What Everyone Knows About Sin

Transcript

GR 2207
05/12/2019
What Everyone Knows About Sin
Romans 1:32-2:3, Genesis 6:1-5
Gil Rugh

We’re looking at Romans chapter 1 in your bibles and these opening sections of Romans after the introduction through the first 15 verses or 17 verses, depending where you want to break that. The theme of the book is the gospel.

These opening chapters are foundational and they’re very pertinent and relevant. They always have been, but it seems in our day they stand out especially. What Paul is doing is demonstrating what he has said in verses 16 and 17, that “…I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation…” He is demonstrating the complete corruption of the human race and our dire condition, which is necessary to understand, to appreciate that only the power of God can transform a life from the inside out. The drift that takes place often in churches is, we get weaker and weaker in understanding that, and we can easily drift to what we call moralism. We become involved in doing good things, think our trying to have an impact on making our society better and so on, that we are accomplishing the work of God. We are not. We are called to do what no one else can do and that is bring the truth of Jesus Christ, the message of God’s salvation, to a world that cannot be rescued from its lostness, its miserableness, its hopelessness, apart from the power of God. It’s the message of Christ which is the power of God for salvation, but most people in the world don’t see themselves in need of that salvation. We need to understand how serious our condition is. It can’t be corrected with minor surgery, so to speak. It takes the power of God.

Man’s sin has brought the wrath of God on the human race. We presently live under the wrath of God. The whole creation groans under the consequences of sin. Through chapter 1 Paul has been demonstrating the wrath of God being poured out because all humanity persists in its rejection and rebellion against God. We’ve worked down through this chapter as we’ve come to the end of chapter 1. This is one of those extensive lists of what we call “vice lists” in the New Testament, and there is a dozen, fifteen of them or so, and not exactly the same. This is the most extensive of them. It is just presenting the seriousness of our condition. It all goes back to the foundational issue that as sinners we have rejected God, the revelation He’s given of Himself. We will not have Him to be the authority in our lives, we will not submit to His salvation. The secular song, “I Did It My Way,” is a testimony of fallen man. I am determined to do it my way, and it is hard, in my pride and arrogance, to bow and submit myself to God, and the truth He has revealed, and the salvation He has provided, which is amazing when you stop and think of it.

He doesn’t charge me for it. He paid the cost in full. He offers it as a free gift, as we’ll see when we get, for example, to chapter 6. The free gift of God is salvation through faith in Christ. We’ve been talking about sin, and sin that brings the wrath of God upon them. And you have all kinds of examples down through chapter 1. Starting out in verses 18 down through verse 23, Paul talked about them rejecting God, the revelation God has given of Himself. Even creation reveals God, His character, His attributes. There’s no excuse for trying to live a life as we do, called “Secular Humanism,” or replacing the true and living God with gods of our own making and our own creation. Keep a finger in Romans and back up in the Book of Acts, just before Romans several pages to chapter 17 of Acts.

Acts chapter 17 Paul is in the Greek city of Athens and he’s meeting with the philosophers. The philosophers, theologians of the time who loved to debate things of life and God and so on. He’s giving a message beginning in verse 22. He saw they had an altar. You don’t want to leave a god out when you believe in multiple gods. It’s important you not leave one out, because if you have a dozen gods to deal with and you only honor eleven, the twelfth one might get pretty upset.

So, they had an altar “To AN UNKNOWN GOD.” He picks up on that and says at the end of verse 23, “…what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.” I mean you’re worshiping a god, and you really don’t know anything about God, but I come to proclaim to you the true and living God. He’s the God, verse 24, “The God who made the world and all things in it…” Interesting how you start at the basic foundational issue.

The God that I want to talk about is the God who created everything, and that’s where Paul begins with the Romans in his unfolding of the gospel. His creative work reveals His character. This is what Paul is talking about here in Greece. “…since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands…” He’s bigger than us. You cannot confine Him, you cannot contain Him. The creation reveals that. Look at the magnitude of what He has created, the heavens, the earth, and everything there is.

He’s not served by human hands. He doesn’t need anything. He’s the Creator of everything. Verse 26, “and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth…” It started with one man and out of that, all humanity has come. Isn’t it interesting that here he is talking to Greek philosophers, theologians if you will, and he’s laying down just the basic issue, that He’s the Creator and you are a result of His creative work? “…having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation...” Remember we’ve been studying Ecclesiastes on Sunday mornings. The times, and the events of the times, are His appointment in chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes, verse 1. Here for the nations, their place, their time so “that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us…” He’s the God that they are looking everywhere for, but He’s right there. Verse 28, “for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’” Now he’s going to use as a connecting point some of their own poets. Greek poets have written that we live, move, and exist in the context of God.

Verse 29, “Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone…” Remember the creation reveals even the invisible attributes of God. You don’t make Him out of stone. We’re in the image of God. He made us. We’re not stones. We’re not clay that you made a statue out of. “…for in Him we live and move and exist…” Even unbelieving Greek poets have recognized that. “Being then the children of God, we ought not think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.” This is right where we were in Romans chapter 1. In turning from the God, who created all things, they created their own god and gods to worship. Idolatry, in all its forms, the same thing he does here. Here’s what you have to know and understand, therefore you shouldn’t think of God like a piece of stone. You know you’ve created these temples for the various gods. You’ve got the Pantheon, you’ve got all the gods here, and even a god that maybe you left out. You built them all, and you made the temple for them to live in, and you put the statute there. What kind of god is that?

You ought to look around the creation. This is an awesome God! That’s the revelation God has given. We call it general revelation, natural revelation. It’s nature, creation all around us, for everyone. Verse 30, “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” Now when they hear about the resurrection of the dead, they start to come unraveled. There are a couple of people saved here, mentioned by name.

Come back to Romans 1, and you see the same pattern following. He will come to the special revelation of what God has revealed more specifically, in what we call special revelation, the truth concerning Christ. You see how Paul went from creation in the revelation of God to the special revelation of God in the message of Christ. This is what Paul’s doing in verses 16 and 17 of Romans 1, “…I am not ashamed of the gospel…” The gospel is the good news concerning Christ. But to bring people into that, he’ll talk about a revelation of God in creation that tells you something about the God that we must know about, that we must bow before.

The problem is, man doesn’t. Just like the Greeks, they have created their own god to account for everything. He writes to the Romans, you’ve done the same thing. All men everywhere do. They reject the revelation God has given of Himself, so God turns them over in judgment to their sin and its consequences. They become worshipers of themselves and their creation, and that results in moral corruption and depravity.

You need to keep the order. The corruption of all kinds we see in the world, have been laid out for us through the rest of chapter 1. All have the same foundation, so that’s why the solution is not to stop people from doing these individual things. It may make society a little more livable if people aren’t running around murdering each other, but the real problem is the heart. Not everybody is doing all these things, but this is just a sampling of what comes out of a heart that is in rebellion against God. You had the moral depravity manifested in sexual conduct, homosexuality. It is a denial of the creating God, who created us in His image, male and female. We have a denial of that as we’ve talked about.

You know there’s no end. The more open we become in our rebellion, the more the rebellion spreads, and this is where we come down as you move through all these sins. They are unwilling to acknowledge God. You come down to verse 32 where we left off last time, “…and although they know the ordinance of God…” After he lists everything here, all kinds of sins, they know. People are not in ignorance. We need to understand that as bible believing Christians, people are not in ignorance. Now they may not know all the facts of the gospel, but they know about God. That’s come out in verse 19, “…because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” Don’t allow people to get by. Well, I don’t know, I don’t know that there’s a God. You do! God made it evident. When God says, He made it evident, nobody’s going to stand before Him on Judgment Day and say, “No, you didn’t.” God is always right. He is the standard. “…that which is known about God is evident…” God made it evident, and it’s evident in His creation.

Verse 21 said, “…even though they knew God…” they had the knowledge of God, “…they did not honor Him as God…” There is revelation, there is light, but men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil, so they reject light. That’s what Jesus said about His presence on earth, that men love the darkness rather than the light, but they know. “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations…” their reasoning. “Their heart is darkened,” and the decline becomes more evident, more manifest. Verse 28, “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God…” and you have the literal translation of that in your margin there, the little note with verse 28 has the little 1 to have God in knowledge. They are unwilling to have God in the knowledge. Go to schools, go to the university and try to talk about what God says and what God says about His creating work and what God… No! That’s not allowed here! We don’t allow God in our knowledge and that becomes more pervasive in various areas of our society. That’s not allowed! You can have your own private conviction. But keep it to yourself. They don’t want to have God in their knowledge. “They did not see fit to have God in their knowledge.”

Remarkable saying, “What arrogance!” So, the judgment is. Again, we’re reminded that He turns them over to their sin. What we see in the sinfulness pervading the world and becoming more open, is a manifestation of the wrath of God being poured out on people who persist in their rejection of Him. And it continues down all the lists there. The sins are not only practiced, and this is how he wraps it up for his talking about the Gentiles particularly. This revelation of creation is available to everyone, but particularly he’s focusing on the Gentiles because the Jews not only have natural revelation, they have special revelation. They have the word of God. He’ll talk about them in chapter 2, but he’s been talking about the condition primarily of the Gentile world. Although they know, there’s our word again and he’ll keep them reminded that they know. They know why? Because God revealed it and as a result, verse 18, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against their ungodliness, they suppress the truth.” I said well, they didn’t even know. They know. They suppress it. They don’t want it made known. That’s why it’s so antagonistic to them that you would bring the bible and biblical truth into this. No, that’s not allowed! It’s not acceptable!

Come down to verse 32, “…although they know the ordinance of God…” That word ordinance is built on the basic word for righteousness. That’s why some translations would have the “righteous ordinance” because the basis for this word is the foundation for the word righteousness. It forms the basis of the word. Some of you know Greek, and you know that as you look at it you can see the dik, the dikaisome, the word here that’s related to that. It’s a righteous ordinance. They know the righteous ordinance of God, and what is that? “…that those who practice such things are worthy of death…” The revelation that God has given in His creation, and the remnant of as we’ll see as we get into chapter 2, that of being created in the image of God, they have a knowledge that sinful conduct deserves judgment, that it deserves death.

If somebody gives you a test sometime and says, “What book of the bible uses the word death more than any other book?” We’re in it, the Book of Romans! Twenty-two times the word death is used. There are 16 chapters, so that’s more than an average of once in a chapter. Death, death, death, because people know they have an awareness. They know “…that those who practice such things are worthy of death…” We see remnants of it. Even people will acknowledge certain things they deserve to die for. For certain crimes a man may be sent to prison. But there, even prisoners might attack that man because they think his crimes were so despicable. There’s that irrationality, they know in their heart that the penalty for sin is death, and sins deserve the penalty of death.

You say, “Well, I don’t know about that!” Well, read verse 32 and you will know because He said we all know that. We’re talking about unbelievers here. “…they know the righteous ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death…” But they add to their rebellion because it’s not enough that they know that it shouldn’t be practiced. They not only practice these things, and that doesn’t mean they do every one of them, no one does all these sins. But these are just a sampling of what comes out of an unredeemed heart. “…they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.” It’s not even sin practiced in secret. Now we want to make it openly acceptable and we want to give approval to those who want to practice this. I may not practice that sin, but I want to encourage you in your practice of it, and that way you know we make ourselves all comfortable with our sin.

One commentator said about this verse here, “There’s also the fact that those who condone and applaud these kinds of sinful actions of others are actually making a deliberate contribution to the setting up of public opinion favorable to vice, and so to the corruption of an infinite number of other people. The full extent of the rejection of God becomes evident in such attitude. His judgment is known yet people are encouraged to pursue evil anyway. Those who encourage others to pursue evil commit a greater evil in that they ferment the spread of evil and are complicit in the destruction of others. The hatred of God is so entrenched that people are willing to risk future judgment in order to carry out their evil desires and the wrath of God is rightfully poured out on such people.”

We have this so manifest today. Could it be any more open? Not too many years ago, the Supreme Court of our country made a law for the country that homosexual marriage is acceptable and right. And you promote that now by the law says, this is acceptable and proper practice in our country. Now we have a Presidential candidate, at least potential candidate, who is married to another man. Amazingly, he was criticizing another politician for what he viewed as sinful conduct. You’re living openly in this sin, but you sit in judgment of someone else’s sin. That’s the way man is, they know sin is wrong. They know there’s a judgment and see certain people who deserve it, but it’s not my sin because my sin’s okay.

Now we have a law being promoted to be passed. Every member in Congress, of one political party, voted to support that there can be no description of any kinds of homosexual activity, with all their LBGTQ or whatever they say, that you cannot discriminate. Every single person in that political party, plus some of the other political party voted that that’s right, which will make it right in the country. So, if you believe that the bible says it’s wrong, you are the problem in this country. You are the one who is causing division and hatred and so on. And so more and more in our schools you have to teach that this is an “alternative lifestyle.” Our kids go to the public schools, governmental schools if you will, and are taught about gender equality, and two men make great parents, and two women make great parents. You bring the bible to school… Wait a minute! We don’t allow that in here, that’s not acceptable! The laws of our country, you can’t discriminate, and you can’t express your opinion that that’s wrong.

Where’s it going? You know where it’s building? We just studied the Book of Revelation, and we’re building toward the Tribulation. Come back to Genesis chapter 6. I want you to understand that we’re not given the details of what was happening in the days leading up to the Flood, but we know it was terrible from the little bit the bible says. It doesn’t go into great detail. But as God is preparing to bring His worldwide judgment, His wrath is building. Sin is ripening. In Genesis chapter 6, verse 1, “Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives…Then the LORD said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he is also flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’” And then you’ll have the flood.

“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days…” and there were “…the mighty men who were men of renown.” Verse 5, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” God will pour out the judgment of the flood wiping out all the human race, except for Noah and his immediate family. This became so manifest, so open.

You know it’s not just in our country, of course, it’s other Western countries and Europe. I see even one of the Asian countries, Taiwan, just passed a law validating homosexual marriage. The very clarity of God’s creating work is being denied, rejected, suppressed, this is the world we live in. Where does it go and now we want no discrimination and that always builds. Where is the room for believers in all of this? We see how quickly things seem to undergo changes, how rapidly, all of a sudden. I’m old, I acknowledge, but when I was growing up everybody admitted sex outside of marriage was sinful and wrong. Now we’ve just blown right through that and on and now, the Supreme Court says homosexual marriage is--no country has ever done that. The Romans never got to the bottom of that, they practiced homosexuality but they honored marriage and it was only between a man and a woman. Where have we come? Where do we go? Abortion and we’ve talked about that, that unloving astorge, astorge being natural family love. We’ve rejected that.

While you’re in Genesis, come over to chapter 15, we’ve talked about this before. God talks about the people of Canaan so there is a more restricted view from the flood of Noah where the whole world will be encompassed, but you see a principle operating here. That the Israelites won’t be ready, won’t be able to go into the land of Canaan for 400 years. Then verse 16 of Genesis 15, “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”

What’ll happen after 400 years when Israel comes out of Egypt as a nation? They will go into the land of the Amorite, the Canaanite’s land, where the Amorites are, and what will God say? You wipe out every man, every woman, every child. That’s serious judgment. There we have it on a smaller scale, when the land of Canaan had ripened enough, if I can say that, the sin and rebellion against God grew, it multiplies and reaches a stage where now the fullness of God’s judgments must come. There it happened on a worldwide scale in the days of Noah and Peter used that as an example. Don’t think judgment is not coming on this world. The people who say that are ignorant, willfully ignorant of the days of Noah, so where are we?

Sometimes I think we as Christians can be almost living with a bag over our head and we say, “oh, this is all terrible, but if we get a conservative Supreme Court, why we’ll, we’ll pull this out.” We get a conservative President, we get a conservative congress, well I think we can forget about a lot of this. Every single person in one political party in congress votes to support all kinds of homosexuality as being normal and acceptable and cannot be discriminated against, with all the problems our country has this is what we’re about. And then another person who has a leadership position in that party says you cannot be considered a member of this party if you are against abortion! Where does it go? And people who think politics is the solution, the gospel’s the solution. That’s where we are, so he’s not telling us (as you come back to Romans 1) we ought to get about trying to rescue our nation by telling them they’ve got to stop all this sin. The whole argument is you can’t stop it.

It is similar to what we have been studying in Ecclesiastes. The curse of sin has brought God’s judgment on this world. Now it’s not a complete judgment yet but you can’t change it and the problem is each individual heart. How do they all come to agree on this? You know why. Fallen people have the same kind of heart. “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things” Jeremiah 17:9. How many times do I quote that? It’s “desperately wicked, who can know it?” That’s a rhetorical question. The point is, none of us can. No one knows the depths of depravity in the human heart, but God knows. “I, the LORD search the heart, I try the mind,” the motives. I know what’s going on, where it comes from, we are shocked. I have to say even as the pastor for many years and older in my years, sometimes I look and say what has happened? You know, it wasn’t that long ago that evangelicals were joined together in what they called the Moral Majority because the majority of our country is moral. They might not all be biblical Christians but they’re moral. Where’d you get that doctrine? God says the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, more than you know.

And we had the Moral Majority so we’ve got to vote the right people into political office and when we vote I think we should vote for those that we think would be more consistent….but they’re not the salvation of the country. Not the Supreme Court, not the Congress, not the President. The only hope for the individual is the power of the gospel. I realize I’m repetitive but how does the church drift? Social action is overtaking the evangelical church. Now we have to get involved and improve people’s condition, poverty is terrible, and hunger is terrible, and unsanitary conditions are terrible and they are. But when we abandon the proclamation of biblical truth to take on these things, we just get swallowed up, because we can’t save the world in that sense. It is unsaveable in that sense. Only the salvation of Christ will bring about the redemption.

And the redemption of creation will only happen in the context of the return of the Redeemer. And even His 1,000-year reign as we have seen on the earth won’t be enough with perfect conditions and a perfect environment and no poverty. And given a choice, the human heart, which is desperately wicked does what? It rebels and attempts to overthrow the King of kings and Lord of lords, a number like the sands of the seashore after 1,000 years. We think we’re going to get a President who’s going to rescue the country, governmental leaders. The King of kings will come and rule over this sin cursed earth, but He brings a redemption, fallen humanity starts out with no unbelievers, but after the 1,000 years you have a number like the sands of the seashore that cannot stand the rule of this One.

It is Romans being portrayed to us. It takes the power of God so I’m not saying we ought to try to get our country to stop promoting homosexuality, you know as a citizen of this country I wish we hadn’t degenerated to this point but you know what? It’s not rescue-able now. The only thing we can do is bring the gospel. Now if God in His grace would save large numbers of people like down through history, at times He was pleased to do. You know I’ve lived through a time when the preaching of God’s word was the in thing. I went to the university. I was invited to come and present this truth as one of the views. I went to the high school down the road on different occasions, was invited to the class to present the biblical view. It doesn’t happen today. Those doors are closed, and it does make you wonder. Then you see the bubbling up of sin.

Now, lest we think moralism is the answer, religion is the answer and you want to be careful, because of the widespread depravity. Some believers, for example, we had not that long ago “Evangelicals and Roman Catholics Together.” And we had certain prominent leaders, that the crisis of our day requires that we who have a moral position unite together to rescue our country. Good luck, that’s all I can say, because you’re outside the realm of biblical help. So, you come to chapter 2 and you know what? The Jews, after Romans 1 as we have it, would say, “Amen.” I mean they viewed the Gentiles as corrupt, they viewed them as so dirty they wouldn’t even eat with them. Even Peter had that view and even Gentiles that got saved, remember he slipped back and said, I don’t think I want to eat with them because it won’t be understood, so Paul had to rebuke him he says in Galatians 2. And the Jews thought yeah, the Gentiles they are so spiritually defiled the only hope for them is they become like us Jews. Convert to Judaism, get religion and they’ll get some moral fiber and we say well at least the Catholics maybe the Mormons, maybe the Seventh Day Adventist, maybe this, maybe that, you know at least we have some agreement on moral standards.

The children of God and the children of the devil have no agreement. Now I might vote for someone who even though he’s not a believer says I think abortions wrong, I think homosexuality is wrong. I say well I’ll vote for him over someone who’s promoting it, but I don’t have any hope in that because you’re not dealing with the root problem. We are back to the white washed tomb, the picture that Jesus said was so ugly. If fact he said, there was more hope for the salvation of those who weren’t part of that system, the harlots, the prostitutes. All these people will get into the kingdom and you won’t, because cleaning up the outside of the cup made it more difficult to reach them because we’re not those kinds of people. So evangelical churches sort of morph into this and young people can grow up in the best of families but if they’re not saved pretty soon, well I’m just trying to behave like a believer, but the most important thing is to have your heart changed.

So chapter 2 verse 1 opens up, “Therefore, you have no excuse, every one of you who passes judgment,” and the Jews would do that. They agreed the Gentiles were dirty sinners. Peter had a hard time getting over that, even when he knew Gentiles who had placed their faith in Christ, but the attitude of the Jews was fixed in and so he was intimidated by it and that’s why Paul had to rebuke him. What did Peter tell the house of Cornelius? It took a special revelation from God to change me, otherwise I would not have come to your house as a Gentile even to present you the gospel. We say well that’s hard to believe. That’s how fixed it was. Peter says if you had sent a messenger and asked me please come tell us about the salvation in the Jewish Messiah, Peter said I wouldn’t have come. It took a special revelation from God but here he says you have no excuse, every one of you who passes judgment.

Now some people say this is just the moral, now he’s dealing with the moralist. He’s dealing with the Jews. He’ll mention them specifically in verse 9. “There’ll be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek.” Then you get down to verse 17 “but if you bear the name “Jew” you rely upon the Law,” so he draws them in if you will. “You have no excuse every one of you who passes judgment for in that you judge another you condemn yourself for you who judge practice the same things.” It’s easy to become self-righteous. Oh, we would agree homosexuality is sin. Sex outside of marriage is sin. Murder is sin. For sure, any abuse of children deserves death and you know we have all these terrible sins, but these proud Jewish people crucified the Lord of glory, the author of life, the Son of God and they prided themselves in their goodness, their righteous character, but they were quick to point out…. What did they do to Steven in Acts chapter 7? They stoned him to death for violating their Jewish convictions.

Jesus said to the Jewish leaders of the day, “which of the Jewish prophets didn’t you persecute? And this is your character” so they weren’t sinless they were proud, arrogant, self-righteous, self-made people, so “you have no excuse, every one of you who passes judgment for in that you judge another you condemn yourself. You’re without excuse, you who judge practice the same things and this pervades our world. When they pronounce judgment on others, they are acknowledging the principle of judgment is just and right. They just don’t think it is true of them. They reject God’s evaluation of them. The Jews did that well we’ve got our system. People today, like I say they want a political person in a homosexual marriage but he’s pointing out the guilt of another politician, but I’m not guilty. But he’s establishing the principal of judgment, but he has created his own foundation of judgment, and it’s not God’s because God’s foundation is you are all sinners.

That’s where Paul will get to into chapter 3, when he said, “now I have established everyone, Gentile and Jew alike, is guilty before God in their sin,” so that’s what has to be understood. That’s what he’s doing here, you practice the same thing. I never committed immorality, I never….you know this infiltrates the church. I’ve had people at this church tell me I never sinned like them. There are times, as a pastor, I just want to pack up my books and go do something else. You say, “is anybody paying attention? I never sin like that person. I don’t understand how they can do that.” You know pastors are no better. I won’t say I’ve never thought that, I’ve never had a thought, how could they do that? Why would they do that? You know, and all of a sudden, we’ve become self-righteous, and I’m a sinner, but I’m not a sinner like them.

Well, that’s the Pharisees. They continue to take sacrifices, but they didn’t see themselves as sinners like other people. In other words, they took this list like we tend to do. I think it’s important as you work through these vice lists, sometimes make a list of these. Work through them and see, God just mixes all these sins together. “Slanders,” in verse 30 of chapter 1 that’s right next to “haters of God,” now being a hater of God and slandering somebody, we’ve all probably done that at one time or another. “Boastful, arrogant,” now we’ve been through the self-esteem movement, it hasn’t died out, but you know Christians promoting self-esteem, but I’m not an inventor of evil. “Disobedient to parents,” well we expect that that’s the way kids are and that’s not as bad as….and on we go.

We categorize the sins, we do it. I have to fight against it, sliding into my own self-righteousness. Lord, I’m not perfect but I’m not like some people. Yeah, but I said you’re to be like Me God says, not like other people. I’m the standard, not them. So, the Jews who are sitting in judgment of the Gentiles would be “amen-ing” what is said in chapter 1 and they would add to it, those dirty, filthy, polluted Gentiles. I wouldn’t sit at the same table with them. That would be defiling to eat the same food with them. I don’t even want to go in their house because they’re so spiritually defiled. It affects the house and on it goes.

We know that the judgment of God rightfully falls on those who practice such things. He has already established that, everyone knows sin deserves death. Now we keep trying to white wash it. Everybody knows every person in that congress who voted to be supportive of the various homosexualities knows it’s sin, knows it’s wrong, knows it’s contrary. They suppress that knowledge and I’m not just attacking congress, but they are visible leaders and accountable in their position as leaders. The Supreme Court, who approved homosexual marriage, they knew. They know, they just decided that this is what we do. No excuse, they decided they wouldn’t allow God to have an influence in the decision. We know that the “judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. But do you suppose, oh man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same that you will escape the judgment of God?”

And we’ll stop with this point, man thinks, because he points out the sin or wrong of someone else--how much time our country has spent in trying to find dirt on someone else, and everyone does it. It’s just as though we’re righteous, and there’s something about us, when we think we can point out the dirt in someone else’s life it makes us feel cleaner about ourselves. It’s like you take two kids put one in a mud puddle and the other in the bath tub and then stand them side by side. You know what they’re both alike on the inside. The dirt on the outside might make one look different but it’s external, so you think you can pass judgment on someone else. I have met a few people that I’ve talked to and I imagine if I made it a point today, I could find more that have said to me, I am not a sinner. Both of the people agree that they’re a sinner, but it’s not as serious as you want to make it. It certainly wouldn’t deserve hell, and I’ve not ever done anything like that. I have tried to be a good person and they’ll often color it with what? I’m not perfect, but I have tried to help others, to do good for people; but you suppose when you pass judgment that you’ll escape judgment, so we want to be careful.

We want to be careful. He’s writing this to establish for the Roman church, clarity on these issues because when we’re not clear, then we begin to get confused, and that’s where we begin to drift off the foundation. Then we get involved with things we shouldn’t and corruption spreads. We can see that if we look at our country, as we talk about sin, and the openness of sin, and the acceptance of sin, and the practice of sin, but that principle works for us all. We’ll see that in Romans 6, that’s why we as believers don’t want to tolerate sin in our lives. I can’t clean up the world, but we don’t want to allow sin in us, because it spreads within us and that’s the principle, but the power of the gospel is the solution. That’s the beauty of it all. We have the solution, we have the cure. It’s not to minimize the seriousness of the sin and your religion won’t help you but here is what you need. God has done it for you and the fact that you say no to Him just reveals what? You will not acknowledge God. I will make the decision. Well let’s leave it there, let’s pray together.

Thank You Lord, for Your word, Lord. Some of these things we study, and they’re ugly, they’re unpleasant but it is the reality. And Lord we never want to forget the awfulness of sin and Lord as we talk about sin and what is going on around us in our country, it does disturb us and bother us, but as Paul had to remind Titus to remind the people who had trusted Christ, you were just like them and we were just like them. We don’t sit pointing out their sin because we’re less sinful. It took the power that only You have, the power of the living God, to impact us in such a great way that it cleansed us. It made us knew redeemed us, rescued us from our lostness, our hopelessness. Lord may we not lose sight of the desperate condition of those who are lost. They are simply manifesting the condition of hearts and minds in rebellion against you. May we bring them the gospel that You in grace might bring to them, salvation. Pray you’ll use us this week to be lights wherever we are we pray in Christ’s name. Amen