The Consequences of Scepticism
When Paul wrote to the church in Rome, he reminded them why the sharing of the gospel is vital.
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” Romans 1:16
He goes on to stress that those who reject Jesus and his gospel do so for dubious reasons. It is the rejection of God that makes him angry:
“The wrath of God is being revealed against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness . . .” Romans 1:18
God’s wrath is not a petulant, irrational anger such as humans can demonstrate but a well reasoned and rational wrath. We are all culpable for the following reasons.
Evidence from Nature
Paul continues to define why those who reject God’s claims are blameworthy and deserve God’s judgment:
“ . . . since what may be known about God is plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood by what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:18-19
They overlooked the clear design and beauty of creation. Today we have even less excuse because the complexities of DNA and cell structures should lead us all to worship our creator. We don’t know how he created this world but it is clearly designed. The personalities and makeup of people are astounding, yet:
“Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for . . .” Romans 1:22-23
Professor John Lennox has astutely concluded:
“Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter, or there is a creator. It is strange that some peopler claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.”
Evidence from morality
When individuals forsake God, they and their society inevitably forsake righteous living.
Immorality becomes a common feature. Isn’t this what we are seeing in the West today? The Romans revered statues of famous men or animals as idols. Today everyone worships someone or something - anything that takes the place of God such as power, fame, careers, money, and sex. Some think these features are the reason God is angry, but this passage says that God is angry because men have forgotten him - these depravities are simply symptoms of this.
“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.” Romans 1:26-27
Are we not seeing this today with many sections of society promoting promiscuous sexual activities? Sexual immorality is not the only symptom of what happens when people turn their backs on God. This list is horrific:
“Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.” Romans 1:29-31
Isn’t it obvious that there is a natural link between how people treat others and how they treat God.
Evidence from our consciences and instincts
The big questions of life are always present but are seldom addressed. What is the point of life? Why are we here?
Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher, stated,
“Human life is meaningless without an infinite reference point.”
Sartre is saying that there must be someone or something beyond our finite world if there is to be a real meaning in life. As he believed there is no God, he concluded that there cannot be a reference point, so he deduced that we have to accept that life is meaningless. The problem is that the vast majority instinctively think that life has a meaning.
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) predicted:
“God is dead. We have killed him and the stench will be over Europe.”
The consequences of not believing there is a right and wrong have been seen in the last 125 years. Society has eaten of ‘the tree of knowledge of good and evil’, rulers now make the rules according to what they think is best for them and their society without reference to God, with disastrous consequences.
C.S. Lewis gave a talk on the concept of meaning in the universe, contrasting this with atheism saying:
“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. Very well then, atheism is too simple."
He argues that the very act of recognising that the universe might lack meaning implies a standard or a framework of meaning against which it is judged. This standard, he suggests, points to something beyond the purely material or naturalistic explanation of the universe.
The Scottish theologian, James Denney, has said,
“Where the human mind is concerned, it is idle to speak of an authority that can simply be imposed, the real question is whether there is an authority that can impose itself, which can freely win the recognition and surrender of the mind and heart of man.”
The Bible stresses that there is such an authority who eventually will always achieve his own ends. It teaches that this authority is the eternal Son of God.
Deep down all people know that to behave in such ways is wrong and that they are guilty before the judgment seat of God. Paul emphasises this,
“Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve those who practice them.” Romans 1:32
All people, not just religious Jews, have God-given consciences. Later Paul says:
“Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.” Romans 2:14-15
Evidence from our criticism of others
That God is just in treating us in this way is confirmed as we naturally criticise others who behave in such ways against us.
“You therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same thing.” Romans 2:1
People may try to rationalise their behaviour and that of others. However it is clear that for these reasons every one is culpable before God,
“This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ.” Romans 2:16
The next chapter confirms this doctrine that there is no-one who can stand before God on the judgment day if we do not have the forgiveness that Christ can alone give.
“This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:22-23
This the same message throughout the Bible. The prophet Isaiah said:
“Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” Isaiah 45:22
Charles hadden Spurgeon
This was the verse that a 15 year old Charles Hadden Spurgeon heard on a cold night in a small village Methodist chapel near Cambridge and he put his faith in Christ. He went on to be one of the greatest preacher in Victorian times. One Sunday morning early in January he was making his way to one church when a fierce snow storm led him, instead, to enter the Primitive Methodist Chapel located closer to his home. Only about a dozen people were there that morning, and he took a seat near the back, under the gallery.
The regular minister had not been able to make it due to the storm. So when it was time for the sermon a thin man whom Spurgeon supposed to be a shoemaker or a tailor went up to the pulpit. He announced and read the Scripture text for his impromptu sermon, Isaiah 45:22: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” The man obviously had little formal education, and he mispronounced some of his words. But that did not matter to Spurgeon, for upon hearing the Bible verse he thought it contained a glimmer of hope for him.
The lay preacher began to deliver a homespun discourse in his broad Essex dialect: “This is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pain. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand pounds a year to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look.
“But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Ay! many on ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. You’ll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some say look to God the Father. No, look to Him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, “Look unto Me.” Some on ye say, “We must wait for the Spirit’s workin.” You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ ”
Assuming the perspective of Jesus, the preacher continued: “Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me, I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to Heaven. Look unto Me; I am sitting at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! Look unto Me!”
After he had spoken for about ten minutes, the layman apparently reached the end of his tether. Then, fixing his eyes on Spurgeon, he startled him by saying,
“Young man, you look very miserable. And you will always be miserable—miserable in life and miserable in death—if you don’t obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.”
Then raising his hands, he literally shouted:
“Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but look and live!”
Far from taking offence at being singled out, Spurgeon at once saw the way of salvation. He hardly noticed anything the lay exhorter said after that, so taken was he with that one thought: “I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word—‘Look!’—what a charming word it seemed to me. … There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun. And I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before, ‘Trust Christ, and you shall be saved.’ ”
Any who reject God’s rule will have to invent their own purpose and meaning in life which will inevitably fail as the years pass by, as illness and death approaches. the only real meaning must be eternal.
BVP
