Romans 1:22 : Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. To claim superior wisdom is characteristic of those who deny God his place in his own creation. In their estimation the man who believes the Bible is a back number, an ignoramus. They never seem to realize that the man who professes himself to be wise is a fool, and they have not learned enough to know that no man is richly endowed with any virtue or accomplishment of which he boasts. If a man thinks and acts contrary to common sense, he is a fool, no matter how much he may know about some things. Common sense is the knowledge the human family has accumulated by experience and observation. We have learned that fire burns. If a man should deny that and act according to his theory, he would act foolishly. Only a fool would say that it would not hurt to run full tilt against a stone wall. And only a fool will say that a thing can be made without a maker, for experience and observation teach us that every made thing has a maker. Recently I read that a rayon factory was being built with such complete machinery that one man could sit at a switch-board and operate the whole plant. After that factory is finished and in operation what would you think of a man who, while watching it operate, would argue that no one built it, and that it ran without any force applied to it, and that no one directed, or controlled, its operations? Well, that is exactly what I think about the man who argues that no one made this great machine we call the universe, that it operates by its own power, and that no one controls, or directs, that power. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." If there is no God, then the universe was made without a maker, and now runs by perpetual motion--nothing made it, nothing started it in motion, and nothing keeps it going! If these fellows are right then those who tried to invent machines that would run without any power were not such cranks, after all. If there is no God, then perpetual motion is a reality! If a man is a fool who thinks a watch might just happen to be he is much more so who thinks this universe just hap-pened to be. And so the nations who thought them-selves too wise to believe in God had in reality become fools. But people cannot remain in a state of negation; they will believe in something. When a people deny God, they are but one step from idolatry. The nations of whom Paul speaks denied God, "and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things" (Romans 1:23). Men will worship something; if not God, then they will worship some sort of an idol. And they will recognize infallibility somewhere. Segregate our "wise men" of today so that they will not be restrained by any outside influence, and they will drift into some form of idolatry. There is but a step between denying God and the worshiping of any sort of a god. Because these nations denied God and turned to the worship of idols, God gave them up to follow their own lusts. He did not give them up till they first gave him up. He let them go because they were set on going. From their rationalism they soon plunged into the basest of sins and the most degrading sort of superstition. God gave us reasoning powers, and intends for us to use them but there is a limit to reason. It cannot fully fathom God, nor correctly blaze out a way which it has never trod. "It is not in man that walketh to di-rect his steps." But since God has revealed his will to us, it is our duty to use our best reasoning powers to search out that will. But to reject revelation and depend upon reason as the true source of light is rationalism; and to do so is to make reason our god, and that is a form of idolatry. It is easy to drift from one form of idolatry to another. Reason without reverence for a Higher Power is a dangerous thing. Superstition is not so dangerous. In fact, superstition and reverence are closely related. As a matter of fact, superstition is ignorant reverence. The superstitious can be taught; but even God himself gave the rationalist up to follow his own ways.