Godlessness and God's warth (Romans 1,18-32)

[Stephan Choe]

June 11, 2017

Godlessness and God's wrath
(Spiritual Health Check I)

Romans 1, 18-32
Key Verses

18: "For God's wrath is revealed from heaven above all ungodly beings and all iniquity of the people who suppress the truth by injustice."
21: "Though they knew God, they did not praise or thank Him as God, but have fallen into the vain in their thoughts, and their heart is darkened."

At a certain age, we should let the doctor examine our organs for cancer. If cancer cells are detected early enough, we can just remove them and get some treatment. But if you detect them too late, healing often ist difficult despite the treatment. We should therefore be examined regularly for cancer.

There is another cancer, sin. The first three chapters of the Epistle to the Romans are well suited for a spiritual health check. Today we want to make the first check thru the word of God.

1. Godlessness and Injustice (18-21)

For our spiritual health we want to check for godlessness and injustice today.The verse 18 reads: "For God's wrath is revealed from heaven above all ungodly beings and all the iniquities of men who suppress the truth by injustice." God is not dead. He lives. He is angry with people who deny God or do injustice. Those who do not take the consequences of a cancer seriously will not benefit from cancer screening. He who does not take  the wrath of God over sin seriously, will not receive the gospel. Today, people no longer speak of sin. Nevertheless, sin is a reality. God becomes angry with the people who sin and will judge and punish them on his day. If God is angry with us, we can not have deep peace of mind.

God is Lord over all the visible and invisible world. And he rules just and perfect. If we ignore God and His justice beyond his patience and if we sin, God will be angry. The consequence of divine wrath is terrible. We should take the devastating consequence of sin seriously. We should quickly see our sin and immediately accept God's offer of forgiveness. So we can experience the true peace of mind.

The daughter of a wealthy Korean power woman wrote in SNS 2.5 years ago: "If you have no ability, you should complain about your your parents instead of asking my parents for this and that. Money is also a power." Her mother is a worshiper of shamanism and had power because she took advantage of her friendship with the ex-president. Her mother missused her friendship with the ex-president and collected a lot of money. Do you know where tehy landed today? In prison! This example teaches us to fear God because He lives and governs righteously.

God's wrath not only affects our earthly life but also our future life. But many people believe that God's wrath would not hit them either in this world or in the world to come. Therefore, they simply ignore the consequences of godlessness and injustice and continue to sin.

God loves us. That's why God wants to redeem us from the consequences of our sin. So He repeatedly offers us to repent for our ungodliness and injustice and to accept His grace. God has sent His Son Jesus Christ to offer us His mercy of forgiveness. If we ignore his repeated offer of grace, we have no opportunity to escape God's judgment to eternal damnation.
Eternal damnation is terrible. But many people do not want to know about hell. However, Jesus just came to save us from this damnation.

You know the story of rich man and poor Lazarus in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. The rich man lived joyfully every day. But poor Lazarus had to suffer badly from his skin disease and beg the rich man for his survival. Then the dogs came and licked his sick skin. After death, the rich landed in hell and the poor landed in the bosom of Abraham in the kingdom of heaven. The rich man shouted to Abraham, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in the water and cool my tongue; for I suffer agony in these flames "(Luke 16:24).

The divine wrath is not only a distant future thing, but also a present reality. People who remain in godlessness and injustice already feel God's wrath in this world. With this present wrath, God wants to lead us to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ so that we will not go to hell. The divine wrath is thus a loving hand of God, which wants to lead us to repentance and eternal bliss.

Some people disagree with God's wrath and ask, "What sin did I have we committed?"
That is why Romans explains why all men are sinners. The sin of men can be roughly divided into godlessness and injustice (18).
Godlessness means that people deny God's existence or his rule. Today, many people neither believe in the existence of God nor in His rule and live without faith in God.

But living without faith in God is a serious sin. Who wants his children to think and live as if they had no parents?
Many people believe that if they live without God, they will be completely free. In fact, if we reject God as our Creator, we will not befree. Rather, we lose the spiritual health and become prisoners of sin and the devil. Do we know why the first human lost paradise? - Because he did not recognize God as God and ate of the tree of life. He lost true freedom and eternal life because he wanted to determine everything without God (Genesis 3: 5-6).

We do not deny the fact that some unbelievers live morally. But most unbelievers live immorally.
Take examples of North Korean dictators. Kim Il-Sung was the founder of North Korea. His father was a Christian, but he died early. And a pastor's family cared about Kim Il-Sung. But this did not personally accept Christ. He, his son Kim Jung-Il and his grandson Kim Jung-En deny all God's existence. Instead of God they let the people worship Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jung-Il as gods.

The basic problem of humanity, however, is that every person is fundamentally selfish and sinful and does not properly thank God.
So Paul says in verse 21, "For although they knew of God, they did not praise nor thank him as God, but have fallen into the vain in their thoughts, and their incomprehensible heart is darkened."

God gave us life, provided us with water, air, light, heat and food, and educated us through parents and other people. God has even sacrificed his son Jesus Christ to save us from sin. Did we thank God for that?
Unfortunately too little. Will we not reckon with God's wrath when we are judged in the judgment of God for our ingratitude? Every one should answer for themselves.

2. Results of the rejection of God (22-31)

Currently about 30% of the German population are registered as a Protestant Christian and 30% as a Catholic. But only 9% of Catholics and 3% of Protestants regularly come to Sunday worship.
The Christians of the free churches are about 2% (about 140 million) of the total population. But only 12.5% ​​of them attend Sunday worship regularly.
In Europe, only 3% of the entire population participate in the Protestant Sunday worship.
Today's people think that not believing in God would cause no serious problems.  But that ist false! Let us get to know the consequence of not believing in God.

The first consequence of rejecting God is spiritual corruption (22-25).

Verses 22-23: "They claimed to be wise, but they became fools. They exchanged the glory of the everlasting God with images of tr human being and crawling animals. "

If we do not believe in God and do not thank Him, our hearts are empty. That's why we're looking for some substitute god and worshiping him to fill our emptiness. Our substitute god can be any human being, money, luck or any work. We are looking forward to our substitute god for a while. Although our substitute god may not necessarily be a bad thing, he is just a transient thing; he can not give us a real sense of life and a lasting happiness.

If we are not careful, the idol takes first place in our hearts. And we become dependent on our idol over time. Money, which is necessary for our life. We should use money well for God and people. But those who love money more than God and men have little heart for God and other people.
We should have family happiness. But if we put family happiness above God, God has no place in our hearts.

We live in a postmodernist-minded world. One thinks that there is no absolute truth, in other words: every human being should worship his own idol. Despite such worldly tendency, we should love God with all our hearts. We should keep renewing our grateful heart for God and worshiping Him alone.

The second consequence of the rejection of God is the decay of the family (26-27).

If we worship any idol instead of God, we will become morally corrupt step by step. This corruption will leave its mark, especially in our family relationship. Today an unnatural relationship is considered a normal relationship. Why does the general public think so? This is a consequence of unbelief in God. Because the number of true believers has drastically diminished, God's commandments are being replaced by the godless laws.

Love is very nice. But a false love is a deadly poison for our soul. When the family breaks down, the affected couple and their children suffer greatly. Some historians say that the fundamental cause of the downfall of the Roman Empire was the decay of the family. Thus, the decay of the family is a serious problem of society.

In August 2012, a Dutch boy married a Korean girl. It was attended by about 80 Korean guests and 80 Dutch guests and congratulated the wedding couple. The boy had experienced the turmoil of his parents. Because of this, he had a desire to found a steady, blessed family so that the couple and their future children can have peace in the famiy. With this request he made her the marriage proposal. The couple now has a kid.

We pray that God will found many blessed families and bless them. Living as healthy, faithful families is a credible witness to God and Christ. God may use the families in this church as blessings for Germany and the world. Let us pray that God may found more benevolent families.

The third consequence of the rejection of God is the corruption of society (28-32)

If we reject God, we can not fill our empty hearts with anything. That is why we will try to find some substitute god. But such a substitute god can not fill our hearts in the long run. That's why we become morally corrupt. And this corruption is often expressed by their corrupt behavior.

Verses 29-32 cite the behavior of corrupt people: injustice, wickedness, greed, despised gods ... unreasonable, unfaithful, unloving, merciless, etc. And they do not do evil alone, but also agree with those who do so. Those who behave properly before God are laughed at and scolded.

The human world without faith in God is the subject of the divine wrath. We should not envy godless people, even if they sometimes look attractive to us. Rather, we should correctly recognize the reality of godless people and their future and have a broken heart for them. We should not be influenced by the godless world but help them with the gospel. God should hear our prayers for them and lead them to faith. Amen!