Without Excuse

About this sermon

God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness that exists in men. Everything in men that falls short of the glory of God, God is against. That ungodliness and unrighteousness of men is on display in a suppression. Men suppress the truth. That is the essence, that is core of man’s unrighteousness. He doesn’t want the truth. He avoids the truth. He opposes the truth. He substitutes for the truth. HE SUPPRESSES the truth. God judges that suppression of truth. His wrath is revealed in those judgments. What follows Paul’s statement about God’s wrath and man’s unrighteous suppression of the truth, in verses 19-32 is an extended description and explanation concerning those two themes. It is an extended description of how man suppresses truth, and the judgments of God that come upon those suppressions of truth. Once again, I want us to remember the logic on display in this first chapter. Paul is eager to preach the gospel in Rome (vs.15). He is eager because he is not ashamed of the gospel (vs.16) He is not ashamed of the gospel because of what he knows concerning the gospel (vs.16-17) The gospel is necessary and urgently necessary because of the wrath of God (vs.18). God’s wrath is upon the unrighteousness and ungodliness of men that is demonstrated by their suppression of truth (vs.18). And now, if anyone wonders what Paul means by that suppression and how God’s wrath is being revealed, we have an extended description and explanation. THAT’S WHAT WE BEGIN EXAMINING THIS MORNING. THIS MORNING WE THINK ABOUT SUPPRESSION AND JUDGMENT. We will examine it under two main headings. (1) God’s Wrath Follows Unmistakable Divine Revelation (2) God’s Wrath Follows Inexcusable Sinful Suppression GOD’S WRATH FOLLOWS UNMISTAKABLE DIVINE REVELATION (vs.19-20) Now this first point is actually very simple, but very important, very powerful, and very much a DISPUTED POINT. God makes a statement here, through Paul, that He doesn’t attempt to prove. He simply states it to be the truth that it is. Men will deny what we’re about to hear, but we can know that what Paul says here is true because it’s the Word of God. In fact, one of the first evidences of man’s suppression of truth is that men argue against this point of fact. GOD HAS GIVEN MAN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT HE EXISTS (vs.19-20) Not only does he say that God has given knowledge of His existence to mankind, he says that God has done this in a way that is UNMISTAKABLE. NOTICE THAT GOD IS THE REVEALER GOD has worked in a way so that the knowledge of God can be known by man. This is true with God’s creation work OUTSIDE of man (that work makes God known), and this is true regarding the very way that God has MADE MAN (God made man with the ability to receive what God has revealed). NOTICE THAT THIS REVELATION HAS TO DO WITH A LIMITED KIND OF KNOWLEDGE “What can be known about God.” And Paul will go on to talk about what God has made known through general revelation. Thomas Schreiner – “The knowledge of God described is hardly a saving knowledge. Paul’s purpose is to show that the knowledge of God that all people have through observing the created order is suppressed (v. 18) and distorted (vv. 21–23) so that all without exception have no excuse (v. 20).” NOTICE THAT MAN CAN’T RIGHTFULLY CLAIM IGNORANCE OF THIS KNOWLEDGE This knowledge is “manifest in them.” The NASB has “is evident within them.” ESV, “is plain to them.” φανερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς φανερός, ά, όν—1. adj. visible, clear, plainly to be seen, plain, known God has not only given the evidence; He has put the knowledge of the evidence WITHIN the recipients of the revelation. He has put it within them in the sense that they INSTINCTIVELY know that He exists by what seeing what He made. He hasn’t just given the evidence; He’s assured the capacity of the recipients to process the evidence. And just so that we don’t miss it, he repeats it. “for God has shown it to them.”