On Sin (Romans 1:18-32)

In the stage and film productions of the Diary of Anne Frank, writers have Anne making this last fatal entry in her diary just before the Nazi soldiers burst in to arrest her and her family. To reinforce the point in the 1959 movie version, Anne’s words are superimposed on the screen as the scene dissolves[1]. In truth, Anne wrote that line some time before her arrest and it was not her last entry. Perhaps she changed her mind as she lay dying of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

This belief in our basic goodness is neither unusual nor recent. More than a century ago, Christian thinker and writer G. K. Chesterton lamented in his 1908 masterpiece, Orthodoxy, that the self had subordinated divine truth.

“But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert – himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt – the Divine Reason.”[2]

Once limited to the secular, this belief has transformed the church as well with the result of deemphasizing sin and elevating our “basic goodness.” In 1982, evangelist Robert Schuller published Self Esteem: The New Reformation. Sin, Schuller declared, is “any human condition or act that robs God of glory by stripping one of His children of their right to divine dignity… Sin is any act or thought that robs myself or another human being of his or her self-esteem.”[3] Dr. Schuller urges us to “adequately value ourselves”[4] and begin our salvation by recognizing our “hunger for glory.”[5] In Schuller’s theology, to be born again means, “we must be changed from a negative to a positive self-image – from inferiority to self-esteem, from fear to love, from doubt to trust.”[6]

Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, preaches the latest version. In 2004, he published his multi-million best seller, Your Best Life Now, in which he declared that, “God sees you as a champion. He believes in you… He regards you as a strong, courageous, successful, overcoming person.”[7] Further, Osteen implores us to, “cast down those negative thoughts and begin to see yourself as God sees you – a winner, an overcomer.”[8] Osteen fundamentally promotes the idea that we possess a basic goodness by stating that, “God focuses on the things you’re doing right; he sees the best in you.”[9]

This viewpoint packs the pews. It sells books. It is viewed as inspirational and motivational. But, is it true?

Exposition

God has much to tell us about our nature in His Word. Few passages, though, are as direct and cutting as Romans 1:18-32. In verses 1-17, Paul establishes his apostolic credentials and thanks the saints in Rome for their faith. Starting in verse 18, Paul forcefully confronts us with our sin.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”

As Paul makes clear, there is available to every man and woman in creation a certain knowledge of God, usually called General Revelation. Just as we can learn much about a writer by studying his work or a craftsman by his creations, we can learn and know much about God by His handiwork. Paul specifically names God’s “eternal power” and “divine nature” as two examples. Just look at Psalm 19:1-3:

“The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language

where their voice is not heard.”

How can you be a doctor and view the marvelous complexity of the human body and not see the imprint of the Grand Designer? How can we look at the raging power of Niagara Falls, or the diversity of life in the oceans, or gaze deep into the mysteries of space, and not be awestruck by the infinite power of the Creator?

However, when confronted with the truth and majesty of God, how do we react? Do we fall to our knees in reverence and worship? No, we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Paul shows us that there is a progression. First, we refuse to accept God as He has revealed Himself. Then, we counter with an alternative. We exchange the truth for a lie. We will worship a god in our own image and desires, be it Apollo, Zeus, a bull, Darwin’s fish, or, more likely, ourselves. We do not like having God in our knowledge. That is the fundamental problem in the world. That is the essence of the human condition. We do not want God. We want self-determination and self-exaltation. That was the first sin in the garden. That is the root of all evil today. We do not want to know God or have him in our lives.

Paul continues in verse 24.

“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

The sequence Paul lays out for us is that the rejection of God’s revelation leads to idolatry, and idolatry leads to immorality, and immorality leads man to plummet into the vilest perversions imaginable. Not only do we exchange the truth of God for a lie, but also we exchange the natural blessings of God through His provision of sexual fulfillment for those that are unnatural and vulgar. Just look at our own country. As we busily went ahead eradicating a holy God from our public and private life, an obsession with sex was one of the idols to fill the void. First, it was the ‘Free Love’ movement in the 60s and 70s. We were told that easy and promiscuous sex was not only natural, but good. Now, we have the glorification of homosexuality and the promotion of same sex marriage. There are activists today who are laying the legal groundwork for polygamy and incest. This is only the beginning. I remember many years ago going on a trip to Denmark with some friends. On one stop we went into an adult book store. I will not describe what I saw, but most assuredly the depravity I witnessed shook me to the very core of my being. I was literally sick and speechless for about an hour. Those images still haunt me. Trust me when I say that worse is to come. Moreover, God will give us over to our wicked and sinful desires. God’s wrath, then, is not only future, but present. We face not only the consequence of our sins in the coming judgment, but also in our present circumstances, too.

The important point is that we are sinners not only in deed, but most importantly, by nature. Our hearts are wicked, through and through. As our Lord declares in Matthew 15:18-19,

“But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”

Paul continues in Romans 1, verse 28 to level completely our conceits and pretensions.

“Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

Is there any more graphic a portrayal of your heart and mine? You are in there. I am in there. Reject God, suppress God, distort God, recreate God in our own image to our own liking, and the effect is worse than we can imagine. The result is a horribly depraved mind imprisoned to our sin. The bottom of this spiral into depravity is not just doing what deserves death, but also heartily approving others who do it and even helping them along in their self-destruction.

In contrast to the words of Anne Frank we have the words of Adolph Hitler, “I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience, imperious, relentless, and cruel.” In the killing fields of Rwanda, 937,000 souls were slaughtered in a mere 100 days. In Liberia in 1989, rebel Charles Taylor went to war against Dictator Samuel Doe. When victorious, Taylor had the captive Doe castrated, his ears cut off, and then skinned alive at the victorious Taylor’s feet. Taylor had the whole scene filmed and sold on the market. Just to make sure everyone got the point, he had Doe’s skin, ears, and sex organ paraded around Monrovia in a jeep. In the sectarian warfare in Iraq, just killing your victim is not enough. First, the killers brutally torture the individual. Power drills are a preferred instrument. In our own country, there are those who would kill a pregnant woman and slice her unborn child out of her belly to kidnap it. The late Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias told a story of his meeting a Dutch woman who rescued children from sexual abuse. She told him that the night before she was in a hellish place called Snake Alley where men come at the end of the day to drink a concoction of hard liquor and snake’s blood until their minds are ravaged beyond reason. She literally had to tear away from the arms of one man an 18-month old baby girl who he was sexually destroying.

Of course, one could raise a reasonable objection against Paul here: this is not the way all people are, even unbelievers. Some are very honest, giving, considerate, and respectable people. Yes, that is true. We see many such ‘good’ people in our midst. However, there was a Roman writer who remarked in his own day how odd it was that people willingly thank the ‘gods’ for their material blessings, but somehow believe their virtue is all their own. Is your virtue all your own? Paul clearly states three times that, “God gave them over.” Who, indeed, has created and regenerated you? Who, indeed, gives us common grace? Who, indeed, saves us from the true nature of our hearts for His purpose and glory? As Paul declared in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?”

Yet, the church does not preach sin. Our message is that we are basically good. Our problem is simply a lack of self-esteem.

Having started with literary works, let me begin to wrap up with another one. In 1678, John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegory of a Christian’s journey from the “City of Destruction” to the “Celestial City.” In Part I, Section X, our protagonist, Christian, is speaking to a character named Ignorance.

“…Then directing his speech to Ignorance, he said, Come, how do you? How stands it between God and your Soul now?

Ignor. I hope well; for I am always full of good motions, that come into my mind to comfort me as I walk.

Chr. What good motions? pray tell us.

Ignor. Why, I think of God and Heaven.

Chr. So do the Devils and damned Souls.

Ignor. But I think of them and desire them.

Chr. So do many that are never like to come there. The Soul of the Sluggard desires, and hath nothing.

Ignor. But I think of them and leave all for them.

Chr. That I doubt, for leaving all is an hard matter, years a harder matter than many are aware of. But why, or by what, art thou persuaded that thou hast left all for God and Heaven?

Ignor. My heart tells me so.

Chr. The wise man says, He that trusts his own heart is a fool.

Ignor. This is spoken of an evil heart, but mine is a good one.

Chr. But how dost thou prove that?

Ignor. It comforts me in hopes of Heaven.

Chr. That may be through its deceitfulness, for a man’s heart may minister comfort to him in the hopes of that thing for which ye has no ground to hope.

Ignor. But my heart and life agree together, and therefore my hope is well grounded.

Chr. Who told thee that they heart and life agree together?

Ignor. My heart tells me so.

Chr. Ask my fellow if I be a Thief! Thy heart tells thee so! Except the Word of God beareth witness in this matter, other testimony is of no value.

Ignor. But is it not a good heart that has good thoughts? and is not that a good life that is according to God’s Commandments?

Chr. Yes, that is a good heart that hath good thoughts, and that is a good life that is according to God’s Commandments; but it is one thing indeed to have these and another thing only to think so.

Ignor. Pray, what count you good thoughts, and a life according to God’s Commandments?

Chr. There are good thoughts of divers kinds, some respecting ourselves, some God, some Christ, some other things.

Ignor. What be good thoughts respecting ourselves?

Chr. Such as agree with the Word of God.

Ignor. When do our thoughts of ourselves agree with the Word of God?

Chr. When we pass the same Judgment upon ourselves which the Word passes. To explain myself, the Word of God saith of persons in a natural condition, There is none righteous, there is none that doth good. It saith also, That every imagination of the heart of man is only evil, and that continually. And again, The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Now then, when we think thus of ourselves, having sense thereof, then are our thoughts good ones, because according to the Word of God.

Ignor. I will never believe that my heart is thus bad.

Chr. Therefore thou never hadst one good thought concerning thyself in thy life.”

Why is this necessary? Why do we want to dwell on the bad stuff, to seemingly drive people away from church? Can’t we focus on the positive, on God’s love? Well, let us turn back to the discussion between Christian and Ignorance.

“Ignor. What are good thoughts concerning God?

Chr. Even as I have said concerning ourselves, when our thoughts of God do agree with what the Word saith of him; and that is, when we think of his Being and Attributes as the Word hath taught, of which I cannot now discourse at large: but to speak of him with reference to us, then we have right thoughts of God, when we think that he knows us better than we know ourselves, and can see sin in us when and where we can see none in ourselves; when we think he knows our inmost thoughts, and that our heart with all its depths is always open unto his eyes; also when we think that all our Righteousness stinks in his nostrils, and that therefore he cannot abide to see us stand before him in any confidence, even in all our best performances.

Ignor. Do you think that I am such a fool as to think God can see no further than I? or that I would come to God in the best of my performances?

Chr. Why, how dost thou think in this matter?

Ignor. Why, to be short, I think I must believe in Christ for Justification.

Chr. How! think thou must believe in Christ, when thou seest not thy need of him! Thou neither seest thy original or actual infirmities; but hast such an opinion of thyself, and of what thou doest, as plainly renders thee to be one that did never see a necessity of Christ’s personal righteousness to justify thee before God.”

Application

Like most of us, Ignorance reflexively knew the right slogans. We, too, will say, “I must believe in Christ.” “Accept Jesus into your heart.” “Give your life to Christ.” But, Ignorance, like many in the church today, never knew, nor trusted, what they really meant. If we cannot understand and truly repent of our sinful condition and see how utterly hopeless we are, how can we see our dire need for a Savior? Until we see our impossible condition, Christ, the only one who can rescue us from our sin and God’s wrath, cannot be the center of our worship. Instead, our “basically good” selves will be at the center. Look at the church today and the messages we preach. Our focus is about our best life now, our purpose driven life, our health, our wealth, our prosperity, our self-esteem, enlarging our territory, and fulfilling our desires. Our trust, rather than fully being in the redemptive work of Christ, is invested instead in our works and for our benefits. We can never comprehend and accept the gift that Jesus has to offer us if we do not see our need.

This is critical because I fear that there may be those in the church who, through ignorance of God’s Word and bad preaching from our pulpits, think they are fine, but will be horribly stunned when they face God in all His wrath and holiness and see that they were really depending upon themselves and not Christ. As Jesus declared in Matthew 7:21-23,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ [Did we not give at the offering, sing in the choir, serve as an usher, and help teach Sunday School?] Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

Conclusion

With all due respects to Pastor Osteen and the legion of book writers and religious leaders of today, Christ is the only winner. He is the only overcomer. He is the summation of our salvation, the summation of the blessing of the Abrahamic Covenant, the summation of the Law and prophets, and the glory of God. Let us examine our hearts daily, not with the “wisdom” of the world, but with the light of God’s Word. Where is our trust? Who is the true center of our worship? Who are we truly serving? Flee to Jesus and set every thought captive to Him.

Amen.

[1] The Diary of Anne Frank, dir. George Stevens, perf. Millie Perkins, Joseph Schildkraut, Shelley Winters, Richard Beymer, Gusti Huber, Lou Jacobi, Diane Baker, Douglas Spencer, Dodie Heath, and Ed Wynn. 20th Century Fox, 1959. [2]Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy (Ft. Collins: Ignatius Press, Reprint edition 1995) 36-37. [3]Schuller, Robert. Self Esteem: The New Reformation (Nashville: Word Publishing Group, 1982) 14. [4] Schuller 67. [5] Schuller 26-27. [6] Schuller 68. [7] Osteen, Joel. Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential (Nashville: FaithWords, 2004) 58. [8] Osteen 62. [9] Osteen 65.

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