God's Anger against all who suppress the truth by their wickedness

Rom. 1:17-32 NLT excerpted) 

   17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”
   18  But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. 

   21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. 

   24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.
. . . (VV 26-27)passages about homosexual behaviors)

   1:28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too. 

Continuing from yesterday, The good news and holy boldness is contrasted with the spirit of this world that stands in blatant opposition to everything that God says is good and just. First century world was such a place and 21st century world is also such a place. As we said yesterday, the good news of Christ is God's powerful work and it holds hope for us who are entrapped amidst the wickedness of this world. Paul-- or rather God speaking through Paul's mind and writing, make it clear in vv 18-32 just how ugly the people who oppose God are. One of the reasons (v 18) is that they "suppress the truth" in their wicked behavior and pressure upon others to join such behavior. The creation is, itself, evidence of God but wicked humanity chooses to invent myths about how it came about naturally and without intelligent design or purpose. People know the evidence of God, and have a subconscious awareness of His absence within themselves but they deliberately work to prevent faith in God among others with vigorous denial. Sounds like the secular science and philosophy communities of our day as well right?

Where God is denied, He steps away.  He doesn't go far, and can still be found, but the deniers are left to the consequences of their fallen natures. All of us were once among them, and some still may be. The vile things of today that people find 'acceptable' and are repulsive to God would make my grand parents' generation blush with anger. The list grows to include murder of millions of innocent babies in the womb and marriage between persons of a common gender, authorized killing of people because of their beliefs by governments, and wide-spread political pressure to prevent children from learning about Jesus Christ. We see the terms for 'every kind of wickedness.'  Apply that list to leaders of our nation, of our cities, of our businesses, of our entertainment personalities, of the rich and famous, and of the political activists promoting their anti-God agendas. The include "haters of God," Insolent, proud and boastful" people inventing new ways of sinning.

Let us stop here and pray for them to find the truth. Let us pray that we might be able to help someone we know to turn away from such lives to lives of faith in Christ.
Your servant in Christ's love
Dan
drdanelliott@gmail.com