Reasons for the Wrath of God, Part 2

Is God's wrath just? Yes. Is it fair? Yes. Is it equitable?

Yes. Because man is inexcusable. Man is inexcusable. If a man goes to hell, he goes there because he has openly, personally chosen to reject the revelation of God. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.

I'm Phil Johnson, your host. It doesn't take much to be reminded that we live in a desperately sinful world. Yet even though sin is all around us, some sins still stand out above the rest, like the death camps of Nazi Germany and the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Just two examples. But is there one atrocity that is the worst of all time?

And more important, do you know who's guilty of committing it? And is forgiveness possible? You'll want to listen closely as John MacArthur continues his study from Romans 1 titled, Wicked World, Angry God. And with that, here's John with today's lesson. Romans chapter 1 is our text, and I would invite you to take your Bible and look along with us as we examine this most essential portion of Paul's epistle to the Romans from verses 19 through 23. Romans 1, 19 through 23. We've already discussed verse 18, which talks about the wrath of God being revealed, and then the reasons for the wrath of God are given in verses 19 to 23. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shown it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. As Paul begins his message on the gospel of Christ, he begins it by establishing the fact that God is a God of wrath. Having introduced to us himself and his theme in the first 17 verses, he begins unfolding the gospel of God and he starts with the statement in verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. And the gospel therefore begins with an opening statement that God is exceedingly angry with men.

And that's where the gospel has to begin. Men must be confronted with the reality that they stand in inevitable judgment from a holy God who must react against their sin. Sadly, through the years, Christians have soft-pedaled the theme of judgment.

Hell has been quietly omitted from our preaching. Wrath has been often depersonalized as if God were not involved, only the outworking of some deistic machine. But God is involved. He is involved in His wrath as much as He is in His grace or mercy or love or any other extension and expression of His nature. Scriptures paint an absolutely fearful and horrifying picture of God's wrath.

And it is a picture that men need to have firmly fixed in their minds. For example, in the Psalms we read things like this. The righteous will rejoice when He sees the vengeance. He will bathe His feet in the blood of the wicked. God will shatter the heads of His enemies.

Add to them punishment upon punishment. May they have no acquittal from Thee. Return sevenfold into the bosom of our neighbors the taunts with which they have taunted Thee, O Lord. Let there be none to extend kindness to Him nor any pity to His fatherless children. Happy shall He be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock. Do not I hate them that hate Thee, O Lord, and do not I loathe them that rise up against Thee? I hate them with perfect hatred.

I count them my enemies. Now those are amazing statements that reflect the wrath of God in very dramatic terms. Some men have been unable to accept those statements. Some years back, 1962, in the London Times, there was an article and in the article it said this, earlier this year, 14 church study groups in Woodford looked at the Old Testament Psalms and concluded that 84 of the Psalms were not fit for Christians to sing. In other words, these people were so unable to deal with the wrath of God revealed in 84 different Psalms that they just excluded them from the Christian scriptures altogether. J.C. Wanzey, who in Britain compiled a collection of New Testament passages which have been used for congregational chanting under the title of a New Testament Psalter, said this, parts of the Psalms are full of tribal jealousies, bloodthirsty threats and curses, winings and moanings which are shocking in themselves and time-wasting to God and man. The New Testament Psalms, however, are Christian through and through.

And so he just rejects them all. But if you're going to do that with the Psalms, you're going to have to go from there because Jeremiah understood God's wrath and in his prophecy he says, So said Jeremiah. And God answered Jeremiah's call with these words, And then there's the prophet Nahum. The Lord is slow to anger and of great might and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. Who can stand before His indignation?

Who can endure the heat of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken asunder by Him. Woe to the bloody city.

Similarly, Isaiah. Behold, the day of the Lord comes cruel with wrath and fierce anger to make the earth a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes, their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.

Fearful language. And you can read in the book of Deuteronomy how Moses spoke of similar things. Upon entry into the Promised Land, the people were instructed to have a solemn ceremony of blessing and cursing in the valley which separated Mount Eba from Mount Gerizim. Twelve solemn curses were to be read by the Levites, to each of which all the people were required to say, Amen. They were to invoke God's curse upon such of their number as did not obey God's commandments. And then there were to follow more than 50 verses in which all of the judgments were detailed on those that violated God's commandments. Fifty verses. And they're fearful verses of judgment. Now we realize that these are the statements of the Word of God, authoritative, and they relate God's absolute truth. The God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath. Now some people assume that it's just the God of the Old Testament who is a God of wrath.

But that is not true at all. Listen to John the Baptist in the New Testament. You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

He will clear his threshing floor, the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. Listen to John the Apostle. He who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him. The book of Acts says, And as he argued, referring to Paul, about justice and self-control and future judgment, Felix was alarmed. Paul in his letters speaks of God's wrath. He says, You are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed, for he will render to every man according to his works. For those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury, there will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil. On that day, when God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus, he says, Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. The book of Hebrews goes on, If we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries.

Hebrews goes on to say, If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less so we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. You can skip the statements for the moment in 1 and 2 Peter and Jude and go right to Revelation and find there other statements about wrath and judgment. It says that the wine of God's wrath will be poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, that men will be tormented with fire and sulfur, the smoke of their torment going up forever and ever, having no rest day or night. From his mouth it says this issues a sharp sword with which he will smite the nations and rule them with a rod of iron and tread the winepress of the fury of his wrath. And even the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking with no trace of harshness and with a life and a heart filled with compassion and love and concern and mercy, spoke frequently of judgment, frequently of perdition, destruction, vengeance and hell.

And what are we saying in the sum of all of this? That God is a God of wrath. Now many are denying this today and basically the denials come in two primary forms. The first is the denial that comes by way of soul sleep. People which teach that when you die you just go to sleep if you are to be condemned and you never suffer anything. And then there are the universalists who are now saying that ultimately God will just save everybody. But the Scripture doesn't teach either of those things. It teaches that men are to be warned of the wrath to come and that assumes that it is real.

Let me caution you in four areas. Beware of the powerful natural appeal of universalism and soul sleep. They evade everlasting suffering which is a problem for us to deal with but they do it by perverting the Scripture. So beware of that because you can easily be sucked into believing that because you wish well on everyone.

And people will corner you and say, how can a good God allow people to go to hell? Secondly, beware of the pervasive influence of liberalism which always sees Jesus as too loving to condemn anybody. Thirdly, beware of the fact that such teachings are cultic.

And let me add a fourth thing. Beware of the loss of zeal for winning souls. For if you are determined to believe that nobody's ever going to wind up in hell ultimately then there you have the basis for never bothering to tell anybody the truth any longer.

Why bother? Shallow views of sin and God's holiness, said R.A. Torrey, and of the glory of Jesus Christ and His claims on us lie at the bottom of weak theories of the doom of the impenitent. When we see sin in all its hideousness and enormity, the holiness of God in all its perfection, and the glory of Jesus Christ in all its infinity, nothing but a doctrine that those who persist in the choice of sin who love darkness rather than light and who persist in the rejection of the Son of God shall endure everlasting anguish will satisfy the demands of our own moral intuitions.

The more closely men walk with God and the more devoted they become to His service, the more likely they are to believe this doctrine. Now that brings us to the question of verses 19 to 23. If God is going to judge and if He is going to pour out His vengeance, is it fair? Is it just?

Is it right? And the answer is in these verses. Four reasons for God's wrath. And they are also four phases in the decline and fall of man. These four phases become the four reasons why God is just in condemning men to hell. They are revelation, rejection, rationalization, and religion. Revelation, rejection, rationalization, and religion. First of all, revelation.

We talked about that in our last study. Verses 19 and 20 are the key to that. It says, The reason God will pour out His wrath, as in verse 18, is because that which may be known of God is manifest in them. For God hath shown it unto them, for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things of the world. Seen being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. In other words, creation has given to man enough light for him to perceive the revelation of God. And the obvious implication is that man rejected the truth and went downward. If he had accepted the truth of God visible in creation, he would have moved upward. In other words, if he'd have lived up to the light that God gave him, God would have given him more light.

That happens many times in the New Testament. Lydia, Cornelius, the eunuch of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, all of them living up to the existing light that God gave them were given opportunity to receive more light, and when they did, they believed momentarily. The message comes to an open heart, to one who lives up to the light he has. And so the text is telling us that God has revealed Himself to man in His world. Man can see His sustaining power and His deity so that if he lives up to that recognition and that revelation, God will give him more light. If he sees the never-failing omnipotence and the divine attributes of God as manifest in creation, God will give him more light. In fact, he has so much information in creation, the end of verse 20 says he's without excuse.

Now that's the key. Is God's wrath just? Yes. Is it fair? Yes. Is it equitable?

Yes. Because man is inexcusable. Man is inexcusable. If a man goes to hell, he goes there because he has openly, personally chosen to reject the revelation of God. You say, but what if he never heard the gospel? If he lived up to the light that he had, God would reveal the whole message of redemption to him. That's the whole point. That moves us to the second of the four reasons why God is just, and that is rejection.

Rejection. Verse 21, because again, because when they knew God, and the implication there is that all men innately have known God. Remember John 1-9, Christ is the light that lights every man that comes into the world. In other words, every human being has the light of Christ within him and the revelation of creation around him to lead him to God. And if he does not go there, he is inexcusable because when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.

Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Revelation simply says that God has revealed himself to men. Rejection says men have turned away from that revelation. When man finds God in creation, he rejects God. Lucifer did it.

Adam did it. Adam even walked and talked with God and rejected him. Dr. Barnhouse has written this very, very potent paragraph. Will God give man brains to see these things and will man then fail to exercise his will toward that God?

The sorrowful answer is that both of these things are true. God will give a man brains to smelt iron and make a hammerhead and nails. God will grow a tree and give man strength to cut it down and brains to fashion a hammer handle from its wood. And when man has the hammer and the nails, God will put out his hand and let man drive those nails through it and place him on a cross in the supreme demonstration that men are without excuse. And what he's saying is that the very things God gave man to lead them to him were the very things he used to crucify Christ. Men do not act in accord with the truth.

They wickedly fight against and oppose the truth. So they know God, he says. Verse 21, they knew God and yet they don't know God because they have turned away from Him. And the sin of rejection is crystallized in verse 21.

Look back at it for a moment. When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. That is the crime of all crimes. The worst deed ever committed in the universe is to fail to give God glory. Above everything, God is to be glorified.

And I want to stop at this juncture and I want to share with you some principles that I think are so utterly foundational. And you've heard me share these, some of you before, but they must be shared in the context of Romans 1. It makes this tremendous indictment of man's rejection when it says that they glorified Him not as God.

Now that is the heart and soul of the fallenness of man. He refuses to glorify God. Now what does it mean to glorify God? It means to exalt Him or to honor Him or to treat Him as majestic. It means to recognize His attributes for the attributes of God are His glory. The glory of God is the consummation of all of His being. The glory of God is the consummation of all of His attributes. The glory of God is what God is revealed. And when man will not recognize that and man will not give the glory to whom it is due, then that is the ultimate effrontery to God. God is to be glorified. That is the reason man has been created, to glorify God. The old catechism said, what is the chief end of man? And the answer was, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

And that is exactly right. God is to be glorified. And glory is simply His attributes.

For example, in Romans 6, 4 it says that Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. What part of His glory? The power part of His glory. In Exodus 33, Moses says, show me your glory. And he says, I'll make my goodness and my mercy pass before you. And so His glory is His power and His glory is His mercy and His glory is His kindness and His grace. In John 1, it talks about Christ being full of the glory of God, full of grace and truth. Truthfulness is part of His glory. All of the attributes of God make up His glory. And man is to recognize that and that is precisely what they will not do. For all have sinned and come short of what?

The glory of God. They will not see His glory. They will not manifest His glory in their own lives. They will not even ascribe to Him the glory due His name.

Read sometime the 16th chapter of 1 Chronicles. Repeatedly from verse 24 on, it tells us to give God glory, give God glory, give God glory. And basically the created world does that. The heavens declare the glory of God, don't they? They don't argue.

There's never been a revolt of the stars. They just do it. The animals just do what God created them to do. They manifest His mighty handiwork. The flowers bloom and the butterflies butterfly and all of creation does what it was made to do and it doesn't argue. It just gives God glory. But in the midst of it all, man rebels and refuses to glorify God, refuses to recognize God. And frankly, if you can stand in the midst of this created universe and look around in our day and our time and say that you do not believe in God and you will not affirm the glory and majesty and honor and power of God, you are the biggest fool who ever lived.

The evidence is so replete. All of man's commitment to life can be summed up in one statement, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. That's the reason we live. That's John MacArthur, chancellor of the Master's University and Seminary, and that was a lesson from John's study on grace to you titled, Wicked World, Angry God. John, you said today that if a person can look at the created world and not affirm the glory and majesty of God, then that person is a fool because the evidence for God is overwhelming. John, you said today that if a person can look at the created world and not affirm the glory and majesty of God, then that person is a fool because the evidence for God is overwhelming. And yet, as you're also saying in this study, the visible revelation of God is not the end of the story, but it's his written revelation that is critical to knowing him and worshiping him and being transformed by him.

So talk about that for a moment. Yeah, I think one way to understand it is there is enough evidence of God in the created world to make you inexcusable. That's Romans 1, you are without excuse if you don't believe in God when you look at the world. And that was said in an ancient time.

What we know now is so much more vast in terms of the science. So there's plenty of evidence of God's existence enough to make you guilty of not believing in him, guilty of rejecting him, but there's not enough revelation in creation to save you. And that's where the written revelation comes in.

That's why God has given us the book, the Bible, where he reveals himself and his plan of redemption and how sinners can be saved from judgment and eternal punishment. You know, all of these great realities concerning God, whether they're his manifestation in creation or in revelation, are laid out throughout the scripture. The key is being able to interpret the Bible. And I want to mention something to you today that is really our flagship resource, and that's the MacArthur Study Bible.

I'm sure you know what a study Bible is. It just provides footnotes. In the case of this Bible, about 25,000 footnotes explaining the text that you are reading as you go through the Bible.

The notes answer questions that everybody has, questions that I know I had, and that's why I sought out the answers and put them there for others to enjoy and appreciate. They explain background, culture, geography, language. That's all context. And if there's one thing that's critical to interpreting the Bible, it is the recreation of its actual ancient context. It brings the Bible to life, and we want you to know that there are available copies of the MacArthur Study Bible in the New American Standard. That's the one translation that I've used for decades. But we also have them in the New King James Version and the ESV. We also have MacArthur Study Bibles in non-English versions—Spanish, Chinese, French, Russian, and even more. And I hope you'll order one today. Take a look at the available translations.

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