"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 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." (Romans 1:20-23 NIV)
There is the condemnation of the Gentiles. Paul says they "knew" God. How is it that the pagan Gentiles could know God? The answer is the inherent ability to know right from wrong or what we call conscience. Additionally, creation itself provides testimony to the reality of a supreme will higher than that of man's own will….and man has had this knowledge ever "since the creation of the world" Paul says….since the very creation of man himself whose being testifies of the presence of the Supreme Maker.
And yet, even having that knowledge of God inherent in man, and having that "something" that tells man when he is doing wrong, still man chose not to acknowledge God, nor to be thankful to God. Man chose instead to let his own will guide him and to ignore the will of his Maker. And very simply put, to choose our own will over God's will is SIN. Sin that man KNEW he was participating in even as he did it. And nothing has change to this day.
Plus, in order to support man's own will and ideas of what God should be, he created his own false gods to take the true God's place; all the while thinking that they themselves were so superior in intelligence that they had every right to form "god" into their own image – the complete and utter opposite of God's will which is to transform man into His own image.
Thus, what follows next is the judgment for the sinful "wisdom" of the Gentiles:
"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." (Romans 1:24-27)
How wise just is our God! If we choose sin, God will give us more of the very thing that we have chosen and desired above our relationship with God…and that becomes our punishment….victims of a mastery that we ourselves have conjured up from the deepest pits of hell. So that the thing with which we have indulged ourselves, soon becomes a thing that we cannot escape, even as it leads us to our own destruction. For the things that God commands us to avoid, are the things that in His wisdom, He knows WILL destroy us in the end. But we choose to go our own way; we choose time and time again, OUR will over HIS! Until eventually we become depraved, arriving at a place that we never ever thought we could arrive at, and by the time we recognize it we are in such bondage that we are completely incapable of removing ourselves from its clasp.
"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 1:28-32)
Eventually, after a very long period of sustaining the sin without repentance, the evil that has us bound begins to take on the appearance of normality. And what once would have seem deplorable to man, becomes something that he expects ALL to be doing, as it now appears to be normal. This is utter depravity, utter godlessness.
Such is God's wrath towards those who will not heed Him. Such is His willingness to GIVE us ALL that we desire, only MORE of it than we WANT! And while we have all that we want, we do not have the only thing that can satisfy: God Himself.
Yet, the Roman Gentiles to whom Paul is exposing sin in its most naked and bare state for the sake of awakening sleeping consciences, are the same unrighteous Gentiles of whom Paul speaks, except that NOW they are Gentiles who have experienced the MERCY and GRACE of God which led them to repentance and salvation. So, that we understand that while we are unrighteous, while we are sinners, while we are hopeless to deliver ourselves from the bondage of sin, even while we are experiencing God's wrath towards us….it is GOD who draws us to Himself through the sacrifice of His own Son, Jesus Christ.
"For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:8)
God yet has compassion on us to deliver us, WHEN we are ready to turn to Him.
We can only hope that we DO turn to Him… prior to breathing our last breath….and missing that chance for eternity!
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