Romans 1:18 : For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness. God's wrath is legal wrath rather than emotional. His law has been violated, and the wrath of the law must be visited upon the transgressor, unless some means can be devised whereby God can be just while justifying the sinner. The "for" at the beginning of this verse is significant, and establishes close connection be-tween this verse and what had just been said. A plan of righteousness has been made known, because God's wrath is revealed against all sin. It is singular that God would devise a plan by which he could save the sinner from his own wrath. Had his wrath been of that furious type manifest by men, he would not have wanted to save any one from it. He would have taken delight in giving it full sway. But while man was rest-ing under God's judicial wrath, God's love went out to him, and prompted him to devise a plan by which man could be delivered from the legal consequences of his sin. To sum up: The gospel is God's power for salvation to those who believe it, faraway for sinners to become righteous is revealed in it, as an inducement for men to believe it so as to escape the penalty of a violated law. If the gospel was to be a real benefit to man, a real power to save him, there must first be a need for it. If the world was not lost, there was no need for anything to save it; or if the world was lost and there was al-ready at hand a means of saving it, there was no need for the gospel. From Romans 1:18 to Romans 3:20 Paul shows that both Jew and Gentile were lost with-out the gospel. The reasonings--the professed wisdom --of the Gentiles had plunged them into the depths of moral pollution instead of saving them, and the law had condemned the Jew instead of saving him. All were sinners, and all were under condemnation. This gives us a better insight into the real purpose of the gospel. It is God's way of meeting man's needs it was designed as a means of saving the lost. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost he came not to condemn, but to save. Without the gospel, the whole world was lost. "The whole world lieth in sin." The question is frequently asked: "What will become of the heathen who never heard the gospel?" If a person understood the real purpose and philosophy of the gospel, he would never ask that question. To set such questioners to thinking, we ask: What would have become of the same heathen, if there had never been any gospel? The gospel was designed to save a world already condemned. It is only in a relative sense that people are lost because they do not obey the gospel. Primarily people are lost because they are sinners. To illustrate a boat is rushed out to rescue a drowning man. He re-fuses to be rescued, and is drowned. Now, why did he drown? "O," some one replies, "he drowned because he would not get in the boat." Wrong. The boat had nothing to with his drowning; he drowned because he was in the water, and he would have drowned just the same had there never been a boat. Of course, his re-fusing to be rescued made his drowning a case of suicide. Just so with the sinner. The gospel is sent out to rescue the perishing. When the sinner refuses to be rescued, It intensifies his guilt and shows it to be a case of spiritual suicide. But the gospel had nothing to do with his perishing; he would have perished had there never been a gospel. The boat was a means of rescue, and so is the gospel. God's wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Occasionally a Bible reader wonders about these words, both as to their meaning and as to the parties to whom they apply. We will get a better grasp on the meaning of un-godliness by first considering the meaning of godliness. The meaning of this word has been obscured by trying to make it mean godlikeness. It has no such meaning in the Bible the Greek word from which it is translated has no such meaning. Godliness is piety, reverence. A godly person is one who has respect tor God and sacred things. Ungodliness is impiety, irreverence, a lack of respect for God and sacred things. Godliness is a right attitude toward God; ungodliness is a wrong attitude toward God. Righteousness refers more particularly to our right attitude toward our fellow men. It is treating our fellow men right. Unrighteousness is the failure to do right toward our fellow men. Ungodliness is worse than unrighteousness, though not generally so regarded. Our first and primary duty is to God. If we revere God as we should, we will respect his word, his church, and his worship. Those who blaspheme the name of God, or speak lightly of any of God's commands, are ungodly. Through sudden passion or some great weakness a person might do wrong to his fellow man, and then be filled with great penitence toward God for the wrong he had done. Such a one still retained his reverence for God. David did that. He did unrighteous things but his reverence for God was unfailing, and always brought him to repentance. But the ungodly are not so; they do not take God into account in anything they do. There is ungodliness in the church, and even in the pulpit. It manifests itself in many ways. Some men are so careless as to what the Bible says that they put themselves to no real trouble to find exactly what any given passage means. A godly man wants to know exactly what the will of God is. Some are so ungodly as to destroy a church to carry their own selfish ends. A godly man loves and respects that which belongs to God. Many pulpits in this land are radiating centers for all sorts of infidelity. The masses in this country have never been righteous. There has been, and is yet, too much disregard for the rights of others; too much cheating, defrauding, and robbery; too much lying, deceit, and slander; too much fighting and killing. In addition to our unrighteousness, we are fast becoming an ungodly people. We are eliminating God from our thinking and from our program of life. We deny him a part in creation and do not take him into account in what we do. And as men eliminate God from creation and thus make human beings no more than a group of animals, unrighteousness of all sorts is bound to increase; for, if we are no more than animals, why should I respect a man's rights any more than I would respect the rights of any of the lower animals? As ungodliness increases, crime of all sorts is bound to increase. The last clause in Romans 1:18 reads as follows in the King James Version: "Who hold the truth in unrighteousness." In the American Standard Version: "Who hinder the truth in unrighteousness." The Greek word means both "to possess" and "to hinder"; but of course, it cannot have both meanings in the same place. The connection in which it is used must determine its meaning. Some people argue that the person who knows the truth, but will not obey it, holds it in un-righteousness. But this could hardly be said of the persons of whom Paul was here speaking; for, though they had once known God, they had "refused to have God in their knowledge" (Romans 1:28) and had "ex-changed the truth of God for a lie" (Romans 1:25). Paul was speaking of these people as they were when he wrote. It could not be said of them that they at that time knew the truth, but would not obey it. They had known the truth, but had drifted so fax away from it that they were worshiping gods of their own making. At that time they were not holding the truth at all but their awful sinfulness, as depicted by Paul in the rest of the chapter, was a mighty barrier to the advancement of the truth. By their unrighteousness they were hindering the truth. It is a fearful thing to hinder the truth of God, and God's wrath is revealed against all who hinder his truth. Even church members often hinder the truth by their unrighteousness. We profess to be friends of God, and then hinder him in what he is seeking to do for man. By such conduct we become enemies of God, alive, by a direct work of the Spirit. That doctrine is set forth in their creeds. With all such religionists, the direct work of the Spirit is the power which saves. Many have been the prayers for God to "send the converting power down and save these sinners now." The mourners'-bench system was the way that theory was carried into practice a few years ago. They have dropped that practice, but still hold to the theory on which it was based. It seems, therefore, that it used to take more praying, singing, and shouting to induce God to send down converting power than it does now! It would be useless to ask any of these fellows to ex-plain why this is so, for they cannot explain it. Neither can they make their theory harmonize with Paul's plain declaration that the gospel is God's power for salvation. The gospel was made to meet the sinner's needs as he is, and it was preached to him by inspired men as a being responsible for the way he treated their message. In the great commission Jesus gave not one hint that sinners could not obey the gospel, and not one time did any inspired man tell his auditors that they must have a direct work of the Spirit to enable them to do what they were commanded to do. That was Christianity in practice. And the practice of inspired men is worth more than all the theories of all the creeds. It is both interesting and instructive to follow the inspired preachers and see how they proceeded. When Peter preached to the multitudes on the day of Pentecost, he expected them to hear and understand what he said. He sought to drive conviction to their hearts, depending alone upon his arguments. He succeeded in doing so, for the record says: "Now when they had heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do?" They were not so dead but they could hear and understand; not so depraved but that they could feel the force of Peter's arguments, and desire to get rid of their guilt. The Holy Spirit, knowing that they did not need that direct enabling power from above, told them plainly what to do: "Re-pent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." "And with many other words he testified, and exhorted them saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation." Of course, the only way they could save themselves was to turn from their sins in obeying the gospel. It is certain that they had not been saved up to the time Peter exhorted them to save themselves. And it is just as evident that they could do what they were command-ed and exhorted to do. Not one word is said about their being so depraved that they could not do any-thing; nothing was said as to their need of a direct power to enable them to appropriate the benefits of the gospel. The gospel was adapted to them as they were. No God did not make a plan to save folks, and then have to save the folks before the plan would operate on them!