The Wrath of God is Revealed

The Summit of Our Salvation

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

April 7, 2024

The Wrath of God is Revealed

We are going back to our study in the book of Romans so let's turn together to chapter one and we're picking up with verse 16.

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. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Romans 1:16-18

In 1969 as Hurricane Camille barreled towards Mississippi coast a small group of about twenty people living in the posh Richelieu Apartments prepared to weather out the storm with a hurricane party. Police chief Jerry Peralta stopped by just after dark to warn them to leave but they just laughed him off. One man stood on the balcony with a drink in his hand laughing and saying the only way you'll Get Me Out of here is to arrest me. Police chief Peralta took the names of their next of kin and reluctantly left them there. When the storm hit a wall of water about 22 feet high decimated the apartments leaving nothing but the foundation standing.

Paul says the wrath of God is revealed. He says the wrath of God is coming but I started in verse 16 to remind us that is purpose is to convince us of our desperate need for the gospel. The gospel is the power of God to save everyone who believes. The wrath of God is revealed, but in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed - a righteousness we receive as a gift by faith in Jesus Christ. Let's pray.

The wrath of God

The wrath of God is an uncomfortable subject. It can leave us feeling that God is mean and angry and capricious. But the wrath of God is an expression of the love of God. If God didn't get angry at the evil and destruction sin inevitably causes, he wouldn't be a loving God. In fact God's wrath is not the natural Inclination of God's heart. God's heart is always full of love. We could say his heart rests in love it's the natural resting place or fullness of his heart. The same is true of mercy he loves to give mercy, his heart is full of compassion. But his wrath needs to be incited, it's not the natural position of his heart.

So for instance Psalm 30 says God's anger lasts but a moment but his favor (that is, his loving kindness) lasts a lifetime. Anger is an unnatural position for God's heart and it needs to be incited by evil, while love is the natural position of his heart. But love must always include anger when evil and harm is being done. If you saw someone abusing your child, or a friend, or even a helpless stranger, and did not feel an anger that wanted to step in and stop the evil and make things right, then your heart wouldn't be loving. It would be apathetic, uncaring. Which simply adds another evil to an already evil situation.

What is God's wrath being revealed against?

Verse 18 says it's being revealed against the ungodliness and the unrighteousness of men who in their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Ungodliness speaks of the disregard and dishonoring of God, destroying our relationship with God. Unrighteousness speaks of us doing wrong towards other people, of failing to do what's right. So God's wrath is being revealed against that which destroys our relationship with God and that which destroys our relationship with people.

In this passage Paul is Speaking of the gentiles, who don't have the word of God, don't have the law of Moses, and therefore in the eyes of the Jews have no hope of being righteous in God's sight or acceptable to God. And Paul's agreeing with them that apart from the gospel they don't have any hope. In chapter 2 Paul will make the case that the Jews also have no hope apart from the gospel.

But while the Gentiles don't have the word of God they do have an internal knowledge of some general truth about God:

¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world^,, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Rom. 1:19-23

There is no such thing as a true atheist. Someone might argue for atheism, but built into their argument and more importantly into their lives is an implicit knowledge that there is a God. Christian philosopher and minister Greg Bahnsen put it brilliantly in a debate when he said: “Imagine a person who comes in here tonight and argues ‘no air exists’ but continues to breathe air while he argues. Now intellectually, atheists continue to breathe—they continue to use reason and draw scientific conclusions [which assumes an orderly universe], to make moral judgments [which assumes absolute values]—but the atheistic view of things would in theory make such ‘breathing’ impossible. They are breathing God’s air all the time they are arguing against him.”

²⁴ Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. vv.24-25

God's wrath is being revealed, but how is God's wrath revealed? In the Book of Revelation we see God pouring out his wrath on this world in calamity after calamity, judgment after judgment. Revelation describes the culmination of God finally saying enough is enough and all the built up opposition and wrath he has for all the sins an evil of the world is released upon a world that rocks and reels with its fury.

But Paul isn't describing that expression of wrath. Paul tells us how God's wrath is expressed in verse 24: Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. The NIV puts it this way: God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity.

How is God's wrath revealed? By God giving us what we want! The word lust or sinful desires means the what Tim Keller calls over-desires, things we want too much and in the wrong ways and so that getting what we want is what's killing us. God alone is the source of life and love and joy, so when we exchange God for lesser gods those lesser gods will rule and ruin our lives. We become a slave to what we worship, whether it be money, sex, power, status, entertainment or anything else.

Remember that Paul’s purpose is to convince us that we are all sinners deserving the wrath of God and Desperately need the gospel to be saved from the wrath of God. In reference to the over desires that are killing us Paul begins with sexual impurity, which includes any sexual immorality such as adultery, fornication, or perversion. In verses 26 and 27 Paul then focuses on homosexuality.

²⁶ For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; ²⁷ and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. Vv.26-27

This is a sensitive subject and I want to speak the truth of God's word as clearly and faithfully and kindly as I can whether it is culturally popular or not. The Bible is clear that homosexuality is a sin. It steps out of God's perfect plan and purpose for sex which is to be limited to and guarded by the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.

However, in a few verses later, Paul is going to cast the net of sin so widely that it catches all of us. The gospel first declares that we are all sinners in the sight of God, and then we are all invited to receive the mercy and forgiveness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. There is no room for self-righteousness or looking down on others for their sin. Christians know that we are all sinners saved by grace.

So we should love and respect and befriend people who are gay. I think as the church we should pray that God helps us to do a better job of building bridges rather than obstacles to the gay community. But, like in so many other cultural hot button issues, there are many who say it's not enough to love, you need to agree that homosexuality is not a sin. The LGBQT plus community insists we celebrate all the various sexual expressions represented in those initials. And we cannot do that if we are going to be faithful to the God’s word. And we cannot do that if we are going to truly love the homosexual because the gospel only frees us from our sin when we acknowledge our sin and repent of it. Sexual sin, whether it be homosexuality or adultery or fornication harms our souls. It damages us on the very deepest levels because our sexuality is deeply ingrained in who God created us to be and when we go against nature or against God's prohibitions there is no escaping the consequences.

So Paul describes the devolution of man includes a flaunting and increase in sexual immorality of all sorts. And we see that in our culture going on today. Just as in Sodom and Gomorrah and in the Roman empire, as society moves away from God it will move towards Flagrant sexual immorality and That is always a sign that a nation Is rotting from within.

The downward spiral continues as people move away from God they move towards sin.

²⁸ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹ foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³² Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. Vv.28-32

Paul is describing the heathen world, those who do not acknowledge God. In chapter 2 he will address the very religious Jewish people who do acknowledge God and it's not gonna go well for them either. But here he talks about the devolution of the secularistic culture that moves away from God and then it's filled with increasing moral rot.

And once again God gives us up to what we want: a debased mind that wants to do what should not be done. And in case any of us were inclined to look down on those terrible sinners, we see that sin and evil take many shapes. Have you ever envied someone? Have you ever gossiped? Have you ever stirred up strife against someone? Have you ever been foolish, or faithless come or cruel? Have you ever been proud or boastful? Children, have you ever disobeyed your parents?

To slander someone is to seek to hurt their reputation by speaking evil against them. In the midst of this Paul throws in haters of God. Sin has made our hearts hostile to God. We may not feel like it, we may like religion or spirituality but the Bible says that sin has made us hate God.

If what we want is a diet of happy, chirpy sermonettes that make us feel good about ourselves and confirm that we're all good with God just as we are, Romans isn't the book for us.

Janice and I had the wonderful opportunity to join Janice’s sister and brother-in-law for an all-inclusive week at a beautiful resort in Cancun. And we could call for room service, for someone to pick us up at our door to drive us around the extensive grounds, and we could call our concierge and he would arrange just about anything we wanted to do. One afternoon Janice and I arranged to go swimming with dolphins. We were pretty spoiled that week!

Paul isn't a concierge here, offering what we want to hear and working to indulge our every desire and whim. He is more like police chief Peralta, warning us of what's coming and pointing us to the rescue that God has provided us through Jesus Christ. He's giving us the bad news so we will listen to the good news, the gospel which is the power of God for the salvation of all those who believe. Gentile, godless, lost heathen as described in these verses, or Jew as described in chapter 2.

And doubtless there will be some who stand with a drink in their hand and laugh at the idea the God's wrath is coming let that wrath is revealed in the decay of society and of people's lives. In the hopelessness and misery and brokenness that we see all around us. And the Bible tells us the the storm clouds of God's wrath are gathering and approaching.

In Tim kellers commentary on the book of Romans he encourages believers to have three responses to this passage.

1. Recognize that this is the reality of the world we live in.

There is both beauty and brokenness In this world. There is both goodness and depravity in the heart of man. Keller writes:

Why is there so much beauty; why is it so flawed? Paul’s answer is simple: God. There is a God who made it all, and made us in his image, to know and reflect his character. And that same God has, in wrath, given us what we have chosen: life without him, worshiping things which cannot satisfy. In the beauty of the world, we are to see God’s existence. In the brokenness of the world, we are to see God’s justice. As we do, we run back to the place where we see God’s mercy: the cross. ~Tim Keller

2. We must never look down on anyone with a self-righteous I am better than them attitude.

If the Jews are reading this and thinking yep they're horrible and we're great, Paul is going to burst their bubble very soon.

3. As believers we don't need to live with the fear of God's wrath.

For we live in the goodness of verses 16 and 17 where in Christ the righteousness of God, the righteousness from God is given to us through faith in Jesus Christ. May this stir our hearts to share that same good news with those around us!

Let's pray.