The Wrath of God
Romans 1:18
August 19, 2007
Last Sunday night we concluded our look at the heart of a missionary.
Romans 1:16 “For I am 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.”
And what a statement that was.
Despite all his persecution…
Despite being stoned, beaten, on the run, mocked, and rejected…
Paul still said he was “not ashamed of the gospel”.
WHY WAS HE NOT ASHAMED?
Because “it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes”
People are constantly looking for the manifest power of God.
Even in Simon the Magician’s day people were held captive
By his magic arts and attributed him to be the great power of God.
But Paul tells us this power is found in the gospel.
“it is the power of God for salvation”
So despite the hardship that is associated with preaching it,
Paul was still not ashamed.
WHY IS THE GOSPEL THE POWER OF GOD FOR SALVATION?
Romans 1:17 “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”
Because the gospel is the only thing that reveals God’s righteousness.
And this is so important.
THE BIBLE IS CLEAR WHAT GOD DEMANDS OF MANKIND
Matthew 5:48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
1 Peter 1:16 “because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”
God demands righteousness.
God demands holiness.
And the place that is revealed or “uncovered” is the gospel.
More specifically the gospel reveals how to attain God’s righteousness.
“as it is written, ‘BUT THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’”
The gospel reveals that the righteousness which God requires
Is available through faith in Him.
Is this not what we have always been taught?
Romans 4:3 “For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
And so it is no wonder Paul is not ashamed of the gospel.
It is what leads men to salvation by revealing God’s righteousness, And then reveals the faith which makes righteousness attainable.
BUT LET’S ASK ANOTHER QUESTION.
I know that God wants us to be righteous.
I know that God wants us to be holy.
But really, we serve a God of mercy and grace, so although righteousness is a nice goal, is it really necessary?
WHY DO WE REALLY NEED TO BE RIGHTEOUS?
(18) “For the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
Failure to achieve righteousness
Doesn’t just cause you to miss out on some blessings.
Failure to achieve righteousness
Also makes you a recipient of God’s wrath.
AND THIS IS A VITAL POINT TO THE GOSPEL MESSAGE
You cannot understand the gospel apart from the wrath of God.
Looking at verse 18, we learn three things about the wrath of God,
That will set a foundation for future study.
#1 THE REALITY
Romans 1:18a
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven”
Now that statement may come as a bit of shock to you,
For today, people commonly try to write off the wrath of God.
The truths of God’s holiness…
Man’s depravity…
The enmity between holy God and sinful man…
The eternal judgment in hell…
The anger and wrath of God…
These subjects are by in large being avoided today.
Those truths are being omitted because they do not sell.
BUT HEAR ME.
THAT IS PART OF THE GOSPEL MESSAGE.
And although you may increase the number of people
Who attend your church by omitting it,
You will not lead men to salvation apart from
An adequate understanding of the wrath of God.
The grace, mercy, compassion, and love we all cherish
Is empty and powerless apart from wrath.
TODAY
People treat God’s grace as cheap.
They treat His mercy as deserved.
They treat His love as a nice but optional benefit.
DO YOU KNOW WHY?
Because we have left wrath and judgment out of our preaching And they have forgotten how badly they need them.
IF YOU REMOVE WRATH FROM YOUR PREACHING
YOU WILL COMPLETELY UNDERMINE THE NEED FOR GRACE.
What is more, you will be a false prophet,
Because whether you preach it or not, GOD’S WRATH IS A REALITY.
As is evidenced by what is written here.
“The wrath of God is revealed from heaven”
“wrath” translates ORGE (or-gay)
Now there are two words used for wrath or anger.
One is ORGE, the other is THUMOS.
THUMOS is the type of anger humans generally display.
It is an emotional, hot-heated, instantaneous outburst of anger.
This type is constantly condemned in the Bible.
James 1:20 “for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.”
God’s anger is ORGE.
It is not an immediate response, but a less sudden, abiding anger.
An anger that neither flares up instantly, nor dies quickly.
It is a wrath that is rational, deserved, and dedicated to justice.
It is a wrath that will not allow the guilty to go unpunished.
God’s wrath is not selfish, immoral, or emotional like that of man.
God’s wrath is in perfect harmony with His holiness
And will see to it that wickedness is judged.
This is why we read commands like:
Romans 12:19 “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord.”
It is better to leave room for the ORGE of God,
For then that person will indeed get what is coming to them.
It is further defined in:
Romans 2:5-6 “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS:”
People today commit sin and think they have gotten away with it.
WRONG
(Illustration: FARMER – “God doesn’t settle all His accounts in October”)
The wrath of God keeps record.
Exodus 34:6-7 “Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
Believe it or not, God has wrath, and it is a dreadful thing.
Hebrews 10:31 “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
But that is not all we learn of this statement.
Not only is God’s wrath real, but God’s wrath is also revealed.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven”
FOR SOME REASON TODAY PEOPLE SEEM TO THINK
THAT GOD HAS MELLOWED.
They think He is different than He was in the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament:
If a person had sex outside of wedlock – stone them
If a person disrespected their parents – stone them
If a person willfully disobeyed God’s Law – stone them
If a person failed to worship God through the feasts – cut him off from God’s people
But then we get to the New Testament,
And we think that God doesn’t judge sin anymore. That is not true.
Not only will He eternally judge sin, but HE IS JUDGING SIN RIGHT NOW.
“the wrath of God IS REVEALED from heaven.”
DO YOU MEAN THAT TSUNAMI WAS GOD’S WRATH?
DO YOU MEAN HURRICANE RITA WAS GOD’S WRATH?
Look further down in this chapter.
Romans 1:24-25 “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.”
THIS IS A HORRIBLE THING.
If a person persists in worshiping a God that is not real,
Then they are forfeiting salvation.
I cannot think of a more ignorant thing that someone could do
Isaiah 44:12-20 “The man shapes iron into a cutting tool and does his work over the coals, fashioning it with hammers and working it with his strong arm. He also gets hungry and his strength fails; he drinks no water and becomes weary. Another shapes wood, he extends a measuring line; he outlines it with red chalk. He works it with planes and outlines it with a compass, and makes it like the form of a man, like the beauty of man, so that it may sit in a house. Surely he cuts cedars for himself, and takes a cypress or an oak and raises it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a fir, and the rain makes it grow. Then it becomes something for a man to burn, so he takes one of them and warms himself; he also makes a fire to bake bread. He also makes a god and worships it; he makes it a graven image and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he eats meat as he roasts a roast and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire.” But the rest of it he makes into a god, his graven image. He falls down before it and worships; he also prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god.” They do not know, nor do they understand, for He has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they cannot comprehend. No one recalls, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say, “I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination, I fall down before a block of wood!” He feeds on ashes; a deceived heart has turned him aside. And he cannot deliver himself, nor say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
YOU SAY, BUT HOW IS THAT THE WRATH OF GOD?
(24) “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity”
God doesn’t have to allow people to worship false gods.
He put a stop to that with Israel. They were worshiping all sorts of gods until He put them in Babylon for 70 years. When they came out, they only worshiped one God.
His wrath is revealed by the fact that He doesn’t.
He is allowing men to destroy their souls by worshiping false gods.
There is more
Romans 1:26-27 “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”
Boy this is a heated one in our day.
If idolatry is a spiritual judgment,
Then certainly homosexuality is a physical judgment.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out
That two men cannot conceive a child.
In short if this grew, it would mark the self-destruction of the human race from sheer inability to reproduce.
And I want you to know God does not have to allow homosexuality.
I mean Sodom and Gomorroah proved that didn’t it?
God can deal with it if He wants to.
SO HOW IS THIS THE WRATH OF GOD?
“God gave them over to degrading passions”
He allows them to do it, and that is a horrible punishment because of what it says at the end of verse 27, “and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”
There is still more.
Romans 1:28 “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,”
Men who just don’t fear God, don’t want to worship God,
And don’t want to glorify God.
If idolatry is spiritual judgment, and homosexuality is physical judgment, certainly this is mental judgment.
And by the way God can stop this to.
He proved that in Noah’s day. He can put a stop to people who don’t want to acknowledge Him.
SO HOW IS THIS THE WRATH OF GOD?
“God gave them over to a depraved mind”
And I for one think this to be the worst of the three,
For now they no longer can even tell that what they are doing is wrong.
THESE ARE THE REVELATION OF GOD’S WRATH.
You may not like the thought of God’s wrath, but it is true none the less.
That is the reality.
#2 THE RECIPIENT
Romans 1:18b
“against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men”
You may have thought that the recipient of God’s wrath
Was the Idolatrous, the Homosexuals, and the Indifferent.
Certainly they are under God’s wrath,
But don’t assume that if you aren’t gay then you aren’t in trouble.
God’s wrath has a much broader scope than just those specific sins.
Here Paul tells us exactly who or what
Will cause a person to receive God’s wrath.
He says God’s wrath is “against ALL ungodliness and unrighteousness of men”
Again, there is no squeezing through the cracks.
All ungodliness and all unrighteousness are under the wrath of God.
“ungodliness” translates ASIBIA (as-eeb-i-ah)
“disregard for the person of God.”
John MacArthur writes that
Asebia, stresses “a faulty personal relationship with God…[It] refers to a lack of reverence for, devotion to, and worship of the true God, a failure that inevitably leads to some form of false worship.”
(MacArthur, John; The MacArthur New Testament Commentary; Romans 1-8; Moody Press, 1991, pg. 66)
God’s wrath is against those
Who do not treat Him as He ought to be treated.
They don’t reverence Him.
They aren’t devoted to Him.
They don’t worship Him.
This could be those who publicly and adamantly deny God
Certainly they are ungodly.
And they are under God’s wrath.
Jude 14-15 “It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”
But it might not be just those who openly spurn God.
It can just as easily be those who claim to know Him,
Yet do not obey Him, and so they blaspheme His name.
Romans 2:23-24 “You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? For “THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU,” just as it is written.”
Psalms 81:15 “Those who hate the LORD would pretend obedience to Him, And their time of punishment would be forever.”
Titus 1:16 “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.”
These where the type of people who really infuriated Jesus.
He was harder on Jews than He was on Romans.
Matthew 23:29-33 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ “So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. “Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?”
Matthew 23:15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”
These were men who claimed to love God.
They were devoted to religious causes.
They did all the right things, and said all the right things.
BUT THEY WERE NOT DEVOTED TO THE LORD,
THEY DIDN’T WORSHIP HIM IN THEIR HEART.
Their relationship was wrong, so they were the ungodly who are under God’s wrath.
“the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness AND UNRIGHTEOUSNESS”
“unrighteousness” translates ADIKIA (ad-ee-kee-ah)
“wrongness of character”
John MacArthur
“Ungodliness unavoidably leads to unrighteousness. Because men’s relation to God is wrong, their relation to their fellow man is wrong. Men treat other men the way they do because they treat God the way they do. Man’s enmity with his fellow man originates with his being at enmity with God.”
(ibid. pg. 67)
These are people who really aren’t right with God,
And that is evidenced by the way they treat others.
Galatians 5:19-21 “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
People whose lives are characterized by such sin reveal unrighteousness,
Which in turn reveals their ungodliness.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.”
I think John the Baptist revealed it the best.
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.”
If a person doesn’t obey God’s word, despite what they claim,
They do not truly love God and “the wrath of God abides on him.”
So thus far, the point is simple.
God’s wrath is real, and the recipients of His wrath
Are those who are in a wrong relationship with Him.
That is why later in the book of Romans
Paul refers to people without Jesus as enemies of God.
Romans 5:10 “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
The Reality, The Recipient
#3 THE REASON
Romans 1:18c
“who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
I told you God’s wrath is toward those with a faulty relationship,
But don’t go assuming that we are talking about
The flat out ignorant who know nothing of God.
First of all, no one in this world is completely ignorant of God.
Romans 1:19-20 “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, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
EVERYONE HAS SOME TESTIMONY
IN FACT, IN THIS CHAPTER THEY HAVE MORE THAN THAT
Romans 1:25 “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.”
Romans 1:26 “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,”
Romans 1:32 “and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”
The reason God is so angry is not because men don’t know,
But because men do know and don’t care.
“they suppress the truth in unrighteousness”
“suppress” translates KATECHO (kat-ekh-o)
“to hold down”
These are the ones who ignore the conviction,
And do their best to not hear the truth.
Jeremiah 18:11-12 “So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds.”‘ “But they will say, ‘It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”
THEY ARE ILLUSTRATED BY:
The stoners of Stephen who covered their ears to rush at him.
Those who threw Jeremiah in a well to shut him up.
Amaziah the priest who told Amos to stop preaching.
The Jews that stoned Paul at Lystra.
The Chief Priest that crucified Jesus.
That is why God is so angry.
They know what is right, but ignore it
To continue doing what is wrong.
That is to call God a liar and blaspheme His name.
That is to show absolutely no fear or reverence toward Him.
That is an absence of love for Him.
And every single person who does not have a right relationship with Him is under this wrath.
I don’t care if they are the heathen in Africa who has seen the sun rise every morning…
I don’t care if they are the Muslim in Iraq who has God’s internal witness.
I don’t care if they are the Buddhist in India who is bowing down to a graven image.
I don’t care if they are the atheist in China who is ignoring God’s revelation.
I don’t care if they are the church member in America who is just going through the motions, but is not honoring God with their whole life.
SUCH ARE UNDER THE WRATH OF GOD
AND THEY ARE IN DESPERATE NEED OF A SAVIOR
If that is you today, and God has revealed that to you.
Do not suppress the truth any longer – GIVE YOUR LIFE TO JESUS
Romans 5:8-9 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.”
