God S Righteousness Or His Wrath?

PRECEPT STUDY

ROMANS PART 1 - LECTURE 7

God’s Righteousness or His Wrath?

The Choice is Yours

Introduction. Today in our lesson we’re going to see that man is without excuse. Without Jesus every man will perish. The word of God teaches us in Romans 1 that man’s ignorance of God is willful and therefore man is without excuse. He’s going to show us—he’s going to use this term: that man is without excuse in two places and I want to show you this. He’s going to show us that the heathen—and by the heathen I mean those that live ungodly lifestyles wherever they are—whether they are in the USA—whether they are in the aborigines—those that live just outwardly immoral, totally ungodly, unrighteous lives.

The Unrighteous. Now let’s look at Romans 1:18-20 and it says, 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His (God’s) invisible attributes, (and then he shows those two and you’ve seen them already) His eternal power and divine nature (the fact that He is other than man), have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. So in Romans 1 he establishes that the heathens who live unrighteously and we just pick up that term—heathen—is a term that men have picked up and used to refer to anyone who does not acknowledge God as God. So the heathen are without excuse. Now in chapter 2 the second thing that he’s going to show us is that the religious people—Jews in particular at this point because they were the only ones at that time that had a true knowledge of God—that the religious who live self-righteously—look at Romans 2:1 1 Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, (who passes judgment on what? On these heathen-- you have no excuse,) for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. Now you have delved in to chapter 2—you have done your observations on that. And if you have done careful observations, I think it’s obvious that when he says “you” in verse 1 of chapter 2 that it’s the same person as verse 17 where he says 17 But if you bear the name “Jew” and rely upon the Law and boast in God. And you see that these people know the will of God, approve of the things in the Law and yet they are not doing what’s in the Law. They have their own brand of self-righteousness. So what Paul is establishing is this: he’s establishing that all men are without excuse whether they are ungodly heathen who live ungodly, unrighteous lives or whether they are religious people who live self-righteous lives and apparently look alright—they are still not righteous apart from Jesus Christ. Now that’s what he’s going to show us.

List. Now what I want to do is give you a list of things we’re going to see as we study the remainder of Romans 1 and I would suggest that you write them down. We’re going to see:

No matter how bad off a man is he can attain eternal life by faith alone. No matter how bad off a man is—no matter the depths of sin to which he plunges himself—no matter the geographical location—no matter his culture—no matter his color—no matter his environment—no matter what has been done to him—or no matter what he has done—he can be saved by faith and faith alone. Therefore, there is no man beyond the reach of the gospel because all they have to do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that word “believe” is not just an intellectual ascent, but it is a total committal of oneself to another. It is hearing the word of truth about Jesus Christ. It is intellectually accepting that truth and saying, “Yes that is true.” And then it is making a committal to that truth so that you step into that truth and walk or live in the light of it. So that is what true belief is. It is not just intellectual ascent as he will show you in Romans 2. So we’re going to see that no matter how bad off a man is, he can attain eternal life by faith alone. We’re going to see this as we see the righteousness of God is revealed from (what?) faith to faith. We’re going to see that it’s all of faith—we’ve seen it already—we’re going to talk about it a little bit more.
The second thing that you’re going to see is that sin is a willful refusal to conform to the truth of God. It is not a disability and it is not an inability. It is a choice—sin is a choice—it is not a disability—it is not an inability. Sin is a choice.
The third thing that you are going to see is sin’s progression. I’m going to show you this by way of a diagram. Those of you that are listening by audiotape—just hang on—we’re going to make a column and we’re going to write one phrase and we’re going to make an arrow going down to the next phrase. We’re going to see sin’s progression.
It begins with a neglect of God. When men knew God they glorified Him not as God (Romans 1:21). So it begins with a neglect of God.
And then from a neglect of God it goes to empty (and this is right below “neglect of God”) it goes to empty, useless speculation. That empty, useless speculation can take place around a campfire were people have bones in their nose and plates in their lips so that they stick out inches and where they have all sorts of wild feathers in their head and no clothes on their body. It can take place in speculation around the campfire there or it can take place in speculation in a seminary regarding the veracity of God’s Word and whether God really, really did turn water into wine and walk on the water and still the sea and all those sorts of things. It can take place any place. So it goes from neglect of God to empty, useless speculation. Now it’s speculation regarding a lot of things. Speculation regarding Creation. Speculation regarding man—Who is man? How did he come into existence? Where is he going? Speculation regarding sin. Well what is sin? Isn’t sin something that’s relative? Isn’t sin something that is cultural or whatever? It can be speculation regarding death and men can speculate that that is the end of it all. I witnessed to a cab driver in Israel and he felt that when he died that was it. It was all over. So that’s speculation regarding death from an atheistic cab driver. Or it can be speculation that we are reincarnated and that we go from one form of life to another form of life. Or it can take all sorts of speculation regarding death. It’s speculation regarding heaven. What is heaven like? Speculation regarding hell—its existence or its non-existence. Speculation regarding judgment. Oh surely God’s not going to judge that. Surely that’s not sin. And speculation regarding lifestyle. So this is sin’s progression. When men knew God and they glorified Him not as God (Romans 1:21) then they became (what?) vain in their imaginations. Because what they did is they turned from truth to a lie. So here is your empty speculation.
Then therefore it goes to a false belief. So you go from empty, useless speculation to a false belief. When men knew God and they glorified Him not as God then they became vain in their imaginations. Their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they believed a lie rather than the truth. So here it’s false belief.
And then that false belief leads to (what?) false living. False belief leads to false living. What do you see? You see immorality. You see homosexuality. You see lesbianism. You see a reprobate mind—a mind unapproved to God so that men are filled with all sorts of wrong deeds. They are disobedient to parents. They are haters of God—slanders, etc. So you see their false living. So this is what we are going to see.

Begins with Light. I want you to see that it begins with Light. They had a Light about God—When men knew God and they glorified Him not as God. They began to neglect God. This is what is happening to a degree in the Church isn’t it? It’s happening in the Church because you see men neglecting God in the very so called physical house of God—in the Church where people are to be taught about God. You see them neglecting God. You see that as they neglect God they go into empty, useless speculation. You can hear it in Sunday School classroom after Sunday School classroom around this country—what is your opinion? Well I think—well I believe…Well it does not matter what we think—it does not matter what we think! It matters what does God say? And then if our thinking does not match with the plumb line of God’s Word, our thinking is off. But then we find them with false beliefs. So what do you hear not only from the pulpit, but from the Sunday School classroom, from women’s axillaries, from deacon’s meetings? You hear false beliefs, false doctrines and the sheep out there don’t know any better because they are following their leadership. So from false belief you go to (what?) false living. And what do you hear in the Church? Oh, it’s alright to have an abortion—oh, it’s alright to be divorced—well certainly God doesn’t expect me to live in this kind of a hell—we’ll it’s alright to except that man as our pastor even though he divorced his wife and did not have grounds for divorce—we must be kind and we must be loving and we must be forgiving. And so what you have? You have false living until what you have is you have sin in the Church and therefore the Church ceases to be the Light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The more the Church ceases to be the salt and it does not stop the spread of corruption—all because it goes back to the neglect of God. It’s an awesome, awesome thing. Just remember this: Light rejected brings darkness and Light received brings more Light. And you see this when you go from faith to faith. The more that I believe God then the more I progress in my faith.

The fourth thing we are going to see in our study today is that the wrath of God is God letting man have his own way. That’s awful. The wrath of God is God letting man have his own way. It is God folding His arms and letting man do his own thing. It is God ceasing to restrain man.
And the fifth thing you are going to see is that your character is affected by your concept or your lack of concept of God.

Righteousness Essential for Heaven. So I want to move with you once again, verse by verse, through Romans 1 and I want to begin at verse 16. And I’m going to take you verse by verse because I feel that in all probability that this will be the best way to do it. Now, you’ve moved into Romans 2 so this is going to be review. Review is what causes you to have it stick in your heart. In Romans 1:16, Paul says16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for (so we have a set of GARs—causal conjunctions that he puts down for us and we see that one builds upon the other.) For I am not ashamed of the gospel, (why? Because) it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it (in the gospel—no place else but in the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.” Now I want to tell you the story of Martin Luther but I don’t have time in this session. I am praying that I will have time in the next session. But I will tell you that it was this phrase that brought Martin Luther to Jesus Christ. It was this phrase that brought Wesley to Christ after Wesley had gotten up early every morning at 4:00 and had prayer meetings and for years had sought to serve God, Wesley saw that his righteousness was not by faith. So this is a tremendous verse that has had impact on great men of God that have literally been used to change the course of Christian history—the history of the Church. In the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed. What he is showing us is this: that righteousness (+R) is essential for eternal life. It is essential if one wants to enter the kingdom of God. Now we see this in a number of places in the Scripture, but I want to give you two. I want to take you first of all to Matthew 5:20 that famous part of the Sermon on the Mount. If you have not taken our Sermon on the Mount study, it is absolutely revolutionary and you will really appreciate it after taking Romans. In Matthew 5:20 Jesus is speaking and this is the Word of God because He is the God/Man. 20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Now when He said a righteousness that surpassed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, the scribes and Pharisees were the religious leaders of the day. And they were the ones who kept the Law to the nth degree in the sense that they tithed their mint and their cumin and other herbs. They would take their herbs out and measure it and take out a tenth they were so bent on keeping the Law. And yet they have a (what?) a self-righteousness as we are going to see in Romans 2. He is saying this: that if you want to get to heaven you have to have a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. Go to Hebrews 12:14 and let me show you another statement about what is necessary for those going to heaven. Hebrews 12:14 and let me show you another statement that is necessary for you to go to heaven. 14 Pursue peace with all men, (now he is talking to people that he believes are truly born again. He is showing them a truth about true salvation.) He says, 14 Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification (KJV says holiness) without which no one will see the Lord. If you want to see the Lord you’ve got to be holy. If you are holy, you are righteous. They are synonymous. They go together. Righteousness is the character of God being formed in me. Righteousness is that which Jesus Christ is imputed to my account. It is imparted as I live by the Holy Spirit. We’ll go into all of that later on as we come to it in Romans, but I want you to see that righteousness is essential for heaven.

Our Righteousnesses are as Filthy Rags. Our righteousnesses—our righteousnesses, the second point I want you to see, are as filthy rags. Isaiah 64:6. Now remember as Paul lays down Romans 1:16-17, 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; He is not stopping at the end of chapter1. I want you to see this. We are in a section...what section of Romans are we in? Sinners. And he’s showing how all have sinned and therefore, because all are sinners there’s no way they can save themselves accept to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive by faith the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That’s what he is showing us. So in Isaiah 64:6 it says, 6 … And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. Now I don’t mean to be crude or anything, but I’m going to tell you because this is what it means. The word “filthy rags” there in the Hebrew means is menstruous cloths. Now when I was in nurses’ training and I took my anatomy and physiology class I remember my professor standing up and saying this: Menstruation is the tears of a disappointed uterus. In other words, it is the sign that conception has not taken place. And what God is saying is because you have not been born again, because you have not been born of incorruptible seed, because conception has not taken place then all of your good deeds no matter how fine they are as menstruous cloths because they are born from you and they are not born out of the new birth. That’s what he is saying. Isn’t it beautiful? It really, really is so beautiful when you understand it. So he is saying that all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. So therefore, righteousness comes by faith. It is the only way that it can come. Why? Because we are sinners. Righteousness comes by faith. This is what you see when he says in Romans 1:17, 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Now this is what the Greek says. The Greek says, EK “out of” and then PISTEOS and then EIS “in to” PISTIN another form of PISTUO which is the word for faith. The word for “faith” and the word for “believe” have the same Greek root word. What he is saying is this: that righteousness is always by faith. And this is why you have to understand all of this if you are going to understand about the heathen and why all men are without excuse. Righteousness is always by faith. It is always by appropriation. It is never attained in and of yourself. It is always appropriated. It’s always by faith. Now let me show you this quickly in Romans 3:22. It says 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Every human being no matter where he’s born, no matter his cultural background, no matter his religious convictions, all men have sinned and they come short of the glory of God. You’ll appreciate that more even later. Therefore, salvation comes by faith. Romans 4:2. 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? (He says go back, what does the Word of God say?) “Abraham believed God, and it was credited (counted, imputed, reckoned) to him as righteousness.” And you need to understand that. Let me just give it to you ahead of time. When you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ—as Gala did last night—when you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ—when you see yourself as totally poverty stricken—as no way to help yourself—totally impotent and destitute of all vestige of righteousness so that there’s no way you can please God—when you see yourself as lost and there’s no way you can help yourself and you turn from your condition—from your sin to God and you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ then you who were a sinner—your sin was transferred to Jesus Christ. And He paid for all that sin. The debt is paid. And because the debt is paid God deposits to your account all the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And you’re going to see in Romans 5, where sin did abound grace did much more abound. He gives to you, he bestows on you, He puts in your bank account where you are totally in debt, enough righteousness—all the righteousness of Jesus Christ—so you can draw on that righteousness and draw on that righteousness and draw on that righteousness and you will never run out. But it comes by faith. This is what he’s showing us. Now he goes again. I want to take you to Romans 10:10 it says, 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. So we see that righteousness comes by faith. It is appropriated by faith—it is received by faith—it is maintained by faith—it is (what?) lived by faith—it is all of faith. It is available to all who will believe. Have you got that? It is available to all who will believe. To those aborigines to the middle class to the upper class—it is available to all despite their color, their culture, their intellect, their ability—it is there. It is available for every single man. Now when Paul makes this statement—when Paul makes this statement—because he is laying out for us the clearest expression and explanation of the gospel of Jesus Christ found anywhere in the whole world. He’s laying it out for us. He goes back and he’s supports what he is saying and he’s showing this is not a new doctrine—this is not a new doctrine. This is the way it has always been. You say how were men saved in the Old Testament? The same way they are saved in the New Testament. It has always been by grace; it has always been by faith. You say why the Law then? Oh, I’m so glad you asked that question and do you know what? If you keep studying you’ll have the answer.