Exposition by Max A Forsythe
Christ Covenant Reformed (PCA)
Last
week I was browsing through a book on atheism, which we have in our church
library.
One of the main observations that the author came to from his research
was that very many atheists become atheists
by convenient choice.
Time after time, his research indicated that individuals who wanted to
commit immoral acts conveniently decided to suspend belief in the God of heaven
so that they could continue their worldly wallow in sin.
Another observer was quoted in a recent magazine who said that the theory
of evolution was the most convenient theory ever invented to justify sinful
actions.
In
one of my classes, several of the teenagers have been planning on moving out of
home and in with boyfriends. They wanted to know what I thought of those
arrangements.
Another teacher had already gotten in trouble for a pious answer to the "evolutionary
animals” in
her charge!
So I was very cautious.
Certainly, I have had seven months to build up a relationship with this
small class, and after they pressed me three or four times for an honest answer,
I laid it on them.
Because of the public classroom setting, I prefaced my answer with the
observation that any who were outside of Christ’s church shouldn’t worry
about what I thought, since it really didn’t matter what worldly pagans did on
their way to the infernal regions.
However, if they ever decided to join a church they would have to admit
the sinfulness of their actions and seek the forgiveness of our Christ.
I also encouraged them to consider how their actions could affect the
reputation of their family name and their membership in any church.
Well, I’m not certain how much influence I was able to “gently”
impose upon my dozen charges.
We
all know how difficult it is to hold people back from sin even within Christ’s
church.
It is ever so much easier to deal with sin after the fact, when people
are ready to confess their sin and find the assurance of forgiveness.
But this fact in no way justifies a headlong rush into a life of sin
because the grace of Christ can be counted on!
Of
course, as I mentioned earlier, what individuals would like to accomplish for
themselves alone, some pagan crackpots would like to impose on everyone, as part
of their evolutionary new age order. Of these endeavors we should not be
surprised.
If the history of ancient Cathay is any indication, the original
monotheistic faith was distorted on purpose by one of the earliest “Sons
of Heaven.”
In the place of One God, Emperor worship and a pagan sacrificial religion
was instituted.
In the same devilish way, the truths of God have been carefully subverted
in Western Civilization in the last hundred and fifty or so years.
This fiction of evolutionary thought, with all of its subsidiary myths,
has become so entrenched that the real truth of the Gospel of Christ, as truth,
is now stranger than the popularly accepted fiction.
Is
the truth really stranger than fiction?
Perhaps we might better phrase this question in the contrast of our
passage in Romans with the theme of Paul’s letter in verses sixteen and
seventeen.
Our passage today begins in the Greek with the preposition “for”,
so let us add that important word here in our NIV translation:
“For
the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and
wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”
Charles
Hodge would encourage us to understand that this phrasing teaches us that
“Paul’s purpose is to prove the teaching of the preceding verse:
righteousness is by faith.
To do this it was necessary to show that men in themselves are exposed to
condemnation or are destitute of any righteousness which can satisfy God’s
demands.”
Eventually the lines of the argument here will come to a conclusion in Romans
3:23, where we
will read, “for
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
But that passage is indeed a long way off.
Before
we arrive at the truth of that assertion, we will need to learn from Paul, as
John Murray explains, that “the
salvation provided in the gospel is the need of all and that the power of God is
operative unto salvation only through the revelation of the righteousness of God
appropriated by faith.”
Without the grace of that particular righteousness through faith, the
only outcome for individuals and nations is to suffer the wrath of our Lord God
Almighty, which we so richly deserve.
And why do
we deserve the wrath of God?
Isn’t it because if we were all left to our own devices, we would all
ignore, or suppress, the truth of God’s multitude of revelationary activity in
and through creation, providence and spiritual manifestations?
This
leads us on to the next three verses, where we may learn that common immorality
is not an end in itself.
As Paul would explain the darkening of senseless hearts, the true cause
of sinful activity and desires is impiety.
Years ago I knew an immoral man much more than I wished to know, because
I had to work for him.
He wickedly abused the power of his position to create his own little
harem, and to accumulate privileges and employment perks from the power of his
position.
All along, he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew good from evil, and
he simply chose immorality because it was so much more lucrative and enjoyable
to his mind and to his addictive lifestyle.
Another minister and I were amazed how he could get to where he was,
coming from the well known evangelical college where he had earned his
Bachelor’s degree.
It is sad that the gospel truths which were so well taught at his college
in his youth were so blatantly ignored in his adult life.
The
lessons of morality were well known and articulated when applied to others, but
the impiety of his life and his refusal to worship or honor the God of heaven
led directly to his downfall.
How many there are like this poor sinner in our day.
They are just like many leaders of the liberal denomination where I grew
up. The
teachings of the gospel were ignored and exchanged for a more pleasing theology.
More than once I was told, in my preparation for the ministry, that my
advisors had also grown up with a conservative understanding, only to mature and
leave those lessons behind as they came out of that background.
Thus,
we may learn that the theological coming out of the fifties and sixties was only
a precursor of an equally wicked coming out more common in our decadent time.
I well know, from personal experience, the false wisdom of the liberals
in Seminary and in the liberal Presbytery.
If I would be wise like them, I was promised that there would be a place
for me.
All I had to do was compromise my theology and publicly admit that their
views were just as viable as my own.
Since I refused to make such an acknowledgement, I was denied ordination
and encouraged to settle for working as a loyal member in a local congregation.
Fools!
Didn’t they ever comprehend what they were doing?
In all of their confessional diversions and conversions, the gospel truth
was trashed and left far behind as the liberal church came of age.
Like the ancient Chinese, like all of sinful mankind, they exchanged the
orthodoxy of God’s truth for a growing body of New Age images.
In fact, the most extreme members of that liberal denomination have held
a reimaging conference where Native witches and paganized feminists have planned
a whole new age credo to erect on the foundations of Christ’s church.
Yes,
indeed, the theme that we began with:
“that the gospel truth is indeed stranger than fiction,”
is proven not only in Holy Scripture but in life experiences as well.
Isn’t it an absolutely amazing fact of grace that we, here assembled,
have been given a life of faith by our Eternal Father through Jesus Christ, by
the work of the Holy Spirit in our
A
couple years ago I saw a portion of one of Joseph Campbell’s New Age
interpretations of mystic myths.
As he gushed forth his radical nonsense I could sense that his images
were dangerous indeed.
One could very easily be pulled into such utter tripe and nonsense.
I have avoided all such materials since then.
Just last fall, a self-admitted
“wise old crone and hag”
tried to make that nonsensical mysticism acceptable at a required secular
conference.
Praise God that at least three of us at the conference had been
inoculated by the gospel truth so that we could see the
“wisdom” for
what it really was.
When one of the faculty gushed about how wonderful the seminar had been I
was able to ask if they knew what “hag”
and “crone”
really meant in the Gaelic language.
“Wise
old woman, of course,” they
volunteered.
Well, I don’t think I burst their psycho bubble, but William
Shakespeare knew their kind when he allowed three of those witches to seduce the
once noble Macbeth.
Would you be seduced by New Age paganism?
Would you leave the truth of the Gospel behind?
You should praise God that the gospel call has infected your heart and
mind with God’s saving truth.
May your faith in Christ preserve you until the great Day when Christ
shall return and expose the wickedness of all of mankind’s vain imaginary
religions.
Amen.
Resources Used: The Holy Bible, New International Version
Places Preached:Hodge, Charles. Romans. Morey, Robert A. The New Atheism. Murray, John. New International Commentary: Epistle to Romans.
Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian Church in America) Post Office Box 13926 - Columbus, OH 43213-7926
Rom01e.htm 07 May 95
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