The Gospel

Colossians 1:3-8

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Our subject is "Thanksgiving for the Colossians," number 17, in Colossians 1:3-8.

The apostle Paul, we have seen, thanks God that the Colossians Christians have a hope stored up for them in heaven – eternal life with God. This hope is based upon a message of truth from God, which has been recorded accurately in the Bible. The Word of Truth is the gospel of the grace of God. This Bible way of salvation is rejected by most 20th century mankind, because the Bible itself is rejected as absolute truth from God. It is viewed as a book containing many errors – the result of the sincere, but mistaken, authors of the books of the Bible. Man, in his rebellion against God's way of grace salvation then creates his own way, which is always based on human good works and moral conduct.

Mankind today is rapidly moving, instead, to a world religion based on the inherent deity of man himself. He needs only to realize his own godhood, and to experience his full potential. The news media publications are constantly filled now, more and more, openly, with the need for a whole new outlook of living by principles that arise from man's own godhood within himself. It is easy to miss if that is happening. It is easy to miss if you're not alert to how many movements there are widespread that are training young people to prepare them for an age of a world religion and a world government. That government's economic system will be socialism.

Many years ago, as a student at Dallas Seminary, in a class with Dr. Walford, he said, "There will never be another world empire." And this was when Russia was riding at the high tide of its power, and seemingly to conquer the world. He said, "We know from the Bible there will never be another world empire. There will be a revival of the fourth world empire, the empire of Rome." But he said, "We know that the next world empire will be the empire of Jesus Christ." But he said, "The Roman Empire, when it is revived, will be a socialist empire. Socialism will survive." And he was exactly right. That is what the Bible indicates, and that is what is happening today. And along with that, on the economic level, comes man's full confidence in himself in the spiritual realm.

So, human godhood – that's where it's at today. And new age religion, which is human godhood, rejects the sin guilt of man, and therefore, it seeks no saving faith in Jesus Christ to escape from the lake of fire.

Witnessing

Now, Christians who know the truth of the biblical gospel have a problem in witnessing to the unsaved of the world who reject Scripture and who reject Jesus Christ. They find the Bible offensive, and they find Christ offensive. They're blind to the error of their human viewpoint beliefs in their intellectual pride and arrogance. They see themselves as worthy people who deserve to go to heaven. Yet what they are is under the wrath of God, and they're on a slide into hell. Their confidence, in human reason to determine how God should treat them in eternity, has no end. They know the way things ought to be. They reject a personal Creator God. There's only a Star Wars force out there. They dismiss that the penalty for sin is death. In fact, they dismiss the Bible's rules about what is sin. And they do not see that the human good works from the old sin nature are evil in the sight of God. They actually believe that their human good compassion is honored by God, and esteemed by Him. And, above all, their arrogance causes them to reject Jesus Christ as personal Savior, and as the only way.

Now this was the problem in Colossae. There were people who came up and said, "You're mistaken that you can only go to heaven through Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ is only a highly developed angel, and there are many angels between God and us at various stages of development. And what you should look for is the supreme angel – the in-depth information about the angel who can bring you into contact with God." And what the people of Colossae were being told was that they're very immature. They don't have it together if all they have is Jesus Christ.

Now, where are we today? It's the same thing. But that's not what the Bible says. And yet again, I'm saying, "The Bible." I'm giving you an authority. But I told you in the previous session that every human being has to decide on three major things. And one of them is whether the Bible is the true and inerrant communication of God. If it is, then we have to listen and obey.

Here's what God says about Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation. Acts 4:12: "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."

Then there is John 14:6. It makes it explicitly clear of the role of Jesus Christ in salvation. Jesus says about Himself: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me."

Then, of course, there is Acts 16:31, ""Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." Now that makes it very clear.

None of mankind's substitutes are going to work. The Bible does not say, "Believe in Zeus, and you'll get salvation." It does not say, "Believe in Zoroaster, and you'll get salvation." It does not say, "Believe in Moses, and you'll get salvation." It does not say, "Believe in the virgin Mary for salvation; nor "in Buddha for salvation;" nor "in Confucius for salvation;" nor "in Brahma Vishnu Shiva Brahma of Hinduism for salvation." It does not say, "Believe in Muhammad of Islam for salvation." It does not say, "Believe in Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science) for salvation." It does not say, "Believe in Alan White of the Seventh Day Adventists for salvation." It does not say, "Believe in Joseph Smith of the Mormons for salvation;" or, "Malcolm Rutherford of the Jehovah Witnesses." It does not say, "Believe in your dead ancestors (as in Shintoism) for your salvation." It does not say, "Believe in your witch doctors of the demons." It does not say, "Believe in your guru teacher for salvation." It does not say, "Believe in Madame Helena Blavatsky (of Theosophy) for your salvation." It certainly does not say, "Believe in Satan for your salvation." And it does not say, "Believe in Calypso Louis Farrakhan for your salvation." And you could go on and on – these people who pretend to be your access to God.

The Bible says that there is only one way, and that's Jesus Christ. Now how in the world do we speak, as Christians (as the witnesses of God) to people who are spiritually blind and spiritually dead? How do we present the gospel to them, and get through to them? You and I have the ministry of witnessing. That witnessing has to begin with our understanding of what the gospel is. And even in many good Bible church circles, the Bible doctrine of salvation has been blurred. It has been distorted just enough so that people actually don't get the picture on how to be saved.

Two Kinds of Preaching

Please remember that there are two kinds of preaching. One kind of preaching is preaching for instruction. That will take you to heaven. That will make you a fine person. That will put you head and shoulders above all the other people of society, and that will give you the deep things of the Spirit of God, and that will make you a very rich person in heaven. The other kind of preaching is entertainment preaching. That's what you see mostly on television. That's what you hear mostly in the prominent churches. That kind of preaching will leave you very shallow. They will give you grocery lists of things to do to meet a particular problem. You will never come into the deep things of the Spirit of God. And while you may be wealthy in financial matters, you'll be very poor in heaven.

The Gospel

So we have to know what the gospel is to begin with. The gospel is not the whole Bible. The gospel is a very specific area of truth. The word, as you know, means "good news." What's the good news? Man can go to heaven. The gospel tells of God's perfect remedy for sin through Jesus Christ. The problem is that man is born with the disease of sin.

We read of this in Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." We are all born with Adam's sin guilt upon us. We all fall short of the glory of God. What is the glory of God? Absolute righteousness. Does anybody want to argue with that? Does anybody want to deny that? If you do, you're a fool. The Bible, this authoritative book, says, "You're guilty."

Furthermore, to understand the gospel, we have to understand that Jesus Christ has provided a cure for this problem of sin. Roman 6:23 tells us about that: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." You will die for your sins unless those sins are covered. You yourself cannot cover them. But God, through His Son Jesus Christ, covered those sins. Now, that's what Christmas is all about. It signifies the beginning of the process of God to make payment for sin with the birth (the incarnation) of the Second Member of the Trinity.

Furthermore, God has done His work, and it's all done. It's all completed. No more sacrifice is needed. Nothing more needs to be added. You have no part in it whatsoever. You have nothing to add to it. You have nothing to make it keep working. It's all a work of God. And it's given to you, therefore, entirely as a gift. And that's very important that you understand that if you won't take it as a gift, you won't get it. And if you're going to talk to people about salvation, don't talk to them about their sins. That's no problem with God. Christ died for the sins of all mankind. The problem of sin has all been removed. That's not what's going to take you into hell. What's going to take you into hell is the fact that you have not accepted God's gift of provision for your sins. You have not accepted the substitute to die for you.

Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that (salvation) not of yourselves. It is the gift of God; not as the result of works, that no one should boast." Now, that's explicitly clear.

Now, what you will find is that people will say, "Well, there are differences of interpretation." And this is the shoddiest, low-life type of trickery. And you do this in debating. I was part of the debating society in my first year of college. So, I learned some of the Jesuit trickery by which you tried to discredit your opponent's arguments by undermining (trying to cast doubt upon) the authority of what he says. Somebody will come along and say to you, "Hey, I have read a great authority. Dr. Super Brain over here says that creation days were not 24 hours. So how do you like that?" And somebody has recently said, "I don't care what you say. If you go to Glen Rose, and you go to the ranger station, and you ask the ranger, 'Please tell me where the human footprint was found next to the dinosaur's footprint,' they will say, 'We don't know of any such thing.'"

Carl Sagan

Well, isn't that an authority – this countering authority, so that if somebody says it, and especially if they wrote it, it must be true. Oh, if Carl Sagan wrote it, you can hardly touch the page without the electricity of authority flowing out from it. You know it must be scientifically true. And, of course, what did Carl say? He said, "Billions and billions and billions of years ago, there was the cosmos, and that's all there was." One may say, "Well, there is no God. Carl has clarified it. So all you have to do is to quote him." I don't want you to fall for that.

I'm constantly getting that attack as refutation to what Scripture says. And you may say, "Well, we have a lot of pictures of those footprints at Glen Rose." In fact, some years ago, we showed a movie here at Berean Church, and it showed very close-ups of those footprints. And scientists, both creation and evolutionary scientists debated it. And the evolutionary scientists said, "No, it can't be, because it doesn't fit the geologic column. I don't care what it looks like. Yes, it has the seven qualities of a human footprint. It still isn't." And others (even of the evolutionists) said, "Yes, we have a problem. That certainly looks like a human footprint. It has all the characteristics, and we'll have to give some further thought to this." Well, it blows up the whole theory of evolution. That's what they have to give further thought to.

Anyhow, when I said to this person, "Well, we have these photographs." And he said, "Do you think a photograph is any evidence? Even the police are so dumb that they think if they take a picture of somebody that's murdered, that's evidence that the guy is dead. Especially, if his head is here, and he's over here. What does a photograph tell you?

This becomes so frustrating and so maddening that you have to say to yourself, "Stabilize, The world of people who oppose the authority of the Bible are insane. They're spiritually out of it." And I've only mentioned a few of those people through the ages who are viewed as the authorities that will get you to heaven. But the Bible says, Jesus Christ is it.

Now, why is that such a burden to people? Because immediately, it wipes out most of the human race. It wipes out all the people who say that: "Jesus Christ is not my way into heaven. He's just one of the great teachers. Faith in him is not all I need to get to heaven. There are other ways up the mountain to God." But the Bible says that there is one way, and only one; and, that way is Jesus Christ.

The specific content of the gospel has to be explicitly declared. You cannot contaminate this as preachers very often do. Here's what the gospel is: 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, "For I delivered to you, as of first importance, what I also received: that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures." There's the authority for our saying, "He died." The Bible tells us that. It also tells us that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day, according to Scriptures. We have the evidence from Scripture that he was raised from the dead, to prove that His salvation provision (His death) was acceptable.

How do we accept it? How do we take advantage of this provision of God? John 3:16 tells us: "We believe and trust in Christ as our personal Savior: "For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

Anybody who's ready to challenge this, and throw up one of these other names as the way of salvation, as the way to get to God, has called God a liar. 1 John 5:10 says, "The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself, that the one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has born concerning his Son."

When you throw the Bible away, then you have thumbed your nose at God, and you have no basis for knowing anything spiritually. You have no way of functioning with the Word of God.

Now, even Christians want to give themselves some slack and leeway. They want to say, "Well, that's your interpretation. That's your way of looking at things." This is the way people undermine the Constitution of the United States today. This brilliant document, I have no doubt, was an act of God through these wise men who were frail and sinful, as were the men who wrote the Bible. But that document has literal words which mean what they say. And what is the reason for undermining the Constitution today? It is because it restrains socialism. It is because it restrains the government from dominating the people.

I read a report recently that a research had demonstrated that one-third of the money that is collected in taxes in this country is all that is spent on fulfilling the duties of the federal government as specified in the Constitution. Two-thirds of the money that the government takes from you, it spends on things that it has no authority in the Constitution to do. And people in Congress do not want you to talk about what the Constitution says, because it is very explicit in what it means for government to do and not to do. And when you do that to the Bible (you challenge its interpretation) as people who don't want to let the Constitution restrain them, remember that it's a power game. They don't want the constitution to restrain government from having power over the people.

Then they say that it's a way of interpreting: "It's a different way of interpreting. That's how you interpret the Constitution. And if you were to play a game of Monopoly, and challenge some rule, because you don't believe it's being interpreted properly. And I've had people doing that. I've had people sitting in Monopoly (to me, of all people), and saying to me, "Here's what the rule is." And it's some outrageous thing. And they say, "Here, I'll show you." And they read the printed thing, and the words say something entirely different, and they interpret it in their own way. And suddenly words mean nothing.

Now, this is what people do to the Bible. And while it makes that makes you hopping mad, you have to be forceful and gentle in love. And the reason that makes you hopping mad is because you don't want them to hurt themselves. It's not because you have ill will. It's not because you like "agape" love. You cannot believe that people want to hurt themselves with these outrageous misconceptions. So, you want to charge in there, and put it together, to help them get it straight for their own good.

The Power of the Gospel

Now, there is something about the nature of the gospel that we all need to understand, to appreciate it. First of all is its power. The gospel is not something you should be ashamed of. A lot of Christians would be downright ashamed to talk about the gospel to an unbeliever – to even bring up the subject. But in Romans 1:16, Paul says, ""For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." Now, when we get to Colossians 1:6, we will learn that the gospel has an inherent power all its own. And when the gospel falls on the person's ear, it has an explosive effect in the mentality of that soul. We'll get to that in verse 6.

However, here's the same thing that Paul is referring to. He says, "The gospel is God's power. It's His omnipotent power which will take you, a hopeless sinner, right into heaven. It will give you salvation. And nothing else has that power. The gospel is God's power for action against sin. 1 John 4:10 says, "In this is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." He sent His Son to satisfy His own justice. God's justice against sin is death.

Where is that more prominently displayed, I ask you, than in the AIDS epidemic? God says that homosexuality and lesbianism are abominations. That's the worst word that God can use against a sin. And a recent study by a man (a psychiatrist, of all things) is tearing up the intellectual world now. His book has been published, and his research demonstrates forcibly that nobody is born a homosexual or a lesbian – that they become that by personal choice. There may be an inclination (like there is to adultery or fornication), but by personal choice you become an adulterer. By personal choice you fornicate. And by personal choice you become a homosexual or a lesbian.

Now, we Christians already know that apart from any scientific basis. We know it again from the authority the Word of God, because God says that it's an abomination, which means that it's a monstrous sin. And God never calls anything a sin if you have no volitional power over it. He would not tell you that it is sinful to do something that you can't help doing. He would not tell you that there's something about you that is sinful, such that you can't help that that's the way you were born physically. Homosexuality is labeled a sin and an abomination because you can say "No" to it.

So, the gospel is the power that enables you to overcome that. I listen to a very moving testimony by a lady who, for something like 15 years, had been a lesbian. And she retraced back in her mind the gradual steps down to that degradation, and how awful it was to live like that. And when the gospel came in, it all changed. She said, "Suddenly, this inclination was under full control. Suddenly, here I am married to this great guy. Here I am enjoying being a wife and mother, and my family. Here I am totally different. I can't believe that I'm the same person that was back there in that degradation." But she said, "It shows me for a certainty that it was my choice. It was not because I was born that way, and had to do it. What changed her was the power of the gospel.

Indeed, wonderful changes do come through the power of the gospel. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that in a very wonderful way, when it says, "Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature (literally, 'a new creation'). The old things pass away. Behold new things have come." The old things that pass away are being in the position of death in Adam. And the new things that have come are being in the position of "in Christ" (the new life), and with all the new lifestyle that comes with it indeed.

The Author of the Gospel

1 Thessalonians 2:9 indicates that God, in Jesus Christ, is the source of the gospel message.1 Thessalonians 2:9: "For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day, so is not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God." It is not the good news of man.

1 Thessalonians 3:2: "And we sent Timothy, our brother, and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith." Here's the gospel of Christ. It is clear that the gospel comes from God. Man's way of going to heaven leads to eternal death. And that's what Proverb 14:12 says, "There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death."

The Basis of the Gospel

Then you should be aware of the basis of the gospel. How does it function? What is the basis of its operation? And that basis is the grace of God. Acts 20:24: "But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself in order that I may finish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God."

There are several variations of good news in the Bible. There's the gospel of the kingdom, for example. That's the gospel that was preached by Jesus and the apostles in the early days before the crucifixion. It was the gospel (the good news) that the Messianic Kingdom promised to Abraham, and brought down through the ages through the prophets had arrived, in the form of the Messiah. So, now the Jews were going to be made the rulers of the world. They would become the leading nation, and their Messiah King had arrived to do just that. That was the good news of the kingdom. And that's what everybody preached. That was not the gospel of the grace of God.

Now, of course, with the Messiah there, they had to trust in Him. They had to believe in Him, not only personally, which many did, and thus were baptized, but they had to believe in Him as a nation – their leaders and their officials had to believe. And that's where it came apart – that the leaders, both religious and political, of Israel would not accept Christ as Messiah. So, that gospel is not the one we're talking about.

This gospel of the grace of God is very precious, and that's the one we fight for. That's the one we defend without reservation, because there is no other way except to take it as a gift. It's a grace operation from start to finish. It's a salvation that doesn't give us what we deserve. It gives us what we don't deserve. It's a salvation, furthermore, because it is all of God, which is totally secure. And some people consider that very offensive, and very arrogant, – to think that we can never again be lost. But what does 1 John 2:2 tell us? "And He Himself, Jesus Christ is the propitiation (the satisfaction) for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world." Do you see why I tell you that sin is not the problem with unsaved people? God has removed all that problem (that guilt). That has been paid for. It is the fact that the whole world has been covered. It is the fact that they won't accept Christ as personal savior. They won't accept the gift.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "He (God the Father) made Him (God the Son), Who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Salvation is secure because it's all an act of God.

The Appeal of the Gospel

Then, finally, along with power, and the author, and the basis, the other thing you should know about the gospel is its appeal. Everyone is urged to become reconciled to God through the gospel. And you know that "reconcile" means to get adjusted to God's standard of righteousness, which is absolute. 2 Corinthians 5:20 said, "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God." And that's the heart of the Christian. He is begging the unbeliever to get adjusted to God's standard. But the Jew gives you the back of his hand. The Muslim gives you the back of his hand. The Mormon gives you the back of his hand. The Christian Scientist gives you the back of his hand. The Hindu gives you the back of his hand. The people of Islam give you the back of the hand. None of them are interested in a gospel that is dependent upon Jesus Christ. They do not want to be reconciled to God's way through Christ. Christ is the offense. But it is the biblical principle that there is no salvation apart from the gospel message. And that's why we have to tell it. You cannot be saved if you haven't heard the gospel.

Men, by nature, are blind to the appeal of the gospel. And some people, therefore, are never enlightened by God, and their eyes are never open, but they are blind. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 point this out: "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case, the God of this world (Satan) has blinded the minds of the unbelieving; that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, Who is the image of God."

You wonder how people could look at Jesus Christ, read about Him, and become acquainted with Him and the powerful evidence of the truth of what He spoke, and reject Him. Well, there you have the blindness of Satan. And make no mistake – this was true of each of us. We were all blind. We were all blind to the absolute necessity of trusting Christ as Savior. We had all kinds of substitutes. We were good people in our own eyes, but we must be good people in God's eyes. We substituted everything under the sun. But the Word of God says that that's the act of Satan to keep us from seeing the light of the gospel. Why did you see it? Because God opened your eyes. Why did God open your eyes, and not a lot of people who are a lot better than you are in many ways? You'll have to ask Him. It's a sovereign act, and you should breathe a sigh of relief that the scales fell off of your eyes, and you saw the truth of the gospel.

John 16:8 indicates that it's the work of the Holy Spirit to take the blinders off: "And He (the Holy Spirit), when He comes, after Christ is ascended, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment." He will convict the world of the sin of not believing in Jesus Christ. He will convict the world of the absolute righteous standard that they must possess to go to heaven. He will convict the world of the fact that judgment has been made against Satan who once possessed them, but now Satan's power has been broken.

So, the apostle, here in Colossians, is thanking God that these people have an eternal hope in heaven, which he indicates is the result of the gospel. Verse 5: "Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the Word of Truth, the gospel." If we're going to be witnesses, the first problem is understanding the principle of salvation through the gospel of the grace of God.

General Revelation

Now, the apostle Paul gives us some interesting instruction in how we're going to go about witnessing to various kinds of people with this gospel. In the book of Romans, Paul, in Romans 1:18-32, talks about witnessing to the immoral person. This is a person who doesn't have the Bible, and he's not religious. He's a very immoral person, like the people that we associate with. This is the kind of person we most often are confronted with in our daily lives. They have no biblical frame of reference. And Paul begins, in that Romans passage, by calling attention to what is revealed of God within the human heart (within the human mind), and outside of man, apart from the written Scriptures. We call this general revelation. And if you read Rennie Showers' article, that I gave you a couple of weeks ago, you'll understand the power of general revelation out here, in nature (the world) – the amazing complexity of the natural world.

So, when Paul, here in this passage in Romans chapter 1, speaks about the immoral person, he doesn't talk to him about what the Bible says. He does not approach that unbeliever on the concept that Jesus loves him, as we read in John 3:16. The unbeliever is not ready to accept anything from the Bible. The Bible is not an authority to him. And especially today, the Bible is greatly undermined. How are you going to talk about the Bible? Once you bring up the Bible, you're going to have a situation like I had when I literally got the wave of the back of the hand from the man up in Montana, when I wanted to speak to him about the gospel. He said, "Ah, no. I know about that." And he waved it off. Paul here takes this approach: He presses the fact that there is a Creator God – on what basis? As evidence by creation. Somebody made this. He is obviously out there. And He is there in great power.

So you don't have to have any Bible to tell you that. You can look, and you can see that. Evolution claims fly into the face of reality. They reject God's authority. So, evolution is the substitution to explain nature. That way they get rid of God, because even they know that this tells you about Somebody out there that has the power to do this.

The Great Barrier Reef

I was watching a video on the Great Barrier Reef. It is 1200 miles long, along the southern coast of Australia. And what a scuba diver's paradise that is! And it just went on and on and on of the various life forms, and the cycle of life through the whole day, all governed by the light of the sun, and what animals are doing at night – the animal life in the waters at night, and what they do during the day. And there was no end to the complexity. I mean the intricacies – the interrelationship of all these creatures.

Here's a little fish who is a cleanup fish. And he wears a little sign that says, "Call your local cleanup fish." And here are these giant grouper fish, and even barracuda. And they get these parasites and these worms, and they're squirming. And this little fish comes along, and he pecks at them, and pecks all that stuff. There is a lot of protein in worms. And he eats all these little parasites. They're good too. And then the problem is that they get under your teeth, and they get in the gums of the large fish. And these fish are very uncomfortable. So, here's this huge mouth that opens, and the little fish darts in the mouth. And this very same fish has been gobbling little fish. And you've been seeing them come up and snatch these little fish, feeding himself. And here's this tiny little fish (peck, peck, peck), and this grouper doesn't move. He keeps his mouth open. The little fish cleans it all up. Then the fish comes out; gets paid; and, he goes off to the next customer.

Isn't that marvelous that evolution brought all that about? The big fish knows not to eat this fish, but eat another fish. And the kinds of life – you just cannot believe the kind of life that you will see that are just unimaginable: the most grotesque; and, the most weird looking. And yet they're all living creatures, and they all just happen by themselves without design and without power?

So, what the apostle Paul says to the man who is immoral, and who cares nothing about the Bible, is that there is the testimony of nature that you're responsible to someone. So, even the most benighted person, in the deepest jungle somewhere, knows that there is someone. That's why he makes his own gods. Every human being, furthermore, has been made in the image of God, and that sets the context in which he must live out his life. An animal lives out his life in a different context, because he is not in the image of God, and he has no spirit. But you and I have the stamp of God, which is the fact that we have a human spirit which gives us contact with God. Therefore, we already had that much of God's truth stamped upon us.

General revelation? We know that he's out there. The image of God that is stamped upon us gives us the gnawing within the conscience that says that some things are right, and some things are wrong. It doesn't tell us what's right or what's wrong. But there is that gnawing sense in every human being, no matter how low he is morally, that some things are right, and some things are wrong. And the immoral people usually try to laugh off and blow off their immoralities as their way of relieving this knowledge within themselves that it's wrong to do certain things.

So, what Paul says to this immoral person is that you must acknowledge God's image in the fact of his God-consciousness, and the conscience which God has given him. God-consciousness comes from creation. The conscience within alerts him to rights and wrongs. So, it gives him a sense of what he should be.

Paul takes this conscience, and he now confronts it with the fact of what the person is in his thought and actions. And I don't care how immoral a person is, he thinks that there are certain things that ought to be, but he doesn't obey them. He doesn't live up to them. He knows that he ought to be a certain way, but he doesn't act like that. And Paul says, "You don't even live up to your own standards. Who are you? You're an immoral person. Your lifestyle is rebellion against God. And conscience is making you uneasy. And nature tells you that you're going to face Him.

So, Paul creates, thus, attention in the unbeliever's soul between what he knows he ought to be, and what he knows he is. That is the same kind of tension, as I've indicated, that exists in our country today. On the one hand, those who understand the constitution of the United States know how America ought to be. Then there are those who want to reinterpret it in order to exercise the power of government (mindless bureaucracies) over people, and those who want that power want to reinterpret the words of the Constitution.

The word "penumbra" is a word that means "out in the outer shadows." And why did the Supreme Court say that the writers of the Constitution said that it was an all right to abort an unborn baby? They say that it's in the Constitution. Where did they find it? In the penumbra. They saw, in the shadows, that you could murder an unborn baby because you had freedom. You had freedom over your own person. You have freedom. Therefore, you can murder, but only a certain class of people – an unborn baby. You can't murder somebody who's born. And that's why Congress is trying to outlaw the process of having a baby: turn in the mother's room; pull the feet out; then stop right there, because the baby has not been born; then take a sharp instrument and stab a hole in the back of the baby's skull, while still in the mother's womb; and, then take the suction tube out, and pull the baby's brains out. Now the baby is dead. Now he can be brought out – and it's legal.

However, they can't let that baby fully slip out before then. And I mean that these are children who are way down the line, near a month or two from being born, and that baby can now come out capable of living – then to kill him would be murder. Where's that found? In the penumbra of the Constitution.

This is what comes of reinterpreting the Constitution, and what comes of reinterpreting the Word of God. And there is a battle today, until we Christians are taken out by the return of Christ, and the Holy Spirit moves out with us. Please remember that when we leave, the Holy Spirit, Who is always omnipresent, but now he is locally present in each of our temples (our bodies) – when we go, His local presence goes. And when that happens, then finally the world of the antichrist will take shape. And all these things that are battles and tensions will be no more. People will feel free to kill unborn babies without any compunction. They'll feel free to kill each other without any compunction. It'll become the pre-flood jungle. It'll become the pre-flood jungle all over again. And the judgment of God will be upon it.

So, Paul is saying that you have a sense of conscience and awareness of God, and you make rules, but you don't live by them. In none of this, however, does Paul ever quote the evidence of the Bible. He doesn't refer to Scripture in these verses of Romans 1. He only deals with what the unbeliever admits is so about himself. He knows that he's superior to animals. He knows that creation is very complex, and yet it is interrelated. But he is absolutely incapable of rising to what he should be.

Let's close with one of the all-time great sad examples of Solomon. Turn to the book of Ecclesiastes, which follows the book of Proverbs. Here's the example of the conflict in the soul of a person who knows how things ought to be, but they're not. In Ecclesiastes 1:2, Solomon observes the pointlessness of his human viewpoint lifestyle. And he is aware that it should not be that way. Solomon devolved from his great spiritual status when he started, and he has devoured, because of his wealth and power now, into a pure human viewpoint life. Is he saved? Yes. Is he going to heaven? Yes. But look what kind of a statement he can make in Ecclesiastes 1:2" "'Vanity of vanity,' says the preacher, 'vanity of vanities – all is vanities.'" The Hebrew word "hebel" (heh'bel) is translated vanities there. It means "futility:" "Futility, futility."

Now, what kind of a statement is that for a believer to make? What kind of a statement is that for a person to look at himself in his life and say, "It's all futile?" Well, it will be if you're out of sync with the Word of God, and if you're out of sync with the will of God.

In Ecclesiastes 1:15, he observes that something is out of balance in his life, and he describes it in mathematical terms: "What is crooked cannot be straightened." What is crooked and cannot be straightened? A circle: "What is lacking cannot be counted." What is lacking that cannot be counted? Infinity. And here he's saying that, as he's describing how there is nothing that satisfies him, it's like trying to square a circle or count infinity. It's all out of whack.

Then, in verses Ecclesiastes 1:17-18, he observes that intellectual pursuits could not provide the key to resolving his tensions. Psychology and psychiatry, he says, are a bust. Verse 17: "And I set my mind to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly (psychiatry and psychology). Then I realized that this is also striving after wind (just blowing off hot air), because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." That's not true. It is only true of someone who's operating on human viewpoint, and is out of the will of God. It is not true that: "In much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." It does just the opposite for the person who is positive to the Word of God. This is why we tell you that most of the book of Ecclesiastes is human viewpoint expression, and it's not true. But it is a great resource of teaching.

Go over to Ecclesiastes 9:7-10. Solomon says, "Get as many kicks out of life as possible in the midst of your unresolved tensions in your soul. Go then. Eat your bread in happiness, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart. For God has already approved your works." He says, "All is well. Just pretend that there's no problem."

In Ecclesiastes 1:8, he says, "Pretend that everything is well." Repress any doubts about your human viewpoint. Verse 8: "Let your clothes be white all the time, and let not oil be lacking on your head." White clothes show that you're living it up. Oil on your head shows that you're enjoying the luxuries of life.

In Ecclesiastes 1:9, he says, "Enjoy what you can of marriage (in your human viewpoint environment), because when you die, there's no more enjoyment of marriage. Enjoy life with a woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life, which He has given to you under the sun. For this is your reward in life, and in your to which you have labored under the sun." No, that is not what is our reward. Just happy marriage here. Our reward is infinitely greater, once we come into the Lord's presence.

Ecclesiastes 1:10 sums it all up with advice to make as much as possible of what you find yourself doing in your life, because you're going with nothing to the grave: "Wherefore, whatever your hand finds to do, verily, do it with all your might, for there is no activity, or planning, or knowledge, or wisdom in Sheol where you are going." "Sheol" is the word for "the grave." And he is so dispirited that he says, "Make the most of it, because where you're going, there's no fun.

Unbelievers, in their rebellion against God's truth, often meet their soul's conflict by being flippant about Christianity and the Bible. They have naive mentalities. The truth from creation of God's existence, and from the conscience of God's standard, is the basis upon which these people are going to be judged at the great white throne. They're going to be held accountable for the fact that creation told them that there is a God. They're going to be held accountable for the fact that conscience within them told them that there is right and wrong, and they have to find out who can tell them which is which.

Furthermore, the unbeliever has truth, but he doesn't have it by faith. Everyone goes from truth to faith. And while he has the truth, he does not have the faith. And that's what makes the difference. You have to be told the gospel, and then you have to believe it. And you cannot apply faith, of course, to what you're ignorant of.

So, we're brought back full-circle to our Colossian passage that says that the great thing that God has for us is a hope of eternal life in heaven, but it's all based upon the fact that the gospel tells us how we may experience that great blessing. You heard the Word of Truth, which is the gospel. You have heard it. Believe it. And please live up to what you are, therefore. Please live according to what you are going to be someday in the full image of the person of Christ in eternity. The new Jerusalem is your destiny. That's what you should keep your eyes on. That's the greatness of the gospel – not a good life here, which is great; and not blessings here, that are great. The big thing is where you're going to spend the rest of your eternity. And eternity is one of those things of infinity. You can't count it.

Tell the gospel. Tell it straight. Tell it courageously. Tell it in love.

Dear God, we thank You for this Thy word, and we pray that Thou will continue to instruct us in our duty.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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