Now if you'd open your Bibles
to Romans chapter two. Romans chapter two. We'll just start, we'll start
by just reading verse four. Or do you show contempt for the
riches of his kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that
God's kindness leads you toward repentance? Now, in the last
half of chapter 1, Paul has told out in brief summary of all the
corruption and ignorance and God-hating rebellion that is
witnessed in the Gentile nations. He says that they suppress the
truth in unrighteousness. And they do not glorify God.
They do not praise God as God. They do not even give Him thanks. It is elsewhere written that
in him we live, move, and have our being. We exist because God
caused us to exist. We have air to breathe. We have
strength to move around because he gives it. And yet it is not in the nature
of man to recognize that these things to which he is so accustomed
that they are continual gifts from the God of creation. Because
they didn't glorify God as they should, they made up gods of
their own. Gods that looked like mortal
man or beasts of the field. They degraded their bodies. with
sexual immorality. They exchanged the truth of God
for a lie. Now, how could they exchange
the truth of God for a lie if they never had the truth of God?
Well, he had said, for what may be known of God is evident to
them through the creation, even his eternal power in Godhead.
And we see this going on in our day. I suppose it's going on
in every day in one form or another. But you look out at this world
and with the instruments and stuff that scientists have now,
we look deep into our galaxy and even beyond. I remember seeing
a picture that came from the Hubble telescope. And when I
first looked at it, I said, wow, that's a lot of stars. And then
I read the caption. That was galaxies, each containing
billions of stars. But everywhere we look, so far
as we can tell, and I realize we're very limited in what we
can tell about things out there, there isn't life anywhere but
here. But there's this vast array in
the heavens, and then here on Earth we look and there are I
was thinking about this yesterday. The simplest form of life is
so complex, it's hard to believe it exists. Our bodies, and we're supposedly
the top of the food chain, the most advanced of the creatures
upon this earth in terms of intelligence, which doesn't say much for the
intelligence on the earth if we're the top of the heap. But
you think of what it takes for a human body to operate.
There's not just the stay alive aspects. There's an immune system. And
I was thinking of this in regard to those who would propose that
evolution is the way we got here. And when I begin to think of
the complexity, It's just impossible that a series of accidents resulted
in us. I think to myself, when the first
life came into the world, it had to come into the world with
an immune system already in place, or it wouldn't have lasted very
long. Not only that. A means, a mechanism
of reproduction was necessary from the very beginning or there
had just been one, it lived out its life and that would have
been the end of life. Here we are. Such a complex system. Various parts, all of it arising
and here's a marvelous thing to think of. When we were conceived
within our mother's womb, we were one cell, and yet within
that cell was DNA, a single molecule, a very complex molecule. And yet that molecule contained
all the information necessary to put you together, to divide up into cells, for
those cells to differentiate into various organs and things.
And you began to form, and this process actually continued for
20 to 25 years. Because even though you were
born after about nine months of that, you came into this world
so everybody else could see you, but still you're going through
the process of growing and differentiating. you know, different cells doing
this and that and you mature. And it's not until you're about
20 or 25 that that whole process is complete. And all that's going on from
the instructions hidden in that single molecule. It's amazing. How can there not be a God that
made that happen. You know, the more that science
finds out, the less they think there's a need for God to explain
things. I look at it the other way around.
The more that they find out, the more I see the need to recognize
there has to be a God, such as the scriptures describe God,
for this to exist. Stephen Hawking, one of the great
physicists of our generation, he died here two or three years
ago, but he said, when it comes to the problem of existence, he says the real question is,
why did anything bother to exist at all? He recognized that. The big question,
why? Why does anything exist? Because there is a self-existing
God who made it exist. So we see from the creation His
eternal power and Godhead. And these people that Paul was
talking about, they saw it too, but instead of recognizing God
as He is, they made up gods that they could understand, gods that
they could control. And because they wouldn't keep the
knowledge, God in their minds and hearts. God gave them up,
or gave them over, to various things. He allowed them to further degrade
their bodies through homosexuality, both men and women. And you look here at verse 28
of Romans chapter 1. Furthermore, since they did not
think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave
them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done. Now when it talks about giving
people over, this was not simply people who fell into sin. He
gave them over, which meant that they were helpless, in a sense,
against what they desired to do. And what's more, on the one hand,
their conscience would tell them what they were doing is wrong.
And yet, they overrode their conscience and said, no, it's
all right. We live in a day when those horrible
things, and I say today, here in our nation, some of the most
horrible things are being celebrated as good and right and praiseworthy. They've become, this is verse
29, they've become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil,
greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder,
strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers,
God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways
of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They
are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know
God's righteous degree that those who do such things deserve death,
they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve
of those who practice them. That's a pretty heavy list. That's
a pretty thorough condemnation of the Gentile nations. And I
imagine he, in particular, had Rome in mind. This is the Book
of Romans. And he traveled. I don't know
that he ever went outside the Roman Empire. Such people would appear judgment-worthy
by just about everyone. But Paul's not done. In chapter
2, verse 1, he says, you, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass
judgment on someone else. For at whatever point you judge
the other, you are condemning yourself. Because you who pass
judgment do the same things. Now, we know that God's judgment
against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you,
a mere man, pass judgment on them, and yet do the same things,
do you think you will escape God's judgment? Now, I think
that in all likelihood, he was turning his attention to the
Jews, who utterly despised the Gentiles. and counted them especially
unclean. They treated these Gentiles with
contempt. If you look over here at verse
17, Paul makes it kind of explicit. Now he says, now you, if you
call yourself a Jew, if you rely on the law and brag about your
relationship to God, if you know His will and approve of what
is superior because you are instructed by the law, if you are convinced
that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who
are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of
infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge
and truth. You then who teach others, do
you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing,
do you steal? You who say that people should
not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols,
do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do
you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written, God's
name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Now, he says here, if you pass
judgment on somebody, and this isn't merely saying that they
did something wrong. I mean, if a person murdered,
let's say a person commits murder, It's not judgment on your part
to say, that was wrong. They shouldn't have done that.
Because that's true. Somebody tells a lie. They shouldn't
have done that. That was wrong. They sinned at
that point. That's not the judgment he's
talking about. He's talking about judging a
person, not actions. He's talking about saying, well,
these people, well, they're filthy. Because they do these things,
they're cut off from God. It's obviously they don't know
God, they wouldn't act that way. And all the while thinking that
you're doing better than they are. And because you're doing
better, God has favor on you, or at least it's some kind of
proof that he has had favor on you. And what Paul says to anyone
who thinks that way, he says, in whatever point you judge others,
you're judging yourself because you do the same things. Now, you may not do exactly the
same thing as the person whom you judge. Because quite often,
we're smart enough not to pass judgment on others who are guilty
of the same kind of sins we are. That's why you hear people say
things like, well, at least I never murdered anyone. Find the one
sin that you've never given outward expression to, and people will
hide behind that as though the fact they didn't do that, wow,
that's their righteousness. And God ought to be more pleased
with them than he would be, say, someone who did commit murder.
But it also shows this, and of course, People that judge like
this, they would rightly be called legalists. And here's the thing
about legalists. They are most often guilty of
the very things they condemn the most heartily. Because they see their sin in
other people. And they can't stand accepting
their own condemnation. So they condemn others for it
to make themselves look righteous. And not only this, I think that
Paul is also demonstrating what our Lord said, that even if you
have not outwardly expressed your sinfulness, these things are in your heart. He said that if a man looks on
a woman with lust, he has already committed adultery with her in
his heart. He says if you hate a man, if
you hate a person, you're already guilty of murder in your heart. Now it's good if you don't give
outward expression to these things, but you have no more right to
boast of yourselves over the one who, well, those things do
come out in their lives. We cannot look at them and say
they're worse people than we are, because they're not worse than
we are, even if they've acted worse than we have. Everything we see others do,
and maybe rightly condemn their actions, we see others do, Even
if we've never outwardly done it, it's in here, and there's
only one thing that keeps it from coming out. The riches of God's kindness
toward us. There are not many man-made phrases
which are worthy of continual quoting, but here is one. You look at
someone obviously overwhelmed, caught up in, and trapped by
the grossest of sin, and you say, meaning it honestly, there
but for the grace of God go I. Do you really believe that? Well,
I could never do that. Really? Really? If you've never done, you think
of the most despicable person you can imagine. Someone, the
thought of them, and I'm not talking about a particular person
in your life, though you may have someone in mind, but I mean,
you know, someone who would do something so horrible, it just
makes you sick. And realize that as to his nature,
He is no different than you. The only difference is God gave
him over to that and let it happen. And God protected you and didn't
let you do that. He restrains you by some means
or another. He kept you back from doing that
maybe by giving you some good parents that trained you otherwise
and strengthened the conscience he already put in you so that
you don't think, you say, I shouldn't do that and I won't, I would
feel too guilty so I won't do that. It could be that he just
never allowed for that particular direction in you to show up at
the same time there was opportunity. Sometimes, you know, the only
reason that we didn't commit a particular sin is that when
we wanted to, there just wasn't an opportunity for it. And then
when there was opportunity, God didn't let that particular passion
arise within you. Or in some cases, God just providentially
kept you from doing it. The hymn writer, William Cooper,
wrote, there is a fountain filled with blood. He wrote the hymn
that begins, God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.
A man who believed the gospel, and yet he suffered from what
is today called depression and anxiety, suffered from it horribly,
and decided to take his own life. And so he hired what we would
call a cab, you know, and he wanted to, told that cab to take
him over, I think it was the River Thames over in London,
I'm not sure, but to a nearby river and he's going to throw
himself in and drown himself. Very foggy night. And the guy
started driving and he drove and drove and then he stopped.
And lo and behold, they were right back where they started.
The driver had gotten lost in the fog and taken Mr. Cooper right back around to his
own house. And Mr. Cooper got out of the
carriage, realizing the Lord had providentially held him back
from killing himself. We hear of people who take their
own lives. I always, I think it's one of the saddest things.
To get in such a state of mind that you think death would be
worse than the life you have. How dark an existence like that
must be. But you hear somebody committing
suicide, some people, I say you, I'm just, that's one of those
general yous. It includes me and everybody
else in the world. We hear about someone committed suicide, we
might think, weak, can't take it. Some hold suicide to be the
unpardonable sin. If you commit suicide, surely
you went to hell. When our Lord Jesus Christ said,
All manner of sin is forgiven, except the sin of blaspheming
the Spirit, and that's not committing suicide. But you know one of the nice
things about the sin of suicide? Nobody alive has done it. It's
one of those sins easy to condemn because so long as you're alive
in this world, you're not guilty of it. Well, William Cooper was
guilty of it. The Lord just didn't let him
succeed at it. I used to get tickled at the
fact that in our law, there is a distinction made between murder
and attempted murder. And I'm saying, oh, so whether
you get life in prison or the death penalty
depends on how good a shot you are. If you try to kill somebody,
you're a murderer. And if you just attempt it and
don't succeed, it just means you're bad at it, that's all.
You're the same person. And you and I, and this is so
easy to say, but not really easy to believe, every one of us in
our flesh is a violent murderer. See, I'd never do that. I bet
you there was a time David said he'd never do that. I bet you
Cain thought he'd never kill his brother. I bet you when Judas began following
the Lord, he was excited with what he heard, and it never entered
his mind that he'd be a betrayer and a murderer. There's only one real remedy
for a judgmental spirit. The greatest power in silencing
a condemning attitude is to constantly keep in mind the riches of God's
kindness toward us. It says here in our translation,
Or do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance,
and patience? Now that word kindness, we really
don't have a single English word that will cover all the meaning
of the Greek word behind it. Because the Greek word combines
the concept of usefulness and kindness. Sometimes this is translated
goodness. But even that doesn't cover it.
But the idea here is that this kindness, as our translation
says, is God doing things that are useful for us and that flow
from his own good and kind heart. Now, the way our translation
handles it, it says, Kindness, tolerance, and patience, as though,
you know, it's speaking of the riches of these three things.
But I looked it up, and it's a bit odd grammatically, but
I think what Paul means about this is, do you have contempt
for the riches of his kindness, that is, his tolerance and patience
with you? What more useful thing could
we get from God? When you consider what we are,
what we do, what more useful, kind, and good thing could God
demonstrate toward us than tolerance and patience? We're rather intolerant. and
rather impatient. And all it takes, normally speaking,
to prove that is for somebody to cut us off in traffic. Or somebody just be impolite
to us. And our immediate reaction, normally speaking, in traffic
we may lay on the horn and scowl. Some would make rude gestures. But whatever it is, it's an expression
of anger, contempt, and wrath. And all they did was cut us off
in traffic. That's all. They'd gotten our
way. And brethren, every day, you
and I commit the very kind of acts we condemn in others. We may do it more subtly. But
we do it. But God deals with us in kindness
rather than wrath. In chapter 1, he gave that list
of horrible things that the people did, and we read that God gave them
over to this, and God gave them over to that. And yet, you and
I are guilty of the same things, and God never gave us over to
it. He never said, all right, have
it your way. Go to hell if that's what you're
intent on doing. Do you know that's the only reason
you're saved? It's the only reason. God did not initially show you
His grace and He is not continually pouring out His grace on you
because you have done better than other people in this world.
He sees you and realizes that in your nature you're just like
the children of wrath. There is no difference. Paul
makes that clear in Romans chapter 3, for there is no difference
for all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Probably that statement, for
there is no difference, is the hardest one for proud religious
man to swallow. Because he comes into this world,
or she comes into this world, and she's well trained in her
home on how to act. And they went to church every
Sunday, and everybody's pleased with them. Everybody thinks they're
good Christians, pats them on the back. They're always working
in the church. And it never occurs to them,
there's no difference between them and the vilest person you
can think of. to judge others as less worthy
than ourselves is to show contempt for the kindness of God. Because he says this, the kindness
of God was not designed and given to us in order that we could
inflate ourselves with pride that God's not going to send
us to hell, and that we're good Christians, and this, that, and
the other that religious man likes to boast in. He said, it
wasn't for that. God's kindness, rightly understood,
leads a person to repentance. Oh, brethren, when we think of
how good God is to us every single day, every moment, He with an eye
that cannot look upon iniquity with any kind of favor, He looks
on us and we're full of iniquity. And He tolerates it. We despise liars and then we
lie. God puts up with it, puts up
with it out of us while He sends others to hell for the same thing. I wrote an email to one of our
brother preachers here a week or so ago. I appreciated what
he had in his bulletin. I wanted to let him know because
it had been such an encouragement to me. And I just told him, given
my temperament and the background of the things I was taught as
I was growing up in religion, I'm just always afraid that I'm
finally going to sin one time too many. And like they used
to tell me, God's going to put you on the shelf. That's how
he judges Christians, particularly ministers. OK, you've sinned
so much. God's just going to put you on the shelf. You're just going
to be useless the rest of your life. And it's a thought that's constantly
going on in my mind, because I know full well all the other
stuff that goes on in my mind and the things I've done which
are quite worthy. Not only have God set me on the
shelf, but doing all my, well, worthy of death, says the scriptures. And this brother wrote back to
me, and I'd mentioned that he didn't have the same temperament
as me, so he might not be as subject to the same level of
discouragement as me. And he said, well, we may not
have the same temperament. We may not be the same in temperament,
but we're the same in sin. I live in constant wonder that
God does not expose me for who I am and humiliate me out of
the ministry. Do you ever feel like that? I love you all and I take it
you love me because you keep showing up. You at least love
what I preach. And I keep thinking, if they
only knew. If they only knew. And maybe you think the same
thing. But here's the wonder of it all. God does know. And yet here we are, worshiping
Him. He put up with me all week long. and put me back in the pulpit
again to preach to you. Am I going to despise that kindness
on his part by standing up here and preaching
a message, condemning this person and that person, and weary you
with a message about how our culture is going to hell in a
handbasket and all that kind of stuff, knowing full well The
only difference between those that I would be condemning and
me is the kindness of God. He puts up with me. He doesn't
put up with them. He's patient with me. He's holding back his wrath for
a time, even against the children of wrath. But it's not a matter
of patience on his part. It's a matter of waiting to the
right time. You say, how does that kindness
show itself? The wicked men of this world
suppress the truth by their wickedness. So did we. But God overcame our suppression
of the truth and made it shine into our hearts with such a brightness
we could no longer deny it. And we received it with joy.
Why? That useful, good kindness from
God. We look at the world And no matter how much we learn,
in a scientific sense of the word learn, we are amazed at
what God has wrought, what God has made and created. Why? Because he didn't let us be deceived. They didn't glorify him as God, and we don't either. not continuously,
certainly not at the level he deserves. And yet they'll go to hell for
it, and God will put up with it out of us. They didn't give him thanks,
and neither do we. We may pray the words, thanks. But are we really thankful in
heart on a continuous basis? Do we really recognize that everything
we have has come to us out of the kindness of God's heart?
We haven't earned a bit of it. We look at others whose lives
are not so blessed as ours, and well, if they'd worked more,
We always find some way to blame poverty on the poor. And sometimes,
yeah, they're—well, it says you reap what you sow, and they didn't
bother sowing, so it shouldn't be a surprise they don't reap.
But why is it that we go out and sow? We work with our hands
and we get a harvest from our labors. Why is it we do that
while others don't? Well, we're just a better character. No, we're not a better character. God worked in us to will and
do of his good pleasure. Say, well, I've never been guilty of that sexual impurity like
Hollywood does all the time. I remember how when I was a kid,
preachers were always preaching against Hollywood. Well, yeah, it seemed kind of
concentrated there, doesn't it? What you see coming from Hollywood
is just what's in the heart of every person. But God's not restraining
them from it. And he's restraining you and
me. I could never be a homosexual." Don't boast. Don't boast. Maybe the only reason, well,
it is the only reason you are not carried away like they are
is that God didn't allow it to happen. said they did not think it worthwhile
to retain the knowledge of God. Evidently, you do think it's
worthwhile because you put some while into it. You get up, you
get yourself dressed, you drive whatever distance is necessary,
you come here, you sing along with the songs, you pray along
with the prayers, you listen to the preaching, you take it
to heart through the week, From time to time it'll come to your
mind, you'll meditate on it. Why do you do that? The riches
of His kindness. We could go through that whole
list of things at the end of chapter one, and we would have to say the
only reason that that does not characterize the way I live is
because God, in the riches of his kindness, didn't let me do
some of that. And what I did, he put up with
it. He laid it to the charge of his
son and punished it there instead of me. That I am no more worthy of God's
good treatment than are those that are spoken of there in Romans
chapter one. No better, no more worthy of
God's good treatment than the ones spoken of in chapter two,
who self-righteously judge others. All the kindness of God. One of the little before a meal prayers that I was taught
as a kid. And probably most of you have
heard it. God is great. God is good. And we thank him
for our food. By His hand we all are fed. Give
us, Lord, our daily bread." And of course, we learned to say
it. And when you're kids, you know,
I remember one time, well, there was another one that my dad had
taught me, but he called on me to say the blessing, and I said
it just as fast as I could. When I got done, I said, I got
done in three seconds. He said, say it again. And you know, a lot of times
that's what our prayers are. We're just, we're just marking
out a string of words. But God is great and he's good
to us. And there's no reason for him
to be good to us except that he's good. And you and I in this world,
are among a category of people that have no claim to anything
good from God, who have no right to hold ourselves as any better
than other people, and yet we have been given from God everything
of which the Lord Jesus Christ is worthy. Yeah, well, we despise that.
I like that, the riches of His kindness. You know, some people
give out a little bit of charity once in a while, and they'll
talk all about it, you know, so everybody knows they did it.
They got a million dollars, and they give $100 to someone, and
they think they've really done something. Riches, divine riches. How rich is God? riches of kindness on people
like you and me. Oh, God, preserve us from ever
thinking that we're better than someone else, because we're not. And God, preserve us from that,
because what that reveals is we're showing contempt for the
kindness that God gave us. And I don't know about you, but
nothing irritates me more than someone showing contempt for
something kind I gave them, or did for them, or something I
gave to them. That's just in our nature, isn't it? We do something
nice for somebody, and they don't say thank you. They don't act
like it's any big thing. They may even act insulted. God pours out His kindness on
us day after day after day, and we don't thank Him as we ought
for it. We don't appreciate it, but He keeps giving His kindness. We sang that song at the beginning,
How Much I Owe, I think when we get to glory. and see just
the level of the riches of His kindness toward us really was,
we will be stunned. When we see Him as He is and with the true unhindered
wisdom from God see what we were, we will be in everlasting wonder. that God let us take a single
breath. May the Lord God be glorified.