Exposed: The Great Cover-Up, Part 4

Let’s turn to Paul’s epistle
to the Romans, chapter 1. Romans, chapter 1. And as you’re turning, I will
acknowledge to you from the very beginning that the message this morning
is terrible. In all my years of ministry,
I’ve laid plenty of eggs in the pulpit. I’ve preached too many
messages with which I was displeased at the end. And God’s people
seem to confirm my assessment. Whether you’ve done
a poor job preparing or you’re in the midst of a poor job delivering,
there are usually strong indicators of it. Some people in the pews
will have the courtesy just to sleep, which is actually a mercy
because they spare me from feeling poorly about what they’re listening
to. And then, of course, at the door,
there’s the sure indicator, the what I call that was interesting
indicator. As a preacher, you never want
to hear that was interesting at the door. God’s Word is inherently
beyond interesting. And if you hear that was interesting,
what you’ve actually done is detract from it. Believe me,
I’ve preached more than my share of clunkers in my almost 20 years
of ministry. But when I say this morning that
I have a terrible message for you, I’m not talking about my
preparation. And I won’t know about the delivery
for almost an hour. What I mean by terrible is the
content of the message. The message of the passage itself
is terrible. The content of the message is
terrible this morning, in spite of the fact that it’s a passage
of God’s word, it is God’s word, it is pure, it is instructive,
it is God’s very word, but it is terrible nonetheless. It is
terrible because it is the message of the horrible, dreadful, terrible
consequence of sin and sinfulness. The consequence of trying to
do away with God, the consequence of trying to suppress what God
has clearly revealed. The message this morning is terrible. If you would, I want to go all
the way back to verse 13 of chapter one. Well, we’ll lay the groundwork. We’re talking about sin. Paul
is zeroed in on dealing with sin. Now, the subject that will
take all the way through the end of the chapter, not only
the end of chapter one, rather, but all the way down through
chapter three, verse 20, where Paul is essentially discussing
the grand motives of preaching that we’ve got to be about advancing
the gospel, proclaiming Christ because of the great need of
humanity. God’s righteousness is revealed
and so is God’s judgment. The wrath of God, likewise, is
revealed against sin and sinfulness. And we picked up these thoughts
in verse 13, where Paul says, I do not want you to be unaware,
brethren, that often I have planned to come to you and have been
prevented thus far in order that I might obtain some fruit among
you, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation
both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
Thus, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also
who are in Rome, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of For
it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness
of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, that
the righteous man shall live by faith.” Paul says, look, I
am not afraid to come to Rome. I am not ashamed of the Gospel.
The Gospel is the Gospel of God. It lays out the power of God.
Because it bears the righteousness of God. Paul proceeds there to
tell us that the wrath of God likewise is revealed in verse
18. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which is known about
God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them.
For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes,
his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen
being understood through what has been made, so that they are
without excuse. And this is where we’ve been
these last several weeks, where we open with God’s response to
the problem of sin, that he reveals his wrath because of it. The nature of this crime that
has been committed against God, this attempted cover-up of God
Himself is revealed there in verse 18. Ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men who in their ungodliness attempt, unsuccessfully, to suppress
the very truth of God. God has made himself known to
them. And God lays that out in verse
19 because God has made it evident to them. It’s God making this
claim. God is the one that has revealed
himself to them, and he’s done so from the very moment of creation.
We saw the details these last few weeks that since the creation
of the world, God’s attributes His eternal power and divine
nature have been clearly seen. And the verdict was simple. Guilty. They are without excuse. They
are seen as being absolutely culpable, responsible and guilty
because God has revealed himself fully to them. Paul then moves
to lay out the consequences, or if you will, the sentence
for the great sin, this monumental conspiracy of trying to cover up God. If
we pick that up in verse 21, for even though they knew God,
they did not honor Him as God or give thanks. But they became
futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged 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.
Therefore, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to
impurity that their bodies might be dishonored among them. For
they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and
served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave
them over to degrading passions. For their women exchanged the
natural function for that which is unnatural. And in the same
way also, the men abandoned the natural function of the woman
and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men, committing
indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty
of their error. And just as they did not see
fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved
mind. To do those things which are
not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness,
greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, they
are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful,
inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding,
untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. And although they know the ordinance
of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death.
They not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to
those who practice them. Paul comes full circle with his
expose of this great cover up, this attempt to cover over even
God himself. Paul comes full circle, having
told us not only that this brings out the wrath of God, and he
tells us why, and he proves that God Himself has made Himself
known to them. They are pronounced as guilty
and now comes the sentence. Now comes the sentence. In verse
21, it’s an interesting passage, and I want to take a moment to
look at what verse 21 in and of itself does. Verse 21 essentially
establishes the framework for the entire remainder of the chapter.
What you have here is a simple outline, rejection, replacement
and reprobation. If you wanted to break out verse
21, that’s a good way to do it. And if you’re looking at your
bulletin outline, those are those blanks to the left of verse 21. You have rejection in those first
three lines, you have replacement. And you have what I would call,
what theology calls, reprobation. In short, this is a summary statement
of all that has been said in verses 18 through 20, and it
serves as the link to the verses that follow. Verses 22 through
32. And I want to take you, and I
just want to sketch this out. We’ll spend much more time in
these passages in weeks to come. You not only have a cycle of
judgment here in verse 21. That’s the outline. But watch
when I speak of cycles, I’m talking not only of a pattern that Paul
gives us here in verse 21, but a recurring, repeated pattern
that we’ll see throughout the rest of the chapter. Rejection, replacement and reprobation. Look down at v. 22. You have
rejection there as well. Essentially a repeat or further
detail of what is said in v. 21. In v. 21, he says, they knew
God, but they didn’t honor Him as God. They rejected Him essentially.
In v. 22, professing to be wise, they
became fools and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible
God. We have rejection repeated throughout
this process. Look down in verse 25, you have
another rejection of God. The second cycle of judgment
in verse 25 records that they exchanged the truth of God for
a lie. God wasn’t good enough and they
cashed him in. The third cycle of judgment begins
in verse 28. In verse 28, it says, just as
they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, not only do they
not glorify Him, not only do they not see Him as true, now
they don’t even want to acknowledge His existence. They cash Him
in. There is replacement as well.
You’ve heard it said, almost everyone knows this little phrase,
there’s a God-shaped vacuum in each one of us. We know there’s
a God. The Scriptures tell us right
here that we know inherently there is a God. You don’t need
to go out in the course of your witnessing and evangelism. You
don’t need to go out and prove the existence of God. You can
start there. Axiomatic. You don’t need to
prove the existence of God. And the very proof of that is
that everyone will seek to fill that God-shaped vacuum with something. If it isn’t God, it’s got to
be something. There is a void. Look at the
statement in verse 21. Not only rejection, but replacement.
They became futile in their speculations. all kinds of reasons, all kinds
of thoughts and all kinds of ideas of what could possibly
replace God. But it’s got to be something.
Look down at verse 23 for the first cycle of judgment. Not only is there rejection,
but there is replacement. They replaced him for an image
in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four footed
animals and crawling creatures. How absurd to take the very puny
little things that God made that Adam had the name. And to turn those into objects
of worship, just as Israel initiated. and has been repeated down through
the centuries? If it isn’t God, it’s got to
be something. Look at the second cycle of judgment back down to
verse 25. Not only rejection, but replacement.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and
served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. We do that in many ways. Idolatry
is rampant not only throughout our own day, but throughout history. It’s rampant. We’ll touch upon
that as we come to those sections in the weeks to come, but look
at the third cycle of judgment where it’s almost rolled in to
the what I would call the reprobation itself. God gave them over to
a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper. God just
says you can have yourself. That’s what you want. You can
have it your way. You can have your unrighteousness
and evil and slander. You can have it all. That’s what they want. That’s
what they’ve wanted all along. But there’s a third phase of
this cycle of judgment. Not only rejection and replacement,
but reprobation. A literal giving over. Go back
to verse 21. Even though they knew God, they
did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile
in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. They didn’t darken it themselves.
Their deeds led them right up to it, but ultimately, their
heart is darkened. It’s darkened by God. And that’s
a tough truth. I told you the message this morning
was going to be terrible. That is a terrible truth. That
ultimately, God darkens their heart. Look at the first cycle
of judgment, not only rejection and replacement, but reprobation.
Look at verse 24. Therefore, God gave them over
in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies
might be dishonored among them.” God gave them over. After they had rejected Him,
after they had replaced Him, seemingly, God gave them over. Look at the second cycle of judgment. The second cycle of judgment
takes place beginning in verse twenty five, but pick it up in
verse twenty six for the reprobation. For this reason, because they
exchanged the truth of God for a lie, God gave them over to
degrading passions. And we’ll talk more about those
with a very severe warning before we even touch upon those passages
in any detail. Look at the third cycle of judgment.
We’ve touched upon it already. Not only rejection, but look
at the reprobation beginning in the middle of verse 28. God
gave them over to a depraved mind the third time. The third
of three. God gave them over. God gave
them over to impurity. God gave them over to degrading
passions. And here, God gave them over
to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper.
It began with speculation, ideas, little quirky thoughts about
God and life and what it might be like. And ultimately, God
says, you want it your way? You got it. God gave them over. That’s the framework that we’ll
be considering in the weeks to come. That’s the cycle of judgment
that is laid out here as a pattern this morning in verse 21. First of all, I want to look
this morning at rejection. Let’s look at rejection. Go back
to verse 21 if you would. Where Paul says, even though
they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks. The tie in here goes directly
to verse 20. Paul had just said they are without
excuse. Paul goes on immediately to say
they knew God. They knew who he was. Verse 18
began to tell us that that’s what elicited the wrath of God.
Because they were in the process of suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. How do we know that they knew
the truth? God tells us that they knew the
truth because he tells us that he told them. Look at verse 19,
that which is known about God is evident within them because
God made it evident to them. We can certainly trust God if
God tells us that he made it clear to them and our own hearts
tell us we knew. When we were yet heathen, when
we were still without God, our hearts knew that there was a
higher power, a being greater than ourselves, some kind of
a creator, someone who was deity. Someone we knew. Our
hearts knew. You don’t have to prove. that
there is a God. You can take it as axiomatic.
You can take that as your starting point, as I said, and invite
them. Just say, do you have a place
of worship? You don’t have to prove that
there’s a God who demands worship. You don’t have to prove any of
that. You start there. Paul just amplifies what he has
already said in verses 18-20. that they knew God. And even
though they knew God, they didn’t honor him as God. The most natural
thing in the world to do is to respond accordingly. They knew
God. They had gained a knowledge of
God. That which is known about God
was evident within them because God made it evident to them the
knowledge that they had from the manifestation that was given
to the whole creation. From what Paul says, from the
very moment of creation, God began proclaiming, even before
He put man on the earth, He was proclaiming His eternal attributes
to His creation. As one pastor said, the heathen
knew It wasn’t just that they merely had the opportunity of
knowing him, but that in the constitution of their own nature
and the works of creation, they actually possessed an intelligible
revelation of divine existence. They had something tangible.
As such, Paul goes on to say they had no excuse, no excuse
not to believe, not to respond accordingly. One Puritan said that man, placed
by God in his universe and in himself, made in God’s image,
naturally and inevitably knew God. In a perception of his being
and his character, it was adequate at its faintest to make a moral
claim. In other words, having revealed
himself, God had a right to command. But that claim was and is disliked. Out of that dislike has sprung
in man’s spiritual history a reserve towards God, a tendency to question
his purpose, his character, his existence, to degrade the concept
of his personality. That’s the tendency. That’s exactly
the truth of God’s word. They begin with suppressing it.
And in time, what they really want to do is reason God completely
out of the picture. They can’t bear it. They knew God. They had an objective
testimony from God about Himself. They had experienced Him. They
had seen His wisdom. They had felt His power. They
had certainly enjoyed His generosity in every moment of their earthly
existence. Even if they didn’t recognize
God, it had been clearly proclaimed to Him over and over again. They had been sustained, upheld,
encouraged by God, enriched and bounded. They had enjoyed the
beauty of birth. They had enjoyed the rains that
fell from heaven. And in all of those ways, God
was proclaiming himself. And in all of those ways, they
knew that there was a God. One missionary said, I think it may be proved from
facts That any given people down to the lowest savages, and this
was a man who had traveled the globe to proclaim the gospel. Down to the lowest savages have
at any period of life known far more than it is done. Did you
get the point of what he said? We don’t even come close. We
don’t even come close to living up to the knowledge that God
has poured forth on us. We don’t even come close in responding
appropriately. And that’s one thing for savages
that have nothing more than the rains and the sunsets and birth
itself and all of the beauties of God’s creation and the intricacies
of it, the intricacies of the human body, the insect world,
the plant world, the animal world, all of it. But for us, then, who have scripture,
we don’t even come close, he says. Down to the lowest savages. Has
it any period of its life known far more than it has done? They
know quite enough to have enabled it to have gone on comfortably,
to have thriven and developed, if only they had done All that
it knew that they ought to do and could do. We haven’t even
come close, he says. And in a very real sense, paganism
is proof that the human mind conceived some notion of God
in every culture, as we talked about last week. In every culture,
there is some attempt to reach back up to God. To put something
on an altar and light it on fire for something up there. To come
up with some kind of ritual to pay this being back for my badness,
for my sin, even if it isn’t called such. To seek to appease
this being for some kind of blessing that is now suddenly lacking
like rain. The pagan world is proof. They
have a notion of God that they, in a very real sense, know God. They don’t know Him as we know
Him. In our own home, we speak of those who are saved as those
who know God. They know the Lord. You use that
terminology all the time. That’s not what Paul’s saying.
He doesn’t say that they know the Lord savingly. They don’t
know the Lord Jesus Christ. But they know God. They know
there’s a God. So they knew him. They knew God
really and how he was. How then did they reject him? If they knew God, how could they
reject him? Paul goes on, look at verse 21,
even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God. They
might have honored him in some way, shape or form, calling him
some various name as pagan cultures always do, assigning some name
to him, assigning attributes to him. Zeus and Hermes and all
these other titles that man has sought to label God. But they
didn’t honor him as God. In fact, the very things that
are most endemic to God’s nature, they hated the most. They hate
his sovereignty. They hate the fact that God has
to show them mercy. They hate that they are in some
way indebted to God. So when they honor him, they
honor him as a benevolent one. They honor him as a terrible,
wrathful one, which they hate, but they seek to appease those
things, but they don’t honor him as God. They don’t ascribe due honor
to God for what they know Him to be. This glorification, this
honoring Him, it’s our word where we get glory, glorification.
Speaking of what we would call adoration of the divine perfections,
when we see those things, we are brought to an act of worship. We are to respond In an act of
worship, we are to glorify God, praise him for those attributes. Essentially, what it means is
to establish a value for something and then treat it accordingly.
And as such, you can essentially glorify man, man can glorify
God. In fact, in a very real sense,
God. Bestows glory on mankind. It means to ascribe honor. Praise,
honor, make glorious. It is the response that men owe
to God. As we look at God and His attributes,
we are to esteem Him. We are to set a value for Him
and we are to respond accordingly. It is exactly what we owe to
God. As the Creator, as the Lord of
our life, in our humble trust and obedience, As one pastor
said, to glorify God is not to argue, pardon me, to augment
God’s glory or to add to it. It means simply to ascribe God
the glory that belongs to him as God. When we glorify God,
when we praise him, we don’t add to him. We don’t. He doesn’t
need it. He deserves it, but he’s none
the worse if we don’t provide it to him. It means simply to
ascribe God the glory that belongs to him as God, to give him in
thought, affection and devotion the place that belongs to him
in virtue of the perfections which the visible creation makes
known. And they did not glorify God. They did not return to God what
was rightly his. They did not glorify God. And what did it look like most
frequently? Look at the verse again. Even though they knew
God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks. That’s the
most frequent, isn’t it? The acknowledgement of God as
the giver of every good, they didn’t look up to the heavens
and say, thank you for that beautiful rainstorm. Thank you for these
crops that grew so abundantly this year. Thank you for the
blessing of life. Thank you for these children
that you’ve given to me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,
God. They didn’t do it. Not typically. And the frightening thing is.
Neither do we. Enough. One writer said that the words
give thanks single out for a special mention, one particular element
in the glorification which they owed God. We are to see as to
esteem God and to respond to him accordingly, and part of
esteeming God is counting all the blessings that he has bestowed
upon us. Acknowledging him for it. They ought to have recognized
their indebtedness to his goodness and generosity, to have recognized
him as the source of all good things that they enjoyed, and
then to have been grateful to him for all his benefits. And
they didn’t. They just didn’t. They were completely
void of a true, thankful heart that should have that should
have bubbled up from all of the blessings that they were bestowed.
Matthew 5.45 said that God causes the rain to fall on the righteous
and the unrighteous. They had the same beautiful rain
that we did. Those that know God and return
to Him thanks that are in Christ and know the Lord Jesus. That was the testimony that Paul
gave to the heathen, remember, in Acts chapter 14. He didn’t
leave himself without a witness. What witness? He did good. Gave you rains from heaven and
fruitful seasons, satisfying your heart with food and gladness. And yet they did not look up
with even a simple thank you. Thank you, God. Paul says. That this is a situation
where. Rejection is actively taking
place. It’s not just a mere lack of
acknowledgement, it is outright rejection. And it’s interesting, if you
look about even to your ungodly friends, those who do not know
the Lord Jesus, those who speculate and wonder whether there is a
God, you’ll often hear some person, one of these people gnash their
teeth at God. and bitterly malign him when
some hardship or misfortune falls into their life. They lose their
job. Some health issue comes their
way. And they bitterly lash out at
God. Which is a lot more common. Than
to ever hear them thanking God for all of the blessings that
God does bestow upon them, that let him withhold one And they
would become his mortal enemy. If he were here, they’d kill
him again. It’s far more common to hear
them cursing God for the blessings they lack than for thanking and
praising him for the undeserved blessings that they enjoy. Hedonism
said one is not the primeval religion from which men gradually
have risen to the knowledge of the true God. But it is, on the
contrary, the result of falling away from the known original
revelation of the true God in his works. It’s the natural tendency
of the. Godless heart. It begins with
thanklessness and it goes downhill from there. I told you that we’re in a cycle
of judgment, indicating this pattern that we’ll see repeatedly
throughout the end of the chapter. We looked at rejection, but look
also at replacement, the void that has to be filled. Look back
at verse 21, even though they knew God, they did not honor
him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculation. This word speculation, it is
a word that is translated in all kinds of different ways.
It basically has the meaning of perverse, self-willed thinking,
reasoning, speculations. It is translated as disputing
in Philippians 2.14. In the Gospels where it is a
prevalent word, especially in Luke’s Gospel, it is thoughts
or reasonings or that almost internal argument that takes
place unspoken and yet lies right below the surface. We almost
perceive what people are thinking and Jesus often did. He perceived
their thoughts. He was aware of their thinking.
He was mindful of their reasonings of the Pharisees so often. Paul
uses it less frequently than the Gospels do, translated variously
as speculations, opinions, reasonings. It has the idea of an internal
discussion or a debate, but it has the underlying flavor of
suspicion or doubt. And so you begin to look askance
at someone and begin to almost murmur to yourself about them
and their motives. The word ultimately came to signify
reasoning or thought that had a disputive element to it. Skeptical questionings, as one
called it. Criticisms. Disputatious reasoning. If you want a big, long word. Essentially what this refers
to is the temptation to give in to all kinds of objections
and just to begin the process of reasoning God out of the picture.
Surely you can’t mean that God brought all of this that we see
into existence by his word. Speculative reasoning. As one defined it, the word expresses
dissatisfaction and doubt. It is opposed to the cheerful
and prompt discharge of present duty. To such disputes as endanger
the peace and unity of the church, the feeling of dissatisfaction
and hesitation is expressed generally. And what he points to is that
this can become a feature even among fellowship. No matter what
may tend to excite it, it must not be indulged, whether the
temptation to it be the divine command, the nature of the duty,
the self-denial which it involves or the opposition occasionally
encountered. In other words, he says this
whole process is an ungodly process. These are the arguments that
we mull over in our mind that we never lose, right? That’s that dialogue. That’s
the root word in the Greek where we get our word dialogue from.
And Paul, whenever Paul uses this word, he always uses this
word in a bad sense, a very bad sense. Where the intellect is working,
it’s actively working, but it is not informed or guided by
facts. It is just speculative reasoning
that starts in a bad place and goes worse. It is, as one said, the unregulated
activity of the understanding in the service of a corrupt heart. It’s the blackness of our heart
doing its thing unchecked. They knew God’s existence. They
knew of His perfections. They enjoyed His blessings and
bounties. But they were so confused. Their
mind had started in such a bad place. And then they heaped all
that error on top of it to the point where they almost reasoned
God completely away. You know, my grandmother was
right. An idle mind is the devil’s playground, isn’t it? That’s
exactly what he’s pointing to. But instead of pondering on the
goodness of God and the nature of God and their response to
him, they were in the midst of reasoning him right away. All of this reasoning, these
evil or wicked reasonings led them to a complete destitution
of any really good, healthy, fruitful thought that led them
away from the light and down into darkness further and further. As one said, it put aside the
natural instinct of adoration and fell into speculations. which
only led them further and further from the truth. I want to take you to one graphic
example of such reasoning, if you would turn to Luke chapter
12. In Luke chapter 12, we have the
same word used as Dialoguizzo, this word for speculation,
sinful reasoning. Jesus used the word to tell a
little story. You know the story, we’ve looked
at it in the past, Luke chapter 12, look at verse 13, someone
in the crowd. Can you imagine in the midst
of Jesus? I’ve been interrupted, I think twice in almost 20 years
of preaching. Both of them were extremely uncomfortable.
Don’t try it. Someone in the crowd said to
him, Teacher, Jesus in the midst of a sermon, midst of exposing
and laying out truth to these people. Someone in the crowd
yells, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance
with me. The age old problem, right? But he said to the man
who appointed me judge or arbiter over you. It’s interesting to
note that Jesus doesn’t obligate himself. Jesus, even the Lord
Jesus doesn’t obligate himself. to to arbitrate every little
dispute. And yet I see so many people
that are so willing to, you know, they play counsel all the time.
Right. Then he said to them, beware and be on your guard against
every form of greed, for not even when one has an abundance
does his life consist of his possessions. And he told them
a parable. Look at the parable. Verse 16,
the land of a rich man was very productive. And he began, you
guessed it, reasoning to himself. He began a dialogue with himself. These evil speculations that
start in a bad place and only go worse and watch what happens.
He began reasoning himself saying, what shall I do since I have
no place to store my crops? Then he said, this is what I
will do. I will tear down my barns and
build larger ones. And there I will store all my
grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul,
you have… I mean, it’s almost absurd. But
that’s what you’re doing. When you’re having one of these
dialogues with yourself, you might as well use your first
name. This is what I will do. So you
have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease,
eat, drink and be merry. But God said to him, God all
of a sudden enters into the dialogue and God will enter into these
dialogues eventually. He’ll enter into the dialogue
that’s taking place in Romans one momentarily. The God said to him, you fool,
this very night your soul is required of you. And now who
will own what you have prepared? So is the man who stores up treasure
for himself and is not rich toward God. Nebuchadnezzar did the same
thing. It’s the simple tendency of mankind. And look at the evaluation
that Paul gives it. It says it will lead nowhere
but vanity, futility. They became futile in their speculations. It just implies an absence of
purpose. I mean, if there was ever an
absence of purpose, here’s a man who has been blessed abundantly.
And instead of sharing the wealth and instead of encouraging others
in it, instead of ministering with his overflow, his genius
leads him to build a bigger barn. Futile. The word here can be
translated frustrated, rendered futile, vain and empty are often
words that are translated. The idea is behind it that there
is absolutely no intrinsic value to it. It is absolutely foolish
thinking because the thinking of our minds ought to be informed
and guided by God’s word, not our own thoughts. Our own thoughts
will lead us in no good place, homespun wisdom, homespun advice,
all those little platitudes that we pin on our refrigerators from
time to time. It will lead in no good place.
Scripture should inform our mind. Scripture should educate us and
guide us. Such hearts, said one, are useless. In fact, they are worse than
useless. Whenever people in their conceit and ingratitude begin
to reason on their own without consistent checking of the results
of their speculations with God’s revelation in nature, history,
conscience, and especially the Word of God, Their foolish hearts
are darkened. You know, it’s interesting in
this word, this word so often both in the Old Testament, the
Septuagint version, this word was so often used with idols.
As being futile, nothing’s. Pieces of wood hacked off of
a tree. And then a face carved on it
is supposed to become something. It’s absolutely futile, worthless. I said that we’re looking at
a cycle of judgment, a pattern, if you will, and a pattern that
we’ll see repeated throughout the end of the chapter, not only
rejection and replacement, they sought to replace God. But thirdly,
and most horrifically of all, I told you it was a terrible
message. Reprobation. That’s an old word, that’s a
forgotten word, and that is a word that you generally don’t hear
talked about in church. Because we don’t like to see
this pinned on God. We don’t like to see God doing
this. Even though they knew God, verse
21, they did not honor him as God or give thanks that they
became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. Didn’t become darkened just through
a natural process. They didn’t darken it themselves.
It became darkened by the hand of God, as the rest of the chapter
makes explicitly clear. That heart being the seat of
feeling and instinct and will and intellect. It was the place where intelligence
took place, where moral choices were made, where impulses were
recognized, where action was given character. In the Christian,
it is the seat of the Holy Spirit, said one. It is the most comprehensive
term for the human faculties, the orientation point of the
feeling and the will and the thoughts. No wonder my professor,
who obviously was raised in the 60s, used to refer to the human
heart as the mission control center of the human body. Right. In our day and age, we’d call
it the motherboard. Right. But it’s the heart, it’s not
that beating, pumping organ, it’s the totality of the inward
man. And Paul says, But as a result
of their first rejecting God and seeking to replace him, they
were given over. They were given over to a course
of reprobation. I told you it’s a terrible message.
And I hate to break the news to you, but next week’s message
will be even more terrible. Come back, won’t you? Let’s go
before the Lord in prayer. Merciful God, we humble ourselves
in your presence. We thank you so much for all
that you have given by way of revealing yourself to us, the
beauty of your creation, the delicacies of all that we see
and touch and feel. And here, all of it testifying
to who you are, we thank you for keeping our eyes open. We
thank you for revealing yourself to us. We thank you that our
speculation did not take over, that in time you opened our eyes
to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the sacrifice that He had
made for us. We thank you, Father. for saving
our souls because of the work that Christ accomplished on the
cross. We deserve none of it. But we thank you all the more.
It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen. you.