Romans 1:18-23 (NIV)
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
The first religion of mankind was monotheism. Adam and Eve knew and had intimate communion with the one creator God. Even after that communion was broken by their sin, they still worshiped the one true God alone. It was only after Cain moved away from the majority of his family after he murdered his brother that the rift between that portion of mankind and God grew so great that they began to worship other things, to raise created things to the level of gods, and to invent gods on their own.
Those created gods were merely humans drawn large, with the same faults and foibles as the humans who created them, but magnified and distorted. It was not long before it was difficult for people to even conceive of an uncreated, eternally existent, all-powerful and entirely holy God, who demanded sole worship because He knew that all the other things that people were worshiping were imaginary gods with no real existence and no power to save.
But God has always given abundant evidence of His existence, and even of His character in the things that He had created. As David wrote in Psalm 8, all the host of heaven and everything on earth give clear testimony of Him. They are wonders that do not point to mere chance or accident but have all the marks of intention and design on them.
The further one looks into space, the more the beauty and variety speaks of God’s infinite mind and His ability to create. The closer one looks at things of this world, down to the machinery of cells and the intricacy of atomic structures, the more it speaks of God’s vast intelligence and His ability to hold things together by His great power (Colossians 1:17). Even the variety of living things, the beauty of sunsets, the changing seasons and the flux of life and dormancy, warm and cold, day and night show forth His greatness and His joy in creativity, not just in creation.
But mankind still turns away from the clear evidence of God’s existence and His character, intent on shaping gods for Himself. These are not just gods of wood, stone or precious metals. Mankind even worships man himself, founding a humanistic religion that elevates the material and dismisses the spiritual and divine.
But in this turning away from the revelation God has stamped on creation, even though that revelation has been marred by sin and the resultant death and decay, human beings are without excuse. If they don’t know that there is a God more powerful and worthy of their seeking and their devotion, it is because they intentionally turn a blind eye to all the evidence, intent on going their own way, and ultimately sowing the seeds of their own destruction.
Father, I must confess that for many years of my own life I turned away from seeking You, listening instead to philosophies and theologies that led me into humanism and the manmade gods of reason, scientism, rationalism and materialism. It wasn’t until I finally surrendered to Your call, finally turned to You with all my heart, that the scales fell off my eyes so that I could clearly see all that I had long closed my eyes to: evidence of You and Your power, love and grace so clearly on display everywhere I looked. Thank You, Lord, for making a way for me back to You out of the darkness of secularism, humanism, and false religion. Amen.