Romans 2 - Guilty As Charged

Power in the name. Healing in the name. Breakthrough in the name. Deliverance in thy name. Joy is in the name. Peace is in the name. Just call on the name.

Come on.

Your name is Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus.

Your name is Jesus. Come on, just sing his name. Jesus. Your name is Jesus.

Is.

You.

Said you.

Promise I'll keep. He said on my scene. You st me, I'm yours. You never did.

Good morning. Good morning. Happy Wednesday to you all. Or as I now say, y', all, Happy Wednesday to y'.

All.

How you guys doing? Raj, how you doing?

I'm good.

I'm good.

I was a little. Little sick when I first got up.

This morning, but I've recovered. I'm doing well. All right. Praise the Lord. Thank you for blessing us with the opportunity to look at those locks. I don't know what's happening.

It's growing.

It is. It is. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. All right. I know folks will be hopping on here. You know, not everybody's as punctual as you guys, but as folks hop on here, I'm excited as I always am on a Wednesday morning. Joe, nice to see you with the. The camera on. Good morning. I'm not asleep. Good, good. You're in North Carolina. Yeah, Right. Good stuff. So you got to sleep in an extra hour. Yeah, exactly. It's freezing here, though. It's like. It's like 15 degrees. Yeah, yeah. This weather, I think we're a lot of us are in for it here in the coming days, so we'll see what happens. But pray that everybody is safe and sound and pretty much safe and sound at the end of the day. It is cold, though. It is cold.

But, yeah, you gotta. You got a winter storm warning coming.

Towards you, don't you? Yeah, yeah. Texas.

Yeah.

Only person excited for that is Ezzy. That's it. He so desperately wanted to build a snowman on Christmas. On Christmas, it was like 75 degrees, so. Didn't happen. As people are hopping on now. We're gonna dive into Romans 2 today. Not sure if we'll get through the whole chapter or not, but I want to share with you guys as Roger just threw the. The notes in the. The chat for you guys last week. Last Thursday at our church, we had a. An awesome, powerful night of worship and prayer, and the. The focus was just your own personal revival. Right. But sometimes when we pray for revival, we're praying for, you know, revival of the. The nation revival and just salvation of those who don't know the Lord, but just that. That. That inward personal Revival and sometimes we, we miss out on that. We, we just kind of take it for granted. But it was great, awesome night. But our pastor shared over the weekend that, and I said I was going to mention this just, just to know how powerful prayer is. And as I mentioned, the effectual fervent prayers of the righteous availeth much. We have to remember that we are deemed righteous. As we're reading these first three chapters of Romans and we're hearing the bad news that Paul's laying out before he gets to the, the good news, just how unrighteous we are. But then the good news is God imputes his righteousness to us on our faith in Jesus Christ. So the, the prayers of the righteous, they, they hold weight, they have value. And we are deemed righteous. And he shared the story of a couple that's at our church and they, they are Indian, they grew up Hindu. And where they live down by me, there's, it's mostly Indians living in that community. So once a year they do a Hindu parade. And it's three days, three days, three nights, and they're literally marching through the community music and you know, worshiping. I guess it has to be a long parade because they do worship like millions of gods. So I guess takes a lot of time to, to worship all those gods that they worship. So you know, she, her and her husband, they got saved and they're like, we, we got to do something about this. We know Jesus now, but nobody else in our community knows the Lord. So the wife was just praying fervently that, that God somehow halts this Hindu parade. And God did. It rained for three straight days and they weren't able to have the parade. But the real kicker of it is, and we've talked the last couple weeks about how the three kind of categories of bad people, the unrighteous or, or immoral, then the self righteous and then the overly righteous, right? And no matter where we are in our unrighteousness, God finds a way to get to us. Right? That's the beautiful thing about Jesus is he meets us where we are and for a lot of us, he met us right in the midst of our, our muck and my darkness. And, and you can't tell me that God isn't after every, every man's heart, man and woman, but like every human heart, you can't tell me God's not after every human heart. So the, on that last day after it rained, sun came out. You know, her and her husband go on a prayer walk and they're Just giddy. They're thankful that the Lord stopped this. This parade. And, you know, they're praying to the Lord, okay, now we stop that now. How could we be a light? How could we share Jesus with our. Our neighbors? And as they're walking, they're getting closer to the house of the. The family that actually hosts. They. They're in charge of this Hindu parade. And as they're getting closer to the house, they see vultures, right? And they're like, okay, there's a lot of vultures, like, flying around that house. And I mean, anybody who is a believer and you know that's. That's the source of the evil. And you see vultures, you're like, okay, God showed me something. But the crazy thing is that the community they live in ne. The, like, the next community over. It's not community. It's a farm, right? And they have cattle. And one of the cows had wandered off that property, made its way to the driveway of the home of the. The family that hosts this Hindu parade. Now, cows are considered sacred to them. And the cow just dropped dead in their driveway, and the vultures were eating the cows. So, you know, she. They like, praise God for, like, okay, God's gonna open up the eyes of this couple, because literally, like, think about that. There's something like that happen just by chance, by coincidence, that it wasn't another animal, right? It wasn't like a deer. It wasn't a. A rooster. Thinking of a rooster, because rooster almost attacked Andre and I yesterday down here in Oklahoma. But it was another animal that dropped dead. It was the animal that in their culture, they deem as sacred dead. So I don't know the part two to that. I don't know what the Lord is doing on their heart. But when we get an update, we'll. I'll certainly share it with you, but, I mean, our prayers hold weight. They hold weight. And God is so faithful to. To all of us, though, even the. The unbeliever. And God's kindness in his forbearance, long suffering for us, he meets us right where we are. So we're gonna jump into Romans 2, and I don't want to recap too much just about the book of Romans in general and. And. And some of the contextual details as I shared the last couple weeks. But this is the. The book that is considered, you know, the. The gospel in its truest form. As far as all the. The books of the New Testament, this is the most as far as doctrine, every major doctrine of the Christian Faith is covered in the book of Romans. And Paul wrote this three years before he actually got to Rome while he was in Corinth on his second missionary journey. And he ever so long to, to get to rome. Now Romans 1, 2 and 3 collectively, you know, really starting at chapter 1, verse 18, and ending at chapter 3, verse 20. That's the bad news. Paul's is revealing the wrath of God, right? And it's important for, for Paul to spend so much time talking about the wrath of God and the bad news, because then when he gives us the good news, right, that it's God's grace, it's that, that, that righteousness of God is actually imputed to us through our faith in Jesus Christ. When he reveals that in chapter three, verse 21, good news has more impact if you lay out the bad news first. And even when you think about it, even in the sales world, that like where you put your, your butt, right? Like Paul lays out the, the bad news, then he says, but God, right? So a lot of times you could maybe close the deal or not close the deal based on the position of your butt. If you lay out all the good news and it's like, oh, but it costs $12,000. It's like, oh, okay, but if you, but if you kind of give the bad news first and then the but right? Then all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay, you work your way into the good news. So, and it's really just a matter of perspective. So Romans 1:3 is one to be read as one long passage, but it is a little lengthy. And Paul, like Paul so often does, you know, those run on sentences. You know, he was brilliant, awesome Christian. But you know, I know my eighth grade English teacher, Ms. Mansberry, would not be happy with his run on sentences for sure. There you go. Good. I got Andre here with me. He's running to an appointment right now. Now the, the bad news is that we're unrighteous and we're deserving of God's wrath, right? We just simply are. And in God's wrath, it's, it's a righteous indignation, right? It's not like when we get married married when we get mad, when we're, we're just like, oh, that, that, that, that rage, that fury, it's a righteous indignation. The, the Greek word is orge. And it's, it's justified. God's wrath is justified 100%. So he talks so much about this, this wrath and he describes these three levels of sinners and what he's, the point he's really trying to make is that, and what he's establishing is that there's universal guilt. Doesn't matter which one of these categories you fall into. Universally we are guilty, all of mankind is guilty. And, and, and our punishment should be the wrath of God. So I mentioned that those three categories, the unrighteous, which would be really the, the immoral, that would be those who are saying I don't need God. Those would be those who are atheists, those who maybe are agnostic. I believe in God, I just don't, I just don't serve him. I choose not to serve him. And then, and we talked about that, those folks last week a bit and I'm going to close up the conversation on those today. And then the self righteous, those who are very judgmental, those who just simply compare themselves to others. And all of us, you know, we, we could probably think of a bunch of people that we know fall into these categories. But if we're honest with ourselves, we, we could probably say, oh, I see where I am in one of these categories, or I really was before I came to the Lord. And the self righteous, they're saying I'm good enough. And they, they justify their goodness in their own minds. But like we talked about in the past, on what authority, who gives you the right to do that? To, to deem what's right and how good is good enough? Obviously Jesus came because none of us are good enough. We all fall short of the glory. The wages of sin is death. And all of us, even as Holy Spirit filled believers of Jesus Christ, we still sin. But the closer we get to Jesus, we're not going to become sinless, but we will sin less. And then you have the over righteous, the ones who are really the legalists. So that would be the, the Pharisees back in the day, but just those who are overconfident. And they're the ones who said, I've earned it, right? I earn heaven. No, no, look at my track record. And what we find is God finds a way to, to speak to each three of these categories and say, no, actually you're still guilty, right? Guilty is charged. And so all three of these categories, they're forms of self justification as to why I don't need God. Either it's like I don't believe in God or I just don't think that he's in charge of all this. Or it's I'm good enough, right? I should be doing well enough to please God where it's like, no, I, I do check off all the boxes. I, I, you know, all the laws, remember all the Pharisees. How many times did Jesus say woe to them, you hypocrites, right? And that woe to you was so weighty. It's like there's impending doom coming your way because of the way you actually do think and you're self justifying your actions and your relationship with the lor. Justification, right? It's just we're, it's a, one of those like churchy words. But we are justified by our faith and it means that we are just, we are in right standing with God. And one thing I, I heard a long time ago, and it was one of those writer downers that, that justification, as soon as we're justified, we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we're sealed with the Holy Spirit, we're a new creation, we're justified by our faith, right? And justification means that we're free from the penalty of sin. And then we move into the sanctification process. Another churchy word. And the sanctification portion is we're free from the power of sin. And then ultimately after this life, we move into glorification. And in glorification we're free from the presence of sin altogether. So justification, free from the penalty of sin, sanctification free from the power of sin, then glorification, free from the presence of sin altogether. And if, if that's like you just sum up any of our lives, like that's like, yeah, I'm pretty cool with that. Sign me up for that. You know, I don't have to pay the penalty for sin. I, I have the power over the sin was the Holy Spirit's in me. And then once I take my final breath here, I'm in the presence of the Lord and I don't have to deal with sin, period at all. It's like, sign me up for that. Who doesn't want that? So again, Paul's given us the bad news before. He lays out the good news. And it just so turns out that the world's narrative when it comes to the human condition is quite different than what God's narrative is of the human condition. The world says, and if you ask anybody that were basically good, right? I mentioned, you know, when I was doing the street evangelism and just asking the question, hey, if you die today, where would you go and why? And like 99% of people said, I'm going to heaven. Why? Because I'm good. You know, for the most part I'm a good person, okay? But what God says is that we're bad. We, we have a sin nature. We're, we're not good. We disobey him constantly. We need a Savior. And thankfully God sent his Son to be our Savior. And we would be, we should be, and we would be subject to God's wrath if it weren't for, for Jesus Christ. If it weren't for, for the ability even think about how, how good God is. And sometimes we, as we're walking with the Lord and we're doing ministry, and when I say do ministry, I don't mean just at church. I mean every person you come in contact with on an everyday basis, you're doing ministry. God gave us the, the Holy Spirit to bear witness to him, right? And it's the power of the Holy Spirit that, that makes us effective witnesses. So we're on mission all day, every single day to bear witness to Jesus Christ. So we, and, and it just like we, when we turn on the news and we see, you know, see stuff going on in Minnesota, you see so many people deceived. It's like, oh my gosh, like, how are people this deceived? How are people this stupid? How are people that, like this blind to, to truth? And you're like, man, the, the evil one's really getting the upper hand. It's like, wait a second. Well, it's not that the church doesn't have the, the power to, to stand up and, and rise and, and band together and to make true impact. It's just that it's like I got this, this secret weapon and I got it tucked away in a safe and it's like, I'm good. You know, I'll break the glass in case of emergency, but for the most part, you know, we're good. You know, the world's getting chaotic. It's out of control. I know the world, the Bible says that's going to happen in the last days, but we actually have the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit to make a difference on this earth. So last week we, we covered the, the back half of chapter one and we, we dove into the unrighteous, the immoral, the pagan, the rebellious. And these are the people who suppress truth rather than seek it. And it's funny because they, they seek truth, but when they come across the truth of Jesus Christ, they're quick to dismiss the actual truth. Because people don't want the truth. They want their own truth. They want the truth. That's going to tickle their ears. And unfortunately there's a lot of pastors that are giving people what they want by just tickling their ears, giving them what they want and not teaching the entire council of God. So these are people that suppress truth, they reject God's revelation in creation. And that's how God chooses to, to speak to, to get to this category of people. It's through his creation. Psalm 19:1 2 says, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. So what, what God is saying is that no one is, is without excuse, right? Where we're all without excuse, essentially. Because even if you've never heard the gospel, even if you know nothing of the name Jesus Christ, you can look around at creation, have to know that there's somebody that's in charge. When you look at creation, you have to know that there's a creator. And I shared last week that I did feel like that as a kid, right? I would, I remember very vividly laying in my bed at night, head on the pillow, just looking up, thinking like, there's gotta be something that did all this, somebody that did all this, this all didn't just happen by chance. But then as I got into my teenage years and adult years and still didn't really hear the gospel yet, then what happens? It's like, well, if there is a creator that's in charge of this and all this bad stuff's happening, then maybe that creator isn't so good, right? And this is why it's important for us to, to share the truth with people of our Creator and how loving he is, how forbearing he is, how gracious he is and you see how the world is today. Most people fall into this like general category and they think that, you know, that that's just accidental, that, that we're here modern day examples of this would be like the secular humanist, the atheists, the culture that celebrates immorality as freedom. But Sir Isaac Newton said back in his day, who's the father of modern physics, said this most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets can only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being. This being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all, and on account of his dominion he is, want to be called Lord God, universal ruler. So the father of modern day physics, he's saying that, no, that there's, there's a creator and actually know who creator is. It's our God Yahweh. But when you think about creation, right, and just think about the complexity. I, I know Riley had mentioned this the other day. I don't know if it was one on one call. I think it was a one on one call. But he's like, how can you deny God? When you just look at the human body and just see how spectacular, miraculous the human body is. And when you think of the fine tuning, the cosmic design of the universe, gravity, if gravity was a slightly stronger, stars will burn out too fast. If it's slightly weaker, stars will never form. When you look at the Earth's just right conditions, the distance we are from the sun, right, just a change, a few percent in change in the distance we are from the sun, we would either burn up or be too cold to live. The way the Earth tilts on its axis, where without that tilt, the seasons will be too long and in the summers it will get too hot, winters will be too cold. The rotation speed which slows down like extreme temperatures, all of it, it's not by, by accident. And when we look at just the origin of life, our DNA, when we look at the human brain, there's 86 billion neurons in our brain. When we look at the human heart right now, well, the human heart beats about 100,000 times per day, pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood per day. And in about 12 hours, your heart does enough work to lift the equivalent of 65 tons off the ground. Like it's just remarkable what our heart's capable of doing. And if you were to put a quarter in the palm of your hand, the size of that quarter and the size of that quarter, within our bodies, there's 1 yard of blood vessels, 4 yards of nerds, nerves, 100 sweat glands and 3 million cells. So our bodies are just so complex. In the notes, I have like 10 different awe inspiring reasons why when you just look at the world, the universe, the human body, why, you can't help but think that there's a creator. And a watch requires a watchmaker, a house requires a builder, a book requires an author, a car requires a manufacturer. And creation requires a creator. It just does. And it's not because of ignorance, but because belief requires moral surrender, right? So that's what it requires. We see these things, but still to truly acknowledge there is a Creator, there is the one who is all powerful and he's in charge of everything. Creator of the cosmos, it requires moral surrender. So it doesn't, it does take more faith to believe everything just happened accidentally. And even in the order of creation, the way God laid out the, the six days of creation before the, the Sabbath. Everything was created in such a way that what could be sustained on the next day, what had, you know, something had to be there, the environment had to be there for the next thing created to survive. So I think I would agree with Jeremiah, and probably most of you do, where he says in Jeremiah 32:17, Ah, Lord God, behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too difficult for you, nothing too difficult for you. And I want to have that faith. And that, that's a, that's a childlike faith, right? It's easier to convince somebody as his age that God created all of this than somebody who's done life for a little bit. So I'm going to quote a pastor that I enjoy listening to, Pastor Gary Hamrick of Cornerstone Chapel in Leesburg, Virginia. So he says, what the world would have you believe, what modern science would have you believe, is that one day, way back when, there was an ultraviolet ray from the sun that put a freckle on your forehead. And that freckle, over years became an eyeball. And that eyeball sank into a socket of its own and it started to move and you could start to see. And then you became a salamander. And then you crawled out of a pond and when you scraped your, your belly on some rocks, you know, just because the, the scrapings were getting to be too much, you grew legs so you could walk, and then you stood upright and then you became an ape, and then you found a club and then you killed your food and when, and then you made some clothes and then you got a job at Walmart. The end, right? And this is what the world wants us to believe, that, that this is, this is how we got here. And what God is saying to this first group of people. And remember I said this for these three groups of people, the way he speaks to us, that to hold us accountable is, is through, through creation to that immoral group. And then we're going to see with the self righteous, he reaches us through conscience. And then for the, the overly righteous, the religionists, he's going to reach, reach those through commands. Those are the three Cs. But what God is saying is, look around. It's way too obvious that I exist. It's just way too obvious I exist. Yeah, Walmart's part of the evolutionary process. You know, it takes that took billions of years to get from the freckle, from the ultraviolet ray to the job at Walmart. So billions and billions of years, but then after Walmart you die and then it's over for you. And then maybe some people think you come back as a ladybug or something like that. But this is what the world wants us to think, right? We have, we talked about it on our podcast. When have you ever seen the videos of people who go and talk to people, they have them sign petition to, you know, save the little puppies that are in the mama pups womb because they're going to abort the puppies and everybody wants to sign it and they, then they say, well how about babies in the womb? Oh no, no, no, I can't do that. That's woman's health. That's a woman's right to abort her baby. And it's just the dysfunction of the society we live in and the suppressing of truth is unbelievable. And if I'm honest with myself, I don't know, I would probably say I wouldn't be such a. I want to be when these are recorded and I know at any time I don't want to say anything right now that maybe like 10 years I'm to take a position at some church. And they're like, hey, remember January 21st you taught that Bible study and you said those things about liberals. I, I don't want this to come back to, to haunt me. And truth be told, I have no problem talking about this stuff. But what I was about to say was a little harsh.

Just text it to me Christian, and.

I'll say it for you. I'm not, I'm not worried about that. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I actually had, I, I got convicted after a podcast after saying the word libtard and I made sure Jace edited that out. So I was convicted about that anyhow. So, so moving on. Gosh, at 7:32 I didn't even start verse one of chapter two yet. However, I'm going to give you, I'm going to read a few verses and just kind of give you an overview because it all falls into this passage in the first three chapter chapters of the bad News, the bad news that God lays out. And again, Paul categorizes these three classes of people. The unrighteous, the self righteous, the overly righteous. He, God gets to. God holds people accountable who are part of that immoral, unrighteous category through creation. And then those who are self righteous, God gets to through conscience. And we're going to see that here. So chapter two, verse one. Therefore you are inexcusable. Oh man. Whoever you are Whoever you are who judge for in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself for. You who judge, practice the same things. So that, that first group, those are, those are the, the ones who are notorious, notoriously guilty, the immoral, those people, they're on the downward spiral. But, but now he moves on to those who are, are, are self justified, right? They, they, they have this self confidence of, of, of their actions that they really deem themselves as good. And you notice that the moralist, right, that the second group of people Paul is speaking to, they're not condemned for, for, for judging others, they're condemned for being guilty of the same thing, right? It's not even about you judging others. It's no, it goes deeper than that. You're actually guilty of the same thing that, that you're denying God, you're suppressing truth. And then Paul moves on. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. So Paul has this idea again, like the title of this is Guilty as Charged. And Paul's bringing forth this idea that these are according to the facts of the case. God will judge and condemn the moralists on the basis of facts. What are the facts? There is no one righteous, not even one. Paul's going to share that in Romans 3:10 and 3 Romans 3:23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Jeremiah 17:9, the heart is deceitful, it's wicked above all things. So those are the actual facts, no matter what you think about yourself. And then verse three says, and do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? God judges according to reality, not appearances. And you know, you see people all the time. They, they want to make sure they, they come to church looking all proper, they're wearing their best Sunday outfits and meanwhile they feel like that it's just hidden what they're doing. Even if you could hide from everybody else at the church, everybody else in the community, the dirt that you're doing, you're not hiding it from God, right? So if you don't have a very close relationship with the Lord, if you feel like I could just sit here and do my dirt in private, nobody will know. Because if you have no conviction in that, then, then where's the presence of the Holy Spirit? And there, there's one thing that I've noticed in my 44 years of life. I don't know about you guys, but one thing that I've noticed is that we, we do judge each other, right? And typically we judge each other based on actions. If you live long enough, you know that usually you require actions to, to make a judgment. You don't, you know, you don't really take heed to lip service. You've heard enough lip service over the years, like, okay, I, I know what you're saying, but what are your actions say? So we judge each other based on actions, but how do we judge ourselves? Typically is our intentions, right? So I'm going to judge you based on your actions, but I'm going to judge myself based on my intentions. And that's, that's where this moralist is, is found. They're judging others based on their actions and then they judge themselves based on their intentions. Now if you have a, a son like I do in Isaiah, where it's like Isaiah, why didn't you take out the trash? You know, I meant to, I was going to. It's always like I, I intended to. It's like at the end of the day, did you take up the trash? No. Right? So it was like it. And I remember having a very, a very serious conversation with him about it being a black and white world. And nobody cares about your intentions, right? Nobody cares about your intentions. It's what you actually do. But we give ourselves grace and we, we know our own hearts. We know we're, we're good people, right? And my intention was to help that person. My intention was administered to that person. But God isn't, isn't judging us on our intentions. He's judging us based on our actions. And even more so than that, the faith that we have. Our actions do have a whole weight, but it's more our faith. Verse 4. Do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance and long suffering? Not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? Familiar verse. For, for some of you, I'm sure that it's the goodness of God, the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. The goodness you could consider that to be past sin, forbearance, the current sin and long suffering, future sin. But God desires to draw us to repentance through his goodness and through his kindness. He doesn't want to drive us to repentance. But we saw last week with those who were just rejecting and rebelling against God. What did God do? He gave them up to the lust of their hearts. He gave them up to their vile passions. He gave them over to a debased mind. Now that's not God's like perfect will to lead that person to a place where Solomon says in Proverbs 13:5, the way of the unfaithful is hard, right? Because when you're unfaithful, if you don't have this faith in the Lord, it's going to turn out to be hard. It's like God is saying, you want to do this so bad, I'm going to give you over to that those wicked desires, those wicked lusts that you have and see, see how that works out for you essentially. And God doesn't want to be in that place where he drives us to repentance. He just wants the, the his own goodness and loving kindness and forbearance to, to lead us to that repentance. But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Where so what Paul is saying here, that we could choose what we're storing up for ourselves, are we going to store up for ourselves wrath? Or are we going to store up for ourselves what Jesus says in Matthew six treasures? Because we're storing up one or the other. And I certainly don't want to be one to be storing up wrath, I want to be storing up treasures in heaven. Who will render to each other according to their deeds eternal life to those who by patient continuance and doing good, seek for glory, honor and immortality. So what Paul is saying that if someone genuinely did good at all times, then he could merit eternal life on his own, right? But the fact of the matter is none of us can that there, there's none, not one. We're all guilty. But to those who are self seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness and in indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish on every soul of man who does evil. Of the Jew first and also the Greek, and Paul mentions a couple times, it's the Jew first, also the Greek judgment will come first to the Jew and then the Greek. But also reward comes as we see their first in line, as we're going to see in verse 10, the next verse. But glory, honor and peace to everyone who works what is good to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there's no partiality with God. The word translated partiality comes from two Greek words, means to receive and face. It means to judge things on the basis of externals or preconceived notions, right? There's no partiality. God is no respecter of persons. Right. The cross is the same height for all of us. For as many as sinned without law will also perish without law. And as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves who show the work of the law written in the hearts. And this is the key word here, highlighted circling in your Bibles, their conscience also bearing witness and between themselves their thoughts, accusing or accusing or else excusing them. And the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel according. So what he's saying here is you guys are the, the self righteous, right, but you're immoral. And what he's saying is these pagans, they're going to have an excuse. What they're going to say is, we're not Jewish, right? We're Gentiles. And, and in that day, and I guess even still today, you could classify everybody in one of those two categories. They're either Jewish or gentile. You're a Jew or a non Jew, right? And what Paul is saying is, listen, we're off the hook. All right? God didn't give us the law, he gave it to the Jews. Well, what Paul is saying, what God is saying that no, you're not off the hook because just like to the, the, the unrighteous and those who flat out deny God denied Jesus, God reveals himself through creation. What God is saying here is that for, for these who think that they're off the hook because they're not Jewish. Yeah. I may not have given the law to you. I may not have given the commands to, to you first, but what I gave you is a conscience. What I gave you is a conscience. So remember that those three groups, the unrighteous, the self righteous, the overly righteous, God reaches them by way of creation, by way of conscience, then by way of commands through, through the law. So these people are the moral, respectable people. They believe they're safe because they're better than others. They judge sin and others while excusing their own, and they trust morality instead of repentance. And I would say growing up in a household, I'm grateful that I grew up in a household that was at least this, where it was like good morals, good values, didn't learn anything about Jesus, anything about the Bible, but at least there were some good morals and good values. At the end of the day, all those who have the good morals and values, you're still guilty as charged, right? You're still not off the hook because you have a conscience that, that's, that God placed in you, that where he's able to reveal himself to you even if you, you weren't taught right from wrong. You know, when a little kid lies, you know, they, they, you see that they, they feel that, that shame and they're not taught that they have a conscience. Now for people who have a, a broken conscience, that would be like a sociopath, right? If you're so rebellious or I, I don't want to get into the psychological disorders and whatnot. But sociopath would be those like mass murderers who just have no conscience. Like they, they could kill somebody at the drop of a hat. I remember seeing a little documentary about a hitman for the mob back in like the 70s and 80s. They called him the Hitman, or I'm sorry, the Iceman. And this guy like from prison told his story and you could tell he was a sociopath, what he did to people and just no guilt, no conscience at all. That would be a sociopath. But God places that consc us to begin with. So the, the, the work of the law is written on their hearts, right? But their, their, their conscience is bearing witness to the one and true living God. But the, these modern day moralists would be the ones that say I'm a good person. And a lot of people, you know, I think most people will classify as this, those who don't know the Lord, but they still would say they're a good person. And it has nothing to do with their actions at all, has everything to do with their intentions. They think deep down in their own heart that they are a good person. I'm gonna stop there, 7:46, because the, the next passage and the rest of chapter two, we're going to deal with the, the over righteous. And that flows into chapter three, which is still more bad news that you're unrighteous, you're self righteous, you're over righteous and the wrath of God is what you deserve. And again, it was Martin Luther, who was an Augustinian monk who, you know, he, he was troubled with this idea of the righteousness of God. And it wasn't until he read and studied the book of Romans that you realize, wait a second, this righteousness of God, it isn't that we, we serve a God that I, I should Fear him in a sense that I'm so scared of him because he's so good and he's so right and I'm so wicked, I'm so evil. Is that part of his goodness, is that he imputes that righteousness to us when we place our faith in Jesus Christ. So again those, those three people and the, the three C's that you can remember as to how God reaches them. The, the unrighteous or just, the, the immoral God reaches them through creation. The, the self righteous or the moralist God reaches them through conscience. And then the, the legalists, the overly righteous, the, the religionists, God reaches them through commandments. So those are the three C's and, and I think end of the day, none of us like if I died never hearing the name Jesus Christ, never knowing the gospel, but suppressing the truth of what God has revealed to me in creation, in, in my conscience, right? I'm not a Jew, so I, I wasn't given the, the commands of the law. But, but God is covering all of his bases saying that, that nobody can make an excuse where we're all guilty as charged and the, the punishment for this guilt that we have is death. And when you, when you know that and when you realize that that's what makes the gospel so, so good and so sweet to hear. And it, ultimately we're, we're going to get to Paul's verdict on all three when we get to chapter three. And the verdict is going to be that all are under, under sin and none are righteous and that by works of the law no flesh will be justified. So Paul is going to declare the unrighteous guilty, the self righteous guilty, the overly righteous guilty. No one's justified by rebellion, comparison or performance. But then we hear the good news, right? Romans, I think I put 2, 21, but it's 3, 21 and 22. But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For it doesn't matter what category you fell in, doesn't matter what color you are, doesn't matter what background you have, what country you were raised in, if you're rich, poor in between. This is true for everyone who believes. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus. And so remember I said he lays out the, the bad news, then he gives us the good news, but God, right? And we need to be mindful of that in every situation. You know, we get on every, every Wednesday morning, 30 minutes early before a Bible study. We, we pray, we seek the Lord, we, we seek counsel, we seek wisdom, we seek healing, right? And what we need to keep in mind, no matter what we're going through, no matter what season of life we're in, all that is there but God, right? And Paul is going to share in Romans 5, 8 through 9. A lot of you familiar with this, but God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. And this is what Paul's talking about, that this whole time he's talking so much about unrighteousness, he's talking so much about wrath. But then he says, but God. But God now having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Jesus Christ. And the simplicity of the gospel is so sweet and so pure in essence. And we, we oftentimes complicate the crap out of this thing, right? It's like we're, we're evil, we're not good. But the fact of the matter is, is God knows that. And only because of his mercy are we actually here, right? Because the only way mercy can even exist is if every time we sin, he doesn't just wipe us out. None of us would have lived very long lives. You know, kids, they could tend to lie, right? And, you know, as sweet and innocent and pure as they are, kids may not always tell the truth. And in God's righteousness, they deserve the wrath of God. But his mercy, right? Again, going back to the beginning of the verse that, that, that kindness that leads us to repentance. And we take that kindness for granted oftentimes. But God wants us to be drawn to him through that kindness, that goodness, that forbearance, that long suffering. So with that said, got a few minutes here, I want to open it up, but I'm spending a lot of time in these first three chapters, which I don't want to say every chapter isn't going to go like this. I don't know how long every chapter is going to go. But if Paul took the time to lay out the bad news over the course of three chapters, I think it's important to talk about it because again, when you realize that bad news, and even for us who already know the Lord, I think I know everybody for the most Part that's on this call. And we know Jesus. We're, we're, we've been saved, we've been delivered, we've been redeemed, we're new creations. But still I think it's important for us to, to study this, to, to think about this, to, to chew on this, that, that. But God portion, right? But God, where would I be without God right now? Where, where, what would I do? And even be so, so grateful, have so much gratitude in our hearts that, yeah, I was a suppressor of truth, right? We were all suppressors of truth before we came to place our faith in Jesus. Because if we weren't suppressing the truth, we would have done it before we did. But we suppressed the truth and we were led astray. But God is so graceful, so gracious, so merciful that he puts up with our junk and he, he desires for all of us. His will is that we all come to repentance. That, that none of us. That is, as I mentioned before, God's wrath. It's righteous, it's justified. And if anybody has an issue with, you know, how could God send anybody to hell, right? Eternal torment. God doesn't send anybody to hell. We just went over two ways God reveals himself. Even if you never heard the name of Jesus, through his creation and through your conscience, right? But it's important for us. If God was just like, all right guys, I got this. I'm going to send my son Jesus. You can place your faith in him. You're going to be sealed with the Holy Spirit. That's your ticket to heaven, right? But what it, what did was Acts 1 say, right? We, the Holy Spirit enters us so we could have the power of the Holy Spirit to bear witness of Jesus. God doesn't need us, but he desires us to be a part of his will. And there's, if we're lacking, if we're sleeping on the job, then there's going to be souls who don't make it to the kingdom of heaven. If we're sleeping on the job and we're on job, we're on duty. We're never off the clock as Christians, we really never are. You may come in contact with nobody but your, your spouse or your kids. Today you're on the clock, right? Your, your, your primary function as a spirit filled believer of Jesus Christ is to bear witness of Jesus Christ. That's it, that's the primary function of you as a believer. So I'll just keep rambling until somebody puts their hand up, wants to share something you know, I'm going to call on you, Zach, because I let you slide last week without saying anything.

I had something really good last week, too. And, you know, actually I did end up calling somebody right after Bible study got out because I was like, for them. But no, so it was good. Yeah, I was. Me and Lauren started this Bible study, I don't know, maybe a couple weeks ago, where it goes through a few chapters of the Bible at a time and then asks you like a question per chapter. And so we each have a book. It's like a workbook for the Bible, and we each have a book that's the same. We do it together. And it's been really, really good. And something that jumped out to me when. When reading through Genesis and taking a little more time and considering, because it's like, how many times have we read it? You know, you just kind of breeze through a lot. But something that really stuck out to me this time around and kind of in line with this is chapter 35 is talking about Jacob, right? And so way back in. What is it? I wrote it down, chapter 15. Abraham believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness, right? And so he was. He was made right with God because of his faith, because he believed. And then, you know, just a couple generations later, Jacob is, you know, God reveals himself to him again, changes his name and, and all of this. And Jacob is like, okay, let's put away all these other gods, these foreign gods. It's like sometimes we think, man, these guys, you know, they were. They were called by God and they, they were chosen. And like, they must have been solely dedicated. They must have it going on.

But.

But really they were just normal guys in the time that they were living in. And it's like how God uses normal people. And, and in this case, they weren't even fully committed to him. But like, what you had started out with Romans 1:20, where it talks about how, like, it's possible to know God. God has been perceived since creation. This is literally how all of this started with Abraham perceiving God and spending time and listening, and then see Jonathan. And then here again with Jacob, same thing.

And.

And Jacob says two things about God in those verses at the beginning of chapter 35. And he says, you know, basically that he's. He's like, let's put away all these other gods and, and go to Bethel so I can set up, you know, a monument to this God who. One has.

He.

He answers me in the day of my distress. And then two has Been with me wherever I go. And so just like, that reminder of, like, God is always with us, and he, like, even when we are unfaithful, he is faithful. And so I just love the way that it ties into this theme in Romans where we're talking about righteousness and self righteousness and this sort of legalistic, like, overly righteous, where in reality, you know, God just really judges by the heart. You know, if we hold ourselves to the law, he judges us by the law. But if we just love him and want to serve him there, there's a lot more room to kind of get it wrong. You know, Jacob, who's called Israel, had other gods in this house up until this chapter 35. And God was one of many options, you know, and so it's just so crazy that we. We have this insanely high standard of what we think we need to do, or at least I do. And I'll stress myself out about it, but really, God's like, I just. I just want a relationship. Like, I just. I just want your heart.

And.

And it's so neat. Like, when we get caught up in all this, sometimes it can feel like, overwhelming and overbearing. And ironically, same thing on the. You talked about judgment a little bit. And I won't belabor the point. But, like, when it comes to judgment and, like, it's not that you shared that it's not that they judge, just that they were guilty of the same thing they judged others of. Right? And the world would have us think, oh, we are never supposed to judge anyone. Well, if that's the case, then I'm gonna send my kids to the school with a drag show going on. Like, okay, of course I'm gonna judge people. Like, it's healthy to judge people. But it's also, like, there's a reason God hates pride. And that's not a gay joke. Okay? But it's. It's. God hates pride in the sense that, like, when I get so proud that I'm willing to judge people of something that I'm very likely guilty of as well, like, that's the. The dose of humility, which is kind of my word for the year. Humility. That dose of humility to say, but God, there go I. Right? And I'd be in the same situation and might be in the same situation and not know it. So having the humility and judgment, I think, is like, the both sides of the coin. Anyway, I'm loving this study, man. You're doing a great job. And you're really. I like what you pick this time around. Not that I ever dislike what you pick, but it's like. It's kind of like how you're like, oh, yeah, this is my favorite chapter. You know, you pick a book, I'm.

Like, oh, I love that book.

Literally. Chapter one, verse 20. That's like one of my favorite verses. Probably top 10 or 20.

Okay. Yeah, well, I. I haven't said yet this is like one of my favorite chapters in Romans. Nor have I said, this is my favorite book yet. But I have been known to say that quite a few times. Probably when we get into Romans 8, we're gonna spend. I mean, we could spend some time in Romans 8. You said a lot there. When we get into chapter three, we're going to talk about Abraham, because Paul talks about Abraham and being justified by faith. And for a lot of people, question, they're like, well, you know, what happened to everybody who, who was around before Jesus? They couldn't believe in Jesus. How are they saved? This relationship with God always came down to faith, right? And it's declared there in Genesis 15. But yeah, good stuff, man. I always love and appreciate your feedback, Gerard. He's probably in between sets at the gym.

No, no, no, I'm here, I'm here.

Yeah.

No, this is. This is a great chapter. I just wanted to share with everybody. Like, this chapter here will definitely help because you often come into times with people and they say, well, I just can't believe in that. Because what about the person that lives on a remote island that's never heard Jesus, right? You're telling me that they're going to be condemned? No, this points out exactly what's going to happen, Right? Because God places that conscience inside of somebody, you know, so are they. And think how Romans starts obedience to faith. Right? So are they being obedient to the conscience? Right. That's telling them that, guiding them that what you're doing is right or wrong. Right. God has placed that inside of every single person in this world, you know, and. And when he think you. Right, think about this. You know, Paul himself is a Jew writing this. Paul is a Jew. Jews have to obey the law. There's a law that they will be judged on according to the law. Now, are they sacrificing animals if they disobey the law? No, of course they're not right now. And they'll say, the temple was destroyed, but that's not part of the law. God never said that. That was a rabbi that spoke that. So everybody is outside of obedience to the law. Just because we don't know about the law doesn't mean we're not penalized by it. If we're driving down the street and where's a speed limit sign? And we get pulled over and the cop says, why are you speeding? Oh, I didn't see a sign. Is he going to give you a ticket? He's going to give you a ticket. Right. You broke the law. The same way that God is a just judge, he's going to judge us according to the law. And whether you were the law or the written law handed down through Moses because you're Jewish or you know the gospel and you know the message and you're saved that way, or is it the law that's written on your heart through your conscience, so everybody's judged by that. So using this in evangelist, this, this chapter is so powerful to use an evangelistic tool, you know, for so much like it's helped me have conversations with people that really have kind of like my brother in law's this way, really opened up his eyes a little bit and question him. Not that he's a believer, but. Oh, I didn't even know that that was mentioned about. Right. Because they always want to find it out. And this is a scripture that you can go to. It's like, no, no, it talks about that person right here. Matter of fact, it's mentioned exactly how it'll be.

Yeah, yeah, Amen. Amen. Yeah. Roger wrote it. Ignorance is not a valid excuse. You're not going to get out of, you know, paying a fine or a ticket because you weren't aware of like, like one is if you don't have, if you have an expired tag on your car, even if you're not driving it, if it's parked on the road, you're going to get a ticket. Even if you're not driving for sure, you can put it in your driveway, you'll be fine. But if it's parked on the road, you'll get a ticket. Now, if you go to the police station or go before the judge and he says, well, I didn't know. Well, either you didn't know and you chose not to obey or, or you should have known.

Right, Exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, could the judge show you some grace? Yeah, the judge might show you a little grace.

Right.

But he doesn't have to. The law is written the way the law is. You know, when I was younger and foolish and broke laws, I had no, I knew I was breaking the law, but I didn't realize the punishment, what the laws I was breaking were the law.

You didn't know the punishment.

I didn't understand the punishment. And here's the thing, I think a lot of people can use that in their life, right? Because when you say like, oh no, I'm a good person, okay, but have you ever lied? Have you ever stolen? Have you ever cheated? Have you, you know, okay, okay, so then you're a liar. Children, you saint. Then where does this lead you to? Does this mean that you're not fit for the punishment just because you didn't weren't aware of the punishment? No, the punishment still stands to you. So that's like that. This whole scripture here is so good to just no one and to memorize the scripture or know where to go to if you can't memorize it. So when you have that information, you can point to somebody that says, well, what about this far off thing? Oh no, that person is mentioned. Let me show you. Because when you can show somebody in scripture, then they're like, oh, well, I didn't know that was there. I was like, man, there's so much in here you don't even know about until you dive into it, you know. And that's kind of the approach I like to take.

Yeah. Amen. In Romans and particularly what we've read thus far. You know, a lot of run on sentences. It's very wordy if it, if you're reading in the translation where it's like, okay, what exactly is Paul saying? You know, pull it up in the message translation. Pull it up in nlt. You know, we, we talk about it here, we dive in. But I, I have a book and I was trying to think of it all morning. It's by Kenneth Wiest and it's the translation of the, the New Testament. But it's very wordy because what it does is it translates the Greek, but it uses every English word that could, that, that makes sense for that, that Greek word. So what? The translation is from the Greek to English, but it'll give multiple definitions of that Greek word. So it's very lengthy. But they're like, oh, okay, this is exactly what that means. It's Kenneth Wiest. It may just be like Kenneth Weiss translation, something like that. It's like W E U S T. But Zach, you had your hand out.

Well, while Gerard was spitting fire over there, he kind of covered part of it. He was saying like about like people who are on some remote island. But then he kind of did bring it back around when was talking about how it should be used like that mentality used as, like, an evangelistic tool. Just. Just keeping in mind, like, that urgency of. Of evangelism and telling others. And, and you said on this call that that's. That's like our primary, like, responsibility as Christians. And, And a lot of times people like, oh, well, we talked about this recently, but, like, oh, well, if I don't tell them, then they're not held to that. But it's like, is somebody more likely to be successful at anything with a coach or a mentor or figuring out on their own? They can figure it out on their own, but the likelihood of them doing it is lower. So it's like, we still have a responsibility to people, responsibility to God to. To share that.

But.

But, man, that was. That was super good. Gerard, I love, loved what you said. And then also you were talking about. Well, I can't remember exactly the point I was thinking of, but it talks about, like, being hearers and being doers and just. There is. There was a time when I first became a Christian, the pastor that I was, that was leading the church that I got saved at. He. He used to say, well, there's all these different translations, and this is the one that I tend to read. And I usually encourage people to pick one. You can read multiple, but I usually encourage people to pick one.

And.

And I think the Lord's going to kind of just hold you to that. Like, just like the. The law was given and it talks about it being imperfect and not fulfilled, and that's what God held people to. And then Jesus came, and then there's this. This unreasonable grace, and then he kind of holds people to that.

And.

And it's kind of what's available.

And.

And just remembering that, that it's really about, like, the condition of the heart. So anyway, I think. I think Gerard really had it going on, and what he said, that was amazing.

Amen. Amen. I agree. I agree. Well, it's 809. I will let you guys. I will release you all to your. Your duties for the rest of the day. But, yeah, just remember. But God and remember. All right, We're. We're on mission, man. We're. We're on the clock at all times. Gonna continue to pray for you guys. Later tonight, I'm meeting back up with Riley at Troy Brewers Church. He's got a conference for a couple days and meeting up with him to at least get to the first night of it tonight. So that's great. And also just, you know, well, I'll. I'll share next week. Or I'll. When I know Riley popped on for a few minutes this morning, but he probably had some appointments. I'll let. Let him share. Just things. Some things that are going on with that ministry and rescuing kids and I mean, man, hats off to Riley. Hats off to Riley. As far as what he's doing financially to help that mission, it's. It's really unbelievable. January 29th is now that you know, half the people logged off. January 29, the third book of the Kingdom Entrepreneur series will be released. So tomorrow if you're on the email list, you'll get an email about that and then the Kindle version will be free for a day where we want everybody to download it for free. It. Riley said this too. I'm not just tooting my own horn because I'm on. I'm named as a co author of this book. But this book is really good. It. It's good. I mean, it's just coincidence, I guess that I'm co author of this book and this is the best out of the three. It must just be coincidence. I don't know. But anyhow, yeah, and I'll keep you guys up to date with that. But when we do the, the Kindle version for free, that helps us get that, that bestseller tag. So once you guys have that, that link for Amazon, get it for free, send it to everybody, you know, and you know, if they don't read it, whatever, but as long as they have it, that'll be, that'll be helpful for us and encourage them to read it too. All right, so love you guys. Blessings, favor and peace be upon you all. See you guys. See you guys next week.