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The Downward Spiral

Rom. 1:18-32
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth
by their unrighteousness

(Rom 1:18)

P
aul began his letter to the Romans talking about the
power of the Gospel message and how he was so excited
to preach it. But in order for us to catch that excitement
and understand it’s power, we have to really get an idea
of why the Gospel is needed.

We all understand how horrible cancer is. We have an idea of how

many people it’s affected. We all have watched as cancer devastated
loved ones. We get it.. We know how awful cancer is.

This is the beginning of a 3 part lesson on the topic of sin. In

Romans, Paul spent a lot of ink to describe sin and show that “there
is no one righteous, not even one” Why did he labor so hard to make
the point? After all, he’s writing to Christians.

To understand the cure and how badly it’s needed, we MUST

know the severity of the disease.

I almost feel like I should apologize for spending so much time on
this. It’s not going to be pleasant. It won’t be fun. But, I think it is
necessary. We need to get the message. We need to understand:

1. Where we came from.

2. That we are still sick people and still need treatment.
3. That those people out there are really terminal.
Romans In Focus

Paul divides up the world in 3 groups and proceeds to put each

group on trial in order to show that we ALL stand guilty before God.
My labels for these 3 would be: The Heathen, The “Good Person”,
and The Jew. Today, we’ll be looking at Paul’s first and easiest case
to prosecute.

God Makes Himself Known to ALL Men

(18-20)

“God has made it plain” (19) Natural Revelation. God isn’t hiding.
It’s not hard to find Him. Look around! He’s all around us. Creation
is a witness to God… not just evidence that He’s there. But I believe
that part of the reason God created the universe as it is, is so that HE
would be obvious. Think about it… creation is so much bigger and
grander than is necessary. He is an extravagant Creator!

The heavens declare God’s glory; the sky displays his handiwork.
Day after day it speaks out; night after night it reveals his greatness.
There is no actual speech or word, nor is its voice literally heard. Yet
its voice echoes throughout the earth; its words carry to the distant
horizon. In the sky he has pitched a tent for the sun.
(Psalms 19:1-4)

During college I really started to realize this. Science and

psychology teachers tell me how the body, the brain, and earth, itself
are all such intricate systems. Each small part works so precisely
to work together as a whole. It’s so amazing. And of course, their
underlying explanation is that it all happened by chance. Believe
me, the more you learn about creation, the more ridiculous it sounds
to say that there is no God.

“God‘s invisible qualities” (20) God, Himself isn’t visible and

there is a lot that we can’t know about God unless He tells us. but
 Chapter 2

there are some conclusions we can make from creation. What can
we learn about God by studying creation?

“eternal power” Can you create the universe? It takes

someone with tremendous power. That power must be eternal…
and once the universe was created, it has to be maintained.

“divine nature.“ not just some powerful person. by definition,

creation demands a creator, thus God.

Something to Think About:

A common objection is “What about those who’ve never heard

the Gospel? Does God really send them to Hell if they’ve never
had a chance to hear about salvation? Well, we have to be careful
in speculating, but it’s clear that they can know something. We
know that God is perfectly good and He is perfectly just and we
can trust Him with this problem. But, I’m sure of one thing: IF
anyone seriously wants to know who God is (and not just the god
he imagines) God WILL reveal himself.
Lately, there have been numerous accounts of Muslim men and
women coming to Christ in very “unconventional”ways. Amazing
stories have filtered out of Iran and other countries completely
closed to the Gospel telling about people who have become
believers without ever having contact with another Christian.
Most often this is a result of Jesus appearing in their dreams.
This sort of thing happens more than one might imagine. God
does find a way to reveal Himself to those who have never heard
of Him. The book, “Eternity In Their Hearts” by Don Richardson
is full of stories about how The Lord prepared various tribes and
people groups to hear the Gospel long before a missionary arrived.
I highly recommend this exciting book.
Romans In Focus

Something else to note: This revelation is given to ALL men. We

all have the same universe to look at. It’s always been there. No one
was left out and no one has the excuse that they had no idea that an
eternally powerful God exists.

Men Ignore God’s Revelation (21-23)

Although men have plenty of evidence of God, many still refuse to

believe He even exists (or live as if He doesn’t) It’s not a matter of
too little evidence or info. It always comes down to the will.

The Attitude:

They refuse to glorify Him - acknowledge who He is
They refuse to give thanks - acknowledge what He’s given

We, as believers know who He is & what He’s given us, but do we
always keep it in mind? Do we, in effect, fail to acknowledge Him?

Leading to:

“Futile thinking” - useless, unproductive, vain

“Darkened hearts” - insensitive to God
“Claimed to be wise, they became fools” We may be tempted
to think that Paul is talking about ignorant and uneducated savages
but that’s not necessarily the case. Greek and Jewish thought were
totally opposed when it comes to wisdom.

Greek: knowledge, ideas, philosophy. A wise person was someone

who learned a lot.
Jewish: knowing right & doing right. To a Jew, the most foolish
person was someone who knew what God demands and yet failed
to do it.
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The Results

Everyone has a built-in need to worship. If you refuse to worship

God, what do you do?

Replacing God Isn’t it ironic how they totally closed their minds
to revelation from the true God and make their own gods? It’s too
hard for them to believe that the true God exists, but they have no
problem carving a statue & calling that god.

“worshipped the created rather than the Creator” Paul was right
when he said they were fools. Isaiah chapt. 9 exposed this kind
of thinking. Isaiah’s take is really rather humorous - give it a read.
Notice the trade off in these verses:

Glory of the immortal God / images made to look like mortal

man (and animals)
Truth of God / lie (what lie?)

Of course modern, civilized man doesn’t worship idols, do they?

God Gave Them Up (24-32)

Vs. 18 says that God is continually revealing His wrath on sinful

men. How does God judge sin? He takes His hands off and allows
them to go their own way! Amazing! He doesn’t rain down fire &
brimstone, He doesn’t strike them dead. He says, in effect, “if that’s
what you want, go for it.”

We sometime think of sin as an item on an arbitrary list of things

we’re not supposed to do. But there’s a reason why God doesn’t
want us to do them. He’s not some killjoy, looking down for someone
who’s having fun so He can ruin the party. When He says “Don’t”,
Romans In Focus

He means, “Don’t hurt yourself” He understands that those things

are harmful to us, even if we sometimes don’t understand that.

“to the sinful desires of their hearts” (24-25) sexual impurity

and idolatry. Our desires are really about relationships, aren’t they.
We pervert a healthy relationship into all sorts of sexual sin. We
pervert a right relationship with God into idolatry.

”to shameful lust” (26-27) Do all people who ignore God become
homosexuals? No. I would even argue that it’s not any worse than
other sexual sins. Paul shows the downward spiral as graphically
as possible. He cites homosexuality as a clear example of how far
sinful men will plummet.

“to a depraved mind” (28-32) What happens when you toss

out the knowledge of God? You get a depraved mind. And it’s out
of that mindset that all sorts of evil comes. Again, it’s the disease
(sinful nature) not the symptom (sinful acts). It’s not my sin that
makes me a sinner… I commit sin because I’m a sinner. That’s my
nature… at least that WAS my nature.

Something to Think About:

When I read this list of sins, I find something shocking…. I’m

guilty of several! I’m included in this list of sins from the vilest
forms of anti-God people.
Of course we read the list and we rank them. Murder (that’s
bad), God-Hater (that’s really bad), envious (ehh not so bad),
disobedient to parents (not all that bad) We think of our sins as
minor and when we grade ourselves, we make a passing grade.
We also read the list and are driven to judgment and
condemnation. Paul was driven to evangelism. Is that our heart
too?
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So What?

1 Are we responding to God’s revelation? Not only Creation, but

also His Word?

2. Do we acknowledge God in everything that we say, think, or

do?

3. Do we really understand how destructive sin is… even our

own?