The Lost World | Part 1

From the Love We're Finding studios in Memphis, Tennessee, I'm Byron Tyler, here with Kerry Vaughn, the CEO of Love We're Finding. Kerry, today Adrian Rogers is in a series, Foundations for Our Faith. This is a great series, you know, God is love, He is righteous, but He's also the Chief Judge. Well, He is, and this series comes to us from the Book of Romans, and Adrian Rogers loved the Book of Romans, and he said it best this way. I would not begin to even suggest that I know all about the Book of Romans or that I have ever preached and exhausted the Book of Romans in my preaching, but I can tell you this much, if somehow I were shipwrecked on a desert island and I could only choose one book in the Bible to take with me, I just believe it would be the Book of Romans. Having said that, I certainly would like to have the Book of Psalms along with me, and I certainly would love to have the Gospels, but in all seriousness, Romans has been called the Constitution of Christianity, it's been called the Magna Carta of our faith, and it is a great, great book.

It deals with the great themes of salvation and sanctification and service, all of these things in this wonderful book we call the Book of Romans. Today's sermon is titled The Lost World, and it reminds me of that early post-war period of World War I, the Lost Generation was called. When these came of age, it was referring to them as being disoriented, wandering, directionless. Many of these war survivors were in that place, and in a very similar way, the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 1 about our world full of people that are disoriented, wandering, directionalist, they too are lost. They are lost. You know, sin gets up way before we do every single morning, and I think the flesh is alive and well, and sin grieves the Holy Spirit, and it should grieve us as well.

It should grieve us. You know, and it's not that many haven't heard about Jesus Christ. Paul says they've suppressed the truth and are ultimately without excuse. You know, and I think even in my life, God will not leapfrog sin.

He's not going to bless anything if there's sin in the camp, right? And so there's a self-evaluation that I must do, there's a self-check that I must do each and every day. Well, we always love hearing from our listeners.

Here's a response. My husband, daughter, and I listen to one of Pastor Rogers' messages every single day. My 20-year-old son passed away suddenly last March, and these sermons have helped us so much in our grief.

Pastor Rogers was such an amazing preacher and has helped us to grow closer to the Lord in our daily walk with Him. We are forever thankful. That moves your heart.

Oh, that's the fruit of love worth finding. It's profound truth, simply stated. We know that our message is relevant for these times. And for places in life where our listeners are carried, here is a dear family who lost a son.

That's a difficult place. It's a place we never want to be, and yet we understand that the ministry comes alongside them and provides hope and healing. Let's remind our friends, too, that they can go to lwf.org and share prayer requests.

Absolutely. Prayer requests, you can pray for those that are on that prayer wall, or you can post a prayer. Also, LWF Ministries' app, take advantage of that. Everything's at your fingertips.

Well, with today's message, The Lost World, Part 1, here's Adrian Rogers. Would you take God's Word and find the book of Romans as we're working our way through the book of Romans? Romans has been called the Magna Carta of our faith, the constitution of Christianity. It's the greatest theological treatise ever written. In a very unsure age, we need a solid place to stand and thank God.

With the book of Romans in our hands, in Christ in our heart, we do have a foundation for our faith. In a moment, we're going to begin reading in verse 18. May I tell you that these are perilous days in which we're living, and there's no ifs, ands, and buts about it. We are on a collision course with disaster and judgment, and you can see it in many ways. I suppose the worst indicator of the situation, if I could say the best indicator of the worst, is in entertainment. And that is compounded by the fact that crime is on a rampage.

It has soared. Families have been destroyed. Millions of babies are being destroyed in their mother's womb. Suicide and violent crime are at the top of the list as killers of America's youth. And then we have sexual diseases that are pandemic.

And we don't seem to be able to back up and refocus and to see where we are. And if you talk to people and say the problem is sin, they will disagree with you. Because today, sin is out of vogue. Do you know what the only sin is today? The only sin today is to call sin, sin. And then if you call sin, sin, then they say you are intolerant. A man may be sick, but he's not sinful. He may be weak, but he's not wicked.

He may be ill, but he's not evil. And even if you were to tell people that what they're doing is wrong, they would say that they have some excuse. It would be environment.

It would be genetics. It would be ignorance. But nobody wants to be blamed.

Everybody wants to be pitied and coddled. Well, we're going to learn something today about the wrath of God, the judgment of God. And out of the message today, the lost world, and I'm not talking about a movie, the lost world or the bad news that makes the good news good.

Now, you know the word gospel means good news, but good news is not good news unless, first of all, you have some bad news. Coming back on a trip, I had my wife with me. We were told that the plane was leaving on time, and we jubilated. Well, why were we so happy?

Because we'd heard that the plane was going to be about three or four hours late. It was the bad news that made the good news good. And we're going to have to see the bad news in the Word of God. Look, if you will, in verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed.

The wrath of God. Now, we hear about the love of God, and God is love. Infinite, fatherless, measureless love. God is love.

You agree to that, don't you? God is love. God is love. But this God of love is also a God of wrath. And when you love righteousness, you hate sin.

The doctor who loves health hates microbes and germs. And when you love children, you hate pornography and you hate child abuse. So, you see, you cannot have a God of love without also having a God of wrath. And if you just take the love of God, and that's all you hear, just the love of God, you only have half of the story. Now, God is love. But when you take half of the truth and try to make half of the truth all of the truth, then that half of the truth becomes an untruth because you've distorted it and it's not balanced. So, verse 18 says, the wrath of God, the wrath of God, God's burning anger against sin is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed 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.

Now, here's the concluding part. So that they are without excuse. God will not accept for sin and that is an alibi or an excuse. He will accept a confession and he will forgive, but there is no excuse. Man is inexcusable in his sin.

I want to give you three reasons. We're going to think today about this Scripture as a great courtroom. Think of Almighty God as the judge. Think of the apostle Paul as the prosecuting attorney and he has three lines of argument. He's going to show that the pagan world, the heathen world, even those who've never heard the Bible, even those who've never heard the gospel, those who've never seen a church, they are still without excuse. Every man, woman, boy, and girl who's ever lived is a sinner without excuse before a righteous and a holy God.

What are these three lines? First of all, man's willful, and I put the emphasis on the word willful, man's willful self-determination. Man does not want God to rule over him. Now, he somehow moves God out of his heart even though God's existence and God's power and God's authority is clearly revealed.

Man willfully determines to go his own way. Now, there are three things here in verses 19 and 20 that I want you to notice. Let's read verses 19 and 20. He says, They hold the truth in unrighteousness or suppress the truth because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them. By that verse, write the revelation of God's truth. The revelation of God's truth. The revelation of God's truth comes in two ways, in them and unto them. Do you see it there in verse 19?

Look at it. In them and unto them. In them is the inner witness called conscience. Under them is the outer witness called creation. And there are two witnesses that every person who has ever lived has, a witness in them and a witness unto them. Now, the witness in them is conscience. There is a God-shaped vacuum in every man's heart.

The Bible says, Christ is that light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. When a man says that he is an atheist, he is lying. When a man says he is an atheist, he is lying. He may not even know he's lying. But down deep, down in his subconscious, he is lying.

There's a man that owns a trucking firm, operates across state lines, interstate trucking firm. When he employs people, he gives them a lie detector test. And one of the questions in this lie detector test is this. Do you believe in God? Every time, listen to me, every time a person said, no, I do not believe in God, the lie detector said he's telling a lie.

Every time, he's telling a lie. Now, he may even think that he doesn't believe in God, but down in his heart, down deep, God has showed it unto him. And that's what the Bible says. Everybody comes into this world with a God consciousness.

Christ is that light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Then there is another witness. Not only is there the witness called conscience, but there's also the witness called creation. Look again in verse 19, for God has showed it unto them. How does he show 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.

What does that mean, being understood by the things that are made? Well, if you have things that are made, you have to have a maker. If you have creation, you have to have a creator.

I mean, you don't have to be a PhD to figure that out. Do you see, the atheist believes that nothing times nobody equals everything, that it all just happened. But the Bible says it's clearly seen. That's the reason the psalmist said in Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4, for the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. There is the revelation of it.

There is the reach of it. Everybody knows that God made it all. How else would you explain creation? And evolution is a biased guess. It is not true science.

It is the next best guess of those who will not accept Almighty God. Design and designer show that there's a God. If I were to pluck some parts from nowhere and put them in a box and shake them around, then they become a button. Then after a while, they become a steam gauge. And then after a while, they become a compass. And then after a while, they become a watch. And I wear it and I say, that's how this watch became a watch. You would say, you're lying. That doesn't make sense.

Your eye is far more complicated than this wristwatch that I wear. To think that these things happen by blind, fortuitous chance, we ought to know better than that. There's the revelation of God's truth. There is the reach of God's truth. Every man, every woman.

But here's the sad thing. There is the resistance of God's truth. Look, if you will, in verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Now, the word hold is the key word here. In the King James, it is translated hold. In other translations, it is translated suppress, repress, smother, stifle, hold down the truth. That is, there is a resistance against the truth. People put out their own eyes. They do not want to know. Willful blindness is more than tragic. It is wicked. I receive a lot of letters. You'd be surprised.

Here's one from a listener in another state. Dear Adrian Rogers, your sermons on evolution need balance. While you did not deny that the universe is 15 billion years old and the earth is about 5 billion years old, isn't it past silly that you would want to attribute the creation of the universe to a savage Hebrew tribal deity? That's his name for the God of the Old Testament. A savage Hebrew tribal deity who is recent by comparison and who himself is a product of evolution. The biblical God evolved from a vile-tempered, foul-mouthed, woman-hating, genocidal maniac to a loving God in 40 short booklets. Now, there is your miracle. Here's a man who actually hates the idea of God.

He resists the idea of God. I received another letter. Boy, I'm getting some good letters this week.

Here's one. Dear Adrian Rogers, you might address your problem with evolution by reading the wonderful new special issue of Astronomy Magazine, February 1998, on the origin of everything. And then he concludes this letter by saying, I'd sooner place my faith in Dennis Rodman than in God. And then he goes on to say, DNA and genetic science has proved Darwin correct on evolution. Well, there are a lot of people out there, folks, who absolutely hate God. He says, I'd sooner believe in Dennis Rodman than to believe in God. So you know that he doesn't want to believe in God. He doesn't say, I wish there were a God I could believe in. He doesn't want to believe in God. So he takes DNA and these other things and says, that's where my faith is.

So what happens is this. First of all, there is the revelation of God's truth, the reach of God's truth, but then there is the resistance to God's truth. They hold back.

They stifle the truth of God. He's not really intellectual. The problem is moral. The Bible says, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. He doesn't say it in his head. He says it in his heart. Now, what is the second step that shows there without excuse? First of all, there is that willful self-determination. They repress.

They hold back. They smother the truth. The second step, not only man's willful self-determination, but man's wicked, wicked self-deception. You see, when a man decides he's going to go his own way, he also deceives himself.

Nature abhors a vacuum. And if man resists a lie, he's going to believe something. If he resists the truth, he's going to believe something, so he will believe a lie. When a man says, I don't believe in God, that doesn't mean that he believes nothing. It means he will believe anything because believe he must. And so he's going to put his faith somewhere else and he deceives himself.

Now, how does this go? Well, look in verse 21. In verse 21, there is a selfish indifference.

Look at it. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and their foolish heart was darkened.

That's selfish indifference. He's not thankful. He doesn't glorify God. He knows there's a God, but there is no glory to God from his life. There is no thankfulness to God from his heart. And so what happens with this indifference, this selfish indifference? A darkness comes.

You see, God has given him light, but light refused increases darkness. You don't take truth and put it in your pocket. Truth is not meant to be interesting. It is meant to be disturbing.

And if you don't use it, you'll lose it. And when you become preoccupied with yourself and fail to give God glory and fail to give God thanks, your heart will be darkened. Selfish indifference, verse 21.

Now look in verse 22. Sophisticated ignorance. Sophisticated ignorance. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Now, these people may have PhD after their name, and I'm not against PhDs.

I know many wonderful PhDs, but there's so many who have the idea that they are too intelligent to believe in God, and so they have this air of sophistication about them and they refuse God's light. Selfish indifference, sophisticated ignorance, and now watch the next step. Shameful idolatry. Look in verses 23 and 24. And they changed. The word changed literally means exchange the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts.

Now watch this. And creeping things. Start at the top of that verse. The glory of the uncorruptible God. Come to the bottom of that verse.

Creeping things. Here's how far man has come from failing to worship the uncorruptible, great, eternal God of might and power who made everything. They worship the creature rather than the Creator. It begins with man.

Man, first of all, begins in his own humanism. He makes a God of himself. He defies himself. But the idolatry goes down and down and down until he gets down to where he worships creeping things. Do you know what a creeping thing is? That's a bug. A bug. People worshipping bugs. Bugs. You say, nobody would worship a bug. They do.

Go to the Egyptian museum in Cairo and you will see the scarab, the sacred beetle. They worship bugs. How the mighty have fallen. You say, well, nobody would do that. They do, they do. But not in America, pastor. They don't worship bugs in America.

No. Do you know what an idol is? An idol is anything you love more, fear more, value more, or serve more than almighty God. That's an idol. That's an idol. Your idol may be your home. It may be your automobile.

It may be your business. It may be a sex. It could be anything, anything that takes the place that almighty God ought to have. Anything that is first place in your life is an idol before almighty God. And we may think we're a little bit too sophisticated to worship creeping things, but we still, we still have idolatry in our hearts, shameful idolatry.

Do you know what man does? Do you know what an idol is? An idol is only a magnified sinner. That's all an idol is. Man takes his worst vices, greed and lust, violence and pride, and he deifies them.

That's a pretty slick thing, because then he legitimizes them when he deifies them. For example, I've been to Baalbek in Lebanon and seen the mighty temple there to the god Bacchus, the god of drunkenness, and how did they worship him? By getting drunk. You can go to Corinth and see the Acro-Corinthus up there on Mount Corinth where the prostitutes were up there. How did they worship their god? By going in and having sexual intercourse with a prostitute. What he does is legitimatize his vices, and nothing is too good for a man's god.

Pretty slick, right? First of all, there comes this selfish indifference. He doesn't care about God.

Then there comes this sophisticated ignorance, professing himself to be wise. He becomes a fool. And then there comes this shameful idolatry. He exchanges the truth of God for a lie, and he begins to worship anything but the Almighty, the creature, rather than the Creator. Now, what is the result in society when we have idolatry in America? And by the way, in 1962, we kicked God out of our schools in a vacuum.

We had all kinds of strange idols to come into America, and a part of that is the grisly abortion business. Let me give you some verses. Psalm 106, verses 35 and 36.

Well, verses 35, let's go through verse 38. He speaks of his people who were mingled among the heathen and learned their works, and they served their idols which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils and shed innocent blood. Did you know that the chief God of the abortion industry is demonic? They sacrificed their sons and daughters unto devils and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and their daughters, and the land was polluted with blood. The Bible links all of this with idolatry.

We've made such a God of pleasure. You know, most abortions today are convenience abortions. People don't want to have to raise a child. They don't want to be inconvenienced. They don't want to have to give up a job.

They don't want to do this or that. Let's just snuff out that life. You say, well, a woman has a right to determine whether or not she's going to have a baby. Not after the baby's conceived.

Not after the baby's conceived. She talks about being pro-choice. She has a choice whether to have a live baby or a dead one. That's her choice.

To have a live baby or to have a dead baby, she's going to have a baby because there is a baby living in her. But we've learned the way of the heathen. Well, the land is flooded with innocent blood, and the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.

Men who suppress the truth, resist the truth, who hold back the truth in unrighteousness. And we'll hear part two of this important message coming up tomorrow. But maybe today you have questions about who Jesus is or what He means to you, how to receive the forgiveness that He's freely offering right now. Go to our Discover Jesus page at lwf.org slash radio. You'll find resources and materials there that will answer questions you may have about your faith. Again, lwf.org slash radio, and click Discover Jesus. Thanks for studying in God's Word with us today. Adrian Rogers said the worst thing God could do for you would be to leave you alone in your sin. If you have any sin in your life right now, repent of your ways. Turn from it and turn to God. And be sure to tune in tomorrow for part two of The Lost World right here on Love Worth Finding.