We're looking at Romans chapter
2. I want to start at verse 21 and
down through verse 24-25. Now let me give this introduction. From verse 17 down through verse
27. If you look all the way back
to verse 17. And then you come all the way
down to verse 27 in this second chapter of Romans. you'll find
that there's a reference to the written law of God, that is,
the law that was given to Moses upon Mount Sinai. The law of
God is mentioned nine times. Now, that's quite amazing, isn't
it? It's mentioned nine different times. Now, what Paul is doing
in these verses, he's showing any self-righteous person, and
especially he's singling out the self-righteous Jews, that
salvation based upon their own personal obedience, outward obedience
to the law of God, was and is impossible. Impossible. By the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified. Paul is demonstrating clearly
and showing that salvation is not based upon our personal obedience
in any way to the law of God or to any other law. The disciples
asked this question when that young man came to the Lord seeking
salvation based upon the doing of the law. Remember, they said,
who then can be saved? Remember that young man said,
well, from the youth up, I've kept the law. No, he hasn't.
He'd broken the law. And the disciples said, who then
can be saved? Remember what the Lord said?
With men it is impossible, but with God, with God all things
are possible. Salvation cannot be by the law
of God because the law of God is holy. We are sinners at our
best state. The law of God was never given
or intended as the means of salvation. Not at all. Now that's where
many people in religion go wrong. The self-righteous person who's
seeking salvation based upon the law of God. They look at
those ten commandments given in that moral law and they say,
well, they make a checklist. Well, you know, you've not kept
one commandment one time. Not one. Not one commandment,
one time. We are guilty. Guilty before God. But the law
of God was never given as a means of salvation. Now we're going
to see, Paul says, well, why then was the law given? To show
the exceeding sinfulness of our sin. That's why the law was given. It is a measure of what sin is,
a revealer of what sin is. Paul said, I had not known sin,
but by the law, the law of God. So remember from our study in
1 John 3, 4, Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth
also the law. For sin is the transgression
of the law. You see, the law of God not only
looks to the outward action, the inward motive, the thought
of the heart, and face it, we're all guilty. We've all sinned
and come short of the glory of God. Righteousness, therefore,
before God can never be established by the sinner through the doing
of the law. Now we're going to see that in
verse 20 of Romans chapter 3. Therefore, you see verse 20,
Romans 3, verse 20. Therefore by the deeds of the
law there shall, there shall some be justified. No, it doesn't
say that. Therefore by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh be justified, not mine, not yours, not any,
any sinner. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. Now the law of God doesn't remove
sin, it exposes how exceedingly sinful that we are. We need the righteousness of
God without the law. We need a righteousness, and
we must honor the law of God. How can that be? Only in our
substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now Paul, in these verses, verse
21 down through verse 23, shows us that all men are guilty of
breaking the law, all have sinned against God, Jew or Gentile. Remember David said, against
thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. You see, the problem is, when we are born into this life,
we already are born guilty before God. Do you understand that?
In Adam, all sinned. His sin, iniquity, transgression
was reckoned to and charged to your account by one man. Disobedience, many were made
sinners. Does that include you? Absolutely. That includes every, every, every
person. Fess up, guilty. That's why he says in Romans
3, let every mouth be stopped. Oh, now wait a minute now. Wait
a minute. I paid my bills. I worked hard
all my life. Guilty. Guilty. Stop your mouth. Don't justify
yourself. Guilty. Now, look at verse 21. which teacheth another." Now,
he's entering into an argument against those Jews who would
justify themselves and that would boast. You remember verse 17?
Behold, thou art called a Jew, and you rest in the law, and
you make your boast of God. Down here in verse 23, he says,
you make your boast of the law. So they boasted that they were
justified by the doing of the law. The self-righteous Pharisees
were ready to condemn, you remember, everyone else, and to justify
themselves before God. Now, you know well the reading
from Luke chapter 18 about the Lord said there were two men
that went to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other
a Republican. The Pharisee bragged on himself
and condemned others. and the poor old publican condemned
himself, and God justified him. Lost religious people do the
same thing today. They brag on themselves and condemn
everybody else. They say, well, I'm not like
that man over there. Yes, you are. In God's sight,
guilty. Guilty. Now look what he says
here in verse 21, Thou therefore would teach another, Thou therefore
which teachest another, and you teachest not thyself,
thou that preachest a man should not steal, do you steal?" Now,
he's saying that these people did not practice what they preached. They were guilty. They were guilty
of stealing. What were they primarily guilty
of? Stealing the glory of God. They were taking that glory unto
themselves rather than giving glory all to God alone. They were quick to justify themselves
and to condemn others. That is nothing more, we're going
to talk about that in the message this morning, that is nothing
more than religious pride. That's all it is. Self-righteousness
and religious pride. You preach a man shouldn't steal,
yet Paul says, you're guilty. You're guilty. Verse 22, Thou
sayest, here's what they said, you should not commit adultery,
and you should not. Dost thou commit adultery? Thou
that abhorrest idols and idolatry, do you commit? They were guilty
of both. They said they did not commit
adultery and did not commit idolatry, yet the Lord says they were guilty
of both. You see, to offend in the least
little bit You know, there's actually 700 or 800 precepts
of that law. To offend in the least little
bit is to be guilty of all the law of God. You remember from
our study in the book of James, for whosoever shall keep the
whole law, yet offend one point, guilty,
guilty. Now, if we don't learn anything
else this morning, we learn this, we're guilty. We are sinners. We are guilty, guilty, guilty
before God. Now let me give you a good example
of how the, turn to John chapter 8. Let me give you a good example
of how the Pharisees, the religious, those who were full of self-righteous
religious pride, you remember the woman that was taken in adultery? And they were ready to stone
her according to the law in John chapter 8. The scribes and the
Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery, verse 3. When
they set her in the mist, they said unto him, Master, this woman
was taken in adultery in the very act. Now, this was all a
set-up. This was a set-up. Now, Moses
in the law commanded us that thou shouldest she that such
should be stoned. But what do you say? Now what's
the Lord going to say? That's what the law said. The
guilty must be stoned. This they said, tempting him
that they might accuse him. But the Lord stooped down and
with His finger wrote on the ground as though He did not hear
them. So when they continued asking
Him, He lifted up Himself and said, He that is without sin
among you, Let him first cast a stone at her, and he stooped
down, again he stooped down, and it rolled on the ground.
And they which heard it being convicted by their own conscience
went out, beginning at the eldest to the last, and the Lord was
left alone with the woman. So he put them to silence, didn't
he? He that is without sin, let him
cast the first stone. Now, he stooped down and he wrote
on the ground, as it says there, with his finger, and again he
stooped down and wrote on the ground. Now, many have speculated,
what in the world did he write? And there's no way of actually
knowing, and we don't need to pry into the things that are
not given unto us in the Word of God. But I think it can be
summed up, I think he wrote one word. If you want my opinion,
I think he wrote one word. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. He that was out sinned,
let him cast the first stone. And he stooped down again and
he wrote, guilty, guilty. They were, and they knew it.
They knew they were guilty themselves. That's what the law of God does.
It stops our mouth and declares that we are guilty, guilty before
God. Now, look at verse 23 in Romans
2. Thou that makest thy boast, of
the law. Through breaking the law, you
dishonor. Thou dishonorest the law, dishonorest
thou. Through breaking the law, dishonorest
thou God." Now this word, boast, it's found in verse 23. It's the same word that is given
in verse 17, you make your boast of God. And in the original,
the word is translated other places, rejoice. They rejoiced
in the law. And they gloried. It can be also
rendered glory. Paul said, we are the true Israel
which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice. That's the same
word, boast. We boast in the Lord. But they
boasted and gloried and rejoiced in the fact that they thought
they were law keepers. But just a mere boasting of doing
so proved them to be guilty before God. Proved them to be liars. Now let me give you another example
of the Lord exposing the self-righteous. Find Matthew 23. Matthew 23.
Matthew 23. Look at verse Matthew 23, 23.
Matthew 23, 23. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees,"
and he says, you're hypocrites. Now, you know what the word hypocrite
means? It's a word where we get actor, play actor. They were
actors. For you paid tithe of mint, anise,
and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law,
judgment, mercy, and faith. These ought ye to have done,
and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides. You see it,
verse 24? Blind guides. You remember what
he said over here? Don't turn back, let me just
read it to you if I can find it. In Romans 2, 19, art confident
that thou thyself art a guide of the blind? The Lord said,
you're the one that's blind. You're the one that's blind.
You blind guides which strain at a gnat, and you swallow a
camel. Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you make clean the outside
of the cup and the platter, but within you are full of extortion
and excess. Thou blind Pharisee! Cleanse
first that which is within the cup and the platter, that the
outside of them may be clean also. Warranty scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, for you are like a whited sepulcher, which indeed
appear beautiful outward, but are within, within, full of dead
man's bones. Even so outwardly you appear
righteous unto men, but within, Within, and the Lord looks on
the heart, within, full of hypocrisy and iniquity, woe unto you, scribes,
Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build the tombs of the prophets,
you garnish, decorate the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, if
we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been
partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore, ye
be a witness unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them
which kill the prophets. Fill ye up the measure of your
fathers. You of your father the devil,
the Lord said, you serpents and generations of vipers, how can
you escape the damnation of hell?" Now, I tell you, that's strong
language, isn't it? That's what the Lord says to
any sinner who goes about to establish a righteousness by
his own obedience, no matter what it be, no matter how you
color it, fashion it, or form it, those who are going about
to establish a righteousness of their own do not know the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They made their boast outwardly,
when in reality, the Lord looks on the heart. In Luke 16, 15,
the Lord said, You or they would justify yourselves before men,
but God knows your heart. That which is highly esteemed
among men is an abomination in the sight of God. Now, look back
to Romans 2, verse 24. The all-knowing Lord
gives them the example of their long history of rebellion and
idolatry against God. Verse 24, Romans 2. For the name
of God, that name which is above every name, the name that declares
His glorious person and His work, the Lord said, I am God, beside
me there is no other. For the name of God, the character
of God, the gospel of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles
through you as it is written, and that refers back to the marginal
reference there, Isaiah 52 verse 5. Now here's what Isaiah 52
verse 5 says, and I've got it written down here. Now therefore,
what have I here, saith the Lord? that my people is taken away
for naught. They that rule over them make
them to howl, saith the Lord, and my name continually Every
day is blasphemed among you. Now, what Paul is doing here,
he is showing a pattern. He is showing a pattern and an
example. He takes them all the way back
to their forefathers. Remember they said, if we had
been in the days of our father, we would not have killed the
prophets, And Paul takes them back to their own history, their
own story, and says that when you were among the Gentiles down
in Egypt 400 years, when you were delivered and then came
into the land of Canaan all those years, There was nothing but
idolatry and blasphemy against God. And then when he carried
you away to Babylonian captivity for 70 years, again he said,
you blaspheme my name among the Gentiles. Guilty, guilty before
God. Now, if you study through the
Old Testament as we have been doing on Wednesday evening, 1st
Samuel, 2nd Samuel, 1st Kings, 2nd Kings, 1st Chronicles, 2nd
Chronicles. What do you see in their history? Now, there were a few exceptions
to this rule, but for the most part, they were so steeped in
gross idolatry, bail worship, idolatry of the worst sort. That's where they gravitated
to. Now, the Lord did raise up a
few kings among them, but very few. who tried to honor the Lord. After the kingdom divided, those
ten northern tribes, there wasn't one king that sought to glorify
God. Jehu came the closest, but he
failed. But in the southern two tribes
of Judah and Benjamin, the Lord did raise up some kings that
sought to honor him and to stamp out idolatry. Remember Jehoshaphat. Remember Uzziah. Remember Hezekiah. Remember Josiah. Those four kings
mainly. And then going back to Solomon
and back to David. But there were very few. For
the most part, I think Judah had twenty different kings after
Solomon. Rehoboam, his son, all the way
down to Zedekiah, the last one. With the exception of those four
or five men that I mentioned, every one of the kings of Judah
did not try to stamp out idolatry. As a matter of fact, the Scripture
says, they did evil in the sight of the Lord. Remember how many
times we've read that? They did evil in the sight of
the Lord. A few times, by God's grace, we've read, and they did
that which was right in the sight of the Lord. They were restrained
by God. Now think about this. When the
Lord Jesus Christ was manifested in the flesh among His own nation,
Remember? From the times of Babylonian
captivity to the time of the coming of the Lord, probably
four or five hundred years had taken place in that time period
from the last part of Malachi to the book of Matthew, about
four hundred years. But when the Lord Jesus Christ
was manifested in the flesh to redeem His spiritual Israel,
his own elect of God, who hated him, who rejected him, and who
crucified him? The Jews, his own people, specifically
his own tribe. his own tribe, and basically
the only tribe that was left was Judah and Benjamin. When
he came into his own, his own received him not. You remember
John chapter 1? He came into his own, his own
received him not. Remember what they said? We have
no king but Caesar. Pilate said, Shall I crucify
your king? He's not our king. Isn't that sad? Away with him, crucify him. And
then they said, We have no king, but Caesar. So who hated the
Lord Jesus Christ, rejected him, and nailed him to a tree? His
own tribe of Judah. He's the lion of the tribe of
Judah. And they crucified the Lord of
glory, the self-righteous, self-serving Jews. Who persecuted the apostles
unto death? Who did that? Who persecuted
the apostles unto death? And who persecuted the early
church? You remember, a Pharisee who said, concerning the law,
I was blameless. Remember, Saul of Tarsus said
that. I was born of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. Concerning the law, a Pharisee.
He said, I didn't break the law one time. That's before he knew
the gospel. That's when he was a self-righteous
Pharisee. But who is he persecuting? Believers. Believers. Persecuting the Lord
Himself. Saul of Tarsus thought he was
blameless before the law until the Lord taught him the gospel
and revealed the gospel unto him. He said, I was alive without
the law once. You remember? In Romans 7, I
was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came,
sin revived, and it killed me. It revealed that I'm guilty,
guilty, guilty before God. Now, Paul goes on in verse 25,
and we'll pick up here next time, but let me just touch on this
here. Paul now attacks another stronghold of those self-righteous
Jews. what the Jews thought certainly
entitled them to salvation." And you know what it was? Look
what it says there in verse 25, "'Circumcision verily profiteth
if you keep the law, but if you be a breaker of the law, your
circumcision is made uncircumcision.'" Now, the Jews, thought certainly
that their circumcision entitled them to salvation." It is true
God gave this to Abraham as a physical sign and a visible symbol of
the token of the covenant that God made with him. You can read
about that in Genesis 17, 9 and 10. But Abraham was declared
righteous before God by faith Was that after he was circumcised
or before he was circumcised? Was that before the law was given
or after the law was given? Abraham believed God and was
counted him for righteousness 430 years before the law was
even given. And many years before the law
or that covenant of circumcision was given unto Abraham, God said
he was a righteous man. Now, he makes that argument,
if you want to turn one page to Romans chapter 4, we're going
to see this again. Verse 9, "...Come, let this blessedness
stand upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also."
Here he is talking about Jew or Gentile. For we say that faith
was reckoned unto Abraham for righteousness. Now, his righteousness
wasn't circumcision, was it? His righteousness wasn't doing
the law. How was it reckoned then? When
he was in circumcision or uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. He received the sign of circumcision,
as the seal of the righteousness of faith which he had being yet
uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all them that
believe, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed
unto them also." You see, it's by faith. Salvation is received
by faith. Now those Jews had a most difficult
time with this thing of circumcision. They were so bent thinking that
it recommended them to God or entitled them to salvation or
at least removed his wrath and gained his favor. So much so
that when some of the early church, if you turn to Acts chapter 15,
some of the early In the early church, this is
about 40 or 50 years after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ, when the Apostle Paul, who was formerly Saul of Tarsus,
when he went about preaching salvation by the grace of God
through the Lord Jesus Christ, But some of those Jews which
outwardly gave sanction to the gospel of Christ, they still
wanted to hold tenaciously to the law and tenaciously they
wanted to hold to circumcision. Acts 15, look at verse 1. And
you can read more about that in the book of Galatians. And
certain men which came down from Judea and taught the brethren
and said, Acts 15.1, look at it carefully. They taught their
brethren and said, except you be circumcised after the manner
of Moses, you cannot be saved. Wow! After all this you read
in Acts chapter 15, all that counsel and all that disputing,
Peter finally stood up and he said this, it's recorded in verse
11. But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we shall be saved, even as they." Now, I think we have time to
read this reference, and we'll come back and visit this again
next week. But if you find the book of Galatians,
Galatians has a lot to say about this same thing of law and circumcision. Galatians 5. Verse 1, "...stand fast therefore
in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Now what's he talking
about the yoke of bondage? He's talking about the curse
of the law. What does the curse of the law
say? The curse of the law says you must do all the law of God
or you're cursed. Galatians 3.10, right? So, he
said, don't be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold,
I, Paul, say unto you, that if you be circumcised, thinking
that it justifies you before God, or gives you a righteousness
before God, Christ shall profit you nothing. Zero. He goes on, he said, I testify
again to every man that is circumcised, if you're going to go that way,
you're a debtor to do the whole law. If you're going to seek
acceptance with God by circumcision, you're going to have to do the
whole law. Personally, your own obedience unto God. And look
what he said, for Christ has become of no effect unto you. Whosoever of you are justified
by the law, you have departed from the grace of God. You're
fallen. You've departed from the grace
of God. For we, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. Now, we're going to see a lot
on this subject about righteousness. Righteousness. And we're going
to see this statement in the book of Romans many times. The
righteousness of God. Not the righteousness of Tom.
Or the righteousness of the church. Or the righteousness of the law.
None of those things will justify any sinner. It's only the righteousness
of God. Now, who is that? Christ. That's how we are justified,
being found in Christ, having His righteousness. That's the
righteousness of God that's revealed in the gospel.