Romans 1:18
The Sound of Silence
1.24.16
Writeup for Website
Series: The Roman Road
Title: The Sound of Silence
Do you avoid certain neighborhoods? Driving around areas so you don’t have to see &
experience city blight? We tend to ignore things which make us uncomfortable.
Shutting our eyes to it does not make it go away, and knowing it’s there only makes the
good stand out as even more inviting and necessary. In Romans 1:18 Paul begins to
take us into looking at our own depravity, and God’s wrath against sin. Almost as if
he’s holding our cheeks and making us face a reality we don’t want to acknowledge.
Color Changes in text indicate slide changes
My wife turned me onto a new rendition of The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel
this week. It’s been redone by Disturbed, not a band I’d usually listen to. Take a listen
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4).
The video is kind of haunting. Paul Simon wrote the song in 6 months averaging a line a
day. He said the theme is man's inability to communicate with his fellow man. The
lyrics, which are full of light & dark imagery, illustrate people's tendency to be apathetic
towards each other. Communication is often only on a very superficial level, symbolized
by the "neon god." In this world, no one dares to reach out to anyone else & disrupt the
sound of silence.1 They don’t dare look at truth, or acknowledge their reality.
I thought it fitting to begin with this today given that we’re talking about light & dark,
the suppression of truth, and beginning to shed some light on some uncomfortable
things in Romans. Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again. In the
naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more. People talking without speaking.
People hearing without listening. People writing songs that voices never share, and no
one dare disturb the sound of silence. “Fools,” said I, “You do not know. Silence like a
cancer grows. Hear my words that I might teach you. Take my arms that I might reach
you” But my words like silent raindrops fell & echoed in the wells of silence. And the
people bowed & prayed to the neon god they made & the sign flashed its warning…
Lyrics reflective of life. Light. Dark. People talking without listening. Praying to gods
we’ve made which keep the truth from us. And that’s really what Paul speaks about
today in Romans. Some of what we hear or see of God in the Scriptures we’d like to
avoid. And in the coming weeks we’re going to talk about a side of God, and of ourselves,
which we may not wish to consider - we’d like to bow at the neon god of consumerism &
pleasure, to keep the chatter at a superficial level, but Paul doesn’t allow us that luxury.
Romans 1:18 says…”The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the
godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness…”
1
Read more: http://www.musicbanter.com/lyrics/Simon-Garfunkel-The-Sounds-ofSilence.html#ixzz3z1gROBMX
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We tend to focus more on the grace & mercy part of God. The wrath of God is typically
not a favorite subject of conversation. Likewise, it is not comfortable to face the true
condition of human nature either. We could pose four questions to this verse: What is
the wrath of God? How is it being revealed? Against who? For what?
Let’s look firstly at the concept of wrath: Paul’s talked thus far about the Gospel as Good
News; the only hope for the world. But Good News presupposes Bad - in verse 17 he said
the Righteousness of God is being revealed; good news. Now, in v18, he says the Wrath
of God is being revealed; bad news. Both are being & will be shown, uncovered, or
revealed to us. We hold these concepts in opposite hands. Dropping or hiding one
behind our back will not make it go away - one is as necessary the other.
There’s an essential relationship between God’s righteousness & wrath. If God
responded to evil with benign tolerance, his righteousness would be called into question.
Logically we know - that which is right, by necessity, defines that which is wrong. If it’s
right to tell the truth, then it’s wrong to lie.
Wrath is a difficult word. We often want to look to examples of wrath around us to give
us context in defining it. However, all human examples of wrath are tainted by our sinful
nature - divine wrath isn’t equal to human wrath. Human wrath is normally selfcentered, vindictive, and intent on harming others. God’s wrath is his divine displeasure
with sin.3 His wrath is focused primarily on sin which holds humankind captive. Sin for
which we are responsible, therefore that wrath effects people - people who refuse to
acknowledge their sinful state & seek remedy for it. We call it ‘wrath’ because it shares
certain basic characteristics of human wrath. However, God’s wrath doesn’t share the
sinful qualities of Humankind’s. It’s His indignation & divine retribution against sin &
rebellion in the world for the very reason that God’s holiness cannot mix with sin yet he
desires reconciliation with humankind.
Last week we looked at the reference in Habakkuk which Paul quoted in v17 which said
the Righteous will live by faith in patience for the judgement of God on all injustice &
lawlessness in the world. And it’s to this injustice, sin & lawlessness which God is
revealing his wrath. Like we said last week, sometimes the response of God to this is in
the future sense, still to be seen at a later time.
For instance: there are times growing up when my father would warn me about my
behavior & disobedience. He was long-suffering & patient with my rebellion at times.
However, in every situation over time his patience would run out, and I’d then
experience his wrath. He loved me still, but was fed up with that thing within me which
would disrupt peace in the family - in his anger he actually saw me as something better
than what I’d been displaying. He was calling me higher to my full potential. He was fed
up at my choices which not only hurt others, but myself as well. And he’d let me know in
no uncertain terms, and I usually ended up grounded as a result. Not fun. But it is
certain that although I may not have experienced my father’s wrath in every moment I
was disobedient - his wrath was there. His indignation of my sin. When his verbal
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warnings were disregarded, he had to finally act at a later date when his patience ran
thin.
Like Habakkuk last week we sometimes don’t understand why the “unrighteous”
benefit. Or how injustice can flourish. There’s a story of a group of farmers in a Midwest
community irritated on Sunday mornings by a neighbor’s plowing his field across from
their church. Noise from his tractor interrupted the worship service. The man had
purposely chosen to plow that field on Sunday mornings to make a point. He wrote a
letter to the editor of the local paper, asserting that, although he didn’t respect the Lord,
nor honor the Lord’s Day, he had the highest yield per acre of any farm in the county. He
asked the editor how Christians could explain that. With insight & wisdom, the editor
printed the letter & followed it with the simple comment, "God doesn’t settle all His
accounts in the month of October.” Like this farmer & my father illustrate, sometimes
God’s wrath is not seen immediately, and like last week, the righteous live by faith in
patience waiting for divine justice in God’s time.
Admittedly, the picture Paul paints here isn’t pretty. But think of it like this, there are
neighborhoods we may dislike driving through - we avoid community blight &
dangerous situations when we can. But our avoidance doesn’t change or eliminate them.
God’s description of the godless & wicked, or of God’s wrath, isn’t a pretty one, but we
can’t avoid looking at these issues. And as a matter of fact, seeing the darker side of the
Bad News, is essential for understanding the lighter side of the Good News.
There’s a sense when we explore the wrath of God against sin that it speaks in
eschatological terms (of end times). However, Paul also uses the present tense in this
verse - wrath is being revealed now. It has both a present & future aspect. God’s present
wrath now anticipates his final withdrawal from those who do not respond to his love in
the future. People often argue they could never believe in a god of love who would
condemn people to hell. That line of thinking though is a little askew. The blame doesn't
lie with God. It’s not his desire that anyone should perish, rather He desires that all
would find eternal life. The thing that's going to send someone to hell is that they’re a
sinner who won’t want to admit it to themselves. It’s like the guy who steals his
neighbors car because he’s mad at him, and when caught by the police insists he didn’t
do anything wrong. He can be as insistent as he likes, he’s still guilty & must pay the
price.
The Bible reveals the Gospel of Salvation by faith in Christ alone. That’s the good news,
now we have the bad news, or why man so desperately needs to be saved. The Bible
shows humankind as destitute of the righteousness needed to satisfy God’s just
standard, and therefore, in sin Humankind is justly under condemnation. The argument
is: God is just, He must punish sin, all men are sinners, therefore, all are under
judgment. Therefore until we recognize our condition we’re lost & not personally
concerned with deliverance.2
2
Everett Harrison. Expositor’s Bible Com. Zondervan. p 21.
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So, as the Gospel reveals God’s righteousness, it also reveals God’s wrath. God’s saving
power will only be properly appreciated against the dark background of His opposition
to evil. In art this is the principle of Chiaroscuro (light & dark). Caravaggio was a master
of it. Objects are seen best on a dark background with light shed on them at certain
angles to give us form, depth & certain detail. If everything is just flooded in light it is
washed out & 2 dimensional, if there’s no light, you see nothing. But the two together
give a greater image of what you are looking at. Righteousness & wrath help to define
our condition as it truly is.
We remember when John the Baptist said, "Who warned you to flee from the wrath to
come?" (Mt. 3:7). Which reminds me of a time when Kim & I got caught in a brush fire
on an island. There’d been a draught & the prairie grass was 4 feet high & very dry. It
went up like a match - flames 10-12 feet in the air. We decided the best place to get away
from the fire was to be where it’d already burnt. Where can you go to escape God’s
wrath? You go to the place to where it’s already burnt - to the Cross where God has
already poured out His wrath for sin upon His Son, our Substitute. So, in speaking about
wrath in one hand, we have to always speak about hope in the Gospel in the other. God’s
wrath revealed helps to define God’s righteousness that much more fully.
But how is God’s wrath being revealed? We have little idea of what God’s wrath will look
like in the future, other than some words Jesus gives us of a time of weeping & gnashing
of teeth. A time of absolute & eternal separation from God. How that looks I am not
exactly sure, and to conjecture is dangerous - we have more to concern ourselves with in
the here & now.
And there are times now where we can see God’s wrath enacted through justice in this
world. Criminals justly punished for their crimes - Bernie Madoff doing 150 years for
deceiving people out of millions. Pedophiles incarcerated, then living under the shame
of Meghan’s Law upon release. The regret, depression & spiritual death which
accompanies a secret life of sin. Are these the wrath of God? They certainly can be
considered that given that they are exactly what we’ve been warned would happen when
we allow our sin to go unchecked. Living breathing testimonies to the damage sin causes
& the ultimate justice which will prevail over it. Although we know others never seem to
be touched by the hand of justice, or regret of their actions & attitudes - they will
eventually in the future according to Scripture if they do not repent beforehand. But
these are extreme examples, sin is not always so socially unacceptable. Remember
slavery was one time legal in the USA. We’re all guilty under God’s standard even when
our sin is socially acceptable. Let’s be honest with ourselves, a clear conscience is really
just a sign of a bad memory.
Or, often times our conscience is the only thing which hurts when all other parts feel so
good. I was thinking recently about a man I knew who’d lived a private life of sexual sin.
He skulked. He schemed to keep his sin from coming to light. It took a devastating toll
on him. His demeanor changed. His health failed. Financially he was ruined. He was
sullen & depressed, estranged from his wife, friends & family. His whole life had a dark
cloud hanging over it. He wasn’t himself. He seemed a man to be living now under God’s
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wrath - nothing satiated him any longer. He was depraved. Until he finally had enough.
Upon repentance he came into the light of Christ & found the good news of the gospel.
Since then he’s brightened. Enjoying life. Finding intimacy in relationship with others.
Finances have improved. He’s jovial. Friendly. Smiles, and is all around a likable guy.
He’s free. A new creation in Christ! Sounds better than denial of the problem to me; the
sound of silence.
So, who’s this wrath being revealed against & for what? Pauls says, the godless & wicked
people who suppress truth. And what we have to realize is that to live in this world as
godless & wicked is to grate against the very nature of our intended created state; we
were made in the image of God, and to reflect him. To not is to invite turmoil. However,
we see it all around us. The Holocaust. 9/11. Isis. Racism. Broken marriages. Financial
ruin due to deception. The list goes on & on. Our world seems filled with it. The truth of
the Gospel can never be stamped out, but it can be suppressed by the actions of some.
We’d like to close our eyes & wish these things away, to avoid the neighborhood, but we
can’t - and as godly people, we must learn to live in it in faith & hope.
To be godless is to be wicked. To be godless is to be without moral direction. To be
godless is to be without the barometer which leads to healthy community. To be godless
destroys community eventually. We have to go back to the talk two weeks before and
remember that God created us in the Garden of Eden to be whole, pure & in unity. There
was no death or dissension there. It was sin which entered the world & polluted that
garden. Bringing separation & disunity. From that one act birthed all the violence of the
world - mankind is surely to blame. To be godless is to put yourself in the seat of God.
It’s to make yourself the beginning & end in life - the one who knows all for yourself &
others. Is it so surprising in a increasingly godless culture that we are ruled by more
prideful demagogues who believe they know better than the general populace? No, it’s
the natural order of devolution. Yet, remember, God is doing something throughout all
this. Due to the fall God made his way through history to reestablish our barometer
through the cross, once again establishing his law which brings peace. A law which is
partly written on our hearts, and more fully outlined in Scripture.
C. Hodge takes the two terms, godlessness & wickedness to mean impiety toward God &
unjustness toward humanity. Lack of respect for the Creator leads to a lack of justice for
the created. History demonstrates that nations which forsake God lose their concern for
the rights of the individual. To forsake God is to forsake his creatures. As a national
policy, atheism grinds its people under the collective heel of “what’s best for society.” Is
it any wonder that one of our major political candidates is a Socialist? A system which
has proved over & over to oppress people, but as America turns her back on God, so our
ideologies devolve. You have to remember that the story of humankind is not a story of
evolution - as if we started low & are working towards a higher state. It’s a story of
devolution - we started high, and due to sin, we are devolving & debasing ourselves
without a connection to the God of life.
The people of whom Paul spoke were those who by their wicked & sinful lives “suppress
the truth.” Truth cannot be changed, but it can be held down or stifled. Wickedness
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denies truth its full scope. We will learn in the verses which follow, God has revealed to
all humans something of his eternal power & nature. Yet people refuse to believe, and as
a result their understanding is darkened. To turn willfully against God is to move from
light into darkness. The blindness which follows is self-imposed.
C. S. Lewis once said, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to
God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done.”
People make a prior decision within themselves to live for themselves & not for God.
Thus when any truth which challenges their self-centered life reveals itself, they
deliberately stifle it by way of self arguments, denial or rushing into the distractions of
sin. The truth about God is evident, or out in the open, but wicked people devise ways to
hide it, to keep it not only from themselves, but from each other. Though people possess
the truth at some level they’re unrighteous & this great unrighteousness is seen in their
suppression of truth. To suppress the truth means they have knowledge of the truth. Yet
as long as people hide from the truth they’re hiding from themselves. Which is the great
dilemma of humankind. We often say, “Be true to yourself.” However, the Christian
replaces the ‘self’ with ‘God’ in that statement. Since being true to God is truly being true
to self.
It occurred to me writing this sermon that someone may balk at the old words of wrath,
wickedness & godlessness. But why? It only reveals what we already know of human
nature. Just go watch Breaking Bad, or House of Cards. Fictional shows, but
entertaining since they reveal humankind’s proclivity towards deception, selfishness,
violence & greed. It’s interesting that Hollywood may be the greatest purveyor of
Romans 1:18 there is. They constantly, and in ever more creative ways, tell this story
over & over. The shows or movies which sell are either about human nature at its worst
or best - and the best seem to always have a Christ figure or theme of self-sacrifice. Sons
of Anarchy mixed the two together making the most depraved character the Christ
figure in the end dying for his own depraved motorcycle gang - taking the message one
step further down the rung of devolution!
In the world of art we see this depicted over & over as well. Edward Munch’s the Scream
for instance. Read what he wrote of this painting… “I was walking along the road with
two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused,
feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above
the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling
with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.”
People conjecture he was influenced by the slaughterhouse & asylum which were in
close proximity of the scene, and also that his own sister had been admitted to the
asylum there as well. The imagery of The Scream has been compared to that which an
individual suffering from depersonalization disorder experiences, a feeling of distortion
of the environment & one's self. Edward seemed to feel the pain & longing of people &
creation & as a result created one of the most iconic paintings of our time since it bleeds
the human condition.
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Saturn Devouring His Son, one of my favorite paintings, by Francisco Goya is a
disturbing portrait of the titan Saturn consuming one of his children. It was one of six
works with which Goya decorated his dining room. According to Roman myth (inspired
by the original Greek myth), it had been foretold that one of the sons of Saturn would
overthrow him, just as he had overthrown his father. To prevent this, Saturn ate his
children moments after each was born. His wife eventually hid his sixth son, Jupiter, on
the island of Crete, deceiving Saturn by offering a stone wrapped in swaddling in his
place. Jupiter eventually supplanted his father just as the prophecy had predicted. Many
believe it was an allegory of the situation in Spain, where the fatherland consumed its
own children in wars & revolution. It’s been said that the painting is essential to our
understanding of the human condition in modern times. We tend to eat our own; to
devour each other.
Goya also created The Third of May 1808 in which he sought to commemorate Spanish
resistance to Napoleon's armies during the occupation of 1808 in the Peninsular War.
The painting is structurally & thematically tied to traditions of martyrdom in Christian
art. The man with raised arms as the focal point of the composition, has often been
compared to a crucified Christ. Goya's figure displays stigmata-like marks on his right
hand, while the lantern references Roman soldiers who arrested Christ in the garden of
Gethsemane.
We could go from painting to painting, art form to art form, of any great influence
finding either human depravity or divine hope, or both, in any one of them. It seems
that what makes great art is not always just the talent, but the ability to express the
human condition at it’s worst & at other times to express grace at its best, or both - as in
the case of this painting! The point is that God’s word to us reveals what we see all
around us. Scripture is reflective not only of hope, goodness, grace & love, but of the
depravity & need in the human condition & in creation at the same time.
Paul’s telling the world the answer to their ills. The Gospel. He’s setting the light of the
Gospel in contrast to the darkness of our human condition. The righteousness of God
revealed, juxtaposed with the wrath of God revealed. The call & the answer to all
injustice & evil which surrounds us. The question is, will we go on satisfied with a world
bowing & praying to its neon god, suffering along in the sound of silence? Or like Paul
will we learn to proclaim the good news in the midst of the darkness & need?
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