The Book of Romans IV, No Deals On Judgment Day

How many people here tonight, from all the way in the very back of the auditorium on both sides, how many here tonight have been through a church split? Wave your hand up. Quite a few, thank you. Quite a few. And if you've been through a church split, you know how hurtful, how agonizing and painful the dynamics are that begin to work in relationships between brothers and sisters in Christ. If you've been through a church split, you know what it's like to come into an auditorium and sing songs about love and feel hate in your heart. You know what it's like to despair that things would ever get better in that church. And I have to say to you that now that North Way's been here a few years, we've encountered some people who went through church splits five, ten years ago and have not returned to church one time until ten years had passed, elders in other churches, because of the devastation in their spirit. A church split has a way of polarizing believers and causing them to be defensive and cynical and then faithless toward God. Their own lives become unraveled and eventually many of them are even shipwrecked. And I hate to say that, but it's really what happens. They walk away from God. That's one reason why increasingly in the last months the burden on your elders has been to pray for unity and to move to restore unity any time we would feel that that precious gift had been challenged or threatened. Many people are well-intentioned but badly informed. And I suppose it's fair to say that in Pittsburgh many churches have fallen prey to the devil's devices of splitting congregations just at the time that that local church seemed to be peaking toward impact, moving to the place where it literally could touch a whole city for Christ. I am not apologetic when I say to you I believe that our church would be a target for something like that. But I bring it up because I believe that when Paul wrote this epistle, he wasn't just writing theology. He was writing to a church that was facing the potential of two factions rising up in opposition to each other and moving toward a split. People look at Romans and say, well, it was just a great theological treatise where Paul sort of expounded and spouted out these great theories and doctrines and all. Paul wrote a letter to a church. And we know that he dictated it, that he didn't write it himself, but he had a secretary. I mean, he had the anointing to have a secretary. In fact, as I studied this a little more carefully this past week, I discovered that a few of the sentences in the original language were cut short. Some of the grammatical expressions were a little bit distorted because apparently Paul was feeling so strongly that he forgot what he was saying. Because at all costs, he wanted to avoid a split, and yet he was dealing with some very powerful forces. He had two groups of people who normally didn't even talk to each other. And just tonight, just for the sake of an illustration, I'm going to use what really became for some of you a fact in your experience, when one group of the church who felt one way would sit on this side, and another group who felt another way would sit on that side. And literally, at times, look over and absolutely scowl toward the one next to them. So for tonight, we're going to call this side the Gentiles, and this side the Jews. You're now the church at Rome for just a few moments. You see, Paul was writing these verses, and he addressed, as we read the last several weeks, I hope you were with us. If not, you might want to get the tapes. They are available. He was writing about the condition of the Gentiles, the unbelieving Gentiles. He was saying, as we highlighted these last weeks, that the Gentiles knew nothing really of God, nothing of His Word, that the Gentiles were truth suppressors, though, because they had received that what we call general revelation. In other words, God left clues all around the planet that they could look at and say, there is a God, and they could respond to Him. But Gentiles all around the earth pushed that truth down. Why did they do that? We said that last time. Why? Because it's easier to live a lie than to face the trauma of following the truth. I hope you let that sink in. That's why people today still don't want to deal with God. They'd rather live a lie. And so Gentiles were guilty of that. They were guilty of doing things that were almost unthinkable, and sometimes when they would reject God again and again and again, God finally let go of their rope, and what happened to them? We said it last week. They slipped off the waterfall down into the abyss of depravity and separation from God. We read through verses 18 through 25. The awful crimes that they committed were worthy of judgment. And so the Jews look over here and see these Gentiles. Go ahead and take a look at them. If you need to stand up in the back, just take a look. Don't they look like a crowd of mortal degenerates? We read last week of the kinds of perversions that they're capable of. We documented the descent into depravity that so many of them fell prey to, the 21 sin salute. We even probably, if we're honest, think that they're worse than even we heard that they were. And now that you look at them, it kind of confirms your worst fears, you know? What a depraved bunch, and it's good that they're seated by themselves. And I'm sure you Gentiles are feeling right now, you know, as Paul read those things or wrote those things in that letter, you read them last week, you're probably thinking, you know, he's right. I was just like that. I was a moral failure. I mean, I indulged everything about myself. I hated the idea of restraint. I denied God. I pushed him away. I exchanged his truth for a lie. I was just like that, but Jesus came along. That's why you were in the church, because God answered to your depravity, and the Holy Spirit pursued you to the place where you were willing to say, I am a sinner, and you came to him. Now, I'm sure the Jews at this point were thinking, as they read through the first chapter of Romans, and by the way, the way this happened, we understand from historians, that a leader of the church, probably an elder, stood up and literally read the epistle. I mean, he read it. Could you imagine that? Now, did you think they knew they were going to get something like this that would be studied to the minutest detail for the next two millennia? I mean, they just got a letter, right? When you get a letter, do you think, wow, this might be read for the next 2,000 years? You don't think that. But an elder read that, and I'm sure by this point after the first chapter, you know, these Jews over here are looking around, they're going cross-eyed looking down their nose. Scumbag. Just stay on your side of the aisle. Then Paul starts his address to the Jews, and the Jews are glad, because they're sure that Paul, being a Jew, would know of their pedigree, and he says this. Pick it up with me. Chapter 2, verse 1. You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else. For at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do these same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. You see, it's fascinating, Jews, that God begins this epistle to you with the same words that he used to the Gentiles, that you too are what? Without excuse. Say it. Without excuse. Without excuse. You too, Jews, have committed awful crimes against God, just like the Gentiles did, that leave you in a condition that if you stood before a holy God, you would be determined to be guilty. Paul doesn't mince any words to the Jews. He says in verse 3, you've practiced the same kinds of things. How do you think you'll escape God's judgment? You see, you're concealing the things that the Gentiles did openly. The truth of the matter, Jews, is that down inside your heart, you've thought the same things that the Gentiles were guilty of doing. In fact, Jesus called you something back in the Gospels. He said when he sees something that's beautiful on the outside and filthy on the inside, what did he call it? He says a whitewashed tomb. You see, on the outside, you're like this beautiful mausoleum, you know, like we have some around here with the stained glass windows and the shiny marble, but on the inside, Jews – now you'd be listening, Gentiles – inside, you're full of dead men's bones. Inside, you are just as despicable. You've thought of the same things and in some cases, even followed the leadings of your thoughts, but the secret things that you've gotten away with have not gone unnoticed by God. He's seen them. And he says on that day, you will be as guilty as the Gentiles. You will stand without excuse as well. You see, Jews, these Gentiles, they sinned and they didn't know the law. They didn't even know the word of the Lord, the commandments, the Pentateuch. You had all that revelation and you still did it. You still did it. They were ignorant, but you were willful. You sunk as low as they did. Paul really plays this point. Look down at verse 12. You see, all who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law. And all who sin under the law – that's you – will be judged by the law. These Gentiles ignored their Creator. They suppressed the truth. They exchanged the truth for a lie, but you, you went ahead anyhow and did your own thing. You heard the law, verse 13. But that doesn't count for righteousness. Look, it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Those sins in the secret places are every bit as important as the ones that the Gentiles have committed in the public square. Now let me just step out of that role for a minute. Let's think for a second. You see, one of the things that hurts me so badly is I watch Jim Baker every day on the television set being paraded. You see, the thing that just so gets me is, you know, I'm sure that the man – I shouldn't say I'm sure, but I sense that he's going to be convicted of his crime and guilty. But the thing that we all know is that everyone that's pointing the finger, including many Christians, everyone, is just as guilty, just as guilty. That's the thing. And the pious, self-serving – and I just get on and on about it – I mean, people want his skin, but they want his skin because they know that he represents what they hate about themselves. Be careful, for what happened with Jim Baker and many others is a tragedy to be sure, but it's no worse. Paul says it right here. Look at verse 16. This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. God is going to judge the secrets. What are the secrets? What are they? Yeah, it's your – the thoughts of your mind, the attitudes of your heart. You may have a wonderful smile over here, Jews or Gentiles, but inside you may hate someone next to you. You know, God doesn't just wink at that. We tend to think of all the obvious external sins as the bad ones. You know what God thinks about sin? He thinks pride. Pride is the worst of sin because it sets men as God in its ultimate force, but we tick off the drinking and the drugs and the sex and the embezzlement and all those different things. God says pride is the root of it all because it puts man up where God should be. And pride isn't something – you don't wear that out here. It's inside of you. And this scripture, verse 16, tells us that God is going to judge the secrets of our heart. All right. Paul gets moving along here. Look what he says. He says, you Jews, you know, if you call yourself a Jew, you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God. Yeah. You know, we do, don't we, Jews? We're proud to say that we have training and that we know His will and we've been led by Him. We're proud to say that we've had various positions of teaching and guiding and leading. But look at verse 21, Jews. You who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You see, one of the great sins is that of telling someone what to do without doing it yourself. Are you here? In other words, you don't practice what you preach. I notice that the Gentiles are smiling a bit more than they were at the beginning of the service. And I don't know what had happened to that church in Rome, but at this point, I'm sure that both of the groups were mum, silent by the conviction that Paul, in a way that only a Jew who'd been saved could really administer it, was really powerfully cutting into the hypocrisy. And folks, how do you address hypocrisy? If you confront hypocrisy, usually people just deny you. What Paul had to do here was confront the hypocrisy of the Jews by gently – I mean, he's like a skilled surgeon. He's gently laying bare layer after layer of their built-up pride and arrogance and judgmentalism and slowly bring them around to expose them to the point where they are as guilty as the despicable Gentiles that they hold in such low esteem. Paul says, for these reasons, you too will receive the wrath that God has stored up for you. You steal. Look at it. Here we are, verse 22. You preach against it, but do you do it? You say that people should not commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? Remember now, you say, well, no, I've never gone down to Mellon Bank and stole anything. But, you know, what else do we steal? Have you ever stolen someone's reputation when you pass on some gossip? Have you ever stolen someone's hope by pulling out from them the very last breath of confidence that they have? Have you ever committed adultery? Well, maybe some of you have. Probably a whole lot more of us have up here. Jesus said that was just as bad. It was sin. You boast in the law, but you break it. Look at this, verse 24. And as it is written, God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. And this is a heavy message because, you see, folks, when you choose to ignore the commandments of God and the word of God and do your own thing, when you willfully set yourself at odds with another believer to the place where it gets public, the Bible says that you allow those very same Gentile unbelievers to load their cannons with your actions and fire it right back in God. One of the most grievous things I could think of is when we live unworthily and allow the world to say, if that's what it means to be a Christian, if that's what it means to love each other, I don't want anything to do with it. And that's the saddest thing. And I grieve over that. And Paul says, don't let it happen. When a church is not functioning as it should, when it's just a shell, when people are going through motions and not really loving each other, then we bring blasphemy against our God. See, the Jews felt that they had it all. Now, listen to me. Those of you who have grown up as Christians, now, there's a lot of people here that came to Christ, but some of you grew up as Christians, and many times you fall back in kind of your pedigree, you know, who you are. The Jews did this. They boasted of their covenants, of their physical circumcision. Verse 25, he writes, circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. Now, circumcision was that mark that God physically allowed to be put on every male Jew to remind them that they belonged to God. But the Jews began to take that as a license to do whatever they pleased because they belonged to God. Paul is saying here, that mark, that symbol of circumcision doesn't amount to anything if your heart is not right. In fact, he goes on to say here, that a true, verse 29, Jew is one who is not just circumcised outwardly, no, a Jew, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly, and circumcision is circumcision of the heart. What does that mean? I've heard that for a lot of years, so have you. What does that mean? What does it mean to be circumcised in the heart? It means that you love God so much that you are willing to set yourself apart, cut yourself off, do you see the image, from the world, and from the laws of the world and from the sin and lifestyle of the world that you used to be part of, including the judgmentalism of the world. You circumcise, you cut yourself off from the very things that would cause you to slip back into the old way of life, to free yourself from the entanglements and lurements and traps that lead you away from God, and you lead a clean and humble, service-oriented life. Dear ones, understand something. Jesus didn't call you just to make a decision. I rejoice when we have a decision on Sunday mornings. I want to say it loud and clear once again, that is the beginning of what we're called to do. People come in and lift their hand or raise their eyes and say, yes, I want God in my life, I want to know Christ, but that's the beginning. Paul is saying what he wants us to come to is a circumcision of the heart. I want to ask you that. Have you ever consciously made that decision? You said, Jesus, cut out of my heart anything that would pull me back into my old life. Cut it out. You see, we have no right, we can't judge what the Jews are doing, and Jews, you can't judge what the Gentiles are doing. Only one, and this is number three, only God has the wise solution of God's divine judgment. The wise solution of God's divine judgment. I want to talk just in conclusion about this. You see, when we talk about judgment, you may find it troublesome. I think this is the third Wednesday night in a row I've talked about judgment and a heavy subject. One reason why we've had to make such a point, the great apostle wrote these things. Number two, most of the world in which we live wants to just wink at it. You know, I've discovered something. How about you? People don't talk about death and funerals until death happens. You ever notice that? Sometimes we don't even meet our family members until a funeral. The American people are some of the greatest in the world at keeping death out of the mind until it happens. You know what the carryover of that is? Most Americans do not believe there's going to be a judgment day. They laugh at that principle. They think, now I'm talking about your friends and neighbors and loved ones, they think that in the end, God's going to pull out this giant map of the world, and then he's going to line up all the people and say, well, if you fall between here and here, you're okay. He's going to grade on the curve, in other words. Or, you'll hear this, a loving God would never condemn a human being to eternal hell. Trust me on that. I've heard that many, many times. If you haven't, people say, I'm as good as the next guy. Hey, look, I don't do the things that he does, but neither do I do the things that he does. You hear that all the time. People are mistaken about God and his judgment. And I know tonight, I know tonight that you care about the destiny of people. Sometimes I grieve because I feel like I do an inadequate job imparting to you why this church is doing what it's doing. You see, if God didn't judge people's deeds, you know what that would say to me? That he didn't care about who they were. But because he's willing to judge their deeds, it tells me that he cares about who they are. If what they do matters, then who they are matters much more. And so God, as I said two weeks ago, is required to enact judgment. And there's five things here that are characteristics. Number one, verse two, it says, God's judgment will be according to truth. Listen carefully now. There'll be no misunderstandings on judgment day. There'll be no false accusations. How many of you know that when you stand before God, he's not going to be checking his evidence out here? He's going to know. People think, well, maybe God will just forget what I did. Don't count on God's memory going short on you. I was in a courtroom about seven or eight months ago. I was amazed when two people stood up and told a story. They both had witnesses who told an exact opposite accounting of what had happened. One said, this guy punched the man first. And the other guy's witness said, no, this man punched him first. And I watched the judge. He had to discern truth from error. I don't know how he ever did. I don't know what the outcome was. But see, that'll never happen with God. Because you know what God will do? He'll probably punch the tape in. Let's take a look at this again. 1984. Uh-huh. And you see, God won't have any problem. He's going to judge according to the truth. See that? Then verse 3. Look at the judgment of God. Verse 3 tells us that that judgment is inescapable. Do you ever wonder why the innocent seem to suffer and the guilty seem to get away with it? Do you live there? Do you see people who seem to just keep getting away with stuff? And you wonder, why, why, why? Well, let me tell you something. No one's going to get away from it. In the end, God will bring it all back to the plumb line of His righteousness. No one's going to get off on a technicality. There's not going to be any oversights. One man told me at lunch a few weeks ago. He said, you know, I showed up at the court for my speeding ticket. And he said, and I love this, he said, and God blessed me. I said, how'd that happen? I figured, you know, maybe he witnessed something. He said, the officer didn't show up to prosecute me. You know, we'll talk about that. Theology, maybe. I'm not sure. But that's not going to happen on God's judgment day. God's going to show up. Number three, the judgment of God is cumulative. Verses four and five, you see. You think you're getting away with things. God's persevering. I love that verse. It's His kindness that leads you to repentance. He wants people to repent. That's the only reason why He's holding off. He's not forgetting about it or putting it under the table. He's patient in long suffering. You know, man reads that patience. You know how man reads that? He reads it that God doesn't care. That I can get away with it. You know, some kids are like that, aren't they? Kids will press and press and press to see how much they can get away with. And if you don't respond, guess what? They'll keep doing it. They think that you don't know. You know, we talk a lot about abuse in our culture. Child abuse, wife abuse, da-da-da-da. I think there's a lot of God abuse in the world today. A lot of people who just abuse God just kind of walk all over Him thinking He doesn't care. But one day they're going to give an account. Number four, the judgment of God is based on actions. This can be a little confusing if you're not careful. See, verse 6, God will give to each person according to what he's done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory and honor and immortality and so on. Listen, don't be misled. It's not what you do that gets you saved. But what you do represents what you believe. Faith and works go together. All right? The rest of the epistle lays that very clearly, especially chapter 3 and 4 and 5. But dear ones, there's going to be only two kinds of people on that day. Those who led a life that exemplified the fact that they trusted Christ and those who didn't. Those who, the Bible says here, are self-seeking. Verse 8, and reject the truth and follow evil. There is no third ground. Hello? There's not, well, you know, I wasn't good and I wasn't bad. I was in between. There's only those who've trusted Christ and those who haven't. It won't work to say to God on Judgment Day, I'm a Catholic. People say that. That's how they dismiss. I'm an Episcopalian. I mean, is that all it takes? No. Read it. Presbyterians, it doesn't matter what you were. It matters what you've done with the Son of God. Number 5, God's judgment will be impartial. Verse 9, First the Jew and then the Greek. Verse 11, For God does not show favoritism. There'll be no partiality to the Jew for his privilege of having the law and there'll be no partiality for the Gentile for their lack of it. Now, dear ones, we won't be talking much more about this, but I don't want to leave this subject until I cover this one last point. You see, when you read this, and it's so clear that the Gentiles and the Jews, and basically it's saying everybody without Christ is lost. And despite all the efforts of man to repress it, ignore it, push it out of their mind, it still is true. It's the truth. And I have to say to you, I know every day that I'm a sinner. Let me ask you something. Did you do something today that you shouldn't have done? Did you have a thought that came through your mind that should have just passed through, but you entertained for a while? Did you say something that you know, when you look back on it, was not of God? Maybe some of us had a perfect day. I pray it so. But I know over my lifetime, I don't have to look too far back to see that I'm a sinner. I know I'm a sinner. I know that without God, I don't have a prayer. I know that. I marvel at what God's allowed me to be in Him. I just, you know. It's incredible, isn't it? How about you? Do you know that tonight? Do you know who you are in Christ? Don't compare yourself to Jim Baker, or Adolf Hitler, or somebody like that. Whoever you might just say is, well, that's a real sinner. Compare yourself to the morally perfect standard of God's righteousness. Because as we sang tonight, Jesus was the Lamb that had to die for our sins. And then maybe, just maybe, you'll understand why the mission of our church is so heavy in my heart. Now close your Bibles and your notes up and listen to this, please. Just before we dismiss. As we read these verses tonight, and we read that God does not show favoritism, but put the Scripture up please, Nancy. Verse 16. When we read that our God will judge the secrets of men's hearts through Jesus Christ. Do you read that verse as a certainty? Is that not a certainty? Doesn't it say God will do it? The reason why I am appealing to you tonight once again to examine your life as to what you're doing to help others discover this is, dear ones, without you, I don't think there's going to be any other way that people are going to come to Christ. You say, well, that's cutting out a lot of different options. From everything I can read, listen now, everything I investigate, 1% of all people come to Christ through media. One. What else is there? I'll allow for all other sources, maybe 4% more, but that's probably greatly over-exaggerated. People come to Christ because people like you know that they're going to be judged and they're going to go to hell. And when you look at them, you need to see them with the eye toward their destiny. And you need to see that what we're trying to do in our church is to fulfill the mission. The greatest mission that God ever gave to man was to participate in the saving of other human lives. And I don't want to apologize about this. I don't want to apologize for the fact that I'm asking you to give your time and your talents and your resources to saving other people and help them become believers. This is a privilege. It's not a duty. There's rewards. But I have to tell you, something happens in me, it sinks down in my spirit if I sense that we're oblivious to that. I know that some of you are trying. I know some of you are doing everything you can. You're praying regularly. You're doing everything you can. But many of you, young people, single people, many of us, we just see people as competitors. We see them as everything but people whom God's going to judge. And they need to hear the gospel. Last night at the Planning Commission meeting, there were several people who were part of our delegation. And one man was there, who I won't name for you, but we were seated for a good hour and a half, just sitting there waiting. And I don't know why, but about an hour and a half into that time, I looked up across this room. We were out in the assembling area, not really in the meeting room itself. And I looked over at this man and I just sensed God saying, get up and talk to him. Have you ever had that? I knew He was saying, get up and talk to him. I said, Lord, we're going to be going in in a few minutes. I don't want to talk to him now. I said, Lord, all these other people are here. The one I always say is, Lord, he knows I'm a pastor. He's expecting me to lay him out with some kind of God stuff. And that's my big disadvantage. And I go over to the guy and I just begin to talk. And in a few minutes, I'm beginning to see something. I'm beginning to see that outside of the normal kind of distance, this young man, a guy in his late 20s, maybe 30s, is hungry for something. Searching. And just when I was going to make the move into sharing how Christ can answer that, we get the call to come in. And I just didn't really have any choice. But you see, now it's in my heart. I'm going to pray for him every day. We're going to be together again and I'm going to look for an opportunity. But see, all I'm asking for you to do tonight is to say, God, I'll stop judging my brother and my sister. I'll stop judging the ones who are different than me. I'll stop allowing the devil to divide me. And I'll begin to listen to what you want to do through me. That's all I'm asking. I'll listen. I'll listen. And as Kevin said tonight, people are often much more receptive than we ever dreamed they could be. But nobody's told them. Nobody's told them they could come to a Saturday night service and just listen to what's happening and hear a message that just might intrigue them a bit. No one's told them there's more to knowing God than just going through a mass or a service and fulfilling a duty. No one's told them. You're God's ambassadors. And you can do it. We commissioned you to do it. The Holy Spirit's equipped you to do it. The Word of God will let you do it. And the people that we know and love are worth it. They're worth it. Wouldn't you say? They're worth it. So tonight, be certain of this. There'll be no deals on Judgment Day. Nobody's going to stand before God and kind of wink and say, hey, I wasn't all I should have been, but hey, I wasn't that bad a guy. No deals. But if we stand in the Savior, washed in His blood, the Father's going to open up His arms and say, welcome home. Who's going to be on your right and on your left? You say, well, my kids will be there. Well, that's wonderful. They should be. But who else? Who can you bring with you? That's why we do everything we do here. I don't know how much longer we're going to do it. As long as I've got energy, we're going to do it. Because God called us to. And what He's called us to do, we can do. Amen. Lord, I pray for Your Holy Spirit. Make alive the truth of this Word that no one here is any better than anyone else. That no one here, Lord God, is incapable of sharing just whatever You've shown them about Christ. And I pray tonight for anyone that's come, Lord, who's not clear about their relationship. That in these last minutes, they would open their heart and bow down and say, God, I need You. Lord, I thank You for the joy we had on Sunday of leading ten people to Christ. The joy of seeing hearts opened and eyes unblinded. I thank You for the reports of 31 that have been baptized in China in these last couple of months. And Lord, I thank You for the grace that's on our church to do exceedingly abundantly beyond that which we've ever been able to ask or think. Fill us, Lord, with the capacity to know that on Judgment Day, not only will we be received, but Lord, we can bring a great train of others with us. I thank You for it in Jesus' name.