6.19.2005 | God's Wrath on Unrighteousness

That's me, and thee, brethren. No one is excused; no one is righteous unless they are redeemed through faith in Jesus Christ. This is Paul's message to the Romans. Paul is quite clear on what he condemns; there is quite the laundry list of sins of commission and omission.

Now the scoffer might turn around and blame God Himself for this state of affairs. He, after all, made us in His image...and what a vile, distorted image we've made of it. From Romans Chapter 1:

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 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.

What Paul is saying, in simpler terms, is that we are idolators. We worship the product of our own hands; we become technically competent and think we are creating things, just as God did and does.

No. We are just moving the building blocks of God's creation around, and thinking ourselves so grand, so great. We award ourselves Nobel prizes, we award ourselves great riches, and think it to be progress. All we are doing is giddily greasing the skids of the slide into Hell.

Do not misunderstand, brethren. I am all in favor of improving the lot of our fellow man, and there's much to said for eradicating disease and hunger. Which, to a certain extent, we've done. Yet there it remains, our unrighteousness, as manifested in things great and small. It amounts to our rejection of God and His Son.

There will be judgment at the Throne; in the here and now we can simply admonish. I'm moved to wish that we would repent of our idolatry and think always of God and His Son and His Spirit as we go about all of our works. In the words of the Jesuit motto, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam...For the greater glory of God. May all of our works be dedicated to this.

Stated differently, let us always remember Who is really in charge.

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