Reasons for the
Wrath of God
Part 3
by
John MacArthur, Jr.
All Rights Reserved
(A copy of this message on cassette tape may be obtained by calling
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Romans 1:22 Tape
GC 45-12
Let’s look together this evening at the first chapter of Romans, Romans
chapter 1. Examining again verses 19 through 23.
I sense tremendous amount of interest in the passage. There’s a great amount of
interest in my own heart in discovering all the depth of truth that God has in
this particularly significant text. And I can tell too by your response that you
are equally excited about what you are learning.
We’re looking at verses 18 really through 23. Paul introduces the Gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ with a direct statement about the wrath of God. That’s where
the Good News has to begin; it has to begin with the bad new first. Let’s remind
ourselves of these verses by following along as I read beginning in verse 18.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness, Because that
which maybe known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shown it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made, even his excuse; Because, eternal
power and Godhead, so that they are without when they knew God, they glorified
him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations,
and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves 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 beasts, and creeping things.”
This is how Paul begins the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ. The wrath
of God is revealed against all ungodliness. Our Lord had more to say about
judgment, more to say about destruction, more to say about damnation, and more
to say about hell than anybody else recorded in Scripture. And if you think it
unusual that this great epistle on the doctrine of salvation opens with this
statement about judgment it’s because you really haven’t thought very long about
how the whole New Testament opens. Because as you enter the New Testament you
enter first at the Gospel of Matthew, and I want you to turn there for a moment,
I want to introduce our thoughts by a rapid tour through Matthew’s Gospel. And I
want you to see a repeated focus that our Lord gives in this Gospel, and
remember this is the introduction, this is the opening of the New Testament.
And you find for example in chapter 3 verse 7, “When he saw many of the
Pharisees and Sadducees come for baptism, he said unto them, 0 generation of
vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Verse 11, John
further says, John the Baptist, “I, indeed, baptize you with with water unto
repentance, but you cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not
worthy to bear; he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire; Whose
fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat
into the granary, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Chapter
5 verse 22, “But I say unto you that whosoever is angry,” and the Lord is
speaking now, “with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of judgment;
and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council;
but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” Verse 29,
“If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is
profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole
body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut if off,
and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members
should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” Chapter 7,
verse 22, “Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name? And in thy name have cast out demons? And in thy name done many
wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart
from me, ye that work iniquity.” Chapter 8 verse 12, “But the sons of the
kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.” Chapter 10, verse 15, “Verily I say unto you, It shall be
more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than
for that city.” Verse 28, “And fear not them who kill the body, but are not able
to kill the soul; but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body
in hell.” Chapter 12, verse 36, the Lord continues to speak, “But I say unto you
that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account of it in the
Day of Judgment.” Verse 41, “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this
generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of
Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the south shall
rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for she came
from the farthest parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold,
a greater than Solomon is here.” And of course in that passage the Lord is
speaking of a comparable judgment. In chapter 13 verse 40, “As, therefore, the
tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of the age.
The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his
kingdom all things that offend, and them who do iniquity, and shall cast them
into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Verse 49,
“So shall it be at the end of the age; the angels shall come forth, and separate
the wicked from among the righteous, and cast them into the furnace of fire;
there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Chapter 16, verse 26, “For what
is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or
what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Chapter 18 verse 34, “And his
lord was angry, and delivered him to the inquisitors,” actually the Greek word
for inquisitors is the word torturer, “till he should pay all that was due unto
him.” A picture of judgment. Chapter 22, and you have in chapter 22 in the
parable of the marriage feast, verse 7, the king hearing, being angry, “and he
sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.”
In verse 13, “The king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take
him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth.” And God is seen as the King in judgment. Chapter 23, verse 33, our
Lord says, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the
damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send (you) unto you prophets, and wise
men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them
you shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city, That
upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of
righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between
the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come
upon this generation.” Chapter 24, verse 50, “The lord of that servant,” again
parabolically representating God, “shall come in a day when he looketh not for
him, and in an hour that he’s not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and
appoint him his portion with the hypocrites; there shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth.” Finally chapter 25 verse 26, and again in parable, “The lord answers
and said, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I
sowed not, and gather where I have not spread? Thou oughtest, therefore, to put
my money to the exchangers, and then, at my coming, I should have received mine
own with interest. Take, therefore, the talent from him, and give it unto him
who hath ten talents. For every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have
abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he
hath. And cast that unprofitable servant into outer darkness; there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Now that’s about enough to get the message,
isn’t it?
Now what (a) point am I trying to make? Now listen carefully, I want you to
understand that there is no guile in the heart of our Lord as the message of the
New Testament is given. It is clear from the very beginning that God is a God of
judgment, that God is a God of wrath, that God is a God who punishes sin, and
predominately that message is uttered by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And by
the way, that is precisely how the New Testament ends, the way it began. “And,
behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as
his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first
and the last. Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have right
to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For
outside are dogs, and sorcerers, and fornicators, and murderers, and idolaters,
and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. And I testify to every man that hears the
words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God
shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; And if any man
shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away
his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things
which are written in this book.” Listen, the New Testament begins with warnings
of judgment and that is precisely the way it ends. And so we are not surprised
as we approach the Epistle to the Romans to find the Apostle Paul beginning his
Gospel presentation with a statement warning men about God’s wrath. It begins
right here in verse 18 where he begins to delineate his message, the first
seventeen verses being introductory, and he opens up with a statement of the
wrath of God.
Now we’ve already begun to study this and we have asked ourselves that oft asked
question, is God just, is He fair in such judgment, does He have a right to such
wrath and such acts of vengeance? And the answer comes in verses 19 through 23,
and consequently it is a very crucial passage, because people very often
criticize the God of the Bible by saying that He’s unfair, He’s overbearing,
He’s judgmental, He’s condemning, how can a God of love send people to hell? And
so forth and at the very outset Paul speaks of His wrath and then defends God’s
right to act in that manner.
Now we’re looking then in verses 19 to 23 at reasons for the wrath of God. A
sequence of reasons given by Paul that also parallel the decline and fall of
man. Now from the beginning I mentioned there are four basic reasons why God’s
wrath is vindicated, is justified, is right, and these also chronicle the
decline of man.
Number one, we titled the word revelation, and in verses 19 and 20 we learned
that God has a right to be angry “Because that which may be known of God is
manifest in men; for God has shown it unto them.” From the invisible things of
His nature which men could never see, there is still accountability because God
has revealed Himself in His created world, and that’s what verse 20 is saying.
By the things that are made God is manifest, so that men are without excuse. So
the first reason that God can act in judgment against man is because men have
been given the truth of God. And as we showed if they had lived up to the light
that God had given them He would have given them more light. God has been
revealed in His creation. And I only remind you of two very essential
comparative passages, the first being in the 14th chapter of Acts in verse 15
where Paul says, “We are men of like passions, we preach unto you that you
should turn from these vanities,” that is from false gods, “to serve the living
God, who made heaven, and earth, and sea, and the things that are in them. He
has not left himself (Paul says) without witness, in that he did good, and gave
us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and
gladness.” In other words the God of creation has manifested His nature, and
that nature is visible in His created world. And then in the 17th chapter of
Acts an equally essential passage. In verse 23 Paul passes by a particular
inscription on an idol, “To the unknown God.” And he decides that he ought to
tell them who that is. And he says, that is the true God, the real God. Verse
24, “The Lord of heaven and earth.” And then in verse 27 he says, “If you seek
him, you’ll find him, because he’s not far from every one of us. For in him we
live, and move, and have our being.” And so the New Testament tells us that God
is revealed in His creation. In fact it even goes further in John 1:9 to say,
“Christ is the light, coming into the world to light every man.” God has
disclosed Himself in His created order to everyone. Therefore man is responsible
for the revelation of God’s truth.
Now if men...and I want you to understand this, if men will accept the light
they have, affirm that light, believe that light then I believe God will give
them more light to bring them to the knowledge of Christ. And it’s important at
this juncture to say this; nobody is ever saved short of faith in Jesus Christ.
No one can be saved apart from Christ. “Neither is there salvation in (what?)
any other.” Only in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we must reach
people with the name of Christ. You say, well what about those people who are
off in some remote place? If they live up to the light they have I believe God
will allow them to hear the message to be saved. And He does that of course by
His sovereign, sovereign predetermined, predestined grace as He reaches out to
redeem men. And He will bring, if you will the elect to Himself, and He will
give them the privilege of hearing. You see the great commission tells us to go
and preach and go and make disciples of every nation, go and preach the Gospel
to every creature and that assumes that they must hear the Gospel of Christ. Men
are judged and sent to hell not because they didn’t live up to the light they
had, but because they rejected Christ, that’s John 16. The Spirit has come into
the world to convict the world because they have not believed in Jesus Christ,
that is the cardinal sin. And so they must hear of Christ. But I believe if they
live up to the light they have in God’s wonderful sovereign grace He’ll bring
them the message of Christ, through a missionary, through a book, through any
means He wants, maybe even through an angel, who knows? In some isolated case.
People who always wonder about the, the heathen must find their answer in the
character and the nature and the power of God, He’s not limited. He is just and
“He is merciful, and believe me He’ll find that true seeking heart. The Old
Testament says, “If you seek me with all your heart (you’ll what?) you’ll find
me.” You’ll find Me. And God is sovereign and whoever He draws and whoever He
calls He will allow to hear the message. But may I hasten to add, don’t think
that if people aren’t saved God isn’t just because none of us deserve it. So
we’re not looking at the goodness of man as if that were the issue, we’re
looking at the mercy of God. So I believe that there’s enough light for every
man, and if men live up to that light God will get them the message by His
sovereign power. “So that all that the Father gives to me” said Jesus, “shall
(what? shall) come to me, and I’ve lost none of them.”
So we see then that in verses 19 and 20 the first reason for judgment being
justified is that men have the revelation. Second reason, rejection. Men have
turned away from that revelation, and verse 21 says it, “When they knew God,
they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their
imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” They turned away from it.
When they knew God. How did they know God? Well based on verses 19 and 20, they
knew God because of His creating the world and all that is in it and thus
disclosing His nature in His creation. They were without excuse and yet they
turned, and what was the key? “They glorified him not as God.” They refused to
give God glory and we went into that in some measure of detail last time so we
won’t go over it again. But that is the cardinal definition of man’s rejection,
they will not glorify God. And that’s the issue. Men don’t respond to God. Now
we shouldn’t be so surprised when Christ came into the world, God in human
flesh, that they didn’t respond to Him either, and they refused to glorify
Christ. Because that’s how it is with fallen man. He refuses to glorify God. And
really it’s an ego trip; he seeks rather to glorify himself.
Now, we went into some detail last time talking about God’s effort to get men to
glorify Him, and I, I thought to myself, you know there may be some question in
the mind’s of some people as to what it means to glorify God, to give Him honor
and so forth and so on. But practically let’s assume that we’re Christians and
we say, no we glorify God, ah, we’re not like those people in Romans 1, we are
contrasted, we are set to glorify God. Truly we desire to do that. What is it
that we do in doing that? If, if we know what it is to glorify God we can know
what it is not to glorify God, right? By contrast. So what does it mean to
glorify God?
Now hang onto your seat I’m going to give (you) to you fast. I’ve covered this
in a, in a series some years ago but it is utterly important material, maybe the
most important I’ve ever preached, and I’m going to run it by real fast. How do
men glorify God? How do you and I glorify God? Number one, by confessing Jesus
as Lord. That’s where it all begins. In Philippians 2:9, “God has highly exalted
him, given him a name above every name, That at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, of things in heaven, things in earth, and things under the earth.
And every tongue should confess (listen) that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God.” To begin with we glorify God by confessing Christ as Lord, that’s where
it all starts. And that is precisely what the world will not do. They will not
acknowledge the Lordship of Christ any more than they would acknowledge the
Lordship of sovereign God in the Old Testament era. They refuse to do that, be
it God in the Old Testament, be it Christ in the New. There’s a second way we
glorify God, we glorify God by living for that purpose. In other words, our
entire life goal is set in that direction. That is precisely the meaning of
First Corinthians 10:31, “Whether, you eat or drink,” and he picks out the two
most mundane, routine, elemental aspects of life, eating and drinking which are
just very neutral sort of nonreligious things, but he says, even that, “or
whatever else you do, do all to the (what?) glory of God.”
Now that simply means that in all of the activities of life we do what we do to
honor God. Is that how people live in our world, is that their focus? Oh no. Oh
they are not anxious to do that at all, they are not even interested in what
glorifies God. But that is to be the focus of our life. In other words we aim at
that, at any price. In fact the Lord even said to Peter, you’re going to die,
and the writer John says, “This spoke he, signifying by what death he should
glorify God.” John 21. So glorifying God for Peter was dying, being willing to
pay the supreme price of his own life in order to give God glory. How do we
glorify God? First, confessing Jesus as Lord, secondly, aiming our life at that
goal no matter what it costs us.
Thirdly, we glorify God by confessing our sin. In Joshua 7:19 Joshua approached
Achan who had stolen things from Jericho and been told not to do that, God had
said that was forbidden but he had stolen those things and Joshua says to him,
get this, “Give glory to the God of Israel, and confess your sin.” Confession of
sin glorifies God. You say, how so? Now listen carefully, because when you sin
God will react in a holy manner, and when you sin there’s chastening. But if you
admit the sin, you affirm the fact that you deserve the chastening, so when God
chastens you you’re not going to accuse Him of being unjust. You see when you
deny your sin then you’ll also deny that God has a right to chasten you and then
you’ll impugn His character by saying He’s unfair. And so Joshua said to Achan,
you confess your sin because you’re just about to die, and when you die and
everybody who was implicated with you, we want it to be known that you’re dying
justly because you have violently and willfully sinned against God. We then
glorify God by admitting our sin and that is something the world will not do.
First John 1 says that is characteristic of men to say, “we have no sin, and
make God a (what? a) liar.” To the world will not confess Jesus as Lord, they
will not aim their life at the glory of God, they will not confess their sin and
that is expressed in the statement, “they glorified him not as God.” They’re not
interested in life on God’s terms.
Fourthly, we glorify God by trusting in Him. In the 4th chapter of Romans and
the 20th verse, it says, “He staggered not” speaking of Abraham, “He staggered
not at the promise of God through unbelief,” when God said, you’re going to have
a baby and he was a hundred and Sarah was ninety, it would have been easy to
doubt, but “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was
strong in faith, which gave glory to God.” You know what glorifies God? When you
believe Him. That’s right, when you believe Him. When you believe His word, when
you believe what He says. Unbelievers don’t believe that, they’re not interested
in what God says, they don’t believe the Scriptures, they don’t believe God’s
trustworthy, they will not place their life in His care, they will not trust Him
for destiny. They will not glorify Him. And it goes from there. We glorify God
by praising Him, that’s another one. Psalm 50:23 says, “Who so offereth praise
glorifieth me.” We glorify God when we praise Him, unbelievers won’t do that.
Another one, we glorify God when we pray, John 14, “If you ask anything in my
name,” “I will do it.” “That the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 14:13
and 14. Prayer gives God an opportunity to be glorified and men do not pray
because they do not seek God’s glory. In First Peter 4:10 and 11 it says,
minister your gift to the glory of God. And what it’s talking about is gifts of
service and gifts of speaking. Serve the body to God’s glory, serve the church
selflessly. Men aren’t interested in that, they’re not interested in serving one
another let alone the church. In Second Thessalonians 3:1 it says ... Paul says,
that when he proclaims the Word it gives glory to God. The unbelievers don’t do
that.
In First Corinthians chapter 6 it says, that we are not to be joined to a
prostitute or a harlot, that we are to care for our body with holiness, “for our
body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, what know ye not? That you are bought
with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are
God’s.” And that means we glorify God by moral purity. You see the Bible is very
clear about how to glorify God. You glorify God by confessing Christ as Lord, by
aiming your life at that purpose; you glorify God by confessing your sin, by
trusting Him, by praising Him, by praying to Him, by ministering to His people,
by proclaiming His Word, by being morally pure and also in Second Corinthians
4:15 Paul tells us we glorify God by winning people to Jesus Christ, the world
isn’t interested in that, they don’t even know how to do it. And we find in John
15:8 that we glorify God by bearing much fruit, the fruit of righteousness. You
see that’s the positive side, that’s what it means to glorify God, but the
rejecters of this world are ‑ are not interested in that. They will not believe
in Jesus Christ, they will not confess Him as Lord, they will not aim their
lives at God’s glory, they will not confess the guilt of their sin, they will
not trust, they will not bear spiritual fruit, they will not praise, they will
not pray, they will not minister to God’s people, they have no concern for the
lost and utterly no moral purity. And so they live in violent and direct
opposition to that which glorifies God. They will not do that. And that is the
characterization of all of the human race, apart from regeneration, “For all
have sinned and fallen short (of what?) glorifying God.” They just don’t do
that. And neither are they thankful, Paul says in chapter 1 verse 21, they’re
not thankful. Why would they be thankful? They don’t see God as the source of
anything. And lack of thanksgiving is a terrifying desecration and blasphemy
against the name of God who gives us all good things. But men are not thankful.
I think about Luke 17 so often about the lepers that came and Jesus cleansed
them all, and how many came back? There were ten, how many came back and said
thanks? One, and Jesus said to him, you’re saved. The other nine were just
physically whole. Only one was thankful. Men refuse to glorify God. And the real
issue is they seek to glorify themselves. Let me give you an illustration now,
Daniel chapter 4. This guy that I want you to meet in Daniel 4 is
Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest monarch in the history of the world, as far as the
world is concerned, apart from God’s dominion. Nebuchadnezzar the king of the
kingdom of gold, Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar, who was the superior to any other
king. And he refused to glorify God, was not interested in it. In fact he was so
caught up in his own glory that verse 30 says, “He spoke, and said,” Daniel 4,
“Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by
the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?”
Now he didn’t restrain his ego at all. I mean he just let’s it all fly. And he’s
wandering through his palace yelling at the top of his voice, look what I have
done for my own majesty. “While the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a
voice from heaven, saying, 0 King Nebuchadnezzar,” and whenever you hear that
coming out of heaven you’re in deep trouble, “to thee it is spoken, The kingdom
is departed from thee.” That is enough. You know there comes a time in the
patience of God when the door goes slammed shut, and He can only take so much.
“And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts
of the field; they shall make thee to eat grass like oxen, and seven times shall
pass over thee, until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men,
and giveth it to whomsoever he will.” Until you get it straight who God is
you’re going to be a wild maniac, you’re going to eat grass like an oxen. “And
the very same hour was the thing fulfilled on Nebuchadnezzar,” instantaneously
this greatest monarch of the world lost his mind, became a raving maniac, “was
driven from men,” because they couldn’t handle him, “he ate grass like oxen, his
body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’
feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.” Seven years of insanity. “And at the
end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine
understanding returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and
honored him who liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and
his kingdom is from generation to generation.” It’s my guess that you’ll see
Nebuchadnezzar in heaven but he sure learned the hard way, that God is to be
glorified, because men don’t do that.
Now what happens? Is it always so to be? Yes, always. Even as you go to the end
of the New Testament into the Book of Revelation you find the same basic
attitude. In Revelation 14 verse 6, “An angel flies in the midst of heaven, has
the everlasting gospel.” Now the everlasting gospel is a very interesting term,
I believe it is simply the news from God that God judges sin and rewards
righteousness. That is the permanent message, and this angel is preaching it,
and what does he say in verse 7? “Fear God, and give (what?) glory to him;
(why?) for the hour of his judgment is come; and worship him that made heaven,
and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” And God calls on the world
to worship, to give Him glory. But as you know, if you know anything about the
Book of Revelation they don’t respond. Over in chapter 15 verse 4 it says, “Who
shall not fear thee, 0 Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy.” And
this is the message all through the Bible, that men refuse to glorify God.
Now what happens? Back to verse 21. What happens? Well, “they became vain in
their imaginations.” Literally empty, useless, human dialogue resulted. They
went from truth to emptiness, and then from emptiness as we saw last time,
“their foolish heart was darkened.” Emptiness created a vacuum and it sucked in
darkness.
Now what is darkness? What kind of darkness? What do we mean? Well, the empty
imaginations, just to remind you of last time, simply means meaningless musings,
meaningless thoughts, useless human dialogue. In fact the word is dialogismos,
for uh, imaginations, human dialoguing, human debate, human discussion, human
information, empty words. And into the emptiness and the vacuum comes rushing
the darkness. And darkness in the Bible is seen in two ways, first is
intellectual and second is moral, and I don’t have the time tonight but if we
did we could trace that. You will find throughout Scripture darkness picturing
intellectual ignorance and you will find it also picturing moral perversity. And
you find it all over the Old Testament and all over the New Testament as well.
Darkness refers to intellectual ignorance, the absence of truth and the absence
of righteousness, moral perversion. That is precisely what happens. Man says no
to God, he will not glorify God, he decides that he’s going to spin off his own
musings and in his big empty nothingness that comes out of his own mind he
creates a vacuum that sucks in intellectual blackness and moral perversion. And
so man has forfeited understanding, he’s forfeited virtue. Well that is why the
philosophies of this world tend toward immorality, they have no restraint power,
they are ... they’re basically intertwined with immorality. The worldly
philosophies accommodate immorality because they both come out of the darkness
of hell itself.
Now all the vain imaginations of man will give you is a legacy of darkness,
darkness intellectually and darkness morally. All the philosophies of the world
will leave you with nothing but that. Look with me very rapidly at Colossians
chapter 2 and I’ll show you why. Colossians chapter 2 verse 8, now this is right
straight from the Holy Spirit through Paul. “Beware lest any man spoil you,” and
the verb for spoil is a very rare verb used of kidnapping someone, plundering a
house or seducing and ravaging a young girl. Don’t let anybody kidnap you,
seduce you, plunder you, “through philosophy.” Now that’s fairly clear, isn’t
it? Human wisdom, the theories of God and man, the theories of truth, spun out
of the empty imaginations of a darkened heart. When anyone comes to me and says,
well I’m going to take philosophy. All, all I ever think about is this passage,
Colossians 2:8. You’re going to come out kidnapped, plundered and ravaged,
because you’ve given yourself over to the useless musings of blackened hearts
who do not know truth and do not know morality. It is vain deceit, and I believe
that phrase describes philosophy, it is an empty illusion, it purports to be
something, it is nothing, but that which can ravage the soul. It is after the
tradition of men, that is it is human, it is from the level of inadequate human
thinking, and it embodies the rudiments of the world, and those are...that is a
phrase used several times, it means the basic elements of human wisdom, the
infantile poverty stricken opinions of a world full of fools. Philosophy doesn’t
advance you, philosophy doesn’t give you something deep, profound. Philosophy
doesn’t give you something new; it is a regression to the basic perversions of
the human mind, devoid of God and lost in the blackness of sin. So man will
reject revelation, and he’ll be left with a legacy of darkness.
And that will lead him to step three, we finally got there. Step three,
rationalization. Get comfortable, I’m going to finish this, I think.
Rationalization, this is fascinating. You can see right here the fall of man.
The third reason God has a right to judge them is rationalization, verse 22,
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” Here they are, they have
said no to revelation, they have utterly rejected the truth, they are left with
empty, meaningless human philosophy, their dark hearts are filled with deceit,
and they announce that they are wise.
Now that is rationalization. The futility, resulting in the loss of touch with
reality, they don’t even know what wisdom is anymore. They’ve obviated the
standard. Man doesn’t think right about anything, why should he think right
about how he thinks? He doesn’t think right about anything else. He refuses to
accept truth, so in effect he destroys the power to discriminate, do you
understand that now? You know sometimes when I listen to the philosophers and I
read all the garbage and I hear all these people talking about what they believe
and what is right and what is wrong, it’s very frustrating to me, and you say to
yourself, how could they ever think that way? And you have to remember that they
think illogically. They have abandoned any right to think properly, so
everything is going to come out wrong. They have no power to discriminate, they
cannot perceive truth, they cannot perceive error.
You know ah, years ago Christians decided they had to believe in evolution,
because they were intimidated by the philosophers who taught evolution. And so
immediately they looked for places in the Christian system where you could put
evolution, and we still believe in creation and God started it and then
evolution took over, and they came up with what is known as quote, unquote
theistic evolution or progressive creationism. And it was an accommodation
because people were intimidated by the rationalization of a whole fools who
didn’t know the truth anyway. What about liberal theology? More schools and
churches have been ruined by the theology of liberals because people have been
intimidated by their supposed intellectualism when they don’t know anything.
They are fools. They live in the ultimate insanity believing they’re wise. And
then today it’s psychology. People think that psychologists have all the
answers. They don’t have the answers, don’t be intimidated by them. Men think
they’re smart when they’re utter fools. By the way, you might be interested to
know that the word here, “they became fools.” is moraino, from which we get
moron. Men are morons, but they think they’re wise. What an incredible
deception. Do you know what they are? They’re wise all right, but their wisdom
is limited to one sphere. They are wise in their own conceits. Do you know what
that means? They are wise only in their own conceited self‑styled perception,
that’s all.
Martyn Lloyd‑Jones, great saint of God, who is now with the Lord wrote this,
“The whole drift toward modernism that has blighted the church of God and nearly
destroyed its living gospel may be traced to an hour when men began to turn from
revelation to philosophy.” End quote. Simply stated, when they stopped listening
to God’s Word and decided they wanted to listen to men. And so nowadays you can
take a good Christian institution and you start feeling intimidated by the
academic community so you start pumping people into it who are educated and
trained in the philosophies of the world and pretty soon they undermine
everything it ever stood for. And they intimidate the people, who don’t have
their supposed credentials. Look with me at First Corinthians 1.
Now mark this people, carefully, philosophy is always set against the Gospel,
it’s always set against the Gospel, the wisdom of man versus the wisdom of God.
So in First Corinthians 1 Paul says, verse 18, well verse 17 he says, “Christ
didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel; not with the wisdom of
words.” In other words not just verbiage. “For the preaching of the cross is to
them that perish (what?) foolishness.” Now here you see is this insanity again.
While men are saying their foolishness is wisdom, they’re saying true wisdom is
foolishness. That’s where they are, that’s where human kind exist, in that
sphere. “But unto us who are saved the preaching of the cross is (what?) the
power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,” so
called wisdom by the way, this is quoted from Isaiah, “and bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent. Then where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where
is the disputer of this age? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this
world?” It’s foolish. Don’t you be intimidated. What did worldly wisdom ever do
to transform lives? Has, has all the philosophy of men throughout its
generations saved man from the constant decline? No, it has no power. Verse 21
says, in First Corinthians 1, “For since in the wisdom of God, the world by
wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them
that believe.” What man’s wisdom couldn’t do God’s foolishness did. Verse 25,
“Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; the weakness of God is
stronger than men.” The blunt, clear message delivered by uneducated Christians
with transformed lives infinitely exceeds the tangled, confused complications of
human philosophy. That’s what it’s saying. Fools, fools. The biggest fool of all
is the one who has rejected the light, gone into the darkness and now
rationalizes that this darkness is light, and the light is darkness. He thinks
he is a super mind and he is a moron. It’s that simple.
Now you see the decline and fall of man. Revelation, God gave him the truth.
Rejection, he refused to believe the truth. Rationalization, he affirms then
that the error he has invented is the truth and he has to do that to convince
himself that he’s right. But it’s insanity, because it is an empty deception.
Now step four in the decline and fall of man is religion. What happens? Verse
23, and I’m just going to introduce this. Boy does time fly, wow. “Then he
changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like
corruptible man, and birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things.” Man
became religious and he made idols out of men and he made idols out of birds and
he made idols out of beasts and idols out of snakes and bugs and stuff like
that. Now listen to me, religion is not the highest point in man’s ascension,
religion is the pits. It is the lowest level.
First God is revealed, and he knows God through the created world. But he
rejects that, and into the emptiness that he’s left with rushes the blackness of
intellectual ignorance and moral perversion. And in the midst of his blackness
he cannot deal with the fact that he is wrong so he rationalizes that he is
right but still in his heart there is an empty feeling because something in him
demands a god so he makes up one. Is that incredible, is that incredible? That
man should eliminate the true God and then create one that doesn’t exist and
call himself wise. It would be on the level of a father who had a son say,
murdered his son, and bought in his place a ventriloquist dummy and went through
the rest of his life introducing the dummy to people as his son. We’d put him
away. That’s what man has done. We’ll see how next week. Let’s pray.
Lord we feel that we are grappling with some rich, deep, profound eternal
truths, and this is not man’s wisdom, this is Your wisdom. How exciting to be
able to get a grasp on why the world is the way it is. We know sometimes the
rationalization is very sophisticated at the university level, sometimes it’s
very simplistic as every little individual man and woman who rejects You has to
rationalize in their own mind that they’re right at their own level. Be it ever
so uncomplicated and simplistic. We know that man who will not accept the
revelation, who enters into rejection must also enter into rationalization; he’s
got to live with the fact that he’s right and so the world is filled with a
fantasy.
God help us to break through this world of fools, we who once were fools as
well. May we be not so quick to condemn knowing that we too would be fools but
for Your grace, as we are to reach out to them, to give them the truth. God help
us to shine a little light into their darkness so that the glorious light of
Jesus Christ may burst upon them. May we not come to the place where we simply
isolate ourselves as those who are the know‑it‑alls but may we in humility know
that were it not for Your tender grace and mercy we would be as ignorant as the
rest. And in deep gratitude and adoration and thanksgiving may we go to this
darkened world, as Jesus came to bring the light, that the darkness may flee
away and out of the complexities of their rationalizations they may enter into
the simplicity of Christ, and the light of the glorious Gospel which is so
basic, so easy to understand that even a child can know.
We would pray tonight for any dear ones in our midst who are still in the
darkness, may they see Christ in all His glory and not continue the course that
inevitably ends in the wrath of God. For Jesus’ sake we pray. Amen.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur's Collection" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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