We Are All Under Sin's Power

We're talking today about sin, and I’ve got so much to say about that, we may not get through it all today.  I don’t claim to be like the visiting Pastor who was invited to give a talk on sin.  The senior elder introduced him, giving him glowing bona fides, and brought the Pastor forward with the question, “Pastor, what do you have to tell us about sin?”  The Pastor approached the pulpit and replied, “I’m agin’ it!”  and sat down.

Well, I have just a little more than that to say about sin.

Scripture: Romans 3:9-20 - English Standard Version (ESV)

⁹ What then? Are we Jews^[a] any better off?  No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, ¹⁰ as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;
¹¹     no one understands;
    no one seeks for God.
¹² All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
    no one does good,
    not even one.”
¹³ “Their throat is an open grave;
    they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
¹⁴     “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
¹⁶     in their paths are ruin and misery,
¹⁷ and the way of peace they have not known.”
¹⁸     “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. ²⁰ For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

So before we go any further, we need to turn inward, to ourselves, and answer an important question.  Do we believe what the Bible tells us, about sin and salvation?  It’s like the story about Jack, who was a little too clumsy for his own good.

A man named Jack was walking along a steep cliff one day, when he accidentally got too close to the edge and fell. On the way down he grabbed a branch, which temporarily stopped his fall. He looked down and to his horror saw that the canyon fell straight down for more than a thousand feet. 
He couldn't hang onto the branch forever, and there was no way for him to climb up the steep wall of the cliff. So Jack began yelling for help, hoping that someone passing by would hear him, maybe lower a rope or something. 
HELP! HELP! Is anyone up there? "HELP!" 
He yelled for a long time, but no one heard him. He was about to give up when he heard a voice: “Jack, Jack. Can you hear me?" 
"Yes, yes! I can hear you. I'm down here!" 
"I can see you, Jack. Are you all right?" 
"Yes, but who are you, and where are you? 
"I am the Lord, Jack. I'm everywhere." 
"The Lord? You mean, GOD?" 
"That's Me." 
"God, please help me! I promise if, you'll get me down from here, I'll stop sinning. I'll be a really good person. I'll serve You for the rest of my life." 
"Easy on the promises, Jack. Let's get you off from there; then we can talk." 
"Now, here's what I want you to do. Listen carefully." 
"I'll do anything, Lord. Just tell me what to do." 
"Okay. Let go of the branch." 

"What?"

"I said, let go of the branch. Just trust Me. Let go." 
There was a long silence. 
Finally Jack yelled, "HELP! HELP! IS ANYONE ELSE UP THERE?" 

Of course we trust God ….. until we don’t.

Many years ago there was a famous Letter to the Editor in New York Times under the subject “What is wrong with the world today?” The best letter of all was also the shortest.  It read — “Dear Sir, I am. Yours faithfully, G. K. Chesterton.”

That devastating declaration showed a profound insight into man’s universal problem, and understanding it can teach us a deeply challenging lesson.  Experience tells me that throughout the Christian church there are problems, difficulties and frustrations that would begin to dissolve immediately if only some Christians would be honest enough to answer the question—“What’s wrong?” with the words “I am!” 

This is precisely Paul’s point in Romans 3:9-20. In this passage we are faced with the reality of our sin against God and other people. In short, we are the problem; I am the problem. Something I cannot escape; the apostle makes it clear—with a litany of Old Testament citations carrying the full authority of “thus says the Lord.” The passage as a whole stands as a fitting climax to this entire section which began in Chapter 1, verse 18. Paul says that human beings are sinners—all of us—and held accountable to God. Here we stand, guilty and convicted. The somber weight of this passage should not be missed.

But do not run to the peace and forgiveness of the gospel too quickly, lest you cheapen its message. First, take a good and prayerful look in the mirror of scripture and see if you are not in there. Then, look to God for mercy. Perhaps God will see fit to give us the same attitude we see in Copernicus, who wrote: “I do not ask for the grace thou didst give to St. Paul; nor can I dare ask for the grace which thou didst grant to St. Peter; but, the mercy which thou didst show to the Dying Robber, that mercy, show to me.”

If you and I, then, can come to see ourselves against the infinite holiness of God and His immutable law, then next week we may be eager to welcome the message of that week’s lesson of grace preached in Chapter 3:21-31.  This week, admitting ourselves drenched in the drek of sin, we will be so much happier next week to walk in the light of His forgiveness.

How many of you have visited a cavern, like the Mammoth Caves in Kentucky, or the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico?  That’s “cavern”, not “tavern”, now.

As I prepared this lesson regarding the natural sinfulness of the human race, I felt as though I were descending deeper and deeper into the darkness of those underground caverns.  So before we get any deeper or darker into this lesson, let me put a bright candle into your hand.  And that would be Ephesians the second chapter, verses 4, 8 and 9: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved —  and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

And allow me to further put today’s lesson in context by reminding you of Hebrews 10, verses 4-6 which tells us, “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.  “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.” 

The Law of Moses required that they make a good faith offering for their sins, but God took no pleasure in their offerings.  Those ritual offerings were for their benefit, not God’s.  It was to get them ready for God’s plan of salvation that involved the sacrifice of the Lamb of God.

Paul is making the point that while all are under the power of sin, it is the gospel of Jesus Christ that drives God’s salvation of all human beings.

So let us light that candle, hold it high, and continue onward as we get inside these verses and seek understanding.

In Romans 3:9, Paul juxtaposes the Jew and the Gentile and asks the question, “So what then?”  Or in some translations it comes out “Are we better off?”  The Jew has the Law and the covenant with God, the Gentile has only his new knowledge of a God who loved him first.  But standing before God, Paul makes the point that neither is superior to the other.  The great equalizer, he says, is simply sin.

Now the Greek word Paul uses for “sin” here is the noun “hamartia”; uses it 50 times, seven times as a verb.  Paul uses it for an individual act, for sin as a state and quality, and for sin as an almost personified malignant power.  The origin of the word “hamartia”, and the reason I bring it up, comes from the language of hunting.  Specifically, to shoot an arrow, or to throw a spear or javelin, and miss the mark.  Sin is missing the mark of what it means to be human, to be created in God’s image. 

Like a soccer player who can’t make a goal.

The quarterback who can’t hit his receivers.

It’s like what you call a chicken at the North Pole – lost!

But sin is no laughing matter.  Sin is a failure to reach the high mark God has established for creation.  And for Paul, this failure is equally the condition of Jew and Gentile before a holy God.

Next we have a series of passages from the Old Testament strung together like links in a chain in support of Paul’s position on sin.  Some Bible commentators call this section in Romans a “catena”, the Latin word for “chain.”  Each of these links supports Paul’s teaching points.

What Paul is doing here – remember Paul is a learned Pharisee and very familiar with the Pharisaical obsession with keeping the Law – Paul is building what he believes to be an ironclad case against Jewish presumption, and in support of, the claim that Jew and Gentile are both under the power of sin. 

Now, I want to note that Steve in a previous class made a point of our Lesson book giving us background text, which I had not used.  And his point is a valid one.  The background text will help us put the lesson into context.  And in today’s lesson that is especially true, because you see, Paul got all his scripture quotes in the form of a previously compiled chain of excerpts from the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint.  The reason this matters is because it allowed Paul to emphasize the way a Greek version translated Hebrew text, or if he wanted to paraphrase or edit certain phrases himself for effect.

For example, Anthony Benton’s 1851 English translation shows that in Romans 3:10, Paul used a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 7:21: “For there is not a righteous man in the earth, who will do good, and not sin.”

In Romans 31-12, Paul uses Psalm 14:2-3 – “The Lord looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there were any that understood, or sought after God.  They are all gone out of the way, they are together become good for nothing, there is none that des good, no not one.  Their throat is an open se3pulchre; with their tones they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes.”

And from Psalm 53:1-3 – “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God…. All the way down to …there is none that does good, there is not even one.”

From Psalm 10:7 – “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness and fraud….”

From Isaiah 59:7-8 – “And their feet run to wickedness, swift to shed blood….”

And finally we find in Romans 3:18 the gist of Psalm 36:1 – “The transgressor, that he may sin, says within himself, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.”  This is Paul using proven passages to make his point.

Now Paul, all through these excerpts uses an array of body parts: looks of the eyes, the throat, tongues, lips, mouth, feet, to show that sin is insidious, taking over the whole body, all human speech and action.  Paul’s use of body parts seems to make explicit the ways in which human beings express their powerlessness to resist sin in our speech and actions. 

We’ve all seen people saying things and doing things that are wrong, and cruel, and even inhuman, just like Paul did.  He was clearly speaking out of his experience, just like our own.  Highlighting some of the most “human” of scriptural voices, voices and experiences that Paul’s audience would have recognized and valued.  The difference between being trapped in sin and living in the freedom of God’s grace would have been clear to them.

Now, I’m not going to ask for any personal confessions of wrongdoing,

but let me ask you, how do we prove what Paul is saying about sin in our world?  In what ways have you seen evidence of sin’s power in our world today?

What evidence do you have that we are held in sin’s power?  Or has the Law – especially in terms of Biblical Law, like the Ten Commandments, for example – have they brought about the knowledge of sin for you?

The reason for asking these questions is to bring about some level of self-awareness.  For if we cannot recognize ourselves in Paul’s indictment, then we cannot be ready to receive Paul’s invitation, coming in just a few verses?  In the last paragraph of your study book, the writer says, “Yes, we live in a world where the power of sin is present and active.  Yet we do not have to live under that power.”  Then the question becomes, how are we to live, as Christians, in a world of those two affirmations – sin and salvation?

“Loving God, help us resist the power of sin.  Let us grow in our knowledge of You.  Let us reflect the love of Christ in all that we do; in Jesus’ name.  Amen.”

Sheepdog Thoughts - July 9, 2016

Seems the GOP has come out with a 100-day plan to stop Donald Trump.  But Rush Limbaugh has asked a very embarrassing question: “Where’s your 100-day plan to stop Hillary Clinton?”  For that matter, what happened to a 100-day plan to stop Obama??!!

Might as well face it, boys and girls.  The GOP has already lost. They don't seem to understand their viability rests on voter support. This week, next week, next year, two years from now, it doesn't matter. It's all downhill from here slicker 'n snot and twice as nasty. Tell it to them real slow, Rush, so they understand.

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In New York City this past month, Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson met with a large gathering of evangelical leaders.  The meeting was closed, as in doors closed, security in place, and the news media outside cooling their heels.  Now the gossipy news media hollered bloody murder about that, but I would point out that the way they twist everything Trump does and says, it looks like it would be better to do and say what must be done and said, and just give the news media a press release.  They have forfeited their right to any assumption they will deliver honest and unbiased reportage of political activities on either side of the aisle.  Besides, the last time the news media asked Trump what his favorite Bible verse was, he told them it was “2 Corinthians 3:17.” They ate him alive with “who says ‘2 Corinthians’, it is “2^nd Corinthians, so he must not know his Bible.  There was a reasonable explanation involving Evangelist Tony Perkins, which Perkins affirmed, but they were not interested.  I would also point out that if you punch in “2 Corinthians” and Google it, you will find all kinds of such references.  But they couldn’t be bothered to do that.  They latched on to it to make a point they knew nothing about.  Give it to them in writing.  They are less likely to play fast and loose with something they know you have a verifiable copy of to refute lies and innuendos.

What a shame America’s real news media is lost to us.  Where once the American news media was the watchdog of government, run by  patriots and gifted purveyors of news, today they are the lapdog of government and being today run by bean counters.

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Former FBI assistant director James Kallstrom recently went on Fox News to discuss the aftermath of the deadly Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris and how the Bureau can't go sniffing around anything to do with Muslims on orders from the top.   You can read more at http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/former-fbi-official-risking-his-life-just-exposed-obama-in-a-huge-way/

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What a spectacle in the U.S. House of Representatives – Democrats holding a mass “sit-in” on the House floor instead of abiding by the House rules.  Yep, what great role models for our youth they are. If you don't get your way throw a tantrum, ignore the rules. It's called anarchy, kids; A-N-A-R-C-H-Y, anarchy.  Except, it is not the American way.  But, it did give them a great opportunity send out more fund-raising letters.

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Much of what we see today, which our own minor human wisdom tells us is wrong and outside of God, is the result of humanist thought placing itself above God. We place our own thoughts on the throne and call them God. But God is not amused. If we cannot believe the Word of God, and we pay no attention to what Jesus tells us through scripture – “You can’t believe everything in the Bible…” -- or to the leadership of the Holy Spirit, then we have not surrendered our will to the will of God, and we should call ourselves anything but Christian. Because we can already see around us God separating the sheep from the goats, and when Jesus returns, those who have formed their own religions outside of the will of Almighty God, are not going to be known to Him anyway. No excuses. No explanations. No arguments. Only the damning words, "I never knew you." Make the best of it, then, for our eternal life, or death, has already begun.

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Every time the liberals crow about a survey that shows Hillary ahead of Donald Trump, and the rest of the media comes back to correct their "oversampling of Democrats", I begin to see a wave of angry voters building into a tidal wave of resentment against what the Democrats have done to this nation of good people. C'mon November!!!

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Newt Gingrich recently declared publicly that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are in open warfare against the Republican Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Donald Trump.  He’s not wrong.  Their actions show they have been.

The major American news media has betrayed the faith put in them on behalf of the American people. Today's news media is run by bean counters, not newsmen, and they are as frightened as the political mafia that a non-politician, a businessman who knows how to read a financial ledger, is going to upset the sweet deals they have made for their own futures. Donald Trump has made it plain he intends to set the federal government aright once more, and that scares the behind-the-door deal makers. It doesn't scare the American people. We see the news media and the political mafia for what they are.

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Eleven police officers were shot ambush-style, including four fatally, in Dallas this past Thursday night by at least two snipers, amid a protest against the recent police shootings of two black men.

The growing lack of respect for law and order is an encroaching demon that will eventually open the gates to the barbarians who would overcome America and its freedoms. We don't obey the law because we like it, we obey laws because we agree there must be laws -- for everyone.

Our nation is rapidly coming undone. Those who are ignorant of how Hitler took power, and how Germany welcomed his heavy handed actions to stop the violence, should educate themselves. This is how tyranny begins. Next step, martial law, which we cannot allow.

I firmly believe the flaw in their arrogant plans will be the millions of military veterans who have a life and death investment in this nation, who are trained and fully armed, and will not stand by and watch tyranny take over. What Japanese Admiral Yamamoto feared during WWII, what kept them from invading America, remains true, that there is a gun behind every blade of grass in America. This we will defend.

Ignoring God's Plain Truth

Invocation:  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. 

Father, we seek insights into Your holy word, asking for Your blessing on each one who comes in worship, and we offer prayers of supplication for those unable to join with us this morning.  We ask these things in the name of Him who loved us first, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Today's Scripture: Romans 1:18-23, 28-32

¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

²⁸ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,³⁰ slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹ foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.³² Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Key Verse:  For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.  (Romans 1:20)

In the English Standard Version Bible, this part of scripture has the subtitle: “God’s Wrath on Unrighteousness,” which we have titled, “Ignoring God’s Plain Truth.”

          Evangelist and author Bill Bright has said, “We can trace all our human problems to our view of God.”  Is that true?

          What is truth?  Scripture says God is truth.  But what is truth?  We can circle back around again and answer, “God is truth.”  But what is truth?

          The concept of truth has clearly fallen on hard times, and the consequences of rejecting it are ravaging human society. So let’s go back to the starting point and answer the question: What is truth?

One of the most profound and eternally significant questions in the Bible was posed by an unbeliever. Pilate — the man who handed Jesus over to be crucified — who turned to Jesus in His final hour, and asked, “What is truth?” It was a rhetorical question, a cynical response to what Jesus had just revealed, saying He had come into the world to testify to the truth.”

Two thousand years later, the whole world breathes Pilate’s cynicism. Some say truth is a power play, a metanarrative constructed by the elite for the purpose of controlling the ignorant masses. To some, truth is subjective, the individual world of preference and opinion. Others believe truth is a collective judgment, the product of cultural consensus, and still others flatly deny the concept of truth altogether.

So, what is truth?

There is the story about the preacher who learned a lesson about truth one day when he saw a group of kids in an alley with a box of kittens.  He stopped and asked them what they were doing.  One kid explained they were telling lies and the one who told the biggest whopper would win the kittens.

“My, my,” the preacher exclaimed, “that’s terrible, telling lies just to win something?  Why, when I was a kid we’d never think of doing such a thing,” he exclaimed.

“Okay, Preacher,” they all said, “you win!”

Well, here’s a simple definition drawn from what the Bible teaches: Truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God.  Even more to the point: Truth is the self-expression of God.  That is the biblical meaning of truth.  Because the definition of truth flows from God, truth is theological.

Truth is also ontological—which is a fancy way of saying it is the way things really are.  Reality is what it is because God declared it so and made it so.  Therefore, God is the author, source, determiner, governor, arbiter, ultimate standard, and final judge of all truth.

The Old Testament refers to the Almighty as the “God of truth” (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 31:5; and Isaiah 65:16). When Jesus said of Himself, “I am the way, the truth…” (John 14:6), He was thereby making a profound claim about His own deity.  He was also making it clear that all truth must ultimately be defined in terms of God and His eternal glory.  After all, Jesus is “the brightness of [God’s] glory and the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3).  He is truth incarnate—the perfect expression of God and therefore the absolute embodiment of all that is true.

Jesus also said that the written Word of God is truth. It does not merely contain nuggets of truth; it is pure, unchangeable, and inviolate truth that (according to Jesus) “cannot be broken” (John 10:35).  Praying to His Heavenly Father on behalf of His disciples, He said this: “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17).  Moreover, the Word of God is eternal truth “which lives and abides forever” (1st Peter 1:23).

That God is truth is attested to 21 times in scripture:

once in 2^nd Chronicles

once in Numbers

once time in Psalms

3 times in Isaiah

once in Jeremiah

10 times in John

once in Romans

once in Hebrews

once in Titus

once in 1^st John

Before we get to the specific verses of today’s lesson, let me share some grounding information with you about whom Paul was writing to, and the specifics of what he was attempting to share with them.

So what we have before us this morning is a portion of a letter written by Paul to the members of one church Paul did not found.  These are believers who came together themselves and became the church of Jesus Christ at Rome.  And Paul had yet to even visit them.  These are mostly Gentiles, rather than Jews, and Paul sees himself as a missionary to the Gentiles.

Paul is writing to commend them in their faith, and also to express support for their stand for Christ.  But at the same time, Paul is preparing for a missionary trip to Spain – which at that time was at the far end of his Mediterranean world.  So Paul is writing to this group of believers to provide pastoral counsel for unity, and to enlist the community’s financial support for his continual work among fellow Gentiles.

In this letter, which our lesson begins at verse 18, it’s actually important to know what he says in the previous verse, verse 17, to put into context what he says later. 

It’s kind of like the fellow said, “I know you think you understand what you believe I said, but you don’t understand that what you heard is not what I meant.”

For in verse 17 Paul mentions three phrases that are important to understanding what he says later on:

1.  Paul writes about “the gospel of God;”

2.  the Jew first and also the Greek;

and 3.  the righteousness of God.

We see Paul using the word “God” more than a hundred times in his letter to the Romans.  He also uses “Jesus Christ” often, but his frequent use of “God” early on signals Paul’s intent to highlight the character of God as the ground upon which to build an understanding of Jesus Christ.

Paul’s use of that phrase, “the gospel of God,” is his way of explaining that the gospel proclamation concerning the Son is tied ultimately to God’s covenant with Israel, by flesh in David and through the Spirit in resurrection.  God’s plan of salvation, now made available for all people, through Jesus, remains God’s plan, first initiated by God’s choosing of Israel.

Where Paul uses the term “the Jew first and also the Greek”, we see Roman citizen Paul writing to God’s chosen people who may be among his readers, and also to the Gentile or Greek-speaking audience.

Paul sees himself as ministering to the Gentiles, but at the same time, his letter to the Roman church is full of allusions and references to the Hebrew scriptures, and Paul deals at length with the law of Moses and the legacy of Abraham. 

We see Paul’s concern for the relationship between Jew and Gentile running throughout this letter, suggesting that Paul assumed he was addressing both groups in Rome, with the likely majority being Gentile.

Then there is Paul’s use of the phrase “the righteousness of God.”  He mentions it in his introductory remarks, then several more times, including in Chapters 3 and 10.  However, the phrase appears only once outside of Romans, and that’s in 2^nd Corinthians 5:21.  So why it is so crucial here?

According to some scholars, while Paul is concerned with the inclusion of Gentiles within God’s plan of salvation in this letter to a predominantly Gentile church in Rome, it is possible that also of major concern in Paul’s mind was his approaching requirement to defend his “law-free” gospel before the still-skeptical leaders of the Jerusalem church.  And so he grounded the presentation of his gospel in a conviction these leaders could affirm: that God’s righteous justice falls equally upon all.  From that he argued that God’s saving righteousness must also be equally available to all.

In fact, many in the church world-wide today disagree with whether or not Paul actually taught a believer’s freedom in Christ and how we are to live a godly life apart from the governance of the Mosaic Law, and even today many still believe we should be living under the Mosaic laws.  Just for clarification, there are three types of Mosaic Law:  the moral, ceremonial, and civil law.  I believe scripture affirms Paul taught that Israel alone had received the Mosaic Law and was under its administration. Gentiles were excluded from the Law, as was the Church, the body of Christ (Ephesians 2.11-13;Romans 3.1-2, 6.14). However, Paul taught that when Gentiles or the Church come in contact with the Law, it has the same effect it had on Israel: it condemns (Romans 3.19), it does not save.

Looking then at the verses in today's scripture, beginning with verses 18-22, Paul’s writings accept that human beings have an innate leaning to idolatry of the familiar, turning away from God, suppressing the truth of God as sovereign Lord and Creator.

He sees the obvious evidence for God’s existence in creation, in the handiwork of God, observable by all creatures on earth.  God is and always has been on display. 

It is in describing this dilemma that Paul lays the groundwork for what he will later declare about Christ: That because all have had access to the knowledge of God – through creation or through covenant – and because all have failed to honor God as God, or thank Him, as it says in verse 21, all are under condemnation.  No one has an excuse.

In verse 23 we find an echo of the Genesis creation story.  Again, what Paul is doing is restating the fall of humankind, the essential human problem: that the creature refuses to be dependent upon the Creator.

Then we jump to verse 28.  The conspicuous result of humankind’s willful attempt to take God’s place is, as one commentator put it, “Not a rise above human creatureliness, but a fall below humanity to a level of human beastliness.”  The consequence is that God gives them over to the natural consequences of their behaviors.

Now, as to this business of putting ourselves on part with, or even replacing God with our own wonderful self, perhaps you heard the story of the scientists who prayed to God that He was no longer needed.  That they had advanced human science to the point where they could create human beings out of the dirt of the earth, just as God did with Adam. 

“Well,” God said, “let me see you do that.”

Whereupon they reached down and grabbed a handful of dirt.

“Ah-ah,” said God, “get your own dirt.”

Verse 28 of today's scripture lesson reads: “Since they didn’t think it was worthwhile to acknowledge God, God abandoned them to a defective mind to do inappropriate things.”  Unlike what we saw in the prophet Zephaniah, here God’s wrath is made manifest not in the handing out of divine punishments but in self-inflicted human perversions.  The brokenness of the moral compass is its own punishment.  Destruction comes to humankind not from above but from within.

 Ending up finally at verses 29-32, we find sadly that the “decision” Paul mentions in verse 32 is the death sentence made inevitable by all those who practice and – even more – celebrate a self-destructive lifestyle, knowing full well what they are doing!  Paul’s intent here is to expose the realities of human depravity in the context of the Torah, the Law of Moses.  For even if we are not under Ceremonial and Civil Law, we remain under God’s Moral Law.  Later on Paul comes back to this.

At this point, though, Paul is, as one scholar observes, counting down a “disguised version of the commandments … (1) evil, covetousness, (2) malice, envy, (3) murder, strife, (4) deceit, malignity, (5) gossips, slanderers, (6) haters of God, (7) insolent, haughty, (8) boastful inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, (9) foolish, faithless, and (10) heartless, ruthless…For Paul and those in the scribal Pharisaic tradition, the whole world heard God’s Ten Commandments, although only Israel was God’s covenant partner…”

The romantic poet William Wordsworth wrote a sonnet titled, “The World is Too Much With Us,” part of which reads,

“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune…..”

To put it more bluntly, every day injustice and hatred abound, and people do not walk with God.  This is the world we live in.

This shouldn’t be news to us.  It wasn’t news to those who first read Paul’s letter – but then Paul wasn’t trying to inform; he was aiming to indict.  His intent was to state the obvious, the undeniably bad news of the human condition, in order to stir a response to the unbelievably good news of Jesus who is the Christ.

  

The point is that we are called to commit to discerning and following God’s will.  If we take Paul at his word in his opening statement to the Romans, then the necessary step before we can ever discern or follow God’s will is to acknowledge and turn away from our own will.

The writer of the student book quotes William Barclay as observing that people willfully reject God’s truth so ”that their own schemes and dreams may be furthered.” 

But I ask you out of your own experience, is it really that easy to become enamored with our own schemes and dreams, so much so that we turn our back on Almighty God?

What do you think?

I wonder, if we had a small hand mirror we could look into, would we be reminded of those moments of reality, when our own self-centeredness, and the consequences that followed, would they come rolling back to us?

Actually, you and I are not any different from those around us who may be caught up in turning their backs on God, except for that one promise from the Word of God such as we find in Hebrews 13:5 – “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

That being the case, how then could we possibly, as the lesson title says, “Ignore God’s Plain Truth”?

Guest Blog: The Church's Relevance

The following link will take you took Janice Cole Hopkins blog, "Past, Present, and Future With God," located at:

http://janicecolehopkins.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-churchs-relevance-webster-defines.html
Her subject is "The Church's Relevance."  Enjoy