No Excuse! - Romans 1:19-20

Evolutionists says the man evolved from an animal in overtime he developed in progress, until finally he had the impulse intellectually to worship something. So I grabbed the stick and he formed out of it some sort of vital and he worshiped it but man is continue to progress beyond that. So much so that man today and his enlightenment has discovered that he is God. He began as an animal now… God record of Scripture given to us in Romans chapter 1 says the exact opposite.

Man was created in the image of God is resting is not the same thing as being devoted to Christ. In fact, as Stephen just pointed out people followed the world's religions to avoid the worship of the one true God not to pursue the worship of the one true God. Even though God has made some truths about himself self-evident men willfully find ways to suppress the truth and pursue the worship of self or the worship of man-made gods in the message you're going to hear today Stephen Devi lays out some of the common excuses people use to reject God. Here's today's lesson American leaders crafted a document that they call the Declaration of Independence.

It includes words that are more and more profound to me further and further our society decays those profound words are these we hold these truths to be self-evident, that is, we believe certain things are truths, that is, we believe certain things are absolutes.

We believe in absolute truth, that is certain truth that is recognizable to everybody. We hold these truths to be self-evident.

In other words, you don't have to have an outside reason are some proof to reveal to you that these things are indeed true because everybody knows these truths intuitively ball what our forefathers consider to be absolutely obvious to all of humanity, not just to Americans by the way, because truth here is truth anywhere right truth that is truth is truth the matter what country you're in, or what culture and bring it into the sciences. 2+2 is not for four Americans and five for Chinese and six for Spaniards. Indians don't just believe the world is round but for Frenchmen it is flat no truth is truth anywhere and everywhere you go. Now the shape of the earth and the ability to add numbers together isn't necessarily self-evident truth.

You had to be taught that you do learn that, but what are truths that are self-evident that are obvious to everyone. They reside within as it were they going to say we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. So in one sentence.

You have belief in absolute truth, you have the dignity of humanity and you have belief in a creator factor next phrase says something like that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and everybody's is all there is the word rights and we run there and we dissected pars and interpret and do all sorts of things with that just skipping over the preceding words endowed by their Creator. By the way, that's one of the reasons you can't teach American history and expound the virtues of our heritage at the same time teach evolution because you can have the same kid quoting that we have been endowed by our Creator and at the same time we evolve from animals.

Some fifth-graders in a catch on and say wait a second, which is which ones right when you have a self-evident creator and self evident value to human life and self-evident absolute truth then you also would have self-evident morality, the ability to discern between that which is right in that which is wrong and how human beings are to treat one another and it's interesting that the framers of our our country believed that it was important that everyone had an understanding based on morals and even true religions listen to what Pres. John Adams wrote in 1798. We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion, avarice, ambition, revenge would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.

You compare that with the thinking of our day that you cannot legislate morality effectively to take religion and morals outside of any governmental institution. The framers of our nation however believed that morality was. Not only something that we were to legislate as a country, but something we were to personally hold ourselves accountable to and personally legislate and run lives based on absolute truth that they believed once you heard it you would say I knew that all along. James Madison, the architect of the U.S. Constitution, wrote along that line. We have staked the whole future of American civilization upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the 10 Commandments of God. Can you imagine a political leader special in our culture, saying, look what we need to do is go back and obey the 10 Commandments of God.

There would be one word for that kind of politician in our generation unemployed. We hold these truth to be self-evident, there is a creator. There is within his creation, dignity, and that dignity demands integrity and they were not the first ones to come up with. If you go back hundreds of years earlier and you look at a letter written by a man named Paul to a believing group of people in Rome. He says virtually the same thing and you discover his argument includes the idea of self evident self evidencing truth truth that you don't have to go to school truth that you know intuitively to be truth.

Look at Romans one for the wrath of God.

Verse 18 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. This is self evidencing truth and then God made it evident to them.

For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes like his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made plus is in effect. Here is the evidence. Number one. The truth of conscience. We have talked about this. We call this the inner light or the inner evidence you might want to turn to a passage of Scripture back just a few pages to the last part of chapter 28 of acts, and you'll discover there a wonderful illustration of self evidencing justice and date self evidencing truth of morality in a group of people who are unbelievers didn't have the gospel.

Paul was shipwrecked reps. You remember the story with other prisoners. He's on his way to Rome and they swim to shore and they land on this island.

This island called multi-verse one verse two.

The natives these primitive people showed us extraordinary kindness for because of the rain that it said in an because of the cold that kindled a fire and received us all.

But when Dr. Luke writes Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire of venomous snake.

A viper came out because of the heat, and fastened itself on his hand. His bit and hung on when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand. They began saying one another. Undoubtably, this man is a murderer, and though he has been saved from the sea. Justice has not allowed him to live.

See here are superstitious unbelievers without any record of Scripture without any record of the 10 Commandments in written form, revealing their intuitive belief that murder is wrong and murderers auto pay and this guy is going to get what he deserves. He might've escaped the sea.

Justice was after him and he got away from that but the serpent will get them yet, watch and pay they evidence this inner sense of justice, of right or wrong, self-evident truth just to finish the story a little bit is so interesting. Verse five. However, Paul shook the creature off in the fire and suffered no harm, but they were expecting that he was about to swell up or suddenly fall down dead, but after they had waited a long time and see nothing unusual happen and that is or just dinner watching waiting from the keel over.

They change their minds begin to say he was a God. Poor Paul first. He's a condemned murderer.

Now is a God.

They don't know whether it's handcuffs or red carpet. What I find interesting for our study though is that these people knew right from wrong. In fact, they knew that wrongdoers should be watch to be punished. They and everybody else on planet Earth has this self-evident truth that lying is wrong and murder is wrong and cheating is wrong and you want to pay the fact watch the most liberal thinker in our culture who denies the existence of absolute moral truth go into action when he is deceived by financial advisor when somebody hits his car in the parking lot and then gets away with it. It's their fault. When the neighbors dog groups through his flowerbeds. Then, I can't believe you did that.

I can't believe I was treated that way. I deserve respect, they shouldn't get away with that lineup would made it wrong, intuitive sense of justice. I was cheated and being cheated is wrong and the cheater to be punished. They prove Romans 215 where it says the unbeliever shows the work of the law written in their hearts so conscience we've already said is that inner evidence or like there's an outer evidence and out her light. The second evidence of God's distances nature or creation.

The birds, the trees, the seasons, the orbits of planets, the sun and its light, the complexity of creation and the immensity of creation drives a person to say there must be behind this incredible design a designer. What's really fascinating. Ladies and gentlemen is that secular scientists send microbiologists and astrophysicists in the last 5 to 10 years are beginning to say the word design that they don't want to come full circle, but they're starting to use of fact I pull together several quotes that are recent. One secular unbelieving scientist said imagine a machine with thousands of dials representing everything that gives life or allows life to be sustained on this planet. Everything from the gravitational constant.

The charge of the electron, the mass of the proton and so on and so each dial has many possible settings and even the slightest change would make a universe where life was impossible to get each dial is set to be exact value needed to sustain life. Another one writes we have no idea why the strengths of the forces are fine tuned to support life and underwrites I'm not a religious person but I could say this universe seems designed very well for the existence of life. Maybe it's simply because, as Freeman Dyson, who is this year's Templeton award winner said maybe it's because quote the universe in some sense must have known we were coming away.

The second, in a way, did because it had all been created to use his vernacular. It obviously the universe doesn't have consciousness, but it was all created.

It was all prepared.

It was all mature God created the tree full-grown bearing seed bearing fruit ready the light of the sun, already reaching are the light of the stars are reaching her all mature thought process, but the word of a person son of God and was ready. God did it all in six days.

Amazing. By the way, the Hebrew word day when accompanied by a numerical adjective is never figured but literal.

The word week is often used figuratively, but not day. Never in Old Testament Hebrew are the terms evening and morning used figuratively but literally affect Exodus 20 uses as the illustration we says Manas labor six days and rest on the seventh because in six days the Lord created the heavens earth and see less days of equal length are in the mind of the writer. The illustration command will be absolutely meaning this is me where work 6 million days and then rest in a no. Fortunately, just 624 hour cycles. A record of Scripture tells us that God created all Exodus 2011 for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them. David Road by the word of the Lord the heavens were made. He spoke and it was done. The evidence even in unbelieving astrophysicists had recently.

The universe just seems tailor-made to support life. Ladies and gentlemen, it seems tailor-made because it is tailor-made we hold these truths to be self-evident. Paul said there is a creator, but what is man naturally do this self-evident thing truth.

We looked briefly at Romans 118. The part of suppressing the truth.

They hold it down. They silencing so they can keep their sin. Verse 21 are not progressing in understanding.

Paul says, their hearts are darkened by their assault against the truth so man is not becoming more enlightened is becoming more and more darkened in his speculations against what is self-evident truth of a creator, the evolutionist says that man evolved from an animal and over time he developed in progress, until finally he had the impulse intellectually to worship something and so he grabbed the stick and he and he formed out of it some sort of vital and he worshiped it but Manas continued to progress beyond that.

So much so that man today and his enlightenment has discovered that he is God.

He began as an animal now… God record of Scripture given to us in Romans chapter 1 says the exact opposite is occurring.

Man was created in the image of God and he is digressing the live like an animal, but he didn't want to admit it. Romans one is will get into it. The latter part of the chapter will simply catalog trust the results of men and societies that suppress the truth that ignore the creator that silencer conscience. These will be the result in a to the most profound truths that we wish kids can learn in school and every mom and dad knows what to very profound truths to become more more profound in our culture than ever before. They are these truths number one, there is a God number two. I am not him.

That's profound. There is a God and I am not him, someone our church family sent me this deposited in my email box and a legend course apocryphal story, but interesting.

Legend has it that one day a group of academicians got together and decided Amanda progressed such a long way. They no longer needed their primitive God.

So they picked one to go and tell him that they were done with them. This particular scientist walked up to God and said, we've decided that we no longer need you were to the point now that we can even clone people and do so many other miraculous marbles want to sleep.listen very patiently and kindly to the man after he was on talking God said how about this, let's say we have a a man making contest which the scientist replied great sure but got out and never gonna do it just like I did a back in the old days with Adam scientist said no problem. I'll be fine with me, and he bent down to grab a handful of dirt. God looked at him as a nun and in an you go get your own dirt. What is enlightened man do with obvious self-evident truth. Paul tells us he holds it down to keep that under wraps. He behind lock and key. He doesn't want anybody to hear about it. Keep it out of books. Keep it out of our public arena silence by imprisoning the truth he reveals a couple of things. Number one, he reveals his hatred for God's sovereignty is natural hatred for God's sovereignty. Why can't man, just look around at creation and say yeah there's a designer out there, because that would make him accountable. That was a somebodies bigger than his.

Somebody might have the answer to man does not want any limitations going back to the garden. Adam and Eve. They were told they could eat of every tree in the garden. Who knows how many there were. Look around you Adam look around you even have created these wonderful trees are already bearing fruit and you can eat from any of them, but this one tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You can't eat from this tree and did that ever bothered them. God has put a limitation on them and he is imposed upon them accountability and he says if you do, you will die. So what are they begin focusing on all the trees they could eat from know this one tree and little child honey it's it's kinda raining outside so you clean your room get all those toys up there in your room and you just the latter but you can't go outside when she say my child years. Do but I want to go outside.

Of course we mean this is the one thing I can do so. This is the one thing that so adamant it had. I believe many conversations about this one tree I believe the words of James Montgomery Boise said this tree became an offense to them. It stood for a limitation on their personal desire represented something they were not allowed to do so here they are with a million things to do a thousand things to eat and this one thing they could not do in the snake slithered in capitalize on conversations I have no doubt he overheard said listen let God know his medicine, go ahead and eat. He's intimidated. He's insecure, eat, and you will be like him. Limitations no chains free they hated began to die today man hates God's rule, because he wants to be unaccountable and unlimited and unfettered in his sin he wants a less or more submissive got into it creates one that he can manage. He does the bidding God does the obeying. Secondly, there is within man's heart and natural rebellion against God's holiness. Not only does he hate God's sovereignty, but is holiness. Holiness is a word that simply means set apartness uniqueness. You have a book in your lap that says holy Bible.

It means that it is set apart. It is unique.

Now when we say that God is holy. We are in effect saying we are what unholy if God is holy and set apart than we are unholy and sinful and nothing offends sinful man anymore than saying that your sinful with Habakkuk the sinner saw God revealed Saul's glory and heard his voice. He said I heard in my heart pounded my lips quivered at the sound decay crept into my bones and my legs trembled.

Habakkuk 316. Our response to this sovereigns set up our holy God is all and worship and deference and respect see after Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God.

What are they do, they hid themselves why they didn't want the relationship.

They were ashamed and they were guilty and so did and run to God. They ran from God. You see all that mankind ever since that has been so incurably religious. Look around you and see the thousands of shrines in the millions of gods, and all of the ritual in the ceremony in the confessional in the Mecca and all those myriads of things ladies and gentlemen, the religions of the world that are false religions are not attempts to pursue a holy God.

They are attempts to get around God. There are created by men who are not running to God.

They are created by men who are running from God. They must have something to send their conscience so they come up with some form of religion which ignores a holy, sovereign God because man rejects the evidence of creation and rejects and silences the voice of conscience.

Paul goes on to say in verse 20 for since the creation of the world his invisible attributes, like his eternal power and divine nature been clearly seen, it is perceived like sovereignty, like holiness, being understood through what has been made. Here is the verdict they are without SKUs are guilty. You could literally translate this. They are without legal defense. Millions in Africa who have never heard her guilty and without excuse the millions in India who have never heard her guilty and without excuse those in our country who never heard the true gospel of faith in Christ alone are still without excuse. How Paul is explained self-evident truth that is denied the world over. So mankind worships sticks because he chooses that instead he worships Thompson trees. He worships religion itself and he would embrace religion and embrace the creator and even the Pharisees, who were incurably religious. They had their system down, God came in the form of a man walked among them, and they said please, you're messing it all out. Lee, the Bible makes it clear, listen carefully, that God will judge people by what they did with what they knew they had creation. They had conscience FF Bruce says it this way, God will judge non-Christians by the light that was available not by the light that was unavailable and what was available. According to the Bible all men the inner light of conscience. They suppressed silence in the outer light of creation, which should have brought all but instead cause them as we will see later to worship creation rather than the creator. John gave us revelation from God Ct. in Revelation chapter 21 he said I saw a new heaven and a new one worth new new paradise created by the word of God. If you have trouble with him creating this one. The next what about that next ON that city net worth. There will be no more tears. No more suffering no more crying no more morning pain for those who've received the Lamb today one day inhabit the new guard whereby redemption purposes, we will be confirmed in holiness, unable to sin and we will dwell forever and that new earth in the new heaven.

No more son why because we will be in the presence of that glorious wonderful majestic sovereign holy demon forgiving land forever, and what a great promise and come that is for those of us who are Christians.

If you're anything like me you like to make excuses for your behavior and today's lesson is a practical reminder that when it comes to our sin.

There are no excuses for God. That's actually the name of today's lesson. No excuse and it's part of our current series called the banquet table of consequences. This is wisdom for the hearts with Stephen Davey, if you'd like information about how you can get a copy of today's lesson for yourself.

Call us at 86 648 Bible when you call, let us know if you're on our mailing list. If you're not, we want to add you and send you a new resource we have called heart-to-heart magazine that number once again is 86 648 Bible call today and be sure and join us again tomorrow. Right here on wisdom for the heart