The Righteousness of Faith - Part 2 — Roy Hession

The Wrath of God Revealed Against Sin

Will you turn again to the epistle to the Romans? Romans chapter 1, and we will read from verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, revised version, hold down the truth in unrighteousness.

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him, since the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

Because that, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.

Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator, who is blessed forever.

For this cause, God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men, working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error, which was need.

And even as they did not like, did not want to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, in strife, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest, for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth, against such, I'm sorry I missed my place, but we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth, against them which commit such things.

And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself raw, against the day of raw, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds, to them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory, and honor, and immortality, eternal life.

But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation, and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile, that glory, and honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.

For there is no respect of person with God. For as many as have sinned without law, shall perish without law. And as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts, the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

Religious Privilege Cannot Excuse Sin

Behold, thou called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of vains, which has the form of knowledge and of truth in the law.

Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest not thou thyself? Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery?

Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonest thou God, for the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.

For circumcision verily profiteth if thou keep the law, but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy vaunted circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?

And shall not circumcision, which is by nature, if it fulfill the law, judge thee who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly.

And circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God. What advantage then hath the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way, chiefly because it unto them were committed the oracles of God.

Verse nine. What then? Are we better than they? No, in no way. For we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. There's none that understandeth, there's none that seeketh after God.

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they have used to see. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things whoever the law said, it said to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

May God add his blessing to the reading of his word. Those folks at the back come in, seats up here. Yesterday we allowed ourselves to be introduced by Paul to the main theme of the gospel, the good news for bad people, which he is going to unfold.

The Gospel Is Good News, Not Mere Advice

He says that this gospel is utterly different from a mere ethic. It isn't giving good advice, but it pronounces good news. There's no power in mere good advice. The results depend entirely on whether the person receiving the good advice accepts it and does it.

And as we are so utterly incapable, it always breaks down. So often what we give to people is good advice. Sometimes what is preached from our pulpits is nothing more than good advice. Even we evangelicals, so often it's mere good advice, what we ought to be, what we ought to do.

Our responsibility is Christian, and the more you labor that, the lower the spirit of the poor saints goes. No, even when we preach to the saints, we have to give good news, good news for bad people. And this blessed good news, this gospel, as we saw, is God's instrument of power, his chosen instrument by which he performs moral miracles, glorious transformations.

We've seen so many, and we have, have we not? We know it in our own experience. And he says the reason why it is an instrument of power, because in it is revealed a, the righteousness which is from God.

A perfect divine rightness with himself is offered to the man who knows himself completely wrong. God, for Christ's sake, is delighted to count the one who repents utterly right with himself. A divine righteousness is revealed for the sinner, and that is entirely and utterly for empty-handed faith, works, merit, and striving, neither help nor hinder us.

Indeed, I think they hinder us. They certainly don't help. This is something for empty sin. And then, having said that, about this wonderful, great, basic blessing of the gospel, which is revealed, he then gets on to something else.

The Gospel Reveals Wrath as Well as Grace

If this is good news for bad people, bad people must see that they're bad. Otherwise, this message is utterly irrelevant. And so we have in verse 18, in contrast to this rightness with God revealed for the sinner, the wrath of God is revealed in the same gospel.

The very gospel that speaks of good news for bad people, nonetheless, has to present the back, its gifts against the backdrop of the wrath of God. We can't get about over it. There it is in the scripture again and again, the wrath of God.

Now, the book of Revelation, you have that phrase, the wrath of the Lamb. And I believe that helps tremendously in understanding the wrath of God, the wrath of the Lamb. Those people, the book of Revelation, who ask that the hill shall fall upon them and hide them from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.

What an extraordinary phrase, the wrath of the Lamb. Why, the Lamb is the gentlest of them. If there's one creature that doesn't retaliate, it's a lamb. You can kick a lamb, it doesn't turn around and try and snap at you.

And this is the name which heaven delights to give to our Lord Jesus, who was meek and lowly in heart, who, when he was reviled, didn't revile again. And yet here you have this phrase, the wrath of the Lamb.

And this wrath is all the more terrible because it is the wrath of the Lamb. You see, the Lamb is concerned for the downtrodden, is concerned for the others. He's pitiful towards weak people, pitiful towards those who have nothing.

And when he sees me wrong another, his very love for that other provokes wrath in me who am hitting, hurting, being unkind to those that perhaps can't defend themselves. He stands up for the meek of the earth because he is the Lamb.

It is his very love, his very pitifulness towards others that brings me under censure when my attitude is other than his. And oh, when he sees in this earth the oppressed, not only in the wider spheres of political oppression, but the oppressed in our homes, he's not unmoved.

And because he is the Lamb, he must hold inquisition for blood. Because it is love for men that there's wrath against that which ruins and spoils the precious lives that he loves so much. And it's against the backdrop of the wrath of God that you have the glorious rainbow of the grace of God who submit to that wrath, acknowledge themselves worthy of it.

And the moment they do, there's good news. I think, well, I don't know that we really enter into the reality of these things. Paul says, knowing therefore the terror of the law, we persuade men. I don't know really.

And there's a sense in which we aren't perhaps expected fully to know it. We perhaps wouldn't sleep at night if we really knew it. Might become demented about others. He knows what he's doing. He's calling out his elect.

But these are facts. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven. And now the Apostle Paul has to apply this backdrop of judgment first to the two classes into which he divided the world of his day. The world of his day to Paul was divided just into two.

The Gentiles, all the many nations, and the one nation, the Jew. And there was a tremendous difference at certain levels between the two. God had selected one nation out of the mess, out of the wreckage, and given them privileges that none else had in order that ultimately the whole world should be blessed through them.

They misinterpreted that, of course, as we know. Gave them a law of priesthood and knowledge of himself and of his demands that others hadn't got. Now the Apostle Paul is concerned to bring both those great classes of people under the judgment of God.

Gentiles Are Without Excuse Before God

They are under it, but he's concerned to get them to see it. Otherwise what he's got to offer them is going to be utterly irrelevant. First of all, I think he found the Gentiles a little easier to convict of sin than the Jew.

And by the way, of course, we can regard the world today divided into two sets of people, the irreligious and the religious, that equally are to see themselves under the judgment of God. Now the Gentile world of that day, I suppose it's true of the Gentile world today, was one terrible moral morass.

One can just gather the state of the society of those days by the instructions given in the epistles to the little called out ones who had to live in that corruption. But the interesting thing that Paul does here, he doesn't describe the symptoms of immorality and perversion principally.

He goes right down to the source of the trouble. He doesn't merely hold up his hands in horror at the symptoms. He reveals the source. And he tells us that there are men, though they seem to be so benighted, who nonetheless have the truth.

But they're holding it down in unrighteousness. And that is their supreme condemnation. And he's concerned to show us that the Gentile is without excuse, even in his darkness, in his idolatry, and everything else.

He says, you see, that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. It isn't they don't know the truth. They, even these benighted Gentiles, and the same is true of the heathen.

They have had a revelation of God, says the scripture. They're not where they are in mere ignorance. There is enough light from God to lead every heathen nation to the worship of the true God. That's what the Bible does.

Very different from what we normally thought. They're poor people. They're benighted. They just don't know. They've just been ignorant, and we must come and teach them. And we excuse their idolatry. The Bible does it.

They are without excuse for their idolatry. That's what the Bible says. And I believe the missionary has got to charge his benighted congregations of being without excuse. It says so. That which may be known of God is manifest to them, for God has showed it to them.

You see, how has he showed it to them? He's given them a glorious book in which they may read of their Creator, the book of creation. For the invisible things, ever since the creation of the world, are clearly seen.

Hear that? Clearly seen. Even his eternal power and Godhead being understood by the things that are made. That's what Paul says. They are clearly seen. Oh, redemption isn't seen in the book of creation.

But the supremacy of God, one glorious, beneficent God, is clearly seen. And if they're falling down to idols, if they're involved in the complications of Hinduism, my Bible says it's not because they didn't know.

Revelation has been made enough for them to turn away from such futile vanity to the true God. I don't know whether, how much this is the common method of going on on the mission field. I'm going to talk to Cyril after this and discuss it with him.

See, I think he's with me. But anyhow, it's what Paul says anyway. Oh yes, there's revelation made. But they didn't want it. They didn't want it. They're without excuse because that when they knew God, literally it wouldn't be the God of redemption, but the God of creation.

They glorified him not as God, neither were thankful. Now this really is the sin of the whole human race, that we have rejected God as God and have refused to play our place as dependent creatures. The devil said to Adam and Eve, in the day you eat of that tree, you will be as God.

Remember that? In the day thou eatest thereof, ye shall be as God. You will be as God. You're only a dependent creature having to do what you're told. But in the day you eat of that tree, you will be as God.

And they rejected God as God, and set themselves up as little tin-pot gods. If God is God, he is obviously intended to be the center of life around which we are to revolve. But man's basic sin is this, that he's made himself the center.

And each man wants his life to circle around himself. The central letter of the little word sin is I. I, at the center of my life, at the center of my day, rather than God. And I've rejected God as God, and I'm trying to be that sort of person myself.

And that is the sin of the human race, including the heathen. And because they wouldn't have God as God, all their thinking, all their philosophies, were utterly wrong. They couldn't but fail to come to the wrong conclusions all the time.

Idolatry Distorts Human Wisdom

Tremendous wisdom. I know when I went to India, I was amazed at the depth, the intellectual depth, the philosophies of Hinduism, their religion antedates Christianity. A culture, an art form, a philosophy.

But you see, if we are refusing even only one factor in our consideration, everything else is going to be wrong, especially when that one factor is God. And so, Paul isn't talking about mere savages. Intellectual heathenism, of which there was much in Greece, and there is in India and many other parts of the world.

When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

And the same is true of us in the West. If a man is unwilling to acknowledge God as God in his right place, in God's constellation, he's going to be wrong on every one of his thoughts. I don't care what degrees he may have.

Professing himself to be wise, he becomes a fool. And he's getting set up all sorts of false gods for himself. And they change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like a corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.

And so, as Paul looks out on that Gentile world, on Greece with its wonderful mythology, and its gods, on Mount Olympus and all the rest, so intellectual, so beautiful, but utterly false. And he says, they are without excuse.

You see, an idol is very accommodating. You see, a man wants to worship something. He must. But this God who is revealed in creation, you've only got to think a little bit. There's a great God, and somehow you know that that invisible God is going to make moral demands on you.

And we're not willing for moral demand. And therefore, although we must worship, we make an idol. That's what they've done. In order that they might satisfy their religious instincts, but without any moral demands, such as, well, today we may make our idols of other things, intellectual things, material things.

These are the things that are controlling us, and it's convenient that they don't make these moral demands that the true God makes upon us. Well, now, he penetrates things right through there. Before leaving this basic sin, which has caused all the rest, one other thing.

From Knowledge of God to Polytheism

Do you notice this? Apparently, the human race began in monotheism. They knew God. And because man fell, then you get polytheism. The normal idea, doubtless, perhaps not amongst us, but out in the world, is that the whole human race was polytheistic, and as we've evolved and got better and better and more enlightened, we come to monotheism.

The Bible says it's the other way around. The Bible does not teach evolution in any sphere at all, but always devolution. Man began with the knowledge of the true God, but he wasn't willing to have God as God and degenerated into polytheism.

That, by the way. Now, having shown us there is the source of all the trouble, man's refusal to recognize God as God. He can't even know God himself. Then he says, God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts.

It's this refusal to recognize God as God, which lies at the bottom of all moral corruption in our world. Three times we have this phrase in this portion. God also gave them up to uncleanness. Verse 24.

Verse 26, for this cause, God gave them up unto vile affection. Verse 28, even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to... Please turn the cassette over now. Do not fast wind it in either direction.

Verse 28, even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. This is the history of the sin of man. It's just because men wouldn't have God as God that God is all right then.

I'll let you go. And moral perversion, of which there seems to be such an increase today, is explained here. Because a man does not like to retain God in his knowledge, God can give that man up to sexual perversion.

And not only to sexual perversion, but to all the many other things that mark life today. Yes, I can see a graduation here. First of all, man's refusal to recognize God as God. Secondly, God giving him up to uncleanness.

Thirdly, the men themselves giving themselves over to it. For in verse 32 we read about them, who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but consent with, or have pleasure in them that do them.

I think that's the last ditch. A man may be doing things in secret, but he hates them sometimes. And certainly he will always protest to disapprove of those that do them, other people who are doing them.

But when a man not only does them, but is hand in glove with others too, who approves them, who says this is the right sort of thing, that is the last ditch. Knowing the judgment of God, that they that do such things are worthy of death, not only do them, but consent with and get in with the others that are doing them too.

Not only has God given him up to uncleanness, but he's given himself up. And you know, I didn't have quite enough time to get all the references along this line, but you who know your New Testament will know that when Paul talks about the wrath of God, it is so often in connection with uncleanness.

Is that right? Ephesians, Colossians, Galatians? No whoremonger shall inherit the kingdom of God. As I've told you before, that they that do such things shall inherit the wrath of God. Let us get this quite clear.

These are the things that incur the wrath of God, not the only thing. But somehow or other, Paul seems to link them. And we've got to regard, we've all got these tenets in our hearts, we've got to regard them in the light.

This thing is something that's worthy of the wrath. There's a movement perhaps to say, well, these things are natural. For such things sake, the wrath of God we read comes on the children of disobedience.

And we must expose every tendency in our own hearts to that wrath. And yet, isn't it interesting, there's no class of sin for which there's such ready and quick forgiveness as this class of sin. None seem to be so quickly restored, so readily forgiven as those that were adulterers and fornicators in the gospel.

Oh, how quick God is to forgive and at last be repentant. But if we don't, we're incurring the wrath and censure of almighty God. These are the things for which God brought the flood upon the world of the ungodly.

Did you know that? There was an extraordinary sexual perversion that nearly wrecked the human race. God had to exterminate them. They said, spoil this race. This was the reason why the Canaanites were exterminated as they were.

Our race wouldn't have been a pure race, it could have corrupted the face of the whole race. God in mercy used Israel as his scourge, which is very loved for the race, that said, this must go. And I think we must always regard it in that light.

It absolutely rots and destroys the root of the race, family life, community and so on. And it's here again and again. When I just make that, give you that reference, again and again, and list those. That invariably when he speaks about the wrath of God, it's in relation to uncleanliness.

And yet, for us, none are so forgiven so quickly and readily as those who've been guilty, if only in minor degrees of these things. And it seems to make little difference to the grace of God if the man is guilty of them in major degrees.

Where sin abounds, grace, oh, so quick, is quick to abound. Then he goes on to the Jew. And again, I say, his purpose is to show both classes of people, not only subject to the judgment of God, but to be without excuse.

The Law Exposes the Guilt of the Religious

And the reason why he's at pains to show both Jew and Gentile to be without excuse for their sin, is in order that grace might truly be grace. You see, if you answer badly, it isn't really your fault, then there's some little procuring cause for mercy.

And if that's the case, grace is no longer grace. Did you know that? Perhaps we put our fingers in there and turn over to Romans 10 to see a definition of grace. Romans 11, rather. Romans 11, verse 6.

And if by grace, it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. The moment you're not so bad, the moment there are extenuating circumstances, then you're not really a fit object for grace. Grace is for those for whom there is no excuse.

No excuse. We read that the purpose of the law is that every mouth may be stopped. No excuse. Well, he's shown that in the case of the Gentile. No excuse. Only that they might thereby see themselves as fit objects of this grace that never did look for any procuring cause in its object.

And the Jew, likewise. Now, the Jew differed in many ways, but basically in this. Whereas the Gentiles not only did the things, but took pleasure in those that did them, and approved of them, the Jew didn't approve.

He held up his hands in horror, that went on in Gentile communities. He condemned the law. He was given the law of God that so roundly condemned these things. He approved it. He embraced it. And in the light of that law, he looked at these people, and he condemned them.

And yet, apparently, they were only men. They were fallen men. And in one way or another, they were doing exactly the same sort of things, perhaps on a more polite scale. Perhaps doing them in the back garden where the Gentile was doing them in the front.

And yet, utterly unaware that he was equally a sinner in God's sight as those Gentiles. And therefore, Paul has to bring the word of God to them. Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest, for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same thing.

And God has been bringing that home to my own heart. We do not stand very much, in some ways, like those Jews of old. We are Christians. Some of us are not yet born again, but perhaps, nonetheless, members of churches with a good Christian heritage behind them.

And we hear these things, and we disapprove them. We condemn them. And yet, we may be doing the same thing, but on a more polite scale. But that more polite scale just doesn't count with God. Maybe if we hadn't got the background we had, we'd be much more abandoned in the things we're doing quietly.

Maybe the fact that we are, we're not openly abandoned is not because we love holiness for its own sake, but because we just wouldn't dare. If we are willing to dabble in sin on a small scale, it's quite clear we would do it on a big scale if we could do it with intunity.

If we were actuated by the love of holiness alone, we would be scrupulous about little things as in large things. The fact that we're not scrupulous about little things shows we're really actuated only out of concern for ourselves, our reputation, what people would say.

If those considerations were removed, we probably wouldn't be any different from anybody else here. We are allowing ourselves to play with sin on a small scale. And yet, in spite of the fact that we're doing that, we so easily take out the disapproving attitude to others, and we condemn them, whereas we're doing the same things ourselves.

How easy that is to do. David did that. When he was told that story by Nathan, about the rich man who spared to take of his own flock, but stole the one new lamb of that poor man neighbor of his. He said, the man who's done this thing is worthy of death.

And the prophet said, you're the man. He was inexcusable. For wherein he judged another, he was condemning himself, for he that judged was doing the same thing. And only the dear Holy Spirit can show us that fact.

We'll deceive ourselves, we just won't see it. And you know, the best way to help that other person is to get alongside him and say, brother, God showed me I'm in the same boat. Maybe not in the same scale, but it doesn't count with God.

It's probably only selfless considerations that kept me within bounds. We've got to look after ourselves. But in spite of the fact that we've got so many privileges others have, that hasn't helped us one bit in the sight of God.

We are sinners as much as they are. I did want to turn, we won't have time, to Matthew 5. You know the passages. I just allude to them, you know. It is said that you shouldn't commit adultery, but I say unto you, he that looks on a woman to lust.

We haven't done the deed, but we've had the lust. It's the same in God's sight. It is said you shall not commit murder, but I say if you hate another, resent love, it's the same. Oh, we condemn those who do the outward things, but we're doing the same thing in God's sight.

Three Ways People Misread God's Patience

Now quickly, he says three things to people in this state. First he says, verse 3, do you think, do you think that you will escape the judgment of God just because you're judging others doing these things?

We feel the judgment of God is worthy on the moral purpose of today. All right, if the judgment of God began with them, are you quite sure it would end with them? Would it not include us too? But we do think that just because we take up a disapproving attitude toward these things, that will save us from the judgment.

It will do nothing of the sort. The judgment will apply to them, will apply to us, in spite of the fact we take such higher ground. Then he says, are you presumed, verse, the next verse, are you presumed on the kindness and forbearance of God?

You see, we've been doing all sorts of things. Not always honest, not always pure, not always truthful, manifesting very unsavoury attitudes in our homes, and much else. But nothing's happened to us. We haven't been struck dead.

In fact, we seem to be blessed. Do you know you can even be used of God? And we think that because judgment against an evil work is not executed speedily, it doesn't matter. That we are all right. We don't know that the forbearance of God, his forbearance, he's not visited us, was intended to provoke us not to go on in those things, but to repent of them.

The very goodness of God was intended to lead us to repent, and sometimes we may have been used in his service when we went right, when things went cleanse. That isn't an occasion for saying, it doesn't matter, but rather a verse, oh Lord, your goodness, it would be a dame to do that, makes me hate it more.

But oh, we can misinterpret the goodness of God, and regard it as a license for going on. I speak this to my own heart. The fact that God uses you doesn't necessarily mean you're right with God. The fact that he seems to answer your prayer, that he seems to pour good things into your laps, and prospers your family, doesn't mean necessarily you're right with God.

It means, maybe, that that very goodness is intended to lead us to repent. Later on in this epistle, Paul says, behold the goodness and severity of God. Sometimes it is through his severity, his humbling chastening that he provokes us to judge ourselves.

Other times it's his goodness, and yet we can misinterpret. These things hast thou done, says God in Psalm 50, and I kept silent. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself, but I didn't care any more than you did.

My silence was my goodness to give you space to repent. And then he says, thirdly, what in actual fact you are doing is treasuring up to yourself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

We've heard that praise about laying up treasure in heaven. Here's another sort of treasure we may be heaping up every day when I'm not willing to repent and come to Christ and get things right. And the same is the day for which I've got to, the more for which I've got to give an account, treasuring up ourselves wrath against the day of wrath.

Now I'm speaking to you, I don't know, not necessarily speaking you're saved or otherwise. We're starting at the beginning. This is the truth which we've got to see. And then I will hurry on now to certain things he says about judgment.

This is a classic of judgment, this chap. It's still in the Bible. It isn't often preached, but it's still there. First of all, he says four things. The judgment of God, in verse two, is according to truth against them that commit such things.

He says it's going to be according to truth. He knows the whole truth about it. Others don't know it. They may misjudge, but he knows the truth. And we, the sinners, are going to be judged by the truth.

Secondly, he says our judgment is going to be according to deeds, to works, who were rendered to every man according to his deeds, not according to his words, not according to his intentions, but according to his works.

It's very interesting to note that whereas salvation is by grace, judgment is by works. It's going to be pre-eminently fair. It's according to works. And Paul sets out. He says on the one hand, the man that's done good, eternal life.