Rom. 1:18 Why Do We Push God Away?

SPEAKER 01 : 0:04

So yesterday we talked about humankind, humanity suppressing God. Let’s explore that further. It’s very, very important. Paul says in Romans 1 verse 18 that men suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And that can read, men suppress the truth by unrighteousness. Now, I fumbled yesterday and couldn’t express myself properly, but let me say it now with a bit more clarity of mind. This verse is saying, we use sin to suppress God. We use sin to suppress the truth about God. More simply put, we sin to forget God. In other words, we do not forget God in order to sin. We sin in order to forget God. We fill our lives with activities that are apart from God, which enable us to forget God. Now, I’m not trying to lay guilt and sin upon you all. I’m simply trying to express to you what Scripture says about the nature of humanity in its fallen state. You see, we need to understand ourselves. We need to ask ourselves, okay, what’s wrong with me? Let me explore what is wrong. Psalm 36 says that God is life. God is light, rather, and in your life we see life. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. It says in the Proverbs that all who hate me love death. Now, can you imagine that? It means that there is no life in humanity, in the soul of humanity, no spiritual life, no eternal life without God. A human being without God is in the process of dying, not only in his body, but in his soul. And so this suppression is something that we need to take very great care of. Now, you may be a troubled Christian. You may be struggling with addictions. And this, what I’m saying now, makes you nervous and afraid and you want to turn me off. I understand that. Let me assure you. that when we suppress God, God does not abandon us. He rather does things that help us to open up to him. He brings us under circumstances that are so shocking sometimes and so distressing that we call out to God. You see, that’s why Paul says a little later that God hands us over. He gives us over. We’ll look more into that in a little while. But let’s ask ourselves, why in the first place would we, as human beings, suppress God? God is good. God is loving. God is kind. So what are we doing suppressing him? Well, you see, our minds are filled with guilt and shame and fear. We’re not aware of it most of the time, of course, unless we have committed an egregious sin and we’re very guilty about it and aware of it. Rather, the guilt we feel is a hidden guilt. It’s with us all the time. We’re so used to it, we’re not even aware it’s there. It manifests itself sometimes in making excuses or in defensiveness or a reaction formation in which we try to show ourselves to be better than other people because inside we feel worse than they do. So we have many disguised and masked ways of covering our guilt. But where did it come from? Human beings are born into a broken humanity. We did not simply arrive at guilt because we sinned. We are born into sin. We are born into sin because we’re born into Adam’s kingdom. It was Adam who sinned. We will find that out very clearly in Romans chapter 5, that the whole human race, which did not commit a sin similar to Adam’s, came under Adam’s condemnation nonetheless. Well, as you know, the book of Genesis speaks about God commanding humanity not to eat of this forbidden fruit. This may be symbolic language. It may be literal. It’s up to you, whichever you believe. But what happened is that there was a direction from God on how to live, and humanity turned away from it. So what happened in regard to that fruit? God said you shall not eat of that forbidden fruit, the tree in the midst of the garden of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die. And so God pointed out a certain risk and certain danger. Do not go into this area. They went in, Adam saw that tree, pondered over it, no doubt, saw that it was attractive, began to think of it in a different way from what God was expressing. God was saying, in the day that you eat of the fruit of it, it will kill you. But gradually, Adam was beginning to sense, in the day that I eat that fruit, it will make me wise. It looks good. It probably tastes good. In other words, Adam slowly moved into a position in which he changed reality. What God expressed to them as evil, Adam began to think of as good. Here’s the origin of sin then. Sin, by the way, is not taking that fruit first off. Rather, sin is taking place before retaking that fruit, and it is switching the perception we have of what God is saying. When God says something is evil, we slowly turn it around and begin to think of it as good. And so when Adam saw that fruit, that it was attractive and delightful to the eyes and possibly good to make one wise, he took of it. And the moment he took that fruit, he became aware of a deep guilt within him. He had separated himself from God. You see, again I say to you, the sin that is described in the Garden of Eden does not start with taking the fruit. It starts with suppressing God, switching him off. God had made them very aware of all the fruit and all the good things they could eat in the Garden of Eden. Everything is yours, God said. But instead of looking in trust to what God had said and rejoicing in everything he had given them, they somehow, and it’s a mystery as to how it happened, they somehow turned God’s statements around and began to think that God was depriving them of something. This generous God who gives everything of his creation to humanity, was now beginning to be seen by Adam as mean. And so a perception about God shifted, and it shifted in a way that implied that God was the evil one. He was mean. He was depriving humanity of something. And that attitude of the meanness of God and the terror of God and the thought that he is ready to punish us at the slightest infraction, that has passed down to us from Adam. Now that guilt leads to something else. For when they took that fruit, they became aware that they were naked. Now, there was nothing wrong in nakedness. They were innocent. Their bodies were beautiful and attractive to each other. But suddenly, what was innocent became shameful. And so we see that guilt begins to paint its brush over everything, and we begin to see even the most innocent and beautiful things as sinful, and we start protecting ourselves and shoring ourselves up. from sinning for fear that we are going to offend God. And once we have distorted the image of God, we’re constantly trying to avoid things so that we don’t displease him. And so there is a guilt, that is followed by a shame. And so they take these fig leaves and they cover themselves with them, which implies again, whether it’s a symbol or whether it’s literal, that they are using artificial means to make themselves appear good before God. Now that’s something that speaks to our own hearts. We live a life, until we find Jesus, we live a life in which we are trying to shore ourselves up to impress God by artificial religious means. It doesn’t work, of course. And the shame leads ultimately to fear. For when they heard the voice of God in the garden, they hid themselves. And that hiding themselves is why Paul speaks about suppression here. They hide themselves from God. Now, as if we could hide from God. We can’t. We are all that we do, God sees. But you see what we have inherited. We did not start the sin process. Adam did, and we found ourselves in the mess. and therefore from Adam stemmed guilt and shame and fear, which is the natural dynamic of the human mind in relation to God. Now, when we think about God, and we think in terms, or we unconsciously feel in terms of guilt and shame and fear, therefore, we automatically suppress him. Because who wants to live around guilt all the time? Who wants to feel guilty in God’s presence? Who wants to feel ashamed in God’s presence? Who wants to feel afraid in God’s presence? To suppress God is a form of human delusional, but human protectiveness. God is seen, once Adam has sinned and we have received all the dynamics that Adam brought upon us, God is seen as dangerous. And thus, humanity is in a state of suppression. Now, you are a Christian. And so you know that God has taken the judgment away from you. And thanks be to God for that. We don’t have to live in guilt and shame and fear anymore. But the fact is our humanity is automatically broken down and responding to life with guilt and shame and fear. So what do we do? We have faith. Faith is the opposite of suppression. Suppression is pushing God away, pushing him down, because we feel guilty in relation to him and ashamed in relation to him and afraid in relation to him. But now Christians have a new boldness, and we say, Father, thank you that I can talk to you, even in my mess, even in my chaos and confusion, even in my sin and addiction. I can speak to you, dear God, because I know that in Jesus you have taken my judgment upon yourself in Jesus Christ, my Savior. And thus, you see, we have a way of breaking that tendency in our humanity to suppress God and push him away. Now, you and I need to be aware that that suppression is at work at all times in our natural humanity, and therefore we are able and free to declare it finished and dead and no longer under condemnation, for Jesus has taken its judgment upon himself. Thank you. And if you’d like to support the program, please do so. You can make a donation. It’s listener-supported radio online at faithquestradio.com. I do appreciate your help. It’s so much needed to keep the broadcast going now in its 27th year. See you next time then. Cheerio and God bless.