Zeal without Knowledge

So let's begin with a word of prayer.

Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be in your house. We thank you for the ability to open up a written copy of your Word and to do so freely. One that has been translated into a language that we can understand and that we can look at and be able to see what it is that you have preserved for us.

And Lord, as we continue now with our study of Romans, we pray that you would keep us ever mindful that we are not reading simply the words of men, but that we are reading the words that you have inspired, that you have superintended, that you have overseen for us to ensure that we would know your will by knowing your Word.

Your Word is the lamp unto our feet and the light unto our path, and I pray as we study tonight that you would give us fresh eyes to see what your Word has to say, fresh ears to hear, and Lord God, that in all things that we do, we would glorify you.

In Jesus' name we pray, and for his sake, Father God, keep me from error as I teach in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Romans as a Systematic Theology and a Review of Chapters 1–9

As I said, we are back tonight in our ongoing study of the book of Romans. We have gone over, I guess it's been two or three years that we've been studying the book of Romans, and that's what's gotten us to this point, to get us to chapter 10.

In fact, I remember when I first decided to do Romans, and I did Romans and Hebrews together, which some people said was kind of a fool's errand because both of the books are so intense theologically, and to do one on Sunday morning and one on Wednesday night was going to be very tough, and I must admit, they were correct.

Studying for both has been tough, however, by taking the summers off to do the various things that we've done, that sort of helped, and every once in a while on Sunday morning like this coming Sunday morning I'll deviate from Hebrews a little bit, and that will help me maintain my studious sanity as to not always be submersed in the depth of theology which is found in both Hebrews and Romans, because that's what we see really in the New Testament.

You know, we could kind of go over each of the New Testament books, and each of the New For instance, if you look at the Gospel of John, you would say there's wonderful examples of the deity of Christ and who Christ is, and really if you just wanted to know what Christianity is all about in the sense of who Jesus is, what he came to do, and just the principle foundation of our belief, the Gospel of John really is beautiful, and if you look at something like Luke and Acts, you have a historian's point of view of what happened, and you look at something like Matthew, and you have a very Jewish, not to say Judaistic, but Jewish view of Christ and who Christ was.

I mean, all of the New Testament books provide for us these different insights into who Christ is and what he has done, and then we come to the book of Romans, and like I said, in Hebrews, and we find these two really what are just two great works of theology, and as I said, Romans is just one of the most profound theological works in the New Testament.

It is the closest thing that we have to a systematic theology textbook. We were not given by God a textbook of systematic theology. We were given scripture, which includes for us narrative and historical situations and all these things which we have to interpret, but Romans is written for us very much like a systematic theology.

So before we began with chapter 10 tonight, what I wanted to do, since I know it's been a few months since we've looked at it together, I just want to go through each chapter and just sort of just remind us what we've learned so far.

So if we're looking down each one, if you think about chapter one, Romans chapter one, you have Paul's introduction and then his thesis statement, which is about the gospel. He says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God and the salvation for all who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

If you think about it, that is his thesis statement for the entire book, because he includes I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God and the salvation for all who believe, which includes the Jew and the Greek.

And if you broke that down and just really separated it all, you'll see that he really outlines that's an outline for the book because he focuses on the Jew and the Greek. He focuses on how salvation is through the gospel and belief in Christ alone.

And he focuses on the power of that saving faith. So really, that's that's the thesis. So what we have in the first is his thesis statement in regard to the gospel. That's what chapter one is about. But it also has the first instance after the thesis in chapter one is the revelation of man's sin, because he begins in Romans chapter one to tell us that the the wrath of God is being poured out against all unholiness and unrighteousness of men, ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

And he begins to expound what that is and expound what unrighteousness is. And he tells us about man's sin in chapter one. And then in chapter two, he tells us that even the people who have the law are still sinful.

Who would they be? That would be the Jews. Right. So in chapter two, he really focuses on Jewish sin. If you if you want, I'm really I'm just doing a brief overview. I mean, we could go back and look at all these.

But in chapter one, he's focusing on the pagans sin. And then chapter two, he's focusing on Jewish sin. And then chapter three, he begins with that that marvelous passage where he says what he says that about Jews and Greeks are both under sin, for there is none righteous.

No, not one. There is none who seeks after God. There is none who doeth good, not even one. So really, chapter three is all are condemned. That's what we get in chapter three is all are condemned. And then in chapter four, what do we begin to learn in chapter four?

He begins to explain to us the doctrine of justification. If if all are condemned, Jews and Gentiles are both sinners, which that includes the whole world. If everyone is a sinner, all are condemned. How are they made right with God?

Well, in chapter at the end of chapter three and the beginning of chapter four and all throughout chapter four, he tells us about justification. He tells us about justification. And then it goes on into chapter five.

He continues the justification. But in chapter five, he begins to give us historical context, because in chapter five, he begins to tell us about how Adam brought sin into the world through one man. Romans 512, through one man, sin entered the world and death through sin and death spread to all men because all men sinned.

Right. So we understand he begins to give us a historical context as to why everyone is a sinner and why through one man all have been condemned and through one man all will.

Be saved.

He shows there's only one way that all have been made sinners. And that's through Adam. And there's only one way all will be made righteous, and that's through Christ. So that's the historical context that he gives us in Romans five.

In Romans six, he begins to talk about the doctrine of sanctification. Now, justification is how we are made right with God by the virtue of the work of Christ. Sanctification is how we are conformed to the image of Christ.

Right, by the work of the Holy Spirit, that's right. So justification, Christ died for me so that I would be justified before God and then sanctification because Christ died for me. And now the Holy Spirit is inside of me.

I have been given the power to live for God. In the image of Jesus Christ, so sanctification is chapter six, sanctification actually goes from chapter six all the way to chapter eight, if you were making an outline, you could say it goes from chapter six to chapter eight.

There is an entire thesis on the subject of sanctification. So that gets us to Romans chapter eight from Romans one to Romans eight. This is a broad overview, but this is what the book is about. Now we get to Romans chapter nine, Romans chapter nine.

Paul begins to focus on a new subject and actually the subject will go from nine to eleven from Romans chapter nine through chapter 10 and into chapter 11. Paul will focus on this question, has God abandoned Israel?

Question, that's the focus of Paul in Romans chapter nine, 10 and 11. We know this because at the beginning of chapter nine is when he begins asking that question. He begins asking that he says, he says, what about the fact that most of Israel doesn't believe in Christ?

Does this mean that God has abandoned Israel? And what is Paul's answer to that? He says, no, he says, because first of all, look at me. I am a Jew. I believe in Jesus Christ. And as such, it's proof positive there that he hasn't abandoned all Israel, but that there is a remnant in Israel.

There is a people within the nation of Israel that God is going to save, just like there's a remnant within the Gentiles. So the question, chapter nine, has God abandoned Israel? And Paul goes and he says, certainly not.

What we have to remember, what does he teach us in Romans nine? That salvation election is never based on nationality. Election is based on God's choice. And God has chosen to expand the gospel from the people of Israel to the whole world.

God has chosen to go from focusing his attention just on the Israelites, which is what we see throughout the Old Testament. If you think about it, God started with his attention on Noah. Well, actually, you could go back to Adam, but from Adam there was Seth and then from Seth down the line came Noah.

And then from Noah's family came Abraham. Right. And Abraham was the focus of Genesis. And then Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jacob's 12 sons. Out of them came a nation. And where was God's focus in the Old Testament is on bringing the blessings to that nation and rising up a people to glorify himself and to demonstrate his holiness, goodness, graciousness and love through the nation of Israel.

Then when the New Testament time comes, when Christ comes, the promise that has been given to the nation of Israel, this promise of election is now expanded to include people of every tribe, every tongue, every nation.

It's no longer just within the nation of Israel. It's now gone out into the whole world, which is why Jesus is go, therefore, into all the world and preach the gospel to every nation, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit.

So we see the expansion of the gospel in the New Testament. But Paul still has to deal with the question, what does that mean?

He's abandoned Israel?

And the answer, of course, is no. So that's where we are in chapter nine. And at the end of chapter nine, we read these words. If you want to open up your Bibles to Romans chapter nine and verse 30. This is the context leading into chapter 10, Romans chapter nine and verse 30 says, what shall we say then that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it?

That is a righteousness that is by faith, but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works, they have stumbled over the stumbling stone as it is written, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone stumbling and a rock of offense.

And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. Paul is expounding on the idea that Israel has failed to see Christ as their Messiah. They have failed to understand the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone.

And instead, they have tried to replace the doctrine of salvation by faith alone with a doctrine of works righteousness, which is what we saw throughout Jesus's work. We saw these people who were very much workers for their salvation, but were not genuinely righteous.

The Pharisees, I mean, they did all kinds of good things in the sense of they kept the law to a T as best they could. But yet they were still not righteous. So that's kind of what he's talking about here in Romans 9, 30 to 33.

He says you've got Gentiles who haven't even pursued righteousness, but they've attained it because they believed in Christ and believing in Christ is what gives real righteousness. Then you have a group of people over here who've tried to get righteousness by works and they haven't attained it because they haven't gone the right avenue.

They've got they've tried to get it by what they did rather than believing in Christ. So that's how Romans 9 leaves us. It leaves us with Jews who are trying to attain righteousness by works and Gentiles who, even though they were not righteous in and of themselves, have believed on Christ and thus found true righteousness.

So that's where we are. That's what that's the context. And I know I use a lot of our time tonight just building the context. But really, I don't I don't plan on going that far in Romans 10 tonight. As you know, there's there's there's no reason to be in a hurry when we start looking at these verses.

I want to break them down. So let's look now at Romans chapter 10 and verse one, Paul begins in Romans chapter 10 and verse one, he says this. Actually, let's do this just because we haven't done it yet.

Let's start in chapter 10 and verse one and let's read down through. Let's see. Let's read down through at least first. Let's just read through verse three, that's the first three verses, we're going to break those down, but let's read it, let's read it, get context for what we're learning.

Romans chapter 10 and verse one says, Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God. But not according to knowledge.

For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own. They did not submit to God's righteousness. Well, let's go to verse four. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

That's what we're going to focus on tonight. Just those just those four verses. And let's begin just looking at verse one. Paul says, Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

Well, who automatically just so we understand who we're talking about when he says my heart's desire for them, who is the them? Israel. Right. We understand the context here. We understand who he's talking about.

The them is Israel. He says, he says, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. This is simply a reiteration of something he's already said. If you go back to chapter nine and you look at the very beginning of chapter nine, you will see in verse two, he says, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.

Does Paul really believe what he's saying? Absolutely. He's saying that he's saying not only do I wish they could be saved, but I wish so much that they could be saved, that I would be willing to give of my own salvation, I would be willing to give up eternity if it meant the salvation of my brethren.

So I come back to chapter 10 and verse one and I and I'm reading these two parallel passages together. So when he says my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they might be saved. That is an important, emphatic statement for Paul.

Now, something that needs to be remembered, Paul does believe in what we call divine.

Election.

Paul believes in divine election because he just spent an entire chapter teaching it. He just spent an entire state. He just made an entire argument about divine election. Yet at the same time, as he's believing in divine election, he's still crying out for the salvation of his brethren.

His people. He understands that God's decree is certain, but he also understands that God's decree is secret. Let me write that on the board. That's important. God's decree is one certain, but it is also secret.

What do I mean by that? Has God ordained whom he will save? The Bible clearly says that he has.

Do we know who it is?

No, it is he only to do two things very well. I have the power to preach the gospel to everyone I meet because I don't know. If God's going to open their heart or not, and I have the power to pray for everyone I know because I don't know who God is going to open their heart or not, and I have the example of the apostle Paul, who here tells me that he's praying for Israel, who have yet believed in Christ, have not at this point.

And he's saying my prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. Beloved, don't ever let your reformed theology ruin your evangelism, because if you do, then you really don't believe in reformed theology.

Let me say that again. Don't ever let your reformed theology ruin your evangelism just because we believe God is sovereign does not believe that gives us the right to hold back the gospel and not preach it.

In fact, because we believe God is sovereign, we believe we are the instruments in his hand to proclaim the gospel. As such, we should be on the front line, believing that God has his elect among the.

Muslims. God has his elect among the Mormons. God has his elect among the atheists. God has his elect among the Jews.

God has his elect among the Africans, the Asians, the Russians, the Czechs, whoever. God has his people in every tribe, tongue and nation. And as such, we go to them and share the gospel because we don't know who they are.

We know he knows who they are. All we got to do is preach the gospel and let it land wherever it will.

Yes, I was thinking as I hear them witness that they have a zeal for God, of course, I hear them say that, but not according to knowledge. In other words, they really they really didn't have a zeal for God in the sense that they didn't believe in Jesus Christ, who is God.

Yes. And so therefore, the Jews really don't believe in the same God that born again Christians. Oh, yeah, that's the same God, right?

No, they couldn't because they would deny Christ as being the second person in the Godhead. They would deny the Trinity. So it cannot be the same God. Absolutely. But I don't want to get to verse two just yet, though I'm getting there, I promise, because I want to just spend one more minute on verse one before we before we go to verse two, because in verse one, he says, Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer for them is that they may be saved.

Let me ask you this question.

Did the majority of Israel receive Christ and get saved? Well, have the majority of Israel accepted Christ? No, no. I mean, if you go back to that time, if you look back in history, the majority did not.

The church was always a minority group within the nation of Israel. So even though Paul prayed for them to receive Christ, Paul prayed for the conversion of his brethren at the same time, it did not come to fruition in the fullness that he probably would have hoped for.

Now, when I bring that up, I bring that up because I often have people ask me, well, you know what, brother, I don't know who to pray for. I don't know how to pray for him. I don't know this. You know what to do with my prayer life because I don't know what God is doing.

Here's the thing. You don't have to know what God is doing to pray. You don't have to know what God is doing to seek God in prayer. Let me break this down a little a little bit more simply. Sometimes I have parents ask me.

I'm afraid I believe in election. I believe in God's sovereignty, but I'm afraid because my child, you know, I don't know if they're going to come to faith or not. What do I do? And I say, pray for them.

Pray over them, pray about them, pray, pray, pray and then trust God because that's all you can do. You cannot force the conversion of your child. You cannot force the conversion of your spouse. You cannot force the conversion of your uncle and father, mother, grandmother or anyone else.

All you can do is share the gospel and pray and trust God and know this. God uses means to bring about his ends, and if God has placed it upon your heart to pray for somebody, that should give you confidence that God is working in that situation.

Does that always mean it's going to turn out the way you think it should? No, because again, Paul prayed for all of Israel. We know all of Israel did not get saved, but yet Paul still prayed. We don't give up hope.

We don't give up prayers for people who we know do not know the Lord. We continue to pray for them.

And I know it's hard.

I have family members that I've been praying for for years and sometimes sometimes it can get tiresome when you see somebody acting a fool, when you see somebody just displaying the utter depravity of their heart gladly and happily and acting like just insane people.

And you sit back and you just go, man, he is hopeless or she is hopeless. They're not hopeless. And I think about Paul, because Paul, he's been stoned by these people. He's been run out of town by these people.

He's been held back from fellowship from these people. He's a person who, if anybody should have been tired of dealing with them, it's him. If anybody should have been tired of praying for them and just wanting to throw up his hands and say, God, just do it, because that's what we do sometimes.

We say, well, God, you take care of them, because I don't want to deal with them no more. But that's not what Paul did. Paul continued to pray for them. He continued to lift them up to God, trusting that God will do right.

And that's what prayer is. Prayer is an action of trust. I'm telling you, God, my desires, trusting that your will will always be done and your will is what is right. That's why we always pray, thy will be done.

We always pray that.

In fact, I've heard people say not to pray that. And I tell people, if you can't pray, thy will be done. You can't pray the very prayer Jesus taught us to pray. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

If you can't pray, thy will be done. And you can't pray the model prayer. And you really don't understand what prayer is. Prayer is the idea that you need to be conformed to God, not that he needs to be conformed to you.

I think oftentimes we think God needs to be conformed to us. We are trying to get God to change his mind. No, that's not what prayer is. Prayer is seeking God, seeking God's will, seeking God's grace, seeking God's favor, but never seeking that God change his mind.

So I just wanted to mention that because he says my heart's desire and prayer. And the fact that he uses the phrase and prayer to God reminds us of Paul's unwavering commitment to his brother, the unwavering commitment to national Israel that Paul has.

He's praying for them that they may be saved. And then in verse two, now we're going to get to where you are. It's fine.

I'm going to try to make a project with Jesus. I think it's about who Christ is, you know, and he's the center of the whole thing, as far as I'm concerned.

Absolutely.

Zeal without Knowledge

Well, verse two, he says, I bear them witness again. Who is to them? It is Israel. I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Now, in this, what we see is somewhat of a testimony from Paul.

This is actually sort of a veiled testimony. Because if there was anybody in Israel who was zealous at this time for Israel and for the doctrines and the beliefs of the people of Israel, it was Paul himself.

And he's saying they have zeal without knowledge. Really and truly, if you think about just that phrase, zeal without knowledge, you could say that equals Paul, zeal without knowledge was Paul, because there was not a Israelite who was more zealous than he was prior to his conversion to Christ.

In fact, I'll read his own words to you. Galatians chapter one, verse 13, he says, For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it.

And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. See right there, he says, I was so zealous. Not only was I following after the traditions, but man, I was the first one to oppose the.

Church. I was willing to destroy it.

So he was certainly zealous. Philippians chapter three, he's giving his pedigree, Philippians chapter three, verses five and six, he says, I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Anyway, he says, as to righteousness, I was perfect, according to my understanding. But remember what he hadn't.

He didn't have that.

He had all of that with none of that. He had zeal without knowledge. That's what I'm saying. Verse two is personal testimony. He's talking about them, but he's talking about himself, too, because that's where he was at twenty to three.

Again, he's giving his spiritual resume at twenty to three. He says, I'm a Jew born in Tarsus of Sicilia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel, Gamaliel, the great teacher, according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day.

All three times Paul gives his pedigree, his spiritual resume, his life before Christ. What does he say about himself? I was zealous, but ignorant, zealous, but ignorant, beloved, that that little statement, zeal without knowledge, that zealous, but ignorant, that problem has not stopped to this day.

There are a ton of people who are very zealous, but who have no knowledge. They don't know God. They don't know true righteousness. But yet they are so consumed with what they believe that they're willing to fight to the death.

For it, as I said, this problem persists today, there are so many who are violently zealous over their religions, yet they do not truly know God through faith in his son. And it's not as if the knowledge is not there.

No, more than ever, the gospel is being proclaimed throughout the world. Yet because of man's sinful nature and desire to proclaim his own righteousness apart from the supernatural work of God, he will not come to him, but will stay in his ignorance.

See, the thing is, people will stay in their ignorance. Because of their zeal, their zeal will keep them ignorant. Paul would have been just as ignorant to the day he died if Christ had not revealed himself to him because he was so zealous for the traditions of his fathers that he would have stayed just as ignorant had God not revealed himself through Jesus Christ to him directly.

And beloved, that the sad thing is, as I said, we can look at our world today and we.

Still see zealousness.

We still see that going on. We see I mean, it takes real zeal to kill yourself over your religion. Would you agree that it takes real zeal to believe in your religion so much that you would be willing to fly an airplane into a building, take the lives of thousands of people?

Don't you agree that it takes zeal to do such a thing, that you have to be zealous for your religion? But yet zealously ignorant people are the ones who are so dangerous. In fact, there was an entire during the time of Christ, there was an entire political group.

And most of you know this. What were they called? The zealots didn't wasn't there one Simon, the zealot, right? Simon, the zealot, one of Jesus's own apostles had come from the political group known as the zealots.

And what did the zealots do? The zealots were a form of ancient terrorists. They would go and they would fight against the armies of Caesar. They would fight against the taxation of Rome. They would fight against those things through physical barbaric means.

They would do battle against them. Yes, zeal can be expressed in many different ways, but often it leads to violence and it's not based on a knowledge of Christ. Belief in Christ never leaves. Well, I mean, let me back this up.

Let me let me say this the correct way. Trust in Christ should not ever lead us toward violence against others with the gospel. Belief in Christ should lead us towards taking the gospel to people in grace and in love.

Which is why I can look at the history of the Christian church and I can say, yes, I believe the Crusades were wrong. I believe the Inquisition was wrong when I was the Roman Catholic Church. That's not that.

Well, be that as it may. Before we begin splitting that here, just remember bloodshed in the name of Christianity has happened. But it is not based on knowledge, it's based on ignorance. Thus, the zeal without knowledge has not been held back only to the Jews, but this has found its way into the church and throughout the centuries we've seen it erupt in the church.

We've seen ignorance of the truth erupt in zeal and in bloodshed. Sadly, today there is still a lot of zeal in the church and ignorance, but it's not demonstrating itself in bloodshed anymore. How would you say today's zeal without knowledge is demonstrating itself?

You said judgmental behavior. What else? OK, you said by the tongue, use of the tongue, zeal without knowledge, you said various beliefs demonstrating themselves. I would go ahead, focusing on emotion.

You see, what I was going to say is this and just because every time I read this verse, I get a picture in my mind and I certainly do not want to I do not want to pigeonhole this verse. I believe I've executed the verse.

I believe you understand what Paul means by what he's saying. But if I were going to say, does this have a contemporary application? That's what I would talk about now. I would say in the church there is a great contemporary application in this.

There are a lot of people who profess faith in Jesus Christ and man, they're willing to fight for that faith in Jesus Christ.

And you better not take my Christmas tree. And you better not take my Merry Christmas time. And you better not take this or that.

But they don't know enough about Christianity to fight themselves out of a wet paper bag. They fight for it, but they don't know anything about it.

That's dangerous.

Does that zeal without knowledge? It happens, I see it all the time when I watch the news and I see these talking heads on television that are propagating Christianity, and then I hear him talk about.

Christianity and I'm like, stop, you're not one of us.

It's scary. Oh, boys, talk about, oh, yeah, that's that is exactly a great example. They have all this zeal, but their knowledge is ignorant. And I think everybody knows what he's talking about, that the churches that show up at these military funerals with these signs simply to bring degradation to the to the family, that is, it is not Christ like whether or not we're standing for something that is true and holy, such as the marriage, that marriage should be between a man and a woman, whether or not we're standing for that truth to stand at the graveside of a person and simply spit on their grave and hold up signs and embarrass the family in an attempt to be ugly is not Christ like.

So, yeah, I would say that's they have all this zeal, but their ignorance is anything in the world. A lot of times these churches are full of people, these thousands of members in these churches. They come for the emotional appeal, the fact that the pastor has a has a sweet tongue and he can really he can really tickle their ears, you know, and he and he really gets them going and they are excited to hear what he has to say, but they don't know any more about Jesus Christ than they came than when they left or when they left and when they came because they're not being taught that they have zeal.

But it's a zeal without knowledge, as I said, there's so much application that can be made from this verse, and I don't want to stretch it beyond its contextual basis, but I just wanted to demonstrate that that Paul's problem here is not a problem unique to first century Christianity.

This is a problem that has persisted throughout the ages of the church and beyond. There are always people who have great zeal for what they believe, but are very ignorant of.

The truth. All right.

Now, I said we were going to try to get to verse four. What time is it? OK, we can probably get to verse four. We'll see. Because in verse three, he goes on to sort of explain their ignorance. He goes on to explain what it is he's talking about.

Seeking to Establish Their Own Righteousness

In verse three, he says, for being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. Paul has already established that Israel's failure was that they were attempting to work their own righteousness.

And they weren't seeking God's righteousness. God has even revealed to Israel that his holiness and righteous character abhors evil, even in its smallest manifestation. Yet. Instead of seeking God by faith, they have tried to cleanse themselves and make themselves righteous.

How many of you read The Holiness of God? A few years ago, we did that book at The Holiness of God. OK. Didn't see a whole lot of hands, so let me make sure I because this is important. In the book, The Holiness of God, R .C. Sproul makes a very important point, and that is this God's holiness is the part of his character.