in your name we ask, amen. Please turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter one and verse 18 is where we're going to start. This is quite the section that we'll deal with. It's going to go from Romans 18 to Romans 3.21, right in that area, where Paul is going to essentially address the unbelief of men and he's going to address the depravity. As we look at unbelief, we see unbelief everywhere, don't we? We see it at work, we see it on the news, we see it in our neighborhood, we maybe see it in our families, we see areas in life where we're just, we're surrounded by unbelief is what it is. Now Paul, He's been writing to us about the gospel, right? I want you guys to look at your Bibles. He's writing us to about the gospel, and he says in verse 17, he says, for in it, this is the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith that is written, but the righteous shall live by faith. Now what Paul is going to do is he's going to show this unbelief that we see all around us. He's going to see why we need this righteousness, is what he's going to show us. So look at with me from Romans 118 to 23. This is what he writes, he says, 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, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts 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 likeness of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. So first of all, what I just want to look at is the wrath of God, because we always talk about the love of God, or God's mercy, or God's grace, but we have to understand that this is an attribute of God, and it is wrath. He is righteous, and he is holy. This is who he is. We have to understand that there's some arguments with this, that how can a loving God be a God of judgment and wrath? The idea of a God who is judgmental or wrathful is beyond people's comprehension, because we have this idea of a God of love, because that's what we preach. And He is a God of love, and we have to preach that. But if we're going to preach the fullness of who God is and the fullness of His character, well, then we have to preach on His wrath. We have to preach on His holiness. God cannot be holy and not be angry with sin. Now, what is sin? Sin is simple, right? Sin is the transgression of the law. If you've told a little lie, well, you've sinned. If you've had a bad thought, well, you've sinned. So sin is that, and a holy God is angry with it. So first of all, let's look at what this wrath is, right? Some translations in your Bibles might translate it angry, that God is angry, right? And there's a different word that we look at, but the word that is used here means that this wrath, it's not a fly-off-the-handle kind of anger. It's not this red hot anger that we can get as humans, right? Somebody offends us, all of a sudden we're like, boom, we're there, right? We're angry and we're ticked off and we want to just, you know, pray that God drops the whole mountain on them, right? That's our kind of anger, this red hot fuming anger that you and I can get. This is not what they're talking about. This is not what the apostle's talking about. He's talking about a passionate wrath. Think about what you have passion for. This is a passionate wrath. It's a settled and abiding condition. It's controlled. It's not out of control like ours can be. It's very controlled. It's perfect wrath as he is perfect. But look in there and notice what his wrath is not against, right? It's not against goodness. It doesn't say that his wrath is being revealed against all goodness, but it says it's being revealed against all ungodliness, the unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth. This is a continual wrath against those who continually suppress the truth. it's revealed in the history and in the future to come listen to Exodus 32 10 this is after the golden calf it says now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you but Moses implored the Lord his God and said oh Lord why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of this land of Egypt with great power and with mighty hand why should the Egyptians say with evil intent did he bring them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people we see where Moses intercedes for the people because God is angry he's got this wrath that is burning against them because they made a golden calf and started to worship it. Numbers 11.1 And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes. And when the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed them, some outlying parts of the camp. So we see where God's wrath was in history, but then we see that it's a future thing. In Colossians 3, 5, and 6 it says this, And in 1 Thessalonians 1, 9, and 10 it says, and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. So we see through the Bible that God's wrath is seen against man, right? Just three instances, just in Genesis, right? We see the flood. We see the Tower of Babel where God came down and He confused all their languages. And we see Sodom and Gomorrah. They were sexually immoral in Sodom and Gomorrah, and anything and everything went, and God came down and destroyed them. The New Testament tells us this in John 3, 36. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. If you sit here today as an unbeliever, this is you. This is where it is. The wrath of God abides on you. It's hovering over you. It's ready to consume you if you remain unrepentant. Romans 9, 22. What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? His wrath is still there, Ephesians 5, 6. His wrath is part of who He is. It's his character. Jesus displayed it, right? Jesus displays this righteous anger that he has as he cleanses the temple when he comes in John chapter 2, 14 through 16. It says, in the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there. And listen what he does. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and oxen, and he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of trade. Jesus was angry. We see his wrath portrayed. He probably didn't go in there and just with that little whip and go boop, boop, boop, boop. And he probably didn't ask anybody to help him to overturn the tables. He was angry, he went and he did this. It was this righteous anger. And we ultimately see God's judgment, we ultimately see God's wrath towards sin at the cross. This is when it's poured out. This is the cup that Jesus talks about in the Garden of Gethsemane that he didn't wanna drink, this cup, take this cup from me. This is the cup of God's wrath. And Jesus drank that cup all the way down. None for you and I to do this. So wrath is part of who God is. Wrath we see in the Bible. And there's many other instances. But this section here says that God's wrath falls on those who do what? That God's wrath is revealed against those who suppress the truth. It's continually on them who suppress the truth. Romans 118, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Now this suppression of the truth, it says, holding something down. This is what they're doing. They're holding something down. And it's a continual act that they're doing. They're continually holding this down. John 3, 19 and 20 says this. And this is a judgment that the light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. These are the ones that suppress the truth, the ones who do works of evil. What does the unbeliever suppress? What are they suppressing? Look at Romans 19 and 20 verse 1. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, and the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. This word for plain means manifest, it's been brought forward. God has made it evident to everyone, everyone in this room, every living person, God has made it evident that He exists. No one is without excuse. So what they suppress is God as the creator. This is what they are suppressing. Genesis 1.1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And all we have to do is think about how God has revealed himself in nature, how he's done this. Think about just what we have in the United States here. The Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe. The mountains, the Sierra Mountains, the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachian Mountains. We look at the stars, we see the moon, we see the Milky Way. Dick's taking pictures of the Milky Way. He's taking pictures of the Northern Lights, and we're in awe of these things. You see, brothers and sisters, God has made it evident that he exists, that he is the creator of all things. This is what they suppress. The Angalis suppress it. They don't want to sit there and say that. What they want to do is they want to say, oh no, it evolved. How in the world does it evolve? Just take us, for example. Take our eyes. Take our bodies. See how they work. It's amazing, God's creation. Amazing. Think about all the amazing pictures that that new James Webb telescope takes. out in space, which blows me away that these scientists see these amazing things and yet they suppress the truth that there's a creator. How about you, brothers and sisters? Do you suppress the truth that there's a creator? Do you know people in your own family that suppress the truth that there's a creator? God says, my wrath is revealed against them and they have no excuse. The psalmist writes this in Psalms 19, 1. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. 33, 6. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth, all their hosts. Jeremiah 10, 11, and 12. Thus you say to them, The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens. It is He who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens. It is His power. That's what it says, right? That's what it says. His eternal power, His divine nature. This is what it all is. Kent Hughes writes this, the truth is it takes a concerted act of the will to deny that a vastly powerful God made and sustains the creation. And Charles Hodges, On top of this writes this, God therefore has never left himself without a witness. His existence and his perfections have ever been so manifested that his rational creatures are bound to acknowledge and worship him as the true and only God. His creation is why people will stand before him in judgment who suppress that truth without an excuse. Secondly, we see that the unbeliever or unbelief, they reject God. Look at verse 121. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they came futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. They do not honor God. The unbeliever doesn't give God the glory he deserves. Again, in Psalms it says, ascribe to the Lord, in chapter 29, O heavenly beings, Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness. And then Paul writes to the Corinthians, and for us to glory in Him, it says, so whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. This is what we were created for. This is what the church is supposed to do. We are to glorify God. honor God, even in the very fact of whether we eat or drink, we are to glorify God in it. The unbeliever, the one who suppresses the truth of who he is, they do not honor God. They do not acknowledge God. They do not give him glory. Again, in Revelations 4.11, it says, worthy are you, O Lord, God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. This is why we are created. I mean, think about it, right? Think about why would God, who is triune God, right? God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Three in one. Perfect. Love is perfect. Everything within the Godhead is perfect. Perfectly loving one another. Why would God create the world? You ever think about that? Why did God create the heavens? Why did He create the earth? He wasn't alone. He wasn't lonely. It's a great question, isn't it? The answer is, is because He wanted to show His glory. That's the answer. We were created to glorify God. Listen to Leviticus 10.3. Then Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord has said among those who are near me. I will be sanctified and before all the people, I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace. Can you imagine that? That comes from this pulpit today, brothers and sisters. That comes from His Word. And this is what He says, I will be glorified. He will be. And in Romans 15, five and six, he says, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. As believers, we glorify God when we praise him for his glory. The unbeliever will not glorify him or honor him in their state of unbelief. They will not give him the proper position he deserves. They suppress the truth. The unbeliever doesn't give thanks to God, right? Even though God is gracious to them, his divine nature, right, means that he has had grace on even the unbeliever because it rains on the unbeliever, the sun shines on the unbeliever, but they don't give thanks in their hearts. The unbeliever is futile in their thinking. They're darkened in their hearts. This is the state they are in. This is why the wrath of God abides on them. This futile is this vain, idolatrous person. They're darkened in their minds. Ephesians 4, 17 through 19 says this, now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. What a scathing verses those are, due to the hardness of their hearts. This is the one that God's wrath is against. Have you hardened your heart so much that you don't give God the glory he deserves? If your heart has been hardened that much, oh, wrath is coming, and you will not be able to escape it. It is at the doorstep. It is knocking on the door, and you don't know when it's gonna hit. As Jonathan Edwards put it in the Sinners of the Hands of an Angry God, you are like a spider hanging over the pit of hell by your little web, and God has the scissors and he's ready to cut it. This is the wrath that is coming on the unbeliever who is darkened in his mind. The more they reject God, the darker they become in their thinking. The unbeliever in his darkened heart worships idols. This is the only thing they can worship, is the idols. Listen to Romans 1, 22 and 23. Claiming to be wise, they become fools and exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. David tells us in Psalm 14, 1, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. They do abominable deeds. There is none who does good. Psalms 53 one. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. Doing abominable iniquities. There is none who does good. There is none who does good. We'll get to that in chapter three. Paul will refer to that again. But this is the thing. There is none who does good. There's not one person out there that does good. Everything is tainted with sin. This is why Paul is telling us this. This is why you need the righteousness of Christ. It's because of this very thing. John MacArthur put it this way, the greatest fool in all the world is the person who exchanges God's wisdom of truth and light for man's wisdom of deceit and darkness. That is the fool. What does the first commandment tell us? In regards to all this, in Exodus 20, three through five, it says, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above or that is in the earth beneath and that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children's to the third and the fourth generations of those who hate me. Think about the fool that says there's no God. Think about the fool that has the idol worship. Look at the progression that they have. The first thing is they worship images resembling mortal man. They put man on the pedestal. They worship themselves is what they do. Think of Nebuchadnezzar, right? Nebuchadnezzar in chapter three of Daniel has this statue made of him, and he says that the horns and the lyres and the flutes, when they all sound, you are to bow before the statue. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego don't do that. But this is what they do. They set up these images. Again, in chapter four of Daniel with Nebuchadnezzar, he's standing on top of his kingdom and he's walking around on his kingdom and he's looking at all that he has conquered. And he says, look at Babylon the great that I did. The worship of self. And what happens? At that instant, God comes down and he makes him an animal for seven years. This is the idol. of worshiping man. Belshazzar does the same thing in Daniel chapter five, I believe it is, where the handwriting on the wall comes, where he brings the vessels out of the temple of God's glory to use them, and he worships gold and iron. And God takes them out. The worship of man, we see it in there. How about birds? It says words, the worship of birds. The Egyptians worshiped birds like the eagle and the hawk, right? We worshiped the bird, the spotted owl. Well, we can't cut down the forest because of the spotted owl. We have these things, right? The Egyptians worshiped animals. Think of this, the Egyptians, the ancient Egyptians, the bull god, the cat goddess. the cow goddess, the wolf god. They worshiped the creepy things or the reptiles. The Egyptians, again, worshiped the scarab beetle, right? And you can go to Egypt, I was reading on this, and you can go to Egypt and in these places, you can buy a scarab beetle, right? Well, this is what we call that beetle. That beetle, you know where it lives? It lives in cow manure. We call it the dung beetle. It's the same beetle, but they worship this. This was a god. We see it in other religions, right? The Hindus believe that the cow is sacred, that there's animals that are sacred. They have worships to rats because they believe they are sacred. This is the depravity of man, brothers and sisters. They exchange the glory of God, the incorruptible God, for the likeness of these things. This is how far we have gone down because we do not exalt God where He should be, and His wrath is kindled against us. It's being revealed against us because we put man above Him. We put a creeping, crawling centipede above Him. This is what his wrath burns against. Wow, we have fallen desperately. The Egyptians, or the Israelites, think about what they saw. Think about the plagues. They saw all the plagues. They see at the very last one, the angel come through. The angel of death come through. And if the doorpost wasn't bloodied, took the firstborn. They were taken out of Egypt. They get to the Red Sea. The Red Sea is whoop! Split in half, and they walk through it on dry land. Think about what they do. Think about what they see. They get to Sinai. They see God descend upon the mountain in the smoke and the mountain shakes. They see his presence. They feel his presence. And what do they do? Let's make a golden calf! Sounds good to me, right? Listen, Exodus 32, four, and he received the gold from their hands, this was Aaron, and fashioned it with a craving tool and made a golden calf and they said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Wow. How far they fell so fast. Exodus 32, eight. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Psalms 106.20 says this, they exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. Jeremiah 2.11, has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods, but many people have changed their glory for that which does not profit? This is what we have done. Brothers and sisters, what have you done? What have you exchanged the glory of God for? I don't know your hearts, but we all have idols. We all have those things we don't wanna let go of. We all have them in our lives. What are you exchanging the glory of God for? Think about it. We worship the one true God, the unbeliever. Think about what they're exchanging the glory of God for. Everything. And they are never satisfied. Brothers and sisters, we should be satisfied. So what does this mean for us? What does this mean for us? If you're an unbeliever this morning, this is a warning to you to repent and turn to Christ because the wrath of God is against you. If you fail to repent and you close your eyes tonight and you die tonight, you will wake as God is your judge. It is appointed to man to die once and then judgment. When your eyes will open up, it will be the judgment. You will see Christ as your judge and he will judge you righteously and he will judge you with justice because he is perfect or You can close your eyes tonight because you've repented and you've asked Jesus to save you and you're trusting his work on the cross for you. You're trusting that he has taken God's wrath. You're trusting that he intercedes for you, that he's ascended to God, that he sits in the heavens and you will wake and you will see the eyes of your precious Savior. Oh dear brothers and sisters, oh dear person that's just sitting here, which one will you be? Will you be the one who sits before the judge and you will experience his wrath for all of eternity? Or will you be the one who sees your Savior? It's a question you should ask. But what about us believers? Tough stuff, wrath of God. First of all, I think we have to understand one thing as those of us that sit here as believers, that this was us at one point in time. Right? David says in Psalm 51, I was conceived in sin. This does not mean that his mother had an affair and that's why he was conceived. No, it means that in the womb he was a sinner. He was born a sinner. He was born into Adam's race. There was a time in your life, brothers and sisters, you may not remember it, but that you were not a believer. You came to Christ, Christ drew you. This was you, you were the one that suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. So we should be thankful to God and praise God that he has delivered us from his wrath. Think about this, Christ has satisfied God's wrath for all who believe. He is the propitiation for our sin. He is the appeasement, he is the satisfaction. That is who we worship, that is our savior. We should cast aside all our idols. We should throw aside the sin that so easily entangles us and praise God for his creation when we have these times to see him. Give him the glory that is due his name as the almighty, all-powerful creator. This is what Paul is telling us in this section. They suppress the truth that he is a creator. Please do not do that. Give God the glory that he deserves. Honor Christ in your heart and in your lives today. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your time that you give us because it is your time that you so graciously give us. Father, I pray that this would be an unsettling message to anyone in here that is not saved. I pray, Father, that they would go to bed tonight fearful of your wrath, as it is a white, hot, burning wrath that is controlled and is perfect. Oh, Father, grant them repentance. Grant them faith. Give them eyes to see. Open their hearts for them to believe your gospel. And Father, for us that do believe, we thank you and we praise you for the righteousness we have in Christ, that your wrath no longer burns against us, but your love and your peace and your grace is poured out in our hearts daily. Oh, Father, may we be the ones who glorify you. May we be the ones who appreciate the gospel so much, Father, that we sing your praise and we glorify you every day for it. Father, we just praise you and thank you for this time. Amen.