Turn with me if you would this morning to Romans chapter 2, we'll be reading verses 5 through verse 10. But after thy hardness and impotent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds, to them who by patience, continuance, and well-doing seek for glory, and honor, and immortality, and eternal life. But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteous indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish. Unto every soul of man that doeth evil, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. But glory, honor, and peace to every man that works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." Lord, we do thank You for Your goodness to us, Your mercy to us. that you are the God who saves us. It is the merit of Christ that we plea. And so help us, Lord, to live before doing the works that you commissioned us to do, because you have commanded us, ordained us, and now you've saved us. In Jesus' name, Amen. As we look at our scripture this morning, remember that again, Paul's been telling us about the differences in men, the pagans, we would say, evil, evil, the wickedness, and how low it will go in chapter 1. That's the first one he starts with, and now from that point on to the other side we get to the Jews, and particularly the scribes and the Pharisees, I believe he's talking about. We're talking about what we would call a moralist. These people who think they are good, and they judge other people, and yet they do the same things. And they go on and on, and I would say both sides go on and on, and they want to say, where is the time of His judgment? Where is it? And they believe that they are immune from judgment because of their local or in-time successes. The writer Psalm puts it this way, they go about their life and they think that nothing's gonna happen because they say, God does not see. And so they keep on going. They believe that their time is long and the day of wrath will not come. They've wrongfully interpreted what God has written in his word. And the fact that he does not judge them, there is a reason. God. And so now as we come to verse 5 this morning, he s picking up where we left off last week. Now, remember he left there with, It s the long-suffering of God for the elect is the reason that they are not judged at this point, okay? But now in verse 5 he says, but now he's going back to the wicked, he says, but after thy hardness and impotent heart treasurest thou unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath. Now he's going back and he's talking, now what about these wicked men? Why is it that they're not judged and they believe that somehow they're going to skip judgment? He says, what is continued, their hearts or minds are fallen. They are enemies of God. They are the seed of the serpent, which God says he put enmity, hatred between the two seeds, the seed of the woman, the seed of the serpent. But God just stopped and wiped them out right now. It's because of his long suffering toward the elect. And so now he says to them, but after thy hardness and impenitent heart, There's two things that keep them going, as it were, and getting deeper and deeper in the wrath of God. That is, they have hardness of heart and they are impenitent. See, God says they're hard. Remember, we see that God has hardened Phaeso's heart. And we see that in Romans chapter one, remember, their hearts are hardened. How does God harden someone's heart? Basically, he just lets them go and do what they're going to do. Remember when he sent Moses into Pharaoh? He didn't do a thing. It says, I will harden Pharaoh's heart. Now, how did he do that? All he did was send Aaron, who was Moses' spokesman, said to Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Jehovah our God, the God of Israel, has said, let my people go. That's all he had to do. And Pharaoh shot up off of his throne. And so we see this is how God does he just lets them go in their sin and in their hardness of heart They will not look at themselves in the light of God's Word But they go on and daily they are hard and we see this again this idea of heart. There's a natural hardness It's like calluses They start hardening and as you do more work and you use them more, the calluses become stiffer and harder and again tougher. This is how sin works. God again lets them go. He gives them over, as we see in chapter 1, to a reprobate mind. He lets them go. Their sin becomes, a man loves his sin, therefore he continues to sin. And so he becomes so hardened, he will not. And then we see the second part is a judicial hardening. That's when he really just gives them over. It's judicial in the sense his punishment, the man's punishment and his hardness becomes the sin that he loves. God lets him go on and lets it take its course and He gives him that sin to be that which is again given over to becomes his judicial punishment here. The homosexual who will not give up his sinful life. He gets AIDS. He gets all the problems that go with being homosexual and God just lets him go. See? God gives over a drunkard to his drunkenness. That's punishment in itself. God gives them over. And so there's that aspect of judicial hardness. But then he says he's impenitent. That means he will not nor can he come to God in repentance. That's the hardness of the heart. Those two things go together. The heart becomes the instrument again by which God's good man's guided. And he says he has an impenitent heart. It's the heart that Christ speaks about is at the center of all things, a good heart or a bad heart. And so he says now his heart again cannot repent because it's like clay that's been in the kill and it's hard as a rock. it cannot be changed it cannot be molded or remolded it is hardened and so now we see that but now notice he said it's this heart he says that treasures up the wrath of god this idea of treasure here it's in the present indicative which means it's a continuously treasuring up in the heart he's collecting Whatever's out there that is sinful, he's like a miser. You know, we know people who are miser. They just collect everything they can. They got it, they just throw it in their room. They keep building it up and building it up. One man puts it as, it's like a miser who likes and has a fetish for rattlesnakes. And he keeps rattlesnakes eggs and always is hatching them out. And one of these eggs is gonna hatch out and it's gonna kill him. See he's like a man sharpening his sword and that sword is going to be his death. See he's preparing himself for the day of wrath for judgment upon him and again on that day and it's for himself he says unto thyself you are continuously treasuring up the wrath of God unto thyself you're sharpening that sword for yourself And so he says, until the day of wrath. And then that day of wrath that Paul is speaking of here, this day of wrath is the final judgment. Paul's gone through the gross sins of the pagans. He's talking about the Jews and their moralism. But he says, it all comes down to this. They're BOTH Jew, Gentile, moralist, pagan in the worst sense. They're all treasuring up and adding to their TREASURES, as it were, like a treasure chest. It's like money in the bank that's securing interest every day, and it's FOR, and WAITING TO, the DAY OF JUDGMENT. And so Paul tells us, it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment. The psalms, God judges the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day. It says in the psalms also, God hates the wicked. And so we see God is always warning them, but he allows them in their, in their sinfulness to go on. And David warns us, he says, fret not thyself of evil workers. He'll soon be cut off. No one escapes the judgment of God and says it said to the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. The word revelation means again to be seen revealed on that day. It will be revealed to them. It's coming. They may think they are immune to it, that God�s forgotten them, He�s not watching, and He really doesn�t care that much about it anyhow, and they�re going to get away with it. But He says, �No, they�re not.� The REVELATION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, JUDGMENT OF GOD. All through the Scripture, we see the judgment of God as it comes. And as we come to verse 6. talking about God, who, that is, God who will render to every man ACCORDING to his deeds. Now, that make you, if you re a Christian, you might think, Well, I THOUGHT scripture says you can t work enough to be saved. Salvation is NOT of works. See, Well, what does it mean then that every man will be judged for their DEEDS? And as we look at Scripture again in that last day, we will be judged by our DEEDS. And let s get back to the Scripture so we don t get worked up. We re not saved by what goodness that we do. But like all men, I think our WORKS will come before us, and God will judge us according to our WORKS. And so it says, He will RENDER TO EVERY MAN that is Jew and Gentile, from Adam all the way and all of his children, apart from Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ Himself did suffer in our behalf. He was not a son of Adam. He was a son of God. He took upon Him flesh from His mother Mary. He was born of the woman, the virgin. That's how He got His humanity. Truly man, but also God. And so now Christ, it says again, according to His deeds. Now notice, what does Paul tell us in chapter 6, verse 23? The wages of sin is death. Every man, especially in those days, understood what wages. You work, you labor, and then at the end of the day in his time, at the end of the day you would be paid for your wages, how much you d worked that day, according to your wages would be according to how much you had worked. And so as Paul uses that illustration, and Christ, Himself, kind of reminds us of it in chapter 16 of Matthew, He says, For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of the Father, with His angels, and He shall reward every man according to his works." There it is again, a WORKS. For me, when I read that, I get chill bumps. I'm not supposed to be judged because of my WORKS. I'm a man. Not only has Christ died for me, but yet I still sin. Now, God tells me when we have a righteous Savior and an advocate, one who again takes our position And again, He takes our place and He forgives us of our sins. We are to continuously be confessing our sins because He's continuously cleansing us from all unrighteousness. And so, He says in verse 5, He says, And He shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. There's that good and evil again. They'd have done good, they'd have done evil. How can we be saved by deeds and works? Or what part do they play in our salvation? As we look again in John 5, especially John says there are two resurrections. The first resurrection is when the elect are made alive and come forth as new creatures in Christ Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of God's Word applied to them. They're made alive to believe the things of God. It's because they're made alive they can believe and they understand, and they will believe those things and accept them. The second resurrection, he says, is the final resurrection. When men, both the good and the evil, come together, we all receive an immortal body. But THEY will have a CORRUPTABLE BODY, we will have an INCORRUPTABLE BODY. They will be able to SUFFER the PAINS of HELL without DYING, forever and ever. OK, we see these two things together now. Now, what is Paul saying here to us as he says we are going to be judged on our DEEDS? Now, first of all, when we look at it, we see the UNBELIEVER, that is the APOSTATES and the MORALIST, from whatever LINES they come, Gentile, Jew, EVERYBODY, The UNBELIEVERS will be CONDEMNED ON MERIT! That�s a word we don�t like today. Christians ought to, if you�re an owner of a business, that�s what you want to hire people for, on their merit, what can they DO? What do they show me that they can DO to help my business grow, and they�ll be rewarded because of their merit, their goodness in the work. See, we have people today in the government who have absolutely NOTHING TO OFFER! NOTHING TO OFFER! One of the leaders in the UN, is head of military services and he's a musician he's never been in the military one day in his life he's never done anything that says he has something to offer to help this in this office we have this all over the government how many members how many people in our congresses have any merits to their job they know somebody They got along with somebody, they paid a bribe, they did this. Some OTHER REASON OTHER THAN THEIR ABILITIES ARE REWARDED. God says that�s not the way judgment goes. YOU WILL BE REWARDED ACCORDING TO YOUR MERIT. The WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. There�s your merit. You�ve WORKED, and now I�m going to pay you according to your WORK. And so again, as we look at the BELIEVERS and the UNBELIEVERS, the UNBELIEVER will be judged on his MERITS, a MERITOCRACY. It used to be that the United States was a meritocracy. Most people did what they did because of their ABILITY. But now again, he says now, he WORKS, and his WORK, again, is the EVIDENCE AND GROUND of his CONDEMNATION. His WORK is the MERIT, is the EVIDENCE and the GROUND, the CAUSE of His JUDGMENT, His CONDEMNATION. Now, when we come to the BELIEVERS, we see a little bit difference. We are STILL judged on our MERITS. Let's go through it and just look at it now. In the final day, our GOOD WORKS will be the evidence of true faith in Christ. Catch what I said, your good works. Now, do you have good works? We know in Scripture we do, but the point is, we�re making here now, God will judge us on the EVIDENCE of our good works. God tells us that as Christians we have certain things He tells us we ought to do and be. Those are the good works. Paul tells us in Ephesians, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath foreordained that we should walk in them. God says, You've been CALLED, you've been SAVED by the work of Christ. Now, in that final day He will say, and look at us, and He says, Your works, What do they show? Do they evidence that you are the child of God and you're a saved man and you're mine? Now, how does that work out as we look at it? First of all, again, we see within the context of the Christian, first of all, Christ is the grounds and the cause of our salvation. and He�s the CAUSE of our ACCEPTANCE before God. So now, again, because we are His children, we want to be like our Father. There�s again the idea of good works. But OUR good works is not the CAUSE of our salvation, it�s the EVIDENCE of our salvation. Our good works are like fruit on the tree. If you go down drive over the toward Pikeville there's a man over there he's got these two big giant pear trees and every year they're just loaded. Those pears have nothing to do with the life of the tree. They show forth and give evidence that that is a good pear tree. The fruit is the evidence that it's a good tree. See, Christ says a good tree gives forth good fruit, and a bad or evil tree gives forth bad fruit. And so again we see this is the idea of the works for those who know Christ. We walk in Him. We also again, the believer, the believer is acquitted purely and only for the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. He saves us HE SAVES US FROM HIS GOOD WORKS! HE'S OUR SAVIOR! He's the one who, again, is the one who has TAKEN OUR PLACE and BECOME OUR SACRIFICE and has ACCOUNTED US AS RIGHTEOUS AS HE IS, HAVING KEPT THE LAW OF GOD, THE FATHER'S DEMANDS, ACCORDING TO THAT LAW! This is it! God sees US in Christ Jesus. We, if we just stood on our works, we would be unbelievers. But we have merited good works because Christ has cleansed us from all unrighteousness. He's made us new creatures in Christ Jesus. He's renewed the image of God in us. And now, as weak as the good works that we have because we are His, because we have been made new in Him, He has kept the law for us and accounted us as having kept the law. That's justification by faith alone. He has taken our penalty of sin, which was against every man who's ever lived. That's what will be judged for the wicked, and they will suffer under eternal punishment that we were under. But Christ took our place as a man. He took and he kept the law of God, every jot and every tittle of the law. He's perfect lamb, just like the priest would declare a lamb. He has no spot or no blemish. He can be sacrificed in the place of the sinner. Christ was the Lamb of God, the only Lamb of God able to truly save, and He was declared that day before Herod as God's spokesman and representative as of the judicial punishment in God's court and he was declared without spot and without blemish and then the Jews and the Romans took him and crucified him the innocent for the guilty but he was dying as a lamb our sacrifice in our place he took our sin which was again worthy of eternal damnation upon himself and because of his value He didn't have to take hell and stay in hell forever and ever. No, He is the Son of God clearly, perfectly, and in value, worth, worth more than a million worlds like ours. And so He could again declare, when He rose from the dead, He was declaring we were just with Him. And so again, we see this works out. And again, we are acquitted in Christ. And so again, He is our sacrifice. But now, as we look at it, what is the PURPOSE? What is the PURPOSE of God s Judgment? Now, it s two-fold. First of all, His punishment is on the wicked. They are the ones who have revolted, they are unrepentant, they are hardened, they are at war with God, they hate God, they will continue to hate God throughout eternity. but they will be separated from God, and that's part of what hell is, separation from God forever and ever, with a bunch of other people who are just like you, haters of God, therefore they're haters of one another. And so now, notice that he tells us when he talks about the purpose of the wicked. Again, in God's dealing with, why did God even allow sin? Jonathan Edwards says again, basically God allowed sin to come in, and again, He ordained sin would be here, why? Because God is righteous, and how would He manifest righteousness apart from sin? See, righteousness was just like all the other attributes of God that shine forth in brightness of His glory. And therefore God allows sin to come in, that His righteousness may shine. And in His righteousness, He judges the sinner for his sin. And in righteousness, He judges His Son for us, His elect who were sinners. So again, as we see this, He says, But unto them that are contentious, and they will be contentious in hell with one another, too. They are contentious with God. and do not obey the truth, but unrighteousness. Indignation and wrath, that�s how they look at God. That�s what God also will judge them with, His indignation and wrath. Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man. that does evil to the Jew first and also to the Greek. See, Paul keeps telling us, and he's telling these Gentiles, remember, when he gets to Philippi, and those Gentiles, they start scratching their... Now, why doesn't God give us Abraham? Why don't we have his word? Paul says, you do have Abraham. If you are a child of God, you're a child of Abraham. If you believe God by faith, you're a son of Abraham, you're a daughter of Abraham. As Isaac was, you are. Isaac WAS the promise of God, given again to Abraham. He was the promised one, the promised son. We are promised. We were given as a promise to Christ before the foundation of the world as His elect. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world just like God gave to Isaac and named him before he was ever born. He promised Abraham a son. God promised to His son a people of His own. There you go. That's the point that He's making here. We are His people. And also, when it comes to us, so we're talking about the long-suffering of God, and what about us? "...to them who by patience, continuance, and well-doing seek for glory..." That's not our glory. We seek to be those who are pouring out glory to God. Our chief end is to GLORIFY God and enjoy Him forever. That�s what we WANT to do. We�ve been made instruments to do that. WE will glorify Him in Heaven by His side. The devil and his angels and the wicked will glorify God�s justice ETERNALLY before God�s face while they are in HELL, separated from God. So we use our glory and honor immortality eternal life that's what immortality we are living a life but it's not like the lives of the unbelievers they have new bodies they will not die but they are in pain and anguish and the torments of hell forever and ever and ever But we look for immortality, eternal life. They have eternal death, which means they are separated from God, not that their body ceases to be in understanding again. No, we have eternal life. But glory, honor, peace to every man that works good to every Jew and then every Gentile. No difference. One, we are the Israel of God. That is the church of God today. We are the Israel of God. We are the tame olive branch that brings forth fruit, good fruit. Israel was cut out of the good tree. Well, we were cut off out of the evil tree or the bad tree and engrafted into the good tree. The point is, again, we have everything because of Christ. And as we look again, one last moment, The wicked cannot escape the day of wrath. Why God allows them to exist is because God is letting them go on in their sinfulness. All sinners are hardened to God. God has generally given them up, except for the elect, and because of the elect, sometimes God allows sin to be held under, even though the wicked are not as bad as they could be. Remember, God says, We KNOW when things are bad, and God is about to judge when He gives up a city, a town, a nation to DO ITS WILL, and He gives them up to their sin. He gives them over to a reprobate mind to do ALL the things that they want to do. But at the same time, He does not judge them because of the righteous. He has His elect. Remember, God has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. He has appointed the day when He will return. He's appointed it that day. The last elect person will be saved before that comes. And until that comes, he will not cut it short, as we said last week, because then those on the other side of the timeline, if they were elected and were not already called, would be lost. So in his allowing time to go on, he's giving opportunity and time for the appointed time of the last elect to come. Then he will make his point come forward. And then all this time that these people have thought, well, I've got it good. God's not gonna judge me. I'm not such a bad person after all. He doesn't see. They will see. The revelation of God's judgment will come upon them. And they will understand clearly what is next. They will know there is no more time. because God's long-suffering toward His elect has allowed them to enjoy the blessings of God. As Christ says, He allows His Son to shine upon the good and the evil, His reigns to come down upon the bad and the good. But it's because of the good ones, that is, those whom Christ has saved by His Word and made good in His Son. And our goodness is as Isaiah says, are filthy rags, really. But God receives them because He's made us His children. And the weaknesses that we have, He overlooks and sees the good that He's produced in us as evidences that we belong. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for Your goodness to us. Thank You for the blessings we have in Christ. In Jesus' name, Amen.