Are you like me and find it difficult to accept that you make mistakes? Do you, like me, try to make excuses for those mistakes? I think that we in Australia have made making excuses an ‘art form’! No one seems to take any responsibility for the not so good decisions we sometimes make … it is always someone else’s fault! Often we blame the government … often we blame our friends and family members … other times our work colleagues … most of all we never think that it is us who was at fault. Take Eve for example. When confronted by God for her decision to eat what was forbidden she simply blamed Satan! And Adam was no better… he blamed Eve! Blaming someone else goes back to the start of humanity itself! Yet, if the truth be told, and if we are honest with ourselves, there is no one else to blame but ourselves … we are without excuse!
Our Bible reading today is a tough one. It talks of sin and the depravity of humankind. It talks of God’s wrath. It also clearly states that no one is without excuse. All people, in all cultures and through all ages, commencing with Adam and Eve, are without excuse when it comes to knowing God and knowing what is right and wrong! All people stand condemned before a holy and righteous God. There is none righteous … not one! And who is to blame? Ourselves! We are to blame because we choose to make choices that are in conflict with the way God intended us to live. We often think that we know better than God. We find His ways too rigid and not to our liking. So, being typical human beings, we argue that God’s ways and decrees are not consistent with modern thought!
Paul teaches that God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven upon us. That is, we see His wrath in the consequences that flow from our sinful and unwise choices. There are always consequences to sin and we see it being played out in so many ways here in our community … broken homes due to anger, sexual sin and other selfish reasons; injustice in our courts because of naivety on a large scale; financial difficulty and poverty caused by greed and the list goes on. And this is not the only display of God’s wrath… judgement is still to come as we know! The key to today’s message is that no one is without excuse when it comes to knowing God and what is right and wrong … this is the way He made us … it is in our DNA … like it or lump it!