The main deep problem in the city is that people suppress the truth.

Don't glorify God, live thankless lives, are without excuse and are

hellbound. How can God rightly judge those who have never heard of Christ? That's the

common pressing question that John Piper answers from Romans 1, 19 to 21 in this episode of Light and Truth.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethland Baptist Church on September 27th, 1998.

In these verses 19 following,

Paul answers an objection.

Here's the objection that arises from verse 18.

Somebody hears this statement that God is pouring out wrath upon those who suppress the truth.

And they say, wait a minute. What about people who've never heard the truth?

Are you saying, you did say, Piper,

that Paul said that verse 18 related to all ungodliness and all unrighteousness and you argued that

that's not a little group of people but everybody and it's

because they suppress truth but not everybody has it.

Therefore, they have a legitimate excuse to protest against the wrath of God that you say is coming against them.

That's the objection he's answering in these verses 19 and following.

So what is Paul's response to this?

He responds in four logical steps. We could either go forward from the bottom premise up to the

conclusion or we could go backwards from the conclusion following his argument step by step down to the bottom.

And as I thought about which way should I go in this sermon I said well let's do it both ways let's

start at the top and work our way down and then conclude with a kind of summary

fashion starting at the bottom and working our way up and

...