Last week, from Romans 1, we saw how people get so far from God, God gives them up to their vile choices and futile minds. That is the most tragic story in the Bible.
We pointed out that all of us are susceptible to the same spiral stairway. Even believers, even Churches, can become cold towards God.
But Paul knew his audience. He knew they, and we, would tend to look at the first chapter and click our tongues. We would (secretly) say up the prayer of the Pharisee. “I thank God I am not like those in Chapter 1.”
You see, many believe we can be saved by religion. But Paul points out clearly that religion walks down the same spiral staircase as the pagans of Greece and Rome.
Rom 2:1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.
If we look outwardly first when we examine these scriptures, be become unrighteous judges. That is the theme of Matthew 7:1-5. "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”
This doesn’t we should never make a judgment as to what is right and wrong in our lives or in the life of someone we love. Reading that carefully will NOT bring you to the conclusion that the speck in your brother’s eye is none of your business. But your first look in inside at your tendency to the same sin.
Once that internal look has revealed our sin and we have removed our log, we are then told to help our brother with his speck.
So judgment is not ruled out. Actually, it’s required.
The two kinds of judgment that are never acceptable:
1. To judge other in an area we are still guilty of ourselves, and,
2. To judge someone’s soul as damned and unreachable.
Paul is talking about the first here. He is saying “Don’t hide behind your religion to judge others.” He is speaking specifically speaking to the Jews who condemn Gentiles for going down that stairway to Hell. He is reminding them that in their Judaism, they are doing the same thing.
Rom 2:2-4 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
The Jews were depending upon their “Jewishness” and the promises of God to the Jews to cover them with the “kindness, forbearance, and patience” of God. Paul is telling them that God is not showing those favors to excuse them, but that they would repent of their sins. This is the picture of people hiding behind religion and not in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
Rom 2:5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.
Because God is showing these kindnesses because He is waiting; But because these were still unrepentant, it was going to be worse. They were storing up wrath and it would be revealed in judgment.
Rom 2:6-8 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
Paul is speaking about living under the Law. But he is talking about the Law creating a repentant heart that seeks the mercy of God. For the Jews to live righteously under the Law, they would have seen their sinfulness and cried out to God for forgiveness and mercy.
When we look at religious Jews during this day, you would see that most of them lived in confidence that their position in Judaism was enough. They live in pride, thus taking the same path away from God as the pagans. They denied God’s place in an area of their lives. They desired ignorance of God instead of truth. They allowed themselves to be deceived into self-worship. Their condemnation of the Gentiles was evidence of that.
Rom 2:9-11 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality.
Paul was pointing out that we were all guilty, under the law or not. Every culture battles with doing what they KNOW is right and not doing what they KNOW is wrong.
This is a picture of Revelations 20:11-15. Listen…..
Rom 2:12-16 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
God is not showing partiality, for “…it’s not hearers but doers of righteousness what will be justified.”
This may confuse one who is shallow in the Word of God. Let’s start here: There was only one human who lived righteously before God and He is the only one who ever will. So we are dependent upon His forgiveness, and His righteousness, in our lives to pass this judgment.
2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Believers in that great Judgment will be represented, not by what we have done, but what Jesus did. Everyone else will be represented by their works.
Ill. Suppose you had to have a $1,000 to get into heaven. Jesus said, “Trust in me and I will give you a fresh, new, clean $1,000 bill. Or, you will have to try to earn it.”
Let’s suppose you work hard in the world and the world gave you $5,000. What 2 Corinthians 5:21 is telling you is that the $5,000 consists of only counterfeit bills. They won’t spend in Judgment. They won’t pay the fine. They would not have the backing of righteousness require for them to be any value. Jesus’ righteousness is backed by the Fort Knox of Heaven.
Religion is mankind trying to appease God or false gods. Christianity is God reaching down and qualifying mankind for existence with Him without Him compromising His Holy and Righteous requirement. Religion will fool you. In Revelation, religion is called the great harlot.
There are three things that the religious will not be able to escape in that Judgment. In the Greek, the word “Katah” shows up three times in this passage, in verse 2, verse 6, and verse 16. Katah means, “according”, “through” or “because”. The King James Version properly translated this word “according to”.
So based upon that, I can tell you that religion will fail according to three things.
I. According to the Truth. (2)
“…judgment of God rightly falls (according to the truth) on those who practice such things.”
The thing that bothers me is it seems that truth is expendable these days. Politicians are more concerned with how things are perceived, or how they can spin it.
There are things that we have elevated above the truth. “Do I like it?”
“How do I feel about it?” Even, “Will that make us get along in unity?”
Ill. We even view knowledge as more important than truth. If you make a chart of what mankind knows and how that grows every decade, you will notice that the line curves upward. Now it looks as if it is going straight up. One group’s study says that the knowledge we have available today is a trillion times that of 40 years ago. I got that from TheEmergingFuture.com.
We know more about just about everything than we did last year. Daniel prophesied “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” Daniel 12:4. Paul said, “2Ti 3:1-7 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.”
Knowledge is important, but it is not what is most important. Religion emphasizes knowledge, but Christianity emphasizes the truth. All religions will be judged according to the truth. Every work and word of humanity will be weighed according to the truth. It may not feel good. We may not like it. It may be divisive, but the truth will reign. The truth is so important, Jesus said He was the way, the truth and the life.
You can fool people into thinking you are a Christian. You can have the best reputation in Chama. But if you are not saved, you will have to face the truth one day. Remember, 1 Samuel 16:7 – Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.
God sees the truth about you and me. We need a relationship, not religion. Don’t be religious. Trust in Christ alone for salvation. Call upon Him and receive His free gift.
II. According to His Works. (6)
Most people believe there is a scale for works. They say, “I hope I make it to heaven. I hope the good I do outweighs the bad.” That’s the hope of religion, and it’s futile and foolish.
Ill. In 1955, Valerian Trifa, the Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church of the United States, was called to give the opening prayer for the United States Congress.
After that appearance, the U. S. Justice Department began getting tips from across the nation and overseas about Trifa. An investigation showed that Trifa was more than an Nazi sympathizer in Romania. He assisted the Nazis and was guilty of turning over Jewish families for execution. So he was arrested and tried (Wikipedia and various websites).
During his trial, character witnesses recited to the jury the benevolent and loving actions that Trifa did as a Romanian Orthodox priests. A family member said, “Surely, all of the good that this man has done has outweighed the few mistakes of his youth.”
A rebuttal witness, a Jewish family member of one who was executed, said, “No amount of good would ever remove the guilt of what this man did.”
Ill. On Church visitation one time in Forney, TX, one of the men that was being visited expressed the idea he hoped his good outweighed his bad. The Christian visiting him asked him if he ever lied. Stole? Cursed? The man admitted to each of those.
The Christian asked him, “So, if God let cursing, lying thief into heaven, how could it be a perfect place?”
Ill. Your life is like painting a car. You start out at the front of the car and slowly move to the back as you live.
My dad and I bought an ugly car so I could go to college. He said, “Don’t worry, I will paint it.”
I went off to high school after having prepped the car for painting. The car was under the big tree in our front yard. That day, things started off well. Dad started at the front and worked towards the back. But as he got a little past halfway, the wind got up, started blowing dust and leaves, and then next thing you know, my dad had a mess.
Trying to recover, he ran into the house and got old rags. He tried to wipe the fast-drying paint of the car, but it just balled up into little balls. Eventually, he just painted over the mess and the car looked like it had poison ivy. It was ugly.
Shortly after that, a police officer was pulling into the City Hall next door, wasn’t paying attention and hit my horribly painted car. He offered to pay for repair if we could keep it off his driving record. We took the car to a body shop. The body shop guy fixed it, but with apologies. He said, “I’m sorry, Tim. I tried to match the rest of the car but I couldn’t do it that bad even when I tried my best.”
Boy was my dad steaming when I told him that.
Most of us will admit to mistakes of our youth. It doesn’t matter how well you do on the back of the car if you messed up the paint job on the front of the car. The entire paint job is considered a bad paint job if you mess up in places.
The Bible said our good works are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Even if the best we do squeaks through as acceptable to God, they just represent themselves. They don’t cover up our worst mistakes in any way.
Our sin is not acceptable and not redeemable by anything that we do. We will be tried according to the truth, our works. We need a Savior.
III. According to the Gospel. (16)
“Rom 2:16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”
It’s interesting that Paul called it his gospel. I defer to Albert Barnes here:
According to the gospel which I preach. Compare Act_17:31; 2Ti_4:8. This does not mean that the gospel which he preached would be the rule by which God would judge all mankind, for he had just said that the pagan world would be judged by a different rule, Rom_2:12. But it means that he was intrusted with the gospel to make it known; and that one of the great and prime articles of that gospel was, that God would judge the world by Jesus Christ. To make this known he was appointed; and it could be called his gospel only as being a part of the important message with which he was intrusted.
So how is the world going to be judged by the Gospel of Jesus Christ? That’s easily found in John 3:16-18;
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
1Jn 5:11-12 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
Ill. The painting.
God gave His son 2,000 years ago to die on a cruel cross. His message today is, "Jesus is my Son. What will you do with my Son?" Because, you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything.
