Repudiation of God by man

okay we're in Romans chapter one so if you'll turn there and we'll we'll read verse starting at verse 21 Romans 1 21 says because When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, and neither were they thankful, but became vain or empty in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.

That's what we're going to be covering today. Last week we covered verses 19 through 20. So just to put all of this in context, go back to verse 19. It says, Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it unto them. 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 excuse.

Okay. What we're doing is stepping through Romans 1, and we've come to a section now, starting at verse 18, and all the way through chapter 3, God is going to pronounce his condemnation against all of humanity. And whether it's pagan humanity, the Gentile humanity, and whether the Gentiles are immoral, his condemnation comes against them, whether they're moral. His condemnation comes against them. And then he's going to address the Jews who were religious. And his condemnation comes against religious people. So when you get to Romans chapter 3, God sums it up and says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So we're going to see. his condemnation in these next three chapters.

Last week we looked at God's revelation to man. And as we just read, that which may be known of God is manifest in them. So as we looked at that last week, we saw that the emphatically noble things of God, they're emphatic, are emphatically made clear to man.

So man is without excuse. So as we go through this, the question came up last week, well, how are all men saved? And what we were talking about is this knowledge that God puts in man. It's intrinsic to man. And the question came up was, well, is that knowledge that is put into man part of the gospel? So does man know the gospel? And what did we conclude in terms of the knowledge that God gives every single man? Does he put the knowledge of the gospel in man? What do we conclude last week? What knowledge? The knowledge that He is God. That He is God. And of His power. And He is all-powerful, omnipotent, and His power. Okay. So, those two things. So, the question is, well, if that's all man knows, how is man saved? How does he get saved?

And so if we take it a step further, you have to ask the question, does God have a different plan for different ages? In other words, from Adam to the cross, the ages of men, is there a different plan of salvation? Or does God have one plan for all ages? So here's the question. How are we saved in this age? Through Christ? Isn't it by God's grace through our faith in Christ and His person and His work? In terms of that, we believe that He's the eternal Son of God and His work, that He died on the cross, paid the penalty for our sins, was buried, and he rose again the third day.

So that if we look at eternity past, God made an eternal covenant. Anybody remember what that eternal covenant was? It was a covenant made between God the Father and God the Son. A covenant is an agreement between two parties. So what agreement did they make? Back in eternity past. We raise him up again.

Okay, so God the Son agreed. to die for the sins of the world, and the Father says, you do that, I'll raise you up again. And the absolute proof that we know that Jesus Christ paid the penalties for the sins of the world, because he's the only one that was resurrected from the dead. There's no one else resurrected from the dead. People were restored back from the dead, back to life, but they died again. But the only true resurrection is the Lord Jesus Christ. So there's that eternal covenant. And as we just said, salvation today is by God's grace through man's faith. Okay, so we understand that part of it.

How about back here? How about from the beginning of creation to the cross? How about there? How is man saved there? Don't lick your notes. By faith. Okay. Look at this one in terms of God's plan. Way back in the beginning, God set up this sacrificial system. And behind the sacrificial system was that if there was no shedding of blood, there was no remission of sins. Right? I mean, as we read through Old Testament, New Testament. So, who made the very first sacrifice? And what did he do? Why did he make that sacrifice? He made a sacrifice, and what for? Think about Adam and Eve, they sinned. And what did they do when they found out they were naked?

Well, God covered them. Okay. So Adam and Eve put their own covering on, fig leaves or whatever it was, and God says, here's the covering that I want you to have. It was animal skins. So he made the very first sacrifice. to show that there is no remission of sins without the shedding of blood. I mean, that was a picture of the shedding of blood for sins. And then that followed by Abel, by Noah, by Abraham, by the law system. So what's interesting is this. As you step through the entire Old Testament, you see that there's, it starts out that there's one sacrifice for one man. Then there's one sacrifice for one family. And just in the Exodus, when Moses went down to Egypt, God said to the Jews, put the blood on your doorpost. And what's interesting about that Do you remember where the blood went on the doorpost? On the top and both sides. Isn't that interesting?

A picture of the cross there. So then there was one sacrifice for one family. And then when the law system was set up, there was one sacrifice for one nation. And then when the Lord Jesus Christ came, there was one sacrifice for what? The whole world. And so you see this sacrificial system pointing to the cross. Not only was the sacrificial system pointing to the cross, but God said this.

He made a promise. He made a promise to Adam and Eve in terms of a seat. when they sinned. And he said to Eve, your seed shall what? Crush him and the seed of Satan shall bruise his heel. He talked about a seed. And the interesting thing about this is that Adam and Eve have their first child, Cain. And you know what Eve says to Adam? I got the man, the man, the one that God promised. And she knew and he knew that it was a Redeemer type man. However, was Abel the Redeemer? They soon found out. that he murdered, right? Cain murdered Abel. Did I say Abel or Cain? Cain murdered Abel.

But anyhow, there was the promise of the seed. Now, the next promise of the seed, I think, in Scripture is to Abraham. In Genesis chapter 12, God makes a covenant with Abraham. Abrahamic covenant. He promises him a land, a seed, and a blessing. And the seed part of that promise was where God said, I'm going to bless all nations through you, Abraham. And we find out the way that God is going to bless all nations through Abraham is through his seed. And we see that in Genesis 22, 18. We won't turn there. But there's again the promise of a seed. Again reiterated to David. So you see the promise of a seed all the way through.

Now how about the time between Adam and Eve and Abraham? Did they know about the promise of a seed? How much time, let me put it this way, how many generations do you think is between Adam and Abraham? Lots? I mean, don't you think of lots and lots of generations and that this promise to Adam would get lost?

But it really wasn't because they lived so long. Okay, so here's the thing. Take a look. Take a look at the generations from Adam down to Abraham. And as Margaret points out, they lived long. So Adam lived 930 years. And here's Abraham down here. He's about close to 2000 years after, if you will, creation. But here's all these generations you have the Flood in between, and there's only two generations between Adam and Abraham.

Okay? You see how they overlap? Enosh overlaps with Adam. Noah overlaps with Enosh. And you never think about... Excuse me. Where's Abraham? Abraham overlaps with Noah. Would you ever think that Abraham overlapped with Noah? So do you see it? God made a promise to Abraham. How that promise could be handed down and then right to Abraham. And so when Abraham heard that promise of the seed, do you think he understood it? I think he understood it.

Okay, so let's go back. So I think we can conclude, like Bob said, how is man saved? Through faith. But faith has to have an object. What's the object? What God has revealed. Okay, what God has revealed. And so now the question is, what has God revealed?

Did He reveal His Son through this entire period? Through the sacrificial system, through the seed? from the beginning, from the get-go. They knew there was going to be a seed. They knew there was remissions of sins by sacrifice, by shedding of blood. But was it crystal clear in terms of who Jesus Christ was? But as we go down, but all they had to do is believe That seed, that promise of seed, and that there's going to be shedding of blood for the remission of their sins. And then progressive revelation. it gets much clearer as to who that seed is and what he's going to do. So when you get to Isaiah chapter 53, it is very clear what that seed is going to do. and that he's going to pay the iniquity for us all, and he's going to be bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our sins are upon him.

And it talks about earlier that he grew up like a tender plant, and he didn't have anything in his I won't say character, but his presence. There was nothing in his presence that man desired. You know, he looked like a regular guy. Isaiah starts giving us a lot of description. Okay, so the point is this.

I believe that in terms of salvation, salvation is the same Old Testament, New Testament. It's by God's grace through man's faith in the cross, in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fact that he was going to be resurrected. Did Abraham know of the resurrection? Did David know of the resurrection? that there's going to be a resurrection.

So, here's the thing, as you look at these scriptures, like 1 John 2.2, that he's the propitiation for our sins, that he's the satisfaction for our sins, and not our sins only, but the sins of the whole world. Question, is the whole world this world here, or is the whole world from beginning to end?

Acts 4.12 Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Does it sound like... I am the God or Savior and there is no other Savior except me. Yes. Very good. Excellent. Okay. John 14, 6, I am the way, the what? The truth and life. No man comes unto the Father but me. So is no man no man? Or is no man no man here? So that's what you have to. So hopefully this is an answer to the part of the question that we didn't get to last week.

All right. verses 21 through 23. As we read verses 21, because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. And look at the stages of decline as you read verses 21 through 23. Because when they knew God, what did they do? They glorified Him not as God. Neither were they thankful. They became vain or empty in their imaginations or reasonings. Their foolish heart was darkened. Do you see the progressive decline? So as you look at this decline, knowing God, they emphatically knew God.

There was no question about knowing God in terms of knowing his deity and his power. He agreed for no, it's Gnoska, right? Yes. How interesting. Yes, and so there's the question. When it says knowing God, how did they know him? And as Bob points out, it's Gnoska. We'll look at him in a minute. They did not glorify him as God. They were not thankful. They became vain or empty, or this word is empty or void, in their imaginations, King James, reasoning.

Does the New American Standard say reasoning? In verse 21? Or 22, I'm not sure. Pardon me? Are you thinking the foolish heart was darkened? No, in verse 21. speculation in the New American Standard, okay? Their undiscerning hearts were darkened, they asserted to be wise, they became fools, they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God, and it goes on to say, into four-footed beasts and creeping things, etc. Okay, what we'll do is just kind of briefly go through what all of this means. So as we look at verse 21, because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God.

Let's just take that first section. So here's God's revelation to every man. When they knew God, and as Bob pointed out, the verb here is gnosko. Gnosko means to become acquainted with, and often it means to know experientially, that you know something experientially. So help me in terms of how does man know God experientially? What are the things that we saw in verse 20 and 21 that God can say that they know me experientially?

Okay, creation. Okay, so those are the things they know about God, His power, His deity, and they know that by observing creation. But how do they know Him experientially? When they look at creation, what happens? When they look at creation, what's in them that they know God experientially? I mean, God is placed in them the knowledge, it's intrinsic in them, the knowledge of God, right? So they know experientially, it's part of them, you can't separate the knowledge from God out of them. So experientially, they had the, as we call this, the emphatically, knowable, of God intrinsically in them. Okay, so God makes his eternal power and deity emphatically clear by his creation.

Now, very briefly, turn over to Psalm 19, because I think Psalm 19 really helps us understand this. Psalm 19, look at verse 1. It says, The heavens declare, the heavens announce, the heavens tell of the glory of God. And the firmament shows his handiwork.

Day by day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world, in them has he set a tabernacle for the sun." Now it's talking about creation here. The heavens declared the glory of God. So man looking at creation, notice what it says in verse 2 and 3, that creation is a universal language.

It speaks to every man. Every man knows that there is a God and he knows his eternal power. And God does it by inanimate objects. Creation is inanimate. Man knows by inanimate objects part of the glory of God. When it says that man knew God, it's a fact. It's an aorist tense. And what God is saying is that there is no shadow of a doubt. in any man.

We were talking about the guy in the middle of Africa last week, or the middle of anywhere. He knows that there is a guy. A friend of mine, who I have a Bible study with, he has a dear friend who is a missionary in India. I don't know if he is retired, Now, but anyway, when he was in India, he set up a medical facility, a clinic in a remote part of India. And there was a young boy that lived something, where was it?

About five day, a five day journey by walking away. Yeah, he lived five days away by walking. And he heard of this clinic, and he had something wrong with his leg. He had to walk with a stick. And he heard from somebody in his village of this clinic, and he heard that the one who was running this clinic could tell you about the true and living God. And this young boy, he was 14 years old, understood that there was a God. And he wanted to find out about him. So he started this journey. He wound up crawling into this camp 11 days later. It took him 11 days for the trip.

And this missionary friend of my friend helped him with his infirmity, whatever it was. but independent of that, told him about the Lord Jesus Christ. And this young man's response was, I knew it. I knew it. I knew there was a God. And I knew that there was a God who loved me and was concerned about my sins. He knew that. Interesting. So God says it's a fact. Now, here comes man's response to God's revelation.

So we start out with God's revelation, and now we come to man's response. First thing they do is they don't glorify him as God. And the word there is daksadzo, and it means to magnify or extol or praise So, when we talk about glorifying God, we're talking about magnifying His essence, magnifying His glory. The question is, what's His glory? Note I put down, knowing God demands awe and adoration of Him. I mean, that's the only response that man can have, or should have, I should put it. But man doesn't magnify God's glory.

Why? As we go through this, I've got a lot of questions. Why? Why? Why? Why does man respond this way? because I want to point you to Romans chapter 5 verse 12. And all of these questions here, which I have why, why this, why that, point to Romans chapter 5 verse 12 in terms of man's identification. Who is man identified with? unregenerative man. Who is he identified with? So the question, you know, just what is God's glory? If we look at God's glory, we can say this, it's his essential essence in terms of who he is.

And you can never box God, sorry I'm not trying to box him here, but the fact that he's holy in his holiness, he's righteous, he's just, he's infinite, and when we talk about him being infinite, that he's omniscient, he's all-knowing, omnipresent, he's everywhere, omnipotent, he's all-powerful, he's self-existent, he doesn't need anything outside of himself to exist. We need what? food, water, air to exist. He's love, out of his love comes his grace, his mercy is immutable, he can never change and in his immutability he's faithful and he's truth and he's the spirit. and he's sovereign, he's over all. I mean, just in terms of his glory is his essence, his essential essence. And so when we talk about God's Word, this pertains to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Each of them have the same essence. When it says that God is one, They are one in essential essence. Each of them possess the same essence.

In verse 21, it says, Because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. Neither were they thankful. And thankful means just to show gratitude. Say, Lord, thank you. And just giving thanks. And what do you give thanks for? What can man give thanks for?

Well, they were not thankful in particular for the revelation which God was pleased to give them. God gave them a revelation about himself. He says, I've put this knowledge in you that I am God, I am deity, and my eternal power, and you know my eternal power, and you can look at creation, and creation speaks to you, and you have that inherent knowledge, that experiential knowledge, that I am God. And so they should be thankful for just the knowledge that God, or the revelation that God was pleased to give them, but they weren't. Men aren't. Why?

Romans 5.12. Active voice, man produced the action of being unthankful. The interesting thing is there's a pattern in scripture or principle in scripture where God reveals truth and then he does the doing and then he expects us to be thankful.

So for example, if you look at Colossians 2.6, for as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so what?

So walk ye in him. You receive them by faith, walk the same way. Walk peripeteo, the way you conduct your life, the way you walk around in life. conduct yourself in the same way. And then, in verse 7, it goes on to say, being rooted and edified or built up in Him. Now, when it says, you walk in Him, as you have received Christ Jesus, so walk in Him, it's an active voice, you do it. Active voice means it's We do the action.

Then in verse 7, when it says being rooted, built up, and established in Him, those are three verbals all in the passive voice. God does the rooting, the establishing, the building up, and the establishing. Passive voice. God does it. And then it ends with abounding in thanksgiving, active voice, we do it. Isn't that interesting?

We walk by faith, God does everything else and He wants us to be thankful. And the same thing is true here. God has done it all and He's revealed it to man He wants man to be thankful for the knowledge that he's rebuilt to them. Does it mean that we sort of cannot choose if we are rooted and built up and whatever, but on that part of being thankful and on the first part, we can choose more too?

Absolutely. Very good. So if we are working by faith, then then he will do that. If we're not working by faith, we're not going to be built up in Christ. We're not going to be established, fixed in the faith, unmovable, so that when some wind of doctrine comes along, if we're not established, it might move us. If we're established and we're fixed in the faith, it's not going to move us.

Okay. They became vain in their imaginations. And the word vain here is to make vain or worthless, to become vain, destitute of real wisdom. And it's used in the past of voice, they were acted upon. So notice that they weren't thankful. Active voice, You know, they were to be thankful. They weren't thankful. Passive voice, they were acted upon. And they became vain or empty in their reasonings or their thought process. Their entire reasoning and thought process became empty. It was just empty.

I was listening to Mike Rosen as I was driving on the freeway the other day. And he had this scientist on, and I didn't catch the first part of it, but he was talking about creation, excuse me, he was talking about evolution, and how we, this miraculous process of evolution in terms of how we evolve. And of course, Mike has people call in, and somebody called in and said, to this scientist, you know, when you look at creation, you look at the human body, you look at anything, don't you see some order? Don't you see intelligent design? And this scientist said, intelligent design comes by time. He says, this earth is 4.5 billion years old. And over time, all of this has evolved. You just have to understand that this whole process of order has occurred over 4.5 billion years.

And as I listened to him, I said, his reasoning, his thought process, from God's point of view, is empty. From his point of view, He is so knowledgeable. Mike Rosen just praised this guy. He thought he was wonderful. Okay, so the question is, by who or what?

Did their reasoning, did their thought process become empty? Their foolish heart was darkened. And to darken just means to deprive one of light. So, figuratively, it's talking about moral darkness or ignorance. And again, it's passive voice. Man is being put into darkness and deprived of light. Question, by who or by what? Okay. As you read John, 3.19, where the Lord Jesus Christ says, and this is the condemnation, this whole process we're talking about is God's process of condemnation, and this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. And they loved darkness. They loved not being in the light. And this word for love is agapao. It's the same word that God so loved the world, agapao. So here's where agapao is used in a negative sense.

In verse 22, it says, professing to be wise, they became fools. This word profess means to allege something, to affirm something, that you can say something about yourself which may not be true. You can allege something about yourself that isn't true. So that's professing something. I can profess that I'm a pretty smart guy. But I'm not. But I can say I am. And that would be alleging or professing something which may not be true. So, in this case, it's an unfounded profession or assertion.

And the reason why it's unfounded, we just found out that their hearts, their reasonings, were darkened. There was no light in terms of God's light. They were darkened. So how can a person be wise if his mind and his heart is darkened and there's no spiritual light? So it's an unfounded assertion. So they profess to be wise.

So, true wisdom, as we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, is God's wisdom. And God's wisdom is wrapped up in the cross. For the preaching of the cross, or the message of the cross, is to them who are perishing, what? Foolishness. But unto us it is the power of God. And it goes on to say that this is the wisdom of God. And man thinks that God's wisdom in the cross is foolishness. And so man in his wisdom, which they profess to be wise, they say that God's wisdom is foolishness. Now, think about this. We do this all the time. We put things on a relative scale. And so we put wisdom on a relative scale.

So man gets all his degrees, two Ph.D. degrees, three Ph.D. whatever, and he works up on the ladder, and he thinks, man thinks, that he's wise. Because he looks down and says, oh, you only have a Master's. You don't even have a Bachelor's. And for some reason, man believes that he's wise. But what he never does, he never looks up this ladder to the standard, to God's wisdom, which is absolute. He never looks the other way. He always looks down, from himself, down. It's the same thing with sin. We always put sin on a relative scale.

We put ourselves up here and we say, you know, I'm not one of those guys. I'm not a murderer. I'm not a pedophile. I'm not a this or a that. And we put ourselves on this relative scale. And man never looks up the other way. And so man thinks he's good. But God says, there are none that are righteous. No, not one. There are none that are good. No, not one.

So what God does, he takes man's relative scale and he goes like this. And it's an equalizer. And everybody is equal. It doesn't matter if you have a Ph.D. or Master's or Bachelor's or whatever. It doesn't matter. It's wisdom. Okay. If there's any questions, raise your hand.

It says, wise they became fools. It's another oxymoron, like in verse 20, that the invisible things of God are clearly seen. Invisible, clearly seen, wise became fools. So what it's talking about is man's action, they profess themselves to be wise, this unfounded assertion. And God's response is, He is the one that makes them, should be them, fools. And it's interesting, the verb here is to be moronic. It's the word where we get our word moron. Okay. Verse 23.

And what they do is, King James says, they change the glory of God. And it should be, they exchange. So the word is exchange. You have this, but you exchange it for something else. So there's an exchange made. So they exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and animals, and crawling creatures, or creeping things, as King James puts it. So here's what they do. Here's the glory of God, which we just looked at, and they make an exchange. They exchange this, the glory of God, for this, for something else, for corruptible things like man, birds, four-footed beasts, animals. Now, what does all that mean?

I just put it in picture form. As you look at all the civilizations through history, And you look at what man worships, and you can go through and see that man worships four-footed beasts, he worships man, he worships idols, he worships creeping things, and you name it. I wanted to make a whole page of this, but anyway. Do you have the picture that in terms of man does this exchange?

He has this, he knows the deity of God, he knows who he is, and he knows his power, but he says, I'm going to exchange that for this. Questions? We finished. Bob is going to go through next week, starting at verse 24. In terms of, this is, all we looked at was man's response. We looked at man's response to what God has revealed. Bob is going to go through and look at God's response to man's response.

Let's close in a word of prayer. Our Father, we are just so thankful for your love, your grace, your mercy. And we just thank you, Father, for your revelation to mankind And knowing, Father, that your will is that not one should perish, but come to you and have the life eternal that is part of your eternal purpose for each and every man. And Father, we know that there are those in our spirit influence and friends and family who don't know you, who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, and who have taken the knowledge of you and have rejected it. and off worshiping other things, even idol worship such as position, money, possessions. Here are we, and we just thank you that you seem fit to make us vessels of honor. Vessels that contain the very glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And our prayer, Father, is that we become your message to those around us, that they might seek the Lord Jesus Christ through you. And we give you the praise and the honor and the glory. In Christ's name, amen.