Religious People Need The Gospel (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

God's Righteous Judgment Against Unbelief

Do you really think most people out there living today, your unbelieving friends, think that day by day, hour by hour, they're heaping up and hoarding up and treasuring up judgment for that day that will come?

That's exactly what they're doing, whether they like it or not, or whether they believe it or not, amassing a hoarded treasure of hell forever, brick by brick. This isn't God flying off the handle. What does the text say?

God's righteous judgment. He recompenses men according to their work. And for the Jew and for us as people who have been around the Bible and the book, we're held to such a higher degree of accountability.

It's one thing if you're living in Sri Lanka and you don't even know there's a Bible. It's another thing when you have the Bible, this is the land of the open Bible. To much is given, much is required.

No wonder some of the writers will say, could there be people in this room today that God hates more than those who are in hell right now? Because some people in hell right now, they're in hell for Adam's sin, for their own sin, that they didn't honor God in natural revelation.

But there's some people today who have the Bible, who've heard of Christ Jesus, and who won't repent. Just like when Jesus said, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.

Now, as I'm listening to myself, I'm just thinking, who does this? How do you grow a church? Sermons like this? This is exactly what the church at Rome needed. Paul's like, I don't know if I can get there or not.

I might get killed. I might get martyred. But here's what you need for essential doctrines. Chapter 1 sin, chapter 2 sin, chapter 3 sin. So when the Savior arrives at the end of chapter 3, you're happy.

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Really? Well, people would say that to me when I was doing all the things I shouldn't as an unbeliever in the 1980s. Great. Glad he could be here.

God's my co-pilot. These verses don't have anything to do with how to be saved. They're to try to tell us we're lost in how God judges. Salvation is in chapter 3. This is how God judges. He judges according to our works, verse 6, equitably, rightly.

Paul says he will render to each one according to his works. Because if God saves you, you'll have works. Because faith works as an evidence, as a result, as a fruit of faith to those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality.

He will give eternal life. God's going to judge you based on your deeds. That's just an Old Testament principle. Isaiah chapter 3, Jeremiah chapter 17. This has nothing to do with the basis of salvation.

That's the next chapter. This is the basis for judgment. But then we have four terrifying words that show up in verses 8 and 9. In contrast to what we just learned about this eternal life, Paul gives a different picture to those who think their righteousness is good enough, think their baptism is good enough, think their religiosity is good enough, think their circumcision is good enough.

But for those who are self-seeking, verse 8, and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, and now look at these words, there will be, this is what's in the future, of every person who doesn't have the righteousness of Christ by faith alone, there will be wrath and fury, tribulation and distress.

I know I'm religious, no, for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek. How about that for a future? Wrath, fury, tribulation and distress. Nahum said, who can stand before his indignation and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger?

And our response should be what? Help. Have mercy on me. Please, Lord, you're a saving God, save me, forgive me. I don't want wrath and fury. And I know I'm going to die, Ezekiel says, the soul that sins will die.

But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. Thirdly, the third fact about God's judgment designed to drive you to Calvary by faith alone. One, grasp that God's judgment can't be escaped.

Two, grasp that God's judgment is right, it's equitable. And three, grasp that God's judgment is impartial, verses 11 to 16. Can't escape it, it's equitable and it's impartial. Verse 11, for God shows no partiality.

No, no, when he sees me, he'll realize I'm a Jew and I'll be fine. No, no, you don't understand. I'm a member of the church and when he sees me, he knows that. My dad's the pastor, he gets that, God receives that.

Well, the text literally in the Greek, partiality means to receive a faith, face. So you look at somebody's face and you go, oh, they have a rich face. Because I know them, I know their bank account. They have a very influential face because they're in politics and I know them.

So, I'll just receive somebody based on how they look. No, Deuteronomy 10, God who does not show partiality is an awesome God. You think your wealth is going to keep you out of hell? You think your friendship with pastors is going to keep you out of hell?

You think your membership here is going to keep you out of hell? You think being a Jew is going to keep you out of hell? Verse 12, for all who have sinned without the law, it says Gentiles don't have the Mosaic law, will also perish without the law.

And all who have sinned under Mosaic law will be judged by the law. What irony here, where the rabbis would say, you know, we're going to be judged differently. That's actually true, they will be judged differently.

They'll be judged more harshly because they have the Word of God. They have the Old Testament, the law and the prophets. The more light you have, the more accountability is there. The less light, the less accountability.

And it says you're going to perish. That's why we need a Savior. Luke 19, for the Son of Man is to come to seek and save that which is lost. Or the Greek word, perishing. Do not be afraid of them that kill the body and who are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

Matthew chapter 10. Then shall He say unto them on the left hand, depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Why? Verse 13. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified. And I can't do it all. It's too high, it's too hard, it's too holy, it's too insistent.

I can hear it, but I can't do it. I need a Savior. I need someone who could do it, who did fulfill the law perfectly. Who when God said do, He wasn't like Adam who fell, He actually did it. Christ Jesus the Lord.

God's not calling for limited obedience, partial obedience, obedience when you're younger or older, but perfect obedience. Verse 14. When Gentiles who do not have Mosaic law, they don't have the Old Testament, by nature do what the law requires, like don't commit adultery.

Muslims know that, don't they? Most people in the world know. Lying is bad. Honesty is good. Sex outside of marriage is bad. They've got a law written on their heart. They know that. Verse 14 to read it again.

For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves. They might not have the Mosaic law, but they know what their conscience says, even though they do not have the Mosaic law.

Paul is trying to show, you can't get out of this. You need to run to Christ for His righteousness by faith alone. Have you? I said earlier this year, I said, you know, some of you this year I might have to bury.

And I didn't want that to be true, but it's already been true. And every one of you here is going to die and then stand before God. And it's not going to be, well, I was kind of good, I did a few religious things.

My wife did this and I did that. It's going to be perfection. And unless you look to the Son, Christ Jesus, the Lord, by faith alone, your future is wrath and fury and hell and indignation. I'm telling you, it's the only hope.

And by the way, to think that you could be good enough to get to heaven by your religious deeds, it makes a mockery of the cross. Because why would God damn His own Son at Calvary, if you could be good enough to get to heaven?

How masochistic could God be? So Paul wants to make sure there's no wiggle room. Can't get out of this. He reduces people to size so that they look up, so that they look to a Savior. Verse 15, they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts.

These Gentiles, while their consciences also bear witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse, when they do the wrong thing, or even excuse them. You don't need Mosaic law for that. Conscience does it.

All people are born with a conscience by God. And then who's going to be the judge? It's going to be Jesus as the judge, verse 16. Because it's been handed over to Him by the Father, John chapter 5. And on that day, what day is that?

When according to my gospel, God judges the secrets, the crypt, the cryptos, the hidden things of men, by Christ Jesus. Samuel Johnson said, every man knows thoughts of himself that he would not tell to his dearest friend.

And yet God knows those and will judge you for those. Or your only other hope is to have Jesus judged in your place. Can you get to heaven by your perfect works? Paul is trying to say, no. By your religious works, no.

By your moralistic works, no. He judges the secret thoughts. Jesus, the risen Savior, is the judge. And finally, number four. You know the good part about the second service? We don't have to get ready for the Sunday school, so we just keep preaching.

You get longer sermons. You're held more accountable too, Tom. You almost want to just take a breath because it is just so intense. No wonder most people like to underline stuff in Romans 1, and Romans 3, and Romans 4, and Romans 5, and Romans 6, and Romans 7, and Romans 8, and 9, 10, all the way to 16.

But the least underlined book, chapter in all of Romans, is chapter 2. Because it goes after people like us. Religion is no substitute for faith in Christ Jesus. Fact four. Grasp, number one, that God's judgment can't be escaped.

Grasp that it's right and equitable. Grasp that it's impartial. And number four, grasp that it comes upon especially the religious hypocrites. It comes upon those who know better. And in this particular case, context is the Jewish folks of the day.

But it's for all religious people in application. Verse 17. If you thought it was tough earlier, it's even more of a severe tone now. And the way Paul does it is he's going to build up the Jew and then he's going to get the sledgehammer out.

Full frontal assault. But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God, hey, this is not a made-up religion. People make up religions all the time. Sun, young, moon, and Hinduism and all this.

This is made up. It's not some kind of peyote kind of inspired deal. It's not that. This is a divinely revealed real religion. But when you don't practice from the heart and you get a false confidence because you're just doing the show, you trick all your friends, you trick your wife, you trick your neighbors, you trick your pastor, God knows.

Look at how he lifts them up to show them how accountable they are. Verse 18. Know his will and approve what is excellent because you are instructed from the law. And if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, they thought they were, a light to those who are in darkness, they thought they were, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of the children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth.

Now they were supposed to be all that, but from the inside to the outside, not just outside. And so Paul's after their religious hypocrisy. You have all this. You're instructed out of the law. By the way, that's where we get the word catechism.

You're even catechized because the word instruction means cata, down, and echo, sound. To sound down, to teach to people. I'm a teacher. You Jewish folks are teachers and you think you're a guide to the blind, but you're really a blind guide.

Your religion has tranquilized you. You should be a light to the nations and you're just trying to give God the bare minimum. You fail to practice the law you proclaim and you're going to face judgment.

Verse 21, you ever heard this phrase, practice what you preach? You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While Hugh preached against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

You who have so much disgust that you feel nauseous about idols, that's the word of whore. You want to throw up when you think about idolatry. You rob temples. Paul isn't doing anything except loving them by telling them the truth.

One of my all-time pet peeves is somebody's got cancer and they're going to die and the doctor's like, well, maybe we shouldn't tell them. No, you need to know. Sin cancer is going to kill everybody and you need to know.

Verse 23, you boast in the law, Torah, dishonor God by breaking the law. For as it is written, this is not supposed to be happening. This is supposed to be the opposite. The Jews are supposed to give the light to the Gentiles, Psalm 117 and others.

For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemy among the Gentiles because of you. The context is hypocritical Jews, but it can be applied to a lot of folks. Maybe the worst story I know of temporally about pretentious posing and pretending is about the guy who put a note under the windshield wiper of a parked car.

The note read, I have just smashed into your car. The people who saw the accident are watching me. They think I'm writing down my name and address. I'm not. And what the Jews held closest in the law, in Torah, was circumcision.

Divinely ordained, yes, but look what's happened because if it's not a circumcision of your heart, it doesn't matter if you've been circumcised anywhere else for circumcision. Literally, the word means to cut around indeed is of value.

If you obey the law, if you break the law, your circumcision externally becomes uncircumcision internally. You think you're going to get to heaven because you've been baptized or circumcised or no. Rituals, damn.

Rites, damn. Unless they have the reality on the inside and reality with the right object. Rabbi Menachem said, our rabbis have said that no circumcised man will see hell. Another rabbinic saying was circumcision saves from hell.

The Midrash, written around 200 AD or compiled then Jewish traditions. God swore to Abraham that no one who was circumcised should be sent to hell. The Midrash also said, Abraham sits before the gates of hell and never allows any circumcised Israelite to enter.

Verse 26, so if a man who is uncircumcised, a Gentile, keeps the precepts of the law, he's acting like his heart has been circumcised as the Old Testament talked about a lot, even Moses talked about circumcise your hearts, will not his uncircumcision physically be regarded as circumcision of the heart?

Yes, we know the answer. Then, verse 27, he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision, you're holy of holies, but break the law. You can't hide behind circumcision, and by the way, Job wasn't circumcised, Enoch wasn't circumcised, Noah wasn't circumcised, right and religious duty doesn't do anything.

Verse 28, for no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly. It was never God's standard. The problem isn't being Jewish, the problem is being a hypocritical Jew. Outward and physical. But a Jew, by the way, Jew or Judah, we have the Hebrew word praise come from that, but a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter.

His praise, his Jewishness, his Judah-ishness is not from man but from God. How do you drive out self-righteousness? By God is going to judge every act that you've ever done, religious act or not. It cannot escape God's judgment.

It's equitable, it's impartial, and it comes especially on those who know better. Friends, this is how you evangelize. Don't be so fast to offer the solution until they know they have a problem. That's exactly what Paul did here.

Forget the Romans' road. How about just thinking through Romans? Before the positive good news of Romans 3, 21 and following, Paul makes sure what? Look at chapter 3, verse 19. He doesn't let up in his preaching of God's requirement, how people are unrighteous, and how they need the righteousness of Christ.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law. What's the purpose of all this? Why one? Why two? Why three? So that every mouth may be stopped. When you evangelize, I want you to evangelize in such a way by the Spirit's power where the person says this.

You know what? If everything you've said is true, my own conscience, creation, and the Word of God damns me, and if you are right what you've said means that I'm going to go to hell right now. I've earned hell.

Then you talk about the Savior. But as long as they're running their mouth, yeah, but I was good. I'm not as bad as so-and-so. There's a bunch of hypocrites at the church. You see the people on TV and, what about this scandal?

What about that scandal? How could God do that? The Bible's written by man. What about evolution? Then what do you give them? I'll tell you what you don't give them. You don't tell them Jesus loves them and has a wonderful plan for their life and here's the Savior.

You keep trying to apply by the Spirit's Word the bad news, so then they actually care about the good news. I'm not saying if you talk about Jesus to people too early somehow you did the wrong thing. I'm glad you talked about Jesus, but you get my point.

People need to know that they're lost before they know that they've got to have a Savior. And maybe the refrain for all of us in our evangelism should be from Romans chapter 2. Did you know, unbelieving friend, that God is going to give each man according to His works?

That's what you're going to get. You're going to get what you earned. And for us, for us as Christians, after we realize all this, after we realize we were the Romans 2 people, we were the Romans 1 people, now when I read Romans 5, it sounds so much better.

Because there is a righteousness that we're going to look at in the next several weeks that's going to blow away all kinds of things, including any kind of sorrow that we used to have about our sins, because we'll realize how great Christ Jesus is.

No wonder chapter 5 sounds better now. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

That's a lot different than anger and wrath and indignation and fury. Verse 6, for while we were weak, while I was that Roman 2 person looking at everybody else saying amen, they're wicked. The right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

He died for chapter 1 people, chapter 2 people. One will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows His love for us, and that while we were still sinners, self-righteous, hypocritical sinners, hiding behind moralism, Christ died for us.

Since therefore, we have been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more.

Now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. That's good news. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word.

Through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text. Please, come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m., and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.