Romans 1:19 ¶ Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 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: 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. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 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. 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 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. 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: 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. 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; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 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.
Here is the religious history of mankind, what is important, not
the endless wars, kings, queens, and dynasties, building projects, art, and
literature that interests us. This is what concerns God.
God is
revealed in creation, even without a Bible.
Psalm
19:1 «To the chief Musician, A Psalm of
David.» The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his
handywork.
In today’s world of non-scientific science theory there are many
seemingly intelligent people who live in a world of delusion. They will see;
In
Genesis 1:3 God calls light into being.
Regarding
light, scientists presume the existence of the basic particle of light, a
photon. The universe is bathed in that light. For every estimated proton around
the nucleus of an atom they say there are a billion photons.[1]
Of course, photons might not even exist except as theoretical entities to
explain things that can be seen by mathematical constructs. But, even guessing
at this, they deny the truth of what the Bible already said.
In
fact, God’s existence is verifiable, among other ways, by logic alone. Here are
some comments I made previously.
“There are things outside of our personal experience
with God, a personal experience that no unbeliever can understand or accept
unless God Himself touches their hearts.
Let’s take something as complex as life. The
astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle was born in Yorkshire, England on June 24, 1915. He
was conferred a master's degree from Cambridge in 1939 and then was elected
Fellow, St. John's College, Cambridge in the same year. He worked his way to
become a Professor of Astrophysics and Natural Philosophy in 1958. He was a
leading contributor in the discovery of how the elements from lithium to iron
are synthesized inside stars.
Professor
N. Chandra Wickramasinghe was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on January 20, 1939,
studied astrophysics at Cambridge, and was a student of Hoyle's. He received a
Ph.D. in 1963 taught at Cambridge. He later became a Professor of Applied
Mathematics and Astronomy at the University College, Cardiff, Wales. He is an
expert in the use of infrared astronomy to study interstellar matter.
These
are no lightweights although Wickramasinghe has gone a little bonkers in the
last few years. But, they both came to the logical atheist conclusion that life
came from outer space. Why? Because it was impossible
for it to have happened by random chance on earth, not in 15 billion years or a
hundred billion years. Let me read you a quote published recently by Dr. Wick…
‘Improbability of Life
The blueprint for all life
from bacteria to plants to animals was discovered in the 1950s by Watson and
Crick to reside in DNA – in particular in the precise arrangements of the
nucleotides A,G,T,C that effectively code for proteins that in turn control
cell function. In a series of books and articles published in collaboration
with the late Sir Fred Hoyle, I have argued that highly specific arrangements
needed for the operation of living cells cannot be understood as arising from
random processes. For the simplest bacterium (Mycoplasma genitalium) the
probability that its few hundred genes will be discovered by random shuffling
of their amino acid components gives a figure of 1 in 10 to the 1000th
power or smaller. Hoyle and I have compared such horrendous improbabilities to
the odds against a ‘tornado blowing through a junk yard leading to
self-assembly of BOEING 707 airplane.’[2]
1 in 10 to the 1000th? These types of
scientists estimate there is only 10 to the 80th power number of
atoms in the universe. Saying that life came about by random processes is like
me saying that I’m getting handsomer, wealthier, and smarter as I get older.
You would just look at me and go, what? I’m joking, right? But, scientists who
believe in spontaneous generation, I mean abiogenesis, or life by accident are
serious.
So, proof that God exists, step one. Life could not
have happened on earth by chance. It’s not mathematically conceivable, not by
any stretch of your Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy, Dr. Who imagination. But, what about it coming from
somewhere else? That’s called panspermia and that’s what Dr. Wick believes in.
Well, NASA scientists Peter D. Ward and Donald
Brownlee, in their book, Rare Earth: Why
Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, explained that it is also highly
unlikely that life came from someplace else as this planet, located where it
is, is the best and most likely place for life to exist and, in fact, probably
could not exist anywhere else.
So, proof that God exists, step two. Life could not
have happened anywhere but on earth. But, it couldn’t happen here by chance.
So, something else, or someone else rather, must be happening.
Who could it be?
You know if they could have proven that life could
have come together by random events on earth like Miller-Urey’s experiment
tried to do and failed in the 1950s it would be astounding. But, you’d have to
have nothing and then have something suddenly come into existence for it to
simulate God without God. After all, Miller-Urey made something happen with the equipment and chemicals they introduced
making themselves in the place of God. But, they did not create life and
established conditions that evolutionists do not believe were present in their
fantasy of early earth anyway. So, it worked as a publicity stunt but was not
good science.
Then, there was Dr. Wimmer in the latter part of the
twentieth century that supposedly made a virus out of synthetic DNA. Now he
admitted in an interview that he did not create life as a virus isn’t alive, it
can’t reproduce itself and needs a host, and he used synthetic DNA.
None of these experiments or any other created life or
proved that it could be created by random processes without an intelligent mind
involved.
So, now you have the gorilla in the living room. You
have something as complex as life and you shouldn’t have it if there were no
one to inject intelligence into it. Life isn’t possible without God.
You have the atheist or the doubter demanding, “How do
you know God exists?” and you have your own testimony, if you have one, and you
have this incontrovertible fact, “Because without God life could not exist.”
You see, we are not just alive. We are aware that we
are alive. Science has a huge problem with conscious self-awareness. Step three
to proving that God exists. I am.
It has been said repeatedly that consciousness is the
window through which we understand. Science has failed to pinpoint the actual
brain processes that are behind our awareness. Some neuroscientists and
philosophers of science express a deep pessimism that we will ever find an
explanation for consciousness. But we know. Every car mechanic or customer
service rep, a farmer or bank teller can know what a neuroscientist does not
know. We know where consciousness comes from, that function of our spirit.
Zechariah 12:1 ¶ The burden
of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the
heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
Scientists say that a good theory, a
theory that must supplant other theories, doesn’t have to answer every
question. But it must answer more questions than its competitors. The belief in
God answers far more questions than theoretical science can even come up with.
God is the greatest of all self-aware
beings.
Exodus 3:14 And God said
unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt
thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
He made us. He formed our bodies, our souls, and our
spirits. In these verses are all three; body, spirit, and soul.
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD
God formed man of the dust of
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living soul.
1Thessalonians 5:23 And the
very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body
be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He uses our spirit to see us from the inside.
Proverbs 20:27 The spirit
of man is the candle
of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.
We are made self-aware and our soul is the seat of our
self-identity and will and our spirit makes us aware of it, of God, and of all
things. It is our understanding, our skills, our drives, our emotions, our
yearnings.
It is sad that the atheist or doubter will question
your testimony as to whether or not you are a credible witness for God’s
existence. That was how I came to Christ, the mechanism He used, the testimony
of others. I vacillated between atheism, happy to believe in any religion at
all, and really, God just being irrelevant to my life or thinking. But, over
time I saw the truth of Christianity in the lives of people around me.
No, it wasn’t because of someone screaming Bible
verses at me on a street corner. It wasn’t from someone handing me a gospel
tract. It was the testimony of Christians, filled with faith and goodness,
relying completely on God for their very survival, trusting in Christ’s
righteousness and not their own for eternal life. Their faith was real, and it
took time but God impressed on me that reality until I accepted it myself and
received Christ on March 19, 1986. It was a Wednesday evening I believe.
The question of whether or not God exists has been a
subject of deep philosophical debate for thousands of years. But, even outside
of our experience we know.
Psalm 19:1 The heavens
declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
The proof of God’s existence is all around us. Without
God’s existence no reality makes sense for very long.
Ask yourself, if there
was no God, then why is there something rather than nothing? Why is something
as complex as life here in this space of earth?
If God doesn’t exist why do I know that I am?
Where did that come from, o’ wise one? How can we have this conversation?
The universe is finely tuned, so finely tuned that
something as rare and fragile as life can live in it. Things like the ratio of
the strength of electromagnetism to the strength of gravity for a pair of
protons, nuclear efficiency of fusion from hydrogen to helium, the density
parameter, the cosmological constant, and a bunch of other intelligent sounding
stuff make many scientists insist that the universe is just so and because of
that you, me, and that little chipmunk you saw on your deck this morning can
exist.
Other scientists invent all sorts of nonsensical
things to counteract this belief. They will resurrect the multidimensions of
the occult of the late 1800s which impacted theoretical physics then and say
there is a multiverse, many universes where things are different and anything
is possible. I might even be handsomer, wealthier, and smarter on one of them,
in their imagination only of course.
But, the universe is fine-tuned. Now, how does
something get tuned? Have you ever seen a radio tune itself? Never mind. In
today’s world I suppose that is possible. But, at some point a person was
involved; an engineer or someone to tune that radio. How do you think the
universe was tuned so close and exact? Who did it? Who maintains it? We all
know that if you leave your car in the driveway without maintaining it for
thirty years the tires will rot and it will become undriveable. The Second Law
of Thermodynamics says that all things fall apart. Oh, and there is this;
Colossians 1:17 And he is
before all things, and by him all things consist.
In a couple of my Sunday School classes I present some
scientific studies that express alarm at the harmful mutations produced in each
generation of people. One of them was entitled, “Contamination of the Genome by
Very Slightly Deleterious Mutations: Why Have We Not Died 100 Times Over?” But,
we’re here, our biology is preserved, life goes on and the planet is not yet
cold and dead.
Again, I say ask yourself, if there was no God, then
why is there something rather than nothing? Why is something as complex as life
here in this space of earth? If God
doesn’t exist why do I know that I am? Why is the universe so finely tuned as
to permit us to exist?
You know, our government has spent millions of dollars
searching for extraterrestrials, life on other planets, even microbial. They
will continue to do so but will probably never find it. The scientific
community has a hunger, a lust, to overthrow God. They are searching for
microbes and water on Mars.
In the Rosetta Mission they recently learned that
water in space can be vastly different than water on earth so they feel
confident in at least admitting that our water didn’t come from comets. Recent
research on earth has shown that water alone will not be the cause of life if
other conditions aren’t right. But, they will keep searching, hoping to be able
to drive the nail in the coffin for belief in the God of the Bible.
There are two other things that scream the truth of
the existence of God. One is the very desperate desire to prove beyond all
doubt that He does not. Let me read you part of the short religious history of
man that God has provided in Romans.
Romans 1:19 ¶ Because that
which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 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: 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. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
And in another context
an ancient warning;
Isaiah 66:4 I also will
choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them;
because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but
they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.
Remember what King
David thought of atheists in about 1000 BC.
Psalm 14:1 « To the
chief Musician, A Psalm of
David. » The fool hath said in his heart,
There is no God. They are
corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Finally, evolutionary
biologists admit an astounding thing. Belief in God, according to some of them,
is hard-wired into the human brain. A neuroscientist and the author of several
books, Andrew Newberg, wrote a book entitled Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. He
is called a neurotheologist, studying how religious belief and prayer affect
the brain.
On page 129 he wrote, ‘…evolution
has adopted this machinery, and has favored the religious capabilities of the
religious brain because religious belief and behaviors turn out to be good for
us in profound and pragmatic ways.’
As evolutionists often
do he refers to evolution as he does in other places with natural selection
almost as a god in itself rather than just a process or a mechanism by which
new species of dog, cat, or deer are produced by environmental stresses or opportunities
or human cross-breeding efforts (There are more than two dozen scientific
definitions of species.) The fact is that all of the genetic information
necessary for a creature to adapt to its environment are present within the
creature’s DNA and no dog ever became a cat and no alligator ever became a
trout. But, Newberg, like other of his ilk, refer to evolution as a sort of
inert god who unfeelingly adopts and favors in the passage I quoted. In a
preceding page he refers to natural selection as not tolerating something. So, it is almost humorous to see how these
kinds of scientists use language, at the least, very interesting.
Susan Mazur, a science
writer and journalist who doesn’t appear to be a fundamental Baptist (said in a
tongue-in-cheek manner), wrote in her book The
Altenberg 16: An Expose’ of the Evolution Industry that, “Evolutionary
science is as much about posturing, salesmanship, stonewalling and bullying as
it is about actual scientific theory.” (v)
In any event, this is
not a sermon about comparative religions so we’ll leave the religion of
evolution alone for now.
So, to summarize, if
you want to look outside of your own experience for proof that God exists I
suggest starting with life. There are many other topics we could talk about that
prove or at least suggest His existence but let’s stick with the ones I’ve
brought up.
One, there is something
rather than nothing and since space dust did not create itself then something
or someone did. Two, life could not have begun here on earth and probably not
on some distant planet by chance. Some intelligent being had to create it.
Three, self-awareness and consciousness imply a reality greater than the
physical universe. Four, we are apparently “hard-wired” to believe in God. It
is part of our make-up.
We believe in God
because He has communed with our spirit so that we can. We experience Him in
our prayer and in the answers to it, the way the Bible speaks to us, in the
truth found in it, the way He molds and changes us by our reading and hearing
it read, by the reality arounds us that is confirmed in the Bible, and by His
miraculous intervention in our lives.’
So, we can throw the modern religion
of atheistic determinism, that there is no God and that everything exists by
random events in the same basket as the ancient idolaters who worshipped gods
of wood and stone.
Daniel
11:38a But in his estate shall he honour
the God of forces…
But,
for verse 23 let’s go back to the beginning of mankind’s history after the
Flood. Man degraded their own vision of God’s glory and began to worship
representations of creating beings.
Genesis 3:6 ¶ And when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and
a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did
eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
There
were things that were pleasant to the eyes to mankind that he grew to worship in
place of God.
Exodus 20:4 Thou shalt not
make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is
in heaven above, or that is in
the earth beneath, or that is
in the water under the earth: 5 Thou
shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of
them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Exodus
32:8 They have turned aside quickly out
of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have
worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O
Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
Numbers 33:52 Then ye
shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy
all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck
down all their high places:
You had gods like the Philistine Dagon,
which some authorities link to the Assyrian art of a merman; half man, half
fish. The Egyptians were known for gods that were manifested by animals,
according to some authorities, like Thoth’s dog-headed baboon, or Isis, Hethor,
or Nut’s cow. The giving of the tablets of the Ten Commandments in Exodus may
be the beginning of the alphabet that we use, the precursor to it. God created the writing that contrasted with
the pictograms of hieroglyphics and cuneiform writing that dominated the
ancient world. From China, Sumeria, and Egypt to the civilizations of the
ancient Americas pictures were used to convey ideas and history and as
representations of things worshipped. The basic units of writing, the letters,
become symbols for ideas rather than pictures representing things to be
worshipped as idols. ‘A’, instead of a symbol for a bull or an ox, is Aleph in
Hebrew and Alpha in Greek, and ‘A’ for modern purposes. A good study for this
is Marc A. Ouaknin’s Mysteries of the
Alphabet. This could be part of God drawing a people out of a world of
idolatrous pictures or creatures to be adored and turning their writing into
ideas to be expressed by symbols.
What came along with this idolatry
was a peculiar form of worship involving sexual acts. Returning to comments I originally
made in Exodus.
“Exodus 32:1 ¶ And when the people saw that Moses delayed to
come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron,
and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for
this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not
what is become of him. 2 And Aaron said
unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your
wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
3 And all the people brake off the
golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto
Aaron. 4 And he received them at
their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten
calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up
out of the land of Egypt. 5 And when
Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation,
and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. 6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and
offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down
to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
These people who have spent so long in Egypt with the worship of heathen
gods want Aaron to make gods for them to worship. That is what they have known
for hundreds of years and they are quick to abandon the singular devotion to
the magnificent God who created them and called them out of Egypt with such
mighty signs. This is a problem for Christians as we are often not willing to
wait for God to do something in our lives and rather quickly began looking
backwards into the things that we leaned on before we came to Christ.
As far as they were concerned, Moses might have died on the
mountain. Aaron is either a creature of public opinion, maybe afraid of the
masses, or he also doubts whether Moses will return. So, he calls for their
earrings.
Earrings had a special significance, which I pointed out in
Genesis. Jewelry played a part in ancient worship. Earrings
were not merely ornamentation for both men and women but were, scholars tell
us, sometimes amulets and charms to protect the openings of the face and head
from entry by evil spirits. They were clearly part of the idol worship of the
ancient world, the spiritual system that developed after the Flood. If you have difficulty seeing that side of
facial jewelry just look at the hundreds of occult earrings on a website like
Etsy.com. Some verses of note regarding men and women wearing earrings and of a
possible link to their occultic practices are;
Genesis
35:4 And they gave unto Jacob all the
strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in
their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.
Judges
8:24 And Gideon said unto them, I would
desire a request of you, that ye would give me every man the earrings of his
prey. (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.) 25 And they answered, We will willingly give
them. And they spread a garment, and did cast therein every man the earrings of
his prey.
In
the passage in Genesis, chapter 35, and here in Exodus we have a very clear
indication that something linked earrings to the spirit world.
Verse 4 is an astounding statement that makes Aaron worthy of
death. Of course, if you think about it, we do very much the same thing when we
say, “good luck!” or, “oh, how lucky you were.” When we, even absent-mindedly,
attribute our good fortune or our trouble to something or someone other than
God we do blaspheme His name and diminish the glory due Him.
Malachi 2:2 If ye will not
hear, and if ye will not lay it
to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will
even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed
them already, because ye do not lay it
to heart.
Aaron made a molten calf. The calf/bull was a commonly worshipped
as a god in the Ancient Near East and in Egypt. While Moses was receiving what
may have been the introduction of the alphabet over pictographic writing the
Hebrews were falling down to worship the object symbolized by the pictographic
rendering of a calf, a young bull. Aleph, the first letter of Hebrew, is
derived from the pictographic representation of the young bull. Alpha, the
Greek letter, was derived from Aleph. With the ‘alpha-bet’ God removed the
pictures that were worshipped to letters that represented thoughts and ideas
only rather than sacred objects representing thoughts and ideas.
This is a return to Egypt in a religious sense. The ensuing nudity
and orgy was in keeping with the sexual aspects of Ancient Near Eastern
religion. See verse 25 in this chapter coming up.
Exodus 32:25 And when Moses saw that the people were
naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)
To explain further, in ancient Greece and Rome orgia was a sacred
word denoting worship in the mystery cults such as that devoted to Dionysus. It
included dancing, singing, and drinking as well as promiscuous sexual behavior.
You cannot underestimate the sexual perversion of ancient religion after the
Flood. The ancient Egyptians practiced every kind of perversion in their
religion.”
In ancient Near Eastern religion the sex act was important to the
worship of heathen gods. Temples were attended by heterosexual and homosexual
prostitutes. Throughout the Bible this was condemned and amazingly this
behavior was brought into God’s temple, making it a house of prostitution like
the pagan world around them.
Deuteronomy 23:17 There
shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.18
Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog,
into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy
God. [dog in this context is slang for a homosexual temple prostitute
or sodomite]
God gave mankind over to this
perversion because of the wickedness of their hearts.
With regard to idolatry please note
the warning Moses gave in Deuteronomy, chapter 4.
Deuteronomy 4:1 ¶ Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you. 2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. 3 Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baalpeor: for all the men that followed Baalpeor, the LORD thy God hath destroyed them from among you. 4 But ye that did cleave unto the LORD your God are alive every one of you this day. 5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. 6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. 7 For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? 8 And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? 9 Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons; 10 Specially the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children. 11 And ye came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness. 12 And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. 13 And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone. 14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it. 15 Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: 16 Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, 18 The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: 19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven. 20 But the LORD hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.
You remember discussing Baalpeor, don’t
you? The entire incident suggested the degradation of the Israelites downward
into the prevalent religious impulses of the day.
See my comments on Numbers, chapter 25;
“Numbers 25:1 ¶ And Israel
abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of
Moab. 2 And they called the people unto
the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their
gods. 3 And Israel joined himself unto
Baalpeor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. 4 And the LORD said unto Moses, Take all the
heads of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the
fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel. 5 And Moses said unto the judges of Israel,
Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor.
The Israelites begin consorting with Moabite women. This also
included the worship of their gods.
Here is what Balaam was able to accomplish against Israel. He
would not curse them. He could not. But he could lay a stumblingblock in their
path to service to God, a sexual stumblingblock as we have already learned
about the sexual content of ancient religion. First, the point at from where
this began would be when Balaam was with Balak who was demanding a curse but
getting a blessing.
Numbers
23:28 And Balak brought Balaam unto the
top of Peor, that looketh toward Jeshimon.
Numbers
31:16 Behold, these caused the children
of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD
in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the
LORD.
Revelation
2:14 But I have a few things against
thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught
Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things
sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
Baalpeor means obviously ‘god of Peor’ or ‘lord of Peor’, a physical
location we have seen in the text. The context indicates the sexual nature of
the worship of this local god which, unfortunately, like all of the
hypersexualized worship of the Canaanites we’ve already looked at was a
stumblingblock to this race of former slaves of Egypt. This is not a case of,
“oh, them local girls sure are pretty,” considering what you and I have learned
about religious customs in Canaan so far. God orders Moses to execute every one
who fell to this very sensual worship of this local Canaanite god.
Once the Israelites began enjoying physical relations with the
Canaanite women spiritual decline was inevitable.
1Kings
11:1 But king Solomon loved many strange
women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites,
Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;
Nehemiah
13:26 Did not Solomon king of Israel sin
by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was
beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even
him did outlandish women cause to sin.
Put it in a modern perspective. You tried to raise your son or
daughter right. You permitted them to go away to school. They announce to you
at some point that they have fallen in love with a local girl or boy where they
are. Marriage follows and then children, hopefully in that order. But you
notice that the children seem to be raised with a different standard than the
one you set for your child. Your grandchildren act very differently than your
child did growing up, usually with less impulse-control and perhaps even acting
a bit disrespectfully. You realize that if your child’s spouse was raised in a
more liberal environment with less order than your child this will be reflected
in your grandchildren’s behavior. We cannot underestimate the power of a child
raised with a lower standard has on even a young person who you think is firm
and solid in their beliefs and standards. It can be very disheartening. While
you raised your child to be respectful of other’s property and a good guest in
someone else’s home your grandchild acts like a Vandal sacking Rome when they
visit. Maybe you notice that the family does not attend church faithfully or
even, in some cases, bear any resemblance to a Christian family.
Numbers
25:6 ¶ And, behold, one of the children
of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight
of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel,
who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
7 And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar,
the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the
congregation, and took a javelin in his hand; 8
And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of
them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague
was stayed from the children of Israel. 9
And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand. 10 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
11 Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son
of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel,
while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children
of Israel in my jealousy. 12 Wherefore
say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: 13 And he shall have it, and his seed after him,
even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous
for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel. 14 Now the name of the Israelite that was slain,
even that was slain with the Midianitish woman, was Zimri, the
son of Salu, a prince of a chief house among the Simeonites. 15 And the name of the Midianitish woman that
was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur; he was head over a
people, and of a chief house in Midian.
After the command given by Moses, Phinehas, Aaron’s grandson,
obeyed and killed both an Israelite and the daughter of a Midianite prince who
were engaged in sexual relations.
Regarding
verse 9 notice this curious verse in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians.
1Corinthians
10:8 Neither let us commit fornication,
as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
Bibles typically say 1Corinthians 10:8 is referring to this
passage in Numbers 25. The Modernist heresy in modern Christians then says, “those
numbers aren’t the same! They should be exactly alike!” But, Paul is not wrong.
The number he mentions is contained in the number given in Numbers. Paul is
writing a letter and we have seen approximations before, conversational
illustrations referring or alluding to the Old Testament writings. He does not
have to be reading from the Scriptures when he writes this from memory as part
of his argument. However, some commentators get around this by saying that
1Corinthians 10:8 is referring to a different event. That is fine as long as
you don’t need a long, convoluted argument juggling numbers from different
passages to get where you want to be.
Numbers
25:16 ¶ And the LORD spake unto Moses,
saying, 17 Vex the Midianites, and smite
them: 18 For they vex you with their
wiles, wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of Peor, and in the
matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a prince of Midian, their sister, which was
slain in the day of the plague for Peor’s sake.
To underscore that there was something religious in Zimri and
Cozbi’s sexual dalliance notice what is written. This incident relates to the
worship of the local god or lord of Peor which clearly is a reflection and
confirmation of the sexual nature of Canaanite religion and the dangers, the very
spiritual dangers that the Israelites faced.”
Not only sexual deviance in the pursuit of religion was caused by
this idolatry but many other character traits of humanity resulted.
Jeremiah
17:9 The heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jeremiah
10:23 O LORD, I know that the way of man
is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
Now, back to Romans, chapter 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; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 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.
We
don’t usually think of man’s specific flaws as being delusions sent by God,
permitted by God, because of our wicked, rebellious hearts. But, not only all
sorts of sexual sins but defects of character are part of the delusions God
permitted us to have. What we get is the desires of our hearts to prove our
sinfulness. Think of these things in their religious context in regard to God
and to God’s people.
Unrighteousness
is a general term for all wickedness from which the Christian is promised
deliverance on condition although you are still capable of those things.
1John
1:9 If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.
Fornication is associated
with adultery and the sexual sins with which it is associated.
Galatians
5:19 Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
And it is God’s will that we Christians abstain from all such
sexual immorality, obsessions, and perversions.
Wickedness is a word linked with
evil in Genesis 6:5, sin in 39:9, sexual immorality in Leviticus 18:17, and
pagan sexual religious practices in Jeremiah 3:2. It is a word steeped in the
rebellion of mankind after the Flood. It is used to refer to the nations
surrounding Israel. See Deuteronomy 9:4 and Ezekiel 5:6.
1Corinthians
5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not
with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Ephesians
6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
1John
5:19 And we know that we are of God, and
the whole world lieth in wickedness.
Covetousness, desiring something that
is not yours particularly in relation to sexual matters and even to God, is
fornication and is a form of idolatry.
Ephesians
5:3 But fornication, and all
uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh
saints;
Colossians
3:5 Mortify therefore your members which
are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil
concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
On a
personal level;
Exodus
20:17 Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is
thy neighbour’s.
Romans
13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit
adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false
witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is
briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself.
This
is regarded as a type of theft.
1Thessalonians
4:3 For this is the will of God, even
your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:4 That every one of you should know how to
possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the
Gentiles which know not God:6 That no
man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is
the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.
Israel craved the things of the nations around them and this
covetousness was regarded as not only idolatry but a spiritual fornication.
Jeremiah
3:20 Surely as a wife treacherously
departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of
Israel, saith the LORD.
You
can see more of that comparison by reading Hosea and Ezekiel.
Maliciousness is at the very heart of
evil. Malice is what we get the word maliciousness from. Peter warned
Christians, as did Paul.
1Peter
2:1 Wherefore laying aside all malice,
and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,…16 As free, and not using your liberty for a
cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
Ephesians
4:31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and
anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
Colossians
3:8 But now ye also put off all these;
anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Titus
3:3 For we ourselves also were sometimes
foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in
malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
Envy, which is also a form of jealousy, is a very common and
desperately wicked character trait.
Proverbs
27:4 Wrath is cruel, and anger is
outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?
We hate and despise someone for their position or good fortune,
the blessings God has bestowed on them, their place in God’s plan. It is one
reason the first century Jews wanted Christ killed.
Matthew
27:18 For he knew that for envy they had
delivered him.
Mark
15:10 For he knew that the chief priests
had delivered him for envy.
We know what a heart filled with murder is. We know the
commandment from God and how Jesus’ defined it.
Exodus
20:13 Thou shalt not kill.
Matthew
19:18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus
said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not
steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,
We can see by cross-referencing that thou shalt not kill
was not a reference to self-defense or defending one’s home or land from
attack.
Murder requires malignant hate, a thirst and lust to extinguish
the life of another who has done nothing to merit such contempt. The murderer
kills because of the wickedness of his heart, a wickedness that God has
permitted to reveal the depths of that person’s depravity. Christ Himself was
murdered, being innocent.
Debate comes from a Greek word
meaning strife and contention and it is defined as such in Isaiah.
Isaiah
58:4a Behold, ye fast for strife and
debate…
At the time of the King James translation it was linked to
contention and controversy, to disputing. We see these endless, pointless
arguments in politics that underscore this evil.
Debate goes hand-in-hand with deceit,
linked with vanity, wickedness, cursing, mischief, fraud, guile, violence,
and falsehood in several verses. Just some examples;
Job
27:4 My lips shall not speak wickedness,
nor my tongue utter deceit.
Psalm
10:7 His mouth is full of cursing and
deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.
Psalm
119:118 Thou hast trodden down all them
that err from thy statutes: for their deceit is falsehood.
Malignity is very similar to maliciousness
but used only here reflects more of an evil disposition of the heart, an
extremely sinful attitude, and a very bad character.
Whisperers secretly backstab, sew
strife, and spread rumors to deliberately impugn another’s reputation or cause
discord. They are tellers of false tales as the men who spoke lies about Christ
at the show trials He suffered.
Proverbs16:28 A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer
separateth chief friends.
Backbiters are evil, malicious
speakers, persons who defame others. We see them all the time in politics, even
church politics, where a weak-minded but dominating individual tries to
underhandedly tear down other people. In Early Modern English they were also
known as slanderers.
Haters of God would neither obey His
commandments, submit themselves to Him, or receive Christ, and their hatred of
Christ extends to the Father because Christ is the visible image of the
invisible God.
Romans
8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity
against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Psalm
81:15 The haters of the LORD should have
submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever.
John
7:7 The world cannot hate you; but me it
hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
John
15:23 He that hateth me hateth my Father
also.
Exodus
20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to
them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation
of them that hate me;
Hate in the Bible reveals contempt, to despise someone, to hold
them in low regard. One example is;
Matthew
6:24 No man can serve two masters: for
either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the
one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Despiteful hearts and mouths are
filled with contempt and bitterness, tearing down, not building up.
Ezekiel
25:15 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because
the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with a
despiteful heart, to destroy it for the old hatred;
Ezekiel
36:5 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD;
Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the
heathen, and against all Idumea, which have appointed my land into their
possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds, to cast it
out for a prey.
The proud
stand against God and His standards for humanity.
Psalm
12:3 The LORD shall cut off all
flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: 4 Who have said, With our tongue will we
prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
Psalm
119:21 Thou hast rebuked the proud that
are cursed, which do err from thy commandments.
James and Peter both noted that God resists the proud and gives
grace to the humble. Humanism and its child, atheism, exalting a wicked mankind,
are examples of pride that contends against God.
Boasters
in this context are not those who boast of God.
Psalm
34:1 ¶ «A Psalm of David, when he
changed his behaviour before Abimelech; who drove him away, and he departed.» I
will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. 2 My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the
humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. 3
O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.
Boasters in this context in Romans
are those that boast of their lusts, their riches, themselves, and their false
gods.
Psalm
10:3 For the wicked boasteth of his
heart’s desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth.
Psalm
49:6 They that trust in their wealth,
and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches;
Psalm
94:4 How long shall they utter and speak
hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?
Psalm
97:7 Confounded be all they that serve
graven images, that boast themselves of idols: worship him, all ye gods.
Inventors of evil things cannot be
defined properly by us without the context of evil as an act of malice or
hatred. We see that an animal intent on doing violence is called an evil beast
in Genesis 37. We see that trouble and suffering in a day is evil from Matthew
6:34. Wicked people are always inciting strife and controversy contriving or
inventing evil situations, with malice and hatred toward God as their ultimate,
if even unconscious, purpose.
Honoring one’s parents is a fundamental of the Laws of God. Being disobedient
to parents is a rejection of God’s moral law and a sign of fallen mankind.
Under the Law given to Moses this attitude merited death.
Deuteronomy
21:18 ¶ If a man have a stubborn and
rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of
his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
19 Then shall his father and his mother
lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the
gate of his place; 20 And they shall say
unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will
not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. 21 And all the men of his city shall stone him
with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all
Israel shall hear, and fear.
The
Law given to Moses said;
Exodus
20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother:
that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Deuteronomy
5:16 Honour thy father and thy mother,
as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and
that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
And
Paul said to Christians;
Ephesians
6:1 ¶ Children, obey your parents in the
Lord: for this is right. 2 Honour thy
father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) 3 That it may be well with thee, and thou
mayest live long on the earth.
Those who are without understanding have not submitted
themselves to God’s word as the Holy Spirit gives those who do understanding.
Jeremiah defined those without understanding.
Jeremiah
5:20 ¶ Declare this in the house of
Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying, 21
Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have
eyes, and see not; which have ears, and
hear not: 22 Fear ye not me? saith the
LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the
bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the
waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet
can they not pass over it? 23 But this
people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone.
24 Neither say they in their heart, Let
us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his
season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
25 ¶
Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have
withholden good things from you. 26 For
among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares;
they set a trap, they catch men. 27 As a
cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are
become great, and waxen rich. 28 They
are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they
judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the
right of the needy do they not judge. 29
Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be
avenged on such a nation as this? 30 A
wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; 31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the
priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what
will ye do in the end thereof?
Covenantbreakers, mentioned
as such only here, cannot be trusted to keep an agreement, a contract, or a
truce. They are faithless persons. The trucebreakers of 2Timothy 3:3 who
cannot be trusted to keep an agreement either and the implacable coming
up who cannot be enticed to enter into any agreement or compromise are similar.
Those without natural affection, as Strong notes, are
unsociable, unloving, and inhuman. They have no regard for the members of their
own family, as they should, as typically is expected of a parent or child. They
are cold to those natural affections.
The implacable mind or spirit is unwilling and, as a
result, incapable of mercy or justice by God’s standard or of having peace with
God. He cannot be persuaded into a covenant with God. His case seems hopeless.
The unmerciful seems easy to understand. Jesus had noted
one of the characteristics of those who would see and inherit the Kingdom of
Heaven and God.
Matthew
5:7 Blessed are the merciful: for they
shall obtain mercy.
And
James made the following very clear, that mercy is superior to judgment;
James
2:13 For he shall have judgment without
mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
Mercy
is first defined in Genesis 19 in regard to sparing a person’s life.
Genesis
19:19 Behold now, thy servant hath found
grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed
unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil
take me, and I die:
The unmerciful will show no mercy although God is willing to grant him or her unlimited mercy.
And although it is in God’s nature to be merciful and His mercy is long-lasting as per dozens of verses
in the Psalms, the people whose lives are characterized by these character flaws listed here in Romans,
chapter one, merit death. You see, they not only do these things but have pleasure in others who do
them as well. There is no shame in their hearts or conscience holding them back and they are at one
with others as wicked as themselves. Next, Paul turns this condemnation of mankind around on the
reader himself.
[1] Lee Smolin, The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, and Fall of a
Science, and What Comes Next (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006), 75.
[2]
Chandra Wickramasinghe & Robert Bauval, Cosmic Womb:
The Seeding of Planet Earth (Rochester, Vermont:Bear & Co., 2017), Kindle ed., chap. 1
