The Book Of ROMANS.....A Systematic Teaching

Romans 1:15..............
"So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.?

Here is the 2nd "I AM!"

He said he was a debtor now he says he is ready to pay. In other words he is saying......."My side is ready"

He is not only ready he is also eager to preach it.

Oh my dear friends, if we only could find men with this kind of enthusiasm today coupled with high anticipation of getting out the Word of God.

It is when I read these words in Scripture that I find myself wishing that I was 50 years younger with the knowledge I have today!
I am not saying that I am too old to cut the mustard, but I am saying that I do not have a knife!;)

However.......thanks to the forenowledge of God, old men like me have the miracle of the INTERNET where we can still get out the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to a lost world and never leave our home to do so! WHAT A GOD WE SERVE!
 
Romans 1:16............
" For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Here is the 3rd "I AM".

He said I AM a debtor, I AM ready, and now he says "I AM NOT ASHAMED"!

I AM a debtor......... = Admission.
I AM ready......... = Remission.
I AM not ashamed = Submission.

These are the 3 missions of Paul.
1. Admission
2. Remission
3. Submission

Now WHY would he say..............."I AM not ashamed of the gospel of Christ"????????

Personally, and I can not prove it, but I am of the opinion that he believed that some of the Christians in Rome were tempted to be ashamed about it. Ashamed or in fear! It is very possible that there may have been very few Christians in Rome. The great truths about Christ seemed new and absurd to many people. Christians were being persecuted. It's one thing to believe the gospel; it's another thing to take the risk of preaching it to strangers openly.

Paul will have none of that. The gospel message is nothing less than power from God, for everyone who believes it, to be saved. Anyone, everyone, who puts their faith in Christ and his death for their sin on the cross will be justified—will be made right with God—and welcomed into God's family. If that is all true, and Paul had staked his life on it, then what is there to be ashamed of?

Paul continues that this salvation from God by faith in Christ is for the Jew first and also for the Greek. In this context, "Greek" is similar to the meaning of "Gentile," as a references to all the non-Jewish people in the world.

Why for the Jew first? Paul will spend a lot of time on that concept in this letter.

If you will recall, Jesus said simply that "salvation is from the Jews" in John 4:22. Also, chronologically, the gospel message was first revealed to the Jewish people before it was revealed to the Gentiles.

AGAIN we must ask WHY?

Jesus was the JEWS MESSIAH! That is proven from Matthew 15:22.
Jesus was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel in order that through his regathering and reconstituting the true Israel, the blessing of salvation would be released to flow from Israel and into all the world, just as God promised in the Old Testament.

Now sit up.....pay attention, YOU are saved from the judgment of YOUR sin which is eternal hell because the JEWS rejected their Messiah!
Now I will expand on this when we get to Romans 11:11, but for now just know that we are saved by the Lord Jesus when the Jews rejected Jesus and God then opened the door for the Gentiles.........YOU!

Paul's letter will show that God prioritized the Jews first in revealing that all can be saved by faith in Christ. Though they rejected that message as a nation, many Jewish people did indeed trust in Christ for their salvation, starting with Jesus' 12 Jewish disciples.

This explains in part why Paul often began his work in a new city by preaching in the Jewish synagogues before moving on to preach to the Gentiles (Acts 13:5). It's true that Christ sent Paul to preach to all the nations, but He also commissioned Paul to preach about Him to the children of Israel first (Acts 9:15).
 
Romans 1:17........
"For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."
News Flash..........This verse, (17) together with the previous verse, is often referred to as the central theme of the book of Romans!!!!

In the gospel, the righteousness of God is "revealed,"!
In one sense, in that it is given to human beings by their faith in Christ. In other words, God declares human beings to be righteous in His eyes because of their faith. The words "from faith to faith" means that this declaration of people being righteous is by faith from first to last, from start to finish.

In another sense, as Romans will make abundantly clear, people cannot be declared righteous before God by following the law. Good works and ritual obedience do nothing to make us right with God. And if we are not declared righteous in God's eyes—a condition referred to as being "justified"—then we cannot be with God.

"JUSTIFIED is a legal, technical term that means..........."declared NOT GUILITY!"

We are all, everyone, everywhere are separated from God forever because of our sinfulness. However, according to the gospel, Christ died to pay the penalty of death and separation from God for our sins on the cross.
When we trust in Christ, God sees us through Christ and declares us to be "righteous" or "justified."

Paul put the same idea this way in Philippians 3:8–9:......
"that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith."

This is God's gospel: God's "good news" for humanity. Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4 to show this is not a new idea: "The righteous shall live by faith"!

In case you have not said it.........Now would be a good time to say AMEN!
 
NOW WE COME TO THE SECTION WHERE THE MOST ASKED QUESTION IN THE WORLD IS ASKED.

"IF A MAN LIVING ON A DESERTED ISLAND, ALL OF HIS LIFE AND HAS NEVER HEARD THE GOSPEL, WILL HE THEN GO TO HELL"???

Romans 1:18 is the beginning of God's NATURAL REVELATION
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness".
This verse begins a longer section describing God's attitude and actions toward human sinfulness. These verses could be considered an answer to the questions, "Why is the gospel such a big deal? Why do human beings need to be declared righteous by God? What do we need to be saved from?" "Does the man who has never heard the gospel go to hell"

News Flash and KEY to understanding**The previous verse showed that God declares righteous those who come to Him by faith.*** and that faith must be in Christ and His death for our sins on the cross.

Now, though, he shows God's attitude to those who don't come to Him by faith in Christ.

Instead of God's righteousness, it is His wrath—God's righteous anger and judgment—that is revealed against sin.

WRATH! Not love and compassion but WRATH!

Why must be asked at this point.

Because God's wrath comes from heaven, from His essential nature and existence, not some created thing or place. God is angry against human ungodliness and unrighteousness and SIN. Human beings, apart from God, use their lack of righteousness, their sinfulness, to suppress or hold back the truth about who God is.

Unrighteous people—which includes all of us by nature—don't want to know what is true about God, and they don't want others to know or believe that, either. This verse is extremely important for understanding why some people seem so resistant to belief.

In short, why do people not believe in God?????: .......they don't believe because they don't want to.

The problem is not that truth is unavailable; the problem is that truth is being suppressed.
 
Romans 1:19............
"Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them."

Verse 18 tells us that there is a continuous REVELATION of the wrath of God in both Old and New Test. It is revealed in our contemporary society. This is God's constant and insistant displeasure with evil. God never changes but He is merciful, not because He is lenient with the sinner, but because Christ died for the sinner.

The gospel did not change the mind of God toward sin. The gospel has made it possible to accept the sinner!!!!

The sinner must have either the righteousness of Christ or the wrath of God and both are revealed from heaven.

Now if you want to know how bad SIN is, take a look at the VENERAL sins all around you. Consider HIV, and AIDS along with all the others.
Whether we choose to agree or not, those things are the Judgment of God on sin!

Now, NO ONE has to agree with what I say. In fact I suggest that you read the words in the Bible.
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness in men"(vs 18).

The previous verse began with what should be a frightening statement. Paul said that God is angry at human sinfulness. In fact, God's wrath is revealed against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of humanity, a terrifying idea since God is all-powerful.
Human beings who are not righteous before God do not want to know the truth about Him, so they suppress it, holding it back from themselves and others (Romans 1:18).

Now Paul shows that such an attempt to avoid knowing about God is useless. Human beings cannot claim to have missed what God has revealed about Himself in nature. The "them" referenced here are those people who suppress the truth in order to disobey God.
This verse says, in no uncertain terms, that God has made Himself plain to those who deny Him, or who disobey Him. Their disobedience is not a result of ignorance; it's caused by rebellion.

The following verses will give more details on what God has revealed to everyone through His creation as we go through them.

This verse says that there is an original revelation from God!

Remember, we are looking for the answer to the question...."Will those who have never heard the gospel go to hell"?
 
Major said:
Now WHY would he say..............."I AM not ashamed of the gospel of Christ"????????
Click to expand...
Doesn't Paul answer that with...?

Romans 1:16 KJV
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
 
Romans 1:20..............
"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:"

Here is the answer to the question psed on where do the people who have never heard the gospel spend eternity.

The universe that they live in convicts them of a Creator! The universe tells us TWO things about God......
1. His Person.
2. His Power.
Those attributes can clearly be seen from the moment of Creation. Then the fact that the lost man, the man who has never heard the gospel "ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE"!

In other words, that man on a deserted island can not stand before God and say at Judgement - "I did not know"!
We have all heard it said..........It doesn’t seem fair to condemn those to hell who have never heard the gospel.

The answer is that no human is innocent for we have all sinned and fallen short of God‘s glory and standard of holiness (Rom 3:23).
We are born into sin (Psalm 51:5).

That means that A person doesn’t go to hell because they haven’t heard the gospel – they are judged because they have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God because there is not one human that is righteous (Rom 3:10) and the wages of sin are death (Rom 6:23).


There is actually evidence of a Creator in the creation itself. The Psalmist declares in Psalms 19:1-4 that......
“The heavens declare the glory of God; skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun”.

Paul declares the very same thing in Romans 1:18-23 which is that creation itself displays the Creator, therefore ALL men are without an excuse! My dear friends------this section of the Word of God reveals the actual historical BASIS of man's sin. It did not come about through ignorance. It was willful rebellion in the presence of clear light and truth.

The question is not why God would not save those who have never heard they gospel, for we see that they really have no excuse (Romans 1:20), but that God would save anyone!

There is not one of us that deserve to have eternal life because there is not even one person who has ever lived that was sinless (Rom 3:10, Rom 3:12, Psalm 14:3, Psalm 53:3). The only sinless person that has ever lived was both Man and God – Jesus Christ. He paid a debt that He did not owe for a debt that we could not pay in a million lifetimes.

Our sins will be paid for one way or another. Either we will bear our own sin punishment in the utter darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt 8:12, 22:13) or we will believe in the atonement that Jesus Christ paid-in-full for us (John 3:16).

Imagine a man jumping out of a plane without a parachute. The parachute was IN THE PLANE!
It is not because he didn’t have the parachute that he will die, but the law of gravity and the landing. If the parachute in the plane is Jesus Christ, we must by all means tell others about putting on the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 13:14, Eph 4:24, Col 3:5-14) for there is no other way that men must be saved (Acts 4:12).

According to the previous verses, those who are unrighteous before God do not want to know about Him, so they try to suppress the truth about God. To some extent, this is true of all human beings, since we all sin (Romans 3:23). Paul has shown that God has plainly shown what is knowable about Him to everyone (Romans 1:18–19). How has He done that? This verse answers that it is obvious from what He has made.

Specifically, Paul asserts that human beings can easily know at least some things about God by looking at creation.
We should look at what is visible around us in nature, what God has made, and arrive at some obvious conclusions about what is not visible. Adding one and one together, we should understand from nature that God has eternal power and a divine nature.

After all, Paul seems to be saying, what kind of power would it take to make the world and all that is in it? Such a feat would require "eternal power," or endless and inexhaustible power. Such a Creator must also be divine and not merely human. He must be God, in other words. Human beings should look at creation and decide there must be a God who made it, a God we must answer to on some level.

Especially in our era, some might argue that reaching such a conclusion by looking at nature is not a given. After all, the prevailing alternative theories about the origins of our universe may lead someone to decide that just the opposite is true: There is no God. God does not accept that argument. This passage is especially important when viewed in context with Jesus' comments in Matthew 7:7–8. God gives every single person enough knowledge that they should seek Him. Those who respond by seeking God will always find Him.

If human beings do not "work out" the basic nature of God from what is seen in creation, and seek Him from there, they are simply "without excuse." They are willfully ignoring the obvious. God insists that He has made it plain to human reasoning and that to decide otherwise is to suppress the truth we know by nature.
 
Romans 1:21..........
"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened."

If you will recall, this section began with Paul's declaration that God's wrath is revealed against human unrighteousness. In particular, this wrath comes because God has made Himself plain enough to mankind that nobody has an excuse for ignoring Him. We may choose not to seek Him, but we cannot pretend that we did not have enough evidence (Romans 1:18–20). The rest of the section will explain why that is and what God is prepared to do about it.

"Why" humanity is able to deny a God who is so obvious starts with the fact that human beings refuse to see who God is.
We make a willful choice to ignore His hallmarks in the creation that surrounds us every day. In other words, we reject Him first as Creator. From that position, there is no where to go but down!

There is NO such thing as man moving upwards!!!! We are not getting better and better!

This Scripture in front of you contradict the theory of evolution. Man, is not improving physically, morally, intellectually or spiritually.
We are moving DOWN not UP!

Now I am aware that this flies in the face of intellectuals and anthropology. Man is moving AWAY from God at a scary pace and I would say that the world may be farther away from God than at any time in history outside of Genesis 6.

Now we see that rejecting God as creator leads to a refusal to honor or give thanks to God. After all, why honor a God who did not make the world? And if God is not the creator, why would we assume that He is the provider of all we need? Why give thanks to God for what we believe we have developed and acquired for ourselves?

If we do not understand God as the creator and provider who must be worshiped, we cannot arrive at a right understanding of how the universe works. Our thinking about everything is futile, worthless from the square one. Futile thinking leads to wrong conclusions and, eventually, to darkened hearts. Everything we end up believing is based on wrong assumptions about the universe and our place in it.

For example, many will decide that a universe which God did not create and does not sustain is without meaning or purpose.
That conclusion often leads to hopelessness and nihilism: the belief that life is meaningless and it just may be one of the reasons why the suicide rate is so high.
 
Romans 1:22.........
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,".

In Psalms 14:1, David wrote that the fool says in his heart, "There is no God".

The wisdom of man is foolishness with God.!!!!
MAN searches for truth through logical reasoning but arrives at a philosophy that is foolish in God's sight!

Paul writes here that fools often have something in common: They believe themselves to be wise.
This often-cited verse carries profound implications for how we, as human beings, understand our relationship to God.

Paul is describing the downward spiral, falling further away from God, through which humanity naturally descends into unrighteousness. This is true of all of us by nature. It begins with rejecting what we ought to know about God through creation. Having rejected the idea of God as creator, why would we honor Him or give Him thanks? Having rejected Him as provider and the One who must be worshiped, how could we arrive at any right understanding of the universe?

When you start from false assumptions, you all but guarantee false conclusions.

Trying to live as if God is not the sovereign Creator can only lead to disaster. That starts with the way we think and reason. In an attempt to dismiss God, or to explain away all He has shown of Himself, we go to great lengths twisting our minds and our arguments. As a result, while we think of ourselves as "wise," we're really just becoming more and more foolish.

At this point on the downward spiral, or the ladder of unrighteousness, human beings can't even think correctly, and have grown dark in our hearts toward God. It gets worse from there.
 
Romans 1:23.............
"And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things."

IDOLATRY!

If you just look around you can clearly see that the un-saved world have made God out to be cartoon!

Consider the images and IDOLS of the heathern.
The Romans worshiped the SUN and the MOON!
The Greeks worshipped man-gods and myths.
The children of Israel worshipped a Golden calf.
The Egyptians worshiped alligators.
The Babylonians worshipped Eagles.

Paul is describing how humanity becomes so desperately unrighteous and earns God's wrath against our sinfulness. So far, he has shown that in spite of the fact that God has made some things about Himself obvious in what He has made in creation, unrighteous human beings refuses to see Him there. Having rejected Him as creator, why would we honor Him? What would we give Him thanks for providing for us through His creation? We wouldn't.

Of course, this leaves us to ponder the universe as if there is no God. That leads us to all kind of worthless conclusions. Our thinking becomes futile, and our hearts becomes dark. Even worse, in the midst of our foolishness, we think we possess great wisdom. Our view of the world is upside down and we wind up convinced that there are other people on planets so far away that they can never be reached.

The next step down on this ladder of unrighteousness is that we begin to worship the creation instead of the Creator.
Isn't that exactly what the "Enviromental Movement" is today??????? Isn't that why we hug trees and kiss frogs????
We refuse to give God credit and instead we honor created things. That's not right. As Paul describes this idol worship, we trade the glory of the immortal God for images that look like mortal people and animals.

In other words, God has revealed Himself by what He has made as a glorious and eternal being. We should see this in the beauty of creation (Psalm 19:1). How could He who made that not be a glorious being Himself? Look at how long creation has gone on and on beyond the lifespan of men. How could He who made that not have an existence longer than everything that exists?

Humanity, however, having rejected the creator God, creates our own, lesser versions of the mortal things He has made, and we worship those. We worship our pale version of the creation instead of the creator of it all.

I hope that as you read this you are being made aware of our condition today as a society!!!!!
 
Romans 1:24...........
"Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:"
Mans degeneration is measured by his perversion of sex.

It is funny to me that we as Christians never want to talk about sex when the idea was one of the 1st commands that God gave to man.

While many churches in our day are espousing sex perversion instead of condemning it, God just said that He has given them up.
Today......the churches in America are advertising that YOU as a member of the LBGQTXAT (?) came come worship.

Now please understand that I am NOT breaking forum rules!!!! This is what we read in the BIBLE!

I would say that you would be welcome in my church as well...........BUT to stay you must change your behavior!

Folks, you may not like this but it is Bible fact.........There is NO such thing as a homosexual Christian!

1 Corth. 6:9-10 in the Word of God decalres.....
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God”.

"God gave them up" = Literally means, Handed them over!

Now Paul describes God's response. This, interestingly, involves God "stepping away," in a sense. In His great anger, God gives humanity over to our animal urges. The idea seems to be this: If we are willing to worship images of animals, God will allow us to live like animals in our relationships with each other.

This particularly applies to issues such as sex, but the deeper meaning applies to all of our behaviors. God's design for sex is between a man and woman in marriage, established even before sin entered the world. It is a great and beautiful gift. In response to human idolatry, God specifically gives humanity over to the full indulgence in the corruption of this gift.

This may not sound like much of a punishment, at first, but On closer inspection, though, we should consider the amount of human misery resulting from unchecked expression of human sexual desire, in all of its corrupted forms. The consequences of God stepping aside and letting us reap the natural results of our own foolish choices with respect to sex, is impossible to overstate.
 
Romans 1:25......
"Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

The suggestion is that they turned from God to Satan, who is the author of the lie and the father of idolatry. This is then the idolatry which led to the lowest depths of moral depravity and degradation.
 
Romans 1:26...........
"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:"

When "God gave them up"........He stopped restraining the human impulse to control our sexual desires. To our modern ears, in our confused thinking, that almost sounds like a good thing.

The result, though, is untold amounts of misery as we have expressed our unchecked sexual desire in all its forms both with and against one another for generation after generation. We may not connect the pain with those actions, but God seems to do so. He seems to view allowing us to fully indulge in our sinful desires as a consequence unto itself.

And why did He do it?

Paul writes that it was God's direct response to two things.
#1. Unrighteous, pagan humanity traded the truth of God for a lie.
Paul is saying we traded the truth that God is the creator for the lie that all of creation arrived in some other way.

#2. We began worshiping and serving the creatures God made instead of the One who made them all.
God takes idol worship personally. The first two of his Ten Commandments to Israel are that they should have no other gods before him and not worship or serve any image of any created thing (Exodus 20:3-6).

Paul, apparently wanting to distance himself even from the idea of setting God aside to worship nature, concludes this sentence by saying that the Creator is blessed forever!

Like anything else, there is a God-honoring time and place for sexual expression (1 Timothy 4:4; 1 Corinthians 7:4–5). Sexual desire and activity—within their intended use—continue to be God's gift in this way. What Paul is describing is the unchecked corruption of this beautiful gift.

Now Paul describes God giving humanity up to sexual desire and activity of another kind: female homosexuality.
The result, as Paul describes it, is that women trade natural male/female sexual relationships for ones that are contrary to nature as God designed it.

Again, Paul pictures this as an expression of God's wrath against unrighteous humanity. This is in direct response to two things mentioned in the previous verse: Rejecting the truth that God is creator and worshiping His creation, instead. God's release of humanity from sexual restraint came in response to our worship of the false gods of creation and not Him as the maker.
 
Romans 1:27.........
"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."

********************************NOTICE*******************************
I am NOT breaking the forum rules by attacking or discussing Homosexuality behavior.

I am teaching and talking about the WORD OF GOD that is posted for all to read. It cannot be ignored or hidden behind a rule.

What applies to the women also applies to the men, just as is recorded! These are passions of dishonor and disgrace and depravity, reguardless of what the public or society says. We can either deal with it or we can ignore it in the hopes that it will just go away.

Unchecked = "Given up by God", we as the human race, have fully indulged our lusts by dishonoring our bodies together. This applies to all forms of sex outside of marriages between men and women.

God has also given us up to homosexual passions, leading women to have sexual relationships with other women (Romans 1:26) and, now, men to have sexual relationships with other men. This "giving over" by God resulted in men being consumed with passion for other men and indulging that passion without shame.

Paul adds a note that, in the case of male homosexuality, men have received some kind of penalty for their actions "in themselves."

It's not clear what this means. What is clear is that even though God has given humanity up to these desires and sexual actions of all kinds, He still holds us responsible for our choices to indulge in the corruption of sex as it was intended for us by Him. That, too, is part of the expression of His wrath. In large part, the consequences of those actions are natural—they are the expected result of such an unnatural practice.

As normalized as sexual sin is in our culture, it seems to have been even more normalized in Paul's day. It was built into the worship of all kinds of pagan gods and idols. Paul has not written Romans to condemn sinners as irrevocably lost—otherwise, all of us would be lost (Romans 3:23)! He has written to present the joyful gospel message that all can be forgiven and redeemed through faith in Christ, no matter our sinful choices, past and present (1 Corinthians 6:9–11).
 
Romans 1:28............
"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;”.

Listen my friends.........you can not be a child of God and "live" in perversion and sin.

NO one can claim to be a born again Christian and read Playboy on Saturday night and go to church on Sunday morning!
 
The next THREE verses list a frightful brood of SINS which follow man's rebellion against God.

Romans 1:29-31.........
"Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful".

Would YOU agree that from YOUR perspective, is that what you see the human family doing today???????

Now, how much longer do YOU think God will tolerate what HE sees us doing. If YOU were God, how much longer would YOU put up with it?

Those who twist their minds in order to ignore that evidence simply become more and more foolish (Romans 1:21–22). This leads to general idolatry (Romans 1:23), and then to God's wrath.

What a terrible list Paul presents. Do YOU see that most of these sins are CAUSE and EFFECT???? Cause and Effect = CONSEQUENCES for choices!

God steps aside, and allows us to "have it our way," resulting in pain and suffering. Humanity's general attempt to ignore God results in all kinds of sin, which brings all the misery that God warned us about.

By nature (Romans 3:23), human beings are slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, and disobedient to parents.

May I say at this point that those, as Humans, who reject God become filled with all kinds of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, and malice. Our desire to do wrong to get what we want rages unchecked. WHY???? Because GOD GAVE US UP TO OUR OWN DESIRES!

So, by our nature which is sin.........We are fully willing to hurt others to get what we want, leading us to be full of envy, murder, strife, deceitfulness, and maliciousness. We also gossip freely, an action the Bible always holds as a great evil.

Does this mean that every non-Christian person habitually does each and every one of these things? Clearly not.
However, humanity as a whole is certainly guilty of all of these things and much more, because of the sin that is in each of us individually.

Interestingly, and horribly, I have to say that many Christians are guilty of these actions! YES....I know....."Not me Preacher".
My neighbor is but not me!!!

One interesting thing about this list is that it seems to combine what we often categorize as "little sins" along with "big sins."
Paul's point is that all of them are evidence of a refusal to acknowledge God. Our sinful desires, actions, and consequences reflect our unrighteousness before God. It's no wonder that He has turned us over to experiencing all the consequences of living apart from Him. He punishes us by giving us what we think we want.

The question Paul will answer is this: Is there a way out of our part in all of this unrighteousness and back to God?
THAT is the PURPOSE of Paul's book!
 
Romans 1:32.........
"Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."

Man has a revelation from God, but he flagrantly flaunts it by defying the judgment of God against such sins. He continues to practice them and applauds and approves those who do the same thing.

Here, in this verse, Paul circles back to the idea that mankind does not do these things in total ignorance. He declares again that human beings, by nature, know these things are wrong.

This is Paul's short-hand condemnation of the sinful nature of mankind. However, looking at how Paul continues this discussion in the next verse (Romans 2:1), what he is really saying is "this is us."

Paul's readers may have been tempted to think, "this is just about unbelievers, not us."

Those religious Jews who followed the law, as Paul had once done himself, often thought of everyone else as belonging in the picture of sinful living that Paul has painted in Romans 1:18–31. In the following chapter, however, Paul will reveal that he has, in fact, been describing all of us—even those who attempt to live under the authority of the law of Moses.

It's not that we all do each of the sins listed by Paul in the previous verses. It's that the same root of sin rules in the hearts of each of us, expressing itself in some of these ways, if not others. Paul intends for us to find ourselves in his list of sinful words, actions, and lifestyles. We are all sinful, and we all deserve death. Romans 3:23 applies to all men!
 
Romans 2:1...............
"Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things."

Paul is NOT talking about salvation here! He is talking about and focused on SIN!. SIN is the basis on which God will judge all men.

These principles of judgment are NOT the basis for salvation, however they are the basis for judgment.

"O man" is a generic term meaning HUMANITY! ALL MEN/WOMEN.

Now a question..........What should YOUR attitude as a Christian toward this awful, horrible group that Paul just identified in chapter #1 be?

May I say to you that it must be one of LOVE and compassion in that we want them to be saved, BORN AGAIN and become a new creature in Christ. We should want to get the gospel out to them. Fannie Crosby said it best in the hymn she wrote.........
"Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, snatch them in pity from sin and the grave ; Weep over the erring ones, lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save"!

I get the impression from some people that heaven is going to be a better place when they get there. Have YOU noticed those types.??

However, the earth where they have been living is not a better place since they have been here!!!

What I am saying is simply that many try to deny God the same privilege they have of sitting in judgment of others. Well......God is going to judge YOU and ME and He is not going to judge us by our standards. He will do it by the standards of the perfect Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ who knew NO SIN!

Does that begin to move you? It should because I can tell you right now that YOU and I do not come up to God's standards.

Now in verse #2Paul puts down the principles by which God will judge the "refined and cultured" sinner.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top