Romans 1:18-20 - Has God Revealed Himself Plainly?

Rom 1:18 (NLT)  But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful,
wicked people who push the truth away from themselves.
Rom 1:19 (NLT)  For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God
has put this knowledge in their hearts.
Rom 1:20 (NLT)  From the time the world was created, people have seen the
earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible
qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse
whatsoever for not knowing God.

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting system, through which
God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.  [George Washington
Carver]

God had given them a twofold revelation of Himself "in them" (conscience)
and "unto them" (creation), v. 19. Man did not begin with ignorance and
gradually work his way up to intelligence; he began with a blazing
revelation of the power and wisdom of God and turned his back on it. God had
revealed Himself from the very time of creation, so that people who have
never heard the Gospel are still without excuse. [Wiersbe Expository
Outlines]

God has revealed himself plainly in the creation to all people. And yet
people reject even this basic knowledge of God. Also, everyone has an inner
sense of what God requires, but they choose not to live up to it. Put
another way, people's moral standards are always better than their behavior.
If people suppress God's truth in order to live their own way, they have no
excuse. They know the truth, and they will have to endure the consequences
of ignoring it. [Life Application SB]

Nature shows us a God of might, intelligence, and intricate detail; a God of
order and beauty; a God who controls powerful forces. That is general
revelation. Through special revelation (the Bible and the incarnation of
Jesus), we learn about God's love and forgiveness, and the promise of
eternal life. God has graciously given us both sources that we might fully
believe in him. [Life Application SB]

God reveals Himself to man in three ways: by an internal revelation to the
reason and conscience of each man (Rom. 2:15; cf. John 1:9), by an external
revelation in the works of creation (Rom. 1:20), and by special revelation
in the Scriptures and in the person and work of Christ, which confirms and
completes the other revelations. Paul is here referring to the first two.
God has endowed men with reason and conscience. He had made them capable of
seeing and investigating His works. He has spread before them the evidence
of His goodness, wisdom, and power. Thus God has made it possible for
Gentiles as well as Jews to learn of Him. [SDA Commentary]

Sin is possible in God's creation because God chose to make people with free
wills capable of choosing to obey or rebel. Creation shows an orderly God of
infinite power. Humans choose to make their own gods and follow foolish
moral choices. God allows them to follow their evil desires and face the
ultimate result. The Creator's wrath against the evil that has contaminated
His work is not His anger bursting forth to destroy. Rather, it is the love
of God functioning in the world He made to assure the righteous that they
will be vindicated. God's wrath operates continually but will be climaxed at
the final judgment. A moral order exists in this world. The person who
violates it will suffer the consequences of his or her actions. [Disciple
SB]

God made this world in such a way that we break his laws at our peril. Now
if we were left solely at the mercy of that inexorable moral order, there
could be nothing for us but death and destruction. The world is made in such
a way that the soul that sins must die--if the moral order is to act alone.
But into this dilemma of man there comes the love of God, and that love of
God, by an act of unbelievable free grace, lifts man out of the consequences
of sin and saves him from the wrath he should have incurred. [Barclay
Commentary]

If we look at the world we see that suffering follows sin. Break the laws of
agriculture--your harvest fails. Break the laws of architecture--your
building collapses. Break the laws of health--your body suffers. Paul was
saying "Look at the world! See how it is constructed!  From a world like
that you know what God is like." The sinner is left without excuse. [Barclay
Commentary]

He was a fool because he made his ideas, his opinions, his speculations the
standard and the law of life, instead of the will of God. The sinner's folly
consisted in making "man the master of things." He found his standards in
his own opinions and not in the laws of God. He lived in a self-centred
instead of a God-centred universe.  Instead of walking looking out to God he
walked looking into himself. . . In this passage we are face to face with
the fact that the essence of sin is to put self in the place of God.
[Barclay Commentary]

Man's rejection of a loving and righteous God is unmistakable proof that
human beings are lost and in sin. If they felt any affinity with God, they
would respond to Him with warmth. Only the power of God flowing through the
Gospel can change man's heart, and enable us to respond to God's great love.

The wrath of the infinite God must not be compared to human passion. God is
love (1 John 4:8), and though He hates sin, He loves the sinner (SC 54).
However, God does not force His love upon those who are unwilling to receive
His mercy (see DA 22, 466, 759). Thus, God's wrath against sin is exercised
in the withdrawal of His presence and life-giving power from those who
choose to remain in sin and thus share in its inevitable consequences. . .
God reveals His wrath by turning impenitent men over to the inevitable
results of their rebellion. . . "God is the fountain of life; and when one
chooses the service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off
from life" (DA 764). God gives men existence for a time so that they may
develop their characters. When this has been accomplished, they receive the
results of their own choice. "By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who
unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very
presence is to them a consuming fire" (ibid.; cf. GC 543). [SDA Commentary]

We can see that God is all-powerful by looking at creation and this is a
good beginning.  But we must not stop there.  We need to discover that He is
the all-loving God of Righteousness and Justice; and that we need a personal
relationship with Him through Jesus Christ, as He has ordained.  To do less
is to forfeit eternal life.  It is that simple.  There are millions of
precious people in the world today who acknowledge the existence of God, but
who have not gone on to enter into that personal relationship with Jesus,
either because they have not heard that they need to, or they do not
perceive the necessity of it.  In both cases, the result is the same:
eternity without God.  Do you acknowledge God's mighty power as you observe
the universe?  Do you perceive the great need of your heart for a personal
relationship with God's Son, Jesus Christ? [In His Time; Walk With Wisdom]