What happens when man will not surrender himself to God? What happens in a society like ours that says God is dead, or that he doesn't exist at all? What will become of a nation that says, we don't need God to govern our affairs? What happens to that kind of society? Look at NIV Romans 6:16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--…”
If we will not present ourselves to worship God then we will present ourselves to worship something else. There is a suppression of the truth as Paul said in Romans 1, and when there is a suppression of the truth you have a subjection of mankind and it is because we have rejected the revelation of God. Read NIV Romans 1:20 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.
Paul said there without apology, they cannot speak away their lifestyle, they cannot speak away their rejection of God, they are without excuse. And people were always bring up to me, what about that person on the island never heard of Jesus Christ… Let me let you in a little secret you won't have to answer for that man on the island who's never heard about Jesus Christ. Unless God told you to go there you only have to answer for you.
In Acts 14:16
That's what God does for that man who never hears the gospel… He reveals himself, and if that man worships the Creator God - God gives him more light. But we have chosen to reject God and we are without excuse. How do we know that they know that they are without excuse that they know there is a God? Acts 17:22
They had an alter there to an unknown god and Paul says let me tell you who that unknown god is. My point is this: they knew of God did they not? They may not have known everything, but they knew he existed and yet they knew he existed….. when Paul came and presented the truth – they suppressed it and rejected it… and went on worshipping this and that and something else…
Beloved, today this I know: everyone will stand before a sovereign God and mankind will have no excuse. Especially those of us in the west who have been saturated with the Gospel.
In Acts 14:14-17
Here are Paul and Barnabas, they are witnessing in Lystra and Derbe. While they were there a crippled man from birth listened to Paul speak had faith and Paul told him to get up and walk. When the people saw what had happened: they began to say that Paul and Barnabas were gods in human form walking among them. Paul says to them look we are no gods, but we have been sent by God to bring you good news, to tell you to turn from these worthless things and find the living true God! He tells them in verse 17 that God has left a testimony!
For someone to deny the existence of God that individual has to suppress the truth every day. Every morning the sun rises up in the east and every evening its rays sit in the horizon of the west and even though it is 93 million miles away, it is the source of our human life and existence. Without the sun we would die. On the sun are daily explosions from that hydrogen and those explosions keep you warm. Just at the right temperature. Whenever you go out side in a little bit on your way to church or work or to get the paper… you can feel the warmth of the sun 93 million miles away. And that tells me this morning God loves you!
Think about those in the darkest parts of the jungles of Africa… I have Been to Africa several times in my life, well gone on Safari, we were on the edge of these jungles looking for wildlife… The one the animals on the list that we could've seen was a wild cheetah we didn't see one, but the Cheetah is an amazing animal, the smallest of the cat family, other than these little felines in our homes… Does not have a roar like a lion, it is a have powerful jaws like a tiger, it is small in weight, in small in stature, it does not have the strength of a Jaguar. You cannot snap necks like a mountain lion… The cheetah has to bring its prey down attack the neck area, and did you know that about 50% of the animals that a cheetah brings down he will give up to another animal? Because he does not have a good defense except for one thing: he can run about 75 mph. The cheetah can go from standing still and hit 68 miles an hour in less than 3 seconds. So think with me about the pagan African who sits in the jungles of Africa: and he sees a lion coming up to take the prey of a cheetah, and all of a sudden the cheetah jumps from standing there the running 68 miles an hour. Do you think that that pagan African, in the jungle there says: "well something blew up in that thing right there and that thing just took off". He can look at it and it says to him there is a creator who created this animal to move in such a way and God must have cared for that animal to give it the ability to do that.
I want everyone to do me a favor today…. just humor me please? I want you to take your finger, and run it down your 4 head and over your eye brow… Underneath your eye brow there is a collection a fat cells… Do you know why that piece of fat is there? Why does the bone controller like that and come out like that? Because God loves you. See when we walk out in the sun and that sunlight is blinding us my eyes are shaded naturally by the contour but my bones in the fat beneath the flesh. feel your eyebrows, it's the only hair on your body that grows up! For some it may be the only one that grows out of don't know. {okay, bad joke} But, I do want to make a serious point here and it is this: the only hair that grows on your body in an upward state, Why? Because God loves you! There's enough theology in your eyebrow to show you that God is in the existence. But I would say not only exists but also he loves you, and he cares and is concerned about you! Did you know that it grows up to roll the sweat off of your forehead and it moves that salty sweat round my eye not in my eye! Why? Because God loves you! So that when he created you, He thought about the smallest of details on your face so that when you sweat you eyes would not sting from the salty sweat.
You ever stopped to thank God for the way he made you? Have you stopped to think that everything in your body and in this Earth points to a creator God? I'll tell you again we are without excuse… Every single man and woman, boy or girl who's ever lived this without excuse.
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