Living the Word: Faith in Action
The Truth He Holds Underwater
Romans 1:18–22
Edward Rangel · July 19, 2026
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Hold a beach ball underwater and it fights to rise.
Stop pressing, and it breaks the surface.
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That is what men do with the truth about God.
It keeps rising; they keep pressing it down.
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Picture two hands holding down what keeps coming up.
Not a mind with too little proof.
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He is not missing evidence. He is holding it down.
Because he does not want the God it points to.
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The gospel is God's power to save everyone who believes.
Romans 1:16
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Verse 18 tells us why that message is needed.
People are not uninformed. They are guilty.
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God has not hidden. His world points to Him.
In every place and every age.
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The question is what men do with what it says.
Not whether creation speaks.
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God has made Himself plain.
Romans 1:19–20
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because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
Romans 1:19 · NASB
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God showed Himself; men did not find Him by being clever.
You cannot say He left you nothing to see.
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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 · NASB
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You never see power itself; you see what it does.
You do not see God, but you see His world.
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Creation shows the Maker, but it does not preach the cross.
It cannot tell you His Son died and rose.
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So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
Romans 10:17 · NASB
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Creation takes away the excuse; only the gospel gives the Savior.
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II
Men hold the truth down.
Romans 1:18, 21
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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
Romans 1:18 · NASB
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To suppress is to hold down so it will not surface.
That is the beach ball again.
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The trouble is not lost evidence.
The truth would cost him his own way of living.
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"This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
John 3:19 · NASB
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It is not only the mind that resists God. It is the will.
Guarding a life it does not want examined.
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His deepest problem is not the evidence but the God he won't have above him.
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For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Romans 1:21 · NASB
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They wanted His world without His rule, His gifts without thanks.
Even the breath denying Him was on loan from Him.
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III
Refuse God and the mind goes dark.
Romans 1:21–22
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A man can be brilliant about the world and a fool about God.
He can measure a star and miss his own life.
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Rule God out at the start, and you never reach real wisdom.
This does not make every unbeliever dull.
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Professing to be wise, they became fools,
Romans 1:22 · NASB
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The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 1:7 · NASB
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A thousand facts cannot save a life built on a lie.
The lie that there is no Creator.
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and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
Romans 1:23 · NASB
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Shut God out, and something gets lifted into His place.
An idol, money, self, or the world itself.
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A ruinous trade: the God who lasts for things that rot.
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Ask what he actually saw, and what he added to it.
“Therefore no God” was never found under a microscope.
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Do not fear honest study, and do not pretend to know more.
Let every claim answer for the world God made.
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Romans 1 is a mirror before it is a weapon.
Where do you keep a truth held under?
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Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
Psalm 139:23 · NASB
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It reaches you when the pressing stops and confessing starts.
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This week, thank God for one ordinary gift each day.
Name the Giver, and do what the gift asks.
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Science is not the enemy. The world belongs to God.
The enemy rules God out before He is examined.
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The heavens have told you there is a Maker of great power.
You stand without excuse.
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But creation cannot wash away one sin.
For that you need the word of Christ.
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You breathe borrowed breath in a world God holds together.
Do not spend it holding Him under.
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Outside of Christ, the stars cannot forgive you.
Hear, believe, repent, confess, and be baptized for forgiveness.
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Christian, take your hands off the truth you hold down.
Repent, confess it, and let this church pray with you.
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Let the truth rise. Come while we stand and sing.
Romans 1:20
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Created with Ed Slide Gen · Keeping the Faith