You've met people that don't want Jesus Christ to be their Savior. They know they're sinners, they know they're not good enough, but they're willing to find something else. Without truth, religion becomes irresponsible and self-indulgent. For the Jews, it was very irresponsible and very self-indulgent. That's why they had this thing called self-righteousness. Those things wash away the truth and the damned souls.
It counts. It should burden us. It should be on our hearts. The goal of this pastor is to present a church that's going to always preach the Bible. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Romans.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick in the book of Romans chapter 10 with this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. They began to turn their backs on fact and faith and scripture once Jesus came along. And to this day, the evidence for Messiah, for Jesus being Messiah, is illogically dismissed. And one of the easy places to find this is in just the Jewish treatment of Isaiah 53, the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. There was a time when the rabbi said, that's speaking of Messiah. But after Messiah comes and the church begins to tell the Jews, this is your Messiah.
You need to convert to repent. Well, then the rabbis began to counter that presentation of truth with not, it's not the Messiah, he's talking about Israel. They tried to personify Isaiah 53.
And it's illogic. As you read through Isaiah 53, this doesn't apply. Wounded for our transgression, bruised for our sins, chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are made whole.
It is most certainly talking about a person. And so the, when Paul is dealing with them and he says that they are ignorant, they are zealous but they are ignorant, it is spot-on. He makes no attempt to justify their wrong because it can't get fixed that way. Sincerity is not allowed to slay truth when it comes to God's Word. He only warned them, he only warns them of judgment for those who persistently refuse the facts of Jesus being the Messiah, our Christ. But they were not doing the best they could do when it came to this, and that's what he's calling them out on.
They were doing the best they wanted to do. And we face this in Gentiles to this day, the same problems Paul faced with the Jews, we face with people too. The same excuses for unbelief, the same challenges, just different flavors but ultimately it's the same, it's the same thing. They became good at rejecting Christ and they liked it. And that's what we face too, we face people that have become really good at rejecting Christ. They've heard all the arguments, all the key arguments, and they enjoy not giving in to Jesus Christ.
They don't want him to be who he says he is. This is unbelief and this is punishable by judgment, eternal judgment. So we take heart when we read again the first verse of Romans chapter 10, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.
Should it be less than that? That's our prayer. Again, regardless of what hardships we're facing in our lives, if we get a chance to preach the gospel, we take it. In verse 2 he continues, for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. So he says, I know them well because 20 years ago I was one of them, I was with them, I was doing the same things, I know what I'm talking about by experience and by the truth of Scripture. Their Scripture. Again, the New Testament is not yet shaped into what we have right now. They, he says, I bear them witness, they have a zeal for God.
Well, big deal. What does it matter if your God is false? Man is religious. God has made us.
He has put it in our heart to answer questions about where we come from. Now, of course, what man goes on to do with that is another story, especially when they play into the hands of Satan. Zeal for religion.
And yet they're still lost. There's another lesson. It's not enough to like religion. It's not enough to go to church. It's not enough to just say or profess that you're a Christian.
Zeal alone is insufficient. False religions are built on zeal and that which is false. We get that but there are those that we know that don't get that.
And we should put together a system in our thinking so that we know how to have an answer for every man. You don't have to know the other religion. You just have to know Christ. And so if they mention somebody to you, you know, I believe in this, I believe in that, and did that one die for you?
Was that one born of a virgin? Then we have essential doctrines and they are essential for a reason because they have to do with the eternal state of a human being. And if someone says, well, I don't believe Christ is God the Son. No, that's the violation of an essential doctrine. You're denying what God has clearly said about himself and that will damn you. So it is not hard to be zealous and wrong at the same time.
And we, you know, folks, they think well because somebody's sincere they, you know, they can't be wrong or they can't be bad. The downfall of the Jews in Paul's day and to this day was self-righteousness. Trying to appeal to God based on their ability to conform to the rituals. Built on failure to act on the facts now that they've been revealed in Christ. I'll bring that out from the scripture because even Christians can practice zeal without knowledge.
We know that. Luke chapter 9 verse 54, and when the disciples James and John saw this when they rejected Christ, and they rejected Christ with racial grounds. He's going to Jerusalem. These were the Samaritans. He's going to Jerusalem.
We don't want any part of him. Racial hatred runs deep and it has been around forever it seems. And so it's not a new thing and there are many race traitors out there who make big money off of stirring up the hatred. Anyway, coming back to this one, his disciples James and John saw this. They said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just like Elijah did?
What's this? Do you want us to call fire down? I mean, what did they, these guys, what could they get right? And they had no power to call fire down.
That didn't stop them from acting like they did. And, of course, the Lord rebuked them. You see, you don't know what spirit you're of. You have this zeal, this passion for me, but you're wrong.
And the same with Peter hacking off the year of Malchus. And the same with us sometimes. We have a passion when we're not led by the Holy Spirit, but led by some passion. If hand-picked men of God were susceptible to this era, then so are we. And humility will help keep us in check, to recognize that we want to be as Christ-like as we can because we're not much use to him when we're self-like as we can. But not according to knowledge he says about this passion, this zeal. Well, truth and zeal, passion, they're not, they are distinct. They're not the same thing because someone is zealous doesn't automatically make them right, which is a story in 1 Kings chapter 18.
We know this story and we actually like the story. This is Elijah on Mount Carmel, and he's dealing with the false prophets. That means they don't have the truth about God. That's what makes them false prophets. They're not sent by God, but they act like they are. They have no, nothing to back up their claims that they are prophets of God, which is what made Muhammad very upset with the Jews because they said he claimed to be a prophet, and they said, prove it, and he couldn't. And that didn't go well.
To this day, there's that resentment. Well, coming back to this, 1 Kings chapter 18, verse 28, there they were sincerely, passionately, and ignorantly calling on their God. So they cried aloud and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances until the blood gushed out on them. And when midday was passed, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice.
But there was no voice, no one answered, no one paid attention. Well, of course, God is going to pay attention to Elijah in that story, but the point is sincerity, devotion, is no indication of truth. And yet, the lost soul often thinks if a person is sincere, how could they be wrong? Well, the answer to that is because God said so.
That's the answer. We can reason in other ways, too, but the bottom line is we go by what God says. So he says, but not according to knowledge. 1 Corinthians 5, here's Paul trying to tell the Corinthian Christians that Christ is our Passover.
He is the one that gives us the mercy and the forgiveness from sins, and so he is encouraging them, and he ties it into the Jewish practice of the Passover, and he says, let us celebrate Christ. I'm paraphrasing that part, but now I'm quoting this part. With the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, two separate things. What good is sincerity if you're lying?
What good is truth if you don't mean it to the individual? As I mentioned, these indisputable facts surrounding the birth of Christ, the life, the death, the resurrection, were sincerely disallowed, and they are to this day. You can buy, you know, you don't need many books on apologetics. If you want to get into, you know, defending the faith, one book should do it because it's not rocket science.
It's higher than rocket science, and it's much easier, and to share your faith with people on the basis of reasoning with them. For instance, in Bethlehem, the children that were slaughtered by Herod looking to kill the Christ, well, this was knowledge. People knew about this thing. They understood why Herod did this. They understood that there was a connection between this newborn child and King David and the prophecies and their lineage.
What did they do with it though? That's what the question is, and it's the same thing with everyone else. We'll get to the resurrection next session in Romans chapter 10. But his birth, his life, the miracles, they knew about them. They dismissed them because they didn't care for them. It wasn't on the terms that they set because they were that impressed with their own religion. God moved forward in their religion, and they did not want to go with him. They wanted to stay where they were.
Again, as I said, I think last session, don't confuse me with facts. My mind is made up. Regardless of how sincere you are, that's not the way to do it. They did not know what God's position was because they had become happy with themselves, their religion. It's like we find people that go to a church that's not preaching the word, but they stay there. Well, my friends are there.
I'm happy there. But they're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. They're announcing to the world, I'm a church.
Come get the gospel. It's like saying, you know, we have burgers, and you get in there, and it's no burgers at all. Well, have they any intention of giving you a hamburger? It's a bait and a switch. That's what that is.
And the infestation from what I am told and what I see is growing. The comments that I make on their behavior are applicable to people today, both Jew and Gentile. And I, you know, what if a pastor came up into the pulpit and wasn't sure about the true things that were said from Scripture? What if you were that way when you share your faith? When you share your faith, don't cave in. You are right, and they are wrong. Now, you might struggle with how to articulate it, how to draw from the Scriptures from time to time.
Even if you know it like the back of your hand, if the Holy Spirit's not moving for whatever reason, you're pretty much going to have to be quiet. But don't you for one minute think that they're right, that their argument is correct, because it's not. And they have no proof for the things that they claim to believe. And so worse than ignorance is zealous ignorance.
And that's what Paul was dealing with. These people were ignorant of their own prophets because they wanted to be ignorant, and they were deadly. We're watching this now, these anti-Semite Gaza protesters, ignorant, zealously so. Now, at the top, they're not ignorant. At the top, they're sinister. They know that the people who launched those savage attacks on the Jews on October 7th are monsters.
They would never want that to happen to them. But it works well for them to spin everything around, and then you've got the little people at the bottom of the pyramid who are zealous to push that purpose forward. They're sacrificing. They're living in these tents on these dumb campuses. Universities are supposed to be institutions of higher learning, and look what they are, cesspools. They're an insult to learning. Anyway, I didn't come here to insult them, but I am enjoying it, but they're not hearing but they're not hearing me. So, anyway, there's an example of ignorance, zealous ignorance.
Be on guard for that. Just because somebody's passionate about a wrong doctrine doesn't mean they're right. And a lot of Christians don't, they don't know that automatically.
These are old cards in the devil's hand, and he plays them on the table of current events, and, you know, there's a way that seems right to man, but this way leads to death. That's a verse we need to quote to lost souls. Pray God brings to you people who are not saved. Pray that God sends people to you whom you can share the gospel.
What else should you be doing with your life that makes whatever else that is more important? Before conversion, Paul had this same ignorant zeal for God, so it took one to know one, even though he received the finest Old Testament teaching known to man. He was, there was no greater lessons to be, it wasn't possible to find a better school of the rabbis than what Paul went through, and he talks about it in Acts 26 when he's giving his testimony in the process of sharing his faith, hoping to make converts in the high places of government. He says, indeed I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. This I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.
I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme, and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them to foreign cities. There's your zeal for God without knowledge, and so we are to read these things, we're to learn them, and we're to look for a chance to use them. What good is Bible study if you never get a chance to use it? Outside of just trying to obey Christ morally speaking or spiritually speaking, what about being used? So the unintended consequence of ignoring Bible prophecy is being in conflict with God. They did not intend to be in conflict with God, but that's the outcome. From knowing the miracles, from knowing the story, Jesus did so many miracles, there was nobody connected to Judaism who was unaware at that time what was going on, and it's covered.
It's covered in quite a few places. I'll get to two others later, but they did not want the truth to be true, so they turned on it. You've met people like that. You've met people that don't want Jesus Christ to be their Savior. They know they're sinners.
They know they're not good enough, but they're willing to find something else. Without truth, religion becomes irresponsible and self-indulgent. For the Jews, it was very irresponsible and very self-indulgent. That's why they had this thing called self-righteousness. Those things wash away the truth in the damn souls.
It counts. It should burden us. It should be on our hearts. The goal of this pastor is to present a church that's going to always preach the Bible and always encourage Christians to learn the Scripture, to draw close to God, and to be useful to Him on the battlefield where the converts are made.
Evangelical is the word, but unfortunately, many churches are evangelical, but they've been dumbed down. They won't go through the Scriptures because the Scriptures are offensive to those who are guilty. Martin Luther said it right. I do not know how not to offend guilty people. If they're guilty, they're going to be offended, but what are they going to do with it? Isaiah, talking about these very things, Isaiah 61a, for I, Yahweh, love justice. I hate robbery for burnt offerings. I will direct their work in truth and will make them an everlasting covenant.
Wait a minute. They already had a covenant. You see, it's in their Scripture that there would be a new covenant, and Christ is the new covenant, and that's not the only place. Isaiah uses that word and phrase no less than twice.
In verse 3, Paul continues, he says, for they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God, and that's what it's all about, because what is the consequence to not submitting to God? This does not mean the Jewish people were ignorant of God's holiness and God's righteousness as attributes of God. They prided themselves on this knowledge above the pagans. The pagan gods, the Roman gods, the Greek gods, they were vindictive. They were jealous.
They were mean. So the Jews, of course, their God, nothing like the Roman gods, so they understood holiness and righteousness of God. Their ignorance of God then shows up and their refusal to accept that he is also a justifier of the ungodly and, of course, namely the Gentiles, and when he, as Paul says, of all who believe, that is in Christ, in Christ. Paul says this has always been in our scripture and now it has happened. So that's what the prophecy, that's what a prophecy is. A prophecy is, it's in the scripture and there comes a time when it happens.
Well, what are you going to do when it happens? And there are many scriptures, prophetic scriptures, fulfilled. There are many still unfulfilled and there are some being fulfilled in our own lifetime.
One of the easy ones is as you look at the wars and battles in the book of Revelation, if you know anything about military logistics, you say, how can you amass such troops on such battlefields in the ancient world? You couldn't and sustained them, but you can now. There are, as I mentioned, the cashless society. Who would have thought that in the first century of Rome, of the Roman Empire, who could conceive a cashless society? Well, we are here now. We know what a cashless society is.
A credit card is one of the first evidences of it. So, when Paul says it's been in your scripture and now has happened, then he says that, but you don't want to believe it, in spite of the proof. It was okay for God to forgive King David, but not the Gentiles. This willful ignorance kept them outside of his lordship. Now, as I am talking about these things, I'm aware that some of you may find this boring.
And I say, the way I answer that is, look, I've been around Christ for several decades now. I'm still charged about these things. They're not boring to me. And it's not and if they're boring to you, that's on you. I don't think I'm making them boring.
I can, if you'd like. Show of hands. This is willful ignorance and that will not be excused.
That keeps them out. Luke's Gospel, chapter 19. Jesus gives this parable and he is connecting it to how he's being treated after all he's done. But his citizens hated him, Jesus says in the parable. Referring to himself, he's the figure in the parable. And sent a delegation after him saying, we will not have this man reign over us. That's carried out in the book of Acts as they hunted Paul from city to city.
They refused to have this man reign over them. In Mark chapter six, in the first few verses, what do they say about his works and his works and his preaching? He's just a carpenter.
We don't have to listen to this. Yeah, but what about the miracles? What about the soundness of his teaching, matching the prophet?
He's a carpenter. We will disallow truth when we are good and ready. Nevermind prophetic scripture, witnesses, reason, illustrations in the scripture that spoke of him.
And to this day, they can no longer explain messianic verses because they've buried themselves in a determination to vilify Jesus no matter what. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.
We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio, so make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick, we'll be back next time in the book of Romans here on Cross-Reference Radio.
