In his sermon, 'Neither Were They Thankful,' Pastor Steve Hopkins addresses the importance of gratitude and the dangers of neglecting thankfulness towards God. He emphasizes the significance of instilling biblical values in children from a young age, cautioning against letting entertainment compete with spiritual teachings. Pastor Hopkins discusses the critical need for parents to spend quality time with their children, stressing the importance of Bible stories over secular entertainment. He reflects on the need for Christians to uphold God's name as holy in all aspects of life, including entertainment choices. The sermon highlights Romans 1:21, illustrating how people, despite knowing God, fail to glorify Him or express gratitude, leading to a darkened heart. Hopkins draws attention to the Reformation principle of 'the just shall live by faith,' explaining that righteousness is not inherent but comes through faith in Christ. He urges believers to be consistently thankful, recognizing God's grace and salvation, and to live in a way that honors God's holiness.

Welcome back to Burnet Bible Church. Join us this week as Pastor Hopkins continues his sermon series through the Book of Romans. Turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel of Romans, Chapter 1. I never heard of that before. A few people in history.

Before we stand and read the singular verse we'll be focusing on this morning, verse 21, I want to do a little pre-message message, things that I've been thinking about, things that I've been seeking God on. One of those is, and I may be reiterating some things that I've already said before if I'm repeating myself on some of these things, just take it as maybe a necessary repetition, We have many young children in the church now. We have the blessing of children that are on the way and we've seen over the years some of us older ones that have been here forever, you know, seems like forever, decades in the church now. We're looking, we're seeing those little children of ours, they're grown up and now they've got little children of their own. So a lot of things we have to kind of you know go back over and look at again.

And there are many, as I said, many young, many young children now growing up. And what I wanna just say to parents is, you have one opportunity and it goes like that. I can tell you, my wife and I can tell you, it goes like that. The time that they go from three years old to being a teenager will go like that. Three to 13 is just wow.

And you'll look back and say where in the world, where did the days, where the time go? You've got one opportunity to instill in them the things that you need to instill in them. And one opportunity, yes you know you're gonna make mistakes, we all do, And you can go back and you can change things. And you can deal with issues that maybe you didn't deal with when they were younger. But it's better to focus on those things now.

And you've heard me say this many times, fathers, children's spell, love, T-I-M-E. Time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time with your children. You know, the men that want to get off and go do things with other men we got to go play golf where we're gonna go do this or we're gonna go do that and then leave their children they're gonna have many regrets gonna have many regrets I don't think we have any of that going on in the church at all. But there is this thing of not focusing so much upon them and their little lives in those formative years. I've read where by the time they're five, basically everything's built in that you're going to build in.

Now you have Augustin said from one to five, those are the most important years and then from 15 to 20. So you got two opportunities to capture their heart. Augustin said you get two opportunities to capture their heart one to five and 15 to 20 you lose those you lost the game you lose it So of course we're looking for regeneration, right? We want them to be regenerated but one of the things that very very very destructive what you Addicted them to in that time One to five lots of addictions are put in you know, we think of addictions as you know Drugs and that sort of thing drugs and alcohol, but they can also be addicted to different types of entertainment Okay, where they get on a track of entertainment they've got to have the next worldly thing. And you also have to remember that whatever you are putting before them in the way of entertainment, you're putting before them as either an asset or as a competition to the Word of God.

I think on that. Is what I'm putting before my children, is this assisting or is it in competition now with the Word of God? Why we never did superheroes. No superheroes in the Hopkins household. Why?

Superheroes compete with Jesus, right? They hear They see all this fantastic stuff, these movies and everything, and then they hear that Jesus called them this season. They go, so what? So what? Superheroes, you know, competing with the maker of the universe.

So be careful what you addict them to. Their flesh in the unregenerate state will gravitate to the lowest forms naturally. And the lower you give them, the lower they'll want to go. Give them the Bible stories. You've heard me say this over and over again.

They need to hear the stories over and over. I remember my little children, their children, their eyes just getting really big as I'm, you know, we're going over the Bible stories and I get the little animals and the little whatever's and use them and this is David and this is Goliath and I'd be a big teddy bear or whatever, but whatever, you know. And just give them those stories, Daniel and the lion's den and Joseph and all that he went through. You know, they need to hear these stories. They need to hear these stories over and over and over again.

Remember this, 2 Timothy 1, 5, from your youth, the apostle Paul told Timothy, thou hast known what? The latest movie? The latest entertainment fad no the scriptures and who did it his mother and his grandmother It's no father's even mentioned in the or grandfather mentioned in the text It was the moms that were doing it was the mom that was doing it. I don't know if the father was dead and the grandfather was dead or if they were just off doing their own thing, you know, playing golf on the Galilee, I don't know, but they weren't there. And so Lois and Eunice took up the slack.

You've known the scriptures from the time you were our youth." And what does he say? "'Which are able to make you wise unto salvation, ' which is in Christ Jesus." Okay. Bible tapes at night, no one has to do with the Hopkins did, but you know Every night our kids went to sleep with Bible tapes playing for, I don't know, 15 years or whatever. They still do, I wouldn't remind them, they don't always do it as much now, but they go to bed with the Bible tapes. I remember I tell my wife one time, I can't complain when the kids fall asleep in church.

I taught them to do that. You're hearing the Word of God, it puts him to sleep. But I remember going down the road one time and I had a man, I'll say who he is, in the community we were driving down the road and there was a, and Micah was in the back seat, he was four years old, and we were talking, we were going back and forth about something. I remember exactly the controversy and as we were going along at some point in time Micah in the back seat four years old says a dad he's sitting in the car seat. He corrects This guy very graciously and very humbly or whatever.

He cracks this guy something was saying goes well. I heard on the Bible tape Last night that and he quoted it and when it was just silence for the next five minutes He was rebuked by a four-year-old So anyway set their little minds on the things of God. Not the latest cartoon movie fast pace, badada badada badada badada badada stuff that gets their entertainment. Don't let something compete with the Word of God. You want some stuff, good stuff to put in their minds?

You can get ahold of me. I'll give you some good stuff that, yeah, it may be boring compared to the cartoon stuff that's out there now. But, you know, the old Lutheran great stories, Bible stories, great stuff, great stuff, walks them through story after story after story after story. Ryan memorized them all, Even the inflections in the voices. When he was six years old, he had them all memorized.

Okay. Number two, what sayeth the Scripture? So, later on in Romans, chapter four, the Apostle Paul is going to say, what sayeth the Scripture? Okay. So there's a question asked, well, What does the Bible say?

That's the most important thing. What does the Scripture say? And we talk about the regulative principle of worship. How many know what that is? Regulative principle of worship.

Okay, regulative principle of worship is we don't do anything that the Bible says we're supposed to do in the worship of God, right? The worship of God is prescribed by scripture. It's not left for us to make up. But guess what? Everything in life is regulated by scripture.

The scripture applies to everything. And I've had people say, does it apply to auto mechanics? I go, yeah, let me show you where. The scripture applies to absolutely everything, and there is an answer in scripture for every question of life. And I'm not talking about how to put in a starter, but how you deal with things, how you do things, what's right and what's wrong.

The scripture deals with everything. So go to the Bible and ask questions Don't just make it up on your own What's say the scripture? I've heard all these controversies, you know, they're the young people and they have controversy go What is the Bible site? What is the Bible? So I hear my children debating some sort of thing.

I say, what does the Scripture say? What does the Scripture say on that? That's what really matters. Fathers, number three, raise your daughters with purpose and a biblical worldview. We got lots of young daughters now coming up again, okay?

Sons also, but I want you to think about your daughters and instilling in them from a young age, a very young age, from the time they can understand you, that they are in a biblical sense. You look at the biblical framework. You look at the biblical patterns of Scripture, they are to go from a situation in a household of being under a protector and a provider and going to a situation of being under a protector and a provider. That's the biblical pattern. Show me if you can find a contradiction to that in Scripture, okay?

If you can find, say, well, no, no, that's not what it is. You know, the daughters go out, they protect themselves, They provide for themselves, they do this, they do that. It's not biblical, not biblical. The daughters go from a situation of being under a father's protection and provision to a situation of being under the protection and provision of a husband. That's the biblical model.

You step outside that framework, you're asking for trouble, okay? Now daughters, how do I know what purpose in life, what do I do, what do I do with my life, where do I go? Go to the Proverbs 31 woman. Look at the Proverbs 31 woman, because if you want to be a Proverbs 31 wife, start off by being a Proverbs 31 daughter. It's all there.

It's all there. What is she doing? What is she doing in the household? What is she doing? What are her goals?

What are her ambitions? What's occupying her time? Study the Proverbs 31 wife and mother that you want to be one day and put it into effect as a Proverbs 31 daughter on the way to being the Proverbs 31 wife. Young men, don't throw your life away. The young men all over this country professing Christian young men throwing their lives away on what?

Video games? Come on, they don't mature until they're 40 years old and sometimes they're not even mature then. Giving your life to social media and entertainment, the next movie, what have you. Young men, don't throw your life away on this culture. Give it to Christ and prepare yourselves to be that protector and that provider that someday a father will give his daughter to.

Okay? Be all about that. Be about holiness. Be about growing in the holiness and the fear of the Lord and Christ likeness. And then fifth and final, what is the first and greatest commandment?

Raise your hand if you know. What's the first and greatest commandment? Okay, what is it? Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul with all thy strength and with all thy mind Okay, what is the first petition of the Lord's Prayer? Who knows?

What's the first petition of the Lord's Prayer? The first thing. Everybody prays right through the Lord's Prayer every day, the elements of it every day, right? What's the first one? Okay?

Hallowed be thy name. The very first thing we should be concerned about in our prayers is that God's name is set apart as holy. Is God's name set apart as holy in your life? Is God's name set apart as holy in your entertainment? Is God's name set apart as holy in your marriage and your raising of your children in your home?

Is it really? Can you allow the blaspheming of God's name in your entertainment? Because entertainment is such a God to you that you can allow His name to be profaned and blasphemed because you're so addicted to entertainment that you can't shut it off Hallowed be thy name I was listening to I recommend rc sprawls the holiness of god series watch it from when he was in his 40s. He's in the late 1970s and he's talking about this and he's on this and he says, the first petition is, Hallowed be thy name. And then he goes and he breaks into this thing against the people who have no, professing Christians, even in the 1970s, professing Christians who will not hallow the name of God and don't care whether his name is hallowed in their entertainment or not.

And he goes off on a rail on it. And I love it. And it's in his holiness of God series and he says in there Christians we're supposed to be praying. Oh, how would be thy name? We don't want your name to be blasphemed Oh God Above all things we do not want your name to be blasphemed We want your name to be set apart as holy.

We want it to be set apart as holy. He says, and then you go to the second petition, thy kingdom come. And he says, don't even pray that if the first is not true in your life, because the kingdom of God will never come in power as long as the people of God refuse to hallow his name. Watch your entertainment folks, brothers and sisters, watch your entertainment. Anything that blasphemes God's name.

My children have seen it in our household. They've seen me in the VCR days. They've seen me put in a video in some war movie or whatever, and all of a sudden, boom, the guy blasphemes the name of the Lord. They've seen me pull it out of there and run over and take it and smash it into a hundred pieces on the side of the thing with great fury. Why?

His name will be hallowed in this place. The name of God will be hallowed in this house. Hallowed be thy name. Hallowed be thy name. With that, let's stand and we will read.

God help me to be gentle and able to teach. Let's read chapter 1 and verse 21, Romans chapter 1 and verse 21. One singular verse today, it'll be a little bit shorter message. Let's read together. Because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God.

Neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Let's pray. Oh Father, our Father in heaven, our Father, which art in heaven, may your name be hallowed in this place today. May your name be set apart as holy in this place today because you are holy. You are holy set apart from all your creation.

You are holy, holy, holy. Angels day and night cry holy, holy, holy with their wings covering their eyes and covering their feet because you are holy. Oh God, may your name be hallowed in this place as your word is preached. And God, may you send your Spirit to do a mighty work in the life and the heart and the mind of your people. O Lord, let us not escape the conviction of your Spirit.

Let us not escape the conviction of your Word, O God. Let us not kick against the pricks. Let us not resist, O Lord, the Holy Spirit. Help us, O God, give us open hearts to receive Your Word and to be changed thereby more into the likeness and image of our blessed Lord Jesus who suffered and died for our sins, is risen from the dead and interceding for us at your right hand even now. It's in His name we pray these things.

Amen. Let's be seated. Once again our verse by verse study of Paul's letter to the beloved of God in Rome has fallen on a text, you may have noticed, that is very appropriate for the week in which we find ourselves. When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful. It's Thanksgiving week.

A few weeks ago, we landed on Romans chapter 1 and verse 17. It was Reformation week and we landed on the very text that week, I believe by God's providence, that was used of God to open the eyes of that German monk so many years ago, Martin Luther, The verse that God used to light the fire of the Reformation. The just shall live by faith. There's a foundation that's been laid here. That passage by which Luther came to understand the gospel was life-altering, life-changing for him.

He for the first time in his life understood what it meant to be justified before God, to have a right standing in God's sight, to be accepted with God. And he found that it was by faith alone, not something that was earned or merited by works of man in any degree or to any degree. He found that justification in God's side is by faith in the person and the work of Jesus Christ alone. Remember going through that just a few weeks back? I'm talking about it again because it's so foundational for where we're going.

And it's foundational for where, obviously, the Apostle Paul speaking under inspiration and being guided by the Holy Spirit is going. When God brought Luther to Romans 1-17 and turned the lights on, Luther came to understand that man has no inherent righteousness. You have no righteousness. I have no righteousness. Only inherent corruption.

That's all that man has. And that no man, he came to understand that no man can attain righteousness before God through human effort. But that every man comes into the world a sinner and enslaved to sin, and thus under the just sentence of condemnation and liable to divine wrath, Eternal divine wrath. Think about it. And he came to understand that man's only hope of escape, his only hope to escape the wrath to come and the just sentence of condemnation that is hanging over him is God's provision of an alien righteousness, what Luther called an alien righteousness.

In other words, a righteousness that is not in here but comes from out there, even the righteousness of God's own Son." He came to understand that when the Scripture speaks in 1-17 of the righteousness of God, it's not speaking of God's attributes of righteousness, but that it is speaking of the righteousness of Christ, His perfect obedience to the law and His death for the sins of His people imputed to or declared to the accounts of His people the moment they believe on the name of God's Son, Jesus Christ. The moment they put their trust in Jesus' person and His work alone for their salvation. It is on the basis, he came to understand that it is on the basis of faith in Christ, which is the gift of God, the grace from heaven, that the righteousness of God is imputed or Transferred to the accounts of ungodly sinners who merit only God's wrath God's wrath at that moment you may remember from the Sermon the Reformation Day sermon the doors of paradise Luther says swung open and He walked through because he understand for the first time in his life that the just in the sight of God live by faith.

Is that boring to you? Is that boring to anybody? The just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith. Those who are declared righteous in the sight of God, those who have passed from death to life, are those who put their trust in the righteousness of another, of Jesus Christ alone.

It should be the most exciting thing that we could ever think about. It should be the thing that has us on the edge of our seats. God provided a righteousness for miserable, wretched, vile, wicked, God-hating sinners like you and like me through the death of His Son. And His Son, He provided a righteousness when we had no righteousness of our own. He provided that and not only did he make that provision for all who would believe on his name, he brought you to believe on his name.

And apart from him doing that you would have kept your fist lifted to heaven saying I don't want this man Jesus to reign over me. And if you think anything different you haven't been sufficiently humbled or understood the gospel. No. It is a work of God. That's what he said, from faith to faith, right?

The Apostle Paul says from faith to faith. That is, from the beginning to end, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone is a work of God and God alone. Praise His holy name. That's what you're going to be doing if you're a Christian for all eternity, praising His holy name. Now this week we land on verse 21, and once again a timely passage for the week.

It is Thanksgiving week. In our text this morning we read of a people who though they know God through the revelation of God in nature, in creation, they refuse to glorify Him as God. And one of, look at this, one of the glaring attributes, negative attributes, of these God-ignoring people, whom the apostle writes, is that they are not thankful. They're not a thankful people. They're not grateful.

They're not thankful. They live their lives without gratefulness to God. They live their lives as unthankful people. They know God. We looked at that, right, in our last session, but they refuse to glorify Him as God.

And they're not thankful, the text reads. Neither were thankful. It's one of those characteristics, those attributes of God ignoring, Christ hating, truth suppressing people, that they're an ungrateful people, they're an unthankful people, and we'll look at that more closely. We'll look at that more closely in just a few minutes. But first, to review that again in our last session, we read how God has revealed Himself to every man who comes into the world.

Everyone. Not by the revelation of Scripture. Very few in the history of the world are so blessed to have access to the revelation of God in the Gospel and the Scripture. If you're one of those, praise God. You're all one of those.

You have been so blessed. Millions upon countless millions have not been so blessed as to have been exposed to the scriptures. Millions upon millions of people in the history of the world. But you have been. Everyone has not been given the revelation of Scripture, but everyone has been given the revelation of God in nature.

Everyone knows God, we read, not savingly, not relationally, but cognitively, as he has manifested himself clearly. Look at the text again of Romans. Very clearly has he made himself known, verse 20, to everyone that comes into the world in the created order that's all about them. In the created order that is above them, that's below them, that surrounds them on every side, that confronts them in the mirror when they look in the mirror every morning. Even his eternal power and Godhead.

What? Yes, even his eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen and understood how by the things that were made. You know, they know, there's no way this could have happened. There's no way all of these components could come together and work so perfectly. Twenty-one percent oxygen, exactly what we've got to have for humankind in this air that we're breathing, and all of the components of water and the sun and how far it is from the earth and how if it gets any closer it burns up the earth and it's further away we all melt into ice and just all of these, everyone knows, everyone knows.

They see everything working around them with such order and such precision. They see the stars and the moon and the sun that they know. They know God. They know God. They know God.

They know there is an eternal Almighty Creator. They know that he is eternal. He had to have been here forever because something can't come from nothing. They know. Every man is a witness of the things that God has made.

God has not concealed himself. God has revealed Himself, and that to every man. And not in a hidden or an obscure way, but visibly and clearly through the created order in all of nature. I was looking up, you know, some of these people, they call themselves naturalists. Oh, I'm a naturalist.

Oh, really? Yeah, I study nature and they deny God. You know, you just want to say, you want to say, how could you be so blind? But then you think it through and you think, you know what? I would be so blind.

And I would be able to study nature and not be able to admit and acknowledge God if I were in the unregenerate state because I'd be a God-hater as well. It's all a work of God. But God has not concealed Himself or revealed Himself, not in a hidden way, not in an obscure way, but visibly and clearly through the created order and all of nature, whereby God, who is invisible, no man has seen God at any time, Scripture says, right, is visibly manifested for who He is. Creation manifested, that He is the eternal, always been here. Self-existent, nobody brought Him into being, He existed of Himself.

Almighty, Only one who's almighty could do this. All wise. Look at the wisdom in His creation. Creator of all things. And then we read this, that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against these people who refuse to acknowledge that which they know about God.

We read in verse 18, the truth they know about God they willingly hold, and that word means hold, S-N-2, hold down. They suppress the knowledge, the clear knowledge that God has manifested to them in creation. They willfully hold it down. They willfully suppress it. They struggle to bury it in their conscience by suppressing it, by pushing it down.

I said like a coiled spring pressing against them, as Sproul says, or like a volleyball being pushed underneath the water, as Van Til says. Even the truth that they know about God, when they're holding it down, what are they holding down? They are willfully, willingly Suppressing and holding down the truth they know about God that God made obvious to them and clear to them by the created order all about them even as It tries to force itself back up against their efforts to hold it down. They continue to press it under. No God, no God, no God.

We went through that scripture, I think it was last week, the fool has said in his heart there is no God. He doesn't believe in his heart there is no God. There's no such thing as an atheist. Romans 1 says they know God. They suppress the knowledge they have of God and they have to say, repeat to themselves over and over and over and over again, no God, no God, no God.

Why? Because they know there's a God. They have to say it over and over and over again. Just like sodomites get together in groups and they have to hear people affirm over and over and over again, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. What we're doing is not a sin.

It's not wrong, it's not wrong, it's not wrong. No, it's wrong. And the reason you have to keep saying it's not wrong is because you know it's wrong. You know it's wrong. So the atheist or the professed atheist, there's no such thing as an atheist, is continually saying in his heart, there is no God, there is no God.

He doesn't believe that or he wouldn't have to keep saying it. He doesn't believe it. He wouldn't have to keep saying it over and over and over and over again. No, and it provokes God to wrath, just wrath. Righteous anger.

The wrath of God is revealed from under heaven against this type of ungodliness and unrighteousness and irreverence that men would suppress the truth, because they suppress the truth they know about Him in their wickedness, even His eternal power and sovereignty, which God has openly and visibly clearly manifested to them every day of their lives through the things that He's made. In our last session I said there are two kinds of revelation. We've looked at them here briefly. Two kinds of revelation by which God makes Himself known to men. The revelation of God in the Bible, in Scripture, in the Gospel, which the Apostles just talked about earlier in this same chapter 1.

And there's the revelation of God in nature in the created order. So Paul has been saying that even apart from the revelation of Scripture, which all men are not exposed to, All men are still yet under the just sentence of divine wrath because they know God and have been exposed to God's omnipotence and to His creative power, and they've been exposed to His eternal, self-existent nature through the creation of all things. All men are under the just sentence of divine wrath because they've been exposed to nature. They've been exposed to the created order. And they've seen God visibly in that.

They know God visibly from that, And yet they refuse to openly acknowledge Him. And so in their wickedness and their rebellion and their really revulsion that is aimed like a gun at God, they know, they suppress that truth that has been and is continually being manifested to them day after day by the things that God has made, and it is wicked, and it is damnable. And one day they will stand before God in judgment. And though they cannot with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind seem to ever shut God out completely. They continue.

They continue. And, you know, that's proof positive. Proof positive that mankind's issue is not intellectual. It's not an intellectual issue. It's not an evidence issue.

It's a moral issue, as I said last week. It's not as though they, well, I've got a deficit of evidence. God says, no, you don't. It's willful and it's obstinate rebellion and resistance against God. Nature screams God at them 24 hours a day as they run around like little children with their fingers in their ears trying to deafen its voice.

No God, no God, no God. On this tape, nobody knows what I'm doing. I've got my fingers in my ear, you know, kids running around saying, you know, yelling, screaming so you can't hear what somebody else is saying. Y'all never had kids that did that, did you? We did.

You know, they didn't want to hear anything. They didn't want to hear what you have to say with your fingers in the ears. Try to deafen its voice. And this again is a clear manifestation of the utterly depraved and corrupt nature of man. Only an utterly depraved and corrupt person would take the knowledge that has been given them, the truth they know about God, and suppress it in their wickedness because they hate God so much.

It reveals a hatred for God. In verse 30, further on, we're going to see that. Paul's going to call them out as God haters. He's going to call them God haters. It's okay.

You can do that too. You hate God, I understand. I'm not talking about people in the congregation here, I'm saying, you know. I understand you hate God. Well, no, I don't.

No, you do. You hate God. You hate God. You hate God. You're a hater of God.

How do I know? You manifest it in your suppression of the truth. You know about God that He's plainly shown you. And so God's wrath, as we read, is revealed from heaven against their ungodly, irreverent, and wicked suppression of the truth that they know about God, that they've clearly been shown, that they know about Him from the revelation of creation. You have the revelation of Scripture, the revelation of creation.

Okay? But am I going to go, Is someone going to go to hell because they never heard the name of Jesus? No, they're going to go to hell because they had the clear revelation of God in the created order, and they refused to acknowledge Him as God and to worship Him as God and to reverence Him as God, and they suppressed the truth that was revealed to them in the created order. They suppressed it, they held it down. They sinfully rejected God, they suppressed that truth.

They never heard the name of Jesus, they never heard a word of scripture, but they had the created order about them. And so that tribal person off in Africa or Peru or wherever that never heard the name of Jesus is justly damned on the day of judgment condemned on the day of judgment you knew God but you would not worship him as God and you weren't grateful you knew God you knew God You had the revelation screaming at you from creation 24 hours a day, but you would not worship Him as God. You would not worship me as God. God will be telling them on that day. I said in our last session, I had told two things growing up that fly in the face of scripture.

One, the men who never hear the gospel or the name of Jesus in the lost tribals of the jungles of Africa are innocent. I was told that in the independent Baptist church I grew up in. They're innocent. In other words, they have no excuse because they never heard the gospel. Paul says they're not without excuse.

Paul says they have no excuse, speaking by the Holy Spirit. Paul says they are not and they do not. They are not innocent and they do not have an excuse. If it were so, as I said last week, that not being exposed to the gospel somehow renders men innocent before God and unworthy of condemnation, then the greatest evangelistic effort on the planet would be to take the gospel into no part of the world. But God says, take the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Preach the gospel to every living creature. Yeah, the great evangelistic effort, greatest evangelistic effort on the planet would be for the church to take the gospel to no part of the earth, preach the gospel to no man, for then men could die innocent and stand before God and condemned. You see the fallacy, you see the error. No, Paul says there without excuse, because God has manifested himself to them through the creation of the world. And then the second one that I heard growing up with the teaching by others in independent Baptist churches was that all men hear the gospel before they die.

Nonsense. They have to conclude that, right? Well I guess then everyone, if it's not this, then it must be this. And what they're doing with these ludicrous kinds of conclusions that they come to is that they're preaching things like this because they don't know the Scriptures. And they desperately want to get God off the hook, so to speak, for not being fair in the sight of men.

Because if that matters, if God's fair in our sight or not, right? They want to get God off the hook. But God is off the hook because He's God. And He does whatsoever He wills. And He is answerable to no man.

Oh, a low view of God has gotten us where we are today. A high view of God gets us back to where we need to be. He is God and you're not. He is God and we are not. He has made us and not we ourselves.

He is the omnipotent, eternal, self-existent, holy, all-wise creator of the universe and we owe him everything. God is perfectly just in condemning those who have never heard the gospel to hell for all eternity, because every one of them has witnessed the clear manifestation of God through the creation of the world. And by that revelation of Him in creation, all men know God." And then, as we see in our passage this morning in verse 21, knowing God, look at that, knowing God, look at the verse, look at the passage, knowing God, they do not glorify Him as God. There's the provocation of God's wrath. You know I'm God, but you will not glorify me as God.

You know He's God, but you will not glorify Him as God. As I said, this is a very good passage to preach when I preach on the streets. Because you know, you have all these people running around, well, I just need more proof, I need more evidence. No, you know God. You're in a condemned state and under the wrath of God is hanging over your head like a sword ready to come down, like a guillotine ready to come down and cut your head off.

You're culpable. You are responsible. You're responsible. You have a responsibility to worship God and to serve God and to love God and to glorify Him as God, even if you've never heard one line of holy writ. Why?

Because you have the creation of God screaming at you 24 hours a day, God, God, God. Worship, worship, worship, reverence, reverence, reverence. They knew God, our text says, but knowing Him, they still refuse to glorify Him as God. They refuse to glorify the God they know. They do not glorify Him by reverencing Him.

They do not glorify Him by worshiping Him. They do not glorify Him by serving Him. And neither are they thankful. And neither are they thankful. Think about it.

They will not even look up to heaven with a word or gesture of gratefulness towards the God they know. Our text says, neither were they thankful. I was talking to a professed atheist recently and he said that he was so grateful. I perked up. I was like, really?

Yeah, he's an evolutionist, elderly evolutionist. He said, I'm so grateful that I've lived a long and healthy life and experienced so many good things in this life. I was like, wow, really? I didn't say it, but I wanted to say to who? Because you know, thankfulness and gratefulness has to have an object, right?

You have people out there that say, well I'm just grateful to the earth because they worship the earth. Gratefulness has to have an object. If not God, who do you thank? Your lucky stars? You're able to say, I thank my lucky stars.

There we go. Creature worship. You thank your lucky stars. You know? Created things rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Thankfulness and ungratefulness must have an object. It must have someone or something to say thank you to. As we went on in that conversation, this man said that the object of his thankfulness was luck. Luck. Chance was luck.

He said, I was just lucky. I'm grateful that I was just lucky. I'm thankful that I was one of the lucky ones who got to enjoy a prosperous life. And you know, that's where evolutionists have to go, right? The evolutionist has to go to luck and chance because that's what he claims in his suppression of the truth he knows about God, that the universe came into existence, right?

It's just chance, just by chance. You know, when you suppress the truth you know about God, you can only look to blind chance and luck. It works its way back through the created order. If you don't acknowledge God, you don't acknowledge creation. Right?

Everything just happens by chance. Isn't it a lucky thing that those atoms decided to get together one day 175 billion trillion years ago and explode out of nothing and nowhere to produce the stunning universe we live in. Isn't that lucky that that all happened by chance, that those all, they decided to get together. Hey, let's have a convention and we'll explode and then out of it will come order and all of this perfection, you know, a perfect world, an earth in the center of a universe that there's nothing else like it. Men, they've got their Hubble and Bobble and Hubble and Tubble, whatever they're called, telescopes, and they're looking at it, and they go, now we can see more.

Remember they found that star recently? It's 400 quadrillion times the size of the world. The earth can be put inside this star 400 quadrillion times. They found it. That's how big it is out there.

But no life and no thing like earth because God made the earth for man to dwell in. Creation screams at them, God, God, God. And they suppress the truth that they know about God and their own righteousness and his wrath will be revealed from under heaven against Them one day and they will be justly punished for all eternity in the fires of an eternal hell because they rejected the God they knew from creation Otherwise brilliant men become fools Notice what the rest of the text says. All these brilliant men out there, right? This man I was talking to, by the way, was a former Professor, right?

Look at the words that is used in the passage here. Professing themselves to be wise, the very next verse 22, they became fools. There's a lot of foolish professors out there in the universities, hundreds of thousands of them. They profess themselves to be wise, but they don't know as much as my 11-year-old. I was going to say My three-year-old, but I don't have one of those anymore.

They don't know as much as your three-year-old Four year old five year old. How old is she four year old? They don't know they don't know No Otherwise brilliant men become fools and their hearts which they have hardened against the God they know is further darkened. And that darkness runs very, very deep. Professing themselves to be wise, they become fools.

But that's next week. Thanksgiving, again, is just a few days away. Those we just read about, they don't give thanks to God. They're not grateful to God. No, they don't give thanks.

The people of God do. Let's look at a couple of passages as we close here. As Thanksgiving is just a few days away. Of course, we're to always live in gratefulness and thanksgiving to God. Psalm 107, 1, oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good.

Amen. For his mercy endureth forever. Praise His holy name. Give thanks unto the Lord. Philippians 4 6, oh be careful for nothing.

In other words, don't get all upset and agitated about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. As you're praying to God and you're laying out your request before the Lord, thank him. Remember to thank him for the things that he's already answered, the prayers he's already answered. Thank him, thank him, thank him. Oh God, I'm asking you this, but you know what?

I remember what you did last week, two weeks ago, two years ago. Amen? Yesterday. Five minutes ago. Yes.

Colossians 3.15, let the peace of God rule in your hearts by the which also you are called in one body, and be ye thankful. O God, we are thankful that you have called us together in one body, Christ's body. Ephesians 5, Be the followers of God as dear children, walk in love as Christ has loved us, and give it himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. Fornication and uncleanness and covetousness, let it not once be named among you as become a saint, neither filthiness nor foolish talking or jesting, which are not convenient, but rather the giving of thanks. Let that be the thing that prevails among you, the giving of thanks to God.

First Thessalonians 5 18, in everything. Everything? Yeah. You know, even in pain, even in suffering, even in trials, even in affliction, give thanks. What does he say here?

For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. So, God, what's your will for me? The will of God is that you would give thanks to God in everything. 1 Thessalonians 5.18. Did you give thanks to God in everything?

That's the will of God. That's the will of God for you. Did you give thanks to God in everything? Yeah, you can do that anywhere. As I've said before, you can do that hanging upside down in a communist prison hanging by your ankles as they're beating you for not getting the vaccine To throw that in I have to say something about the Vax every single week, don't I?

Okay, Ephesians 520 Give me thanks always for all things unto God Ephesians 520 give thanks always for all things unto God. Ephesians 520, give thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. There's a Trinitarian give thanks to God, the Holy Trinity verse right there, right? Unto God, the Holy Spirit, God the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not just on Thanksgiving week, but every week and every day, for all things, even for suffering and even for affliction and even for our trials, give thanks.

But most importantly, give thanks continually for that most precious and fathomable gift of Christ, of God's Son, and faith to believe on Him. Give thanks above all for the graces of God that have been made known to you in bringing you to repent and believe on the name of his Son. Thank him for these graces. Thank him for the gift of faith. Thank him for these mercies known by so few.

Thank you that he saved you. Thank you that he gave his son to die for you. Oh God, thank you for giving your son to die for us, to redeem us, to reconcile us to yourself. Oh God, who are blessed forever. Amen.