Romans 1 verses 18 through 23, these are God's words. 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 in 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. So for the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. Well, we heard last week that one of the reasons that the apostle is not ashamed of the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation, is because the way that God saves us by his power is through this righteousness that is revealed in the gospel, the righteousness of God from faith to faith, the righteousness that is counted for us as if it were ours, because it is ours when Christ is ours, when we believe in him. And the righteousness then that is also worked out in us who have already been counted righteous in Christ. And so that is one great revelation. God's revealing his righteousness for those who don't have any of their own. And we rejoice over the gospel. We're not ashamed. The apostle wasn't ashamed to preach it. We're not ashamed to hear it, believe it, tell it ourselves. Well, the reason we needed righteousness from God for us to be revealed to us is because there are two other things that have been revealed. In the first place, God himself was revealed in his creation, and we'll think about that under the first point tonight when we think about the nature of the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. The nature of the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men is that we suppress the truth. That's what our ungodliness and unrighteousness come from, the pushing down upon the truth of God. God has revealed himself both in men and to them, we'll hear tonight. But man has not treated God as God, not in our worship and not in our works, and therefore in response to our ungodliness, not treating God as God in our worship, and in response to our unrighteousness, which is not treating God as God in our works, God has revealed his wrath. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. And so from here in the middle of chapter one to the end of chapter three, He's going to be talking about the revelation or the revealing of God's wrath, and then the revealing of God's righteousness in Jesus that is for us. And here is where we find out that we have fallen short of the glory of God. And many of us have memorized, haven't we, that verse towards the end of chapter three, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Although the point there in chapter three is not that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but that God has given his own righteousness in Jesus. By the time he's winding up the end of chapter three, it's really about the revelation of his righteousness. So here we have the revelation of his wrath from where we are tonight until the end of the chapter. And tonight we'll be hearing especially that ungodliness and unrighteousness against which the wrath of God is revealed. What have we done that has so provoked God that he is full of wrath against us? Not so much fury or rage as if it were in a moment, but the enduring, burning fire of the wrath of God upon and against man. And what we aim to see tonight then is how have we so provoked God that this wrath of his would be revealed against our ungodliness and against our unrighteousness. There is no room, of course, for thinking whether or not there is wrath. It plainly declares that there is wrath, and there's even less room for judging the wrath of God. As man would like to do, many will say, well, I can't believe in a God that would have wrath against sin. I prefer to believe in a God and so forth. All someone does when you let yourself think that way, feel that way, speak that way, all you're saying is that you reject the true and living God, the real God, and instead have invented a God of your own imagining. You're not saying anything. about the actual character of God. When a man speaks against the wrath of God, he is not saying anything about the actual character of God. He's only describing himself. As the wise seminary professor said when a student raised his hand and said, well, I like to think of God and It went on to give what he thought was a very clever description. The professor waited patiently for the student to finish and then said, well, that's all very well, but we're not studying you or how you like to think. We are studying God. So what is it? that we have done to provoke him? What is the nature of our ungodliness and unrighteousness? And then how is that ungodliness and unrighteousness expressed? Those are the two basic ideas before us tonight. In the first part, we'll hear that the nature of all our ungodliness and unrighteousness is suppression, suppression of the truth, pushing down on the truth in unrighteousness. And then the expression of our ungodliness and unrighteousness is especially in false worship, false worship, worshiping without the truth of God. And we'll see that especially in the last verse tonight, verse 23. And then next week we'll see especially the unrighteousness that comes out of that. Of course, unrighteousness and ungodliness are not two complete separate categories. Ungodliness, worship without God, is the violation of the first half of the law, isn't it? The first table of the law. Worshipping a God of our own idea, in a way of our own idea, without reverence for him in the life or the heart or on the lips and treating as common that which God has made holy, especially his worship and the time that he himself has set apart for that worship. So the first four commandments, which we also know as the greatest Commandment, and because we have been unrighteous in the greatest commandment, we'll find out next week, he gives men over also to unrighteousness in the second great commandment, the rest of his moral law. So first, the nature of all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Suppression of the truth. One of the things we'll say again in a moment when we get to the second point is that there is no such thing as an atheist. The atheist says he doesn't believe in God. Well, God does not therefore cease to exist because the atheist says in his heart, he's a fool, he says in his heart that there is no God. Nor can the atheist make atheism exist by saying that he doesn't believe in God. Because God has shown the truth of his reality to that atheist. And God has shown the truth of his reality in the things that have been made. And so it's mockery and scorning for the atheist to say that he doesn't believe in God, but it is the truth and reality for God to tell us. not to believe in atheists. And we don't. We know the truth. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. They don't lack data. They don't have all of the data, but they have plenty to leave them without excuse, as the end of verse 20 says. No, the data is there. They're just pushing down on it. Now, we used to do this horrible thing in swimming pools when I was a kid, which is basically do our best to drown one another. And you figure out how to get someone's legs out from underneath him and then push down upon the shoulders or the head. Probably should not give too much drowning advice from the pulpit. But we were suppressing one another in unrighteousness. That's the nature of the word that the apostle uses here. It's not that our brother didn't exist. We just didn't want any of him to be visible above the surface. And that is what the so-called atheist does with the knowledge of God. He knows that God exists, but because he is unrighteous because he wants to, as the Lord said about, uh, Jeroboam, uh, the son of Nebat and that horrible, uh, condemnation that we just read on the Lord's day, put God behind his back. Or two Lord's days ago, maybe he put God behind his back. Because the atheist wants to do that, he suppresses the truth and unrighteousness. It's no good to do so, however. Verse 19 tells us that what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them. That is to say, even before we get to all of the evidence of God that he has put in the rest of the creation, he has, as the scripture says, put eternity in men's hearts. He has created us with a knowledge, with a sense of himself. And we just gave an example of that a few moments ago when we were thinking about the man who says, well, I refuse to believe in a God who would have wrath against sin. It's a form of the self-destructive argument. God doesn't exist because I hate him. Well, you know He exists. You know that He is God. You know that He is righteous. You know that you are sinful. You know that your sin deserves the wrath of God, as we'll hear about in the next portion, Lord willing, not next week, I'll be out of town, but the week after. You know all those things because he has made those things known to you. He has made those things known in you. Even those who are uninstructed in scripture and suppressing the truth and unrighteousness to a large extent will use language like the divine spark. Of course, misplacing it, thinking that it is something that belongs to us and is found in in man about man. When it is something that belongs to God and it is the knowledge of himself that he has put in each of us, the very fact that people believe that there is a right to wrong. No one actually believes in the complete absence of right and wrong, because if you tell them that they should, they'll say, no, that's wrong, too. We know. that God is, and we know that he is righteous, and we know that we are sinners, and we know that he hates sin. So the truth is manifest in us because God himself has shown it to us. This gives you an advantage when you are talking to someone who refuses to acknowledge God. You know something that they have not admitted to themselves. They know that God exists. However hard they try to plead otherwise, they know that he is. And therefore you have, as it were, a tactical advantage when engaging them. It's also the truth about God is also manifest to us. You see that in verse 20, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen. being understood by the things that are made. There are several wonderful things going on here in verse 20. One is it describes to us what happens at the creation. God himself is invisible. God himself is a complete whole. God has all of the characteristics of his godness in perfection in himself from all eternity. As he describes himself to Moses or names himself to Moses, I am, he is, that he is. But when he created, he created in such a way as to display things about himself. And so all of these invisible perfections suddenly have visible evidence. And not only does he make visible evidence of who he is, he makes creatures who can see and touch and smell and hear and taste. Who is there here who can see and touch and hear and smell and taste? You see God put evidence of himself in the creation, and then he gave you these observing powers. And not only do you have these senses by which you can observe what is in his creation, but he's also given you a mind so that you can comprehend and understand. You see, the point of all of these glorious things is for God to show himself to us who are made in his image so that we may know him, so that we may adore him, so that we may love him. He has known himself from all eternity. He has adored himself within the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit from all eternity. There has been adoration, appreciation, love, and fellowship. And so God creates an entire world that is observable and discernible. And then he makes us with the capacity for observing and thinking and understanding so that we may know him. This is what is often called general revelation, that knowledge of himself that he has given in us and then presented to us in the created things, even his eternal power and his Godhead. You might have we have in our English translation before us Godhead. Other translations say divine nature, his Godness. all of his attributes and perfections taken together. And so we're without excuse. We are without excuse. And yet this pushing down upon the truth in unrighteousness takes form or takes shape in especially two ways. We push down on the truth by not glorifying him and not being thankful to him. Verse 21, they are without excuse because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful. You see, the right response to a creation that is full of good things and a creator that created you, not just to enjoy good things, but to enjoy him and his goodness. That's why there are good things so that you can see and smell and hear and taste and touch and experience and know the one who made all those things. Remember when we were hearing about the fourth commandment in the Lord's day evening, that we weren't made for those things. We were made for him. And that's why he created us, not so that we could observe the Sabbath. We weren't made for the Sabbath. We already existed. The Sabbath didn't exist before we did. The Sabbath was made for us so that we would be reminded about him. for whom we are made, Him as our purpose and Him as our pleasure. But what happens when you're pushing down on the truth in unrighteousness? Suddenly you're not realizing your purpose of adoring Him and loving Him and praising Him. And when we don't adore Him and love Him and praise Him, we become despisers of the living God. We, of all the creatures, were made to enjoy Him and to praise Him. And then when we deny him, we become the greatest cosmic traitors that could ever be. This is what it means when it says we have fallen short of the glory of God. Not that somehow we were supposed to be as glorious as God was or God is, and we have just fallen short. No, because we were made to know and praise his glory. And we have rebelled entirely against the purpose for which we are made. Now, someone who sees the good things that God has made and knows in him and his goodness in them, how do you respond to him? Not just with worship of who he is, but how do you respond to his making these things? I were thankful for them, of course. Thank you, Lord, that you made all of these beautiful things to see and beautiful music that we could hear and speech that we could communicate one another and creating us so that we might enjoy food and making all of these different types of food and even different types of taste buds so that there's an almost limitless permutation of of good things to enjoy eating and smelling as well and so forth. You're just full of thankfulness to the God who so wanted to communicate so much about himself that he made so many beautiful, wonderful things. But if you're not knowing him in those things, then are you thankful to him for those things? This is one of the reasons why it's so disheartening when you hear presidents or other people in politics talking about thankfulness in general instead of thankfulness to God or faith in general instead of faith in the living God. Because it is this godless thankfulness, this nebulous thankfulness that is aimed anywhere other than at the true and living God that is actually the unthankfulness that is being described here. God hates our generalized Thanksgiving days. because they are not thanksgivings to him that come from worship of him that says the reason we're so grateful for turkey and stuffing and corn or whatever it is that you're grateful for is because in those things, God has made you to know himself and his goodness. And so they suppress the truth and unrighteousness, verse 18, Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, they didn't respond with worship, and therefore they were not properly thankful for the things that were made. They tried to have wisdom without worship. Their foolish hearts were darkened, professing to be wise. They became fools. Now I have learned that I can, if I happen to be up and my wife is not, I can actually go into our bedroom closet. There's not a ton of room there, but I can close the door and turn the light on. And then I can see what's in there. But if there is no light and I go in there, even though I'm the one who arranged rather meticulously where all of my clothing is, I have many a time reached in, gotten something, taken it to the bathroom with me, flipped on the light and discovered that I had to make another trip. It wasn't what I was looking for. trying to have any sort of wisdom at all, without knowing who made the world and why, shuts off the light. The foolish heart is in utter darkness. Whatever it thinks it has, whatever it thinks it knows, is not actually what is there. And so man trying to be wise without God is utterly foolish. He tries to have wisdom without worship. There is no true wisdom unless you are a worshiper of the Bible's God. unless you are thankful for all created things, because they are the means by which the creator has displayed different parts, different attributes of his to you. And so the nature of all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men is suppression of the truth. You see, we are wicked. We suppress the truth and unrighteousness, but God is not wicked like we are. He will not pretend away the sinfulness of rejecting him, of refusing to worship him, of unthankfulness for all the good things that he has made and all the good things that he does. And sometimes I'll be talking to someone who does not have much of a Christian background at all. Actually, sometimes as someone who's come up in church, or maybe even as an officer in a reformed church, and they'll say, well, God doesn't so upset with sin like you are. Why can't he just pretend it away? Why can't he just not be upset with it? Well, because he's not unrighteous like we are. And so he is full of wrath. And that's why he's had to reveal it from heaven at times. We're going to see next week that in the breakdown of man's thinking and man's immorality, God reveals his wrath against our ungodliness and our unrighteousness. But don't miss that phrase from heaven. Many times. Against Sodom and Gomorrah, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. Against the so-called gods of Egypt, the wrath of God is revealed. And then especially in the flood. That's one thing that really messes up the anthropologists and the archaeologists. Every single culture knows about the flood. They tell different lies about who and why, but they all know that it happened. The wrath of God is revealed. In the second place, the expression of our ungodliness and unrighteousness is in false worship. As a follow-up to the truth that we all know about God is the counter of truth or the corresponding truth, that all men worship. All men are devoted to something. All men depend upon something. All men look for delight in something. The man who ceases to have something to live for or strength or hope to live by or pleasure in anything, that man is on the verge of destroying himself. It's one of the reasons why there's so much self-destruction in our sinful, miserable world of murder, is because it's impossible to be a man who doesn't worship. All men are devoted to something. All men depend upon something. All men look for delight in something. But if not God, then what? You see, trying to have wisdom without worship, because you're a worshiping person, because you are a creature made for the purpose of worship, means you will worship, but you'll do it without wisdom. Your worship will be marked by this darkness of art that doesn't know the living God. And so you'll have wrong objects of worship. And even those who claim to be worshiping the living God, when they don't worship according to God's wisdom, what do they do? They make up their own way of worship. And God says, you don't have him then, and you hate him then. Worship without wisdom is an utter darkness. Their foolish hearts were darkened, professing to be wise. They became fools in the first part of this folly. They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like a corruptible man. Now, We have rules in our house that are more or less, sometimes less, followed about exchanges. There comes a time when a sinful five or six-year-old will recognize that their less clever three or four-year-old sibling does not understand the comparative value of what they have. And we will not let them trade. They have to get their Lego trades or whatever else it is approved by mom and dad so that there can be an arbiter. Well, man has traded the glory of God himself. First of all, for himself, for man. Now, if you are a worshiper. and you're created to worship, but you are suppressing the truth and unrighteousness, you no longer have the option of worshiping God. So what are you going to trade that for? Well, the first thing man trades it for is man. This is humanism. The most obvious candidate for man's false worship is himself. The problem is man has a really hard time being his own help, his own purpose, or his own pleasure. Man is a sinful, miserable, weak, One of the things that you learn, well, you ought to learn by living in this world. But one of the things that is obviously true about ourselves, if you just read the Bible, is that man is constantly in trouble. We have No help. We have no goodness. We have no life. We have no strength in ourselves. And even after we are brought to faith, there is so much remaining sin and not just remaining sin, but persisting weakness that we are constantly in trouble. There's a man who doesn't know or think that he's in trouble that is in the most trouble. He's the one who, as you read the book or watch the show, and you see that he's about to get annihilated. How much worse his situation is if he doesn't realize how much trouble he's actually in. Well, humanism cannot be sustained, which is why man descends into paganism. He realizes that he doesn't have goodness or strength in himself. And so he starts looking for other candidates. The list at the end of verse 23 is probably descending in ability. Birds, at least they have wings. They have some semblance of power. This would have been especially sharp twist of the night from the apostle to the Romans, to the Roman church. The Roman empire identified itself with the eagle. And they would have said, yes, birds. No, not birds. Because in birds, there is not strength or help or hope for man. Four-footed animals. The four on the floor. It's getting worse. And then the creeping things. Paganism, when we look outside of ourselves to something other than God, things only get worse. We cannot be our own help. Nothing else can be our help. And then we, in a great irony, in the last couple of hundred years, have taken the two and mashed them up together into something called evolutionism. So you have birds and four-footed creatures and creeping things, and we take man and we stick him in with all those other things, not recognizing man's distinction from the other creatures. And we think that if we make a humanistic paganism, that somehow we will invest man with this increasing strength and this increasing goodness. And so you have the woke nonsense that has rejected all morality that has gone before. And that's the only part of the new morality is just to reject all other morality. And man trying to have wisdom without worship has become self mocking. You see, then, how we were made for God, and we were made in His image, and we have utterly rejected Him. It's not about human flourishing, it's not about trying to recover a way of worship or a way of morality that will give us our best life or restore us to enjoyment and success and life and health. It's about having rejected the glorious God who didn't need to make anything. And it is against our rejection of him in our ungodliness and our unrighteousness that his wrath burns. And if that's what God's wrath is revealed against, then how greatly we continue to provoke him. How much of our life, you and I, do we live unmindful of our God? And so his wrath is great indeed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. But therefore, how desperately we need righteousness from him that has been revealed in the gospel. You see, as bad as your sin is, if you are in Jesus Christ, there is already now no condemnation against you. God hates your forgetfulness of him, you're trusting in yourself, you're hoping in other things. He hates all those things with the entirety of his glorious being. But he himself has propitiated his wrath. God the son is exhibited as the atoning sacrifice so that there's not a drop of this wrath left. even against such sinners as we are who have despised the glory of God. That's why the apostle is so excited about the gospel in which this righteousness, the righteousness of God is revealed, even for sinners who have provoked wrath in this way by despising the glory of God. God himself is the gospel. Not only that he has revealed himself in the creation and to us, not only that he has revealed his wrath against our despising him and rejecting him, but that he's revealed his righteousness for us as the power by which he saves us in his gospel. How eager we ought to be then to hear in these coming chapters this gospel of which the apostle is not ashamed.