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Note —

I. THE CORRUPTION OF HUMAN NATURE. The facts enumerated are such as to manifest —

1. Corruption in principle evincing itself by corruption in practice. Had there been in the human heart any liking to the true God, the difficulty would have been to forget not to remember Him. Those whom we love we are fond to think of. Has this been the case with men in regard to God? Has it not rather been, in everyone point, precisely the reverse? And if it be in human nature to forget and depart from the living God, must it not be emphatically corrupt?

2. Idolatrous defection is here associated with practical wickedness as its inseparable concomitant. Does not the state of the heathen world bear ample testimony to its truth?

3. And observe further — the connection, in the way of reciprocal influence, between impiety and immorality. Immorality in the life is the natural consequence and evidence of impiety towards God in the heart, while the love of sin inspires the wish that God were other than He is.

II. THE NECESSITY AND THE VALUE OF REVELATION. How early did this necessity appear! (Genesis 6:5, 11, 12; Joshua 24:2). And yet men talk of the sufficiency of the light of nature, while the experience of every age plainly contradicts this. Never was an experiment more completely tried, and on every trial the great general result has been uniformly the same. Take the most enlightened nations in the most enlightened times. Have they, in these circumstances, excelled others in their views of God and in moral goodness? Frequently, indeed, they have even been worse. Even the philosophers had defective and erroneous views of Deity, of the way of obtaining His favour, and of morals. All that is good in any of their systems is to be found in the Bible along with infinitely more and infinitely better. Yet the Bible must be discarded and their conjectures substituted! Because they had a dim taper, we must seek to quench the sun! No; blessed be God for this heavenly light! But for it we too should have been sitting in the region and shadow of death — "without God and without hope in the world."

III. HOW INEXCUSABLE MUST THEY BE WHO, POSSESSING SUCH A REVELATION, REMAIN, NOTWITHSTANDING, IGNORANT OF GOD! But alas! the same principles of corruption which make men willing to forget God amidst His works of creation and providence, make them unwilling to receive the truth concerning Him when set before them more directly in His Word.

1. If the heathen be "without excuse," what shall be said of those who shut their eyes against this superior light, and while it shines around them continue to walk in darkness?

2. How inexcusable, too, and how deeply criminal must they be who still "hold the truth in righteousness"! Here is the Bible. You have a general knowledge of its contents. You profess to believe them. Yet, withal, they have no proper influence upon your hearts and lives. What if the righteous God, in His just displeasure, should give you over to "a reprobate mind"? Beware of imagining that the mere possession of revelation constitutes you Christians. The mere having of the Bible can do no good if its important truths are disbelieved or neglected.

IV. THE GUILT OF IDOLATRY, IT IS TO BE FEARED, ATTACHES TO MANY WHO LITTLE IMAGINE THAT THEY ARE AT ALL CHARGEABLE WITH ANYTHING OF THE KIND. The spirit of idolatry is the alienation of the heart from God; the withholding from Him, and the giving to other objects, that homage and those affections to which He alone is entitled. Every man's idol is that on which his heart is supremely set. Ambition, wealth, power, learning, etc., are all idols if served irrespective of God.

V. WHAT AN IRRESISTIBLE MOTIVE IS HERE PRESENTED TO MISSIONARY EXERTIONS! Whose spirit is not stirred within him with the emotions of indignant zeal in beholding the world "wholly given to idolatry." To suppose a Christian indifferent on such a subject is to suppose a contradiction in terms — a Christian without piety, without mercy, without benevolence! Think how the glory of God is trampled under foot; how Satan reigns triumphant; how large a proportion of the world is still in the condition here described!

VI. LET CHRISTIANS MAKE IT MANIFEST BY THEIR WHOLE CHARACTER THAT THE CONNECTION IS AS CLOSE BETWEEN TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS AS BETWEEN ERROR AND WICKEDNESS. Let your profession of the faith of the gospel be adorned by a conduct uniformly consistent with its pure nature and its holy influence.

(R. Wardlaw, D. D.)

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KJV: Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

WEB: because that which is known of God is revealed in them, for God revealed it to them.