The View From 1776

Verse 18 above ("The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth...") contrasts with verse 17 (For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.")

In his continuing exposition of the foundational Christian doctrine in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, Pastor Dan Gardner (Assembly of God Church, Cohocton, New York) used the term “natural man” to describe secularists who steadfastly deny our Creator God. 

The natural man looks into the mirror and sees his god: himself, the egotist for whom there is no higher power than his own mind.  The natural man is he who, like Protagoras (quoted in Plato’s Theaetetus), declared, “Man is the measure of all things,” meaning that there are no independent, transcendent standards of right and wrong, that every person is free to make his own rules.

Natural man found great comfort in the 1920s and afterwards in the mind manipulation hypotheses of Sigmund Freud.  In Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), Freud wrote that the problems of western civilization arose from conflict between morality and deep-seated sexual desires.  The result was debilitating guilt; the solution was to junk morality and come to terms with one’s sexual drives.  By implication, the purpose of humanity was no longer aspiration toward the highest of ideals, but surrender to sexual drives.  The future of humanity was not upward, but downward toward the sewer of moral relativism.  The human soul was thrown out and replaced by worship of our genitalia.  We see the results today in our juvenile adulation of hedonistic sensual gratification in movies, TV, and the print media.

As Paul makes clear, however, even the dullest of intellects can perceive order in the immensity of space surrounding our planet, in the vast panorama of the sun and stars and our moon, which move in regular patterns, from day to day and over periods of many years. Suppressing the truth of such obvious evidence of design in the cosmos is to turn one’s back on God and to invite His wrath. 

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

A current example of large scale suppression of the truth is our climategate scandal.  Secularists who fancy themselves capable of controlling the weather of the entire planet and brook no challenge from God’s Truth go to criminal lengths to manipulate and to fabricate data, as well as to prevent publication of contradictory evidence.  Without regard for the attendant, immense setbacks in standards of living, particularly in poorer countries, secularists are intent upon imposing their unsupportable hypothesis of man-made global warming upon all of humanity.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

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. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to 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 are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 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 of those who practice them. (Romans 1:21-32)

Exalting himself over God and His Creation, natural man commits sins of omission: he neither honors God nor gives thanks to God for his blessings, fancying that all is the product of his own genius.

Natural man, in the same vein, indulges in sins of commission: he makes futile speculations (e.g., socialist bureaucrats’ attempts to control the entire economy, and corrupt global-warming scientists’ endeavors to arrogate to themselves control of the world’s energy resources). 

Natural man professes his own wisdom as the final answer to all questions.  The fool says in his heart, “There is no God. (Psalms 14:1)

And natural man forsakes God for man-made images: money, power, prestige, and self-importance. 

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:  "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.  (1 Corinthians 1:18-19)

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.  (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Whatever one may think of homosexuality, the bible condemns it as an unnatural practice. 

In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7)

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. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." (Romans 1:26-27)

Our modern-day culture not only tolerates depravity, but both encourages it and teaches it to our young students.

Those defending homosexuality say that it is an inborn tendency.  But alcoholism is a similar, inborn vulnerability, yet hardly anyone opposes programs to reprogram alcoholics’ destructive urges.
   

   
“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 of those who practice them.” (Romans 1:32)