Good morning. All right, it's 9 a.m. Pacific
Standard Time. We are going to start this morning's
sermon, continuing in Romans chapter 2, verses 1 through 16. Let's start with prayer. Father,
we thank you for this day. We thank you for a new mercy
and new grace. especially towards your people. Lord, we ask that
during this time of the study of your word that you would open
our eyes and ears to hear the truth of your word, and that
we would take them to heart and meditate on them, that we might
know how to give an answer to every man that asks us of the
hope within us with gentleness and respect. Bless this time
in the word, Father, in the reading of it and in the teaching and
preaching of it. And we give you praise. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen. Alright, so Romans chapter
2 verses 1 through 16. Therefore thou art inexcusable,
O man, whosoever thou art that judgest. For wherein thou judgest
another, thou condemnest thyself. For thou that judgest doeth the
same things. 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 escape the
same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest
thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering,
not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
Hang on a second. But after thy hardness and impenitent
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 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. But glory, honor, and peace to
every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to
the Gentile, for there is no respect of persons with God.
For as many as have sinned without law shall also 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 shew 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. And the day when God
shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to
my gospel, Alright, so we're going to continue on Romans 2.
And just to recap what we spoke about last week. The title of
last week's sermon was, The Just Wrath of God. The title of this
week's sermon is, Reaping and Sowing. And we see how man is
without excuse before God. How all have sinned, fell short
of the glory of God. We see the original sin in the
garden, how Adam and Eve fell when they took the forbidden
fruit. So as a result of that, everything
that man has done afterwards has never amounted to his own
righteousness. So what a man is and what he
does is a result of that. That's why we do the things that
we do, whether we're saved or unsaved. I mean, you look at
the behavior of men and what we do, whether it's using bad
language, being mean and unkind to our spouses and friends, our
co-workers, complaining and griping about stuff. All those things
are a result of us being fallen. We all do these things. It's
not like... What Paul is doing in these chapters is he's establishing
a boundary for what men are and what they do. And fallen as well
as saved men. So as a result of that, we need
a Savior. And God is just in His wrath.
That's why last week when I talked about the just wrath of God,
if the wages of sin is death, that's God's decree. We cannot
change that. That's why we die naturally as
well. We're born into this world. We're young and full of vigor,
vitality. Like a little kid, they have
all kinds of energy and we want to sleep. or lay around most
of the day. But in spite of the fact that
we're fallen, God is still gracious. But He's not gracious to everybody,
as many people say. He's only gracious to His people.
And we see that His goodness, the goodness of God, leads to
repentance. That's what He tells us in verse 4 of chapter 2. It leads to repentance. As a
result, and to further explain that, there's a standard that
men cannot meet, and that standard is perfection. So from the time
you're born to the time you die, you have to be absolutely perfect,
flawless. You can't commit a sin. However,
the psalmist tells us that Even when we're born, I hear a lot
of people, and I was one, I used to believe the same thing, that
children, babies, they're born innocent. But the scripture says
we're born in sin, and we're conceived in iniquity, and we
come out of the womb speaking lies. We drink iniquity like
water. This is the state of man. Mankind has fallen. We have to
understand that and we have to teach that. And if we don't,
people are going to think that man are good. Being a young man,
telling other people, well I always look for the good in people.
I know that people have good hearts, but that's not what the
scripture tells us. Scripture tells us the heart
is deceitfully wicked. Who can know it? So all men's
heart, my mom's heart, your mom's heart, our parents, our hearts. We're wicked. We are fallen.
There's none good. No, not one. There's none that
doeth good. People don't seek God. God has to come to them. And that's what He tells us in
His Word. There's a particular people that
He has come to save. He shall save His people from
their sins. That's Matthew 1.21, right? So knowing that that standard
is perfection, God has given us a standard, and that standard
is His Son. God so loved the world, not the
entire world, because if He loved the entire world, nobody would
ever go to hell. But we know that that's not the
case. You look at the depiction of Noah's flood, how the world
was populated. God destroyed everybody. He even
destroyed the animals on the earth. But Noah and his family
were saved because they were in the ark. That ark was a type
of Christ. So Christ is the standard of
perfection and as a substitute and surety for His people and
His people alone. Just like you look at the tribes
of Israel, right? They had 12 tribes. Israel was
chosen out of all the earth to represent God's people. They
were a type of God's people. They weren't all God's people.
We can go on later on. We're going to go through this
book later on and Paul's going to explain how not everybody
who's Jewish is a real Jew. The true Jews are God's people.
Those who are circumcised in the heart is what the scripture
says. So knowing that this standard that we must meet is perfection,
God has given us a standard in His Son. He's given His people
that. He's the one who judges the world in truth and in righteousness. He's the one who is truth. He
is truth. And as a result of that, His
people tell the world this, not knowing who his elect are, and
he draws them out from amongst the midst. And then also, to
add on to that, I believe I ended last week's sermon with the fact
that as God's people, we're supposed to judge, but we judge righteously.
Just because somebody doesn't like the raiders, I can't be
mean to them because they don't like the raiders. That's their
choice not to like them. I mean, I like them. But that
doesn't make me any better than them or them any better than
me. And when it comes to spiritual matters, like say for example,
you talk to a person and you ask them, well, do you believe
Jesus loves everybody? And they say, yeah, I believe
that he loves everybody. God so loved the world, right?
Well, we tell them, no, God does not love the world. If you read
the 17th chapter of John, when Jesus is praying for his disciples,
He says right there. Matter of fact, let's go there
since we're so close. John 17. And it is, I wanna say, it's
in John chapter 17. Let's see. Verse 9, Jesus is saying in verse
8, He said, I've given unto them the words which thou gavest me,
and they have received them. And they have known surely that
I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst
send me. I pray for them. He's talking about his people,
his disciples. At that time it was, I want to
say it was the 12 disciples who later became apostles with the
exception of Judas. And he says, I pray for them.
I pray not for the world, but for them, which Thou hast given
me, for they are Thine. Not all people are God's people. So when we talk to a person and
we're judging spiritual matters and we say, well, do you believe
Christ died for everybody? And they're like, yeah, I believe
He died for everybody, but those people have to make a decision.
No, God didn't die for everybody. He died for His people alone.
And when we tell these people that, They might not like it, and they
might not receive it, but it's the truth. We have to speak the
truth to people in love. That's what I said earlier in
the prayer, that God would enable us to give a reason for the hope
that we have within us, to answer everybody that asks us of that
hope with gentleness and respect. So, moving on to the title. I titled this, You Reap What
You Sow. In Romans 2, verse 6, It says, who, this being God,
God the Son, because He's going to judge the earth, who will
render to every man according to his deeds. And the deeds are
the things that we do, as well as what we believe. When it comes
to Christianity, God separates His people from the world. We're
not of this world, it says in the scripture. But what we believe
and what we confess is Jesus Christ. That's why we're talking
about Jesus. The scripture is about Jesus. But there's a true
Jesus and there's a false Jesus. Going back to what I asked earlier,
when you talk to people about spiritual matters, if you say,
hey, do you believe God loves the entire world? He loves everybody?
And Jesus died for everybody? And they say, yes? Well, right
then, you guys are at odds. Because, well, I don't believe
so. And the Bible says this. And they say, no, God loves the
world. And He's willing that none should perish. But when
we read the scripture, we have to read them in context, and
not only that, we have to be born again in order to understand
them. The natural man does not receive the things of God. He
doesn't. And his mind is at enmity with God, which means he's against.
He's an enemy of God. And even God's people, before
they're born again, regenerated, we're the same. We're no different.
We're at odds with God as well. I mean, we're born in sin and
shaped in iniquity, right? We come out of the womb speaking
lies. So we have to be saved. We're saved in time. But as far
as God is concerned, we're chosen before the foundation of the
world. And we can't undo what God has done, right? So going
on to say that we reap what we sow, there's a law, it's you
reap what you sow. I'm sure we've all heard that,
right? And that's a law of reciprocity, like back and forth, the divine
law of reciprocity. We're gonna go to Genesis chapter
one, and we're gonna read verses one through 11 real fast. Let's see. And it says, In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without
form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God
said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw
the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from
the darkness. And God called the light Day,
and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning
were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the
midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the
waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which
were under the firmament from the waters which were above the
firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament
heaven, and the evening and the morning were the first day. And
God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together
unto one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. And
God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of
the waters called he seas. And God saw that it was good.
Let's see, I said 1 through 11. And God said, let the earth bring
forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding
fruit after his kind. I want you to key in on that
word, after his kind. Whose seed is in itself upon
the earth, and it was so. So when we talk about the divine
law of reciprocity, it's, you know, reaping what we sowed.
When God made light, only light can come from light. When he
made darkness, only darkness produces darkness. A goat will
produce another goat. A dog, a dog. Everything reproduces
after itself. And that's reaping and sowing. He reaps seeds, whatever it is
that he sows, whether it's apples, oranges. I live in an area where
there's farms everywhere. Almonds, that's what comes out
later on. That's what he sows. He reaps
the seeds, he sows the seeds, he reaps the trees. So in this
first chapter we see how everything reproduces after its own kind.
So tying that into reaping and sowing as far as sin is concerned,
man's a sinner. We're born in sin, right? So
everything we do is sinful. We can't do anything good because
we're not good. You know, nothing from nothing
leaves nothing. You have to be good in order
to produce something good. And no one's good except for
God. That's why when that, I don't
know if it was a rich young ruler, when he came to Jesus and he
said, good master, and he said, none is good but the Father.
You know, Jesus was leading him to God as well. Now, how does
this law affect man? We go to Genesis chapter 2, stay
in the same book, go to verse 17. God told Adam, But of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.
For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. So what happened? We reap what
we sow, right? Adam disobeyed God because he was born to. He
was created that way. Man was created to fall. Adam
was created to fall so that God could show His glory in Christ
and how He redeems His people. It was all part of His good pleasure,
His plan, which is the end from the beginning is known to Him,
not to us. So as a result of that, man died
naturally and spiritually. And to be honest, I don't think
Adam was really I don't think he was spiritually alive. I think
he was just naturally alive. He was from the earth, right?
Because God took him from the dust of the earth. So, seeing
we have this natural and spiritual death, I want to take you to
another scripture. It's 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9. And that says, says the body, know ye not that
the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And that's
what Paul's talking about in Romans chapter 2. All of these
things he said that man, fallen man, does in that list in chapter
1, as well as in a partial list in chapter 2, man do all these
things. And we judge people by what they
do, but God judges rightly. When His people do these things,
they're chastised and they're disciplined, but they're not
kicked out of the kingdom, so to speak. They're no longer saved
because they're sinning. So it says, "...know ye not that
the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived,
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves with mankind." Also read that through
verse 11 nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor
extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God and such were
some of you and that hey if I was a fornicator, I know I was I
was you know and says But such were some of you but you're washed
but you're sanctified you're justified in the name of the
Lord Jesus the by the Spirit of our God. So God's people,
even though we do those things, we shouldn't do them after we're
born again. That's for sure. We should not
do them. It shouldn't be named among us.
But we still do. And the thing is, we've been
forgiven. We've been purchased by Christ's blood. Our sins are
forgiven in Him. He's our surety and substitute.
So, we shouldn't do those things, and we judge people when they
do those things, but the difference is the grace of God. That's what
causes us to differ. But we do reap what we sow. And
that law affected man in our natural and spiritual death.
We're going to go to Galatians 6, verses 7-8. And that says, let him be not
deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh
shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit
shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And a lot of times
when people talk about the spirit and the flesh, they think about
the things that people do. And in a sense, it's correct,
but God's talking about when you're in Christ, you're in the
spirit. Even when you sin, you're still in Christ. You don't come
out of Christ and sin. You sin in Christ. That's why
He disciplines those whom He loves, whom He chastises. He
chastises us, right? Just like our kids. If my kid
sins and does something that I've taught them not to do, they
don't not become my child because they sin. They're my child and
I correct them. A lot of us have been taught
wrong in our religious backgrounds by what walking in the Spirit,
walking in the flesh is. If you're in Christ, you're in
the Spirit. The just man falleth seven times, and the Lord upholds
him. That's what the scriptures say.
We have to make sure when we teach, we teach rightly, And
that's it. We teach what the Word of God
says rightly and in its context. And God does everything else.
He deals with us accordingly. So my next point is the truth
of God's righteous judgment. Going back to Romans chapter
2 and verse 2, Paul says, but we are sure that the judgment
of God is according to truth. What is truth? Pilate asked Jesus
that before his crucifixion. Jesus is the truth. When Thomas
wanted to see the Father, Jesus said, They asked him what the
way was in John 14. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man cometh to the Father but
through me. Later on he says, all that the
Father has given me will come to me. So it's God, the triune
God, the triune Jehovah, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, or Holy Ghost, however you call Him, or you care to
call Him. They're all working together in the eternal covenant
of grace, bringing God's people to Him. But at the same time,
they're judging the world. They're judging fallen man. So
Paul says, we're sure that the judgment of God is according
to the truth against them which commit such things. And the people
that commit these things are the ones who are outside of Christ. They're not in Christ. And we
have to stress that God's people still fall short. They do all
the same things that the fallen people do. Except they were chosen. They were chosen in Christ. So
Christ is our substitute and He's our surety. His atonement
purchased our salvation. His blood covered us and bought
us and washed us. We're regenerated. We're renewed.
It's not that we were imparted with His righteousness and we
no longer sin and we live a perfect holy life. Because there's a
lot of people that will tell you that. Especially now. They say, Well, no, brother,
you should be getting holier and holier. You should be putting
off those sins. Well, when they tell me that, I ask them, what's
the standard? How much of that sin should I put off? And what
if I don't put it off enough? Does that take me out? You know,
because they talk about progressive holiness, progressive sanctification,
and what's the standard of sanctification? What's the standard of holiness?
What if I don't achieve it? We have the standard. That's
what I said in the beginning. Christ is the standard. He's
the standard bearer. He's our vanguard. In Him, we
have His imputed righteousness. We're justified. We're sanctified. We're glorified. We're complete
in Him, the Scripture says in Colossians. So we have to understand
that. Knowing the truth of God's judgment,
you know, fallen men and religious men, they're not convinced of
God's truth. you know let's go to Romans back
into chapter 1 and verse 16 Paul says I'm not ashamed of the gospel
for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first
and also to the Greek for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by
faith now these men they're not they're not convinced because
you go to verse 18 it says for the wrath of God Remember, we're
talking about the wrath of God. Now we're into reaping and sowing.
The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
There's a lot of... I mean, I would say most people
do hold the truth of God in unrighteousness. They believe that their self-righteousness
is what puts them on a right standing with God. And they'll
say, whether they go to church. It can be any church. You know,
I have family that are in false churches. And that's the God-honest
truth. You have Mormons, you have Russellites,
who call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses, but they're not. And
I don't call them that. I call them Russellites, which
is what they are. You have Hindus, Buddhists, you have Muslims. I mean, there's thousands of
different religions. And they all tell people to do
something. Christianity tells the world
that's the good news, that Christ has died for His people, and
they have to just believe on Him, who He is, what He did,
His person and work. But even in believing in Him,
we're saved by grace through faith, not of works as any man
boasts. It's the gift of God. God gives His people a gift of
faith. Fallen men, religious men, they're
not convinced of this because they think, well, it's something
I need to do. I was told God loves you this much. All you
have to do is take the next step and come to Him. How can I come
to Him when Romans says there's none that seek Him? That doesn't
jive with what the Word of God says. So we have to tell people
these truths. Let's go to John chapter 16 verses
8 through 13. I'll read that for you. And it says, and when He has come, He being
the Spirit of God. Christ is telling His people
this. When He has come, He will reprove the world of sin, and
of righteousness, and of judgment. And this is the world of fallen
men, and the world of His elect as well. This says, of sin, because
they believed not on Me. They were not convinced that
He was God. When Jesus came, and the Jews asked who He was,
He says, you know, before Abraham was, I am. And they wanted to
kill Him. They wanted to stone Him, because they believed that
if someone said that they were equal to God, that they were
God. Right? So he says, of sin, because they
believe not of me. Of righteousness, because I go
to my Father, and ye see me no more. Of judgment, because the
prince of this world is judged. The prince of this world is a
devil, but he's only a pseudo-prince, and God has him here for his
purpose, that he would save his people. But everything that God
has created, he's created all things for his purpose. Even
the wicked for the day of evil. We know that Satan's the father
of lies, the devil, the accuser of the brethren. So when people
aren't convinced of who Christ is, who God the Father is, who
the Spirit of God is, they're going to hold the truth in unrighteousness.
They're going to say, oh yeah, I believe in God. I believe in
justification by faith. I believe in Christ alone, faith
alone, scripture alone. But then they always add something.
They sneak it in the back door. They come in, yeah brother, God
bless you, praise the Lord. But then when you The rubber meets the road. We
say the proof is in the pudding. They'll tell you, well, you have
to get holier and holier. These are people preaching sovereign
grace. Sovereign grace meaning God is sovereign in everything
He does. We have to understand that. There's
a difference. If you're not convinced of the
truth, you're going to be fooled by a lie. I've told people for
a long time, my mother made us flour tortillas when we were
young, so I've had the real deal, the real thing. And when people
tell me, well, Costco's got some pretty good flour tortillas,
they bubble up just like the real ones. They say, just like
the real ones, and they taste good. And I'm like, you know
what? They do taste pretty good, but they're not the real ones.
These ones are made by machines. They're not made by hand. You
know, your mom or your friend or family member that makes them
out of love, you know, we would say hecho con amor, made with
love, these tortillas are, and they're wonderful. So when you
have a store-bought one, you're like, ah, you know, I mean, some
people like them, but me personally, I'd rather have my mom's, and
I can't have them anymore, but I remember them. So, going on
to my next sub-point, I talk about how nothing has changed. There's an old hymn that says,
Glory be to the Father. and to the Son. It's a doxology
that normally you start at the beginning of a service, a worship
service. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy
Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world
without end. Amen. Amen. Let's go to Genesis
1.1. We know from reading this book
that the serpent was in the garden, right? And in the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth. So, as the serpent was
in the garden, we see him in there later on. He's here now
in the earth, and he's deceiving men, and he's going to continue
deceiving men until Christ's return. Let's go to Genesis chapter
3, and we're going to read verses 1-5. Now the serpent was more
subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had
made. And he said unto the woman, Yea,
hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent,
We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it,
lest ye die. Now God just said not to eat
of it. So already we see how people are adding things to the
scripture. And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not
surely die. And she didn't die immediately,
but she died a natural death later on, because she was taken
from the man's side, who was taken from the dust of the earth,
returned to the earth, and we die. We're either buried or cremated. So it says, For God doth know
that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. Well, what happened?
They couldn't handle that. They knew that they were naked,
and then they tried to cover themselves. And mankind does the same thing,
especially religious men. They think, hey, just go to church.
Just tithe your monies. Just give your time. Get into
42 different ministries. And you'll be okay with God.
But that's holding the truth in unrighteousness. That's not
preaching the truth in love. And that's not holding the truth
in love as well. So, as a serpent was in the garden,
he'll be in the earth deceiving men until Christ's return. And
I had read from Eugenesis chapter 3 verses 1 through 5. I also
want to go to Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Kind of laying a groundwork for
these things so that you know what the scriptures say. And
as I said earlier, you can rightly divide the word of truth as the
Spirit of God enables you. You can share this truth with
people whenever you see them. It says in Ecclesiastes 3 verse
1, to everything there's a season and a time to every purpose under
the heaven. It says a time to be born and
a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck. Reaping
and sowing, right? a time to pluck up that which
is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break
down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to
laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away
stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and
a time to refrain from embracing. So in that chapter in Ecclesiastes,
he's talking about all these different things that there's
a time for. This is for us as men. We see things in time. Like,
right now we're live, so we see it in time. I have some friends
that are online also that I'd like to watch. I can't always
watch them live, so I miss them, then I watch them later on. Something
about seeing something live, like I wasn't able to see my
two daughters being born, and that was heartbreaking to me,
but they were still born. Now when it comes to the things
of God, everything's already done. you know, forever your
word is settled in the heavens. Everything he said he's decreed
to be done, it's done in his mind. And it's already done.
You know, like I said earlier, we can't take ourselves out of
Christ if we've already been chosen before the foundation
of the world. We see this happen in time. When
we hear the gospel, God gives us faith, God regenerates us,
and we say, oh yeah, now I see. But it was always that way as
far as God was concerned. So, we're going to also go to
verses 14 through 17 of Ecclesiastes 3.1. And that says, I know that
whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. That's what I was
just saying. Nothing can be put to it. In other words, you can't
change it. Right? Nor anything taken from it. It's
done. It's settled. We have to be convinced
of these truths. If not, we're going to be the
worst for it. Okay? God doeth it, and that
men should fear before Him. In other words, we should reverence
Him. and be fearful of him. Right? That which hath been is
now, and that which is to be hath already been. Right? And
God requireth that which is past. And what is past? The fall of
man. It passed in the garden. It happened
in the garden. The fall. Original sin. As a
result, there's none righteous, no not one. All have sinned and
fell short of the glory of God. And the wages of sin is death.
But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. So
we have to be careful about these things. We have to rightly divide
the word of truth, tell these people the truth in love, and
let God save who He's going to save. It's not our job to convince
people. I love my wife, and she's told me for years, you can't
argue with people. And I wish I had listened to
her more often, but I don't, and I still argue with people.
But I'm telling you, God is the one that's going to convince
a person when they're lost and when they're saved. He's going
to convince them of their truth. I mean, we might get into it
with people, What does it do in the end? We may have witnessed
to them, but then we may have been rude to them. And people
say, well, it's a presentation. Here's the thing. We have to
speak the truth in love. And people aren't going to like
the truth. So we speak it anyways. as the opportunities arise. I
was telling a friend the other day, Christ came. He was perfect.
He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. He was
without sin. But what happened? They wanted to kill him. People
wanted to kill him. Who were the ones that wanted to kill
him? The ones who were lying to everybody else and telling
them, yeah, you have to do this. You have to be circumcised. You
have to keep the law. You have to do this. You have
to do that. It was crazy. They were telling men to do all
these things, yet they weren't doing them themselves. So, we're
going to talk about the reaping. We're going to go back to Romans
2, verses 8-9. And that says, "...but unto them
that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey
unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath." So these are people
that are outside of Christ. And either you're in Christ or
you're out of Christ. Whether you call yourself a Christian,
or you're not. God knows His people. We can
meet somebody that can quote scripture left and right, or
knows the whole Bible by heart, but they might just know the
letter, they don't know the Spirit, and they're not regenerated.
So they can quote scripture, but they don't know God. So they're
going to reap what they sow. If God doesn't save them, they're
going to reap indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish
upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also
of the gentile. Paul's writing this book to Romans
and he's basically giving He's telling, he's building up to
his finale later on in the end of the book that there's none
good, man. Everybody, you know, the Jews
thought they were it. And I used to think, hey, if
you're a Jew, when I was in a false religion, if you're a Jew, you're
gonna be saved. Because the scripture says all Israel's gonna be saved,
right? But who are the Israel that God's
gonna save? The children of promise in Isaac,
right? When the Lord told Isaac, his
father Jacob, that he was a child of promise. Or was it Abraham
and Sarah? But either way, it's in Christ. In the end, it all leads to Christ.
If you're in Christ, you're a child of promise. You talk about Abraham,
but Abraham was in Christ. You go back to the beginning,
whether it's Adam or the lineage of Christ, like in Matthew chapter
1, it talks about the 42 generations prior to Christ. They were all
in Christ. That's just to establish, that
was written to the Jews to establish, hey, Christ came from the line
of David, and David came from Adam, and Adam came from Abraham,
because they said, hey, Abraham's our father, we're of Abraham.
We have to make sure we understand these things. Now this last point,
the reaping, from verses 8 and 9, it's going to segue into next
week's message. I had a quote, a friend of mine,
shares with me a lot, and it goes hand in hand with what we
just talked about. And it says, illumination, in
other words, if you know something, is not regeneration. That's from
Stephen Charnock. He's a Puritan of the past. I
don't normally really like to quote men. I like to quote scripture. But in the end, even if we quote
a man, we have to see where that lines up with scripture. And
that's true, because Jesus told the Pharisees. Moses wrote of
me. They had God's Word. He told
Nicodemus, you're a master in Israel and you don't know these
things. You don't know about salvation. You don't know about being born
again. So my next sub-point from the reaping is the deceivers
and the deceived. Now let's read Romans 2, 18-23. That's what I'm talking about. It's going to segue into next
week's message. And that says that, we'll actually start with
verse 17. Behold, thou art called a Jew,
and restest in the law of God, and makest thy boast of God.
Yeah, I'm a Jew, man. I'm a Jew. I wear this big old robe. I got phylacteries on it. You
can see my, I got scriptures on it. I got a witness t-shirt. I got a witness headband. I got
Jesus tattoos on my arms. It's all about Jesus. He's telling
the Jews this. Behold, thou art called a Jew,
and restest in the law of God, and makest thy boast of God,
and knowest his will. Because they had the law. The
Jews had the law. They had the Decalogue, the Ten
Commandments. And he says, knowest his will,
and approvest of things that are more excellent, being instructed
out of the law. They had the Torah, was what
they called it. Then they had the Mishnah, the
interpretation of the Torah. But that's Judaism. Judaism wasn't
Christianity. Christianity has always been
trusting in Christ. Abraham believed God. That's
Christianity. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you'll be saved. God caused him to believe in
Him, right? "...and are confident that thou thyself art a guard..."
Art, a guide of the blind. A light of them which are in
darkness. In other words, they're saying, hey, you just do these
things, you follow us, you know, you become a Jew, you get proselytized
and become a Jew, you get circumcised. If you're not circumcised, you
have your bar mitzvah. That's what they do, they circumcise
at a bar mitzvah. An instructor of the foolish.
So he's telling the Jews right now, You're an instructor of
the foolish. You're a teacher of babes, which
has the form of knowledge and of the truth of the law. Thou,
therefore, which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou
that preachest, a man should not steal. Dost thou steal? So
he's telling the Jews, man, you're doing all these things. You're
telling people what to do, but you're not doing them. Thou sayest
a man should not commit adultery. Dost thou commit adultery? Thou
that abhors idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest
thyself thy boast of the law, through breaking the law, dishonorous
the things of God, the Jews were, they were the worst. And guess
what? They were his worst enemies here on earth. They followed
him around, wanted to kill him. You know, they devoted themselves
to killing him. A lot of times when they believed
they thought they had an opportunity, it wasn't Christ's time. He disappeared
into a crowd. He was gone. But he died in the
time that God determined for him to die. Let's go to John,
2 John. There's no chapter, it's just one book. And we're going
to look at verses 7 through 13. And it says, For many deceivers
are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh. I mean, anybody who doesn't know
Christ, doesn't know He's God, they're a deceiver, right? And
they're deceiving others. It says, This is a deceiver and
an antichrist. You know, I know that when I
was in false religion, the big thing was, oh, who's the antichrist?
Who's the antichrist? Is Obama the antichrist? You
know, is the Pope the antichrist? The antichrist is anybody who's
against Christ. They're not believers, are antichrists, many. Because
he says, this is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves
that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that
we receive a full reward. This is just telling us to continue
in Christ as He gives us grace. We can't do it, but He who began
a good work in you will perform it until the day of Christ Jesus,
right? He's the one that does it all. We don't do it, right?
Whosoever transgresses and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ,
the doctrine, you hear people say, oh, I hate doctrine. What's
all this doctrine? What's with all this doctrine?
Doctrine is teaching. If you don't like the teaching
of Christ, the doctrine of Christ, you got a problem, and your problem
is with the Word of God, because the Word of God, it has it right
there. You know, whosoever transgresses and abideth not in the doctrine
of Christ hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ. I mean, there's a word again,
doctrine, doctrine, doctrine. He that stays in it. He hath
both the Father and the Son. The Spirit of God is in, regenerates
a person. He says, we will send another
Comforter, even the Holy Ghost. You have the Triune God right
there. He has imputed Christ's righteousness to us by the Spirit
of God, and the Spirit of God is with us to comfort us. To
do what? Not to tell us, go here, go there, like we saw in the
book of Acts when he told Ananias that Saul was coming to his house
and to lay hands on him. He tells us about the things
of Christ, right? So it says, if there come any
unto you and bring not this doctrine. Man, doctrine sure is in this
book a lot, right? Receive him not into your house,
neither bid him Godspeed. Now if he's talking about Religion,
right? We know that there's only one
true religion, and it's Christianity. True Christianity, not false.
If he starts talking about this, like, when they come to my door,
hey, would you like to talk about the Bible? I'm like, not with
you. You know, you're not a true believer. We're enemies, we believe
differently. I have to tell them, and most
people, oh yeah, I like to talk about it, but you have people
who think they're Christians, don't know any doctrine, any
teaching, and don't know what it really means, and they talk
to these people who seem to know the Bible, yeah, let's do a book
study, a Bible study, and they run circles around them. And
then they think, oh wow, maybe I have to become one of them.
That's not the truth. It says, if you receive them
not into your house, neither bid them Godspeed. Don't say,
God bless you. I say, hey, you know what? I hope God has mercy
on you and causes you to see the truth. Otherwise, you're
going to hell. That's the truth. And if I'm
your enemy for telling you the truth, let me be your enemy.
I'm not going to lose any sleep over that, because I'd rather
tell you the truth. And as a matter of fact, if we don't tell somebody
the truth, we're sinning. Yeah, we're covered, but we have
to know these things. So it's like, oh, just don't
say anything. Why not say anything when I know
the truth? I have to tell them. It says, "...for he that biddeth
Him Godspeed is partaker of his evil deeds." Having many things
to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink, but
I trust to come unto you and speak face to face, that our
joy may be full. To the children of thy elect
sister greet you." He's talking about the elect, right? How they're
saved. They're not deceived. Deceivers
are going to be deceived. Let's go to Matthew 24. We're going to read through a
few verses here, starting off with verse 5. All of the Gospel is the Word
of God. You have a lot of people saying,
Paul wrote this, James wrote that, John wrote that. They were
all born of the Spirit of God and they spoke as the Spirit
of God moved upon them. So it's all Scripture. A lot
of times, I have a Bible where Jesus' words aren't read, so
I know that He said them. But He said them, Paul said them,
John said them, James said them, Isaiah said them, Amos said them.
That's all the Word of God. It's no different. It's the Word
of God. He says in verse 5 that, Many
shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive
many. I remember when I first moved to this city, I was looking
for a church, looking for a gospel church. And there must be 75
churches here. And when I went to their websites,
listened to some of their sermons, looked at their belief statements,
I'm like, I didn't see anything about Jesus. We love everybody. We're welcome.
We have basketball teams. We have football teams. We have
parties, pizza parties for the kids. And I'm like, where is
the gospel? Where is the gospel? It's so hard to find a true gospel
church. Everybody wants to make everybody
feel good. Yeah, come and have coffee and
donuts. Come and look at our facility. We have a state-of-the-art
facility. That doesn't mean anything to
me. What means everything to me is that the Word of God is
rightly taught. And I'm with fellow like-minded believers
who know the truth, who speak the truth in love, who believe
in the truth, who earnestly contend for the truth that was once delivered
to the saints. They had the same gospel. And
we can trace it back to Christ, our gospel. directly back to
Him. I have a good friend who is a
Baptist, and I'm learning more about the Baptist faith. People
have called me a Calvinist in the past, and I've told everybody,
I'm just a believer. I'm a Christian. I follow Christ.
And I know that Calvinism has some doctrines, teachings of
the Bible, but that's not the Gospel. The Gospel is Christ. All of his doctrines, whether
it's election, predestination, substitution, the atonement,
the perseverance of the saints, those are doctrines of the Scripture. This is how we do it here at
our church. You know, go to verse 11 and
that says, Many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive
men. Many! And many people are deceived.
Let's go to verses 23 through 24. That if any man shall say
unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not, for
there shall arise false Christs. false Christ, the Russellites
Christ. I remember a time when they didn't
pray in Jesus' name if you asked to pray with them. Now they will
say in Jesus' name. But I would tell them, well, hey, wait a
minute. If you say He's not God, how can you say in His name?
If you would pray to Jehovah, you're going to say in Jehovah's
name, not Jesus' name. And then they say that He was
a man who lived a perfect life so that we can live a perfect
life. But Scripture says there's none good. No, not one. There's
none to do good, right? How can we live a perfect life
because He lives a perfect life? He's perfect. He is a substitute
and a surety for His people. We have to be imputed with His
righteousness, right? We have a righteousness that's
not our own. How can we be clothed with His robes of righteousness
by doing something that we believe is righteous? That's nonsense,
right? "...There shall arise false cries
and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders,
insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the elect."
I remember going to places and saying, we're going to cast out
demons today. You know, people would be all coughing and acting
like a demon came out and, that's a demon of greed and that's a
demon of lust and I cast it out and I bind you. Man, that's crazy. But people believe that. We don't
want to be deceived. That's why we need to be born
again, we need to know the truth, and we need to study. God's people
are all taught of God, and they learn of God. He gives them pastors
out of His own heart. He gives them brothers and sisters
who know the Word, who know God, who love God, who rightly divide
the Word of Truth, and they teach each other over and over and
over again. you know, until we go back to
be with Christ. So in spite of this just wrath
of God, according to His standard, there's good news. Go back to
Romans, chapter 2, verse 2. Here's the good news. God's going
to save His people. Paul says, but, in Romans 2,
verse 2, we, who are the we? They're the Christians, they're
the ones he talked to in the first chapter. to all that be
in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, right? The saints
of God, God's people everywhere, right? Whether it's in a local
assembly, which is that local body, or in the family of God,
because there's other assemblies everywhere. It's not just, you
know, that's the body of Christ, right? Then you have your local
assembly where you learn and are taught, and you serve one
another, right? The good news is that there's
the called of God, Verse 4 says, "...or despises thou the riches
of His goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing
that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." Remember
the Spirit of God? He comes to the world, convinces
them of sin, and judgment, and righteousness. He's the one that
saves God's people. God told Nicodemus, Jesus told
Nicodemus in chapter 3, the Spirit of God It's like to win. He blows where he lifts us. And
when God saves a person, we don't know, but we know that it's through
the preaching of the Word of God. So that's the good news
in spite of the wrath. Verses 7, to them who by patient
continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality,
eternal life. Now it's not by us what we do.
You know, what we do, it does matter, but what Christ has done
is what counts. When he bowed his head at Calvary
and said, it's finished, he also was slain before the foundation
of the world. That's His atonement for His
people. It was accomplished. That's a
finished work. Now we continue in Him because
He causes us to continue, but it's not by what we do. Remember,
that's a work. And even the work that is done
in us, they say monergism, which is the Spirit of God regenerating
a person, that's done, it's called monergism. And when God, as God
which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure,
people say, oh no, it's those good works that you're doing.
You know, faith without works is dead, a brother told me. just
a while back. Don't forget. Yeah, but don't
forget, what is the greatest work that has been done? It's
the work of Christ on the cross, before the foundation of the
world, as a substitute and surety for his people. That's the work
we're talking about. As a result of that work, his
people continue in doing these good things that he's placed
in them. Remember, he's the true vine. We're the branches. We bear the
fruit. He's the one that produces the
fruit, not us. Who gives the rain to the earth?
The Father does. Who waters the tree? Who's planted
that seed? Remember in the beginning, the
divine law of reciprocity. Everything reproduces after itself,
after its own kind. We have that. Christ produces
His people. He's already placed them in Him,
kind of like a seed. Then when we die, when our state
in fallen Adam dies and we're born again, that's a new life
right there. So the next verse I'm going to
give you is verse 10. But glory, honor, and peace to
every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to
the Gentile. And I really want to emphasize the fact that people
don't take work out of context. The work is always, we look to
the work that Christ has done. Because remember, what we do
matters, but it doesn't count. What Christ has done is what
counts. So we have to really emphasize that. Otherwise, you're
going to get worksmongers, even in the so-called church. The
Bible says that in 1 Corinthians 11.19, heresies must abound among
you. In other words, there's always
going to be false teaching, false teachers, people drawing you
away from true doctrine, true Christianity. It says that they
which are among you may be made manifest,
that the true believers are always going to stand out in the end.
God's going to keep us, and He's going to cause us to endure to
the end. We're not going to endure to
the end. He's going to cause us. He's the one that keeps us. Jesus said, My Father is greater
than I, and no man can pluck you from his hands. We have to
remember those things, and we have to teach them in light of
the truths of Scripture, and let people know, hey, now this
is what that means. Because Like I said, the big thing now is
progressive sanctification, holiness, getting better. Do you have the
power to overcome your sin? No, you don't. If you had the
power to overcome your sin, why would we need an intercessor?
Why would we need a mediator? There's one God and one mediator
between man and God, the man Christ Jesus. He's in heaven
now at the right hand of God, interceding for his people. He's
not leaving us to ourselves. Now we're so godly, we're going
to overcome every sin. We wouldn't need Him. Like that
song, we need Thee every hour, O gracious Lord. We need Him all the time. So
the true Jew, who is the elect of God, In spite of what we've
reaped, we've all sinned, fell short. In spite of that, we're
going to sow in righteousness. Why? Because Christ died for
us. We have His righteousness imputed. And we're not going
to do it. He sows it into us, really, is
what I should say. And what He sows into us is a
new state. not a new state of being to where
now we're perfectly righteous and everything we do is righteous.
Remember, everything reproduces after its kind. We have a new
standing. That's why I said we're justified by faith. Even the
faith that we're given has been given to us as a result of Christ. He's the one who sowed perfect
righteousness. And He reaped it as well, right? He's imputed
His person and work to us, not infusing it to us. We don't live
sinless lives, but we aspire to honor Him in all things. Let's
go to Colossians chapter 3 really fast, verse 17. And it says, And whatsoever ye do, in word
or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving
thanks to God and the Father by him. And verse 23 says, And
whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto
men. So we want to honor God. We want to live a holy life.
We want to love our children, raise them in the fear and admonition
of the Lord. We want to love our brothers and sisters in Christ.
We want to serve them. We want to give to them. We want
to visit them. We want to help them, whether it's financially,
whether it's just being by their side, making them a meal, helping
them grow in the knowledge and grace of God, rebuking them,
correcting them, being corrected and rebuked by them as well.
That's what we want to do. We love Him. Why? Because He
first loved us. We don't just love Him. I see
so many people, oh, I love Jesus. I love Jesus. And saying it is one thing. Being
known of God is another thing. Like I said earlier, illumination
is not regeneration. You hear all these people saying,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. We don't need nobody but Jesus. Yeah,
you're right. You do need Jesus. And you need
His doctrine. But you need the right Jesus. So as we grow in
the knowledge and grace of God, we see how dark our hearts are. It's like, man, why do I think
some of the things? Why murder people that make me
angry, or when I see somebody kill a little child or torture
them, that I want to kill them. Because I know it's wrong, but
then it's just as wrong if I became a vigilante and killed them.
How am I doing it? I'm telling them, hey, you have
to obey the law, but then I'm disobeying the law. You know
what I mean? But we want to approve of that
because we feel like it's okay. No, man, I pray for the person
who does it as well as for the people it happened to. So, as
we grow, like I said, as we grow in the knowledge and grace of
God, we see how dark our hearts are, the things that we think
of, the visions of glory we have for ourself. and not God. Not like Isaiah when he said
he saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple
and then he fell down and says, woe is me for I'm a man of unclean
lips and I live in a wicked generation. We see that in our heart. We
see that and we wonder, hey, Paul wrote that in Romans chapter
7. Who will save me from this body of death? I thank God, right? So when we see our old man, that's
the nature of the natural man. We still have that nature, that's
why it's an ongoing battle. It's an ongoing battle in our
flesh. And then on top of all that, we're dying. We're getting
older. Our health is getting worse.
Our skin's getting loose. We don't have the energy we did
when we were young. We don't look. We're showing
people pictures of when we were young, instead of, yeah, I was
young. And we're telling them we were
young, and they're like, yeah, but you're old now. So our outer
man is perishing. and our inner man is being renewed.
How is he being renewed? He's growing in the knowledge
and grace of God. We're not getting better, we're not adding all
these things as if we're getting better and we achieve some status. Yeah, we pursue holiness, Yeah,
we want to do better, and we should do better, but we're covered. Our sins are forgiven. We have
Christ's righteousness imputed. We're now heirs and co-heirs
with Christ. We're beloved. We've been loved
from everlasting. So we have to understand that,
and we're being renewed. end right there and look forward
to next week. Next week will be at 11. Today
was early because of some things that I have to do. But thank
God for this time and for his word. And I pray that, you know,
you guys, if you listen to this message, you see or hear anything
wrong, you're more than welcome to correct me. I'm not perfect.
I know that I'm prone to error, just as prone as I am to wonder.
But thank God for His Word and for this time. Let's end and
pray. Father, we thank You, Lord, for
Your Word. We ask that You would help us
to understand it, to bring to light the truths of God, of You,
Your truths. and Your Word, that we would
take them to heart, meditate on them, and that You would give
us light and understanding. Please continue to be with us
throughout the day. Our families and friends, we pray for those,
Lord, especially those who don't know You. We don't know if they're
Yours or not, but we know You do, and we ask that You would
be merciful and gracious to them, our children, our families, our
friends. Give us traveling mercies as we go to and fro and abroad,
and keep us safe, Father, and we give you praise. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen.