Romans 1:16-32 America May Decline Morally, But God’s Power Remains

 Romans 1:16-32 America May Decline Morally, But God’s Power Remains

This week saw the sad but unsurprising decision by the Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage. Some would say that God’s judgment will come because of this decision. I would say that God’s judgment has come. The sins of one generation becomes the government of the next.

I realize that what I may say today will offend many people. I realize that the decision by the Supreme Court may be a decision with which the majority will agree. While I cannot argue the points of law that the Supreme Court debated, I have a higher Supreme Justice to obey. God is the Supreme Justice, who is higher than the nine appointed judges on the Supreme Court. When I compare their actions with what the Bible teaches, I have to conclude that a majority of the Supreme Court have allowed the moral decline in this country.

When we come to the book of Romans, Paul is explaining to us about the nature of sin and its consequences. He shows the progression of sin in these verses. He shows very clearly that God’s wrath comes out when people suppress the truth. Let me show you what I call God’s spiral of judgment:

God’s spiral of judgment will materialize in America’s moral decline. (Romans 1:18-32)

The spiral begins as we as people, and as a nation do damaging selfish things:

HOW A NATION SPIRALS OUT OF CONTROL

1. Reject the truth – This is the AGNOSTIC approach to denying God. (1:18-20)

Paul explains the fact that God gets angry when we push down His truth:

“For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth,” (Romans 1:18, HCSB)

The truth is that God exists. We observe that God exists through His creation.

“since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19–20, HCSB)

Agnostics says we cannot know who God is. They do not have a belief in God, because we can’t know God.1 Etymologically, it means, “not, or no knowledge.” An agnostic is someone who believes human beings simply cannot know anything metaphysical or beyond the physical realm; therefore, they cannot know whether things like spirit, angels or God exist at all.2

Paul says that the unrighteous have “suppressed” the truth primarily through a failure to worship God by both omission (they did not acknowledge God—Rom 1:21, 28) and commission (they engaged in idolatry—Rom 1:23)3

2. Reject God through distorted thinking – This is the ATHEISTIC approach to denying God. (1:21-22)

“For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:21–22, HCSB)

Atheists believe that there is no God.

Atheist is someone who believes that God does not exist.4 Even though God exists, an atheist will never give God glory or gratitude.

An atheist, on the one hand, believes that there is no God. Etymologically, the word means “not, or no God.” In the atheist camp you can have a wide variety of reasons for their denial as well as differing levels of certainty. Some will deny emphatically that there is a God and claim to have “proof” of God’s non-existence. Other’s will simply say they do not believe there is a God though they could not prove God does not exist. The common denominator is that they do not believe in God.5

The people mentioned by Paul in our text fell into two great evils, or rather into two forms of one great evil—atheism: the atheism of the heart, and the atheism of the life. They knew God, but they glorified him not as God, neither were they thankful6

RESULT OF SELFISH DENIAL PROCESS: PROMOTION OF THE SELF (1:23)

“and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.” (Romans 1:23, HCSB)

We have made an idol of mankind and its way of defining life. For a person, this means we make idols to ourselves. For a nation, this means that we promote the self in our country above our God.

The refusal to acknowledge and glorify God results in a downward path: worthless thinking, moral insensitivity, and religious stupidity7

God won’t permit a person or a nation to reject the truth and deny Him forever. There are consequences. At this point, God hands them over to their sinful selfish thoughts. Scholars debate whether God actively does this, or whether he lets the thinking that caused these problems run their natural course. I want you to see that for both the individual and the society, the sin gets worse and the consequences pile up. I also that at each point, God is there ready to forgive. Notice how the speed of the spiral – it increases.

Notice that three times it says that “God gave them over” and three times humanity “exchanges” God for idols.8 There is a repetition of the way in which sin is replaced with judgment.

SPIRAL OF GOD’S JUDGMENT ON THE SIN OF PROMOTING SELF

3. Idolatry through worthless thinking (1:24-25)

“Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves.” (Romans 1:24, HCSB)

Two ways we commit idolatry through worthless thinking. We get desensitized, and we replace Godly thoughts with idolatry.

Desensitizing dirty thoughts

The first spiral of God’s judgment on the sin of promoting self is worthless thinking. This worthless thinking includes sexual impurity which causes shame. You know how you think a dirty sexual act. It brings shame to our minds after we have thought it. When we deny God and refuse to give Him glory and we start to think about ourselves, we will crave that kind of dirty sexual thoughts and we won’t be sensitive to it.

You see it today in the ways in which society has desensitized the culture to sexual thoughts.

“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.” (Romans 1:25, HCSB)

Idolatry

When we exchange God’s truth for a lie, it is idolatry, no matter what form that idolatry takes.

4. Sexual immorality and moral perversion (1:26-28)

Same-sex relationships

“This is why God delivered them over to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The males in the same way also left natural relations with females and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.” (Romans 1:26–27, HCSB)

Both females and males are addressed in this passage. Homosexuality and lesbian relationships are addressed as morally insensitive. People say that Christians are morally insensitive when we preach against same-sex marriage. The Bible says that the people who engage in these relationships are morally insensitive to God. Remember, they have denied God and did not glorify Him. So He lets them spiral down the moral staircase.

Among the few passages in the Bible that explicitly address homosexuality, Rom 1:26–27 provides one of the most direct statements on the subject. Elsewhere in his letters Paul seems to allude to same-sex relations in 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10. His teaching in Rom 1:26–27 relates to two ot passages. First, Paul’s use of the Greek noun aschēmosynē (“shameless deed”) echoes the lxx9 translation of several passages, especially Lev 18 and 20, where over two-thirds of the total references to this term occur (see Dunn 1988a, 65). Second, Paul’s view on sexuality is rooted in the narrative of Gen 1–2, which depicts the male-female relationship as part of the created order (see Gen 1:27; 2:18–23). Thus, for Paul, homosexual conduct violates the ordained design of the Creator and therefore is a form of idolatry. Paul’s creation-based teaching on homosexuality also mirrors the views of Jesus that we find in the canonical Gospels. Jesus’ teaching on sexuality appeals to Gen 1–2 as the standard for all human sexual conduct (Matt 19:4–6; Mark 10:6–9)10

“And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a worthless mind to do what is morally wrong.” (Romans 1:28, HCSB)

Moral perversion is a result of a worthless mind. It takes thought to follow God. It takes no thought to think about yourself.

The spiral of the sin of promoting that leads to God’s judgment can take many paths. Same-sex behavior is not the only way we sin. Paul may use same-sex relationships to describe how this path may get worse. However other sins can lead us into the same direction. They all lead to one conclusion: a chaotic life and society.

5. Chaotic lives and society (1:29-31)

“They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful.” (Romans 1:29–31, HCSB)

One notices when you look at these verses a set of lists. These lists form a grouping of moral spirals. Paul may have used sexual perversion as his first spiral. He continues to explain that other sins can cause the same moral spiral. Each group of sins listed in these verses can spiral out of control.

How does this spiral end? It ends with a society that promotes selfish over God’s truth:

6. Complete unrepentant society (1:32)

“Although they know full well God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die —they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.” (Romans 1:32, HCSB)

It ends with a country that applauds sinful behavior and encourages sinful behavior as not only a legal right, but the moral norm.

One of the effects of sin is that we often think more highly of ourselves than we should. Reading through the list of sins in 1:29–31—and the judgment that goes with them—it’s easy to see it as a “them” issue rather than an “us” or “me” issue. I can readily agree that “those kinds of people” deserve God’s wrath, not unlike the disciples asking Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven (Luke 9:54). It is much easier (and more common) to point the finger of blame at others instead of being convicted ourselves.11

Is that all? Is the country doomed? How do we ever get out of this selfish spiral? The spiral of judgment may continue and worsen, but God’s power in the Gospel remains.

God’s power in the Gospel remains. (Romans 1:16-17)

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For in it God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:16–17, HCSB)

These verses are great to memorize because they identify how Christians should behave in such a morally declining country. God has the power to change anyone. It does not matter what sin they commit, what selfish lifestyle they lead, or how far away they turn from God, God can change them. He has the power to do that.

That is what the Gospel is all about. It is why it is good news. Yes, the country has taken a hit morally. Yes, we are going to see changes in how society behaves and it won’t match up completely to God’s standards. But we have the good news of the power of God through Jesus Christ Who can save everyone who believes. Jesus, through His death, burial, and resurrection – reveals to everyone the right way to God in faith.

That is why we have to continue to follow Christ in faith. The world needs to see that God’s power can make a difference. We can’t be judgmental, but we can still show people the God of love who is also the God of wrath. The choice is ultimately theirs to make. We have to be witnesses of what God’s power can do in our lives.

America may decline morally, but God’s power remains.