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The River ChurchSermons

The NEED

The Need of the World

Gary Wright · Sunday, 4 May 2025 · Romans 1:18-32 · 39:17 · 4,970 words

Romans S2 · 1:18-32 Burton

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God's wrath is real, and the gospel is the only way of escape. The sermon examines Romans 1:18, showing that sin brings divine punishment, yet Christ's death covers the sins of those who trust in him. It explains that suppressing the truth leads to a debased mind and to God giving people over to sinful desires, illustrating how judgment deepens. The speaker asks listeners to confess Jesus as Lord, believe that God raised him from the dead, and invites anyone who does not yet know Jesus to talk with him.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

wrath 42 suppress 13 dad 17 god 113 creation 16 mail 5 turtle 4 truth 25 sexual 8 hunt 6 swimming 4 immorality 6

Topics

Sin 9 The Wrath of God 9 Faith 6 The Gospel 4 Righteousness 2 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 Salvation 1

Scripture referenced 17

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 1:18 7:17 Romans 1:16-17 8:04 Romans 1:19-20 16:19 Psalms 19:1 17:13 Romans 2:5 20:52 Proverbs 1:7 23:23 Proverbs 1:23-25 23:57 Romans 2:24 26:47 Psalms 81 27:23 Psalms 81:11 27:31 Genesis 2:24 31:11 Romans 1 34:50 Psalms 81 35:40 Romans 6:23 36:32 Romans 6:16 38:03 Romans 10:9 38:48 Romans 10:9 38:49

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

So when I was growing up, my dad, he loved the outdoors.

He loved to hunt, fish, and honestly, I think that's what he grew up doing.

But he taught me and my two brothers, or he didn't teach us, he did,

but he took us on this passion with him.

Like, we hunted every weekend during the summer.

He had rabid dogs, beagles, we deer hunted, we fished.

I became passionate about the outdoors too.

I still am. I love to be able to do those sorts of things.

But when I was a teenager, when I got old enough where my parents would let me go hunting by myself,

I was probably 17, 18 years old, me and a buddy of mine from school, his name was Jim,

we went up to Gladwin squirrel hunting.

We took our .22 rifles, and my parents trusted me to go.

And we went up there, and we didn't see a whole lot of squirrels,

so we were teenage boys, we started goofing around,

we started doing some target practicing out in the woods, we were on state land.

And we were rapid firing our .22s, nothing really wrong with that, nothing illegal about that.

The thing that we did that was illegal is when we went to leave that area and go hunt another one,

we put the guns in the trunk, and we didn't unload them.

Like, and I knew that that was supposed to be done, but we didn't do it,

we were just driving the little ways, we put them in the trunk.

Well, what happened is,

a couple of DNR officers were in the area, they heard us shooting our guns.

They come over to check out what was going on, they seen us in the car traveling, they pulled us over.

First thing they did was check our guns to see if they're loaded.

We were busted, right?

We both got a ticket, and we had the opportunity to either go to Gladwin and go to court and fight this ticket,

or just to plead guilty on the phone and pay a fine.

I was scared to death.

That my mom and dad were going to find out, because I knew that I would be in trouble for doing that.

So I tried to hide it, and I don't suggest doing that.

If you're a teenager or a kid in here, that's not a good idea.

The truth is the best answer, but I tried to hide it.

So I called up to the courthouse, I pleaded guilty.

They said, "We're going to send you the fine in the mail."

I'm like, "You've got to be kidding me, come on."

So every day when I got home from high school, the first thing I did when I got home,

when I got off the bus, is go to that mailbox.

For two weeks, I checked that mail.

It was there every week, but the bill was not there.

I came home, checked the mail one day, no mail in there.

I'm like, "Oh, this is probably the day it came."

Sure enough, I go in the house, and here's my dad in there walking around.

He's got the mail in his back pocket.

I'm like, "I'm going to be in trouble here."

So my dad calls me in the back room, and he asks me about it.

I told him what happened.

I said, "I didn't want to tell you because I knew that I messed up here."

He's like, "Well, how much is the bill?"

We looked at it.

We've seen how much it was.

It was $70-some dollars, which to me, that could have been $1,000.

I didn't have no money.

My dad paid the bill, and he did not tell my mom.

My mom was more of a disciplinary than my dad.

So if my mom would have found out, I probably would have been grounded indefinitely.

But he didn't tell her.

I'm not sure that was the right move, but that's what he did.

There were other times when I got in trouble that my dad hid my wrongdoing from my mom

and covered me.

I don't know, sometimes when I think of our God, I kind of think, "Man, if I could make

up a God of my own, I would want him to be like that.

A God that covers, or not covers, but hides my sin, or helps me hide my sin."

But the truth is, that's really not who our God is.

It's not.

I bought this new copy.

It's a commentary book.

Maybe you've heard of this guy.

His name is Chuck Swindoll.

I've listened to him preach quite a bit.

But his commentary on Romans is pretty good.

He says this, he says, "If I could make up my own God, he would be like a God from the

Hollywood movies.

He would be a God like a cigar-chomping type God."

I don't know if you've seen the movie "Oh God" way back.

You have to be old as me probably to remember that.

The cigar-chomping God who makes you laugh.

Or a God that's like a butler-like character, that he's got a lot of wisdom, but he keeps

you out of trouble, and he serves you even when you mess up.

He serves you nonetheless.

And our God probably does have some of those characteristics, but that's really not who

our God is.

Or maybe he says, "I would like a God who takes a 'boys will be boys' type of stance

when it comes to sin, kind of like what my dad did with me."

And a God that just says, "The circumstances are enough, and we're going to let you slide."

But the truth is, that's not who our God is.

This morning I want to ask you this question before we start.

What kind of God are you worshiping?

Is it the God of your imagination, or is it the real God of Scripture?

The God of Scripture is a loving, merciful God who sent his Son to die for us to cover

our sin.

But he is also a God of wrath, punishes sin.

And sometimes we don't like to hear about that.

That's a hard subject to talk about, but honestly, that is the subject we're going to be talking

about today.

Our God is a loving God, but he is a God who punishes sin.

We're going to read the book, we're going to turn to that Scripture in Romans 1:18,

and Paul writes this about God.

He says, "For the wrath of God is reward.

Revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness

suppress the truth."

So when we read this passage, the first thing I want you to notice is the passage starts

off with the word "for."

Okay?

It says, "For the wrath of God."

That word makes us tie the previous verses to this verse.

And what are the previous verses?

Verses 16 and 17.

These are the verses that Grant read to us last week, that he talked about.

It says this, Paul says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God

for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For it is the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the

righteousness shall live by faith."

So Paul's tying the gospel to the wrath of God.

So why is the gospel important?

Why is it important?

It's because the wrath of God is real.

It's because the wrath of God is real.

The thing that brings deliverance from the wrath of God, the only thing, is the gospel.

Right?

There is a punishment for sin, there is a wrath of God for our sin, and the only thing

that delivers us from that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The gospel and salvation would be meaningless if God's wrath wasn't real.

When we say we're being saved, what are we being saved from?

The wrath of God, right?

We're being saved from the punishment of God when we give our life to Christ.

That's what it's about.

And we see the wrath of God, there's really two types of wrath that we see.

We see from God, like, we see the wrath that's going to come in the end times for those who

haven't put their faith in Jesus.

But we also, there is wrath, God's wrath, actually, his punishment goes on in our life

when we reject him, and we're going to see that.

But the wrath of God is revealed in a couple of places in scripture, actually quite a few,

and I'm going to tell you about a couple.

The first one is the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Eve had this perfect paradise.

They had one command, don't eat from this certain tree.

They ate from it, and God's wrath came.

They were kicked out of paradise.

All of creation was affected.

Even us still today are affected by that, okay?

Later on in history, we see the flood of Noah.

All of mankind was wicked, except for one man God called righteous.

He wasn't perfect, but he did his best to follow God.

God wiped out everyone on earth with a flood, except for eight people, Noah and his family.

The wrath of God.

We see the wrath of God in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Sodom and Gomorrah was wiped off the map by God because of their impurity and their immorality.

God's wrath wiped those two cities out, and one of the most important places where we

see the wrath of God is Christ on the cross.

Christ went to the cross.

Listen, he was beaten, his beard was plucked, he was whipped, and he was nailed to a cross

and he died.

That was the wrath of God being poured out on God's only son for you and I.

God's wrath is real.

Paul goes on in this passage and he says, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven

against ungodliness and unrighteousness."

So ungodliness and unrighteousness.

We could basically say to actively oppress God in disobedience.

Know he's there, but actively push him to the side and disobey him.

That's what he's talking about.

He uses the word suppress.

That means to continually strive against the truth.

It has the idea of holding something down.

I got a great story for this.

When my kids were young, I have two kids, they're grown now.

We took them to the church.

We went to the lake one day.

They found a turtle.

They wanted to bring it home.

I said, "Absolutely not.

No way."

Kim and I, we didn't know, they snuck the turtle home.

My son cleaned out, he had a chest of drawers.

He cleaned out one of the drawers and he kept the turtle in the drawer.

They put grass in there for it to eat.

I don't even know if turtles eat grass, to be honest.

The thing was in there, Kim and I had no idea until funky smells started coming from their

Some funky smell.

I'm like, "What is that smell?"

We tracked it down to my son's room.

We're like, "What's going on?"

Both kids were in there.

They were suppressing the truth.

They knew that turtle was in the drawer, but they weren't telling us the truth.

They hid it from us.

That's what Paul's talking about here.

What we're talking about, he's talking about the world, people in the world.

They know the truth of God, but they're holding the truth down and pretending like it's not

It's not real.

That's what the world does, and it still does today.

We know the truth of God, and yet we suppress it.

I'm going to tell believers in here ... Excuse me, my voice is ... I don't know what's going

on with it.

Even believers, those who have put their faith in Jesus, suppress the truth.

Here's how.

We hear the scripture.

We hear things we don't like to hear, because sometimes the scripture can be offensive.

We don't like what God says.

We don't like his stance on things, and it can be offensive.

We want to believe what we want to believe, regardless of what the Bible says.

We know the Bible's truth, but is that what God really means?

Kind of like Eve, or Satan tempting Eve.

Is that what God really means?

Even though we know it's the truth, we suppress it.

We want to believe what we want to believe, but if it doesn't line up with scripture,

what we believe doesn't.

It doesn't line up with scripture.

Is it truth?

Are we suppressing the truth?

There's some hard things in here that goes against our society, and sometimes we want

to ... The line can be blurry.

That's what Satan does, but if it doesn't line up with scripture, we're suppressing

the truth if we believe what we want to believe.

Unbelievers suppress the truth even more, and Paul goes on in the next two verses to

tell us how.

Verse 19 and 20, it says, "For what can be known about God is plain to

them, because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly

perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made, so we use."

Two things Paul's teaching us here.

The first one is this.

He's justifying that people in the world suppress the truth about God, because they can see

God's creation.

They can see his power.

They can see his nature in creation, and yet they reject it.

Psalms 19:1 says this, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims

his handiwork."

God is real, and we can look out the window, and we can see it.

We can see how we have four seasons in the year.

That's God's plan.

God can be seen in his creation.

He reveals himself to us in a few ways.

Through creation.

He reveals himself through his word, and he reveals himself through the person of Jesus

Christ coming.

He has revealed himself to us.

Paul says we're without excuse.

Creation proves that there's a God.

Ninety-four years ago, on May 1st, the anniversary was just a couple days ago, 1931, the Empire

State Building was completed.

1931, May 1st, 1931.

Can anyone remember that in here?

When we look at the Empire State Building today, do we think, "I wonder how that got

there?

Was there some kind of cosmic thing that happened, and this building materialized?"

I would think to think that would be kind of silly, would you?

We can look at creation, and we can see intelligent design in creation, and yet we suppress that

truth in our world today.

We really do.

So that's what Paul's talking about.

We can see that God is real.

He shows us his power, because he not only brought creation into existence, but he sustains

it.

And listen to this.

In order for him to have created our creation, he had to exist before it.

We can see God's attributes.

We can see who he is through his creation.

We're without excuse, Paul says.

The second thing he's teaching is this.

Paul wants to show people who suppress the truth that they're responsible for their actions.

That's why he says we are without excuse.

Look, if we can look and see God in creation, that he revealed himself, we're without excuse.

I've had people ask me, "Gary, what happens to people that's never heard about Jesus?"

First of all, I want to tell you this.

I think it's going to be highly unlikely that there's somebody in the world that hasn't

heard about the saving our Savior.

But if there has been, what does the Scripture tell us?

They know there's a God, and they're without excuse, and there's going to be wrath.

For those who reject God, there's going to be wrath at the end.

There's going to be God's wrath.

Romans 2:5 says, "But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath

for yourselves on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judge will be revealed."

Those who reject Christ and die that way.

Or Christ returns before they've accepted Christ, there's going to be judgment, and

it's going to be eternal separation from God in a place called hell.

And I know we don't like to talk about that place, but I have to tell you the truth of

The second kind of wrath we experience right now in this world when we reject Christ.

As we go on in Romans 21 and 22, Paul says, "Although they knew God, they did not honor

him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their

foolish hearts were darkened.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools."

When I read these passages, I can look into our world and see these things happening.

They knew God.

They knew of God.

They knew of God from creation, yet they didn't honor him.

They had pride.

They glorified themselves instead of glorifying God.

They lived in God's creation, but they didn't give him thanks for it.

And when I say "they," we can say "we."

Paul's talking in, what, third person here?

We can apply this to ourselves because he's really talking to us as well.

They didn't give thanks because they didn't want to glorify God, and their hearts were

That means they were further enslaved to sin.

We see God's wrath beginning to happen.

God's going to take his hands off the wheel.

And let us go, or let them go, because of their unrighteousness and their ungodliness.

He goes on and says, "We became fools instead of being wise."

If we look at the Proverbs, chapter 1, verse 7, we see the same type of passage.

It says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction."

The world rejected Christ and suppressed him, and pretended like he wasn't there, but they

began to worship other things.

Verse 23 through 25, "And exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling

mortal man, and birds and animals and creeping things.

And therefore God gave them up," we see God's wrath beginning here, "God gave them up to

the lust of their hearts."

To impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the

truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served creature rather than creator who is blessed

They worshiped, the first thing they worshiped because of their disobedience is images of

They worshiped themselves.

Does it sound familiar?

We worship ourselves.

And they were saying glory to man in the highest.

Instead of glory to God in the highest.

And they worshiped the creation instead of the creator.

Instead of having dominion over the animals, they worshiped them.

Some things that we worship in our life now instead of God.

We don't have these images, but we definitely have idols in our world today.

We serve ourselves.

We serve our wants.

We serve our needs.

Not our needs.

We serve our wants and we serve our desires.

We serve our jobs.

We serve our money.

We trust possessions over the one who provided the possessions, sorry, got tongue tied.

We serve the possessions rather than the provider.

We have idols.

And because they traded this truth for a lie, God abandoned them.

This is the wrath of God, abandonment.

And the first thing we see here is the lust of their heart, impurity and dishonoring of

their bodies among themselves.

They fell into sexual immorality because God gave them up.

All different types of sexual immorality.

He gave them up.

One pastor says this about God's judgment.

God allows men and women to go as far down as they desire.

His wrath is shown in the removal of his restraining power.

What we have in verses 24 through 32 are the dimensions of depravity in which unbelieving

These men and women go on working out God's wrath on themselves.

These things we are talking about are the wrath of God.

It's like we are in a canoe and God is holding us back from these things.

But at some point, he is like, you want it?

And he shoves us off, taking my hands off, gives us up.

And we see a great example of this in Psalm 81, where God is talking about the Israelite

Psalm 81:11.

He says.

My people did not listen to my voice.

Israel would not submit to me.

So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsel.

And that's what he is talking about here in Romans.

God giving them up or giving us up is an active decision.

It is his wrath.

And God saying, you think your way is better?

Go ahead and see where it leads.

Shoves us off.

This is about my kids too.

I had an above ground swimming pool.

And I would open it up like this time of year.

And obviously the water was ice cold.

I didn't even put the ladder in the pool yet to get in.

I just got it ready because I knew June was coming.

But my kids, as soon as they seen the cover off, they would start bugging me.

Dad, can we go swimming?

I'm like, no, it's too cold.

Dad, can we go swimming?

Every day.

One day I was out there working.

They came out.

Dad, can we go swimming?

Go get your floaties on.

They came out and you may criticize me for being a bad dad here.

I picked them up and tossed them in the pool.

They didn't ask me anymore, right?

That's what God's doing here.

That's what God's doing.

He's like, go ahead.

See where it leads you.

Look, man's free to choose his own dishonorable passions.

That sin continues to spiral.

Paul goes on in the next two verses and it gets worse each time.

He says, for this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions.

So we see sexual immorality, all different kinds of things, sexual immorality.

But then we see dishonorable passions for their women exchange natural relations for

those that are contrary to nature and the men likewise gave natural relations with women

and were consumed with passion for one another.

Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving themselves the due penalty of their

Look, when he says the due penalty of their error or sin, he's not talking that this is

bringing the due penalty of their error.

This is the due penalty of their error because they rejected him.

This is part of their sin.

This is part of the wrath.

The lines are blurred.

They flip flop relations.

Homosexuality is really part of God's wrath.

We see the nature, the natural way that God created things changed by man's sin.

The lines are blurred.

We see that in our country today.

The lines are blurred on this because God has given us up.

What is God's plan for sexual relation?

Genesis 2:24, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his

wife and they shall become one flesh."

If you keep reading, he tells them to multiply the earth, right?

This very thing is repeated in Matthew by Jesus, the same passage and also by Paul in

That's God's plan.

It's like drawing a circle for sexual relation.

And anything inside the circle is okay.

But the only thing that's in there is a wife and a husband.

Anything outside that circle is sin.

It is sexual immorality, anything.

It's not just homosexuality.

It is having sex outside of marriage.

It is pornography.

It is anything sexual like that is sin.

If it's not a husband and wife in a loving relationship, it is sin.

I know that's hard to hear in our country today, but that is the truth of God's word.

And this is part of God's punishment.

This is part of him taking off his restraints.

But it gets worse.

You think that's bad.

It gets worse.

It says in the last few verses, Paul says, "And since they did not see fit to acknowledge

God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done, they were filled

with all manner.

They were sinners of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

They are gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of

evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

They know God's righteous decree and that those who practice such things deserve to

They not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them.

God, part of his wrath when he gives us up is a debased mind.

And a debased mind, actually the best way to describe it is what the NLT version of

the Bible says.

Foolish thinking.

Foolish thinking.

It's doing, and it also means worthless or unworthy.

But foolish thinking.

And they do what ought not to be done.

And there's that whole list.

The debased mind causes us to go deeper and deeper into the cycle of sin.

This is horrible to read all this.

It's horrible to talk about all this.

God says these people knew that these things led to death, yet they did them anyways, and

they encouraged others to do them as well.

You ever been encouraged to sin?

I have been.

People's like, come on, Gary, you can do this.

They're encouraging.

They're encouraging.

I mean, it's one thing to do it yourself, but to encourage someone else is pretty bad.

Chapter 1 is a progressive decline of mankind.

And listen, Paul's talking in third person, but this applies to us.

We see all of this in our country.

I believe our country is under God's wrath.

He's let us go.

We see all of this.

God gave them up.

He allowed them to go deeper in sin, to drive them.

This is the good news, if there is good news.

And he did this.

He allowed this to drive us to despair, to show us that we need a savior.

We need a savior.

And he's talking about the world.

We all need a savior.

His name is Jesus, by the way.

Psalm 81, I read earlier how God gave up the Israelites.

But if you continue on in that, God says this, so I gave them over to their stubborn hearts

to follow their own counsel.

Oh, that my people.

My people would listen to me that Israel would walk in my ways.

I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes.

He's saying if my people would turn back, turn to me, I will be their God.

Listen, God has separated himself from mankind.

Romans 6:23 says this, that the wages of sin is death.

That means he is sin.

He is separated from the sinful man.

But if we keep reading that verse, it says this, but the free gift of God is eternal

life through Christ Jesus.

Look, God has separated himself, but he wants us to realize that we need a savior and his

And he is the only way Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

Nobody's coming back to God except through him.

My dad, I wanted my dad or I loved how my dad protected me.

And from my mom.

Right?

And honestly, God doesn't exactly work like my dad.

He didn't hide.

He doesn't hide sin.

But this is what he will do that my dad did.

When you give your life to Christ, when you put your faith in him, he will cover you up.

The Bible says that Jesus righteousness is imputed to us.

That means we become righteous even though we're not when we put our faith that Jesus

died on the cross.

And that he rose again and we make him our Lord.

And I have to bring us back to chapter verse 16.

I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God to everyone who believes

to the Jew first and also the Gentile.

That means everyone else that's not Jewish.

God became God is a just God.

That means he punishes sin.

But the book of Romans says this because of Jesus, he's not only just.

He's a justifier.

He will forgive sin when we and when we turn to him, when we believe in his son.

Romans 10:9.

I'll read you this and then we'll close out Romans 10:9 says, because if you confess with

your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved.

God will take you back and forgive you.

If you're here this morning, you don't know Jesus and you want to talk to somebody.

I would love to have that conversation.

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