EPISODE 94 ROMANS CHAPTER 2 " Shhhh...the secrets"

I realize that it's been a while since I explained that we at Share the Word believe that there's no better way to learn the content of the New Testament than chapter by chapter. Our instructors share the big ideas of the New Testament, which gives us such a wonderful, rich, and important picture of each chapter. So, let's get started. Romans chapter 2. Shh. The secrets.

There's a nightclub in a beach town near where I live called Secrets. They spell it S-E-A-C-R-E-T-S because it's by the sea. Clever, eh? But I'm pretty sure the name was chosen to evoke a sense of this is a place where you come and let your hair down, where things happen while you're on vacation far from home that you may not want anybody in your hometown to know about. Sort of like Las Vegas tagline, What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Wink, wink.

This is not a commercial for either destination, by the way. But I thought of this because of something that comes up in Romans chapter 2, where we are today, and we'll get to that in a moment. But first, there's this. One ability we learn early, we might even be born with this, is the ability to make excuses. Making excuses is something we're pros at. I say we may be born with it because no one has to teach us how to do this, that's for sure.

If a baby could speak intelligibly when they are throwing a tantrum at 2 a.m. because they want some attention, I'm sure they'd add some kind of excuse, and it wouldn't be, Mom, I'm insecure and afraid and want your attention 24/7. No, they'd have some kind of ego-protecting excuse, like, They were pretty sure there's a goblin under the bed. This doesn't change with added birthdays. We don't go after our dreams as adults because we fear failure, or we just want to avoid discomfort. But we have lots of ready excuses why we don't. When we don't keep our word and do what we promised to do, we always have some excellent rationalization why.

Something unavoidable came up that prevented me. Lately, I've noticed when politicians who ought to be leaders lose an election, rather than own it, they say, The system was rigged against me. Wow, that may have hit a little bit too close to home for some of you, but you get my point. We humans are excuse-making machines. There are few things we are more adept at. In Romans chapter 2, the apostle Paul goes to great length to expose people's excuses for their sin and rebellion against God.

He's making sure his readers know that no one is going to stand before God at the end of the road at the great white throne judgment, as it's called in Revelation chapter 20, and be there making excuses. The judge of all the earth is out of patience at that point, and the verdict has been decided. Paul doesn't want to see anybody in that terrible, impossible predicament, and neither do I. That awful scene the apostle John was shown in a vision, he describes in chapter 20 of Revelation like this: Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from His presence. This is God Almighty.

And there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before His throne, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to the things that they had done recorded in these books. And anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. Yikes.

We've been talking about the righteousness and wrath of God lately. Revelation 20 is the final scene where those who have rebelled against God and rejected Christ as Savior, regardless of any excuses for why, are finally judged guilty and sent into punishment. Your mind might still immediately go to an objection about fairness as you hear that. As I've said, we're hardwired to make excuses. But when God tells us the end of the story and we don't adjust our beliefs and attitudes and behaviors, the onus is on us. We're without excuse.

Don't blame God. He's told us what's coming, and He's provided a way for us to avoid it. In today's chapter, chapter 2 of Romans, the Apostle Paul does his best to deconstruct men's excuses for not doing God's way, to try and convince his readers to embrace God's way while they still have the opportunity to do that. In this section, he addresses three different categories of people and their common objections and excuses. First of all, a group we'll label self-righteous moralists. These are people who would hear Paul's list of sinful behaviors at the end of chapter 1 and say, Well, that certainly doesn't sound like me.

In fact, I'm repulsed by the immoral and degrading behavior of so many people. They disgust me. Paul says about those who pass judgment on sinners they see as worse than themselves that they are fooling themselves. Their excuse of, I'm not nearly as bad as those people are, is no excuse at all before a holy God. Our own estimation of ourselves is definitely not the standard. If you think that you will be exempt from God's judgment because you are less sinful than others, you are the very definition of those Paul is pointing at in this first section.

Just doing better in your own estimation than others? You see that as your excuse? No. Others are not the standard. God's law is the standard. Forget others.

Compare yourself honestly to God's perfection and God's laws. There are two common fallacies in the moralist way of reasoning. Let's think about them for a moment. First, in their own minds, moralists greatly overestimate their goodness by not being honest about who they really are. That's why Paul says at the outset of chapter two, When you say others are wicked and should be punished, you're condemning yourself, for you who judge others do the very same things. Let's get real, he's saying.

You do the same kinds of stuff as those people you're judging. Maybe not exactly the same things all the time, but many of them and some different ones too. Maybe you've not been exposed, but that's not exoneration, because later in this chapter Paul says, At that final judgment, the secrets of men's hearts will be revealed. Just as John described that scene we read from Revelation 20, when people stand before God as the books will be opened. Do you really want to make the excuse that you are better than other people to a God who knows your every secret? To a God to whom everything about you is known and has been recorded in His books?

Man, not me. It would be a huge mistake to imagine that you are righteous beyond others and so acceptable to God as you are if the secrets have to be exposed to close down that kind of objection, they can be exposed. And they possibly will be on that day, because Paul says here, every mouth will be shut before God. The other fallacy residing in the moralist imagination is that God cannot possibly be as exacting as some hellfire and brimstone preachers make Him out to be. If there's really a judgment at the end of the road, a loving God is certainly going to be grading us on a curve, and His standard is going to be whether we are on the better-than-most side of the scale. I've described this before, you know, the imaginary scale of morality with Adolf Hitler at one end and Mother Teresa at the other.

This fallacy is that if we're a smidge closer to her than to him, a laid-back loving God in heaven is going to be okay with that and say, You're better than most. Come on in. But that's not who God really is. Psalm 7, verse 11 actually says, God is a righteous judge who is angry at sinners every day. Imagining that your sense of your comparative goodness with others will be the standard God uses on that day is a grave mistake. On one occasion recorded in the Gospels, Jesus encountered a classic moralist.

The account is in Matthew chapter 19, for one place. The young man approached Jesus with the biggest of all questions: What must I do to inherit eternal life? I think he was looking for reassurance, but he didn't get it. Jesus responded to him, Do what the law requires. And the fellow answered, Which laws? So Jesus just started to recite the Ten Commandments, and the man says, I've been keeping all of those all of my life.

And Jesus replied, Then if you want to be perfect, go sell all your possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, and then come follow me. At that, Matthew says, the young man turned away, downcast. That was not what he wanted or expected to hear, and no, he wasn't going to sell his stuff either because he loved his stuff too much. What Jesus was demonstrating for his followers who were listening was that if someone expects to reach heaven by being good, then they're going to have to be perfect. If they think they can get there on the basis of their own righteousness, then they're going to have to be absolutely righteous. If you think the standard is something less, then you've made a big mistake of imagining Almighty God is someone you will be able to negotiate with.

At the great white throne judgment, no mortal man will have the audacity to make excuses before the Judge of all the earth, even the foolish excuse of, But I didn't know you were so exacting. The fallacies of self-righteous men, the ones that they have bought into, those excuses will not cut it then. The judgment bar of God, they will seem absurd then. Here's an uncomfortable insight that dawned on me one conscience-awakened moment. I try to never forget this now, and it's that I readily recognize sin and evil in other people, especially in areas where my own heart is most messed up. You know what I mean?

We recognize wrong things in others because we are so familiar with it in ourselves. That's what Paul was saying at the outset of chapter 2 when he said, When you say others are wicked and should be punished, you're condemning yourself, for you who judge others do the very same things. That truth brings to mind an account about King David that's recorded back in 2 Samuel chapter 12. David had secretly committed a vile sin. He had committed adultery with the wife of one of his trusted army officers, and then did an almost unimaginable thing to try to cover up his sin. After some time passed, God sent the prophet Nathan to him to bring this awful secret to light and to give David an opportunity to repent.

The prophet, who was close to the king, who David regarded as a spiritual advisor, approached him with something disturbing to share, he said, that needed his attention, seemingly not about David, but about someone else, of course. He told him, Sire, there's a wealthy man who lives here who has large flocks of sheep, and he's taken badly advantage of a poor man who had only one small lamb, an animal that's dear to him like a pet. The prophet went on, When guests were coming to the wealthy man's home, he didn't want to slaughter one of his own animals for their dinner. Instead, he seized that poor man's lamb, a helpless man, helpless to prevent him, and he killed it and he cooked it and he served it to his guests. Oh my. King David was incensed.

He said, I swear to God, that man who did such a thing ought to die. Nathan looked into the king's eyes and said, You are the man. You are the man, because the king had taken advantage of another man's wife who had no power to stop him. David reacted so angrily at the wealthy man's sin because he secretly knew he was guilty of an even worse sin. He was very guilty inside, and he was familiar with this kind of treachery. What David was confronted with is what all self-excusing moralists will be confronted with when they stand before God at the judgment seat and the secrets are exposed.

Another objection Paul brings up in this chapter is one that might come from those who would claim that on the day of judgment, they don't know that much about God and didn't have any chance, the spiritually ignorant, we could call them. Verse 12 and following says, All who sin apart from the law of God will also perish apart from the law of God, for even Gentiles who did not have God's written law show that they have His law instinctively on their hearts, even if they've never heard it. They demonstrate that God's law is written in their hearts for their own conscience and thoughts, either excuse them or accuse them. Their own hearts tell them if they're doing right, if they're doing wrong, Paul is saying. So his point is that even in pagan cultures, people understand basic moral principles. They understand right and wrong.

They understand virtue because God has implanted these things in the hearts of all people. He's given everyone a conscience that reflects His divine image. No one will say on the day of judgment, But I didn't know right from wrong. That excuse will not fly. May God judge differently those who have had not the same knowledge that you and I have had, the opportunities that we have had? He may well do so, but they will not be saved if they have not repented of sin and put their faith in God to save them by His grace.

That's the only way anyone, anywhere, at any time in history has ever been saved. A third category of objectors Paul describes is in verse 17 and following. In these verses, he directly addresses religious Jews. But it applies equally to all who think of their greater knowledge of God in His Word or their spiritual heritage and so on as somehow exempting them from judgment. You know, they're God's people, the religious. Listen.

You who call yourselves Jews, Paul writes there, are relying on God's law and you boast about your special relationship with Him. You know what He wants. You know what is right because you have been taught the law. You are convinced that you are guides for the blind. You are lights for people lost in darkness. Or you are certain that God's law gives you this complete knowledge and truth.

But you're not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the ceremony of circumcision. No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. A true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it's a change of the heart produced by the Spirit of God. Far from religion and ceremonies being an advantage, Paul says, in essence, the more you know, the greater your opportunities, the more God expects of you. Don't imagine that because you have a religious heritage or your parents took you to church, you've had religious ceremonies performed over you, you've sat through a lot of church services, you even know a lot about the Bible, that that somehow means the righteous standards of God's law don't apply to you. They do apply to you, doubly actually.

Being right with God is not about knowing stuff. The standards will be higher for those who know more because of our advantages. And his next line cuts to the heart when Paul says to this religious group. When you people who know God's law and yet disobey it just like those without such knowledge, the Gentiles blaspheme the name of God because of you. He means pagan unbelievers. You're turning them away from God.

They see your hypocrisy, the religious crowd. That's their excuse for unbelief. Wow, isn't that the sad truth? Regardless of which of these categories of excuse makers people fall into, they may be convincing themselves that all the threatening talk of God's judgment and wrath is just the venting of some uptight, self-righteous preachers. Like you, Paul. I've been who I am for a long time, and I haven't been struck by lightning yet, so I guess God must be okay with me.

You should be too. Lighten up. To this kind of response, Paul writes in verses 4 and 5, Don't you see how kind, tolerant, and patient God has been with you? Doesn't this mean anything to you? Can't you see that His kindness is intended to turn you away from your sin? But he says if you're stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up wrath for yourself, for a day of anger is coming when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

He will judge everyone according to what they have done. The apostle Peter made the same point to any who may misinterpret God's patience for indifference in 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 9, where he writes, Don't forget this one thing, dear friends, that a day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn't really being slow about His promises, as some people may think. No, He is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed. He wants everyone to repent.

The point being that although God is patient and not anxious to judge sin and unbelief, it would be a huge mistake to imagine that means He won't, because He most certainly will, we're warned. Romans chapter 2. Not a passage you will often hear preached upon, one tempting to avoid, but we are committed to telling the whole story of the New Testament honestly, and that's why we're going through the chapters chapter by chapter. Bad news has been ongoing through chapters 1 and 2 for sure. This is a major doctrinal epistle, but the good news is coming, I promise. Margie said that in her first lesson.

We promise. Until next time, give some thought to what the Apostle Paul says about the flimsiness of man's excuses before God. And if you really want to get uncomfortable, think about the awful day when the secrets of men's hearts will be revealed. On that final day of judgment, when the small and great stand before God, you will definitely want and need an advocate, someone able to get you off the hook, although you are guilty as sin and without excuse. Thank God there is such an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous, the one who knows all of my secrets and how inexcusable my failures are viewed against the holy standards of God's law, and yet who loved me enough to die for me and to make a way of escape for me from the coming wrath. The author of the New Testament book of Hebrews, after sharing some difficult truths like these with his readers, wrote, Today, if you hear God's voice.

Don't harden your hearts. When we hear truth we don't like, we always have the choice to listen and to contemplate it, or to harden our hearts and turn away. Stick with us through this challenging part of God's Word. Don't harden your heart to God's warnings. Listen and hear Him out. This is Paul for Share the Word.

Thanks, Paul. This is such a tough lesson. We're all excuse makers. We've all driven 65 or 70 in a 55 zone with the excuse that everyone else is doing it. But the law is the law. And if you're a moralist or your plan is to negotiate with God, well, you're only fooling yourself.

When we accept Christ into our lives as Lord and Savior, we're given grace and our sins are forgiven. But that's not the end of it. It's only the beginning of our journey. And if you're a new believer, please take a moment to let us know and check out the blog on ShareTheWord.org with the title, Now That I Believe, What's Next? Like the apostles who began their Great Commission, we too are called to share the Word and share the good news. Help us continue with this Great Commission project.

From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.