Norbie, Donald: Romans 2001-02 ~ Truth Suppressed

If someone were to say to you, uh, what's the theme of the book of Romans? Not sure what you would say. But as we read this chapter one, beginning verse sixteen, I think we get the theme, what this book is really about. And Paul is writing, remember, to Christians in Rome. Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire, a great city, and there were Christians there. The gospel had been carried to Rome. Uh, Christians scattered after the persecution, and the gospel spread there, and there were a number of, uh, gatherings of Christians, churches in Rome. And Paul now is writing to these Christians, and this is a tremendous book, and it's a book that is very thoughtful. It's well organized. Uh, he's, he carries you right along as he, uh, thinks through some of these areas that he's concerned that they know about, this whole matter of salvation. We're going to start reading with verse sixteen. Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest among them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is a shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error, which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. They are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them. It's a powerful passage, and the theme is given in those verses sixteen and seventeen. and the theme, of course, is salvation, and it's the gospel, the good news. How can people who are slaves of sin, eh, come to know God's salvation? And Paul, as he begins, begins by saying he's not ashamed of this message, this wonderful message, because he says it's a message that is powerful, first of all. Now we all, uh, enjoy seeing something that's powerful or having control of it. You know, young fellas like to get a car with a lot of horsepower, and they'll talk about how much power it has. You know, they, we love to feel that surge of power, and uh, we think of how this one man just recently paid twenty million dollars to take a shuttle ride up to the space station, and uh, he enjoyed a tremendous force of power, you know, fifty years ago or so. Who would have thought we could send people up into the, uh, space the way we do, or to put anyone on the moon as we did, and we we glory in the power. But you know, man, with all of this technology and all of the powerful things he can do, cannot change the heart of man, or cannot change his own heart. And so we see these people who have tremendous knowledge and, uh, are able to invent wonderful things and do great and wonderful things in this world, still not able to, uh, car- harness their own emotions and, uh, their drives and so forth, and were slaves of sin. But the gospel Paul is talking about here, he says, is the power of God to salvation. This message, he says, is able to save you, to save you from sin. When Jesus was announced, he was, uh, it was announced, you shall call his name Jesus. He will save his people from their sins. And the sin is like a, a terrible, uh, illness that man has that will utterly finally destroy him, and during this life it's very destructive. As last week, a young man who was a student at the university committed suicide. He'd been involved in a riot here, and he'd had a, uh, DUI earlier, and I don't know, but he got to the point of depression where he said, I- I'm going to take my life. Life isn't worth living. And I thought, how sad. Young man, about twenty years of age, and, uh, here he is feeling confused. He's feeling, uh, life is not worth living, and I don't know how to handle it, and he takes his own life. How terribly, terribly sad. Jesus came to save us from sin and from the penalty of sin and from the destructiveness of sin in our own lives. And so Paul says, I'm, I'm not ashamed of it. I'm proud of this message. It's the power of God to salvation. It's powerful, and then also, as we think of this, it's a message that is universal. He says for all, it's a power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. So this is a message that, uh, we can take to anyone anywhere in the world. Doesn't matter which nation or which people you may be a part of, this is a message that is effective for you. Now it's, it's wonderful to realize that this is a message now that has universal application. Wherever people are, this message can bring hope and salvation to you. And so it's something to rejoice in because it's such a wonderful, universal, uh, remedy for our problems. To all who believe. So it's universally available because there's the possibility for everyone to believe. God's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So God wants you to believe. He wants me to believe and to come to repentance. And sometimes we think, well, we repent first and then we believe. Actually, you will repent when you begin to believe. Why should I repent if I don't believe there's a God? If this all the life there is, there's nothing to repent about. When I die, then I just... that's the end. But if there's a God, and I come to believe in a God, and I'm gonna face God, well, then I need to think about, I need to repent. I need to be ready to face God, because I'm gonna stand before him one day, and I'm gonna give an account. And so I repent because I believe. I repent because I believe there's a God. I repent because I believe there's a judgment ahead. I repent because I believe there's a hell. And all of these things cause me to realize I need to change my attitude about sin, because sin will drag me down ultimately to hell. And so I repent because I, I begin to believe, and, uh, as I do this, I wish to be rid of my sin, I wish to be rid of the consequences of my sin, and I turn then in faith to him who wants to save me. To all who believe. Now, there are a lot of remedies we have today. I sometimes listen to some of these ads that you, you'll hear, and often there are disclaimers or warnings. Uh, they may say, well, no, it's a good remedy, but be sure you consult your doctor first. This is not for everyone. And, uh, you should not take this medication if you have, uh, any liver problems or if you have any heart problems. And they begin to list all the things now that this remedy, you know, is not effective for, or that may be even dangerous for you. The wonderful thing about salvation is it's for everyone. You don't have to have any disclaimer. You don't have to say, you know, this is a good message, but, you know, some of you don't qualify. If you're really a bad sinner, this won't help you. This message won't help you. If you've committed murder, for example, or if you've been sexually immoral, if you got any felonies, don't listen to this message, it won't help you. Or if you've been, uh, uh, unfaithful to your wife or your husband, uh, this message won't help. We, when we give this message, don't have to give any disclaimers. We don't have to give any warnings. We don't have to say, now this is a message that's narrow, it only applies to certain people. This is a message that the Paul says, I rejoice in because it's for everyone, Jew, Gentile, and Paul worked with a range of people. The Jews were very moral, uh, people. They had a high, high standards as far as the law was concerned. Outwardly, they were moral. They were sinners, but they weren't gross sinners like the Gentiles often that they lived among. But Paul could go into a Jewish synagogue, he could say, this message is for you. He could preach in Athens or the marketplace, and here he's surrounded by idolatry, temples all around. Here he's surrounded by people who are immoral and who are, uh, you know, really living some gross lives. He said, could say, this message is for you. Salvation, he says, for everyone. And so it's a glorious message, and he boasts in it. It's to the Jew first and also to the Greek, and he says it comes through faith. Uh, in other words, it's universally available. You don't have to go to some certain place. You don't have to be certain physical condition in order to achieve this. You know, they, uh, talk about different ones going up Mount Everest. I think there are over a thousand now that have climbed it, but I think there are close to two hundred that died trying. And, uh, probably none of us here would feel like we're quite in physical condition to attempt that tomorrow, you know? You think that's a little bit too much for me. I'm not ready for that. Most of us probably aren't anxious to try to climb Long's Peak tomorrow. Uh, but so you think of certain things like this, and you think, well, that you have to be among the elite, in a sense, to achieve it. This is a message, Paul says, for everyone, and it's a message that is linked to faith, to accepting the Lord Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and because of that, God says you can believe. If your heart is open, if you're concerned about your sin, you're not disqualified. Uh, this is for everyone who will believe, and it's possible for you to believe if your heart is open to God. It's a wonderful, wonderful message. I've talked to men who are dying and, uh, told them about the Lord Jesus, told them the gospel. Still remember one man I talked to who was dying of stomach cancer, and he was, uh, and I talked to him, I, uh, I said to him, you know, I said, you're going to be leaving life here, and I said, are you ready? He said, no, I'm not ready. I'm not ready to die. And, uh, I said, what do you think you would have to do in order to be ready? Well, he said, in our church, you have to go up to the front, and you have to pray through for several hours and cry out to God, and hopefully by the end of that time, he'll save you. And this man said, I'm too sick to get out of bed. I can't kneel down. I can't do anything. I'm dying. And he had no hope, he thought, because he couldn't go to the church, and he couldn't, uh, uh, pray through as he was told. He would have to spend hours on his knee crying out to God to save him, and hopefully then God would hear him and do it. You know, I could tell him, you, you can be saved lying in bed. You can be saved when you're facing death. You can be saved when you're so weak you can't do anything physically. You can be saved if you will turn from your sin and turn in faith to the Lord Jesus and trust him. You can be saved if you can believe. And the man said to me, I've never heard that before, but he says, I'm going to, I believe what you say is true, and I'm going to trust him. And I believe he died trusting the Lord. It's a message for everyone, he says, who believes. What a wonderful message it is. A message of God's grace and God's compassion. The truth is proclaimed when we preach the gospel. Now, as you go on in this passage, the next thing you notice is men suppress truth, and that's the, the sad thing about man's condition. It's not only that he's ignorant, but it's that he suppresses truth. He, he doesn't want to listen to it. He won't respond to it. And the reason being, it says men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. And so we don't want to hear this, we don't want to draw near to God because we don't want to change. We love our sin. You know, when we go to the jail, if we have services, if we have Bible studies, we figure we get ten percent of the men in a pod, if there are fifty men, you get five out for Bible study, you're doing pretty well. Now you'd think, well, here are all these men, they don't have anything else to do, and they're some of them facing pretty heavy charges. You'd think, boy, they would be there lined up just saying, you know, I want to, uh, uh, hear this message, and I want to be saved. But the truth is, for a lot of them, they're not interested. They suppress the truth. They don't want to hear it because they love sin and they don't want to change. And they may be facing some serious charges, but they're thinking about, boy, as soon as I get out, we're going to party, I'm going to do this. They've got it all laid out already because they love their sin, and they're suppressing truth. Now, what Paul says here is everyone knows something about God, and God's angry with sin. We don't like to hear that. We don't like to think about God being angry. It's nice to think about God being loving. Uh, it's nice to think, well, God is, is such a compassionate, loving person. He's sort of like a grandfather up there who would certainly never hurt any of us or do anything that would cause us pain or that. But he speaks here of the wrath of God, the anger of God that is, uh, revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. It makes God angry when he sees people sinning. Now, why? You might say, why does he get upset? Why does he get angry? Because sin is so destructive. It's destroying people. It's twisting people. It's defiling people. It makes God angry. You know, parents get angry when their children start doing things that they see are going to be very destructive to them. Parents get angry about it. They say, don't do that. Don't you realize what's going to happen down the road if you keep doing drugs, if you keep drinking, if whatever you're doing? And so parents get angry, and God has a concern for those that are his, uh, children by creation, made in the image of God. Uh, and he is upset, he's angry, and he he's going to punish them. The wrath of God is revealed, it says, against all unrighteousness, on the godliness of men. So that we have to realize that when you suppress truth, it's a dangerous thing. It's a terrible thing to turn your back on light and go out in the dark. And he says here, everyone, whether you've heard the gospel, whether you have a Bible or not, you know something about God. You go out into this world in which we live, and all around you, you see the beauty of God's creation. And what he's saying here is, all you need to do is open your eyes, and you know there's a God. You know, in the springtime, when you see the tulips coming up and the beauty of their flowers as they open up, you know that didn't just happen. It's, you realize behind all this beauty, all this life around you, behind your own self, behind your body, there is a being who is powerful, who is wise, who is great. There's a God. And Paul says, you ought to be concerned to get to know him and do what he wants. But instead of, uh, people responding to this, too often, he says, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And instead of giving, uh, opening up to the truth that they have and saying, Lord, show me more, I want to know more about you, you must be a wonderful God. Show me how I can be right with you, and show me how I can live for you. Instead of that, people turn their backs and say, well, you know, I'm... don't lay that religion thing on me. And, uh, they're suppressing the truth, holding it down. The figure I get of that is, you know, a wrestling match. If you see a, in a wrestling match, one guy, uh, pins the other man, he's suppressing him. He's controlling him. He's got him with his back down on the mat, and he's on top of him, and, uh, he's suppressing him. He's not allowing him to be active. And, uh, what people ought to do is, when if there's any truth that you're hearing or you know about God, you ought to respond to it. You ought to say, Lord, show me more. Tell me more. Because I want to get to know you. If you're God, I ought to get to know you, and I want to get to know you. It's a wonderful thing to get to know God. Why are sinners so afraid? Why are they so blind? I'll tell you the truth is that they're deceived. The God of this world has blinded the minds of those who believe not, Scripture says. People are deceived. People are blinded. People are confused. A young man told me this last week, who's going to be going down to prison, and it's a result of, uh, drugs and alcohol, but especially drugs. Only about nineteen or twenty, and a very agonizing young man. He's been deceived. His life's being destroyed. How sad. And so here the warning is, don't suppress truth. We ought to respond to truth. We ought to say, Lord, you're such a wonderful, great God, and there's evidence of you all around. Then I want to get to know you and follow you. Is that your attitude today? You know, is that the attitude of your heart? I know there must be a God. I want to get to know him. I want to obey him. I want to do what he would have me do. And if that's our attitude, the Lord is quick. He's ready to show us, he wants to lead us on in his truth. It's wonderful to have that kind of openness, and we have to have that openness if we're going to be saved. The first time I heard the gospel, I was a young man in high school and had gone to church, but I didn't know how to be saved. And, uh, the man who came out and gave the gospel to me for the first time. And I, I guess I was just empty. I knew I was lost, and I wasn't happy, and that my heart just opened to it. This was truth, and I just embraced it, and I accepted the Lord Jesus. And I knew I was saved that afternoon. First time I heard the gospel. Don't suppress the truth. If you're not saved, you need to be saved. You need to open your heart to the word of God and to the truth of God. So there's this suppression of truth that he talks about here. Although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, or were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts. Their foolish hearts were darkened. So they turn away from truth. They reason, they rationalize, they philosophize, they explain God away to their own satisfaction, and they begin to fall into increasing darkness. Now, what happens is you suppress the truth, the next step is you pervert the truth. You begin to twist it. Satan is not able to create anything. He hasn't created anything. All he does is take what God has created, and he twists it. He perverts it. And so this is what he, he's active doing with people who suppress the truth. If you turn away from truth, you suppress it, then it says God gives them up. God says to you, in effect, all right, I'll let you go. I'm not going to bug you anymore. I'm not going to just keep after you, uh, and that's a, that's a terrible thing. If God lets you go, if God says, all right, you're, you're determined to go your way, I'll just let you go. Not going to try to hold you. And the, the first thing that happens is, uh, now they begin to pervert religion. And, uh, they fall into idolatry. They have a perverted idea of really who God is. And so they begin to worship animals, begin to worship, uh, the sun, the moon, the stars, whatever. Uh, they're perverting the concept of God and how you get right with God. Uh, they have their own religion. So the devil has all kinds of religions out there. We're going to be moving, uh, as a fellowship into a different building in a few weeks, and we're going to be very close to two large religious structures. Impressive. Some of the largest, most beautiful buildings in town. The sad thing is, the gospel is not preached. There's nothing but darkness. And, uh, for example, uh, the Mormon Church, one of them's a Mormon Church, a twisted concept of God. They don't believe in a God who's a spirit. They believe a God who was once a man, who has a, a wife in heaven, uh, someplace up in the heavens, and who's having children. I- it's a gross, perverted idea about God. And some of the other thoughts as far as their teaching as to how you get right with God and all the rest. Perverted religion. So man then turns away, he suppresses the truth about God. Now he's going to have his own religion, he perverts it. And so often he ends up worshiping himself. Makes images of man. And so Nebuchadnezzar, you remember, in the book of Daniel, makes this huge image, gold-plated image, ninety feet tall, as I recall, and here he says, says to people, fall down and worship his image, probably an image of himself, and uh, exalting himself. The Roman emperors did that. Worship me, I'm God. Today, many people in uh, some of the oriental religions falling into this trap, and now they look in the mirror. I read of one woman who gets up every morning and looks in the mirror and says, you are God. You are God, now live like God. It's a perverted religion, very confused, suppressing the truth. Now, when you suppress the truth about God and you have a false religion, then you begin to open the gate for all kinds of perverted, uh, conduct, and this is what he describes here. God gave them up to their passions, and now you see all of this sexual perversion coming in. And it's interesting how the devil has, uh, so emphasized that. This is something that marked heathen religions, such as in the land of Israel when they went in. That's one of the reasons God said to them, wipe it out, it's so gross. Because connected with their worship was a, uh, worship of the goddess of fertility. They had temple prostitutes, sexual acts were being done in connection with their worship, and it was a gross, perverted religion. They turned away from the truth of God. And the devil loves to pervert that, because when he does that, he begins to destroy the family. It destroys that which God said when he made the relationship, man and woman, he said it's good, have children. You're married, you're one flesh, stay together, have children. God says it's good. Devil says, I'm going to destroy that. I'm going to twist it. I'm going to get men so that they're no longer satisfied with one woman, they want other women. They're no longer satisfied with a normal sexual relationship, they want the wife to perform perverted acts. Who will end up wanting to have relationships with men instead of women? And the devil has perverted the whole thing, and it's gross today. And pornography abounds. And, uh, the emphasis in our country is uh, just terribly, terribly wicked. A man told me not too long ago was facing prison. Uh, he said, you know, he ended up, he was messing with his stepdaughter. He said, it started with me with pornography. He said, I was just feeding my mind on that stuff, feeding it and feeding it and feeding it until it became such an obsession with him. Here he's messing with his own stepdaughter. How sad. That's perversion. Perverting. Not creating, not making anything beautiful. The devil didn't create male and female, God did. He instituted marriage. The devil says, let me come in and I'm gonna twist it. I'm going to break up that marriage, and I'm going to just cause them to begin to live worse than animals and do things that animals don't do. And the devil is a great perverter. So he, he especially attacks marriage. He attacks this sexual relationship, and he wants to destroy that which God says is beautiful. It's something beautiful when a man and a woman take their vows and are committed to one another and have a secure relationship and have children. That's a beautiful thing, God says. Scripture says the marriage bed is undefiled. It's honorable. But it's a gross thing. It's something that is ugly when that's left. Notice how Paul describes it. He describes it as vile passions. He describes it leaving the natural use. Uh, he describes it as something that's shameful and, uh, ugly, not something beautiful at all. He says it's a debased mind. And then he goes on to describe all these other sins. You turn away from God. All of these other sins, some of us what we call sins of the spirit, gossip, envy, pride, jealousy, whispers, backbiters, he says, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, disobedient to parents, just a rejection of authority. And then as a result of this, darkness coming in more and more into people's minds. So he says, you're undiscerning. You can't even tell what's right or what's wrong. You are so utterly confused because you've suppressed the knowledge of God. The city of San Francisco now is going to pay for people to have transsexual operations. It is utterly bizarre. Taxpayers' money are being used for that which is evil, and they're justified. We owe it to them as a community because that's what they want to do. Now, that's a complete lack of discernment. Those people don't have their heads on straight. They are crazy when they're talking that way. And so he points out you're undiscerning, you're untrustworthy. People don't trust one another out there anymore. Uh, who can you believe? Who can you trust? Untrustworthy, unloving, selfish, unforgiving, unmerciful. So he paints here a dark picture of what's happened when people have suppressed the knowledge of God, and when they've, uh, perverted their ideas about God, and then when they've begun to show in their lives perverted standards and morals, and they just go down, down, down, down, until he says, now you're at the bottom, and, uh, you've lost any moral sense. You even enjoy and encourage people who are doing the same gross things. You're not ashamed of it anymore. No sense of shame. You take pleasure in seeing others sin. You enjoy seeing others get into the same gross things you're doing. And Paul here points out what a tragic, tragic thing it is. No wonder God's angry. No wonder he's angry. He made the man and the woman to stand up straight and to live honorably, and here they're living, people are living worse than animals. Don't have as much care for their offspring as animals do. You see a mother animal, you know, will fight for her young. If you're out in the mountains, you don't want to get between a mother bear and her cubs. I mean, you're in danger because everything in her says, I'm going to protect those cubs, and I want to see them raised, and I'm, I'll die for them if need be. But today, what do we do? Homes are broken up, mothers leave their children, mothers have abortions, kill their children before they're born. And, uh, no wonder the Lord's angry. Says the wrath of God is revealed. Now that's the world in which we live. But Paul says, you know, we've got a wonderful message. We go to the sinner whose life is so confused, he's so blind, and he's so on a pathway of self-destruction, and we say to him, there's hope. God loves you, and Christ died for you, and you can be forgiven, and God's power can come into your life, and God can begin to change, and God can begin to make you a beautiful person instead of someone who is ugly and twisted and defiled by sin. That's a wonderful message. Wonderful message. Paul says, I'm not ashamed of it. It's a great message. And you know, as Christians too, we don't need to be ashamed of it. And if you're here today and you've never accepted the Lord Jesus, I don't know where you are, I don't know what you've done, but I know God loves you, and I know Christ died for you, and I know you can be forgiven, if only you'll turn from your sin and open your heart to him and say, Lord Jesus, save me. I'm a sinner, but I believe you love me and died for me. If you do that, God says, I'll forgive you. I'll take you into my family. I'll be with you. I'll never leave you. And at the end of life, I'll take you home to heaven. Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's a glorious message.