they encompass all things that are against God. The end of the verse says, “who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” I already talked about this world that knows the righteousness of God yet chooses to suppress it. They hold it, but they hold it back. They keep it down. They withhold it. They will not submit to it. They restrain the truth in unrighteousness. They possess the truth; it is in their conscience. They know what truth is. They know what creation says, and we will deal with that in the coming verses. Jesus Himself was here on earth, revealed God’s righteousness to them, and they rejected Him. We have the Word of God, which reveals the righteousness of God, and yet there is a rejection of the Word of God. That is the kind of resistance, the holding down, the holding of the truth in unrighteousness: “I want my unrighteousness more than I want God’s righteousness.” That is the idea. They feel they have their own truth. So if this is a section about condemnation, let us be very, very clear about what the Bible says about condemnation. Number one, men are under condemnation because they hold the truth in unrighteousness. That is what the Scriptures teach here.
The Light of Creation
Number two, men are under condemnation because they have the light of creation and yet do not honor God. The light of creation is incredible. We just look around at this incredible creation and see the unmistakable glory of God. Verse 19 talks about that: “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.” “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” It says the invisible things are made manifest. They are made visible, obvious, conspicuous, apparent. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” Verse 20 says these things are clearly seen. They are not just seen; they are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. It is not that the evidence is nonexistent. Do not let anybody tell you, “Oh, man, show me some evidence.” The evidence is there. Christians and non-Christians can both see the evidence of creation. It is not that the evidence is not there; it is that it is not being received, that the truth is being held down. It is the ungodliness of mankind that wants to suppress it. We do not want to submit to God. Verse 19 makes it clear: “That which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.” It is not that God is trying to hide Himself from people. He has clearly shown Himself through creation. It is not that we cannot know Him; creation itself is the part we can know. “I have sent also unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Return ye now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and go not after other gods to serve them, and ye shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but ye have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened unto me.” So it is not that they did not have the message. Here is the point: “but ye have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened unto me.” It is not that they do not have the message; it is that they do not like the message and refuse to listen to it.
Verse 20 says, and it is true, God is invisible: “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world.” It is true that God cannot be seen visibly; He admits that. I realize it might be hard to trust something you cannot see. The Bible says, “No man hath seen God at any time.” “Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” So there are invisible things; that is granted. There is no question it is a matter of faith, but there are a lot of invisible things people believe in by faith. The Bible says, “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” So creation itself has a message for people. It is not necessarily the full message of Jesus Christ, but there is something about God that can be understood from creation. Understood by the things that are made… what? “Even his eternal power and Godhead.” That is the part of God that can be understood: His eternal power and Godhead. Not the full Trinity. You are not going to look at a tree and arrive at Jesus. But you can look at a tree, see the intricacies of biology, and understand, “Man, this is so intricately designed. There must be a divine source to this.” That is the point creation makes: there is a divinity beyond this mere mortal existence, something beyond the existence we are living right here. There must be a God out there somewhere. There is an eternal power and Godhead behind creation, and that is an absolutely incredible part of creation that leads to God.
A Chemist Who Knows Too Much
I just came across a chemistry professor at Rice University named James Tour, and I have been so encouraged by his teachings and writings. I do not know too much about him, and I probably would not endorse everything from him; I do not know. But he made this point. He has written a big, thick textbook, and he says, “You cannot convince me there is not a God.” It is like somebody walking up to him with his chemical biology textbook, flopping it open to some portion, reading one sentence, and saying, “You do not know what you are talking about. Look, this sentence contradicts that sentence over here.” Hang on. You need to understand the whole background of the textbook before coming in and pointing out supposed contradictions. He says some people take a similar approach with the Bible, ignoring so much of the rest of it, picking out a verse here and there, and making a big problem of it. He says, “You cannot convince me there is not a God. I know too much.” I listened to about an hour-long interview with him, and the interviewer asked, “Does anything about science ever make you question, or are you intimidated by any of the questions about God?” He said, “Nothing intimidates me. I know too much. In fact, the more I study science, the more I am convinced that God is our Creator.” He said the rookies think they know the answers to the origin-of-life questions, but none of them know. He said, “I believe the Bible,” and he went on a ten-minute rant about the Bible in this particular video, and I loved it: “I love the Bible. I read the Bible every day. I believe creation declares the glory of God,” and on and on he went. I just love creation. I love that creation affirms the Bible and constantly leads us back to the creation account of one man and one woman at the beginning, and that creation declares that God was from the beginning. All of that is wrapped up in verse 20: the creation of the world reveals, manifests, shows God Himself. The Godhead, the almighty power of God, is shown through creation.
They Glorified Him Not as God
Then verse 21 says, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” This verse really encourages me, because every time I feel, “Man, I need to be a better Christian apologist. I need to be able to explain this a little better. Why can people not be convinced? I need to get smarter. I feel really dumb if I cannot articulate this perfectly to really convince somebody,” the Bible encourages us: you know what, you do not have to do the convincing. They have enough evidence to be convinced. When they knew God, it was their choice not to glorify Him as God. And it is the work of God; He is the One making Himself clear. We are just conduits of His proclamation. We get to show people the Word of God and creation, and they are rejecting Him, not us. That has been so relieving and encouraging to me, to realize I do not have to be a chemical biologist. I do not have to have all the answers. Here is somebody way smarter than me, and if he cannot convince them, if biology itself, creation itself, cannot convince them, then it is not an evidence thing anymore. It is a rejection of God as the source. When Israel wanted a king, they went against God, and God told Samuel, “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.” That is where we come to with the evidence of creation declaring the glory of God and people still rejecting it. Verse 22 says, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” They glorified Him not as God. They did not exalt Him to His position. They did not submit to Him, obey Him, or love Him enough to give Him the glory due Him. And it says, “neither were thankful.” Thankfulness is humility; it is an expression that somebody is above me. It is an interesting sin to point out. He gave us His Son, and we were not thankful in response. We do not recognize our dependence on God. It is a kind of entitlement. At our summer camp this year there was a phenomenal sermon on entitlement as one of the biggest problems Christian teenagers face: they feel they are owed something. Here is verse 21 exposing that unthankful spirit in us, and that is part of the condemnation. We are ungrateful. We are on a downward trajectory. We are guilty, and we should expect the condemnation of God because of all these things.
Vain Imaginations and Idolatry
Another reason men are under condemnation is that when they knew God, they changed the truth of God into a lie and created false gods. Again, verse 21: they “became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” Because they dwelt in their imaginations on something, something happened to them; something happened to their hearts. They were darkened. It was their willful sin that caused it, and through that willful sin their hearts were corrupted in the process. You might say, “Man, I am trying to find God, and I just cannot find Him. I just believe science.” Well, that is because through a series of rejections of God, your heart has become darkened. It is not God doing the corrupting. He is not the author of evil. It is the vain imaginations that led to the corruption, what our hearts and minds dwell on. It says they became vain in their imaginations, empty and foolish, and their foolish heart was darkened. That is not an insult. It is just saying that the heart that rejects God is the opposite of wise. It is foolish, a heart given to nothingness. Ultimately that is what rejecting the God of creation leads to: nothingness. If you believe that you die and just turn into blackness, and this whole creation is winding down into nothingness, then there is a futility to life. There is no meaning and purpose to life. What a wasted imagination. “And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.” “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness,” verse 24 says, and verse 25: “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” This is describing idolatry, and over the coming videos we will talk more about what kind of idolatry it is. But idolatry in general is man rejecting God. He wants to be number one, and we have placed something else above Him as number one. We have rejected the worthy glory of God. He is the incorruptible One. He is the true One, the God of truth, and we have rejected that truth. There are darkened hearts in verse 21. There are images of fourfooted beasts and creeping things, idols set above God. There are all kinds of lies lifted up above God. So idolatry is worshiping the creature more than the Creator, and that is why we are under the condemnation of God. The essence of idolatry is putting our affections on something instead of on God. Not only the idols of Eastern religions, where there is a physical statue; I am talking about any kind of idolatry that lifts itself up against God. Verse 28 puts it like this: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” That is another form of idolatry. It is self-will, my will above God’s will, and that is how we get to this place of inexcusable guilt. “God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.”
So over and over, through several verses, we see why God is so condemning, why this passage is so condemning, and it gives many, many reasons. Most of them make us look at ourselves and say, “Okay, if I were God, and the people I had given so much to were acting like this, if the Bible is true, then I can see why there would be condemnation for sin.” If there is a willful rejection, even though He has tried to reveal Himself in so many different ways, then you at least have to give some credence to the idea and say, “I can at least see the logic behind the condemnation.” We have not even touched on the rest of the condemnation, even the condemnation of religious people; that is in the next chapter, chapter 2. We will talk about that more in the following videos. God bless you, and we will see you then.
