God’s Right To Judge Mankind

Romans 1:22 # 45.23 February 07 2010
Pastor/Teacher Charles E. Whisnant

Romans 1:22 Professing (PAPMPN) to be wise, they became fools (3SPAPI)

Romans 1:23 and exchanged (3PAAI) the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures

• PROFESSING (alleging, asserting, affirming) TO BE WISE: phaskontes (PAPMPN) einai (PAN) sophoi:

• (Ro 11:25; Pr 25:14; 26:12; Is 47:10; Jer 8:8,9; 10:14; Mt 6:23; 1Co 1:19, 20, 21; 3:18,19)

As you know it’s always being my goal to discover the depth of Scripture. I do get excited about what I am learning from God’s Word.

Romans is about the Good News, but for the Good News to be good, we need to know what the bad news is. And the bad news is, we are all under the wrath of God. We are all sinners and with out some good news we are all bound to go to HELL for all eternity. That is forever. So we need good news.

On the TV News they give us all the bad news without, or with little good news.

Jesus spoke more on the negative. He had more to say about judgment, destruction, damnation, Hell, than anybody recorded in scripture.

• For contempt of others.
• For unwillingness to forsake sin.
• For falsely professing to follow Christ.
• For assuming Jewish lineage can save.
• For rejecting the Messengers of Christ
• For failing to fear and reverence God.

From the beginning Jesus’ testimony was clear. God is a God of judgment and wrath who will punish sin.

So Paul does the same, he first warns men about the wrath of God. And Paul answers the question: “Is God fair?” Is God unloving? How? By defending God’s right to respond in judgment.

• God has a right to judge: Romans 1:18-23.

• Paul gives FOUR REASONS FOR THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD’S JUDGMENT:

1A REVELATION:

1. God has given the truth of God.

• Man is responsible for responding properly to the revelation of God:

• • Acts 14:15, 17:23,27, John 1:9

2A REJECTION:

• 1. Men have rejected the revealed creation of God, and refuse to thank and glorify Him.

• 2. Rejecting the light of God’s knowledge in their consciences, men now arrogated to themselves wisdom, and became—what? Fools! “The fear of the Lord is the beginning”—of both knowledge and wisdom (Pr 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Ps 111:10-; Job 28:28).

That is the characterization of the entire human race apart from regeneration. Rom 2:23

Man refuses to glorify God and thus praises himself. Daniel 4:30-37 Nebuchadnezar

3A RATIONALIZATION:

1B Professing (5335) (phasko from phemi = to say or affirm) means to affirm, allege, pretend, profess. The idea conveyed by this verb is that one is speaking with an air of certainty, stating something with a high degree of confidence The English word assert which means to affirm or declare positively or with assurance and often even forcefully or aggressively. The idea of assert implies stating confidently without need for proof or regard for evidence.

• Man rationalizes his sin and proves his utter foolishness by devising and believing his own philosophies about God, the universe, and himself

2B They Became fools (3471) (moraino from morós = foolish and root of our English moron = very stupid person) can refer to physical sloth or dullness, but mainly is a reference (and especially in the present context) to one's intellectual life. It means to cause content of certain thoughts to become devoid of meaning or even to cause them to become nonsense.

• Rejecting the light of God’s knowledge in their consciences, men now arrogated to themselves wisdom, and became—what? Fools! “The fear of the Lord is the beginning”—of both knowledge and wisdom (Pr 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Ps 111:10-; Job 28:28).

THREE WAYS THEY HAVE BECOME FOOLS:

1B COMPROMISE: THEISTIC EVOLUTION:

2B LIBERAL THEOLOGY:

3B PSYCHOLOGY