Jesus said three times in Matthew six, "The Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Our inmost secrets may be hidden from human judgment; they are not hidden from God, and we will be judged for our motives. You either do what you do for the glory of God, or you do it for the glory of man." Welcome to Grace to You with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. A great preacher once said, "I feel that if God should smite me now to the lowest hell, I should only have what I justly deserve." Well, that's true for all of us.
We all deserve God's wrath, and yet He promises to pardon those who place their faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. But that leads to an important question: What about those who never get the opportunity to hear the good news of Christ? Is it fair to condemn people like that? Consider that as John Macarthur continues his study without excuse, and here's John with today's lesson. Let's look at the Word of God together in Romans chapter two.
We want to continue our examination of the principles of judgment as they appear in the first sixteen verses of this chapter, verse fourteen. For when the heathen or pagan Gentiles, ethne, who have not the law, That is the written law.
Now, keep that in mind. The written law; they don't have that. When they do, by nature, the things contained in the law; these having not the law, are a law unto themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts. Their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.
Now, what is he saying? He's saying simply this: You do not have to have the written law to be responsible, for you have a law within you. Manifest in your behavior, manifest in your conscience, and manifest in your thinking patterns. There are four great reasons why the heathen are lost. Here they come.
Reason number one: creation, creation. Go back to chapter one, and we'll pick up a thought from verse eighteen. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men.
Now you see, it is not just the religious men; it is not just the people with the law of God. It is all men, all men, all men. The wrath of God is revealed against all of the ungodliness and all of the unrighteousness of all men, whether they had the written law or not. Why? Because they hold the truth, how do they hold the truth?
Verse nineteen: That which may be known about God is manifest in them. How is it manifest in them?
Well, God has shown it unto them.
Well, how did He show it unto them? For the invisible things of Him, from the what creation of the world, are clearly seen, so that they are without excuse.
So, from chapter one, we learned the first reason why the heathen are lost: creation. First, they're lost because of creation. Secondly, because of conduct. For when the heathen, who have not the law, do by nature or do naturally the things contained in the law. These, though they don't have the law, become a law unto themselves.
In other words, they don't have an outside law, but they have an internal law that makes them a law unto themselves, and it is manifest in their conduct.
Now, when the heathen do, by nature, the things contained in the law, indicates that it does occur when they do it, and it is a common occurrence. Pagans naturally do things that are written in God's law. Did you know that, without ever reading God's law, their conduct? Listen to this now. Their conduct proves they know what is right and wrong.
Their conduct proves that there is available within them, residing in them, the law of God. Let's look at a third reason why the heathen are lost, and that is conscience. And this is part of that same concept in verse fourteen, but it's in verse fifteen. They not only reveal the work of the law within them by their conduct when they do naturally the things that are written, but they also reveal the law of God written in their hearts. When their conscience functions in bearing testimony, there's a thought process in you that knows right and knows wrong, and deals with you when you violate it.
The heathen are lost because of creation, conduct, conscience. Fourth, the heathen are lost because of contemplation. Here is another indicator of the lostness of the heathen. Their thoughts are in the process of accusing or excusing one another. In other words, there is in us the capacity to contemplate or to reason, and to determine that what someone does is right or wrong.
For example. A person without God, without Christ, without the Bible. Here is about someone who has murdered a child. What is his reaction? Unless the person is totally at the extremity of vileness, he's going to say that's awful.
He's going to accuse. We got to find that person and do something to that person. Why do you think we have a punitive system in our society? Why do you think there are punitive systems in every society? Because men know what is right and wrong.
They have the capacity in their minds to accuse or excuse. They know that's all right. We can excuse that, but not this. The heathen do that. People in our society who are godless heathen people fight against crime, don't they?
They, I don't think everybody who's for the death penalty and capital punishment is a Christian. Do you? I think there's some people who just think that somebody ought to do something about the crime because it's wrong. I watched a mother who used profanity on the news. I know she wasn't a Christian, and she said that a man had raped her little girl and killed her, and she said, "I want that man to give his life." For the life of my daughter, that he took.
Why? Why does she feel that way? Because there is in her the capacity to contemplate right and wrong, and to say, "This is excusable. This is inexcusable." That's true of the heathen. The sum of it is this: people, creation, conduct, conscience, contemplation.
What they do, how they deal with the good and bad in their own life, and how they deal deal with it in the lives of others, indicates that they know the law of God as written in them.
Now, here is the most important thing I've said yet. The sum of it is this: if they live up to that much light. And they accept that much light, God will reveal to them the full light of Jesus Christ. I believe that with all my heart. You see, that's what it says in Acts seventeen.
He is not far from us if we would feel after Him. You see, if they would just take what they have and accept that. John seven seventeen. Mark it down. If any man wills to do my Father's will, he shall know of the teaching.
If the willing heart is there, he'll know. A man by the name of Augustus Marway. He is proof positive of this, and I have his testimony. And I'm just going to read a few excerpts from it. This man lived in a village, involved in tribal wars.
Never put a stitch of clothes on his body till he was fourteen. In a most aboriginal circumstance in Africa, and this is his own testimony. I resented it whenever strangers passing through the village were invited to our house. At first, mother allowed me and my two brothers to eat with the guests, but I made a pig of myself, stuffing my mouth with handfuls of rice and grabbing another handful before I could even swallow what I had. Mother was ashamed of me.
She wouldn't let me eat with the guests after that. I would just sit and glare at the visitors, making them feel uncomfortable until they would invite me to the table. From then on, mother made me sit outside the house until the guests had finished eating. I don't know what made me so incorrigible. In fact, the whole village asked the question, "What's the matter with that son of Marwy?" They would ask, and my poor parents were at their wits' end.
Even though I loved my mother dearly, I found myself doing terrible things. I can remember seeing her sitting on a bench outside the house, and impulsively picking up a stick to throw at her legs. I missed her and struck a little child, hurting him badly. At times like that, the villagers would join my parents in meeting out a punishment. That time, they held me down on the ground by my legs.
And my arms, while they poured a bowl of hot pepper soup down my nose, I nearly choked to death. And for hours afterward, my nose burned. Here is a new one for you, Mom and Dad. If, if Campbell's only knew. Let me stop in this testimony for a moment.
Why did that tribe of Aboriginal people, who never heard about the true God, who never heard the gospel, never heard the name Jesus, why did they punish a young boy for throwing a stick and hurting a child? Why? Who told them that was wrong? Why did this young man feel guilty? He told us when he talked to our staff one day.
He said, "My heart was broken every day because I loved my mother and I knew she was ashamed of me, but I couldn't correct my behavior." Why did he feel that way? Where did he get to feel that guilt? Where did that come from? And why was his mother ashamed of him? Who who told her what the standard was?
He goes on. I couldn't understand myself. After one of those episodes, I would go off into the forest and pound my head against a tree, crying, "What's wrong with me? I should kill myself." I hated being the white sheep of the family. All depends on your perspective," he says.
"But when one day, when I was about twelve years old, a boy returned to our village from the coast, where he had been visiting his father. By the way, that was a long, long, long journey by foot. None of us younger ones had ever seen the ocean." So we crowded around him to hear all about it. It was as though he had been to the moon and back. Enjoying the acclaim, he kept us spellbound with his experiences as he recounted the strange things he saw.
Among other things, he told us about how some people on the coast met together in a house on Sundays and they sang and stayed a long time. He couldn't figure out what they were doing, and finally, his curiosity got the better of him.
So he asked one of the villagers, "What are you doing there for such a long time?" They told him they were praying to God, the God who created everything, and they said they believed He heard their prayers. I had never heard anything like this—a God who hears your prayers. It excited me, and I wanted to pray to God too. I asked the boy to meet me on Sunday, since that's the day they met in that house, and we would go someplace outside the village, and he could tell me how to pray. But he wasn't interested.
Disappointed, I decided the next Sunday to try it by myself. I went to a hut that my cousin was still building, and with no one around, I tried to pray for the first time. I had never heard anyone pray. But I decided I would just talk to this God like He was my father. I can't explain what happened, but it was an exciting experience.
I wanted to know more about this God, but there was no one in our village who knew anything about Him.
So for two years, I kept praying by myself on Sundays and hoping that someday someone would come along who could tell me about Him. You see.
Now he lived up to the light he had, didn't he? He followed that light. About this time, the government started building a motor road to prepare for the new invention called the automobile. And along with many of my relatives, we spent two weeks a month for the next two years building the road under terrible working conditions. Then I went back to Sodor, where I had been born, to stay with my cousin.
When I reached Sodor, I made the most wonderful discovery of my entire life. For in Sodor there was a house where people met to pray to the God who created the world. How excited I was! I could hardly wait for Sunday. All night I lay on my mat, waiting for that bell that my cousin said would ring and call us to that house.
That morning I sat in the back. I listened to a man tell about God for the first time in my life. I found he was far more wonderful than I had ever imagined. The preacher said that God loved the world so much that He sent His only Son, named Jesus, to take away my sins. I wondered if He knew how terrible I was.
I wonder if He knew the awful things I had done back in my village. But the preacher said, "No matter what I had done, God would forgive me and make my heart clean." Listen to this next statement. I knew it was all true. How do you know that? How did he know that was true?
You say, "Well, he went to the counseling room. He gave him a sheet on apologetics. How did he know that was true? He was following the light God had given him, and that was the next logical step. And his heart was a prepared heart." Hadn't this God heard my prayers when I talked to Him and asked Him to help me?
Hadn't He sent me here to Sodor when I didn't even know He had one of His houses here? I gave my heart to God that morning, and it was nice to know He had a son too. He was really a father, just like I had been praying to. You know what happened to that man? That man became the most significant man in the nation of Liberia in our day, in founding and building churches.
Do you get the picture? You see, the very listen to this—the very fact that that could occur proves the heathen have the knowledge, if they'll live up to it. God will be fair. No favorites, but each is responsible for the light he has. Finally, there is a sixth principle of judgment.
Just going to mention: God judges by knowledge, by truth, by guilt, by deeds, by impartiality, and sixthly by motives. There's another dimension, and these all interface and overlap. They're not as distinct as I've made them in the outline, but they are elements of the act of judgment. God will judge on the basis not only of what a man's deeds are, but what his reasons were. Because you can falsify the deed, but you can't falsify the motive, right?
And so, verse sixteen says, "In the day when God shall judge the what." Secrets of men, judgment you see will finally reach down into the secret place of motives, of motives. In one Chronicles twenty eight nine it says, "And thou Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father and serve him with a perfect heart." Why? For the Lord searches all hearts. And understands all the imaginations of the thoughts, Solomon, my son, serve God from the heart, because God knows the heart. The psalmist said, "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me; thou understandest my thought afar off." In That marvelous one hundred and thirty ninth psalm.
Thou knowest my down sitting in mine uprising. There is not a word in my tongue, but Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand on me. Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Whither shall I flee from Thy presence?
If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in Sheol, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be as light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee, but the night shineth as the day.
The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee. In other words, there's nowhere I can go to escape. You know me deep inside. Jeremiah seventeen ten puts it this way: I, the Lord, search the heart; I test the mind, even to give to each according to his ways, according to the result of his deeds. Yes, God judges deeds.
Yes, He judges ways, but He judges the motive behind them as well. Jesus said three times in Matthew six, "The Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." Our inmost secrets may be hidden from human judgment; they are not hidden from God, and we will be judged for our motives. You either do what you do for the glory of God, or you do it for the glory of man. And it all comes to this, people. It'll all be determined.
Verse sixteen. In the day, the day, what day? The day when God shall judge. What day is that? The day when He judges by Jesus Christ.
The final day, the ultima day, the great white throne, when all judgment is committed under Christ. In that glorious, climactic, culminating day, when the Lord Jesus Christ judges, all these criteria will be put to use. And may I close with a look back at verse five. If your sin hasn't been dealt with before that day in the blood of Christ, if you haven't confessed Jesus as Lord and accepted His sacrifice on your behalf and His atonement and His payment for your sin, then you are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. There's going to be a pile that'll damn your soul.
And don't think it says at the end of verse three that thou shalt escape the judgment of God. Let's bow in prayer, Father. We know that someday the. Light of divine judgment will throw its beams to illuminate the remotest universe. We know that at that point souls will face the reality of judgment.
They will walk, as it were, down a hall of mirrors, where every act of their earthly life on all sides is seen and reseen. And they'll be judged, Father. We thank you that in Jesus Christ we never need to face that day, because there is therefore now no judgment, no condemning judgment to them who are in Christ Jesus. May it be, Lord, that no one in this place is outside of Christ. Waiting for the explosion of the wrath of God.
We know you'll judge. We shall not escape. But we know that you've already judged Jesus Christ for the sins of those who put their faith in Him. That is our prayer. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur.
John's current study is called "Without Excuse." Well, I suppose that much of the world either rejects the notion that God judges people. Or they believe he's a cruel and unfair judge. Either way, they miss the mark, and that leaves us then with an important responsibility—one that John talked about in studio some years ago. In fact, let's listen to what he had to say. We are responsible for warning people that they're without excuse before God, that they're not going to be able to say to God on the day of judgment.
Well, I didn't have enough information.
Well, my circumstances turned me the other way.
Well, I didn't have a good presentation of Christ, or well, the church that I attended had a lot of problems.
Well, it was full of hypocrites. On and on and on and on. You know, part of evangelism is just whacking down all the weeds of people's excuses to sort of strip them bare. And expose them for who they are. This isn't cruel.
This is the kindest thing that the evangelist can do, because people are born to excuse their behavior. I mean, they they do that as part of their fallenness, part of their corruption. The dominant human sin is pride. And and pride goes along with self-preservation, self-protection, self-exaltation, self-justification, all those things.
So when you go to the sinner, it's very difficult for the sinner, any sinner, to be honest about his sin or her sin. Bringing people to the point where they have no excuses left—very important. And of course, that's what we're looking at out of Romans chapter two. We're trying to communicate that you are without excuse before God for your sin and unbelief. This has really been an important study.
It is available. Download it at our website gty dot org. Yes, friend, go online and download John's study called "Without Excuse." It's available free of charge. Listening to this study at your own pace or reviewing it with friends is sure to help deepen your worship and motivate you to evangelize and humble you as you reflect on God's grace for sinners. To get your copy of Without excuse, get in touch today.
Again, you can download all five lessons of "Without Excuse" in MP3 and transcript format at our website gty. dot org. These are available free of charge, along with thirty six hundred other sermons from John. Our web address again: gty. dot org.
And remember how important it is for us to hear from you. Knowing that you're listening and praying, well, that's a real encouragement. And your financial support tells us that you believe the Bible teaching you hear on Grace to You is important for all of today's church. Giving to your local church comes first. We affirm that, but we're grateful for any support you can offer beyond that.
You can write to us at this address, Grace to You, Box 4000. Panorama City, California, nine one four one two, or email us at letters at gty dot org. That's our email address. One more time, letters at gty dot o r g. And now for our entire staff, I am Phil Johnson.
Watch Grace to You Television this weekend. Check the listings on your local Christian station, and then be here next week when John begins a series to help you know for sure whether you have eternal life or not. It's a classic study titled "Salvation Survey." Don't miss the next thirty minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
