Hypocrites vs. Heaven (Part A)

Regardless of ethnicity, guilt of depravity or hypocrisy is guilt before God. Nonetheless, all men are sinners and all sin has to be dealt with in one way or another. We have a say so in this matter and the outcome can be glorious or we can turn against God and have a disastrous outcome. So we ask ourselves, am I guilty?

Am I guilty of hypocrisy or depravity with or with my Bible and I'm not taking it before the Lord? This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Romans, so 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. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the Book of Romans chapter 2 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. We are in Paul's letter to the Romans chapter 2. If you have your Bibles, please turn there. Romans chapter 2 verses 5 through 11. But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor and immortality, but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, then indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, when every soul of man who does evil to the Jew first and also to the Greek, but glory, honor and peace to everyone who works what is good to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for there is no partiality with God. Hypocrites versus heaven. The hypocrite picks a fight with God. You've heard unbelievers say, I don't want to go to church, there are hypocrites there.

At least we're honest enough to admit it, and that's not the whole story anyway. A little bit of introduction to this subject in this chapter. Romans 1 and 2, the first two chapters of Romans, give us the bleak state of man. Paul is laying out the depravity in the Gentile and in the Jew alike. By the third chapter, he begins to take us out of the darkness and give us the solutions of Christ, his necessary background for all of us, these first two chapters. In that first chapter of Romans, and I remember when Paul wrote this letter, there were not chapter and verse divisions.

He just wrote the letter as we would get a letter, but they are significant nonetheless. Chapters 1 and 2 make a proper distinction between those without a Bible and those with a Bible. It is as though in chapter 1, Paul was looking out of the window at Corinth, that ancient decadent city it was at that time, as though he were looking out the window and looking at the depraved behavior of Gentile heathens. Then he comes to chapter 2 and it is as though he's looking in a window of a synagogue. And there, looking at the Jews, not all of them, but the ones in that synagogue who were willfully disobedient to their own scripture.

And so you get, what you end up with is the guilty are the guilty, regardless of their ethnicity. You have people that have no Bibles and they are guilty and you have people with Bibles and they have guilt also. And we'll be opening that up the next few Sundays as we go through Romans, because he's got a lot to say in the next section about those who have never heard the gospel. So who are the people of chapter 1 verses 18 through 32? Again, guilty people without a Bible, heathen Gentiles. Who are these people in chapter 2 verses 1 through 16? Pretty much the whole chapter, they are the guilty people with a Bible.

The hypocritical ones in this particular sense. So to point this out one more time, regardless of ethnicity, guilt of depravity or hypocrisy is guilt before God nonetheless. All men are sinners and all sin has to be dealt with in one way or another. We have a say so in this matter.

And the outcome can be glorious or we can turn against God and have a disastrous outcome. So we ask ourselves, am I guilty? Am I guilty of hypocrisy or depravity with or with my Bible and I'm not taking it before the Lord?

Well that's hopefully what we're going to talk about. Now those who scoff at the scripture cannot now charge God with not dealing with hypocrisy in church, hypocrisy outside of church. We've heard the people criticize, that's why I'm not a Christian because of you Christians. Well God deals with those Christians who you are accusing of or allegedly of being not Christian. However, that is what kept me from Christ and in his mercy of course he grabbed hold of me. And I think that highlights for us the importance of a good witness before unbelievers. I never ran into an unbeliever that wanted me to be perfect as a Christian.

They just wanted me to be a straight shooter and that's not too difficult to do and that will bring much fruit. Anyway, when we get to the 17th verse of this second chapter, Paul will identify the frauds in Christianity. And of course he's saying God sees them and he will deal with them. And every time we come across that word judgment, it's a word that means God's going to deal with this.

So as with Israel, so it is with the professed Christian, that's where we end up with this whole thing. Ironically, this Roman letter can be very confusing, now here's the irony, at the same time unmistakably clear. There are little details and incidentals that you might be a little foggy on, but you get the point.

And you can't lose that, that is critical. And this is going to happen throughout the letter. And there's some reason for this that I'll get to as we begin to move through the verses. But God cannot be fooled, that is part of Paul's message. And it's summed up in this way in the third chapter, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All have sinned.

There is no exception. And sin goes far beyond doing wrong to someone or to yourself. The foundation of sin is you've wronged God. And if you want, how convenient, oh there is no God, I can write my own rules. Yeah, you wish, and that's of course, as the Bible teaches, very foolish. Well, with that very brief introduction, if I must say, we go to the first verse. Therefore you are inexcusable, oh man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself.

For you who judge practice the same things. Now, you've got to get this in your head, it's sort of like with 1 John. In his first letter, if you do not understand that he is dealing with Gnosticism, you're going to get all confused.

In Romans, if you don't understand that Paul is using a question answer format, you're going to get confused. And he is doing this for good reason. He begins, he doesn't get to his first question yet, but what is happening here is he's having a conversation with himself in front of everybody.

And by doing that, he's going to expose and criticize those guilty in this conversation. It is quite brilliant. It is a rhetorical device that is not new to humanity.

It is practiced elsewhere to sort of argue before an audience with a question answer. Who do you think you are? Well, I'll tell you who I am.

Well, what does that mean? See, that kind of a thing is happening here in this first chapter. And what this hypothetical conversation also does is it goes against the stunts that people will try to pull on God, on themselves and on others. So he's exposing this and if you're going to read this honestly, you're going to see yourself somewhere in there if you have this particular guilt. In fact, he uses this quite often in Romans in chapter 3 and chapter 4 and chapter 6 and chapter 7 and chapter 9. So when he says, shall we thus sin that, you know, good may come? That's the question. Then he gives the answer. Next verse. Certainly not, but it's done its work.

It has put the reader on alert. Well, what are you going to do with this? Are you going to sin so God can show grace?

Of course not. Sin is a killer. And this is what's going on here. If you lose this understanding in Romans, you're going to get tangled up in a lot of places. Especially when you get to chapter 9 and you're not understanding what Paul is doing. Anyway, he's moving from the flagrant sins of chapter 1 to the fraudulent sins of those here in chapter 2. From those eager to engage in sin in chapter 1 to those entitling themselves to be an exception from judgment for sin.

The cover up. In his day and in this second chapter, he's essentially focusing on the Jews who felt that their ethnicity protected them from obeying God's word. Well, I'm with you.

I'm okay. And that would extend to Gentiles who became Jewish as far as their religion, came into Judaism. No matter how you do your sin, you are busted. That's the idea of chapters 1 and 2. Now when we get to verse 5, he indicates that these are not people struggling with sin, but those ignoring sin.

It's a big deal. We've made that point, the difference between practicing sin and being a prisoner of sin, we made that point last chapter. So any Jewish person listening to this Jewish apostle and agreeing with his attack on the sins of the Gentile in chapter 1, are now going to have to ask themselves, do they agree with it on them? If they're listening to Paul, his diatribe against the sins in chapter 1 and saying, yes, get them Paul. Then Paul turns his guns and says, what about you? What about some of these things? Because I know you're doing them.

I've looked in the window. Sort of Ezekiel chapter 8, you know, God tells Ezekiel, go look in the hole in the wall, see what they're doing in the temple. Well, this is going to get interesting when we connect it to Amos in one second, but coming back to verse 1, Therefore you are inexcusable. This is directed to those that, again, are guilty of the coming charges that he's going to lay out, equally acceptable or applicable to anyone who has this behavior, Jew or not. Christian, unbeliever, Jew, if you're guilty of this, then you've got to deal with it.

The true Christian will deal with it. Now, the referent you, therefore you. Initially, it might be ambiguous. Well, who is he talking about? Well, he tells us in verse 17 that he's addressing this to the Jews. He's making that distinction from chapter 1, but he waits a while to get there.

You know, you've got to study this letter to keep up with him. He's all over the place, but again, he makes his key points. They're unmistakable, and so he's calling out the churchgoers of his day, and he's saying, you're inexcusable. Just as in chapter 1, the Gentiles were inexcusable who were pretending that there was no God or that they could create their own. Just as Paul called them out, he's calling these guys out.

Synagogue-going Jews are without excuse since they do the same things that they condemn in others and think that they are above accountability. So, this is the interesting part. I don't know if he does this on purpose or not, but it is the same tactic in the end. Amos the prophet, 700 years earlier, wrote his prophecies, and he starts out his first chapter, woe to you in Damascus, woe to you in Gaza, woe to you entire, and the Jews were loving it. Yeah, you get them, Paul. Messing with us. Those are our enemies, uncircumcised Philistines and whatever else they were. And then, in the second chapter of Amos, he says, woe to you Judah and Israel.

Now, he really doesn't use the word woe, but he's pronouncing the woes on them. And then, you know, they didn't like that. They hated that prophet for that.

How dare you? We're covenant people. You get Christians like this. I'm a Christian.

I give my life to Christ. I do anything I want. They won't say that.

But they sure will behave that way when you bust them on some big sin, and you tell them, hey, you've got to be held accountable for this. Well, you know, who are you to tell me? I'll tell you who I am. I'm the one that busted you. So, anyway, it is effective. How Amos did it, and they wanted him to go away, and he didn't.

We have his writings to this day. This idea of accountability is what guilty people do not want to be subject to. And so, whether you are in or out of a synagogue, in or out of a church, if you are smug and self-impressed and self-righteous, if you classify yourself as above it all and elitist, you're in big trouble with God. You might pull it off with men. You can wear that mask around them all you want, but God is not fooled by hypocrisy.

He never is fooled by anything. And so, he further addresses this, oh man, whoever you are who judge. Now, that about includes everybody, whoever you are. So, you're not going to be able to say, oh Paul, you're being a racist against your people or a Gentile. No, you're not.

This is a level playing field, and it is vital. How many people do you, as you read some of the scripture, how many people do you say, boy, I wish so and so would read this, because they're messed up like I'm reading here. Fortunately, I have no problems.

I'm all good. Yeah, we know that, but the big difference between the Christian that struggles and the non-Christian is that we struggle. And even if they struggle against some flawed behavior, they're not doing it for Christ. They're doing it for themselves.

We, hopefully, are doing both. So, he makes it clear, oh man, whoever you are, that whether you're in chapter one or chapter two, that's enough to be guilty against God. Sinners must have an advocate. That's part of the solution. If they're going to recover from distancing themselves from God through sin, they're going to have to have somebody that looks out for them. I don't know. I would like to think that everybody, at some point in life, as you go forward, if you experience any degree of success, you've had somebody help you out.

Some hook. Somebody who was above you, in the right position, put a word in for you, opened the door for you, gave you a head start. That's a good thing. It doesn't mean you're less. It means that you're just good people in the world, and we're supposed, good people as people go, and we're supposed to pass that on. I know I've benefited in a lot of areas in my life from somebody just looking out for me, taking a liking to me.

How could they not? But, anyway, we Christians, we have an advocate. And as soon as I bring that word up, in the context of rescuing somebody, I think most Christians will think of the verse I'm about to read. John, writing to the Christians, said, My little children, these things I write to you that you may not sin. There's sin is out there. This is writing to Christians. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous is sort of a don't you forget it.

And we love this. The same advocate has made the Holy Spirit available to us to resist sin, not only to be forgiven from sin. And the hypocrites that he's talking about here in this chapter, and the depraved in the last chapter, they had no intention on correcting their behavior in the presence of God. So Paul, addressing hypocritical accusers of others, those who judge inappropriately, and then he, of course, there is Jesus who allows honest, honest judgment of sin in others. You know, you've heard somebody say, don't judge me while they're robbing a bank. I mean, that's just my example in the extreme. But maybe they've committed some blatant sin, and you're holding them accountable, and they're going to try to pull that don't judge me card. Well, tear it up.

It doesn't work. John chapter 7, and for we Christians, what the Bible says means everything. Thus, the cross-references. For you non-Christians, you've got other problems too. If you're rejecting the verse references and the strength of them, you've got some serious problems with God.

And they can be fixed before the clock runs out. But Jesus said this about judging. He says, do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. So they like to take the verse in Matthew, you know, judge not. Oh, see, you can't do it.

No, that's not, you're out of context. Because in verse chapter 7, he says, judge with righteous judgment. Without proper judgment, how could you ever determine whether a person is a false prophet or not? All you have to say is, you can't judge me. But I can, and I will. Now, I won't be, it won't be gleeful while on the outside. It's not supposed to be. But there is some schadenfreude. There is some delight in seeing somebody dealt with.

Good, I'm glad he got a ticket. Christ says, look, don't be getting into that. That's a bad place for you to go.

It's carnal. Anyhow, John chapter 1. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits. Judge them.

Whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. How are we ever going to put an end to this? How are we ever going to protect ourselves if we do not hold people accountability to their confession of faith? You say you're a Christian, and you think you can go out there and flatten people's tires or something? And get in just like it's okay? And no one can say anything? Well, you're delusional. That's the short of it.

Well, we got that. And it continues here. For in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourselves.

Yourself, singular. Well, if someone has ample knowledge to judge others, they should also have ample knowledge to admit their own wrongs, see that their own faults are before God, that they are under the same standard. So if you're going to criticize someone else, remember that there's a standard on you also. Now, of course, I can't stress this enough, we're not trying to do away with accountability in others. We're just trying not to let it get out of hand.

Christ has not committed his church to a lynch mob. We are to be wise as serpents, as harmless as doves. We are to love. We are to look out for each other. But if you take accountability away, we can't look out for each other. In fact, we're doing the devil's work. We're enabling sin to just go unchecked. The religious hypocrite is a walking, talking, double standard. And that's what God is trying to deal with.

Because we hate when we see this in the mainstream media. They can't help it. Every time they open their mouths, it's a lie. Even when they're telling the truth, they're lying. Just like the devil.

Really, they're always up to something. So because their heart is wrong. Well, Christ wants to fight these things because the identical codes are in all of us.

We can be just as rotten as anybody else. And to fight this, we have these scriptures before us that address it. So he continues, for you who judge practice the same thing. So while condemning failure in others, are you impenitent before God about your own sins? Is there this proliferation of personal sin where it just goes on and nobody checks it?

It just keeps spreading? Matthew 23. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, and he's speaking about the religious leaders in Jerusalem, the rabbis of his day, Christ speaking.

Whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do. But, do not do according to their works, for they say and do not do. There's your hypocrites for you.

There's the double standard. And Christ came against it. And they hated him for this. And they will hate you for this also. Some will. How dare you? And they'll look to be petty and pull up something that you've done, some little petty thing. Oh yeah, well you didn't pay that parking ticket.

Or something stupid like that. What should you say? So, let's talk about you right now. You know, we understand people want to get the change of subject as best they can. Jehovah's Witnesses are very good at that. If you hold their feet to the fire, who do you say Jesus is? They'll try to get out of that question once you start picking their theology apart and distract you. Oh yeah, what about blood transfusion?

We're going to need one in a minute if you don't get off my property. Anyhow, coming, when we get to chapter 14, Paul's going to warn the Gentiles to not pass judgment on the Jews who are trying to follow a strict, follow their strict dietary customs. You know, when Christ gave freedom to the church to eat whatever they want, the Jews, many of them said, if that's good, I just can't do that. I'm just not going to eat, you know, possum.

And so whatever it is, yeah, because pork is the easy one. But, you know, and they have every right. You have every right to say, I'm going to eat that and I'm not going to eat that. What you don't have a right to do is say, God condemns eating this.

That's when you start, that's when you're wrong. Well, Paul had to deal with that in the fourteenth chapter because he knew this was happening throughout the Gentile world where the Christians and Gentiles were worshiping together. And he was saying, don't go judging those Jews and Jews, don't you go judging them. You know, he's just like a father putting out all these brush fires that if those brush fires aren't putting out the squabbling of the siblings, they'll turn into prairie fires.

It'd be a big deal. 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 will be back next time in the book of Romans here on Cross-Reference Radio.