Romans 1:18-32 Jimmy Draper

The speaker discusses the movie Sound of Freedom, stating that it is not gruesome and tastefully portrays the issue of child slavery. They mention that there are more slaves in the world today than ever before and that the movie sheds light on this problem. The speaker also talks about the evil in the world and how it is important to understand the wrath of God. They read a passage from Romans chapter 1 which discusses the consequences of suppressing the truth and turning away from God. The speaker emphasizes the need for mercy and grace and discusses the characteristics of God, including his holiness and love. They also mention the unity of the Trinity and the importance of unity among believers. Overall, the speaker explores the themes of the movie, the consequences of suppressing the truth, and the nature of God. Someone was talking about the movie Sound of Freedom and Lulu says she couldn't stand to watch that, and I understand that. I want to tell you, I did see it last Friday, and it's not gruesome, it's done very tastefully, it doesn't show anything happening to kids, but it shows the people who are dealing with it. It's something that I think you would enjoy seeing, because there was an interesting statement in the movie, and I think maybe in the closing part of the credit, where they just had some facts, there are more slaves in the world today than at any point in human history, because of the abuse of children and the child slaves. This is a big issue, and so I tell you, don't be afraid of the movie, because it's tasteful, it doesn't portray anything that would be distasteful happening to children, though you know what's going on, so I just would encourage you with that. And it's based upon a real family. Yes, it is based on a real family. And in studying for today, on Romans chapter 1, we're going to deal with a lot of the evil that's in the world, and I thought how appropriate that on Friday we saw that movie, because that's one of the worst evils we could possibly imagine. The only thing worse than sexual exploitation of children is the abortion of babies before they're born. And we're guilty of both of those things, and it's something we need to be aware of. So, I'm going to do one thing a little differently. This chapter is so significant that I'm going to read it. I don't always stop to read the passage, refer to the verses as we go through them, but I think we need to just read this out loud. And so, beginning at verse 18, because we have the wrath of God introduced. Now, the wrath of God is something that liberal theologians will not accept. You know, the Gettys have written this hymn that we sing a lot that talks about the wrath of God was satisfied. The liberal churches wanted to print that song in their hymn books and ask for permission to change and take out the wrath of God. And Gettys thankfully said, no way, you can't have this, you're not going to keep it, because the wrath of God is misunderstood. But I want you to understand this. Man didn't invent the wrath of God. God revealed it. And that's what this starts out as, verse 18, For God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. His invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through that which he has made. As a result, people are without excuse, for though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. Therefore, God delivered them over to the desires of their hearts, to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served what has been created instead of the Creator. Then he can't just help himself, he breaks into doxology right here. He says, who is praised forever, the Creator who is praised forever, amen. For this reason, God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The men, in the same way, also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lusts for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty for their error. And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they might do what is not right. They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of evil, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanders, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, untrustworthy, uninviting, unmerciful. Although they know God's just sentence, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but they even applaud others who practice them. God gave them up three times in this passage. God just gave them up. C.S. Lewis made a fascinating statement about this passage. He said what happens is that God literally gave them up to have what they wanted. And that's what we're looking at in the world today. In fact, C.S. Lewis continues to say that history is God's wrath. In other words, what happens in God's wrath is he lets us have what we want. And it's not good. And so men suffer the consequences of their sins because that's what's naturally going to take place. And so this is a strong passage of scripture. It's often misunderstood, but there is a moral law in life that is also a divine law, and that is that men must suffer the consequences for their own choices. Unless that's reversed, things go from bad to worse. All humanity is morally and spiritually bankrupt and unable to claim a favorable judgment at the judgment bar of God because man desperately needs mercy and grace. I often say, and you've said it, we all believe it, I don't want justice. I want mercy. Justice we could give us all. Mercy and grace are founded in the very nature of God. By the way, the focus of Romans is on the word of God's righteousness. And righteousness is a synonym for holiness. So when you think of righteousness, think of holiness. Righteousness is not a word we throw around carelessly very often. And so holiness is a little more familiar with us. But that's really the focus of the book of Romans. And so we're approaching in this passage the very nature of God. Now, the Bible reveals several things about God. First of all, God is spirit. What Jesus said in John 4, 24, God is a spirit. And by the way, since God is a spirit, you're never going to see God, not God the Father. The only God we're going to see is Jesus. Because you have the Holy Spirit, who can see a spirit. You have God the Father, who is spirit. Now, I can't wrap my mind around that, but Jesus we know. We know him. We experience him. He's in our hearts. We know that when we see him, we'll see him as he is, what the promise of scripture is. So God is a spirit. And as spirit, he is immutable. That's a big word. It just means unchanging. God does not change. He is wise. He is holy. He's powerful. He's infinite. He's eternally alive. He's merciful, compassionate. He champions justice. He is good and true. And he is present everywhere at the same time. All of that's beyond our understanding, isn't it? Who could be like that? God is spirit. And these are his characteristics of God. He's also light. So many times this is said in 1 John and Psalms and Isaiah and Micah revelation over and again in peace of God is a God who is light. He is love. We like that one. Even liberals love that one. God is love. Therefore, how can a loving God have wrath? We'll look at that in a moment. God is holy or righteous. But it also says, and we're introduced here when he reveals his wrath, he is also a consuming fire. And that's part of the nature of God. It's not that the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. And when the Holy Spirit came, he revealed that God is so holy that he cannot tolerate evil. And the foundational nature of God is his holiness, his righteousness. And that's the focus of the book. And the grace of God is founded upon the righteousness of God. We'll get more to that in just a moment. But the biblical description of God is very vivid. And I just remind you that we have one God, three persons. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. One God. They are one, yet they are three. Not three gods, one God. Each one of them is holy God, completely God. They're bound together in a unique unity. They cannot disagree. It's impossible for them to disagree. They never have a split decision. What one does, they all do. What one says, they all say. What one sins, where one sins, they all sin. They are united perfectly. Oh, and if you want to know why God is often unhappy with us, Jesus in John 17 prayed that we would have the same unity with each other that Jesus and God have. That's a tall order. If you saw our fellowship in the church as intended to be like God and Jesus' relationship, it would certainly make a difference in how many of us act and how many of us do things. We would not have some of the disagreements. You know, just as an aside, it always has been intriguing to me that church is most often split, if not always, over stuff that's not important. Little stuff. It's not over theology. Not necessarily over the Bible. It's usually over personal stuff. What we like and don't like. But we're to be like the Trinity, like the Godhead. They cannot disagree. They are bound together in love. They've always been that way. God the Father has always been God the Father. Jesus the Son has always been the Son. The Holy Spirit has always been the Holy Spirit. They have existed, not one at a time. They exist all together. That's the way that they've been. And so, God's wrath is introduced to us today. What happened, this passage that we're looking at, said that truth is accessible, but man has rejected the truth. Now, this answers the question, what about people who've never heard the name of Jesus? Well, what he says is, God revealed himself to them in creation. Now, follow me carefully. Don't misunderstand me. He didn't say that God had revealed himself enough for them to be saved, but that God revealed himself as a supreme God in creation. And once you accept that, once you receive the truth that God is the creator and that God is the supreme God, then Paul is saying, then you become accountable. And what he is saying here is that man has never lived up to what he has known. God gave the Jews the Ten Commandments. It wasn't something they didn't know, but they couldn't live with it even after they had it specified for them. But man has always refused to live up to the highest knowledge that he's had. So, Paul is simply saying, if you're paying attention, God is supreme and you can see that in nature. I'd love to have a pause for about 15 minutes. I want you to understand how foolish ideas of creation are today. Big bang. Now, let me just ask you a kindergarten question. Have you ever seen anything explode that stayed together? I mean, if it explodes, it separates. The big bang theory tells us it exploded and here we are. Ken Hipper said he likes to ask the question when he's witnessing, on airplanes particularly. He said, I'm going to laugh because he travels on airplanes every day. So, he told me he was witnessing this guy. He said, I asked him, I said, listen, which makes more sense to you? Nothing plus time equals everything. Or in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Nothing. I mean, you go back to whatever you want to go back to, whatever it was, God put it there. Nothing plus time equals everything. That's the best that science today can tell us about creation. Now, does it take, you got to have to be pretty flexible in your mind to believe that. I mean, every law of science tells you that nothing that explodes ever comes together, gets worse. Nothing plus time is everything. How ridiculous. God, Romans says very clearly, God is seen in creation. I don't know how you can see the beauty of this earth, the intricacy. Did you know that God so specified in creation, corn, for instance. There is the same number of rows of corn on every ear of corn. That's the way God designed it. That just happens, of course, in the Big Bang. God says, look, creation tells you that there is a supreme God. Now, what he's saying is if you reject that idea, okay, now you're looking at God's wrath. Because if you acknowledge that there is a God and you reject him. Then you get God's wrath. Now, that's why we have foreign missions. I, when I was in seminary, I was passing down the iron tail and I was going to preach a mission sermon. I thought that'd be really cute. And so I announced to the people I was going to preach the next Sunday on foreign missions are foolish. And one of the ladies came out and said, man, I'll say amen to that. She was a little sheepish after I preached it the next Sunday because I said, foreign missions are foolish if men are not lost in their sin. If God did not send his son to the Amazon, it is, you know, the worst thing we could do to people who don't, haven't heard about Jesus is tell them if they're not already accountable. God says they're accountable because God himself has said it is, it is absolutely obvious in creation that there is a God. Now you have to be very foolish. You may have lots of PhDs after your name, but you have to be very foolish to believe that all of this beautiful, intricate world was created out of an explosion somewhere. It's just not, it's the evidence that there's a God. Caroline and I have been blessed to travel around the world, nearly 40 countries over the course of our lives. It's a pretty, pretty place, this world. So many wonderful, wonderful things. And God said, you can just, you can just see God in it. Now, why do some people say they can't see God in nature? Because that's what they believe before they start looking. See, their premise is there is no God. Therefore, it can't, he can't be seen in nature. But God says, whoa, look at nature first. You look at nature, you'll see that God is the supreme God. So he says they're without excuse if they reject the life they have, because that's what sinners do. All of sin becomes part of the glory of God. So even our babies, when they grow up, are going to reach an age where they're going to be, know that they're sinners. I doubt if any of you ever taught a child of yours to say, mine, mine. Nobody has to teach a baby to do that. It comes naturally. And someday, someday that baby will grow up and he'll say mine in the face of God and decide to reject what God has revealed. He becomes responsible that time. So what God, what Paul is saying is that God's mercy, God's wrath begins when man who know better deliberately choose to reject God. We'll see that as we go through this. And I've already taken too much time talking about this. The wrath of God, the whole idea of the wrath of God is unacceptable to many people. How can a God of love be a God of wrath? Well, we preach so much about God's love that we've neglected the wrath of God. A holy God cannot do anything but react against evil. He has to, for instance, God's wrath is not like our wrath. God's wrath is a response to his holiness and his righteousness. Our wrath, we equate it with anger. Anger and wrath are not the same thing. A man's anger, it just bursts forth and hardly a night goes by if we don't have some kind of road rage in the Metroplex, you know, road shooting. Someone got cut off and they pull out a gun and start shooting and that's man's wrath. God's wrath is not like that. Our wrath is sudden, explosive, destructive. God's wrath is not that at all. God's wrath is gentle, patient, but there is a line that God will not let you cross. When you cross that line, you experience his wrath. And it's not because God got mad at us. Wrath is the natural response to the holiness of God. This, I am told, what did Randy tell us this was? No, it's not a racquetball, it's just a little bit smaller. No, no, it's the one the English play more anyway. Anyway, this ball, this ball, if I throw it down, it's going to bounce up. Now, is it angry? I mean, why did it bounce up? Because that's the nature of the ball. God's wrath is not a sudden expulsion where he gets mad and takes it out on you. God's wrath is the result of our choices and he cannot tolerate evil, not even one. In fact, he says that in here. His wrath is part of his very nature. It's just that it's not a sudden burst. It's not irrational. It's not anger. It is just what his holiness requires when evil is involved. And the wrath of God makes it impossible for God not to respond when people reject him. Remember, we're talking about a sin against knowledge. By the way, that's what the unpardonable sin is. The unpardonable sin is a sin against knowledge. You know better. And since you know better and you insist on insulting and blaspheming the Holy Spirit, that is a sin God will not forgive. And we call it the unpardonable sin. But it is a sin against the character of God, against the nature of God. And so the wrath of God, not like ours, there are two words for wrath in the New Testament. One is the Greek word phloumos, which is raging, angered. It's described as to breathe violently. And the other is orge, which signifies that indignation that has just risen slowly and become settled. It's used to describe plants and fruits. When they begin to decay, they begin to swell with the juice until they explode. It's a very slow, slow process. That is God's wrath. God's wrath stands against disobedience and especially the disobedience of rejecting the gospel and impugning his very integrity. It's like the bud of a flower. It begins to spread out to swell. The edges begin to crack. Then suddenly it bursts into a beautiful bloom. And God's wrath is like that. God's wrath will burst against this ungodly world. Now he says the wrath of God is revealed from heaven as a result of the rejection of the gospel. The gospel provides the only escape from God's wrath. But his wrath falls on those who know the truth, and in spite of that, they choose not to believe God, not to accept him. The history of the world, as I said a moment ago, is the judgment of the world. People ask me often, do you think America is under the wrath of God? And the answer is yes. Because what we're experiencing is not healthy. It's not normal. It's not kind. It's not gentle. It's not polite. It is violent. It is by way of the highway. Everyone wants to do what's right in his own eyes. That's the society we live in, and that's why God three times in this chapter says he gave them up or he delivered them up to something. What he did was he just let them suffer the consequences of their sins, and that's what we're doing in America today. We're paying. The wrath of God is on us because we have rejected things that we know to be true. And let me be clear. The wrath of God only falls on those who choose their unrighteousness to the righteousness of God. It's a deliberate choice. They reject the one who knows the truth and does not receive it. That person may never, never change that. God cannot tolerate his rejection like that. And righteousness in God's sight only can come for us when the righteousness of Christ takes the place of our unrighteousness. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we who knew no righteousness could become the righteousness of God in him. That is, even in the wrath of God, there is a reference and an implication of the mercy of God. And Romans 8, 1 says there is therefore now no condemnation, no wrath for those who are in Christ. Now, I do have to pause now. We're not talking about God's discipline on the Christians. We're talking about God's wrath on those who reject the truth, who deny that he is the supreme being, who deny that he exists. God's wrath is in play there. The Bible tells us that every individual is sinful. Some didn't like that in John and Paul's day. They didn't like that implication. Some people even today have held that, well, mankind is not all that bad. Most folks are pretty decent. They may not be perfect, but they haven't committed any colossal sin, so they're all right. But the point is not that man has lived up to his own expectations. The problem is we fail to live up to God's expectations, God's standards. And as Isaiah 55 reminds us, God's ways are just different from ours. If you want to know how to describe God in one word, he's different. He's just different. He's not like us. You know, we have a tendency when we talk about wrath, the first thing we do is equate it with anger. Then we assume that God's like we are. Okay, so there's a God. When he said he's holy, that means what we think holiness is. We begin to picture what God is trying to say to us, and we ignore what the very obvious truth is, that all of us have rejected the life that God has given to us. That has always been the case. It always will be the case. Here we're talking about sinners who reject the gospel, and he says that they suppress the truth. They suppress the truth. They are guilty because they have sinned against what they knew. It is a sin against knowledge. Sin against knowledge. Now, in verse 19, he tells us, in verse 8, since what can be known about God is evident among them because God has shown it to them. Now, there are two things we know about God, and in verse 20, he says, for his invisible attributes, his invisible attributes, and then he says what that means, his eternal power and his divine nature. Those are the only two things we know about God. His eternal power, his divine nature. We know that about God, and he said it's obvious. God has shown that to us through creation, and as I said, he's not saying that there's enough in creation for a man to be saved. What he is saying is that there's enough of God in creation that when you acknowledge what you understand, he'll give you more knowledge. He'll give you more light. That's where foreign missions comes in, people for whom God is in their desire to know God and need to know about Jesus Christ. It's in the New Testament, there were those who were not Christians. They're spoken fondly of. They're called God-fearers. God-fearers. Cornelius, Acts 9, was a God-fearer. Lydia, further in Paul's journey when he came to Philippi, Acts 16, was called a God-fearer. So for people who are fearing God and looking for God, they will get more light. They will receive that light, and how God does it, I don't know. I do know that he's entrusted us with the gospel. Our pastor, by the way, is going to Kenya here in a few weeks. It brings back a lot of memories. I've been to Kenya 16 times and love Kenya. One day, several of us at Mombasa, when we were there for the Kenya Coast Crusade, went down, of all places, we went down to a Muslim seminary in the old town, which probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. But as we came out of that seminary, after talking to some of the folks there, we saw a blind man across the street feeling his way along the wall. And immediately, we all felt we need to witness to this guy. So we went over and shared the gospel. It's going really good. Looked like it was going to be a good response until he said this, If what you say is true, why have you waited so long to tell me? And every missionary will tell you, somewhere in their ministry, whatever country they're in, that question has been asked. If what you say is true, why have you waited so long to tell us? God has a way, and I believe we are his way. And the book that I will give you here in a few weeks, is just, it traces, I've tried to trace the presence of the Holy Spirit from creation to today. And Christianity, from its very beginning, and from the very creation of the earth, we meet the Holy Spirit, chapter one of Genesis verse two, he was hovering over the watery depths, whatever that was. Wasn't organized, it was chaos. It was characterized by formlessness and darkness. Did you ever go to Carlsbad Caverns? Did you walk down? Well, if you did, at one point, they had us all sit down and turn the lights out. I was a teenage boy, but I held up my hand and I could not see my hand. It was nothing but dense darkness. Now that's what this world was like, Genesis one says. It was watery depths that had no form and were in darkness. Now just imagine, formless, darkness. That's where we meet the Holy Spirit. Oh, by the way, if the Holy Spirit, who is God, created the world with all of its intricacy, don't you think that the same Holy Spirit who superintended the watery depths as it waited for the creative word of God would have the same meticulous interest in our lives as we live out his presence within us? So what I'm saying to you is that it's not the big things you need to worry about, it's the little things. Old Testament speaks about the little foxes that eat the vines. Now, let me really take a rabbit here. Have you ever wondered how godly men and women can suddenly fall into the depths of darkness? Have you ever wondered how godly men and women can fall into the depths of darkness? Well, I could call some names that you would know, because it's happened many times in the last 50 years. How does that happen? Did they just wake up one morning and decide they were going to do some terrible thing? Tom Ellis' father, my father were close friends. Tom and I have been friends since we were kids. And he wrote a book about this, because his father divorced his mother and married his secretary. And in the process of reconciliation with the family, Tom said, I asked dad one day, how did this happen? Now, J.T. Aleph was a pillar of Baptist leadership. He was pastor of the church in Kansas City, who sponsored the Red Bridge Baptist Chapel mission, and he recommended me and Carol Ann to that mission, and they called us. His dad, J.T., and my dad were close friends. When I got to Oklahoma City, in Dell City, Oklahoma, which is just three miles from downtown next to Tinker Air Force Base, I was on the committee. They called J.T. Aleph to be the director of missions for the Capital Baptist Association. Our lives have been entwined for several generations. But Tom said, dad, how did this happen? And his answer was profound. He said, I neglected my daily bread. It wasn't a big thing. The big thing that happened came after many days of neglecting the little things. Consequently, I've told you this before, but I'll probably tell you again. I know I am now. I don't believe we have strengths and weaknesses. We have weaknesses, and those weaknesses are our strengths, because the weaknesses are things that we think we can handle. I mean, I saved when I was about kindergarten age. I never got in trouble, never smoked, never drank. I never did any of the bad things kids do. Never got arrested. I've been a square all my life. And I forgot where I was going with that from in here. But the point is, there's some things I always said I'd never do. I'm never going to be a moral. I'm never going to be drunkard. I'm never going to smoke. I'm never going to steal something. I'm not going to kill anybody. Until one day in Kansas City, and I won't bore you with the details, God showed me in a dramatic way what my heart looked like to Him. Nothing but dense darkness. And God shared with me that day that there is no sin that you're not capable of committing. And I never believed that. I guess I had preached for a few years kind of assuming. I was a little bit better than everybody else preaching to, I guess. Because they might do that. I'm not going to do that. Truth is, there's not anything that any of us would not do under the right circumstances. Now, when you don't believe that, then it's those little things that keep you in tune with God. It's those little things that keep you close in your faith. It's those little things that keep you expanding your heart and mind through the scripture. It's the little things that you neglect that end up in the big things that we get embarrassed about. I don't know how we got into that. But just saying that mankind has never, ever failed to... Well, mankind has never, ever lived up to what everything is understood. You know, we all know to do more than we do. And there is a DNA in us that's God. We're made in the image of God. And He's implanted in us certain things that we know are not right. Certain things that we know have to be true. And when we neglect those things, reject those things, then God's wrath appears. He's not left himself without a witness. Creation literally screams, there's a God who is supreme. And the rejection of a supreme God is not an act of ignorance, but a deliberate act of rejection to what is clearly known. So the wrath of God takes place when enough of God is known to be rejected. And when God is rejected, oh, it gets worse as we get through this. We probably won't get all the way to the end of this today. But, Brother Jack, oh, no, I'm teaching next week. Oh, that's right. So if we leave a little, we'll pick up there. If we leave a little, we'll pick up there. But finding adequate knowledge about God's eternal power in nature condemns one entirely. And we are condemned while breathing the air that God provided. Here he says the invisible attributes go all the way back to creation. And if we reject those creation revelations, then we're guilty of rejecting him. Now, he says two terms are used here, clearly seen, clearly seen, and understood. Well, clearly seen is a word that refers strictly to keen observation, intelligent observation. It speaks of our understanding in the sense of what we perceive. The word understood speaks of what we see, the physical sight and the careful understanding of what that means. Both verbs describe how mankind can contemplate God and his works and his nature and grasp enough of that to prevent us from ever being idolaters. We ought to be smart enough not to ever worship the created things instead of the creator. And that's what mankind has always done. By the way, when he talks about acknowledging God, it's a word that means more than just a knowledge, more than knowing. It is a word which speaks of an adequate knowledge about God's eternal power and nature. And it's really the key to all scripture. Two things we can know about God, his eternal power, his divine nature. He is a supreme being and his knowledge is sufficient to condemn mankind. For he says, though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless and their senseless hearts were darkened. When man did know God, they did not glorify him as God. They deliberately turned away. That's the first downward step. Whenever one knows about God, whoever knows about God and rejects what he knows, then he steps into sinfulness and is ultimately facing the wrath of God. I thank God that he is merciful, but there is a line he will not allow us to cross. They were ungrateful. By the way, I think the greatest attitude that any of us can have is gratitude. Gratitude. Say thank you. I've told you before, you know, Carolina had lunch yesterday. She said, thank you for my lunch. I took the trash out the day before yesterday. Thank you for taking the trash out. Gratitude. If you want to know the secrets of happy marriage, be grateful for each other. Thank each other. But when men knew of God, they rejected him. They were unthankful to him. They had no gratitude for him. Thus, their senseless hearts were darkened and they embraced empty speculation and became incapable of understanding the truth. In fact, verse 22 says, claiming wisdom, they became foes. Someone said, well, we need to have a holiday for foes. That's what we already do, April 1st. You know, thinking they were wise. The more you trust human reasoning or creativity, you set yourself against God. Man becomes his own God and turns himself into a fool because of what he thinks. And so, rejecting God, he becomes without intelligence or sound thinking. When we went to Dell City, Oklahoma in 1970, it was right at the tail end of the Jesus movement. Now, most of you were around at that time. You younger folks in here may not know much about that. It was the hippie movement. It had a practical rejection of American life, but also a theological component to it. If you will remember, back before 1960, men didn't have long hair. In fact, I have short sideburns, but my brother George taught school down in Gonzalez, and he said, you couldn't even come into my class. My sideburns were a little bit too long. Men just didn't have long hair, but hippies, men had long hair and girls had many skirts. One of my deacons made a classic statement. He said, you know, the only thing wrong with many skirts is that it's so unfair to the women. Naughty knees and all that goes with it, you know. The hippie movement was a reaction against the culture that was greedy, was wanting more and more and more things and wanting affluence and seeking for all of that. On the other side, there was a deep hunger for God, and in fact, many people believe that the greatest awakening in history was the hippie movement of the 1960s and 70s. Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith, some of you saw the movie, which is excellent, telling the story of hippies in Calvary Chapel. Calvary Chapel was started in the 1960s during the hippie movement. As of today, there are over 1,000 churches under the umbrella of Calvary Chapel that started the hippie movement. Well, now, Oklahoma is a redneck state. We loved Oklahoma. It was a great place to live, but it is a very conservative redneck state. Many of the pastors were preaching sermons against long hair and miniskirts. Seriously, I kept telling them, you got it all wrong. You want them to look like Christians before they get saved. They need to hear the gospel. Our church was just the opposite. I probably told you this, I wouldn't be surprised, but we welcomed hippies. I mean, they came from all over in our services. I preached many a sermon with hippies sitting on the floor just in front of the pulpit, cut off blue jeans, barefooted, long hair. Many of them got saved. Hundreds of them got saved. Our church, when they'd come in, I'd say our older people, they'd look and then they'd just bow their head and pray. I'd tell them I'd be a while. Anyway, they came and we welcomed them and many of them got saved. We took them home to our house. We had one couple, she had a baby the afternoon they visited our church. They stayed in our house for a number of days. She had a baby the next day and stayed with us until she could travel to another location. There was a great hunger for God in that time. What I learned then, and I put this in the book, I said I learned not to oppose what God is doing. There are a lot of things wrong in the hippie movement. There was immorality and drugs and alcohol. That was part of it because they were reacting against the culture of America, but there was also a deep hunger for God. I wish that we had that in America today. We don't have a group that's hungry for God wanting help, but that happened back there. God is a God who comes to us and when we understand who he is, when we say no to him, then we become the object of his wrath. Now, what are the reasons for the wrath of God? We announce the wrath of God beginning in verse 24. He says, therefore, now as you heard both Brother Jack and me say, when you see therefore you have to ask the question, what's it there for? Why is it there? Well, therefore looks back and forward. Because of what's just happened, here's what you need to know. So therefore, and the reason is that they have rejected divine revelation and preferred idols to the one true God and so they were given over to their own foolishness. God simply allowed them to be bound up by their own choices. This resulted in a slow descent into all forms of evil and sexual immorality. Men and women degraded their bodies and exchanged the truth of God for a lie and the people worshiped the creation instead of the creator. Here is an accurate picture of our world today. Paul's not exaggerating. This is what it looks like when you reject God. Everywhere we look today, there's unbridled evil, violence, arrogance, shaking your fist in the face of God. One thing you know is you can't ever get away from God. If you're going to pick a fight, don't pick that one. You're never going to win it. God just gives us what we want. And so we have a world that has unleashed evil and violence and brutality. Everything God predicted would happen in Romans 1 has happened. Sexual impurity speaks of lust for a forbidden pleasure. Desires of the heart points out that this was not a shallow thing or just a surface reflex. It's a deep-seated desire. Their bodies were degraded, tells us their sinful desires led them to degrading experiences which dishonored their own bodies, in addition to resulting in God's wrath. In rejecting God, they wound up attached to idols and dishonoring their own bodies. Man dishonored God, deified creatures, erected idols, so God abandoned them to the passions that dishonors their own bodies. By the way, turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and I want to read you something in chapter 3 and chapter 6 and just make a brief comment about it. But in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 16, don't you yourselves know that you are God's temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is holy, and that is what you are. Two meanings. He's talking about the church, now listen carefully. He's saying the church is holy, not perfect, but it's holy. You destroy the church, I'll destroy you. There are many people who are dead today because they created chaos in the church, and God said enough is enough, and he took them out. But that's what he says here. If you destroy God's temple, God will destroy you. That's pretty serious stuff. And it also speaks of the individual. If you disobey and reject God, you're sinning against your own body. I mean, you're going to suffer it in your body. Look at 6. Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, you are not your own, you are bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. God is serious about how we live. He's serious about how we live, and he's serious about how we live in the world. God is serious about how we live. It's amazing to me how many people are indifferent to the things of God in the church. I've told you this before, I know, but on our best Sunday at Southern Baptist, we only have 38% of our membership present in the church. 62% are not there, and that's on the best day. Average person comes every three weeks. Now, their members used to be more often than that. The point is, we are treating the church like it was the PTA. I have to go to PTA this Tuesday? Well, yeah, you got a kid in the second grade, you got to go. We kind of treat church like that. And God wants us to understand that the Holy Spirit is planted in us as believers, and God's plan for us is not complicated. It's not rocket science. The Holy Spirit lives in you, God himself dwells in you, have a strong relationship with them, pay attention, and be obedient. That's God's plan. It's not for us to figure out. Ours is to enter into a relationship with him. The Holy Spirit led the Christian movement until 313, 325 A.D., when Constantine essentially made peace with the church, legalized Christianity and a number of other of the lesser cults, as they called them in those days, and joined them with the Roman Empire. Constantine claimed to have been saved in 312 A.D. In 325, in the Edict of Milan, he freed up, made it legal to be a Christian, and it was the worst thing that ever happened to the church. Because from that point on, the Holy Spirit was not the one leading the church. We traded the Holy Spirit for the government. And the Roman Empire tried to kill the church. The persecution was brutal. It was terrible. It was savage. Couldn't kill it. The more they persecuted the church, the more they killed them, the more they came back strong. But in 325, the church joined the Roman Empire. And the success of the Roman Empire was largely attributed to the presence of Christians. And Constantine knew this, and the Roman Empire began to use the church to its own advantage. But when they did that, not only was the message and the passion and the mission of the church compromised, it removed the Holy Spirit from his place. And you can go back to 325, and you can follow it up until today. And the Holy Spirit was rejected, and the government was embraced. And you see where we are today. And I wish I had more time to just talk about that. But let me go on here. Verses of, in this passage now, he mentions immorality of women and men. Now, he mentions women first. It's kind of difficult to understand, because when Adam and Eve sin, they mention Eve first. She sinned first, and then Adam sinned. But here, the women are mentioned first. And some scholars believe that, and I think this is probably a good thing, that usually women are not the first ones to be affected by decaying morals. It's usually men. So I think the point Paul is making is that if the women are lost, they've already abandoned God. It's all over. No hope for anybody else. Men do the same thing. But the response of women to this knowledge of God, once they rejected God, is like the final blow. And the wrath of God is introduced after that. By the way, the words that says men were inflamed with lust, there are two Greek words. The word inflamed means a vivid and strong burning passion, while the word for lust speaks of grasping something with a strong and with an eager desire. Men burned with powerful but unnatural passion. Now, I'm not going to get into this morning, but I don't know how anybody can read these words and then accept homosexuality. I mean, the description of homosexuality is that it's unnatural. Now, why is it unnatural? Well, when God created man and woman, he created them to inhabit the earth, propagate the earth. He gave them sex as the means by which they would impregnate their union and babies would be born. And when we move away from understanding why we are here, see, today, sex has become something that is fun. Well, God says it's okay. It ought to be pleasurable. The Bible speaks of it that way. It's not something you need to hide. It belongs to marriage. It doesn't belong anywhere else. But the degrading of their bodies has to be dealing with the results of homosexuality, whatever that means. I'm not suggesting what that may mean. I'm just saying that God says you violate the Holy Spirit and you destroy what he put in you and what he put in the church. You destroy that and I'll destroy you. And it just simply says here that their bodies were degraded. And then he says that they received the appropriate penalty for their error. Paul was not thinking about any particular punishment, but he seems to say sin is its own punishment. You want to sin? Have at it. But you pay the consequences. I mean, you may be pardoned, but you are still guilty. You may be set free, but you're still guilty. It degrades your body. It degrades yourself. It degrades society. And he's just saying the sin that you commit, it's going to come back and haunt you because its consequences will be yours for a long time. Beginning at verse 28, we see the results of the wrath. And I'm not going to take the time to spend much time with it, but just to kind of walk through it with you again. He says that in verse 28, they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God. Now, that phrase to acknowledge God is a rather unique phrase only here and in the New Testament. It doesn't mean just to know. It means that they did not even think God was worthy of even consideration. God's just insignificant. He's unimportant. They didn't think it was worthwhile to acknowledge God, so God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they could do what is not right. They were filled with unrighteousness, which is injustice of a judge, or unrighteousness of heart and life by which you deceive other people. And then he says evil and he says greed and wickedness. They're full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, malice, gossip, slanders of God, haters of God, slanderers, haters of God, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil. What an incredible list. You notice in the middle of it, the phrase is disobedient to parents. We're living in a society that is more likely to lead us in the direction of the state raising our children rather than parents. Everything looks that way. We're codifying laws and practices that remove the parent. Now the debate is, can a child have this done to them without the parent's permission? So the parent is kind of optional. But it's interesting that in the midst of all these terrible, terrible evils, there's the little phrase disobedient to parents. Now, why would that be there? Because children who are disobedient to their parents will not likely obey anybody else. We train them in disobedience. If we allow it, if we don't deal with it, they need to know their love, but they need to know that love also requires them to behave a certain way. All of these things, they're evil upon evil. There are 21 different evils mentioned, and then he goes back and the last three or four verses, he sort of repeats them in a different form. I mean, this is bad stuff. This is what happens when you rebel against God. When you reject God. And so Paul is pleading with them to quit doing that, because you're going to end up with the last verse is significant. Although they know God's just sentence, that those who practice such deserve to die. They not only do them, but they even applaud others who practice them. This is the interesting thing about the homosexual movement today. They do not want our permission to do what they do. They want us to celebrate it with them. Can't do that. They hate to hear God loves the sinner, hates the sin. God loves the sinner, hates the sin. But the truth is, we cannot condone evil. There's nothing left out of God's sight. And so he not only, these people that decided God wasn't worthy of any attention, not only did they sin and condone sin, they began to celebrate, wanting everybody else to celebrate the sin that somebody else committed. And that is a sad commentary on our culture today. The 2932, again, just goes on and on this list of the evils. But the point is that all of these evils come because someone did not consider God worthy of any recognition and any relationship at all. And when they began in this list of sins, when they began to create objects out of created things for man to worship, idolatry was formed in a permanent way and relationship with God was abandoned. So that's kind of the bottom line of where we are in this. It's depressing to try to just go through that list. But God says these things are what happen when you reject what you know to be true. When you do that, then God's wrath is going to go into action. So is America under the wrath of God? I think so. I think just like Paul indicated, the sin itself is its punishment and God is allowing us to face it. And Jesus Christ is the only answer. The only way to escape this circle of events that seems everlasting is for Christ to break through and change the heart. Someone said you can't legislate morality. Well, that's not true because every law is somebody's moral. You can legislate morality. You just can't force it. And when we turn against God, the sin itself is going to be God's judgment upon us. I wish we had two hours. But this is probably the center of God's revelation to us because this is one that gets down to where we live, what we know, how we act. And God's wrath is real. But we don't have to face it because Jesus faced it for us on the cross. And we celebrate that. We thank God for that. We don't judge other people because that's God's problem. But we can oppose that which rejects God and we can encourage that which supports it. That's why our culture needs us. Our church needs us. Our city needs us. God needs us because he wants to use us for his glory. And the conclusion of my book is that everything God commands us is impossible for us to do. But everything he commands us is possible through the Holy Spirit who lives in us and desires to live out through us obedience to the will of God. The Holy Spirit, don't let people that seem to scare you a little bit scare you away from the Holy Spirit. He was there hovering over the watery depths. He was there by cloud by day and fire by night feeding the children out of Egypt. He's been there and he's still there. Some will reject him. Some will ignore him. Some will abuse him. Let's just believe him. Spend time with him when he tells you to do something. Yes, sir. Do it. Father, thank you that your wrath is not the opposite of your love, hates the opposite of your love. Your wrath is the result of your holiness, who you are and who you want us to be. And what you want us to be is something where it's impossible for us to be. So just as you sent Jesus to die on the cross because we couldn't save ourselves, you sent the Holy Spirit to live in us because we could never achieve and accomplish what you commanded us to do without your presence within. Thank you, Father. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen.