Good morning. All week I thought about what is the most Christmas verse I could think of. There you go. All right, Romans chapter one. If you have your Bibles with you, go ahead and turn to Romans chapter one. And I asked Mark to read verse 18. because that's where we're gonna be today, but I want you to look at 18 through 25. I'm gonna be doing this as a piece together, but within a few different messages. So, verse 18 of Romans chapter one. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and crawling creatures. Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Let's go to the Lord together. Father, help me this morning, I pray. The weightiness of what's in this text, Lord, I feel this morning. I'm intimidated by it, Lord. How best to preach this, how best to bring this up. But it's your word. We are your people, purchased by your Son, filled with your Spirit. So Lord, let us avail ourselves to the unvarnished truth of your Word. And what you are going to do, Lord God, let us be willing and ready to hear the truth, to see it for what it is, Lord God. that we might embrace the reality of that which is in light of your presence. And let every man be a liar, though, Father God, your word be declared as truth. So I pray that, Father, you would use me as an instrument to help, to help your people. And my desire, Father, is I want you to get glory. It's already yours. It's nothing we're giving to you. We just want to recognize the magnificence of your glory. So, Father, widen our scope this morning, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. One of my favorite words, a word that I use often, a word that the elders use often, that is preached, that is sang, and that is talked about in this church, and Lord willing, in every solid local church, is the word gospel. Gospel is a fairly simple word. What it simply means is good news. But it's not just good news, it's the good news. There's no news greater. I've received good news from people. People have come and said, hey, I got some good news for you. Oh, cool. What's that? And they tell you. But it's not the good news. There's all kinds of things that we hear that's good news, but not the good news. The good news. in the truth of this gospel is the glorious salvation that is ours through the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ's death, burial, and resurrection as the one who paid the penalty, as the one who atoned for sin. But here's the interesting piece. Quite often we do a terrible job because we only give that peace. And we neglect the bad news. Well, how good is good news if there's no bad news? That bad news is so vital to our understanding of the good news. And it's so prevalent in our culture. We hear good news, bad news jokes, or bad news, good news jokes. I mean, it's so infiltrated throughout our culture. You've heard the one where the doctor told the guy that you have a year to live. Bad news is, I was supposed to tell you at the last annual visit. There's all kinds of goofball bad news, good news jokes. But the reality is, beloved, if you miss the bad news, you will have a partial gratitude for the good news. You won't truly be gripped by the good news until you have tasted the bad news. Now here's the part that's interesting to me. We mature and grow in our understanding of the bad news after we've come to receive the good news. I did not know how bad I was off. I did not know where I would be for all eternity apart from Christ, half as much as I do now. And I'll know more, and more, and more. At my conversion, my thought was, I'm pretty bad, I've done some bad things. And I need Christ to pay for that penalty for those bad things. And the longer I'm a Christian, the more I go, whew, I had no clue how bad I was. As I see the depths of my soul, not only in practice and experience, but when I see what the scripture says about me. What I see the scripture says about fallen mankind. I wanna say this, as I search the scripture, at times I find myself freshly astonished at the depths of my sin and the depths of my depravity before God. I challenge you to sit down, read Ephesians 2, read Jeremiah 17, 9, read Romans chapter 5, read Romans chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4, and you come away going, read Colossians. Read what the Bible says about you. Because here's the mistake we make. I'm not that bad. Say me. I'm not that bad of a guy. I've never, and then you say the sins that you haven't done. You neglect the ones you have done. And we look at man's standard and we come away feeling we are not that bad, pretty good people that Jesus rescued. Well, let the word of God inform you of the depths of your fallenness. Let the word of God tell you. Don't let you tell you and be so careful not to let the culture tell you. Let the word of God tell you, there's a growing knowledge of the bad news. I'll tell you this, from Romans chapter one, verse 18, to chapter three, verse 20, you will hear bad news. I told Roger, I said, for the next six months, I'm gonna be talking about bad news. And Roger goes, you think you're gonna get through that in six months? Well. Touche, touche. I don't know, but I'll say this. The Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, makes no bones about our fallenness. And the ink spent to make this crystal clear is vital to the rest of the book. This book, you could say, to some extent, is a book of bad news, good news, and then life lived out by those who have been saved through that good news. But beloved, we've got to face the bad news. It's vital. A black backdrop makes the colors look so gorgeous. And so first I want to bring to your attention a neglected attribute of God, one that we don't talk about, one that is almost just removed in so many Christian circles, and that's the wrath of God. the very neglected, a very neglected attribute of God. If you notice verse 18, is revealed from heaven. Now please notice the context. If you look at 16 and 17, the apostle says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, it being the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, but the righteous shall live by faith, or will live by faith. For, and you go, wonder where he's gonna go from there, the wrath of God's revealed. Now I wonder, as this was being read by the church in Rome, who is known for their faith throughout the world, as they read this glorious statement in 16 and 17, if it felt a little bit of a gut punch when 18 came down. For the wrath of God is revealed. What's wrath? Let me say this, beloved, as I move further in this sermon, I hope, I hope you have a category in your theology for the wrath of God. If you don't, you have so much scripture that is not a part of your theology, not a part of your understanding of God. The wrath of God is not an out-of-control, seeing-red, angry, irritated type of fury. Rather, it is a calm, settled indignation that's building up. A calm, settled indignation that's building up. Perfect anger, perfect rage, perfect fury. Now, I don't know what that is, experientially. I've never experienced perfect rage, perfect anger, perfect fury. My sin gets in the way all the time. Typically my anger is anger that comes out of my sinful heart. It's a fleshly anger. And so unfortunately, too many Christians read the word wrath, they take their experiential knowledge of wrath, they pin it on God and say, God could never be like that. Well, you started in the wrong place. It's not about him acting like you, it's him acting like him. We are a poor, horrific representative of pure, true wrath. God's attributes are in absolute perfect harmony with one another. Mine are not. I get out of balance constantly. I've said over the years, I'm so glad that the world does not shift according to my mood. We're in deep weeds. Now, up here it does feel like that sometimes, but the truth is the truth and the world does not shift because I am a little bit cranky. But God's attributes are in absolute perfect harmony with one another. We make huge mistakes when we argue for God's attributes being stronger than another or one's better than another. No, he's in perfect harmony. His attributes are in absolute perfect harmony. Unfortunately, the wrath of God is an attribute sorely ignored in Christian teaching today. This is ironic considering the tremendous biblical material. Now, if in your mind right now you have the thought, I don't know if there's that much that speaks about the wrath of God, I encourage you, look up wrath, look up anger, find in your concordance how much speaks about God. Arthur Pink said, a study of the concordance will show that there are more references in scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God than there is to his love and tenderness. I just challenge you, search the scriptures. Because what I fear is that because we don't want to think about that, we don't like to give time to that, we just go over it. I'd rather hear about his love for me. I'd rather hear about his tenderness towards me. I don't want to hear about his wrath. That's harsh and strong and difficult. And what's interesting is so many Christians at times can seek to almost pursue to rescue God from anything that may speak about him that way. You don't have to rescue him from what the scripture says in reference to his wrath. It says it. And when we seek to rescue him from what the scripture says about him, you are at odds with him. So if you study and find the wrath of God in the Bible, and you say, ooh, that's harsh, I'm not gonna bring that one up. What other portions of the word would you like to conceal? Let me take you to a few passages. We'll do a sword drill here. John 3, 36. This happens to be, it's kind of interesting. This is the very first text of scripture I ever preached. This was my very first sermon text. John chapter three, verse 36. I didn't need the theme music this morning, Mark. Yep, yep. Setting the tone for a wrath text, brother. He charges me extra for that kind of stuff. John 3, 36. He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Romans 9, 22. I'm just moving through these kind of quick, you guys. So if you want to jot them down, that's cool. If you want to turn, that's cool. But I'm going to read them for you also. Romans 9.22. And what if God, wanting to demonstrate his wrath to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, having been prepared for destruction? Ephesians 5.6. And I in no way believe that these are lucky-dipping type of passages. The context profoundly supports the wrath of God. Chapter 5, verse 6. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. What kind of things? Well, if you just look at verse 4. Nor filthiness, or foolish talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know with certainty, that no one, sexually immoral or impure or greedy, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." You hear that? Let nobody deceive you as if there was not recompense, as if there was not judgment. Don't let anybody trick you as if that's not going to happen. Colossians 3, 6. Colossians chapter three, verse six. And I'll read five, five and six. Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. On account of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. First Thessalonians 1.10. Look at 9 and 10. For they themselves report about us what kind of an entrance we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus. Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come. We could multiply these verses and still be searching out the data that the scripture has. I want you to please notice, I didn't even take you to Old Testament. Just the Psalms are chock full, account after account of God's fierce anger throughout the Old Testament scriptures. This is not merely a man-made theological construct. This is what the Word says. God's wrath is, and here's a vital point, absolutely fair and just and firmly established in truth. God's wrath is absolutely fair, just, and firmly established in truth. Any argument that's ever made against God being unfair is your problem or mine. That's the world's problem when they say God's not being fair. He's only fair. He's only just. And it's firmly established in the truth. Now think about this with me for a second. Imagine if somebody broke into your home and did untold, just horrific things to you and to your family. And after he had done that, he gets caught He's put before the judge, put before this judge to make a decision what to do. And the judge goes, I've decided just to be nice to him and let this one go. Fair? Just? Righteous? That's outrageous. You'd be outraged at that. And by the way, really quick. That is not what the Lord did in the gospel. If that's what he did, then Jesus wasn't crucified. God did not merely say, forget about it, don't worry about it. No, he took the sin so serious that he sent forth his son to be crucified. How important is it to God that there be justice and righteousness done? He sent forth his son. He didn't turn a blind eye to us. and say, it's not that big a deal, I'm pretty nice, I'll be kind to you here. No, he sent his son to be crucified because he's so righteous. The absolute perfect righteousness and justice of God and the absolute perfect mercy simultaneously on that cross. This is in no way an unhinged, out of control, seeing red kind of rage. No, it's a calm, controlled, steady, perfect, just wrath. And there is no judge higher. God is not carrying out the demands of any people. He is the one. The buck stops with him. I believe that the wrath of God is quite often neglected because it is confrontational by nature. It is absolutely terrifying, ghastly, horrifying, and unfortunately at times treated as unworthy of God. So what do we do? And I'm sticking pretty close to my notes here because I don't want to mess this. So what do we do? We play down anything that might hint at God's power, justice, or rage against sin. We have, and I invented a brand new word, we have Santa Claused the sovereign. He has been defanged. He's been declawed. in our culture so that he is merely seen as the jolly old man in heaven that is greeted with a tip of the hat and some pity from the world. I'll say a few words for you to the big man upstairs kind of stuff. He wouldn't hurt a fly. The scripture says that that person is a fool who talks like that. But this is absolutely what fallen man does. This is absolutely what fallen man does. How is God's wrath revealed? If you notice back in Romans 1.18, it says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. The truth of a creator God is revealed in creation. You can jot down Psalm 19, where we're told that the heavens declare the glory of God. Romans 1.19-25, the rest of this passage. Man's own internal understanding of God, we're told that in this text as well. That being the case, there is an internal knowledge of good and evil and the fact that they answer to someone. God has certainly poured out his wrath in history. So what we're gonna see in this passage is God has made himself known through that which he has made. And he has put in the mind of man and the heart of man and woman conscience to recognize that which is evil. Now I'm not speaking towards the gospel so much as just the fact that there is a creator. How else has God's wrath been revealed? Well, my goodness, beloved, look at the scriptures. The flood. Sodom and Gomorrah buried in hellfire. The plagues on Egypt. Egyptians destroyed in the sea. The sons of Aaron burnt up for their strange fire. Ananias and Sapphira lie to the leadership of the church in Acts chapter five, and they're both dead the same day, hours apart. But also, look how else God has revealed his judgment on this world. Look at death. Isn't it interesting? Evolution says that we're just getting better and better and better. Yeah, yeah, except for we all die. We live in a fallen world with death, with disease, with all kinds of things that are revelatory, that there's punishment. God's done this. This is not a deistic theology where we say God's not attached in any way. He created it, then He just wound the clock and left it alone. No, He is involved in this. His wrath has been revealed. His wrath was revealed that day on His Son. God still shows himself through wrath, through natural disasters. Isn't that interesting? We call it natural disasters. Some of you, I don't know if they still have this, but if you look in your insurance policy, there's that little phrase, acts of God. What? In this culture? Apparently my insurance policy has much greater theology than the majority in our culture. Our insurance policy states acts of God, and yet it's so interesting that when we see natural disasters, we call them natural disasters as if we've removed God's sovereign hand from it. That the Lord does not still reveal his wrath and his justice. The reality of there being a good, orderly, powerful, thoughtful, knowledgeable God behind the existence of this universe is not a difficult case to make. Let me say it one more time. The reality of there being a good, orderly, powerful, thoughtful, knowledgeable God behind the existence of this universe is not a difficult case to make. We are told that it is, we are told that it is by lost, sinful, spiritually dead, fallen humans who by nature hate the things of God. They're the ones that inform us that it's hard to see that there's a creator. And yet the four-year-old goes, whew, man, who did this? Their problem does not lie in the evidence department. Their problem lies in the moral department. They don't deny this because there's not enough evidence. They deny this because they hate him. That's not me saying that, that's what the rest of this chapter states. The scripture says they are without excuse. They can't say, well, there's just not enough evidence. If there was more evidence, then maybe I'd believe. That's not a true statement. The scripture says the opposite of that. It's not an academic argument. It's a moral, fallen, sinful argument. Look at the rest of the text in verse 18. Who is this wrath for? For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. of men. It's fascinating because typically we use ungodliness and unrighteousness interchangeably. They're not exactly the same thing, but they find themselves very much connected. Ungodliness speaks more to, say, irreligious or unreligious, blasphemous, mocking the things of God. Against God. Unrighteousness would be morally bankrupt. Sin in thought and deed against God. And those two certainly are gonna meet at some point in the middle too, where ungodliness and unrighteousness meld together. And I believe what Paul's doing here, he's not making a huge deal out of the two terms so much as bringing together all those people who practice ungodliness and unrighteousness, have the wrath of God against them. These two categories are in some ways a reference to the same thing. The wrath of God is revealed against only those in the human race that are ungodly and unrighteous. So, all you have to do is not be ungodly or unrighteous in any way, shape, or form, and you've got this. Only the sinners have the wrath of God abiding on them. Paul will make this clear all throughout this book, that all have fallen short of the glory of God in sin. And again, just look at some passages, Jeremiah 17, nine, Ephesians two, Colossians two and three, I think it is. And just hear what the word of God says about you, says about me. You may not like it, you may struggle with it. I get it right there with you, but it makes no difference what it says is. and you either submit to it now or you will. Natural man in sin suppresses the truth of God. Now please notice, beloved, look at this. His wrath is against those, all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Natural man in sin suppresses the truth of God. Now, follow with me on this, okay? This is one of those passages. All of us probably have a couple of these. Certain passages that kind of grab your mind at some point in your life, and it just never lets go. Years ago at Bible school, we were going through the book of Romans, and a professor was teaching, and this was the verse he put his finger on, and I was done. I don't remember anything else he said for the rest of the class at all. I'm sure it was wonderful. But I was enthralled with this phrase, those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. You take a spring, take a spring out of something or purchase a spring, just put it between your fingers and hold that spring down, okay? Or take a beach ball, inflate it completely, and then go down to the water and hold it under the water. That's the idea being spoken about here, is that the pressure is building, it's pushing. You have to aggressively, with strength, suppress it down. It's not easy. You have to work to make this go away. Which is why the scripture says, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. The fool says that. Why? Because it's so apparent. It's so clear. It's so evident. So clear that the scripture says that you are without excuse. You have no excuse before God to say there's not enough evidence to say that there's a creator. Anyone who says that, the scripture calls the fool. So, here's a list. I want you just to think about this with me, okay? How do they suppress the truth of God? How do they do that? In what ways could you look out in your world that you live in and see where people suppress the truth of God? Well, first and foremost, I'm going to point right to the lies of the evolutionary process and the whole evolutionary hypothesis. To argue that things become other things became other things that started from nothing is ridiculous. And that's losing a bit, too, by the way, in our culture right now. We have more people who are saying, well, I believe in intelligent design. And I want to say, what's his name? But they're moving, right? They're moving closer, because they're looking at this going, man, this is such a stupid argument. It doesn't work. Nothing explodes and becomes everything. Not only that, it gets better and better, but it keeps dying. What? Ridiculous. That's one way they seek to hide that. Just don't. Nobody look back there. Nobody look back there. Also, they muddy the waters with a multitude of man-made religions. This is why we hear the people in the world speak to, oh, they found religion. I'm glad you found one that worked for you. I'm glad you're becoming a better person because you found the religion that's good for you. Basically this smorgasbord of a pile of man-made stuff, you found one, it's a little bit helpful, kudos. That just muddies the whole thing. It makes God non-existent because man in this universe just came up with a bunch of religions. You have the Christian one, they have the Buddhist one, fill in the blank. It's muddied up. But you suppress reality of God the more and more you have that. Next, you have brilliant people pretending that this is an academic issue, not a moral one before God. I find it fascinating, scripture just does not speak to those who would so gladly and happily be saved, but they just can't because they're not satisfied academically. Bible doesn't know anything about that. But it sure works to hide and to stifle and to suppress the reality. Here's one, we hide death from our culture. We hide death from our culture. Why? Because death shows us immortality or mortality. The reality that you're going to die. Is there anything after death? No, no, no, no. Here, here's a beauty cream. This cream will make you look good for the rest of your life. I'm 107. Just put it on your face and relax. We deny. We lie. We trick ourselves. I'll never die. Yeah, you will. where years and years ago, homes would have particular rooms where family members would pass. Family would come around, and family would be right there, and they'd see the soul and body part. That was a part of our culture. It's gone, now it's just in some sterile room, and you can come if you want, and it's just so hidden, so hidden. Hide that, don't let anybody know they're gonna die. We kill unwanted babies and we call them fetuses to deny creation, to deny the living God's marvelous work. You are marvelously created by a glorious God. And we say, oh, they're here by mistake and it's all evolved and it's just a mistake, so do away. You're whatever gender you decide to be this afternoon. Because after all, there's no creator, there's no designer. You do anything you want with yourself because you're here by mistake anyway, so live it up. There's no God, so rules do not exist. You can give yourself sexually to whomever, whenever you want. Give your mental faculties to any drug that you want and you desire, free from any kind of consequence. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Man is the measure of all things. There's the pit, beloved. There it is. You live in that. I live in that. Unfortunately, we breathe in all that junk and at times we can start to function as a practical atheist living in the midst of all that and forgetting that this is insanity. To say there's no God, this is insanity. It's everywhere. It's the little kid saying, hey, the emperor's not wearing clothes. Am I the only one who's been seeing this? The wrath of God is revealed, and what does man do? He suppresses it. He hides it. This thought came across my mind this morning. Rather than hiding from God like Adam and Eve, we try to hide God. So we're not trying to hide from Him, we just hide Him. We ignore Him. We stifle Him. Get Him out of here. Well, has enough truth been revealed so that we can say that sinful man is suppressing it? So think about that. Has God revealed enough truth that we could unflinchingly say man is suppressing it? I'll let you know next Sunday. Because this whole passage speaks to that very reality and how man denies reality. Beloved, there's a reason the scripture says the fool says in his heart there is no God. That's what a fool says. Let me give you a couple points of application and go to prayer. Think about the world's misconceptions. of hell and judgment in reference to this wrath of God that's been revealed. I'm basically good and have nothing to fear even if there is a God. I'll be drinking a beer in hell with my friends instead of eternal church. Satan is in hell tormenting and ruling his domain forever. And I'd rather be under his domain than under the domain of that God. These aren't made up, this happens. This is said, you've heard this. Maybe some of you before your conversion said this kind of stuff. Where you mock him, you slander him. And in your arrogant, pompous attitude, you just live for self as if there is no God. And the world is happy to accommodate you in that. But here's the second piece to that. The church's failure to declare all of the gospel. The church's failure to declare all of the gospel. Sharing the good news of all that is ours in Christ apart from warning of the wrath to come upon all outside of Christ. Now, follow with me on this last couple of thoughts, okay? This removes the absolute necessity of Christ's atonement and makes it an option to make life better. This is all interconnected, right? We've got a health, wealth, prosperity gospel. We've got all these different things out in the world because we have shared the glorious salvation, but nobody has a clue what they're being saved from. And let me go a little deeper, who they're being saved from. They only preach the good news apart from the bad news, and the obvious question anyone would ask is, so why'd Jesus die? Why is Christ on the cross? If God loves me, has a wonderful plan for my life, and everything's hunky-dory because he loves me so unconditionally, I don't get it. Why is Jesus pierced to a tree? Oh, that's right, you forgot the first piece. The wrath of God abides on you. There is hell. There is eternal torment. There is judgment, where you will perfectly, righteously suffer forever and ever and ever under the perfect wrath of a perfect God. That's unvarnished, beloved. That's what the word states, and it states it so clearly. And we make such a ginormous, ginormous mistake in our evangelism to try to soften that piece. If we only preach the good news apart from the bad news, then we miss the whole reason for the good news. And here's what happens, okay? Follow with me on this. What happens then is our gospel becomes earthbound. Because now it has nothing to do with eternal hell. It has everything to do with, don't you want to come to Jesus so life's better? Life's easier. Or one popular book title, you'll have your best life now. That's so bogus. That's such a lie from the pit. But that's what happens. If you remove the wrath of God and eternal torment and eternal damnation, you take that part away, you make it an earthbound gospel. Come to Christ, everything's better here. The earth-moving truth is that God has rescued us from himself. This is why the scripture says he is both the just and the justifier. It is his wrath. This is not the wrath of Satan that the scripture speaks of. This is not the wrath of man the scripture speaks of. This is the wrath of God. And so I just say with all of my heart to you this morning, beloved, let us be faithful, be a faithful people to declare the whole gospel. Let us be so careful to not leave this bad news off. Because I'll also make this point, if you remove the bad news long enough, at some point that will kill your passion for evangelism because these souls, you're not thinking in reference to their damnation, in reference to their destruction. You just want to make their life better. You can buy into that horrific half gospel. I believe one thing that fuels our passion for evangelism is to look clearly at the scripture in reference to that which happens to those outside of Christ. When you see that perfect wrath of God that awaits all those outside of Christ, Lord willing, it will fuel a passion to declare this message. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all in godliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Beloved, I end on this. May all of us be careful and may all of us go to the Lord this morning and ask a single question. Father, is there any way in my practice or in my teaching or in my evangelism in that I am suppressing your truth? Am I guilty of hiding the truth of God in some way? Father, thank you for your word. I very