Welcome to the To Faithful Men podcast. This project started in 2006 to preserve old sermon and study tapes of Wiley Flanagan, Hassell Wallace, and Mike Strebel. 2 Timothy 2 says, And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Further tonight in my meditations about some things in Romans, and I have reason for doing this, a discourse or two that I want to preach is further over in the book of Romans. But I believe if you will listen and pray for me, it will be more meaningful to you when I reach that point, and I trust it will be more meaningful to me having studied to try to reach that point to preach these discourses. Now, I know there is something lost. in preaching from subject matter altogether. There are great things lost in the scriptures. Without any subject preaching, there is also loss. So bear with me as I read to you and try to instruct you, maybe as we look at some of the scriptures in Romans, maybe verse after verse some of the time. I want to read first to you tonight in 1 and 2 Peter. Chapter 3, and I'll begin reading with verse 15, then I'm going back to Romans 1. 2 Peter 3, verse 15. Peter is teaching to make some remarks about his brother Paul. I want you to listen to them now. Brother Tate talked about the simplicity of the sayings of Jesus Christ, some of them, and certainly it's true indeed. Peter is fixing to say about his brother Paul that all the things he said, you have to pay pretty close attention to it sometimes. And those that are unwilling to do that just rest those things to their own destruction, bring them down to nothing, and they don't understand it. Let's hear what he has to say about that. Verse 15. And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you. As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. Now, Peter is not saying, I don't think, that you can't understand what Paul says. But he also says that this man has something rich and vital, gloriously, for you to hear. But you can't think about the songbird and the hoot-owl and the kill-dee and never learn what he said. You've got to listen to him. Let's just keep that in mind now. Let me read you the verse that we're reaching back to, going back to chapter 1. I read that now this morning. Romans 3 and 9. Here's what Paul said. I don't see any reason why we cannot understand it, whether we can believe it or not believe it, but the fact that you can't understand it is out of the picture the way I see it. Paul said, what then? Are we better than the Jews, are they? know in no wise. For we have before proved, both Jew and Gentile, that they are A-double-L, all under sin. Now I don't think, I don't believe it takes some kind of a shrewd theologian, a thinker, a wizard to understand what that said. But a man that don't want to know it, live under sin anyway, he'll just rest after his own destruction. Why he couldn't have meant what he said? Let's see now. We've got to find out. I know there's some other interpretation of that. But I'm telling you, there is no other one. Paul emphatically said that the whole world is understand. Now, I don't believe that or not, but I understand what he said. Now then, I want you to also believe, if you believe that, If you don't believe, don't try to get someone to interpret it and explain it away because you know what it says. But if you don't accept that to be the truth, I want you to also accept the fact that in Romans chapter 1, beginning with verse 18 and ending up with the last verse in that chapter, verse 32, that Paul diligently shows you the picture why that he ever said that the Gentiles is under sin, under sin. I want to impress this upon your mind. I have preached discourses to you and used Romans chapter 1 beginning with verse 18 and on into those verses, and I have said boldly that those verses, as far as I'm concerned, was not dealing with a child born again person. I mean, I don't accept the fact that these people are born again. But just in case you forgot already, I'm going to tell you what I said this morning. That discourse is secondary. It's not foremost in Paul's mind for me to know whether these are born again or not born again. That's secondary. I'll reach that conclusion just for what he says about them. But that's secondary. The Holy Spirit's main purpose in guiding Paul in what he says here is to show, in whoever dare he reads it, why Paul could say later on, Brethren, I just got through proving to you that you and Gentiles both understand. Paul's primary mission in verse 18 through 32 is to show you not only that they understand, but by their actions proves it a million times over. That's the primary import of those verses. Now then, to everyone that wants to learn, want to learn and remember next week, if you have a pencil now or your Bible with you, you ought to write right over verse 18, if there's room in your Bible, make some kind of notation to where that you'll know that this is where that power of discussion sets in, unwavering to the fact of the statement in 3 and 9. Well, brethren, here's a picture of the Gentile world beginning in the Garden of Eden when Adam sinned. Beloved, listen, Paul's not talking about Gentiles in 1971. We're just like they was in the Garden of Eden after sin. But Paul is starting with a man that could be in with God. God literally talked to Adam. Adam, it'd be better if you don't sin. In the day that thou eatest thy off, thou shalt surely die. We can rest these things, our destruction, if we want to, but I'm going to tell you whether we do or not. God's not going to excuse our ignorance. Oh, I want to press that again tonight. God's not going to excuse anyone's ignorance that has sound mind. That means the elect and the non-elect. Now, I don't extract that out. It's dangerous to say non-elect. That's not in the Bible. But God is not going to excuse his chosen people and all the rest of the world combined. They are without an excuse for not recognizing a higher power. I haven't always heard preaching like that. I've heard preaching that indicated to me that God just said everybody else except the elect just go have a big time. He never said no such thing. We're held guilty, responsible human beings. to God. Now Paul, in pointing this picture, and he says all, and he said now the Jews are not a bit better off than the Gentiles, but Paul is just not starting in his day with the Gentiles either, or the Jews either. But he's beginning in the Garden of Eden and painting a picture, and you can just trace it along the descendants of Abel and Cain and go on down the line. And you'll find by the time that you've reached Genesis 6, That God looked down from heaven and seen that man's heart was upon evil continually. Paul got that in mind. Brother, he's showing you what wretched sinners we are. And he's also showing us tonight that there hasn't been anyone from Adam on that's ever understood just all the magnitude of sin that happened. And how God, when he cursed it, what a terrible thing it was. But if you don't see that, we'll look there and we'll say, well, he's talking about, and I don't know when he started. I'm telling you, when he started, his representation to prove to you that all the world can understand, he begins with Adam, and he said, hey, I'm painting the picture. If you just look at it here, it just goes down and down and down and down. Now then, if you'll see that, then when Jesus said this, without me, you can do nothing, it will have meaning. But until you see this, it just has about half the magnitude that it should. Everyone that has come into this world since then, both Jew and Gentile, been born out of sin, come here with a sinful nature, brooded by their cruel acts one way or another, and then he says you absolutely, unconditionally, impossibly cannot do anything spiritually good that will be accepted with God spiritually without Jesus Christ. And then Paul is going to prove the value of Jesus Christ in these epistles. All right. And I believe when we try hard enough, we won't try to rest those scriptures to our destruction. We'll just let them say what they say. The best we know how, we'll reach a pretty good conclusion of what Paul is telling. Verse 18, I'm just going to read that in pass on, because we talked about that this morning. 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 may be known of God is manifest in them." There, what this is, is in them. God has imprinted something in them. That's why you have a cannibal. That's why every person that's been born from Adam on has been held for cannibal because God manifested something in him, in him. The heathen in the darkest jungle and the most ignorant tribe on the face of the earth tonight has no right to look up and make an idol out of the sun and be a sun worshiper. That's a sin. And the reason that God holds him accountable for that is because God has manifested something in him. You say it's not so. I say you're going to make Paul out a liar, and I have to accept that. There is something that God puts in a man whereby that he is to recognize a high power which made the Son, whether he knows to say God or not. He's not to take the Son and make an idol. He's supposed to make an idol whoever made the Son. And whether when we stoop to idolatry, the most cruel and unlearned tribe denied. If they have any eye, I will accept the God that they look at and see. Somewhere behind that there's a God. I'm worshiping him. God will accept that. But anything else than that, that tribe will give an account to God. Because God manifested something in him. It is. This idea of just fiddle-faddling around and dying and all you people listening to me tonight. Some of y'all don't believe my message because you don't listen. You make up your own mind. You just listen. I read Paul. He said there's something in a person whereby that they can recognize some divineness in someone. Back of all of this. God is just as displeased with anyone that won't come to the logical conclusion. Oh, what a wonderful effect this is. Look here at what we're seeing. Look up there at that sun. The stars. Look at all of that. They may not know to call them stars. Look up there. You see that effect? God expects every individual with a sound mind to come to the conclusion, behind that is a great cause, and he's our eye. Anything less than that is an accountable to God, and they will answer for it. Now, they haven't done it. They didn't want to retain God in their mind, they cast him out. But God said that without an excuse. And if a heathen in a dark jungle is without an excuse for not recognizing some kind of a higher power, how much more accountable am I that lives in the famed enlightenment of Jesus Christ lives in my soul? How much more accountable am I to that God? But yet America in 1971, they rest after their own destruction. You hear me tonight? They said, Brother Paul sure is hard to understand. Peter said he was. Peter didn't say that you couldn't understand him, but you got to dig a little. God didn't inspire all this Bible set to ease your rocking chair and be halfway asleep and understand it anyway. Manifested something in them. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them. Now listen, beloved, whatever this is talking about, it's talking about something except this revelation revealed from heaven. This is something besides that. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven through the word, through the gospel. I said that this morning. But here is something that's instilled into a person that they don't know something without any further revelation whether they ever hear the gospel or not. You say, I wonder what Brother Waltz is trying to tell me. Is he trying to get the people to hell or heaven? I'm not trying to do neither one. I'm trying to read this Word and let it say what it will. If it slays me, just let it slay. But God's not going to conform to my way. I've got to conform to His Word and say, that's it, Lord, if it slays me to there. That's like some rotten sinner thinking one day God's going to wake up and say, well, I understood. Just go ahead. Oh, what a deplorable end that person has before him, or she. for God has showed it unto them." All right, I want to talk about that a little bit. Now, from verses 18 through 23, Paul had just showed the progressive the generosity of the Gentiles. They just go down, down, and down until they just reach the place that they've got so low they just don't retain God in their minds and they just cast him out. If my congregation could just learn this, And when you're sitting around in your home on some rainy day and you say, well, I've done everything else, I've looked at TV and read the paper, I believe I'll read the word a little while. And you open it up to Romans 3. And you get down to verse 9, and old Paul is saying again what I'm trying to talk about, you know. Just trying to drill that over and over again. That's all I have proved, I've proved, I've proved! If I can learn you enough that the first scripture will run through your mind, oh, I know where to see where he started at, Romans 1 and 18, then I've done something for you that's worthwhile. I'm going to tell you something else I used to think that God would excuse my ignorance about his word, but I'm sure wrong about that. Every judgment in here, is going to judge me whether I ever read it or learn it or not. It's available and it'll come upon me and I needn't think ignorance will excuse. Because there is something in me that tells me that whether I know much or not that something behind this effect must be my idol. Now we've been preaching all along that the heathen can go to heaven without hearing the gospel. I'm still preaching that. But that heathen is going to be judged, whether any evangelist gets there or not. And that heathen is going to be judged upon his own work. And everyone is going to be sent to hell, not because God didn't choose, but upon his own merit. And the truth of Paul's teaching is we'd all went there if God hadn't chosen someone out of that cruel mess of degenerate people. But after God chose he didn't send the rest of hell, they went there on their own merits. And that heathen's going to learn one day that deity, that God that you worship, that son up there, you've done wrong. Because God put something in you that lets you really know behind that. Behind that there's a higher power. Oh, I don't believe in praying to God sent anyone to hell. Now, I don't believe in that great white throne judgment when all the ones that God does not love appears there. Now, I don't believe they'll have a word to say back. God said I put in everyone something to recognize. That's why I believe there'll be degrees of impunishment. Most people don't, but I do. That old heathen beloved that sits behind that sun tower yonder somewhere. That's my idol. I don't know. I've never seen him. I just know he's got to be back there. I accept him as that. He's going to be a million times better off at that great white throne judgment than that one that picked up a piece of wood and made a handle out of it and bowed down to it. He's going to be better off in my opinion. Now you just take that or not. But I know one thing. The Gentile world is without excuse. I'm not going to rest after my destruction and tumble it around and say Paul didn't mean what he said, and then get to Romans 8, I hope, in a few weeks and preach my lungs out of the middle of a word he said. I refuse to carry on in such folly as that. Progressive degeneracy of the Gentile or heathen world beginning in the Garden of Eden after up to this present moment of time. I say I don't believe there's one ounce of difference in my day and the once after sin coming into the world. Not one ounce of difference. And the only reason that you ever find anybody serving God is through the grace and mercies of Israel. God has put his love and power in his heart. And we're sorry enough after that that that old evil nature is still hanging on. That includes preachers too. We just as sore, as hard as you or anybody else has ever lived as far as that old carnal nature is concerned. And it'll drag us down and cause everyone else to die in utter chaos and shame if we don't listen to God. But I'm going to tell you one thing, there's a reckoning day. And that's what primitive Baptists don't want to believe. No reckoning day. But I'm going to preach that again. I've done quit it now. I'm going to preach it again when I find scripture. I've preached it before making it my own interpretation. Because that which may be known of God." This says emphatically that there are some things that can be known of God without a revelation. And you follow me in that? If you don't, you're lost. You'll never pick me up no more down the line. You'll go home tonight saying, Brother Wallace, you're wasting my time. Let me read verse 18 to you just a portion of it again. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven." Revealed means a revelation, an uncovering. But the next verse says, I'm saying it, it says, It says emphatically that there are some things that can be known of God without that revelation. Some things can be known of the higher power without any gospel discourse. And that's what brings every man, woman, boy and girl with some man accountable to God. It's not a case of getting you up to heaven or down to hell. It's a case where the time comes for every knee to bow and every tongue to confess, no one's going to have any comeback, brother. That's what it means. And I'm going to tell you tonight, if anything I've said so far sounds scary, you must have been leaving me. Another thing I've said that sounds scary to me is just a stated, simple fact of God Almighty. And God tells me now, I put something in you from the very beginning, and then I put my spirit in you. Then I blessed you to sit down and sound the gospel." Then he had said, now if you turn your ear on that, he said, then he'd say, I wonder what you're going to say when the time comes for every knee to bow and every tongue to confess. What a lot of people think that we've grown up in saying is, God, you understand, don't you? And I know what his answer's going to be. You do too. There are some things that can be known of God without the revelation, because it is manifest in them. Now, you listen to me as I read this. It's manifest in them, in them, in their minds and conscience. Now, I'm going to say that's where God manifested that knowledge at. But I wouldn't want you to accept that if I didn't produce two or three verses of Scripture. then I'll leave that up with you and God. It is manifest in them, in their minds and in their conscience. Job 32 and 8 says this, But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. It appeared in man. God put it in there. And through that very operation, he instants something in there whereby that the heathen, the whole Gentile world, is compelled to say that there was a mighty force that brought all of this effect into existence. I do not say it's a case of saying he's G-O-D. But I think they could say that because whatever they set up, they recognize that as their deity. their God. You know what God has said? Thou shalt have no other God before thee. Before me. Let's say that again. God said that over and over again. Thou shalt have no other God before me. Over and over again He said it. Why? Why are you going to hold us accountable if we do? Because I put something in you whereby I can hold you. I'm going to demand something. I recognize my unearned. And what am I saying all of these things for? It's to show you that Paul was under inspiration and he wasn't fiddle-faddling around when he said, I've just got through proving to you, the church in Rome, that all, all, both you and Gentiles understand. Paul is not just telling you all of it, he's reading it. Brother, he's giving you some examples to go along with. There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. Job 38 and 36. Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given understanding to the heart? St. John, chapter 1, verses 9 and 10. Guess what it was saying about Jesus Christ. He was the true light. That was the true light. Which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Are you hearing that tonight? I wrestled with that scripture. I'd wonder what it meant and I'd try to talk about it, talk about the elect of God. And that verse just kept saying, oh no, it said that he lighteth every man that cometh into the world. You know what that said to me now? It said that every man that's come into this world, God put something in him to where that he could recognize Jesus Christ as the Godhead in creation. And he laughed at every man to that extent and leaves the whole world without excuse. That means every person here tonight with a sound mind isn't able to understand anything I'm saying. But it's going to say that the Jihad didn't like that at all and they just catch it out of their mind. That's why he said, I'm just not going to tell you just in a reasoning way. I'm showing you what they've done. If you doubt it, run back to Genesis 6. Run back to the cave of Lot and his daughters. Run to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Search the world over. And you'll find out for yourself several parts of the mercies of God. People that's under sin is a rotten bunch of people. More hatred and vile than the beasts of the field. I'd rather have a good pet dog any day. There's a man around me that didn't know God. That sounds bad, don't it? I mean just exactly what I said. I don't believe that dog would ever shoot me, and I doubt seriously if he ever bit me. But if that man that don't know God, if you aggravate him, he's liable to shoot you right through the heart or knock you in the head with a hammer. Now I'm going to tell you, beloved, if we just won't rest these things, our destruction, We're going to find Paul just glorifying God over and over again for appearing to him as a madman! Paul is a madman! Just walking in total darkness, going down to Damascus to bind and put in prison. Those that call upon the name of the Lord, considering even to their death. Oh, but he said, but God, by His grace and mercy, rescued me. But I was like all the rest of them. I was under sin, like all the other Jews and like all the other Gentiles. And he said, church at Rome, learn that before we travel far in this letter. I want you to learn that. And so I'm going to spend two or three or four paragraphs, let you read that first and get well established in your mind. Then we'll go to something else and see how God begins to work and bring somebody out of that horrible pit and do something good and wonderful for him. Even to the extent, he that spared not his own son, but delivered us up for us all, how will he not with him also freely give us all things? But that's to be further on. Paul is going to say, brethren, if I just start in there, I believe you'll sit there and go to sleep, not seeing the horrible pit of hell that you lived in, an eternal woe and misery in your home, without my mercy and grace, and I could never give it to you, only through some, my son. Jesus crying. That's what Paul wants you to understand in Romans 8. He doesn't want you to sit up at night and read the commentaries and go to sleep nervous in heart. Paul wants you to see that God Almighty loves you, a sinner stooped in sin. But if he didn't choose everyone there still held accountable for not recognizing him as the God of creation. In them. I'm going to read that to John again. That was the true life. which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." It didn't say it saved every man. It didn't say it caused every man to be born again. But it says it gives every person some insight into something. Lighteth. Verse 10 says, hold him by Jesus. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. Now, in the world you have not, if you'll find me one verse of scripture where that Jesus said, well, I just know you can't know me anyway and I forgive you, I'll preach it next Sunday morning. Jesus Christ has that accusation of cannibal for not recognizing him as the Son of God. He stood up around Jerusalem and said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stoniest of prophets, how would I have gathered thee as a hen would a chicken, and gather thee under my wings as a hen to other chickens? But thou would not. But do you think he excused Jerusalem for that hatred and violence towards him? No, sir. I'm going to tell you before you ever left Jerusalem in that nation. He said, henceforth, henceforth thou shalt see me no more until thou sayeth, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Jesus said, I'm holding you accountable for that. And that wrath will be upon you until the day that you speak a second tune. And as long as you don't speak the second tune, the wrath of God abides upon you. Because I've put lid every man, I've done all things around you. And you said, no sir, we still don't believe. but I'm going to tell you there's hell's accountable anyway." That's like a fellow coming to church and said, no, I don't believe that preaching, but I believe I can go to heaven anyway and I know God just will understand and he'll forgive me. I don't believe a word of that. God will hold him accountable, not for believing that message. Now then, the next thing in my verse says, for God has showed it unto them. I'm going to tell you what I believe when it says that God has showed it unto them. God has put something in a man, in his mind and in his conscience, whereby that he can recognize the divineness, the power of an all-wise being in nature. God demands every person, for God has showed it unto them. Verse 20 says this, For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen. That's kind of, Paul has said here, that is something hard to understand. He'd stop there. Paul said something invisible can be seen. That's contradictory, isn't it? That's one thing I'm sure that old Peter had in mind. He said all them fellows just rest after their destruction. Paul said invisible can be seen. I don't understand that if I didn't read further. 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 eternal power in Godhead, so that they are without an excuse. I want to buy this myself and beg you to believe that, whether I understood a word I've read or not. If every human being in this world and I had rejected that statement, they'd still be just as much accountable to God and be left without an excuse just as much if everyone accepted the truth. You say I don't believe it. You go down here and try to break some law and then plead ignorance and see how far you get. I've never had a highway patrolman yet. I have been stopped for speeding time or two not willfully, but I get in a hurry sometimes. Do you think the law sneaked at that and looked over it? Do you think that fella said, I just know, I just know you don't know what that speed limit is and I wouldn't charge you for nothing. No, he always charged me and said, fella, if you do that anymore, so long for you. He didn't, he didn't, no law, no law recognizes ignorance. And neither did Jesus Christ. And them heathens, when they appear before the judgment seat are crying. Strike that out. Those heathens, when they appear before the great white throne judgment, and they run up and with some frivolous tale, you know, they fell down and they worship idols. God is going to say, no sir, I put something in your mind and in your conscience whereby that you could do a better job. Everyone that's come into the world, I have put a certain light therein that I might have complete honor in the land. You hear that tonight? I'm listening at it real good because I've had a hard time saying it and understanding it, but I knew it as so anyway. I'm going to tell you one thing, beloved. In all of my wayward years, I don't believe God overlooked a one of them. I was a hell of a cannibal every minute because it's in the book what I was supposed to be doing. Since I have turned and repented and asked God forgiveness, I'm in a better way. Yeah, they can get forgiveness, a heathen could worship an idol. Then someone, he said, they've been something in me telling me all along it's not right. Whatever this is behind all of this effect, I'm going to make that my idol. He'll be in better shape in that instance. But if he dies worshiping that dead piece of wood or something, he's going to, he's without an excuse. How do you know that? Because it's said so by heathens. For they're without an excuse. In verse 20. All right, for the invisible things, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world. The invisible things, here's what that means to me. It means the power, the perfection, and the properties of God in creation. And that's what he expected those people and me to recognize. God expects me to recognize that whether I'm ever born again or not. But if I am born again, he expects me to double recognize it, beloved. That's why he says, for they are without excuse. I want to read that to you again, it's important. The day's coming. For the invisible things of him, the power, what do you mean by the power? I mean that power that said, let there be light and there was light. Whoever heathen in this world is supposed to recognize the fact behind light is a supernatural being and I'll make him God. I worship him, whether he's born to unborn. Time to talk about mischief. Only a spirit man born again is demanded no telling how much more of him. The power, the perfection. Why are you talking about perfection? Well, that old heathen standing in his tribe in the jungle, when he looks up there, he thinks back, he said, my forefathers and the fathers before that and the fathers before that all seen the same thing. The sun, the moon, the stars, nothing hadn't collided. We have light and darkness, rain. Oh, what perfection that is. And behind that, there has to be a higher being. I'm going to make him my God. And if he don't do it, God holds him accountable for not only recognizing the power, but the perfection of that power. But a child of God is 40 times, millions more accountable. Because Jesus Christ, he's not talking about Jesus Christ living in the souls of these people. He's showing you why all the world is guilty before God. That's what he's doing. But a little later on he's going to tell you how God reached down and taken up somebody out of there and put something in them besides just that first initial work that lighted every man. There's going to be something else in there. God himself is going to live in there. Paul said, I sure hope I'm really set in your mind where you can be on shouting ground when we get to that. After you see the sanking sand you walk upon, then you see the mighty hand of God reaching down and picking you up. And you experience that in your life. That's why that Hebrews, that's why chapter 4 is in there. Paul, reading, he puts that faith chapter in there. It'll show you how this is going to be real and violent and how you can have assurance that God picked you up out of the same sin. But if he didn't pick you up, you still have accountable to recognize something about the eternal power and perfection of God. You have accountable if we don't do it and we're without excuse. How do you know? Because Paul says, I'm proving that all the world, not just a few, is under sin. the power, perfection, and properties of God in creation since the time of the world's beginning," when he said all of them, the invisible things. And he said they are clearly seen. Invisible things are clearly seen. That is, in creation, the invisible power of God becomes visible to human intelligence in creation. I want to read that to you again. I wish you'd listen to that real close. Every man's held accountable to God from this standpoint. Every man are clearly seen. That is, invisible things are clearly seen. Well, how? That is, in creation. There was an invisible power that said, let there be light. But when that invisible power said, let that be light, visible light appeared, and it appeared into intelligent beings. They're supposed to recognize the fact that a mighty authority done it, and I'm to make him God in my life. It's not a case of whether you love him or not, that you recognize the power. That's what it's all about. I don't believe they love that or I don't either. They couldn't know what that is. It's not that. It's not the love of God that has been shed abroad in their hearts, but therefore they worship an idol. It's Paul proving that the whole world is standing guilty before God, they're under sin. That's the whole lesson in this chapter. If we miss it, we'll miss about half of all the rest that Romans has in store for us. All right, they're clearly seen. That's how the invisible things become clearly seen. Being understood by the things that are made. Being understood by the things that are made. I believe that saying in an intellectually way. The various works of creation is through the intellect. Let me listen, when God puts that spirit in there, just a spirit, and enlarges you to some degree, then he expects you to respond According to that degree, it's not talking about love, not talking about being born again, not talking about going to heaven, not talking about going to hell. It's talking about the whole world is guilty when they didn't respond to God, the creative power, the perfecting power, the all-powerful God. They are dead. They didn't do it. And they are held accountable. And not only just by their nature they are sinners, but they have sinned openly time after time after time. But they are without excuse, Paul said. Brother, if we can just grasp that, we'll be on shouting ground as we travel further through this blessed letter. It's where I believe. Even his eternal power in Godhead, that means to me the divineness of God, the power that called the universe into existence. Now, you listen, you listen now. It does not say that these people are called upon to recognize the Godhead in a spiritual way. The God of feeling, the God of mercy, the God of love that lives in you, that's not what it's saying about. But they are to recognize the Godhead of creation. In the beginning, God created the head and the earth. And the earth was that without form and void. And the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God, moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light. Paul's argument here, that God enlightens every person that comes into this world with a sound mind, that they're compelled to recognize the fact that light comes from somewhere, Thank you for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and share with a friend. Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.