The Devil’s False Sophistication

Let us turn to the word of the Lord in the Epistle to the Romans, Chapter 1. For those who are visiting us or who were not here on Sunday, I told you about two Sundays ago that... we talked about how we were going to do a series of sermons on the epistle, or based on the Epistle to the Romans.

I began, as you will remember, with Chapter 8 as simply a brief meditation. The Lord led me to four sermons based on Chapter 8, and I decided, look, why not continue in the Epistle to the Romans, which contains such profound teaching? Some have said that it is the crown of the epistles and of the church’s theological books. It is a document, a tremendously profound treatise rich in doctrinal teaching, and there is much here from which we can benefit, so that is the direction in which we are going.

Let us go to verse 18 of Chapter 1. I am simply going to take some concepts from here, as far as the Lord gives me time this morning. Romans 1:18. I want to challenge the brothers in the audiovisual team in the future, in the hope that, when possible, we may put the... I know it is going to take a little time to do that, but perhaps we could put the texts up here so that some brothers and sisters who are still getting to the point of bringing their Bibles every Sunday can read the word up here, right?

But Romans 1:18 says, “...because the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest to them.”

In other words, it is clear, apparent, and obvious to them.

“...for God Himself made it manifest to them, because His invisible attributes, His eternal power and deity, have been clearly visible since the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made. So they are without excuse, for although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor did they give thanks, but became vain in their reasonings. And their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, of birds, of four-footed animals, and of reptiles. Therefore God also gave them over to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts, so that they dishonored their own bodies among themselves, since they exchanged the truth of God for the lie, honoring and worshiping created things rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, amen. For this reason God gave them over to shameful passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for that which is against nature, and likewise the men also, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, committing shameful acts, men with men, and receiving in themselves the recompense due for their error.”

And I need to read this part to balance what we have just read; allow me. I know it is a somewhat heavy and, to a certain extent, unpleasant reading, but that is where we are, and we will move on to other areas later, but that is where we are now.

It says, “...and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do things that are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness”—look here at a long list of sins that includes not only the sin of homosexuality, which we have pointed out, but an entire, very comprehensive range of different kinds of sins—

“...unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malignity; whisperers, slanderers, haters of God, insulting, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents”—that seems rather strange there in the middle of all those crimes, doesn’t it?—“disobedient to parents”—young people, pay attention—“foolish, unfaithful, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful...” —these are all the works of the flesh that Paul also describes in Galatians Chapter 5, in a different way.

“...who, having understood the judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do them but also take pleasure in those who practice them.”

The word of God. As I say, brothers and sisters, it is a heavy reading for a Sunday, when you simply want someone to tell you that Christ loves you and that a good lunch awaits you at the end of the service, but we do not come to church simply to be lulled and made to feel good. Amen.

We come so that the sound word of God, sound doctrine, may be applied to us—the bleach, that strong soap that cleanses us—and so that, as we hear it, a catharsis, a cleansing, may take place. By meditating on these things, we can, in a sense, exorcise and cast out from ourselves those tendencies that we all have and that we all share in one way or another.

But it is the word of the Lord, and I believe that one must stop where the word of God stops and go through the word of the Lord, not flee from it or take... make shortcuts or go around by other routes, as so many Christians and so many pastors sometimes do. In the desire not to scandalize, not to confront, we avoid passages that are unpleasant, and what we then do is rob our congregations of the possibility of being healed by the word of God and instructed by the word of the Lord.

I believe that the truth of God must be proclaimed in a spirit of grace and love, but also of justice and truth, with fear and trembling, examining oneself lest one also fall into that which one is not proclaiming.

But humility, meekness, and the acknowledgment of our own sin do not exclude proclaiming the truth of God. We think they are two different things, as though... oh, if you do not have everything perfect, then why.... No, we preach the word of the Lord, and it first passes through us, washes us, and then washes the people of God who hear it, and afterward it also washes those who are out there, who do not know the word of the Lord.

That is my ethos; that is my ethic as a pastor and as a preacher of the word of the Lord, so that you may know why we preach about these things. We do not have an agenda regarding these things, but when the word of the Lord calls us to preach it, as in this case, we preach it, and then we move on to other things as well, right?

The Apostle Paul, in verses 16 and 17, as we saw the last time I preached, has just made a very beautiful declaration. He says, “...I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” And then he speaks of how, in the Gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

Those two verses are like the thesis of the entire letter. That is the summary of what he wants to make clear. Now, from verse 18 onward, he begins to elaborate on that declaration, and everything that follows will be, in one way or another, a development of that initial thought he has just declared: the power of the Gospel, which reveals the will of God and the grace of God. The importance of the Gospel because it reveals what God is.

In contrast to what man tries to do, which is what he begins to develop here. Paul’s goal in these next verses and chapters will be to show that every man, every woman, every human being—whether Jew or Greek, intellectual or ignorant, pagan or religious—is under the condemnation of God. Everyone, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That is his goal. Like a lawyer, he is going to speak before the jury and the judge, and he wants to prove that every person, all of us, including the one preaching to you, is in one sense or another under the wrath of God. We are rebels; we have abandoned our God. And everything he preaches applies first to the Jew who thinks he is something great because he has the commandments, and has monotheism, and has the law and the whole apparatus of worship of the true God, and therefore feels very proud, very important, but who lives a completely vain, superficial, and religious life, justifying himself.

And he says, first to the Jew and also to the Greek. The Greek is, in one sense, a symbol of those who are far from God, in a totally secular, rational, pagan culture, distant—as the Jew viewed all Gentiles—completely beyond any possible redemption.

And Paul wants to prove that, so he begins by speaking of the perversion into which humanity has fallen. And it is interesting how he traces this, and what we have here, brothers and sisters, is in one sense like an X-ray of sin. It is, in one sense, a trajectory; it is a study by a man illuminated by the vision of God of how sin develops in humanity.

It is a macrocosmic vision, a global, bird’s-eye view from above of how sin ultimately manifests itself in the heart of every person and, in its totality, in humanity. Where do...? It is like a revelation of what the radical origins of sin are, what the fundamental sources are from which sin emerges in man and which explain the corruption of humanity.

And it is interesting how Paul presents it here, because he says, “...because the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.” This is interesting, brothers and sisters, because today one looks, for example, at all the corruption that exists in the twenty-first century, all the evil, all the terrible perversion that seems to be taking over humanity more and more, and one thinks that it is only man acting, in a sense, on his own—man sovereignly plunging into all that impurity and practicing all those sins by himself, of his own will.

But what Paul is saying here, which is something radical, is that much of that perversion and much of that corruption in which the humanity of the century in which Paul speaks is entangled—and how interesting that this could also be applied absolutely to the twenty-first century, two thousand years later—is because God Himself has given man over to it, has allowed man to fall into it: the wrath of God. But when Paul speaks here, he is thinking of everything that he, as a widely traveled Jew, observes in the pagan world. And what he says is that the perversion that can be observed in the world that does not know God is partly, to a great extent, because God Himself has given man over to it, has allowed man to fall into it—the wrath of God.

Notice how, in this case, the wrath of God manifests itself in an interesting way. It does not manifest itself with fire and brimstone, as it will one day. It does not manifest itself through the destruction of the wicked and the eternal condemnation of humanity, but manifests itself in a cold and systemic way. It manifests itself in an action God takes, saying, “Well, I wash My hands of you. You are on your own; let us see what you do if I take My hands off you and your social and cultural systems. Let us see, if I abandon you to your own reasonings, where you will end up. You do not want Me; you are saying that you are capable of governing yourselves and determining your own destiny and your own system. Very well. Do whatever you want. I therefore give you over to the forces that you yourselves will unleash, and we will see how far you can go with your own reasonings and your own minds.” The wrath of God is manifested. Do you see? It is revealed from heaven.

The Lord has made a judicial decision from His throne and issues a decree and says, “Amen, let it be so. You have this attitude, so let us see. I release you; I abandon you to your own designs.” “...It is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”

What is it that causes God to feel that wrath, or rather, that indignation? I believe a better word would be God’s indignation. It is the indignation of a sovereign who feels that his royalty and dignity are being offended and disparaged. It is the indignation of a father who sees his children rebelling against him and, like the prodigal son, saying, “Give me the inheritance that belongs to me because I want to go away to a place....”

And it is interesting, now that I say that, that this is precisely the dynamic Christ traces in the parable of the prodigal son. The son comes before the father and rebels against the father’s authority. In fact, I am reading a beautiful book by Henry Nowen, a meditation on Rembrandt’s painting of the prodigal son. A beautiful, very interesting meditation. I recommend the book to you. I do not have the title right now, but it is by Henry Nowen, and it is a meditation on the prodigal son and this portrait by Rembrandt; it has a photograph of the portrait in it. Perhaps I will remember the next time I speak and remind you of it.

The point is that the prodigal son comes before his father and says, “Give me what belongs to me.” It is an act of rebellion; it is an insult against the father and a rejection of the protection of the paternal home. And he prefers instead to leave, following his own destiny. He does not wait until the time comes for the father to die and for him then to be released from the father’s authority; instead, he renounces and rejects the father’s authority, gives offense, rebels against his rule, and prematurely says, “Give me my adulthood and give me self-government.” And the father lets him go, gives him over, and says, “All right, son, is that what you want? No problem. Take your money,” and he divides it with him. The son goes, it says, to a distant country, as humanity has done. Humanity has moved away from God.

You see, brothers and sisters, the Father’s main struggle throughout all the ages that humanity has existed on planet Earth is disobedience and rebellion. That is why God hates rebellion. That is why the Bible says that rebellion, to God, is like witchcraft; it is like occultism. God exposes the rebellious heart. God hates and detests disobedience; the haughty heart, the Bible says, God looks down upon from above. He despises it, it says, and he loves the humble heart, but he regards the proud from afar. Because there is something.... the essence of the drama of man’s fall on earth and of all the sin that exists in the cosmos is rebellion.

The first great rebellion was the rebellion of Lucifer, that angel whom God created, who rebelled against his Creator and arrogated to himself an independence that did not belong to him, and God also.... what did he do with the angels who rebelled against him? It says that he consigned them to prisons of darkness. He withdrew his grace from them, and from the moment God turned his gaze and his eyes away from those beautiful angels, they became what every man becomes if God’s grace is not abounding in him: a perverse being, a corruption, a caricature of humanity.

The man who gets involved in sin, who moves away from God’s covering and protection, begins to wither like a plant that has been uprooted from the ground, because what sustains us as privileged human beings is the image of God, imago Dei, the image of God in you and in me, the divine imprint within us.

If God did not preserve that in us, brothers and sisters, we would be demons. But because God in his mercy does not withdraw his grace from us, even when we rebel against him, we are still recognizable as human beings. But that is why it is so important to cling closely to the grace of God.

As David the psalmist says, like a child weaned from its mother. Brothers and sisters, we are living in times when we have to walk like the little children in the malls who are afraid that they might lose their mother, who cling to their mother’s skirt, and the mother has to keep pushing them because they will not let her walk. We have to cling that closely, because it is only that grace of God imparted to us in this time that can keep us from the evil within humanity. Because when we move away, we are lost.

That young man in the parable went away to that distant place, and what happened? His money quickly disappeared, all his dignity and all his resources disappeared; he lived recklessly, and what happened? In the end he was eating the carob pods that the pigs ate. What was that? Total depravity; he was reduced to an animal state.

That is the spiritual trajectory of every being who separates himself from the Father’s authority. Every act of rebellion ends in total perversion, the loss of the image of God, and the increasing mire into which the human being sinks. Only when God, through his magical pipeline, is continually administering his grace to us and the blessings of his Word can we remain clean and be made into the image of Christ Jesus.

But when that young man moves away from his father’s guardianship, he falls to the lowest point: being like an animal. And what is the greatest illustration of the animal? The pig. The pig that delights in the mud. The pig is the image of everything dirty, everything vile, isn’t it? And that is where he ends up until he comes to his senses and returns to the father’s authority. And then what happens? His beauty is restored to him, his dignity is restored to him, the ring of authority in the household, the clothing, and his position as a son return once again, and that is the trajectory. Every man and every woman who persists in living according to his or her own will ends up with the exact opposite: wanting to be exalted, he becomes small; wanting to be noble, he becomes lowly; wanting to be dignified, he becomes utterly perverse. But when he humbles himself, then he is raised up again.

Never try to live your life according to your own designs. The more you abase yourself before the Heavenly Father, the more God will raise you up. The more you humble yourself before the Lord, the more blessed you will be. The more obedient you are, the more dignified you will become. The more you seek the Father’s approval and will, the more glory will come into your life.

But here Paul tells us something else, something very different. He says that because men rebel against him, God—notice what it says—“....the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness....” The words in the original Greek are ‘asebeia’ and ‘adikia.’ They are two words that indicate the absence of something. That prefix ‘a,’ which is also used in Spanish, means lacking in. For example, asebeia—the Greek word for godliness is ‘eusebeia.’ Simeon, for example, at the beginning of the Gospel in the Bible, was a eusebeian man. In fact, if anyone here is named Eusebio, it means godly; that one is free—I’m not going to charge you anything for it.

Asebeia—the wrath of God is revealed against two things, you see? Why does God become angry? What is the origin of that perversion of man? Before God’s wrath is revealed against man comes man’s rebellion, comes the rejection of God. That word asebeia, which in English is translated ‘godlessness,’ refers more to an attitude. Asebeia refers to an attitude of rejecting God, haughtiness toward God, rebellion, resistance against God. It is an attitude of self-absorption and opposition to God; it is something internal, within the mind and the heart.

And that is how it happens, brothers and sisters. The first thing man does is rebel against God in his heart; in his heart he says, I do not want God, I am not interested, I prefer my own ways, I prefer my own definitions, I prefer the things that give me pleasure and that seem to me much nobler and loftier, more sophisticated, more complex than what that simple Gospel, that sound word, offers me. Man is always going after the garlic, onions, and spices of Egypt. He does not want God’s manna.

I believe that when God gave man manna in the wilderness, he was saying something. It is: look, when I provide food, I do not put Tabasco sauce on it, I do not put salt on it, I do not put garlic on it. My food is simple and wholesome, but it gives life; it is bread from heaven. That is why the pleasures of holiness are not as attractive as the pleasures of corruption. And that is why we men fall in love with and become addicted to the pleasures of corruption, because we have to admit that they are tastier and spicier than the pleasures of holiness.

God’s wholesome sexuality is not a sexuality as attractive and pleasurable as the dignified and wholesome sexuality of married life. Do you understand? Married life has its beauty, but it does not have that seasoning that gives you a stomachache after you enjoy it. That hangover that remains after a night of drunkenness and that burns your brain and burns away your strength is not the pleasure....

When God gives you a pleasure, it is a gentle, dignified, beautiful pleasure that leaves a good taste in your mouth; it edifies you, lifts you up, and strengthens you. But what the devil gives you is something that burns you, destroys you, gnaws away at you from within, and sucks away the blessing he apparently gave you—always remember that. You take a dose of drugs and feel as though you are up in the clouds, and you see angels and extraterrestrials and everything imaginable, but when you come down, what remains is an addiction that increasingly transforms you into the devil’s image, sucks the life out of you, destroys your marriage, destroys your mind, destroys your emotions, destroys your spirit, destroys your human relationships, takes away your vitality as a man or a woman, and takes away the image of God. The devil tells you, look, I am going to give you an experience that will send you flying through the stratosphere, but when you fall, you will crash into the ground, you know? And what remains is a fried egg on the hot surface onto which you fell.

And we have to be intelligent, brothers and sisters. We have to decide: do I want the pleasures of Egypt, or the gentle yet beneficial and blessed pleasures of the people of God, the manna of God? What do I want? The pots of Egypt or the manna of God? We have to decide that at some point; each one of us has to decide: the manna of God or the pots of Egypt. That is what God is telling his people in this time.

God’s wrath is manifested because men prefer to rebel against God; they prefer the pleasures and experiences their own minds hold out to them. I have gotten stuck; I cannot move on from this point.

Brothers and sisters, what happened to Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden? What is the drama that unfolds there? God tells them, look, I am going to give you everything you want in this garden, and that is an image of God saying to us, look, son, daughter, I have everything in the world you could want. Enjoy everything, but respect the limits that I set for you. And God told them, there is a tree there, there is an essence, there is a substance, there is an experience that I do not want you to have yet, because you are not prepared to have it. It is the lucidity that this substance will bring you, which, if you taste it, will open you up and give you a different perception of who you are and of reality.

Notice that God was not telling them it was a lie; he was simply saying, that is not for you right now. And there is something, brothers and sisters, that intellectual man, rational man, adores in the twentieth century and the twenty-first century. I believe that from the Renaissance onward, this has become a theme in all the documents one reads in literature, art, philosophy, and science. There is something that happens when man moves away from God, you see: there is a perception of the world and of reality that comes only when one loses one’s innocence and moves away from the grace of God. So when you abandon yourself to your own reasoning and say no to God, a tremendous intellectual capacity comes into your life. Modern man, rebelling against God, possesses a very powerful analytical and critical capacity; that cannot be taken away from him—it is real. When you study at those great universities, when you read the treatises written by people who have generally moved completely away from God, there is a kind of reasoning that I do not see very much among God’s people, even among intellectuals, even in someone as great as Francis Schaeffer, for example, whom we evangelicals adore. When you read his writings, they do not have the complexity or sophistication of many secular writers who rebel against God. He is a very highly developed man, but he does not have the sophistication one sees in the great universities, the great centers of human knowledge. Because rebellion against God gives man a certain perception. When you stop using God as the standard of reference for all your conclusions and analyses, that allows you to see reality in a very different way, and it gives man’s appetite for pride tremendous gratification.

Man then falls in love with the complexity of his reasoning and becomes more and more entangled in it every day. When man in the Garden of Eden ate from that tree of good and evil, of the knowledge of good and evil, of the science of good and evil, he was illegitimately granted a lucidity and understanding, a critical capacity, that he could not handle. And then he could no longer see God in the same way that a child sees his daddy, so that everything his daddy tells him, the child says yes and amen. And if his daddy tells him that he can lift a battle tank with one hand, the child says, wow! Daddy, you are so strong. The child does not question the father; the child sees through the father’s eyes. And that gives the child tremendous protection, but it also gives him tremendous simplicity. The child is not very complex in the way he sees things.

And God wanted that innocence in man. God wants—brothers and sisters, God’s wisdom is a simple wisdom; it is a wisdom that does not destroy. It is not a very sophisticated wisdom, nor very.... and that would still have to be explored further, because there is a wisdom that God gives later that is very sophisticated, but it comes only after one has humbled oneself and surrendered one’s will to the Lord; then God gives it to you in a legitimate way.

I believe that one day God would have said to Adam and Eve, you may eat from that tree now; now that you have obeyed me, go ahead and eat from it. But Satan came, who had already tasted that lucidity and had rebelled against God, and he said to Adam and Eve, eat now, eat. The truth is that God is a jealous old man who does not want you to eat from it because if you do, you will become like him.

You see, it was a struggle over knowledge, critical capacity, even the capacity to criticize God and to criticize themselves and see themselves with a lucidity with which they had not been able to see themselves before. That is why, when they eat from the tree, they realize that they are naked and begin to look at themselves critically; they begin to look at their bodies and say, uh, but you are a little too chubby, too skinny, Adam.... I do not remember you like that. And Eve, wait, what.... do you understand? They begin to see themselves critically, and that is why they cover themselves. Before, they were like innocent children; they saw themselves, but they did not see themselves. They did not possess that penetrating, cutting capacity to discern, divide, and criticize. That is what sophisticated man possesses today in the twenty-first century because he has moved away from God.

Now, when God visits your life, he heals that malicious wisdom that we human beings possess and begins to purify your gaze, your mind, your reasoning, and your thoughts.

Look at what the Apostle James says in verse 13 of Chapter 3. He says, “...Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by his good conduct his works in wise meekness...”

In verse 17 it says, “...but the wisdom that is from above...”

No, no, let’s go back. Verse 14 says, “...but if you have bitter envy and strife in your hearts, do not boast or lie against the truth, because this wisdom—see, this knowledge—is not what comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic....”

You see overtones of the same corruption that Paul is setting forth in verses 16 and 17 of Romans. There is a wisdom, and if you continue reading, as we are going to do, in Romans, in that same passage—which, as you can see, I have gotten stuck at the very beginning—you will discover that much of what Paul mentions regarding the original fall of man manifests itself first in the heart and in the mind.

God gave them over to the futility of their reasoning; it says, “...God gave them over to a depraved mind.” And that is why, in Romans 12, Paul speaks of being transformed by what? By the renewing of your understanding and your mind.

If you truly want God to bring about a transformation in your life, you have to begin asking the Holy Spirit to start working on your patterns of thought, the way you see yourself, analyze yourself, analyze human reality, analyze human relationships, analyze your marriage, your sexuality, your concept of justice, what is beautiful, what is worthy, what is lovely. You have to change all your definitions.

The renewal of man, the transformation of man, begins with the renewal of the mind. Why? Because the mind without God is corrupt. When you enter the Kingdom of God, a gradual transformation has to take place. And you have to begin changing every pattern of thought, every way of thinking and reasoning, and begin to think in a countercultural way.

“Do not be conformed to this age....” In other words, you have to begin questioning everything you once considered wise and worthy and good and beautiful and just. That is why many intellectuals come into the church, many educated people come into the church, and they think what they are going to do is create the church in their own image and likeness. What is needed is a church, and leaders, who say: No, you came into the church; the church is going to change you, not you the church.

What is happening in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is that many churches are allowing themselves to be conformed to the image of the world, and people come into the church and say to it, I will stay if you stop preaching this, stop preaching that, if you change your definitions, if you do not bother me with this or that. And God says, that is not how it works. Whoever enters the Kingdom of God enters with his head bowed very low.

And humanity, society, and every individual who enters must be asked to prepare to receive God’s transforming work in their mind and sensibilities. The church has to stand firm and clearly say: Everyone who enters God’s realm must be prepared to experience a metamorphosis—a change of form, a change of being, a change of nature. It is a long-term process that will take place.

But all of us have to go through the process of having our minds renewed, changed, because what man experiences outside of God is the perversion of the mind, the perversion of his thoughts, of his way of criticizing and analyzing. And God has to heal that. You see?

So demonic, devilish, earthly, sensual wisdom—all those terms are in Paul’s analysis—is a wisdom that leads to bitter envy, to strife in the heart, to all that... to perversion, misconduct, rebellion against the values of the Kingdom of God.

Now look at what it says here. It says, “...For where there is envy and strife, there is confusion and every evil work.”

Now look at what it says: “...but the wisdom that is from above...” It is God’s wisdom, God’s understanding, the way of seeing the world and seeing man that comes from God.

“...the wisdom that is from above is first pure”—the opposite of the perversion Paul diagnoses in Chapter 1—“...then peaceable, gentle, kind, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or hypocrisy, and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”

You see, brothers and sisters, the only thing man’s wisdom can produce is strife, division, war, conflict, separation, because that is man’s critical faculty: it separates, divides, makes meticulous judgments, and separates everything. And man without God—human, carnal, earthly, devilish wisdom—creates strife. That is why he then goes into where wars come from. Is it not from the things that are within you, and so forth?

But when God’s wisdom begins to gain power within you and take control of your life, you begin to reason and analyze and relate to others in a way that leads to peace in your home. Before, there was strife in your marriage; now there is peace, when you let God renew your mind. Before, there was war with your children; now there is blessing and harmony. Before, you could not even stand yourself; you stank to yourself, as they say in good Caribbean fashion, but now you are content because you know that God dwells within you. And your emotions, your traumas, your self-hatred, your guilty conscience, your anxiety—God gradually calms them and gives you a peaceable attitude.

God’s wisdom is meek, simple, blessed, gentle; it leads to peace, it leads to joy. It is not as spicy, not as flavorful, not as spectacular as the devil’s wisdom, but it gives life, it gives righteousness. That is what it says: the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

Do you understand, my brother? All those things are there in the Apostle Paul’s mind when he is speaking... There are depths of thought that make it difficult to move ahead very far. But I think it is good for us to understand that level of analysis. So God’s wrath is revealed because men have chosen to rebel against God, to pursue their own reasoning, their own pleasures, their own desires, and to construct their own destiny.

Then God says, well, okay, fine, do it that way, and you are on your own. You want to reject me through your asebeia, your ungodliness. Amen. You want to reject me through your conduct and behavior, your adikia, your unrighteousness. Fine, go ahead.

And there is another very important thing; with this I am going to finish. It says here, “...against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”

This is another indictment, another terrible accusation against humanity. It says that they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The word “suppress” could more accurately be translated “hold down,” “resist,” “actively contradict.” “Hold back” is much too passive for what Paul means in the original Greek. The idea is that men are bent on resisting God’s righteousness and contradicting it.

You see, brothers and sisters, it is not that God has become angry with a humanity that has sincerely said, well, that does not seem right to me, I do not see the reasoning there, and who are honestly seeking the truth and simply have not found it. No. God has discerned that what is in their hearts is instead willful rebelliousness; it is a willful rebellion. It is a rebellion that digs in its heels and, like a mule, plants its hooves in the ground and says, you are not going to move me from here.

And notice how interesting this is: they suppress the truth through unrighteousness. In other words, they oppose God’s truth with completely contrary behavior, and they want to neutralize God’s truth with thoroughly rebellious behavior. And that is what God discerns in humanity.

Do not let the twenty-first century tell me, and do not let them tell me that here in Massachusetts they do not know what God’s truth is, because in their hearts they know. The legislators sitting over there in the State House, when they vote contrary to God’s truth, they know it, brothers and sisters; listen to me. What has happened is that they have decided they love their positions more than God’s truth.

And there are many Christian men and women—that is why sometimes I would like to be politically correct, but I cannot—there are many Christians today who know what the Word says but love... There are many pastors—may God forgive me if I am being...—who know that they should preach God’s truth, but they would rather see the seats full of people than preach God’s truth. And there are many churches... That applause is for the Lord, definitely; it is not for me.

Brothers and sisters, there are many churches making deals with the devil and subtle deals with fallen humanity out there. Humanity is telling them, we will come into your churches if you do not preach this kind of Gospel, and some very subtle transactions are taking place in the air. So the church in this time is gradually surrendering ground; we Christians are surrendering ground, and the devil is gaining more and more ground. The church is not announcing the truth, it is not proclaiming it so that men may be healed and confronted. So what is happening is that the people out there are being abandoned more and more to their own reasoning.

But there are many people out there who know... When I hear about all these legal decisions, it is something I have observed so much, brothers and sisters, that it hurts me now; it breaks my heart, because today I see that humanity has decided to plunge headlong into sin. In these Western countries people have said, do not bother us anymore with those empty doctrines of the Bible; we want to soil ourselves, we want to do whatever we want, and we are going to do it. Do not bother us anymore. Everything else is merely decoration; it is an excuse, it is a smokescreen. But what lies within is man’s rebellion. Man’s heart has rebelled and decided: I do not want you anymore; give me my inheritance; I am leaving for my own country.

And that is why the Apostle Paul wrote... Brothers and sisters, this is a document that for two thousand years has been denouncing humanity, saying: Do not think that you are deceiving the heart of the sovereign God. He knows that your problem is that you have rejected him and you do not want what he offers. And that is why he is indignant with you and has abandoned you to your reasoning and abandoned you to the consequences. And what are those consequences? Perversion, addiction, destruction, and the loss of peace, joy, and human dignity.

Give me two minutes to finish on a positive note. After all that has taken place, we can return to verse 16 of Chapter 1. Turn there with me. Romans 1:16 and 17 says:

“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, because in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.”

Look how interesting: in verse 18, “the wrath of God is revealed,” and in verse 17, “the righteousness of God is revealed through the Gospel.”

Why is Paul not ashamed of the Gospel? Because he knows, brothers and sisters, that the Gospel is the only thing that can protect man from that filth and corruption. The Gospel is that sheepfold that protects the sheep so the wolf cannot enter. The Gospel is that sound doctrine which, when you submit to it, keeps you on the path of truth, holiness, love, peace, joy, salvation, hope, and harmony.

That is why Paul says, how could I be ashamed of something that protects humanity from everything that comes upon it when it turns away from God? It is through the Gospel that we understand the Father’s will, God’s character, his dignity, his love, his peace, his grace, his meekness, his patience, his righteousness. There, through the Gospel, we can understand what is pure, what is good, what is just, unlike man, who has nothing but his own reasoning to provide him with a definition of what is good and what is just, and it leads him to the perversion we are seeing today.

That is why I love the Gospel, brothers and sisters. And that is why I ask the Lord: Father, hold on to me and do not let me go, because I am going to hold on to you tooth and nail. And bring me safely into harbor, because today more than ever, brothers and sisters, we have to understand that it is only in the Gospel’s sacred territory that man can find refuge for his needs and can truly find protection from the tempest and from the attacks of a demon who seeks only to kill, steal, and destroy.

So, brothers and sisters, tell the Gospel: Enter into me more and more each day. Father, we want to do your will; we want to please you; we want to remain, Lord, within what you have established as right; we want to remain, God, within the safety of the sheepfold. We are not interested in the garlic or the pots of Egypt, Lord; we want whatever you wish to give us. Send your grace upon this people, Lord. Help us to walk humbly, Father, not to walk in arrogance, not to walk with pretensions, not to walk in spiritual pride.

Lord, help us to reason in a wise, peaceful, spiritual, and legitimate way, Lord. Sound doctrine is what we want. We want to be simple-hearted people, Father; we abandon the devil’s false sophistication, Lord, we reject man’s arrogance and embrace the humility of the child who humbles himself before the Father.

Bless this church, Father; help it to walk, help us to walk in simplicity. Father, thank You because You have rescued us; You have rescued us from the pit, from the miry clay. None of us deserves even to look into Your eyes or even to call You Father, Father, because we have offended You. We are no better than anyone else, but You have raised us up to the heavenly places with Christ Jesus through Your mercy and Your goodness. So remain with us, Lord, remain with this church, continue healing it, and continue creating for Yourself a people who are pleasing in Your sight.