If you're born into a Christian home, what a privilege! What are you going to do with it? Now some figure it out quite kind of early. Some may take some decades. But it is not something we should dismiss. It's something we should keep up front. We have the high privilege of having scripture and having a relationship, not only with the Christ of the scripture, but His people. What are we going to do with it? Back to the servant. The servant is supposed to be useful.
And your usefulness diminishes with ignorance. 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.
And now here's Pastor Rick with part 2 of his study called God's Fairness in Romans chapter 2. The world without a Bible increases Satan's advantages to sway the world over humanity and the suffering is just too much to bear. We know what the world did before there was a Bible. Look again, post-Flood Noah. What was happening there? The world was so bad God had to wipe it out.
And that He did. Anyway, back to the vitality of Scripture. There are people in Islamic countries that want out of Islam, but they're not allowed to get out. And there are enough of them, so many of them through history, that they even wrote a law, a violent law, if you try to get out we're going to kill you.
If your kids try to get out, there's various degrees of that. The point is there are people in other parts of the world who have not heard the Gospel, but they know there's something better. This may have been the case with Abraham in Mesopotamia, when he lived there amongst the idols and God said, get away from your family. And because they were idols, infested with idols, and God called on Abraham. And so, you know, just to bulldoze people into hell, you didn't hear the Gospel, you're going to hell. That's not what the Bible teaches.
What do you do with someone? Just to say, let's pick a country that's quite remote, like Yemen. An Islamic country, a third world country. What are the chances of someone there hearing the Gospel? In fact, let's elevate that. What are the chances of a soul who's born with extreme autism? When they die, what's God going to do with them? God knows what he's doing. He's going to do right, and he is a God of love, and he is a God of mercy, and we better not mess with those things. But I think some Christians resent this. He's going to hell.
I don't see it that way, and I don't think the Scriptures see it that way either. And this is some of what Paul is dealing with. Knowing he's got a Jewish audience in front of him, knowing he's got a Gentile audience, knowing that the Gentiles are influenced by the Jews, and the Jews are struggling to tolerate the Gentiles. He knows there's a lot of racism flying around the church, and he's trying to protect it. He's injecting this divine wisdom and reason from the Holy Spirit. And so when he says about when Gentiles who don't have the Scripture, by nature do the things in the Scripture. See, law, I'm using Scripture, an interpretive rendering, because that's what he's talking about. The moral law of conscience also exists in addition to the written code in Scripture. So this begins to cancel out that objection unbelievers give.
God's not fair. It's just, you know, if you haven't heard the Gospel, you're going to hell. But that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that there are those people that have not heard Scripture, and they can still, they can't find Christ, they can't just drift into Christianity. For that they need someone to bring the Gospel. But they have a sense of morality, and this is not a difficult thing to prove. So they're without Moses' ceremonial laws and civil laws, but they have moral law. And those who never truly heard the Gospel will be judged according to their conscience. This is not an advantage. It's still a need for Christ.
But let me put it, I guess, this way, a little bit ahead of myself. A person knows right and wrong by the standard of what they would not want done to them. I don't want someone stealing from me. So I automatically know it's not right to steal from them. I don't want someone to try to kill me.
I do not want someone to lie to me. So we have, whether with the Scripture or not, these are the basics of morality, of human behavior amongst other people. And there is a hell for wicked people who have not heard the Gospel, and there is a hope for those who also have not heard the Gospel. Again, this seems to bother some professed Christians that resent my saying, that we are accountable to God, every person, but there are those that have never heard the Gospel that are not automatically doomed.
That's what He is saying here. And I don't know how you could say that's not true, or take me to another verse. So even Jesus, and I won't use the cross-references into John verbatim, Jesus said, you know, you have the light, now your sin is on you, because you've been told the Gospel. This helps us deal with people who want to charge God with not being fair. It's not fair that I never heard the Gospel and I have to go to hell. Well, that's because your theology is wrong, and there's more to it.
But now that I'm here in front of you, I've taken away that option, and now you're going to get the Gospel. So a sense of right and wrong, an example, the sanctity of life, demonstrates that there are moral laws. I'll give you another example from Scripture. Remember when Solomon was faced with the two mothers? The one rolled over on her baby and accidentally killed the child, and stole the other lady's baby, and claimed it as her own. How was it resolved? Well, they took a DNA test.
They did not. Okay, so Solomon settles it. He finds out who the real mother was.
But what comes out of the story is that there's a vicious lady in the village. And I don't think Solomon passed judgment on her. When it was all said and done, the lady who got her child back still had to go live in that neighborhood with that person. And you can't tell me that, oh, you know, what I was trying to do is somehow okay by having that baby killed. Because Solomon said, okay, cut the baby in half, and of course he extracted this confession, and the real mom came forward and said, don't harm the baby, let her have him. And Solomon said, well, that's the mom, give her the baby.
But the other lady was adamant, kill the child. And what the Scripture's teaching us, there are messed up people. There are. And you may not have them in your neighborhood, but they're out there somewhere.
And with the internet, we're getting to see a lot of them. So, you know, what does God do with these things? Well, he's telling us here. He's telling, I will judge the wicked. And those who have a sense of morality that are decent, I'm going to judge them too. But I'm also telling you that nobody gets into heaven without the death of my son on the cross.
That makes, that opens the door for any sense of toleration. Because God does not owe us forgiveness. It is a gift to humanity that all humanity is redeemed but not saved. The price is paid, the redemption is done.
But if you don't come get it, then you don't benefit from it. So don't go blaming God, oh, I don't have a chance. Oh, you have a chance.
He died for the world. But if you do not redeem it, easily, if you win lotto, call me. That's my point. Let's close in prayer.
If you win lotto and you don't go down and claim it, you don't get it. So we understand this principle. And it's the same with the gospel. Every man everywhere knows that these things are wrong, lying, stealing, murder, including the subgroups, cheating, seduction and violence.
We know those things are wrong. There's nothing wrong with wanting peace and we know there's something wrong with taking someone else's peace away from them just because we want something to enrich ourselves. So man cannot plead innocence or ignorance enough before a holy God with any honest expectation of him approving such behavior and thus the need for mercy and grace. No matter what, all still need the Savior. 1 Timothy 4, For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men. Then he continues, especially those who believe. Because those are the ones that have redeemed it. They've come and they've received it.
The others have not. Verse 15, well let me pause it. What's unfair about any of that? What is unfair about a sovereign holy God making terms that can be achieved? What is wrong with God saying choose life or not?
It's up to you. Well, verse 15, the parentheses continues to talk about verse 12. Who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them. Paul is saying I've met people, they're good people. They have not had scripture, but they're good people. Now he's not going any further with what happened after he begins to preach to them. He's making points about the guilt of man and the fairness of God. You know, some of the Jews were saying, no matter how good you are, you're going to hell because you're a Gentile. You have to get circumcised. You have to honor the Sabbath. You don't do those. No matter how good you are, you're going to hell.
However, because I am a Jew, and I do honor the Sabbath, and I have honored the circumcision, no matter what I do, I'm going to heaven. That's the kind of mentality in some of the people he had to put up with. Look at Caiaphas. I mean, they were doing evil so they could kill Christ. They were breaking the law. They were committing crime. They were lying. They were looking for witnesses that didn't exist. So their mindset, the mindset of some of the Jews, many of them, was foul through and through, and Paul knew those boys. He was going to hell with them, and God saved him. So he says their conscience also bearing witness, enough knowledge of right and wrong to act or not. And so he says in verse 15 that God judges the nations for the way they treat each other, the people in the nations. Conscience must be influenced. Not enough to be bothered by something wrong because conscience can be corrupted. It can be damaged.
Shaping is critical. Paul said to Timothy about some who speak lies in hypocrisy. They knew they were lying, but they did it anyway. And then he says having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. Their conscience was corrupted, defective. They were immune to truth because they wanted to be. Do we have to point to modern day examples? When I say modern day, within the last 100 years, what about Joseph Stalin? You don't get more evil than that. Hitler, Himmler, and Hamas.
This is incarnate evil. And again, why do they excuse their behavior? Because they're immune to truth. When you come to the scripture, you don't take your theology to understand the Bible. Your understanding of the Bible is to shape your theology.
And if you come there with your mind made up, that this is what I've learned, then you're not listening. But if you come, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says. And I think a lot of folks lose sight of this. Man is totally depraved, but he's not depraved to the point where he cannot choose life. The Bible doesn't teach that. That's why I started off reading from Deuteronomy, Ecclesiastes 3. He has put eternity in their hearts. There's this thing in all of us, if we have receptors to receive what God puts in front of us, or not. And that's how it was in the beginning with Adam and Eve. Don't touch the tree.
God reasoned with them. We have no record of him reasoning with any of the animals. He said, don't touch that tree.
You can eat from any of these other ones. But no. No. Eve should not have even been near that thing. I would have cut that tree down. I would have cut it down and burned it. Okay, I would have taken the fruit.
Because that's another sermon. You would have too. It's not just like, yeah, I figured you'd take it.
No. We'd all take it. That's the whole point. Human will has to be faced with a serious choice. Anyway, we end the parentheses between verses 13 and 15, 4 verse 12, and now verse 16. We should read 16. I don't want to read 12 again, because we're going to be saying the word law 20 more times. So, just verse 16. In the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.
He is the inescapable standard. Of course, here's the line. I'm a good guy.
I'm going to go to heaven. What do you base that off of? What makes you say you're a good guy? Well, I didn't steal, I didn't murder, I didn't cheat. Yeah, but that's not the standard. The standard is Jesus Christ. Did you commit any sin ever? Of course, everybody has to say.
If you've ever felt guilt, if you've ever been sorry for something, the way you've treated somebody, those things have disqualifying elements about them. Christ never had to apologize. He's the standard, and that's what we're being told here. Acts chapter 17. Because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead. Christ is the standard. So, the guy that says, well, I'm not as bad as the people in jail.
Yeah, well, they're not the standard. And neither is anybody better than you. Only Christ could die for sinners because only he was good enough. There's more to the story than just that he was good enough because who he is, in essence, he is God the Son, the Son of God. Philippians, we know this one and we love it. At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow.
Everyone will. He is God Almighty. 2 Corinthians 5, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Knowing that God will. He's not lying when he says, you know, there's a hell waiting for people who reject me. The final test of the soul is to be that of a man's attitude towards the Savior.
How God works out those little gray zones, that's his prerogative. I go by what he has revealed in the scripture. I am told to preach the gospel wherever the door opens by the Holy Spirit.
That is my responsibility. You know, there's a military expression, at least when I was in, you know, kill them and eat them, let God sort them out. Now, that's not Christian. But it does convey this idea that there is brutality in this world and it's not intentional.
They're not saying, hey, let's make a theological statement with this. I'm making a theological statement on the human perspective. There's violence, there's evil in this world and God is going to sort it out. And because we know who he is, we're good.
He's going to do it right. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. That is one of the most profound statements known to man. Verse 17, indeed, now he switches. He has addressed those without a Bible, that they have enough morality in them for God to hold them accountable. Now he comes to the people with Bibles and he's saying God's going to hold them accountable too.
Indeed, you are called a Jew and rest on the law and make your boast in God. Verse 18, and know his will and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law. Verse 19, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness. Verse 20, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having a form of knowledge and truth in the law. Later he'll write to Timothy, they have a form of knowledge. I just forgot the verse. Maybe I can distract you to act like I didn't forget the verse.
They have a form of knowledge. Okay, forget it. It's not there. I'll get it maybe in the sermon. But I think you know where I'm going with that.
I'm totally blank on it. Anyway, but I still know my name. So that's just my check, you know. Okay, I know who I am.
Here's my phone number. All right. Verse 20, it was where we just finished reading.
So he returns. He is addressing a Jewish mindset. Not all Jews thought this way, but a lot of them did.
And it is an equally erroneous behavior. It's also found in Gentiles, but he's singling out the Jews. And he has to do this because again, there were Gentiles in the church that were looking up to the Jews because they were the ones that had the scripture. When the Gentiles came in, they heard the gospel, and then the Jew would say, Christ is the Messiah, and here is written in our prophets, and here is Isaiah's account. The Gentile would say, well, who's Isaiah? You'd have to ask a Jew that. And the Jew would tell him. And this was part of the church becoming what she is today. So Paul needs to make a level playing field in front of everybody, and that's what he is attempting and succeeding at, I think, in doing. So this is a widespread behavior of moral superiority based on ethnicity that some of the Jews were pulling.
And so he's bringing it up. Unlike Gentiles, the Jews had the true story of religion and truth from their birth. They were raised with spiritual privilege.
And I want to go back to something I said last Sunday. I mentioned a pastor's children and how it's a unique challenge put on them. When they're still children, they don't know how to deal with the things. You know, if it's an adult, he knows he's got defense, so she has defense mechanisms.
But as a child, they're just trying to frolic along with everybody else, and then people got them under this magnifying glass. But I want to add, especially for those who will be listening on radio, whenever this message makes its way there, if you are a pastor's child, you have been on purpose born into a house of a pastor. It is an ordained position from that perspective.
God knew you were going to be a pastor's child. Now, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to abuse it? Are you going to neglect it?
Are you going to grab hold of it? I would encourage you to grab hold of it and say, yeah, God put me in this house as he did. You know, he put Aaron in the house of the priest, and his sons and Phinehas was born into the house of the priesthood, and what they did with it was up to them. And this is true of those who are not pastor's children.
If you're born into a Christian home, what a privilege. What are you going to do with it? Now, some figure it out quite kind of early. Some may take some decades, but it is not something we should dismiss. It's something we should keep up front. We have the high privilege of having scripture and having relationship, not only with the Christ of the scripture, but his people.
What are we going to do with it? Back to the servant. Servant is supposed to be useful. And your usefulness diminishes with ignorance.
But if you really want to serve, then you want to squeeze out of your Christianity everything you can get. And that takes work and patience. It takes love. It takes pain. And the pain will come, at least in my Christian walk, from two sources.
One, you won't be surprised at. It comes from people. I get that.
I'm probably doing the same thing as others, I'm sure. But the other one comes from God. God withholds things that are important to me, as he does you. And we have to learn to live with that.
God takes away loved ones. We have to deal with that. That's not the whole, you know, there's more to our story than whatever we're facing in life. And the more to our story is the usefulness to our Savior. I don't know what Christian would say, no, I don't agree with that.
I like my carnality. I think this life is all we have. Of course, that's the worldling speaking. Anyway, the Jews raised with privilege. And that increases responsibility and influence and blessings.
Paul wants to ensure everyone that understanding sin and the consequences is very important. And that it is insane to acknowledge that there is a God and then to go on to live without any fear of what displeases that God. Can you imagine somebody, well, I believe there's a God. Yeah, well, what does he like? Maybe he doesn't like right-handed people.
I mean, how do you know what he likes and doesn't like? What are you going to do about it when you find out? I mean, if I found out God didn't like right-handed people, I'd be doing a lot of work with my left hand. So I'd do something about that.
But we have a whole planet of people like this. I believe in God. Which one? One made up or one who made? And when you start digging into this, you find you look for as an unbroken witness. Where did you hear about your God?
What do you have to back it up? Have you got any prophecy? Any spiritual features?
Anything we can verify? Every religion of the world has got nothing. False religion.
Every false religion has got nothing but word of mouth. 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 crossreferenceradio.com 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.
