Listen up, little ones
Listen for the words God and men.
Reading
Romans 1:18-32—The Needed Gospel.
Keys for kids
- Sinners need the gospel.
- Christians need the gospel, too.
- Without the gospel people tend to get worse and worse.
Questions
- What do all people know about God?
- What does God give wicked people over to?
- What should God receive instead of rejection?
Notes
(See last day for authors)
Why is this powerful gospel needed? Because men are sinners. They pretend that God is not revealed in the world that He has made. They reject Him. They fail to give thanks to Him. Because of that, they are storing up wrath to their account.
Not only that, they are marring the image of God in which they were created. They are darkening more and more their hearts and minds. Even though many unbelievers would claim to be enlightened, they are actually endarkened. (It is a word 😊.) Rejecting God and His truth clouds your mind and darkens your heart. As bad as that is, it gets worse. In this life, God delivers them over to sexual impurity, to vile passions, and to a corrupt mind which leads to evil of all kinds—which they then celebrate. We see this all around us in this world. And such were we! But we were rescued from our powerful sin by the more powerful gospel. God in His mercy granted us faith to believe and to be transformed in our hearts and minds. As Hughes reminds us, God’s grace brings freedom from bondage, light from darkness, life from death. So, like Paul, we must not be ashamed of the gospel; we need to be eager to proclaim it.
And, like Paul, we will long to proclaim the glory and praise of God. Three times in Romans, Paul bursts forth with a doxology—which literally means a “glory word.” This first one, at the end of v. 25, seems to come as a Pauline reaction against the rejection of God by unbelievers. This creator whom they reject, whom I love, is to be praised now and forever!
Swedish Method questions
Praise
Psalm 14a, 119t
Prayer
- Pray for the endarkened in our world to believe the gospel.
- Pray for the hearing of God’s word preached this Sunday.
- Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.