They Suppress the Truth

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 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 they are without excuse. For 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, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” (Romans 1:18-25 ESV)

When God made humankind, he created us to worship him. And through all that he created he showed to all of humanity who he is and what he is about. For all of his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world. So all of us are without excuse if we choose to refuse God and his truth and his righteousness in favor of ungodliness and unrighteousness and open rebellion against him and against his commands.

Now God did not just create us humans and then leave us to our own devices. In the Old Testament he made a covenant with his people Israel, and after Jesus died and rose from the dead, he did away with that Old Covenant, and all God’s people who believed in Jesus entered into a New Covenant relationship with him. But all who denied Jesus Christ were cut out of that relationship with God – Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit. But even the New Covenant has commands that we must obey.

And those commands are all written down for us in the New Testament Scriptures, which are primarily God’s moral laws, but many are carried over from the Old Covenant into the New Covenant. What didn’t carry over are all the liturgical, ceremonial, sacrificial, purification, and dietary laws and restrictions of the Old Covenant, including physical circumcision. Those we do not have to obey. But all God’s laws which are repeated for us under the New Covenant, we do have to obey.

But the situation we have today, at least here in America, is that there are so many undisciplined, unruly, morally impure, liars, deceivers, tricksters and con artists who are posing as those who believe in Jesus Christ but whose mission it is to lie to the people to lead them away from the truth of the gospel to follow after the lies of the enemy. And what they are teaching has gained much popularity among the people to the point that the lies have now been accepted as truth while the truth is being called lies.

Now one term for these liars is “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” For they are predatory people who prey on the naïve and the unlearned and those having not much knowledge of what the Scriptures teach. And so they teach their lies over top of the Scriptures as though they are teaching truth, but they are not. For they are operating in the flesh, and not in the Spirit. For they are wanderers, the self-indulgent, the crafty and sneaky and devious who teach false doctrines of man disguised as the truth of the Scriptures.

Now some of these “wolves in sheep’s clothing” are very charming and well liked by the people. Many of them know how to smooth-talk people into believing their lies. But they are immoral people, who are evil and wicked and who plot evil against others. They are those who betray and who stab others in the back and who are unfaithful. So they will just use other humans and take advantage of them in order to advance their own personal agendas and in order to deceive the masses into believing their lies.

So what they mainly do is that they remove Scriptures from their context and then they twist them to say what they do not say in context, and for the purpose to lie and to deceive and to lead people away from the truth to follow after the lies. And their diluted and altered character of God and of his church and of his gospel are largely what are being accepted today as the truth by the church at large because so many people are listening to these charmers and manipulators and are not testing them against God’s Word.

So what does that have to do with this passage of Scripture? Everything!! For this passage is talking about those who suppress the truth of God and of his word by their unrighteousness and ungodliness, and that is exactly what is happening in today’s modern market-driven “churches.” So they are rejecting what God has revealed about himself, both through his created works and through his divine word (the Scriptures). And they are accepting and worshiping the created rather than the creator of all.

And so they are choosing to believe the lies over the truth, and even if you point the truth out to them, so many will ignore it and will cling to the lies, instead, for the lies make no demands for them to change, to forsake their sins, and to now follow Jesus in obedience to his commands. And so God has given them up to their own devices to follow after the lusts of their hearts to do the evil that they want to do because they refuse to submit to him as Lord and to obey his commands. And this is sadly where many professing Christians are today, following the lusts of their flesh over obedience to God. 

But the Scriptures teach us that if sin is what we obey, in practice, and not righteousness, and not obedience to our Lord, as a matter of daily conduct, then we are not in fellowship with Christ, we don’t know God, we are not born of God, but we are of the devil, and we will not inherit eternal life with God regardless of what our lips profess. For Jesus said that not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven but the one DOING the will of God the Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21-23).

[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-24; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-11; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 10:23-31; 1 Co 10:1-22; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

For Our Nation  

An Original Work / September 11, 2012

Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.

Jesus Christ is gently calling

You to follow Him in all ways.

Trust Him with your life today.

Make Him your Lord and your Savior.

Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.

He will forgive you of your sin;

Cleanse your heart, made new within.

Men betraying: Our trust fraying.

On our knees to God we’re praying,

Seeking God to give us answers

That are only found in Him.

God is sovereign over all things.

Nothing from His mind escaping.

He has all things under His command,

And will work all for good.

Jesus Christ is gently calling

You to follow Him in all ways.

Men deceiving: We’re believing

In our Lord, and interceding

For our nation and its people

To obey their God today.

He is our hope for our future.

For our wounds He offers suture.

He is all we need for this life.

Trust Him with your life today.

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