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Ungodliness and Unrighteousness
RV234-02© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1993)
Our subject is "The Battle of Armageddon." This is segment number three in Revelation 19:17-21.
The Great Supper of God
We have seen in this chapter that John observes an angel of God standing in the sun, and the angel commands the birds of the earth to gather for the
great supper of God. The supper of God is the millions of corpses in a 200-mile corridor in Israel, ending on the battlefield of Armageddon. The dead
soldiers of the gentile nations who lie in that corridor by the millions are the result of a battle that they engage in with Jesus Christ at His
Second Coming. The birds are called by the angel in the sun to feed upon the bodies in order to clean up this grisly scene on that battlefield at the
end of the tribulation. The great supper of the dead will include, we're told, the high and mighty, as well as the low and powerless of the world.
All will be equal in the democracy of death.
Satan has tricked the gentile leaders to move their armies to Israel at this time in order to rebel against the antichrist and his world government.
But Satan's real purpose is to have them on hand, because he knows that three-and-a-half years of the latter part of the tribulation is almost over,
and Christ is going to return. So, he wants those armies there to fight Christ at His return.
Jesus Christ Wins the Battle of Armageddon
These armies of the gentiles, when they see the Lord returning with His heavenly army, unite to attack Him. But the Lord, as King of Kings and Lord
of Lords alone enters the battle. He defeats the gentile armies with His spoken word.
The Antichrist and the False Prophet
We have been told in Revelation 19:20 that Christ seizes the defeated antichrist and his false prophet. The false prophet has been impressing the
world with the power of Satan, which has enabled him to perform miracles to deceive mankind into thinking and worshiping the antichrist as God. He
has caused those with the mark of allegiance to the beast to worship the idol image of the antichrist in the Jerusalem temple. The antichrist and
the false prophet are thrown alive into the lake of fire, which burns the flames of brimstone forever.
The Lake of Fire
These are the first two inhabitants, and at that point the only inhabitants in the lake of fire. The lake of fire, we're told in Matthew 25:41, was
created for Satan and his demon angels. But unsaved human beings who reject Christ will also share that destiny. Hades, or Sheol (is the Old
Testament word), and Tartarus are holding hands for the demons and for unsaved human beings who, at the great white throne (when final judgment is
pronounced against them) will be emptied into the lake of fire. "Gehenna" is another term which is used in the Bible, and this does refer to the lake
of fire.
So, we come to the end of Revelation 19, and with the end of this chapter, we close the revelation of God on the tribulation era. In Revelation 19:20,
we read, "And the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat upon the horse." "The rest" refers to the soldiers in the
armies which have gathered in the corridor leading to Armageddon. These armies will, at this point in the tribulation, find themselves in disarray
and demoralized by the fast-moving events, including the arrival of Christ from heaven.
We read about that in Luke 21:26-27: "Men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things that are coming upon the world. For the powers of the
heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of a Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." These armies and their leaders have
had a great confidence with a great deal of arrogance. Then, suddenly, they look out in space, and here comes Christ and His vast army from heaven.
And they are totally demoralized.
These soldiers in these armies are then killed by Christ with His spoken word (the sword which comes from His mouth). He is identified clearly as
Christ because He is the one who sits upon the horse – the previous reference to Christ leading His armies from heaven, riding a white horse.
Jesus Christ then, with His spoken word as His battle sword, will kill the soldiers and the leaders at Armageddon. This is described to us previously
in Revelation 14:19-20, and the devastation there will be total. The verbal sword of Christ is invincible because He is God, and His foes, therefore,
cannot resist Him.
The Great Day of God Almighty
So, we come to the dramatic conclusion of the great day of God Almighty. The entire enemy army lies dead under the conquering Word of Jesus Christ.
The sword of Christ sweeps down this 200-mile corridor (a staging area) like a tornado. Soldiers die instantly as blood bursts from their veins like
juice from grapes in a winepress. The souls and the spirit of these dead men go immediately into Hades, on their way station to the lake of fire.
This is the climactic battle of all ages of all mankind. I want to stress again to you that it is no surprise. The Old Testament is not silent about
this final great dealing of Almighty God with the rebellion of mankind that began in the Garden of Eden, and was brought to such a climax under
Nimrod in the Babylonian religious system.
Please turn to Psalm 110 as an example. Again, I hope you have your Bibles. It is a great disadvantage to yourself to walk in here without a Bible.
It is an equal disadvantage not to have something you write a few notes on. You will find that that's profitable, but you need the Scriptures so
that you may see for yourself what God has said. Psalm 110:5-6: "The Lord is at Your right hand. He was shatter kings in the day of His wrath. He
will judge among the nations. He will fill them with corpses. He will shatter the chief men over a broad country." Here is a psalm written by David
who, in his vision, has been projected to the end of the tribulation era.
In Psalm 9:17, we have another reference: "The wicked will return to Sheol, even all the nations (the gentiles) who forget God."
A little later on, the prophet Isaiah came on the scene, and he referred to it. Isaiah 34:3: "So, their slain will be thrown out. Their corpses will
give out the stench, the mountains will be drenched with their blood, and all the hosts of heaven will wear away. And the sky will be rolled up like
a scroll. All their hosts will also wither away as a leaf withers from the vine, or as one withers from the fig tree. For my sword is satiated in
heaven. Behold, it shall descend for judgment upon Edom, and upon the people whom I have devoted to destruction. The sword of the Lord is filled with
blood. It is sated with fat, with the blood of lambs, and goes with the fat of the kidneys of rams. The Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah." That's one
of the first places that Christ attacks: "And His garments become stained with the blood of His enemies, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom"
(where Bozrah is located).
The people who read the Revelation, you should be reminded, were well-versed in Old Testament Scriptures. When they read what Revelation said, they
made connection with these Old Testament passages, and that's why I'm taking you back to them. This is what God has, for centuries, proclaimed He
was going to do in His final exercise of His holiness and His justice.
In Jeremiah 25:29-33, this great and final battle of the ages is also described: "'For behold, I'm beginning to work calmly in this city which is
called by My name. And shall you be completely free from punishment? You will not be free from punishment. For I am summoning assault against all
the inhabitants of the earth,' declares the Lord of armies. 'Therefore, you shall prophesy against them all these words, and you shall say to them:
"The Lord will roar from on high, and utter His voice from His holy habitation. He will roar mightily against his fold. He was shout by those who
tread the grapes against all the inhabitants of the earth. A clamor has come to the end of the earth because the Lord has a controversy with the
nations. He is entering into judgment with all flesh. As for the wicked, He has given them to the sword,' declares the Lord.
"'Thus,' says the Lord of hosts, 'Behold, evil is going forth from nation to nation, and a great storm is being stirred up from the remotest parts
of the earth, and those slain by the Lord on that day shall be from one end of the earth to the other. They shall not be lamented, gathered, or
buried. They shall be like dung on the face of the ground.'"
It was quite clear to Jeremiah that God had some very big plans for the nations of the earth who held Him and His Word in such contempt.
Then Zephaniah 1:17-18: "And I will bring the distress on men so that they will walk like the blind because they have sinned against the Lord. And
their blood will be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the day of
the Lord's wrath. And all the earth will be devoured in the fire of His jealousy. For He will make a complete end, indeed a terrifying one, of all
the inhabitants of the earth."
In Zephaniah 3:8, we also read, "'Therefore wait for Me,' declares the Lord, 'for the day when I rise up to the prey, indeed, my decision is to
gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out on them My indignation, all my burning anger, for all the earth will be devoured by the fire of My
zeal."
Never in the history of the world, up to this point, has God brought this kind of judgment upon all the nations of the world. He has struck down
nations, but he has not created this kind of worldwide devastation.
Zechariah 12:3-4: "'And it will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will be severely
injured, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it. In that day,' declares the Lord, 'I will strike every horse with bewilderment,
and his rider with madness. But I will watch over the house of Judah while I strike every horse of the people with blindness."
Here, God is declaring that He is going to bring the nations together in Israel, and Jerusalem is going to be like a stone that is going to crush
them. And when Christ moves upon them, they will be so terrified that they will literally go mad.
So, the picture here is, from ancient times, what is described for us here in of Revelation 19:21: "All the rest of these armies are killed with the
sword that came from the mouth of him who sat upon the horse. People today may indulge their unbelief toward Jesus Christ and Scripture because this
is a time of God's grace forbearance. And this is the kind of contempt which is widespread in American society. There's nothing wrong with grace.
... People who find that Christians don't act the way they should always make the mistake of saying, "What we need is less grace and more rules. We
need more threats from God. We need more legalism. And, of course, where are you going to go then? You're going to go to the Mosaic Law. That's the
logical conclusion.
But here, the grace of God indeed is a time of forbearance. In American society, people think that it doesn't make any difference. They're none the
worse for ignoring God or holding the Scriptures in question. Unbelievers today may get indignant at Christians for sounding forth God's warnings,
and they may treat those Christians with contempt, and they may persecute them to try to silence them.
The federal government is now in the process of passing a law which will totally silence the anti-abortion movement. It will be such a crime (all on
one side) to say, "No, this is an evil, and an evil on the basis of the Word of God." And if you do try to rise up and rebel against that evil, the
liberals will have made it a criminal act, while those who are slaughtering our unborn children will be protected by these same liberals as those who
are doing right. They are thumbing their nose at God, and seemingly able to get away with it.
The federal government is now in the process of passing a law to make the workplace, as they say, "religion-free." So, if you are caught speaking,
while you sit at lunch, to someone about the gospel; about the Bible; or, about religious things, you will come under a criminal act, and your
employer will be obliged to take action against you.
Liberalism, I have told you before, is a doctrine of the demons. It is a doctrine of Satan because it is a doctrine of power over people. It would
not be uncommon for a liberal to say, "These conservative Christians look upon the federal government as a great evil and a great threatening
monster." Those people seem like they never read a history book, because that's exactly what our founding fathers said: The federal government is
potentially a great evil and a great, threatening tyranny, and that it must be bound down with the chains of the Constitution.
Well, unfortunately, in America, the Constitution, which is based upon principles biblical principles, is no longer in effect. It is just there as a
showpiece. It's like the queen of England. She has no power, but she's a figurehead. The Constitution is just a figurehead, and the courts and the
politicians do as they please, because the American people are no longer versed in the Word of God to know when freedom is threatened, and to rise up
in holy indignation so that they're in an outrage. They do not have leaders who can rise up and go to Congress and say, "We're going to take this
nation back for God. We're going to take this nation back for freedom. We're going to take this nation back to where the people are running things,
and not the authorities who are their servants.
Here, you're going to see the final result of that kind of political situation that a society has permitted to happen worldwide. Christ will come.
They have indulged their indifference toward the Word of God. They have thumbed their nose at God. But at the right moment, God's wrath will be
turned loose on the rebels like a tidal wave of flaming lava which will roll over them, and it will consume them.
What you reap, the book of Galatians tells us, is what you will sow. And what a society reaps it will sow. It is amazing how hard it is to find
people who can take leadership in a society, who are sufficiently versed in the Word of God such that they can be true leaders.
Verse 21 goes on to describe God's cleanup crew of this terrible devastation on the field of battle: "And all the birds were filled with their flesh."
The birds of heaven obey the call of the angel in the sun. They gather, and they gorge themselves on these dead corpses. These rebels who did not
respond to the time of God's grace forbearance are now bird food. These who took the mark of the beast will now share his eternal sentence of death.
The birds eat. They leave the bones to bleach in the sun and to decay.
This indeed is a sobering picture of the God of love – a sobering picture of the God of love in action. We must all wonder, how can this
happen? How can this be happening in the United States today, the America of a godly heritage? How can these things be happening?
Righteousness
Well, please go back to Romans 1:17-18. Verse 17 speaks of a gospel which reveals a righteousness from God, and a righteousness which characterizes
God. It's an absolute righteousness, and it's a righteousness that comes to one by an act of faith: "For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed
from faith to faith as it is written." Then it quotes an Old Testament passage here: "But the righteous man shall live by faith."
It is a righteousness of God which is revealed (God's own absolute righteousness, which is revealed in the gospel). And it is a righteousness that
comes by faith to the one who has faith on the basis of God's promise that a righteous man can only live by faith. He can have eternal life by faith.
He can gain this righteousness only by an act of faith.
Justification
When Martin Luther read this passage, he said, "Oh, God." The light burst upon his soul, and he was overwhelmed with the sense of relief. For the
first time, he, who had done so much in following the Catholic false doctrine salvation, finally had true peace in his heart. For he suddenly
realized it was not the doing; it was not the sacraments; and, it was not the dispensing of grace from the church, but it was an act of faith and
trust in Christ as personal Savior that gave him instant justification so that he had the absolute righteousness of God. That's what justification,
as you know, means. Justification, means that you possess the absolute righteousness of God.
So, the gospel (verse 17) is a plan which preserves the holiness of God, while at the same time taking sinners into heaven, because to them has been
imputed the absolute righteousness of God because of their faith in Christ.
Verse 18 now presents the alternative to a person who does not receive this absolute righteousness from God. What's the alternative? It is the wrath
of God. Verse 18: "For." This introduces, with this word, the alternative to believing the gospel and receiving the absolute righteousness of God
spoke of in verse 17. This word signals an explanation of the preceding verse 17: "Men must be justified by faith," because the wrath of God abides
upon those who lack justification.
The Wrath of God
"For the wrath of God:" The word "wrath is the Greek word "orge." This is one of two main words for anger or wrath in the Greek Bible. This one
connotes an anger which is based on the condition of mind – a mental attitude. Here it is referring to the mental attitude of God, which is
anger and which is indignation at that which violates His character. God's wrath is a result of His view of sin because of His essence and His
personal holiness. He has a holy revulsion against that which contradicts His holiness. This is not a mere outburst of anger. That's a different
Greek word: "thumos." That flares up. God sometimes has that kind of an outburst of anger. But "orge" is a lasting quality of indignation because it
stems from God's mental attitude toward sin because of His character. It expresses the indignation of the mind of God because His justice and His
righteousness offered in the gospel have been rejected. This is the anger of God.
A God of Love
Some people are disturbed by a God of love possessing this kind of settled, consistent anger. But that is because He hates evil. God's love is not
free to be expressed toward unbelievers, as John 3:36 or Revelation 20:12-15 point out. God has only wrath toward unbelievers. He has this settled
spirit of indignation.
Propitiation
However, God can love to the maximum, but only those people who have passed the point of propitiation so that they possess the absolute righteousness
of God. Before you have propitiation (before God is satisfied concerning the payment for your sin), God has to respond with wrath toward the sinner.
Those who reject the gospel have rejected God's love, and He in turn cannot exercise His love toward them. Love does what is right if it's
genuine love. And if it does what is wrong, it is not genuine love.
We once had a child in the academy who observed the disobedience to a parent before all the other students, and the mother pleading with that child
and trying to accommodate the child. This one kid in the class said, "That mother doesn't love that girl. She doesn't punish for what she has done."
It is the love of God that indeed must express His wrath in order to establish that there is a righteousness which is required for entrance into
heaven. He cannot compromise His love, no matter how believers may accuse God of being unfair or not giving them a chance to come to Him, because
they want to come on their own basis.
God's Wrath is Uncovered
This wrath of God is revealed. This means that it is uncovered so that it is brought to light. It's made known. This is in the present tense. God is
constantly revealing this thing. It is passive. It is not something that men are producing. It's something that God does for us. God's wrath is made
clear from heaven against all ungodliness and righteous.
God Reveals His Wrath through Scripture
How is God revealing from heaven what He demands? First of all, He reveals it through Scripture. For example, John 3:36 indicates that to us: "He who
believes in the Son has eternal life, but He who does not obey the Son shall not see light, but the wrath of God abides upon him." He who believes in
the Son has eternal life. You will find that constantly in the Bible, salvation is a matter of believing.
I warn you again not to fall into the trap
of these pop Christianity phrases. You should not tell people that to be saved, they must give their life to Jesus. That's not biblical. You should
not tell people that to be saved, they must invite Christ into their heart. That's not salvation. What does that mean? That's meaningless. We have all
of these various phrases that people come up with.
One of the favorites is: "to make Christ Lord and Savior." I heard Billy Graham use that phrase in explaining the gospel at President Nixon's
funeral. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with the phrase "Lord and Savior" (that praise in itself)? Not only is it not a biblical explanation
of how to be saved, but what it's talking about is a consequence of believing in Christ: "Make Him Lord and Savior."
If you're a good student of the Bible, you'll snap at that like a fish going for a juicy worm. It's out of order. You can't make him Lord and Savior.
First, He must be Savior. It takes John 3:16 to do that – an act of believing or trusting in Christ. After you are a Christian, you can make
Him Lord, and takes 1 John 1:9 to do that. That's how you make him Lord – by confessing known sins every time you're guilty of something that
is out of the will of God, and out of step, and you immediately confess it. That's how He becomes Lord, not by some emotional, teary-eyed dedication
of your life to Christ. At least if you're going to use that phrase, put it in the right order: to make Him Savior and Lord. But don't confuse
people with the idea that first you must dedicate yourself wholly to God (which is what the word "Lord" would imply), and then you must believe in
Him as Savior.
You might say, "Oh, well, you know what we mean." No, I don't know what you mean. The Bible is an explicit book with explicit language, and it means
what it says. And we are sloppy and careless in our treatment of the Word of God. As doctrinally instructed people, you should be indignant that the
Word of God is treated with that kind of sloppy contempt. So, here is a revelation from Scripture, first of all.
God's Wrath is Revealed through the Death of Christ
There is also the revelation from God in His anger against evil in the death of Christ. The price necessary for salvation was for the Son of God to
pay for the sins of all the world on the cross, just to do one thing: to satisfy the justice of God against evil. It was a terrible price that He had
to pay. Matthew 27:46 gives a high point of that payment when: "Jesus, about the ninth hour, cried out with a loud voice, 'My God, My God, why have
You forsaken Me?'" For at that point, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit looked the other way as the sins of the world were placed upon Him. God's
patience, like a dam to His wrath, was loosed upon Christ on the cross. In that moment, He bore all our moral guilt.
Acts 17:30 says, "Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance." God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent. You should
change your mind about Christ, and accept Him the Savior.
God's Wrath is Revealed in Nature
There's a third place from which information comes that makes clear God's wrath against evil, and that's in the world of nature. The world of nature
sits under a terrible curse. And that curse is upon nature simply because of God's anger over the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. That
wrath is someday going to be removed, and nature is sitting and waiting for the day when it is released from that horrible condition of decay.
In Romans 1:18, "This word is revealed" is so important. God is stressing that there is information. There has been information to human beings from
the time of Adam. There's never been a time in the world when a person did not know about God and how to get to God. This word stands first in the
Greek sentence in order to emphasize the fact that the revelation of the wrath of God has been clear. People have always known that God is angry at
evil. The most primitive cultures have demonstrated their awareness that God is angry at evil, and they've taken their own foolish steps to try to
avert the anger of the gods. This is revealed from heaven. It is not the distorted wrath of the old sin nature from Satan and the demons. It is God
from His heaven making known what divine anger they will face if they need Him in eternity without having paid the penalty of death.
So, both the absolute righteousness of God and the alternative of the wrath of God are revealed in the cross. And the same word "revealed" is used
in verses 17-18. At the cross, God revealed His anger (His wrath) against sin. At the cross, God also revealed His righteousness in paying for that
sin.
All Ungodliness
The next two words are extremely important. This has been revealed from heaven against (first) all of godliness. The word "ungodliness" is the Greek
word "asebeia." This word means a disregard or a defiance for God as a person. Here it refers specifically to the indifferent rejection of Jesus
Christ as one's Savior. Our world is full of "asebeia" (ungodliness). There are huge religious groups that totally reject Jesus Christ as Savior.
One example is what is taking place in Brooklyn now with the Lubavitch Jews who are extremely Orthodox Jews, and Rabbi Schneerson – this
92-year-old man that they believe is the Messiah. They had a big program on TV, and Koppel interviewed one of their leaders about how this is the
Messiah. He has all the qualities. He has all the facts to prove that he is the Messiah. They are waiting now for him to come forward and make his
declaration. When he moves to Jerusalem, where they are creating a home for him, the Jews will flock from this country to Israel because the Messiah
has arrived.
Well, Schneerson right now is in a hospital in Brooklyn, and he is reported to be brain dead, which poses no problem because the people he teaches
are also brain dead spiritually, so it doesn't pose any real difficulty. But can you believe that here you have this aged, doddering old man who
can't even think straight, and this is the messiah of Israel? And Koppel said, "What if he dies?" And they just had a group of people telling him
that he wouldn't die, including one feisty, forceful Jewess. But if he does, they will have to rethink their position. Rethink your position? What
you should rethink is whether the Messiah has not already arrived.
Jesus Christ was the Messiah, and this rejection (this disregard) for the deity and the person of Christ is "asebeia." It is ungodliness. The Bible
views the existence of God as self-evident, and it bluntly calls anyone who denies the existence of God a fool (Psalm 14:1, Psalm 53:1). People live
as if there were no God because they are fools. These passages show us that the root cause of atheism is negative volition to the truth revealed. It
is not that you cannot believe. That's bunko. It isn't because you can't believe. It's because you won't believe the truth that has been revealed.
We're not talking here about truth revealed from Scripture. That is significant. But Paul is talking here about truth which anybody can know who
never read a word out of the Bible. And for that truth of the reality and existence of God, those who ignore that are held accountable, and God's
wrath is against them. This is a lack of reverence.
Unrighteousness
Then there is also another problem, and that is unrighteousness. That is the Greek word "adikia." "Adikia" is a general term for wrongdoing,
especially between people. It is negative volition to biblical principles of morality. Do we have any unrighteousness in our society today?
Do we have any violations of God's moral code? Do you have any unrighteousness at the highest echelons of the American government today, that are
tolerated and dignified – living as if there were no revelation from God as to what is right and wrong? And here's the connection between these
two. This act of unrighteousness is a direct result of the act of godliness.
When a society becomes ungodly, and lacks reverence for God, and has contempt for the Bible, then that society goes from ungodliness to
unrighteousness in its conduct. Unrighteousness is a result of ungodliness. Because people reject the God of the Bible, they reject the morals of the
Bible. The moral decline in a society begins with the rejection of God.
Here's the connection that's very important for us to make. It is spelled out for us in John 14:15 by the Lord: "If you love Me, you will keep My
commandments." If you are not keeping the commandments of God, and if you are not keeping the moral code of God, where do you get off talking about
loving God? You cannot love God if you do not keep His commandments, because indifference toward the Word of God is ungodliness (lack of reverence
for Him and His Word), and that leads to unrighteousness in conduct. That's interesting.
Hebrews 10:25 says, "Not forsaking your own dissembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see
the day drawing near." That verse is telling you to be in church when the church services are held. Christians get around this in one of two ways:
they don't attend church; or, they force their church not to have an evening service or a midweek service. The reason I'm concerned to see empty
chairs before me is not because of the brilliance that you will fail to get from me. ... If you are here, you're going to be taught the result of
hours of research and of preparation from somebody who knows what he's talking about from a large frame of reference and experience. And I won't
apologize to you for that. Yes, you will be taught. Those empty chairs is distressful enough. But those empty chairs tell me that that person does
not love God.
I could go through this congregation and tell you person-after-person who does not love God. How do I know it? There's his chair; and, it's empty.
And then you wonder why people act the way they do? Ungodliness (lack of reverence for God and the Word of God) leads to unrighteousness. That's why
they live like dogs. They live like dogs because they don't love God. If you don't love God, it's because you don't know His Word.
So, don't go around telling people, and singing, "Oh, how I love Jesus" when you are not in the services being taught the Word of God, and you
yourself are not well-versed in doctrine. That's a lie. You do not know the Lord, and you do not love Him. Jesus says, "If you love Me, you will keep
My commandments. The implication is that: "If no one is teaching you the doctrines of My commandments, there's no way you can love Me." Unless
someone is teaching you doctrine, and you're there to be taught, and you're receptive to it, you cannot love God.
There are a lot of people who are going to be very sorry when they stand before Judgment Seat of Christ – that they were not here in church
rather than the places that they were when the services were being conducted.
You're not kidding anybody. You may think you're fooling us, but you're not. We can look at you. We watch you. We can observe you, and we can clearly
see your unrighteousness pouring forth as a result of your ungodliness. You don't love God.
There's a reason for the order of these two words here in Romans 1:18: ungodliness leads to unrighteousness. Man tries to reverse these two. He wants
to make unrighteousness the focal point. So, we have to have crime bills. We've got to have solutions for the evil that's the result of ungodliness.
If you don't care about God, and you don't know about Him from instruction, you do have these terrible illegitimate pregnancies, and all these other
terrible things. So, we're going to have a solution for them. Nobody in Congress says, "Wait a minute. The Bible has given us the answer." Where is
the politician who says, "Folks, what we need is to clear up ungodliness – this attitude of indifference toward God and His word? Then we will
be able to clean up the unrighteousness that is tearing our society apart. First, we must acknowledge God, and then our lives can line up with right
living."
Men Suppress the Truth
People today have lost sin-consciousness because they have rejected God-consciousness. Romans 1:21-25 spells it out for you explicitly. The greater
our respect for God, the more we recognize our sins and His grace to carry us through. The ungodliness and the unrighteousness of men do something
else that is so terrible. They suppress the truth. That means that they hold it down. Unregenerate humanity in general suppresses the principles of
doctrine – the truth of the Word of God. And they suppress it by means of their unrighteousness. Their evil practices suppress God's truth.
Because of their ungodliness, they're indifferent toward God and His word. They go to unrighteousness in conduct, and they proceed to suppress the
truth of God.
Naturally, if you have somebody who wants to break the moral code of God, then he must suppress the truth of doctrine. You must pass a law so people
can't talk about these things. The government is also considering a law to make it illegal to condemn homosexuality. It is considered a violation of
civil rights.
Heathenism
Negative volition chooses to do evil in the face of the truth – truth from creation to Revelation. This action is termed "heathenism."
Heathenism is where America stands today, and heathenism opens the door to understanding of a great deal of truth. Heathenism is the consequence of
having the truth, and turning your back upon it. We usually think of heathenism as somebody who is a poor benighted jungle-hopper around some fire.
No. Heathenism is people who have practiced ungodliness. They have taken the truth of the Word of God, and they've ignored it. They've rejected it.
That is heathenism. What this does is it opens the door to an enormous number of problems.
The world, by God's order, has indeed been evangelized probably many times over. The people who were evangelized became heathen by turning their
back upon the revelation of Scripture, and the revelation of nature (natural revelation). So, we need to look at heathenism, and we need to look at
the responsibility that is upon every human being on the face of the earth, when all he does is look around at the world about him. And he looks at
creation, and he looks at life forms.
Why is Carl Sagan a heathen? Carl Sagan, the great astronomer, who is the leading one of the leading evolutionists, is a heathen because he has
rejected the revelation of the Word of God concerning creation. He has said some terrible things about the revelation of God. He has said some
terrible things about the concept of a Creator God. He is a heathen. But you might say that he's educated. Yes, he's an educated ignoramus when it
comes to spiritual things. He is a heathen because he has rejected the light of the Word of God.
Next time, we'll look more deeply into heathenism, and into the consequences of what Paul follows up with here now in the Romans passage of what God
holds us accountable for. Nobody is in hell without having had a chance. No human being has ever lived who did not have access to eternal life, and
the information to get it. We'll show you how.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1993
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