And there is a sick Cult. That has arisen in contemporary evangelical Christianity that is built around self. And people talk about self-image and self-esteem and self-worth and self-value and it is nothing but humanistic worldliness. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.
April 15th. If you live in the United States, you are familiar with that date. It's tax day, and fair to say, it can be something of a hassle. Yet, not everyone feels the burden of taxes. For example, people who have no income, or who have some other tax-exempt status, or perhaps have such a high income that even a large tax payment doesn't eliminate their comfortable lifestyle.
Of course, we're all born under a burden more severe than any tax code, and from this penalty, no one is excluded, and no one is legally exempt, and no one has enough resources to withstand it. Today, John MacArthur takes a hard look at God's judgment and what's required to be spared from it. It's part of John's compelling study from Romans 2 called Without Excuse. And now, here is John with the lesson. Let's look in our Bibles to Romans chapter 2.
Paul sets forth the true bases of judgment. And they apply to everybody, and most particularly, he focuses them in on the moral person. That is the outwardly moral, the outwardly religious person who wouldn't want to find himself in chapter one with the reprobates of pagan vice.
Now, as he unfolds these principles, there are six elements in divine judgment that he lists. God judges on the basis of six features. First, he judges according to knowledge. Secondly, according to truth. Thirdly, according to real guilt, Fourthly, according to deeds or works.
Fifthly, according to impartiality. And sixthly, according to motive. And we're working our way through those very important elements Of God's judgment.
Now, first of all, God judges on the basis of knowledge. Back to verse 1, and let's just review that point. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man. Whosoever thou art that judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things.
Now this simply tells us that God judges on the basis of man's knowledge. And what are you saying in that verse? Is this? If you know enough to judge somebody else, Then you show that you know enough to be held responsible for what you do. Secondly, We've already learned that he judges on the basis of truth.
Verse 2, but we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth. In other words, it fits the facts against them who commit such things. God's judgment perfectly fits the facts. As it said at the end of verse 27 in chapter 1, they received a recompense of their error which was fitting or was appropriate. God always rightly fits the judgment to the facts.
Deuteronomy 32, 4 says, just and right is he. God's holy nature will not allow him to do anything that isn't right. And as I told you in our last study, the hope of the hypocrite, the hope of the religious phony is that God will not judge on the truth, but he will judge on the superficial profession. And that is so silly. To assume that you're going to get away with the masquerade before God.
God will not judge that way, but He'll judge on the fact.
So verse 3 adds, And thinkest thou this, old man? That judgest them who do such things and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? You want to judge everybody else, and that proves you know the law, and so you'll be judged on that knowledge. And if God judges truly according to the fact, do you think you're going to get away any more than they are? Not a chance.
God will judge accurately, and He will judge truly. And he will judge according to fact. And I think this is right where you find the people in Matthew 7 who come and they say, Lord, Lord, we've done this in your name, we've done that in your name, we've done this other thing in your name. And they lay out the facade of religious externals. They lay out all of the surface religious activity.
And he says, depart from me, I never knew you. He judges men on the basis of guilt. True guilt. Verses four and five.
Now here in these two verses God affirms that the moral man The religious man, namely an In Paul's day, the Jew is guilty of sin and can in no way escape judgment. And two verses show how really profound man's guilt is. Look at verses 4 and 5. Or despisest thou the riches of His, that is God's goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. But after thy hard and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.
And we'll stop there. And I just want to take those two verses. And that's really more than you could even handle in one time.
So profound is it. Verse 4 says, God has been good to you. All of you. Across the face of the world, God has been good to you. And his goodness and his forbearance and his long suffering had as its goal to lead you to what?
Repentance. And when it did not lead you to repentance, conversely, because of your hard and unconverted heart, you were just storing up wrath that would ultimately break loose at the final judgment. That's the essence of what these verses are saying. God has been leading men to repentance. But men have been going to judgment instead.
And men are piling up a pile of guilt, a storehouse of guilt that is going to. come back on them in judgment.
Now there is guilt, all right. And guilt for all sins, but guilt for the worst sin, and that is the most heinous crime of all against God, and that is to reject what God has done. And man is guilty of that. Man is guilty of rejecting God's goodness. Of abusing God's mercy, of ignoring God's grace, of spurning God's love, of mocking His kindness.
Matthew Henry, that commentator of old who has So many helpful thoughts in his commentary on the scripture said: There is in every willful sin. A contempt. of the goodness of God. And that's right. Whenever you sin or whenever I sin, We show contempt for God's goodness.
Let me read you just two verses, and you need not turn to them, but. In Hosea, Hosea Of course. records for us God's love for wayward Israel. And in the 11th chapter in the first... Verse God says, when Israel was a child, I loved him.
And that sort of sets the tone for the thoughts in the chapter. In verse 4, I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love, and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid food before them. In other words, I didn't have a bit in their mouth. I fed them, and I led them gently, and I drew them with love. And verse 7 says, And my people are bent.
to backsliding away from me. I mean, here was God with love and tenderness and graciousness and kindness. And mercy. reaching out to draw Israel and they were just sliding away from him.
Now, let's go back to verses 4 and 5 and look at the several parts that make up these thoughts. The word despisest. In the authorized is a very strong word. It means basically to grossly underestimate the value of something. To grossly underestimate the significance of something, it is a failure to assess true worth.
It is making light of the Riches of the goodness of God. And this is the blackest of sins, by the way. The worst sin is not rights violated. The worst sin is mercy despised. Let's look at what happened.
They failed to really evaluate. They failed to see the true worth of the riches of God's goodness. They didn't know how valuable it was, and men still don't know. I mean, everybody alive in the world today has experienced the goodness of God. I'll say that again.
Everybody alive in the world today has personally experienced the goodness of God and experiences it every breath they take. In many, many ways, not the least of which is that the Lord makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. And the Lord gives them food to eat. And the Lord gives them a fire to keep them warm, and the Lord gives them water to refresh their thirst, and the Lord gives them food to fill their hungry stomach. And the Lord gives them a blue sky and a warm sun.
And the Lord gives them green grass and beautiful mountains and whatever it is. And the Lord gives them people to love. In every way, God has demonstrated His goodness. And by the way, the word goodness is. A very important word, crustatase.
The idea is really kindness. It's it's Translated kindness in Galatians 5 in the list of elements of the fruit of the Spirit. It speaks of God's benefits, His kindnesses. to men. And then the word forbearance, an okay, is the word for truce.
It's the word for the cessation of a hostility. It's the word for the withholding of judgment.
So God pours out blessing and He holds back judgment. He is forbearing. That is, he says, okay, a truce, no hostility. I'll just be kind to you and I'll withhold my judgment. And the word long-suffering, macrotherthemia, means patience.
It is a word that signifies one who has the power to avenge but doesn't use it. It's a great characteristic of God. He's so patient. Over and over again in the scripture, we read about the patience of God, the patience of God. God is not willing that any should perish.
God is long suffering because of that. us because he's not willing that we should perish. And so you have goodness, which refers to the benefits which God gives, you have forbearance, which refers to the judgment He does not give, and you have long-suffering, which refers to the duration of both. And so, for long periods of time, he is kind, and for long periods of time, he withholds. His judgment.
The Hebrew term would say he is slow. to anger. And plenteous in what? Mercy. And this is the riches.
It isn't just goodness and forbearance and long suffering, it's goodness and forbearance and long suffering at its epitome. It is the riches of those things, not just the shallow, but the fullest. The old theologians used to call this common grace. It comes also under the theological term of providence. In other words, God is just good, and He pours out His goodness and He withholds His judgment and He does it for a long time.
Psalm 52.1 says, The goodness of God endureth continually. Psalm 119, 68 says, Thou art good and doest good. Psalm 33, 5 says, The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. Psalm 145, 9 says, His tender mercies are over all his works. And Psalm 107, 8 says, Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness.
Now, you know what is appalling about this is that most people don't really see God as being good. Most people wonder how God can be so bad to let certain things happen, right? How can God allow that? Or how can God allow this? Let me tell you the answer.
The goodness of God. is nowhere more clearly seen. than that when man commits a sin He doesn't fall over dead on the spot. You see, God had every reason at the fall to wipe out the human race. Every reason.
And he has the same reason every single time you or I ever commit one sin. And it is only his goodness. And his forbearance and his long-suffering that lets us take another breath. It's Mercy rejoicing against judgment. As the scripture says.
And God was especially good to Israel. He is after all the God of patience. He was good to the pagans, wasn't he, in Noah's time? He waited 120 years for them to repent. He was so patient with the nations, the time of their ignorance he overlooked.
He was so patient with Israel and with Judah. He waited for centuries and centuries, seven, eight hundred years before he took them into the Babylonian captivity. And God is wonderfully patient with us today. You look around the world today and people are sinning at a rapid rate. The divine law of our blessed God is trampled underfoot, and God Himself is openly despised.
His name is blasphemed. And it is amazing that he doesn't strike dead the people that do that. When you hear someone blaspheme the name of God, And then take another breath. That is the goodness of God. Why doesn't he cut him down?
And why doesn't he cut me down and you down when we sin? As he did Ananias and Sapphira. Why doesn't he cause the earth to open up and swallow us like Dathan and Abiram? And what about apostate Christendom. What about all the liberals and the apostates?
What about their toleration for every form of evil? How can he let that go on? Why does not the righteous wrath of heaven consume them? The only answer is because As Romans 9 says, God has dealt with the vessels fitted unto destruction with much long suffering. Listen.
Get this in your mind because we're going to answer this question. If you have ever thought for one moment that God is unjust, you simply reveal how easy it is to learn to abuse the goodness of God. And I'll show you why. The goodness of God, back to verse 4. is designed to lead men to repentance.
It is designed to cause them to turn from sin to Him. It is designed to cause men who are filled with evil to long for God and God's goodness. It is designed to make them thankful that He didn't slay them and turn to Him and. Gratitude. If you really realize what you deserve every day you live, every breath you take, you'll thank God.
That he didn't strike you down. You see, God's goodness and God's patience. Calls us to repentance, to thankful, grateful hearts. And yet we so often fail to do that.
Now what does repentance mean? It simply means a turn from sin toward God. to turn away from what we're doing to him. And to do that because we see our sin and we see what we deserve and we know we should die. And when He doesn't take our life, but He lets us live, we should turn in utter gratitude to Him.
But men don't do that. They despise God's goodness. And before you start putting the blame somewhere else, We can be guilty of the same thing. that is characteristic of an unregenerate but religious person. One commentator has said that almost everyone has, quote, a vague and undefined hope of impunity and a kind of feeling that this can't happen to me.
We just have this feeling that everything's okay. And the Jews believed they were exempt from the judgment of God. And many people, most people believe that. Listen, most people in our world don't believe God's going to judge them, they don't believe that for a minute. And they just load up on God's goodness and God's providence, and they take in all the pleasure of life, and all the love, and the wonder of love, and of children, and parents, and friends, and a partner in life, and the beauty, and the fun, and the pleasure, and all the delicacies of life that God gives.
And they just take it all in: the beauty, the warmth, the emotions. And it's all mercy. That they don't die every breath they take. But they never think about that. And that is why it is such an incredible sin to be unthankful.
You see, that's why in chapter 1, when it condemns the heathen, it condemns them for failing to glorify God, and neither were they what? Thankful. We go right into a sin because we're so used to mercy. that we figured we'll get it again.
So, the Jews, like the rest, assumed mercy and went on sinning. They assumed God's grace and went on sinning. They assumed God's kindness, and goodness, and patience, and long-suffering, and went right on sinning. And they just stomped all over God's. Goodness.
But goodness despised. leads to the end of goodness. And all of a judgment, verse 5. And it talks about a hard and impenitent heart piling up. Wrath.
To be revealed on the day of wrath, that special day when righteous judgment from God is revealed. The kind of people who are like this are people who don't see God's nature as loving and good and kind. They just see their own nature as deserving.
Well, I'm not so bad. I mean, they don't say, Oh, God, thank you. Thank you for another day of life. Thank you for a partner that I love. Thank you for what you've done.
Thank you for not taking my life and slaying me in my sin. They just take it all for granted and they get the idea that they're just getting what they deserve. They're not half bad anyway. And there is a sick Cult. That has arisen in contemporary evangelical Christianity that is built around self.
And people talk about self-image and self-esteem and self-worth and self-value and it is nothing but humanistic worldliness. You have no worth or value as a self. As a corrupt sinner. And the whole idea of that concept has taken evangelicalism and twisted it from a God-centered perspective to a man-centered perspective. And salvation and Christianity is all seen from the viewpoint of what it can do for me.
And sin is always seen as to how it affects man, not how it affects God. We are selfists. Indulging ourselves in God's mercy. And this is a horrifying error. The only reason you haven't breathed one breath, or I even breathe one more breath, is because God is merciful.
And if I forget that and trade on that mercy, such. Ingratitude is So severe.
Now I want to speak to this issue. Because it opens up one of the great truths of scripture, and I want to give you a little scripture lesson that will help you fill out your theology at this point.
Now think with me now. Very important. People see God as unjust. You know, if something comes into your life, your husband dies, your wife dies, your kids are injured, somebody you know gets a disease, your thought is: well, God, that's not fair. Right?
How could you do that, God? And you have to work your way through those kinds of thoughts. But do you know what that is? That's your rotten old. Sin principle operating.
I mean, how can you do that, God? I mean, how can I be without a job? Or how can I have all these kind of problems? Or why me? It's not fair.
And so you tend to question God's love and you tend to question God's actions. And it's an incredible turnaround. Because God is so merciful. And so kind. And yet, men despise that very kindness.
And when something goes askew in their life, they begin to accuse God of being unfair. or unjust. How incredible! William Gurnau wrote in 1660 this statement. When I consider how the goodness of God is abused by the greatest part of mankind, I cannot but be of his mind that said, the greatest miracle in the world is God's patience and bounty to an ungrateful world.
If a prince has an enemy got into one of his towns, he doth not send them in provision, but lays close siege to the place, and doth what he can to starve them. But the great God that could wink all his enemies into destruction bears with them and is at daily cost to maintain them.
Well may he command us to bless them that curse us, who himself does good to the evil and unthankful. But think not, sinners, that you shall escape thus. God's mill goes slow, but grinds small. The more admirable his patience and bounty now is, the more dreadful and unsupportable will that fury be which ariseth out of his abused goodness. Nothing smoother than the sea, yet when stirred into a tempest, nothing rageth more.
Nothing so sweet as the patience and goodness of God, and nothing so terrible as His wrath when it takes fire. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. John's current series is called Without Excuse.
Well, the notion of guilt that John talked about today, to call guilt an unpopular concept, is a massive understatement. The world says guilt isn't healthy, that there's really no reason to feel guilty about anything you think or say or do. But while that kind of thinking is dangerous, there's an even bigger concern that John had about it. Let's hear what he said about that some years ago. Yeah, what happens is the pop culture spills into the church.
If there's a campaign to make life guiltless, if there's a campaign to divest people of accountability and responsibility. If there's an effort, for example, in one book to blame parents for the way their children turned out, that's a book titled Toxic Parents, and the premise is whatever you are and whatever your failings, they're not your fault. Your parents were toxic. If that's the way the world thinks, if that's what's being taught in schools, if that's what's being propagated through the media, guess what? It spills into the church.
And then what you have is severe problems on two fronts. If non-believers don't accept responsibility for their own sin, They cut themselves off from the need for a Savior. And so they cut themselves off from the only hope they have of forgiveness and salvation. And in the church, if believers don't take their sin seriously, accept full responsibility for their transgressions and iniquities, Then they go on in an unsanctified way.
So you have an unsanctified culture with no interest in repentance and salvation, and you have an unsanctified church that can't really. Live in a holy way and make the gospel attractive. It's a bad situation. I want to tell you about a book called The Vanishing Conscience, and that's in a sense the problem. The problem is people Don't pay any attention to their conscience, which is given them by God.
To Accuse them or excuse them. for their sins. This book is designed to help you take sin seriously. It arms you for battle against sin on all fronts. It begins by asking questions like what is the conscience and whatever happened to sin.
Yes, it does. And friend, this book shatters the myth that guilt is harmful, and it gives a biblical perspective on the issue of self esteem. It's one of John's most important books. The title again, The Vanishing Conscience. Get your copy to day.
You can order by calling 8005 GRACE or by visiting our website gty.org. The Vanishing Conscience costs eleven dollars and shipping is free. Again, to get a copy of The Vanishing Conscience for yourself or get a few to give away, call 800-55GRACE. or visit gty.org. While you're online, be sure to check out the latest article on the Grace DU blog.
The blog features new content all the time from our staff that can help you better understand important issues that affect you and your church. Also, remember to download the Grace to You app for your smartphone or tablet, and you can access the vast library of John's Bible teaching resources, including his sermon archive with over 3,600 messages. All of that and more is free at gty.org.
Now for the entire Grace DU staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Keep in mind, Grace to You Television airs this weekend on NRB TV. Check your local listings. And be here tomorrow when John MacArthur shows you why you and I and everyone else deserve God's judgment and how you can escape from it. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on grace to you.
