Thank you all for joining us today
I'm so glad you're here
Heavenly Father,
Lord, we cannot sufficiently thank You for the wonder of the Word,
Oh how its truth when unleashed in us, it stirs our hearts
Lord, we pray that no one in this place is outside of Christ Jesus
to experience the explosive of wrath of God
We know You’ll judge the world, we shall not escape it,
we know that You’ve already judged Jesus Christ
for the sins of those of us who have placed our faith in Him
Thank You Father, for Your plan of salvation
O precious Lord, that in the unfathomable mystery of Your sovereign will
You have called us and we are astonished by it.
It is often overwhelming to think that You’ve put Yourself on display
for our sake that we may by Your example
get to glory so that we can one day worship You as we ought
perfectly, O Lord, may we worship You now to the best of our abilities
with all our powers in the energy of the Spirit as a God who saves sinners.
in Your percious name
Jesus Christ,
Amen.
"Therefore, any one of you who judges is without excuse. For when you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things. We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is based on the truth. Do you really think—anyone of you who judges those who do such things yet do the same—that you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you despise the riches of His kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? But because of your hardness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed. He will repay each one according to his works: eternal life to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality; but wrath and indignation to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth but are obeying unrighteousness; affliction and distress for every human being who does evil, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does what is good, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. There is no favoritism with God.
All those who sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all those who sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For the hearers of the law are not righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be declared righteous. So, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, instinctively do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts will either accuse or excuse them on the day when God judges what people have kept secret, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus."
Romans 2:1-16
Today's Message: Slave or Sinner - Part 6
I remember, some years ago, reading about a tribe it may have been in Africa, I'm not sure, but I remember that they had a very interesting process in determining the guilt of someone accused of stealing something. When there had been theft that had occured in the tribe, they would line up all of the men, because theft was normally committed by men, and they would go along and they would ask them if they did it and they would answer, either yes or no. And then they would, after having said it, ask them to stick their tongue out, at which time they took a hot knife and placed it on the tongue. If there was saliva on the tongue, the knife would be removed without a problem. If there was no saliva on the tongue, the knife would stick and burn its way through their tongue. And by this, they could always tell who the liar was because he had no saliva.
What makes your saliva dry up when you do something wrong? It's because, there’s a conscience in you. There’s a thought process in you that knows right from wrong, and convicts you when you violate it. It’s like when you cheat, or lie and then you live in this constant state of fear of being found out. That’s the conscience. Our conscience responds to the internal norms, and I would have to say in the Christians, of course, that conscience is tremendously intensified. Why? Because you not only have that basic law within you but you have also the law of Christ, from His Word added to the internal natural law, and the compounding of that excites the conscience even more to respond.
And Paul listened to his conscience. Several times he said, "My conscience bears witness," didn’t he? In other words, he was saying, "My conscience agrees with me that I’m doing right, that my heart is pure." The Bible also suggests that your conscience, when ignored, can become scarred and scar tissue has no feeling. That’s why Paul in Romans tells us, "Do not violate your conscience. Don’t violate your conscience." In other words, he’s talking about Christian liberty and he says if you, if somebody tells you it’s okay to do that but your conscience says don’t do that, you know that isn't right. The bottom line is, then don’t do it even though it is okay because if you get in the habit of violating your conscience, you’re going to scar something that you desperately need to protect you. It’s like gradually losing your sense of feeling.
Even the heathen have a conscience, but over a long period of time, they can dull that conscience. But I don’t think they can always obliterate it. I think it’s there telling them what is right and what is wrong. And I don’t care if you’re in a primitive society or any other one, you show me a person who has committed a crime, and they may do everything they can to justify that crime, but they’re always looking like this – to see whose coming after them – because they know what’s right and what’s wrong.
Little children are the perfect illustration. Why do you think that even in an ungodly family with an ungodly little kid, that the kid does something wrong and he comes back, his mother says, “Did you do it?” What’s the first thing he does? He lies. "No, I didn't do that. Why, do you ask?" How does the little child know to do that? The answer is quite simple, he lies because he knows whatever he did was what, isn't that true? He knew it was wrong. Even though he may have never done it before. there's something inside of him, called a conscience, that tells him, its wrong. There’s a standard, and you violated it. His conscience tells him that.
The heathen are lost because of creation, conduct, conscience. Fourth, the heathen are lost because of contemplation. Here’s another indicator of the lostness of the heathen. “Their thoughts are in the process of accusing or excusing one another.” In other words, there is in us the capacity to contemplate or to reason and to determine what someone does is right or wrong. For example, a person without God, without Christ, without the Bible hears about someone who has murdered a child. What is his reaction? Unless the person is totally at the extremity of vileness, he’s going to say, “That’s awful.” He’s going to accuse – “We ought to find that person and do something to that person.”
Why do you think we have a punitive system in our society? Why do you think there are punitive systems in every society? Because men know what is right and wrong. They have the capacity in their minds to accuse or excuse. They know that’s all right, we can excuse that, but not this. The heathen do that. People in our society who are Godless, heathen people fight against crime, don’t they? I don’t think everybody who is for the death penalty and capital punishment is a Christian, do you? I think there are some people who just think that somebody ought to do something about the crime because it’s wrong.
I watched a mother who used profanity on the news, I could tell that she wasn’t a Christian, and she said that a man had kidnapped and raped her little girl then he killed her. She told the reporter, "I want that man to give his life for the life of my daughter that he took." Why? Why did she feel that way? Because there is in her the capacity to contemplate right and wrong and to say this is an inexcusable act. There must be justice for what has been done to my daughter. And that’s true of the heathen. Even, they know right from wrong. The excusable from the inexcusable act.
Just to tie it all up: Just remember the four C's. Creation, Conduct, Conscience, Contemplation.
Then, try to remember, what it is they do, then how they each deal with the good and bad in their own life and how they deal with it in the lives of others, indicates that they know the law of God as written in them. Now, this may well be the most important thing I have said yet. And this is the meat of it: If they live up to that much light, and they accept that much light, God will reveal to them the fullness of light that which is Jesus Christ. And I really do believe that.. Do you know why? Because that’s what it says in Acts 17:27, "He did this so they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us." Do you understand this? If they would only take what they have and accept that. John 7:17 , write this down. "If anyone wants to do His will, he will understand whether the teaching is from God or if I am speaking on My own." If the willing heart is there, He will know.
And no, finally, we have arrived at the sixth principle of judgment, I just want to take a moment to mention all six of these again, just in case there is someone who wasn't with us previously. These are very important, to every one of us, in fact, every one, both pagan and Christian alike, those without the law, and those with the law. God judges on the basis of these six principles of judgement: by Knowledge, by Truth, by Guilt, by Deeds, by Impartiality, and sixth, by Motives. There’s another dimension and these all interface and overlap. They’re not as distinct as I’ve made them in the outline, but they are elements of the act of judgment. God will judge on the basis not only of what a man’s deeds are but what his reasons were in doing them. Because you can falsify the deed but you can’t falsify the motive, isn't that true? And so verse 16 says, "on the day when God judges what people have kept secret, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus." Judgment, you see, will finally reach down to earth, deep within the secret place of men, their hearts and will see their motives.
Turn with me to In I Chronicles 28:9, it says, "As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands the intention of every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever." Why? "For the Lord searches every heart and understands the intention of every thought." "Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands the intention of every thought." The Psalmist said, in this marvelous 139th Psalm , "Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up; You understand my thoughts from far away.Before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, Lord.You have encircled me;
You have placed Your hand on me. This extraordinary knowledge is beyond me.
It is lofty; I am unable to reach it.Where can I go to escape Your Spirit?
Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I live at the eastern horizon
or settle at the western limits, even there Your hand will lead me;
Your right hand will hold on to me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me,
and the light around me will be night”— even the darkness is not dark to You.
The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to You."
In other words, there’s nowhere I can go to escape. You know me deep inside. Jeremiah 17:10 puts it this way: I, Yahweh, examine the mind, I test the heart to give to each according to his way,
according to what his actions deserve." Yes, God judges deeds. Yes, He judges ways. And yes, He judges the motive behind them as well. Jesus said three times in Matthew 6:4, "so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." Our inmost secrets may be hidden far from human judgment; they are not hidden from God, and we will be judged for our motives.
In Closing....
You either do what you do for the glory of God or you do it for the glory of man. And it all comes to this, people, it’ll all be determined by this verse, verse 16: "on the day when God judges what people have kept secret, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus." That one day when God judges by Jesus Christ, the final day, the ultimate day, the great white throne when all judgment is committed unto Christ. In that glorious climactic culminating day when the Lord Jesus Christ judges, all these criteria will be put into effect.
"But because of your hardness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed. He will repay each one according to his works."
Romans 2:5-6
God finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked, that’s why Paul says He endures sin with patience. He endures those vessels as if God is distancing Himself from their destruction while being fully engaged in it. God endures this horrible assault on His everlasting holiness. He endures the horrifying blaspheming history of fallen beings; He suffers it, the imposition it is on His purity to display His wrath to the fullest extent, to put Himself on everlasting display.
If you haven’t yet confessed Jesus as Lord and accepted His sacrifice on your behalf and His atonement and His payment for your sin, then you are storing up God's wrath against the day of wrath. There’s going to be a pile that will damn your soul, and don’t think that you will escape it, no one can. We're all going to spend eternity somewhere, have you any idea where you'll be spending yours?
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Brian Monzon Ministries