You think you dont need God
You think you don’t need God
Romans 1:18-32
Passage Outline
The first sixteen verses of Paul's letter to the Romans are an introduction that concludes with a great statement by the apostle:
16I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,[c] just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."[d] (Romans 1:16-17).
With that declaration, Paul sets in focus for us the theme of this letter:
The power of God to heal the hurts of men and to give us liberty and freedom from the bondage of evil in our lives.
With the power of the gospel comes the righteousness of God, the sense of worth to give significance and meaning to our lives.
The power of God frees us from the control of sin; God frees us from the meaninglessness of despair and guilt.
This power and righteousness is available to us, the apostle says, "by faith." That means the gospel can reach anyone, anywhere, at any time.
Now that is the good news, that is the startling message that the church of Jesus Christ has for the world.
There is nothing like it anywhere in the world, there is no rival to it. There is nothing that remotely approaches it in its possibilities in human affairs; therefore, we can say with Paul, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ."
However, even with this great message that the church has of Jesus Christ, a message given by God Himself to the world, there are people who act, believe and think that they don’t need God.
In the next verses of this letter Paul begins to describe who these people are and what the affects of their thoughts and actions are.
Romans 1:18-19
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
What do you think of when you hear that phrase, "the wrath of God"?
Most people think of the wrath of God as something that is yet to come, something that follows death -- the judgment of God.
It is true that hell and all that may follow are an expression of the wrath of God.
But that is not what it means at this point. Most people think of the wrath of God as thunder and lightning and judgment, fire and brimstone and the sudden destruction and catastrophes that come upon obviously guilty sinners.
And these are all expression of the wrath of God. But actually, the wrath of God is not something to come, it is present now. As the text says, it is "being revealed from heaven" -- that is, it is going on right now.
When something is revealed from heaven, it doesn't pour down from the skies upon us. No, it is everywhere present because it is coming from invisible forces at work in our lives.
Therefore, it is absolutely inescapable; everyone is confronted with, and suffers from, the wrath of God -- without exception. His wrath is everywhere present, it is being manifested by the invisible resistance of God to the evil of men. And that is what is meant here by "the wrath of God."
19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
The first step for people who think they don’t need God is: they to ignore God
First, he ignores God. He does not glorify him or give thanks to him. This is characteristic of our day in the way the media ignores God. We act as though he does not exist and has nothing to do with our world.
Everything in life is telling man.
Everything about himself is yelling at him, screaming at him, that God has planned all these things.
The easiest thing in the universe to believe is that God is there. You must work hard at convincing yourself that He is not there, and only the very intelligent are able to do it. The rest of us, who simply see facts and believe them, will accept the fact that God is there. Those who never hear the gospel first must believe God is.
UNBELIEF
C. S. LEWIS DEPICTS UNBELIEF
Creation; Denial; God, creator; Hardness of Heart; Holy Spirit; Science; Spiritual Perception; Unbelief
PSALM 104:24-34; MARK 4:11-12; JOHN 8:47; JOHN 9:35-41; ROMANS 1:18-22; COLOSSIANS 1:16
In his book The Magician's Nephew, C. S. Lewis writes of the creation of fictitious Narnia through the song of Aslan (the lion who represents Jesus in the book). The Creation Song is clearly intended to reveal the majesty and glory of Aslan. As in Genesis 1, it is a grand call to worship.
But there was one (Uncle Andrew) who would not hear it. The consequences were staggering:
When the great moment came and the Beasts spoke, he missed the whole point, for a rather interesting reason. When the Lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was still quite dark, he had realized that the noise was a song. And he had disliked the song very much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel.
Then, when the sun rose and he saw that the singer was a Lion ("only a lion," as he said to himself) he tried his hardest to make himself believe that it wasn't singing and never had been singing--only roaring as any lion might in a zoo in our own world. Of course it can't really have been singing, he thought. I must have imagined it. I've been letting my nerves get out of order. Who ever heard of a lion singing?
And the longer and more beautifully the Lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring. Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. He soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan's song. Soon he couldn't have heard anything else even if he had wanted to.
And when at last the Lion spoke and said, "Narnia awake," he didn't hear any words: he heard only a snarl. And when the beasts spoke in answer, he heard only barkings, growlings, bayings, and howlings.
Citation: C. S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew (Collier), pp. 125-126; submitted by Eugene A. Maddox; Interlachen, Florida
Continue reading the verses
20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
The second step for people who think they don’t need God is: they claim to be wise;
The second step in the process of suppressing truth is that men imitate God. They claim to be wise; they claim that they are able to handle all the problems of life and that they understand all that has happened in human affairs.
ATHEISM
THE BEAR AND THE ATHEIST
Atheism; Creation; Crisis; Evolution; Gratitude; Ideologies and Belief Systems; Judgment; Prayer; Thankfulness; Thanksgiving; Unbelief
PSALM 27; ROMANS 1:18-22
An atheist was walking through the woods admiring all the "accidents" that evolution had created. "What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!" he said to himself.
As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. Turning to look, he saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him. He ran away as fast as he could up the path.
He looked over his shoulder and saw the grizzly was closing. Somehow he ran even faster, so scared that tears came to his eyes. He looked again, and the bear was even closer. His heart was pounding, and he tried to run faster. He tripped and fell to the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up, but the bear was right over him, reaching for him with its left paw and raising its right paw to strike him.
At that instant the atheist cried, "Oh my God!"
Time stopped. The bear froze. The forest was silent. Even the river stopped moving.
As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky, "You deny my existence for all these years, teach others that I don't exist, and even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?"
The atheist looked directly into the light and said, "I would feel like a hypocrite to become a Christian after all these years, but perhaps you could make the bear a Christian?"
"Very well," said the voice.
The light went out. The river ran. The sounds of the forest resumed. Then the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed its head, and spoke: "Lord, for this food which I am about to receive, I am truly thankful."
Citation: Source unknown; submitted by David Holdaway; Stonehaven, Kincardinshire, Scotland
23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
The third step for people who think they don’t need God is: they choose substitute gods;
The third process by which man suppresses truth is to choose substitute gods and to make God appear to be much less than he really is. By these means, men suppress the truth of God and have become godless.
Notice the descending order. When idolatry begins, it begins first with men making images of men.
The world is filled with statues, most of them reflecting the images of the ancient Greek and Roman world. These, of course, are merely symbols of ideas that men worship, and we still have such images today.
But these images cancel God; they degrade him by substituting something for God and making God seem to be less than what he is.
That is what idolatry always does. It is a very destructive force in human affairs. Idolatry begins first with men, then birds (which are at least heavenly), then animals, and finally it ends up with reptiles. Man is at one end and a snake at the other.
Do you think people don't worship images and bow down before idols now?
What are movie stars and football heroes? They are dying men and women who are idolized and worshipped in our day.
And I, personally, don't believe that it is any accident of the trend over the years of naming cars
We once named them after men: Lincoln, Ford, Chrysler and Dodge.
Then after animals: Impala, Cougar, Mustang, Pinto, Jaguar, Rabbit, Panther.
And as of late we have seen the introduction of the Cobra and the Viper
These are our gods, aren't they? We worship rockets, planes, guns, bombs, tanks. We worship power, military power,
or forces like sex, and money, ambition, and greed;
or concepts like comfort, beauty, youth, adventure, life.
We've exchanged the glory of the undying God in all his majesty and greatness for images. What are movies but images?
The amazing thing to me is that this description of the wrath of God is wholly and fully met by the righteousness of God.
God's righteousness wipes out his wrath.
Wouldn't you think, therefore, that men everywhere would be eager to discover this marvelous gift of the righteousness of God? That is what heals our hurts and corrects our errors and gives a sense of peace and joy and forgiveness to the heart.
The wrath of God creates the hurts of life; all the pain and heartache and darkness, the death, the depression, the despair all come from the wrath of God. They are the products of ignoring God, trying to imitate God, and invalidating God in our lives.
Now Paul begins to tell us of the results of thinking we don’t need God
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Once people decide they don’t need God: He gives them over to their hearts desires.
SEXUAL IMMORALITY
BILL MAHER ON SEX
Desire, sinful; Lust; Men; Pornography; Selfishness; Sex; Sexual Immorality; Women
MATTHEW 5:28-30; ROMANS 1:24-25
On a recent episode of the ABC television talk show Politically Incorrect, host Bill Maher was discussing some rules for relationships from the male perspective. With regards to sex he said, "Don't [gripe] about porn."
When the panel (three of whom were women) asked what he meant, he responded, "Unless you [women] are willing to give us sex whenever we want, you don't have the right to gripe if we use pornography."
Surprisingly, all three women agreed that the rule made sense. This rule and response demonstrate the distorted attitude towards sexuality prevalent in our society. Sex is seen as primarily for one's personal physical pleasure. The other person is merely a tool to be used to that end.
Citation: Politically Incorrect, ABC Television (2-15-01); submitted by Rod Reed; Fresno, California
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Once people decide they don’t need God: He gives them over to their counterfeit beliefs.
· The first mark of wickedness in a godless society is widespread sexual immorality
PORNOGRAPHY
HIDDEN EXTENT OF PORNOGRAPHY USE
Desire, sinful; Lust; Money; Pornography; Sex; Sin
JOB 31:1; MATTHEW 5:27-30; ROMANS 1:21-32
According to U.S. News & World Report, Americans spent no more than $10 million on pornography in 1973. By 1999, however, they were spending $10 billion a year--a thousandfold increase. As U.S. News put it, it's an amount much larger than Hollywood's domestic box-office receipts and larger than all the revenues generated by rock and country music recordings.
A recent survey conducted by the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families provides us with a clue as to how big the problem of Christians and pornography may be. The Coalition surveyed students at five Christian colleges. Sixty-eight percent of the male students said they had intentionally looked for pornography on the Internet. Ten percent of those surveyed admitted to frequent use of pornography, and five percent acknowledged having a problem with pornography.
Another Christian college, Seattle Pacific University, examined all the Web sites accessed by its students during a three-week period. Officials were dismayed to learn that nearly 7 percent of all sites visited were pornographic. And, one in five of all campus computers had been used to view pornography.
Citation: "BreakPoint with Charles Colson" (2-19-01); submitted by Aaron Goerner; New Hartford, New York
· Homosexuality is the second mark of a godless and wicked society.
In the first step of this process, bodies were dishonored. In this second step, Paul speaks of shameful lusts arising from inside, desires that are part of the soul of man. The apostle describes the growth of widespread psychological confusion.
Many people will turn to this passage to say that homosexuality is the worst of all sins, however that is not what Paul is doing in this case.
Yes Paul does believe the homosexual act is a sin.
Paul uses the homosexuality to illustrate the theological error of exchanging something authentic for something counterfeit.
The truly awful thing about the rise of homosexuality today is that homosexuals are allowed to believe the lie that this is a biological condition which they cannot help, but to which they should adjust. Even churches are falling into this trap and consenting to this deceit.
28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Once people decide they don’t need God: He gives them over to their consequences of their actions.
· The third and final mark of a godless and wicked culture is given in Verses 28-32.
In Verses 24-32 of Chapter 1, the apostle traces the effects of this godlessness in human society -- the wickedness which inevitably follows. When men lose God, they always lose themselves. They do not understand what is happening in human affairs and are not able to diagnose the sicknesses and problems that break out in society because we have lost God.