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Title: The inevitable result of Godlessness
This is great stuff. This is where Paul starts to unload theological Truth and brilliance at such an amazing rate that we could literally slow our study down to one verse a week and still not even touch the tip of what Paul is revealing to us. My goal, as your pastor, is to get the wheels turning inside your head about things that you may not have considered or pondered before. When you knowledge of God expands, your comfort level drops, you humility and awe increase, and your Christ-like behavior is magnified.
Hence: We learn better when we are humbled in the presence of our teachers.
I. Theological Rebellion leads to Moral decay
v18 (read)
There is something quite significant about the order of Paul’s wording. Paul says that God’s wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. We have two things we must deal with here:
1. Our God is a God of wrath.
No more can we say, “God wouldn’t do that because ‘God is Love’” I agree that God is Love, but God is also Wrath, Justice, Jealous, and Perfect. In His perfection, God cannot stand sin, his Wrath come out against it.
Definition of “Wrath” Greek Ogre (Oh-gray)
1) anger, the natural disposition, temper, character
2) movement or agitation of the soul, impulse, desire, any violent emotion, but esp. anger
3) anger, wrath, indignation
4) anger exhibited in punishment, hence used for punishment itself
a) of punishments inflicted by magistrates
2. When you have no God, you cannot have any righteousness. American society moans the travesty of the decay of our country’s moral fiber, and celebrates their triumph is having prayer removed from the schools. They are shocked and outraged at the events of Columbine while they simultaneously push legislation to have Student Christian High School groups like Fellowship of Christian Athletes, National Day of Prayer, and Prayer at the Pole eliminated.
They attempt to silence the believers, and then question where the morality has gone. I tell you where it has gone, away with your silenced Christians. We believe in the one, true God, He is the source and measurement of all righteousness and goodness, he is what we look to as an example of what it means to be holy. If you remove him from our society, the we have to find a replacement as an example of what is good. And do you know what we choose? Ourselves!
The most fleeting, feeble, wishy-washy, spineless, gutless creature on the planet, the human being! Are you with me on how absurd this is?
But it doesn’t even end there! Humans, after removing God, and trying to define their own version of righteousness, quickly become frustrated because we are all so segmented on what is right and wrong that our next step is to turn to Government to tell us what is right and wrong. This is more ridiculous than our first idea, because now we turned the terms and definitions of what is right and wrong, good and holy, over to a representative government that is, by nature, reactionary to the people it governs. Why do you think approval polls are all the rage in politics?
So then morality comes to it’s sad conclusion. Slowly, over time, with the frustrations of man’s inability to define good and evil, and the governments inability to help, we, as a race, come to the conclusion that what we once thought was right and wrong really isn’t that right or that wrong, and everything is relative to perspective. And what is righteous to you, is evil in my eyes. And friends, we have eaten from the tree, become wise, and live in total anarchy.
II. In our relativistic anarchy, we suppress the Truth.
Sadly, as Paul continues his dissertation, our story is not over. The inevitable result of all of these things is that we, as a race, suppress the truth because we, without God, are unable to ascertain what is right and what is wrong.
It is not that we are seeking the Truth and cannot find it, that would at least leave us with an ability to plead ignorance at Judgement. “Lord, I sought to know you, I looked for you but didn’t find you! Forgive my ignorance.”
We have been confronted with the truth (verse 20 next week) and have chosen to suppress it. Paul was writing 2000 years ago, and if I was clever enough to re-word his thoughts and put a title on a book by Ben Roby it could be called: “The Decay of Modern America: Where We Went Wrong”
But I don’t need to do that for you. Paul tell us in one verse: If you take God out of something, you take all ability to understand right and wrong, if that is left to a fallen man, the world he lives in will fall too.
So what about us? What decisions in our lives do we take God out of? Which television shows we watch? How much to spend on a car, or a house, or a meal? If you do not consult your God, the author of Truth and Righteousness, but consult yourself you are anarchist on that small level too. It is no wonder that Paul tells us in 1 Thess. 5:17 “Pray without ceasing.”
America removed God long ago. We need to put him back. In our country, in our schools, at our dinner tables, in our discussions with our friends, neighbors, co-workers.
Having read Paul’s words, none of us can plead ignorance.