The Unchanging Truth

Announcer: Welcome to the Unchanging Truth, the verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Jerod Gilcher, lead pastor of Christ Community Bible Church in Arlington, Texas. Through the living and active word of God, the Unchanging Truth exists to encourage your soul, transform your life, and help you trust and treasure Christ as redeemer, savior, and king. Now, opening the scriptures and proclaiming the truth that never changes, here is Dr. Jerod Gilcher.

Dr. Jerod Gilcher: You know that things are bad when even non-Christians agree with us. You know things are bad when even non-Christians agree with us. What I mean is, there's a growing number of philosophers, thinkers, authors, cultural analysts, and even politicians who see and are deeply concerned that the chaos, the violence, and the destruction that we see in our society is precisely because God has been rejected.

They say that. We say that, and they agree with us. Let's be clear about this: we don't need their agreement. We don't need their approval. We're not on their team. They still need the Lord. They still need to be born again. We disagree with much of what they say, but I find it incredible that people still blinded by sin and in need to be born again can clearly see that without God at the center holding things together, nations and cultures come unraveled and go insane. That's interesting, isn't it?

For instance, there's a philosopher named Philip Rieff, not a believer. He has a powerful work on how cultures fall apart, and it begins, get this, he says it begins with the loss of the sacred and the transcendent. He means God. God is the sacred and the transcendent. Without God at the center of reality, you have no root for moral imperatives. In other words, without God, morals are meaningless, which is true. When God becomes an unnecessary hypothesis, a culture comes unhinged. Man becomes the center, truth is what you feel, meaning is subjective, and what does that unleash but absolute moral insanity?

Another work, not a believer, a man named Douglas Murray wrote a fantastic book called *The Madness of Crowds*. He issues this warning: "People as a whole no longer interpret the Bible through creation, the Bible, the Trinity, Christianity, or the morals of the Bible, but instead through social justice, identity politics, and intersectionality." He's right. The problem, he says, with a culture void of absolute truth is that the basis for what is true and good and right is now decided by who has the loudest voice and who has the biggest guns. Do you see? You understand if there is no God, there are no people in the image of God.

If people aren't in the image of God, then human life doesn't matter. If there is no God, then there is nothing beyond this world. If there is no God, then people are not accountable for the actions that they do, and the result of that is absolute catastrophic moral destruction. Or in the words of one writer, "The death of God guarantees our freedom but it also ensures our meaninglessness." That's exactly what we see in Romans chapter 1, which by the way is the most penetrating cultural exposé on what's wrong with human beings and what it is they need the most.

In this chapter, Paul reveals not just the sinfulness of man or the evils of humanity, but rather he reveals the stages in which cultures and people plunge themselves into ruin and destruction. The text is clear that there are four stages, or better revolutions, in which people and cultures go insane and come unraveled. Four stages, four revolutions. Last week, we saw that it all begins with a theological revolution. God is traded for idols.

Which then leads to a sexual revolution, because when God is gone, you do what you please. Which then moves to a homosexual revolution, which is where people are willing to go in their rejection of God. But the last and the worst is a cultural revolution, when everything in the culture is upside down. When good is evil and evil is good, and people pursue their rejection of God to the furthest logical implication. That is how a culture comes unraveled. I really believe, on the basis of the text, that we have entered into stage four. We are in the middle right now of a stage four culture war headed towards oblivion.

A people under judgment, a nation under wrath, just like the people at the flood, just like Sodom and Gomorrah, just like at the Tower of Babel, just like the book of Judges. Exactly like that. That is where we are. And yet what's so astonishing, what many people forget and what our non-Christian friends do not realize, is that the chaos and madness we see today is nothing less than the wrath of God himself. That's important. What you see when you look out into the world is the wrath and the anger and the judgment of God. The world is not falling apart. God is tearing it apart in the fury of his wrath.

What that means for us is that training day is over and the game, as it were, has begun. The war has begun. We've had it so easy for so long in this Disneyland of Christianity that we forget that church is not about our comfort or our programs or catering to our preferences, but preparing us for the mission of war. We're here not to retreat from the world but to reach the world. Not to escape from the world but to engage the world. We've been waiting for this moment our entire lives and now it's here. This is what we've been training for our entire lives and now it's here.

Just like Mordecai said to Esther, we are Christians for such a time as this. So here we go. From our text, I want you to see four revolutions that reveal the wrath of God and display the urgent need for the gospel. Revolution number one is a theological revolution because this is where it all begins. Not with a mere little shift in one's view of God, but a rejection and denial of God altogether. This revolution comes in two parts. First is the wrath of God revealed, and then second is the guilt of man displayed.

Let's look at part one, which we saw last week. Paul says, "For the wrath, or the anger, of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." There it is. God is angry. He's not just angry, but his anger is revealed from heaven, meaning you can see it. It is visible. It is out there. It is displayed. It is public. Notice the anger of God is against the human race who suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. Meaning they hide the truth. They bury the truth. They pretend it isn't real by adding more and more sin to silence the siren that screams in the soul.

The truth about what? The truth about who? The truth about God. Verse 19: "For that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them." Which means very simply and very bluntly: the atheist does not exist. God does not believe in them. Why? Because in the soul of every man, even if buried under an ocean of lies and sin to try to suppress the truth, way deep down in the caverns of the soul is the inescapable witness that God is real. You don't have to prove to anyone that God exists. They already believe that he does.

How do they know of him? It is through the witness of creation. Verse 20: "For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, both his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen so that they are without excuse." You look at the world, you look at the cosmos and the endless stretches of space, and the only explanation is: there is a God and he made this. In fact, so clear, so strong, so persuasive is this evidence of God in creation that Paul says at the end of verse 20: "men are without excuse" to worship this God, to give thanks to him, to cry out to him, to find out who he is, to find out what he wants, how we may serve him, how we may honor him, how we may exalt him, how we may love him with every ounce of passion in our souls.

That is exactly Paul's point. Man doesn't do that. In fact, man does the opposite of that and God is angry. That's review, which brings us to part two: the guilt of man displayed. Here is the theological revolution. "For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but literally were made futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God with the likeness of the image of corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures." There is the revolution.

Notice in verse 21, Paul begins with the word "for" or "because," which means verse 21 explains. Paul just said that all men suppress the truth, and here Paul explains exactly what suppression of the truth looks like. What does it look like? Here it is: "For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks." That is the suppression of the truth. Every person knows that God is real and they refuse to give him thanks or glory.

When you stand back and look at the text as a whole, did you happen to notice the terms of cognition that Paul uses? Mental awareness. Verse 19: "that which is known about God." Verse 20: God is "clearly seen." Verse 20: God is "understood." And here: "all people know God." They know him. Not in a saving way, but they do know that he is real. You understand in the conscience and in creation is a true perception of God that cannot be denied, and yet the denial of God is exactly what they did. It's exactly what we did. This isn't just some people. This isn't just the weirdos on the fringe. This is every single person without exception. Romans 3:11: "There is no one who seeks for God. All have turned aside. There is no one who does good, not even one."

Look at the key word there in verse 21: "although." Although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks. That right there, you have to understand this, not giving God glory or thanks, that is the biggest scandal in the universe. It is. You hear the outrage of that, right? That is the greatest evil that can be committed by a human being. Why? Because God is the greatest treasure in the universe. He is lofty and exalted and matchless and supreme. It is the classic question of the Westminster Confession of Faith: "What is the chief end of man? Why do we exist?" Answer: "To glorify God and enjoy him forever."

To not do that is to simply say that God is not God. That God is not worthy. That God is common, boring, mundane, trivial. That there is something out there greater than God that deserves my worship and allegiance. There is no crime more wicked than not giving God glory or thanks. Heaven almost breaks apart at the seams every single day because of the praise of the angels and the saints given to God for his glory. And yet here on earth, men shake their fist at God in rage and ugly defiance, and that is why God is angry with the sons of men. For that.

It's just incredible to think, isn't it? That we too once were part of that revolution. That we too once sang in the global chorus that sang the praises of idols. That we were once part of the resistance that opposed the glory of God and giving thanks to his name. But you know what happened. Thanks alone to sovereign grace, our eyes were opened to the truth. No thanks to us. No credit to us. But this God of eternal power and divine nature, who became flesh and dwelt among us, is worthy of glory and eternal thanksgiving. By grace, we fled into the arms of his son, and now what are we but heralds of his grace and light in the darkness?

Yet the horror has only begun here. Paul reveals something haunting in the text about the nature of sin and depravity. Verse 21: "Although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but here it is: they were made futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened." Do you see it? The two effects of rejecting God: they became futile in their speculations, and number two: their foolish heart was darkened. What does that mean? That man became futile in his speculations? All you have to do is walk through the religion section at Barnes and Noble and you know exactly what it means.

Then you wander over to the philosophy section, then you meander over to the self-help section, then the psychology section, then the sociology section, the new age and alternative beliefs, the women's studies, and queer studies, and you wander by the section on astrology, and you know exactly what Paul means. It means sinful man apart from God doesn't have a clue. You lose God, you lose the gravitational center of what makes everything make sense. All things only find their deepest meaning and significance in relation to God. When he is gone, the planets of our lives fly into chaos and confusion. Nothing makes sense. You cut the rope to the anchor of God, you drift away in an ocean of confusion and speculation. No wonder Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 9:3: "The heart of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives and afterwards they go to the dead." That's a cheery verse.

He's right, but there's a second effect of rejecting God. Paul says, "their foolish heart was darkened." Our foolish heart was darkened and we didn't know. I hope you see the implication. The heart, if you look carefully at the text, the heart was already foolish. It was already in a state of folly, but the conscious rejection of God brought the foolish heart deeper into darkness. Do you see? Darkness means no light. Light is a metaphor for truth, which means when God is gone, the only guide you have to decide what's right and true and beautiful is a foolish heart void of the truth. Truth is subjective. Discernment is gone. Truth is what you feel. The culture as a whole plummets into madness.

I think more than ever, you and I see the madness, don't we? We see the madness. Pride Month, pronoun insanity, the drag queen craze, transgender obsession, wokeness, CRT, civil unrest, the targeting of children, anarchy, chaos, abortion, and like a thousand other things are nothing less than futile speculations and hearts submerged in spiritual darkness. That is it. Yet it's worse than that. It's even worse than that because it would be one thing if you had a culture saying, "We don't know what to do. We can't figure it out." But you don't have that. Instead, look at verse 22. These people, futile in mind and darkened in heart, Paul says, they profess to be wise, but literally they were made fools.

They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God with the likeness of the image of corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. There it is in verse 22: they were fools. We were fools, beloved. And yet we thought we were so wise, didn't we? That's what unbelievers do. That's what we did. We thought we were wise and clever and brilliant and insightful. That's really easy to do when you build a fake reality, right? When you build an alternative world where everything is rigged to your advantage, like making a fake Hollywood set. They make a fake reality in which they make the rules, they ask the questions, they give the answers, they decide what's right, they decide what's true, they decide what reality is, and every time they hit the bullseye. They win every argument every time. They refute all of our objections every time, or so they think they do in their delusion.

They profess to be wise but they became fools, and they literally became morons. *Emoranteson* is the Greek word from which we get our word "moron." Because without a sovereign God at the center of reality, you can only be moronic. You can only be a fool. Here's the thing: we totally get it because we were there. We lived that. We were that. Until gospel light pierced into the darkness, we too were morons living in a dream world. We were deluded and deranged, slaves to sin, suppressing the truth under the wrath of God. The only reason why we're not there now is because someone loved us enough to intervene. Not just Christ, but someone he sent with the preaching of the gospel.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. His eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed the king. But until that happened, we were empty and futile and foolish and obsessed with the idols that had captured our affections. Look at verse 23: here is the revolution, beloved. Professing to be wise, they were made fools. Here it is: "And they exchanged, they exchanged, they traded the glory of the incorruptible God with the likeness of an image of corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures and all the animals on Old MacDonald's farm." That is the theological revolution: trading God for idols. This, beloved, is where it all begins. When a culture comes unraveled and sinks into madness, it all began way, way, way back here with the theological revolution and the rejection of God.

Announcer: Thanks for joining us for the Unchanging Truth, the verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Jerod Gilcher and Christ Community Bible Church in Arlington, Texas. At Christ Community Bible Church, we exist to prize, portray, and proclaim the supremacy of Christ as we trust in his word and wait for his return. We hope today's teaching has encouraged your soul and helped you trust and treasure Christ as your redeemer, savior, and king. If you're in the DFW area and looking for a church home, join us for worship Sunday mornings at 10:30. To learn more about the mission of the church, meet the pastoral staff, or plan a visit, go to ccbiblechurch.com. You'll find ministry services and additional teachings there as well. Just click on the resources tab to get started. That's ccbiblechurch.com. Join us again next time as we open the scriptures together and proclaim the truth that never changes. This has been the Unchanging Truth.