Why God Holds Everyone Without Excuse — Romans 1:18-21

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, when we go, and I always like to welcome all of our studio folk first and foremost. We know that some of you have driven quite a distance, and we appreciate it so much that you put forth the effort and take the time to come in and spend an afternoon as we tape these next four programs. Now these four programs, we're going to end tape number 20. And as I've explained on the program so many times, we have taken all the past programs since we first started on television, and they are now available on six hour tapes. That's 12 programs to a tape, and there are now 20 completed when we finish today's taping. And then good folk have taken the time and put forth the effort to transcribe the tapes to little books, and so every tape has a corresponding booklet, and we put them out for just whatever they cost us. And of course now with postage and everything going up, we're trying to hold the cost on that. But for any of you out on television, if you're interested in these tapes and these books, a lot of folk are setting up home Bible studies using both. They'll play maybe one or two half hour programs, and their students have the book in hand, and we're just getting a tremendous response. I remember one day I was talking to a gentleman from Indiana, and the other line rang, and I put him on hold, and here was someone from Colorado ordering the whole set. Well at that time I think we had 15, and so at $30 a tape, which we have to have to cover the postage, that was a $450 order. And so I went back to the gentleman and I told him, I said, you know, I can't hardly believe people order $450 worth of tapes at one time, and he said, Les, where else would you get a seminary education for $450? And so that's the kind of response we've been getting, and so if any of you out there have never ordered any of our tapes or our books, why you feel free to either call us on the 800 number, or write to us, the address is on the screen, and we'll get them out to you just as quickly as we can. We do not have a big staff, that's the other thing that amazes people, they think we've got a staff of 30-40 people, and we don't, it's just my wife and I, and my little daughter-in-law now is helping her somewhat with the mailing, and that has helped quite a bit. But anyway, we'd love to hear from you, and again we'd like to thank our television audience and of course all our class people for the financial help, because again, I'm just answering questions. People call and they say, well who pays for your airtime? Well the people that have their own freewill offerings help us, and we don't attempt to make any money on it, we take nothing out of the ministry, but wonder of wonders again this last month, I mean no matter how much we expand, we go into another station, and every month it's the same thing, the income is about $100 more than the expenses. And you see, that's all we need, as long as we pay the bills and don't get an overdraft, that's all we worry about. So anyway, let's pick right up where we left off in our last program, and that would be in Romans chapter 1, and those of you who are with us, and those of you who watch this week after week, I laid out all the things that God did on our behalf, the moment we believed. Remember that from Romans 1, I took off on the word salvation, and all that it implies, and all of these things have to be appropriated only by faith. And that was all the good things that God does on our behalf when we believe. Now as we come into verse 18, we see what I call the flip side, in fact I'm kind of amazed that the first word of verse 18 isn't but, instead of for, but it's the flip side. Here we've seen all the good things that God has done on our behalf in that word salvation. He's forgiven us, He's regenerated us, He's baptized us into the Body, He has justified us, He's redeemed us, and I think we had 12 or 13 of those. But now in verse 18 we see the other side of the coin, and that is God is also a God of wrath. Now the first thing I want you to understand is that for 2,000 years nearly, God has not been pouring out wrath whatsoever. Once in a while things may take place that I think are done specifically to still get man's attention, such as maybe catastrophes and earthquakes and disasters, but that's not the wrath of God. No way, because we're living in the age of grace, and even to the ungodly world, even to those steeped in wickedness, God is still dealing in grace, not in judgment, not in wrath. In fact I made mention to the class last night that even the flood, as awful as it was, that was not the wrath of God. That was God who was just broken hearted, and that everything that He had begun with totally fallen apart, and had turned in rejection. But it still wasn't His wrath, because it was an act of mercy to unborn generations, because you see they were killing each other so fast, that by the time a child was born there before the flood, he didn't have any idea how long he would live until he'd be murdered because the world was filled with violence. So that was not so much a wrath of God, as it was a cleansing the slate and starting over. Also, the flood was almost instantaneous destruction. And I said when I taught Genesis, the flood wasn't water coming up to their ankles, and then finally their knees, and finally to their waist, and finally they're holding their head out of the water. No, that wasn't the flood. The flood was an instantaneous destruction. And then as the water of course accumulated, the planet was getting ready for the post flood ecology. But whatever, now we know that in the near term, we don't know how soon, but we feel that we're getting close where God is indeed going to pour out His wrath. He's not just going to have an instantaneous destruction as He did in the flood, but it's going to be His wrath. In other words, He is going to cause mankind such suffering, and such mental anguish, that the Book of Revelation tells us that they're going to cry out for the rocks and the mountains to fall on them. They're going to cry for death, and it won't come, because God is just bringing down His wrath on Christ rejecting mankind. And I was just sharing with Merlin before we started the program, and he's going to do it in absolute fairness, in justness, because there are more people living on the planet right now, than probably lived all the way back to the time of Noah. Now you just mull that over, and see we're getting over 5 billion people on the planet tonight, and we're rushing on to even 5.5 and 6. But you see at the time of Christ, at His first advent, there were probably less than 500 million in the whole then known world. That's only half a billion, and that's still quite a few people. But nevertheless, compared to 5.5 or 6, that was nothing, and that was after 4 ,000 years of human history, that was after 24-2600 years after the Flood. Only 500 million people. That 500 million did not double and become a billion until about 1860. Then it doubled again by little after 1900, and now it's doubled again from the early 1900's to about 1970, and now we are fast doubling so that by the year 2020, it will be doubled from 4 billion to 8 billion. This is why the prophets of doom are up in the air, and they say the planet can't support 8 billion people. I agree, but I'm not going to worry about it. In fact I read something the other day where a lot of our intellectuals are already planning a drastic reduction in population. They want the American population to drop back to 150 million. They want the world population to drop back to 2-3 billion instead of the 5 .5 or 6 billion. Well bless their hearts, they may mean well, but you see God has His own time table, and I'm not going to worry about a population explosion. So anyway, when we see the wrath of God that is going to be poured out during the last 3-1-2 years of the Tribulation, God is going to have every right in the world, because the vast majority of Christ-rejecting people will be living at that time. Now let's come into the text, if you will, with me in verse 18. Ephesians 1-18 Now the Greek actually makes it a little more distinct than that. The Greek implies that they're holding down, in other words they're literally standing on it with their feet. They're trampling it underfoot, the truth in unrighteousness. Now I've said over the years, and I haven't had to take it back, that usually in our New Testament especially, whenever you see the word, truth, you can very easily substitute the name of Jesus Christ, because what did He tell us in John's Gospel? I am the truth, the way and the life. So even here it works beautifully. So what have they done? They have taken the name of Jesus Christ, and they hold it down in unrighteousness, in ungodliness. They don't want anything that He had to say, or anything that comes from this Book, they do not want it in their life, and so they hold it underfoot. Whenever else you see the word, truth, always just try it and see if it won't work that you insert the name Jesus Christ. I think most of the time you'll see what I'm talking about. So they have the truth, and they walk it underfoot, and then you come down to verse 19. "...because that which may be known of God is manifest in them. For God hath shown it, that is the truth, he hath shown it unto them." How did He show it? "...for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly, not in a fog, not in some sort of an enigma, but it's out there as clear as a bell, the knowledge of the Creator God. Now being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." Now I know this is a hard verse to swallow, because we have to think even back before Christ time. Those of you who have been hearing me teach all the way up through the Old Testament have always stressed that from the call of Abraham all the way up until we're way into the Book of Acts, God dealt primarily with the nation of Israel. What about those pagan Gentiles all around them? Well they were without hope, Paul says in Ephesians 2. They were aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, they were strangers, and so they were lost. But God still holds them responsible, because they could have known. And this is hard for us to swallow and comprehend. But God knows that every human being has within his breast the knowledge that there is a Creator God. Oh it may be held dormant by some of the circumstances that people may find themselves in, but if they really want to put forth the effort, if they want to look at some starry midnight sky, they can come to the conclusion that there is a Creator God behind all this. Now that's what the Scripture teaches. They are without excuse. They have all the evidence. Let's come back with me to Acts chapter 17. Paul is at Athens, steeped in idolatry and philosophy, intellectualism, but here he confronts these intellectual philosophers on Mars Hill, and you remember when we were studying the Acts several weeks or months ago, and he says in verse 23, "...for as I passed by and beheld your devotions," in other words their ritual of pagan worship, "...I found an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God, whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him I declare unto you." Now here it comes, "...God, who made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he this God giveth to all, not just believers, but he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things, and hath made of one blood, that is out of Adam, all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, if happily, or if it should happen, that they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from any one of us." Now isn't that clear? God is speaking here through the Apostle Paul, that even these pagan Greeks, who had had no exposure to Judaism, they didn't have any written scripture, but yet they should have had a knowledge of the Creator God that's behind it all. Now I think most of you are aware that the Scripture indicates that the Word of God was written in the stars once upon a time. Adam I think was able to comprehend it, and I think the pre-flood people comprehended that the very makeup of the constellations and the planets and all that, they were to interpret the very Word of God out of that. Satan of course took it and adulterated it, but in its original format, the pre-flood patriarchs I think had a pretty good understanding of the Word of God just by studying the stars. Let me show you another one as you go further into your New Testament. Come all the way back with me to Titus, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, the Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus chapter 2. Now of course Paul writes this letter toward the end of his ministry, he's only got about another year or two to go until he'll be martyred. But as he writes to Titus, of course he's been under house arrest in Rome now for the last several years, and as I explained once before in one of these programs, Paul no doubt had at least a few Roman soldiers as his guard constantly, and I think I can give the Apostle credit that almost all of them, after spending their tour of duty in Paul's presence, left as believers. They went to various other places of service throughout the Roman Empire, Paul even mentions in one place that they went right into the temple of the Emperor himself. And as they would rotate through their service from one end of the Empire to the other, they took the Gospel with them. In fact this is what makes the book of Acts say what it said, that those early believers turned the then known world upside down, inside out, because they were never ashamed of the Gospel, no more than Paul was. So Paul can now write to Titus back here in chapter 2, verse 11, a stunning statement, and yet we just casually read over it, and we don't get what he's saying. But in the light of Romans 1.18 I know what he's saying. Romans 1.18 "...for the grace of God, that bringeth salvation, hath already appeared unto all men." Now granted when Paul wrote, the Roman Empire comprised, I suppose, 90% of the then known and populated planet, all the way from Great Britain on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea, and out across the Mesopotamian Valley, and all the way out to the Ganges River of India. That was probably 90% of the then known world. But they'd all heard, and I think he's also even going all the way back to the flood. Because when you had Noah and his 3 sons and their wives come off the ark, they had a knowledge of God, absolutely they did. But what happened within a generation or two, they began to do what Romans 1.18 just got through saying. And so they began to hold down the truth, and not only held it down, but they stood on it, and kept it under foot. And so because of all the revelations that God had given mankind, beginning of course with the creation of Adam in the first place, because very deep in the heart of every human being, even in that Adamic nature, is that knowledge that there is a God. Now I've had people tell me that they're atheists, but that's just a veneer. They are either trying to convince themselves, if no one else, that they are, but way down deep I maintain there is no such thing as an atheist. They all know that there is that nagging little desire to fill a vacuum, even though they may not realize what it is, but there is that need to fill a vacuum that God placed in mankind when He created them. And so as you look at history, you study archeology, you will never, ever find a group or a tribe of people that did not have a worship of one sort or another. Always they'll have a worship, and always associated with a blood sacrifice. They may kill a chicken, or whatever, but they're going to have that need for a blood sacrifice. And it all goes back to the way God created mankind, so He has that knowledge that there is a Creator. Verse 21. The reason they're without excuse now, is because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, when they leave God out of their thinking, and they begin to put forth foolish imaginations, indeed it's nothing but vanity, it's empty. So in their vain imaginations, their foolish heart was darkened. Now that's a verb. Who did the darkening? God did. Now we talked about this in our class in Wilberton last night. As soon as God began dealing with Pharaoh, through Moses and Aaron, when they confronted him and said, "...let our people go." God was putting Pharaoh on the spot, wasn't He? That's what He was doing, and He was giving him a choice to either let Israel go, or not let them go. And you know what he did? He chose not to let them go. God sent the first plague, and it made Pharaoh think, but that's as far as he got with it. The next time that Moses and Aaron came in and said, "...let my people go." He said, "...no, I'll not let them go." Because the first plague was passed, and by now he hoped there wouldn't be any more. But he also now was in a more hardened position than he was before. So it wasn't that God just zoomed in on his heart like a laser beam, and fried it. The reason his heart got hardened was because he had made a choice, he'd lived with it, and now when he comes to a next one, he's going to do the same thing, he's going to decide wrong again, and in the process he's becoming hardened. So all God really does is puts him on the spot, and every time He puts him on the spot with the demand to let Israel go, He hardens his own heart, although the Scripture says that God did it. But that's all God did. Now the same way with mankind as a whole. When we speak of man's heart being hardened, it isn't that God fries it. Man does it to himself, but it's under the sovereign volition of God. And so this is why then when it says that they became vain, and their foolish heart was darkened, it became a response of God to their choosing of their will. And remember, everything that mankind does under God is based on that free will. You can't get away from it. We are all constantly facing choices, decisions, and even though God is sovereign, He's in total control, yet the exercise of the free will is still ours to do. So now then, as they choose to put God out of their thinking, they choose to think only in the realm of the human, what we call secular humanism, their foolish heart was darkened. Now I don't know if I have enough time left for this or not. Go back to Psalms 14, and I know we covered this months and months, maybe now even a few years ago, but it never gets old. It's as true today as it was any time before. Psalm 14, verse 1, and now this is also going to be appropriate for verse 22, which is the next verse in our text. So verse 1 of Psalm 14, the fool, the man that God calls a fool, the fool hath said in his heart, and I always point out that the next two words are italicized, so consequently they were added by the translators, but I think in this place it's unfortunate, so leave them out. The fool hath said in his heart, no, God. Now you see the difference? The foolish man is a man destitute of faith, and so he says no, not that there is no God, but he says no to what God has said. And all the way up through Biblical history, it was the men who were destitute of faith that did just exactly that. What did Cain do? God said, bring me a blood sacrifice, and I'll accept you. What did Cain say? No, God, I'm not going to bring a blood sacrifice, I'm going to bring what I've grown. Ishmael had all the opportunity, and the same godly father that Isaac had. But what did Ishmael say? No, God. And then the next best one of all is Esau, probably a good young man. And yet when it came to things that God had said, what did Esau say? No way, I'm not interested. So he says no to God. Now you see, this is exactly where mankind is tonight in 1995. God has said it, He has expressed it, but what does man say? No way. I won't believe it, I won't do it, I don't want any part of it, leave me alone, and as the words that Helen gave me one time, I'm comfortable. Thank you for watching To the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK, 74552. To the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for To the Bible with Les Feldick.