SIN, WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
Romans
1:18-23 7/23/2017
Introduction:
Along with
my youngest daughter I enjoyed watching the Lord of the Rings. I was fascinated
by a character named -
Gollum. What a great name. Gollum is the slimiest character in J. R. R. Tolkien's
Lord of the Rings trilogy. If you are a loyal fan of the books, you know that
originally this character was a Hobbit named Sméagol. But his obsession with
possessing the Ring deformed him into Gollum, a name he got after his habit of
making "a horrible swallowing noise in this throat." According to a
collection of literary authorities quoted on Wikipedia, Sméagol "still
vaguely remembered things like friendship and love, while Gollum was a slave to
the Ring who knew only treachery and violence." As Aragorn states:
"His malice gives him a strength hardly to be imagined."[1]
This
is precisely what happens to people tangled in sin. Their names might as well
be changed, because they have become what they live for. We all are created in
the image of God, but sin disfigures and tarnishes that image. Then our greatest
strength becomes our capacity to sin! Last week we talked about, the power of
negative thoughts and how we can free ourselves from its grip by learning to think
differently. Today the main theme of our message is Sin. Did I say, Sin? Yes,
it is Sin! I title this message, “SIN,
WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?” Romans 1:18-23. From the times, I grew up to the
times now, the perception and recognition of sin has drastically changed.
Calling something as sin is now viewed as politically not correct. If you want
to become unpopular then talk about sin. Living in this context, how do we
understand sin?
Apologist
Ravi Zacharias shares a definition of sin that was given by Susan Wesley, when
the young John Wesley asked his mother to define what sin is. Listen carefully,
we can learn how to adequately answer our children and all those who might ask
what is sin? Susan Wesley said, “Whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the
tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes away your
relish for spiritual things is sin.” In short, “If anything increases the
authority and the power of the flesh over the Spirit that becomes sin to you,
however good in and of itself.
The
Bible actually uses a number of examples or “word pictures” to illustrate what
this means. For example, it tells us that sin is like an archer who misses the
target. He draws back his bow and sends the arrow on its way—but instead of
hitting the bull’s-eye, it veers off course and misses the mark. The arrow may
only miss it a little bit or it may miss it a great deal—but the result is the
same: The arrow doesn’t land where it is supposed to. The same is true of sin.
God’s will is like the center of that target—and when we sin, we come up short
of the goal, missing the true end and scope of our lives which is God. And this
is something we do every day; as the Bible says, “For all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
Now
we have established what sin is, you may be wondering what’s the Big deal?
Because it is indeed a big deal, the Apostle from the very beginning of his
letter to the Roman believers explains why it is a big deal and why we must pay
close attention to it. Sin is a big deal for two reasons: Sin is the ultimate
rebellion of human heart, secondly, the wrath and the oncoming Judgment of God
on the unbelieving and sinful man.
I. THE ULTIMATE REBELLION
OF MAN (21-23)
Vs 21-23, “For
although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to
him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Although they
claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the
glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and
birds and animals and reptiles.” These scriptures talk about, though people
know God they do not glorify God, that is the ultimate rebellion of man. It all
started in the Garden, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden
fruit which brought death to all mankind and banishment from the garden into
the world. The rebellion continued. Mankind faced consequences because of their
rebellion against God. One would think that they would have learned lessons by,
now right?
It was right
after God delivered his people from 400-year slavery in Egypt to a land that
was flowing with milk and honey. He gave them the ten commandments to
follow. The first one was, “I am the Lord your God, who brought
you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You
shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness
of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that
is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” Exodus 20:1-5
Let’s see how quickly man turned
against this commandment. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down
from the mountain, they put pressure on Aaron to make a god for them who will
go before them. Aaron made a golden calf and said this is your god. The next
day they offered burnt offerings, peace offerings and they sat down to eat, and
drink and rose up to play. They violated the very first commandment, God became
so angry and wanted to destroy all of them, if it was not Moses’s intercession
all would have been destroyed. Exodus 32.
The lesson we can learn from this tragic story
is that when we violate the first commandment, it wouldn’t take much longer
before we violate the rest of them. The Apostle Paul was picking up on that human
rebellion in verses 21-23. He was telling the believers what happens when they willingly
break the first commandment which forbids idolatry.
The same pattern is even now
continuing. Modern man is conscious of God’s existence, power and divine nature
through general revelation, yet knowingly and blatantly denies any existence of
God. Instead of giving thanks and honoring Him by worshipping Him directly he
creates images of man, birds, and animals and turns them into gods. In Asia and
other eastern countries, we see this blatant worship of idols in the form of
birds, animals and reptiles. In the western world, we see this reflecting in
the worship of celebrities, cars, sports etc.
Man thinks he can run his life
without God’s help. The scripture says that without Him we can do absolutely
nothing. “For in him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28. When man
removes the true and living God from his life and begins to worships his created
images whatever they may be, it is called idolatry. God hates idolatry more
than anything else. Idolatry is sin and rebellion against God. God would not
let this outright rebellion go on forever. He will bring down his wrath and the
judgment upon all those who rebel against God.
II GOD’S
WRATH! (Vs 18-20)
Vs
18-20, “The wrath of God is being revealed from
heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the
truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about
God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities his eternal
power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has
been made, so that people are without excuse.” After introducing the
righteousness that comes from God in Romans 1:17, Paul now presents the
overwhelming evidence of man’s sinfulness and how desperately man is in need of
God’s mercy and forgiveness. He presents the wrath of God that once was
revealed and would be revealed again upon ungodly, and immoral people.
The wrath of God here is not an impulsive outburst of anger
aimed suddenly at people whom God does not like. Rather it is a determined and
calculated response of a righteous God against sin. The word “revealed”
essentially means, “to uncover, make visible, or make known.” God reveals his wrath in two ways.
Firstly, He reveals his wrath indirectly, through the natural consequences of
violating his universal moral law. For example, one of his moral laws says,
“You shall not commit adultery.” What happens when you willfully violate that
moral law and commits adultery, you risk acquiring sexually transmitted
diseases.
Secondly, God
reveals his wrath directly through his personal involvement, for example, the
worldwide flood in Genesis or bringing down fire and brimstone on the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah due to their blatant acts of rebellion and sexual
immorality. These few incidents tell us that in the past,
present and in the future God continues to reveal his wrath both indirectly and
directly.
Who becomes the target of God’s
wrath? His wrath is “against all the godlessness and wickedness
of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known
about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.” Let’s look
at these words, godlessness and wickedness (unrighteousness). Godlessness or
ungodliness indicates a lack of reverence for, devotion to, and worship of the
true God.
The Apostle
Paul predicted godlessness in the last days (II Timothy 3:1-8). In Jude, we see
how God is going to execute his judgment upon the ungodly. “It was also about these that Enoch, the
seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten
thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have
committed in such an ungodly way, and
of all the harsh things that ungodly
sinners have spoken against him.” (Jude 14-15).
If only we hear,
how certain people curse God and talk sacrilegiously against God and his
people. It truly is a fearsome thought that all who now live so carelessly in
regards to God and his commands will be called to account. What does the word, wickedness
mean? It is a lack of conformity in thought, word, and deed to the character
and the law of God.
In other
words, though people know what is truth they out rightly deny it by creating a
false narrative to meet their whims and fancies and force people to believe and
follow the same. The truth of the matter is that from the beginning the creator
God made all that we see around us and constantly sustains it. God’s divine
nature is seen in the things that have been made.
The Psalmist
said, “the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his
hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal
knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the
world.” Psalm 19:1-4.
Though nature is clearly declaring the
existence of God in everything that is made, in these days of alternative facts
and reality the real truth is subverted and is getting lost. The apostle Paul
calls it the suppressing of the truth. Certain people think they could suppress
the truth, but could they really? History tells us that the truth will always
prevail.
There is
more we can talk about from this passage, for
today it is sufficient to know that man has rebelled against God. In his
rebellion, he created gods for himself and he worships those false gods. The
wrath of God is coming upon rebellious people. Going forward into the passage the
Apostle Paul highlights how this one act of rebellion led mankind into a spiral
of vices. What are the consequences of such acts, and how we can overcome sin
and live a fulfilling and God honoring life? In order to know the answers for
these questions, you need to come back next week. Amen
[1]
[Lee Eclov, Vernon Hills, Illinois; sources: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit and the
Lord of the Rings (Houghton-Mifflin, 1999);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gollum]
