WWUTT 107 Eternal Power and Divine Nature (Romans 1:18-23)

No one can ever truly say that there is no God. The evidence of a creator is everywhere in all that has been made.

And the Bible affirms this to be the case when we understand the text. You're listening to When We Understand the

Text, a five -minute Bible commentary so we may know the things freely given to us by God. Here's your teacher,

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We're reading through Romans chapter 1 this week, verses 18 through 32, and I encourage you to read all of chapter 1 and then come to these devotionals where we'll be picking apart a different section.

I'll read verses 18 through 23 again today. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

We just got done last week talking about the righteousness of God and that the righteous shall live by faith, as it says in verse 17.

Contrast that in verse 18 by talking about the unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

And so Paul embarks on this doctrine of depravity that goes from verse 18 all the way to chapter 3, verse 20.

So we'll be talking about this for a little while, but one of the things that we've been looking at this week are the things that are clearly seen in all of the world around us.

Oftentimes we gravitate toward verse 20 that says that God is clearly seen in all that has been made.

But the reality is that five things are being stated here that can clearly be observed in all of the world around us.

The first thing is God's wrath, and we talked about that yesterday. Verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.

We can see that when somebody does a bad thing, there are bad consequences. If you run a red light, somebody's probably going to plow into the side of you, all right?

If you murder somebody, you will probably get the death sentence. So that is evidence of God's wrath, of there being a law that we must follow.

And when we break that law, there are consequences for that behavior. As we read in Psalm 711,

God is a righteous judge who exercises his wrath every day. At least that's the way that it puts it in the

King James Version. Now, we often pull out verse 20 and say that God's existence is clearly seen, but it's more than that.

His invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made, so they are without excuse.

So it's more than just God's existence and is evident in all that has been made. It's his eternal power and his divine nature are clearly perceived in all that has been made.

I mean, just consider the majesty of everything, how incredible it all is, how massive the universe is, and you can see his divine nature.

It takes a big God to make something so big. So in everything that has been made, we can clearly see his divine nature.

And we also know, we inherently know that he is an eternal God. In Ecclesiastes, it is written that God has placed eternity in the hearts of men, but they cannot fathom what he has done from beginning to end.

Why is it that even an atheist will say that the universe is eternal or they will come up with some sort of metaphysics by saying that there are an infinite number of universes?

Where do they get this infinite concept from? It's because God has placed eternity in the hearts of finite human beings.

We consider eternity because God has placed that in our hearts. His invisible attributes and God's eternal power, his divine nature are clearly perceived in all that has been made.

So man will have no excuse. Atheist Bertrand Russell was once asked, if there is a

God and you appear before him, what would you ask him? And Bertrand Russell said, why did you take such great pains to remain so hidden?

But nobody will be able to say any such thing when they appear before God, because he is clearly seen.

More than just his existence, his eternal power and his divine nature, in all that has been made.

So man has no excuse. This is a production of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.