Revelation of God to Man

Okay, Romans chapter 1. I'm going to start reading from verse 18, and I'm going to go down through verse 23. And hopefully we'll cover that this morning. Let me say this, we will not cover that this morning. It's going to take us two weeks to get through this. So starting at verse 18.

It says, 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, 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 and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain 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 creepy things.

Okay, what we've been doing so far, and we finished this first section, and looking at Romans 1 verse 1 through 18 and looking at all the blessings that God has revealed to us. in terms of the blessings to Paul personally, the blessings of the Gospel to us, blessings to us in terms of telling us who Christ is, who we are in Christ, blessings to the Roman believers, and blessings of the Gospel, which Jim went through last week. and he told me that he didn't quite get to verse 18.

So, but we'll look at that this morning. Now, this morning what we're looking at is this next section where we go from blessings to condemnation. Where in this first section it was called, titled, The Righteousness of God Required. The second section is The Righteousness of God Revealed. The second section is The Righteousness of God Required. And here God, now, what he's going to do, he's going to go through through this whole series of condemnation. First, he's going to tell us that the entire Gentile world is condemned, all of the Gentiles. And whether you be a Gentile and whether you're an immoral person, you're condemned. In the next section, we're going to see if you're a moral person, if you think you're a good person, you're still condemned.

And in the section after that, He's going to deal with the Jews. He's going to deal with a religious person. And he's going to show us that even religious persons are condemned. So there's this whole section of condemnation. What we're going to look at this morning is the fact that immoral people are unrighteous and condemned. And we're going to go look at the condemnation, the condemnation against pagan humanity. And he's going to give us the reasons for the condemnation.

So when we look at verse 19, it says this, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it unto them. And just look at those words for a moment, because there's some questions. The question is, who is the them? in this passage, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, and God has shown it unto them. So the question, who's the them? I think it goes back to verse 18. So look at verse 18.

This is for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness." Okay? It's the men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. And Jim, I guess, didn't get to it last week with respect to this word, hold, and it's a Greek word which means to hold down or suppress. And I think at the New American standard, New American standards say suppress. Okay.

Who suppress the truth, and it's the truth about God in unrighteousness. So here's the question. Without looking at your notes, why does man hold down or suppress the truth in unrighteousness? Why would man hold down the truth, suppress the truth about God in unrighteousness?

Here's the next question. Would you expect any other response from man? Why? Why wouldn't you expect any other response from man? What does God say about man? Does it have anything to do with man's nature? What do we know about man's nature? Unregenerative man. What do we know about his nature? Fallen. Deceitful, above all things, and desperately wicked.

And here's what God says. And so we need to recognize what God says. He says, as it is written, there are none righteous No, not one. So whether you're a moral person, whether you're an immoral person, whether you're a religious person, there are none that are righteous.

So it's the very state of man's being, it's the very state of man's nature, that man is unrighteous. So because of man's nature, he holds down or suppresses the truth about God. And I summarize it this way. Because unregenerative man is energized by his Adamic or sin nature, it can only manifest itself in unrighteousness, whether it be internal or external. So internal unrighteousness would be his thoughts, just man's thoughts. External would be his words or deeds. Therefore, man can only suppress the truth about God.

That's the state of man. So here's the next question. How is it possible then for man Let me see if I asked this question right. How is it possible then for man to not suppress the truth and believe? So, if man is going to believe, he has to not suppress the truth. How does that happen? Okay.

God draws him. Why does God draw man? Because he loves us. And he's not willing that what? That one should perish. Not one. So, even though man's nature is that he wants to reject, suppress, hold down the truth, God is constantly tugging him and pulling him because he loves him and he's not willing that he's... and so he's drawing him to himself.

I want to look at this now. I want to look at this statement, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it unto them. So here's the question. How has God conveyed the truth about himself to unrighteous man? Look at the words. Just look at the words of the verse. And the question is, how has God conveyed the truth about himself to unrighteous man? So just observe, just observe what the verse says. What can we say with respect to how God has conveyed the truth about himself to unrighteous man? What's God done? What has God done? OK, Eli, he's put the truth or put the knowledge of himself in us, OK.

What else does it say? Well, it's through our conscience, through what he's created in this world around us. OK. OK. through a conscience, through what He's created. And as you look at this verse, specifically, what does it say? God has made it plain.

He's showed it unto them. We're going to go through a little English this morning. because I think it's critical to understand this. Literally, if you look at the Greek, this is saying, the known of God is manifest in them. If we take this passage of scripture and leave off the last half of the verse, where God has shown it unto them, and just take the first section, it says, because the known of God is manifest in them.

Okay? Literally, that's what it's saying. And this is what it looks like. How many have taken English and how many have taken sentence diagramming in school? Where you sentence diagram something. Okay. We're going to go through just a little sentence diagram here this morning. In a sentence diagram, this is the subject, this is the verb, and this is usually the direct object.

In this case, it's not a direct object, it's called a subject complement. Does everybody know what a subject complement is? No. What's a subject complement? It identifies the subject with the complement with the help of where it is or to be. Okay. It either identifies or describes. Or describes. Okay. And with the verb to be. So this is what is called a linking verb. It links the subject to the subject complement. It's the linking verb. In a normal sentence, like if you said, and I know Bob plays golf, so if you said, Bob hit the ball, okay, the subject Bob hit, the direct object would be the ball. Is there any connection? No, let's see. Is there any relationship between Bob and the ball? Does the ball identify Bob? Does the ball describe Bob? No. But when you have a sentence with a linking verb, with a verb to be, it either, as Eliska says, either identifies the subject or it describes the subject. So, manifest is describing the subject.

Now, what I've left out is the little two prepositional phrases here. The known of God, of God is the prepositional phrase, and in them is a prepositional phrase. So, we put in the prepositional phrases now. So, it's the known of God, is in them, and the location of the knowledge of God is in them, in those who are holding down and suppressing the truth of God.

So it's interesting. When you look at this, when you look at the word known, it signifies something that is known, or that which is knowable. It's something which is knowable. It's not a secret. It's something which is knowable. And there's a definite article here. So, it's emphatically knowable. So, there is the emphatically knowable things about God to every man.

And it's revealed to man. And as we talked about this linking verb is, it's an essence verb. It's a status quo verb. It's the state of which something continuously exists. So the emphatically knowable truth about God continuously exists to every single man. Not only does it exist in every single man, but it's what? in them. That little prepositional phrase, it's in them. And manifest describes known. And manifest just says that it's apparent, it's clear, it's evident, it is totally clear.

There's no smoke screen, the truth is totally clear. So, it's opposite to that which is secret, or blurred. So, it's in the heart and mind of man, and man has no excuse, because the truth of God is very clear. Not only that, there's two emphatics here, the emphatic with respect to the known of God, emphatically known of God. And the other thing that's emphatic is that it's emphatically clear.

Because, see this little statement here? For God has showed it unto them. The word showed is the same word that here is manifest to be made clear. So there's Emphasis in Greek is by saying something twice in a different way. So this makes it emphatic.

So it's emphatic that God himself makes the knowledge of himself totally clear to man by this statement, For God has shown it phanerao, which is the verb form of manifest here. Is that perfectly clear? And this is critical, to understand that the knowledge of God in every single person is emphatically knowable and emphatically clear.

Is that saving knowledge? the native in the jungle who has never heard the story of Jesus, but realizes through creation that there is a higher power of some sort. Okay, good question. The question is, is this talking about the saving knowledge of God? What knowledge is this speaking about? Does the guy in the jungle, down in South America or wherever, understand the truth about Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried and resurrected the third day? So what's emphatically knowable of God that is speaking about here? We have to go on. This verse doesn't answer it. So we need to go on. Excellent question. So what is that knowledge? Before we go there, a little summary.

Because this is the question that every unbeliever asks. And this is what an unbeliever will say. An unbeliever will say, you know, When you talk to an unbeliever about the Lord, and the first thing usually an unbeliever will say is, well, how about the guy and how about the people down in Africa or South America who has never heard anything about God or the Bible, has never seen the Bible, never heard the Bible. A missionary has never been there.

How about them? What are they doing by asking that question? What are they doing? It's a keto. They're redirecting the energy. Redirecting, yeah. And so what you have to say, hold it. Don't worry about the guy in the middle of Africa. We'll talk about him later. But how about you? You know, how about you? Okay, just in terms of summary.

So, verse 19 states the reason why God reveals His wrath. And His wrath, when we talk about His wrath, it's the word orge, which is God's settled anger out of His righteousness. And Jim didn't get to it last week. But God's wrath comes out from His righteousness because He's absolutely righteous and there's unrighteousness. His response can only be wrath and indignation. So verse 19 gives us the reason why God reveals His wrath.

And I go on to say that because God has placed in all men the emphatically knowable truth about himself, but man holds down and suppresses that truth. So the truth of God is continually, and by the way If you went back to the sentence diagram, the word is, it's a present tense, it's a continuous present, it's 24, 7, 3 times 3, 65 times 6,000, whatever, how many years you think we've been here. And God has made it emphatically clear. But, even though he does, man suppresses and holds down that truth.

So, the point is, as one of the questions that came up, no man can say, there is no God. Or, no man can say, I can't know if there's a God. What's this guy here that says there is no God? How's he described? He's an atheist. How's this guy described? He says, I just can't know if there's a God. Agnostic. Okay, so from God's viewpoint, there are no atheists and there are no agnostics. So when somebody says to you, Well, I'm an atheist. You can say, oh no, you're not. Or somebody says, well, I'm an agnostic. And you can say, oh no, you're not.

And why can you say that? You can say that with certainty. Because God says it with certainty that every man knows the knowledge of God and has it in them. They know. So a sinful man holds down or suppresses his knowledge of God and his unrighteousness because that's the very state of his being. because of God's character, in terms of who he is, that he's absolutely righteous, then he must pour out his wrath and indignation on man. God can have no other response, because otherwise he wouldn't be God. He violates his character, and he can't violate his character. So, man has a choice. Either God's blessing by faith or God's wrath by unbelief.

And the interesting thing is, the question comes up, well, in verse 18, that the wrath of God is being poured out on man. And it's continuous. And so, how is God pouring out His wrath? pouring out on his wrath today. How is he pouring his wrath out on man today?

You know, one of the ways, I believe, is that a believer, because he's put his trust and faith in Christ, has rest. Rest in his heart, rest in his soul. An unbeliever has no rest, is at unrest, and I believe that's part of the wrath, the indignation that God continually pours out on man. The unbeliever's soul is just at unrest.

No matter where he goes and what he tries to do, he's at unrest. If I get a bigger car, a better car, then I'll be with him. He gets the bigger and better car, or the bigger and better house, or the prettier wife, and he leaves the first one. Whatever it is, he's seeking rest, and he can't find it. He's always going to be at unrest. I think that's part of God's wrath and indignation on unbelieving men. Okay, now, back to the question.

What is this knowledge? What is this emphatically knowable about of God that's emphatically made clear? In verse 20 it says, For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even as eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." So, question. Don't look at your notes. What are the emphatically knowable things of God that are intrinsic to man? And look at your text in scripture, or look here, wherever. What are the Because that's the question. Is this truth the truth about Christ, about salvation? What is the emphatically knowable truths of God?

Creation. Creation? His power, and that He's God. Okay. Does everybody see that? Creation tells us about something. It tells us about His eternal power and His Godhead, or the fact that He's deity. It tells us two things. Those are the two emphatically knowable things about God that every single person in the world knows. It's intrinsic to every man. So here's the next question. How long has man had this knowledge? Look at the passage. How long has man had this knowledge? Since creation. Since the foundation of the world, since creation. Okay.

Next question. say about God's eternal power in Godhead. And the word Godhead just means His deity, that He is God. So what observations, I want you to look at the, don't look at your notes, I want you to look at your text and scripture, because one of the first aspects of studying the Word of God is just sitting down and making observations. Observe, observe, observe, observe. So, as you look at verse 20, what does verse 20 say about God's eternal power in Godhead?

It talks about the creation, so it must mean all the things that we can visibly see. Okay, it talks about creation. Okay, they're clearly seen and understood through creation. Okay, so they're invisible. Well, hold it. Here, Bob says they're invisible. Here, Katie says that they're clearly seen. Is that an oxymoron? How can they be invisible and yet clearly seen?

Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. and the act of creation, he's made visible what was invisible. Okay. And at the end, the things that are made. Okay. We don't make or destroy anything. We don't make or destroy steel. We might change it. But he made it. Okay. Here's the question. Can we ever see, visibly see, his Godhead, his deity? Can we ever see his eternal power? Is that visible? The weather is certainly visible. I mean, the results of it. The results of it.

But you also can't see, like in the springtime, how all the flowers, everything just starts to bloom. What put all that in place? I mean, somebody's got to have, even if you don't believe there is a God, you've got to think, well isn't that, you know, all of that happens. But that's an invisible source of how it all happens.

So you see a visible, you see something visible. From the invisible. That is a result of something happening which is invisible. So, as you said, they are invisible. And invisible means invisible. The Greek word just means that. It can't be seen with the physical eye.

And yet, they're clearly seen. And this word for clearly seen, the word for seen, is the word for perception. That we can perceive something in our mind. By something that we visually see, we can perceive that there's something behind it. So that when we see the things that are created, and we see the world, there's a perception, when we visually see things, there's a perception that, wow, there's something behind it, just like Margaret was using the analogy between flowers that come up in the spring, that there's invisible process that goes on that you can't see, but you can see the result of it. So they're invisible, they're clearly seen, and the third one is that they're understood by the things that are made.

When it talks about the things that are made, it talks about the result of a work. God created the heavens and the earth. That was a work. And what we visually see is the result of that work. What we don't see is the power behind it. We can't visually see that, but we can see the result of it. so man can see the creation.

So the point is this, when unregenerative man, whether he's in the middle of Africa or South America, whether he's ever interfaced with somebody who's shared the Bible with him, no matter who he is, he has within him the emphatically knowable things about God. Two things, that there is a God, and that God has eternal power. He knows those two things. Now, so here's the question.

What is God's response to man who suppresses the truth about God's eternal power in Godhead or His deity? What is God's response? So God reveals to every single person in this world His eternal power in His Godhead. And man suppresses. And man suppresses and he holds down that truth. What's God's response? Say again? His wrath?

Okay. Okay. And that's good, Laban. And we'll get there. And he turns them over to exactly what they want to do. Yes. And Manu is without excuse. There's no excuse. And the word there is without apology. or excuse. He's inexcusable. Every single person who is an unbeliever is inexcusable. Is that really true? Is it every single person? I mean, unbeliever, we're talking about unregenerative man. Let me ask this question. Why do you think man holds down the truth and suppresses knowledge? Let's take scientists. Scientists who look at the macro, who take all of the data back from the Hubble telescope. The Hubble telescope has given scientists information about this universe that they never even knew before.

We were down the planetarium, and you sit back and they project up on that planetarium, and they took the data from the Hubble telescope, and they took the Hubble telescope and they pointed it between two stars, I think it was in the Big Dipper, and they've looked there before with telescopes from Earth, and there's nothing out there. Then they took the Hubble telescope and they did the same thing. They pointed in between the two stars. And you know what they found?

Billions of galaxies. Scientists were just flawed. I mean, billions of galaxies. We're talking about galaxies where there's billions, several hundred billions of stars within one galaxy and now we're talking about billions of galaxies. It's incredible. What's interesting is this. Scientists who adhere to the Big Bang theory, with the advent of the Hubble telescope, they have a big question mark and they're starting to change their mind because it's incredible. So you're a scientist, you know, and you look at this. Or you're in scientists like Bob is in scientists where Bob is not looking at the macro but he's looking at the micro.

He's now looking at the DNA and looking at protein cells and down at that level where you have in one protein cell You have, I don't know, two, three, four hundred amino acids making up one protein cell, and these amino acids are in a chain, but they fold, and they fold into a cell, whether it be a hair cell, a skin cell, a blood cell, or whatever, and each protein cell is unique. And scientists are trying to build a computer that will simulate the folding of a protein cell. They can't build a computer big enough.

I don't know. Are they there yet, Bob? Do you know? I'm sorry? Yeah. We're living in an age of nanotechnology, which means very small things. But every question that's asked in biology, there's about 15 more that follow. So the idea of the resolution of the technology is not its ultimate yet. And when it gets there, there'll still be more to learn.

That's what I'm concerned about. The more you learn, the more you're awed at what God has done. So when you look at that, when you look at the macro, you look at the micro, what conclusion do you think God puts in the mind of a person who's looking at that? What thoughts do you think would come to a person's mind? Let me give you an example.

As an unbeliever, I worked in the space program, and we were putting the first unmanned spacecraft on the moon. And my job as a senior spacecraft engineer was to take that spacecraft, to write all the tests, and put that spacecraft through all its tests, follow it through all its tests, and including environmental chamber to simulate space with the 250 degrees on one side of the spacecraft that's facing the sun and the side of the spacecraft that's away from the sun is at minus 250 degrees.

So you have a 500 degree temperature differential across that spacecraft and you've got fuel tanks. on that spacecraft, which you have to do corrections, mid-course corrections on that spacecraft to get it to the moon, that fuel has to be at about 75 degrees. Now, how do you keep that fuel at 75 degrees with a 500 degree temperature differential, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? We were going to do that environmental test, put it up into this huge chamber, and simulate that to see if we could keep the temperature of those tanks at 75 degrees plus. Will the spacecraft operate in that environment?

So before we put it in this huge chamber and pumped it down with liquid nitrogen where you reduce the pressure to zero and we had a sun simulator to simulate and we could put 250 degrees on the spacecraft plus 250 degrees. My job was to make sure that when we put that inbuilt up, the inbuilt is where the spacecraft is sitting on this, it's the bottom of this chamber, and you put this inbuilt up and you seal it, and you pump liquid nitrogen in. Very expensive process.

So before we did that, I went in at about two in the morning. and to make sure that everything that we were going to test was hooked up to that spacecraft. And so I went through all of the tests that we were going to do in my mind and said, OK, we need this test access, that test access here, there, there. And I looked at the spacecraft. I looked at the wires coming through the inbuilt.

And after several hours, to my satisfaction, I said, yeah, I think we're ready to go. And so I was just sitting there, and I said, you know, it's interesting. We've been here for 4.5 billion years. Excuse me, the Earth has, but man has been here for, depending upon who you believe, two, three million years. How come we haven't done this before? How come now? And how come that I'm privileged to be part of this? And so I started thinking, why wasn't this done before?

And so I was looking at the spacecraft. And starting at the top of the spacecraft where we had a high gain antenna and a solar panel with solar cells to collect energy from the sun, which would charge up the batteries, which would supply power to the spacecraft. And I started out at the top. I said, no, let's take the solar cells out.

They're made of silicon. comes from the ground. Plane array antenna is titanium and this and that, aluminum, all of that stuff comes from where? The ground. I went down the entire mast of the spacecraft, then I went into the electronic boxes, and I knew them by heart, and transistors. silicon or germanium, where does that come from? Out of the ground. Resistors, carbon, where does that come from? Out of the ground.

And all the wires and leads and copper, we're out from the ground. And I realized that, you know, all we have done is taken what was already there, because what's there, there's perfect order in the ground. I mean, every one of these is an element, it has a nucleus, a proton, it has electrons, and it's perfect order.

Let me tell you something, that hit me. I could come to no other conclusion but to say, there must be a God, because that couldn't happen by chance. And that was how God was tugging me, drawing me to himself. The emphatically knowable things of God are emphatically clear. They are clear. And you can come to know the conclusion. So the Lord has given us a mind to look at that and to analyze that and to come to that conclusion.

But even coming to that conclusion, you can still suppress and hold down that truth. You know how I was seeking the truth too. I was training as a research scientist at the University of Washington and I started asking more important questions. What separates man from God then?

It's vanity, it's pride, it's the sin nature and His righteousness is declared for who He is. in the atmosphere of the earthly system. Yes. I mean, it's ultimately you've got to come down to the truth of what separates you from God's righteousness. Sure. And nobody wants to ask that question. Yes. Yes.

And the other thing is this, is I, as I thought about it, because You know, I mean, the conclusion was clear with me, but yet I suppressed and I held down that truth. And the question is, why? Why did I do it? Well, because it was obvious to me that there is a God. And if there is a God, then guess what? I'm responsible. I have a responsibility. to God, because He's the one that created me. He created me for a purpose, and there's that responsibility. But I said, no way. I want to live my life the way I want to live my life. And I suppressed and I held down that truth.

But He is so gracious. He kept tugging and tugging. Never stopped. And here am I. Now, Hal, this morning with the kids we're going to be going over Jesus's light. And there's a verse in John that I think explains exactly why people suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And the idea is that held up against the almighty righteous God you look terrible. And we don't like to see that. But in John 3 it says this is the judgment that the light has come into the world. And men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. And that's why they suppress."

Yeah. Excellent. And then you're reminded of the brotherhood they formed, aren't you? Yeah. Therefore now no confirmation to those things. Yes. Let's close with a word of prayer. Our Father, we are just so thankful for your goodness to us, your patience with us, and your grace. And Father, knowing that You don't want one person in this world to perish because you love them and you want them to enter into that fellowship that can only be entered in through the person and the work of Christ. And Father, our hearts just go out to those who we know, who are unbelievers, who do not know you. And we pray, Father, that you would just use us as vessels, as a as a vessel of you to convey to them the truth about yourself. And Father, we just thank you for your word and thank you for this time together in Christ's name.