(A) Introduction. Read Rom1v18to32.

Some Christians are embarrassed by the merest suggestion that God is wrathful or angry. This is probably because anger is not seen as an attractive response in humans. However, it would be a sad state of affairs if we were never angry.

During my career as a teacher I was invariably angry when an able pupil produced a very badly done Geography homework. Rushed, skimped, slovenly work made me angry because the pupil was letting himself down, showing no respect for the subject I taught and exhibiting no desire to co-operate with me. I would be neither true to myself, concerned for my subject or acting in the best interests of my pupil to remain unmoved by bad work. A bit of 'wrath' usually had the desired effect.

God is angry - indignant and disgusted - at man's godlessness and wickedness because he loves righteousness and loves us. Godlessness and wickedness spoil the individual, destroy men's relationship with God and ruin society.

(B) Man's wanton stupidity.

(1) The folly of denying God's existence.

Men suppress the truth by their wickedness. v18. 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 all men are without excuse. v20.

Mankind is faced with two alternatives: (a) The universe made itself; it came into being spontaneously. Life on earth is down to a lucky chance. It just happens everything about our planet is conducive to life. (b) God created the universe and ensured that there was at least one planet that would support life - our earth - where he set in train processes that produced an abundant variety of living things.

If God created the universe he is:

(a) Immortal. Paul wrote of the glory of the immortal God. v23. Time started when the universe began. God created time - so he himself is not in time. He has no beginning and no end. God does not really think in terms of time passing.

(b) Transcendent. God transcends the dimensions of length, breadth and height. God created these when he created the universe. God is not confined to three dimensional space. It is wrong to think of heaven as a place in the same way that the universe is a place. The truth is we cannot understand how God exists - he is so different from us. So we have to talk about God in heaven because we can't imagine anything else. We just cannot visualise a being who is nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

(2) A failure to give God his due.

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. v21.

Paul argues that although all men should know God from his creation the Gentiles of his day failed to:

(a) Glorify him. All men should glorify God for the power of his intellect and the effectiveness of his execution. We should praise God for:

• The awesome immensity of the universe. It is made on a gigantic scale with billions and billions of stars and planets.

• The existence of so much beauty in the universe: the rings of Saturn, the night sky, the blue and white planet earth, a gorgeous sunset, the rainbow, leaf colours of spring, the blackbird's song, the flight of swifts, primrose yellow, the scent of violets. I love what Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote about apple blossom: A shower fell in the night and now dark clouds drift across the sky, occasionally sprinkling a fine film of rain. I stand under an apple-tree in blossom and I breathe. No food on earth, no wine, not even a woman's kiss is sweeter to me than this air steeped in the fragrance of flowers, of moisture and freshness.

  No matter that this is only a tiny garden, hemmed in by five-story houses like cages in a zoo. I cease to hear the motorcycles backfiring, the radios whining, the burble of the loudspeakers. As long as there is fresh air to breath under an apple-tree after a shower, we may survive a little longer.

• The variety of creation. If I get up at dawn and go to my local bird reserve I do not hear just one bird singing or all the birds singing the same song but many species of bird all with their own song: the wren, the robin, the nightingale - blackbird, chiff-chaff, great tit, pigeon and turtle dove. Wonderful! In Britain there are 49 species of butterfly - all exquisitely marked. I have sometimes walked in a wood and seen up to 10 species of butterfly drinking the nectar of the bramble flowers. Divers exploring the Great Barrier Reef of Australia do not see a few drably coloured fish but a veritable kaleidoscope of fish of every conceivable colour.

• The charm of creation. Alexander Solzhenitsyn writes this about, 'The Duckling': A little yellow duckling, flopping comically on its white belly in the wet grass and scarcely able to stand on its thin, feeble legs, runs in front of me. ... What keeps it alive? It weighs nothing; its little black eyes are like beads, its feet are like sparrows' feet, the slightest squeeze and it would be no more. Yet it is warm with life. Its little beak is pale pink and slightly splayed, like a manicured finger-nail. Its feet are already webbed, there is yellow among its feathers, and its downy wings are starting to protrude. .... And we men ... if we pooled our efforts we could plugh up the whole world in twenty minutes. Yet with all our atomic might we shall never - never! - be able to make this feeble speck of yellow duckling in a test-tube

• The commitment of the creator. Living things have a tenacity for life. This will to survive is a measure of the Creator's commitment to what he has made. Just one more story from Alexander Sozhenitsyn to illustrate this: We were sawing firewood when we picked up an elm log and gave a cry of amazement. It was a full year since we chopped down the trunk, dragged it along behind a tractor and sawn it up into logs, which we had then thrown on to barges and waggons, rolled into stacks and piled up on the ground - and yet this elm log had still not given up! A fresh green shoot had sprouted from it with a promise of a thick, leafy branch, or even a whole new elm tree.

  We placed the log on the sawing horse, as though on an executioner's block, but we could not bring ourselves to bite into it with our saw. How could we? That log cherished life as dearly as we did; indeed, its urge to live was even stronger than ours.

Thank him. We should thank God because:

• The universe is governed by laws. This means there is order in the universe and degree of predictability that makes life possible. The writer of Ecclesiastes finds the predictable rising and setting sun, general circulation of the atmospher and the water cycle monotonous and wearisome. But they are all good things - without them life would be impossible. See exposition on Ecclesiastes1v2to18.

• The earth seems to have been designed for us. It provides for our every need. There are huge tracts of fertile soil, vast and varied mineral deposits and plentiful energy resources.

• We have a great capacity for pleasure and enjoyment. For many of us life is full of things to enjoy. While I was washing up this afternoon I watched with pleasure two male blackbirds with bright yellow beaks sparring for territory on my lawn while a sturdy starling picked up insects with unerring accuracy. Many things make us happy: See Dorset story and story about a nearly perfect day.

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. v28.

This is not something the Jews did by the time of Paul - which makes some commentators believe that this whole passage had the Gentiles in mind.

Why did people make idols and call them gods? Why bow down and worship what you have yourself made? It seems a crazy thing to do. There are four reasons:

• There is a desire to make God less or, at best, no better than ourselves. An idol is unthreatening, not too demanding - comforting - almost like the teddy bear the young child takes to bed with it.

• There is a desire to have God under our control. He is OUR god - we made him after all. Our god will expect no more of us than we expect of ourselves.

• Men need a good luck talisman. A god of stone is a bit like a lucky charm worn round the neck. It reassures the superstitious. Our idol is there to bring us good fortune.

• Men feel the need to worship something. We were made to commune with God and worship him. Idol worship is at least evidence that men retain something from the age of innocence. See article, 'Flashbacks to Eden.'

People in modern Britain may not manufacture idols of wood and stone but they share similar attitudes to those above.

• A lot of people believe God is some kind of impersonal force. As C.S. Lewis pointed out this makes God less than we are. Gravity has no freedom of will! Gravity is without love and grace!

  Quite a lot of folk make up a God they think Christians believe in - an avuncular, kindly, grandfather figure who has his dwelling in the sky. So this allowed the first Russian cosmonaut to say something like this: "I didn't see God in space. We've proved he doesn't exist."

• It is easy to pay lip service to a God who is at our beck and call - a God who is on our side - one who will help us smash our enemies. Such a God tends to emerge in times of national emergency.

• Some people think it is sensible to keep in with God. Professional footballers pray for success, cross themselves as the run on to the pitch or kiss the cross hanging round their neck. God is treated like a lucky mascot.

(4) The false gods men worship.

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the creator - who is forever praised. Amen. v25.

Men have always tended to wonder at, and be in awe of, their OWN achievements. There are some well-known examples in the Bible: the tower of Babel, Nebuchadnezzar's massive golden idol, Herod's Temple that so impressed the disciples.

In our own day and age the media very rarely hold up God for our admiration and praise. Instead we are invited to worship:

• Sporting excellence.

• Musical compositions and performances.

• Lovely gardens.

• Architectural gems.

• Scientific discoveries.

• The marvels of technology.

Men are singularly proud - in awe - of what they have created. They think more of their own achievements than God's very own masterpiece: the universe and the life within it.

(C) Men's consequential wickedness.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity ... v24. Therefore God gave them over to shameful lust. v26. 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. v28.

Paul is claiming that when men reject or misrepresent God there is an inevitable increase in wickedness in society.

We do need to exercise some caution! Jesus was very scathing about the highly religious men who undoubtedly believed in the one creator God. They were associated with very distinctive sins: hypocrisy, self-righteousness, public recognition, pride, envy, legalism and greed.

There are atheists who live principled, decent lives. I don't believe Nelson Mandela is a Christian but there is about him the luminosity of a very good man. My brother Philip and my friend Tommy Bamber are atheists but in many ways are better than I am. Perhaps the atheists of Britain are influenced by the Christian values that still linger on in the twilight of Christianities dominance.

(1) How godlessness might increase wickedness.

(a) The absence of God is not conducive to humility. Rather it encourages arrogance. Man is king. It is possible for arrogance to infect Scientists who carry out research without any consideration of its ethical implications.

(b) If God doesn't exist we are not accountable to him. There is no restraint upon our actions. We can do anything we like as long as we can get away with it.

(c) Stewardship of the earth's resources is not encouraged if they are there by chance and not design.

(d) If the creation is not an act of God then there is no creator for us to emulate. We will not try and live up to God's generosity or place the high value on freedom that he does. We are the masters and we will do anything to get our own way.

(2) Evidence for the growth of wickedness where godlessness is endemic.

(a) In the Roman Empire. In his commentary on Romans William Barclay states that in the Empire at the time of Paul there was a degeneracy of morals almost without parallel in human history. It was an age: where violence had run riot, of unimaginable luxury and rampant immorality.

(b) In the atheistic regimes of the 20th Century. There is not a shadow of a doubt that the terrible litany of evil described by Paul was true of Nazism, Stalinism, the Khmer Rouge and Mao tse Tung's regime.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn details the horrors of Stalinism in his books. Children were encouraged to inform on their parents. Neighbours slandered neighbours. People were senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

The Nazis of Germany were God haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful. They were consumed by every kind of wickedness - evil, greed and depravity.

The Khmer Rouge movement was full of envy, murder, strife.

In the 20th century it was plain for all to see where institutional atheism led and yet there are today idiotic secularists who blame all the world's ills on religion!

(c) In the most secular countries of the 21st century. Britain is fast becoming one of the most secular countries in the world. What is happening in Britain? It is a country with high divorce rates, a huge number of single parent families, abortion on demand, the likelihood of gay marriage, innumerable rules and regulations, corruption in high places, a bonus and expenses culture, teenage drunkenness and violence, lack of neighbourliness, lack of compassion for the elderly and politicians that cannot be trusted.

I believe that there is an inevitable correlation between widespread ungodliness and wickedness.

(D) Conclusion.

Paul rather gives the impression that God allows godlessness and wickedness to run its course. However this is not true. Those horrible regimes of the 20th century did not last. The Roman Empire fell. Britain has had periods of ungodliness before. We came out of such a period in the 18th Century when God revived his church through the evangelism of John Wesley and George Whitfield.

Sin and unbelief will not have the victory. Pure evil had its day when Jesus the Lord of Glory hung on a cross and darkness fell upon the earth. But Christ arose.

Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son,
Endless is the victory Thou o'er death has won.