Everybody can hear me with this one? If I can get this one off of me. There we go. Okay. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see everybody here, and it's good to see new faces, and it's good to see old faces, which is good, and everything. So please, if you would, open your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 2. Okay We'll go ahead and Pray, and then we'll we'll dig in got a lot to cover in a little bit of time So I hope you guys listen really quick So let's go ahead and pray Father we thank you that We can come into your presence always Lord and bring our requests to you We thank you father that we can Come into your presence and sing praises to your name that there is None above you there is none before you when all of time is in your hands what an incredible line and what an incredible attribute that you are from everlasting to everlasting You sit on your throne You do what you please And yet father you send Christ to die for us It's an amazing, amazing thought that should blow us all away. So Father, as we come into your word now, I just pray that you would give us wisdom in it, that you would give me wisdom, Lord, that you would guard my words, that you would help me through this, Lord. I pray you would reveal our hearts. I pray that you would convict us where we need to be convicted. I pray, Father, you would encourage us where we need to be encouraged. And I pray most of all we would see the glory and the beauty and the majesty of Jesus Christ and his death on that cross for us. Father, if there's any in here that isn't saved, give them the gift today to see their sin. Father, give them the gift of faith, the gift to repent and to trust in Christ, that you may be glorified in saving one, Lord, and your angels will rejoice. So I ask this all to your praise and to your glory. Amen. So last week we finished up chapter one of Romans and we see this gospel that Paul talks about in the first 16 verses, 17 verses, and then all of a sudden in 18, he drops a bomb and he gives us the absolute depravity or the heinousness of man. And we all in here would agree that these perversions that he talked about are heinous, this exchanging the glory of God for and the sexual perversions that take place, and then the list of being disobedient to parents, and unrighteous, and uncleanness, and all these, and that the utter depravity comes when We see this all taking place and the unbelief doesn't only give say to it but applauds the very thing that is going on with these perversions. There's not one of us in this room that would not say that is deserving of God's wrath. So Paul now takes a turn. And he says in Romans 2, 1 through 5, he says, therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself, for you who judge practice the same thing. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you presume this, O man, who passes judgment on those who practice such thing and does the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that The kindness of God leads you to repentance, but because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. So Paul now comes to the moralist. He comes to the self-righteous. He comes to the person that says, I'm deserving of heaven because I am good. How many of us have heard that? Well, God's not going to send me to hell because I'm a good person. I do this, I do that, and I do this. And most of all, I'm not like Hitler. Well, here comes the thing. Hitler's not the standard. Because if Hitler is the standard, a lot of us stand in this area of being good. So Paul now comes to the moralist. And this could easily be us. We could be the ones that always do these good things, and we might know people that are in that category of what I just said. So how do we deal with this? Gary Friesen, he brings out the reason of man's sin and he says this, God's existence will not be altered by the percentage of people who believe or disbelieve in him. The issue is man's sin. God's holiness has been violated and the just penalty is God's wrath. So even the good person that does all the good works, who's the most moral person in the world, even that person is under God's judgment because the issue is not whether we are good or bad, it's that man sins. So let's look at the first one, the moralist. The moralist has no excuse. Romans 2.1 says, therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same thing. So there's two problems that we have here with the moralist. One, the moralist doesn't understand the holiness of God. doesn't understand God's perfection, doesn't understand that God cannot look upon sin. And secondly, the moralist, they don't see themselves as they should. They are blind to their own sin. Although we can pick out somebody else's sin. And we can say how bad that person is. But they remain blind to their own sin. Think about the parable that Jesus gives in Luke of the tax collector and the Pharisee. Jesus says this, he also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves, that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing far off, should not even lift up his eyes, or would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to the house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. This is a good example of the one who judges, but yet does the same thing, but is blind to what he sees. You see, the Pharisee judges the tax collector because he's not like him, but yet the tax collector sees himself as a sinner and the Pharisee doesn't. He is blind to his very sin. And yet, Jesus says, the one who is justified is the one who sees his sin and cries out to God. Now, we can see all this go on, but how about David? We all know David, King David. He's this upstanding type of fellow, right, that we can misinterpret a lot. But he goes and he has this affair with Bathsheba. And a year goes by before we get Psalm 51 where we have his repentance. But there's a story that comes to David in this area in 2 Samuel 12. Here's the story. And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said, there were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little lamb, which he had bought, and he brought it up, and it grew up with him with his children. It used to eat his morsels, drink from his cup, and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him. But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. And he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die. And he shall restore the Lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity. Nathaz said to David, you are the man. Thus the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. So he is the man. You see, David was doing the same thing. He was judging one, and yet he was condemning himself because he did the exact same thing. This is the moral person. The moral person can judge and yet continue to do the very same thing. We see Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He raises the bar is what he does. Right? If we take, for example, adultery, we can all look at adultery and say, well, adultery is when a married couple or a spouse of one of the couple has an affair with another that is not their spouse. But Jesus doesn't say that. Jesus says that adultery happens when you look at another man or woman, and you lust for them. That is adultery. See, and I can easily sit here and say the very same thing. Oh, well, I didn't do that. I didn't actually do the physicalness of the adultery, but yet I still lusted in my mind, and I can condemn somebody for doing the very same thing I do. So Jesus in Matthew 7, he says this, judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, when there's a log in your own eye? You hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. It's a great example. Here I am, I'm gonna try to take the speck out of somebody's eye, this little speck, but yet I got this big long M-I. It's the same thing, we're blind. They were blind to their own sin. That's the moralist. Jesus also says this. Then Jesus said to the crowds in Matthew 23, and to his disciples, the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. So do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. How about you and I? Do we do that very same thing? Do you and I preach? Obedience to God, but then we don't do it, but then we condemn somebody for not doing it? Are we the ones who hold somebody to a higher standard than we hold ourselves to? Well, we condemn ourselves in that very thing. This is what Paul is bringing out of the moralist. That's what the moralist does. And he stands without any excuse. Because the very thing he judges condemns him. Because he does the same. like the Pharisees. They preach all this, and yet they don't do it. And Jesus goes on to a big discord where he goes into all the woes, woes to you, scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites. The moralist is the one who is the whitewashed tomb that looks good on the outside, but yet is nothing but dead bones on the inside. They are without excuse. Secondly, we see that God's judgment is right on them. It doesn't matter how good they are. It doesn't matter the good words they say, the good acts they do, how moral they are. I mean, I hear it every day in the barbershop, when are we gonna get somebody moral in the White House? I hear it every day. That person, as moral as they could possibly be, is still under God's judgment because The problem is not the morality, the problem is the sin. That's what we have to see. And God's judgment is right. Listen to what Paul says in Romans 2, 2 and 3. He says, Do you suppose, oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them themselves, that you will escape the judgment of God's? Man's judgment is always off. Our judgment is always off because we are imperfect. But God's judgment is always dead on because he is perfect. He is the judge and his judgment is always right. The psalmist writes this in 9.4, for you have maintained my just cause, you have sat on the throne giving righteous judgments. Again in 9.8 he says, and he judges the world with righteousness. He judges the people with uprightness. God's judgment will be right because he is righteous and he is just. And then in Psalms 145, 17, the Lord is righteous in all his ways, in kind in all his works. This is what we can't grasp of his immenseness is because he is righteous in all his works. And you and I, we are finite and we are unrighteous in mostly all of our works. But he stands above. He is the standard. And even the best person that we see, the best person we know, the person that does the most good works without Christ is still dead in their sins and deserving of God's righteous wrath, no matter how good they are. Isaiah 45, 19 puts it this way. I do not speak in secret in a land of darkness. I do not say to the offspring of Jacob, seek me in vain. I, the Lord, speak the truth. I declare what is right. And I should have read that verse last week, because there's gonna be all kinds of people, when we talked about the perversions that we went through, that are gonna be offended with what the word of God says. But God says, I speak truth. That's what he does. When he talks about the perversions of man in their minds, that is truth. And the argument is not with the messenger, the argument is with the one who wrote the book. He speaks truth. And this is what he's saying, brothers and sisters, that what is true is the one who judges condemns himself. That's what the apostle writes. John MacArthur puts it this way. When the proud moralist judges and condemns others while thinking he himself is acceptable to God, it is only because he is judging by his own perverted perspective, which fallen human nature always skews to its own advantage. But God's perspective and judgments are always perfect. We judge with a unhealthy standard. We judge according to our standards. But when we judge accordingly to God's standard, who is the judge, then we even fall short of this judgment. And the thing is, is God sees it all anyways. He sees the moralist. He sees the moralist's heart. Listen to Hebrews 4.13. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eye of him to whom we must give an account. There's no one that can hide from him. He sees it all. You and I, the believer, the unbeliever, we are all what? Naked before God. We are exposed before God because God looks at the heart, not the outward appearance. This is what he says in Samuel. I gotta go back one page, sorry. In 1 Samuel 16, 17 he says, This is where we want to go. Man looks on the outward appearance. That's what we do. Oh wow, they're dressed real nice. Oh wow, they got a great marriage. Or wow, they got a great single life. You know, oh, they're so godly. We see their, we see the outside of them, right? But here's what God says. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. You see, we can deceive all the time, but we can never deceive God because God looks at the heart. We can act as godly as we possibly can be. We can quote all the scriptures. We can read the Bible once a year. We can come to church every Sunday, go to every Sunday school. Whenever we talk with people, we can give them all the Christianese. Oh, Christ propitiated my sin. We can do all of that. And yet our heart can be as dark, as dark, as dark, because God sees the heart. But when we see a person like that, we'd be like, oh, listen to that person. That's the moralist. That's the self-righteous person. That's the Pharisee, brothers and sisters. That's what the Pharisees did. All for man's praise. But God says what? You are the cup that is clean on the outside, but you're dirty on the inside. This is a moralist. This is a self-righteous person. Not only that, but the moralist is in contempt of who God is. Listen to Romans 2.4, or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? And knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. This word presume means disesteem. It means to despise, to think lightly of, to think down on. Think of that word now, or do you think down on the riches of God? Do you think down on the kindness and his forbearance and his patience? That's what the moralist does. The moralist looks down on the riches of God. Think about it, brothers and sisters. We are saved people. We have been brought from life, or we've been brought from death to life. We are recipients of the riches of God. Think of the riches of His grace in Ephesians 1, 7. In Him, this is Christ, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. Do you look down upon that? The moralist does, despises the riches of God's grace in the redemption of Jesus Christ in 2.7, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. This is what we are recipients of. How about the riches of His glorious inheritance, this inheritance that you and I will inherit? Do we look down upon it? Do we despise it? Do we disesteem it? In Ephesians 1, 8, having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you. What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints? or how he provides for us, his riches in glory in Philippians 4.19, and my God will supply every need of yours. Notice he says, my God will supply every need of yours. It doesn't say God will provide every want. of yours, but he will provide every need of yours according to what? His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. This is what we have as believers, but the moralist looks at all of this and he presumes on it. He looks down on the riches of God's grace. He looks at the cross and he says, I don't need the cross. All I need is my goodness. My good acts. They look down on the kindness of God, God's common grace, his goodness. Every person born experiences God's goodness, his kindness. Listen to Matthew 545. So that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. This is God's common grace. It rains on the righteous and it rains on the unrighteous. The sun shines on the righteous and on the unrighteous. His common grace. In Acts 14, 15 through 17, Luke writes this. Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men or like nature with you and we bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heavens and the earth and the seas and all that is in them. In past generations, he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your heart with food and gladness. The grocery stores, Costco, yep, God's common grace. Right? This is food. We go to Costco and we get food. It's God's common grace. Not everybody in Costco is a believer only. So this is what we see. His hand gives us fruit in season. But the moralist doesn't see it that way. The moralist, it's all his good work. It's the job I got, the money I made. That's why I go and buy groceries. And fails to see that all of this that is happening is God, with his kindness, moving them to repent and they don't do it. They look down on his forbearance or this tolerance, this forbearance is to hold back. Romans 3.25 talks about this holding back. He says, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. He held back that wrath. and not only look down on his forbearance, but they look down on his patience. God's patience, this is his long-suffering. His long-suffering. A couple of examples. Listen to Romans 9, 22. What if God, desiring to show his wrath, to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? We'll get to that, and we'll go into that a lot deeper. But this is the thing, with his patience, With his long-suffering, he endures the vessels that have been prepared before time for destruction. This is what he does, his patience. Christ displays his patience in Paul. Paul saw this when he says in 1 Timothy 1.15, that saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me as a foremost, Jesus Christ might display the perfect patience as an example to those who are to believe in him for eternal life. Think of the patience that God has had with you and I. The long suffering he's had with you and I. Right? Do we have that same kind of long suffering with each other? Or are we quickly discounting each other? Oh, they're done. They said this, they said that. Under the bridge. Is that how we act towards people? Do we do that towards family members? Do we do that towards friends? Do we do that towards each other? Think about the patience that God had in the time of Noah. Think about that. I mean, hundreds of years it took Noah to build the ark, right? And during this time, Genesis 6 tells us that every thought of man was continually wicked. And this looking down on, It's a continual action that the moralist does. It's not a one-time thing. They continually look down on God's goodness. But in Noah's time, listen to 1 Peter 3. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. In which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they firmly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight, persons were brought safely through the water. His patience, only eight people survived. And that was his grace. Because you wanna know what Noah, Noah sinned. His sons sinned. His sons' wives sinned. But it was God's grace and it was God's choosing of Noah and his family. But during the ark being built, he was patient. Why was he patient? Why was he kind? Why was he tolerant? Because God desires all men to be saved. This is what 1 Timothy tells us. This is good and is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now do we know will all people be saved? No, not all people will be saved. but it doesn't mean that God doesn't desire this. This is His long-suffering. He's patient because He desires all men to be saved. 2 Peter 3, 9, The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness. His return, Jesus' return, has it been slow? No, this is what Peter's saying. It's not slow, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any of you should perish, but that all should reach repentance. If you sit here as an unbeliever in this room, and you do not know Jesus, this verse is for you. Christ has not came back yet, because God is patient. Because He desires for you to be saved. He desires for you to come to repentance. He desires for you to see Christ's death on the cross. Because when Christ returns, there's no second chance. You will be doomed. And you will be judged righteously by a righteous God. Fourth, and our last point, the moralist is hard-hearted. They've trusted in their goodness so much. They've looked down on God's goodness and his kindness and his forbearance and his patience so much. They've become hard-hearted. It's all about them. Look at Romans 2, 5. But because of your hard and impotent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. What powerful words. We have to see these as powerful words. But because of your stubbornness, we all understand stubbornness. We all are stubborn. We all dig our feet in, don't we? We all understand what it's like to be stubborn. And this is what Paul is saying. Because you are stubborn and you are unrepentant, and you refuse to come to Christ, and you've heard the gospel over and over and over again, you are storing up wrath for yourself. And on that day, God's righteous judgment will be revealed. This is to the person that says, I'm good, I don't need Jesus. I'll trust in my own works. This is the self-righteous Pharisee. And this could easily be the self-righteous Christian that is trusting in his works of righteousness more than he is trusting in Christ. They are hard-hearted. This word hard means stubbornness. Impenitent is unrepentance. Together they show a hardness of heart that we have. In Ezekiel, 36, Ezekiel writes this, and God says this to Ezekiel, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. This is the hardness of a heart that needs to be removed, and God is the only one that can do it. God's the only one that can take the hard-hearted moralist and change him into a new heart that loves him. He needs a new heart, Matthew 19, 18. He said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it was not so. We see that in the beginning it was Adam and Eve, and they were married together, and that's how it was always supposed to be. But because of the hardness of man's heart, Moses gave him a certificate of divorce. In Mark 3, 5, and he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. This is the Pharisees that he's talking about, the religious leaders. And he sees them with anger, Jesus does, and he's grieved at the hardness of their heart. And he said to the man, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees, they were not joyful of what Jesus was doing, but they were hardened in their hearts. Mark, again in 6, 49 through 52 says this, but when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost. This is the disciples. They thought it was a ghost and cried out. For they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, take heart, it is I, do not be afraid. And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased, and they were utterly astounded. For they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. So even the apostles or the disciples at that time, their hearts were hardened. Now even as us as believers, we are not to have a hardness of heart. Hebrews 3 says this, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day. in the testing, in the wilderness, as the Israelites did. In Hebrews 4, 7, again, as he appoints a certain day today, saying through David so long afterwards, in the words already quoted today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. The same call goes out as an unbeliever. Today, if you hear God, if He is pulling on your heart strings to come to Him, don't harden your heart. But maybe you sit here as an unbeliever and your heart is already hardened that you have absolutely no sensation of the Holy Spirit drawing you to Christ. You have grieved the Holy Spirit so much. You have quenched the Holy Spirit so much that your heart is so hard that you don't even see the preciousness of Jesus Christ in the gospel. They're storing up wrath and here comes the wrath. In 2 Corinthians 5.10, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. This is all of us, brothers and sisters. We all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. In Revelations 20.11 and 12, it says, and I saw a great white throne, and him who seated on it. From his presence, earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. Books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. Everyone will be judged. All of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Fallen angels, are being held till that day. In Jude 6, and the angels who did not stay within their own position or authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal change under gloomy darkness until the judgment of that great day. You see, what the wrath of God is going to be on that day is hell. That is the wrath of God that is coming. It is hell. And if you are an unbeliever, that is where you will go. Because you've hardened your heart. If you are a moralist, if you are self-righteous in any way, and you are trusting in anything but Jesus Christ and his perfect work on the cross, you will go to hell. Now, to the believers this morning, may we be ever so aware of our own sin. May you and I not be those who preach but do not practice, but may we be those who preach but do practice. May we truly understand the wrath that we have been delivered from. This is the wrath that Jesus took. If you're here a believer, Jesus took your hell on the cross. That's what he took. Your eternity in hell. For you, in spite of you. Because there's no one that does good, there's no one's righteous, as Martin read earlier today. This is the believer, this is what Christ has done. May you and I praise God today for his riches towards us in Christ. May we praise him for his kindness, his forbearance, and his patience that led us to repentance. That he has given us the gift of faith to repent. Now to you who sit here as an unbeliever, Trusting in your morality in your works done in righteousness. You will not escape the judgment of God You will not escape it. There was many Jews that they believed that they would escape it because they were just Jews. I This was what was written. They believed that they would not come under God's condemnation because they were Jews. The only way of escape is through Jesus Christ, dear unbeliever, you who have unbelief today. That is your only way of escape. You cannot escape the wrath of God. It will chase you down, and you cannot escape it. The only escape is Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. I pray that God would grant you today the faith to repent of your sin and give you a heart and trust in the perfect work of Christ on the cross. If you choose not to believe the gospel, if you choose to keep a hardened heart, and you choose to trust in your morality, then these words are for you. If you refuse Christ, be sure that you have a real good excuse thought up because it's the excuse you will give when you stand before God on judgment day. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word. Lord, I pray that your word would sink deep into our hearts, Father, and as believers, we would be trusting Christ even more, that we would see what we've been saved from. Lord, help none of us to trust in our morality. But Father, help us to be obedient to your moral law, because you have saved us, not to be saved. And Father, again, I pray if there's anyone in here that is not a believer, that Lord, you would draw them to you, that they would see your mercy, your grace, your compassion in Christ on the cross. Father, that they would open, you would open their eyes and their ears and their hearts to see the beauty of the King and His sacrifice. Oh, Father, do this for Your glory, in Your name, amen.