back to index2015-10-18 God's Judgment is Perfect
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Why don't we turn our Bibles to Romans Chapter 2 and I'll read from verse 6 through verse 00:00:13.100 |
But our focus will be in verse 12 through 16 today. 00:00:21.900 |
"He will render each one according to his works to those who by patience and well-doing 00:00:30.520 |
But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, 00:00:35.840 |
There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first 00:00:40.900 |
But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the 00:00:48.040 |
For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who sinned 00:00:55.120 |
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the 00:01:01.040 |
For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are 00:01:04.960 |
a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 00:01:08.760 |
They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts while their conscience also 00:01:12.360 |
bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them. 00:01:16.720 |
On that day, when according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus." 00:01:24.960 |
Heavenly Father, we offer this time to you, asking Lord God that your word would be effective 00:01:30.440 |
in our hearts, convicting us, shedding light, Lord God, not only of our external condition, 00:01:38.340 |
We pray, Father, that this time may be a true time of worship where you instruct your church 00:01:44.820 |
that you disciple us, strengthen us, equip us for every good work. 00:01:52.600 |
Those of you guys who have Facebook or online, you probably read articles or maybe haven't 00:02:00.160 |
One of the biggest news that came out this week was that Time Magazine says that Playboy 00:02:06.000 |
will no longer print nude pictures of young ladies. 00:02:10.600 |
And this obviously in 1953 was a magazine that started and basically was challenging 00:02:18.200 |
And for so many decades, they were kind of like the standard of, you know, of, you know, 00:02:23.720 |
girly magazine or whatever you want to call it. 00:02:27.080 |
But the reason why they're getting rid of it is actually not for a good reason. 00:02:31.280 |
It's not because they had some moral awakening and saying, you know, we're going to stop 00:02:35.320 |
It's because they can't compete with the pornography on the internet. 00:02:40.200 |
And so as a result of that, they say in the last decade, they probably lost about 70% 00:02:47.280 |
And to for business purposes, they realized that their, their format of doing this is 00:02:56.840 |
And you know, as I was reading that, I was thinking, you know, this is exactly what God 00:03:00.400 |
says in Romans chapter one, that they keep going to these sins and refuse to acknowledge 00:03:07.960 |
And so seeing again, those of you who remember what it was like before the internet came 00:03:12.360 |
in now, you know, what, what, what all the internet, all the other stuff that has come 00:03:16.320 |
in the dangers that, that every one of you is faced with, all of us is faced with because 00:03:22.160 |
now this pornographic material is so readily available in your pocket all the time. 00:03:27.240 |
And so if we're not vigilant to stay sober and pure, it's not something that you choose 00:03:33.160 |
It just kind of drifts toward that direction. 00:03:34.640 |
Again, this article and what we read this week, it just, to me, it was a reminder, exactly 00:03:40.200 |
what God says when that door gets open, sin is never dormant. 00:03:44.820 |
You know, it always carries us to a place where we don't want to go. 00:03:49.920 |
Our Christian life is not something that we just coast along. 00:03:52.100 |
We have to determine, you know, just like our theme in, uh, of our family camp in Joshua 00:03:57.240 |
24 for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. 00:04:01.340 |
And until that decision is made, until practical things are applied in our lives, the natural 00:04:06.160 |
direction of our culture is going to go down that direction. 00:04:09.480 |
And so those of us who have children, I know that we're, you know, all the more concerned 00:04:13.520 |
because our children are going to be raised in that culture where, you know, 20, 30 years 00:04:17.360 |
ago that, you know, Playboy magazine was what we were trying to avoid. 00:04:23.840 |
And, and what is available on the internet, it's like, you can't even talk about it, you 00:04:30.760 |
Here's the danger though, as we see where the world is going, we can kind of get in 00:04:36.160 |
our little huddle in our church and start to think, thank God we have a church. 00:04:40.760 |
Thank God we have a community where we can protect our kids from that. 00:04:44.320 |
And as long as we don't do that, as long as that doesn't happen and we can point fingers 00:04:49.640 |
and thinking that, well, hopefully that doesn't happen to us. 00:04:54.600 |
The whole point of what Paul is saying in Romans chapter one, two, and three is to remind 00:05:00.160 |
us that what we see happening in the world is in us. 00:05:04.560 |
That sin is not something that we step on and because we went to the wrong place and 00:05:08.360 |
watched the wrong thing, that obviously it is sin. 00:05:15.760 |
It is not what, what you allow yourself to go to, but not just that. 00:05:20.520 |
But ultimately sin is always a revelation of who we are. 00:05:25.960 |
And so that's why Paul introduces the gospel in Romans chapter one, say it is the power 00:05:29.800 |
of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. 00:05:33.320 |
And so he kind of hypes it up saying this gospel that saves mankind has been given to 00:05:41.120 |
God's been preparing us for this for generations. 00:05:43.960 |
And then he says, so here it is, here's the gospel. 00:05:46.760 |
And then the first thing he says is wrath of God is being revealed to all mankind because 00:05:54.520 |
And so starting from verse 18 all the way to the middle of chapter three for two and 00:05:59.520 |
a half chapters, he's going to be describing the sin of man. 00:06:03.920 |
And so for the last three to four weeks, we've been talking about that. 00:06:06.560 |
I think we're going to be in it another three or three to four weeks on this subject and 00:06:12.080 |
It's like, okay, you know, one message is enough. 00:06:14.200 |
We should have just done one message from verse 18 chapter three to 20 and say, we're 00:06:20.680 |
You know, we'd be great if we just passed over it like that. 00:06:24.080 |
But there's a reason why Paul takes so much time to sit down and calculate and dig into 00:06:31.040 |
the details and thoughts and condition of man so that when he introduces Christ, that 00:06:38.760 |
we recognize Christ for who he is, what it is that we ought to have or what it is that 00:06:44.240 |
we ought to recognize and lead us to worship. 00:06:48.140 |
At the end of verse 11 chapter two, verse 11, he sums up what he's been saying before 00:06:53.760 |
and he also sums up what he's going to say in this short statement for God chose no partiality. 00:07:04.880 |
Now if you read that and if you know the Bible history, you may have a question that I had 00:07:13.760 |
I mean, isn't the whole understanding of the gospel is that God chose a nation of Israel? 00:07:20.640 |
I mean, he seemed like he was partial to the nation of Israel. 00:07:23.640 |
In fact, even when he says, you know, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation 00:07:27.820 |
to everyone who believes, first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. 00:07:33.840 |
Very beginning of the calling of the nation in Genesis chapter 12 verse 3, God tells Abraham 00:07:38.640 |
and his descendants, "I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will 00:07:45.680 |
Again, in Deuteronomy 7, 6, "For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. 00:07:50.880 |
The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the 00:07:58.200 |
So when we read that, the first question is we may ask, well, that sounds like he's partial. 00:08:09.060 |
But I think one of the best evidence that we see of God's impartial judgment, we see 00:08:14.720 |
from the very beginning, if there was any being that God would have shown favoritism 00:08:20.240 |
or overlooked in their sin, it probably would have been Lucifer. 00:08:24.840 |
You know, I know now we, when we say the word Lucifer, it kind of gives you, you know, chills. 00:08:32.760 |
But that's not the way that the Bible portrayed him in the beginning. 00:08:36.280 |
It says in Ezekiel 28, 15 to 17, this is a description of Satan. 00:08:43.240 |
Lucifer, he says, "You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in 00:08:55.040 |
I placed you, you were on the holy mountain of God. 00:08:57.640 |
In the midst of the stones of fire, you walked." 00:09:00.440 |
And it goes on and on, description about his beauty, about his power, how he, God placed 00:09:07.080 |
And so in essence, what the scripture says is of all the created things that God has 00:09:12.160 |
personally created, the most beautiful, the most powerful, the highly exalted was Lucifer 00:09:20.520 |
So if there was any being, any person that God could have showed favoritism to, it would 00:09:29.080 |
In verse 17 it says, "Your heart was proud because of your beauty. 00:09:33.440 |
You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor." 00:09:36.760 |
In order to exalt yourself, you began to challenge God. 00:09:39.760 |
And as a result of God, the scripture says, "I cast you to the ground." 00:09:46.160 |
If God was going to show any kind of favoritism, any kind of just look over their sin, it probably 00:09:52.800 |
But even Lucifer, when he challenged God and he wanted the glory for himself, he was judged. 00:10:01.280 |
What you and I need to remember is that the scripture makes it absolutely crystal clear 00:10:04.800 |
that God is not a God who can say one thing and does something else. 00:10:12.160 |
And Habakkuk 1.13 says, "You who are of pure eyes and to see evil and cannot look at wrong." 00:10:20.740 |
When he says that, he's not just saying that about certain people. 00:10:25.080 |
He's not saying that there's some people that he can't stand when they sin, and then there's 00:10:28.600 |
some people that sin and he says he's okay with. 00:10:31.900 |
You know that all the Gentile nations, when they sin, God is angry with them, but when 00:10:39.680 |
If you look at Israel's history, God is faithful to the nation of Israel. 00:10:43.760 |
In fact, the reason why I believe the nation of Israel, even to this day, exists is because 00:10:48.520 |
God made a covenant with Abraham that I will bless you and through you, all the other nations 00:10:55.900 |
So if you look at Old Testament history, even in the midst of sin, God doesn't forsake them 00:11:03.680 |
But the people who sin in Israel, are they judged? 00:11:13.720 |
So when he says he's faithful and he chooses the nation of Israel, he is committed to the 00:11:23.520 |
So if you look at the book of Numbers, and it's a story of how 600,000 men enter into 00:11:30.800 |
the desert, when they come out, they have 600,000 people going into the promised land. 00:11:36.640 |
But in between, it is a record of the sins of Israel. 00:11:41.160 |
Those who sin against God, their tribes actually diminish and they decrease because they're 00:11:47.520 |
And those who are faithful, they actually increase. 00:11:49.920 |
So by the time they exit, they have the same number of people, but the number of the tribes 00:11:54.400 |
either increases or decreases based upon their sins. 00:12:00.160 |
Jesus says, "I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." 00:12:08.040 |
And the mistake that we make is that we think, "Well, we're the part of the church, so no 00:12:11.360 |
matter what I do, God is not going to look at my sin because he said he's going to cover 00:12:17.740 |
The way God deals with sin, he says he will be impartial. 00:12:22.840 |
What he says he will do, Psalm 5, 4-6, "For you are not a God who delights in wickedness. 00:12:31.040 |
The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. 00:12:36.080 |
The Lord abhors and bloodthirsty and deceitful man." 00:12:42.040 |
God is faithful to the universal church of God. 00:12:50.120 |
And he will be impartial in the way that he judges sins. 00:12:54.160 |
In fact, the word "impartial" itself literally means to "search face." 00:12:59.160 |
Now if we translated that literally, you'd be like, "God is search face." 00:13:07.480 |
The word literally means that God is not going to be looking at the surface and your background 00:13:18.480 |
We see a perfect picture of that in 1 Samuel 16, 6-7, when God rejects Saul for his sin 00:13:27.120 |
He goes to David's home and finds his older brother and he looks regal. 00:13:45.360 |
But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his 00:13:52.280 |
For the Lord sees not as man sees, but man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord 00:13:58.200 |
In other words, God is able to see beyond that and sees who they really are. 00:14:03.320 |
So God chose David because he was a man after God's own heart. 00:14:11.480 |
The reason why you and I need to realize and recognize that is until we recognize that 00:14:21.940 |
You and I are not capable of being impartial in our judgment. 00:14:25.560 |
No matter how much you think you are being impartial. 00:14:28.040 |
There's no human being who can be completely impartial. 00:14:32.080 |
Every person that we judge, every situation we judge, we judge from our perspective, from 00:14:37.400 |
our sins, from our selfishness, from our pride. 00:14:40.760 |
And so every judgment that we make of another person, it is always coming through a filter 00:14:47.000 |
Well, I've been offended, so we tend to overreact. 00:14:50.520 |
You know, I don't want you to think poorly of me, so I'm going to judge you, you know, 00:14:56.320 |
Every single one of us, because we've been tainted with sin, our judgment is always going 00:15:07.300 |
Only God can know what is really in your heart. 00:15:11.620 |
Only God, who is perfectly holy, can look at a situation and is able to judge this is 00:15:22.080 |
So the scripture tells us that the beginning of wisdom comes from fear of the Lord. 00:15:30.400 |
And the fear of the Lord is the beginning when we recognize that God and God only is 00:15:38.320 |
Think about what's going on in the Middle East today. 00:15:41.040 |
And one of the questions that constantly comes up is, "How come the United States just go 00:15:43.480 |
in there and just, you know, like, you were supposed to be the superpower. 00:15:47.040 |
We have all this billions and trillions of dollars that are spent to build up the US 00:15:53.680 |
Why don't we go there and just straighten it out?" 00:15:56.360 |
The biggest problem with what's going on in the Middle East is we can't recognize who's 00:16:02.440 |
You know, as soon as you come and bomb this group, and this group is bombing this group, 00:16:07.380 |
you know what I mean, that's bombing you, you know what I mean, so if we bomb them, 00:16:11.680 |
they're going to stop bombing the people who are bombing us. 00:16:18.540 |
So we have a nation, we have a world full of people who are absolutely convinced that 00:16:25.520 |
And so my point here is not to get political in saying we're right and they're wrong, right? 00:16:31.640 |
But even in human relationship, wars begin because we have a hard time deciphering what 00:16:36.720 |
is just and what is not just, what is right and what is wrong. 00:16:40.120 |
We can't even distinguish that even between husband and wife. 00:16:44.080 |
Two people who live together, who talk to each other every single day, have problems 00:16:52.740 |
You never get into a fight if the husband says, "I'm wrong." 00:16:57.600 |
Or the wife says, "I shouldn't have said that. 00:17:03.760 |
You get into fights because wife thinks she's right and the husband thinks he's right. 00:17:08.760 |
And you bicker to try to argue back and forth and whoever has the better argument wins. 00:17:14.040 |
And sometimes you win and you lose at the same time. 00:17:17.160 |
You know exactly what I'm talking about, right? 00:17:22.760 |
We're talking about two people who are in a covenant relationship, talk to each other 00:17:27.840 |
every single day, doing their best to understand each other, and come to a conclusion who is 00:17:36.720 |
How are we going to come to a conclusion with people that we run into every once in a while 00:17:40.320 |
or people that we don't even know in a distant place, people who grew up in different cultures? 00:17:45.840 |
So you and I have to first recognize, first and foremost, that you and I do not have the 00:17:57.380 |
And the problem that we get into is a lot of times we are so proud of our judgment and 00:18:03.520 |
our logic that we trace it all the way back and if God's logic doesn't fit my logic, what 00:18:17.200 |
Why would He judge these people for these reasons? 00:18:19.120 |
Because from my perspective, it doesn't seem right. 00:18:28.760 |
We look at situations and say, "Oh, God is gracious or He's not gracious," based upon 00:18:37.120 |
Speaking of all wisdom is when we learn, first and foremost, to fear God. 00:18:41.440 |
When we recognize that He and He alone can be completely partial or impartial. 00:18:48.720 |
Deuteronomy 32, verse 4 says, "The rock, His work is perfect for all His ways are just. 00:18:54.560 |
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He." 00:19:01.680 |
So the point that Paul is trying to get at and why that statement is here is in order 00:19:06.580 |
to convince us and convince a reader of Romans that the judgment that is coming upon mankind 00:19:16.160 |
There's not a single human being who will be judged before God unjustly. 00:19:20.600 |
There's no human being that's going to be judged for eternity who is going to be judged 00:19:30.200 |
You guys know the picture of, you know, if you see a statue of justice, what's the statue 00:19:37.140 |
I was going to bring a video, but not video, but a slideshow, but I chose not to. 00:19:46.920 |
She's blindfolded and she has a scale, right? 00:19:53.760 |
Yeah, because if you're not blindfolded, the natural tendency is for us to be prejudiced. 00:20:00.720 |
So we see and say, "Oh, that's my mother," or "Oh, I know this person, so I should be 00:20:04.000 |
more just to that person," or "This person's rich," or "That person can benefit me," or 00:20:08.560 |
"If I do this, how are they going to treat me?" 00:20:11.160 |
So every human being is going to be partial based upon our selfish desire. 00:20:19.400 |
Or you've offended me, so therefore you're going to deserve more justice. 00:20:22.520 |
So in the criminal justice system, if somebody seems to be overly biased in some way, like 00:20:29.860 |
So if you go to the court, you know, if you ever had jury duty, one of the questions that 00:20:33.520 |
they ask you is, "Do you know one of the attorneys that work here?" 00:20:40.440 |
And then, so you say yes, and then you're out. 00:20:42.280 |
They don't want you in there, because they already assume that your judgment is not going 00:20:46.640 |
You're going to be biased toward them one way or the other, right? 00:20:49.920 |
So again, even in our justice system, we recognize that bias is part of who we are. 00:20:58.200 |
So therefore, how do we determine what is right and what is wrong? 00:21:03.560 |
How do we determine in our mind what should be and what should not be? 00:21:12.840 |
That judgment in and of itself is not coming from our culture, it's not your upbringing, 00:21:19.480 |
it's not because you're a Democrat or a Republican, it's not because you're educated or uneducated, 00:21:24.680 |
what culture you were brought up in, that everything that you and I know to be right 00:21:29.160 |
or wrong has to be tested by the only being who can be perfectly impartial, which is our 00:21:40.520 |
So therefore, he says, God who is, the wrath of God is being revealed is completely impartial. 00:21:48.120 |
Now, if I ended this here, we're in big trouble. 00:21:53.320 |
Because the reason why Paul says this is to justify what he's been saying. 00:22:02.160 |
And those who have the law will be judged with the law. 00:22:04.760 |
Those who don't have the law will be judged without the law. 00:22:07.360 |
But the end conclusion is, you will be judged. 00:22:13.840 |
And there's nobody who's going to stand under the wrath of God and say, this is not fair. 00:22:18.560 |
Everything he does is going to be completely and perfectly fair, whether we see it or not. 00:22:26.160 |
And he said, well, what about those Jews who've had the law and all their for centuries they 00:22:35.400 |
Well, he says, those who have the law will also perish with the law and who have sinned 00:22:44.360 |
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the 00:22:51.160 |
So in other words, any of you who are proud because you have the law, he says, you're 00:22:58.240 |
Remember in Matthew 3, 7 through 10, John the Baptist comes out and everybody recognizes 00:23:06.920 |
Even the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes were coming and they saw that he's 00:23:14.680 |
He's acting and talking like an Old Testament prophet. 00:23:18.760 |
Now John the Baptist, at least from what we see in the scriptures, didn't perform miracles. 00:23:24.480 |
They weren't coming out because he was feeding them. 00:23:26.280 |
It was just he, everybody recognized that there was an authority about this person and 00:23:31.720 |
they came and they were being baptized by him. 00:23:33.760 |
And when he saw the Pharisee and the Sadducees come, he saw them, he said to them, you brood 00:23:39.320 |
of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bear fruit in keeping with 00:23:44.040 |
repentance and do not presume to say to yourself, we have Abraham as our father, for I tell 00:23:49.280 |
you God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 00:23:53.360 |
Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. 00:23:55.880 |
Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 00:24:04.280 |
Now let me, before we jump on the Pharisees, okay, let me ask you a question. 00:24:09.280 |
Did God want the nation of Israel to obey the law? 00:24:17.800 |
Did God intend the nation of Israel to obey the law? 00:24:24.520 |
God wanted the nation of Israel to obey the law. 00:24:26.920 |
So he rejoiced when they obeyed and he was saddened when they didn't obey. 00:24:38.520 |
If God wanted Israel to obey the law, who obeyed the law the best? 00:24:47.480 |
You say, oh, the tax collector, you know, they're the ones that God favored and they 00:25:00.580 |
So we have a tendency to kind of like, because we've already stamped these people as bad 00:25:06.320 |
people, you know, Pharisees, they obey the law, you know, but they, they were against 00:25:16.440 |
The fishermen, you know, maybe they were better off. 00:25:19.040 |
Maybe that's why God saw some righteousness in the fishermen. 00:25:23.560 |
These fishermen, you know, they probably didn't go to the temple that often. 00:25:27.640 |
They didn't take, they didn't know the Torah. 00:25:29.360 |
The Pharisees were the one who memorized scripture. 00:25:36.480 |
In fact, the scripture says that they would go far distances to make disciples. 00:25:48.520 |
You have to understand that the judgment that came upon, the reason why God pointed them 00:25:52.440 |
out is not because the tax collectors and the fishermen and the common people were somehow 00:26:03.680 |
The Pharisees were the ones who were trying so hard to keep the law. 00:26:13.200 |
Well, if you remember in Matthew 15, one through nine, he rebukes these Pharisees and scribes 00:26:20.440 |
and says, you hypocrites, you, you have certain amount of money donated to temple. 00:26:26.240 |
And then you use that as an excuse not to take care of your parents. 00:26:30.480 |
You should have done one without neglecting the other. 00:26:33.960 |
He didn't say you should have done this and not done this. 00:26:37.480 |
So what he was saying is, here's what you're doing, but what you should have done was this. 00:26:56.400 |
They were at least tithing, at least praying, at least giving, at least proselytizing, even 00:27:02.440 |
They were doing this, but Jesus didn't say you did the wrong thing. 00:27:06.960 |
No, Jesus said you should have done this without neglecting this. 00:27:11.360 |
So the tax collectors weren't even doing this. 00:27:14.400 |
He says again in Matthew 19 through nine, he says, when it comes to divorce, you follow 00:27:19.780 |
Moses's law to give a certificate and then you would get divorced. 00:27:24.300 |
But I say to you that you should not be divorced in any reason other than infidelity. 00:27:30.600 |
So he says you're doing this, but you should have done this. 00:27:35.700 |
So in other words, his rebuke to them is that they weren't obeying the commandment enough. 00:27:47.160 |
Remember the rich young ruler, March 10, 17 to 22? 00:27:50.940 |
Here's a rich man, rich young ruler that comes and respected by the society. 00:27:56.200 |
This is not a Pharisees who's looking down on people. 00:28:00.640 |
He says, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? 00:28:12.120 |
He says, you're calling me good, but you don't realize who you're talking to. 00:28:26.640 |
Now, you know, Ray Comfort has a video series where he goes out and he interviews people 00:28:35.960 |
And then he'll go through the 10 commandments and did you break this? 00:28:39.480 |
And almost always he says, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. 00:28:41.680 |
And then they'll say, so are you a lawbreaker? 00:28:51.560 |
So Jesus was the Ray Comfort before Ray Comfort. 00:28:54.000 |
So he comes and asks him, here's the 10 commandments. 00:29:11.960 |
He says, the young man says to him, the teacher, all these I have kept from my youth. 00:29:15.720 |
Now, before we harp on him, okay, before we harp on, he doesn't know his sin. 00:29:23.640 |
Remember the way Paul described himself before he met Christ? 00:29:34.520 |
This, this is exactly how Paul would have answered that question, because that's how 00:29:39.340 |
That's how he described himself before he met Christ. 00:29:50.340 |
And here's the part I want you to pay attention to. 00:29:52.220 |
Jesus hears this and he's not angry with this man. 00:30:01.040 |
If you want to inherit eternal life, do all of these things. 00:30:03.080 |
He says, I did all of that ever since I was young. 00:30:08.120 |
And Jesus looking at him, loved him and said to him. 00:30:13.120 |
Loved him and said to him, you know, maybe some of you guys have been reading this passage 00:30:16.920 |
and you missed that part where you think that Jesus is shutting the door. 00:30:26.600 |
It says, looking at him, loved him and said to him, you lack one thing. 00:30:32.920 |
Sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasures in heaven and 00:30:38.960 |
It doesn't say in this passage, but in another passage it says Jesus does that because he 00:30:47.420 |
And so he tells him, if you want to inherit eternal life, he says in love, he basically 00:31:02.120 |
And as a result, he says, disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful for he 00:31:10.840 |
Now the response of the disciples of this was exactly what Jesus was trying to get at. 00:31:15.300 |
Not only with the disciples, with this man, they respond to him saying, if that man who 00:31:20.800 |
was perfect in obedience to the law, at least part of that, and he couldn't get in, what 00:31:33.880 |
You know, I didn't even consider the law until I met you. 00:31:38.480 |
I mean, if this man cannot enter, what about us? 00:31:42.160 |
And Jesus says, what man cannot do, God will do. 00:31:51.000 |
He said, what you cannot accomplish by your own own will, God will do. 00:31:56.380 |
And obviously he was referring to the cross, the very reason why he came. 00:32:01.880 |
And so he lovingly tells him, he says, yes, he doesn't, he doesn't rebuke him for obeying 00:32:07.680 |
You're obeying the law, but you don't realize that this law cannot save you. 00:32:14.360 |
God wants you to obey the law because it's good for you. 00:32:16.880 |
God wants you to be a man of the law, but this law cannot save you. 00:32:20.760 |
It may guide you, it may direct you, it may be a light onto your path, but it cannot save 00:32:27.640 |
No man by his own doing can stand before this perfect, holy, holy God and think that somehow 00:32:37.480 |
So he shuts the door on him because that door was never opened in the first place. 00:32:50.320 |
If you rely on the law, you will be judged by the law. 00:32:54.320 |
If you're relying on your discipline, if you're relying on your experience and how much scripture 00:32:58.880 |
you memorize and how much prayer that you give and how much money that you give, if 00:33:03.560 |
you rely on that for your righteousness, you will be judged by that because you will never 00:33:10.420 |
You will never pray enough, you will never give enough, you will never sacrifice enough 00:33:19.560 |
He's taking this man and humbling him because only by humbling him can he see the glory 00:33:27.480 |
And that's what he's doing throughout this whole three chapters is he's turning the light 00:33:36.880 |
Just like we turn the lights off so that we can see the screen better, he's turning the 00:33:42.080 |
They're making sure that they recognize that what you see out there is not just them. 00:33:54.280 |
Whether you are a church hander, whether you've been at church all your life and been Sunday 00:33:57.600 |
school, never missed a day of church on Sunday, no matter what your background is, whatever 00:34:02.360 |
it is that you have achieved, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 00:34:12.880 |
And here's a question that comes up all the time. 00:34:14.640 |
Well, what about the people who've never heard the gospel? 00:34:18.640 |
I can see that the law will judge the Jews, but what about those people who've never heard 00:34:25.720 |
You know, years ago when I was in seminary, one of our assignments, project was that we 00:34:30.880 |
would have to attend this evangelical theological society, ETS. 00:34:35.120 |
And we were basically sitting in the back and watching these PhDs. 00:34:38.640 |
Some of them had been studying the Bible for 40, 50 years. 00:34:41.720 |
And I was in a room filled with about 500 men, all white hair, probably in their 70s, 00:34:47.680 |
And what they do is they get into a big room and then they would have two, three key people 00:34:53.120 |
Now, everything, I was just a first year, you know, seminary student. 00:34:56.880 |
So even though I was an undergrad Bible major, I didn't know enough Greek and Hebrew to understand 00:35:02.920 |
And so we're listening and I'm just all by, by just the room, you know, this room was 00:35:08.120 |
filled with people that all the names that you see on commentaries are all gathered in 00:35:15.600 |
You know, for me, it's like, you know, these are my celebrities that I'm looking at. 00:35:20.280 |
Everybody that I, I've been reading about and talking about, writing papers about, they're 00:35:24.720 |
Well, a guy named Dr. Pinnock comes up and he presents a paper. 00:35:30.880 |
I mean, it was just going over my head, you know, I was like, that sounds good. 00:35:36.960 |
But after he finished this paper, they have a Q and A session afterward and they had two 00:35:44.640 |
And as soon as it was over, you could see that there was, everybody was getting up and 00:35:48.680 |
It's like maybe about 30, 40 in this line, 30, 40 in this line. 00:35:53.920 |
And that's when I knew something was going on. 00:35:55.880 |
So initially I thought, oh, maybe this is just the way it is. 00:35:59.460 |
Maybe that's just, they just have lively discussion and they say, oh, this is really cool. 00:36:03.280 |
And then I heard what was happening and basically they were attacking him. 00:36:07.080 |
You know, Dr. Pinnock, you know, if you do this and basically his, his thesis was addressing 00:36:15.400 |
If God is fair, if he is a loving God that we say he is, it would not be just for him 00:36:21.920 |
to judge people who've never heard the gospel. 00:36:25.240 |
And so basically just like what we're talking about, God being impartial. 00:36:28.240 |
So he took what he thought was just and right and good and loving, and he applied it to 00:36:33.000 |
God and God didn't fit, at least the way that he's, that the traditional theology that we 00:36:38.400 |
So therefore he said, since I can't say that God is not just, in order to be just, he has 00:36:44.560 |
to give an opportunity for all people to hear the gospel. 00:36:48.120 |
So his, his thesis was God, he's taken a path in 1st Timothy, 1st Peter, chapter 3, 18, that 00:36:54.800 |
when people who've never heard the gospel, they die, that Jesus goes to this place and 00:37:02.960 |
And so people who are alive will be judged by rejecting the gospel when they're alive. 00:37:08.080 |
But the people who died, didn't hear the gospel will be judged based upon the gospel they 00:37:14.480 |
Now right away you can see a problem with that. 00:37:21.640 |
Because if Jesus could have preached the gospel, wouldn't you want Jesus to preach the gospel? 00:37:28.480 |
We're committing tremendous sin by sending missionaries out to the remotest part of the 00:37:33.280 |
Even John Piper, John MacArthur, all the Johns, if they all got together and, and decided 00:37:40.720 |
to be missionaries in a country, they can't come even close that Jesus himself preaching 00:37:56.520 |
If that's the case, but that was his presentation. 00:37:58.960 |
I mean, it was a broad, and even to this day, it was like what, 27, 28 years ago, even to 00:38:04.800 |
this day, they talk about that particular event, you know, Dr. Pinnock did this and, 00:38:10.240 |
and that created this whole openness of God theology. 00:38:13.760 |
Again, I'm not going to get into all of that. 00:38:18.000 |
Again, it's because he was projecting his sense of justice to God. 00:38:24.120 |
He was twisting the scripture to say, to make it fit what he thinks is just. 00:38:29.280 |
What Paul says here, again, you know, whenever we come to a passage like this, and if you, 00:38:35.480 |
if you've ever, you know, studied through this, he mentions the word law about 20, you 00:38:44.920 |
You know, it's a law, law, law, law, law, law, law, law, boast, law, law, law, boast, 00:38:50.680 |
law, law, law, law, boast, circumcision, uncircumcision, law, circumcision, law, uncircumcision, law. 00:38:58.320 |
That's probably what you may remember from this passage, right? 00:39:03.660 |
Because some of these, some of these profound questions are found in these passages. 00:39:07.640 |
It may be difficult to understand, but what does Paul say? 00:39:10.840 |
Well, he dealt with the Jews who had the law, but the second part in verse 14, he says, 00:39:15.000 |
"For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are 00:39:21.720 |
So in other words, the Gentiles have, they don't have the written law, but they do have 00:39:28.040 |
Because they're able to determine what is right and what is wrong. 00:39:34.360 |
And that's why when we look at all the religions, like some people say, and they listen to Christianity 00:39:38.860 |
superficially, it's like, "Oh yeah, you know, the Buddhists and Christians and, you know, 00:39:43.660 |
Mormons and Hindus and Muslims, they're all the same because they teach the same moral 00:39:51.480 |
And the reason why the moral law sounds the same from religion to religion is because there 00:40:02.280 |
And the difference is we may have the special revelation from God's word in the gospel, 00:40:07.880 |
He says, "The same creator who created you, created them and created people out there." 00:40:14.680 |
So he says, "There is a law that every human being, that they have in their hearts, that 00:40:22.240 |
and they say, they show that the works of the law is written on their hearts while their 00:40:29.280 |
Because it bothers their conscience when they're wrong. 00:40:31.360 |
So every single culture, I've never seen a culture with all the different places that 00:40:36.800 |
I've been to where murdering is considered good, where lying is completely acceptable, 00:40:44.400 |
where dishonoring your mother and father is seen as a good thing. 00:40:48.800 |
There's a universal law that no matter what religion, no matter what your background, 00:40:52.440 |
no matter what age, that every human being has. 00:40:57.600 |
And so therefore he says, "And their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them." 00:41:04.200 |
I know that you probably heard this argument that we should not legislate morality. 00:41:10.400 |
It is not possible to not legislate morality. 00:41:15.400 |
Every law is based upon some moral thought that somebody has. 00:41:20.920 |
So whether it's a Christian view or Muslim view or somebody, there is some morality based 00:41:26.960 |
So he says, "How do you determine right or wrong? 00:41:30.080 |
How do you determine if what they're doing is wrong and this is right and this is wrong?" 00:41:34.040 |
He says, "That in and of itself tells us that the law giver is a universal giver that governs 00:41:44.920 |
Whenever you've gotten to get into an argument or discussion with a non-Christian about the 00:41:48.680 |
existence of God, there's several arguments that you may get into. 00:41:52.880 |
Thomas Aquinas is probably the father of modern day apologetics. 00:41:57.880 |
And I'm not going to go through all of them, but he has the cause and effect argument. 00:42:10.760 |
But one of the arguments that I tend to, it seems like this discussion since it always 00:42:20.840 |
How do you determine what is right or what is wrong without a universal standard that 00:42:28.040 |
A typical answer that you'll get is, "Well, morality comes from majority of the culture. 00:42:33.600 |
So at that generation, that's what they believe and so that's what they do, but morality changes." 00:42:37.520 |
Well, if that's the case, how are we to judge the people over there in the Middle East? 00:42:44.440 |
Because we're not talking about a few people living in caves. 00:42:47.440 |
We're talking about millions of people who completely differ with some of the things 00:42:54.040 |
In fact, during the Holocaust, we all say, "Oh, Hitler killed six million people." 00:43:13.760 |
It was because there was hatred toward the Jews all over the world. 00:43:19.080 |
So yes, Hitler was the most culpable, and the Nazis, and the German people, but it wasn't 00:43:25.920 |
just a few people who killed six million people. 00:43:29.160 |
It was a majority of people in that generation who was convinced and they gave into their 00:43:34.560 |
fear, they gave into their hatred, and that's what happened. 00:43:37.440 |
In fact, if you look at human history, in every part of human history, whether it's 00:43:41.720 |
10,000 years ago or modern history, there is some form of genocide. 00:43:50.160 |
How do we determine if that's right or wrong, if there is no universal rule that governs 00:43:58.480 |
Basically what Paul is saying is, you are not judged because you rejected Christ. 00:44:03.680 |
All men and all women are judged based upon his own personal sins. 00:44:11.240 |
Whether you had the law, whether you didn't have the law, whether you were born a thousand 00:44:15.320 |
years ago, whether you were born today, whether you are rich or whether you are poor, whether 00:44:19.800 |
you are a moral person or you consider yourself an immoral person, the perfect judge judges 00:44:29.520 |
And that's the point that Paul is getting at. 00:44:31.760 |
Whether you heard the gospel or didn't hear the gospel, all have sinned and fall short 00:44:37.160 |
There is not a single person who will receive eternal judgment unfairly before God. 00:44:44.160 |
Every judgment that you and I will face will be perfectly fair because God sees who we 00:44:51.880 |
Even all the violations, all the evil thoughts, all the hurtful things that we've said, all 00:44:59.040 |
the people that we've hated, every time we lusted, every time we gave in to our hatred, 00:45:06.600 |
every time we exaggerated, every time we lied, every time we dishonored our parents, all 00:45:11.840 |
of that before a holy judge will be revealed. 00:45:15.440 |
So when we stand before this holy judge, there's not a single person who will stand innocent. 00:45:23.320 |
Now if I had ended the sermon here, I mean, that'd be great, right? 00:45:26.280 |
Let's go play some, you know, go to sports day, we'll have some fun, eat some El Anel, 00:45:33.240 |
But the point of what he's saying here is not to just bring you down to the ground and 00:45:41.400 |
Because because we're studying the passage from piece to piece, you know, we're, this 00:45:49.160 |
But we have to understand what is his whole point? 00:45:51.360 |
What is, what is the goal of Paul and why does he say it? 00:45:56.200 |
He's saying what he's saying in order to get to, get us to the same place that Paul gets 00:46:04.000 |
Remember that passage in 7, 24 where you see a man just wrestling with his sin, what I 00:46:07.840 |
want to do, I don't do, what I don't want to do, I keep doing. 00:46:11.020 |
And then what does he say in conclusion with this wrestling with his sin, it takes him 00:46:14.960 |
to a place in verse 24, it says, "Oh, what a wretched man I am. 00:46:25.240 |
That's the point that Paul is trying to get to in Romans chapter 1, 2, and 3. 00:46:33.080 |
Beginning of salvation is not, God is wonderful, he's so loving, I want some of that. 00:46:37.220 |
The beginning of salvation is when we recognize the same thing Paul recognizes in Romans chapter 00:46:46.480 |
If I was to stand before God today by my own merit, oh, what a wretched man that I am. 00:46:52.480 |
I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips. 00:46:58.440 |
And when we see, basically what God is doing, He's examining our hearts, examining who we 00:47:02.920 |
are, examining what we deserve, and He gives a long list of, "Here's your sins." 00:47:09.440 |
And you come to the realization, "How can I possibly make up for this? 00:47:17.560 |
How can I possibly take this before a judge and think that somehow I'm going to find leniency? 00:47:27.600 |
And when we're at that point, that's when Paul says in chapter 8 verse 1, "Therefore 00:47:32.560 |
there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 00:47:36.520 |
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord for what the law of the spirit of life 00:47:40.280 |
set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death, that our God will no longer 00:47:49.600 |
And that's why he says in the gospel, "Righteousness of God is revealed. 00:47:55.840 |
Your righteousness, my righteousness, looks like what we just saw." 00:48:00.760 |
This is what our righteousness will look like in the presence of God. 00:48:04.900 |
Those who have the law, those who do not have the law. 00:48:07.640 |
Those who are privileged, those who are not privileged. 00:48:10.180 |
Those who have good grades, those who have bad grades. 00:48:12.980 |
Those who are moral, and those who think that they're immoral. 00:48:16.720 |
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 00:48:19.880 |
Every single one of us, when we recognize who God truly is, in light of who He is and 00:48:25.920 |
we recognize who we are, God brings us to a point of humility. 00:48:36.640 |
Is when we see Christ in light of our sins, and we come to the cross not as an option, 00:48:51.120 |
That's when in light of this great mercy, we offer our lives as a living sacrifice. 00:48:57.840 |
So again, as Paul continues to remind us, and we're not done yet, right? 00:49:03.120 |
We're right in the thick of things, and we're going to keep pounding through his message 00:49:09.080 |
And again, as we're studying all this, let's always keep in mind why he's saying this. 00:49:14.320 |
Why he said, why Jesus said what he said to this rich young man. 00:49:21.320 |
He said, "If you think this the way, you keep going. 00:49:23.460 |
See where this leads you, so that he may turn to Christ." 00:49:26.880 |
That we would recognize this in the same way. 00:49:32.400 |
To humble us, so that we would recognize who He is. 00:49:35.680 |
Let's take a few minutes to pray as we ask our team to come up. 00:49:40.920 |
As they lead us in a time of worship, again, I encourage you to take some time to pray. 00:49:45.920 |
Before you pray for your circumstance, before you pray for other people, let's take some 00:49:51.360 |
And then maybe we don't recognize our sin the way that it really is in the presence 00:49:58.040 |
That you come before the Lord and say, "God, open my eyes, that I may see who I am as I 00:50:04.620 |
And then, so that I can see how I am to you." 00:50:10.400 |
Let's pray for our own hearts, pray for our own revelation, and that we will be true worshipers