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Why Smart People Reject God · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: We probably all have someone in our lives who is
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  Speaker 1: completely unwilling to listen to us when we talk to
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  Speaker 1: them about God and about sin and of Christ and
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  Speaker 1: his cross in how to be right with God. They're
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  Speaker 1: just closed off to that whole conversation about very important
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  Speaker 1: eternal things. They're just hardened even entertaining serious thoughts about
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  Speaker 1: who God is. We may be eager to share. They
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  Speaker 1: don't want to hear it. But not like they're avoiding
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  Speaker 1: something that they don't know anything about. It's not like
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  Speaker 1: they're rejecting some curiosity. No, and it's not because they're
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  Speaker 1: dumb either. It's something else all together. It's like they
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  Speaker 1: know something they have long tried to forget. Today on
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  Speaker 1: ask Pastor John why smart people reject God. We have
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  Speaker 1: just entered Roman's month on the Navigator's About Reading plan,
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  Speaker 1: and it is always a great place to return. Chloe
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  Speaker 1: in London asks us about the first chapter. Pastor John,
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  Speaker 1: Hi to you from a weekly listener from Across the Pond.
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  Speaker 1: In Romans one, verses nineteen to twenty. In our reading Today,
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  Speaker 1: Paul writes, what can be known about God is plain
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  Speaker 1: to them because God has shown it to them for
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  Speaker 1: his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature,
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  Speaker 1: have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the
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  Speaker 1: world and the things that have been made so they
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  Speaker 1: are without excuse. If God's existence is said to be
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  Speaker 1: clearly revealed through creation, then why do so many people,
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  Speaker 1: including perhaps ourselves, still feel that God is silent, We're hidden.
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  Speaker 1: Why doesn't God give us a more personal and unmistakable sign.
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  Speaker 1: Could the issue lie not with God's clarity, but with
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  Speaker 1: our capacity or willingness to see how to sin distraction
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  Speaker 1: or spiritual blindness effect perception of God's self revelation.
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  Speaker 2: Those really are astonishing words from Paul in Romans one nineteen.
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  Speaker 2: He's talking about all human beings and explaining why every
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  Speaker 2: human being on the planet is guilty and without excuse
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  Speaker 2: before God, even those who've never heard the Gospel. He says,
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  Speaker 2: just to make sure people have it in front of
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  Speaker 2: their minds, what can be known about God is plain
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  Speaker 2: to them. It's amazing because God has shown it to them.
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  Speaker 2: For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature,
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  Speaker 2: have been clearly perceived even since the creation of the
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  Speaker 2: world in the things that have been made, so they
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  Speaker 2: are without excuse for although they knew God, that's probably
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  Speaker 2: the most remarkable statement. They knew God, they did not
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  Speaker 2: honor him as God or give thanks to him. So
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  Speaker 2: what's astonishing is that he says everyone knows God. Not
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  Speaker 2: just everyone could know God, but everyone does know God.
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  Speaker 2: And in chapter two, verse fifteen, he says the law
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  Speaker 2: of God is written on every human heart. And at
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  Speaker 2: the end of chapter one, verse thirty two, he says
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  Speaker 2: that people know that the sins they commit deserve death.
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  Speaker 2: So Paul is making this astonishing claim that every person
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  Speaker 2: you meet on the street knows God, knows there's such
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  Speaker 2: a thing as right and wrong, knows that he is
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  Speaker 2: falling short of God's will. That's just amazing. What a
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  Speaker 2: starting place for evangelism. So, on the one hand, this
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  Speaker 2: is a dreadful reality because something has happened to submerge
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  Speaker 2: all this knowledge into the subconscious. But on the other hand,
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  Speaker 2: it's hopeful because something we say or do might be
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  Speaker 2: used by God to tap into a person's deep buried
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  Speaker 2: awareness of God. So the question then, is what has
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  Speaker 2: happened to bury all this knowledge so that it doesn't
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  Speaker 2: become fruitful. Now, the main answer of the New testament
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  Speaker 2: is that we all, apart from the illumining work of
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  Speaker 2: the Holy Spirit and new birth, we all suppress the
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  Speaker 2: truth that we have suppress. That's the word in verse
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  Speaker 2: eighteen of this chapter. I'll mention five ways that the
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  Speaker 2: truth gets suppressed because of what is inside of us,
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  Speaker 2: and I'll mention two other ways it gets suppressed from
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  Speaker 2: outside of us. The most basic statement is right here
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  Speaker 2: in verse eighteen of Romans one of God is revealed
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  Speaker 2: from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
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  Speaker 2: by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. So the most basic
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  Speaker 2: statement is humans suppress the truth. So in a profound sense,
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  Speaker 2: we know God, and we don't know God. We have
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  Speaker 2: found ways to simply suppress the knowledge of God in
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  Speaker 2: our souls, such this knowledge becomes practically useless. The first
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  Speaker 2: cause of this suppression, according to Paul, is on righteousness.
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  Speaker 2: They suppress the truth in their unrighteousness. So ignorance is
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  Speaker 2: not our first problem. Our first problem is moral. So
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  Speaker 2: what does that mean? What is suppressing the truth in
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  Speaker 2: unrighteousness in immorality mean? And I think Paul illumines it
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  Speaker 2: or explains it in Ephesians four eighteen what's lying beneath ignorance,
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  Speaker 2: that is the seeming lack of knowledge, which really is
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  Speaker 2: under there. Here's what he says in Ephesians four eighteen.
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  Speaker 2: They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life
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  Speaker 2: of God because of the ignorance that is in them.
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  Speaker 2: And then beneath it, he says, do the ignorance is
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  Speaker 2: due to their hardness of heart. So the root of
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  Speaker 2: our practical ignorance of God is hardness of heart. The
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  Speaker 2: suppression is a suppression by the hardness of heart. Now
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  Speaker 2: what does that mean? What is that image of hardness
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  Speaker 2: refer to? And I think Paul clarifies in Rome eight
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  Speaker 2: seven and eight like this, The mind of the flesh,
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  Speaker 2: Now that's that's the human heart, or the human soul,
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  Speaker 2: or the human mind, apart from God and his work
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  Speaker 2: and his grace, just the natural mind. The mind of
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  Speaker 2: the flesh is hostile to God. There's the keyword hostile, enemy.
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  Speaker 2: For it does not submit. That's the result of hostility.
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  Speaker 2: It's insubordinate. It resists God's authority. It does not submit
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  Speaker 2: to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. That's how bad it is.
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  Speaker 2: This is not a physical cannot This is a I
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  Speaker 2: don't want to do so much. I cannot this a
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  Speaker 2: moral cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
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  Speaker 2: So beneath our practical ignorance of God is hostility to
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  Speaker 2: God and our deep resistance to submission to his will.
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  Speaker 2: In other words, the unrighteousness and the hardness of our
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  Speaker 2: heart that suppress this is the knowledge of God. Is
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  Speaker 2: that we want to be our own God. That's our deep,
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  Speaker 2: deep hardness. We don't want anything above us. We don't
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  Speaker 2: want anything having authority over us. We want to define
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  Speaker 2: for ourselves what is true and good and beautiful. So
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  Speaker 2: this knowledge of God that lies buried deep in our
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  Speaker 2: souls is deeply offensive. We can't let it rise up.
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  Speaker 2: It's so offensive to us it stirs up hostile resistance.
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  Speaker 2: And the main way of handling that knowledge is to
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  Speaker 2: suppress it. Just say no, it's not there. It's really
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  Speaker 2: not there. That's what suppression does. Jesus talked about it,
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  Speaker 2: the suppression in words like these. He talked in terms
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  Speaker 2: of love and hate for the light and the dark
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  Speaker 2: in John three nineteen. This is thejudgment. Light has come
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  Speaker 2: into the world, and people loved the darkness that was
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  Speaker 2: their condition. Our condition as Christ came into the world,
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  Speaker 2: that we loved the darkness rather than the light, because
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  Speaker 2: our works are evil. For everyone who does wicked things
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  Speaker 2: hates the light. It's a moral issue, not a knowledge issue.
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  Speaker 2: Does not come to the light lest our work should
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  Speaker 2: be exposed. So our problem is not that we don't
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  Speaker 2: have light, but that we hate the light, which means
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  Speaker 2: we are sitting ducks for the God of this present
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  Speaker 2: darkness Satan. Satan is the first of two external realities
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  Speaker 2: that joined forces with our inner unrighteousness to suppress the
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  Speaker 2: knowledge of God. And I get that from second printings.
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  Speaker 2: For the God of this world has blinded the minds
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  Speaker 2: of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of
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  Speaker 2: the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the
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  Speaker 2: image of God. So Satan joins forces with human unrighteousness
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  Speaker 2: to keep us in the dark. And then the second
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  Speaker 2: external force that suppresses the truth is that we and
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  Speaker 2: Satan together create whole ideologies and world views that are
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  Speaker 2: anti God. Paul describes it like this in Second Corinthians
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  Speaker 2: ten four. The weapons of our warfare are not of
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  Speaker 2: the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds or fortresses.
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  Speaker 2: We destroy arguments and every lofty thing raised against the
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  Speaker 2: knowledge of God. So on righteousness one, second, hardness of heart,
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  Speaker 2: third hostility to God, fourth insubordination, fifth love of darkness.
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  Speaker 2: Those are the inner things that suppress the truth. And
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  Speaker 2: they team up now with one the blinding effects of Satan,
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  Speaker 2: and two the ideological fortresses in human culture, and the
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  Speaker 2: result is that the knowledge of God that is in
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  Speaker 2: every human heart is suppressed until through the declaration of
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  Speaker 2: the Gospel, God says, let there be light. And that's
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  Speaker 2: the way we pray. We pray that for the world,
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  Speaker 2: for the unreached peoples, but for our church, for our family,
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  Speaker 2: for our neighborhoods. God causes people to be born again
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  Speaker 2: through the living and abiding Word. So we should never say, well,
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  Speaker 2: don't speak because people are deaf and blind. No, we
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  Speaker 2: should say, always speak, because that's how God takes away
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  Speaker 2: the blindness.
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  Speaker 1: Amen, Yeah, we don't stop speaking. All teaches that deep
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  Speaker 1: down everyone knows God, but that knowledge is buried under
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  Speaker 1: a moral corruption and hostility. We just naturally love the darkness.
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  Speaker 1: We want to be our own gods. And that's the
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  Speaker 1: core of the problem. It's all reinforced by Satan's blinding
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  Speaker 1: influence as well, and it means of breaking through that
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  Speaker 1: spiritual suppression isn't about finding better arguments or better timing
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  Speaker 1: from us. It's a miracle. We need God's sovereign illumination
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  Speaker 1: through the Gospel to step in and turn the lights on.
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  Speaker 1: That is so good, Thank you, Mestor John. So what
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  Speaker 1: is Satan's role in rejecting God? We touched on it
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  Speaker 1: briefly here. If you want more, see the section on
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  Speaker 1: Satan demons and the Unforgivable Sin in the Asked Pastor
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  Speaker 1: John book, starting on page three point thirty one on
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  Speaker 1: Satan Demons and the Unforgivable Sin. If you have a
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  Speaker 1: question to ask Pastor John, find a link to email
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  Speaker 1: us and find our complete episode archive at the same place.
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  Speaker 1: Ask Pastor John dot com. Well, how to read the
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  Speaker 1: Bible like a Christian hedonist? That's up next time. I'm
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  Speaker 1: Tony Ranky. We'll see you on Thursday.